my first pomegranate

I got to eat the first ripe fruit from my very own pomegranate tree.

When I cut it from the tree I noticed that it had the obligatory spider in the end of the fruit. I don’t know why pomegranates have spiders, whether they are a particular species, or just opportunists.

It is one of the few things I don’t have to share, as H can’t be bothered. Also, he spits the pips out!

I scored it so that I could break it apart more easily - as you do.

Interestingly, when I went googling on how to propagate the pomegranate tree, I read on http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/pomegranate.html that:

For enjoying out-of-hand or at the table, the fruit is deeply scored several times vertically and then broken apart; then the clusters of juice sacs can be lifted out of the rind and eaten. Italians and other pomegranate fanciers consider this not a laborious handicap but a social, family or group activity, prolonging the pleasure of dining.

It was ripe enough, although it could have been left to ripen further. It was tasty, and it was mine.

There is a second larger fruit on the tree, and if I get to eat it this then the tree will have already paid for itself based on current greengrocer prices. Bonus.

trussed

Tonight, I got to try out my new food loopy things on Matambre (Rolled stuffed flank steak).

The only hitch is that I didn’t read the recipe properly until I was putting the ingredients out on the bench. The recipe stated that I needed twice the weight of steak that I had already defrosted and marinated.

I halved the stuffing, and we had most of the spinach and carrots on the side. The spinach I dressed with soy and dashi sauce, and bonito flakes.

Matambre is very tasty, inexpensive (as you can eat cold), and made with simple ingredients. Definitely one I will try again. Except, I don’t know about this ‘cut into 6 mm slices’ or ‘cut into thin slices and served cold’. There is no way that we could have carved our Matambre this way.

divine

I have been growing marjoram for over a year. It is used instead of oregano when we feel like a change in our Greek Salads.

Recently I harvested marjoram to use in a dish titled Oysters Bercy in Rosemary Hemphill’s Cooking with Herbs and Spices.

To some it may appear back to front to choose two teaspoons of flavouring, over the main ingredient of three dozen fresh oysters. But I think you have to have fresh from the garden herbs as well as fresh oysters for this dish as the flavours are so subtle.

Bruno at South Perth Seafoods provided us with two dozen beautiful oysters. I almost felt that it was a waste to coat them in a creamy sauce. A bit like a good malt not needing anything but a glass to drink from.

However, I’m pleased that I tried the Oysters Bercy recipe. It is DIVINE.

Note: The recipe does not indicate the number of servings. I could not quite stretch myself to purchase three dozen oysters, and two dozen appears to do well as a main meal. Recently I prepared this dish for four as an entree, and two dozen oysters seemed right for that too.

pickles

I like pickles, but have given up on buying them from the supermarket. Mostly because they tend to be very vinegary.

On Sunday, the first batch of Pickled Onions was ready for tasting, having let them pickle at room temperature for exactly two weeks.

Yum, I think they taste delicious. Unfortunately, H likes them too

I think they are a bit soft, but it has not stopped us from eating them. I have kept one jar aside for Dad who I know likes pickles too.

The next batch will not be ready for four days.

lettuce soup is bad for you

Crema de alface (Lettuce soup) is made from the lettuce that sometimes get frozen in our fridge, or lettuce leaves that don’t look presentable to go in a nice crisp green salad.

It also helps to have some left over cream, which we do when we have people over for dinner. I’m not sure why, but the recipes or menu plans that I follow for special occasions always appear to need cream somewhere.

Having made the lettuce soup, I have an egg white leftover. The most obvious thing to make from leftover egg whites is meringue - to me anyway. Following the sue’s meringues recipe from Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, leaves me with an egg yolk.

On the same page as sue’s meringues is caramel custard, or creme caramel as I call them, that requires two egg yolks among other things. But from this recipe I’m back to having an egg white leftover.

Back to making meringues, then I have an egg yolk leftover, so I can make lettuce soup again. This time with no leftover egg.

someone’s been eating my porridge

I’ve been checking the underside of plant leaves looking for the culprit or culprits that are neatly nipping off leaves at the stem.

It is caterpillar season again, and having spotted them nibbling my newly planted basil and spinach seedlings I’ve resorted to the ‘vegetable dust’. No organic gardening for me this season.

The infrequent rain washed the vegetable dust off the leaves today so I’m out doing the rounds looking for more nibbling.

The basil and spinach are fine, but I noticed this critter on the ivy geraniums that were given to me a couple of weeks ago.

When poked, the millipede swung around to ward off my leaf and then curled up. Based on this behaviour, I’m guessing that it is a Portuguese millipede [1].

I thought that millipedes were like snails and that they went for the decaying stuff in the garden, but perhaps like snails, they like fresh green leaves too?

[1] Department of Agriculture Gardennote 02 (PDF)

pork san choy bau

We used to buy some packaged food from the Asia at Home range. However, as these disappeared from the shelves at the shop, they were dropped from our weekly shopping.

The Asia at Home range was good from the point of view that they provided all ingredients except for the fresh meat and vegetable ingredients that you added during preparation. Now we have a refrigerator and cupboard that includes various bottles and jars of fish sauce, hoisin sauce, miso paste, sweet chilli sauce (now make my own), oelek paste, soy sauce, laksa paste, etc, etc.

Last year we were given a calendar from the local butcher (Clayton’s Quality Meats) that included a recipe for each month. Pork san choy bau was one of the recipes we kept from the calendar as we were unable to obtain the Asia at Home product from the shop that offered all the ingredients except for the minced pork and lettuce.

However, I just noticed today that the calender recipe includes a web site, www.pork.com.au. Doing a bit of a scrat around, I found the recipe for which I have a paper version albeit a rather battered and torn picture from a calendar.

Now that I know that hoisin sauce is made from fermented soy beans, I’m happy to substitute this ingredient with miso paste that I have on hand as an ingredient to some Japanese recipes that I use.

Mexican meatballs

Meat balls with herbs, a recipe from my Mexican Cooking book is one that I have followed twice now.

Mince meat is no longer a ‘cheap cut’, but as this recipe makes 24 meat balls it is still an inexpensive meal, as I can freeze two other portions.

Variation: I don’t include any salt either in the meat balls or sauce. The reason being is that I don’t make my own tomato sauce, but rely on what is available from the local Italian greengrocer. This sauce invariably lists salt as the second of two ingredients so that I don’t feel that the recipe needs additional salt.

Serving suggestion: Served with snow peas and corn on the cob.

another warm one

This is another warm salad, although not as in hot like the warm prawn and mint salad.

Fresh mussels are fairly inexpensive here, currently $7.50 kg from our local fish monger, so this warm potato and mussel salad is a welcome budget shellfish meal.

The recipe suggests that you “Put out plenty of crusty bread to mop up the sauce.” and yes it is tasty, but I guess the tablespoon of butter contributes to this.

Saffron strands tend to be more readily available than the powder, and this is what you can see in the photograph of the dish the last time that we made it.

something fishy

Fish casserole has become one of the dishes that we tend to cook at least every other week. It is one of those very few ingredients and quick to prepare type meals.

Having made the casserole quite a few times now, I don’t follow the recipe exactly. I leave out the teaspoon of salt, cook it in a large frypan not a casserole, and add the potatoes as soon as the water comes to the boil. I find that adding the potatoes at the same time as the fish is a sure way of overcooking the fish.

I’ve only just noticed today that the photograph of the fish casserole in the book shows red pepper and the recipe ingredients list green pepper. I like the contrast of the green pepper with the tomato and saffron, but red pepper is probably tasty too.