Abercrombie & Feast

Last November, I got homesick.  Big time.  Living abroad is a great adventure, and I wouldn’t trade this life we have for the world.  But, every now and then I miss the USA and all the lovely people in it.  So, after a few glasses of wine one Thursday night in October, I decided I was going back to the States for Thanksgiving.  I booked my flight, packed lightly (shopping!) and hopped on a plane to LAX.  My gorgeous husband joined me for the first (and loooongest) leg of the flight, then we split up… he flew to Atlanta to be with his family, and I met my parents in Rhode Island to celebrate with my grandfather.

Oh man, we had fun.  And oh man, did we eat well.  Seafood, clam chowder, turkey, sweet potato casserole good enough to make you slap yo’ mama.  We mostly stuck to the classics, as Americans tend to do around the holidays.  But, when we experimented with a new recipe to enjoy one afternoon by the fire, we hit on a huge winner, and a new classic in my house.  Behold, the Newport Cheese Puff….

I will admit, I have no idea where this recipe came from, so I’m sure I should be giving credit to someone and I’m not.  Sorry!  I do know that these are easy to make with things you probably already have on hand, are a really simple party snack and are goooooood. 

I’ve since made these numerous times for a wide variety of occasions.  Sunday afternoon snack, easy first course for a dinner party (just add some salad greens), game-time finger food… these puffs fit the bill no matter what the event. 

I am going home to Georgia this year for Thanksgiving- the first time I’ve been home in over 2 years.  I am looking forward to it so much.  I know these cheese puffs, and so many other gorgeous, nostalgic dishes will be on the menu. 

Newport Cheese Puffs

Makes 20-25 puffs
1 loaf plain white bread
3 egg whites
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tbs mayo
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
chilli powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste
paprika

Preheat your oven to 180C or about 350F. 

Cut out small (1-2 inch) rounds of white bread, avoiding the crusts (you can save the crusts for bread crumbs later!)

Whip egg whites until stiff.  Carefully mix in mayo, cheese, garlic powder, chilli powder, salt and pepper.

Spoon the egg white mix unto bread rounds.  Sprinkle with paprika and bake about 10-12 mins or until golden brown. 

Oprah once said, “My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.”  Once again, the wonderful Ms. Winfrey has got it right.  Potatoes are divine.

Perhaps it’s because of my Irish background, but I believe that the humble potato is one of the greatest things you can cook.  Roasted, baked or boiled, potatoes are versatile and delicious.

At this time of year, potatoes are everywhere.  It’s rare to see a holiday table that doesn’t contain potatoes in some form.  So, for your next holiday, or cozy Sunday night dinner, why not move beyond traditional mashed potatoes?  Branch out past roasted spuds?  Instead, try this… gratin dauphinois.

Cheesy and rich with a golden top and layers of tender potato slices, gratin dauphinois would make a great addition to your Thanksgiving table.  And the leftovers from last night will make a great addition to my lunch today!  All I need now is someone to share it with… do you think Oprah would be interested??

Gratin Dauphinois

Serves 6-8

1 kilo (about 2 lbs) potatoes
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
a pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/4 cups double cream
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 170C or about 325F.  Thinly slice the potatoes.  I used my new mandoline and it was much easier, but you could simply slice the potatoes by hand.  You’re aiming for really thin slices. 

Butter a 9 x 6 1/2 inch ovenproof dish.  Layer the potatoes in the dish, adding a bit of cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg and garlic between each layer. 

When you’ve layered all the potatoes, pour the cream and milk on top.  Then top the whole thing with the rest of the grated cheese.

Bake for about 45mins to 1 hour.  Test with a knife to make sure the potatoes are completely cooked and the liquid is absorbed.  If the top starts to get too brown, cover loosely with tin foil for the rest of the baking time. 

Let rest for 10 mins before serving. 

I missed my kitchen so much.  It’s good to be home, albeit temporarily.  I am soothed by standing at my own stove, stirring with my favourite wooden spoon and smelling our dinner coming together throughout the evening.  Is there a more therapeutic way to unwind after work??  I even have a new kitchen toy to play with… a mandolin purchased in Japan!  So last night I set out to spend some time in my happy little kitchen, to use my new mandolin, and to make a healthy and light meal that wouldn’t weigh us down as the weather heats up.

The salad that I want to tell you about was inspired by a salad that Deb wrote about on Smitten Kitchen.  I made several adjustments, a few additions and subtractions, but I think the souls of our salads are much the same.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Another salad??  Didn’t we just learn about an asparagus and blood orange salad?  And, worst of all, a cauliflower salad?  But hear me out.  This salad is satisfying in a way that salads rarely are.  In fact, I literally just finished eating the leftovers for breakfast and I’m already trying to figure out when I can make this again. 

I added quinoa to this salad to bulk it out and make it a more substantial part of our dinner.  Quinoa is a grain used a lot in South American cooking.  It’s super high in protein and can be used in tons of different dishes.  If you can’t find quinoa near you, you could easily replace it with cous cous in this recipe and it would still be fantastic.

This is literally the first thing I’ve cooked in my kitchen in about 3 weeks.  I plan to do lots of cooking for the next two weeks, then I’m off again for a week with my family in the US!  I’ll try to post more in the next two weeks and to add at least one more post about our time in Japan.  So, whilst I’m self-soothing with new recipes, promise me that you’ll try this one!

Quinoa and cauliflower salad

1/2 head of cauliflower, thinly sliced
1 small green capsicum (bell pepper), very thinly sliced
2 ribs of celery, very thinly sliced
2 spring onions, very thinly sliced
10 green olives stuffed with feta cheese (you could easily use plain green olives and add a tiny bit of feta to the salad), chopped
1 large handful parsley, chopped
100g (1/5 lb) of quinoa
2 cups chicken stock
2 tbs dijon mustard
2 tbs red wine vinegar
6 tbs olive oil
1/2 garlic clove, finely minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Put the quinoa and the chicken stock into a pot.  Bring to a boil and let cook for 10-12 minutes, until the quinoa is translucent.  Drain and add the quinoa back to the pan to dry.  Let cool in the pan whilst you make the rest of the salad.

Add the finely chopped cauliflower, capsicum, celery and parsley to a bowl and mix well.

Put the mustard in a bowl and add the vinegar.  Mix well with a fork.  Add 1/4 of the oil and mix well again.  Add the garlic and mix well.  Add the rest of the oil slowly, mixing well between each batch.  Taste.  If it is too tangy, add more oil.  If it is not tangy enough, add more vinegar.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  Finish the dressing with a good squeeze of lemon juice. 

Put the cooled quinoa into the bowl the vegetables and mix well.  Add 3/4 of the dressing and mix well, so all of the salad is lightly coated.  Serve the salad, with a little extra dressing on top.

Wow!  Can I just say, right here at the top of this post, Japan is awesome.  We had SUCH a good trip.  Full of neon lights, quiet train rides, taking off our shoes, ancient temples, speaking in badly accented Japanese, laughing at ourselves and tons of food.  We ate everything!  Sushi, tempura, yakisoba, ramen, bbq, miso soup, green tea, kimchi, and on and on and on. 

This is going to be a short post- for a few reasons.  First, I fly out again tomorrow for a week away for work and I don’t have time to craft anything very good here.  Second, I haven’t fully processed Japan yet.  We saw so much and tasted so much!  I need a few more days to sort our experiences out into useful stories for you.  Here are a few of the beautiful pictures from our trip. 

So, in the meantime, while I process and plan very exciting stories for you, let’s talk briefly about noodles.  Doesn’t sound too exciting, I understand.  But, I ate a LOT of noodles in Japan.  We had ramen soup for lunch almost every day.  Not Ramen Noodles, those industrial, dehydrated noodles in vacuum packs.  Ramen soup was brought to Japan from China and has since been adapted to fit the Japanese palate.  Noodles about the size of spaghetti float in a flavour rich broth, which can be soy or miso based.  There are bamboo shoots, spring onions and thin slices of pork on top.  It is a balanced meal in a bowl and it is good. 

But I did not rely only on ramen soup to fulfil my Japanese noodle needs!  Oh no!  There was also yakisoba (fried noodles), soba noodles (made of buckwheat) served cold and dipped into a soy broth made fiery with wasabi or served hot in a soup with tempura vegetables on top and, in perhaps the only disappointing meal of the trip, some cold, plasticy noodles in a bland red sauce with pieces of pear floating around.  Let’s not talk about that one- there are too many other amazing noodle stories to be shared.

One of my favourite noodle experiences in Japan was eating noodles for breakfast!  As I always tell Andy, I prefer savoury flavours to sweet flavours in the morning.  So, on our first morning in Morioka, we by-passed the bakeries and pastries and ducked into a tiny soba shop in the train station.  We had to point to what we wanted and eat standing up, but it was worth it.  We started our day with a hot bowl of noodles in rich stock with vegetables bobbing on top… and it was great.  We stood, shoulder to shoulder with Japanese men in work suits, slurping our noodles and enjoying the early morning rush at the train station.  The experience filled me up with happiness and the noodles filled me up with tasty goodness.  An ideal start to our Morioka morning.   

Ok, so maybe this wasn’t a very short post.  Once I start talking about noodles I clearly have trouble stopping!  I leave you with a couple of noodley pictures from our trip.  I will be back soon to fill you in on more details and, hopefully, to share a few new Japanese-inspired recipes with you.  It’s good to be home.

Soba noodles for breakfast

Scary plasticy noodles in cold sauce

Sydney is a city of outdoor events.  When the weather is right, you can watch movies in the park, you can eat on the balcony and you can picnic on the beach.  It’s been warming up here lately, so we’ve been trying to take advantage of all the outdoor activities that Sydney has to offer.

For example, a few weekends ago we joined forces with some mates and walked from our place in Bondi Junction to the Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park- the site of the Spring Food and Wine Festival.  We were invited to attend the festival by our good friends at Petersons Winery.  We’re members of the winery- and also possibly it’s biggest fans.  So we thought we’d all show up, sample some wine and enjoy some lunch. 

The day turned hot and sunny, so by the time we finished our walk we were thirsty kids.  I started with a taste of Peterson’s Sav Blanc and was immediately refreshed, and hungry!  We got one more taste each (this time a merlot for me) and strolled amongst the many booths selling tasty lunchtime fare.  There were so many choices!  Chorizo rolls, falafels or grilled lamb… oh my! 

I wandered amongst the different stalls, enjoying the smells and sites of all this delicious food cooking.  Then I saw it- my ideal lunch.  La Piadina, “Italy’s Favourite Flatbread”.  A round bread, about the size of a small pizza, the thickness of a pancake and made of corn flour is grilled, filled and folded in half.  Basically it was an Italian style quesadilla.  It was gorgeous and had everything I look for in a lunch- speedy to make, easy to eat and a great punch of flavour.  There were several choices of fillings, but I went with mozzarella, spinach and pumpkins.  Here’s a shot:

They were selling bags of the flatbread at the stall, so I grabbed a pack to bring home and play around with.  I was already thinking up all kinds of ideas!  Goats cheese, spinach and red onion!  Lamb, cranberries and rocket!  The possibilities were endless, but I only had 6 flatbreads to play with.

I used a few of the flatbreads to make dinner last night, and I have to say-nice.  These were so good and so easy.  I reduced the amount of cheese, added a bit of diced tomato, wilted spinach, black olives and thinly sliced salami.  I would like to quote my husband upon his first bite, “Whoa!”  Well said, sweetie.  Here’s a shot of mine:

I have more of the flatbreads in the freezer, so we’ll have to try a few more combinations.  I wish I knew where to buy more of these.  I’m sure they are easy enough to make at home, but I loved the convenience of just defrosting a couple and having dinner ready 20 mins later.  This is the kind of fast food I can totally support.

Andy and I are off to Japan for 2 weeks.  We are so excited!!  I won’t be able to post pictures from our journey until we get back, but I will try to pop over here and at least update you on how we’re doing.  So… see you all in Nov!

Last week, I gave you a recipe for a salad.  I know, I know.  Who even NEEDS a recipe for a salad??  I mean, it was a great salad, but I’d bet that you could have come up with the idea yourself.  I’ve been feeling a little guilty about it all week.  So today, I’m going to make it up to you. 

Enter, the Guinness chocolate cake with cream cheese icing.

I made this to bring to a games night with some of the acting class friends (HI!), but it was so dense and rich that we could only finish 1/2 of it.  I packed the other half off to work with Andy this morning and at last report it was being thoroughly enjoyed by the lovely folks in his office (HI!)

This cake is a real treat.  It’s made with lovely lovely Guinness, but it doesn’t taste at all like beer.  Instead, the beer imparts a subtle malt flavour to the cake that goes well with the chocolate and the cream cheese.  I mean, pretty much everything goes well with chocolate and cream cheese, but the beer makes this a really damp and hefty cake.  And the icing, made primarily of cream cheese, sits on top of this dark cake like the foamy head on a pint of well poured Guinness.  Genius.

Now, I feel a bit better.  Aren’t you spoiled???  Chocolate cake and beer all in one post??  I feel I’ve redeemed myself.  Although, with summer coming on, I’m afraid there may be more salads in our future.  I’ll make it up to you, I swear.

Guinness Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast

*Just a note, my copy of Nigella’s lovely book Feast is an AU version, so the measurements are all metric.  I adapted them for my own use and it all turned out well, so the measurements here are the ones I used. *

For the cake:
Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the icing:
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
 1/2 cup heavy cream.

For the cake: preheat oven to 350F or 180C. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper.  You could also make this in cupcake form which would be very cute.  In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well.  I broke my electric beaters at this stage (nothing to do with the cake, everything to do with cheap beaters), and just whisked by hand from here on out.  Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

For the icing: Using a food processor or by hand, mix confectioners’ sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add heavy cream, and mix until smooth.  Chill until needed. 

This cake is pretty heavy, so the middle will probably sink a bit.  To keep a nice, smooth top, just put the cake upside down on your serving platter and ice the nice, flat bottom.  No one will know the difference and it will look better. 

Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

Oh my goodness.  I have to apologise for this speedy post.  I haven’t been home since last Thursday night, and I’m off again tomorrow morning.  A combination of work and fun have conspired for the past two weeks to keep me out of the kitchen. 

This doesn’t mean I haven’t cooked at all.  Just that I haven’t cooked a lot.  I’ve been away with the girls and food was already sorted out.  I’ve been in hotel rooms where the only cooking devices present were a kettle and a teacup.  Not the best circumstances under which to whip up gourmet, or even actually edible, meals. 

But, I have managed to make a honey and almond cake to bring away for the girls weekend.  I made dark chocolate, almond and strawberry bark.  I’ve made a lentil and sweet potato soup.  And, I’ve made this salad.

This recipe is adapted from the one that appeared in Amanda Hesser’s book, Cooking for Mr. Latte.  I bought the book recently and this is the first recipe of her recipes that I’ve tried.  It was excellent and perfectly suited to a warm Spring evening at home.  My first, and last, evening at home for a while. 

Asparagus and goats cheese salad with blood orange vinaigrette

Serves 2

1 bunch (about 6 pieces) of asparagus
salt
2 large handfuls of rocket or arugula
juice of 1/2 blood orange
segments cut from 1/2 blood orange
1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
4 tbs olive oil
4 tbs creamy goats cheese
Freshly cracked black pepper

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus.  Bring a pot of water to boil and salt the water.  Add the asparagus to the water and cook for about 3 mins.  Drain the asparagus on a plate lined with paper towel and allow to dry.  Cut the asparagus into 1 inch pieces. 

Cut the blood orange in half.  Add the juice of one half to a small bowl.  Peel the other half and slice into rounds or segments, whichever is easier. 

Add the mustard and the vinegar to the bowl with the juice from the blood orange.  Whisk together.  Add the olive oil a tiny bit at a time, whisking well between each bit.  Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. 

Combine the rocket or arugula, the asparagus and the blood orange segments in a large bowl.  Add the dressing and toss to combine.  Divide the mixture onto two plates.  Add the goats cheese, broken into small pieces.  Add a tiny bit of freshly cracked pepper and serve. 

A few years ago, for our first wedding anniversary, Andy and I treated ourselves to a week in Thailand.  My brother was living in Bangkok at the time teaching English, so we decided to spend a week in the capital city.  Lots of people head to Thailand and spend 2-3 days in Bangkok, before heading out to the islands or beaches.  We wanted to stay in Bangkok and really see the city itself (plus… I’d already been to the beaches!)

I have to say, this trip was one of our best.  We stayed very close to a SkyTrain station, so the whole city was available to us.  We could go from our hot, sweaty, fast-paced train station to a cool, quiet, serene temple in a matter of minutes.  We trekked to all of the famous sites and palaces and statues, but our favourite place in the city was a tiny outdoor bar near our hotel on Soi 22.

I am having trouble thinking of a way to describe the little outdoor bars that dot the streets of Bangkok.  They aren’t really bars.  They are barely even rooms.  Basically, when the sun goes down, chairs and tables are set up on street corners.  Passers by can grab a table, get a very very cold beer and a little bowl of nuts or rice crackers.  There were 2 corner bars on our street.  They were directly across a small laneway from one another.  You could talk to the people in one bar from the other bar. 

Andy enjoying a beer at our local outdoor bar

Almost every night after our journeys for the day, we would stop at our favourite of the two tiny bars and have a few cold Tiger or Singh beers.  We would smile and make small talk with the friendly lady-boy tending the bar.  We could watch European soccer being played on the tiny, grainy TV nailed to the side of the building.  We could smell the food from the street vendors who come out at night… lemongrass and lime and 5 spice and chilis.  We could see the men driving motorbikes piled high with deliveries to be made.  We could watch the women cook in the little open air restaurants, using just two woks to cook the food for the whole place.  After our 2nd night in a row at this bar, we were treated like locals.  We didn’t even have to order, they just knew us and brought us our beers and peanuts.  The beers were incredibly cheap (most street food in Thailand is outstandingly good and cheap).  Some nights it was tempting not to leave the bar at all, but to stay there, being refreshed and watching our own personal showing of the theatre that occured in the streets of this humid and complex city. 

In the middle of our trip we spent half a day at a Thai cooking class.  This is one of the recipes we learned.  It’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any difficult to find ingredients.  It is also, just so you know, really rather authentic.  We had khao pad moo all over Bangkok, for a few reasons.  First, we knew how to pronounce it (cow pad moo) and wouldn’t look stupid trying to order it in tiny little places where English is not spoken.  Second, it is very good.  Of all the recipes we learned in our Thai cooking class, this is the only one I’ve made regularly at home.  In fact, I just made it last Thursday again, which is what prompted me to write this post.  It reminds us of our wonderful trip to Bangkok and our smiling friends at the corner bar on Soi 22. 

Khao Pad Moo

Serves 2

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or peanut oil
1 small onion, diced
1 chili, diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g pork, cut into small pieces
1 small carrot, diced
1 handful snow pea pods, diced
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups cooked rice, cooled
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 tablespoons seasoning soy sauce* 
2 spring onions, diced
juice of 1/2 lime

Cucumber slices, lime wedges and chili sauce to serve.

Put the oil in a wok over medium high heat.  Add the onion and the chili and cook for a minute.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Push the onion mixture to the side and add the pork to the wok.  Stir so it doesn’t stick!  After about 3 minutes (once the pork is no longer pink), add the carrot and cook for 1 minute.  Add the snow peas and cook for 1 more minute. 

Push all of the vegetables and pork to the side of the wok and add the eggs.  Scramble the egg until it is cooked- about 1 minute. 

Add the rice and stir.  Add the sugar and seasoning soy sauce and stir until combined.  Turn the heat off.

Add the spring onion and the lime juice and stir again until well combined.  Taste for seasoning.  Does it need more salt?  Add more soy.  Does it need more tang?  Add more lime juice. 

Serve this with extra chili and spring onion sprinkled on top and slices of lime, cucumer and chili sauce on the side. 

I’ve never been a huge fan of fast food.  The little town I grew up in didn’t even have a McDonald’s until I was 16 years old.  If I am going to eat fast food, I will indulge in some french fries or a shake.  One thing I will never eat is fast food chicken nuggets.  The texture is yucky and gluey and they always taste ever so slightly of chemicals.

Andy and I have both recently read The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Reading the actual details of what’s in a Chicken McNugget is enough to put even the keenest nugget lover off of nuggets for good. 

So, in order to avoid eating fast food “chicken nuggets from the Black Lagoon”, but not have to do without chicken nuggets all together, Andy issued me a challenge.  Create a fresh, healthy, very tasty version of a chicken nugget. 

I did a good bit of research into various chicken finger / tender / nugget / strip recipes.  It seems like there is no end of advice out there for those of us who would like to get off the Chicken McNugget Express.  In the end I combined a few ideas, but I was mostly inspired by Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Ritzy Chicken Nuggets from her book Feast. 

These were a great dinner to have mid-week because they didn’t take long to make and they were delicious and very fun to eat.  I can think of lots of variations on the same recipe (add some garlic salt to the cracker crumbs, add some cayenne pepper to the yogurt marinade, sprinkle with some hot sauce whilst baking, etc), but these are just swell the way they are. 

Chicken nuggets
Adapted from Nigella Lawson- Feast

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
1 container plain yogurt
1 sleeve Ritz crackers
Olive oil in a spray can
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the your oven to 200C or about 390F.  Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spray the foil very lightly with olive oil. 

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.  Add the chicken and the entire contents of the yogurt container to a bowl.  Mix well and make sure the yogurt is completely covering all of the chicken.  Cover the bowl with cling film and place in the fridge for at least an hour.  It’s actually best if you can do this the morning before you want to cook these.  Marinating in the yogurt tenderises the meat and makes the nuggets super moist.  However, I only had time to marinate the meat for about 2 hours and the nuggets came out brilliantly.

Remove the nuggets from the fridge.  Crush up the Ritz crackers.  I used the food processor to do this and it worked really well, but a plastic bag and a pan could be equally effective and probably more therapeutic.

Remove the chicken from the yoghurt marinade.  You want each piece of chicken to be coated in yoghurt, but not globs of it.  Scrap some off if you need to so you get a nice, thin coating. 

Dip each nugget into the Ritz cracker to totally coat them.  Press the cracker crumbs into the chicken if you need to.  Lay the nuggets in line on the baking sheet.  When you’ve coated all the nuggets with the cracker crumbs, lightly spray them with olive oil and very lightly sprinkle them with salt. 

Place the nuggets into the oven to cook.  Let the nuggets cook for about 15 minutes before you check on them.  You want the cracker crust to get nice and brown, so you may need to let them cook for a little longer.  Luckily, since you’ve marinated the chicken in yogurt, it won’t dry out! 

Once the chicken is cooked through and the crust is brown, remove the nuggets from the oven.  Allow the nuggets to cool for a few minutes before you try to remove them from the pan.  I was starving and anxious to try them, so I ended up tearing a few off the sheet before they were cool.  They were still delicious, just not very pretty.  Serve the nuggets with your choice of dipping sauce. 

We’ve just returned from a gorgeous long weekend away in Barrington Tops, NSW.  It was my birthday trip this year… all arranged and organised by my outstanding husband.  We stayed in an adorable little B&B, visited national parks with huge sweeping views and small towns with cozy country pubs. 

We enjoyed hot tea and peanut butter toast (my favourite!) for breakfast, cheese platters with crisp white wine in the afternoon, and simple hearty country dinners at night.  Nothing fancy actually.  Just lots of relaxing and enjoying the fresh air and amazing views… and the sunshine!  It is starting to look like spring may actually make an appearance this year and we got our first, long-awaited taste of it this weekend.  It was worth the wait.    

However, the fresh air and restful afternoons of a weekend away do tend to come to a screeching halt during the drive back into Sydney on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  We got back to our apartment in the late afternoon, which gave me enough time to hit the grocery store while Andy returned the car.  I wanted to make something fresh and exciting with enough zing to remind us of the exciting weekend and enough substance to gird us for the bumpy re-entry into city life. 

I know some people won’t think that soup qualifies as exciting… but those people are totally wrong.  And mean.  And probably hate kittens.  This soup was spicy and tangy, with hefty little meatballs and the tart, lip-tingling taste of roasted jalapenos.  This is exactly what I want to eat while I bask in the memories of our time away and enjoy the slow warmth of a spring evening in Sydney. 

Spicy roasted tomato soup with meatballs

Serves 4

For the roasted tomatoes
6 roma tomatoes
1 jalapeno chili (may substitute any spicy chili you like), finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
a handful of basil leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs olive oil

For the meatballs
200g (about 1/4 lb) pork mince
200g beef mince
3 shakes Worstershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

For the soup
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup very small pasta

Preheat oven to 180C or about 350F.  Slice the tomatoes into quarters and arrange in a single layer in a baking dish.  Sprinkle over the jalapeno, garlic and basil.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over the olive oil.  Place the tomatoes in the oven to roast for about 1 hour. 

Meanwhile, put the pork mince and the beef mince in a large bowl.  Add the Worstershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well.  Use this mixture to form small meatballs (about the size of a marble).  Drop the meatballs into a pan of cool water. 

Once you have shaped all the meatballs and added them to the pan, bring the water in the pan up to a boil.  Allow to boil for about 5 mins.  Then, place the top on the pan and remove the pan from the heat.  (This step isn’t strictly required.  I wanted the meatballs to have the very soft texture that they get when they are boiled, rather than baked or fried, but I didn’t want all the fat from the meat in the final soup.  So, by par-boiling them, I got a lot of the fat out first.  You can skip this and drop them right into the tomato soup if you want.  No worries.)

Once the tomatoes are roasted, scoop all of the tomatoes and their juices into a blender or food processor.  Add 1 cup of chicken stock and process for about 1 minute (be careful if it’s too hot!  It will explode!  Let the tomatoes cool for a min first.)

Add the processed tomato mixture to a large soup pot.  Add the remaining chicken stock.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the meatballs from the water they boiled in and add them to the tomato soup.  Allow the soup to simmer for about 20 mins.

About 15 minutes before you are ready to eat, add the pasta to the soup.  The soup is ready when the pasta is done.  The pasta will soak up a lot of the soup, so you might have to add a little more chicken stock or water to get the right consistancy.  I didn’t want it to be very watery, so I didn’t add anything else to mine.

This is great served with a big green salad and good toasted bread sprinkled with Parmesan.  You could also stir some Parmesan or pesto into the soup before you serve it.