Om Nom Nom.

One piece of internet speak (or is it lolcatz speak? Or Cookie Monster speak…?) that has made it into my real life vocabulary is “Om Nom Nom”. I say it when I see something yummy I want to eat or if Suspence is chowing down on a banana, I’m not necessarily proud of this, but it’s how it is. It’s a fact.

Another fact, is that these fritters I made last night are the business & assuredly om nom nom.

Zucchini & corn fritters with tomato & avocado salsa:

 

1 cup corn kernels (I just used a 310g tin)

1 medium zucchini, ends cut off, grated & squeezed to remove excess moisture.

1/4 of a red capsicum, finely chopped

5-6 shallots, chopped

2 tbs parsley, chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

salt & pepper to taste

1 cup of flour

1/2 tsp bicarb soda (can use self-raising flour in place of plain with bi-carb)

2/3 cup of water

Oil for frying

“Salsa”; Tomato & avocado chopped, drizzle with lemon juice.

 

Mix flour, salt & pepper, paprika & bicarb in a large bowl, add water & mix well. Add more water if required to create a nice smooth batter.

Add vegetables & parsley & combine.

Heat enough vegetable oil in a pan to fry; coat the bottom of the pan.

Fry in batches, using a heaped tablespoon of mixture for each fritter, then drain on kitchen towel.

Top with salsa & serve!

Om. Nom. Nom.

Crispy Tofu

“Mmmmmmmmmmm, tofu – not as bad as you think!” What do you think of that for a nifty catchphrase?! Inspire you to start using a bit more of the bland, oddly textured white mush in your cooking…? No?

I remember my first ever real encounter with tofu. It was in Year 7 Design & Technology class. We mad “Tofu Salad” which consisted of ‘marinating’ some tofu cubes in soy sauce & throwing them into a salad. I don’t think I need to tell you that that was not tasty. I realised then why the other girls gave Dawn from the Babysitters club a hard time about eating it, and why labelling a tub of ice-cream in the freezer as tofu really would keep scavengers away.

I don’t think I even tried it again until I decided to become vegetarian, it was much better in stir fries, or as fluffy little tofu puffs from the Asian grocer, but when I became vegan (I am beyond lapsed at the moment, sadly, I am an ethical eating waste ground right now..), tofu really came into it’s own. You can make EVERYTHING with tofu. “Cheese” sauce for lasagne, chocolate cream pie, chocolate mousse, quiche…. but the thing I keep making, and that The Boy is actually glad I make, is Crispy Tofu.

I always talk myself out of making this dish, for two reasons, it requires a clean kitchen from the get go, and it makes a lot of mess. That means I have to clean the kitchen twice in one day. Somewhat of a deal breaker right there.

But, when conditions are favourable, when the moon is right & the wind is blowing to the east, I make this & wonder why I don’t do it more often.

Crispy Tofu

Ingredients:

1 block of extra firm, or firm, tofu

Egg replacer, made up from the instructions on the packet to make 2 eggs (I have tried with real egg… it didn’t work out so well for me so I stick with this)

Cornflour – lots of it

Oil for frying, I use extra light olive oil, but I use that for everything

Instructions:

Drain your tofu & cut it so that you have small cubes, approximately 1.5 to 2 cm large – it doesn’t really matter how big or small you make your cubes, within reason, but be sure that they are cubes, they will be easier to fry.

Set yourself up so that you have in front of you; small bowl with “egg” mix, larger bowl or plate covered in a mountain of cornflour, and a large plate with a sprinkle of cornflour.

I like to use one hand to drop small batches of tofu into the egg mix (about four or five cubes at a time, depending on the size of the small bowl) & then move them into the bowl of cornflour, and the other hand to coat them in cornflour, & I recommend this method to you or you’ll have big cluggy gloves of cornflour on before you know it.

Thoroughly coat the cubes in cornflour, rain cornflour down upon them, roll them about, whatever you wish, just make sure they’re well covered, then move to the plate, ensuring they are separated or you’ll end up with a big sticky mess there too.

Once all your cubes are coated, heat about a centimetre of oil in a large frying pan & add your cubes, cook on a medium to high heat, turning frequently (I just shake the pan at random intervals). The tofu will start to brown up nicely, but keep cooking until the cubes actually start to rattle around, hard, in your pan (unlike me the first time, thinking if I made them too hard they’d be yeechy, I ended up with soggy tofu cubes…), that’s how you know they’re good & crispy!

Set aside & add to your stir fry or whatever you like.

 

Mmmmmmmmmmmm tofu.

Wow. I Suck at This!!

So... my last post was in March?!

Time flies when you're having fun with a little Punk, let me assure you. It is now August... AUGUST!!! I can hardly believe it but it's true. Just over a month until I turn 28. It's funny you know... I remember a time in my teens when I couldn't even IMAGINE turning 25. 25 sounded ancient and anything more than that just didn't bear thinking about. That was when I was 15 maybe, 16?

Where did I think I would be when I was 27, all the way back then...?! Well, having established that 27 was too old to ever want to be, I'll settle for where I thought I'd be at 25. What and who I thought I would be.

There were a lot of dreams. Dreaming is one of the things I do the very best. Most dreams saw me living in the city, in an apartment. I remember fantasising about driving (small car, hatchback perhaps, red) home to my apartment & getting out & walking up the stairs wearing a business clothes. Don't ask me what sort of job I would have had... somehow I never got to that part. The most important part was to be living in a city. At 16 I lived in a tiny country town which I hated with a passion, nothing seemed more exciting that city life.

And here I am. Recently returned to another country town. Not as small as that one from my teens, but certainly no city. The time for city life and apartment living has come and gone (and I did love it, just as much as I always knew I would), as has the time for living in a shack on the Hawksbury River with an outside bathroom, the time for living in a boarding house on my own in an unknown town, the time for living by the beach with salt in the air, the time for living in a unit amongst hundreds of others with paper-thin walls, the time for living in an old house in the mountains where it occasionally snowed, the time for living on a well heeled street in the suburbs... now is the time for renting a house with an abnormally large backyard, keeping chickens and playing with toys, while saving ever so slowly to buy a house with an abnormally large backyard for keeping chickens in and lots of room for playing with toys.

I can't say I imagined this life... not a 16. Later I definitely would have dreamt of a simpler life... I have a dirty little hippie buried deep inside somewhere, but I was never one of those girls who dreamed of having kids and living happily ever after. I can't honestly say why - whether I thought that 'happily ever after' was an unobtainable myth, or whether I just couldn't imagine meeting a little child that didn't annoy the hell out of me... Definitely I was extraordinarily selfish and self absorbed, I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many teenage girls that aren't, so that could be why. Perhaps even then I realised that to have a child or even a handsome prince, would mean that the story wouldn't be all about me anymore.

It's a cliche to say that I love my life even though I never planned it this way, but cliches are cliches because they occur over and over again in life, and for something to keep happening like that, well, there must be a reason. You just cannot imagine the impact of having a child of your own until you have one. Even when you're expecting a child, when there is no escaping your massive belly, constant heartburn & aching legs, you have no idea. You are still you and for you, albeit much heavier and with more erratic hormones. You don't know even when you are in the throes of labour, the pain (and it is pain, no matter what they say... I tried that calm birth visualisation hoodoo... bah humbug!!) is yours and yours alone.

You know, the moment you hold your baby. You know that from then on, your life is not your own. You know that the tiny person you have clutched to your breast will hold your heart in their hands for the rest of your life. You know that their pain will be your pain and that their joy will be your joy, and you could not be happier about it.

So. This is where I am. Sometimes I miss city life. Sometimes I miss the unfettered life I had before I was a mother. But, the more I take the time to enjoy the little things in the here and now, the more I forget about that time, and I would not, even for a second, give up what I have now to go back. Instead I look towards the future, with a sticky little hand in my own. (Take that 16 year old me! :P)

Right! What have we been up to in those missing months...?!

Hibernating, mostly. It's been so cold here & The Boy got his licence which meant we got a car and walking everywhere was no longer necessary. Unfortunately that has meant that we walk hardly anywhere, that goes for riding the bike too. It's just so cold all the time, and not only that, it looks like it is going to rain almost every second of every day... Sometimes it does & sometimes it doesn't but the problem is you never can tell.

For the most part I don't mind hibernating. Punky seems happy enough with a run around the yard, a bout of drawing, tickle matches & a session of Yo Gabba Gabba, which is just as well as we gave up on the swimming lessons for a term and a half. First lesson again tomorrow - we've already missed 3 this term so I can honestly say I am not entirely looking forward to tomorrow mornings inquisition about where we've been and why we've not been attending. I don't think the truth (I am a lazy slob) will go down too well. Perhaps I should invent a tragic imaginary illness for a tragic imaginary great Aunt or something.

I thought I would post here again because funnily enough, while trying to start an entirely different blog to do with my solely crafty exploits, I revisited this one & enjoyed reading it, the little there is of it to read mind you.

For instance, I'd forgotten all about making the sushi... that wasn't terribly fun but it was an experience & I'm glad I wrote about it.

Another experience I don't want to forget; A couple of days ago Punky and I decided we needed to use up some of the eggs our chookies are so graciously supplying for us, so we emptied the cupboard of anything and everything we could possibly use for baking; flour, sultanas, dates, sugar etc and scoured our op shop rescued old school cookbooks & found a recipe for Date Loaf.

Date Loaf
(From a cover-less, yellowed, water damaged, "crispy", copy of The Commonsense Cookery Book, compiled by the Public Schools Cookery Teachers' Association of NSW, reprinted in 1957, with some of the best cooking related advertisements I have ever seen)


Ingredients.-

• 2 cups flour.
  
• 1/2 cup sugar.
  
• 1 cup dates.
  
• 1 level dessertspoon baking powder.
  
• 1 egg.
  
• Small cup milk.
  
• 2 level tablespoons butter.
  
• Pinch of Salt.
  

Method.-

1. Beat butter and sugar to a cream.
   
2. Add well-beaten egg.
   
3. Add milk gradually.
   
4. Add chopped dates.
   
5. Stir in lightly the flour, baking powder and salt sifted.
   
6. Half fill greased tin.
   
7. Bake in a moderate oven 3/4 of an hour.

What we did differently; Well, firstly, nothing was "beaten" more sort of "squished" together by The Little Punk's courageous mixing efforts. The dessertspoon measurement was taken to mean an actual dessertspoon but it was later discovered that it was something like 1/2 a tablespoon... why they wouldn't just write that I don't know... Baking paper instead of greasing the tin and a moderate oven was probably not wholly achieved. By and large however the experience was a good one and we ended up with a delicious, if not terribly photogenic, date loaf.

We also made a half dozen sultana cupcakes but they were even less photogenic & even more yummy... ;)