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eG Foodblog: Snadra (2010) - Cows to the bridge!


Snadra

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I don't remember Winnipeg cream cheese. But my mother made what she termed "Winnipeg style cheesecake" which is extremely gooey like it was undercooked.

Maybe it was just a brand name? I saw it quite a bit in BC at least. I loved it. I was richer and more unctuous than regular cream cheese.

There used to be a cream cheese available that my mother and all of her friends used for cheesecakes, but I think it's been at least 20 years since it's been available -- and they still bemoan the fact. But I don't remember gooey cheesecakes, more rich and creamy.

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I don't remember Winnipeg cream cheese. But my mother made what she termed "Winnipeg style cheesecake" which is extremely gooey like it was undercooked.

Maybe it was just a brand name? I saw it quite a bit in BC at least. I loved it. I was richer and more unctuous than regular cream cheese.

There used to be a cream cheese available that my mother and all of her friends used for cheesecakes, but I think it's been at least 20 years since it's been available -- and they still bemoan the fact. But I don't remember gooey cheesecakes, more rich and creamy.

Hmmm. I did a quick websearch and found this, but I remember an actual brand that came in quite small tubs, the size of a single serve yoghurt. Still, it's been 15 years since I left, and who knows how many odd connections my memory has made since then!

Speaking of cream cheese, I enjoy cream cheese and sliced apple or cucumber on rye bread for breakfast or lunch. My colleagues think I'm mad (when they see the apple they tell me it looks very Canadian - am I the only person who was fed apple sandwiches as a child?), but I love it, and it makes a nice contrast to the topping that's not as rich as butter would be.

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So, it's been raining pretty much ALL day today. Blech. Because of this, and our sleep deficit, we've been a bit inactive today, mostly just pottering about. We didn't even eat lunch (we had afternoon tea instead).

For breakfast Gerg had cereal again, while I had some of the ham from Thursday on heavy rye bread, watermelon and coffee.

Breakfast Saturday.jpg

Later, when the rain let up we thought something with rhubarb might be in order, so Gerg cut a bunch from the garden.

Rhubarb freshly cut.jpg

I decided to make a roulade from epicurious.

Cake making.jpg

I've made this one about 8 or 9 times and usually I it pretty straightforward. It's so simple that I've had one ready to serve in as little as 40 minutes when we've had guests coming. I like to add citrus zest to the cake mix, and I usually cut the sugar in the rhubarb filling to 1/3 cup and put a tablespoon or two of strawberry or raspberry jam in while it cooks, which I find intensifies the flavour.

Today though, I was a bit scattered, and did everything just a little off. First, I folded the mixtures and flour together with a rubber spatula instead of a metal spoon. Actually, lately for mixtures like this (including souffles) I've been using a big balloon whisk, very gently. I find it cuts through as well as a spoon, and with the extra number of 'edges' on the wire, it does it in fewer turns. This time the cake is ever so slightly tough, and that's never happened to me before - I blame the spatula (never the cook! :laugh: ). I forgot to butter the paper (not so bad, as it didn't really stick anyway), and then rolled it in the wrong direction. Gah!

Cake making.jpg

Still, it tastes good, and for an at-home cake, that's got to be the first consideration, right?

Roulade.jpg

single serving.jpg

It makes a nice afternoon cake - not too rich (even if you put a dollop of whipped cream on it) and not overly sweet.

Right now, there is roo marinating in oil and garlic for our dinner tonight. Still haven't decided on sides - I'm thinking either roasted beets or sweet potato at the moment...It is going to be pretty simple.

There may also be another cocktail...

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Nick, I've been meaning to ask you (and any other Aussie eGulleters here): do you use any native ingredients in your cooking?

Like you I've investigated the pepperberry but not much else. Strangely enough, I'm more likely to use obscure Asian ingredients than obscure Aussie ingredients. After Rene Redzepi's talk at the Opera House in which he strongly encouraged the use of local ingredients, I suppose I should be more adventurous. Unfortunately, apart from macadamias, I can't really think of anything that gives a wow factor. Am not sure that we've moved beyond the "use pepperberry instead of pepper" or "rainforest lime instead of lime" or "lemon myrtle instead of lemon" stage of cooking. They are subtly different but not markedly so. It's almost (waits for scorn and opprobium) like a gimmick. I'm definitely open to using native ingredients but want a genuine culinary advancement rather than incrementalism purely for the sake of using local.

Edited by nickrey (log)

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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So, the planets have aligned, and tonight I can offer you kangaroo.

I thought you would like to see just how bright it is. I was reading up on it a little and Maggie Beer says that it oxidises quickly, hence the vacuum (and I think inert gas) packaging. Those outside Australia might be unaware that kangaroo sold in stores here is wild shot by licensed shooters. As an aside, it's not the only 'wild' meat we can get. Although most of the rabbit you can get here is farmed, I have access to wild shot rabbits through my local butcher - frozen, of course. I have very fond memories of eating wood-grilled rabbit in Spain, and now that we have a Weber I'm keen to give it a go. I also know someone who goes pig hunting, and could probably get some wild boar, but I've heard frightening things about their parasite loads...

Roo Meat Saturday.jpg

Maggie recommends coating it in oil as soon as you open the package, so I decided to marinate it in a flavoured oil. I crushed a piece each of lemon and lime peel, a small red chili, some coarse salt (currently using Murray River Pink Salt), rosemary, thyme and garlic in the mortar and then added it to olive oil and coated the roo fillets in that. Normally we just give it quick coat of oil and throw it right on the grill/pan, so this was an experiment.

Mortar Saturday.jpg

Marinating Roo Saturday.jpg

While it was marinating I made a salad of shredded green cabbage, parsely and chives. I salted it lightly and mixed it then bashed a clove of garlic and set it in the juice of half a lemon while the meat was cooking. When I was ready to dress the salad I strained the lemon juice in, sans garlic, and added some olive oil. We do variations of this salad throughout summer. A favourite is cabbage (cut into larger squares), parsley, sultanas and the juice of an orange. I like it because cabbage lasts so well in the fridge and it's quick to shred a little and dress it with whatever is lying about.

Roo on plate Saturday.jpg

Instead of using the grill pan, which I hate cleaning, I used my french skillet (I didn't want to use non-stick because I wanted really high heat). It rested for about 10 minutes until I plated up.

Supper Saturday.jpg

You can see it's still quite rare, in fact at first we were a bit worried that the larger piece was underdone, but the texture was just right. I dug around my wine cabinets, but completely failed to turn up a Pinot (my other choices were a Cab Sav and an untried Zinfandel), so ended up with the WA Shiraz again. This is a 'big' wine (so descriptive, ain't I?), with strong berry flavours but it has quite a soft finish. It suited the roo quite well, with the slightly sharp and herbal flavours from the marinade, but the salad not so much (I dunno, is there a wine that goes with cabbage?). I'm really keen to do this again with a Pinot - it's on the list, Nick!

And yes, there are 4 fillets. We cooked two tonight, and will do the other two tomorrow, possibly as a steak sandwich on homemade pide.

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Nick, I've been meaning to ask you (and any other Aussie eGulleters here): do you use any native ingredients in your cooking?

Like you I've investigated the pepperberry but not much else. Strangely enough, I'm more likely to use obscure Asian ingredients than obscure Aussie ingredients. After Rene Redzepi's talk at the Opera House in which he strongly encouraged the use of local ingredients, I suppose I should be more adventurous. Unfortunately, apart from macadamias, I can't really think of anything that gives a wow factor. Am not sure that we've moved beyond the "use pepperberry instead of pepper" or "rainforest lime instead of lime" or "lemon myrtle instead of lemon" stage of cooking. They are subtly different but not markedly so. It's almost (waits for scorn and opprobium) like a gimmick. I'm definitely open to using native ingredients but want a genuine culinary advancement rather than incrementalism purely for the sake of using local.

Well said. My personal tipping point was when someone tried to sell me a 'native bush tomato sauce' that had 1 part bush tomato to 19 parts tomato. Or maybe I'm just shopping in the wrong places.

It strikes me that Rene Redzepi is operating in a culture that has a much longer history with its surroundings. From my limited experience, Danes have a strong sense of their history and they and their forebears have always used what was around them; I think it's reasonable to suggest he's reflecting a preexisting connection to that past. European Australians don't have the same depth of history with the Australian environment, and historically there hasn't been much cross-fertilisation between Indigenous and European cultures. It's going to be a long, long road to the real incorporation of native ingredients.

Edited by Snadra (log)
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I can't believe I completely forgot to post pictures of the kitchen! Here are a few.

Drawers below the cooktop.

Dish Drawer.jpg

Pot Drawer.jpg

Next to the dish drawers is this cupboard. The dishwasher is the closed cabinet you can see on the left hand of the picture.

Magic Cupboard.jpg

And the messy cupboards...

round cupboard.jpg

Tall Cupboard 1.jpg

Tall Cupboard 2.jpg

Fridge & freezer.

Fridge & Freezer Top.jpg

Fridge & Freezer bottom.jpg

Most of my cookbooks. There are a few lying about the house in various stages of being read and drooled over. The left hand side of the bookcase is magazines. Mostly Gourmet, but also some Australian Gourmet Traveller, Vogue Entertaining and Travel (which I think is cut down to two issues a year now) and the New Zealand magazine Cuisine, which I adore and which has the most beautiful covers.

Bookcase 2.JPG

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I take great comfort in your drawers of ingredients and full refrigerator. I will save these photos and show my daughter who said I inflicted "refrigerator trauma" on her, meaning, there was never any room in the fridge because of all the condiments and food that Ihad prepared. How can anyone cook creatively without a lot of ingredient choice.

Your meal looked delicious and your roulade has reminded me how much I love roulade and should make again myself sometime soon. maybe with lime or lemon curd or chocolate mousse as it is winter here.

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I particularly like the drawers with the wooden dowel separators. Must show that photo to the DH.

They are fantastic, and I love that drawer. The dowels all have a threaded screw at the bottom so they are quite secure. All the drawers (we have 5 more for cutlery, containers, etc, all half the size of the dish and pot drawers) have soft close slides from Blum, which is good for us as I tend to be a bit of a slammer sometimes! :wink: The pot drawer goes all the way to the floor and is a bit of a bare foot hazard in summer.

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I take great comfort in your drawers of ingredients and full refrigerator. I will save these photos and show my daughter who said I inflicted "refrigerator trauma" on her, meaning, there was never any room in the fridge because of all the condiments and food that Ihad prepared. How can anyone cook creatively without a lot of ingredient choice.

Your meal looked delicious and your roulade has reminded me how much I love roulade and should make again myself sometime soon. maybe with lime or lemon curd or chocolate mousse as it is winter here.

Well, as you know, I grew up in a household pretty far from anywhere, so when we went grocery shopping somewhere exciting we came back with LOADS. I guess being an ingredient hoarder is in my genes. I have memories of coming back from family trips to the States and we would have at least a case of Grey Poupon, in addition to whatever else had caught my parent's fancy. When we went to Calgary we always went to Chinatown, had a big meal and then went shopping. My mother would buy I don't know how many large bags of long noodles at a time (I think they were called wonton noodles, but I can't quite remember), bottles of soya sauce, dried mushrooms, etc. Trips to Lethbridge resulted in sacks of brown rice and flour and oats (yes, I was a granola child). Most of our neighbours did similar things. A friend's basement pantry was stocked full of catering sized jars of mayonnaise and ketchup, etc. Plus almost everyone did home canning and pickling as well. We would drive the pickup to Creston and come back with a tonne (a literal tonne) of apples that would then be turned into juice and jelly and sauce using the steam juicer on the camping stove outside. Or lesser amounts of peaches or cherries which all had to be processed... When I think of my mother doing all that work, I just want to go have a lie down.

I don't shop in those quantities, but I can't help bringing back something everytime I go out! Plus, like you say, how can you cook if you don't have the ingredients? Although one of my goals for the coming few months is to empty the cupboards by using everything up. And tidy the really messy one... But at least I have food in the cupboards, right? A friend of mine has a very full fridge, but it seems to consist entirely of condiments :raz: !

Roulade is great, isn't it? I was thinking in winter it might be nice to replace the rhubarb with some cooked apple, but chocolate sounds even better.

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So today is the last day of my blog! I will have a few things to show you later this afternoon, but I'm afraid it will not measure up to the spectacular things I have seen in other blogs. :laugh:

I'm planning on making some Anzac biscuits, some pastry for a few little tarts to take to work with a salad for lunches this week and probably a pide as well, which I want to try again. As long as the oven is on.... I will also roast some beetroot, which I may make into a salad, or maybe something else.

Speaking of something else, I'm also planning my meals for the week (as much as they can be planned). We used to do a weekend shop, but now we usually do a grocery shop on the way home from work on Mondays or Tuesdays. It's less crowded, we usually get a bargain on meat (like the organic chicken breast Gerg found last Monday for 1/2 price) and it means Saturdays and Sundays are ours to do with as we please. If we need anything extra during the week, it's easy enough to stop off, or to pick something up while we're out on the weekend.

I plan pretty much the way everyone does - a combination of what's in the cupboard, what's on sale/in season at the shops (I am a sucker for reduced meat) and what just sounds good. We try to eat a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian meal at least 3 times a week, and now we're making an effort to limit the carbs we eat in the evening, at least a little.

Last week I got some chinese sesame paste from the asian market where I meet Gerg from the train if our timetables line up. So, I'm thinking I might make the Sesame Chicken Noodle Salad from hzrt8w (Ah Leung) pictorials. Perfect weather for something like that.

There is also the roo, if we don't end up eating it tonight, and we

were given some flour tortillas by someone at my husband's work, so I'm thinking I make cook some black beans (gotta use them up!) to stuff into one with some cheese and tomatoes and what-not.

And, if I make the pide, we will probably eat it later in the week with this beetroot and yoghurt dish, which is simple and surprisingly delicious.

More soon!

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Holy moly (or maybe mole, arf arf arf :raz: ). I have the same brand of hominy in my pantry, who knows how many thousands of miles away from you ! That's actually pretty trippy. I thought they were semi-local to the US Southwest.

--Roberta--

"Let's slip out of these wet clothes, and into a dry Martini" - Robert Benchley

Pierogi's eG Foodblog

My *outside* blog, "A Pound Of Yeast"

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Holy moly (or maybe mole, arf arf arf :raz: ). I have the same brand of hominy in my pantry, who knows how many thousands of miles away from you ! That's actually pretty trippy. I thought they were semi-local to the US Southwest.

You punned!

The hominy is from Fireworks Foods. I ordered it this winter (I wanted to try it as I've never had before), but never got around to using it, so in the cupboard it stays until the cool weather comes around Easter. :sad: I take it it's a good brand then? I had the choice of exactly one...

But isn't it odd that this can happen?

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So, skipped breakfast again today (I know, I know!). Usually breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, but I think the heat and humidity have been getting to me.

Seeing as it was my last day doing the blog, we thought fish & chips might be in order.

Lunch Sunday 1.jpg

I stuck to NSW fish though - in this case a piece each of bream & flathead. I also got a couple of salt&pepper calamari for Gerg as he quite likes them. My eyes were a bit bigger than my stomach. Even though I got 'minimum chips', it was still too much. We had some salad (not all of what was in the spinner, mind!) and I made a mayonnaise which I spiked with some lime juice.

Lunch Sunday 2 Bream.jpg

I generally love flathead, but the bream was nicer today. I like getting battered fish better than crumbed because (a) I like a bit of batter, and (b) you can discard it if you like, and you are left with essentially steamed fish. The crumbs never taste right to me, and they don't come off as nicely if you don't want them.

While I was at the shop I had a chat with the owners about putting in an order for Christmas. They recommended a coral trout, but that would be a bit big for us, so I might get a snapper, and some prawns, of course!

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So, the Anzac Bikkies weren't a complete disaster. I've never made them before, but I know that I will need to get my mother-in-law in to give me a tutorial. The dough was a really crumbly mess, and I don't think it's supposed to be. It could be that I used quick oats instead of rolled, but I'm not really sure. The recipe I used is essentially the same as what's on the back of the McKenzie's packet.

The ingredients:

Anzac Bikkies ingredients.jpg

I just squooshed spoonfuls of it together to form the biscuits.

And the final result:

anzac close up.jpg

Sunday Afternoon tea.jpg

They tasted just fine! But not as crisp and light as my mother-in-law's. Well, it's always good to have something to improve on.

While the oven was on, I thought it might be nice to make some Walnut Crack.

JAZzy Walnuts.jpg

They're still in the oven, but I can already smell them. Even Gerg, who's not fond of nuts can't stop eating them. Not too sweet, just a bit of spice and all the walnut flavour coming out.

I need to do a bit of cleaning up now. Still to come: pide, and possibly dinner, if we feel like it after all that lunch :laugh: .

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Seeing as it was my last day doing the blog, we thought fish & chips might be in order.

... Even though I got 'minimum chips', it was still too much.

What's the deal with 'minimum chips'? Ever since they offered it in a shop, I've been happily ordering fish and 'a dollar's chips'. No one has said, I couldn't do so, although some places you really don't get many chips. I had bream last week and it was very nice. No one around here seems to have flathead.

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

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Seeing as it was my last day doing the blog, we thought fish & chips might be in order.

... Even though I got 'minimum chips', it was still too much.

What's the deal with 'minimum chips'? Ever since they offered it in a shop, I've been happily ordering fish and 'a dollar's chips'. No one has said, I couldn't do so, although some places you really don't get many chips. I had bream last week and it was very nice. No one around here seems to have flathead.

I've never quite understood minimum chips either! In this case it was $2.50 for minimum chips, but I've heard people order $1 chips at other places. I think flathead might be a NSW thing.

Whenever I see bream I always think of Down River.

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So, a few more things...

First, the finished walnuts from a recipe that JAZ put into RecipeGullet. This is a fantastic way to make candied nuts. No deep frying, no watching a frypan, and they have a glossier finish than the ones that use an eggwhite to make the sugar and seasonings stick.

JAZzy Walnuts finished.jpg

The pide.

Pide with mess.jpg

Finished Pide.jpg

We turned 1/2 of one of them into dinner (post to come).

I ended up cooking them on parchment, which I would rather not do, but it's a messy job transferring the soft dough to the oven and I didn't want to end up with a doughy floor tonight :laugh:. I slid the paper out from under them as soon as it firmed up enough. I didn't use the eggwash on them either - more mess I didn't need!

Great texture to this bread. Tomorrow we're going to use some of it for roo sandwiches.

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So, we had dinner quite late tonight: some turkish bread, the last tomatoes and a bit of ham.

Sunday supper.jpg

As soon as we went to eat, we looked at each other and made a sandwich! Not quite sure why I didn't do that in the first place.

Finished making lunches for the next two days as well - tarts with caramelised onions, roasted tomatoes and swiss cheese (St Clair in this case).

Finished tarts.jpg

Tartshell with ceramic weights.jpg

What fun. Best part is, the kitchen is almost tidy too. I hate a messy kitchen on a Sunday night.

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Love your kitchen - so compact and cozy. And I love the green - my favourite colour.

Thank you! When the installers came to put the kitchen in and saw the one wall done in green, they were pretty dismissive, telling me it wouldn't work, but they changed their mind once it was installed. It's a small room (we weren't in a position to knock out walls), but it works and when it's tidy it's a really pleasant place to hang out. It's not perfect, but can any kitchen be perfect?

Now, in my dream kitchen....

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I have really enjoyed the freshness of your cooking and eating style. As we in the other hemisphere are looking for our heavy Christmas meats (well turkey in my family), it was a refreshing change to see you thinking fish for the holiday. My Sydney living sis does grilled seafood for Christmas and I have always wanted to be there for the soy and honey grilled baby octopus. Oh and count me as an additional fan of the dowels in the big drawer- that is going into my "for future" file.

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