Avocado December 24, 2006

Avocado is everywhere nowadays.

I must admit that the first time I tried avocado, it tasted like soap.

I’m still not salivating over the taste of avocado, or it’s lack thereof, but I must admit I’m entranced by it. It must be something about how lovely the green, glossy slivers of the fruit (yes, fruit) look sitting atop a delicious meal. Or the fuzzy, oily warmth I feel as it slides down my throat.

Yes, there’s something about avocados that keeps me interested, so that’s why today we’re going to talk about everything avocado.

Let’s start with the basics. Avocados are the fruit of the avocado trees native to Central America and Mexico.

Now I know you think of avocado and think, “OMG IT’S SO HIGH IN FAT!!”- yes, you’re right. It’s higher in fat than most fruits and vegetables, but it’s mostly monounsaturated fat.

They also have 60% or so more potassium than bananas and are rich in B vitamins, as well as vitamin E, vitamin K, and folate. So they’re fricken good for you, alright?

In the supermarket, you’ll know if an avocado is ripe by gently squeezing the fruit in your hand. I’m not talking death-grip here. Just a gently squeeze. If it’s ripe, it will be a little bit soft.

When you slice one open, the flesh will be a greenish, Exorcist-rotating-head-spew green or a golden yellowish colour.

If you’ve left it out just a little too long, you’ll know about it. The flesh oxidizes and turns brown quickly after exposure to air. To prevent this, lime or lemon juice can be added to avocados after they are peeled.

Avocado is a great healthier alternative to using margarine or butter spreads on sandwiches. Simply mash it up and spread it over the base of your sandwich.

It’s as the base for yummy Mexican guacamole and as the filling for several kinds of sushi, like California rolls.

In Brazil and Vietnam, avocados are frequently used for milk-shakes and occasionally added to ice cream.

In the Philippines and Indonesia, a dessert drink is made with sugar, milk, and pureed avocado.

In Central America, avocados are served mixed with white rice.

The fruit is also pressed for avocado oil production.

In Chile it is often used in hamburgers, hot dogs and celery salads.

It’s a great base for all the yummy salsas that are all the craze at the moment to serve over your chicken or fish. Dice it up finely with tomato, mango, or whatever else strikes your fancy and add some olive oil, seasoning and lime juice and spoon it over delish grilled chicken breasts or fish fillets.

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Top 10 things you should ALWAYS have in your pantry December 24, 2006

If you’re lazy like me, which I assume you are because you’re on the internet reading blogs rather than doing something productive, then it’s safe to assume that you despise grocery shopping like I do.

I hate buying stuff.

Hate browsing the aisles, trying to find one particular item when I have a dozen other coloured logos, the words 98% FAT FREE! and NEW & IMPROVED! popping at my poor eyeballs.

Hate the unflattering fluorescent lighting. It makes me squint and shows off my imperfectly blended make-up.

Hate the grubby trolley with its’ grubby dirty handle. Hate being looked at like a FREAK when I pull out my sanitizing hand spray from my bag and spray like crazy.

Hate people who won’t move and hog the whole aisle, especially when standing there reading the MAGAZINES! Just buy the damn thing you fricken tight-arse!

Hate the grotty fruit and vegies that are left over.

Hate finding a tray of beef minute steaks stashed on the taco shell shelf because some fat-arse couldn’t be bothered putting it back.

Hate, hate, hate the stench of the pet food aisle.

Hate having to pretend to be nice to the cashier.

Hate cringing while cashier gets a price check on something embarrassing like KY Jelly/condoms/supersized tampons/cheetos.

Okay, so I hate shopping. I could go on, but I will spare you.

The point is, having a well stocked pantry can help you avoid having to go the horrible supermarket as frequently.

So here are the top ten things you should have in your pantry at all times- with these lifesavers, there will always be something to make a meal out of.

1.

Canned tomatoes

These are essential to any pantry. I cannot imagine my pantry, or my life for that matter, without tinned tomatoes. They are perfect to whipping up yummy pasta sauces and they’re good for you. I read that they also contain high amounts of lycopene, a powerful anti-cancer antioxidant.

You can throw in a can of tomatoes with some olive oil, chopped onion and garlic, a few sprigs of basil, a bay leave and some salt and pepper and have yourself a delicious sauce for your pasta in no time. You can also use it to make soups, like tomato soup, lentil soup, bean soup and minestrone soup.

2.

Pasta

Pasta is not an option. YOU MUST HAVE PASTA!

I don’t care what shape, what colour, whatEVER, just make sure you always have a few reserve packs of pasta waiting for you in case you catch a bad case of toolazytoshopitis. Apart from the fact that dried pasta seems to keep forever, it’s a good base for a hearty, filling meal.

You can make a gazillion different pasta dishes with the variety of sauces out there. Tomato based sauces are easy to make or alternatively, you can do a cream based sauce. Chuck in some vegies, a few herbs and voila. Lazy mans’ dinner. Pasta like penne, orichette and other cute little shaped pastas are also great for pasta salads. Just mix in with some vegies like chopped capsicum or sweet corn kernels and mix with your fave dressing.

3.

Chicken stock

You can add stock to give any meal flavour- everything from your lovely creamy pasta sauce to your minestrone soup, pumpkin soup, whatever soup! This stuff can turn something drab into something edible and maybe even tasty.

4.

Canned corn & canned beans.

These ingredients are very important to always have in your pantry. If you tend to suffer from Icantbebotheredshopping Syndrome, like myself then the only vegetables you will have around will be part of the rotting sludge on the bottom of your crisper section of the fridge.

This is where the corn and beans come in. You can get almost any vegies in cans these days. I didn’t say they were any good however. Stick to the corn and beans because they’re probably the only ones that are any good.

You can use the corn in everything from chowders, minestrone, as a side, in fritters or patties with other ingredients, as a dip, in a salsa or if you’re really lazy and really desperate, you can eat it out of can while you watch American Idol. I have done this.

5.

Tuna

You either love tuna or you hate it. There is no in between.

Tuna is a great addition to always keep in the pantry if you’re okay with fishy flavours.

You can use tuna in almost everything, from salads to sandwiches, to dips, to patties, to pastas. And nowadays there’s those fancy pants tunas with gourmet flavours, like chargrilled and with lemon pepper and red chilli pepper and sun-dried tomato and onion and BLAH BLAH! It’s fricken FISH, in a CAN, with oil or brine. Goes good with stuff. Staple amongst the poor uni students and working schmucks who stink out the office at lunch time with their little tin of stench and then throw the empty can into a wastebasket under their desk, where it CONTINUES to stink until the unforunate cleaner has to get rid of it.

6.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a fatties’ pantry essential. With their potential for so much greasy evil, why wouldn’t you want to keep some in your pantry? Breadcrumbs are great when you have some meat to crumb and fry up (HELL YEAH!) or if you want to make some patties, meatballs, rissoles, fried with some garlic and shallots and served with oil over pasta or even make some potato croquettes (mashed potato and chopped flat-leaf parsley rolled in egg wash and breadcrumbs and fried until golden and delish!) or even arancini, which are Italian rice balls. They are really yum. Which brings us to our next pantry life-saving item.

7.

Rice

It isn’t just for Asian people anymore, okay?

Rice is a great staple to always keep in the pantry. It’s filling and can be used in a variety of ways.

The type of rice you want to keep in there is up to you, however for diversity, I think just regular long grain rice is the best.

Now I’m not usually one to endorse packet foods, but we live in a day and age where people waste most of their live chained to a desk at work and come home and don’t have a lot of time, or will to live energy and just want something quick. So those little packets of instant rice that you zap in the microwave are a solution for these situations. They may be a ridiculously overpriced rip off, but for the time poor, they are heavensent.

With rice, you can do risottos, add it to soups, make sushi, fried rice, arancini, rice salads, rice pudding, eat it plain with butter and cheese (another whilst watching American Idol moment) or use it to stuff vine leaves or make cabbage rolls. Hubba, hubba!

8.

Flour

For those nights when pancakes seem like a good dinner. Yep, you guessed it, during American Idol.

If you’re too proud to sink down to the level of having pancakes for dinner (and I can guarantee almost EVERYONE has done it ONCE!), then flour always comes in handy for making batters for fritters and patties, deep frying anything you can find or baking a cake. It can also be used to thicken stews and sauces, used as the base of a roux for a cheese sauce or just toss it at your kids if they are giving you the shits, that ought to shut the little turds up.

 

 

9.

Potatoes

If they haven’t gotten to the point where they’re sprouting alien-looking lifeforms, potatoes can be your saviour. They come in handy for everything from potato croquettes, to helping make tuna or salmon patties, to delish mashed potato. Alternatively you can keep them whole and bake them in the oven and split them open, slather them with garlic butter and eat with coleslaw and sour cream.

You could also top a baked potato with slices of avocado, beans, salsa, Cheddar cheese and sour cream. Yummity yum!

Slice em, fry em and make your own chips.

Cut them into wedges, give them a good toss in some olive oil and seasoning and bake.

Dice em up and cook em with some capsicum, garlic, tomato paste and onion for a yummy dinner to dip some bread into. The smell is DIVINE.

And last of all….

10.

A box of your favourite cereal.

For when American Idol is on.

Bocconcini December 18, 2006

No, bocconcini is NOT that bowling game that you see all the Italian old men play.

Bocconcini are starting to pop up everywhere, in all kinds of recipes, being all kinds of cool.

Now before I even BOTHER with this post, please repeat after me. BOK-ON-CHEE-NEE. Bokon-cheenee. If I hear another person calling them bockonochees, I am going to go a little bit nuts. WTF!!!!!! Bockonochees?

Okay, let’s start with all the basics you need to know about bocconcini.

Bocconcini are little bite-sized balls of fresh mozzarella cheese. With the amount of Cs’ in that word, I supposed you have figured out that they originated in Italy, southern Italy in fact.

You buy them from a deli or supermarket in a cute little bucket or tub and they’re usually floating around in whey or water like demented little golf balls. Once you’ve got them home, you can keep them in the fridge for up to two days- being fresh Mozzarella, it’s not like you can keep them for weeks.

Bocconcini are rich in calcium, , phosphorus and iron with the added benefit of being high in vitamins A and B. Bocconcini are also a good choice for people watching their weight, according to taste.com.au– it has 25 per cent less fat than cheddar. Woohoo!

Bocconcini make good companions with a few distinct flavours and seem to go perfectly with ripened tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar, anchovies, rocket and garlic.

Now that you’re all motivated to go and buy some little heavenly balls, I’ve got two yummy recipes for you. Enjoy!

 

Coriander- Love it or hate it December 16, 2006

There is a split camp when the topic of coriander comes up. People either rave about it and can’t get enough… or they hate it.

I am one of the latter. I spent years watching TV chefs carry on about it like it was the second coming of bloody Christ, this trendy herb that was used in everything from salsas to stir-fries.

And then I tried it.

Then I gagged and spat. A lot. The end.

For those of you who are coriander virgins- I suggest you try it, if only the once. Then send me emails about how shitty it is so I can feel all heroic about it.

Coriander can also be known as cilantro, Chinese parsley or even Greek parsley. You can use every single part of the plant in your cooking, depending on how brave you want to be- so that mean roots, leaves, seeds and stems. Although it can be easily mistaken for flat-leaf parsley as the two herbs share similar physical characteristics, the smell will bring you back to earth. There is NO forgetting that…err aroma? It’s a lemony-citrus type smell with an soggy towel undertone. If that’s your kind of thing.

If you’ve decided to stick it to me and actually buy some coriander, look for leaves that are nice and green with firm, crisp stems and roots.

Now what the fricken hell can I use this stuff in? I hear you ask. Well. Coriander is predominately used in Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, North African, Mexican and Latin American grub.

It’s best added to dishes just before serving as heat can reduce its potency (although this could be a good thing). It is said to be great with chilli, carrot, basil, mint, chicken, beef, avocado, coconut, couscous, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, fish, prawns, scallops and mussels. I’ll take their word for it.

To store, follow these instructions from www.taste.com.au

Wash roots, stems and leaves thoroughly in cold water to remove any grit or dirt. Stand upright in a glass containing 1-2cm water, cover loosely with a plastic bag and secure with an elastic band. Keep in the fridge for up to five days. Alternatively, wrap in damp paper towel and store in a sealed plastic bag or an airtight container in the fridge.

Or save yourself the drama and throw it out. Next time don’t try and be fancy and get yourself some Italian flat-leaf parsley instead. That’ll teach you.

Source

Australian Good Taste – February 2006 , Page 15

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Cherries December 4, 2006

Few people can resist the glossy deep red of a perfect cherry.

When shopping, pick firm cherries with dark red to almost black skin. Cherries must always be picked ripe because they will not ripen well after being picked off the tree. They are best consumed immediately after picking.

You can store cherries for 1-3 days or freeze them (however, be sure to remove the stone first). The great thing about cherries is that they are fat-free, sodium free, cholesterol-free and a fantastic source of fibre. Eat them on their own as a mid-morning snack, dipped in chocolate for a more decadent snack or make a jam or tart out of them. However you make them, you won’t be disappointed.

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