Take a Walk with Pearl Couscous

When on longer bushwalks, one is always looking for some tasty morsel to finish the day with.  The contents have to be light so as not to weigh down your pack and not too bulky, that is where the idea of using Pearl Couscous came about.

Zip locked dry Couscous mix with vegetables

We received a sample pack of Pearl CousCous in the mail, this is what Alloronan used to make her Pinenut and Cumin Beef on Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous.

In my recipe the couscous formed the foundation with a mixture of additional items added. I threw in some dried vegetables from Tinderry Tucker, chinese mushrooms, vegetable stock powder, and some sultanas, the ingredients are flexible, it depends a bit on what’s in the cupboard and what you have left over from the last walk.

Dinner simmering on the camp fire

To cook you can wait until the flames die down and the fire is reduced to coals, then place your billy straight on the coals, making sure to stir regularly to keep it from sticking.  The hardest part is waiting for it to cook, as after a strenuous days walk you’re always famished. Tasting every now and again to see how it is going only makes it worse as you get a tantalising preview of the wonderful flavour being produced.

Dinners ready to eat

Yum, now to the eating, sit back against a tree and listen to the river run, whilst the setting sun paints a moving pallet of golden colours on the western horizon.

Jim Jim Creek, Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

My wife and I used some of these meals whilst on our sixteen day walk in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia. It’s a tropical area with some stunning scenery with lots of aboriginal art works hidden under rock overhangs, quite an adventure.

Slow Food with Carlo Petrini

A bowl of penne seems puny compared to a fast food giant like McDonalds, and such a stark contrast is an excellent way of making a point. Slow food and fast food are opposites. Fast food is a product of an industrial food chain, while the Slow Food Movement supports food that is good, clean and fair. That means local food chains rather than industrial ones.

The juxtaposition of traditional penne with globalised hamburgers is a poignant one, and Carlo Petrini has an amazing ability with these kinds of examples. The leader of the Slow Food Movement is an inspiring speaker. His talk at the Sydney International Food Festival went for more than an hour, and he was so energetic he only sat down once. The rest of the time he was speaking passionately in Italian, gesticulating intensely, and somehow managing to leave gaps for his talented translator to give us the message in English.

Carlo Petrini believes that food is valuable, and not merely a commodity. He described the top down photographs of food in magazines as being like corpses, and reminded us that these photos of food are at risk of becoming like pornography. There is more to food than recipes and presentation. Food should taste good, it should be enjoyed in good company, and it should be produced sustainably.

Today we spend approximately the same proportion of our incomes on mobile phones as we do on food, but perhaps we have our values misplaced. Carlo explained “When I eat a piece of prosciutto, it becomes Carlo Petrini”, and he patted his stomach. “But this thing”, and he waved his mobile phone in the air, “is always outside of me”.

Embellishing this point, he told us about the owner of a famous mountaintop restaurant. When asked why she was only open for lunch she replied that she did not want to be the richest person in the graveyard. She valued her food for its quality, not merely its worth as a commodity.

In the case of food, what is logical from an industrial perspective is not necessarily logical for local communities, or from the point of view of common sense. Carlo’s example of this was his visit to a famous capsicum growing region in Italy, where he ordered peperonata at a restaurant. The sauce was flavourless, and when he asked where the peppers were grown he discovered they had come all the way from the Netherlands. Worried about the local capsicum growers he was reassured that they were making a living growing tulip bulbs in their greenhouses.

These kinds of ironies of industrial agriculture are surprisingly common, and Petrini had plenty of examples of them. Modeling farming on factories leads to a kind of uniformity that just doesn’t necessarily make good food. Carlo talked about the loss of a breed of cow (whose milk production was relatively low) leading to the loss of a type of cheese. This demonstrated how local cuisine and biodiversity go hand in hand.

To support local tastes and agriculture we have to be prepared to pay a higher price for produce that is locally and sustainably produced. In addition to this Carlo suggested supporting school and community gardens, which can make local produce accessible for lower income families. Running out of time Petrini finished his lecture on a good note. Since we were in the Sydney Opera House he sang us a snippet of opera – in Italian of course.

More about Slow Food
Slow Food Australia
International Slow Food Movement

I’d like to thank Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella for sending me a ticket to this lecture.

Stardust: a recipe to celebrate Catsplat

The fizzy sherbet and sparkling colours in this recipe are to celebrate the completion of our new iPhone App Catsplat. It’s a cute game, where you tilt your iPhone to keep the cats from eating the fish. You can also pin a cat with your finger, and if another cat hits it they explode into sparkling colours. That’s why sherbet seemed like the perfect analogy.

These easy to make sherbet parcels are the perfect recipe for a kids’ party, and that’s where I first encountered them. It was a Star Wars party in the park, and the lovely cellophane packets of sherbet stardust were easy to eat by sucking through a straw. Ideal for a snack between battles of the girls versus the boys.

You have to admire a mother who has the patience to make these though. It’s a fiddly job if you want to make a lot of them. You can crush your Fruit Tingles using a mortar and pestle, but a food processor makes the job quicker. After that making the individual cellophane parcels is simple even though it’s time consuming.

This stardust is for James and Alloronan, who have worked hard on Catsplat. James is the programmer, and Alloronan is the graphic designer. Our musician friend Daniel even made a tune for us. If you’d like to admire their work, take a look at our video of Catsplat in action. You can find out more about the game at the TopDog Dev website, and download it from the iTunes App Store.

Recipe for Sherbet Stardust
You Need:
Fruit Tingles (I used 2 mini rolls per bonbon, so a pack of 8 made 4 bonbons)
Cellophane
Drinking straws
Rubber bands

Method:
1. Crush the Fruit Tingles in your food processor or with a mortar and pestle until they become stardust.
2. Cut a square of cellophane and spoon a portion of stardust onto it.
3. Bring the corners together and insert a drinking straw (or half one) into the package.
4. Secure your bonbon with a rubber band (stretch it over the filled end rather than the straw).
5. They look lovely massed together on a tray.

Mulberry Muffins

Spring is here, and the Koel cuckoos are making enough noise to drive us crazy. Other animals are less noisy and more fun to watch. Flying foxes are feasting on bottlebrush blossom and loquats in my local streets each night. In my parents’ backyard they’re feasting on mulberries. So are we.

We eat mulberries on our cereal, Alloronan makes mulberry smoothies, and my mum serves them with berry liqueurs (like creme de cassis) and icecream for dessert. Recently I made mulberry muffins.

These mulberry muffins are very moist and super-crumbly – you’ll need a plate. The LSA and almond meal give them a pleasant nutty flavour. Of course the big moist mulberries hidden inside are the highlight. I can see why the flying foxes are so enthusiastic about them.

Ingredients
250g brown sugar
80ml oil
1 egg
vanilla
250 g mulberries (stems cut off)
100g almond meal
100g quinoa flour and 100g rice flour (or 200g gluten free flour blend)
50g LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond meal)
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl.

Sift in the dry ingredients and combine.

Gently stir in the mulberries.

Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until risen and springy on top.

Easy Rhubarb in the Oven

Quality time often sounds like a piece of jargon, and an excuse for not spending large quantities of time with people you care about. On the other hand time spent doing fun things together is more enjoyable than time spent moping at home. Preparing food for your loved ones is important, but wouldn’t you like to have your cake and go for a walk too?

Recipes with long cooking times let you have home cooked food, with a side serve of leisure. This rhubarb recipe is a favourite of mine at the moment because it’s timed perfectly to give you an hour’s walk. It’s also great for spring when rhubarb is available in big bunches at farmers’ markets. Each bunch weighs around 500 g, and this recipe is scaled for times when you fall for the two for one deal.

A good rhubarb compote can be served with yoghurt or cream as a dessert. I’ve made muffins with it too, where the soft fruit adds moisture and flavour, but leaves very few chunks in the cake. The easiest way to eat it is spooned onto your morning porridge or cereal. An easy gluten free breakfast can be made from leftover brown rice served with milk, yoghurt and rhubarb. Quality time and slow cooked rhubarb is a great combination too.

Ingredients
1 kg rhubarb
300 g brown sugar
zest of an orange, or 2 tsp of cinnamon (or both)

Method
Cut the rhubarb into pieces around 2 cm long.

Place it in a large baking dish and mix in the sugar and rind/spices with your hands. Then cover with foil, or the lid of the dish.

Bake at 175 degrees Celcius for 45 min to 1 hour.