I photographed this menu in Aguas Calientes, Peru, in May 2004.

Pure of Pope? Spiritually satisfying I’m sure.

Aguas Calientes was built in the 1970’s primarily to cater for tourists visiting Machu Picchu. So apart from being a key access point to an amazing archaelogical site, it is also famous for its UTI inducing hot springs and its beautiful setting nestled deep within a valley; massive vertical mountains rising up on all sides.

Unfortunately due to it’s tourist inspired nature, the food on offer is somewhat geared towards an international palate. Therefore pizza restaurants abound. Hopefully they’ll amend such travesty and start serving their own wonderful local dishes.

Porters waiting for their next hiking party.

After being gastronomically turned on by the Nutella Cake from Esurientes - The Comfort Zone, I was just glad I had an excuse to make it this weekend - my sisters birthday! So with a 400g jar of Nutella in hand, I prepared this amazing masterpiece of culinary decadence.

I won’t repost the recipe (which you can find here). But one little alteration I made was to toffee the hazelnuts. Just melt approximately one cup of caster sugar in a pan till it is the colour of toffee, throw in the roasted hazelnuts and coat well. Spread the hazelnuts onto a baking sheet, ensuring the nuts are separate and not clumping. Once cool, decorate the cake with the roasted crunchy caramelly nuts. Mmm.

This cake tastes just friggin amazing and is dead easy to make. As is doesn’t contain much of a stabilising agent (ie. flour), you will find it dramatically sinks in the centre after baking. Just cut the uneven craterish sides off (and eat!), then turn the cake upsidedown and frost / decorate.

Cooking with children can be both an exhilarating and daunting experience. It takes the tact and diplomacy of a UN peace-keeping soldier, and more importantly, the patience of Jove. Each child must be given an equal amount of measuring / mixing / kneading / rolling / cutting / decorating time. And one must swallow years of cooking experience and not stamp their foot and cry “No…that’s not the way you do it!!”. I’m an adult. I can deal with it. Just ;-).

My little helpers for the day were Jaimie, who was celebrating her 9th birthday (hence the reason for the cookies - to eat at her party), and 7 year old Emma. We have cooked a few times in the past. Pre-blog days there was a purple marshmallow experience, which to this day is remembered fondly and with awe - “…it was sooooo sticky.”

Anyway, gingerbreads are such a great project for kids to undertake. The recipe is easy to follow and the fun bit is at the end when you have all the naked biscuits lined up in a row, waiting to be dressed and decorated. This is where the kids (…and adults!) can get excited and let their creative juices flow.

Gingerbread Dudes
2 cups plain flour (all-purpose)
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
0.5 teaspoon ground ginger
0.25 teaspoon ground nutmeg
0.25 teaspoon ground allspice
0.25 teaspoon salt
75g butter
0.25 cup molasses
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon milk

Gingerbread Dude Lemon Icing
1 cup of icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Finely grated rind of half a lemon

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Into a bowl add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground allspice and salt. Stir well.

Melt butter in a small saucepan/in the microwave, allow to cool slightly and then add molasses, brown sugar, white sugar, milk and a large egg yolk. Stir well.

Combine two mixtures together, having faith that it will eventually come together (despite the fact it might look quite dry). The kids will enjoy this bit, using their hands to bring the mixture into a dough.

Pat the dough into a disc about one inch thick, cover with cling film, and place in the fridge for half an hour. Distract the kids with a couple of games of hide and seek, and then make some icing (just mix all the ingredients together, adding more lemon juice to thin if required. You want it the consistency of peanut butter - spreadable but not runny).

Once the dough has chilled, take half and place on a floured baking sheet. Roll out to 5mm thickness using a floured rolling pin. Use biscuit cutters (or whatever takes your fancy) to cut out some shapes, and then place on a tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Re-roll and re-cut dough scraps, and then start on the second half.

Cook for 12 - 15 minutes, or until gingerbreads are no longer shiny on top and have developed a little golden tan. Leave on the tray to firm up as they cool. With an 8cm cutter, this recipe should make around 20 gingerbread dudes.

Then comes the fun bit. Get thee to a table with excited children, cooled gingerbreads, icing, icing trowels, sprinkles, dragees and lollies, and just go sick! Once iced and decorated, allow gingerbreads to sit undisturbed for an hour to allow the icing to harden.

This is not a particularly strong tasting gingerbread, so it is ideal for little-r tastebuds.

I have been tagged by Haalo from the inspiring Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once with five confessions. Phew…I’m just glad she didn’t ask me to confess what was in my sock drawer!

Five items in my freezer

• Wine. If it ain’t drunk then it goes in the freezer for cooking.
• Falafel mix from the lebanese take-away shop in the Chocolate Box complex, Camberwell. Sadly they closed their doors last week, but the owner sold me a bucket of her beautiful falafel mix to keep me going till they reopen in a couple of months.
• Soup, soup and more soup. Currently there are tubs of minestrone, pasta cece (chickpea), pasta fagoli (bean) and pumpkin soup.
• Bread. Take your pick of the organic ancient grain loaf, sour dough casalinga and fruit loaf.
• Herbage/Spiceage - There is some ginger, sage, curry, kaffir, bay, lemongrass and mint.

Five items in my closet

• Clothes (duh!)
• My stock of Gourmet Traveller, Delicious, Donna Hay and Healthy Food magazines.
• A llama beanie with ear protectors purchased during my adventures in Peru.
• A vintage 1940’s cocktail dress of mustard satin/beautiful fine black lace. Purchased on a whim three years ago I had the intention of replacing the vomit colour with a fire-engine red. It is still vomit yellow colour.
• Bodyshop Coconut Body Butter. It makes me smell like a pina colada.

Five items in my car

• About a gazillion burned CD’s.
• The Melways, despite the fact I’m crappy at reading maps.
• A brolly for Melbourne’s unpredictable weather.
• A stash of “green” recyclable shopping bags.
• A sleeping bag.

Five items in my purse

• Digital camera. You just never know when you’ll come across a food blogging opportunity.
• My filofax. It keeps track of those all important breakfast / lunch / dinner dates.
• My ipod shuffle.
• Mobile phone.
• Passionfruit tic tacs. I’m addicted.

Five people to tag
(hey…feel free to MEME or not to MEME)

• Ellie from Kitchen Wench
• Belinda from Caper Berry Gravy
• Emily from Chocolate In Context
• Another Outspoken Female from confessions of a food nazi
• Niki from Esurientes - The Comfort Zone

filed in: meme

Finding a good meal at 9.30pm on a rainy Sunday night might prove problematic in some parts of town. But Victoria Street, Richmond (or Little Saigon as it’s affectionately known), is always open with a stunning array of cheap and cheerfuls to choose from.

As my dinner companion and I wandered up the street we came upon Minh Tan 2, which had been given a two star rating and quip “bustling vietnamese/chinese” in the Cheap Eats guide. Unfortunately I didn’t think it lived up to it’s Cheap Eats recommedation on this occassion. We stood at the “Please wait to be seated” sign for no less than five minutes. I made friendly “I would love to be seated” eyes at no less than six waiters/waitresses. But not one of them acknowledged our presence. Five minutes gives you a lot of time to look around a place, and when I noticed quite a few unhappy patrons, a grotty looking kitchen pass, an overflowing bin right in the entry and extremely sad looking dumplings in the display case, I decided that I really didn’t want to eat at this establishment. So we turned tail and walked out the door.

Alas, not two shops up from Minh Tan 2 was Co Do, a charming little Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant that appeared both cosy and inviting. On entering the establishment we were warmly welcomed by staff, shuffled to one of the last free tables and promptly served a cup of steaming tea. There was a happy buzz about the place; uni students creating a ruckus in one corner, an extended Vietnamese family talking it up in the other, lots of mates getting together for a feed, a spattering of couples, and even a few singles.

The table accoutrement was quite utilitarian/amusing. On a small tray one found pots of chopsticks and spoons - a matter of help yourself and use as many as you like. There was the usual salt and pepper shakers, soy sauce and fresh sliced chilli. And then there was the stainless steel pot of chilli and oil, a lethal concotion that should be identified with a biohazard sticker. I fear the stainless steel receptacle was born out of necessity and not aesthetics. Next to this was a serviette tissue box, which I assume was to mop up any hazardous spills should they occur.

The menu here is huge. Whilst the Hue Traditional Vietnamese Style Chilli Beef Soup sounded scrumptious in title, the ingredient list made me think twice; sliced beef, pork, beef loaf, pork loaf, blood. Uh huh. Blood. Yeah I know…it’s all the same as meat at the end of the day. But the last time I ate blood I was four years old, and my Italian grandmother (who believed that pigs blood held some magical health property), tricked me in to consuming it by mixing it with chocolate/hazelnut Nutella spread. Urgh. Bleh. I’m scarred for life.

Anyway, I digress.

The menu covers everything from noodle soups (with or without blood), normal soups, rice dishes, rice vermicelli dishes, dropped rice noodle soups, rice noodle soups, egg noodle soups, fried rice or egg noodles - and that’s just one side of the menu! Then you go on to pork, beef, chicken, prawn, squid, fish, scallop, duck, omelette, steam boat, combination and vegetable dishes. Phew!

So we decided to play it simple. It was 9.30pm and the stomach wasn’t up to anything too adventurous.

Entree was a tasty batch of Vegetable Spring Rolls, served with a side of crisp iceberg lettuce and thai basil / mint. A beautiful sweet/salty/fishy dipping sauce was the accompaniment. My dinner companion, who is a huge chilli connoisseur, decided to brave the stainless steel receptacle and try the chilli oil. Immediately on consumption balls of sweat appeared on his head, his eyes started to water and turn red, and a big grin appeared on his face. He had found his match.

Not a minute after finishing the spring rolls, our main dishes arrived. First up, a huge serve of Chinese Broccoli in oyster sauce. How can so simple a dish be utter perfection? Eating a dish like this with a side of steamed rice is what Nigella would term “temple food”. Mmm.

Our other dish was Sliced Beef with Chilli and Lemongrass. The beef was super tender and gently spiced with chilli (…and yes, J reached for the chilli pot. Again). But what I really liked about the dish was that it was served with a mixture of stir-fried vegetables and crisp salad vegetables eg. cucumber, lettuce hearts and pickled carrots. I thought the vinegary carrots were a fantastic compliment to the dish.

The steamed rice was bottomless, as was the tea, and we were kept in plentiful supply of both without ever having to ask for more. Speaking of which, the front of house staff were quite something. Genuine smiles. Happy chats/banter. And most importantly they operated with that special “waiters peripheral vision”. It is a commendable achievement.

All up our dinner cost $29.00, which I believe nominates it for Cheap Eats status. But I’ll go one step further and nominate it for Cheap and Cheerful Eats status. It rocked.

Continuing the “million things to do with lentils” theme I seem to be running with at the moment, here is another lentil dish to make your tummy (bowel?!) rumble in anticipation. Actually I tend to eat vego most of the time, not out of any health or moral motivation. I just basically love the taste and versatility of all things pulse-y.

So this evening I attempted a new recipe care of The Food Coach (I have amended the original recipe, hence the reason I have it written below). As I had some leftover green lentils from my Puy Shepherd’s Pie the other day, and I was hankering for a nourishing soup, the following recipe provided a worthwhile vehicle for my leftovers. This serves 4-6 hearty portions, which obviously depends on the size of your hearty.

Chicken & Lentil Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 cardamom pods lightly bruised
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
0.5 teaspoon cayenne pepper
0.5 teaspoon paprika
0.5 teaspoon ground cumin
1 onion finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup french style green lentils, washed
1 litre chicken stock
1 400g tin crushed tomatoes
2 chicken breast fillets, chopped into bite size pieces
1 bunch English spinach, fresh, washed very well

Cook the bruised cardamon pods and spices in olive oil in a large saucepan for a minute or so. Keep a close eye on the spices - as they tend to go from fragrant to burnt very quickly. Discard the first batch of burnt oil and spices and start again ;-).

When fragrant, discard the cardamon pods and add the diced onion and garlic. Cook till soft.

Stir in the lentils, add the stock, tomatoes and chicken pieces. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat, simmering for 45 minutes.

Tear the spinach into pieces about the size of your palm, and then place into the pot and cook for 2 minutes, or until just wilted.

Serve with a spoon of greek yoghurt, and top with chopped coriander leaves (if you have them, which I didn’t).

Tasting Notes
Wow…what a winner of soup! This one will become a regular in the tummy rumbles household. Not only is it low GI, low sugar and wheat free, but it is amazingly tasty and filling as well. One big bowl, and I’m satisfied. No need for bread as a side, this will keep me satiated for a good long while.

This dish is inspired by a perfectly good recipe for Puy Pie by James Reeson of James Can Cook. If you have the time, I highly recommend you make it. In fact, I actually intended on making it. But on retrieving ingredients from the cupboard I noticed that my yeast had expired. And feeling somewhat less than inspired to make a dash for the supermarket in the pouring rain, I decided on amending the recipe as I am want to do. So voila - Shepherd’s Pie!

Now if puy lentils are hard to come by, or, like me, you like to buy Australian produce, then a French style green lentil is an excellent substitute. Mount Zero produce these, and to be quite honest, I think they rock!

Puy Shepherd’s Pie
250g puy lentils
3 bay leaves
2 carrots
2 onions
3-4 sticks celery
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons tamarind paste
2 tablespoons kecap manis
2 shakes of worcester sauce
2 shakes of tabasco sauce

Topping
400g tin of chickpeas
Half a large cauliflower
A little milk

Put lentils into a couple of litres of boiling water with two bay leaves and a good pinch of salt. Cook for 45 minutes till tender.

While this is boiling away, roughly chop the celery, carrot, onion and garlic and cook in a hot pan containing a little oil. Add a pinch of salt and a bay leaf. Cook until the vegetables are almost translucent.

Add the drained lentils to the pan, adding 2-3 tablespoons of the liquid the lentils have cooked in for extra flavour. Stir the vegetables and the lentils to combine, adding the tamarind pulp and kecap manis. Add a couple of shakes of worcester and a couple of shakes of tabasco to your own taste.

Roughly chop the cauliflower and place into boiling water and cook for about 20 minutes. Just before done, throw in a can of drained/rinsed chick peas. Drain the cauliflower / chickpeas and then place into a food processor and blitz till smooth, adding milk as required to obtain a mashed potato consistency.

Pour the vegetable and lentil filling into an overproof casserole dish. Put the mash on top and smooth it out. Sprinkle with some sweet paprika for looks.

Bake in a 200 degree Celcius oven for about 50 minutes.

Tasting Notes
This dish tastes quite meaty, despite its vegetarian inclination. It can also be easily tweaked for dairy intolerances by substituting the milk in the mash for a little of the leftover cooking water. It is fantastically tasty, and the cauliflower / chick pea mash is a nice nutty alternative to ordinary starchy potato. Serve with a crisp green salad, and as James suggests, a “big” Shiraz.

This vegetarian “faux” pate is not only super healthy, but deliciously tasty as well. Serve on toasted ciabatta / casalinga bread, or as a thickish dip for vegetable crudites.

Red Lentil Creole Pate
125g Red Lentils
1 litre Water
250g Onions, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
1/2 teaspoon Ground Turmeric
1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander
1/2 teaspoon Mustard Powder
1/4 teaspoon Chilli Powder
4 tablespoons Peanut Butter (100% nuts)
1 tablespoon Tomato Puree
Lemon Juice to taste
Salt and Cracked Black Pepper to taste

Boil red lentils in water for approximately 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Cook onions and spices in oil until soft and fragrant. Remove from heat.

Place lentils, spicy onion mixture, peanut butter and tomato puree into a food processor. Blitz until just combined, then and add lemon juice / salt / pepper to taste.

Best served at room temperature.

Nothing warms the stomach quite like a bowl of hearty chilli con carne. Make it as firecracker hot as you can handle. The recipe below is a pretty tame version suitable for 3-year-old kids and nancy brother-in-law’s whose palates aren’t quite up to the heat. This recipes serves 4-6 hungry eaters.

Chilli Con Carne
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
1 small capsicum, red or green, diced
1 long red chilli, fresh, finely chopped (seeds optional)
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped/minced
2 teaspoons chilli powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Sea Salt to taste
Cracked Black Pepper to taste
500g Lean Beef Mince
1 stick cinnamon
1 x 140g tub tomato paste
2 x 400g tins chopped tomato
2 x 400g red kidney beans
Half a 400g tin of water

Choose a large heavy based pot suitable to sit and simmer on a stove for an hour or so.

Saute the diced onion, capsicum, fresh chilli, garlic, cumin and chilli powder in the olive oil until lightly coloured and fragrant.

Add the lean beef mince, breaking it up as it cooks. When browned, throw in the tomato paste and cook it out for 2-3 minutes. Add the cinnamon stick, tinned tomatoes, water and then season with sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Bring to the boil, give a good stir, reduce to a very low heat and cover with a cartouche (aka. wet scrunched up baking paper) . Set the timer for one (1) hour and then find something fun to do. This baby doesn’t require stirring.

When the timer wakes you from your reverie searching cookbooks for fantastic dessert recipes, open the tins of kidney beans and drain/rinse really well. Remove cartouche and add the beans, giving the whole mix a good stir. Replace cartouche and continue to cook on very low heat for 30 minutes.

Best served with rice, tasty cheese, jalapenos, sliced green onions, diced tomatoes and copious amounts of sour cream. But if you are trying to be somewhat healthy and the fridge ingredients are rather lean, then lettuce, tomato, light cheese and light sour cream might make a suitable alternative.

She hasn’t gone anywhere. She has just changed a little.