Roast potatoes by Mankimbo (original concept by Heston Blumenthal)

After seeing a FB status update 'having Chips & Gravy for lunch' I decided to try and make the best chips & gravy I could muster.  You Tube was extremely helpful and after checking out a few clips I changed my mind from chips with gravy to roasted potatoes. Who can go past Heston Blumenthal for finding the best of the best. The man is a genius. But he is no Jamie Oliver 30 minute man. So the next challenge was to find a spare 2 hours to make them. Luckily for me my wife also wanted to have them and she entertained a three week old and a two year old for an hour while I did the preparation. Note well, this is not an easy task especially with our playful son but Nicole is pretty amazing and made it seem very easy.

The end result was a roast potato with an amazing crispy outside and a soft, cloud-like centre.

Served with a slow cooked beef casserole I could have beaten any remaining contestant on Masterchef Australia!

Roast potatoes by Heston Blumenthal (Converted from video to text by mankimbo)

 Turn oven on to 190⁰C & have some boiling water ready to go

Wherever you can save time in making these then you should do it. Having a preheated oven and a pot of simmering water on the stove will save you at least 15minutes.

 Peel & cut potatoes leaving some edges (save peel)

The edges of the potatoes are going to break down once you boil them and will create extreme crispiness

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Run potatoes under cold water for 2 mins to get rid of starch

Starch has no place in this dish

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Simmer for 15-20 mins with skins in a muslin bag

The skins will infuse flavour into the potatoes as they boil. I did not have the water to a high enough temperature and it took about 30mins to get there.

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After 15 mins look for edges of potatoes to have broken up

This is dependent on what type of potatoes you have used. If they were waxy then the edges won’t break up until you touch them

Drain potatoes. Small bits that have broken off, keep for roasting

I scooped them out of the pot with a spaghetti server and placed them into the colander so I didn’t smash them into mush

 Rough up edges by shaking colander gently

The potatoes love it and so will you

Leave in colander for 10 mins for steam to evaporate and potatoes to dry out

The wetter the potato when you start roasting them more soggy they will be in the middle

Add to hot olive oil and coat all of potatoes in oil

The oil will crisp the skin as it roasts. This step is key but also the step I found a little difficult. You don’t want to mush the potatoes but any bare bits will dry out. Consider using an oil spray to finish off.

 Oven temp at 190⁰C

Cook for 45mins to an hour

The original recipe said an hour but use your own judgement here. Once they turn golden brown they are ready to come out. I left mine in a little long and they almost burned. Luckily I got them out in time. Next time I would also turn them over after 30 mins

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Add rosemary & garlic about 10minutes before end

They also need salt and this could be the time to add it. Otherwise wait till they come out.


Wait until they cool to eat them!!!! Serve with everything.

Dad II- 4 July 2011

4 July 2011

Did the lazy 6km run last night. 34min is OK for me

Reality check about 3am this morning. Aghhhhh what are we gonna do??? We are having a second baby and we are just not ready. Ok, conduct a quick revision of what is causing these thoughts. Hmmmm, nothing immediate comes to mind. Well perhaps the money side of things could be a bit (read, a lot) better but apart from that things are looking quite good. Finishing off all of those last jobs. Today included Windexing more windows and clearing a walkway from my side of the bed so that in the middle of the night I don’t stumble with a baby or toddler in my arms.

Went to get a quote for setting up a toddler seat in the car as well as changing the baby seat back to a basinet style. Unfortunately my vehicle was just before the compulsory installation of baby seat anchors so I have to get an anchor installed as well. After 15 minutes of waiting I had already decided not to go with these guys as they obviously did not know what they were doing and rang up Littles from Blacktown who installed our last anchor point & seat. Fortunately they were close by and could do the job today. $300 later but feeling a whole lot more confident about the whole situation both bassinet and toddler seat were installed. Thanks mum for your kind donation!

There must be a stage in life where everyone thinks about a second/third job and then has to have a quick look at what you are qualified for. Now my dad, being a truck driver into his mid 60’s, is pretty lucky that way as there is always someone that wants a long haul driver but that would kind of defeat the purpose of taking 3 months leave if I had to be away for a few days & nights. Anyhow, enough of that sort of thinking. Number 2 baby is on the way and from all reports it is going to be ‘busy’!

Went through a box of Kaelan’s memorabilia today and it was great to feel the joys that particular items brought back.  2 years is not that long a time. My favourite was definitely the umbilical cord clamp which was the one still attached to him after I cut the umbilical cord. Although he was already separated from the placenta at that stage. Too many nervous dads dropping medical instruments for anything else to occur these days.

Home made hamburgers and pre frozen chips for dinner.

No more major jobs to do except :

Fix the side gate
Clear out the medicine cabinet
Clear out the bottle cupboard
Tidy up the man-cupboard
Restack the granny flat
Clean the kitty litter
3 more loads of washing
Start to consider packing for hospital
Mow the lawn (oops that’s right the mower blew up)
Reconnect the gutter downpipe after replacing the thing that rusted
 

to be cont....

 

Dad II- 2 July 2011

2 July 2011

The more we clean the house and get ready for the imminent birth the more cluttered it becomes. 5 loads of washing, 4 garbage bags of old baby items gone through, vaccuum the floors, clean the windows, a wonderful day wrestling with Kalean and I managed to cook up some pretty good chops, chips & salad for dinner!

Starting to get a bit nervous about the birth. Buts it’s pretty hard to have time for your own feelings & thoughts when your wife has massive heartburn, is the one that is going to go through all the pain and a crazy son who just wants to climb as high as possible and throw himself into your arms! So I find a little solace in getting jobs done and trying to make everyone as comfortable as possible. Which does not always work. Not that I am complaining. It’s just the way it is.

I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to have a family but here it is and it is the greatest. Long term focus and goals is one of the keys! The little day to day stuff can really get to you in a huge way if you let it and you would have to have to be made of something quite indestructible to not occasionally let it in.

No running tonight. Might do a lazy 5km tomorrow. Had a few beers and they are going down better than last night. But looking back at my post it seemed I enjoyed those as well. Just not as many as tonight. Might be the last night for a while (starting to get repetitive now).

I am on the early shift tomorrow. Which means that I give Kaelan breakfast and look after him while mum gets a sleep in. And yes, I had a sleep in this morning! Condemn me if you will.

Dad II- 1 July 2011

1 July 2011

There are only xxx more days (less than 2 weeks) to go until my daughter 'xxxxx' will be born. I don't think I will post this until after the event as it will contain info not yet shared with family including date of birth and name. Or maybe I'll just blank it out.



How do I feel about having a daughter? At the minute her almost 2yr old brother is crowding any introspective thoughts right out of my head so in time honoured tradition I am putting pen to paper so to speak. That should get me thinking.



It's 2105 or 9.05pm on Friday night. The beginning of a new financial year and day 1 of 95 days leave from work. A wonderful holiday. lol. I would not miss it for the world. I took 4 months off for Kaelan but this time round could only get 3 months leave (including some LSL). I have just finished running 10km in a time of 58.02 and that was after putting Kaelan to sleep. So my night sort of started at 7.30 when his mother got back from the pizza shop with dinner and relieved me from sleep duty which I had been attempting for 30mins. So now almost an hour and a half later and my Friday night can start.



By the way I also have an open beer which is going down very well. Best enjoy them for the next xxx days cos I don't think there will be many in the very near future. And as a matter of Interest Nicole just asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. hmmmmm, not yet. Maybe tomorrow night.



Running, why the hell did I start running after avoiding it for 25 years? Possibly because I have a 2 year old boy and an almost new born girl and by the time they turn 18 I will be into my sixties! My aim this year is to run the Sydney (C2S) City to surf (Bondi) a total of 14km with a 2km 'heartbreak hill' 7km in. I started plogging (plod & jog) November 2010. I kind of was half assed about it and took 3 weeks off over Xmas and it was once again the motivation of my wife who got me started back. Then this silly idea of the completing the C2S entered my head. I think I have my brother in law Shannon to blame. He started running this time last year and recently completed his first 45km ultra marathon in 3.5hrs, and his first competitive runs were the Sutherland to Cronulla surf followed by the C2S. More on this later.



Nicole has been great. I think I have been in denial. Last time we didn't know what we were in for. This time we do. But perhaps we don't. Baby xxxx'x room has just been trim painted in a nice pink and I have moved all my stuff out of her cupboards and into the granny flat / poker room.



To be cont…

Using your homemade Chilli sauce: Caramalised Onions

Caramelised onions are an absolutely brilliant and versatile dish. I’ve only recently tried my hand at them and am totally sold. Once you nail a recipe you will start to find time to cook them, in advance, when you know ‘fried’ onions will be required. You can use them as a side with your steak, put them in a savoury tart, they are great in a hamburger, a pre-dinner snack with bread, cheese &wine or do what I am doing and have them as one of the toppings on a whole baked potato. And they last for about 3 weeks, sealed, in the fridge.

The addition of a small amount of chilli gives the dish an adult kick that sorts the dishwashers out from the masterchefs.

Good luck if you try it yourself

Time- about an hour (some watching required but I am writing this blog as I cook a batch)

Serving- 1 large cup

Ingredients

2 tbs olive oil (vege oil or butter works too)

3-4 large onions (red, brown or white)

2 tbs brown sugar

1-2 tbs balsamic vinegar

½ tsp Homemade Chill Sauce (chilli flakes, powder or other similar paste will also do)

Good pinch of salt

Utensils

Chopping Knife

Chopping Board

Cook top

Saucepan with lid (use a frying pan if you must but be prepared to stand guard until it is cooked)

Tablespoon

Tea spoon

Wooden spoon (I like to use my oversize wooden spoon to stir but you can use the tbs if you really want)

Small bowl for mixing sugar, balsamic & chilli

Process

1.       Put oil into saucepan and onto  stove top, set to low heat

2.       Peel & slice onions into thin rings.

3.       Test oil with a drop of water. If it explodes out at you then the oil is too hot. If it sizzles gently then place onions into oil and stir until all onions are coated. Place lid on saucepan and cook for about 10 minutes or until onions are golden/translucent. (Check after the first couple of minutes to make sure they are not sticking to the bottom or burning).

Check out that wooden spoon

4.       After onions are all golden, add in the balsamic, sugar & chilli mix and stir in well. Don’t change the heat. Cover and cook for 10 minutes

5.       Stir every 5 minutes from now until they are finished

6.       After 10 minutes take the cover off and leave it off. Cook for a further 30-40 minutes until the onions become sticky and are a deep brown.  Don’t go too far or you will get a burnt mess.

Warning- Once the moisture has cooked off and they start to go a darker shade of brown you should keep a close eye on them as they can quickly go from delicious to inedible in the blink of an eye.

Enjoy in a variety of ways and keep the remainder in an air tight container in the fridge.

So next time you go to a BBQ or away for the weekend don’t forget to pack the caramelised onions.

For more information on the process of caramelising, click on this link.

http://www.food-info.net/uk/colour/caramel.htm

Big Bloody Basil Bush

Before I start this chat can I just say how fantastic this rain is! My water tanks (Kaelan's clam shells) were starting to get a little low and quite a few of the plants were showing some signs of water deprivation. But two days of constant drizzle has fixed that problem right up.

Anyhow onto the story.......

It would appear that whatever combination of soil and sunlight and rain, plus the occasional watering, has led to an explosion of my basil bushes. I stand just under 180cm tall and you can see from the picture below that they are almost as tall as me and I would be unable to put my arms around them. At the moment the weight of the leaves are so heavy they are actually being held upright by strips of old sheet .

Never one to shy away from having a bit of a whinge when the occasion lends itself to do so, the extraordinary growth of this basil  has had a negative impact in the rest of the garden throughout the summer. When I planned out the summer crop I based it on what I thought would be the average height of the seeds that I was putting in. I am facing North so off to my right is east and the sun tends to follow an east to west trajectory throughout the summer. So everything that I planted 'behind' the basil which included corn, 3 types of chilli plants, capsicums and eggplants has had little to no sun. I now hear you thinking 'why didn't you just cut back the basil . You can't possibly eat it all before winter comes and kills it off'. Well....I did think about it but it was just too magnificent. Have you ever seen a basil plant that tall?  It's like, 2m and I wanted to see just how tall it would go.


Now that the weather has started to cool down I have noticed that some of the stalks are already starting to die off. We don't get frosts here but basil does not last in my backyard during winter.

Before consulting the ever knowing Yahoo7, garden forums or the opinions of others I considered some options:

Option 1. Build a greenhouse over the top of the raised garden bed- As well as protecting the bushes from the cold weather this would also have the advantage of keeping birds and other animals that love to munch on my plants away. But I really like the look of the open garden and watching Rosella's and other native birds sharing my tomatoes is pretty cool. I may change this view in the future but for now the bed remains open to the elements.

Option 2. Turn it into pesto- Fabulous idea but I would have to give most of it away as it would go off before I could eat it all. Not that I have any issues with giving away food that I have made. Its just I wanted to have some basil during the winter months.

Option 3. Freeze it- Now I didn't really know what would happen if I did freeze it. Would it turn to mush like chillies, would it turn black or would it dry out? 'Well why don't just try it and see what happens' was the sage advice of my wonderful wife Nicole. So I did. And a week later I took it out of the freezer and it had gone a little dark but upon thawing held it shape and would have quite usable for bruschetta.

The next piece of advice came from Patrizia at work who let me know that her and generations of her family and others from a similar cultural background had been freezing basil ever since Australian James Harrison developed the world first practical ice making machine and refrigeration system in 1857. Turn it into pesto, put in whole leaves whatever. It all works.

A little research on the Internet resulted in a wealth of information some of which was usable. One guys swears by using his food processor, with blade attachment, on a bunch of leaves and a little olive oil then putting them into ice trays.

All in all morale has started to climb. I no longer have to stand by and watch my 3m tall basil plants die of exposure.

The one thing everyone agrees on is that the freezing process does not work with wet leaves. 

Now if only this damn rain would stop.




If you enjoyed this story then you will enjoy Jade's quest for the perfect meal at thatperfectmeal.blogspot.com

The life and times of a raised vegetable patch

This blog is an ongoing record of the produce that has made it into and out of the yet unamed rasied garden bed. If you want the full history of how it came into being I have another blog which you can read at your leisure. For now sit back and relax and enjoy the.........actually don't sit back & relax. Throw me a few comments, opinions & advice and let me know what you are doing. It runs in reverse chronologial order from the top down so if you want the early stuff scroll to the bottom and head on up.

Cheers

Mankimbo

  

Jan 2011

Quite a large gap in time and also produce. I continued to grow letuce but added in tomatoes, basil, purple beans, eggplant, lebanese cucumber, lebanese zucchini, a few beetroot, eschallots, leeks, 3 varities of chilli plants and a capsicum.

Nov 2010

Honey, honey, the rains are here! The good thing about the 20 year flood was that it showed me where the water would pool and I could take steps to alleviate that for the future.

September 2010

One day you have 6 broccoli in the ground ready to turn into gourmet superfood and the next they go to seed. All of them!!! And the lettuce and the bok choi. The garlic soldiered on as did the sunflowers.

August 2010

Hmmm, Sorting to get a little crowded in there. The carrots on the far left (south) got almost no sun and the broccoli blocked out a lot of the sun to the right (north).

June 2010

Look how nice and orderd I have planted everything. In retrospect I did not need that many raddishes. In fact I needed none. Also in the patch are carrots, broccoli, lettuce, sunflowers, english spinach, eschallots, bok choi, onions, garlic & beetroot. Check out those support posts!

February 2010

You are vieiwing North. To the South I have enormous coniferous trees which some previous owner planted and now block out my wonderful east to west sun during the winter months. However, this is the sunniest section of the property during all seasons. Those support post holes were actually dug on the wrong side of the bed. Matt, my sons guardian, dug them on the hottest day in 100 years. I waited until it had rained for a week and redug them on the other side.

November 2009

There were 2 sheds but I got rid of one

So what I would really love to have is a quarter acre block with 6-8 identically sized vege patches and a chook run with a cricket pitch running down the middle of the backyard but for now I will face reality. I have 507sqm and the house & granny flat take up 2/3 of that. The backyard is terraced and backs onto a 7metre easement (Dents Creek). Mobs of cockatoos and other native wildlife lurk in the reserve across the road which in reality is the green belt that is set aside for the F6. We work with what we have and this is what I have.