My Cooking Show Crush

Look at them. They are your friends.

I enjoy your Masterchef and your Ready Steady Cook as much as the next lass (although the latter, I must admit, only when I’m at home sick and too weak to change the channel after Oprah) but my cooking show heart belongs truly to the Cook and the Chef.

Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant. So enthusiastic. So endearing. So constantly delighted by food. From the awkwardness and slight tension of the first season, to the easy banter and teasing of the later episodes, I love them all. The cheesy opening credits. The slightly laboured segues. The way Simon will leave out the chilli so Maggie can try something, the way Maggie can’t keep her fingers out of her food. The way neither of them are very comfortable on TV, but very happy to be there.

And of course, the food. I thought I’d share a couple of great vegetarian recipes from their site: Leek and Cheese Tart and Moussaka.

Leek and Cheese Tart


(original recipe here, although as I made one main instead of five entrees, I’ve made some modifications)

• 1 pre baked tart shell (I used short crust pasty)

• 1 leek, sliced

• 20g butter

• 10ml olive oil

• 2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced

• 30g parmesan cheese, grated

• 100g cheese, cubed (I used swiss, but I reckon it’d be better with goat’s)

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• 2 dried bay leaves

• 140ml cream

• 2 eggs

First, if you’re using frozen pastry, blind bake it, and then leave oven at 180.

Heat butter and oil in a frypan, add the leeks and sauté for a few minutes. Season, add thyme, bay leaves and sliced potatoes. If you sliced your potatoes quite thinly, take off the heat after a minute. If they’re thicker, let them cook longer.

Arrange vegetables in tart shell, without the bay leaves.

Combine cream and eggs and pour over your veggies. Drop cubes of cheese on top, and sprinkle with parmesan.

Bake in oven until set, it took about 25 minutes for me. As tasty as this was for dinner, it was even nicer cold for lunch the next day. Thanks, Maggie and Simon!

Moussaka


(Recipe here)

I’ve never made moussaka before, but anything in which eggplant has a starring role is fine by me. Do go and check out the version on their website – it’s divine. I must admit, onion, lemon and thyme was a quiet revelation. Do make sure the fried eggplant rests on absorbent paper, though, this is quite an oil heavy dish and it can get a bit rich. To cut through the richness, I made a sweet and easy tomato sauce to have on the side. It really was a case of throwing anything that was closest into the pan, and it ended up quite a happy little accident.

Tomato and Portobello Sauce

• 15 g butter

• 3 Portobello mushrooms, stems removed

• 400g tinned tomato (whole or diced, either will work)

• 1 clove of garlic

• ½ tsp chilli seeds

• 1 tsp garam masala

• ¼ cup red wine

• Lemon

Heat the butter in a fry pan over a medium heat. Add the mushrooms and sauté for about 5 minutes.

Throw in the chopped garlic, chili seeds and garam masala. Cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add the tomato and cook down until thickened (about 10 minutes) and then stir through the red wine about 5 minutes before taking off the heat.

Give it a squeeze of lemon to finish, and serve with your moussaka and a light green salad. It ain't fancy, but it sure is tasty.

Soup Week Leek Soup

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While I'm not exactly rockin' the student lifestyle like Tara is, I am rockin' the recession. Well, not so much rockin' it as resenting it, really... my job security is low, my income is lower, and all this talk of consumer confidence indexes makes me want to crawl under my doona and sleep the doom and gloom of the 'GFC' away. Sadly my job requires me to get out of bed each day, so I've turned my recession fear from a cowering desire never to look at the news again into a new found frugality, lest I suddenly find myself in need of that thing, what's it called? Oh. Savings.

Today's soup costs next to nothing to make, it's damn well recession proof and a worthy contribution to Soup Week 2009.

Cheap and Easy Potato and Leek Soup

What You Will Need:

• 5 leeks (or is it just leek?)
• 2 large potatoes
• Lots of garlic
• A big sprig of fresh rosemary
• Salt reduced vegetable stock (about a litre and a half, I think)
• Salt, pepper and parmesan cheese to taste. Maybe some croutons too, if you're feeling fancy.

What You Will Need To Do:

1. Thinly slice the leek and dice the potato.

2. Heat a generous lump of butter in the bottom of a deep saucepan, then add the leek, potato, rosemary sprig and a couple of big garlic cloves, stir so the veggies are coated in butter and cook on a low heat until the leek is sweating.

3. Once the leek is limp and sweaty (I know you're all licking your lips at that delicious description) and is tender rather than tough, add the vegetable stock and bring the whole lot to the boil.

4. Simmer for at least fifteen minutes, then remove half of the soup mixture - leaving the rosemary sprig in the pot -and blend until smooth. Pour the blended soup back in with the chunky stuff and stir the lot to combine.

5. Serve hot hot hot with parmesan cheese on top, and some buttery toast on the side. You can blend the soup up completely if you prefer your soup smooth rather than chunky, but I quite like some of the potato and leek to stay chunky, for a bit of dimension.

I wouldn't recommend this recipe to anybody who doesn't enjoy the taste of leek, for fairly obvious reasons. Leeky in taste, leeky in smell. This is an altogether leeky sort of a meal. The soup is really creamy and delicious, and if you lose the cheese and use olive oil in place of butter the recipe is also vegan. It's really cheap to make, the last time I cooked it the only ingredients I had to cough up for were the leek themselves, the rest I had sitting in the pantry. So if you're worried that capitalism is about to come crashing down around us and we'd better start squirelling away the pennies before we're unemployed and starving, don't reach for the migoreng just yet! It is possible to prepare a meal on the cheap without compromising on taste or nutrition.

Check back soon for more delicious soupy goodness, and while you're here please enjoy this lonely little number. The perfect accompaniment to a day spent hiding under one's doona...