Dish 44) SARMAAAAAA

Last weekend I made a long overdue dish with some current and ex- workmates. The dish is called Sarma (roll the R), and my Serbian pal Dragana had told me all about it back in the day when we worked together!

It has proven to be quite the contentious little dish as my Croatian friend angrily objects that it is actually a Croatian recipe. And some Sri Lankan girls at work said "um.... isn't that Indian??" haha. Whatever it is, I can tell you that it rocks my warm Winter Socks off!

Here are some pics of the prep...

Here we have minced pork, minced beef, onion, capsicum, aborio rice, and a little mixture of carrot, parsley, garlic and paprika! On top of that, you also need some whole pickled cabbage leaves, water, vegeta stock, more paprika, bay leaves, an egg, smoked pork ribs and Spec (smoked bacon).

Start by cooking the onions for 20 mins, then add the capsicum for 5 mins, then the minced meat, then the spices, carrot mix and rice. Cook for about 20 mins until all browned and combined.

Next, take a cabbage leaf, fill it with mixture, and fold up into a little parcel!

Layer them in a pot with the Spec and ribs...

Fill with water, and add bay leaves, paprika and a bit of oil...

Cook for about 1.5 hours on the stove with a lid on, and serve up as below:

Yeah, it looks a little like a selection of body parts, but it is sooooo yum! If you are sceptical, I would compare it to something like Chop Suey/Chow Mein.. like an Aussie mama makes haha. Comfort food to the MAX!!!!!!!!!!


We had a nice day catching up in her lovely newly built house, and I was quite taken with her elaborate iPhone cover! It is so unevenly bumpy with bling that she can't rest put it down on its back!
 

Dish 43) Fenek Moqli

Heyyy!! So... Easter. When you think of Easter, do you think of Rabbits? Well I do :) And what better way to celebrate Easter than eating a rabbit? No better way, I say! My Maltese co-worker hooked me up with a recipe for a fried rabbit dish called Fenek Moqli.

Basically you buy a jointed rabbit, put it in a bowl with 2-3 bay leaves, some dried thyme, 3 cloves of sliced garlic, and cover it all with some dry white wine. Leave overnight to marinate. Then, heat oil and garlic in a pan and fry the peices, turning occasionally and using the white wine to baste, and stop the sticking.

Traditionally she said you are meant to serve it with hot chips... so Josh and I did a little spin on the tradition. Here is the finished product:

So it was sliced, parboiled desiree potatoes marinated in herbs and oil then grilled on the griddle pan. We also grilled some zucchini and arranged a nice little nest to place the rabbit on. Then we quickly made a gravy from the pan juices- it was delicious! I know it sounds cliché, but it tasted like chicken. It looked a bit like chicken too, and was just a little tougher - maybe that is characteristic of the meat, or maybe i cooked it too long? I thought it would be a red meat for some reason... Anyway Interesting!

So now I have 9 dishes left to go until I have finished my list of new recipes. I have picked out ones i want to make, so stay tuned :)

MACAROOONNNNSSS

Can y'all guess what I made last weekend?? You smarty-pants, correct! Macaroons :D My friend Claudia arranged the whole thing and brought over some piping bags and food dye, and we got started!! I cannot even be bothered recounting every step of the process and every mistake we made or telling you how many HOURS it took, so please look at the pretty pretty pictures and see macaroons made easy:

They came out looking like little burgers.... They were meant to be bright pink haha! Something went wrong in the oven! The filling was a raspberry buttercream filling with some Maggie Beer 'Raspberry and Pomegranate' Jam mixed through!! It was freaking amazing. I had half a macaroon then Claudia took the rest along to a friend's party, but by the time I arrived (fashionably late) they were all gone! I guess it's a good sign that the macaroons were well received!! Kudos to me and Claudia for being good at stuff :) For some reason we agreed to re-convene and try it again in a few weeks. Oh dear :D 

Oh, did I mention this is dish 42 of 52 for the list?? WOOHOO!! I'm just a bit worried about sleeping under the stars as Winter is setting in. Oh god.

Kitchen Musings

It has been a while since I posted about cooking, so it is fair to assume that you fairly assumed I wasn't cooking. Thankfully, this is not the case! I have been having fun sweating it out in the kitchen, and have selected a few dishes from over the last month or so to write about. Life has been hurtling along, bringing with it many new avenues, opportunities and distractions for me. Many things have changed.. like my housemate Hayden moving out, my involvement in the writing course and having homework again (!), pushing myself to read more and write more in a notebook throughout the day, a new boss, a new kitten and unluckily, new car issues. I have lots on my mind and life feels full of possibilities and challenges to tackle!

Let's put all that aside for a second and step into the kitchen. My kitchen is a place where the little things on my mind twirl up into the exhaust fan along with the steam from a big pot of soup. Depending on my aggression levels that day, they may also get pulverised into oblivion as I knead (read: punch) some dough. I find cooking can be very therapeutic if you are open to the possibility. I'm sure this doesn't apply to everyone of course, but indulge me for a moment while I muse about one of my favourite past, present and future times: food.


Dish 38) Chicken and Apricot Tagine:
 
When I was a kid, my mum used to make "Apricot Chicken with Rice" from time to time. I really enjoyed the simple blend of canned apricot nectar, a few fresh ingredients, and a packet of seasoning. I thought we were stepping up from the classic Meat and three veg into the new wave of culinary fashion. As I became more snobbish I decided that Apricot Chicken was so passé, and I couldn't possibly like it anymore. Overnight it went from something I would squeal "woohoo!" about when Mum told me what she was cooking, to something I would roll my eyes at. Lately, I have realised that those childhood gems have become, whether I like it or not, comfort food. I was feeling nostalgic enough to want some Apricot Chicken but not enough to actually execute my plan. I thought about the meat/fruit combination and realised it is reminiscent of Moroccan tagines with apricots and preserved lemons involved. I decided to put a spin on the Apricot Chicken I grew up with, and made this Tagine. It was Chicken, Apricot and for some reason I put olives in there too.
 

The recipe was delicious but I accidentally overcooked the chicken so it went a little dry :( It was tasty, but certainly didn't meet the comfort food/nostalgia requirement. I may just have to pick myself up a can of Apricot Nectar next time I'm at the supermarket!


Dish 39) Dutch Apple Pie
This recipe comes from the Dutch cook book my pal Jim let me borrow. He put a little post-it flag on the page meaning I should try to make it. It was quite tasty, but I wasn't happy with it at the end. The recipe didn't call for you to bake the shortcrust pastry base first before adding the wet fillings.. so as a result, the base was undercooked and a bit soggy. Also, the apples went in raw and at the end I wished I had stewed them for a little bit to soften them. My dad thought too much cinnamon... but I thought not enough :) It was a controversial little pie, that is for sure. I liked the idea of simmering the raisins in orange juice on the stove, the flavour was delicious!!

Dish 40) Breakfast Pizza

I saw a recipe for this on Smitten Kitchen yonks ago, and I have never forgotten it. Pizza for BREAKFAST?! Unheard of!! Josh and I made this after I got home from Adelaide a few weeks back. We were too hungry so we bought pizza bases instead of making fresh dough. Also, we changed the recipe to include tomato paste - mm-mmm!

I really loved it, but perhaps half a pizza each is enough next time. And most of the eggs were over-cooked so the yolk was like a yellow rubber disc. Not nice! I had one good one - and it happened to be the first one I ate. Then everything went down hill. If you make this, it's definitely better to have the egg a little runny than overcooked BLAHHHHHH!

Dish 41) Peppery Lamb Curry


I got this new cookbook called "INDIA" by Pushpesh Pant, which I am a bit obsessed with. It comes in a little "rice sack" bag for your carrying pleasure! The pages are a thin paper - like yellow pages - and the book is divided into coloured sections for appetizers, mains, vegetarian, breads, grains/pulses. The photography is cool and rustic and colourful and from the 3 recipes I have followed - the food is awesome! I still have 997 recipes to go until I've clocked the book! This was my favourite of the three:

The guy at the spice store convinced me to buy this 5kg sack of rice. He said it would last 10 years. Chester is a fan!  

Oh yummmmm! Lots of different chili powders and fresh and dried chillies went into this!! The only thing I'd change is to cut back on the Ghee, I got so many pimples a few days after eating this and the other curries I made in the following days. My body is not used to so much ghee or butter and broke out like a muvva bitch.

~!!~How Utterly Camp~!!~

Hello my lovely readers, it appears we meet again! So, do you come here often? I think you might. Maybe not as much as you would like, maybe a little too much and it scares you. Whatever the case, I appreciate you reading this :) What you are about to read is a post I must say I am excited to present! For those of you who find my erratic post themes confusing, let me remind you of the thick and juicy vein snaking through subarashiiblog, connecting all the posts and supplying them with life-blood direct from my heart. The List.
Remember the list? The quaint old bucket list I made shortly after my 23rd Birthday to ensure I get more out of life and become more proactive and involve myself in new scenarios and potentially remove myself from my comfort zone. I am LOVING IT. Let me refresh your memory by showing you the list again, this time complete with pseudo highschool graffiti.....

I think i will add to the graffiti over time. I like it. If it's anything like the back of my school books it will just have in-jokes about Bio-Dome and the word "hey" written in fancy font EVERYWHERE. So, the list. I have make OK progress i think, I still need to cook a few more things, write a few more poems, and check out some new vego restaurants among other things. The garden looks better every day so I'll end that as late as i can! Anyway you may notice a few things ticked off that you don't remember me actually completing, and you may be thinking "Hey bitch, hold up, hold up!". Well don't get those knickers in a twist just yet, I'm here to tell you that I have SMASHED a few more things off the list in the last week alone. Grab your galoshes and brolly, and let me take you on a journey into my world dot dot dot dot dot dot dot

Some friends of mine started organising a camping trip a few weeks back, and I naturally jumped on board. I was eager to go proper camping with neither electricity or toilets, in order to see how I handle being out of my physical comfort zone. Now, I'm not exactly a princess. I come from Tom-Boy origins. Sometimes I wear the same clothes AND underwear (turned inside out of course) for two days in a row to work if i randomly stay at Josh's place. I wear 'house clothes' which are torn, food-stained and are invariably made up of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. One weekend i didn't shower for 48 hours. I even continue eating my lunch if i drop it in the toilet bowl. Wring it out, it's alright! Nah that one's a joke. I swear. The point is, I wanted to see how primal I could really get without being ashamed. I should point out that the one time I went camping in the past (November 2004) was where I met Josh - at Schoolies in Lorne. We had electricity, toilets, showers, music, jaffle irons, even a hammock which i stupidly forgot to bring along this time. Everyone said "Pfft, that's not REAL camping!" to which I swore I would experience one day. But if I hadn't gone, I would never have met Josh and be as happy with him as I am today, over 6 years later! eeeee *heart swell*

Anyway, enough mush! Let's talk about bush...

So off we went on Friday morning. Not only were we all excited to be going camping, we were exponentially excited due to the fact that we were NOT going to work :) Double yayz! We drove up to a place called Cobram. A place where you can walk around with no shirt or shoes, where Ute's are more common than the flies buzzing around your unwashed hair, and where the very best Op-Shops can be found. It is situated 262 km North of Melbourne on the banks of the Murray River. What I somehow failed to realise the whole time I was there was that on the other side of the Murray was New South Wales.. but NOW I know. As do you! So, as I have never driven around these parts, I am deeming this item 16) Road Trip to a new location COMPLETE. You may say "Well obviously if you go camping on item 15, you've gotta road trip it - they are like the same thing!".. wrong. I could easily have set up a tent in my spacious backyard or at the park up the road and become 1 with my dog and cat and learned to live as they. That would be weird. Anyway, the weather forecast was not looking good. Rain and flooding were forecasted. I was worried that my camping trip dream was going to become un-hinged. Luckily we were all invested balls-deep in the plan so we still went for it. While the boys got super-wet and set up ramshackle shelter...

....we girls went foraging for mushrooms and more importantly... bug corpses:

It was like 'Naussica of the Valley of the Wind' up in there! You might say that our transcendence into camping bliss was quite similar to the birth of a bug. For example, we sat in the safe cacoon of the car watching while the elements outside were too fierce for us. When they calmed down and the time was right, we emerged from the car refreshed and full of energy to explore our surroundings and start to potentially .... bug.... the others. Haha ok, that pun was a stretch, but here's a picture I made of bugs having a tea party to distract you from my inadequacies as a comedic writer...

This bug collection was moved onto the back shelf of the car unbeknownst to the driver. When he found my morbid little collection later on, he came back to the camp fire saying how his car was a bit too "Silence of the Lambs" for his liking. Oops. That's all part of my charm. I was only collecting them so I could give some kid a cool present. "Hey little kid, come over here. Aunty Jade's got something for you....." hmmm. I actually forgot to take them home so I don't know what became of them. Back to reality (oops there goes gravity), Nat and I faffed around while the boys made a great shelter so we could start drying fire wood and eventually set up tents. Here's Nat playing with my new umbrella:

How cute! Some time and tummy grumbles passed and we worried that the second car of friends wouldn't make it through the muddy tracks, and it was getting late. Eventually they rocked up in a blaze of mud and spinning tyres and we commenced making dinner #1!

Note: this is not how a well managed kitchen should look. Cooking by lantern light was cho subarashii though ^_^! We didn't have much to work with so I made little tin-foil vegie parcels to go with the burgers, and man... they were awesome. I put some Dill in there, and blew some minds, let me tell you. Here's the boys cooking the boigers, just before the 3rd car turned up!

OMG! One camping fantasy I had went all the way back to childhood. See, I used to be obsessed with the 1993 movie "The Sandlot Kids" or as it is called in the US, simply "The Sandlot". You know the one, all those cute little boys playing baseball to a rad 50's soundrack and there's that monster dog and James Earl Jones features in it? Ah, I can see them all now: Smalls, Squints, Benny the Jet, Ham, Yeah Yeah, Timmy & Tommy, and of course Wendy Peffercorn. In one unforgettable scene (to me, they all are) Ham explains to the n00b Smalls what a S'more is. Here is an excerpt from the scene:

Ham Porter: Hey Smalls, you wanna S'more?
Smalls: Some more of what?
Ham Porter: No, do you wanna S'more?
Smalls: I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?
Ham Porter: You're killing me Smalls! These are s'more's stuff! *motions to the confectionary surrounding him* Alright, now pay attention. First you take the graham, you stick the chocolate on the graham. Then you roast the 'mallow. When the 'mallows flaming... you stick it on the chocolate. Then cover it with the other end. Then you scarf. Kind of messy, but good!

Well, obviously I had to make s'mores! The best part was that while I was making them, Ruari, Stevenz and I had fun quoting the movie to each other. Actually, the best part was the taste :) I couldn't get hold of  "Graham Crackers" at such short notice so I got some Arnott's wholemeal cookies instead. The "Aussie equivalent" it seems. I wrapped them in foil and popped them in the embers to melt. Amazing.

Yum. This was not the end of my cooking adventures though, oh no! Stay tuned for more!

Let's jump to the morning after the first night. I was so hung over. I suppose part of this recollection is to outline the things that were uncomfortable about my trip. Going to the toilet was probably the worst for me. There wasn't much in the way of shrubs to hide behind so peeing in the daytime was annoying. You had to pick the perfect spot and keep your eye on camp. If anyone made eye contact while i was peeing.. that would have been just creepy. "Yes, I'm urinating. What of it?" The worst thing was that the further back you went, the more of camp you saw and assumed everyone could see you too! The boys just told me to come swimming and pee in the river. I didn't want to admit that it was the best idea I'd heard all day, but eventually I was 'talked into it'. We were all swimming around and they were like "have you peed yet?" every now and then. Mortified. But really, the current was so strong where we were on the first day I just had to make sure there was no-one downstream of me and it wasn't so bad :) But yes, as you can imagine... AGB's are not great in the bright morning light, having to squat with no cover or balance. I didn't make that mistake twice. After the AGB episode I came back to camp to find Jake and Corey making tea and snags for breakfast. Saints. Absolute saints! They kindly gave me some as my Muesli was looking as appealing as kitty litter at that point! After the heary breakfast we did the only rational thing possible: we drove to town and  went op-shopping. Obviously. I bought $11.50 worth of GOLD, but i forgot to take pictures - sorry :)

Back at camp, we decided to go fishing and swimming. Of course, first we needed worms for the rod, so I helped dig for worms, and then in no time it was all three girls elbows deep in mud yelling "I got a BIG ONE!". That's when we noticed this guy and had a bit of a 'girly moment':

After the screaming died down, we realised he was actually a bit cute! He was pretty scared so we put him back and set off to find a good fishing spot :) We found this amazing still lagoon which would later become the scene of yet another list item being SMASHED! If that's not a lure to keep reading, i don't know what is! While Jake fished, and Corey foraged, I rambled on incessantly to Jake - who i had only just met - and got my feet nice and muddy. It felt so good...

Ok, I'm jumping out of chronological order for a second to tell you what we did late that night at this very lagoon..... we went:

Oh yes! That's right! In this spot, we went night-time skinny dipping! Three girls, two boys, no clothes, and so dark that everyone just looked like a pale blur. I have taken the liberty of labelling the diagram for you.

Point A: This log is where we left our clothes (and a house key which is gone forever)
Point B: This is out toward the river's current and where we sat on a log doing tumbles into the water.
Point C: The Jumping Tree. This is where we did bomb dives. And this is also where I scraped my tummy and boobs clambering up into the tree looking like a dead rag doll slumped over it apprently.
Point D: Allllll the way back towards camp is where my friend placed my glasses for safe keepings when i did my bomb dive from the tree.

I asked my friend to hold them but she swam all the way back to shore and proceeded to walk for about 3 minutes fully naked until she found an ambiguous enough place to leave my glasses. Needless to say that we searched for ages afterwards shivering and clutching towels and clothes to ourselves. We actually gave up but on the way back to the camp, she said "Oh, a fence! I hung them on this fence!" and there they were. I still don't know why she swam and walked soooo far, it's pretty funny though.

So with the Skinny Dipping challenge complete, there was yet another item I knew i could complete. Fruit challenge! I bought another new fruit to eat. The final one of five. This time....

Amazing! It wasn't a good idea wearing white shorts while eating them, in fact it was a poor choice wearing them all together. I liked the pomegranate, but I got bored of eating it well before I was satisfied. It was like pulling little teeth out of some bitter white gums, but tasted nothing like teeth. I should know. Eew. Ok, so bringing it back around... before the skinny dipping we made out second dinner. Corey and Jake had some pasta ingredients and I had a few gourmet touches to add as well so we ended up with the most gourmet camp pasta ever!

In that rich looking dish was: Onion, Garlic, chilli, butter, oil, white wine, salt and pepper, basil, salami, some left over blue cheese and brie, and some philly cheese... I think that was it. It was so rich and amazing. After scarfing that I was commissioned to recreate some vegie parcels for those who missed out on the first night....

And then naturally we started playing drinking games, namely Kings. Below is a photo of boxhead/drinkbitch. As if it isn't humiliating enough being the slave who gets everyone's drinks, you have to wear a box on your head and almost trip into the fire while doing so...

That was really fun, especially when one of the rules became that we had to talk in European accents until the next Rule card is drawn. There were some interesting sounding British accents out there, that's for sure. I didn't realise Borat lived in London :) Ok so it was after this game that we were charged up enough to go skinny dipping, then danced and sang until around 3.30am when i fell into blissful sober yet exhausted sleep. I was awoken at about 6am when the others went to bed. Glad it wasn't me ;)

On the sad drive home, I had a peanut butter sandwich made with squashed white bread and spread on with the back of a plastic spoon. It was one of the nicest things ever. It was the last stop on my journey back to childhood.

It was also the last thing i made camping style. I am hereby saying that all the camping food i made counts as 1 dish on my list of 52 dishes. So, Dish 37: Camp food. Wee! JUST after I ate the sandwich, they suggested we stop and get a country bakery pie - one of my other favourite things ever. So naturally, i had a second lunch.....

Then I fell asleep on my pillow and snoozed for an hour or more, and woke up minutes from home. The fun memories and the acheivements unlocked are still fresh on my mind. Even for the first few hours of being home, or at least until my first shower, one little fly kept buzzing around my face. I think I unintentionally brought a little bit of Cobram back with me ;)