Off to the freezer it goes…

It doesn’t get any easier than this…thanks to TV1’s Good Morning show 5 June 2012.

Prep Time: 15 (possibly a little longer – there’s a ton of veges to peel)
Cook time: 45-60
Cost: $18 (where do these guys shop? By my reckoning, $2.50 for the pumpkin, $2.00 for the kumara, and $1.00 for the spuds – everything else was minor consumables from the pantry.)
Serves: 6 (I guess it all comes down to your definition of large for the pumpkin and kumara – this made enough for three, maybe fours times as many people – I had trouble finding a pot big enough for all the ingredients – Gran’s jam making bowl comes in handy once again!)

Ingredients

1 large pumpkin, peeled and diced
3 large kumara, peeled and diced
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large onion, diced
3 tablespoon dry chicken or vegetable stock
2 litres of water
1 tablespoon of curry powder (had to double this to get the curry flavour to come through – probably three tablespoons would be closer to useful)
Salt & pepper (at least a tablespoon of salt – no tads or smidgens for this recipe, all big kid’s quantities)

Method

Place all ingredients in a pot (apart from salt and pepper) and submerge the vegetables with water covering
them to the top.

Place on a low heat for 45-60 minutes until soft.

Use a potato masher or blender for a creamy effect.

Before serving, check the flavour add salt and pepper if needed.

Serve with garlic bread.

The pot on the left was heaped with the ingredients so I had to transfer everything to Gran’s jam pot on the right…

One rolled and complete, one open to show the filling…this might be the time to add a little sweet chili sauce, possibly a little chunky salt as well…

My start point was a container of butter milk that had just reached its ‘best by’ date…I didn’t even know what buttermilk was let alone remember what we bought it for – clearly to use in something but what? And, more importantly, what to use it in now as I am always loath to hiff an unopened container of food just because it’s time is up – it just seems so wasteful…

Cyber-searching found me this at Holy Khao:

‘Gredients

• 1 cup finely chopped baby spinach (tightly packed) – washed & drained
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 pinch nutmeg [optional]
• 1 cup pancake mix (see below)
• ¼ cup fat free cheese (I used crumbled feta) – [optional]
• Oil/ cooking spray for cooking (we ALWAYS use butter for pan cake cooking)

For the pancake mix, I fell back (shouldn’t drink and cook, eh?) on the tried and true Edmonds recipe, found on page 129 in that classic Kiwi icon, the Edmonds Cook Book (2010):

• One cup of flour
• one egg (I used two because I can and because we have a surplus of eggs big time) – The eggs probably affect the freezability of the pan cakes – next I will try sans eggs.
• Any thing that was already listed above was left out.

Cheese is optional. Add any seasoning to adapt to your tastes.

Fillin’

I’m not really that much of a starter for sweet pan cakes but love ’em savoury…Looking at what else I needed to consume in the fridge, I grabbed:

• Half-a dozen cheery tomatoes. If you don’t have half a dozen, six will do.
• Half a dozen small fresh mushrooms.
• 1/4 medium onion.
• 4-5 decent size mint leaves.
• A decent handful of parsley – probably about a cup unchopped.
• One small carrot, topped’n’ tailed.

Bonus points

1. It has chili in it.
2. The cooked pancakes can be frozen.

Assembly

Place the filling ingredients all in the Tupperware Terminator Minigun of Kitchen Utensils and rev it up like you’re starting the mower on a cold day…

Place the blended components in a bowl and set aside.

Measure out baking soda, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chilli powder.

Gently mix with buttermilk so it can start its leavening reaction and set aside 2 minutes. (I missed this step and so the leavening was uneven)

Stir in spinach & feta till just incorporated.

Gently stir in pancake mix till mixed and no lumps are visible. Do not overmix.

Cook 1/4 cup batter on a hot griddle till golden brown like regular pancakes.

Place a proportional dollop (amount of filling divided into number of pancakes) on each pancakes and roll into a…what else…a roll.

These passed the taste and texture test in their own right but I had them with some venison sausages because, yup, you guessed it, I had some of these in the fridge also in need of consumption…

Three pan cakes and three sausages (they’re not THAT big) certainly hit the spot and just about wiped me out. I have two left over in the fridge and will try these tonight with the same filling but with a tad of chili sauce mixed in as well…

Edit:

– Yeah Baby!!! That filling was great with a couple of tablespoons of sweet chili sauce mixed into it – next time I might try adding some chili flakes to the mix instead.

– The nagging itch at the back of my mind finally coalesced into something tangible: if I added bulgar wheat to the filling, it’d be tabbouleh – I think that itch was what nudged me towards the filling in the first place: I actually subconsciously wanted tabbouleh..

I went through a bit of a vegetarian phase last week…well, not quite, I looked up a few recipes at healthyfood.co.nz but this was the only one that I made…

Ingredients

For the spicy peanut sauce

• 1/2 teaspoon oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 small pinch ground chilli
• 1 squeeze lemon juice
• 1/4 cup trim milk

For the vegetables

• 1 egg, hard boiled
• 1 medium potato, scrubbed and cubed
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut in quarters lengthwise
• 1/2 cup broccoli florets
• cauliflower or other seasonal veges (I usually use 2 cups of veges in total)
• snow peas or a few beans if you have them

Step 1

Steam the veges till tender (the egg can hard-boil in the saucepan of water that you set the steamer on top of).

Step 2

While the veges are cooking, prepare the sauce. Heat the oil in a small pan or saucepan. Cook the onion and garlic until tender then mix in the ginger. Add the peanut butter, soy sauce, chilli and lemon juice and mix well, then gradually stir in the milk.

Step 3

Simmer the sauce until thickened. If it becomes too thick, simply add a dash more milk. When the veg are cooked, pile them onto a warm plate. Slice the egg into quarters and use the spicy peanut sauce for dipping.

Overall, I found this take on the recipe rather bland, nice for sure but not stunning. The only deviation I made from the recipe was for using frozen stir-fry veges instead of those listed in on the page but the blandness lay in the nutty sauce…

The next night, I changed tack and eliminated the veges in favour of some of those superb Hellers sausages that have been on sale the last few months at New World. I made the sauce as advertised but upgraded the ‘small pinch’ of ground chili to a full teaspoon – Woohoo! Now we’re cooking!!! That really is now SPICY peanut sauce…

Of course, now, I have to be somewhat cautious because I detest peanut butter on toast, pancakes, scones, pikelets or anything else except as an ingredient in cooking but this is so nice with the extra chili that I am going to have to try it again…and again…but woe will be me should I expend the last of the peanut butter on a mere sauce…