Cooking Fresh Food - breaking the jar/can/bottle habit...

[TheBear]

A couple of comments on LL80's great looking bolognese recipe:-
- Don't go nuts looking for Passata (for some reason supermarkets think it is a premium product), you can use canned, chopped tomato along with tomato puree to get the same result.
- If you really want a smooth sauce then push the chopped tomatos through a blender then a sieve to remove all the pips and lumps first...I can't be bothered I like it chunky.

A few variations:-
- For a deeper range of flavours, start the sauce with chopped onions, celery, carrot and garlic - let these cook down in the oil stirring occasionally to ensure that they are well coated. Make sure everything is finely chopped - the veggies should almost dissolve into the sauce as it cooks. Throw in a couple of bay leaves whilst it is simmering.
- Add some chopped chilli with the passata for a spicier finish.
- Give it a Greek feel by adding a stick of cinnamon, some powder cloves and fresh or dried oregano.
- Add chopped chilli, saffron and chopped chorizo for a more spanish taste
- Add a couple of squares of dark, unsweetened chocolate for a richer, darker sauce


Tali - this is a nice simple recipe for a good bolognese sauce that you should try, if you don't want to tend a pot on the stove for a few hours then use a slow cooker or move the covered pan into a low oven for a few hours. The sauce will store well in the fridge or freezer very well.

Briggsy's Girl - Passata is one of the traditional Italian ways of preserving the tomato crop for use over the winter, so if you are getting a bumper crop from your veggie patch then it's worth thinking about. Simply put the fresh tomatoes through a blender and sieve, or use a food mill (these aren't expensive and are very useful) then boil the result down to your preferred consistency and store in sterilised jars - it will keep for months and months without refridgeration and forms the basis of lots of good italian dishes.

[briggsy's girl]

last year we gave away about 30kg of tomatos from half dozen plants - they went nuts!! hadn't considered blending them down first before cooking.. might have to give it a go.

any suggestions for flavoursome dishes with large zucchini's (like HUGE - i think they're called marrows when they go past a certain point) - we throw them threw almost everything we cook, and still have heaps left over. i love putting them through other dishes, but i'm not a fan of the texture or lack of flavour on their own...

and fruit - last year i know we gave away about 25k of peaches and apples - i'm not a fan of peaches that have been cooked down, so would love to know how to poach them so they're like the ones you get in the shops. and suggestions on what to use them with... we've just gone and planted HEAPS more fruit trees so that, in a couple of years time, we'll be pretty much self sufficient fruit and veg wise...

one thing we do is, when we're "over" a particular vegie, we'll make a soup that is full of vegies. have made some awesome soups lately - just throwing everything in the slow cooker and let it cook over night... most have a pumpkin base (our qld blue went insane last year, and we harvested pumpkins weighing at least 5-8kg each, so when we cut into them, we inevitable end up making a pumpkin based soup as we just can't eat enough any other way!) - thankfully we have more than one freezer - and uncut pumpkin lasts for ages so we're not having to do it all that often

[ll80]

mmmm marrows,
my dad grows these, what we always did was cut them in half, scoop out the middles fill it with bolognese sauce and bake it in the oven until the marrow is tender.
YUM!

[sangie]

BG I have a zucchini soup recipe with noodles that we like - it is quite mild in flavour but yummy with some chili and parmeson on top! I can post the recipe tomorrow if you like (I'm at work!). Also with zucchini you can thinly slice, dip in egg and coat in seasoned breadcrumbs or polenta. Then lightly fry in some olive oil. It is really nice in sandwiches, focaccias or as a side dish! We have it cold in summer with cold meats, salads etc.

Wow sounds like you have a massive green thumb! Have you thought about selling some of your fruit/veg? I'd buy it in a flash lol!

[meow]

Thank you all for some great recipes. I will try them soon!

[briggsy's girl]

haven't sold any yet, and don't think i would (we've fed half the town though i'm sure) - i'm too much of a perfectionist and would feel bad selling something with a marked skin - i'll eat it myself, but won't sell it (iykwim!)

not keen on the idea of zucchini soup - mum makes one and i find it very bland - but i'm happy to give anything a go once! if i don't enjoy it, DH can take it to work with him (or we'll feed the dogs - they cos a fortune to feed, so i don't mind sharing our cheaper meals!)

tali, i make a mean gravy - take the meat out of the pan, get the drippings bubbling nicely - add some gravy flour (it's just a type of flour that doesnt go lumpy) - add enough to absorb all the dripping so it's like you're mixing playdough in the pan, then slowly add water while keeping it hot (and not burning) - if i find it's a bit light in color, i'll add maybe a tblsp of gravox for color. keep stirring ( i use a whisk) until it's the volume and consistency you want. the more dripping, the more gravy. i tend to also pour some of the dripping off if it's too much, and if it looks fatty, will let it sit first. add salt and pepper to taste. my gravy is always a hit (but so hard to explain in writing!)

[New Dawn]

Tali - this is a nice simple recipe for a good bolognese sauce that you should try, if you don't want to tend a pot on the stove for a few hours then use a slow cooker or move the covered pan into a low oven for a few hours. The sauce will store well in the fridge or freezer very well.

Thank you once again.... I dont mind so much having to hang around to stir a pot if I can cook it in the daytime when I would only have 1 at home, it just gets hard when it 5pm ( witching hour ) and I trying to cook but dont have anyone to play with the winkies to get them from under my feet....

* As I duck for cover I say* what is a slow cooker I dont have one and have no idea What you are all talking about.... See now you all are begining to understand what I mean when I say I DONT cook unless its in a jar LOL

keep them comming I am busy saving them all so I can print them out latter....

BTW no one has yet to tell me how to make Gravy like nanna lol

[christy]

slow cooker...**insert Homer drool**

Its a appliance that will cook things over 8 hours or so.... Like cooking on the stove top on a low heat without the need to stir as much. I stir, but its mostly out of habit...

[Phteven]

I make gravey like your nana.
It's easy. Take your roast out of the pan and put it on a warmed dish to rest.
Tip most of the oil/fat off the top of the pan juices (it settles into layers so you just have to pour the top off). Add some flour to the left over pan juices and mix it all together, then add water (stirring so that it doesn't go lumpy) and bring it to a boil and let it thicken. If you have boiled any veges use that water because it is tastier than plain water. If it is too thick you can add boiling water to thin it (not cold). I season my roasts so the pan juices don't need any extra flavours but you could add seasonings. My brother chucks a couple of cloves of garlic in his roasts then pops them out of the skin and mushes them into the pan juices with the flour.
You could use corn flour but I just use plain old wheat flour. It's important to heat it with the pan juices before adding the water because if you add water before cooking the flour it tastes...... floury lol.
If I've done a roast in the slow cooker I just use a soup ladle to get the juices and make it the same way in a saucepan.

My DH always told me he hated gravy but once he tried the old fashioned stuff instead of MIL's gravox he changed his mind.

[briggsy's girl]

i find cooking the roast vegies in the pan drippings from the roast makes the gravy super tasty too. we always add garlic to our roast lamb (or onion and garlic rub with a bit of everything to beef), cook carrot onion, sweet potato, pumpkin and spud in the drippings, and then make gravy with what is left - divine!

i've never been able to stomach gravy from a packet - a little bit of gravox to add color yep, but not as the whole of the gravy! yukko!!

[TheBear]

Useless trivia addendum - the fat reclaimed from the roasting pan or from stocks was traditionally used to make roux and pastry. When you add a roux to sauces, gravies, stews, etc the fat in the roux usually rises to the surface and can be used again.

I occasionally make a traditional beef stock that cooks for 48 hours and yields nearly two kg of beef dripping as a by-product - I start with nearly 30kg of bones and other bits and end up with 8-10 liters of beef stock and 2liters of dripping. This is usually the point where the pixie decides that she is over my love of cooking and has a sense of humour failure!

[Phteven]

Yeah, I can understand the pixie's POV. I make a killer pho but not too often because the dripping grosses me out.
My mother used to use the reclaimed drippings but I just can't stomach handling the stuff or the thought of putting pure animal fat into my food - I'm more an olive oil girl myself. I buy and use it in bulk. I have more varieties of olive oil than salt in my cupboards lol.

[Sair]

I can hardley keep up with writing out all these recipes on my cards.

I have just been shopping and I am now the proud owner of the 6.5 ltr Breville Meal Maker as well as packets of seeds for dill, oregano, burpless cucumber , capsicum, carrots, watermelon and seedlings for broccoli, parsley, white onion, salad mix lettuce, spring onion, chives and massey gem peas and I have 6 pots of tomatoes sitting on my ironing board in the laundry waiting for after Melb Cup Day to be planted in the ground. I can hardley wait to get started on my veggie patch this weekend. I would love to track down jalepeno seeds and orange pumpkin (the halloween kind). I bought some pumpkin seeds in Canada but wasn't game to bring them over

[TheBear]

I'm not sure I've met your nanna..... :-)

A couple of different approaches

1. The Traditional Way

Lift the meat out of the roasting pan to rest and place the pan on the stove top over a low heat.
Add a tablespoon or so of flour to roasting pan and use a spoon or whisk to use the flour to mop up the fat and other meat juices that are in the pan.
Once all the flour is incorporated you should have a paste, or lumps of paste floating about in the meat juices depending on how much liquid was in the pan - try to break up the lumps with a whisk.
There should also be crusty bits of stuff cooked onto the pan...that stuff tastes great so we need to get it off and into the gravy - add a glass of wine (white for chicken, red for lamb or beef) and turn up the heat so that it starts to boil and bubble away, whilst it is doing that scrape all the stuck on bits off the bottom of the pan into the bubbling liquid.
Use a whisk to break up any lumps of flour, or lumps of sticky stuff....your nanna had strong wrists!
When the wine is nearly gone, add some stock to the pan and whisk it all together to make your gravy - taste it and see if it needs a little salt and pepper, then pour it through a sieve into whatever you are using to serve the gravy.

2. The Easy Way

Put the roasting pan on the stove over a low heat as before
Either use a pre-made roux (see the posts about cheese sauces) or just put a tablespoon of cornflour in the mug with some *cold* water and stir it together - if the water is warm then the flour will start to cook and go lumpy...if it is cold then it won't.
Add the glass of wine to the pan as before (you could go straight to the stock, but this gives it another level of flavour)
Scrape all the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan and boil the wine as before, then add the stock and throw in the mixture from the mug. Keep stirring as the stock comes to the boil and the gravy should thicken up nicely as the cornflour solution goes hunting for fat molecules to stick to.

Tali - a slow cooker is just a self-heating electric pot that doesn't need to be watched as carefully as one sitting on the hob. You can't do the frying parts of these recipes in them as they can't get that hot, but for the sections that need long slow cooking then they are great - just throw everything in, close the lid and get on with the rest of your day.