Rhonda Bracey: At Random

So, there I was last night, surfing the cable TV channels in the few minutes before turning out the light and drifting off into the Land of Nod… when I stopped in on the “Martha Stewart” show ‘cos she was doing some great stuff with a big old roast turkey. The stuffing looked and sounded sublime and I’ll have to hunt her website for it. (Found it! video here; turkey recipe; fruit and nut stuffing recipe)

Now Martha’s show is not one that I watch – I’ve seen maybe 5 or 10 minutes of her in my entire life. But this turkey roast thing was terrific. She had a guest (one of the guys from “Desperate Housewives”?) and the conversation about the turkey and what they were doing to it was full of double entendres. Martha was getting all flustered and finally said that she was becoming “discombobulated”.

I nearly fell over! It’s not often I’ve heard that word, and usually it’s come from the mouths of software developers. So I was surprised that Martha used it – and correctly too!

I wonder how many of her audience and viewers took a little trip to the dictionary after that episode.

(Oh, and the episode was part of her “30 Things Everyone Should Know” series.)

We’d been meaning to try the wineries just north of Perth for a while, and today was it! It was an absolutely glorious winter’s day – and warm enough for just a T-shirt for most of the time. Off we went with another couple and headed north to Bullsbrook, then Chittering Rd where we followed the wine trail and tasted the wine at all bar one of the wineries.

First stop was Kyotmunga wines where the Classic White and the Grenache took our fancy, then on to Western Range and Stringybark where nothing stood out as being worth buying. We though of having lunch at Stringybark but the day was too nice to be inside in a dark dining area.. and besides the prices were fairly steep. So instead we drove on to Bindoon where we had the most fabulous pies (REAL steak in them!) at the bakery. We got extremely well fed for around $20 for the 4 of us… entrees at Stringybark were around $18 each and mains were close to $30 each, so I think we did well with the pies!

Next stop was Briery Estate just west of Bindoon, where we sat on the verandah in the sun enjoying the wide range of wines, talking to the owners, and feeding the lamb!

Next we lobbed in at Riseborough wines, which, unlike the others so far, was very high tech/modernist. And just look at the colour of that Rose!

Finally, we stopped at Jylland Wines about 30 minutes before closing time at 5:00pm. Another place where you could sit out on the verandah and enjoy the winter sunshine. So we did.

And here’s where we went…

I did some batch cooking today – chilli mince, a favourite! Cheap meal with LOTS of goodies in it… and a lot of chilli. Here’s a sort of recipe, but it’s one of those home cooking/comfort food dishes where you put in a bit of this and a bit of that – whatever you have to hand at the time.

• 1kg lean beef mince (2lb ground beef for the Americans)
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 or 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 4 large-ish mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 red capsicum (red pepper), chopped
• 2 cans kidney beans
• 1 can chopped/diced tomatoes
• 1 packet chilli con carne mix (I use “Old El Paso”)
• 1 good shake of McCormick’s Spicy BBQ spice
• 1 good shake cajun spice
• 1 big dollop of a fiery chilli sauce! (if you’re not a big chilli fan, leave this out)

In a large pot (I use a soup pot), lightly fry the diced onions in a squirt of olive oil. Add the carrots and celery. Crumble in the mince and brown it. Stir in the can of tomatoes and the cans of red kidney beans. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, and red capsicum. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring every so often so that it doesn’t stick. Add all the spices and the chilli – mix in well. Simmer for about 40 mins, stirring every 5-10 minutes.

While it tastes good straight away, it tastes even better after a day! I usually put the mix into takeaway containers and freeze it in meal size packs. This recipe above created at least 5 meals for the two of us.

Serving suggestions:

• over pasta as a Bolognese sauce
• with rice
• as the base for Shepherd’s/potato pie
• as the meat part of nachos

In 1986 I had the pleasure of living and working in Canada for some 13 months. One of the delights of that year was discovering muffins! Especially blueberry muffins…

Somewhere along the way I picked up a little spiral bound muffin cookbook, which I have used ever since. It has THE most delicious muffin recipes in it, and our favourite is “Marilyn’s Blueberry” muffins – which I made this afternoon. I reckon I’ve made thousands of blueberry muffins using this recipe – it’s so quick and easy, and they taste delicious.

Here’s the recipe (just multiply the quantities for more muffins!); you’ll need three mixing bowls for this recipe:

• PDF version (US measures) for printing out
• PDF version (metric measures) for printing out

TEMP: 400F (I use 180-200C)
TIME: 20 mins
MAKES: 12 large muffins

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour (Australia: plain flour)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (or 1 can if you don’t have fresh)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar

Note:

• 1/4 cup = 60 ml / 2 oz
• 1/2 cup = 120 ml / 4 oz
• 1 cup = approx 250 ml / 8 oz
• 1.5 cups = 350 ml / 12 oz

METHOD:

1. In a small bowl, beat eggs, milk and butter.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and the 2 tablespoons of sugar.
3. Stir the liquid ingredients in the small bowl into the dry ingredients in the large bowl.
4. In the third bowl, mix together the blueberries with the remaining sugar and flour.
5. Gently fold the blueberry mixture in to the ‘cake’ mixture in the large bowl.
6. Fill muffin cups and bake at 400F (200C) for approximately 20 minutes.

BTW, I found that you can still get the book online from at least one secondhand bookseller. The authors are Bidinosti and Wearring and the book is “Muffins: a cookbook”; my copy was published in 1982 by Muffins Publishing, Inc. and is the 9th printing (1984).

Update (8 August 2007): Picture of very ‘bursty’ blueberry muffins sitting in the late afternoon sunlight made yesterday. These were made with frozen blueberries and had been out of the oven about 5 minutes when I took the photo.

Update (16 July 2009): Added metric and imperial measures for cups

Update (26 May 2010): Added PDF versions of this recipe for you to print out:

• PDF version (US measures) for printing out
• PDF version (metric measures) for printing out

We joined a group of about 15 ex-colleagues yesterday for the retirement lunch of one of them. Gorgeous winter’s day that felt like spring (I wore a short-sleeved top and didn’t feel the slightest bit cold), great company, terrific food. But the service! In a word, it was ABYSMAL.

And there was no excuse. The restaurant was not full, the orders were not complex (we all chose from the standard menu – no special diets needed to be catered for), most people had only one course, and we were a very reasonable and mature crowd. It started well enough. The waitress deliberately went around the table in sequence taking our orders; I assumed she was doing this so that when she came back with the dishes she knew where they were to go. And no, we didn’t move around as sometimes happens in a large group.

The 4 or 5 entrees (appetizers for the North Americans out there!) came out and were delivered to the right people. So far, so good.

Then the main courses came out. First, they came in dribs and drabs – one person got her meal after some of the others had finished theirs. Next, the waitress delivering the meals would sort of stand and shout “Who had the fish?”; she didn’t have a voice that projected, so she wasn’t heard. Luckily, many on the table were teachers or ex-teachers, so voice projection was not a problem for us. But what happened to the careful sequence in which she’d taken the orders? Next, she came out with two dishes on large square plates with a decent centre indentation – and as she’s trying to ask “Who had the “Fresh from the Field” vegetarian dish?” she tips one of the plates on an angle so that the sauce ran from the centre indentation off the plate and down one of our party’s back and chair! Was there an apology? Perhaps, but it was done so quietly I didn’t hear it. Was there a replacement chair? Nope. Was the woman offered some water and help to sponge off the sauce? Nope. Was she offered free dry-cleaning for her top and perhaps her trousers? Nope. She had to get her own replacement chair as the girl walked off as though nothing had happened.

Later, when the dessert menu came out, two of the party ordered a liqueur and a port to go with the cheese board they were sharing. Cheese board came… no drinks. Coffee came… no drinks. So one of those who’d ordered a port and was nibbling at the cheese because it really DOES taste much better with port, asked the (different) waitress delivering the coffee about the drinks. She said “I’m only doing the coffee” and walked off!

Many of us hadn’t seen each other in years, so there was a lot of chatter. Which means we sat and enjoyed the afternoon. No more water was delivered to the table despite repeated requests; no-one was asked again for repeat coffee orders (and at $3.50 a cup, they could’ve got another $50 off the table with that simple question); no one asked if we wanted more drinks. And then to top off this appalling service, one of the waitresses came by around 3pm and said that the table was reserved for another party! This when there were at least 50 vacant chairs/tables in the room. Whoever that party was, they sure hadn’t arrived. The waitress suggested we go sit in another location. Well, that was it – we all left! So they really did their dough on that one.

And I just remembered a couple of other botch-ups. Three of us decided to share a bottle of local wine listed on the Wine List. We ordered it, and some time later the waitress (possibly a different one again) came out to tell us that the wine shouldn’t be long – they didn’t have any and someone had gone off to the winery to get some! The other was the desserts – all were served without cutlery and we had to ask. And then all we got was a teaspoon, not a fork and spoon as you’d expect.

As I said, the food was great. But the service was shameful, embarrassing, and an absolute disgrace. And this in one of the BIG tourist areas of our city. God forbid what someone from overseas would’ve thought of it.

Oh, and where did this all happen? Chapel Farm on Toodyay Rd in the Swan Valley.

Those of you who know me well know that I like a good margarita! So when bananas get back to a decent price in Australia, I'll make this (the Queensland banana crop was wiped out by Cyclone Larry in March 2006 and so banana prices are through the roof at the moment).

• 1 lime wedge
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
• caster sugar (for the glasses)
• 3 peeled bananas 
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• 1/4 cup whole milk 

Rub rims of 2 glasses with lime. Spread caster sugar on a plate and dip the rims into the sugar to coat. Fill blender half way with ice cubes. Add lime juice, bananas, sugar and milk. Blend until combined. Taste for sweetness – add more sugar, if required. Pour into glasses and serve immediately.

We decided to get our last 'fix' of Indian food last night, at a little restaurant in South Perth called the Suriyen (Meadowvale Shopping Centre, 298 Mill Point Rd [9367 3809] for the locals). We know it'll be at least 5 or 6 weeks before we can get any decent Indian food – our previous experiences in the US have confirmed that they do great SouthWest/Tex-Mex but horrible Indian!

As usual they were doing a good trade in takeaways, but we were the only people in the restaurant. Such a shame – this place has GREAT food, friendly waiters, and good prices. But it's rare that we've seen it full. It opens 7 nights a week, so it must be a real strain for the owners to keep going.

Back to the food – our favourites are the Chilli Chicken Dry (hot) and the Beef Vindaloo (also hot); the Goat Curry is pretty darned good too. Served with Kashmiri Pilau and Cheese Naan it's food that we can – and do – eat often!

We're already looking forward to returning for our Indian 'fix' the first few days we're back from the trip.

(BTW, "tucker" is Aussie slang for "food")