Sensing a trend here?  I don’t know about anyone else but sometimes I get on a flavor kick and this time it’s Morocco.  The blend of spices, the end of winter, the texture of the food in my mouth — not sure what it is but we’re really enjoying the experimentation.

I had some eggplant jam a few weeks ago and have been dying to try it and yesterday was the day.  It was a good thing really because we had intended to have thick juicy beef filets for dinner.  I’d bought the meat, cut the steaks really thick and sat them on the counter to bring to room temperature.  I went to the sofa with my iPad to send some Twitter messages and then went back into the kitchen.  I put the grill pan on the stove to heat to sizzle and then turned around to get the steaks.  No steaks.

Small dog who has learned to jump was very damp around his mouth and looking VERY guilty.  Damn well he should!  I’d been looking forward to my steak all day long.  “Bad dog!!” didn’t make me feel one bit better.

But then…

We’d had a big dinner the night before and we’d had lunch so why not a dinner of dips with my fancy dancy eggplant jam and the other dips in the fridge?  Dinner was sorted.  I’ll admit that rather than tossing away the baked potatoes and asparagus, we ate those too.  Not very Moroccan but good.

Eggplant jam originates from Morocco but until recently had fallen out of favor with the younger generation.  The Jewish community in Morocco has kept the dish alive and its popularity is now spreading around the world and I can see why.  It’s absolutely delicious and it keeps in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. It’s sweet and tangy and goes well with heaps of dips.

I put the pizza stone in the oven.  Then I brushed some pita bread with olive oil on both sides and cut it into triangles with my pizza cutter.  Once the stone was hot, I put the “chips” on just until they started to turn brown and crunchy.

That was all dinner required.  Making the eggplant jam was really easy. Start by peeling and chopping the eggplant.  I like the little ones but I think any eggplant would work.

Then chop the onion and garlic and cook these three ingredients in batches because it looks like a lot but it reduces as it cooks.

When all the ingredients are soft, place all the batches back into the pan and add the paprika, cumin, turmeric and chilli and cook for only 30 seconds.

Then add the vinegar and brown sugar and stir well.  Reduce the heat and cook til most of the moisture has evaporated.  Stir in the salt and pepper to taste and the fresh herbs.

Eggplant jam is best at room temperature but it will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.  It won’t last that long at my house.

Place the jam in a bowl and sprinkle with chopped parsley or coriander (cilantro) and serve with pita bread, pita chips or anything else you want to use as a shovel.  heh

I had a meal of lamb and chicken Marrakesh last week and I liked it but without the lamb.  I came home and tried it with just the chicken and it was great.  I love Moroccan cuisine. My sister spent a few weeks in Marrakesh last year and ever since I saw all her photos, I’m dying to visit. Moroccan cooking feels like you put everything in the spice rack in the pot but the combination of flavors is fantastic.

Nothing about this meal is difficult unless you find peeling and chopping vegetables difficult.  I don’t.  I would much rather cook a meal from scratch than get anything prepared from the supermarket.  I know exactly what goes into the meals I put on my table.  I like that.

Start by heating oil in a frying pan and adding the diced onion.

Once the onions are softened, add the garlic and spices.  You can use ras el hanout, which is Arabic for “top of the shop” meaning all the best spices the spice blender has in his shop, or you can add 1 tsp coriander, 1 tsp cumin, pinch of paprika and 1 tsp ginger.  Ras el hanout gives a more complex taste and it’s what I prefer to use.

Add the chicken and brown in the onions, garlic and spices.

Once the meat has browned, add stock to cover chicken, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Once the 20 minutes are up, add all the vegetables, raisins, chickpeas and preserved lemon.

Simmer this until the veggies are cooked and then check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.

I served it over couscous with currants but plain couscous would be fine.

Here’s the recipe:

p.s. I know it’s been too long since the last post.  I’m finally coming out from under all the quirky problems I’ve been having.  My apologies!  You’re all wonderful to visit and I should post more often!

 

Dave D from What Is It?  made this recipe and sent a photo for you to see.  Looks Yummy Dave!

 

Last week when I was at the farmer’s market the pineapple grower and I started chatting and he asked me if I had ever roasted a whole pineapple.  I hadn’t but it gave me a great idea.  Roast a pineapple and make sorbet out of it.  It was delicious.  It’s different than pineapple sorbet made from fresh or canned pineapple.

I love cooked pineapple, especially with ham but I’ve never roasted the whole pinapple. I’ve always grilled or fried it.  I have to tell you, your entire house will smell of sweet roasted pineapple.  It was fantastic!

I loved this.  This sorbet has so much pineapple in it that it doesn’t freeze rock solid so it’s easy to eat.  Roasting the pineapple first makes it really sweet.  I added some sugar but I think next time I will taste the roasted pineapple before just plonking the sugar in.

No skills are needed to make this sorbet but it does take a bit of time and an ice cream maker.  Start by preheating the oven to 200° C or 400° F.  Cut the leaves off the top of the pineapple if your pineapple came with leaves and place it in a roasting pan.  Roast til soft for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  My pineapple wasn’t huge so it only took 1 1/2 hours.  Then let it cool.

Once the pineapple is cool, cut the outside layer off and cut out the little brown things and then cut the pineapple in quarters and remove the core and discard.  Roughly cut the pineapple and place it in the food processor with a simple syrup made from 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water.  I only used about 1/3 cup of syrup but you might need more or less.  My sorbet was definitely sweet.

Then I added 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1/4 cup of water.  I added water until I thought it looked like sorbet.  I suppose it will depend on how roasted your pineapple would be and how dry it ended up.  Whiz in the processor for a few minutes to break down all the pineapple fiber and then place in the refrigerator to chill.

Once cold, place the sorbet mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze.  You’ll love it!

When I make this again I’m going to try adding a bit more water or roasting the pineapple for a shorter length of time and make popsicles out of it.  Yum !!

 

 

Is there anything better than split pea soup with ham or bacon bones on a cold winter’s day?  I don’t think so.  Pair it up with a slice or two of crusty bread and I’m in heaven.

I mentioned my pea soup in a previous post and I had several people ask me to post it.  I didn’t do it then because I thought everyone probably has a favorite family recipe for pea soup.  I was wrong.

This is a very easy soup to make.  The only bit that takes time is getting the meat off the bones and that’s not necessary if all you want is the flavor of the ham or bacon.  I like the bits of ham in the soup and I don’t blitz the soup because I like to taste the teensy bits of ham and carrots and onion.  That’s just my preference.  Lots of people either blitz with a wand or put the soup in the blender to make it really smooth.

 

I’ve always been someone who spends hours making a tomato based pasta sauce.  It’s how our mothers taught us to make sauce back in the olden days.  The sauce was rich and thick and oozing with flavor.  I still like that sauce but I found one I like even more.  It’s made with tomatoes but it only takes about 20 minutes to prepare.  Dinner in less than 30 minutes is a big winner for me and for every other working woman with a family.

Once you soften some chopped onion and garlic in a skillet, break open the sausage condom.  (I know, I can’t help it – that’s what it looks like, you know it too.) Break up the sausage in the skillet.  I used a potato masher to get the meat fine enough for sauce.

Cook til the meat is well browned and then toss in a tin of crushed tomatoes and the brandy or cognac and cook for about 10 minutes.  While the sauce is cooking, heat a big pot of boiling salted water for the pasta and cook til al dente.  I used zitoni – long artisan tubular noodles that really suck up the sauce.  Any pasta with nooks and crannies to soak up the sauce would be good.  This is a sauce you *don’t* want to leave in the bowl or on your plate.  It’s delicious.

Once the pasta is cooked (but not overcooked) drain it and save about a cup of pasta water.  Now you’re ready to finish the sauce.

If the sauce seems a bit dry, add some of the pasta water and then toss in the cream and stir around til the cream is heated through.  Toss over the pasta, add some chopped parsley and dig in!  The whole house smelled fantastic from the Italian sausage.

Here’s the recipe for the sauce.

 

It IS winter here and these lamb shanks were fit for a king. We ate them instead. I cooked them with tinned tomatoes and other things I had on hand and they turned out quite delectable.

Sorry it’s been too many days since I posted but I’ve been suffering with nasty vertigo. One minute I’m fine and then the next I’m holding my head in my hands to stop the world from spinning. The doctor asked if I’d had it before and what was the outcome and I said it was benign positional vertigo and she said, “well, Maureen, you’ve got it again, take it easy, it will pass.” That was 10 days ago. I’m past my patience limit.

Enough about me and back to these delicious lamb shanks.

The lamb does a lot of walking on those shanks so it’s definitely slow cooking and nothing better than the crock pot. Remove the sinew from the shanks because it gets all twisted up and looks dumb or get your butcher to do it for you. Most will do it with a smile. (some will do it but not smile but you’ll have the same result)

Slice an onion or use some baby pickling onions like I did and toss them in the pot. They’ll ooze their oniony goodness into the tomato sauce and be yummy. Then place the lamb shanks on top of the onions along with a few pieces of green pepper (capsicum), big pieces of carrot, several cloves of garlic (unpeeled), a bay leaf, tomato paste and two cans of chopped up roma tomatoes. Add a slosh of red wine, salt and a good grind of fresh black pepper and that’s it. Leave that baby alone for 6 to 8 hours on low.

Just before serving spoon off the fat so you’ll have a nice sauce and serve over garlic mashed potatoes.

To roast garlic, slice the top off the garlic so you expose the garlic cloves, brush with olive oil and sprinking with sea salt and then wrap in oiled tinfoil and bake for about 45 minutes until the cloves are caramel colored and pop out easily.

Your whole house will smell fantastic when you cook this dish.

 

To make the potatoes I cooked them in salted water and then drained and put them through the potato ricer, added butter and the mashed roasted garlic, salt, pepper and hot cream. I didn’t have any parsley but usually I’d add chopped parsley as well.

  These potatoes go so well with the lamb shanks and the entire meal is remarkably little effort.

Here’s the recipe:

 

My friend Iris just got back from a month in Tuscany where she attended a cooking class and came back to share all her newfound talent in pasta making to the ladies at the Friday morning cooking demonstration.  After my success with the rotolo I was ready for the challenge of rolling out my own pasta dough.  In class Iris used a fold-over dumpling maker but I thought I’d try it with the little Italian ravioli cutters I bought recently but have never used. (I think we all have great intentions but the toys sit on the shelf far too long.)  The fold over dumpling maker makes a bigger ravioli and I think I’d use that next time.  These were cute though.

Today we watched Iris make pumpkin (or butternut squash) and pine nut ravioli topped with a burnt sage butter sauce.  I love burnt sage butter.  I wouldn’t but I *could* eat a bowl of it with a spoon.  When I got home from class I made my own ravioli.

The ingredients for this pasta are all things I have on hand most of the time so for me, this is going to be something I’ll make again and again.

I started by making the filling. I chopped and steamed the pumpkin til tender (I used butternut squash but in class she used real pumpkin0 and then I sautéed the shallots, garlic and pine nuts.  I roughly chopped the pine nuts (I would chop them finer next time) and mixed in the parsley and parmesan.  Filling done!

Then I made the dough.  Pasta dough is always 00 flour (found in every grocery store) and you use one egg for every 100 grams of flour.  For just the two of us I only used 100 grams of flour and one jumbo egg.  It was just enough with no leftovers.  However I have heaps of filling left.

Getting the dough rolled thin enough is the trick.  This time I rested my dough for about 30 minutes after kneading it til it was smooth and silky.  Then I rolled it out until I could see through it.  Notice in the photo you can see the counter top through the dough?  That was the bit I missed last time – I didn’t roll my first pasta thin enough and I think I had too much flour for the egg and it was tough to roll thin enough.  I’m getting better!

I started cutting out the ravioli and putting the filling on the bottom layer.  There are two sizes of cutters with the top larger than the bottom so all the filling gets covered.

I put just a half teaspoon of filling on each ravioli and then wet the edges and popped the top on and sealed the top to the bottom.

Okay, I know it’s not perfect.  I have a teensy pleat in it but it didn’t affect the taste one bit!  It was yummy!

Once I had all the ravioli made I put them in a big pot of boiling salted water for three or four minutes.  While the pasta was cooking I melted the butter, clarified it and then tossed in the sage leaves.  I used sage leaves I had outside in a pot but they weren’t as good as the big sage leaves I bought last time.  I think it’s time to replant.  I love fresh sage.

In just a few minutes the pasta was cooked and the sauce was done and it was time to plate up.  I called Mr. Orgasmic to have a taste.  He is NOT a pasta lover so for him to say it was good and to finish all the pasta was a sign that this was a keeper recipe.

If you have been like me and hestitate to make your own pasta – don’t.  It’s really quite simple.  You’ll get strong forearms too.  Iris said she asked “Mama”, the instructor in her cooking class, if she ever used a machine to roll out her pasta she said Mama just looked at her as if she had come from another planet.  “Roll by hand.”  I have a fondness for my pasta machine and I’ll continue to use it but it was fun to try rolling it out by hand.

Here’s the recipe:

 

 

 

There are times that we all need a light meal and this one is my go-to dish if we’ve overindulged the day before.  There are only so many cheesecakes, pavlovas, and big dinners that we can hold without exploding.  I did some celebrating for the 4th of July and felt we needed something light.  I made chilli prawns one night and the following night I made split pea with ham soup and crusty rolls.

While this dish isn’t the healthiest I make (it’s got butter in it) it’s wonderful to eat.  Mr. Orgasmic and I shopped together and we bought prawns (shrimp) without tails. I think this dish looks better with tails.  Never mind, it tasted great “tail-less”.

Once the rice is cooked (and yes, I do use a rice cooker) the meal takes less than 10 minutes to go from fridge to table.  I probably shouldn’t have posted this because it’s so easy but it IS orgasmic.

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the garlic. We like a LOT of garlic but if you’re not best friends with garlic, leave it out.  To me, eating is all about experiencing the joy of eating and anyone who holds their breath while they swallow something is off their rocker.

Cook the garlic on low heat for only a minute or two because frankly there’s nothing worse than burnt garlic in anything.  Just my opinion.  Toss in the prawns (shrimp) and stir fry in the butter til they turn pink and then pour in the sweet chilli sauce that has had a couple of drops of sesame oil and a dash of soy sauce mixed into it.

For my American friends this sweet chilli sauce is not the tomato based chili sauce you get in every grocery store.  Sweet chilli sauce is used in Asian cooking and you should be able to buy it in the Asian section or Asian grocery stores.

If you have it on hand you could put spring onions (shallots) or chillies in this dish too.

Here’s what you need: