Tomato & Barley Soup

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

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

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

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

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.