MEATLOAF

Not this guy - my meatloaf is fully baked





Kind of like this but mine is more interesting.

I like meatloaf. I make mine from lamb mince, sausage meat, capsicum, onion, garlic, chilli paste or sauce, herbs (rosemary, basil, thyme), soy sauce, Worcester sauce, ground pepper, egg, breadcrumbs and sometimes add some bottled sweet peppers. 

I mix the lot up and separate into 3 or 4 small 'loaves', wrap in tin foil and freeze until I want to use them. When I eventually cook them I put in a small greased oven proof dish, loosely cover with foil and bake for about 20 minutes.  I make a gravy and serve with roast potatoes and green vegetables. Yummy. I find that the small 'loaf' is sufficient for two people but if The Old Girl isn't here then I cook the 'loaf' to make an evening meal using half and the remainder makes an excellent sandwich or two, sliced cold, the next day.

JUICED

Well THE MUNDANE CURMUDGEON was last night after drinking half a bottle of Rose and then opening a chardonnay for another glass. As THE FOOD CURMUDGEON it's my responsibility to see that CURMUDGEONS INCⓒ are eating in a healthy manner so detox is the order of today.

I found my NINJA BULLET juicer today.

It's been packed up since before I went to the UK and I'm pleased that it still works perfectly. This little machine smashes up everything so that you have a blend of juice and pulp with no waste. I make delicious and healthy blends of fruit and vegetable, choosing between capsicum, celery, carrot, tomato, grapes, apple, banana, orange, kiwifruit and lots of other things. The blend makes up my lunch with sometimes a slice of homemade bread.

Today I used orange, orange capsicum, carrot, apple and kiwifruit. Yummy.

FETTUCINE AND PESTO

The Genius Kitchen recipe 

Directions
place basil, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese in a food processor and process about 15 seconds.
With processor still on pour oil in through the tube in a steady stream till all the oil is used.
Turn off processor.
Cook fettuccine in salted boiling water to your taste.
Drain pasta well.

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Yeah, that'd work but I've adapted the recipe a bit and taken a short cut with the pesto sauce.

I buy Jamie Oliver Pesto sauce from the supermarket. I've worked out that I can get 3 meals out of the jar. The quality is very good and its much cheaper than buying fresh basil.

I quickly sauté chopped ham or chorizo, sliced capsicum, garlic, spring onion and pine nuts.

I cook fettucine and add the sauté mixture along with some of the pesto sauce, grated Parmesan and lemon juice.

The result? Marvellous

BACON AND EGG PIES

Thanks to the recommendation made by one of our most loyal followers THE FOOD CURMUDGEON has investigated and researched the bacon and egg pie situation in New Zealand and has the following to report.

So what is a bacon and egg pie?
Sure it sounds self explanatory but there are many variants out there in cafes, bakeries and those made at home.
Here's a simple version as promoted by Genius Kitchen:



shop.countdown.co.nz
Directions

leave the pastry out for 20 minutes at least to stop it from tearing when using.
Cut the rinds of the bacon and chop bacon.
Whisk eggs putting one yolk to the side.
Whisk in the milk or cream.
Chop onion.
Lay one sheet of pastry in a casserole dish and make sure it comes just over the sides of the dish.
More items...

Famous New Zealand Bacon And Egg Pie Recipe - Genius Kitchen
www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/famous-new-zealand-bacon-egg-pie-201918

Thank you Genius Kitchen.

This is a good standard recipe ideal for children, geriatrics and for people unused to more flavoursome foods. It most likely was generated in The Hutt Valley where the demographic is an  older, less adventurous population.

Bacon and egg pies there are likely to look like:

Home cooked

or,

From a bakery or pie shop


or,

From service station food counters



Straightforward, safe but ultimately boring.

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Further north the offerings are a little more adventurous:

Home cooking

Cafe

Bakery

It is important at this point to remind you that a bacon and egg pie is not a quiche like this one:

Quiche

Please remember that and take note that real men do not eat quiche - they eat bacon and egg pies.

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I make a particularly good bacon and egg pie myself. Broadly it is kind of like the base recipe as seen above from Genius Kitchen but with some variations. Sometimes I don't whisk the eggs but simply tip them whole out of the shell. I add some interesting bits and pieces of vegetable like capsicum, peas or potato and spice it up a bit with some chilli and herbs.

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In Whangarei the best bacon and egg pie I've had was in a cafe at 'The Basin' (Whangarei's marina area). This was superb and had all the extra spices and ingredients that I like but the addition of mushrooms is annoying. The Curmudgeon wrote a post on this some time ago see here:

THE BEST BACON AND EGG PIE IN THE WORLD

In Auckland the Wimmin's Cooperative Mamata bakery make some decent pies including a nice bacon and egg one. The balance between pastry and filling is just right and the bacon and egg  filling is moist. I hate those dried out versions that are to be found in cheap bakeries, the kind that you only take one bite out of:

I remember when working as a 'seagull' on Wellington's waterfront as a holiday job in the 1970s, in one of the work cafeterias someone had taken a bite out of a meat pie and put it back in the pie-warmer. Gross but funny.

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I have to run now as I'm off to play some golf but I trust that this was useful. Remember that we of CURMUDGEONS INCⓒ will always go the extra kilometer to bring you, the reader, what you want. Please feel free to submit requests for foods and eating experiences that you wish to know about.

I HATE CORIANDER

And that goes for Cilantro as well (although they are supposedly the same thing.

Coriander (Cilantro)

This bastard of a herb surfaced about twenty years ago in restaurants and cafes in New Zild and cooks and chefs for some reason think it's cool or clever to put it in almost every fucking dish they cook.

It smells horrible. It tastes horrible. It looks horrible and it ruins the taste of whatever it's sitting on or in. It's made by the devil.

This SBS report by Mikey Nicholson tries to explain why some people like coriander and some people hate it:

Whether you call it coriander or cilantro, there’s no denying it, this herb splits people into two camps - love or hate. But why does such a humble herb create such havoc on your dinner plate?

Enter genetics as a likely culprit.
A few years ago the largest genetic testing company 23andMe surveyed 50,000 of their customers asking whether they liked the taste of coriander or found it to be soapy.

The results when comparing the DNA of the coriander haters to that of coriander lovers found "a SNP (or genetic variation) called rs72921001 to be associated with the trait in a subset of about 25,000 people with European ancestry. (About 13 percent of 23andMe customers with European ancestry answered that cilantro tastes soapy, and 26 percent dislike it.)"
"Cilantro’s aromatic qualities primarily depend on a group of compounds known as aldehydes," states the report. "One type of aldehyde has been described as being 'fruity' and 'green' and another type as being 'soapy' and 'pungent'. One of the eight genes near the SNP we identified codes for a receptor called OR6A2, which is known to detect aldehydes such as those found in cilantro."
So - if you have those pesky OR6A2 receptors you're likely to taste soap and thus not enjoy this leafy herb. Case closed, right?
Nope.
As with most genetic research of this type, there's a necessary caveat: “although this finding provides evidence that genetic variation in olfactory receptors is involved in cilantro (coriander) taste perception, common genetic variants explain only a very small part of the difference — a half percent.”
So you might also struggle getting it down because other factors, such as your ethnographics. Another study has found that if your family aren’t big coriander lovers or users then you're less likely to be into it as well. Know what that means? There’s hope for you with a little coriander persistence!

OK but I'm not convinced that this weed deserves all that investigation and analysis. If I wanted to ruin my meals with weeds I'd just put some deadly nightshade or thistles on my dinner.

Today The Old Girl and I had brunch at a busy and trendy Auckland cafe. The breakfasts we ordered - poached eggs, bacon, avocado, creamed fetta and tomatoes for me and herbed scrambled eggs with halloumi for her were quite nice but totally ruined by over liberal use of fucking coriander.

This herb is so strong that it overpowers the flavours of any food that it is with. I guess that its main usefulness in the past was for disguising tastes and smells of rotten food.

What I can't understand is why cafes don't list it in the advertised menu or have it as an optional addition. No meal comes with hot mustard or chillies without being mentioned but they think that coriander/cilantro is alright. Well it's not. OK?

IN A HURRY

I have to go to The Club tonight so had to prepare a quick tea before I go.
There wasn't time to prepare anything grand so I looked in the vegetable bins and the freezer and made:

Lamb sausages with a potato, kumara and pumpkin mash.

Simple but delicious.