Chili Plum Chutney

The Plums in my garden are long gone (came in January), but i still have chili's.

A few weeks ago i tried making a spicy plum chutney. It came out great but could use more of a kick so i thought i might try adding chilis.

300 grams plums - roughly chopped, pits removed
3/4 large red onion finely chopped
1 small - med serrano chili (i used a chili about the size of my pinky finger)
1 cup vinegar (i used plain white vinegar)
1 cup brown sugar

1. Combine ingredients and bring to a boil
2. Turn down to a simmer and cook for approx 1 hour until thick
3. Store in sterilized, clean jars and enjoy!!

Vegetarian Okonomiyaki

When i went to Japan last year i got a chance to try foods and meals i normally wouldn't get to. One of my favorite new meals is Okonomiyaki which is a Japanese savory pancake made with cabbage. Smothered in mayonnaise and special sauce. It was amazing. I ate Osaka style okonomiyaki which had noodles in it as well (technically this is modanyaki). I haven't found anywhere here that has them, so i thought i would try to make them.

The Okonomiyaki i had in Japan -



Ironically, one of my favorite cookbooks had a recipe for it which i have modified to create my own version.

Ingredients
Small handful soba noodles
1/2 head of green cabbage
1 cup carrots cut into small matchbook size
1/2 cup sliced shitake mushrooms (i used dried ones that i rehydrated)
2 button mushrooms thinly sliced
1 potato cooked in small cubes
1/4 red onion finely chopped
2 eggs
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp seasame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin

1. Saute cabbage in seasame oil until wilted
2. Add carrots, mushrooms, onion, ginger, soy sauce and mirin - cook until carrots are soft
3. Add potato and take off heat - let cool
4. Once cooled, mix with egg
5. Oil pan and add noodles, pour the egg-y vegatables over the noodles
6. Cook evenly on both sides
7. Add okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise.

et voila!

Sprouts!

I'm now growing my own sprouts - mung bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts. It's so easy!

I originally tried growing them in an empty coffee jar but found that the water wasn't draining well. I then saw this in a shop



It's great. The water filters down between the tiers. It took about 10-12 days for the sprouts to be fully grown (despite the packages saying only 5 days).

But i've now got tasty sprouts for sandwiches and salads.

My sprouts -

Feijoa Chutney

Another tree (that is still quite tiny) that we have on our property is a feijoa one. Feijoa's (otherwise known as Pineapple Guavas) originated is South America and love New Zealand's subtropical climate. They are rich in vitamin CLucky for us, someone already planted a tree on our property so there was no wait for fruit this year.

Our feijoa tree


Personally, i'm not huge on Feijoa's. There's something about the taste - to me it has a anise/licorice taste, although some would say i'm crazy. I like the gritty texture of the fruit though. As we got a pretty good crop and i'm not one to let food go to waste i thought i would do something with them.

My pantry is already chock full of other jams and marmalades i made earlier in the season (the main two being "Apple & Mountain PawPaw" and "Three Fruit-Grapefruit, Lime and Lemon marmalade") so i've been exploring the world of chutney's instead. This suits me anyways as i'm much more of a savory person.

My chutney/jam/maramalade collection so far


Having had great success with the other chutney recipes i've tried, i thought i'd have a go at doing a feijoa one. I had a look around online and decided i would amalgamate several (with my own spin) and came up with the following;

Apple & Feijoa Chutney

Approx 1 kg feijoas (peeled)
500g peeled apples (i used a combo of red/green)
500g red onion
1.5 cups white vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
1.5 cup white sugar
2 tblsp tumeric
dash of curry powder
1 tblsp mustard seeds
handful of sultanas

1. Peel all above fruit/veggies
2. Combine ingredients in pot on stove
3. Bring to boil and then pull back to a simmer
4. Simmer for approx 1.5 hours until thickened
5. Sterlize jars and fill

Plantains....or bananas? Recipe: Plantain chips

So we moved into our new house 6 months ago. Funny how when we were looking i desperately wanted a property with fruit trees. Little did i know that the house we bought was surrounded by heaps of them!

The most noticeable was this tree -



Which we initially thought was a banana tree. Except 5 months later while slightly larger the bananas were no less green and rather fat. Which, as we found out, is because they are plantains, not bananas.

Matt cut down the whole stalk and we put it into a garbage bag under the house. A week or so later they turned yellow.



Now i'm normally a savory kind of person, but as a yellow plantain, it seems they can be both sweet and savory.

Originally i was going to do a curry, but instead i made these:

Plantain chips (inspired by recipe on E-how.com)

1. Slice open plantain
2. Wash with warm water.
3. Slice horizontally into very thin thin slices
4. Fry (i used olive oil) - approx 2 min each side or until golden brown
5. Dry on oil
6. Season (i used garlic salt, a little bit of cayenne pepper and lime zest)
7. Enjoy!

The beginning

Here we are at the start. I've been reading my friends blogs lately and they have inspired me to start one (another one) of my own. Only this one is going to be related to food. I've been realising lately that i've been getting so much out of other peoples blogs, online recipes and more, it's about time i give back. So this will be it. I hope you enjoy!