My Kitchen Rules – does yours?

in the wake of channel ten’s Masterchef “surprise hit” (I’m sure ten weren’t so surprised, since they put it in a prime spot 5 nights a week and marketed the shit out of it), Australia seems to be in the grips of cooking/food mania. well, that was according to Tracy Grimjaw and her pals/rivals in the general outrage daily tabloid journalism shows, who seemed to be going on for several weeks about people cooking at home as if it was the latest fad craze. lol. people cooking food – can you imagine that!?

Anyway, channel 7 wants a a piece of the action and is rolling up their sleeves (of course television networks have sleeves, and sure, they can roll them up) and getting their hands dirty with new reality cooking competition show My Kitchen Rules. and as with Masterchef, they’re casting for entrants/characters/personalities. are you the next Julie or Poh? huh, punk, are you? well, actually, are you and your friend? yeah.. this is competing teams of two, so channel 7 can have both Poh and Julie win! take that, ten!

the casting agents, who’ve sent me two releases now (sorry casting peeps, I’ve been a slack blogger), are being pretty tight lipped with any details or further info and their application form on the website is one of those ones where you have to fill in and submit the first section before you get to the next one so I can’t even have a sticky beak around, but what I gather for now is that My Kitchen Rules will be somehow a competition between the states – the national championships of doubles reality tv cooking, if you will – and you somehow do the cook-offs in your own home kitchen. well, presumably the more presentable kitchen of the team mates.

this being reality tv, I bloody hope they would come round and help you spruce the place up a bit anyway, maybe with some well placed kitchenaid appliances and replacing your cookbooks/spices/food from the limited storage of your kitchen with, you know, totally useful stuff like a couple of tiny empty matching coloured vases, like they do on all the patronising reno-makeover reality shows… and hey, since they ask you to supply a photo of yourself, but not of your kitchen, perhaps they will… ?

anyway, does your kitchen rule? are you and/or your friend: cute / have a good sob story (um, I mean connection with the Austrayian public) / have an engaging personality / own a stupid collection of hats / can actually cook???? are you searching for your 15 mins of fame (we don’t even know what the proposed grand prize for MKR is!!) , and don’t mind filling out an application without being able to read through it before you start? here are the the terms and conditions which are otherwise located at the very end of the aforementioned application process. just in case you’d like to read them before you apply
if MKR sounds like your bag: you should go here immediately and sign up!

this puku post was proudly brought to you by this random old piece of onion I saw on the footpath on my way to work, and couldn’t resist taking a photo of.

random pretty decaying street onion. word.

rice paper rolls (on an allergy friendly diet!)

Check out these rice paper rolls. They’re made completely free of any common allergy/irritation foodthings! seriously!

rice paper rolls

miss n is on one of those ‘let’s find out which food thing/s is making you sick’ elimination diets, under the close care and supervision of her dietitian. She’s currently in stage 1, basically meaning: she can’t eat anything. well, you know, none of the fun stuff like cheese, wheat, soy, spices, strongly colours fruit and vege (her only fruit is pear. oh humble pear, methinks miss n will never be able to look at you again once she is through this) etc etc etc. but I love a challenge, so I invited her over for dinner!

Allergy / Elimination Diet Friendly Rice Paper Rolls

saute some chopped leeks, brussel sprouts, celery, green beans, drained tinned bamboo shoots, and chopped garlic in a little sunflower oil, with a tiny sprinkle of salt, until cooked bit still crunchy.

slice and toss some iceberg lettuce, celery and green/spring onions, and here I would have added fresh mung bean sprouts, but decided mine looked a bit too unfresh to eat.

chop some salted cashews.

assemble!

fill a large wide bowl/pan with recently boiled water, and keep the kettle handy to re-boil and top up the bowl. one at a time, submerse a rice paper sheet in the hot water for 5 seconds and carefully and quickly remove (with fingers if you possess asbestos hands like me, with tongs if you have 100% human appendages) and place flat on a plate. working quickly, make a little pile of the salad and sauted vege, and sprinkle with cashews, then wrap and roll:

there are a hundred ways of rolling these up (and you can buy either square or round paper) but in general: fold one long side (along filling), do a roll, fold the two sides in, roll the rest tightly. wry and work quickly, and place the rolled rolls onto a large plate as you go, try not to pile them up or pack the plate too closely or they’ll stick to each other.

stop rolling when you run out of one or another key component, or your friends insist you stop rolling because dude, you’ve made 5 million of them now, we WILL have enough to eat! that is, unless they’re eating as you roll (which is quite unsocial of them) in which case they will probably chain you to the kitchen counter to keep the supply up. you can circumvent this by not preparing, or t least not providing, the dipping sauce until you’re ready to stop rolling and get dipping and eating yourself.

Allergy-friendly dipping sauce: whisk / stir together some crushed garlic, sugar, salt, citric acid powder, water and sunflower oil, until the flavours are balanced and the sauce is dipping consistency. sorry, precise quantities are so not my strong point.

dip and eat!

dip or (to avoid loosing your roll filling when you double dip) drip and eat!

Notes on allergy-friendlyness and ingredient choices: I worked from the list of allowable and to-be-avoided foodthings as provided to miss n by her supervising dietitian. This does not, obviously, mean that no one will be allergic/intolerant to any of the ingredients listed above, or that I’m suggesting you stop eating any other foodthings than those included. If she had been allowed to eat them, I would so have included some coriander and mint in the salad, and some ginger, sesame oil and used fresh lemon/lime juice in the dipping sauce… but I was making something for a girlfriend who is currently a bit restricted in what she’s eating, and these still rocked! If you or a friend have other or different food restrictions, just substitute substitute substitute! and if you can eat whatever the hell you want, then make these anyway, and just add whatever the hell you want!

let’s go to Canbrrrr for a par-tay

one bonny saturday, several weeks ago, I threw caution (and the fact I’d had no sleep and too many jagerbombs the night before) to the wind, and accepted both an invitation, and last minute offer of lift, to Canbrrrr to attend a party. There was a bonfire. there was a live band in the garden. there was ridiculously too much food and drink, but also a chance to don apron and cook with miss c, always an extreme pleasure.

prep-ing a few greens - in mr j's awesomely retro kitchen

nick carves the slow-bbq'ed garlic-studded organic lamb

feast, in low light action

apple cake and stewed prunes

we forgot to add the roasted pears when serving the cake

miss c, certified fellow sufferer of Over-Caterers Anxiety syndrome - yes, that is 2 x stockpots filled with roasted pumpkin / root vege soup

I ate too much, it was cold, we lay on the rug in front of the heater talking late into the night.

it was swell.

the end.

(thanks Brett for the lift!)

Canbrrrians don't handle their drinks. literally!