For the love of local produce

Last Saturday was one of those amazing late August mornings... the sun was shining, the air was crisp, and everywhere you looked Spring was right there waiting to burst through. We are blessed on the Surf Coast to have a pretty sweet little farmers market run every Saturday. So off we strolled, bags in hand, to see what treats we could find.
Though Aaron was hard pressed to get me passed my new best friend (the quite attractive Frenchman selling homemade macaroons - I can't decide which were more delicious the man or the biscuits), but we came home with a pretty good bounty.

Dinner tonight was a plate full of local: broccoli and potatoes from a friendly local lad, zucchini, carrots and mushrooms from 'The Organics Box', and two beautiful Otway Prime scotch fillet steaks (clearly not a weekday vegetarian today). There's just something about fresh produce that makes you feel good, like you've given yourself a little present.

The other thing you should know about this meal, is this is my first attempt at cooking steak. I know, I know. How can a food loving gal of 30 never have cooked a steak? It's just one of those things I palm off to someone else. But not today. Today a cooked a pretty damn good medium rare steak (needed about 3 min each side as they were fatties), nicely rested (about 15min). I was well pleased with myself.

So now I have one less thing I can't do. Now if I can just learn to drive a manual car and attempt boiling an egg I'll be doing well.

Veggie Shepherd's Pie

This was a little creation of my own.

Ingredients:

• Pastry sheet (optional)
• olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, cruches or finely chopped
• 1 small onion, diced
• 10 button mushrooms, quartered
• 2 small zucchini, diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• Handful of green beans, cut into inch pieces
• Can of chopped tomatoes (I like the one with garlic and basil)
• tomato paste
• Worchester sauce
• bay leaves
• rosemary
• Red wine
• a few handfuls dried red lentils
• 2/12 cups of stock (I used chicken stock)

Topping:

• Pumpkin (I think about 350gm) peeled and cut into pieces
• 2 potatoes, peeled and diced
• wholegrain mustard
• tasty cheese, grated
• parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)

1. Chop up peeled pumpkin and potato, and place in a medium size saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil until soft and mashable.

2. Meanwhile, heat a splash of olive oil in a large saucepan, then cook onion and garlic until soft. 

3. Throw in the zucchini, mushrooms, carrot, and beans, season with salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes, stirring so it doesn't stick.

4. Add tomatoes, a good splash of Worchester sauce, about 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, a cup of red wine, and 2 +1/2 cups of stock. 

5. Stir in a teaspoon or so of rosemary, 4 bay leaves and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add more salt and pepper if required.

6. Stir through about 4 handfuls of dry red lentils (maybe a cup or so) These will soak up a lot of the liquid.

6. Simmer until thickened or until the potato and pumpkin have finished cooking in the other pot.

7. Drain the potato and pumpkin and mash well with a fork. Add a little butter if you so fancy, then mix in 1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard, and the grated cheeses to taste (maybe a handful of each) and season well with salt and pepper. Add egg and stir well (I've made something similar before and my mash turned to mush in the oven, however the egg just seems to bind it, and help it keep it's form).

8. If you like, lightly grease a pie dish and line with a sheet of pastry then top with the lentil mix and then the mash. If you want a lighter version, forget the pastry and just pop it in a casserole dish and top with mash. My dish was about 25cm square and maybe 6cm deep so you can gauge the size.

9. Bake in the oven until golden on top and pastry is cooked (if using it).

10. Enjoy with a nice glass of red wine and some warm crusty bread. Quite a nice, easy winter warmer.

xx