TOPICS: autumn fruit and vegetables, cooler weather salads, salad dressings, setting up as a  small food producer, danger dogs, grapes

PRESENTERS:   sister T & sister Bernadette of the miraculous muscatel

GUEST : Amanda Bannatyne, salad queen and proprietor of Mullumbimby Magic Foods

SISTER RASELA’S MORSELS

This weeks morsels  highlighted the DANGER of the DOG!!!… the hot dog that is.. and all other nitrite and nitrate containing cured and processed meats.. and root veges due to commercial fertilizer use. Also the connection between these toxins, linked diseases, and fast foods.

GUEST RECIPES : from Amanda

WARM POTATO SALAD

Ingredients:

Firm potatoes (my favourite are kipfler)

Red onion

Capers

Handful of Italian parsley

Hard-boiled free-range eggs (optional)

DRESSING

Good quality mayonnaise (I like Norganic)

Mullumbimby Magic Classic Salad Dressing

(Mix enough salad dressing with mayo to make it the consistency of thick cream).

1.    Scrub potatoes (peel if really dirty) and simmer until tender. Drain and cool slightly.

2.    Place finely sliced red onion, chopped parsley and some capers in the bottom of your salad bowl.

3.    Mix together several spoons of mayo and a good slug of Mullumbimby Magic Classic Salad Dressing and add to bowl.

4.    Slice (or quarter) warm potato into bite-sized pieces. Add to bowl and gently toss through dressing.

5.    Dice a couple of eggs if that’s your thing, and fold through gently.

6.    Garnish with a little extra chopped parsley.

ROAST BEETROOT, FETA AND ROCKET SALAD

Ingredients:

*Bunch of baby beets or 2 medium beetroot (scrubbed and trimmed)

Juice of 1 lemon

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Feta (cow or goat milk)

Rocket (washed and dried)

1.   Quarter beets (if large) and put in a small baking dish.

2.    Squeeze over lemon and drizzle with olive oil.

3.    Season and mix around.

4.    Roast 30-45 minutes or until tender. Cool.

5.    Place warm beetroot and any juices in salad bowl.

6.    Toss through a handful of rocket for each person and crumble over some fetta.

7.    Drizzle with a little more olive oil.

*The beetroot can be replaced by sweet roast pumpkin chunks if you wish.

SISTER T’S SERMON – ‘THE GLORY OF THE GRAPE’

Sister B of the miraculous muscatel, sister Amanda, dearly beloved listener, let us celebrate the glory of the grape.  Grapes tend to turn up in our shops all year, as they are grown in every Australian state and harvested from October in Northern Queensland to May in Tasmania, but the local harvest is from January to March mostly, so now is the time to enjoy them.  Grapes are an ancient fruit.  The main cultivated grape ancestor was a wild vine from the southern shores of the Caspian and the Black sea, vitis vinifera, it has been grown for food and drink since ancient times.  There are paintings of fat grapes on trellises in Egyptian tombs from 4 and a half thousand years ago.  The Romans loved the grape and took it around their empire.  One big use of grapes was as a sweetener, before our modern sugars became available, They were concentrated to different degrees as syrups.The Turks and Arabs still make grape syrups, called pekmez or dibs.  They might be worth searching out if you are a fan of the Italian vin cotto, which is also a concentrated grape juice, currently trendy and very expensive.  Of course a lot of preserves and mixed juices still use grape juice as a sweetener.  Sour verjuice is also ancient, made from unripe grapes and  popular before the mass production of vinegars.
There are native grapevines in every continent except Australia and Antartica, and they have been interbred over the centuries so that now there are more than 8000 varieties of grapes, but less than 100 are commercially important,and many are wine grapes.  Which are delicious usually, intense in flavour, just more work to eat.  Most of our table grapes now have fat seedless raisins.
If you would like to enjoy 2 great fruits of autumn go to the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival in Stanthorpe,  just west of most of us, north of Tenterfield in the granite belt winemaking region.  It’s on this friday, Saturday and sunday, with a  Gala Ball, Wine Fiesta, Grand Parade, Queensland Grape Crushing Championships,  Fireworks,  Multicultural Music Festival, markets, an apple peeling competition, fruit packing competition and  lantern parade.

Apple & Grape Harvest Festival – Home

Or just enjoy grapes while they are at their peak – on a cheese platter of course
on tarts, in fruit salads, but there are many interesting grape recipes.  You can make a layer of grapes in a baking dish, top them with mascarpone, panna cotta or creme caramel mix, set then caramelise sugar on top for a grape brulee.  Or make grape jam or a savoury sauce to use with pork.  Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer have lots of grape recipes, like sago cooked with red grape juice, a traditional Barossa German dish; white gazpacho, with almonds and white grapes; chicken stuffed with grapes, roasted and served with a sauce of the pan juices and more grapes; grape bread, and upside down grape cake.  Grapes go well with liver and liver pates.  You can also preserve grapes in spirit,pickle or candy them. Try Israeli grape soup or Armenian grape paste. Or just toss them into a salad, they are great with sharp flavoured leaves.
Thus endeth sister T’s grape sermon.

* a lot of the historical information is from the wonderful (and huge) “The Oxford Companion to Food” Alan Davidson – ed

EDIBLE QUOTE:

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”
Luciano Pavarotti, My Own Story

CONTACTS:

www.belly.net.au – our new website, check it out

or email us on belly@belly.net.au

To get information if you are starting out as a local food producer, Amanda recommends:

Lois Kelly, Regional Coordinator, Northern Rivers Food

Regional Development Australia – Northern Rivers

Ph: +61 02 6622 4011      Mob: 0432 476 926        Fax: +61 02 6621 4609

Email: food@rdanorthernrivers.org.au

www.foodstandards.gov.au – for hygiene, packaging, etc.

www.mullumbimbymagicfoods.com.au – to contact Amanda