Baked Fennel with Green Olives

I have a confession to make: I stole this idea. Yes, stolen, point-blank, from an especially lovely German family who had me over to dinner shortly before I left Germany. I'm back in Australia, soaking up lovely weather and sunshine, and as soon as I get myself settled, I'll be making this dish again. I'm still barely cooking; I've been home for just over a week, after a lovely visit to Singapore, and I've been eating at friends' houses on a regular occasion. So, needless to say, this blog has been sorely neglected. But that's okay; I'll get back into cooking very shortly.

This dish is incredibly easy; it does take some oven time, but it's simple and delicious. I like it on its own, though I'd recommend some crusty bread to soak up the extra juices. It would probably also be delicious over pasta, rice, risoni, polenta, semolina or couscous. Name your carb of choice, really. I'll be trying it as a pizza topping when I next decide to make pizza dough from scratch; I think the slices will need to be thinner, but the flavours are unbeatable.

A note on the olives: I recommend using marinated. I mean, the extra flavour isn't going to hurt! I liked the extra large green olives from a stall at the Dom Markt; marinated in masses of garlic, some parsley and stuffed with whole blanched almonds, those olives were to die for. Of course, you could always use plain green olives, or black olives, but go by the basic rule: if you don't want to snack on 49825749857 olives while you're making this recipe, then don't bother using them.

Baked Fennel with Green Olives

olive oil
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 x 15cm spring rosemary
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 cup water
2 fennel bulbs
about 10 green olives, halved lengthwise, possibly marinated*

Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees; this is a guess, because my German oven was so unreliable. Take a guess.
Slice fennel into halves and then thin slices, keeping them joined at the base so that the segments hold together. I slice mine so that they're about 1cm at the thickest point. Arrange in a large baking dish; you want them to fit closely but to avoid too much overlap.
In a cold pan, add a splash of olive oil and the garlic slices. Sautee until the garlic is fragrant, then add the rosemary leaves, which have been separated from the stem. When the garlic is starting to colour just a little, add the tomatoes and water. Season to taste with salt and pepper (and a little dried savoury or thyme, if you like).
Carefully spoon the tomato mixture over the fennel, so that it's evenly covered. (If you like things saucy, I recommend doubling the volume of sauce.) Scatter with olives.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until fennel is very tender. Scatter with fresh parsley, if desired. Eat eat eat!

*I use extra large green olives, marinated in masses of garlic, and some herbs. I recommend olives stuffed with almonds, too.

Marinated Mushrooms

This is a really easy way to brighten up a simple salad. Take 250g mushrooms, toss in 2 Tbsp balsamic, a little salt and pepper, a finely chopped garlic clove and a handful of chopped herbs, and leave to marinate for a few hours. They were still fresh and firm inside, with a tangy balsamic outer, and went perfectly with cherry tomatoes and avocado. If you want soft mushrooms, slice them really thinly, up the balsamic and leave them overnight. Then use the balsamic and mushroom-moisture pond that they'll be soaking in as salad dressing. Little ways to make the day a little brighter...

Speaking of things that are making my day a little brighter, tomorrow I'll be heading to the North Sea for the weekend, with my lovely housemate. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't freeze! :)

Kitchen Tales.

These are the tulips that I bought for my incredibly lovely housemate while she was writing her final paper. She was stressing out, and we'd just discussed how much we loved tulips, and then at the markets, I decided to do my good deed for the day. As luck would have it, a lovely flower stall had an amazing offer: 20 tulips for just 5 euro. I know, phenomenal! Flowers here are so much cheaper than at home; I imagine that relies on two factors: a) People give flowers here more frequently than at home, and b) It's probably a hell of a lot easier to keep flowers alive when the weather is so cold. Practical, but true. Ever tried to keep flowers from wilting when it's 30 degrees outside, even if you're only outside for 5 minutes while you get them home? More difficult than it sounds. Loose bunches you can hold upside down, but arrangements... sigh.

I'll point out that the lovely housemate also found a great supermarket special with giant pots of herbs (in terracotta! how cute!) for just 2 Euro each. So we now own rosemary, thyme, savoury and sage. The parsley in the corner of the photo is the lovely stuff that I buy from my favourite market lady. I buy two bunches every week! Who'd have ever thought I relied so heavily on parsley? I suppose the giant plants that I had at my old house probably didn't get enough use, but rest assured, next time I grow parsley, I intend to make full use of it! Helloooo, tabbouli.

So, this post is a tribute to the little things that make life so much happier. Herbs and tulips and my quiet Saturday mornings, market trips and hanging out in the kitchen cooking breakfast. When I go home to Australia, I won't miss the weather, but I hope I've gained a new-found appreciation for those occasional rays of sunshine that bring warmth and light to my kitchen... :)

Garlic Spinach with Polenta

This is one of those staples-meals that I've been falling back on a lot recently. Over my busy last few weeks, I've wanted quick and easy food that still has good nutritional content. And I can't even begin to tell you how much I craved green vegetables. The craving is finally subsiding, so I must have fulfiled whatever vitamin/mineral deficiency that was (personally I think it's a reaction to a lack of sunlight, but meh, can't fight the weather gods). Irrespective of your cravings, creamy polenta and sauteed garlic spinach are a guaranteed winner.

3 heads young spinach (or one bunch spinach), thoroughly washed, chopped
3 cloves garlic
olive oil
salt, pepper
1 cup coarse polenta
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 tsp fresh thyme or savoury
water or vege stock

To prepare the polenta: Put the polenta into a small pot. Add boiling water (or hot vege stock), stirring continuously, in a slow but steady stream. Allow the polenta to be about as runny as cake batter. Cook until the polenta has softened into a mashed-potato like consistency, adding more water or stock, as required. Mix through the herbs, plus salt and pepper to taste, and keep warm.
To prepare the spinach: Heat a touch of olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic, allowing to just turn transparent, before adding the spinach. Fold the spinach over continuously, so that it cooks evenly. When done to your liking (I like mine to still have some bite, so the second that none of it looks raw) remove it from the heat. Season with salt and pepper, and serve over the polenta.

Polish-style Cabbage Stew

This stew is definite Winter-food. Considering the weather that we've had in Paderborn lately (including the first snowfall of the season yesterday) it's an appropriate meal to make. It's thick, rich, and made of seasonal vegetables: cabbage and onion. This is one of the few times I've written about anything with a pre-prepared mock meat. I'm not a fan of meat-replacements, but while I was researching this recipe (which is based on Bigos, a Polish stew) I found a lot of meat-heavy recipes, and decided to give it a try. I ate something like this in Poland, and enjoyed the sweet/sour flavour, so I decided to recreate it. The result was pretty accurate, but in future, I'm going to omit the mock.

So, your first step: obtain a vintage 'Salzburg' themed pot from your friendly German housemate. Seriously, how cute is it? I'd never voluntarily obtain something like this into my own kitchen, because I'm a bit picky about aesthetics, but it's so much fun to use other people's vintage cookware. Plus, this came from the housemate's grandmother, which makes it even more adorable. I may have the world's ugliest kitchen - ok, debatable, but it's not pretty! - but at least I can enjoy certain aspects.

I'd like you to have a good look at the picture above. That, my friends, is the largest clove of garlic that I've ever held. When you consider that I also have very long fingers (ET is in for a challenge!) then maybe you'll get a sense of perspective. It was fresh garlic, which meant that the surrounding layers of skin hadn't dried out, so those got chopped up and added to the stew as well. I can't abide by wasting something that contributes so much flavour.

Speaking of flavour, a lot of it comes from the onions. They're delicious, quite frankly. I used red onions, because that's what was in my pantry, though the colour was hidden by the use of the tomato passata. So really, it's your choice. What is not your choice, however is the cabbage: do as I say, and not as I do. I used a savoy cabbage, because honestly, they're beautiful. They're just a good-looking vegetable. Unfortunately, using savoy didn't give me the same texture as the original stew, and thus, I'd recommend that you use a normal, boring, flat-leaved green cabbage. Sorry, but you'll just have to trust me that you'll enjoy it more. ;)

Sigh. See what I mean about beautiful vegetables? However, this is no place for a beautiful vegetable, because my stews are not beautiful dishes. It's like I always say: ugly food tastes better, but you want to eat the pretty stuff. I'm exactly the same, but thankfully (or not?) I've had enough beautiful but tasteless meals to now rely on my sense of smell a little more. If food smells good, I want to eat it. Simple. So, here's a stew that will make your kitchen smell delicious for hours as it slowly simmers on your stovetop. Serve it with chunks of potato, or better yet, omit the mock meat and use potato in its place. Mop up the remnants with crusty bread while you stare at the snowflakes sliding down your window.

Polish-style Cabbage Stew

1/2 green cabbage, shredded as finely as humanly possible (or finer, if you have a mandolin or food processor)
2 onions, finely sliced
6 cloves garlic - the normal-sized ones ;)
2 bay leaves
750ml tomato passata (puree)
5 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar*
1 Tbsp brown sugar
water (or light vegetable stock)
300g pack mock meat (I used soy-based chunks, which I cut in half)
salt
pepper
olive oil

Using a medium heat, sautee the onion and garlic in oil until tender. Throw in the bay leaves and sautee for a few minutes longer, until the alliums are browned.
Add the cabbage, folding gently to allow it to mix with the onion, and sautee for a few minutes. You want to stir it frequently so that it begins to soften evenly, instead of browning on the bottom and being raw on top.
When the cabbage is softened, add the tomato passata and tomato paste. To that, add the vinegar, sugar, and enough water or stock to just barely cover the cabbage.
Turn the heat down to low and simmer gently, covered, for as long as you can manage. I managed about four hours. If your mix requires more liquid in this time, just top it up with water. This would also be excellent in a slow-cooker.
Add the mock meat chunks about 5 minutes before serving - they'll only need to warm up. If you're using potatoes, which will be what I'll do next time, throw them in half an hour before you plan to eat. That way, they'll have sufficient time to simmer to a lovely soft texture.
Season to taste with salt and pepper, and adjust the sweet/sour balance with a touch more vinegar or sugar if needed.
This tastes even better the day after it's made... so makes fantastic leftovers. :)

*balsamic is completely non-traditional. Most recipes I saw called for sauerkraut mixed in with the cabbage to provide sourness. I hate sauerkraut, so this is my sweet-sour substitution.

Spicy Vegetable Stew.

I'm quite pleased to say that I just ate a bowl of this, and I'm now onto my second. But, being me, I have to admit that it wasn't perfect: the pumpkin that I used had a strange aftertaste that I'd never encountered before. That was half the reason why I made this dish: to hide the pumpkin in a mix of other flavours. Anyone else eating this wouldn't know that it was there, but of course I know, so I'm on the lookout for it. Sigh. Either way, I did a pretty good job of disguising my lack of pumpkin quality, despite never having encountered this in an Australian pumpkin. Maybe it's the climate? I'd be pretty annoyed too, if I needed sunlight to grow, and these awful grey and drizzly days were all I was getting. Wait, I am annoyed about it.

So, pumpkins aside (or under my bed, where I'm beginning to hoarde them in large quantities), this is a reliable stew to fall back on when you're under the weather, or worse, when the weather is under 15 degrees. It's easy, it can be made in a slow cooker, or if you're hungry, you just simmer it a little faster. I think you can guess which boat I was in! I served this with soft polenta, through which I mixed a touch of salt and a handful of chopped herbs. This stew also gets along swimmingly with couscous or rice, or just a giant hunk of crusty bread to mop up the sauce. Better yet, you can do that, and then you can lick the bowl.

This stew can be made with whichever vegetables you like. Usually I'll add some cubes of fried eggplant, but it's not the sort of effort I was prepared to go to. Today's batch had lots of brown mushrooms, zucchini, and the rest of the pumpkin I'd roasted the day before. Add the pumpkin with the zucchini, even though it's not added in the photos below. Do as I say, not as I do! I made a huge batch, so that I can eat warm food at every meal, in an attempt to lift my spirits. Still, even in the warm kitchen, I can look out the window and see that I had no real summer. I feel ripped off by this country and its weather. Today, I only needed the flavours of Morocco to lift my spirits.

Comfort foods are always a nice consolation, and this dish is comforting. This stew is based on tomatoes, sure, but it differs from its Italian counterparts by the use of cumin and cinnamon. I've often made it without the cinnamon, and it's equally delicious. You can throw it together in a cinch - I made it today without sauteeing the veg, simply because I was starved. Sauteeing the onion and garlic does bring out that nice, caramelised goodness, so I'd probably advise that you're not as slack as I am today. Do as I say, not as I do! I'll use my upcoming German exam as an excuse.

You can see from the above photo that I used passata instead of real tomatoes. There was a bottle of organic passata sitting in my pantry, and I figured that now was the time to use it, rather than buying tomatoes from Marktkauf (and, therefore, from Spain. Sorry, Spanish economy.) I've also used chopped tomatoes, tinned tomatoes, and frozen tomatoes. Anything goes, provided it's a tomato in some form or other. If you use fresh tomatoes that need a little extra richness after cooking down, add a splash of balsamic vinegar, or a few tablespoons of tomato paste. I've also snuck a teaspoon of stock powder into my stew on occasion, when my tomatoes were of the general supermarket variety. To thicken, today I've used red lentils, but when I'm not so hungry, I just let it cook down by itself. I made a huge pot, a "community stew" of sorts. Halve the recipe if you have a smaller appetite than I do. (I'm pretty sure that you do.) We'll see if mine lasts longer than a day...

Spicy Vegetable Stew

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed

2 small onions, finely chopped

500g mushrooms, quartered (if small - otherwise in 1/6ths or 1/8ths)

1kg zucchini, in large cubes

1 kg pumpkin, in large cubes

3/4tsp cumin powder

1/3 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp black pepper, ground

1 tbsp fresh chilli paste (siracha or kecap manis is fine)

1 tsp salt

750g passata / 2 tins tomatoes / 1kg fresh tomatoes, diced
1 bunch fresh herbs, chopped (I usually use parsley - today I also used basil, but usually I add a few leaves of mint)
olive oil

In olive oil, sautee the garlic and onion until golden and fragrant. Add the mushrooms, and let them sautee for a few minutes.

Add the vegetables, stirring to mix, and then add the fresh chilli paste. Allow to cook for a few minutes more, until the vegetables are slightly softened.

Add the tomatoes and spices, plus any extra water that you need so that the vegetables are just barely covered by the liquid. I needed about a cup.

Simmer, uncovered, for as long as you dare, adding water as needed, to stop the sauce from catching on the bottom of the pot. If you're in a hurry, just simmer until the vegetables are tender - about 15 minutes. The longer and slower this cooks, the better the tomatoes will be.

When you can't stand the amazing smell in your kitchen any longer, and simply must have a bowl, throw in the herbs and serve yourself as much as you can fit in your bowl. Then go back for seconds. ;)

*I added 1 cup of red lentils to this, partly because I love them, and partly because they're great at thickening rustic sauces. I usually add a tin of chickpeas, but alas, none in the pantry.