Tag Archives: kale

Hommous love affair & March flavours

Today on belly Amir Zikhron from Baraka Foods took us on a journey around the hommous restaurants of Israel, and encouraged us to be a lot more adventurous with how we eat hommous.  Sister T and Sister D explored some great fruit and veg in season in March, as we enjoy a beautiful start to autumn with plenty of ripe tomatoes, eggplant, and other fruit and fruity vegetables.  Sister T and bayfm listener Melissa make the best ever dragonfruit granita.  Kale is everywhere, from Hollywood to Paris to New Brighton.  And Karin Ochsner shares her enthusiasm for Co-op Kulcha, the food coop on the Byron Arts and Industry Estate that is already 11 months old.

 

CO-OP KULCHA

 

coop kulcha 1

 

To find out a whole lot about Kulcha Jam and Co-op Kulcha, check out http://www.kulchajam.org/

Or listen to this interview, recorded last week at the end of another day at co-op Kulcha, with Sister T and Karin

The coop is going well, but they need more volunteers, especially if you are available on a Thursday.  And it sounds like a great place to pick up new skills and meet interesting people, not just a way to lower your food bills.

 

coop kulcha part 1

 

coop kulcha part 2

 

FROM THE BELLY LAB – MELISSA'S GRANITA : PEPPER, LIME & DRAGONFRUIT RECIPE
[recipe by Tess Corino aka Sister Tess]

We invented this granita walking around the New Brighton Farmers Market on a hot morning in late February.  It turned out even better than we hoped.  Make sure you taste it before you freeze it, and maybe as it starts to freeze, to make sure you have a good balance of sweet/sour/spicy.  White dragonfruit can be a bit bland but this combination brings it to life, or at least it provides a very decorative background to the other flavours.

1/2 cup sugar
2 large white dragonfruit
fresh (as in just off the vine) peppercorns to taste
juice of 2-4 limes to taste

Make a sugar syrup by melting the sugar (or less if your fruit is sweet or you just want a less sweet granita) in one cup of water over medium heat.  Cool.

Peel and mash the dragonfruit by hand, with a fork or maybe a potato masher, so as to retain the black seeds.  This will give you a beautiful white granita speckled with white just like the original fruit.

Grind the peppercorns well with a mortar and pestle.  In season (just finishing) you can find fresh pepper at some of our farmers markets, or try frozen or fresh in Asian food stores.  They keep well frozen at home too.

Mix together, don't add all of the syrup and of the lime juice at once in case you need to adjust for taste.  If you aren't sure of the amount of pepper, you can always add a little on top of each serving, or serve it separately.

Pour into a wide, metal or ceramic container that fits flat in your freezer.  Mix and later scrape with a fork as it freezes until it is a uniform grainy (granita) consistency.
Cover, keep frozen.  Use within a day or two as a light dessert or refreshing snack on a hot day.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

The Conversation is a website that promises "academic rigour, journalistic flair".  Check out an article by Professor John Mathews of Macquarie Uni, called "Tomatoes watered by the sea".  As any gardener would know, salt water isn't very good for most plants.  But in South Australia a company is experimenting an integrated system for growing vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouses, powered by the sun and sea water.  A solar plant desalinates the water and provides electricity for heating and cooling.  Integrating all the elements means that the whole system is much more efficient.  It is a possible solution for providing fresh vegetables in remote, coastal but arid areas of the world.  Both the use of greenhouses and the dry and  distant locations mean that minimal pesticides can be used.  See theconversation.com

 

And on modern trends…This has probably been happening here for a long time, but I've never seen it.  My friend Paul's niece Casey works in a Sydney cafe, and is seeing many young  Asian clients who order by calling up images their friends have
taken on Instagram and such social media sites of go-to dishes and pointing to them without looking at the menu.

 

Northern Rivers Food is looking for a volunteer Marketing, Communications and Events Intern at Northern Rivers Food  1-2 days per week for three months.
The successful applicant will gain valuable exposure to many of the Northern Rivers Food networks.  Email info@northernriversfood.org.au
Northern Rivers Foods, in its regular newsletter, also notes that the Telstra Business awards are now open for nomination, so if you have a favourite food business in the area, why not nominate them and give them a chance at lots of publicity and prizes.  And bring attention to our whole area.  Meantime congratulations to macadamia producer Brookfarm for winning Silver at Royal Melbourne Fine Foods Awards for their Toasted Muesli.  And to our own bellysister Ilias the Greek who, quote "set the Canberra foodies on fire with a series of  cooking demonstrations as part of the recent Canberra Food and Wine Expo".

The Harvest Festival, planned for this autumn to showcase and celebrate some of our wonderful food producers, has been cancelled for this year as the organisers, being food producers themselves, just have too much on to co-ordinate all the satellite events.  So the inaugural Harvest Festival, a week of farm tours, lunches, dinners and more, will happen in Autumn next year.  If you are interested in participating, check out the article by Michael Dlask of Salumi Australia on the December 2 belly post.

 

MORE COMING

 

 

 

Green September Alchemy

more coming, but recipes & links from today below:

 

GREEN IS GOOD – by Miss September

The month of green and what better recipe to have is Salsa Verde.  Add lemons as much as possible to reduce those gluts.

Indulge in blood oranges they are so good.

Salsa Verde means in Italian “green sauce”. Drizzle it over meat, fish or just a platter of seasonal vegetables it is great. It also has flexibility in the ingredients so you can use up left overs in the fridge to create it.

Basically the best combination is parsley, mint and basil but I often add fennel leaves and spinach and celery. If you have some anchovies in the fridge add a few of these. You can add as much garlic as you like but be careful to balance this so you can taste the freshness of your herbs and their own distinct flavor.

 

Recipes Alison Drover , Fork in the Field

 

SALSA VERDE

 

• 2 shallots, finely diced and soaked in a tablespoon of red wine vinegar for 30 minutes

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp small capers

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

• 1/3 cup chopped chives

• 1/3 cup mint leaves

• extra virgin olive oil

• 1 lemon zested.

 

Put all green items in the blender add lemon juice and olive oil and blend together. If you sauce is a little thick add a few tables spoons of warm water and test as you go. A salsa verde should be smooth and tangy but not too much garlic.

 

KALE & BANANA SMOOTHIE

 

Serves 2

• 2 cups milk

• 6 kale leaves, removed from the center stalk

• 2 frozen bananas or whatever you have available

• 2 tablespoons honey

• Cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon tahini or peanut butter if you have this left over

• parsley – about 3 tablespoons

 

Add kale and milk to the blender, and blend until there are no large bits of kale. Add banana and honey, and all other ingredients blend until smooth.

 

PRIMAVERA SALAD WITH SALSA VERDE

 

• 4 blood oranges – cut of the top and bottom take off the peel by slicing from the top down and going around the orange so that you keep the round shape but remove the white pith. Cut the orange across ways so you have even slices

• 10 kiplfler potatoes – cooked so they can be leftovers from a meal

• Bunch of rocket

• Fennel bulb washed and then remove the green stalk and fronds and slice finely so they are like shavings

• 1 lemon zested finely over the salad

• 1 /2 cup pecans or macadamias

Additions: add other green that you may have left over or growing watercress, radicchio

Take a large platter slice potatoes across ways but randomly so you have different textures in the salad. Add your greens ie rocket, top with fennel and the zest lemon over the salad. Arrange your slices of orange over the salad.

Scatter pecans or your choice of nuts over the salad.

Drizzle salad with salsa verde or serve on the side

 

ASPARAGUS WITH CODDLED EGGS

If asparagus is not ready wait for this one until late September

Tip – excuse the pun have everything ready as to go as fresh is best

 

2 pots of boiling water one for eggs and one for asparagus. The eggs form the basis of your warm dressing so you need to be organized.

 

• 60ml vinegar –

• 8 large organic or free range eggs

• 80ml extra virgin olive oil – local is best

• 16 pieces of asparagus

• salt pepper

• lemon thyme

 

Pop eggs into the water for 4 minutes only. You want the eggs to be runny inside but white on the outside. Take a clean tea towel and scoop out the content of the egg into a bowl. This is going to be your dressing. Add the anchovy dressing and then drizzle in the oil and salt and pepper.

Cook your asparagus in the boiling water for about 5 minutes and then check it. It should be firm but not crunchy otherwise too acidic.

Remove asparagus from the water and place in bowl otherwise they keep on cooking in the hot water.

Take asparagus arrange on a platter drizzle with your egg dressing and then grate your lemon zest over it.

Yum!

 

BELLY BULLETIN

The month of October will be filled with a mass of food events all over NSW, part of the Crave food festival. Many are in Sydney, but quite a few will be held in regional NSW. Go to www.cravesydney.com for full details but here are a few that caught my eyes.

October 14; 5.30-9am – Breakfast on Bondi beach as the sun comes up with thousands of other toast lovers. The music is free – A dawn welcome followed by a full orchestra and soprano Lorina Gore – principal artist for Opera Australia. BYO breakfast, pre-purchase or buy it from surf-side food stalls.

Locally, Byron at Byron chef Gavin Hughes is leading free tours of the Byron Farmers Market. Learn how to select and cook your produce. Since arriving in Byron in 2003 Gavin has been a passionate advocate for the region’s produce and its creators. The tour meeting point is at the Northern entrance to the market, closest to the Police station at 8am. No bookings required. Every Thursday in October, 8 to 9 am.

Sample – A Taste Of Northern NSW  – Local growers, producers and chefs from the whole region will gather at the Bangalow showground for 12 hours of local flavours. There will be tasting plates from more than 30 restaurants, more than 100 local exhibitors, live music, celebrity cooking demonstrations and more – Saturday October 6; 8am-8pm

If you haven’t had enough of tasty food writers at the Byron Writers Festival & belly lately, check out Food & Words, a one day food writers’ festival at  The Mint, Macquarie Street, Sydney October 13, 10am-4.30pm

Advertised as ‘the crema of the Australian food writing community getting together for a lively day of discussion and debate on all things to do with food and words (and quality writing, domesticity, sustainability, history, cooking and more).’  Half of the writers seem to be from this area, and the festival is put together by writer, journalist, & member of the extreme cheesemakers’ club Barbara Sweeney, so it should be good.

The program includes :

Charlotte Wood on oysters,

Belinda Jeffery on the zen of baking,

Gay Bilson on the question of How Much Food Does a Man Need?

Mungo MacCallum on how, where and why to picnic

Chef Alex Herbert and Publisher Catherine Milne on what goes into creating a cookbook ;

Librarian Simon Cootes on quirky cooking and food ephemera from State Library of NSW.

Dee Nolan on food on the road, Laila Ellmoos on fruit and nut stalls

Ewan McEoin on big ideas/small producers

For lunch, you have the choice of bringing your own picnic or ordering a packed picnic ($40) when you purchase your ticket. Full day ticket $155 (includes morning/afternoon tea)

 

If you have been disappointed at the recent local elections, maybe you need to learn from Barack Obama & just seduce the voters with your home brewed beer. More than 12,000 people signed a petition asking for the White House’s special brew on the “We the People” page of the White House web site, which is dedicated to grassroots petitions. Mr Obama has been taking the beer with him on the campaign trail. According to ABC online, people will vote for the person they would most like to have a beer with. Or maybe that’s just journalists.  The beer is made with honey “tapped from the first ever bee-hive” in the White House garden.  Go to the  the White House blog for the complete recipes & brewing video .

Have you ever eaten pigeon? Young ones turn up as ‘squab’ on restaurant menus.  They have been part of the diet in Southern Europe & North Africa for many centuries.  Disappearing now as a food, possibly because of health concerns, or just squeamishness.   A provincial official in Argentina has been suspended over his proposal to feed children pigeon meat to counteract a surge in the bird population.Oscar De Allende, an official at the local environment ministry responsible for wildlife, was suspended over his “controversial statements on pigeon consumption,” Cordoba governor Jose Manuel de la Sota said in a statement. Earlier this week Mr De Allende proposed that Paicor, a government program for distributing food and clothing to poor students, serve pigeon meat at public schools. “We estimate we have 600 million (pigeons) in Cordoba,” Mr De Allende told a local radio station. “Let’s consider that pigeons are an abundant resource, not a pest.  The woodpigeon “columba palumbus’ is the largest & best to eat according to the Oxford Companion to Food.  A bit fatter than the regular pigeons.

 

 

 

 

tree cabbages and food forests

On air on Byron Bay community radio bayfm 99.9 on May 14, 2012

Today belly was all about bio-diversity, about getting down and dirty and protecting our food supplies, and sharing our knowledge. And enjoying the delicious fruits of our labours of course. Shortly Jude Fanton, director of Seedsavers, told us about food networks they recently visited in New Zealand, Europe and Malaysia. Portuguese cabbage forests and monkeys that help make our fruit more delicious, among other stories. Then Suveran Dewsnap, head gardener at Starseed, talked about his dream of edible food forests, eating weeds, and adapting to our environment. To finish the show, two more wonderful artists from the very tasty food themed exhibitions at the Ballina Community Gallery.

 

FRESH REPORT : persimmons finishing, strawberries starting, lots of mandarins, dragonfruit, passionfruit
mint & fresh young ginger -maybe time for healthy  cold busting juices.  Week 3 markets include Mullumbimby this Saturday, Uki and Nimbin on Sunday.

 

SEEDSAVERS ON TOUR


Jude Fanton  is director with husband Michel of Seedsavers, founded in Byron Bay in 1986 to protect non-hybrid,traditional seeds and plant varieties, and to set up and assist non-profit seed networks and exchanges, here and abroad. These days they travel a lot, learning and teaching ways to protect biodiversity with like minded people all over the world. Their latest journey was to New Zealand, and last summer they travelled in Portugal, Spain, France and Malaysia. There are more than 700 videos of their travels, and lots of seedsaving advice, on the Seedsavers YouTube channel here.

 

Listen to the Seedsavers travels in Europe and Malaysia

 

listen to Jude Fanton’s New Zealand travels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALDO VERDE RECIPE

 

Jude spoke about caldo verde, the Portuguese national soup, or even national dish.  It means green soup, and is based on cabbage, preferably kale (or Portuguese tree cabbages).   Even if you can’t get hold of any tree cabbages, kale is pretty easy to get now (at least if you are lucky enough to live around here).  Just soften some chopped onion in olive oil, then add chopped garlic.  Then potatoes and stock or water.  If you like meat, traditionally some chorizo sausage goes in now, and some towards the end.  Cook until the potatoes are almost ready and falling apart, whizz the soup smooth if you prefer, then add lots of finely shredded kale and more chorizo.  The kale should still keep a bit of texture, not be really soft.  You can also add herbs like mint and parsley towards the end of cooking.

 

FOOD FORESTS

 

Suveran Dewsnap is head gardener at Starseed Gardens , a non profit organisation with all sorts of interesting projects, on among others, bio-char, aquaculture, hemp, and his passion for many years now, food forests.

 

Listen to Suveran on belly

 

Starseed Gardens will have workshops on planting a food forest , in Byron Bay in June.  This is what Suveran says about the importance of food forests.

“The beauty of food forests, in my view, is not just that they provide a variety of produce on an ongoing basis, when established, but, more importantly, as a permanent resource ( as opposed to annual cropping ). They are an ongoing propagation resource base that would be so vital in the event of a food supply crisis, with most tropical and subtropical perennial staples being easily reproduced by cuttings and tubers (sweet potato, cassava, Taro, Arrowroot and yam ) or abundant seed (as in the case of perennial legumes such as Lima beans ) Thus with some collaboration and a local knowledge base communities around the shire would be able to provide themselves with abundant food, relatively quickly. This, in my view, is the essence of food security. In the event of a natural disaster or disruption to the transport system there is probably no more than 2-3 days food on the supermarket shelves, and so, in an increasingly uncertain world, I now feel a sense of urgency to share the knowledge I have accumulated, and will be running a series of workshops around the country over the next 12 months, starting at Starseed gardens on the 1st-3rd of June. This workshop will cover various strategies for achieving a secure locally produced food supply including perennial food crops, the development of a food forest network across the shire, edible weeds, community collaboration, planting hardy plants for winter and preparing the ground for spring planting, followed by a comprehensive food forest planting workshop from August 31st to Sep 2nd which will include a range of seeds and cuttings to begin creating other food forests throughout the district.”

 

RECIPE – TARO WITH MISO AND TOFU, from Suvi

adapted from a recipe on www.justhungry.com

 

Suveran brought a bag of taro roots – some to plant, some to eat.  Lucky subscriber Bridget, who won them, is attempting to goat-proof a spot for the taro patch.  He suggests this recipe.  You can buy taro easily in local shops and markets.

 

5 or 6 smallish peeled taro roots

1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled

1 cup Japanese dashi stock or water

2 tbs white miso paste

1 tbs soy sauce

1/2  tbs raw sugar

 

Cut the taro into chunks.  Bring to a boil taro, dashi or water, tofu and sugar.  Cook on medium heat until almost all liquid is gone, then add the soy sauce and the miso (thinned to liquid consistency with a little water).  Simmer on low heat for a few minutes.  Serve hot or cold.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

Coming up this Thursday 17th & all weekend, the Noosa International Food Festival, chefs from all over Australia, Hong Kong and Turin, lots of good music.    On the June long weekend ABC Delicious magazine is organising a Byron Bay gourmet extravaganza, lots of visits to local producers and restaurants. ( See here) They both sound good if you have a fair bit of cash to spare.

On in Ballina right now and  free :

From Wednesday 2 May – 27 May 2012  (from the Gallery website)

“Table Manners: a spectacular installation of handmade ceramic dinnerware by ceramic artists Suvira McDonald, Malcolm Greenwood and Sue Fraser; textile artist Kirsten Ingemar; Ikebana artist Di Morison and food stylist Monique Guterres-Harrison (Seaweed Cuisine). Curated by Suvira McDonald.

Short and Sweet: exquisite pastel drawings depicting kitchenware and high tea treats by Katka Adams.

Produce-d: watercolours of farmers market produce by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Each Saturday for one year the artist visited her local farmers market (the Bangalow Farmers Market) and photographed her basket of produce. These were then translated as beautiful watercolour paintings and published in a recipe book, with recipes from market stall holders.

Food for Thought: still life paintings and mixed media by Barbara Zarletti and Peter Mortimore. Their contrasting styles offer exquisite views of quiet arrangements of food and kitchenware.”

 

Last week on belly we talked about food and painting with the presenter of the Bayfm arts show, Karena Wynn-Moylan. I hope you have a chance to check out last week’s post here with karena’s beautiful paintings and lots of seasonal recipes from her artistst’s cookbook.  Today I  played  interviews I recorded at the exhibition opening night with 2 other artists, Kirsten who works with fabric,and sound, and Peter who made great collages in honour of his mother’s old cookbooks.

 

Listen to Kirsten

 

Listen to Peter

 

MUSIC

 

Apart from the fado track, all the music today was thanks to the great community radio resource, airit,  maintained by Amrap, which supports Australian musicians, and community radio stations.   No money at all from the Federal government in this year’s budget, very disappointing, but they say they will keep the music coming. Senator Conroy is the one to contact if you want to support amrap.

 

Foreign Language by Flight Facilities, from Foreign Language Remixes

Fado Curvo by Mariza, from Nu Europe

Maybe When The Sun Comes Down,  XTREMIX By Cloud Control Richard In Your Mind

Forest Eyes  by Jinja Safari , from the Jinja Safari EP

Words and images by  Great Earthquake, from  Drawings

 


 

love and chocolate covered cabbages,  sister tess


 

 

 

 

October’s best, from quick asparagus to an ox bone on the barbie

On air on Byron Bay’s bayfm 99.9 community radio station on October 3, 2011

October is a great month to be cooking, including fabulous asparagus.  Miss October came to belly, as she does on the first Monday of every month, to tell us what is most abundant and delicious. This month we are inspired by asparagus and eggs.  No waste with Miss October, she has recipes for the white and the yolk of those fresh spring eggs.

And October is a great month to be eating, if you are travelling around these school holidays you should check out some of the food events in Sydney.  There has been a food festival in Sydney in October for a few years now, the city comes alive with events like the night noodle markets, which should happen all year really.  And the festival director, Joanna Savill, has brought a whole heap of great international chefs to Australia for a visit.  I played a bit of a talk she gave in Byron Bay recently, about what these chefs at the top of the international best restaurant lists are cooking these days.  Scroll down to hear it.

I also played a couple of extracts of a great panel at the 2011 Byron Bay Writers Festival, called “Eat my Words: why we love food books”.  I will play more of this on belly later this month.  Today the panel, all cookbook writers among many other talents, is talking about being inspired by local in season ingredients in their cooking and writing, it all seemed to fit in… Audio below.

FRESH REPORT

The in season delicious ideas were mainly by miss October of course, but I am still getting inspired by the piles of kale at the markets.  I tried a salsa verde with raw kale and converted a friend who had been trying to eat kale for the health benefits but just couldn’t find a palatable way to cook it.  I haven’t yet found a way with kale that I think is any less than delicious, but raw is probably even better for you.  Just substitute kale for the herbs in a standard salsa verde recipe.

 

MISS OCTOBER  – Spring, eggs and asparagus

Warmer weather well we thought so… use your eggs make aioli to enjoy with all the abundant variety of green vegetables kale, watercress, bok choy and fresh herbs however especially good with asparagus.

Save your whites for meringues and of course the egg shells for around seedlings for the caterpillars. Remember what the Romans used to say “as quick as cooking asparagus” make sure you don’t dilly dally and get it out after a few minutes.

 

What’s in season in NSW

Peak season asparagus

Iceberg – prime growing time

Celery – look for bunches with firm stems

 

Vegetables

globe artichokes,

beetroot, bitter melon, broad beans, sugar snaps, peas

broccolini, broccoli

cauliflower, kohlrabi,

lettuce, Asian greens, rocket

cultivated and shiitake mushrooms

new potatoes, swedes, sweet potatoes, potatoes

silverbeet, spinach, watercress, wombok (aka Chinese cabbage, aka celery cabbage)

Herbs, spices and aromatics

chillies

coriander, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, mint

ginger, horseradish, turmeric

oregano, thyme

spring onions (aka green onions, aka shallots – not eschallots)

 

Fruits, berries and nuts

apples (Lady Williams), nashis, pears

bananas, strawberries

cumquats, grapefruit, lemons,mandarins (Honey Murcott), pomelo

oranges, Seville and Blood oranges

papaya, pineapple

rockmelons, watermelons in Queensland being harvested already

 

Locally at the market in the Northern Rivers

rocket, kale, lettuce, cabbage, beans, peas, fennel, beetroot, potatoes, ginger, passionfruit, bananas, herbs , watercress

 

Fork in the Field Recipes

Recipes and words Alison Drover

 

ASPARAGUS WITH CODDLED EGGS AND TOASTED PECANS

Note – this version was done to promote the Orange region of NSW highly regarded for its hazelnuts so there are hazelnuts but yours will have pecans.

 

Ingredients – Serves 4

 

For the dressing

2 free-range egg yolks

2 lemons, juice only – you can use the zest for a garnish on top of the asparagus

215ml/7½fl oz extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

½ tbsp chopped chervil

1 tablespoon local pecans roughly chopped

 

For the asparagus and coddled eggs

12 asparagus spears, woody ends trimmed, bottom ends peeled if necessary (about 3 per person)

50ml/1¾oz unsalted butter

4 free-range eggs

 

For the dressing, place the egg yolks into a food processor and blend until smooth.

 

With the motor running, gradually add the lemon juice in a thin stream until it has been fully incorporated into the egg yolks. Do the same with the olive oil. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Add the chervil.

Boil your eggs so they are very soft and peel about 2 minutes. Here are some tips http://www.ninemsn.com.au/food/freshtv/790999/how-to-cook-a-soft-boiled-egg

For the asparagus and coddled eggs, blanch the asparagus spears in boiling water for 10 seconds, then remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl.

Drizzle with dressing and top with pecans and lemon zest.

 

AIOLI

Crush 2 or more depending on how strong you like cloves of garlic and salt in mortar using a pestle. It will form a paste. Transfer to bowl; add 3 egg yolks and mix. Slowly add 300 ml of extra virgin olive oil. Keep whisking so that a mayonnaise forms. It should be thick. Add salt and pepper.

Keeps in an airtight container for three days.

Add chervil or finely chopped rosemary or tarragon to your aioli and serve with cold or warm vegetables or as a accompaniment to potatoes

 

ITALIAN STYLE MERINGUES WITH CINNAMON BLUEBERRIES AND PECANS

Makes 10 large meringues

• 7 egg whites – free range organic or backyard (200g)

• 260g caster sugar

• 140g dark brown muscovado sugar

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

• crushed pecans or macadamias

Heat oven 110 degrees C

The secret to meringues is your bowl. There must be no grease whatsoever in it so ensure it is dry. Take your eggs out of the fridge so they are at room temperature and of course free range or organic and fresh.

Place egg whites & sugar in bowl & sit over simmering water til mixture is quite hot (40deg) & sugars have dissolved.

Pour into electric mixer & whip on high speed with whisk attachment for about 8 minutes until mixture has cooled.

Sprinkle cinnamon over mix & fold in with rubber spatula.

Line baking tray with parchment paper & spoon mixture onto it and cook for 1 and 1/4 to 2 hours.

Take a punnet of blueberries and blend. Serve with your meringues and add a cumquat for decoration.

 

Tip for the garden fork….

Mulch to ensure you get onto those weeds and also make sure you are getting trellis ready for tomatoes ..

Visit www.sustainfood.com.au for planting and harvest tips.

Egg shells are good for the garden around seedlings to keep away the caterpillars

Miss October Alison Drover

 

COMING UP AT THE MULLUMBIMBY COMMUNITY GARDEN

The Mullum Local food Festival – Saturday 29 October, 10 am to 4 pm

link

 

 

Joanna Savill speaking about food trends in Byron Bay, apparently wearing 'the Masterchef dress'

 

 

INTERNATIONAL FOOD TRENDS

The Crave Sydney Festival is on all this month,  see cravesydney.com.  Festival director Joanna Savill was speaking at the Byron at Byron resort a few weeks ago about all the great chefs who are in Sydney in October,so if you are heading there this month look out for lots of interesting food events.   Joanna was talking about the top international trends that are coming to our kitchens and supermarkets soon.  If you’d like a look into the kitchen crystal bowl, click on the sound clips below.

One chef is roasting a whole ox bone on an open fire, then opening it up to get at the marrow, so look forwards to wild paleolythic barbies coming to a backyard near you soon.  A focus on nose to tail meat eating, great local vegetables, local ingredients and cooking traditions rather than foie gras and French or Italian cuisine in top restaurants from Lima to  Helsinki, and activist chefs are more strong international trends.

These are audio extracts of Joanna’s talk, with a background of happy eating of a very on-trend meal by chef Gavin Hughes.  Thanks to the Byron at Byron and Joanna for allowing me to record this, and Caroline Desmond for the photo.

Joanna Savill – International Food Trends (part 1)

Joanna Savill – International Food Trends (part 2)

 

 

2011 BYRON BAY WRITERS FESTIVAL PANEL – EAT MY WORDS : WHY WE LOVE FOOD BOOKS

 

L to R, Victoria Alexander, Belinda Jeffery, Adam Liaw, Janella Purcell

 

Eat my Words audio 1

Eat my Words audio 2

 

BELLY BULLETIN

Have you ever survived on instant  noodles?  There is a new museum in Yokohama, Japan,devoted to cup noodles and their inventor, Momofuku Ando.  In 2010 the world ate 95 billion portions of cup noodles.  It all started when Mr Ando saw a long line of people waiting to buy food at a black market stall in post-war Japan.  He invented cup noodles alone in a small shack and went on to create an empire.  At the 10 thousand square metre noodle museum kids can to create their own noodles, design their own cups and assemble their own toppings – up to 5,000 combinations.  You can also see noodle sculptures, see how cup designs have evolved over the decades and pay tribute to Mr Ando.  His motto was “never give up”

Queensland scientists, at a research station of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation  on the Sunshine Coast, are trying to grow a variety of strawberry that tastes like bubblegum.  Principal horticulturalist Mark Herrington says the bubblegum-flavoured strawberry will not be in the shops for several years, but predicts it will be a big hit with the kids.  He says : “just like cars, we want to design strawberries for what the consumer wants.”

The bureau of statistics surveys about 10,000 Australian households every 6 years to find out what we spend our money on. There are some interesting facts about our food spending in the newly released figures : we spend about the same on fish and on beef per week, about $5.  Twice as much per week on coffee than tea.  We spend more on confectionery, including chips chocolate and ice-cream (almost $12 per week), than on fresh fruit – less than 10 dollars.  And that is out of an average spend (on everything including housing costs) of over 12 hundred dollars a week.  Food and non-alcoholic drinks come to $240 a week, the second biggest cost after housing, but food has come down  as a percentage of our budgets since 1984 by a fifth.  And we spend $63 on eating out including fast food.

If you live on cup noodles, stand up and be proud, because fast food may be the ultimate step in human evolution.  A new study at Harvard in the USA shows that we may have been cooking for about 2 million years.
The ability to cook and process food allowed Homo erectus,  Neanderthal man and us, Homo sapiens to make huge evolutionary leaps from other primates.  Researchers analysed  DNA, molar size and body mass among non-human primates, modern humans, and 14 extinct types of humans.  When we learned to prepare food with tools and fire, more calories could be consumed and we needed to spend less time foraging and eating. Molar sizes shrunk while body mass increased.  Apes of similar size to humans spend about half the day consuming calories.  “Homo erectus  spent 6 per cent  of their active day feeding,” said the Harvard study, and modern humans spend 4.7 per cent of their days eating.
“Human feeding time and molar size are truly exceptional compared with other primates, and their oddity began around the start of the Pleistocene,” that is, from about 2.5 million years ago .  Cooking may be even older, it may have started with other species that also lived in Africa and came just before homo erectus.  In any case, the tools and behaviours necessary to support a cooking culture “related to feeding and now necessary for long-term survival of modern humans evolved  before our lineage left Africa.” say researchers.  So probably, the most ancient cuisine of the world is African, and if you think cooking is a waste of time, be thankful you don’t have to spend all day looking for grubs and leaves, and have a face full of giant teeth.  And fast food may well be the apex of our food evolution.

 

MUSIC

Hot Ready Or Not,    Gleny Rae Virus & Her Tamworth Playboys, for Dwone and Jay

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell – which I always thought was called ‘they paved paradise’, and includes the line ‘give me spots on the apples” – yei

Les Joieux Bouchers, the happy butchers, Catherine Ringer

Chatma (my sisters), Tinariwen

And a couple of tracks from the classic St Germain album ‘Tourist”

 

Love and chocolate covered ox bones, Sister T

A salty and simply Asian belly

 

On air on Bayfm 99.9 community radio on September 26, 2011

At this year’s By ron Bay Writers Festival I interviewed the 2010 Masterchef winner, Adam Liaw.  For those of you who never watch TV and managed to miss the whole Masterchef thing, he is a charming, obviously intelligent young man who looks like a very friendly samurai.  He is of Chinese Malay heritage and spent several years living in Japan.  He wants everyone to realise how simple Asian food is to make, and  often just uses just salt as a seasoning, not dozens of obscure ingredients.  So it is fitting that we started the show with Brad Sarson, a healthy salt enthusiast.  Salt is the single most important seasoning in the world.  Many roads started as ancient salt trade  routes.  Salt is at the origin of the very word for sauce, for salary (the money to buy salt), salt and bread mean hospitality in Russian, salt means intelligence and wit.  And our bodies are a salty sea, our bodies have the same percentage of salt as the oceans.

 

Himalayan salt

 

ALL SALT IS SEA SALT…

was the most interesting thing I learned today. At one time all salt was sea water says Brad.  We still get some straight from the sea, but some was deposited long ago and became solid crystals,  with all sorts of interesting trace elements which colour it grey, yellow, brown – or a pretty pink, like Brad’s favourite salt, Himalayan.  This salt was made when the biggest mountains in the world sat on top of an ancient sea for a few million years, trapping 84  minerals that our bodies need in its crystals. Brad and Jen Sarson run the Byron Bay Healthy Salt Company, go to their website for lots of information about salt in general and Himalayan crystal salt.  All salts are definitely not the same.  Basic cooking salt has been stripped of all trace elements, and has other chemicals added to keep it running freely.  I don’t know enough to comment about the health claims for Brad’s salt, but it does taste good, and it is intensely salty, so you can use less.  Most of the ‘gourmet’ salts do have a more interesting, balanced flavour than basic salt.  Or maybe that is just my body recognising what it needs, the same way grazing animals look for salt to lick.

Brad was keen to share a healthy way to start the day.

HIMALAYAN SALT SOLUTION SOLE’  (stored sunlight)

Fill a jar that has a lid with mineral water.

Add Himalayan crystal salt to water and leave overnight.

If all the salt has dissolved add more salt and leave it overnight again.

When salt crystals are still visible it means no more can be absorbed, so the solution is saturated.

Have one teaspoon in the morning 20 to 30 minutes before food.  It  will gently start your digestion and has amazing health benefits.

Brad Sarson

 

ADAM LIAW AT THE BYRON BAY WRITERS FESTIVAL

Adam Liaw in his first cookbook, Two Asian Kitchens, is on a mission to get us all just having a go at Asian food.  He told belly about summer fish and winter fish, the birthday cake with tomato sauce his father made him once, life after Masterchef and why there were so many lawyers on the show, among other things. The full interview is here, just click on the audio links below.

 

Adam Liaw part 1 audio

 

Adam Liaw part 2 audio

 

His favourite food is Hainanese chicken rice, and he does seem to love chooks and ducks.  Here’s a bunch of links to his recipes.

 

KAPITAN CHICKEN

 

LARB DUCK

 

LAKSA FRIED CHICKEN

 

SPICY GROUND CHICKEN AND RICE NOODLES

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE

 

 

FRESH REPORT

Lots of lovely kale in the markets at good prices, try making a super healthy kale pesto. Strip out the central stalk and stick the raw leaves in afood processor with olive oil, toasted pinenuts (or macadamias), garlic, salt and parmesan.  No need to use a mortar and pestle, the kale leaves can take it.  Or try the same ingredients as a salad.

BELLY BULLETIN

Choice the consumer rights organisation would like our help.  As part of a nationwide review of product labelling,  it would like the government to introduce traffic light style labelling of fat, sugar and salt content, so we are no longer misled by products that claim to be healthy because they are very low in salt, for example, or have added fibre, while they are very high in sugar or fat.

This is the link to the Choice better labelling/shame the claim campaign

This is a direct link to some graphic examples of currently perfectly legal, but misleading claims.

 

EDIBLE QUOTES

It had to be about salt today.  From wiccans to jews, hindus to catholics, most religions regard salt highly.  The Christian apostle Paul, not someone I would quote much as he had rather old fashioned views about women, was a salt lover.  He wrote : “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt”.  But my favourite salty saying comes from the great  prophet of Islam, Muhammad, who is reported to have said : “Salt is the master of your food. God sent down four blessings from the sky – fire, water, iron and salt”

Love and salty chocolate balls, sister T

 

MUSIC

MLK, Topology

Salt, Lizz Wright

Chocolate Salty Balls, South Park’s Chef

Funky Chicken, Rufus Thomas

Quan Yin’s cherry Blossom, Shanti family and Friends, from Buddha and Bonsai