Breville Fast Slow Pro Recipe #1

Excitedly, we prepared our Ribollita toscana for tonight’s dinner. It. Was. Awesome. The beans were creamy, the savoy cabbage smelled great and the stems and kale still had some chew. It didn’t need the parmesan but the cheese was a nice savory treat. None of the veggies were mushy. And each serving is only about 215 calories. I want to pressure cook *everything* now.

1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1¼ cups dried borlotti or cannellini beans, soaked and drained (see note)
100g tinned tomatoes
1 potato, diced
250g Tuscan cabbage, cut into thin strips
250g savoy cabbage, cut into thin strips
250g silverbeet, white stalk discarded and leaves cut into thin strips
150g stale bread without crusts, cut into large chunks
50g good quality parmesan, grated

Select SAUTÉ/SEAR function and set the timer for 10 minutes. Add 2½ tablespoons olive oil, onion, celery and carrot. Press START and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the beans, tomato, potato, 4 cups of water and 4 large pinches of salt. Select PRESSURE COOK and Medium pressure. Set timer for 15 minutes. Place lid on cooker and close the valve. Press START.

Once cooking time is complete open the valve to release all the steam before opening. Add the Tuscan and savoy cabbages and the silverbeet. Select PRESSURE COOK and High pressure. Set timer for 15 minutes. Place lid on cooker and close the valve. Press START.

Once cooking time is complete open the valve to release all the steam before opening the lid. Season to taste. Add the bread and stir through. Transfer to a large bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight to allow flavours to develop.

To serve, reheat and serve topped with grated parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Note The dried beans should be soaked for a minimum of 8 hours in the fridge with at least three times the volume of water.

espresso again

Rancilio says 14g yields 3oz in 15-20 seconds. I returned to the spouted portafilter and tried 16g and a yield of 2-3oz in 15 seconds. I jacked the stopwatch of the first one but achieved zero channeling as far as I can see (photo above). I pulled 3oz. My second shot also resulted in zero channeling, was on the upper end of 16g (there was some water leakage due to being too full), and 2oz including crema. This was the better shot. As for my milk, there is little screaching but I’m still not achieving microfoam.

Here’s my third try today with decaf:

17g in the portafilter; scooped out to a reading of 16g. ~2oz in 15 seconds. There was some channeling on the right hand side. Espresso tastes better but not quite there.

espresso

18g of costa rica sonia vega newly opened after roasting on 1 july — 17g + 1 bean to make it 18g. pulled all the grounds out of the rocky grinder; weight of ground coffee in naked portafilter = 18g. ~18 sec brew/extraction. i’ve tasted worse. i did manage to keep the milk from screaching but it wasn’t super foamy.

peach cobbler

we actually got to use some of our peaches this year. granted, at least half of them were wormy but i ate quite a few and i made cobbler out of these 8. we kept the same 4 cups of peaches but halved everything else and even halved again the wet half of the sugar.

jalapeno cilantro hummus

a few weeks ago, we shopped at Rainbow Acres and needed lunch. we decided on a jalapeno cilantro hummus wrap that was *delicious*. armed with a new hummus recipe, we made our own. m said that next time, we need to add more water and more salt. but, man, it was so good. ironically, the baba ghanoush that i made was actually hotter than the hummus and i even broiled the jalapenos. we only had 3/4 cup of dried chickpeas in the pantry so that’s what we used.

Walking down the street

We have been walking more lately and this flower has totally caught our collective eye:

This photo doesn’t do justice to the yellow-red gradient. We also saw this monarch today in our front yard:

Babaghanoush

I made SG’s babaghanoush again today. I think this recipe needs a home on this blog:

1 lb broiled japanese eggplant (poke; cover in oil; roast until charred; seeds ok)
Roast jalapeños; not too charred
Roast garlic and shallots at 450
(I just broil everything…)
Let all cool
Scoop eggplant pulp with some charred skin (not too much) into bowl
Chop jalapeños
Mix

Add:
Tahini
Lime juice
Black cardamom (~1/4 tsp); crush seeds not pod
Salt/pepper
Cilantro
Olive oil (adds sweetness)
Garnish: scallions, cilantro, paprika, olive oil, black cardamom (grate outside pod)

If it’s too pasty, there’s too much tahini. Add more eggplant and lime juice.

Don’t use a food processor. It will last 3 days.

Party size: 2lbs eggplant (the 2 of us just ate 2lbs of eggplant so the party size should be closer to 4)

In the style of things organized neatly, here I am trying to arrange everything so the little stuff doesn’t get too charred and the big stuff gets enough in the right places!

New Zealand Diva

This apple is not in our apple book. It’s firm and juicy (big cells; like a Honeycrisp to me). It browns at the cut edges fairly quickly. The skin is snappy. It’s very pretty with its red stripes. We would buy it again.

smoked whitefish

oh. my. goodness. we were at santa monica seafood today and whitefish is on sale. i had a brilliant idea that we could smoke it in our cameron stovetop smoker. we bought 6 ounces and then seasoned with salt and pepper over a tablespoon of alderwood chips for 10 minutes. both the thick and narrow ends were cooked perfectly. fish with a hint of smoked sausage. easy clean up. no cooking fat. we should do this every week.

Sunflower Sprouts

…didn’t work in a canning jar with the perforated top and I don’t know why. After 4 days of trying to make them grow nice and white, I dumped them.