A cheese platter

Not much to say about this, I just like the photo. Obviously taken by someone more talented than myself (thanks Mel). The chilli jam is sold by a wonderful woman at the Market at the Abbotsford Convent, and goes amazingly well with cheese.

Rhubarb Crumble (easy version)

Stewed rhubarb is, in addition to being the easiest thing ever, delicious. To make htis, I simply cleaned and chopped up a bunch of rhubarb, into 1cm or so chunks, and put the whole lot into a pan with a couple tablespoons of raw sugar and the juice of a lemon. Cook it over a medium-low heat until it is soft and melting. The sugar needed will vary between types of rhubarb, and some rhubarb might need a little water added.

For the crumble, you want to take 100gm of cold butter, and the same amount of flour. dice the cold butter finely, and rub it into the flour to form a crumb. Once this is done, mix through a cup of oats, a 1/2 cup of coconut (shredded) and a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and crumb together a bit more. Spread it onto a baking tray and cook for 20 minutes or so at 180, until everything is browned and crispy.

Drop the rhubarb into a serving bowl, cover liberally with crumble mix, and top with cream/yoghurt/icecream/whatever.

Nasu Dengaku

It turns out that this delicious Japanese treat is simple as all hell to make. I'm not such a fan of the deep frying, so rather than cooking eggplant in that way, I simply halved them, brushed them with a little oil (rice bran oil, to be exact) and baked them at 200c until they were melting to pieces, half an hour or so (although this will depend on the size of the eggplant).

To make the miso topping stuff, Take a cup of dashi broth, a couple big tablespoons of white miso paste, good splash of Mirin, a tablespoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of cornflour, and simmer the mixed ingredients until they are thickening.

Top the melty eggplant with the sauce, and return to the oven for a few minutes to crisp up. Crank the heat as high as possible for this portion of the cooking. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top to serve. You should be able to 'cut' them with chopsticks, if they are cooked enough.

Baps

Scottish bread rolls, actually pretty easy to make. Recipe incoming when I can find the book I got it from.

Lamb!

Lamb! With garlic and a Moroccan type spice mix, stir fried. Capsicum and courgette sticks in there, and onion in the base. yum.

Kangaroo Ragout!

Take a bunch of kangaroo, a bit of wine, a lot of garlic and onion, and some stock. Cook the kangaroo until it is falling to pieces on a fork, and the sauce in which it has cooked has reduced to a delicious silky texture. Put this delicious combination on top of freshly cooked Penne pasta, cooked al dente, and top with flat leaf parsley and goats cheese. Yum!

I could probably make up a recipe if anyone was interested.