mutteringhousewife

January 23, 2013

The Corn Chip Experiment

I’m starting to sound like the Big Bang Theory. I like a theme. I found myself in possession of a packet of Mission Corn Tortillas with no takers, so today I thought I’d see into what I could transform them.

It all started because the Horror from Outer Space won’t eat sandwiches. Sometimes he’ll condescend to eat a roll if it’s fresh from the bakery, but only with nothing on it. He’s been going to basketball camp this week with only two whole cucumbers and a pistachio friand to sustain him, so I’ve been trying to find a way to get some additional unsweetened carbohydrate into him. I thought I’d try tortillas. He liked them in San Diego.

I should have known, I really should. If it’s a form of bread and has a use by date six months in the future it’s going to taste weird. I didn’t blame him for rejecting it. But I couldn’t throw them out, so I thought I’d turn them into corn chips.

There’s a thing I do with Lebanese bread that I thought I’d adapt for the occasion, I believe I mentioned yesterday that I don’t deep fry. If you take a round of Lebanese bread, brush it with melted butter, sprinkle it liberally with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, chop it into chip shapes and bake it for five minutes you have a snack that is impossible to stop eating. These corn tortillas have a different texture to the flat breads, so I sprayed them with olive oil (you know, you can get it in an environmentally detrimental spray can) and tried three different toppings. Parmesan cheese, Cajun spice mix and plain salt.

The cheese ones didn’t crisp up. The other two did, but the plain salt ones get the kid vote. They quite liked the Cajun ones too, but they were a bit too bitey for them. The Horror is considering taking them to basketball camp tomorrow, but it isn’t a long term solution. The hunt continues.

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January 22, 2013

The Brussels Sprouts Converter

I get that not everyone loves Brussels sprouts. I adore them in every way, but the way I’m cooking them tonight will definitely add to their tiny fan base. I have Porteños restaurant to thank for this version of Brussels sprouts, and I hope they don’t mind my alterations.

I also get that it isn’t sprout season, they’re best in spring, you can even chop up the baby ones and put them in a salad. As spring progresses they get larger and less appealing, and that’s when this recipe really comes in to its own. But I saw a packet of them in Harris Farm with the suck in a customer descriptors of Baby, Sweet and Crisp, and I fell for it. I very much doubt you’d want these woody specimens in your salad, but nothing can stand up to what I’m about to do to them.

At Porteños they start off by deep frying them. Well, we can’t have that, I don’t think I’ve ever deep fried anything. What are you supposed to do with the leftover oil? I oven roast them. Chop off the bases of your sprouts then cut them in half. If they’re large, cut them in quarters. Distribute them into a small roasting pan and drizzle olive oil over them with a slightly lighter hand than you’ve seen Jamie Oliver use in every episode of his TV show. Sprinkle them with salt, then shake the pan to share the oil around. I’m going through a slow roasting thing at the moment, these will take about an hour and a half at 150 degrees. You don’t want them burnt to a crisp, but nicely browned and on the verge of mushy.

They’re actually rather sensational just like this, with a rich nutty flavour. If you want to go completely overboard, you coat them with the special Porteños sauce, which can be found on the Gourmet Traveller website, and goes like this. Place in a small jar one hundred millilitres of olive oil, fifty millilitres of vincotto and a tablespoon of hot English mustard and shake like mad. Vincotto translates as cooked wine, I’ve seen it at most delis in the inner west. I’m not sure what you’d substitute if you couldn’t get it, possibly a mixture of honey and balsamic vinegar.

Porteños serve theirs with lentils and mint. I love lentils, but they do unladylike things to my digestive system, and all my mint burnt to death last Friday, the Hottest Day Ever. Suit yourself. This recipe also works an absolute treat with cauliflower.

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January 21, 2013

The Great Aussie Barbeque

One of our favourite bits of our house is the large shady verandah out the back. It overlooks the pool, the miniature soccer field, is handy to the kitchen and outside bathroom, enjoys a gentle afternoon breeze. It is the perfect place for a barbeque. Sadly, our barbeque burned to the ground shortly before Christmas.

Well, not literally to the ground. It had been quietly falling to pieces for some time. Dear husband didn’t want it replaced until an identical one could be located. He’s averse to domestic upheaval.

I searched high and low, east and west, physical and Internet, but they just don’t make barbeques with wooden surrounds any more. They’re all shiny modern looking beasts, they don’t do Federation style in barbeques. Then one day, after a delightful lunch with friends, the back of the barbeque shot out a tongue of flame. More followed and judging it unwise to sacrifice our eyebrows to extinguishing attempts, we wheeled it into the middle of the verandah and let it do its thing. Fortunately it was the week before the cleanup, so after shedding a silent tear, out it went onto the council strip.

My resident hunter decided to go see for himself that no Federation style barbeques existed, and after a far less exhaustive search than mine, he dragged home a couple of boxes from Bunnings and positioned them artfully exactly where Old Faithful had stood for so many years, as if hopeful that the contents of the box would get the hint. I ignored it for a couple of days, but couldn’t resist its silent allure, so I got out my screwdrivers and a Stanley knife, gathered my helpers and set to work.

I won’t bore you with the details, except to mention that local mosquitoes find the scent of mosquito coils rather bracing. Also that I did plan to do the ten assembly steps in order, but I got to step 5 to discover that I’d done step 2 wrong, so I skipped to step 9 which looked easy to cheer myself up before heading back to step 2, then it was plain sailing from step 6 on. Except that I’m pretty sure that I have the front and back legs reversed and I definitely have four screws left over. And that I can understand the motive behind the black on black decor, but it does make assembly challenging if you’re attempting step 3 after dinner and a couple of ciders.

I like assembling things, especially when the instructions are in English. I think the key to putting together a flat pack is to assume that you’re going to put half of it together upside down and inside out and be prepared to sigh a little and unscrew everything and do it again once or twice more. Once you have factored into your plans you’re a lot less flappable. You should also not under any circumstances accept any help, you will inevitably not appreciate the thoughtful advice you’ll be given. I’m now ready for step 10, which is to call a plumber and have the Beast connected to the mains gas, we don’t do gas bottles. I’m going to go check the mailbox for magnets advertising plumbers, and then I’m going to go put a heat pack on my back. Perhaps I should have asked for help in step 4.

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January 18, 2013

Lime slushies

There are many fine things about a hot day. You can get all your washing done, including doonas and school bags. You’ll be getting your money’s worth from the pool. And you can get some use out of your brand new blender.

Making homemade lime slushies takes a little preparation. First, you need to organise for your kids to get you a really excellent blender for Christmas. “Oh thanks kids, that’s EXACTLY what I wanted!”. Well, they benefit too, it’s not that bad. Then you need to make a lime syrup. Normally you can make a syrup for soft drink minutes before serving it, it doesn’t matter if it’s still hot because you can top it up with ice and soda and no one will notice. But to make a slushie you need the syrup to be cold, and if possible the glasses too.

So get hold of a whole lot of limes while they’re on special. Normally I’d juice citrus for a syrup, but these ones were tiny (that’s why they were cheap), so I went for a different approach. I roughly peeled the limes with a small knife and put them whole into the blender. There were about twelve of the little guys. I also put in an orange and a lemon, similarly treated, both to bulk it up and also because lime by itself is a pretty strong taste.

Meanwhile you have dissolved two cups of caster sugar in a cup of water over some heat in a saucepan. Balance a large wire sieve over the saucepan. Blend up the citrus in your super powerful blender. Don’t worry about deseeding or getting all the white bits off, you have a life to live, just blend it! Then tip the resulting mush into the sieve over the saucepan. You’ll need to squash it through with a spoon or your fingers. Having had a lot of experience with feline effluvium, I can tell you that what’s left in the sieve looks a lot like cat sick. Make sure you’ve squeezed as much liquid as you can be bothered getting out of it before tipping it into the compost. With any luck you’ve added about another cup of liquid to the syrup. Decant it into a jug and stick it in the fridge.

To make the slushie, tip about two cups of crushed ice into the blender and press the ice crush button. It’ll work with ice cubes too, but will need some poking with the plastic poking stick. My blender gives a result that looks a lot like snow. Fill up two glasses with this, drizzle syrup on top, then a bit more snow on top. Serve with a teaspoon to any damp little boys you have sitting in front of your TV playing Lego Lord of the Rings on the Wii while having a break from swimming. Assure the little friend that it doesn’t need to be bright green to be lime flavoured. Take orders for the next round of syrup flavours, I’ll be making cola next. Then raspberry, but with frozen raspberries, fresh ones are way too expensive for syrup. Interestingly, the kids love my cola syrup in ice block form, but not as a soda. We haven’t tried it in slushie form yet.

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January 17, 2013

What I’ve learned this week

Well, it has been one of those character building weeks, and I’ve learned a thing or two too.
I know how much my family eats. We had to bring all of our own food, and we’ve come home with just a litre of milk and half a loaf of bread.
A swim in the early morning is a very fine thing. My husband said he’s never seen me in the water so much. We actually have a pool, I tend to avoid it because it’s usually full of kids. The last time I got in to our pool I was immediately hit in the head by a wet tennis ball. But I know it’s vacant first thing in the morning, I should really get out there these very fine mornings and start off with a swim.
Speaking of husband, he’s a pretty good navigator. I know he’s good at maps, because he always tells me so. But I was quite impressed at how he could look at what looked to me like a featureless bit of angophora laden hill and say “around that corner we’ll be coming in to Fishermans Bay”, and be quite correct each time.

My entire family farts upon waking. I’m not sure if it’s just before they wake or just after, but with the rising of the sun each morning came a cacophony of farts. Thank heavens for separate bedrooms at home. Of course, I’m sure I don’t.
The kids like to drink tea. I’m sure I’ve never seen them do it at home, but they were drinking bucket loads of it at sea. Maybe it’s because the tea bags were in full view. At home my husband generally only drinks at from a pot, and it’s quite a palaver to get it ready. Perhaps I should put a container of tea bags on the bench at home. Should kids be drinking tea?
Fishing is boring and/or gross. The bait smells horrible. If you actually catch a fish, then it’s stabbed through some vital part of its anatomy so even if you let it go, it’s scarred for life. But most of the time you’re standing in the blazing sun holding a stick looking like a pillock. Not me, though, I was up on the top deck under the canopy reading about double entry accounting. I know how to enjoy myself.
A thirty second shower can leave you feeling quite clean.
Eating in the open air in the evening breeze is delightful and that’s something else we should do more often. At home we have the added advantage that no cutlery is going to end up in the sea.

There were some things I already knew. My children are not soul mates, and I didn’t really expect that three days confined to close quarters would pass without enough friction to cause much shouting. I know that they won’t remember that bit, but I am quite glad they’re all off to different sporting camps next week, they need a break from each other.

I am looking forward to a long bath and a night of unbroken rest in my queen sized bed in which I am very unlikely to find myself suddenly jammed up against a plywood wall in the middle of the night. I will miss the sound of the wavelets against the boat and the sea breeze through the windows. Goodbye Roger the Ripples houseboat. We have some great memories of you.

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January 16, 2013

A life on the Ocean Wave

We had lunch at Berowra Waters Inn.

When I say at, I mean moored outside. They’re closed on Wednesdays. And as if we’d go in there with the Horror, even if we were having a pink fit.

I started the morning with a swim to a tiny beach near where we were moored for the night, in Refuge Bay. As I stepped on to the sand, narrowly avoiding a tiny stingray, I thought about the first white settlers to Australia. They would have stepped on to a little beach like this, looking up a steep scrubby slope covered in completely unfamiliar plants, no grass, no animals, no fruit or flowers. All the pink stemmed trees twisted into fantastic shapes, the scream of cicadas in the air and the mad cackle of kookaburras. They would have felt so very far from home.

Anyway, swimming is terrific from a houseboat. You can just dangle your feet, dip in, find different spots to jump from the boat, or swim to shore to explore. “Look out, Mummy’s making a bid for freedom!” my husband shouted.

Of course I wasn’t, I knew they could run me down.

I’ve rather liked the challenge of bringing all our own food. We had sausages on the barbeque the first night. Chicken nuggets that I’d made last week and frozen, these looked like a bag full of damp sawdust when defrosted, but barbecued up nicely. I even managed mashed potatoes to go with, it isn’t too hard to mash them with a fork. I’m finding that my ankles are being gnawed on, so I’d better start preparing deconstructed sushi for tonight’s dinner pretty smartly. All this open air makes one EXTREMELY hungry.

So overall, this has been rather fun. I’d even consider doing it again, although possibly with a slightly bigger boat and someone else’s children.

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January 15, 2013

Things to do on a Houseboat

You’d be surprised how many things there are to do on a houseboat.
Laps. The kids discovered very early that you can circumnavigate the boat due to narrow ledges along the outsides. You can vary this by going counterclockwise or over the top. I had to put my foot down at climbing through the windows.
Counting jellyfish. The Moose said he had to stop counting because his tongue was sore, but he said he got up to six hundred. They’re quite large, and I expect to see Spongebob in amongst them with his net. We wonder if they’ll sting, but no one wants to volunteer to find out.

Fishing. There was great excitement yesterday afternoon when the fire bucket made a bid for freedom. A houseboat isn’t very nippy on its feet, so we made several circuits of it before we got close. It was taking on water and starting to look very sad before the Moose reached it with the boat hook and dragged it safety. His greatest triumph.

Reading. While others look at the scenery, I’m reading a fascinating book about the history of double entry accounting. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, it’s excellent. Called Double Entry, it’s by Jane Gleeson-White, go and buy a copy now.
And finally, steering the boat. It’s a bit exciting, there’s a handsome wooden steering wheel and no rudder, just a tiny engine off the back. So when you first start out you make series of elegant swoops across the river, it takes some time to get used to. However, we’re not going too much faster than a snail with the ague, so not too much harm can be done.
Now Ho for a buoy for the night. We’re not very good at dropping anchor yet, I’m surprised no one’s lost a finger.

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January 14, 2013

Houseboat Holiday

My dear husband planned a holiday for this week that he wouldn’t tell us about. I suspect it was because it was an outing I would purse my lips about, and he was kind of right.

I guessed it was a houseboat when he said there would be no power points and a gas fridge, and when he started collecting together fishing gear. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that I should have brought more alcohol. Then I wondered which child I’d be compelled to throw overboard first? But after we’d talked the office into giving us more pillows and doonas and toilet paper, it started looking quite cosy. “What do you think?” asked Captain Casey (actually, he’s a Lieutenant Colonel). “Aargh, I should have brought rum”, I said. “And a parrot”, added the Horror.

There are plenty of nooks and crannies in which I can hide from the kids on the boat. The kitchen is far better equipped than the cabin at our last holiday. I’m looking forward to seeing my plus six foot husband cram himself into the minus six foot bed. We’ve just done a circuit of Dangar Island, which looks very pretty but would be an annoying commute. Now we’ve stopped to fish, and I’m wondering how long it’s going to take the kids to notice the rocking motion of the stationary boat and throw up. They’re fairly excited about possibly catching something edible, or a jellyfish, so may not. It doesn’t bother me.

It may not be so bad after all. Aargh, me hearties.

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January 11, 2013

Snickerdoodles

The store cupboard is looking a little bare, so I thought I’d ask the kids what they’d like by way of biscuits. Then I thought, save my breath. They’ll want snickerdoodles.

This is a recipe I’ve adapted from one in The Good Cookie, by Trish Boyle. Being an American recipe, it makes lots.

Cream together 180 grams of butter with one and a third cup of caster sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of some form of syrup. The original recipe suggests molasses, but I found that to be a little distinctive for the Australian palate. I use maple syrup, but you could also use golden syrup. I don’t use golden syrup because it features heavily in other biscuits I make a lot of of. Beat in two eggs, one at a time. I sometimes buy my eggs from AC Butchery because they look excitingly free range. These ones were large and very very white, even the yolks were really light coloured. They are indistinguishable from Swedish models. Mix in two and half cups of flour, one tablespoon of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg. Actually, I don’t measure the nutmeg, I just grate in a fair old sprinkling with the trusty Microplane.

Roll balls of mixture about the size of a walnut (in its shell) and dip them in cinnamon sugar. You make up cinnamon sugar by mixing a tablespoon of cinnamon with a quarter of a cup of caster sugar, I like to keep some on hand for cinnamon toast. The dough is quite sticky for biscuits, but that’s correct. Place them on baking trays lined with baking paper and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about sixteen minutes. Keep an eye on them, you only want the tiniest amount of brown. These biscuits are quite soft on the inside, which means that my husband won’t eat them, and the kids tell me that they’re not as nice when they’re crisp all the way through. Know your audience!

Before on the bottom, after on top.

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January 10, 2013

Bondi Junction Westfield

My children have unexpectedly taken a shine to tennis camp. It’s a little unbelievable, actually. It’s close, cheap, you don’t have to book. The kids don’t even have to cross a road to get there. So I found myself today, for the second day in a row, unexpectedly child free. Yesterday I did a great deal of washing and made a rather ham fisted attempt at attaching a spring to our side gate. Today I thought, bugger it, I’m going shopping.

Junkies, as my sisters affectionately call it, is always a little closer than I expect, I feel like it should be miles aways. It’s a lavish and complicated mall that I like to go to a couple of times a year, just to see what rich people are wearing this season and what the Eastern Suburbs are up to generally. I can tell you that nose piercings appear to be going mainstream, I saw a number of otherwise conventional looking women sporting them. Some of the piercings looked rather new, or in need of some antiseptic. I was very pleased to spot not one, but two moustaches waxed on the ends, both accompanied by natty little goatees. I saw a young woman teetering along on a spectacularly high pair of bright red platform shoes. I had to hold my arms firmly behind my back to resist the urge to push her over. And quite a lot of very smartly dressed grandmas who had obviously had the kids dumped on them for the holidays, kids in the eastern suburbs use a lot more product in their hair than the scruffy lot around here.

There are many shops in this mall that are fun to wander around, and also some fairly useful ones, unlike the complete waste of time that is my local mall. The useful ones include the Cancer Council shop which I visited to buy myself a white zip up rashie. I had one of these handy items, but I put it on the balcony to dry at our last holiday and it saw its chance and flew away to freedom. I also bought the Horror a long sleeved rashie to replace the current one that has caused a circumference of tan to form around his midriff. They have one of the few Nespresso outlets in Sydney, so I stocked up on Indriya and Livanto. The purchasing method was very odd. You could join the line that went out the door. Or you could present your club card to the lady who looked like an air hostess at the tasting desk out the front and she would take your order. I’m not sure why she couldn’t then just duck into the store and grab your capsules, but she told me the procedure was that I hang on to my receipt for half an hour and come back to collect. Whatever. I had many more sparkly things to look at.

There are all the big designer stores that never ever have anyone in them except the sales girls who all look like over made up praying mantises. I can’t believe anyone can really walk anywhere in Jimmy Choo shoes, I think you’d put them on to pose a bit, then slip back into your ballet flats. I love Metalicus outfits and had a lovely browse in there, but I’ve got enough clothes for the moment. I went to David Jones to look at Bobbi Brown lipsticks. I got one on sale at Strawberry.net and shorty afterwards managed to buy exactly the same one again, also on sale. I was sure that there are other colours than Plum Rose, and if I’m going to be wearing lipstick all the time from now on it might as well be a nice one. Isn’t it funny that if you want to buy shoes at David Jones you get treated like a bothersome semitransparent insect, but if you go to the makeup department they seem to have found some humans to staff it? The girl at the Bobbi Brown counter was so nice and helpful that I almost didn’t mind paying over twice the price of Strawberry.net, and besides, I’m sure they don’t stock the colour I bought.

Well, that’s my shopping itch scratched, and all in under the two hours they allow you to park there before going for your wallet. Good clean fun and not as scary or discombobulating as Chatswood Westfield. I may have to pay for my jaunt by wearing the ankle boot again tomorrow, but it was all worth it. Besides, I’m seeing the physio on Saturday, she’ll put me back together again. It’s good to have a team of professionals keeping me moving.

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