I apologise for the crappy picture; it was taken in bad light with my phone. But you can see that I did some in paper muffin cups and some with a silicone muffin tray. If you’re using a muffin tray, make sure the muffins are cooled before you attempt to pop them out. It’s a good idea to run a butter knife or rubber spatula around the edge to loosen them.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 130g  dried apricots
• 250g plain flour
• 150g white sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda or 2tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt (omit if using baking powder)
• 55g melted butter
• 60ml vegetable oil
• Just under 1 cup milk (read method below)
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 egg

Method

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Grease a 12 cup muffin tray, or use paper muffin cups.

Place apricots into a small bowl, and cover with boiling water. Let stand for 5 minutes, drain and repeat.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Put the vinegar into a measuring cup and fill to one cup. Stir gently.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, oil, milk mixture and egg.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until just blended. It is okay for the batter to have some lumps.

Drain water from apricots, chop them into small chunks and mix them into the batter.

Spoon in even amounts into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool in the pan/cups on a wire rack. (Dust with icing sugar if desired.)

Here’s my recipe for the classic Indian lamb curry known as Rogan Josh. You can make it as spicy or mild as you like by adjusting the amount of chili powder you add. It’s really simple to make, and the preparation doesn’t take long. The cooking time is an hour and a half or more though, so make sure you get started early!

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 600-700g lamb, cubed
• 1 heaped tsp minced garlic
• 1 heaped tsp minced ginger
• 1-2 tsp salt (adjust to taste)
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 3 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp red chili powder (adjust this to taste)
• 2 large dollops of plain yoghurt (I use generously heaped dessert spoons)
• 1 large brown onion, chopped
• 1 can of minced tomatoes

Method

Heat some vegetable oil (1-2 tbsp) and add the onion, garlic and ginger. Fry until the onion is translucent.

Add the dry spices and fry for a couple of minutes until the spices become fragrant.

Add the lamb and fry for 5 minutes on medium-high heat until browned.

Add the salt, the can of tomatoes and yoghurt. Stir well.

Bring to the boil and cover. Reduce to the lowest possible heat setting and cook for a minimum of 1.5 hours, stirring every half hour. If you wish, you can use a slow cooker for this part, and cook for 3-4 hours.

Add extra yoghurt, salt and/or chili to taste. You can also add some roughly chopped fresh coriander.

Serve with basmati rice and papadums.

Ingredients

• 1 large or 2 small zucchinis (courgettes, squash… whatever you want to call them)
• 1 onion
• 1 medium sized carrot
• 3 rashers of bacon (can be omitted for a vegetarian version)
• 1 cup of grated cheese (cheddar or similar)
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 1 cup of self-raising flour (or 1 cup plain flour + 1.5tsp baking powder)
• 5 eggs (lightly beaten)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

Wash and grate the zucchini (skin on).

Peel and grate the carrot

Finely chop the onion and bacon

Combine zucchini, carrot, onion, bacon, cheese (reserving a small amount to sprinkle over the top) flour (and baking soda if you’re using it), eggs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl.

Mix together until everything is mixed evenly. If the mixture seems too wet, add more flour (up to a further half a cup) until you get a cake-dough type consistency.

Pour into a baking dish so that the mixture comes about 3cm up the sides. Make sure your dish has a little room for the slice to rise.

Sprinkle the remaining grated cheese evenly.

Bake in a 180°C oven for 30-40 minutes until the top is browned and a skewer or knife comes out clean.

Cool slightly before slicing into squares. Can be served hot or cold.

NOTE: You can add other ingredients such as sweetcorn, leek, mushroom, asparagus… and the bacon can be removed, or replaced with shredded cooked chicken, tuna or smoked fish, such as cod. Experiment!

If you can’t find laksa paste anywhere and don’t want to use green curry paste, here’s a different recipe that includes how to make your own laksa paste: http://gourmettraveller.com.au/spicy_chicken_laksa.htm (link opens in new window).

Here’s my recipe, which makes two large serves or three smaller ones. Just add more of everything to serve more people:

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts or thigh fillets

1 can coconut milk

1 can water

2 or more tbsp of laksa paste

1 small onion

2-3 spring onions, a handful of sliced button mushrooms, bean sprouts and any other asian vegetables that will cook easily (you could try baby corn, sliced water chestnuts, chinese cabbage, tofu or snowpeas)

1 chicken stock cube or 1 tbsp concentrated liquid chicken stock

1 packet of Hokkien or other egg noodles

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Slice the chicken into thin pieces and toss in salt and pepper. Pan or wok fry the chicken pieces until they’re browned on the outside and cooked through. Set aside in a warm place.

In a saucepan, bring the coconut milk and water to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add the laksa paste, halved and sliced onion and chicken stock and simmer until the onion is cooked. Add more laksa paste and possibly a little salt to taste.

Cook the noodles as per the packet instructions, then drain them and set them in deep bowls. Place the fried chicken on top of the noodles, and then add the various vegetables. Sprinkle the sliced spring onion and fresh chopped coriander over the vegetables and then pour the soup over the top. Make sure you have as much soup in the bowl as will almost cover the contents so that the vegetables wilt slightly. You can add a sprinkle more coriander after the soup goes in.

Serve immediately.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. Not ALL pine nuts are evil. My research has indicated that it is only pine nuts imported from China that are the cause of my suffering, and the suffering of many others.

Last Thursday night I was preparing dinner for myself and a friend, which we possibly wouldn’t be eating for another hour or so. I was hungry and needed a quick snack to stop me from eating all the dinner ingredients. So I reached into the cupboard and grabbed myself a handful of pine nuts. Mmm tasty. They were from the same box of pine nuts I had used on my carpaccio, rocket and raspberry salad a few weeks before, so how could I know the effects that would soon take hold…

On Saturday morning we got up late; it was almost noon, so instead of breakfast I decided to skip straight on to lunch and eat some leftover leek and potato soup that was in the fridge from earlier in the week. At first taste I thought, “Agh, I think this is past it’s used-by date.” A second taste seemed to confirm this, even though it didn’t smell bad, so I threw all the soup away. Next, I tried some toast… which also tasted horrible. I began to wonder whether I had gotten dehydrated through the night and just had a bad taste in my mouth.

After cleaning my teeth, brushing my tongue and gargling mouthwash, I also tried tea and even water, but to no avail. When the problem persisted on Sunday, I realised there was more to this than meets the taste buds; everything tasted like battery acid. It was time to do some internet searching. As is usual when searching medical symptoms online, I turned up all the usual scary cancer and tumour-related stuff, as well as some information on stomach ulcers, acid reflux and liver problems. However, none of the symptom descriptions seemed to match what was happening to me.

Finally I came upon a forum where people were discussing the exact problem I was having; namely a metallic, bitter taste at the back of the tongue that was exacerbated by food, particularly anything sweet. About halfway down the topic posts, someone mentioned pine nuts, and after that post the agreement flooded in from people around the world suffering the same problem after having recently eaten pine nuts. With this new information in hand, I narrowed my search to “pine nuts bitter taste” and suddenly I had my answer from an official source; the European Journal of Emergency Medicine:

Taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion M. Mostin Poisons Centre, Brussels, Belgium Case report: A colleague anaesthesiologist experienced two episodes of taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion. At the first time, he just consumed a handful of pine nuts. Two days later, he developed an episode of taste disturbances (bitter, metallic taste). The disturbances lasted a few days. He made a link between pine nuts and the taste disturbances after the second episode when his wife and friends who shared with him a dish prepared with the same pine nuts complained of a persisting bitter taste sensation 2 days after the meal. Examination of the pine nuts revealed they were oxidized and not fit for consumption. No fungal contamination was found. No explanation was found for the taste disturbances. In the following months, six similar cases were reported to the Poisons Centre. The pine nuts involved in those cases were imported from China. The pine species remain unidentified. Analysis on pesticide residues and heavy metal did not reveal any contamination. One member of the medical team of the Poisons Centre tested on himself several brands of pine nuts and experienced two separate episodes of taste disturbances with the pine nuts imported from China. The phenomenon remained unexplained.

A student in pharmacy undertook chromatographic examinations on two samples involved in the taste disturbances and compared them with pine nuts from other origins. This led to the isolation of constituants compatible with triglycerids, formed by 16-18°C unsaturated fatty acids. The role of those triglycerids in the taste disturbances remains hypothetic.

So there you have it. And if you do further searching of your own, you’ll find much more information out there (even Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut#Risks_of_eating_pine_nuts). But I have yet to find anything about a cure, other than patience. I have also discovered that peppermint tea and peppermint green tea are the only things I’ve tried so far that don’t taste horrible. I’m on day three now, so hopefully it won’t last too much longer.

There is still debate on the forums I’ve read about whether or not roasting the nuts makes a difference, but I can tell you that for me it did. I served my rocket salad to eight people a few weeks ago with a generous helping of roasted pine nuts on each, and no one had this problem.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any law in Norway that requires food to disclose its origin on its labelling. My pine nuts don’t say anything about where they were imported from. However, in all the information I read, it was Chinese imported pine nuts that caused this problem. Check your labels and if you experience the same thing, contact your local consumer affairs branch, or possibly poisons information if you are particularly concerned. As far as I know, there’s no danger, just a nasty, nasty taste for several days.

With all this in mind, you can imagine that I often search the internet for recipes when I can’t find inspiration in a book. So what really burns me is how many recipes that I find online that are more like something you would find on the back of a packet mix for how to make said packet mix more interesting.

If you’ve ever searched for a recipe online, you probably know what I’m talking about. You see a great looking recipe title, you start reading down the list of ingredients and lo and behold, there it is: 1 can of Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup. What the?!

Now I understand that some people don’t want to spend hours cooking every night and rely on having some premade ingredients in their cooking to speed things up. But seriously, just adding a bunch of frozen vegetables to a can of premade soup and then calling it a recipe for Broccoli-Cheddar Bisque!? That’s not a recipe, it’s a serving suggestion! Not to mention being just plain laziness. In this particular case, the recipe I’m referring to purportedly came from Better Homes and Gardens. Fie! You can do better than that, BH&G!

It’s not just soup recipes either. So many recipes I’ve found call for brand name spice mixes or packet mixes or even breads that you can’t get outside of the country the recipe hails from (I’m looking at you, America), and if you don’t know who Mrs Hockenburger is, it’s likely you’re not going to know what she puts in her All-American Grill Spice. (Note: names have been changed to protect the innocent… or because I can’t remember the name of the particular grill spice in an offending recipe.)

Now before you jump on me, I will say that as much as I’d love to have the time and money to cook everything completely from scratch, I know realistically that I can only afford to do that on the weekends, if I’m lucky. So I have no problem with using premade stock or stock cubes and concentrates. Hell, I’ve seasoned things with curry powder and chicken noodle soup mix along with everybody else. But I don’t give those recipes out to friends and blog readers with “Maggi Classic Chicken Noodle Simmer Soup Mix” written in the ingredient list. These recipe writers should always give an alternative to brand name item, or at least explain what it is so we can find our own alternative.

There is a line to be drawn, however, between a recipe that uses a spice mix or stock cube and one that is just made up of premade foods. I have found, sadly, that this line is more often than not a geographical one. I have far more success finding “real” recipes searching google.co.uk or google.com.au than I do in google.com.

It is also noteworthy that when you make food out of so many premade ingredients, you have more and more trouble keeping track of exactly what you’re eating. Each ingredient will have salt, fat, preservatives and sugars that you can’t always keep track of, and I think we can all agree that in that sense it’s much better to use fresh ingredients wherever we can.

So to end this rant on a positive note, I would like to offer my congratulations and thanks to all those recipe sites and blogs out there that know where to draw this line and offer recipes made with real food, not canned soup, frozen hash browns and packet mixes. You know who you are. Well done.

My mum calls it Fried Rice, but there really isn’t any frying of rice involved, and there are a lot more vegetables in it than in the conventional Chinese Special Fried Rice. Having said that, you can really put any vegetables in it you want, so feel free to make your own variations.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• Peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil
• 1 small onion or a couple of spring onions if you prefer, chopped
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 4 rashers of bacon, rind off, sliced into thin strips
• 1 carrot, sliced, chopped or in strips
• 1 small zucchini, sliced, chopped or in strips
• 2-3 button mushrooms, peeled and sliced
• 1 small can of baby corn (you can also use fresh if you prefer)
• 1/2 a cup of frozen peas
• 1 stick of celery, sliced
• Any other vegetables you like, including but not limited to bean sprouts, water chestnuts, green beans, asparagus etc
• 1 cup cooked rice per person
• Soy sauce (I recommend Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce)

Method:

In a non-stick pan or wok (or a lightly oiled pan/wok) pour in the eggs to form a thin omelette. When this is browned on the bottom and firm on the top, take it out with a spatula and set it aside.

Pour a small amount of peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil into the pan/wok and fry the onion, garlic and ginger together for a couple of minutes. Then add the bacon strips and fry until the bacon is well browned. You may want to tip off some of the fat.

Put in all the other vegetables and stir fry them for 2-5 minutes, depending on how crispy you like them. Slosh in about 2 or 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and reduce the heat. While the vegetables are simmering, slice the omelette into thin strips and add it back into the pan. Next, add the cooked rice and stir until everything is coated in soy sauce. You can add more soy sauce to taste, and if you like a bit of extra flavour you can add a dash of oyster sauce or concentrated chicken stock.

If it looks a bit wet, keep it on the heat for a couple more minutes to let some water evaporate, otherwise you can serve it immediately.

We usually eat this as a meal in itself, but I have also served it as a side dish to some stir fried beef, chicken or lamb.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

8 chicken thighs (not fillets) – I actually used chicken wings, which worked equally wel
50mL peanut oil
100mL sweet soy sauce
50mL soy sauce
100mL water
2 sticks of lemongrass, roughly chopped
50g ginger, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 red chili, sliced
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Method

Remove the skin from the chicken and brown in the peanut oil. Add the sweet soy sauce, soy sauce, water, lemongrass, ginger, garlic and chili. Bring to the boil and add the sesame oil. Allow this to simmer for 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Add the lemon juice and extra soy sauce to taste.

Serve with wok tossed asian vegetables, steamed rice and top with roasted sesame seeds.

After several weeks of sneaky planning, Chris and his brother and sister managed to get David to believe everyone would be busy on his birthday and that he would just be coming into town for brunch with Maiken. Chris told him he’d be away for work for the weekend, but that he’d try to catch up with him in the coming week. Sebastian and Merete had been out of town for a few days and had been a little sketchy on the details of exactly when they were coming home.

Chris picked up Sebastian from the train station at about 11.45 while I rushed around in the kitchen like a mad thing preparing the food. Maiken told David she wanted to drop in to the deli on our street corner when they got into town, and there he got his first surprise; Sebastian popped in to meet him! I think what happened next was that David made a comment about how they were near enough to drop in and see Chris, so it was a pity he wasn’t home, so then Maiken suggested they pop in anyway to say hi to me. Surprise number two! Chris was hiding behind the door!

Then when he got inside, surprise number three! A table jam packed with food! A surprise birthday brunch! The following tasty dishes:

• Bacon and potato salad
• Cheesy scrambled eggs with basil
• A plate with feta, sundried tomatoes, brie, parmesan and tapini crackers
• Asparagus wrapped in fresh parmesan and parma ham
• McLaren Vale Olive Farm olives
• “Homemade” tzatziki from our local continental deli
• Olive bread (fresh from the bakery that morning)
• A plate of smoked salmon, parma ham and sliced cucumber
• Marinated roasted red peppers
• Sauteed mushrooms
• Tomato and mozzerella salad
• Season chicken wings
• Orange and strawberry juice
• D’Arenburg Peppermint Paddock sparkling red (yes, Chris finally cracked his last bottle)

Not bad for a couple of hours work eh? It really is the best way to serve a large group of people. We just sat and gorged for about two hours. Then just when I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t have enough room in the fridge for all the leftovers, surprise number four; Merete arrived from her trip to Bergen and helped us polish off the last of the food.

After that we gave David his present; a funky little portable Weber BBQ. They have a summer house (you might recall the photos from late last summer) so it will be perfect for when they take boat trips over to the little beach across the water. Not to mention camping and picnicking etc.

Finally, just when David thought it was all winding down, we sprung surprise number 5; BOWLING! I had never bowled in my life, and couldn’t help thinking of the Simpsons where Homer gives Marge a bowling ball for her birthday. I didn’t do too badly for a first time, and even managed a spare at one point, but I still came in dead last. Luckily my humiliation was eclipsed somewhat by Chris getting a little enthusiastic on about his 7th round and face-planting the parquetry. I’m actually still laughing while writing this. Tee hee…

So all in all it was a great success and everyone had a great day.

I understand how confusing this is to seafood lovers; just as confusing as it is to chocolate lovers when I say I’m not that impressed by chocolate. After all, I dated a guy for a couple of years who wouldn’t eat anything but meat, potatoes, bread and the (very occasional) green pea. It was incredibly frustrating to have to leave all the vegetables I loved out of everything I cooked, and it set the maturation of my palate back… well about two years I guess.

But think for a moment about a food you just can’t stand. There’s nothing you can do to make it taste better. You’re not being picky, you just can’t like it because it happens to be food. Sometimes it changes as you get older… there are quite a lot of foods I wouldn’t have touched a few years ago that I eat all the time now, and I’m not just putting up with them, I’m enjoying them. As a kid I absolutely detested raw tomato, but now I’m eating those little grape ones straight out of the punnet on the way home from the green grocer. I also hated avocado, but if any of you have ever seen me with a plate of nachos… well it’s one of the few times you can actually get a word in edgewise.

And then there’s the fact that you grow out of certain foods as well. I know I can’t stomach a bowl of froot loops these days, much less stand stuffing an entire roll of bubble tape in my mouth at once.

So what’s my point? There are two actually, one for the pickees and one for the pickers. Pickees: I was once one of you, and my advice is to regularly try foods you think you don’t like. Your taste changes over time and you can open up whole new worlds of culinary delight you never knew existed… and if you still don’t like it at least you can be sure. As for the pickers: Leave picky eaters alone. It’s hard enough dealing with the fact that you might only find one thing on a restaurant menu that you can eat, they don’t need you making them feel like bad tempered two year olds who are only being picky to get attention.

This has been the first of many random thoughts on my new blog. I figured I might make a bit of room in my brain if I got some of the ramblings out in print.