One of my pet peeves is produce snobs -you know, people (by which I mostly mean TV chefs) who rhapsodise over the glories of an invariably expensive and impossible to obtain product. Quite often they will even tell you that you must not, ever ever ever, even think about attempting a particular dish if you cannot obtain this particular rarity. It’s not that I think they’re wrong, it’s just that it’s not at all helpful. Sadly, most of us have to jam food shopping,preparation and consumption into increasingly tiny apertures of our day and seeking out this kind of produce just ain’t going to happen. And when you live in a small country town like I do,exciting produce is by and large just a distant memory… » Read more: Orange and tarragon roast chicken with Vanessa’s squash
Lions head meatballs
February 19th, 2010 by Libby 2 comments »The greatest culinary crisis in my life came when I first started seeing a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This came after months of health problems that involved a large number of increasingly intrusive tests. When I finally got sick of being prodded and probed I took myself off to see Melbourne’s legendary Professor Lun Wong. » Read more: Lions head meatballs
Mango rice with sweet curry sauce
January 10th, 2010 by Libby No comments »My kids (currently aged 3 and 5) are pretty good eaters. This is certainly not to say that they will eat anything or everything that’s put in front of them but they are interested, enthusiastic and comfortable with a wide variety of flavours and ways of eating. We all eat together most nights of the week and by and large I haven’t altered my way of cooking terribly much since we became parents. Sometimes with more challenging meals, I’ll make an easier dish to go with it or make a separate kid-friendly version just for them. I figure that this way they can be introduced a wide range of food types without the pressure of having to eat a whole plateful of it. Food fear and pressure are unwelcome guests at our table. » Read more: Mango rice with sweet curry sauce
Festive Highlights
January 7th, 2010 by Libby No comments »The last two weeks have literally been a blur of cooking,eating,friends and relatives, and forays into the stunning part of the world that is now our home – Cape Otway. If I may just relive,recap and bathe in the lingering culinary deliciousness of the festive season by sharing the following highlights: » Read more: Festive Highlights
Pork patties and pineapple salad
January 7th, 2010 by Libby No comments »In keeping with the family food vibe bit of this blog, this is really one for the kids. We had LOTS of guests over this Christmas / New Year which of course meant lots of cooking and drinking and drinking and eating (more highlights from this later). I’m on a real South – east Asian bender at the moment and much of this involved uncharacteristically hallucinogenic levels of chili and so could not really be considered family food. » Read more: Pork patties and pineapple salad
Salted Chicken
December 7th, 2009 by Libby No comments »There is a place on Russell Street (I know many of you know it),wedged unpromisingly between the porn shop and the disposals. It’s called Nam Loong and, on an analysis of cost to gastronomic return it is hands down my favourite Chinese restaurant. Pete introduced me to it when we first met nearly 18 years ago now, and he was introduced to it by his biological father who had been going there for god knows how many decades since he moved to Australia from Malaysia. » Read more: Salted Chicken
Porchetta
November 16th, 2009 by Libby No comments »You know you’re a parent when Christmas feels to you like like it’s approaching at the speed of light but to the small people in your life there’s clearly more than an eternity still to wait. It’s definitely time to start thinking food. It’s also time to start considering the annual logistical challenge of getting a large pine tree into our shoebox of a house, but that’s another story. Porchetta is really the ultimate festive roast beast to me. We had a beautiful boutique porchetta purchased from a deli in Lygon St for our wedding spread and I’ve been a big fan ever since. I’ve since fiddled around with a few recipes and have finally got a method sorted that seems to work consistently well for me. It takes a while to cook but is otherwise dead simple. This will definitely be appearing at Christmas lunch this year, probably with a lentil salad. » Read more: Porchetta
Rose geranium peaches
November 16th, 2009 by Libby 1 comment »There used to be two things that my mum would regularly commission from me for breakfast on Christmas morning. The first (strawberry daiquiris) has been banned from Riches family festive proceedings since 2006 due to the fact that everyone was so smashed by 10.00 a.m. that Christmas lunch became all but impossible. We now have a vastly more civilised Campari and orange and / or champagne cocktail while we open presents which seems to make it easier to get to the post – pudding glass of Benedictine.The other thing is my peaches poached in rose geranium syrup. » Read more: Rose geranium peaches
Parker Hill prawns
November 8th, 2009 by Libby No comments »Look, basically any time you’ve got prawns in one hand and a beer in the other you can safely say that life is pretty much as good as it gets. We took advantage of the pre-emptive burst of summer to go camping for the night down at Cape Otway. I swung past the fisherman’s co-op on Saturday morning and grabbed a bag of prawns. Now these were nothing fancy – just a kilo bag of peeled, green frozen prawns but you know,they’re pretty good and they kept the six pack of Asahi in the esky chilled to perfection. » Read more: Parker Hill prawns
Dried fish fun
November 6th, 2009 by Libby No comments »No recipe today, folks, but just some general musings about the joy of the Asian grocery. Personally I can’t imagine living anywhere else than Apollo Bay but the facts have to be faced – the Asian cook faces some severe challenges down here (no insult intended to Nick’s IGA on the Main Street which has a good selection of basic stock). Anyway, we were in Geelong today which meant a long overdue trip to the Asian grocery. » Read more: Dried fish fun
