Lick the Plate Clean | Greeting, eating, and other food ramblings

Random Lunch Challenge–Butter Fish? No–Fishy Butter.

Posted on 8 June 2013 by MaggieJune 25, 2013

Years ago, Hubby and I frequented a Jamaican Restaurant. Although it wasn’t a Jamaican dish, the olive bread and anchovy butter bagna cauda we ordered every time we went there was fantastic.

Recently, we inherited a bottle of Geo Watkins Anchovy Sauce–”the traditional seasoning when you want the full pungent flavour of salted anchovies”
(Allergy warning on bottle: “Contains fish”!).
This tickled our fancy and anchovy butter was thought of to have with some olive bread from the market. I really felt that another element was needed, so we purchased some red capsicum to grill and top the anchovy butter lathered toasted olive bread.
Oh, more please.
The anchovy sauce (added to taste) was blitzed with some unsalted butter to produce a deliciously salty but quite gently flavoured spread, and the lush grilled capsicum worked magically together with the olive bread.

Swimming in at about $8.

Random Lunch Challenge–Corned Beef and Cabbage. (A nod to the past, for the present and will do again).

Posted on 1 June 2013 by MaggieJune 2, 2013

Celebrating my brothers 50th last week of course involved reminiscing, and a joke was made that I should have just cooked an old family staple as the birthday meal.
Although, if I had done that, my other brother and family would have then had it 3 times in one week.

Corned beef and cabbage.

Boys are quite taken by weird canned things at the best of times, so with the family history being freshly discussed it was well on their minds.
Now, we were spoilt for choice today for RLC, but, oh no…the boys desire to have Corned Beef and Cabbage was such a strong pull that there was no option.

Corned beef and Cabbage.

Tinned corned beef at that, as the recipe was developed by my mother when we lived in a country where access to reasonably priced fresh meat was limited.

1/2 a Savoy cabbage, shredded and fried with 1 onion finely sliced so that the onion is soft and sweet, then the tin of beef stirred in. A tablespoon of Soy sauce and cooked till the cabbage is still a bit on the firm side. Total cost: $6

Usually, we would serve this with rice, but today was on it’s juicy own.
“Oh yeah” say boys.

Corned Beef and Cabbage.

Sometimes things are worth repeating.

Random Lunch Challenge–Don’t get in a pickle–brawn on pumpernickel!

Posted on 26 May 2013 by MaggieMay 28, 2013

Yes, we did get to do RLC this weekend despite all the other functions that were imminent, and as you can tell by the photo, our decision was largely influenced by ease of preparation. A 50th birthday do was to be cooked and set up for (see previous blog post); church morning tea the next day to cook for; the Marriage Course desserts to create….

Boy discovered some dark, rich pumpernickel bread and bought 2 packets for $4.40, each with 10 slices. We ended up using only 1 packet.

Tinned fish of the sprat/herring variety were thought of, but maternal intervention led to the challenge to think beyond this.

Boys disappeared and returned with 14 slices of 2 varieties of presswurst (brawn). To finish off, a slice of a fridge staple–pickled gherkins.
Quick to prepare, intensely tasty and substantial–3 or so sandwiches each for about $7.

You never know what you might get on a RLC.

50 today–Olé Olé Olé

Posted on 25 May 2013 by MaggieMay 26, 2013

I just couldn’t let it go.

And although it was relatively “last minute” I just had to celebrate my brother’s 50th with SOMETHING.

So, I hatched a plan and gathered the team.

A Spanish themed buffet meal:
*Slow cooked roast pork with cider and thyme;
*Silverbeet, raisin and pine nuts;
*Grilled vegetables;
*Potato and chickpeas with Spanish sherry vinaigrette;
*Traditional family coleslaw

A communal table, sheeted with butchers paper, felt tip markers supplied for everyone to draw a picture–a nod to my brother’s cartooning and artistic talents:

And, of course, the birthday cake:
*Vintage Port
*Chocolate,almond and quince torte with orange scented cream.

Family, feast and fifty…

Random Lunch Challenge- Smoked trout on sourdough with beetroot.

Posted on 19 May 2013 by MaggieMay 19, 2013

After an eye glasses malfunction and an emergency appointment with the optometrist, we finally sat down to our RLC lunch at almost 3:45pm.

Did we enjoy it !

Previously:
With a knowledge and appreciation of our Random Lunch Challenge, our visiting daughter /boy’s sister, who came to the market with us in the morning, suggested something that she had spotted that rather took her fancy.
Ours too, mind you, as she had discovered a whole smoked trout for $7.
Now, that is a large chunk of the RLC budget, but thinking how we could use the trout, we were able to pair it with some on sale sourdough and.. hmm, needs a little something else..
I love salmon and beetroot and knowing I had a small tub of home pickled beetroot in the fridge thought that that would be the something else the trout and sour dough needed.
It was.
Toasted sourdough, flaked smoked trout ,julienned beetroot with a dollop of fat free Greek yoghurt and a little dill frond.

Felt indulgent, and not our cheapest or biggest RLC but it was enough for 4 and cost just on $10.
And, did we ever enjoy it!
And daughter wasn’t even there for lunch!

Random Lunch Challenge–Eggs Florentine brunch and rose water cream and quince meringues for dessert

Posted on 11 May 2013 by MaggieMay 11, 2013

I went out for a Mothers Day breakfast hosted by my church this morning, but not really feeling like filling up on sweet pastries and somewhat hoping my family might take me out for brunch (as tomorrow is a different focus of a 30th birthday lunch) I was well and truly starving when I realized brunch out was not going to happen.

How to have some form of special treat on the RLC budget?
How to utilize what we had and managed to stumble upon?
This happened to consist of free home grown eggs, some smoked salmon off cuts, some wholemeal English muffins left over from hamburgers last night. Oh, and some spinach left over from a salad.

Boom boom-what else but eggs Florentine for brunch?

So we bought some hollondaise sauce ( $1), because I so did not want to make it.
And we stumbled upon a tray of 8 meringue nests for $1.50. Left over rose water cream from a Ispahan* dessert I made for a children’s group mothers day do and some stewed quinces topped the meringue off perfectly.
So a rough budget would be about $8. For mains and dessert. And the satisfaction of being a creative and resourceful mum.

*Ispahan is a signature flavour combination by French patissiere Pierre Herme Raspberry, lychee and rose are used in different items to make a divine taste sensation. I made raspberry jelly, lychee panna cotta and rosewater cream layered verrines.

Random Lunch Challenge–Smoked oyster patties

Posted on 5 May 2013 by MaggieMay 19, 2013

What in the world?? I hear you saying…
Yes, left overs and raiding the pantry are the parents of invention this week.
Not doing our usual market shop routine threw us out a bit this week, but I had left over mashed potato.
Tuna patties, boys?
Looking in pantry, a tin of smoked oysters was discovered.
How about smoked oyster patties?
BINGO!!

Mashed potato, smoked oysters, egg, finely diced celery, finely diced red onion and parsley and some breadcrumbs later we formed some decent sized patties to pan fry.

Served with a little salad, a surprisingly really delicious lunch for about $5.
Left overs and your pantry–the world is your oyster.

Random Lunch Challenge–Ricotta Hotcake Brunch

Posted on 27 April 2013 by MaggieMay 2, 2013

It was a struggle for RLC today–we were all slow off the mark and nothing seemed to “jump out” at us.

A bunch of dill made me think “Zucchini and dill hot cakes with smoked salmon.”
MMM. Hot cakes…
Then we realized that only one of us of us had had breakfast, and my blood sugar levels cried out for a serving of ricotta hot cakes with …something sweet.
Everyone in total agreement.
We had the option of some left over toffee sauce (from a sticky date pudding) that we could have with banana, then I remembered the bountiful supply of hand picked raspberries and boysenberries in the freezer.
So, one batch of Bill Granger’s ricotta hot cakes*, some warmed berries and some lemon zest infused Greek yoghurt and about $9 later, we were 4 much more well adjusted beings.

* See recipes

Random Lunch Challenge–Angel hair pasta, vongole and cherry tomatoes. Divine.

Posted on 20 April 2013 by MaggieApril 27, 2013

Today, Cheesey pancake boy (see previous RLC) was happy to come market shopping instead of wasting time sleeping all morning. I was impressed.
I was equally impressed when he was happy to do RLC.

All things fell into place once he spied a $2.50 tin of clams….

“At the same market store they had tins of lovely cherry tomatoes (2 400g tins for $3) and some thin angel hair pasta ($2). We put two and two together to get a lovely steaming bowl of clam and tomato pasta. In the 4 minutes it took to cook the pasta, we added oil, garlic and chilli in a pan and gently heated the tomatoes and clams with a handful of parsley. We put it all together at around $8.50 with leftover pasta. YUM!”–Boy

Do I need to say it??–I was impressed.

Random Lunch Challenge–Hot cheesey pancakes

Posted on 20 April 2013 by MaggieApril 20, 2013

Watching Yotam Ottolenghi’s program the other week was the flash point for last weeks RLC. With the picture of hot stuffed pancakes in mind, and knowing a friend was coming over that he wanted to do something special for, boy adamantly wanted to use pancakes as the foundation of the lunch, albeit savoury panckes, not sweet apple filled. The filling ended up being a mixture of ricotta cheese, goats cheese and grated colby with wilted spinach, salt flakes, freshly ground pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. The stuffing was placed on the uncooked top of the pancake in the pan, folded over so the sides would stick together. These large dumpling looking parcels were placed in an oven at 150 C to cook through. (We think we should have cooked them a wee bit longer in the pan for a bit more colour.)
Hot, tender pancakes with oozy cheesy filling and a green side salad–enough for us hungry 4 and a guest and 3 extra cost $9.
And friend really liked it.