Dips for Dinner – Babaganoush, Capsicum and Macadamia, and Hummus

by Linda on April 17, 2012

And why not?

Just because they look like party food doesn’t mean they can’t be really healthy, low fat, midweek dinner food. And I love the social aspect of all just sitting round the table sharing one platter, rather than individual plates. Everyone has their own favourites. Conversation flows. It’s nice.

Half an hour? OK, well, I cheated.   I made the sourdough pita on the weekend and just freshened it up by wrapping in a clean moist tea towel and steaming in the oven for a few minutes.  And though it came together in half an hour at the end, but there was a bit of pre-thinking in it, so it fits the Tuesday Night Vego Challenge rules only with a (fair) bit of creative license!

Charring the Eggplant and Capsicum

The main part of this meal is charring the eggplant and capsicum.  I do this sometimes directly over the flame on my gas oven:

But it is nicer, faster and easier over the wood fired Japanese Hibachi.

Whichever way, the aim is a large eggplant and a large capsicum (or equivalent smaller ones) and three or four cloves of garlic with blackened, charred skin.

Put them straight away into a container with a lid and allow to cool in their own steam until cool enough to handle.

Then gently peel off the blackened skin.  You needn’t stress about getting every little bit – a bit left on doesn’t hurt – it adds to the flavour.  But you want to remove most.

This is the only really laborious part of the whole dinner, and the charring does totally change the flavours, making them sweet and complex and  delicious.

Babaganoush

Blend together:

  • 1 eggplant, roasted and skinned
  • a clove of roasted skinned garlic
  • 3 dsp tahini
  • 50 ml lemon juice
  • salt to taste

Roasted Capsicum and Macadamia Dip

Blend together:

  • 1 large capsicum, roasted and skinned
  • 1 skinned tomato (dunk in boiling water and the skin will come off easily)
  • a clove of roasted skinned garlic
  • ¹/3 cup macadamia kernels (or substitute whatever nut is in season in your part of the world)
  • a little swig of olive oil
  • salt to taste

Hummus

This is basically the same recipe I posted for pea hummus a few months ago, but using chick peas (garbanzos) instead of peas.  I put the peas on to soak overnight, pressure cooked them for 15 minutes in the morning, turned them off just before I left for work, and left them in the closed pressure cooker for the day.  Then it was just a matter of blending:

  • 1 cup of cooked chick peas (garbanzos)
  • good pinch of salt
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 50 ml lemon juice (juice of half a lemon)
  • 2 big dessertspoons tahini
  • enough water to make a smooth dip consistency

I served the three dips with a little tomato and basil salad and pita bread.

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Green Flecked Polenta With Roast Capsicum and Tomato

by Linda on February 7, 2012

Capsicums are the feature crop out of my garden this week, and they are so much in season that even if you aren’t growing them, you should be able to get beautiful local ones at Farmers Markets.  I steer clear of the standard California Wonder – the variety you find in supermarkets. It’s lower yielding, shorter lived, more vulnerable to fruit fly, and less heat and drought tolerant than I need. My favourite varieties at the moment are Corno de Toro, Hungarian Yellow wax, and one I call Supermarket Flats because the seed came from some capsicums I bought in the supermarket, just because they were unusual and I hoped they might be non-hybrid. I think they are actually Baby Reds, and they are doing brilliantly for me.

So roast capsicums are the star in the  Tuesday Night Vego Challenge this week. Polenta goes really well with them, and of course, this time of year, I put zucchini in everything.

The Recipe

Makes two dinner serves, but can easily be doubled.

The Polenta

Lightly sauté

  • one finely diced spring onion (greens and whites)
  •  with 2 cloves of garlic finely diced.

Add

  • ½ cup of grated zucchini
  • ¼ cup finely chopped basil
  • ½ cup fine polenta
  • 2 cups water 

Cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes till it goes very thick, like thick porridge. Then add 70 gm low fat feta, grated, and continue cooking, stirring, for just a minute or two to melt the feta through. (You can leave out the feta if you are avoiding dairy, and it will still work, but it does make it lovely and creamy). Taste and add salt to taste.  (It doesn’t need much – the feta is salty).

Turn the mixture out into an oiled small pie plate or tray. You want it to be  about 2 cm deep.  Use the back of a wet spoon to smooth the top. Put the pie plate in the coldest part of your fridge, or in the freezer, for about 10 minutes to set.

Roast Capsicum and Tomato

To do this in half an hour, you need to multitask and put the capsicum on to char while the polenta is cooking. You can skip this stage, but it is really worth doing.

  • Char the skin of some capsicums over a gas flame, or under a grill, or over a barbeque. I like a mixture of red and yellow, and how many depends on how big they are. Use tongs to turn until the skin is blackened and blistering all over. Quickly put the hot capsicums in a plastic bag or tupperware container or a small pot with a lid – something that will hold in the steam. Leave them to steam and cool until you can handle them. You should then be able to easily rub off the skin. Don’t worry if there are little bits of charred skin left – it adds to the flavour. Slice the capsicum open, discard the seeds, and slice the flesh into strips.
  • In a frypan, saute in olive oil one large or two small red onions, sliced,  and two or three cloves of finely chopped garlic. Add the capsicum and just a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.
  • Add  a good handful of halved cherry tomatoes and heat them through. You don’t want the cherry tomatoes to cook down, just heat up.

Frying the Polenta and Assembling

The polenta should be set. Turn it out onto a board and slice into slabs.  Heat a heavy frypan with a little olive oil up to very hot. Don’t put the polenta in until it is hot, or it will stick.

Fry the polenta till it is golden, turning once. Try not to keep turning it – you will get a better crust by turning just once.
Serve with the roast capsicum on top.

Are you doing the Tuesday Night Vego Challenge, or cooking easy, healthy, in season, weeknight vego recipes regularly? Links are welcome in the Comments.

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The Breakfast Challenge – Huevos Diablos (Devil’s Eggs)

by Linda on December 28, 2011

devil's eggs huevos diablos

I wasn’t going to post until the new year, but my love for patterns got in the way, and it seemed a pity not to make it a clean sweep – a Breakfast Challenge recipe for every week of the year.  And this is one I’ve been waiting all year to get to! It is my partner’s very favourite breakfast, and cooked tomatoes are specially good for blokes – there is good evidence the lycopene in them is strongly protective against prostate cancer – but there’s lots of reasons for women to like them too.

It has been an interesting challenge. We have had a few favourites, recipes that made an appearance several times a week in their season, and variations on the same theme that flowed into another season.

Some version of a lhassi or smoothie, based on yoghurt and whatever fruit is in season has been a recurring theme – I posted Mango Lhassi and Custard Apple and Orange Juice Smoothie, but I skipped the Pawpaw and Strawberry Smootie,  Strawberry Milkshake, Mulberry Smoothie, Banana Smoothie and all the other fruit smoothies.

Some version of oatcakes, based on fruit in season, eggs and rolled oats has also appeared on our breakfast table most weeks of the year. I posted the Mango Oatcakes, and the Banana Oatcakes, but Peach Oatcakes, Blueberry Oatcakes, Apple Oatcakes, and Pear Oatcakes have also been favourites in their season.

Some version of omelette pikelets, with vegetables in season mixed with egg yolks and whipped egg whites are another standard.  I posted Sweet Corn and Capsicum Omelette Pikelets and Spinach and Feta Omelette Pikelets, and Fresh Pea and Mint Omelette Pikelets, but there have also been Broccoli and Lemon Omelette Pikelets and Pumpkin and Cheddar Omelette Pikelets and Zucchini and Feta Omelette Pikelets that haven’t made it onto the recipes yet.

Some version of a breakfast compote made from fresh fruit in season, with yoghurt and an oat-nut-seed topping comes up in our house at least once a week.  Tangelo Breakfast Compote, Apple and Peach Breakfast Compote, Pink Grapefruit Braised with Vanilla and Nuts are examples of the genre.

Nut butter on sourdough toast, made with macadamias and fruit in season was a favourite all the way through from April to August through maca season. I posted Macadamia and Pear Butter and Turmeric and Mandarin Nut Butter, but it felt a bit mean to post the Banana Nut Butter in this year when the bush turkeys ravages on our bananas were nothing compared to the effect cyclone Yasi had on prices.

Citrus curd – lemon curd, mandarin curd, lime curd, orange curd – on toast or pancakes came up much more often in real life than in the blog, but since the technique is the same it didn’t seem worth another recipe.

And of course there were eggs every which way, and a good few of my favourite ten minute vegetable recipes that are good for breakfast but also for a quick easy lunch or dinner. It’s been fun, it has made me a little more creative, a little less likely to just go with a piece of toast, and I hope it has shifted someone just a bit towards the idea that packaged breakfast cereals are a complete waste of everything – money, kilojoules, health, joy, food miles, packaging, water, and even, somewhere way back in the process, a little bit of agricultural land. Life’s too short for bad food!

The Recipe:

(For two.  But this is a good recipe for breakfast for lots of people if you multiply the recipe and use a very big pan, because it doesn’t require too much multitasking to get it all out at once.)

Toast on to cook and a heavy frypan on to heat up with a little olive oil.

Add (in this order):

  • An onion, diced
  • A zucchini, diced (or not – just we’re not allowed to eat anything without zucchini in it this time of year!)
  • A capsicum, sliced thinly
  • Chili to taste, finely diced (not too much – there’s not much to mellow it out in the recipe – I like spice and I only go for one mild-ish chili)
  • Garlic – two or three cloves crushed
  • Half a teaspoon of cumin seeds

Saute for a minute or two until the cumin seeds start to pop, then add tomatoes. If you have cherry or grape tomatoes, just add them whole. If you have Roma or beefsteak tomatoes, roughly chop them.  Cover the bottom of the pan with tomatoes – a good cup or two per person.

Add a little salt and pepper and cook for a minute or two till the tomatoes start to soften, then mash them roughly with a potato masher to release the juice.

Simmer for a couple of minutes, just to get it all hot then turn it down to medium low.

The next bit is easiest with a helper.  If you don’t have one handy, you’ll need to break eggs into cups first. Use an egg flip to make a little hollow in the tomato mix and quickly break an egg into it. Repeat for one or two eggs per person.

Put a lid on the pan and simmer for about three minutes till the whites of the eggs are set but the yolks are still runny.

Serve hot on toast.

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The Breakfast Challenge – Super Fast Frittata (Or Fast Super Frittata)

June 9, 2011

Five serves of vegetables a day doesn’t seem like that much. I love vegetables and eat lots of them. But it’s amazing how easy it is to miss a day or two. Lunch at a work meeting,  nice rolls with turkey and cranberry, but really only a bit of lettuce you could count as a [...]

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Kangaroo Stuffed Peppers

March 28, 2011

Capsicums and chilis are right in season now and I’m harvesting both.  These ones are a banana pepper, and they’re either a very mild, sweet chili or a  capsicum with a bit of spiciness, depending on how you look at it.  They’re slightly laborious to stuff – the larger more common bell peppers would be [...]

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The Breakfast Challenge – Egg in a Nest

March 4, 2011

Five serves of vegies a day.  Doesn’t seem like much, but it’s amazing how many days I realise I haven’t had my five serves. I’m harvesting squash, tomatoes and capsicum from the garden, our new chooks are laying, I’m having lots of fun with sourdough, and I’ve been racing off to work every morning to [...]

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Asian Style Bean and Capsicum Salad

February 8, 2011

After floods followed by heat wave, my garden has practically no leafy greens in it.  The parsley and celery keeled over in the wet – they hate waterlogged roots and although my drainage is pretty good, it wasn’t up to 150mm of rain in a day.  The lettuces and rocket keeled over in the heat [...]

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Italian Kangaroo Meatballs

September 15, 2010

I nearly share a birthday with my father, so I made these for our shared birthday dinner.  We had family and friends for dinner, and  the last thing I wanted to do on my birthday was to be so busy I missed all the jokes.  The recipe is elegant enough to be a celebration dinner, [...]

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Pumpkin, Feta and Caramelized Onion Pizza

June 17, 2010

The Recipe: The Base: There are a million recipes for pizza bases on the internet.  Making your own base is easy and pretty foolproof, (much more forgiving than making bread) but it does need an hour and a half or so for the yeast to work. Basically, for one pizza you need to dissolve a [...]

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