eat it!
those of you who have met (and eaten with) me in the past few years will find it hard to reconcile the la nadine of today with the the weight-obsessed teenaged la nadine i may or may not have told you about.
yup, sadly it's true, i once shared a mantra with mary-kate olsen ("i must, i must, i must not eat a crust") during which time i survived on an apple, a bag of carrots and a diet yoghurt a day.
i will not go into the gruesome details of my time as a devotee to the cult-of-thin, but let's just say it is not a part of my past i am fond of recalling (nor particularly able to due to the lack of oxygen that passed to my brain at the time due to a severe lack of nutrients in my system).
but now after years of therapy, and having since had problems to cope with much bigger than my dress size, i am now fully recovered.
okay, so maybe i will never be "fully" recovered, my relationship with food remaining dysfunctional at best, but i'm doing a pretty good job of eating my way to mental health.
in fact, i would go so far as to say i have become quite the bonafide foodie in recent years, overcoming not only my innate phobia of fat, but also my vegetarian lifestyle.
i have supped at some amazing restaurants (and some truly awful dives as well), obsessed over my recently discovered love of cheese (formerly believed to be "the enemy"), and been treated to some truly orgasmic home-cooked love by friends and family.
i even founded the carb army. i think that shows great progress, don't you?
and these days i can barely skip a snack, let alone an entire meal.
and now that i've made friends with food, enough anyway that i can now go to a friend's house or a restaurant for dinner without a predetermined battle plan on how best to avoid actually eating anything, i have decided it is time i learned to cook like a pro.
don't get me wrong, i can cook just fine. i make a mean spag bowl and some truly wicked tarts. i am just not very adventurous, nor particularly instinctive about flavours and textures like some lucky bastards are.
and i like most of my food so fucking spicy it would kill the average person, which is not very conducive to cooking for others (unless of course you hate them and wish to see them in intense, convulsing pain.)
thus myself and two of my similarly culinary-challenged friends - the lovely miss lisa and the other lovely miss lisa - have started a cooking club, the purpose of which is to teach ourselves how to cook (while at the same time getting drunk and bitching about boys).
and we need YOUR help.
please to be leaving your favourite (not too difficult) recipe ideas for our cooking club in the comments section of this post.
if we choose to use your suggestion, i promise to name the meal after you and toast to your health as we feast.
hell, you might even score an invite one day.
and now it's lunch time in nadstown.
bon appetite!
44 Comments:
God (any and all of them) I love food.
Here's one I prepared earlier.
Add as much chilli as you like. I can also send recipes for red, green and a selection of Indian curry pastes.
SEND ALL CURRY RECIPES, STAT!
please.
x
1) your blog is amazing, keep up the good work.
2) From a food nuff nuff (and fellow ex-food tragic of the Mary Kate variety and recently fallen vegetarian!).
- roast some jap pumpkin (use lots of olive oil, cut the pumpkin up into small chunks).
- roast some pine nuts
- buy some fetta (believe it or not, for this, danish is best, but go more flavoursome if you like the excitement of a million competing taste sensations)
- add in some juicy black olives
- mix it all up with some fresh rocket
- make a vinaigrette dressing (mix some mustard in with some balsalmic vinegar and then add olive oil) and tip it over the top
- serve with fresh crusty wholegrain bread rolls and oodles of butter.
Sensational! I have given myself food envy because I am in Vientiane, home of excellent exploded rice ball salad but not so good on rocket, fetta or olives. But trust me, it's a winner.
right-o, expect them in your in-box tomorrow.
Oh please post hot recipes here. I have inhuman capacity for hotness.
I want this: Dave's Insanity Sauce:
"This is the original hottest sauce in the Universe and our best seller. In fact, it is the only sauce ever banned from the National Fiery Food Show."
Elaine: I made Gyoza for Xmas lunch last year. Amazing. Except I didn't have a little thingy to wrap them, had to do it by hand and lacking the fine motor skills, some of them were rustically deformed.
And there's an excellent lentil soup is recipe is the Lonely Heart's thread of RYWHM. It's great because you can hang out with your fellow club members and drink much fine red wine while waiting for it to cook.
I think I've had too much coffee and lost the power of speeching the words good.
As much as I appreciate you adding me to your links I thought I should point out that you seem to have me confused with some Jobe guy. Don't feel bad, it happens all the time.
Also, a killer vegetarian lasagne will open many doors for you.
done, surlyboy.
and a killer vegie lasagna is one thing i can actually make.
one question though:
what were you doing following my link to your own blog? lose your way did you?
Oh, I see. It's going to be like that is it? I get around some. I get around.
What things do you love/hate?
And do you want quick dinner things or fancy schmancy things?
LOVE: chilli, seafood, potatoes, pumpkin, soft/crumbly cheeses, eggs, beans, lentils, leeks, avocado, capers, lamb, stir fries, curries, pastas, risottos, stews, salads, asian soups, DIPS, felafel et al...
HATE: creamy sauces, pork products, pineapple in savoury dishes.
AMBIVALENT: cauliflower, squash, zucchini (unless barbecued), desserts.
i think we want simple dishes to start with, and we will work our way up to the fancy stuff.
Oh Nads, I have the most fabulous dhal recipe EVA which is so completely simple it's ridiculous and I had leftovers for lunch today, I can tell you it's bloody marvellous.
Would you believe so simple but I'm still not sure of the recipe by heart, i will go home & check the booky tonite & get back to you.
Dxxx
mmmm...
is dhal.
is good.
Now I know you said you don't like creamy sauces, and I completely agree when it comes to bedraggled half-drowned Spaghetti Carbonara A La Lygon, but this dish (which I'm making right now) isn't too creamy and I'm sure you could adjust it in astounding ways as your personal desire sees fit - YMMV. I kinda just copied and modified the way I figure Il Solito Posto do their Salmone Farfalle.
Fry up some garlic and onion, then turn the heat down and chuck in some sour cream, white wine and dill and simmer for as long as you want/have - just so it gets nice and flavouriscious (and I like mine quite reduced so it just coats the pasta). I've got a broccoli fetish at the moment, and I like it crunchy, but a bit toasty too, so I fry that on a separate pan with a bit of garlic as well, throw in some pine nuts and when they're brown, a fresh chopped up tomato or two. Chuck it in with the dill sauce, as well as some smoked salmon and don't cook for too long, but just enough so it gets da flava. Then mix into al dente cooked farfalle with some pepper and lemon. Yum, done, and I'm hungry.
Looking forward to more recipes - Go food!
Oh yeah, and Gennaro Contaldo's basic risotto recipe, when done with fresh Autumnal mushrooms and a touch of truffle oil is absolutely delicious - let me know if you want the details.
here's a simple one that i made up (it's veg but you could put it as a side dish if you are hardcore carnivore):
Wintery Cheesey Rice Dish
turn oven on to med-high (not sure what oven you have)
cook up some rice (start before everything else if it's brown, or as you cook other things if it's white)
chop up onions, red or yellow capsicum, celery, carrot, zucchini. or any veggies that you simply love.
in a pan of oil or water, cook the veggies (always start with the onion and harder veggies)until they are soft
add a can of tinned tomatoes, and some tomato paste (depending on how sloppy you want it), kidney beans, corn or capers. capers will not go so well with beans.
add salt,herbs (i usually use oregano, parsley, basil and cracked pepper)
simmer over a low heat until veggies are soft and rice is cooked
put rice in a baking dish
cover with veggies/tomato mix
put HEAPS of grated cheese on top
top with chilli powder (optional)
put in oven.
it is cooked when the cheese is delightfully melted.
you could also try it with layers of thinly sliced boiled potato instead of rice.
love your work, by the way
Howdy nads.
I really hate to self promote but I just started a food/cooking blog a few days ago (coincidence? I think not).
Jobe on Food
It's the aim to be as basic as possible to start off with and slowly get more advanced as I "delve deeper" into food with the reader.
So maybe come check that out.
God I feel so dirty....
oh jobe, you blogwhore you.
Clare - holy CRAP that sounds so good! My friend Clare (COINCIDENCE? Clare, is that you??) recently made me a roast pumpkin, pine nut, feta and caramelised onion pizza, and it made me cream my pantaloons so I've been plotting a pie version of it in my head.
I also used to be of the Mary Kate and Ashley school of cooking, and it's still a big fat (oh.. the punniness) issue for me. Then I remember cooking is fun, eating is even funner.
This is orange and sweet and sour and you eat it with COUSCOUS so it's great. Do try.
Get yerself a red onion, a parsnip, a carrot, a sweet potato and half a butternut pumpkin. Peel and chop them all to your heart's content (be a bit rough). Crush and chop two cloves of garlic then chuck them into a big hot pan with some olive oil. Stir for a little bit over a high heat 'til they're a little soft around the edges. Stir in a few good shakes of ground cinnamon (around 1/4 tsp), the same of ground ginger and half a teaspoon of paprika. Stir again, then add 350 ml stock (aka water from the kettle and a teaspoon or so of Massel). Chuck in a drained tin of chick peas. Simmer for 20 minutes (you might have to add extra liquid).
Take off the lid and turn the heat up real high. Add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of Balsamic and two tablespoons of dried or fresh rosemary. Let it come to a great rollicking boil 'til the liquid's reduced and syrupy (about 5min) and serve over COUSCOUS which is the BEST THING EVER and there are totally instructions on the box so I won't bore you.
Aww, man, I can't wait to see what other people come up with.
Rach - YUM!! and Couscous is indeed food of the gods. I'm trying that recipe out this week.
K here goes, RED LENTIL DHAL
Throw into a saucepan 250g red lentils, 3 tbsp curry paste (or more/less depending on how hot you like it), 1 tsp salt, ¼ tsp turmeric with 4 ½ cups of hot water and bring to boil, then reduce heat to fast simmer for about 30-40mins (until lentils are soft & it thickens up).
While that’s going, finely chop 2 med onions & fry until tender, then add a tin of diced tomatos (the actual recipe calls for 3 small tomatos finely chopped, but buggered if I could be going to that effort, a tin works fine for me) and cook for 2 mins. Add the lentils to the frypan of onion & tomatos and stir together & cook through another couple of minutes.
I usually have with brown rice or roti/pappadums.
FREAKING DELICIOSA 2 THA MAXXXXXXXXXXX
Also, my book tells me it only has 5 grams of fat & 18grams of carbs per serve, so pig out without guilt!!!
Dxxxx
Oh, i forgot, i normally throw in a massel stock cube (usually chicken flavour - NB they are vego, not real chicken etc) into the hot water that you cook the lentils in for extra flava!
Rach, I'll be honest: I'm stalking your posts and copying all your recipes. That one sounds amazing.
So you've cottoned on to my fiendish plan of cooking my way to blogging acceptance. MUA HA HA HA HA!
Actually, I don't even know where all this recipe posting has come from. I swear I do things other than eat. Sometimes I sleep, too.
dxxx - that dhal recipe sounds fantastic. It also sounds like you'd be eating dhal for days. I reckon I might buy some curry paste tonight and give it a try tomorrow. I'll let you know how I go with it.
ah, nadstown, bringing gluttons of the world together at last.
i'm having an idea for a recipe swapping blog.
i'll keep you all posted...
I can't think of anything I eat that passes for a recipe.
This is the only one:
Chilli Penne
Cook penne.
In good olive oil, fry a stack of garlic in as much chilli as you can find.
Check fridge. Curse bachelor lifestyle.
Add whatever cheese you can find.
Olives. Basil.
Chuck the penne in. Stir a bit.
Um, that's it.
what's important, tobytoby, is that you tried.
i'd pat you on the head and give you a cookie if i could.
Thanks, I like head pats. And cookies.
well, you're human ain't ya?
I'm a chilli coward. It's my greatest shame. I'm the kind of person who goes hopping around the kitchen with her mouth open, hands flapping pathetically, trying to ask for milk or water or liquid nitrogen or something without closing her mouth because to do so would bring back the dreaded chilli heat.
I quite like ginger, though.
(in other news, Alan Jones emailed me and now we are pen pals and BFF)
Alan Jones?
Dear lord. And yet you can't handle chilli ...
I adore chilli. I have to be careful with it because I make things that humans can't eat.
I have a great pasta recipe...but its quite summery. It does tick the box easy, with chilli and cheese though.
Cook some penne
Zest a lemon
Juice the lemon
chop a chilli and some garlic
fry said chilli and garlic in nice olive oil
get some rocket out of the fridge
grate some parmigano
Once pasta is cooked throw in pan with chilli and garlic and toss around. Then add lemon zest, juice and rocket.
Pop onto your plate and top with parmesan and some pepper.
It sounds too simple to be good but it is just excellent
killerrabbit: you know what else goes well with that sorta meal?
fried breadcrumbs.
u-huh.
crazy but true.
tobytoby: you are hereby challenged to a chilli-off if ever we twain shall meet.
Please hurry back to your ‘other’ family so I can cook for you immediately.
Please select from the following menu items that have swept into my current repertoire:
-Tuscan Chicken (see Fits for a review)
-Oven roasted kangaroo with garlic and chilli
-Spaghetti con salmone e limone e capperi (ok, that’s spaghetti with salmon, capers and lemon zest for those that can’t understand my amazing Italian dialect)
-oven fried quail with roasted chestnuts and pear glaze (reviews courtesy of Fluffy, Sugar, Fits, Genny B & Jess)
XX
Madam, I accept your challenge.
do you know that chilli is a very good and effective aphrosidiac?
trying dropping them in stupid amount in any blognaise dressing (spaghetti/lasagna) yummy...
I see what you're saying.
I need to eat less chilli. A ~lot~ less. No chilli at all perhaps.
oh don't you worry, treespotter, i know of the aphrodisiac properties of chilli.
and i thank g-d for them on a daily basis.
loudly.
This is very easy + yummy pasta:
1 make some pesto (basil, good olive oil, parmesan, pine nuts, salt, lemon - don't buy it in a jar, but maybe in a tub if it's fresh and not full of vinegar and weird shit)
2. 1.5 cm (ish) cubes of punkin and/or orange sweet potato, tossed in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, much chilli, and some cumin - roast at 180 for about 20-30 mins
3. whack a slab of fresh ricotta under the griller until brownish and bubbly
4. cook some nice pasta and top with all those things.
And this is dinner tonight:
1. (in the morning or the day before) rub some chook thighs &/or breast pieces with plenty harrissa (out of the tube harissa is totally fine), olive oil, garlic, lemon zest and salt a pepper and leave in the fridge (give it as long as you've got - no drama if it's 10 mins, just slightly less yummy)
2. cook an onion and some tumeric in a large saucepan until soft. Add a teaspoon or so of ground ginger and enough canned italian tomatoes and/or passata to cover the chook and simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes.
3. Serve on top of cous cous with a lemon wedge and some green roughage-y type arrangements.
Rach, I am not the same Clare, but I wish I was cos then I would get to eat that delicious sounding meal!
oops
Recipe 2, step 1a - brown the chicken pieces in some oil and then set aside for a minute.
earth to yubris:
please send gennaro contaldo's basic risotto recipe...
STAT!
ta
x
oh, and ukelele:
would love any and/or all of those recipes.
especially tuscan chicken, oven roasted kangaroo with garlic and chilli, spaghetti con salmone e limone e capperi, and oven fried quail with roasted chestnuts and pear glaze.
oh wait, that's all of 'em.
whatevs.
(Okay, this one is not actually mine per se, but borrowed from an amazing book by Joyce Goldstein called “Safron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean”.)
Roast Lamb with Moroccan Spices, Couscous with almonds and raisins, and Harissa
The lamb:
Ingredients-
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1.5 teaspoons cayenne pepper (if you want it hot, add more cayenne)
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (seriously, you will notice if you use that bottled shit)
2 tablespoons minced garlic plus three cloves garlic cut into slivers
½ cup chopped fresh coriander
One 1kg boned lamb shoulder or one 1.5kg boneless leg of lam
1. Grab yourself a small mixing bowl and combine all the spices, the 6 tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice, minced garlic and fresh coriander.
2. Use a spoon to stir so that the ingredients form a paste
3. Place the lamb on a cutting board, take a sharp knife and make small incisions all over the lamb. Insert the slivers of garlic in the incisions.
4. Okay, this is the messy bit – take the paste and rub it all over the lamb. Be sure to massage the meat quite firmly with the paste so that the spices can permeate.
5. Open a bottle of wine and have a drink while you leave the lamb to marinade at room temperature for 2 hours. (If you’re going to marinade in the fridge, leave it for at least 24 hours)
6. Once the meat is done marinating, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
7. Take a large, ovenproof skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over high heat on the stovetop and then sear the lamb on all sides.
8. Once the lamb is sealed, take the skillet off the stovetop and stick it in the oven. If you’re cooking a lamb shoulder, leave it in the oven for 1 hour for rare, 1 hour and 15 mins for medium and 1.5 hours if you want it well done. If you’re cooking the leg of lamb, leave it in the oven for 1 hour and 10 mins for rare, 1.5 hours for medium and 1.75 hours for well done.
9. Take the lamb out of the oven and let it rest for at least 10 minutes before carving (the lamb actually continues to cook as it rests)
Couscous with Raisins and Almonds (make this while the lamb is resting because you’ll want to serve the couscous straight away)
Ingredients -
250gm Couscous
100gm Almonds
100gm Raisins
½ cup roughly chopped coriander.
The thing with Couscous is that it’s so goddamn easy. For the most idiot-proof version, buy the 5 minute Couscous that comes in its own, pre-measured satchel. All you do is boil the water then chuck the baggie in. 5 mins later, hey presto! Instant couscous.
Simply add a couple of sticks of butter while the couscous is piping hot and rake a fork through it. Then throw in the almonds, raisins and coriander and mix it all up.
Harissa (this is a Tunisian recipe and is fucking hot, hot, hot – well worth it if you can be bothered to make it rather than buy pre-made).
Ingredients -
4 large, long, hot red chillies, cut into pieces (make sure you get rid of the seeds and the white pulpy stuff inside)
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds
1 tablespoon caraway seeds, toasted and ground
2.5 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Extra-virgin olive oil as needed.
1. Whip out your food processor or blender and pummel the hell out of the chillies until they’re completely pureed.
2. Grab a strainer and strain the puree, pressing the solids with the back of a large spoon. You should end up with about ¾ cup of puree.
3. Chuck the puree into a bowl and stir in the garlic, spices and salt. Add oil sparingly until you get the consistency you want.
Nads have you tried any of these yumilicious recipes yet????
i move into my new residence (where i will stay for the next 6 months) this weekend, dxxxx. then it'll be all on for young and old. or at least for me anyway.
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