Confit Fennel with Chardonnay and Honey Mustard

I’m sitting in our caravan, a relatively small one by today’s standards. We’re in a western NSW town for our fourth day, a day longer than planned. My keyboard is dappled with pretty dancing light and shadows tip toeing across my hands back and forth as I type. They float through the window in the shape of old-fashioned bottle brushes and finger shaped leaves created by sun peeping through waving branches of blooming Callistemon trees that surround our little patch of earth on which we’re parked. Waving branches perhaps a polite description 30 knot gusts. Not only do the shadows move back and forth, but our small home on wheels jolts side to side too. We’re being buffeted by gusts of winds strong enough to remind us our salubrious little abode is indeed on wheels and not permanent. The weather front passing our locale has halted our travels, grounding us, keeping us in place another day as it passes. The thought of hauling a large square ‘box’ not really designed for cross winds behind a car of equally square arrangement, enough to force us to make do and stay put for just one more day.

The phrase ‘making do’ is often preceded with the word just… “just make do,” suggesting making do is a compromise. That to live with what’s at hand, what’s around you, what’s available is somehow not as great an existence as what could be, or what’s missing. However a holiday touring and traveling is one requiring the utmost compromise and making do, but in the best possible way.

Compacting your normally busy and plentiful life into a 5 metre long caravan and car with barely a plan but a vague direction into which you head, following the sun, a midway point as a guide and the coast your road home, requires some thought and a lot of concession. It requires thought and planning. Enough clothes but not too many, ingredients to make meals but the right ones for maximum flavour taking up minimum space while still maintaining enough nutrition and interest (maybe that’s just me), spare parts and tools for any mishaps or glitches, medicines to last, toiletries, water etc ad nauseum. It can be enough to make your brain spin and consider a well-planned all-inclusive tour on which someone else does all the planning and you just turn up and enjoy. But that wouldn’t really be the point or the same holiday. We’re fairly well versed at this exercise, we’ve traversed the highways of Australia zig zagging across the wide-open planes many times. We’ve travelled with tiny babies, toddlers and kids in the most basic of camping set ups through various iterations to what now feels like a floating hotel room. Our family has gazed at billions of stars while our toes burrowed in the red dirt of the outback, breathed in eucalyptus fragranced mist at dawn on mountain tops in the high country (ok I may have done that from the comfort of a sleeping bag with one eye half open #notamorningperson) and walked isolated beaches as sapphire blue waters lapped our feet. What we’ve not done before is travel with nary a plan. Our journeys are normally planned to the day with itineraries dictating the day’s location, travel or plans, their length instructed by school holidays or annual leave from work. This time is different and while planning what’s required to stow for enjoyment, comfort and safety remains a necessity a plan as loose as that with which we’ve set off requires a willingness to travel with fluidity and adaptability.

Our first week saw an overnight stop in a tiny town with the only availability for our new car’s first check-up service for hundreds of miles and consequently a birthday dinner for my husband at the local returned serviceman’s club.

A misstep by a very confused google maps taking us down a narrow road leading to a laneway style carriageway between paddocks of grain crops not really suited to a touring rig and the discovery that whatever grain was growing and I are not friends. Hello hives on legs after squatting amongst roadside stray crops to take photos. Maybe I should suggest an upgrade to google maps in which you can set a preference for roads worthy of a four-wheel drive trailing a caravan.

Also this week, the beautiful kindred spirit of small town communities found in a riverside precinct, a beautiful multicultural celebration and a spring festival marking the harvest of Griffith’s food crops and a promenade of sculptures created with a surplus of oranges from the region, one of only two places in the world in which this happens.

All inspiring and all examples of towns making the most of their communities and what their regions offer. Making do perhaps or making something special. Maybe that’s what ‘making do’ is. Maybe making do creates the space for a serendipity of its own leading to an unexpected ‘special.’ Maybe traveling with a mostly open-ended vague plan, without the limitation of a strict timetable and with a shrunken down life that fits into what amounts to a trailing box is the path to learning the joy in making do and appreciating the results.

With the ‘limitations’ this adventure presents my pantry is a modicum of what I’m used to reaching for. My dinner time yearnings however are not. With limited ingredients and a hankering for something delicious to accompany the lamb backstrap that Hubby was planning on barbecuing I started plotting. I’m now lucky enough to travel with an, albeit small, but normal fridge freezer arrangement. As you’d imagine its filled with a strategically selected collection of meat and vegetables, a perfect canvas for the equally tactical collection of flavourings and accoutrements in the cupboard. With the outback sun settling into the horizon the air had cooled and my desire for something warm and hearty to sit next to our lamb had also settled on me. With the bulb of fennel in the crisper, my favourite mustard found at a small local supermarket and the remains of a delicious chardonnay sourced in Wagga on our first night and some patience at the stove I made do, and the result created confit fennel with chardonnay and mustard.

I offer you this recipe with a warning of sorts. In the true spirit of making do I am travelling without scales, measuring spoons and, at best, a vague notion of time. Whist I’ve made my best effort to make this as precise as I normally would offer it does come with a small disclaimer that, like I have, you should trust your cooking gut and use your senses while following my instructions. Make do my friends.

Instructions:

1 bulb of fennel trimmed of tops, cored and thickly sliced into 1 cm slices

1 french shallot peeled and sliced

2 tbs salted capers washed and drained

1 garlic clove peeled and finely sliced

¼ c extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp butter

Good glug of white wine, I used chardonnay and would say a good glug is something akin to 2 tb

1 heaped tsp of Dijon honey mustard. If you don’t have this used 1 of regular Dijon and half of tsp of runny honey

¼ tsp dried oregano flakes 

Method:

Preheat olive oil in a medium to large fry pan (mine is 28cm at the base) over medium-low heat until oil is just starting to be runny and looser when you lift and roll the pan, 3-4 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add fennel and shallot. Stir to coat thoroughly in the oil and allow to simmer stirring often for 5-7 minutes until the edges are translucent one third of the way to centre of the slices As pictured below, the middle of the slices will still be white. Ensure when stirring the shallot is not browning.

At this stage add the garlic and capers and stir well again cooking another five minutes stirring often to make sure the garlic softens and melts not browns.

Once fennel is soft and completely translucent stir in the butter and increase heat to medium high, watch closely so the vegetable doesn’t catch and butter burn, it’s fine if it caramelises at the edges. After 1-2 minutes when it’s increased in heat splash in the wine, it should immediately bubble up and start to reduce. After the wine has reduced by perhaps half’ish after a couple minutes stir in the mustard and sprinkle over the oregano. Allow to simmer a minute more then serve immediately.

We enjoyed it next to barbecue lamb backstap topped with beetroot relish stirred through Greek yoghurt, bbq’ed corn and green salad. It would also be delicious with roast pork and greens or chicken. This served the two of us, both fennel lovers.

Antipasto and Quinoa Salad

My eyes have felt irritated this week. An almost gritty feeling, not itchy, not burning, nor like there was something in my eye, just like I’ve been constantly caught in a dust storm. I suspected a mascara needing replacement but it’s not that old.

Shivering through the days still, my mind was still entrenched in winter. Soups, casseroles, hearty fortifying fare fill our tummies while ensconced in woolly jumpers and the like trying to stay warm. With still a few weeks to go of winter and biting morning frosts I’m definitely still in winter mode. Maybe my eyes are just cold…is that even a thing?

Our bedroom window perched at tree top level looks skyward. We don’t sleep with window dressings closed, rather we like to be woken by growing light in the morning. Cloud cover, fog and grey, still greets us most mornings as we move through August and the last weeks of winter. As daytime rises so too does the sun. Cloud cover melted away by warming sun, broken up and burnt off reveals warming bright glowing sunshine, the kind that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. The sunshine has had a particularly golden glow recently, one that catches your attention and creates its own sense of warmth, ‘warm light’ my photographer brain would say. Skinks and geckos are burrowing out of the mulch in the front garden rising to the warmth, a morning sunbake to great an enticement to ignore. Kookaburras basking, perched on low eucalypt branches, thawing from overnight frosts take advantage of the small reptiles succumbing to temptation, swooping down feasting on their prey. The daphne and hellebore are nearing the end of their bloom while the hydrangeas and fig show the first sign of bud. And that golden glow. Lasting all day not just in the day’s bookends of golden hours but enduring during the day. The sun’s arc is shifting, poking higher through the canopy. That light, it’s richness, the product of the wattle bloom. Soft, small, fluffy pom poms in huge tight clusters weigh heavily from the soft wooded ends of the various species of acacia surrounding us. My car and windows are covered in fine yellow dust, at the right time of day in the right breezes clouds of pollen blow through like tiny yellow fairies catching the light almost sparkling. My eyes, I realise, are trying to tell me something I’ve not quite noticed yet, the seasons are turning. Spring is on the way.

As if the only sign of a visceral shift in seasons noticed by my eyes wasn’t enough I should have noticed things changing by my own shift in the kitchen. While the odd slow cook dots the menu here and there the hearty fare that would normally appear nightly is waning and my cravings lean more towards liter dinners. The move to the next season also signals the the move towards the emergence from our self-imposed hibernations when we seek out the company of pals, begin entertaining more, pondering dinners outdoors and picnics. While the temperatures don’t quite lean themselves towards balmy evenings and dinners outdoors yet I do start yearning for the meals we’ll enjoy in the months to come on such evenings. Like the weather, the produce available doesn’t quite lend itself to a variety of fresh salads but with a little inventiveness and a few things form the store cupboard I can create something akin to a summer salad that’s still satisfying enough to fuel my internal thermostat and help me stay warm once that gorgeous shoulder season sunshine sets each night in anticipation of the coming warmer months.

Antipasto and Quinoa Salad served in a savoury yoghurt puddle feels like a culinary bridge between the seasons to me. Quinoa for protein and satiety, and a variety of veg, a mix between preserved summer veg and some fresh all cooked to marry together with the traditional flavours of the Mediterranean. Served in a puddle of Greek yoghurt laced with the basil, lemon and garlic vinaigrette dressing from the salad. It’s enough to be a meal on its own or a delicious and fancy salad to accompany all the delicious BBQ’s meats we’re looking forward to enjoying in the coming months.

Ingredients:

100gm/ ½ c of quinoa

2 capsicums/bell peppers of different colours if available, cored and cut into quarters/cheeks or 1 260 gm jar of grilled capsicum in oil drained

3 french shallots, peeled and quartered lengthways

1 zucchini, ends trimmed, sliced in 1cm discs

½ c sundried tomatoes in oil drained and chopped if necessary. If you have the cherry tomato variety they’ll probably be a nice size left as they are.

1 cup of finely shredded and chopped tuscan kale or similar such as spinach, silverbeet or regular kale

Dressing:

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove crushed

1 Tb finely chopped fresh basil

1 Tb fresh lemon juice

½ - 1 tsp salt flakes to taste

1 cup Greek yoghurt

Method:

Preheat oven to 210c. Cook quinoa according to packet instructions, drain and cool.

Whisk together dressing ingredients mixing vigorously to emulsify and thicken, set aside. In another small bowl whisk yoghurt with 2 tsps of the dressing and set aside.

On a lined tray place fresh capsicum cheeks skin side up and in the oven for 30 minutes until skin is blackened. Remove from oven and place the capsicum in a sealed plastic bag to cool. On the same tray place the cut shallots inner cut side up, drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven at 190c. After ten minutes when the cut edges have almost blackened turn the onions over and return to the oven for a further ten minutes. Remove and cool.

If you have a grill pan heat over a med-high heat or the same with a medium sized heavy based frypan until just smoking, it needs to be very hot. Brush the pan with olive oil and cook zucchini immediately 3 minutes each side until nice grill marks form or each side is caramelised, cool on paper towel to drain. Once cool, slice the discs in half to make them more bite sized. While they’re cooling remove capsicum from bag and peel away the singed skin, it should come away easily. Slice into 1 cm wide strips.

In a large bowl combine quinoa and all vegetables gently folding to keep the veg whole.

On a serving platter plop the yoghurt in the centre and using the back of a large spoon gently make circles gradually increasing in size until it’s all spread out to the edges of the plate in a ring forming a mote of sorts. Much in the way of adding sauce to a pizza. Gently pile the salad in the middle of the yoghurt puddle in a pile mounding to a peak in the middle. When ready to serve drizzle the dressing all around, it will drizzle down through the pile and mix more as your guests serve themselves.

Notes:

To make things easier for yourself you can use premade antipasto in the flavours you prefer just be sure and buy the veg preserved in oil not vinegar as obviously there’ll be a significant flavour difference. You might enjoy eggplant in place of the zucc for example.

A 260gm jar of chargilled capsicum can be used in place of the two fresh caps.

If quinoa isn’t your jam replace with one you do prefer such as farro, rice or barley. Any small similar grain will work. If you wish to use pasta instead of quinoa use a small shaped one like macaroni and use 200 gm.

Grilled Asparagus with Chunky Tomato Vinaigrette

There’s been a lot of talk about cars around here lately. CV joints, brakes, suspension both leaf and spring, radiators fans etc etc etc ad infinitum. All terms I never anticipated knowing or indeed understanding but such is the life of a boy mum who’s boys love adventuring buy maintain and own their cars on their own ticket. I bet not a subject you ever expected to read about on a food blog either, but here we are.

You see, cars are super important to young people and in my experience young men. Cars are their independence especially when they still live at home, they’re often their conduit to study and employment choices without the shackles of public transport access and in my sons cases a symbol of economic achievement. They both saved for, bought and maintain their own cars all by the age of 18. They worked hard for that achievement and continue to work hard to sustain it. As they do to support their dreams and the one both boys are about to embark on.

As the boys grew, up we always holidayed in the wild. Packing our four wheel drive and camper trailer to the rafters so to speak, we’d set off to the trees or the ocean seeking adventure and freedom in the wide open. Sometimes ‘dragging’ your kids off on such holidays year in year out is enough to turn them off such adventures for life. In the case of our kids, however, this has been far from the case, indeed it’s driven them to go further and wilder. Soon, both boys will be heading off on their own adventures, in different directions from each other both with open ended return dates. One will head west, following the wild southern ocean to the west coast heading north to the red ocre of the Kimberley and the tropical north of his childhood. The other lad will head off through the open planed NSW outback to the green ocean side tropics of northern Queensland, both wonderful holiday spots if their wanderings prevail and we fly north to visit and fill our arms and family cup with their companionship. I’m all parts excited for them and with all my mother’s emotions inwardly sad at the void their absence will leave. Maggie McKellar has touched on this in her beautiful weekly newsletter The Sit Spot on occasion and will also write about motherhood in her new book to be released next year which can’t come soon enough. Their expeditions will take them on routes I’ve not travailed myself and open their eyes and wings in ways remaining at home never could. The prospect of this growth is beyond exciting for me to witness as their mother but the wrench to stand at the top of the drive way and wave them off as they drive away with a smile and dry eyes will be my own adventure.

Whilst melancholy at the thought of their departure, a part of me is also a little excited at what may come for me and us. Even though they’re adults running a home for a family of four still takes time and the ‘mother lobe’ of the brain to be constantly activated, or maybe that’s just me. The family diary in your head still ticks away, and the detritus of family life still surrounds you. Whilst I don’t begrudge that part of myself I’ve bestowed on them, indeed I’m grateful to have been able to do that, but I do look forward to another chapter opening in my life.

In helping our kids prepare for their trips one of the things they’ve sought advice on is meals they’ve enjoyed both at home and on the road, as I mentioned here. On reflection one of the great benefits of this blog is them being able to refer it while they travel ( when they have mobile/cell service) for the tastes of home but also it gives me an opportunity to explore other ideas for meals, particularly ones my husband and I can enjoy for lighter even meals for two and easy quick meals. Whilst the boys enjoy a wide variety of foods they are strapping, busy growing lads whose appetites and needs are perhaps greater than ours. More and more I’m thinking about dishes we might enjoy together of a lighter style. I created this recently for a quick lunch mopping up all that was left on the plate. It’s a delicious combination of flavours that will be flexible to be a side dish and as is with an egg as a quick dinner, maybe at the end of a weekend day adventuring ourselves.

Ingredients:

1-2 bunches of fresh asparagus spears, around 6-8 spears each.

1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes

1 ½ tsp salted capers, washed and chopped

1 tsp of Dijon mustard

2 tsp of sherry or red wine vinegar

2 tbs Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

2 eggs

2 tsp pine nuts

Mixed salad leaves

Method:

In a medium half fill with water, a generous sprinkle of salt and a good glug of white vinegar and pop over a high heat to bring to the boil.

Trim asparagus by breaking the end off at the base. To do this hold the base in one hand and the spear half way up in the other hand and bend. Do this gently and it will naturally break at the point where the sweet tender flesh meets the woody end. Place in a suitably sized bowl or plate, drizzle a small amount of olive oil and gently and briefly massage all over to coat the spears, set aside. In a medium bowl whisk together the capers, mustard, vinegar and oil, taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. It’s important to taste first as the capers, though washed, will add salt to the dish. Gently fold through the tomatoes and set aside. Set a griddle pan on a medium-high heat until smoking. Tip Asparagus into pan perpendicular to the griddle lines and cook a few minutes each side until just starting to soften. Remove from heat and keep war.

In the boiling pot, swirl water until a whirlpool forms and crack eggs into the centre of the whirlpool and simmer for 3-4 minutes or until it’s as firm as you prefer. You can gently lift the egg in a slotted spoon to the surface and gently touch it to check how done it is.

To assemble, place a handful of the salad leaves on a plate, lay the asparagus on top and spoon over the tomato mixture. With a light touch rest the poached egg on top, sprinkle pine nuts around the plate and serve.

I enjoy this dish with an extra flourish of persian feta or pan fried haloumi. Hubby like it next to some extra protein.

Served without egg this is an excellent side with all meats or on as part of shared table of a few sides. Plated as a larger dish in such a manner this will serve four as a side or six as part of a several offerings.

If you don’t have a griddle pan you can cook the asparagus on a barbecue/grill or even steam them.

Porcupine Meatball Curry

There’s a lot to love about camping holidays, particularly at the moment. Long days in the sun, swimming, exploring and generally relaxing. Reading books at leisure in the shade of towering old gum trees while the waters of a river or creek gentle bubble by, no chores to draw you away or distract your mind and hands. All this vacation utopia until the tummy rumbles, the one task that follows you everywhere. Now don’t get me wrong I actually enjoy the challenge of a campfire cook and creatively throwing together what’s in the camping fridge but I also enjoy the break and have employed the greatest camping hack ever!! In the week or so leading up to a trip I have a bit of a cook up and vacuum pack meals. Portioned in just the right amount and sealed up for easy and safe packing in the fridge, dinner becomes as complicated as choosing and warming up.

In doing my pre-holiday cook this time around, I tried to think of something new using some old ideas. If you grew up in Australia there’s a whole lot about this recipe that will be familiar. The alchemy of three ideas into one my Porcupine Curry is pretty easy, healthy and can be turned up or down for little palettes or older ones.

PS: This holds almost no semblance to anything evenly remotely authentic but if you love a curry you’ll most likely still enjoy it.

NB: I promise no porcupines were harmed in the making of this dish. 

Ingredients:

1 kg Mince Beef (Any minced/ground meat will work though)

1/3 c uncooked rice

2 tsps grated ginger

2 tsps grated garlic

1 heaped tsp curry powder

1 ½ tsp salt flakes

2 tbs ghee

1 onion sliced

1 c beef stock

2 Tbs Indian style curry paste

1 700gm bottle tomato passata/sauce (the Italian style)

100 gm frozen spinach (vegies sorted)

1 Tb peanut butter

Method:

Combine meat, uncooked rice, ½ the ginger and garlic, curry powder and salt flakes in a bowl. Work with your hands to thoroughly combine. Doing this well, squeezing the mixture through your hands activates the proteins making it sticky enough to amalgamate without additional ingredients like egg and breadcrumbs. Form into balls the size of golf balls or small passionfruit and pop in the fridge on a plate in a single layer to firm up while you make the sauce, we’re not going to brown them.

Heat a fry pan big enough to hold all the meatballs in a single layer over medium heat. Melt/heat ghee until beginning to bubble. Add onion and fry gently over low heat until soft, moving around occasionally to prevent browning, around 5 minutes. Add remaining garlic and ginger and fry 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Turn heat up to medium-high and add curry paste and fry off until also fragrant, 3’ish minutes. Add tomato passata and frozen and spinach, stir to combine until spinach is broken up. Allow sauce to simmer after this for 5 minutes until it’s gently bubbling. Stir in peanut butter until thoroughly broken up and combined. Turn heat down to a gentle simmer and gently return meatballs to the pan in a single layer. Gently spoon sauce over balls to ensure they’re all coated in sauce, cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. This is when the meatballs will start to cook and firm up allowing you to be able to stir later. After 15 minutes remove lid and allow to simmer for a further 45 minutes. This is when the magic happens and the balls will grow little porcupine spikes as the rice cooks in the moisture. Some rice grains will escape and float in the sauce, this is totally fine and delicious. Serve with additional rice and yoghurt and other yummy Indian style accoutrements.

Notes:

If you want to turn the volume down on the spice try using a milder style curry paste before you add less paste to maintain the delicious curry flavour and balance. I’ve used a korma paste in the photo but it’s fine with all styles. The curry powder in the balls doesn’t really add to the heat so start with the paste if you want a milder dish.

If you’re using minced/ground chicken go gently placing the balls in the sauce as it’s a much wetter product. Resist the urge to add an absorbing ingredient like breadcrumbs as this will absorb the sauce and affect the rice cooking well.