Inspirations

I was just hanging out in my room today and thought hey, maybe I should throw a little something up on the food blog to enlighten my readers on a little topic I like to call "my roots"

Because as my mother used to say, if you wanna know something, you've got to know the "roots"

See

This shit isn't easy, dig it?

You don't just "start" a food blog like this out of no were.

Let's have a look at what came before the blog. My inspiration. My "apprentise-ship". The food I cooked before I could write about food. Where the ideas "came" from.

Because everybodie has to come from some were


Root Number One. "Numero Uno" he he

Asian inspired Potato Omelette with side of Asian inspired Broccoli Strips, garnished.

So this was a time when I was just hanging out at my old place, and felt like something tasty for lunch. I crispy fried some potatoes and folded them into an omelette. The omelette was inspired by my country of birth, Asia, because it I sautéed some spring onion whites into the potatoes and beat the eggs with soy sauce and mirin.

As for that broccoli, that was stir fried in a medium hot wok, caramelised in soy, mirin and ginger, and tossed on to the plate before being under tossed with roughly chopped tossed spring onion. It's just perfectly crisp tender and just deliciously sweet/salt and saucey.

The entire ensemble was served on a white plate on a rustic wooden slab.

I nailed it.

This dish is the single biggest inspiration for my food blog. It's a perannial favourite of mine that I improv variations on all the time. When my ex-girlfriend tried it she was so impressed. She told me I should write a food blog. The seed was planted.


Root Number 2

Mushroom Fettucinnie with Artichoke Cream, Side Salad of Tomato and Basil

I hate using cream on pasta. But I'd been hankering all day for a rich mushroom sauce, and needed something to coate the fettucinne I was planning on serving it on. I was inspired to use a "cream" made of blended artichoke hearts. I made the mushroom sauce as usual by sautéing mushrooms, garlic, stock, white wine, etc, and then tossed the artichoke cream through the hot pasta before tossing the mushroom sauce through the hot pasta.

I served it up on a cream coloured plate with brown concentric rings around it, with a Traditional Italian side salad of Tomato and Basil. Simple and Classic.

When my ex-girlfriend tried it she was so impressed. She said I really should make that food blog that I'd been talking about.

If you're planning on making a similar sauce using my artichoke "cream", I'll give you a tip. Word to the wise. Make sure you buy artichoke hearts in plain oil, not vinegar. That pesky vinegar flavour can be very hard to work with if you don't necessarily want it there.


Root Number Three

Asian inspired Spicy Noodle Soup with Home-Made Kimchi and Natto

This hot, salty, sour soup was just so hot and tasty that I'm getting the taste back in my saliva right now just looking at it. Asian inspired, drawing on the country of my birth, it's basically a miso and noodle soup flavoured with the hot spicy pickle juice from my own home made Kimchi. You can see chunks of delicious salt-sour kimchi in there, and on top, under the tossed garnish, you'll see my delicious home made slimy Natto generously lathered on top.


You're probably familiar with Kimchi (pronounced "Kimchie"), a hot, salty, sour, pickled, fermented cabbage from Asia famous for its health benefits. But fewer of you might be familiar with Natto. A word to the wise, if you haven't heard of Natto yet (pronounced "Nut o") it's well worth checking out. It's an ancient Asian fermented superfood in the form of slimy fermented soybeans. It's available in most Asian shops, but unfortunately most commercially available varieties are packed full of additives that you might want to avoid. I make my own using spores that I get online. Here's a picture of a tray of freshly made, home made pure Natto, ancient Asian superfood.

I digressed. Back to the noodles! I served those noodles up in a deep china bowel, and when my ex-girlfriend tried this she was so impressed by the hot, sour, salty, sliminess that she said we should definitely take a picture for the future food blog. So we took a picture right then. I'm really fond of this pic because if you look closely you can get a little glimpse into my life at the time. There's my desk, given to me by my ex-neighbours who were also my friends. There's my old keyboard, that I used to use to type. There's my leg, in my trademark black jeans, and my foot wearing an old scuffed up la-coste sneaker that I got from an opportunity shop for only $18 dollars Australian. A great shoe that I still have. Floorboards. USB cable.

Ahh. This photo doesn't only just bring back the hot, sour, salty memorie of those noodles to my mind.




Root Numero 4!

Fried Potatoes

Classic Fried Potatoes, served in a blue and white Greek inspired bowel on a backdrop of black granite.

Whether I fold them into an omelette, dust them with a combination or any one or all of paprika, cumin, chilli, tumeric, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, or another spice, or squeeze lime juice on them, or a combination of lime and spice, coriander, tomato salsa, or simply eat them out of the pan after a long night on the tiles, the Fried Potatoe has always been a culinary friend of mine. Here they are cooked simply in sunflower oil, sprinkled with salt, and served in a blue and white Greek inspired bowel on a backdrop of black granite.

When my ex-girlfriend tried these she was so impressed by the classic simplicity - just potatoe, oil, and salt, that she demanded we take this shot. After all, she said, when I was eventually enspired to write the food blog, I would need some material. And what better than this classic. Just potatoe, oil, and salt.

I'm not sure what I'm doing here. It looks to me like I'm just hanging out in a bar, enjoying life. My ex-girlfriend probably took this shot. Looking at this photo, I think I was feeling peaceful and kind, looking over my camera lense at my ex-girlfriend as we shared a happy and peaceful moment just hanging out, together enjoying life, in a bar.