Food glorious food

Thermal Cooker – new appliance for rig

| Chris Riley

We’ve been researching Thermal Cookers, which are a non powered slow cooker, in principle based on the old Hay Box. The Dream Cooker is the most well known version and costs over $300.00. I’m usually of the opinion that you get what you pay for, and most often cheaper substitutes are inferior to the real deal. In this case though I did some research, and decided on a cheaper version. I’ve bought the seven litre Campfire Travel Chef.

My new toy.
My new toy.

It was just over $150 from Ray’s Outdoors. We’ve found Ray’s Outdoors to be a fantastic store to deal with, and the price of faulty or unsatisfactory goods is refunded without question from any Ray’s Outdoors anywhere in the country. Not only that, you don’t even need your receipt providing you have given them your details. In this case our choice of thermal cooker was mainly influenced by our choice of retailer, and this was the only type Rays sold. So, retailer chosen, we headed off to purchase our thermal cooker. Apparently they are going to be having a sale this coming weekend, so the salesman volunteered an unasked for discount. We ended up only paying $102 for it. Gotta be happy about that.

My first attempt was cacciatore chicken. The process is to get all the ingredients to a good simmer in the inside saucepan. When at a good simmer, approximately 20 minutes cooking time on the stove top, you remove the saucepan without lifting the lid and place inside the thermal outer reciprocal, seal the lid and leave unopened for the required amount of time. For this dish it took approximately three hours, of just being left alone untouched in the thermos. (This will be really good for happy hours – prepare before imbibing, then return to delicious fully cooked, hot meal).

My first attempt - chicken cacciatore.
My first attempt – chicken cacciatore.

Before we went to bed  I put together a boiled pineapple fruit cake. The following morning though it was still soft. I think I should have had more water in the bottom saucepan. I put it in the oven for twenty minutes and it’s turned out to be a very tasty,  moist cake. If fully cooked properly in the Thermos outer skin it would have been very pale on top. Next time hopefully I’ll perfect it without the help of the oven.

Fruit cake, not yet perfected in method. Tastes pretty damned good though.
Fruit cake, not yet perfected in method. Tastes pretty damned good though.

The next day before we departed towards Airlie Beach I started off a joint of corned silverside (piece of salted beef similar to a gammon joint), added potatoes and carrots, and sealed it up. Eight hours later after we’d relaxed with a drink at the end of the days traveI I only needed  to add the greens, and the mustard sauce. How easy was that. For those of you familiar with this dish you’ll know it’s usually served with a hot white/mustard sauce. I do a cheats version for on the road – sour cream mixed with whole grain mustard, so easy. Apologies for those of you who would have liked to drool over the fully plated dinner – I forgot to get Paul to photograph it before we dug in. You’ll have to make do with just seeing the left overs ready for salads and sandwiches.

Yummy Aussie corned beef - shame the UK butchers and supermarkets haven't got onto this gourmet delight.
Yummy Aussie corned beef – shame the UK butchers and supermarkets haven’t got onto this gourmet delight.

I think this little addition to my caravan kitchen is sure to add another dimension to good eats on the road. A welcome break to barbecues and salads.

Land of milk & honey, and apples & blackberries

| Chris Riley

We’re currently on the East Coast staying at Bicheno. Bicheno is a lovely little coastal holiday town with the prettiest of beaches.

We’ve taken several road trips from here, North, South and East. The coast line both north and south is equal to any I’ve seen on the mainland, perhaps with the exception of Broome’s Cable Beach, and the beaches nearby to Broome. The drawback though of course is that Broomes beaches are tropical and easy to swim in. We’re yet to venture into the waters here, although today we were tempted. Tomorrow maybe if it’s as hot as it was today.

A few days ago we took a drive North to St Helens, and then East towards Bridport. Leaving the coast and heading inland was like driving into a totally different country. The road twisted and turned up and down steep hills with cool rain forest on either side. The tree ferns were huge, and lush, and green, and at least rivalled those in Northern Queensland for beauty. When the rain forest stopped, the greenest pastures took their place.

We drove in to a famous Tasmanian pub, ‘The Pub in the Paddock’, and yes it’s just that, a pub in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a huge paddock. We had a drink there whilst enquiring about camping options. It seems free camping is common in the field at the side of the pub providing one has a fully self contained vehicle. The field looks out onto beautiful hilly pasture land. So, next week we’ve promised ourselves a night there after we leave here.

On the way back to the main road we called into the Pyengana Dairy to sample some cheese and home made ice cream. The cheese was delicious so we bought two types, and we each bought a leather-wood honey flavoured ice cream. It really did have undertones of both leather and wood – and was really nice and very different. I don’t know if Leather-wood honey is available elsewhere in the world, or on the mainland. If it is I’ve never noticed it. It seems to be a bit iconic here.

Then, almost one of the best ‘almost experiences’. Across the road from the dairy a few people had gathered to watch the cows in a field, so we wandered across with our ice creams to see what was so special about a field of cows. It turned out to be a small paddock which seemed to be set aside for calving, and a calf had just arrived. The cow was cleaning it as it tried to find it’s feet. We watched it for nearly an hour as it struggled to it’s feet, only to give a bit of a drunken stagger towards the teats and topple down again. And then, another cow came up to within a couple of metres of the fence and went into a very zoned out state. It was clear another calf was about to make it’s entrance to the world.

We watched as each contraction hit the cow and rippled from her front legs, across her belly and she haunched her back legs in giving a bit of a push. Myself and another lady laughed when we realised we both tensing up and pushing along with her. We watched for around an hour, but we had such a long drive ahead of us and there was no way of knowing how close the birth was going to be, so sadly we had to leave. The new born had found it’s feet, but hadn’t quite found the teat yet, so seeing a calf have it’s first meal, and witnessing an unborn calf be born wasn’t to be for us that day. Paul had to almost leave without me…. I so wanted to stay.

Anyway, we’re going back that way again next week, and if any new calves are as obviously on their way into the world, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to witness the whole thing.

I’ve spoken about the milk and honey. Now about those apples and blackberries. We went for a walk along a beach walking track yesterday. Growing on public land next to the track was an apple tree full of ripe apples, just hanging there waiting to be picked. So, we took just one each to munch on as we walked along. It was sweet, crisp and juicy. We had no sooner finished that when we came across heaps of blackberry brambles choc-a-bloc full of plum, ripe blackberries. We picked a hand full each to nibble as we walked along.

Things like blackberries and apples on public land aren’t unusual here. It’s amazing. Tomorrow I’m heading back to the apple tree and will pick enough for a few days.

Tassie is getting a reputation for being a ‘foodies Island’. It doesn’t disappoint.

Catching up with friends

| Chris Riley

It’s been sometime since I’ve written here. We’ve been busy catching up with friends, and I hadn’t realised how long it’s been since I last wrote until a good friend from England let me know yesterday. Apologies to anyone who has been wondering where we are, and what we’re doing.

We spent close to two weeks down at Magra. Our friends from Perth, Marina and Terry’s son, Iain, has a few acres in Magra with their house, and a chalet on it. Marina and Terry are currently staying in the chalet, so we plugged our van in next door to them. We had a great time, eating too much and drinking more than we usually drink – but hey, that’s what happens when you’re catching up with friends.

Iain and Barbara’s place is amazing (but what isn’t amazing on this little Island). Magra is in a valley and is completely surrounded by hills. Although it’s summer, the nights were often cold with mist shrouding the hills in the morning, very, very pretty. Iains property has a vege garden, chooks and abundant fruit trees laden with fruit. We had the sweetest plums picked fresh from the trees each morning on our cereal, feasted on apricots during the day, ate eggs with the most orange yolks I’ve ever seen in eggs, and herbs, squash and zucchini from the garden were frequent additions to our meals.

I hate to prattle on about food, but it seems every where you go on this little island you see fruit trees with branches almost weighed down to the ground  with more fruit than any one family could possibly eat , and lots of people have veges growing in their gardens. We don’t know many people here, but frequently we’re being given fresh produce from someones garden. Even the owners of the caravan park we’re currently staying in invited us to their house for morning tea last week-end and we came home with a big bag of fresh nectarines from their garden. But I digress…. What did we do, and where did we go while we down in Magra.

In the first few days we visited Peta, an old friend from Perth who now lives here in Tassie. Peta re-married a few years ago, and this was the first time we’ve had an opportunity to meet her husband Ron. Peta and Ron left Perth a few years ago in a yacht to sail the seas, which they did for a little over a year. They sailed into a little place at the south of Tassie, loved it, and decided to make a new home for themselves there – not an unusual occurrence here – we hear similar stories from people where ever we go. It seems this place understandably captures many people’s hearts.

Anyway, we had a lovely lunch with Peta and Ron, and enjoyed catching up immensely at their property down in Middleton. Their house is amazing, also on a small acreage. They overlook Middleton Beach, although their view is a little obscured by a few too many trees lining the beach. Peta tells me every time there’s a strong wind she hopes it will take out a couple of the trees.

Marina and Terry took us to Richmond which is one of the many heritage listed villages in Tassie. It’s a lovely place, and we can’t wait to visit it again. It’s sometimes hard to do justice to a new place when you’re visiting with people who have been there before. It’s not easy to get the balance between doing justice to our own visit without it all becoming a total bore for the people with you that have seen it all before. We found the best way was to have a quick look with a mental note to re-visit at another time.

Marina had her birthday while we down there, so we shared the costs of a unit in a little place called Eagle Hawks Neck to celebrate her birthday in style. Eagle Hawks Neck is the narrow strip of land between most of Tasmania and Port Arthur. Port Arthur was a penal colony when Australia was first settled, and is now probably one of the most visited tourist destination in Tassie. As the neck is such a narrow area, they confined the prisoners in Port Arthur with a row of guard dogs across the neck.

Sitting on the balcony of our unit at Eagle Hawks Neck.
Sitting on the balcony of our unit at Eagle Hawks Neck.

We spent a few hours there, and purchased a two year pass to enable further visits. There’s far to much to see on just one visit.

Sadly though, Port Arthur is also the place of the infamous Port Arthur massacre which took place less than two decades ago and made news all over the world. The site of the massacre was a sobering place for silent reflection on the senselessness of it all. There are no words to describe what it felt like to realise we were in the same place dozens of people had been such a short time ago, doing the same things they were doing only to have their lives mercilessly cut short by some crazy gun man. No words at all….

I’m sure Marina and Terry had probably had enough of us by the time we left.We’re now back up in the north of the state staying at a little place called Longford.

Today we picked up my sister Wendy and we went up the Tamar river to a place called Beauty Point and again had lunch with Peta and Ron, who are moored there for a few nights in their yacht. They’re currently on a six week sail around the Island. How celubrious that was, sitting on the deck of their yacht, Finesse, sipping wine and eating lunch moored on the picturesque Tamar River. We’re hoping to catch up with Peta and Ron again in a few weeks when they reach Strahan. Strahan is another favourite place in Tassie for locals and tourists alike, so having a reason to get there soon is something we’re really looking forward to.

More news. Our son Kelv is currently on his way to Tassie. He’s booked onto the ferry to come across on Sunday night, so Monday we’ll be catching up again. How exciting is that!!!  It’s hard to imagine that life could get any better.

Apologies for the lack of photos – we’re having a little trouble dropping photos into the blog. Where is our grand son, Tim when we need him! He’d have it sorted for us in no time at all, and I’m sure he’d also show us how to enlarge the photos we do manage to drop in so as to show them full sized. One day…..

Maggie Beer’s – Barossa

| Chris Riley

What would a visit to Adelaide be without a visit to the Barossa, and more especially – Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop.

We had a short drive up into the Barossa yesterday. Not many cellar doors seemed to be open, but we didn’t call in to the tourist information for details of cellar door openings and good wineries to visit. That’s saved for the next visit, and there will definitely be another visit.

Grape vines in the Barossa
Grape vines in the Barossa

Uppermost in our minds yesterday was the long awaited visit to Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop. For overseas visitors to this site, Maggie Beer is somewhat of an Australian cooking icon. She has her own farm in the Barossa and started out making a name for herself cooking and selling Pheasant products, and in particular I think her starting point on the way to fame and fortune was her signature Pheasant Pate’.

Her warm and larger than life personality has endeared her to the Australian public, and she has been the cooking host of many a TV cooking show. Her cooking style and dishes she presents I’m sure are very contributory to the expansion of many an Australian waistline, not least of which is mine. I doubt there would be a self professed ‘home cook’ in Australia who doesn’t hold at least one Maggie Beer cook book amongst their collection.

Maggie is to Australia what Nigella is to England, only instead of Nigella’s Sensuality, Maggie has an all ‘good neighbour’ image, and conjures up images of baskets of warm home made scones being delivered to any new arrival in the neighbourhood. Her food style is good and honest without pretentiousness, but inspiring for would be home cooks to try out new ingredients and new styles of cooking.

A visit to her farm shop didn’t disappoint. Paul had a game terrine with a side salad for his lunch. I had a delicious mushroom pate’, served with a beautiful warmed, rustic bread roll, a small dish of olive oil topped soft cheese, and a small bowl of freekah salad.

What’s freekah salad, I had to ask, apart from being delicious that is. Apparently freekah is roasted young grains of green wheat. To make it into a salad, mint, parsley, preserved lemons, Maggie’s famous verjuice, and her almost equally famous quince paste are added, along with some other every day ingredients. Needless to say, along with the recipe I also came home with a bag of goodies ready to make it for myself.

Her farm shop is well laid out with jars and bottles of produce and ample spoons for sampling. The sampling did it’s trick and I couldn’t resist adding a jar of salted caramel, some fig and fennel paste, a jar of mustard dried apricots, and some caramelised onions to my bag of Freekah salad ingredients. I’m looking forward to trying some of the caramelised onions and the mustard dried apricots tonight with some left over cold nut roast, and a freekah salad to go with it. Mmmmm!! I’ll live with hungry anticipation all day I’m sure.

Simple eats are the best eats

| Chris Riley

Gee it’s great to back on the road again. We’re currently in Port Stephens, and what a stunning piece of countryside this is. But more about that later.

Although we could sleep in our van whilst it was being repaired in Newcastle, we still felt ‘displaced’. Consequently, apart from breakfast we were eating most of our meals out. While there was nothing to complain at in any of the meals we had, nothing was overly memorable either.

Today we packed up a picnic lunch and took it to the foreshore at Lemon Tree Passage. Our picnic consisted of slices of nice bread a container of garlic butter mixed with olive oil, a container of particularly nice chopped tomato (the type of tomato that smells like it’s just being picked off the vine), mixed with finely chopped onion and lightly drizzled with olive oil and balsamic, and a zucchini thinly sliced into rings seasoned with salt and white pepper, and some grated parmesan.

We took some baking paper and put it on an electric barbecue in the park on the foreshore, spread our bread with the garlic butter mix and toasted that on the barbecue while at the same time browning up the zucchini slices. When it was cooked we topped the bread with the zucchini slices, the tomato mix and some parmesan.

Sitting at a park bench eating it with the sun warming our backs was so much more enjoyable than any of the meals we’ve eaten out. Such simple fare, but delicious.

We followed it with a flask of coffee and a crisp, sweet apple. To top off the ambience of good, simple, fresh food eaten el fresco over-looking beautiful Port Stephens Bay, we had the company a of cheerful magpie. She sat up at the table with us as we ate and shared our bread and parmesan, (she wasn’t impressed with anything else we were eating though). She chortled away to us as we ate. Delightful!

Australian Salmon

| Chris Riley

The salmon are running, and apparently every fisherman (and probably some women) want to catch one of these. They put up a fight which seems to appeal to the hunter instinct. Reports on the eating quality is varied, but most reports lack enthusiasm, that’s for sure.

Today two different people gave us quite large portions, so I thought I’d better put some research into how to cook it and give it the best chance of being something we could possibly like. The most appealing idea was to cook it Thai style.

We went into town shopping for the right ingredients, coconut cream, coconut milk, Thai green curry paste, and veges of choice. I had the rest of the ingredients necessary. After removing and discarding the skin, bone and all the red meat from the fish, I cut the remaining white flesh into bite sized chunks and poured the coconut cream over it, then set that aside. Next I put some rice on to steam, and made the curry sauce. When the sauce was simmering I added the prepared veges and then the fish in the coconut cream. Once it came back to a simmer I only left it on for around two minutes, then served it up over the rice.

We both really enjoyed it! So, for all the critics of this fish, I’d suggest the above method may change your mind. It’s a strong flavoured, firm fish, so in a curry sauce it was just right.

I’ve frozen enough for another curry, but may try it Indian style next time with tomatoes and yogurt. I’ve also kept enough out for tomorrow night and am going to try coating with breadcrumbs, parmesan and parsley, then will gently fry it in butter and oil,  and make a horseradish mayo to go with it. It’s a very firm fish, so I’m thinking it may be okay cooked this way. I’ll know tomorrow night.