Worm farms

I know you can't eat worms! Well maybe you can. But I am slowly becoming greener and this is one way to go. I personally think that I will ever become a veggie. I do try to buy local meat though. 
Anyway I digress. Yesterday my neighbours bought themselves and our family a worm farm each. So I look forward to being able to use all my veggie scraps from now on in a farm and then fertilise my own herbs, and veggies that I grow.

For more information check out worm farms on google. One of the simplest and clearest links for a little info is http://www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/services/worm.htm

Have fun...

Do you like seafood: A dish in 10 minutes

One of my favourite dishes is shrimp. If I ever get the opportunity to eat in Kingston Ontario. I will do my utmost to eat at Chez Piggy's. This is a great restaurant. One of its signature meals is Shrimp aglio olio, (Shrimp with garlic and chili in oil). Well you don't have to travel to Kingston to do this.
Get your shrimp. (Fresh if possible). (Dry on paper towel or in a sieve)
Slice a couple of small red chillies, remove most of the seeds, depending on how hot you like it. (Remember the seeds and the white insides are hotter than the outsides). Chop finely.
Get a few cloves of Garlic, peel and chop. (You can chop finely or not!)
Get a frying pan very hot, with a good does of olive oil in it.
Toss in the chili and garlic and stir quickly. Stir for 30 seconds
Toss in the Shrimp and cook them until they go pink. (If they were already pink then 2 minutes minutes max).
Take off the heat and serve in the pan.

Best served with fresh french bread, and nothing else. Well a good glass of wine!

For better results: use a heavy iron pan, it will keep the heat longer, for serving.
You can exchange the Shrimp for Scallops or use both.

Breakfast in a hurry

Of course, you could have breakfast for dinner if you want. 

I recently found several good recipes for easy to make chewy granola-style bars. Yummy any time of day, really. Certainly good to stave off starvation in the pre-dinner hour! 

Version One, adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express:

Open and warm a tin of sweetened condensed milk (the 397 g size) (I poured it into a jug and microwaved it on medium for two minutes)

Mix together in a bowl:

 250 g of oats, 

125 g of seeds (sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, etc), 

100g dried fruit in small chunks, 

125 g chopped nuts (I used almonds but she says peanuts), 

75 g shredded coconut

Pour the warmed milk over top, stir well. Press into a 9x13 inch oiled pan and bake at 130C or low temperature oven for an hour. It will be quite a pale golden colour at the very edges. Cool and cut into sticky, moist, fibre-rich bar treats.

Version Two, from a Canadian Basics cookbook

Mix together in a bowl:

1 and 1/2 cups of oats

1/2 cup each flour, brown sugar

1/2 cup each of two kinds of dried fruit (I used cranberries and apricots)

1/4 cup slivered almonds

Beat together in a small bowl:

1/4 cup each oil and corn syrup

1 egg

Pour the wet over the dry and stir well.

Flatten into greased 9 inch square pan. Bake at 180C or 350F for 20 minutes or until golden brown (definitely darker than the first type).  Cool and slice into bars. 

A quick and easy traditional stew / fricassee

One of my loves is slow cooked Fricassee Chicken, but who has the time?
Well I have been playing around with getting this dish to a near equivalent in about 30 minutes. (When it used to take 3-4 hours of slow cooking)

You need a good dutch oven or a good deep saucepan with a tight lid. I have used both.

The other thing you need to do is CHEAT. One of the reasons this dish tastes so good is it richness due to the stock. Well you are either going to have this ready in advance (do-able) or just use purchased stock cubes or bouillon.

The trick is to heat everything up really quickly, onions, garlic and then the vegetables you want soft. Remove them, quickly seal the chicken, put everything back together, add the stock and then just add the crunchier veg near to the end.

So...
Peel and chop your garlic and onion
Fry until softening in a little bit of oil. Put lid on to keep in juices if you can. (it also reduces the amount of oil you need)
Add the veg you want to be soft at the end, or want to use to add flavour.
Heat until softened. Remove these from the heat to another dish.
Put chicken in the pan and cook on all sides until sealed.
Put the veggies back in and add enough stock (water and cube or previously made stock) to cover everything.
Add a dash of nutmeg and or mace and some herbs of choice. I use Tarragon. (The Nutmeg and mace give it a more traditional English Fricassee taste) - See Mrs Beaton's original recipe.
Turn up heat until boiling and then let it simmer for 15 minutes, with the lid on!(The longer the better)
Boil it down to the thickness of the sauce you like. (You can do this in 2 ways. Stir and reduce on a medium heat or remove all the solid and then turn up the heat and reduce the sauce more quickly.)
Take off heat. Now you can stir in some beaten egg yolk or cream if you wish to cream it up.

This can be served with Taglitelle, Mashed Potato, Fresh crusty bread,...
-enjoy

Wow it has been such a long time

Well I had almost given up on the"Great Wall deities" but somehow, they have allowed us back into to edit and see our sites. Probably no one has had a go at them lately.
I have no idea, how long this will last though.