??

Yes, I've been slack & unmotivated lately in regards to posting anything or even cooking anything exciting. I guess its just this time of year that does it.
Anyway here are a few things that I've come across recently & have captured my imagination....

Paper Chef Ingredients are up

The lovely Jenny from I could even eat a baby deer! has selected the ingredients for the December challenge.
You can find them here

Shadow of Me

Just because I can.....

Paper Chef time.... (#46)

Its always interesting when Paper Chef throws a tricky one at you. Like this month. Dale from Home on the Range was the winner last month so she had the honour of selecting this month's ingredients. The first random ingredient was Pasta - I guess that can be any type or style. next was Chevre - Goat's cheese, a nice smooth creamy cheese which I love. The final random ingredient was Beetroot - a safe versatile ingredient. So far endless possibilities. Then Dale threw in the fourth ingredient of her own selection, Peanut Butter - stunned silence when I read that. What the f&^k am I meant to do with that?? A look at the ingredients of a supermarket Peanut Butter provided no inspiration or clues: peanuts, oil, emulsifiers, sugar, salt, food colouring, preservatives. The Health food store was better. They grind their own peanut butter & the only ingredient was dry roasted peanuts, but the texture was very coarse. Then I remembered that the juicer I have can also (apparently) grind peanuts to a pulp to make peanut butter. Well, at least I would know what's in it.
But what to make to combine all the ingredients?
I settled on Ravioli stuffed with Chevre & roasted Beetroot with a burnt butter & peanut butter sauce. The trick was to meld the flavours without having the peanuts dominate. And, surprisingly, it worked! The peanut butter sauce combined well with the beetroot to give a nice earthiness to the dish.
Note to self: don't leave the finished ravioli out in warm weather - the pasta dried out too much between the trial run & the photo run, cracking & leading to crappy photos.....

Ingredients
100g Chevre
1 medium beetroot
pasta dough (recipe can be found here)
1 tbls smooth peanut butter (homemade or health food store)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
30g butter
2 tbls chopped Coriander

Method
Coat the beetroot in a bit of oil & roast until tender.
Let cool until you can just handle it, & peel.
Grate the beetroot & weigh out about 100g.
Combine the Chevre, salt, pepper & nutmeg in  a bowl then gently fold through the grated beetroot.
Chill while you make your pasta dough (see here).
Use about a small tsp of the mixture for each ravioli, & once sealed set aside until ready for cooking.
Melt the butter in a saucepan & add the peanut butter.
Cook until its a nice light golden brown colour, but watch it as it can go an unappetising dark brown very quickly.
When ready, add 1 tbls of the chopped coriander.
Coat the cooked ravioli in the sauce & serve immediately topped with the remaining coriander.

Awe & Fear

I love the water, the sun, & the surf. But these waves off the coast of Tasmania I'm in awe of, and would never go near them, unlike these surfers.

(photos from The Age website)

What to do........

Have you ever been in the situation where due to circumstances where all you had to cook with was in your pantry or in the fridge? I think most people have found themselves in that situation - working late, lack of funds, forgotten the shops are closed due to a public holiday?
And its happened to me recently. I was left looking in the cupboard and found a pack of dried porcini, a leek in the fridge, some dried pasta, onion, garlic. Fair enough I did have meat in the freezer, but that would take too long to defrost.
So here is a Porcini & Leek pasta creation.

Ingredients:
1 pack (20g) dried porcini
200ml boiling water
1 leek
1/2 onion, finely sliced
30g butter
olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
200g pasta (I used fusilli)
salt
Pepper
2-3 fresh sage leaves
1/2 tbls dried thyme
Grated Parmisan to serve

Method:
Soak the porcini in the water for about 20min.<
Strain the liquid through some kitchen paper to catch all the impurities & reserve the liquid.
Thoroughly clean the porcini under running water to remove any grit.
Finely chop the porcini.
Melt half the butter & 1 tbls of the olive oil in a pan over a low heat.
Add the garlic & gently fry for about 2 minutes.
Add the porchini & fresh sage leaves.
Add the porchini liquid a tbls at a time stirring & letting it evaporate before adding the next spoonful, until all the liquid is used.
Cook the pasta as directed.
Meantime slice the leek into 1cm disks.
Heat the remaining butter & a little oil in a seperate pan.
Add the leek & onion & fry for 2 minutes.
Add the dried thyme & 2 tbls of boiling water & cook until the leeks & onion are tender but not mushy.
Add the leek & onion mixture to the porchini & season to taste.
Toss in the pasta.
Serve with grated parmisan.

Randomness..

Just some random photo's on my way home from work.......

Paper Chef #45

Hmm... A month has past since the last Paper Chef & what have I blogged about in that time?

Nothing.

Zero.

No Street Art.

No food.

No recipes.

No enlightened social commentaries.

Maybe I've just lost the blogging mojo or have no inspiration but what ever is missing I hope it does return. It frustrates & annoys me to see just one post for the month.

But Paper Chef is here again & that always seems to stir my imagination!

This month is no different with the ingredient chosen by last month's winner Janie from musingri.

So what do you make with Chicken, Yams, Lentils, & Green Tea?

Well you rule out the Yams & invoke the substitution clause. A trip to the markets and no yams were to be found. A quick google on the mobile revealed that Taro was a close relative of Yams. Another lap of the markets & no Taro. So I had to settle for another root tuber - Sweet Potato, although it was from the otherside of the world & not related to Yams as Yams & Taro are from the South Pacific & Sweet Potato was originally from Haiti.....

The change in an ingredient didn't force a change in idea though. I had thought about it & discarded various ideas before settling on a fairly simple dish of Green Tea marinated Chicken with with Lentils & Sweet Potato (or Yam) crisps, which turned out quite well.

I'm only going to write the recipe for the marinade & chicken. Lentil you can prepare in your favourite way & the Sweet potato crisps were simply finely sliced on a mandolin & then dry roasted. The Green Tea can be brewed from either teabags or leaf. I used teabags only because it was easier.

Ingredients

2 chicken marylands

125ml freshly brewed Green Tea, cooled to room temperature

1 clove crushed garlic

1 thumb sized grated ginger

1 tbls soy sauce

1/4 tsp chili powder, more or less depending on the kick you like

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl & then add the chicken

marinade for 2 hours

remove from marinade & roast in a hot oven until the juices run clear, basting occasionally if you feel its drying out too much.

I served the chicken on a bed of lentils with the crisps, with a bit of orange zest for colour & tang.

Paper Chef #44

"So many choices!!!!"
That was my first reaction to reading the ingredients for this months paper chef. The first three ingredients as selected by Deeba from Passionate about Baking were Ricotta, Ginger, and Chocolate. Pretty easy so far, but the fourth ingredient was actually a theme: Autumn. Hmmm might be Autumn on the wrong side of the world but we're heading into spring here, so its a bit hard to cook out of season but I tried.
The ingredients lend themselves to a dessert type dish. I did briefly think of doing something savoury with them, possibly ginger ricotta fritters with a chili chocolate sauce. Chili & chocolate go well together, try it sometime if you haven't already.
But I scuttled that idea and went with a sweet instead.
Ricotta fritters with a ginger chocolate sauce? Non!
Chocolate cannoli filled with ginger ricotta? Hmm maybe next time.
With time running out I settled for a Ginger Cheesecake with a Chocolate base.
The ginger I used was Baby Stem Ginger in syrup from an Australian company Budrim Ginger.

Ginger Cheesecake with a Chocolate base
Ingredients
Base
150g chocolate biscuits, crushed
40g dark chocolate, grated
80g melted butter
Filling
600g ricotta
150g castor sugar
40g preserved ginger, chopped
Ginger, shaved chocolate & mint leaves for decoration.

Method
Mix the crushed biscuits, chocolate & butter and press into the bottom of the dish. I used individual dishes, but the choice is yours.
Place in the fridge to set.
Beat the ricotta and sugar with a mixer until smooth. You can pass the ricotta through a tamis for a really smooth mixture if you wanted to.
Add the chopped ginger, more or less depending on taste and stir through the mixture.
Spoon into your prepared dish, smooth off the top, cover & refrigerate until ready to serve.
Decorate with shaved chocolate, ginger & mint leaves.

And the Autumn theme? The shaved chocolate represents the dried twigs & crushed fallen leaves, with a little sprout to celebrate Spring..........

Spring

1st September. Spring is here & the trees are starting sprout leaves.

Feels like we never had a winter.....