An experiment: raw sunflower seed pate

Meh, is all i can say. It tatses like savoury peanut butter.

Ingredients:
sunflower seeds, soaked overnight in water
garlic, chopped
lemon juice
salt
tahini

Soak the seeds overnight, drain and then blitz everything together, adding hot water if it needs thinning. I have to say, it's nothing like pate. Or cheese. It was an experiment that wasn't worth repeating - why bother with substitutes? Just find something new...

Christine's tomato chicken

Thank you to wonderful Christine, whose amazing blog provides me with all of the Chinese recipes I could ever wish for. Screw Ken Hom and his hot wok!

This dish is what Christine calls chicken in tomato sauce and it's my dinner for tonight.

First, the chicken is marinated in the standard seasonings - soy, rice wine, sesame oil, cornflour. Then you chop/slice/dice some fresh tomatoes (I used 2 big tomatoes and about 6 cherry tomatoes) and mince some garlic.

Fry the chicken, set aside. Fry the garlic, add the tomatoes, stir fry until soft. Then add the chicken back in, add a tablespoon of tomato sauce or tomato paste mixed with a half cup of water and a bit of sugar and stir it all about.

Add some thickening (1tsp cornflour with water/soy) and stir a bit more.

It was pretty amazing - thanks, Christine!

Silverbeet

So, who knew that silver beet/rainbow chard could be so hardy? Everybody except me, I suspect.

After forcing my poor mother to create a gigantic organic veggie garden purely for my own gluttonous desires, I am now enjoying a "glut" (haha) of rainbow chard/silver beet.

Which is, contrary to my memories, quite delicious. I seem to remember it being tough and grainy, but instead, the leaves are silky smooth and the stalks are delicious, nutty and crisp.

I've been using it up in various ways over the last 3 weeks, but the most popular way has been to steam the leaves with a touch of nutmeg, and make a gratin of the stems.

It's a Stephanie Alexander recipe from her Cook's Companion book. Basically, you separate the leaves from the stems. You slice the stems up, blanch for 10 mins in boiling water, then drain and place in a gratin dish. You boil a cup of cream in a small saucepan, then turn the heat off and stir in 50-100g of cheese (I've tried it with blue cheese - the original recipe and with parmesan. I think I preferred the parmesan).

Top it with breadcrumbs and a spray of oil and bake for about 30 mins in a hot oven. It is delicious and nobody knows what it is until you tell them!

Peppered kangaroo fillet with white asparagus and raspberry vinegar

It sounds poncy and a bit like it should have "hand-shot wild kangaroo" in its description but whatever.

Kanga fillets from safeway, white asparagus, lemon-scented olive oil, bashed out peppercorns and raspberry vinegar.

Do I need to elaborate?

OK just a bit. Well here are the raw ingredients - asparagus (white and green), roo fillet, crushed peppercorns

And voila! The finished dish...

Mornington Peninsula... so good

I've been slack with the posting, but by the time I realised that my super reduced chicken stock would have been an awesome thing to record step by step - it was finished.

However, there is always the trusty old Mornington Peninsula trip to record - an orgy of wine buying and food eating over the cup day weekend!

S and I stayed at the Mornington on Tanti which I believe used to be a very dodgy TAB bar/pub.... but which has been renovated and while still containing a TAB bar, it was actually pretty nice (cheap, too, which was the main attraction!). Surprisingly enough, the pubgrub wasn't too bad.

L-R: S's sizzling barramundi, shared garlic bread, my chicken kiev

And the breakfast was even better, but I didn't take pictures of that. Disappointingly, the wine list was very short on MP wines, most of the available bottles coming from Yarra Valley or NZ (blergh).

We spent Monday night driving down there, had our lovely meal with a couple of bottles and then watched some television (Matt Preston... yum!) and generally had a girlie night.

The real fun was on Tuesday! First stop after breakfast: Foxey's Hangout, my favourite MP winery! The best sparkling white and pinot gris evah (well maybe not evah but definitely up there on my list, more for the whole experience than just the wines). Free coffee from one of the brother-owners, too (after we bought several hundred dollars worth of wine)

View of the vines at Foxey's

We did quite a few other wineries while we were down there and naturally the cheese shop - but the highlight, as always, was lunch at Pier 10. Not any kind of posh, high-end winery but really good value food and a lovely pinot grigio (and where S and I first learnt the difference between gris and grigio - even if the bloody yanks don't agree - hey, S?)

L-R: eye fillet with tomato onion relish and asparagus, confit duck legs and cheese platter

It was a great day and it felt like a whole weekend rather than just a minibreak! I wish I could afford to buy a house down there!

Girl crush

I'm in love with Judi Dench.

That is all.

Sutter Home White Zinfandel

The first thing to say about this wine is that it is pretty. So pretty. If it weren't wine, it would look perfect in a little girl's bedroom.

Like I said, it's pretty.

It also is very sweet - but surprisingly refreshing in its sweetness. It tastes of strawberries and cream and something else that goes with all roses, that I can't identify.

Of course I'm drinking it ironically, because otherwise I would be the ***wrong kind of white person***.

Thanks SH for bringing it back for me :)

PS the pictures are crap because I took them on my phone...