Island Experiment

Muzza's guide to simple, no bull-s*/t nutrition

2011-08-23T13:07:00.001+04:00

I found this here at Wikipedia:

"A healthy diet is one that helps maintain or improve general health. It is important for lowering many chronic health risks, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.^[1] A healthy diet involves consuming appropriate amounts of all essential nutrients and an adequate amount of water. Nutrients can be obtained from many different foods, so there are numerous diets that may be considered healthy. A healthy diet needs to have a balance of macronutrients (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates), calories to support energy needs, and micronutrients to meet the needs for human nutrition without inducing toxicity or excessive weight gain from consuming excessive amounts."

Another Wikipedia article (here)says:

"Food provides nutrients from six broad classes: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, dietary minerals, and water. Carbohydrates are metabolized to provide energy. Proteins provide amino acids, which are required for cell construction, especially for the construction of muscle cells. Essential fatty acids are required for brain and cell membrane construction. Vitamins and trace minerals helps to keep good electrolyte balance and are used for metabolic processes. Dietary fiber also affects one's health, although it's not digested into the body"

The problem with trying to define a healthy diet is that you have to define the goals for that diet, and everyone's goals will be different. For example:

My dietary goals are:

(1) Avoid illness - that is, my diet should influence my body away from certain diseases - think diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure / cholesterol, etc.
(2) Fitness - I need my diet to re-fuel my body, aid in recovery after exercise, provide proteins for building my muscles and carbs for fuelling my them.
(3) Avoid fatigue - I have issues that I tend to be tired a lot, and my concentration and self-discipline are generally bad. I would like my diet to provide me with sustained energy throughout the day. This explains my fixation with low-GI meals.
(4) Adventure / hobby - I like being a foodie. I enjoy learning to cook new foods and drinks. This obviously fairly radically effects the way I eat.

But I live in a family of 4. I'm quite happy to use an excessive amount of exercise to regulate my weight (and I'm kind of blessed to have a body type which doesn't have weight problems), but one of my wife's dietary goals is to (5) lose weight. The combination of the two causes a challenge.

Disclaimer: I am a completely amateur nutritionist (not even close to a qualification), so what I think below probably doesn't count, but what I think w.r.t the above goals are:

(1) Avoiding illness - Eat lots of fruit and veggies. These contain all sorts of vitamins which are healthy. Also try to eat more unsaturated fats, which helps with cholesterol. Generally try to eat a broad assortment of things, so that your body isn't missing out on any nutrients, and don't eat too much of the same thing, so you body doesn't get overloaded with too much unhealthy stuff (think southern fried chicken).

(2) Fitness - Seems to come down to carbs and protein. Carbs provide glycogen for your muscles to operate, protein provides amino acids to build those muscles bigger. Make sure you have a decent amount of these inside of you before doing exercise, though not too much so that you get stomach cramps / stiches. And make sure you refuel on these things as soon as you're done exercising.

Water is also pretty important, to keep hydrated. And for those longs weekend runs or races - energy gels work wonders to top you up with carbs and to top up the electrolytes which leak out your skin when you run. Oddly enough you can eat salt when you run for the electrolyte thing, but my vote says energy gels are way tastier.

(3) Avoid fatigue - More to come on this later, because I'm pretty clueless right now. My best advice is aiming for a Low GI / complex carb type of diet which means you eat carbs which get absorbed slowly, so they're releasing energy slowly, so they release energy for a longer time, thereby giving you energy for longer.

Part in parcel with this is to eat more often. I find it pretty easy to eat at least 5 meals a day - the normal 3 plus a snack in between each, and then sometimes a snack either very early or very late, depending on whether I've worked out at these times or not. Exercise people say that all meals should contain both carbs and protein (to keep your muscles building themselves), but if you're just aiming for anti-fatigue food I'd say focus on the carbs. But also please note that carbs are what fruit and veggies are, not just wholewheat bread.

(4) Adventure / hobby - umm, you're joking right. Don't be afraid to cook something new. Favourite recipe website of the moment is Saveur.com , but there are many that I look at.

(5) Weight Loss - Calories, calories and calories. I am sorry that it seems to be this simple. Maybe there is a magic cure out there, and there certainly are certain things that help with burning fat, but really it comes down to eating less than you burn off. I recommend getting a lot of exercise to burn the calories off. I don't really recommend counting calories, but its probably worthwhile to know and think about rule-of-thumb calorie amounts. I'm not really qualified to talk about weight loss, I'm a skinny sh*t, so its never been important to me.

There are surely other dietary goals, maybe I'll get to them in the future.

A day's menu

2011-08-23T10:38:00.002+04:00

Yesterday I was rambling on about a typical day's eating - i.e. how many meals there should be in a day, and how that fits into a basic exercise plan. Today I would like to delve into a little more detail about what those meals could be.

I have a pretty healthy eating plan today (except for lunch) (and the early morning snack), and so I'm going to tell you about that (editted to make it actually look healthy):

Wake up Snack: Murray's awesome frozen banana & peanut butter smoothies. I have yet to post the recipe for this, but they are the perfect smoothie for around workout time. I got up at 5AM this morning, made coffee and then (lets pretend) made this smoothie. So I would have drank the smoothie at about 5:20, before going for my run at 6:00.

(Author's note: Actually I had about 3 pieces of chocolate cake for my wake up snack, which gave me heart-burn and gas during my run, so tomorrow I'm definitely going to try the smoothie!)

Morning Run: (6:20 - 7:00AM) 6.5km trail run (40 minutes) through the newly cut canefields, at sunrise, with a brief jog past the insanely beautiful Anse La Raie bay. Gorgeous. Birds tweeting. Sweet smell of burnt mollasses.

(Author's note: I did! Why don't you believe me?! No really, I love my morning runs! (Note: I really did go for the run, it was awesome (except for the heartburn!))

Second note: Did you know? You're supposed to eat within an hour after doing exercise to refuel your body and help build muscle and recover. Simple (high GI) carbs are fine for this, and some protein is important. I'll skip the science for now, but please believe me - Re-fueling after exercise is really, really critical to the exercise being effective and you becoming fitter. Really critical. Even if you're trying to lose weight, you must eat then. And this is why I got home and made breakfast ...

Breakfast: Jungle oats with Goji berries and sliced bananas. Healthy Awesomeness! Same as the post below called "Weekday breakfast" which says its 480kCal which is a bit high, but because I'm doing exercise I'm not worrying. Breakfast of champions, especially when combined with a run directly previously to it.

Morning Snack: (at about 10:30AM) 2 jars of yoghurt and an apple

Lunch: I haven't brought any lunch today. Lunch is most likely to be KFC fried chicken, which I don't think is so healthy and shouldn't fit into a healthy eating day, what you should eat instead, if you're not me ..

Hummus and veggies in wholewheat pita, or

Tuna salad, or

Chicken salad.

Afternoon Snack: Not sure. Today I'm planning on having leftover KFC. You should have something healthy!

Dinner: (6:30PM) Tonight we've got Linguine with a mushroom and garlic cream sauce, tomorrow we've got Caesar salad with grilled salmon. Both awesome, and both fairly nutritious (although the linguini is probably fairly fattening).

Evening Workout: (8PM - 9PM) I don't actually workout straight after work like I said yesterday. I workout when the kids go to bed. Quite looking forward to it tonight, last night I didn't feel great, I think I started to close after supper, so I felt a bit nauseous (sp?)

Evening Snack: Because you know you're supposed to eat straight after your workout. Ummm, I'm not sure. I wonder if chocolate is a valid form of carbs and protein? I doubt it. My guess is I'm going to eat more of that Chocolate cake that Wifey made last night, it should be iced by tonight.

There you go. That's a little bit of a day in the life of Murray. What I think it shows is that I need to put a little thought into healthy afternoon snacks and evening snacks. I'll think about this while I'm at the KFC later. Happy eating!

Healthy Eating

2011-08-22T11:07:00.001+04:00

Long time no post I realise - it's most probably because I'm a bad person. Moving on...

I have become a fitness fanatic, and with that have started to look more closely at my diet as a whole, rather than focussing on individual meals.

You know by now that opinions are like assholes (everyone has one), and diet plans are exactly the same. The thing is that that's how it should be - everyone has a different body/ metabolism/ health/ weight/ BMI, everyone does different quantity/ quality/ types of exercise, we've got different budgets, different toxins that we allow into our lives, different time allowances. In essence, we're all different, so of course our eating plans should be different.

This is my version ...

Start with exercise. In an ideal world I would truly love to work out 12 times a week. Divide that into 4 types of exercise, 3 times a week each.

Type 1 is cardio - in my opinion this is the be all and end all of weight-loss, but my weight is fine, so for me its all about endurance. In my case it means running - 1 long run on Saturday mornings 10ish km right now, but this flows up and down depending on whether I've got a race coming up, so it should ease up to about 25km by the year end, and up to about 40km or 50km before the Marathon next June. 1 easy run, about 8km. 1 run that's either a 5km temp run or 5km intervals. Note that although the focus right now is on running, and is likely to stay that way until at least after the marathon next year, I fully intend to broaden the scope of my cardio work after that. Other cardio options available outside of the gym are cycling (road or mountain bike), kayaking (probably a surfski is best for me), or swimming (open water swimming seeing as I live on an awesome tropical island). When I do get round to another cario type, I'll probably focus on it pretty exclusively for a period and try get into a race or two in that discipline.

Type 2 is strength. The problem with being a distance runner is that you end up being an endurance skeleton. I don't want that. Rather, I'd really like a general, rounded fitness, all be it one that includes running as its (current) focus. So 2 or 3 workouts a week are strength training. Been doing this for about 2 months and its going pretty well. Got to say that vanity is a big reason to be doing strength training - I try to explain it away to better fitness, but you and I both know better. One validation I've got though, is that stronger legs and being stronger generally should speed up my running, but I haven't really seen great improvements in my running time.

Type 3 is flexibility / balance. No I don't do anything, which is bad. The absolute minimum is where I'm at right now, which is stretching my legs for 5 minutes when I get back from a run. In a prefect world I'd rather be spending a workout on yoga, or tai chi or some such after my runs. They tell me that flexibility is key to avoiding injury. I'll get the one day.

Type 4 is power / speed. No I don't do anything here either, yet. My theory is that its really sad I never get to sprint flat out, or hit a ball as hard as I can, or some such. In my perfect world I'd have 3 workouts a week which were either sprinting intervals, or some high-intensity sport like squash or rugby.

What that gives me is a normal day where I workout early in the morning and early in the evening, so my Meal Plan go something like this:

Wake up (say 4:45AM) Carb and protein snack, easily digestible, plus a freshly made fruit juice.

Morning Workout (6 - 7AM)

Breakfast (7:20AM) Simple carbs and protein to recover from the workout, plus complex carbs to give energy for the day.

Morning Snack (10AM)

Lunch (12:30)

Afternoon Snack (3:30PM) Fuelling for afternoon workout.

Afternoon Workout (5 - 6PM)

Dinner (6:30PM) Some carbs for workout recovery, but not much carbs for sleeping.

Late Snack because I have a chocolate addiction.

Diet

The goal is balance and variety with a few small rules:

Sugar should be minimized. Its fine (even good) straight after a workout, but only then. So leave the cupcakes for binging on when I come in from my run (unless you're trying to lose weight, then you should count those calories). The aim is to keep my blood sugar levels pretty steady to avoid fatigue crashes through the day.

Generally things should be low-ish fat. Saturated fat (i.e. from animals or dairy) should be kept to an absolute minimum because its bad for your cholesterol, and un-saturated fat is good for you, but is still high in calories, so some fat is important, but if you want to lose weight then keep it to the minimum.

Eat as much fruit and veggies as you can.

Carbs should be complex whenever possible. Find a good wholewheat bread that you like and eat that every day. I've just found a really nice one as my local supermarket.

And that's about it.

I close with this philosophy to eating which I think came Anthony Bordain:

"Eat real food; Not too much; Eat mostly plants"

That's really what it boils down to.

Okay, cheerio.

Tuna Lentil Spaghetti Bolognese

2011-02-10T21:01:00.000+04:00

Seeing as this is my third blog post in 2 days I don't really have much to say.
Dinner tonight used to be a staple of ours a few months ago, but then seemed to get forgotten. We were trying to use up what we ingredients we had in the kitchen without going shopping, and everything pointed to this.

I really like it. It gives you spaghetti bolognese without the heavy mince, most of the bulk seems to come from the lentils so its clearly good for you. And it makes 1 tin of tuna go an incredibly long way. Vix and I both had a healthy helping full, and even Jasmine ate it (the soon to be 5 year old, I'm pretty amazed she ate lentils), and there's probably enough leftovers for the everybody to eat the same for lunch tomorrow.

Stoked. My healthy eating mission is picking up steam.

Recipe from Mediterrasian.com again.

Ingredients

3 tbspn olive oil

1 onion - finely chopped

1 carrot - finely diced

1 stalk celery - finely chopped (I didn't have any so used green pepper. Worked just as well.)

3 cloves garlic - finely chopped

1/2 tspn dried oregano

1/2 cup white wine

3 tbspn tomato paste

420g tin of chopped tomatoes

salt

pepper

spaghetti

420g tin of lentils - rinsed and drained.

180g tin of tuna in olive oil. - drained and flaked.

Method

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

Cook onion, carrot and celery, covered, for 8 minutes, stirring sometimes.

Add garlic and oregano and cook for 2 minutes.

Add wine, tomato paste, tomatoes, salt and pepper.

Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to medium and cook, covered, for 10 minutes.

Make the spaghetti while this is going on.

Then add the lentils, tuna and last tablespoon of olive oil to the sauce and cook, covered, for 5 minutes.

Serve, topped with a little grated Parmesan.

Nutritional info (Once again worked out at NutritionData.com)

Assume the above recipe is 6 servings.

Based on recipe using green pepper, rather than celery.

Calories 399kCal
Total Fat 9g (14% Daily Value for 2000kCal diet)
- Saturated Fat 1g (7% Daily Value)
Total Carbs 58g (19%)
- Dietary Fiber 7g (28%)
- Sugars 5g
Protein 19g

Vitamin A 39%

Vitamin C 46%

Calcium 5%

Iron 23%

Other nutrition info from NutritionData:
Complete Amino Acid score indicating a complete or high-quality protein.
"The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Protein and Vitamin C, and a very good source of Selenium."
Also there's Omega-3 (388mg) and Omega-6 (1193mg) fatty acids.
46% of Daily Value Vitamin C,
10% DV of Vitamin E,
15% DV of Vitamin K
Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate ( I don't know what any of this means, but maybe I'll try to figure it out sometime soon.)
Minerals include:
Magnesium - 15% DV
Phosphorus - 23% DV
Zinc - 10% DV
Selenium 82% DV

Actually I definitely think I'm going to need to do a bit more Nutrition research.
Seems from the above that there's more to these shenanigans than Carbs, Protein and Fat.
I will keep you informed.

Happy eating.

Weekday Breakfast

2011-02-10T11:21:00.003+04:00

No pics today as I had no intention of writing this - but breakfast tasted really good, so I thought I'd share.

You have clearly heard it mentioned before that Brekkie is the most important meal of the day. It loads you up with energy (think carbs and protein) to get you started on the right foot and refuels you because you haven't had anything in your tummy since last nights chicken curry.

If you're anything like me you've been super bad at eating breakfast at all, but since Wifey started her Weigh-less diet, she's being forced to have breakfast, and now we're all starting to like the tradition of sitting down every morning in amidst the mad rush to get to work and school on time.

But its tough to find the time - so quick and easy recipes are required.

Le Recipe
Jungle Oats - place cup of oats, 1 cup of water and some salt in pot. Add 2 cups of boiling water. Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Take off heat and let sit for about 3 minutes. Makes enough for 2 1/2 people (which is exactly how many people eat breakfast at my house.)

Add a small handful of goji berries, one sliced banana and a little milk.

Delicioso, and doesn't even need sugar or honey.
I think it would have been equally awesome with a chopped up apple instead of the banana, or in addition to it.

Nutritional Info
(Figured out by myself with the help of nutritiondata.self.com)
Calories 489kCal (that is, about 24% of the daily requirement, assuming a 2000kCal diet)
Total fat 11g (19% of meal)
Total Carbs 91g (69% of meal)
Of which - dietary fiber is 9g and sugars 22g
Protein 16g (12% of meal)
Vitamins include Vitamin C (27% Daily Value) Calcium (20%) and Iron (27%)
Nice dose of Manganese, Selenium, Riboflavin, Vit. B12, Pantothenic Acid and Phosphorous

Tomato & Barley Soup

2011-02-08T20:41:00.003+04:00

So its a new year, Wifey is on a great new healthy living mission. 2011 has been dubbed the year of Health and Well-being. Its oddly quite exciting. So far she's lost 3kg's on a weigh-less eating plan, and that's only in about 3 weeks. Now she's discovered Raw Food, and is researching all sorts of recipes for that.

I'm keen. Not that I think we're all about to become vegans, but I do think that we're going to do really well at finding what a balanced diet means to us this year. Clearly its going to be a process. But if we knew everything already, then there'd be no fun in the journey.

To start it off I don't have a raw food meal, but it is at least a very healthy meal. I found it in "Eating for Sustained Energy" by Delport & Steenkamp. Haven't really changed the recipe except that I put more curry powder in.

P.S. Because I'm a dumb-ass, I just put the SD card from my camera into the DVD player in my laptop. So until I get Computer Guy to break open my computer and get it out, there's not going to be any photos. Stop laughing! I kill you! (Later note: Thank you Computer Guy)

Ingredients
5ml canola or olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
5ml curry powder (Note: I thought 5ml was silly, so I put 15ml in, and its fiery. I think 5ml would give you a touch of spice, 15ml gives you HOT curry soup.) (Dumbass) (STOP LAUGHING!!! I KILL YOU!!!!)
1 chicken stock cube dissolved in
1.5 litres boiling water
1 cup lentils
125ml pearl barley
1 x 410g tin tomatoes, chopped with the juice
freshly ground black pepper
chopped fresh parsley, to serve

Method
Heat oil in a large pot. Add onion and garlic and stir while cooking gently, until just brown.
Add curry powder and cook, stirring for another minute.
Stir in the stock, lentils, barley, tomatoes and pepper. Bring to the boil, and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the lentils and barley are tender.
Sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley and serve with some bread.

Lentil Note
I'm not sure if the recipe wanted tinned lentils or dried lentils. In an effort to minimize unnecessary chemicals I used dried lentils. You've got to put the lentils in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and leave for about an hour (while you're doing the other prep and mucking around a bit). They double in size after they're soaked. So you only need to use half a cup of dried lentils.

Nutritional Info per serving (Recipe serves 6)
Glycaemic Index 22
Fat 2g
Carbs 28g
Fibre 8g
Protein 12g
kJ 833

Weigh-less info: One serving = 1 1/2 carbs, 1 protein and free vegetable.

Holiday's over

2010-09-12T11:22:00.001+04:00

Right.

I do realise that it's been absolutely ages since I posted anything here, but in my defense, I've had a busy time.

Chances are you know the story - wedding planning, wedding, tons of family here for a holiday, mission to SA for a holiday, turned 30, good friend turned 30 & another turned 26. Sheesh! Absolute awesomeness. But Sheesh!

Best photo of the madness was taken by the immensely talented Carlin Perros - pity she wasn't the official wedding photographer.

Wifey is no longer my fiance. :)

Life is slowly getting back to normal. We're both just getting over a bout of much deserved exhaustion. Today the kids are sleeping, the weather has turned island perfect, we're off to the beach once the kids wake up.

I confess that I had to question whether I cared to carry on with this blog. But as the exhaustion subsides, we finally sat down yesterday and planned the week's meal, and the idea of cooking and writing about cooking became interesting again.

So the blog (and my life in the kitchen), are going to focus on two areas for the near future.

First is that summer is coming (actually I think it just arrived), and we've been abusing our bodies for long enough that we're both really keen for quite a health kick. The starting point is to cut back on red meat and carbohydrates. That means adding lots of fish and vegetable-full meals to the weeks eating. Summer's back, so salads are starting to sound appealing. And meat is expensive, so lots of veggies is nice for the budget as well. I'd also like to look into the nutritional content of what we're eating - maybe analyze a few meals, and try to balance that with what we should be eating. Exercise is supposed to be part of this, and so we're taking up golf and going to the beach a whole lot.

Second is that, because we're pretty party'd out, we're going to be entertaining at home from now on. No massive parties where everyone we know is invited - instead we're going to get small groups of people round for dinner. First, baby club has started (really its a drinking club with a baby problem), where the mommies spend the afternoon with the kids, and then the daddies come round to someone's house after work for drinks and dinner - seems like there'll be 4 couples for each dinner, but that it will rotate who's house its at. Second, we've got to learn to speak French this year, so my sneaky plan is to get a friend of ours around for supper once a week or so, and he'll teach us while we're around the dinner table. He's busy teaching himself about the intricacies of fine wine, so I reckon it'll be a good combination of good food, good wine, and good company. Third, we've been wanting to get the wicked grouping of Brown Dog, Carlin & Pastey around for supper for quite a while. It's one thing spending time socializing at parties, but you get to spend much better quality time with people when they're around the dinner table. Ok, so we're not really slowing down on the partying I admit.

Understanding Benedict

2010-05-17T13:52:00.000+04:00

In many places around the world it was Mother's Day a little while ago. Wifey and I had gone jolling the night before, and so the kids were away at Granny's house for the night (and, happily, for the following morning as well). So, being the fantastic husband that I am, I bought a bunch of roses and tried to make Eggs Benedict for my good lady for breakfast.

Now, Eggs Benedict has a reputation for being kind of snooty breakfast food, as well requiring a particularly experienced chef to not muck it up. The basic recipe is that you lightly toast an english muffin, layer some bacon on that, then a poached egg, then top with Hollondaise sauce. Aside from toasting the muffin, the rest of those steps are pretty tricky to pull off with Jamie Oliver flair and apparent ease.

Oh, and I had a hangover, so I forgot to take any photos, you're just going to have to trust me that it actually did look quite like this recipe, that I found at Country Living, City Style.

I wasn't actually going to describe the recipe in this post. The point of today's lesson is more about understanding how to balance a few simple flavours into a great meal.

You see, Hollondaise is pretty simple to prepare, but what is complicated is getting the ratio of ingredients to taste right. It consists of a few egg yolks, some salt, some lemon juice, and a fair amount of boiling butter. Oh, and some hot sauce of your liking. The trick is that the boiling butter cooks the egg yolks slightly, and creates a super creamy texture and rich flavour. Then the sweetness of the butter / egg mixture is balanced with a some tangy lemon juice, and the whole lot is made a little more flavourfull with some salt and chilli sauce.

My attempt was completely edible, although I think it was too tangy, and not chilli enough. I will try again sometime and promise to take photos then.

I'm babbling. Just remember to think about the balance of flavours when you're making this, and judge your quantities very carefully.

On a different note, clearly my cooking once again moved on to a completely new level of awesomeness with my newfound ability to poach eggs.

Warm Bean and Chorizo Salad

2010-05-05T19:46:00.001+04:00

Quick post tonight because I'm still massively hung-over from last night. The hangover really called for something like a hearty lamb stew, but its a public holiday here today (election day), so there was no chance of heading off to the Super U to find some ingredients.

Instead what we had in the house were the ingredients for a bean and chorizo salad. This recipe has actually become quite a staple in our house, we probably eat in once every 2 weeks or so, and I always have to search for the recipe (which can be found here at mediterrasian.com).

It tastes nice.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 onion, halved and sliced.
1/4 cup chorizo sausage, thinly sliced.
A punnet of green beans (haricots verts), topped, tailed and halved
1 tin of butter (cannelini) beans
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 pinch of sugar
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (which I actually forgot today)

Method
Fry onion for 5 minutes.
Add chorizo and fry for another few minutes, till it smells great and is staining the onions red.
Add green and white beans, and the water, put lid on and let cook for 5 minutes (the water steams the beans, so don't lift the lid to stir it because all the heat will escape).

While the steaming is underway, mix together 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and sugar in a small bowl.

Decant salad into a serving bowl; drizzle dressing over; sprinkle some parsley over.

This recipe doesn't actually make that much. Serve with a crusty roll and this recipe is enough to serve 2 for dinner; if you want to serve it as a salad at a braai then the recipe should be at least doubled.

Breakfast BLT Salad

2010-05-02T09:10:00.001+04:00

The problem with weekend breakfasts is they tend to be ridiculously soaked in oil (think full english fried everything), or as sugary as possible (pancakes with sugar, honey, and maple syrup). Then a little while back I came across a salad that can be eaten for breakfast. It doesn't feel like health food, but also it doesn't feel like a heart-attack on a plate.

Also, it tastes great. (and the recipe comes from here at http://www.taste.com.au/)

Ingredients

250g cherry tomatoes

2tbs olive oil

1 garlic bulb

3 rashers of bacon (about 175g)

1/2 cup whole-egg mayonaise (if I wasn't feeling lazy this morning, this would be the perfect time to test out some homemade mayonaise)

2 tbs lemon juice

6 cups wild rocket

1 avo, thinly sliced

1 bunch chives, coursely chopped.

Method

Preheat oven to 250 degrees C

Cherry tomatoes on tray; drizzle with oil; season with S&P

Roast for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven, set aside to cool.

Wrap garlic in foil, and roast for 20 min until soft. Set asid to cool. Cut in half and squeeze out pulp.

Fry bacon. (Surely you can do this without further instruction.)

Place garlic, mayo, lemon juice in food processor, and process until smooth. (Curse Wifey for leaving the blender dirty from last nights soup (recipe to follow)). Season to taste.

Combine tomatoes, bacon, rocket, and avo in a serving bowl.

Sprinkle over some chives.

Drizzle over some dressing.

Awesomeness.

Nutrition 101

2010-04-27T15:36:00.001+04:00

I seem to write this article over and over again, without ever getting to the end of it, or never complete enough to finally press the publish button. So this is my next attempt.

This blog is all about healthy eating – eating for sustained energy throughout the afternoon / cooking with nutrient-full ingredients / cooking without chemical additives.

The concept behind Low GI food fits into my (personal) diet paradigm quite nicely – I couldn’t really care less about losing weight (although that’s Wifey’s focus), what I want is to be energetic throughout my day; to have my mind alert and responsive; to get regular exercise with the goal of slowly becoming stronger, fitter and more active. Low GI foods = slow release of sugars = sustained energy. I have a feeling it relates exclusively to carb’s and sugars (fats and proteins (I guess)). I should add calcium and omega-3 for brain performance. Omit simple carbs and sugars (for example SUGAR, you dimwit). Eat complex carbs – wholewheat bread; oats and cereals for brekkie; ummm, and stuff.

Wifey wants to lose weight. Really this is exclusively related to eating fewer calories than you’re burning. Simple as that. (I truly apologize if my attitude to weight-loss is to brush it off as unimportant, it’s just because I have one of those bodies that doesn’t change shape no matter what I abuse it with, except that I’m kind of a skinny runt these days.) So for Vix it’s a case of increasing the amount (and intensity) of exercise she gets, and eating foods that make her feel full and give her the energy she needs without adding too many calories. She also needs as many anti-oxidant and vitamin-type foods, because she gets sick way too often.

Back to me for a little bit – I need to be dramatically improving my exercise habits as well. I’d like to focus on muscle building a fair bit (in order to get bigger). I want Vix to focus on muscle-building a bit so that her muscles get stronger and burn more calories when at rest. Both of us could do with regular time on the exercise bike – I know that this isn’t actually supposed to help that much, but it’s a simple start to get us into the habit of exercising. Exercise (especially the muscle building kind) needs protein to build the muscle tissue with – protein is to come from lean meat, low-fat dairy, and eggs. Please note that all of the above are also sauces of nasty saturated fat, which is to be avoided, so really, you’re screwed. Actually you’re not screwed – fat is pretty easy to remove from a solid piece of meat, and while it clearly adds flavour (think fillet versus entrecote), that flavour can be added with rubs, marinades and other sources.

So then, the plan...

Breakfast is supposed to be packed with slow carbs, a bit of protein, and a variety of fruits and veggies. Simple method – oats with milk, nuts and fruit (fresh or dried) sprinkled over the top. Complicated or dumb methods – (1) whole-grain bread roll with poached egg and coleslaw; (2) BLT salad as tried before (with avo); (3) actually that’s all I can think of right now.

Snack food is to be fruit (fibre, nutrients, and stuff); nuts (good fat, protein, and stuff); and stuff (stuff).

Lunch - I dunno, this is why I never finish writing this article.

OK, the disclaimer is that lunch and dinner (and sometimes breakfast), are things which require a healthy dose of variation, and that’s what this website is all about. I’ll write again when I’ve got a decent lunch and dinner recipe. I’m going to start by checking out mediterrasian.com again, which I haven’t done for a while.

Fibre

2010-04-20T11:04:00.000+04:00

Notes from this WebMD article I just got emailed:

Soluble fiber (from beans, fruits, etc) aids in satiety (keeps you feeling full).

Insoluble fiber (found in wheat bran, whole grains, nuts, etc) keeps you regular.

For folk 50 years or younger - Women should have 25g of fibre, and men 38g - each day.

Chow a high-fibre breakfast - if label says 5g fibre per serving, that 15% - 25% of the job done. Add some fruit on top - bananas (3.1g each), blackberries (3.8g / 1/2 cup), hummus (2 tablespons = 1.6g).

Chow fruity snacks. (This means making sure fruit is always on hand, at home and at work). Half a cup of raspberries = 4g fibre. A papaya = 5.5g. 5 rings of dried apple = 2.9g. Make sure you eat the peels when eating fruits and veggies (i.e. IMHO potatoes should only be peeled if they're going to be roasted) for extra fibre.

"Beans are bursting with fiber". Pinto beans = 15.4g / cup!!! Black beans = 15g / cup!!! Beans can easily be snuck into soups, stews and salads a few times a week. Proving, once again, the Superfood-ness of beans. Go find my Warm Bean and Chorizo salad, but beans in Veggie soup, pumpkin soup, any stew, curry or casserole ... and stuff.

Try to find quick-cooking brown rice and whole grain pasta. (This is probably completely impossible in Mauritius, which actually suits me fine. Every time I've tried the brown or whole-grain experiment, it all tastes crap!) (Also I don't think I cook it properly.)

Remember fruit smoothies.

"Substitute quick- or old-fashioned oats for up to one-third of the white flour called for in recipes." Sounds dodgy - I'll give this a try and let you know if it works.

Skewer fruits and veggies and cook 'em on the barbie! Wicked idea. I'm definitely in. Might have to figure out which food works best for this though.

Leftover Lamb Pie

2010-04-08T11:18:00.004+04:00

Right. So the Easter weekend is officially over. Everybody in the household is feeling shitty from eating way too much rich food and chocolate over the weekend - and a significant amount of liquor. What better way to cure everybody than to feed them MORE fatty lamb?

As usual the recipe comes from taste.com.au, but when it came to actually cooking it I found that the quantities of leftovers I had didn't at all match what the recipe said, so its pretty ad-libbed. I've posted my version below.

Once again, my cooking shenanigans have progressed to the next level of mastery - I used pastry! Granted, I didn't make the pastry, it was a roll of store-bought puff pastry. But to me pastry was another one of those mental blocks - looks complicated and technical and a little bit too organized for the king of ad-hoc cookery. I do, of course, feel like a little bit of a silly twat now that I've tried it and seen how simple it is to use. But that's why Life is a Journey, if we started off knowing everything then the whole trip would be a whole lot less trippy.

Stop talking crap Murray!

Leftover Roast lamb and veggie pie

Ingredients

Left over meat from 3 legs of lamb - chopped into bite-sized bits

Big bowl of left over roast pumkin

Big bowl of left over roast potatoes

Smaller bowl of left over green beans

Some leftover mint sauce

Just under a litre of beef stock

About 3 tablespoons Bisto

An Onion - chopped

2 cloves garlic - minced

Oil for frying

A packet of puff pastry

Method

Preheat oven to 200

Fry onion and garlic for a few mintues, till onion is transparent and squishy, but not brown

Add lamb and veggies.

Fry for a few more minutes to slightly brown/crisp everything.

Stir in stock and bisto.

Stir in some mint sauce (add sauce, stir, taste, repeat until awesomeness is achieved)

Bring to the boil, and then let simmer for 10 or 15 minutes.

Taste the stew. Awesomeness.

Spoon stew into a casserole dish (I think that's what they're called), till its about 5cm deep.

Roll out a piece of puff pastry and lay over the top of the stew. (I'm going to assume you know how to do this because I don't feel like writing it all out. Wifey had to teach me last night.)

If you happen to get 2 pies out of this mission (like I did), then you now is the time to clingwrap one of them and stick it in the freezer for one day in the future when you're no longer sick of roast lamb.

Poke holes in the pastry to it doesn't explode (the pie you're baking, not the one you're freezing). Brush with egg.

Bake for a few minutes until golden brown and delectably crispy.

Decide that I'm too tired to eat supper tonight, put pie in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Sleep like the dead trying to recover from whatever it is that's making me feel like this.

Successful Easter - Roast Lamb et al.

2010-04-06T14:43:00.006+04:00

So despite my expectations, it turns out Easter lunch was actually really good, with lots of relaxing fun and good conversations had by all, and I managed to not be stuck in the kitchen the whole time, as everybody else pitched in to help.

For snacks (because I don't think I can spell Hors'd'ouvres) we bought a platter of Vietnamese spring rolls from our favourite Thai restaurant, Thaifoon. Granny-in-law brought fois gras on melba toast. Such a pity that the toast was stale, but no-one else seemed to notice.

We sat down to eat a palm-heart and smoked salmon starter from Wifey's aunt Maryvonne. Despite my oft-stated belief that palm-hearts are more like chopped up bits of wood than a supposed delicacy, on this occassion at least I was proved wrong.

Wifey sorted out the vegetables for the main course (roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, and green beans) which were simple and really good. Mother-in-law bailed me out of having to make gravy. I roasted (on the braai, of course) a few legs of lamb, and actually successfully made a mint sauce (first attempt for me, and I made it just before the guests arrived on the day - no opportunity to stuff up and try it again.)

France brought a collection of different desserts, and cake and such for after lunch.

Everybody thanked us for being such fantastic hosts, they all buggered off home, and I flopped into the sea to let my aching bones recover slightly.

Lots of beer, wine, champagne, wine, and a little coffee, were enjoyed by all.

We succeeded. Now I'm exhausted.

Anyway, the recipe ...

Herbed Roast Leg of Lamb (recipe from Epicurious.com, go look for it there)

Per leg of lamb, mix together ...

1/3 cup Dijon mustard

2 garlic cloves, minced, and mashed to a paste with 1/4 tspn salt

A lot of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, plus some for garnish

A lot of finely chopped fresh thyme leaves, plus some for garnish

1 1/2 tbspn soy sauce

1/4 cup white wine

salt and pepper.

Add 2 tbspn of olive oil in a stream, whisking, and whisk until it all becomes one.

Brush the sauce over the roast.

Marinate as such for the night.

I re-brushed the roast with sauce first thing in the morning and once during cooking.

Allow meat to return to room-temperature before cooking.

Cook on a medium to low braai, indirect heat, try not to open the braai lid too often, but also be careful not to burn at the beginning, or let the fire die at the end.

Drink beer while staring at the closed lid of the weber, and tell anyone who asks that you're busy, and can't help with the flowers right now.

I started the fire at 9. Put the meat on at 10 (although this might have been slightly too soon), and took it off the fire at about 12:30. Meat was cooked to well-done, but not overcooked. A meat thermometer would obviously be helpful in this regard, or next time I'll just cook for half an hour less.

Mint Sauce (from taste.com.au)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup castor sugar

Put in pot.

Stir over medium heat for about 5 min. until sugar dissolves.

Bring to boil.

Let simmer softly for about 10 min., letting the liquid reduce by half.

Stir in A Lot of finely chopped fresh mint.

Let sauce cool to room temperature before serving.

This tasted wicked. I'm stoked.

2009 Bordeaux

2010-04-06T09:40:00.001+04:00

Completely off topic for my normal posts - I just received word (from here) That the 2009 vintage Bordeaux, which is yet to be released, is due to be a great vintage. Drawing parallels with the very tasty 2005, and even the fabled 1947.

I'm writing it down here so that I might remember when I eventually see the stuff appear on the shelves of my local wine merchant (or more like, the supermarket).

Avo Season - Avo and Sardines on toast

2010-03-27T14:36:00.001+04:00

The maid arrived on Sunday bearing a packet that marked the beginning of a new fruit season on the island. A shopping packet filled with about 6 massive, freshly picked and very enticing avocados.

Now, when I was a kid avos were one of those foods that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. In the same category as broccoli or asparagus. Its only pretty recently that I've been giving them a try again. They're often refered to as a super-food, but I can't remember why right now. Suffice to say that you should eat more avos. Of course, avos themselves don't make their consumption any easier because you can't buy them ripe, and then once they ripen you've got to use them really quickly. So it clearly helps to have an avo tree nearby, that provides you with way more than you could possibly eat yourself.

The recipe dropped into my lap at a perfectly opportune time then. It was probably sometime last week that I stumbled across this recipe from locallemons.com. One serving of Sardine and Avocado Toast. Yes, as you are thinking now, my first thought was how digusting that would be. And that sardines and toast have a special relationship already, and don't need some fancy avo so that they can pretend to be "cuisine". But the recipe stuck in my mind until I was sure I wanted to try it.

Its also very easy to prepare lunchtime food, good for you, and rather yummy.

Brush some pita bread with olive oil and grill until golden and crispy.

Drain a tin of sardines, place in bowl, and mash them.

Scoop half an avo into another bowl, add about a tablespoon of lemon juice, some salt and pepper and also mash.

Spread the mashed sardines on the toasted pita.

Spoon the mashed avo over.

Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top of the whole thing.

Tuck in to the most unusual sandwich you've had in a while.

You can almost feel your body getting healthier by the second, and the last remnants of hangover from last nights shindig drifting away.

Put some Jack Johnson on the stereo, sit back and watch the catamarans come in from their Saturday cruise.

Next comes Easter

2010-03-22T12:35:00.001+04:00

So we were sitting at the Yacht club late Sunday morning, having drinks with the out-laws, and discussing how we're going to set the place up for our wedding in August. Despite being pretty suspect to start with, I think we will manage to fit all the guests on the main veranda, which will actually make it a nice venue.

Anyway, as things were slowly starting to get a little tipsy, Vicki's mom kindly informs us that Easter lunch is at the beach cottage every year. (And Vix and I are living at the beach cottage over Easter). I can do a leg of lamb on the weber, and there'll be flagolet, and green beans, and cheesecake, and a starter of some sort. The Vix started to freak, but then we got our heads around it and we started to make sure that the rest of the family weren't going to stuff it up too much ("No, don't worry, we'll do the starters as well, why don't you do the flowers and bring the easter eggs."). There'll be about 20 - 25 people.

Events like this always (for me at least) start with a kind of gung-ho excitement; then later in the day you get this nagging doubt, bordering on absolute terror (picture everyone sitting around the table watching me trying to carve a completely burnt 4 kg block of charcoal that I'm going to try to feed then); then the cycle repeats itself, and I get kind of excited again.

Oh, and its two weekends away, and we've got to spend next weekend moving house. There is no prep time for this one. (hehehe, bring it on!)

So, ladies and gentlemen, the plan ...

(some time passes)...

We were served an absolutely wicked Roast Lamb Shoulder on our recent soiray back to the homelands in Africa. Gorgeously tasty meat, true Jamie Oliver style food, and good family company. Thanks Denzil.

However, this is Easter lunch with a massive contingent of my future spouses extended family - I feel that the presentation of the meat is going to be pretty critical, and the problem with the shoulder was that it fell apart when carved and served. A leg of lamb, or possibly even a crown roast, make for great presentation, and oo-ing and aa-ing when folk see it at the table. A leg also lends itself to the showmanship style of carving at the table which is undoubtedly going to be expected.

Maybe crusted with a mustard, breadcrumb, parmesan and herb crust. Maybe marinaded in onions, garlic, lots of herbs, some wine and olive oil. Maybe try something slightly different and coat it in a spicy mixture of lemon grass, ginger and garlic, lime leaves and lemon juice (although I think I'm trying more for a classic presentation of the banquet this time.)

Side dishes? I shouldn't have asked at the Yacht club. "Flagolet and green beans" - It's just how things are done here. "Can we please have roast potatoes with it?" - says the other expat at the table. I shouldn't have asked. I'm all for the roast potatoes. Maybe the flagolet and green beans can be mixed together in one dish, maybe even the same dish that holds minty peas that I'd like to see added. In any case, I'm sure that's not enough. There are a lot of people coming, and its nice for them to have a little variation.

And a prawn cocktail starter?!? Not again please. Even if they do taste nice, lets try something refreshing.

Then there's the problem of timing the thing. I'm going to have to go to church in the morning, then come home and start the braai. That means that lunch is going to be served really late. That means we have to spend a fair bit of time feeding people before hand (but carefully so that they still have space for the magnificent main course.)

...

I'm going for a walk. I'll keep you informed on progress.

The Perfect Steak Marinade

2010-02-28T10:08:00.001+04:00

I think I just achieved perfection! The perfect marinade for braai'd steak.

The recipe comes from a book I got a year or so ago - "Braai" by Biller, Storkey & Kay (Struik Publishing).

Heat a little (15ml) olive oil in a frying pan.

Add a chopped onion;

2 cloves chopped garlic;

15ml chopped fresh ginger;

1 seeded and chopped red chilli.

Fry gently until softened.

Add 340ml coke; 180ml tomato sauce; grated rind of 1 lemon; 30ml lemon juice; 15ml whole grain mustard; 30ml white wine vinegar.

Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Sturing pretty often.

Let cool.

Pour about 250ml of the sauce over the steak, and reserve the remainder for serving.

Refrigerate the marinading steak, covered, overnight (or from Sunday morning until the braai on Sunday afternoon.)

Braai steak, on the beach, with lots of beer or rum for refreshment, good company, sunny weather, kids frollicking in the waves, palm tree swaying peacefully overhead.

Heat the reserved sauce thoroughly before serving with steak, maybe a tuscan salad, and undoubtedly a few beers.

My camera battery is dead now, so no photo's of the sauce, but I'll charge it and take some photos of the beach and braai'ing process later.

Quick Beef and Bell Pepper Stir-Fry

2010-02-19T21:47:00.001+04:00

Ahhh, it's time to relax...

I make this recipe all the time, but have to search for it on the net every time I do.

It comes from simplyrecipes.com and, aside from a little bit of prep, is supremely quick to cook. This is how long stir-fry should take to make.

It's a really refreshing salad type of taste - not too saucy, not overcooked. And (in case you care), peppers are packed full of Vitamin C and anti-oxidants, so its good for you too.

Goes like this ...

Ingredients:
Steak (say, 500g of sirloin)
Salt and pepper (freshly ground black pepper, of course)
1 large clove of garlic
Olive oil
2 medium bell peppers (capsicum), one red, one green, sliced into 5mm strips.
Half an onion, sliced lengthwise (root to top)
A dozen cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Method:
Take the steak.
Season well with salt and pepper on both sides.
Rub a clove of crushed garlic onto the above steak.
Wrap in clingwrap, then pound the meat until its quite thin (say 6mm thick)
Leave steak wrapped up while you do the rest of the cooking.

Cook rice or noodles.

Heat some olive oil in a large wok on high heat.
Add onions and peppers, and stir fry until just tender (really only for a minute or two)
Add tomatoes and cook for another minute.
Remove veggies to a bowl and keep warm.

Unwrap the steak and slice into stir-fry sized pieces.

Heat another 2 tbsp of olive oil, until shimmering, but not quite smoking.
Add the strips of beef and let brown for a few seconds without stirring.
Cook for only a minute or two.
Then add the veggies back into the pan, and a tablespoon of worcestershire sauce.

Stir for a minute longer, and serve on a bed of rice or noodles.

Wicked.

Not much food writing

2010-02-02T14:03:00.000+04:00

Ok – so the New Year has come and gone – resolutions were made – etc etc. Now it's February.

I had planned to take a food photo every day, to post to a Flickr group, and this was going to give my food blogging a bit of encouragement.

Well, I posted 4 pics to the Flickr group, can’t even remember what the group was called anyway, and haven’t had a blog post here in a very long time.

It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, but maybe I’ve been experimenting quite a bit. Firstly, I have actually built up quite a recipe book over the past few months, and can now spend time making things that have already been made, rather than trying new stuff every night. Oddly, this is actually quite refreshing. Secondly, Wifey has just given up her job to become a full-time mom, so she’s been trying to reclaim ownership of the kitchen. There is definitely a fight brewing on who gets control of the kitchen, but again, it is nice for it not to be my responsibility to cook every night.

You see most bloggers stop writing because their lives are suddenly outrageously busy – they have babies, or open restaurants, or something on a similarly grand scale. My story seems to be the opposite. The New Year has brought with it a period of consolidation in our family’s life. Vix can concentrate on being the best mother she can be. We’ll be a little poorer, and so are trying to find a smaller place to live in. And I can concentrate a bit more on my career, as my responsibility in the family is more focussed. Oddly again, but it’s refreshing, and quite exciting.

I am still cooking of course, and trying new recipes fairly regularly. I found a recipe for a warm bean and chorizo salad a few weeks back, which I’ve made twice already, and even served to guests. We had guests for a braai last weekend (or maybe the one before that) and I made prawn skewers with a garlic and lemon baste. Both of these were really successful. There does always have to be some balance in life, and so I tried an avocado remoulade with pan-fried salmon the other day, and it was nearly inedible. Maybe there was some other stuff, and maybe I’ll even post those recipes here, but not today.

And seeing as things are Oddly in this post already – Wifey and I have actually managed to start exercising fairly regularly. The little “about me” thing on your right hand side says that half of the reason of this blogs existence is to chronicle my mission to get my family eating and living healthy. I’m going to hit 30 this year, and so can’t really be a juvenile delinquent for that much longer. So – exercise – so far its only 20 minutes on an exercise bike, plus a few push-ups, but I’m a firm believer that some exercise is infinitely better than none, and also a believer that I need a fair bit of time to remember how my legs work or I’ll end up crippling myself.

OK, that’s all I have to say right now.

We’ll speak soon.

Hoisin-chicken stir-fry with peppers and baby corn

2010-01-08T23:36:00.002+04:00

I have found the secret ingredient!

Decided to make a recipe from Mediterrasian.com, because, despite loving making and eating stir fries, I've only got about 1 decent recipe for them.

This one called for Hoisin Sauce - and thankfully Chinese food and ingredients are one thing that you can find in wonderous variety in Mauritian supermarkets. I've never used Hoisin before, but as I cracked open the bottle the smell was amazing. This is clearly the stuff that they use to make the sticky-sweet-and-savoury coating for Peking Duck. I was instantly in love and will start experimenting with the stuff as soon as possible. Hmmm - imagine sticky basting sauce for pork chops on the braai - wicked.

Anyway, I wasn't making pork chops, and Wifey has approved the dinner as one that I can make again - so it goes like this.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons hoisin sauce

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons peanut oil

360g skinless chicken breasts - cut into thin strips.

1 1/2 green peppers - julienned.

420g can o baby corn - cut into pieces.

2 cloves garlic - minced (I got lazy and just sliced it thinly)

2 spring onions - diagonally sliced (I seriously need to start growing these - because it drived me crazy buying a whole bunch from the shop and then using 2, only to watch the rest go manky in the fridge) (So I sliced up a small onion instead)

Method:

Cook rice (actually I made noodles)

Mix together the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, water and sesame oil in a small bowl.

Heat wok over super-high heat, then add 1 tbspn peanut oil.

Add chicken and stir-fry till browned (DO NOT OVERCOOK - DON'T LET THE WIFE SEE HOW RAW IT STILL IS WHEN YOU TAKE IT OFF - JUST BROWN IT, SOME PINK IS ACCEPTABLE, IT'S GONNA COOK A LITTLE MORE LATER - THIS IS THE SECRET TO TENDER STIR-FRIED MEAT - I bet Salmonela's not that bad anyway.)

Remove chicken from the wok and set aside.

Add the other tablespoon peanut oil and stir fry green pepper for 2 minutes.

Add corn and garlic and stir fry for 1 minute.

Add spring onions and stir fry for 30 seconds.

Add sauce mixture and chicken and stir fry to combine.

Serve over rice (or noodles)

The great thing about stir-frying is that, aside from prep'ing the vegetables, the actual cooking time is really quick. If you boil the kettle to cook the noodles as you switch on the wok, then the noodles are ready about the same time as the rest of the meal.

Flickr: Project 365 and The Beach House

2010-01-08T23:09:00.001+04:00

So in an effort to blog more this year I found a project on Flickr - Project 365 for Food bloggers. Clearly there are a lot of food bloggers in the world these days, so there's nothing particularly fancy about being one of them.

My theory is that taking a photo of food each day will motivate me to write here more, as I'll have a photo to write about.

In any event - my first day looking for food photos I didn't actually cook - but did discover that the cocktails at the Beach House in Grand Baie are fantastic. I was drinking Long Island's, and I think Vicki's were called Sea Breezes, both wicked. The secret to a good Long Island is to not put too much alcohol in it - the number of different spirits is where the flavour comes from. The barman got it right on my first cocktail - absolute perfection - they got stronger for the 2 after that.

The other great revelation of our lunch was the steak. Mauritius is notorious for not having a clue how to cook a steak, and these were done to perfection. Vix had a normal Fillet, and I had a Vodka Fillet (topped with mushrooms and a liquidy sauce (presumably vodka-based)).

Its nice to see the Beach House finally getting their act together. The service has up until now been painfully slow, and the food nothing to write home about. The service yesterday (actually I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday), was nothing great, but we were seated and got our first round of drinks pretty quickly. I had to go searching for the second round, but the food really blew me away.

A friend of mine once said of the place that "if you can't make a restaurant work in a location like that, then there's something seriously wrong." Well, it looks like its starting to work.

Note to self - this would be a fantastic venue to watch the New Year's fireworks next year; and we should also come with the family sometime - you can see the kids swimming in the sea from your table.

The new decade arrives Version 2

2010-01-05T13:10:00.001+04:00

Actually the point of the last blog post was lost somewhere along the line.

I'm going to try again...

A new year brings a new set of challenges. Everybody makes new years resolutions, but they tend to be quiet resolutions - do this a little better, try harder at that - more important than the grand statements like stop smoking, drinking, exercise every day, etc.. And if you're anything like me they tend to be the same every year. I don't think that's bad, I think its part of the journey.

Its also a good time to look forward to what's coming in the year ahead.

This year the big kahuna is that we're getting married. So far we have a tentatively booked a church, and we've kind of written a guest list. So that means it's pretty sorted out then... Well more likely is that there's a mammoth task ahead of us, but mammoth tasks are what should make the year pretty memorable, so I'm looking forward to the organization part of the whole deal as much as the actual event (which scares me shitless). The actual moment of marrying the girl that I've loved for years, lived with for years, and already had two kids with, scares me a lot less than the act of hosting a massive event. As far as I'm concerned we've been married for years, with all the ups and downs that brings.

But this is supposed to be a food blog... and I have to go.

OK, so quickly ... new years resolutions (much the same as last year) - continue the healthier eating mission for me and vix - start getting some exercise (exercise bike; touch rugby team; maybe take up running again) - its super-hot season in Mauritius, so i've found some salad recipes - eat beans - get Jazz to eat any veggies whatsoever - try get more veggies into us at each meal - ummm... - stop smoking (hahahahaha), never mind - stop drinking too much (I have two small kids, you must be joking, ok, I'm joking) - umm... sort out my relationship with Wifey (not that its bad, but some proper attention is definitely in order, especially with two small kids in the house) - get Jazz to learn French better (she completely tanked at school last semester) - get us to learn French better - get married - make sure my boss loves me (and gives me a new car, and a proper raise) - ummmmm... ok, I got to go - make Jasmine less of a monster - actually I got a two hour date with Wifey - that's enough.

Later peeps.

Oh, and organize this blog better - got to learn the html so that paragraphs and bullet points look right (which really annoys me) - and write often - and i just signed up to a flickr group to post a food pic every day.

The new decade arrives

2010-01-05T11:29:00.001+04:00

Its been over a month since I wrote here last - holiday season madness - family visiting - massive christmas eve dinner experiment - family fueds and christmas anger - lazy days by the pool - new years eve with much needed friends - new years day hangover, with long drawn out lunch at the pub - no maid or nanny here for the last two weeks - work project in the background - its been busy, but its been fun.

I fully intend to tell you the story of my Christmas eve dinner, but not today. However, considering how I'll probably never get around to telling the christmas story otherwise, here's the short version.

Food-wise it actually went quite well. Company-wise it was a fairly spectacular disaster.

Chicken skewers as pre-food snacks were changed at the last minute to my standard honey-mustard chicken skewers, which were great, but finished before the guests got here. Then I chickened out of the asparagus starter because I didn't think I'd find any fresh asparagus at the shops (although when I got to the shops, there was fresh asparagus, but no shrimp).

Starter was changed to a prawn cocktail, also standard issue, and also nice to eat. The roast (the coup-de-grace), was huge, it started off cooking too quickly, and so was a little blackened in some places, and it fell to pieces rather than being carved nicely because there was too much stuffing. It was, nevertheless, delicious (IMHO, the guests had excused themselves half-way through dessert, so maybe they didn't feel the same).

Vicki's side dish bean salad was great - my side dish pumpkin and spinach salad was fine, but there was no spinach and just a tiny bit of rocket instead. And desert by the ladies (Vix and my mom), was delicious granadilla ice-cream and christmas cake.

Except for the disaster with the guests, we had a great day setting up, cooking, opening some presents, drinking a little too much, and generally spending time together as a family. Maybe I can find some pictures ...

Christmas is coming

2009-11-19T11:40:00.006+04:00

As the title suggests, the silly season is nearly upon us. My office closes for 3 weeks; my mom's coming to visit for 2 weeks; Christmas Eve at our house; Christmas lunch at the mother-in-law's; New Years Eve at the beach house; friends; family; merrimaking (with anticipated hangovers); Grand Bay fireworks on New Years; and other general fun in the sun.

All of which will give me plenty of opportunities to force my cooking onto unsuspecting others.

The plan:

Christmas eve is the first big one - pity I only finish work the day before.

Guest list is probably fairly limited - Myself, Vix, Jazz, Dylan, my Mom, Vicki's mom, Martin, Stuart, Vicki's gran - I think that's all. Discounting Jazz and Dylan, it leaves 7 people to feed.

I cobbled the following menu together from http://www.taste.com.au/, which has got to be my new favourite cooking website, mostly because it's Australian, so its got the same climate and seasons as I do in Mauritius.

Watermelon Ice with Malibu and coconut milk cocktails on arrival (this might be a bit overkill).
Barbecued lime and mint chicken skewers for early evening snacks.
Barbecued Asparagus with roast capsicum salsa starter.
Barbecued stuffed pork loin for the main.
Side dishes of roasted pumpkin, red onion and spinach salad.
Bean and basil salad.
Roasted garlic and baby potatoes with Rosemary.
Granadilla ice cream for desert. (My mom's secret recipe)

So cooking 8 different things is clearly going to be a fairly interesting challenge (ok, exclude the cocktails, and Vicki or my mom will make the ice cream, that leaves 6 things). In addition, this all needs to be done while there's guests to chat to, children running around, and beer to be drunk. Hence this blog post as a planning exercise. Kingmuzza keeps his cool, calm head about him at all times. (Oh, and I'm still likely to be severely sleep deprived from Dylan, who'll be 2 months old by Christmas).

And I'm including the Malibu with watermelon ice again, because it'll be a nice start to my holidays.

Timing:

The day before (or more) - shop (might have to order the pork loin - Sean from the Patch and Parrot has a secret supplier from somewhere near Baie de Tombeau)
The night before - make watermelon ice and freeze; make salad dressing for pumpkin salad; make garlic and herb butter.
The morning of the event - marinade the chicken; prepare the pork (make stuffing, tie the thing together); make bean salad; prepare veggies for roasting (peel and chop)
Stop for lunch.
Expect 2 hours to cook roast; an hour for the veggies (pumpkin, onion, baby potatoes)
I'm going to need 3 braai's - 1 for veggies, 1 for roast, 1 for asparagus and capsicum starter, and chicken skewers. I only have 2 available, so I reckon I roast the veggies first, then the roast pork on 1 weber, and the starters on the other one.
Also, the asparagus seems to require a fair bit of on the spot preparation (I hate asparagus, but Vicki's family think its tradition, so I really do think I should give this a shot.)
So lets assume a 8pm dinner time - that means the roast pork goes in at 6pm (make it 5:30), so the roast veggies must go in at 4 or 4:30.
Start both fires at 3:30. Assemble chicken skewers, and place veggies in roasting pans.
At 4:00, the chicken skewers can go on, beers can be cracked, they should only take about half an hour to cook. Also put the veggies on to cook.
4:30 - remove skewers and serve, prepare and serve watermelon cocktails.
5:00 - remove veggies and keep warm.
5:00 - add extra coals to roast pork fire (old roast veggie fire)
5:30 - insert roast pork.
6:00 - add extra coals to asparagus fire (old chicken skewer fire)
6:30is - cook asparagus (see recipe, capsicums get cooked first, then peeled, chopped and salsa made, then asparagus cooked, and all served immediately). So lets say we should serve that around 7:30, that means start cooking at 6:30. Also, I'm going to need to do all the kitchen work for this (chopping and such) outside on the pool table in order to be sociable.
Remember to keep beer and wine flowing, but also slowly enough so people don't start getting into family fights before dinner is over.
Return roast potatoes onto asparagus fire to heat before serving.
7:30 - retreat to the kitchen for some much needed anti-social time - prepare salads.
8pm Pass out, while everyone else eats.

I think I'm getting too ambitious. And I also think that eating can take a long time at Christmas, so maybe the whole lot should be moved an hour earlier - but the French might complain about this. Also, the salads should be made before the asparagus, so that once I serve the starter, we can all be sitting around the table (myself included).

Okay, the end. I'll come back to this.

Then there's Christmas morning breakfast, New Years eve party (not necessarily my responsibility, but surely something must be done) and lazy holiday lunches to deal with.

This is quite exciting.

Thai Chicken and Pumpkin Curry

2009-11-16T20:43:00.001+04:00

Writing another one before I've actually eaten it - looks pretty good though.

This one comes from http://www.taste.com.au/

A little veggie oil
1 tbsp Thai red curry paste (good to have in stock)
6 green onions, thinly sliced (can anyone tell me what a green onion is? I've used spring onions)
750g chicken thigh fillets, cut into 4cm pieces (I've used about half this amount, there's only 2.5people eating in my house)
420g Heinz condensed Cream of Pumpkin soup (which I actually found in a shop in Mauritius, who would have thought!?!)
165ml can light coconut milk (readily available in Mauritius)
1 lime, juiced (K, i'm not actually a good cook, I've substituted a few squeezes of lemon juice.)
500g desiree potatoes, cut into pieces (what's a desiree potatoe? Also I just washed mine, didn't peel them like I was supposed to.)
1 cup fresh coriander leaves, to serve
1 cup fresh mint leaves, to serve
Steamed Jasmine rice, to serve
I added some chopped pumkin to the curry, and I'm about to add some frozen peas, that way we actually get a bunch of veggies with our supper.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.

Add curry paste.

Cook, stirring for a minute.

Add onion and chicken.

Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, to brown the chicken.

Stir in the soup, coconut milk, lime juice, potatoes, and pumkin.

Bring to the boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low.

Simmer for 25 minutes, or until 'taters are tender.

Serve over rice, sprinkle coriander and mint over.

Ingest.

I'll let you know how it turns out. Maybe I'll even add a photo.

Chicken Cacciatore

2009-11-12T21:36:00.001+04:00

Right so I wasn't supposed to be cooking tonight. Life is slowly returning to a new normal (baby gets fed A LOT, so Wifey is pretty busy), so when we were planning our dinners for the week we included Mac'n'cheese, and Hong Kong Chicken - both Wifey specialities, that would have got us enough supper until after Friday night. However, Wifey isn't feeling well, and in her defense, she really is spending an insane amount of time being a milk cow, so there's not much time left for her to cook.

So I got home from work today and had to quickly start searching for something to cook. The freezer only consisted of chicken pieces, chorizo, pizza bases and frozen veggies (and ice cream). A quick internet search found Chicken Cacciatore at simplyrecipes.com, which I amazingly had all the ingredients for.

Chicken pieces (recipe says 3.5 pound chicken cut into pieces, I used 5 chicken legs (drumsticks and thighs still combined)).
Olive oil for frying
1 cup thinly sliced onions
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced.
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup white wine (I actually decided to measure this out, because I reckon I normally put too much in, but it turned out to be quite a lot.)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (supposed to be 2 cups of peeled and chopped tomatoes - as if I have time for that.)
The possibility of adding mushrooms or chopped veggies to the stew.

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan on medium heat.
Add onions and cook until translucent.
Push onions aside (next time I'll actually take them off, they burnt a bit.)
Add gardlic and chicken pieces, skin-side down. Cook until skin is golden brown, then turn pieces over and brown the other side.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper, on both sides.
Add wine, simmer until reduced by half.
Add tomatoes, simmer, cover skillet with lid slightly ajar.
Cook the chicken in the liquid, turning and basting a few times.
Cook until tender, about 40 mintues.
If the stew starts to dry out, add a few tablespoons of water.

Consume, with rice and steamed frozen veggies.

Meal becomes part of the cookbook because its made with easily available materials.

Chicken Parmigiana

2009-11-05T18:18:00.002+04:00

In addition to the newfound ability to whisk egg-whites, this week had another great discovery. A mind-bogglingly delicious recipe from ThePioneerWoman.com for Chicken Parmigiana. What follows is pretty much a copy from that blog - there's quite a process to go through.

Simple ingredients, a fair bit of hard work, and gorgeous and wonderous meal at the end of it.

I'm definitely going try this for a dinner party one day.

Ingredients:

4 - 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and pounded flat.
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup wine - red or white
3 14.5 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes (not sure how big an ounce is, so I just used 3 cans of crushed tomatoes.)
2 tbspns sugar
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
A lot of grated Parmesan
Thin Linguine to serve

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together on a large plate.

Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside.

Heat olive oil and butter together in a skillet over medium heat.

When butter is melted, and oil/ butter mixture is hot, fry the chicken breasts until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Remove chicken breasts from the skillet and keep warm.

Without cleaning the skillet, add onions and garlic, and gently stir for 2 minutes.

Pour in wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavourful bits off the bottom.

Allow wine to reduce down by half, about 2 more minutes.

Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine.

Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste.

Allow to cook for 30 minutes.

Cook linguine.

Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.

Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in Parmesan.

Place lid on skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated. Add more cheese to taste.

Place cooked noodles on a plate and cover with sauce.

Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle more parsley.

Serve with a smile.

Battered Fried Fish

2009-11-05T15:29:00.001+04:00

I'm feeling too lazy to waste the afternoon on a blog post or two, so this is my attempt at being succinct. I achieved an amazing feat of epicurean prowess last night by seperating egg whites, then beating the whisking the whites until they formed "stiff peaks". I realise that peope who bake do this all the time, but for me it was a first, of which I am truly proud. I have achieved the next level.

The recipe itself was nothing like healthy, except that it was fish, but it definitely was tasty.

And yes, I forgot to take photos again.

The recipe from http://www.myrecipes.com/ is supposed to be for healthy baked fish - but my broken oven only allows me to make deep fried stuff, so the recipe is a little bit butchered to suit my needs.

Beer-Battered Fried Fish

Ingredients:

1 cup multi-purpose flour
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2/3 cup beer
2 large egg whites
2 cups of dried breadcrumbs
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
600g white fish flesh (supposedly cut into 1 inch strips, which I've just seen in the recipe now)

Take a big bowl, insert flour, pepper and salt.

Mix.

Insert beer.

Mix.

"Beat egg whites with a mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form."

"Gently fold egg white mixture into flour mixture." (Fancy hey?)

In a seperate shallow dish, mix breadcrumbs and parsley. (Note: I had just washed the parsley before I chopped it up, so it stuck together in clumps, which is not good, try to get it the parsley dry first)

Take a strip of fish, dip in flour mixture, then dredge in breadcrumb mixture.

Deep fry for a few minutes per piece of fish.

Note that fish cooks QUICKLY in hot oil, and I reckon you want the oil pretty hot. I was really sliding a piece of fish into the wok (wok used to use less oil), nipping outside, taking 2 drags of a cigarette, then a swig of beer, then back inside to flip the fish (I also only had enough oil to cover half the fish at any one time). Repeat the process for each piece of fish.

Serve with deep fried chips (once again, because the oven is broken), and a lemon wedge (important). Maybe in future I'll put a slice of cucumber and a lettuce leaf on the plate so there's at least some for veggie served (does tomato sauce count?).

Breakfast pancakes

2009-10-31T20:40:00.003+04:00

Right. So I do realise that a pancake recipe is nothing like the high-class gourmet cooking that gets a blog noticed. I will keep this in mind, and, one day, if I do find a recipe for something fancy that's actually achievable, I will let you know. But there's a key word there - achievable. Let's get things straight from the start - I'm a novice cook - as I write this, I am cooking a curry which involves browning the meat, adding the cook in sauce, and letting simmer. I check on my curry and its stuck to the bottom of the pot. This is the kind of cook I am. It's also the point of the blog as a whole - I like cooking, and slowly I'm getting better at it, and I'd like to take you on that adventure, and hopefully get you to cook better while you're reading it.

Perhaps I should explain a little - I'm 29. When I met my fantastic wife to be, I was deep inside being an architecture student, which I did for 7 years. That amount of time being a student prepares one for a life of cooking 2-minute noodles, and toast, and otherwise eating every kind of fast food available. Then, one day, I fell in love with this girl. Now, a couple of years later, I find that one of the two of us has to cook dinner every night, and to be fair, that makes it my turn once every 2 days. There's only so much toast you can eat, before you figure out how to cook sausage and mash.

Then I slowly figure out that its actually nice and relaxing to come home from a hard days work and dance around the kitchen for an hour. And that it's not too tough to make food that actually tastes like I know what I'm doing. And it's nice to try new stuff and learn to be good at something new.

Anyway, I digress. The point above is that this blog is for people who are just moving on from toast. And to show those folk, that the jump from toast to a "roast chicken with roast pumkin and baby spinach salad with slivered almonds and a honey and balsamic dressing", isn't actually such a big jump. And if I can do it, then pretty much anyone can.

Anyway, [ENOUGH STORY MUZZA, COOK SOME FOOD!!!]

I don't do baking. I know making pancakes isn't really baking - but to me, it involves sifting flour and fairly precise measurements, which makes it baking. Also I've never tried making pancakes before, and they seem to me like some exotic, hard-work, kind of breakfast food. But this morning I give it a try.

Firstly, I found a recipe for wholewheat pancakes with blueberry and maple syrup. But then I went shopping and obviously blueberries and maple syrup have never come anywhere near Mauritius. Same goes for wholewheat flour (OK, I lie, I didn't look for wholewheat flour). And I've been putting off making it since about Tuesday.

So this morning Vicki was pestering me about when the pancakes were going to cooked and I gave in. But I went for simplicity. I did a quick search and found a recipe at allrecipes.com/recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/ as follows:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
3.5 tspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
1 tbspn sugar
1.25 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbspn butter, melted (How the hell do you measure out butter tablespoons?!?!)

In a bowl (duh?) sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix together the milk, egg and melted butter. Make a well in the dry mixture, and pour in the wet mixture. Mix until smooth.

"Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium-high heat. Pour the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot."

I ended up making bigger pancakes (closer to 1/2 a cup of batter each), but otherwise they were great. Best topping we came up with in the moment was brown sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon, but you know you can top it with whatever the hell you like.

Quick, easy, cheap and tasty - all the criteria to remember a meal and use it again and again. And everybody (even the 3-year-old) thought they were great. Definitely one for the cookbook.

Things that aren't recipes - and steak for dinner

2009-10-30T08:42:00.004+04:00

I'm starting writing this entry with a few topics to write about, but none of them fleshed out in my mind. To summarise, I might end up writing about:

A healthy diet. What exactly does this mean and how do I plan to implement it in my daily life?
The Art and Science of the Braai Vleis. Its not actually that complicated, but there are quite a few techniques that make life easier.
I fell in love with a 700g, inch-thick, slab of Angus rump steak the other day. So tonight that is going to be braai'd, encrusted in pepper with a creamy mushroom sauce(no recipe yet), with grilled aurbergines (also no recipe yet) and baby potatoes in garlic butter and herbs (no recipe, but can probably be ad-libbed).

So what to write about?

...

[KingMuzza wanders off to the fridge and contemplates a beer]

...

OK, forget eating healthy. Lets talk about cooking meat.

...

Ah fuck it - I'll write something later.

...

[about 4 hours later]

...

Right, the braaivleis. So I got a hunch that the aubergine was going to be a disaster, so instead we're getting the same pumkin salad from the other night, and garlic and herb potatoes, plus the steak.

Tonight probably isn't a good night to talk about my health food plans for my family when I've got 700g of saturated fat and LDL cholesterol sitting next to me, waiting to be charred black for extra flavour.

Instead lets talk about fires. A chimney starter is a wonderful little gadget. It looks like a 5 litre paint tin, open on both ends, with a conical wire grill on the inside. You put a piece of firelighter (or scrunched up newspaper) under the cone, fill the top with charcoal, and apply flame. The design gets flames and oxygen to the coals much quicker than if they were in a little stack in the braai, and so they light far quicker. 10 minutes later (once its flaming nicely, if you leave it too long you'll find you've got no charcoal left) you tip it into the braai, spread the coals out into the desired shape, and top up with fresh coals if there's not enough. The new coals now light pretty quickly, mostly due to peer pressure.

Tonight the plan is to sear the steak by placing it directly over very hot coals for a few minutes, and then transfer it to indirect heat where its insides can cook slowly (Wifey doesn't understand why dripping juices from the middle of a steak is a good thing). At the same time, there's a tray of pumkin and potatoes, roasting on the indirect heat, they should be cooked by the time the steak moves to the indirect heat. The veggies need a lot longer to cook than the steak does, so they're already on, but hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.

To implement the above cooking plan, I've put a coal divider in the centre of the braai. I poured coals into one side, and have left the other side empty. You generally want a bed of coal 1 - 1.5 coals deep. Brickettes these days will burn evenly for a long time (as opposed to the natural type charcoal of my father's days, which burnt out really quickly). These days you can still cook something an hour or two after the braai is ready, although probably not perfectly.

[Kingmuzza jumps up to check the coal temperature]

Right, so conventional wisdom says that you should be able to hold you hand about 10cm above the coals for about 4 - 5 seconds, then the thing is ready for steak, or that the coals should be coated in a thin layer of grey ash. Now this is pretty relative - I have weenie hands (I work in an office, not on a farm), and it obviously depends on what you actually want to cook. Steak is easy because you want it to go onto a high heat and cook quickly (char the outside but leave the inside nice and juicy. I'm afraid it just comes down to experience.

On a sanitary note (assuming you're a beer-swilling male like myself) - once you've had raw meat sitting on a plate, that plate goes into the washing. Its really gross (and you'll catch a funky disease) if you put the cooked food back onto the same plate. Even if it does mean double the dirty dishes later.

Now - earlier I brushed the steak with a little oil, then coated it in a lot of salt and pepper. Everything takes on a braai flavour when it's cooked on a braai (who would have thought), so if you want any other flavour to shine through, then you need to make it strong. The oil helps to stop the steak sticking to the grill. Also, take the meat out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature before you chuck it on the fire, this means that it doesn't need to cook for as long to get the inside cooked to your liking (which means that the outside is nicely crisp and brown, and not the colour and taste of charcoal).

That said, the steak starts off sticking to the grill, and if you don't want to tear your meat apart you should leave it without moving it until its charred enough to no longer be stuck. You need to respect the steak, let it cook without your constant interference. I have a theory that when you see pink juices oozing through the top of the piece of meat, then its time to flip it (assuming medium-rare). I've yet to see any scientific studies to verify this though.

[Muzza checks his steak, flips it even though its still stuck to the grill]

Next you need to realise that direct heat cooking requires constant attention (Indirect cooking is pretty much fire-and-forget). So at some point you figure that the bit I wrote above about the meat not sticking to the grill might not work in every circumstance. In fact, I managed to turn it at just the right time - edges of a little blackness, and blackness on the grill marks, but otherwise a rich dark browny-red colour, and it wasn't torn to pieces at all by scraping it off the grill.

Personally, I recommend Seether, My Chemical Romance, Audioslave and Breaking Benjamin as perfect braai music, but each to their own.

I also lied about giving the steak any indirect heat time. I reckon after the second side has browned nicely then the meat is done. When you take a piece of meat off the braai you then need to let it sit somewhere warm and pleasant for 10 minutes. The meat relaxes, and the moisture which has been heading towards the centre of the meat during cooking, now edges back toward the crust. The meat also carries on cooking during this time (so avoid slicing it open to show the lady that its ready - she'll freak and make you cook it longer).

While the steak is resting and recovering from its ordeal, I made a mushroom sauce.

A big blob of butter
Half a tin of mushrooms, sliced. (We don't get fresh mushrooms in Mauritius)
Two cloves of garlic (roasted whole with the veggies, then crushed into the pan for the sauce)
A few sprigs of fresh thyme.
About a double shot of red wine
About 100ml of cream.

In a small pot, softly fry the butter, mushrooms, garlic and thyme.
Once the mushrooms are soft, butter has melted, and thyme smells delectable, add the wine.
Simmer slowly, reducing until the wine is almost gone.
Add the cream and again simmer slowly to reduce until you get the desired consistency.
Add some salt and pepper for good luck.

Serve over the steak, on a bed of garlic and herb potatoes, with a roasted pumkin and spinach salad as a side.

Mmmm, happy tummy once again.
Just a bit of a pity that I was so busy writing the bloody blog post that the steak was a bit overdone. Concentrate next time Muzza!

And I took photos so the blog starts to look like a real blog.

Potato and Chorizo Omelette

2009-10-28T13:12:00.001+04:00

Next on my fantastic two week cooking adventure was a Potato and Chorizo Omelette for breakfast. This is a Jamie Oliver recipe from http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/. Mine didn't turn out looking quite like Jamie Oliver's did, but it did taste pretty good - in an unusual sort of way. Will definitely eat it again, but probably not that often, and there may need to be some adjustments to the recipe.

3 small potatoes - cut into chunks
Salt and pepper
6 large eggs
Olive oil
120g Chorizo sausage, cut into 1cm thick slices
2 sprigs of Rosemary, leaves picked (I didn't ahve any, used fresh Thyme instead)
2 shallots, peeled and finely sliced (I used small onions, don't know what a shallot is)
Juice of 1 lemon (I used lemon juice because I'm lazy, this could have been one of my mistakes.)
More olive oil
Some flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and finely chopped (I just shredded some leaves, didn't chop them.)

Boil the potatoes until just tender.
Preheat the grill or oven to super hot.
Drain the potatoes, and let air dry for a little bit (while you slice the chorizo.)
Whisk the eggs.
Fry potatoes and chorizo in an oven-proof frying pan for a few minutes, until chorizo is sizzling and losing its fat, and the potatoes are taking on the chorizo colour. Remove all from the frying pan.
Drop the Rosemary leaves into frying pan, they sizzle and release aroma straight away.
Pour in the egg over.
Add the cooked chorizo and potatoes.
Place the frying pan under the grill or in the oven till the egg is cooked to your liking.

Meanwhile, mix the shallots with a dollop of olive oil and the lemon juice in a bowl, then mix in the parsely. Place in little piles on top of the completed omelette.

Serve and enjoy.

Not sure how much I love the recipe. It definitely wasn't bad, but had a bunch of really strong flavours (chorizos, onions, lemon juice). Also, the picture on the website shows the egg all fluffed up and souffle like, which mine wasn't. Maybe this could be resolved by whisking the eggs better, or maybe adding something to them to make them go frothy (I'm thinking baking powder, but at the same there's a voice inside me going, Murray, don't be an idoit).

In any case, it was a hearty breakfast, which completely hit the spot. One day I'll try again with some minor adjustments.

Okay, bye.

Paternity leave - Roasted Pumpkin Salad

2009-10-28T11:57:00.002+04:00

So 2 weeks paternity leave means I get 2 weeks to focus on my family's healthy eating for a bit. Of course I'm not getting nearly as much time off as I was expecting - a newborn baby and a three year old on school holidays, and a lovely lady who is in a fair bit of pain. But I am now in charge of the shopping and the cooking, so this blog might get a bit of attention as well.

We got home Monday afternoon, so Monday evening was nothing healthy at all. Fried fish cakes, fried sweetcorn fritters, and fried chips. Vicki was keen for fishcakes though, and after not eating proper food all weekend, I figured she could have what she liked. Just a pity that Jasmine poured her juice over the sweetcorn fritters as soon as I put them on the table, but orange juice flavoured fritters weren't actually that bad - just a little soggy.

Last night I got to try something nice though. I've also figured that, seeing as every time I look for a recipe and can never find it, I'm going to use this blog as my own personal recipe book for new things I try that taste good.

So last night - Roast Chicken with Roasted pumkin and baby spinach salad:
(and no, I still haven't started taking photos of the stuff I cook, maybe next time)

Pumkin Salad first:
Recipe came from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au

1.2 kg of pumkin, cut into 18mm thick slices
1 tbspn oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
40ml balsamic vineger
40ml olive oil
20ml honey
100g baby spinach leaves
75g toasted slivered almonds
100g feta

The recipe I was following said to roast the pumpkin in the oven, but first, my oven is broken, and second, I always roast chickens on the Weber, so I roasted the pumkin there too. I may have mentioned already that my life would not be the same without my Weber (kettle barbeque). I've got a fairly large charcoal one (because charcoal is clearly more authentic than a gas braai). As a normal (direct cooking) braai, it works fine, but its when you use it for roasting (indirect cooking) that it really comes into its own. I will do my best to write an in-depth analysis on the fine art of braai'ing on the weber sometime soon. For now let me just say - prepare the fire for indirect cooking.

Place slices of pumkin into a roasting pan, drizzle oil over and toss to coat.
Cut the tops of the garlic cloves and add to the roasting pan.
Roast (covered) for 20 minutes.
(Start preparing the chicken)
Take out the cloves of garlic and let cool.
Turn over the pumkin, and return to the fire for another 20 minutes.
I put the chicken in to cook now.

Once the pumkin is tender, remove from the fire and allow to cool.

Make the salad dressing as follows:
Squeeze the garlic out of its peel into a bowl and squash with a fork.
In a clean jam jar - add garlic, balsamic, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper.
Screw lid on tightly and shake well until combined.

Lay a bed of spinach onto the serving platter.
Top with roasted pumkin.
Sprinkle almond slivers over.

Just before serving - pour over the dressing and arrange blocks of feta on top.

I made way too much dressing, so its in the fridge, and I hope it'll still be good the next time I use it. This salad was absolutely delicious. I am definitely going to be making it again, probably the next time I have guests around for a braai. I also only used half the quantities shown above - because there were only 3 of us eating, but we polished the plate because it was so tasty.

Roast chicken is far simpler:

1 large roast chicken (so I can make chicken mayo panini's for lunch the next day)
1 large lemon
salt and pepper
oil for drizzling
Robertson's chicken spice (undoubtedly cheating, but they do make it well.)

Wash the chicken, especially the cavity.
Place lemon in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes, just to soften it and get the juices flowing.
While this is going on, coat the chicken with a bit of oil (got to get your hands dirty for this)
Then salt and pepper it.
Liberally shake chicken spice over the whole lot, getting the chicken completely coated.
Remove the lemon from it boiling pot, poke with a sharp knife a few times so that the lemon is leaking. Shove lemon up chicken's bum.

Place chicken on Weber, away from the coals. Cover, and cook for about an hour. The only way I know how to check if the chicken is cooked is to slice it open - try to do this deep into the chicken - where you would carve off the thigh works well. Juices should be clear. See my in-depth braai'ing guide for coal temperature and arranging the fire.

A Masterpiece.

Mango smoothies

2009-10-11T12:39:00.000+04:00

I like to keep Sunday mornings are as lazy as possible. Fried breakfast at about lunchtime; trying to get the bloody pool to stop being green before summer hits us hard; dancing to hard rock tunes from my hayday with a 3 year old (if you haven't listened to Seether, you must search them out.)

So Vicki was making scrambled eggs and toast, and I got to work on something to complement it. Mango's are pretty expensive, but there was whole shelf of nice ripe ones at the supermarket yesterday, so I dug in. Also I meant to make smoothies last weekend, but couldn't find any decent fruit, so I had a tub of yoghurt sitting in the fridge waiting to go sour.

So ...

5 small mangos, skinned and chopped into little bits (the messy and unpleasant part)
1 ice tray of ice, crushed
About 400ml of plain yoghurt
A table spoon of honey.
Blend until smooth.
Enjoy, with scrambled eggs and toast.

Smoothies are a great addition to my recipe box. They can be ad-libbed from whatever fruit you can find, and only take a stock of plain yoghurt in the fridge and some honey. You vary the amount of honey depending on how much of a sweet tooth you've got. Don't use sugar as a subsitute because it doesn't blend properly, so you get little granuales of sugar in you drink. Make a judgement call on how sweet the fruit is before you add the honey - mangoes and bananas are nice and sweet and don't need too much honey, strawberries are pretty tart and so need a little help.

You can also combine fruits (strawberries and bananas for example) to sort out the sweetness issue. This also bulks it up a bit, as strawberries are expensive for a little punnet of the things, and bananas are stupidly cheap for as much as you can eat.

Still haven't figured out what to do about with that steak tonight.

Ok, enough sitting in front of the computer. To the beach!!!

Happy Tummy

2009-10-10T20:04:00.000+04:00

Last week I was particularly experimental with my cooking. I think I tried a new recipe every time I cooked. It all started off pretty well - I got a nice bell pepper and beef stir-fry; an absolute winner of a veggie soup; and something else that I can't remember. But then on Tuesday I found a recipe for a veggie stew, which I made a great big batch of, and it turned out to be completely tasteless and inedible. My confidence was shattered; we had baked beans on toast for supper; and I didn't cook for another 3 days. The wife was really supportive about the whole thing - shoulder to cry on, etc. - and kept telling me how tasty the other experiments had been recently. But that was when I was distraught, then this morning we were working out what we would eat for the week, and she was a little too quick in coming up with old favourites for me to cook - thereby not letting me tying my hands in terms of coming up with something fantastic and new.

Nevertheless, I managed to sneak one in. Its not really new, but last time I had a recipe to follow. Tonight the munchkin was camped in front of her Fairytopia DVD, and so daddy had no chance to search the internet for a recipe. So I freehanded it:

Saturday nights are typically braai night in our house (that's a barbeque with South African heritage and culture attached). On the menu tonight was Honey and Mustard chicken skewers. I rock.

Ingredients:

Chicken breasts
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp mayonaise
1 1/2 tbsp honey
Salt and Pepper
A little cream to make the sauce a bit runnier.

Mix together everything and pour over the chicken breasts.
Marinate for about 2 hours.
Slice up chicken into bit sized pieces and thread them onto skewers.
Barbeque, turning occassionally.
Ahhh, perfection.

Wifey made a salad to go with it. And now we're both chillin' in front of our computers with very happy tummy's (the Munchkin has so far slept through the whole thing.) Brett Dennan and Joe Purdy sing sweetly over Last.fm. This is what Saturday nights are all about.

Simple food to get my confidence back. Using lots of sauce made it really tasteful. Also used big metal skewers, so that each of us had 2 skewers and a big mound of salad, and I have absolutely had elegant sufficiency. The art of the braai is also really relaxing when done properly. If you're trying to do too much it can be quite a source of stress, but only 5 chicken skewers leaves more than enough time to concentrate on getting the food right. The secret is generally to not rush it - wait until the coals are the right temperature (properly covered in grey ash, with no flames anywhere); allow the meat a chance to sit on the grill before turning it (if its caramelised / crispy then it doesn't stick to the grill and have bits torn off); and seeing as the coals are cool enough, the chicken can have a chance to cook through properly without getting charred on the outside.

Tomorrow we're going to a friends house for another braai, and relaxing afternoon on the beach. So I need to find a nice steak recipe. Man, I love the weekend.

Note to self: If I'm going to write a cooking blog, I need to start taking photos of the food before it's all eaten.

The Architecture of Mauritius

2009-10-04T21:22:00.003+04:00

So this morning I outlined a number of goals that this blog could be working towards. Tonight, I'd like to take one of those goals and flesh it out a bit more.

Nearly a year ago, my family and I moved to Mauritius. Not long after arriving the seed of an idea started germinating in my head that went something like the following:

The architecture of Mauritius can be broken down into many (many, many) sub-categories. By examining, analysing, and reporting on these categories, we can gain an understanding of various themes that lie both within and outside the field of architecture.

For example:

Colonial Architecture. Mauritius has been both a French and an English colony. Much of the countryside is made up of sugar plantations, and most of these plantations still have colonial houses as their centrepiece. The act of researching these plantation houses will necessarily involve a chronology of 18th and 19th century history of the island - its significant actors; french colonists and their continuing political and cultural influence on the island; imported technology and style from Europe and how (if?) this was translated into the regional context. A discussion on Mauritian colonial architecture can also undoubtedly be linked to other colonial architecture of the time - especially that around the Indian Ocean Rim (South and East Africa; India / Sri Lanka; Singapore/Malaysia; Australia). A comparison between the colonial architecture of these places(and perhaps more in-depth, the colonial heritage of these places) is where the key pieces of understanding are to be found.
Construction Technology. The dominant construction technology in Mauritius is one of reinforced concrete framed structures, with concrete block in-fill panels. Even the pitched roofs tend to be concrete cast in-situ. A discussion on this leads directly into the practicalities of constructing buildings in cyclone-prone areas. Are there other forms of construction that would stand up to the same conditions? What exactly is required for a building to stand up to cyclone force winds? What of those building elements which are not built of concrete (cyclone shutters are the norm on almost every building)? How do other parts of the world deal with the same problem?
Tourist Architecture. Aside from sugar and tea, Mauritius earns a large portion of its GDP from international tourism. Tourists come here for 5-star hotels with idyllic private beaches and apparently world class service excellence. The first two issues which need discussion on this topic are (1) the importing of architectural "styles" to fit with the branding / marketing direction of the hotels, and (2) how the hotels and resorts affect those of us who aren't actually tourists (dude, where's my beach?). A discussion on the first issue will always be an argument between corporate marketing departments, who necessarily have to make money, and academic regionalists, who believe that the architecture should speak to the cultural heritage of the specific place. Mauritius is not Bali, but Bali is what many visitors to the island will experience. To talk about the second issue needs a new chapter:
Spatial Planning. I've read before that Mauritius has one of the highest population densities in the world. This is clearly evident in the urban centres such as Port Louis, and the Quatre Borne/ Vacoas/ Rose Hill conurbation. These towns are packed full of people, with each building covering as much of its site as practical, and then quickly spreading upwards. Academics (as well as people who live in these cities) will tell you of the advantages of being within walking distance of the amenities that urban areas have to offer; of the advantages of reduced infrastructure cost due to concentrating more development into each unit area of infrastructure; and other stuff which I can't think of right now. However, outside these urban areas are vast rural lands - sugarcane farming in the central and northern regions, and tea farming in the south. These rural areas are dotted with fairly closely spaced villages and towns, reminiscent of English country villages. The villages are built up as islands in the sugarcane, typically with a congested high street with residential streets radiating off from them. Clearly most of these villages came into being before motorised transport was available on the island.

Anyway, the above is a brief introduction to the book I'd love to write on the Architecture of Mauritius. There is much more to be fleshed out, but more importantly, I think, is that there is much research to be done. The idea is that, if I do find time to get into the research, then I will blog the book portions at a time, as it gets written - both for critical comment, and to drum up interest in the subject.

We'll see if life's hectic schedule will allow me to put in the required time.

The experiment

2009-10-04T10:46:00.004+04:00

Okay, so maybe writing a cookery lesson as my initial blog was not the sure-fire way to fame and fortune that I thought it might be - but it did at least get me writing. But for anything to come of this exercise, it needs a purpose.

So ... Goals:

Many people use blogs for personal branding. To sell myself as something. But what something?

I am a young architect, interested in sustainable design, but also with the practicalities of the the construction project, and the business of property development.

I enjoy cooking, and have been steadily increasing my repetoire and skill level recently. I reckon my experience would be helpful for other beginner cooks to get into the swing of things. I also have a relatively new family, and so I'm slowly trying to change our eating habits from the fast food of our student days to something healthier.

I garden a bit, but only a bit, and maybe if I were to write about gardening it would fit better into a discussion either on architecture (landscape design, and important finishing touches to a project), or on cooking (so far I only actually grow some herbs and vegetables, specifically so that I have these things on hand when I need them in a recipe).

To just blog about life in general seems like the lamest option. KingMuzza the renaissance man - cooking and gardening and looking after the family, while designing high-class hotels on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Might be interesting, but with all the information streaming over the web, why would anybody want to read that? After all, I do have Facebook for communicating with friends and family.

The advantage to writing a personal journal of life is that it is writing practice. It could be the first steps / experiments / exercises in book writing. Being a novelist one day in the distance future is a romantic option, but its like I have any ideas for novels. I do have at least 2 books festering in the back of mind which are architecture related -

An in-depth study into the architectural history of Mauritius - and a reading into the culture and history of the country through its architecture.
A discussion / best-practice guide on the everyday life of getting a quality building produced.

Further, a blog is a practice exercise / first step towards producing fully-fledged web-pages. Vicki (the future wife) is busy opening a scrapbooking shop, and with it wants to set up a web page - for marketing / a community of scrapbookers to exchange ideas and be integral to the running of the physical space shop / and a future mail-order shop. The idea is that getting this blog online and functional is a test case (content management, marketing of a blog, i'm not sure what else) - so that one day when I do set up Vicki's page, I can effectively market it straight away, without the expected teething problems.

Perhaps all these ideas will require more than one blog, but more likely the ideas can now be filtered down to their essentials and get this blog producing something of value.

As an aside - I haven't figured out yet how to make the blog visible. I tried searching Google and Delicious after writing my first post, but I couldn't find any sign of it. This might take some research / experiments.

Veggie Soup

2009-10-02T20:51:00.006+04:00

My sneaky plan to get my family to eat healthier culminated tonight in a vegetable soup. I've never tried making soup before, but my cooking skills have been getting better. I stumbled on this recipe at Mealsmatter.org - for Italian Bean & Grain soup. Shopping in Mauritius can be tough - there's really not that much variety in the shops, and I thought I'd be able to find everything in the recipe, so tonight I gave it a try.

Ingredients:

Olive oil for frying
Some carrots - finely chopped
Some onions - finely chopped
Some celery - finely chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
a handful of fresh basil - finely chopped
1 clove garlic - minced.
1 can of tomatoes (undrained)
4 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of Farro or pearl barley
1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed
Freshly ground black pepper
Some grated Parmesan

Preparation

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, garlic, herbs. Cook for a little bit (3 - 4 minutes) until things start to soften.
Add tomatoes and stock.
Increase heat and bring to a boil.
Add barley and beans, and season with pepper.
Once it returns to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes - until the barley is soft.
Sprinkle each serving with cheese and serve with a bread roll.

I'm impressed. My mother used to make veggie soup when I was a kid, and this tasted exactly like that. Of course, I am a very amateur chef, and so I forgot to put the garlic in until I added the beans. Also I couldn't find pearl barley - so I tried it with durum wheat (which I've also never eaten) - but that turned out to work perfectly. I think durum wheat (or perhaps pearl barley) is the secret ingredient to make vegetable soup taste like its supposed to. It also helps bulk up the meal enough that one helping of soup and I was done. Oh, and I don't know what Cannellini beans are - so I bought a tin that said "Haricots Blanc" (white beans).

The plan is to get us to eat vegetable full vegetarian meal about once a week. I say vegetable full, because mac'n'cheese hardly counts towards boosting our nutrition. The problem is the perception that vegetarian food isn't going to fill the tummy, or taste good. I proved both counts wrong last week with a potato and chickpea curry, and tonight with this veggie soup.

Stoked.

And I wrote my first blog post - 2 gold stars for KingMuzza. Now, on to the weekend...