from somewhere in my imagination

Meatless Monday - Gado Gado

It’s been a while between meatless Monday drinks for me but I find myself here on a Monday with something new and meatless on a Monday so thought it might be fun to share.  So, I'm linking up with The Veggie Mama today.  If you are on the look out for some new meatless ideas make sure to pop over and check out the linky!

Big Day Out was a few weeks ago now and aside from how amazeballs both The Killers and Red Hot Chilli Peppers were the food was of a pretty excellent standard too. 

A little bit different to what I expected but it had been 17 years, count them, that’s half my lifetime, since my last BDO and I think it’s fair to say that times have changed, as have the tastes of the punters.  Or perhaps it’s just is recognition of the fact so many of were still there, half our lifetime later.

I chose my dinner from Simon Bryant’s Dirty stall, Gado Gado, it was delicious and I have been keen to recreate it at home ever since.  With a forecast maximum of 39C in Adelaide last Monday spending as little time as possible in the kitchen was high on my agenda, so this seemed pretty perfect. 

Gado Gado is essentially an Indonesian salad with peanut sauce, feel free to mix and match your veggies or add some tofu if you wish.  That would have required additional cooking so I didn’t bother, I just added an extra half egg per person to amp up the protein factor.

Gado Gado - Serves 6

Ingredients

4 Carrots, julienned

2 Red capsicums, julienned

Tin of baby corn, halved lengthways

Bag of bean sprouts, washed

250g Green beans, trimmed

Bunch coriander, leaves roughly chopped

1-2 eggs per person, soft boiled

Peanut Sauce

150g roasted, unsalted peanuts

2-3 dried red chillies, depending on how spicy you like it.  Fresh will work fine too.

2 cloves garlic

25g palm sugar (or 2 tbsp brown sugar)

Juice of 1 lime

2 cm ginger

Salt to taste

Method

Blend the peanuts, chillies, garlic, sugar and ginger with a food processor or pound in a mortar and pestle.

Tip the mixture into a small saucepan and fry over medium heat until it starts to smell good.

Add 1 cup of water and mix well, scraping up any caramelisation from the saucepan, leave to bubble and reduce but check and stir often.  Once it is getting really thick add a second cup of water and reduce some more. 

It will thicken more as it cools so be careful not to reduce it too much.  Add the juice of one lime and salt to taste.

Pile all your veggies onto a large serving plate together with the halved eggs and top with the still warm peanut sauce

Dig in

Happy Monday to you, do you have much planned for the week ahead?  I'm looking forward to finishing off some of the many many blog posts I now have in draft for here and Eat Move Explore.

Tatum xx

Zucchini with Pesto & Tomatoes

Zucchini has somehow become one of the most consumed vegetables in our house.  I have become completely enamoured with its raw power and it has grown on the whole family.

On Sunday night, to accompany our steak for dinner, I created the most amazing raw salad with zucchini as the main ingredient.  I was hoping to have some left for my lunch on Monday but between the six of us we devoured the lot.  I’m going to use the word salad loosely here too because a big bowl of this on its own would absolutely cure any pasta craving you might have with a whole lot of vitamins, protein and essential fats with a huge decrease in the simple carbohydrate department.

If you don’t have one of these veggie noodling gadgets it is simple enough to create ribbons using a peeler or show off your knife skills and simply julienne the zucchinis.  I bashed up the pesto in my mortar and pestle but feel free to use a food processor instead.

Zucchini with Pesto & Tomatoes – Serves 6 as a side or a few hungry people on its own

Ingredients

4 largish zucchinis

2 punnets cherry tomatoes

1 bunch asparagus (feel free to omit or switch for a different green vegetable because Australian asparagus is right at the end of the season and the imported stuff is starting to creep into stores unfortunately)

Pesto

1 bunch of basil, leaves picked to give  1 ½ - 2 cups

½ cup macadamia nuts

¼ cup EVOO

50g parmesan cheese cut into rough chunks

Juice of ½ - 1 lemon

1 large clove garlic

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Put all the pesto ingredients into the mortar and pestle and bash it all about until you have a consistency you are happy with.  I kept it pretty chunky for this salad.

Wash your zucchinis and turn them into noodles or ribbons, pile into a large bowl.

Wash the cherry tomatoes and throw them in, you can cut them in half if you want to.  I couldn’t be bothered.

Pile the pesto in on top

Quickly blanche your asparagus, or other green vegetable, and throw it in on top.  The heat from the asparagus will help to loosen the pesto.

Stir everything together and dig in.

So...have you tried raw zucchini before?  Are you game to give it a go?

Tatum xx

Chile Relleno - Meatless Monday

When we were in New York we had more amazing meals in the space of 12 days than I have had in a very long time.  It would be kind of boring, and a bit of a let down, to just tell you about all the fabulous places we ate so I want to recreate something from each place to share with you.  That sounds more fun, no?

We dined at La Esquina on our first Saturday night in New York.  We had a fashionably late reservation for 11.30.  Yes, people really do make reservations at that time, 11.30 was their third sitting, the kitchen is open until 2am.

The outside of La Esquina looks like a diner.  When you walk into the diner you wonder if you are actually in the right place because the only door you can see says employees only on it.  Behind that door is the doorman.  He checks your name of his list and sends you downstairs with the Maitre de.  You follow her through a maze of corridors and through the kitchen until you end up in a really loud bar and restaurant.

You wonder if perhaps you are too old and not quite cool enough to be there.

Once seated you are given the food menu, which is dwarfed by the size of the tequila menu.  Your waited does a shot with the table next to you and it kind of feels like you are on the set of coyote ugly, although I didn't see anyone dancing on the bar.

Thankfully there is a second drinks menu, margaritas are much safer than straight tequila.  I tried the hibiscus rose and blood orange varieties.  Nice.

For starters we shared the cangrejo tostadas and pollo rostizado taquitos.  Seriously good stuff.  If we were going back there we would stick with a larger selection from the tostadas and taquitos and not worry about the mains.  The contramar (tuna) tostadas look equally delicious.  I'm looking forward to planning a dinner party around this theme.

For main course Steven had Adobo BBQ de Puerco, otherwise known as a pork chop and I had the quinoa stuffed chile relleno.  We added a side of black beans and really didn't have room for dessert but we did anyway.  I tried panna cotta for the first time, the idea of milk set kind of like jelly has always scared me, but the crema cocida was divine.

It was a fantastic dining experience.  The atmosphere when Empire State of Mind blares out across a crowded bar in New York is really something else.

Chile Relleno - Serves 6

Ingredients

12 small red or green capsicums

1 kg smallish tomatoes

2 Jalapeno Chillies

1 1/2 cups Quinoa, washed

100g manchego* cheese

50g currants

80g slivered almonds, toasted

1 bunch fresh coriander

2 Tbs Olive Oil

Method

Start by grilling your tomatoes, chillies and capsicums.  Once they have some nice black stripes put the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with cling film.  Arrange the capsicums in the baking dish you plan on using and cover that with cling film too.

Give your quinoa a good rinse and bring 3 cups of water to the boil before adding in your rinsed and drained quinoa.  Bring it back to the boil and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until it looks like most of the water has been absorbed.  Pop it to one side for about 5 minutes then drain.  You want the quinoa to end up fluffy not mushy, test it to see during the cooking process.  You will know when it's good to go.

After you have drained the quinoa tip it into a bowl and leave it to cool while you get on with some other jobs like grating cheese, toasting almonds and chopping the jalapenos and coriander.

Peel the skins off the tomatoes and pop them back into the bowl as you go.  You want to retain all the juice.  Use your fingers or a fork to squish them up.  Add half the chopped jalapeno, about a third of the coriander and the olive oil and mix around.  Feel free to season to taste with some freshly ground salt and/or pepper.

Mix the currants, almonds, grated cheese, other half of the chopped jalapeno and another third of the coriander in with the quinoa. 

Preheat the oven to about 180C.

Take all the capsicums out of the baking dish, slit lengthways and rip out their guts.  Tip the salsa sauce into the base of the dish.  Use a teaspoon to fill each capsicum with the quinoa mixture, pack it in nice and tightly.

Once all the capsicums are filled bake in the oven covered with alfoil for about 10 minutes, take off the foil and finish for about another 5.

Serve into bowls with some of the sauce and sprinkled with more fresh coriander.

So so good.  I declared it to be better even than my Chile Relleno at La Esquina.

I am linking up with Veggie Mama for meatless monday.  Looking forward to making her salad for my lunch later in the week.

Tatum xx

*Before I did my shopping for this dish I researched alternatives to Manchego cheese, it turned out that it was easy to find in the Adelaide Central Market, but if you can't find it I would use the soft pecorino as a substitute.