Porridge

As you may have noticed from my June What Kim Ate round-up my day normally starts with porridge.

Thomas makes a lovely porridge with currants, dried apricots, almonds and sunflower seeds. The nuts and seeds are a good source of Vitamin E.

Ingredients:
(for two people)

• 1 cup of whole oats
• 2.5 cups of water
• 4 dried apricots
• 6 almonds
• handful of currants
• A dessertspoon of sunflower seeds

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir and Serve.

I don’t put any milk or sugar on it as it’s nice just the way it is. Thomas likes to add a teaspoon of jam to his.

Potato Leek and Corn Soup

I love having dinner parties and have come to the conclusion that most (all if possible) preparation for a meal should be done before the guests arrive.

I made this soup in the afternoon, Thomas made garlic bread and wrapped it in foil. I also did the prep work for the baked apple stuffed with dried fruit and pecans.

The original instructions are from www.elise.com.

My parents (the guests!) asked for the recipe afterwards which is always a good sign. I did make some changes (added corn) and have included the altered version of the recipe below.

Ingredients

• 2 large leeks, sliced into rings.
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 4 or 5 cups of vegetable broth/stock
• approx 8 medium potatoes
• Salt & Pepper
• 1.5 cups of frozen corn
• Tabasco sauce or other red chili sauce

Preparation

Cook leeks in butter with salt and pepper, cover pan, cook on low heat for 10 minutes. Check often. Do not brown leeks! Browning will give leeks a burnt taste.

Add water, broth, and potatoes. Cook for 20 minutes. Scoop about have of the soup mixture into a blender, puree and return to pan. Add a dash of chili sauce to taste – about 1/4 teaspoon. Add corn and continue to boil until corn is cooked (about 5 minutes).

Serve with garlic bread.

Baked Apple Stuffed with Dried Fruit and Pecans.

I found this recipe at Epicurious and it’s a lovely winter dessert, especially when you don’t want to go completely over the top with the calories!

The recipe (full instructions below) suggested gala apples but I used Granny Smiths which were good as well.

It also recommends using an apple corer, I agree. I didn’t and fortunately I walked away with all my fingers. It was a close call.

Ingredients

• 4 (6-oz) red apples such as Gala or Rome Beauty
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
• 2 tablespoons dried currants
• 2 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
• 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (1/2 tbs softened and 1/2 tbs cut into 4 pieces)
• 1/2 cup unfiltered apple cider
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup low-fat vanilla or maple yogurt

preparation

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Core apples with corer. Stand apples up and make 4 evenly spaced vertical cuts starting from top of each apple and stopping halfway from bottom to keep apple intact. Brush inside of apples with lemon juice and stand apples in a ceramic or glass pie plate.

Toss together apricots, currants, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Rub softened butter into dried-fruit mixture with your fingers until combined well, then pack center of each apple with mixture. Put a piece of remaining butter on top of each apple. Pour cider and vanilla around apples and cover pie plate tightly with foil.

Bake in middle of oven, basting once, until apples are just tender when pierced with a fork, about 40 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until apples are very tender but not falling apart, 20 to 30 minutes more.

Transfer to serving dishes and spoon sauce over and around apples. Serve with dollops of yogurt.

Compare and Contrast

The fridge at our homestay in Xela, Guatemala.

The fridge at our place in Whangamata, New Zealand.

I suspect I’m addicted to dairy.

What Kim Ate – Week of Food

I’ve been doing a week of food and here is what one person (me!) eats in a week.

Full sized image at flickr

In Summary

This week I made the recommended allowances for:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Vitamin C
• Thiamin
• Riboflavin
• Vitamin B-12
• Selenium
• Iron
• Phosphorus

The nutrients I need to work on are:

• Zinc (had 60% of recommended amount).
• Calcium (had 70% of recommended amount).
• Magnesium (had 81% of recommended amount) .
• Niacin (had 75% of recommended amount).
• Folate (had 69% of recommended amount).

All up, I don’t think that’s bad going.

If you’d like to do your own nutritional check-up you can use nutrition reports at www.fitday.com

What I Ate

What I Ate

The food

• Porridge made by Thomas with almonds, dried apricots, sunflower seeds and raisins.
• Eggplant Moussaka. Another dish which is even better on the second day.
• Nuts in Armour
• Mandarin and banana.
• Simple egg, cheese, lettuce, onion, mustard and tomato sauce burger.

The Calories

There is a total of 1600 calories in these photos which is 75% of the days calorie allowance (Allowance changes daily depending on amount of exercise).

Nuts in Armour

The following recipe was found in the cookbook Accept with Pleasure.

Nuts in Armour

Take two cups of blanched nuts. Almonds, cashew nuts, pecans and hazelnuts are all suitable – you can mix them or use any variety on its own.

Place the nuts in a warm oven (180C/350F) and stir them frequently until they are golden and crisp. While this is going on you can be making the covering mix for them.

Into one white of egg, stiffly beaten, fold half a teaspoon of salt, a quarter of a teaspoon cayenne pepper, half a teaspoon of ground ginger, a dash of tabasco sauce and a dessertspoon of soy sauce.

Roll the hot nuts in this mixture and return to a slow (120C/250F) oven to dry out thoroughly – about three quarters of an hour.

When the nuts are absolutely dry rub them between the hands to separate them and then store in a completely airtight jar.

(Illustration by Claire Simpson)

——————-

Or you can do what I did and just make a small amount and then eat them!

I didn’t have all the ingredients so I just added salt, chilli powder and soy sauce to the egg white. That was yummy. I agree with the author this is an easy and small teaser to enjoy with your drinks before the start of a meal.

If you haven’t blanched almonds before I recommend it as a fun afternoon activity. You just need to chuck them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, rinse in cold and then squeeze the almonds out of the shells. The best bit is trying to catch the nut as they slip out and bounce along the counter.

Accept With Pleasure

A book about food written for those who like to share the good things of life with their friends.

I found this entertaining/cooking book in a bunch of old (errr, rare) books we are going to sell on trademe. It’s an Australian cook book written by Patricia Harris and published in 1969.

A couple of my favourite quotes are:

“This is a rather more robust effort than usual, but it will be a sure success with the teenage undergraduate set whose appetites have been sharpened by violent exercise.”

“A few small items to encourage conversation and to provide an accompaniment to the welcoming drinks. These are not intended to fill more than the smallest digestive crannies but rather to prompt a sense of pleasurable anticipation.”

I tried cooking one of the small items suggested in the book called Nuts in Armour and can confirm that while it was delicious not even the smallest of my digestive crannies were filled.

What I Ate

Today we had sun so I sat outside for lunch, enjoyed the weather and pretended it was summer.

Reality hit around 4pm when it started to get cold, fortunately I had a dinner of hot Eggplant Moussaka to look forward to.

What I Ate

The Food

• Surprise! Not porridge. Cornflakes with milk and peaches.
• Egg, lettuce and feta dressing sandwich on soy and linseed bread.
• Mandarin and banana.
• More Mandarins (they’re on special)
• Eggplant Moussaka

The Calories

There is a total of 1555 calories in these photos which is 70% of the days calorie allowance (Allowance changes daily depending on amount of exercise).