Butter makes the world better

Is there nothing butter can not improve?

Butter Burgers

In a bowl mix together with your hands minced beef, a couple of good tablespoons of tomato paste, garlic powder (if using fresh garlic, finely grate it in(or crush it) you can also add grated onion too, but make sure you use a fine grater so it produces a pulp), and grated butter.

Then roll up balls of the meat mix and flatten out in to patties, ready to fry or bbq (I usually can't be bothered with the clean up that comes with a fry up on the stove, so chucked them in a super hot oven)

The meat patty, slice of tomato, cheese, and tomato relish with a bit of aioli on a toasted bun = super tasty burger. After it had been scoffed down, i remembered i had some home made pickled beets in the fridge that should of got between the buns but oh well next time.

A couple of quackers

Roast duck was on order for the weekend (above photo is after the birds had been drying out in the fridge for 24 hours).

As I had never roasted a whole duck before, a bit of research was in order, and in the end decided Crispy Chinese Duck was in order.

Salted Caramel Peanuts

These are super simple and great tasting.

Put into a pot over a medium heat about 1 cup of raw peanuts, 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar.

Let it simmer until the liquid caramelizes (stirring occasionally, too much stirring will cause crystals to form which can seize the caramel), be careful near the end as there is a fine line between burnt sugar and a nice dark caramel.

Sprinkle into the pot about 1/2 tsp of salt, pour onto a tray lined with baking paper and spread out to a single layer.

When cooled slightly, sprinkle over salt (if it's too hot the salt with dissolve in to the caramel).

When completely cool, break into individual nuts.

Should store well for about a week, but they wont last that long.

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Semolina...

It's crazy how supermarkets bury away the cheaper options on their shelves. This weeks shop we were hunting for some polenta (we have a preferred brand) but could only find $6+ packets of the stuff, after a hunt managed to find our favorite brand in the "international" section (which is usually more expensive) for only $3. Also the same for fine semolina, 500g packs were all above the $6 mark, which is crazy expensive, but then when checking out the Instant Pudding section found a pack for $3.

Well the polenta and semolina got put to good use last night, Polenta with grilled sausages and ratatouille. Semolina apart from being able to make tasty pudding from it, and creating a great crust on breads/pizza, loosens polenta so it doesn't set into the firm brick it usually does.

Semolina/Polenta
125g each of Fine Semolina & Instant Polenta
2 Litres of Water/Stock (+salt if just water)
Big knob of butter

Bring the water with the butter to a boil and then scatter in the mixed polenta/semolina while whisking so no lumps form. Stir on the heat until the desired consistency is reached. Take off the heat and serve as is, or stir in some cheese (last night stirred in a good portion of ricotta which enhanced the creamy texture).

Ratatouille
Well probably not the traditional recipe but was tasty. Browned off some onions, shallots & garlic in a pan then added cubed eggplant, sliced carrots & diced capsicum with a good bunch of sage, thyme & bay leaves. Seasoned and then added a can and half of good quality tomato.

Either leave it to simmer on a stove or chuck it in the oven for about 45 min (although I think you could probably leave it longer).

Quick and Easy

Nothing to complicated for us tonight, we had some good beef sausages, and a whole heap of veges.

We had beetroot, parsnip, onion, carrots and potatoes, seasoned them and then roasted them for about half an hour and then added in the sausages with a dressing made from mustard, cider vinegar and capers, and then finished them off for about another half hour.

Bit too lazy tonight, but thought a nice mushroom gravy to finish it off with would be nice.

Interesting post on Cooking Issues

can be seen here

Wrapped up...

Had some tasty skirt steak last night, coated in white pepper, coriander, garlic and chili powder. Grilled it on the stove and finished in the oven. We had it in tortillas with a raw beetroot salad and sour cream.

Beetroot Salad: Peel and julianne Beets, grate in carrot, thinly sliced spinach, dress with oil, lemon and mustard.

A must do pork dish...

Caught a recipe by Michael Chiarello on Food TV the other day and had to try it out.

Check out the recipe here

We served it with tortillas, pickled onions & salad greens, very tasty.

Pesto

This is a really simple, cheap and tasty pesto.

Ingredients
Parsley (I used Curly, not the continental parsley)
Basil (about 1/4 the amount of parsley)
Chunk of Parmesan
Clove or 2 of garlic
Cashew nuts (I find the sweetness and high oil content of these nuts balance the parsley really well)
Water (a couple of tablespoons)
Olive Oil (about 1/4 of a cup or more)
Salt and Pepper
Lemon Juice

Method
Chuck everything (minus the oil and water) in a blender/food processor and blitz until roughly chopped up (you may have to scrape down a couple of times). Then add the water and blitz again, then the oil (add enough until you get a thick paste).

Season with salt and pepper to taste, and toss through some hot pasta.