Garlic

I love garlic in my cooking, but I'm not fond of peeling it.

Some years back I found that a couple of Fruit and Veg shops here sell garlic peeled and whole like this:

Its about $3 a punnet like that.

Of course if you're a restaurant this is great, but most of use "home users" without a vampire problem will never use this before it "goes off", however (perhaps because I'm a biochemist at heart) I came up with a solution ...

Olive oil and freezing.

So what I do is tip the cloves into a "zip seal bag" of sufficient size; tip in some olive oil (enough to have all of it covered but not "filling the bag") (important that).

Then pop that somewhere flat in the freezer; making it easy to break off the garlic as needed without thawing it.

The garlic does not "freeze to itself" in a lump because of the olive oil (and what could be more natural than using olive oil in garlic related cooking?).

Win Win

Camping Cooking at Home

I haven't been camping for a while now (just day trips), mostly because of the unsettled life I currently lead (indeed I feel like I'm camping most of the time sometimes). So I thought I'd share some cooking ideas which I essentially adapted from what I make and eat when I go camping.

Camping cooking is (well for those who aren't packaged food types) identified by the following points:

• easy to make and serve
• easy to be carried (no need for refrigeration)
• easy to clean up
• good nutrition (energy which you need and vitamins too)

Oats features in my cooking a lot actually. Not "instant" oats, but just good stout rolled oats, which look like this in the pan:

For this recipe I basically use a non-stick frypan (to minimise my efforts needed in stirring). 

So one of my favorites: savoury oats

Ingredients: chopped leek, sliced salami, sesame oil, chilli flakes, oats, water.

Method: Fry the chilli and leek in the oil for a bit, toss in the salami. 

Mix a wet slurry of Oates and pour that in. 

Cover and reduce heat / flame to minimum. 5 minutes later whack on the plate, add a little Tabasco sauce if you like ...

For an extra dash of colour add a quick sprinkle of Paprika powder at the frying stage (helps release the aroma of the paprika)

Enjoy

Eating Grass Seeds

Probably few people think about it, but wheat, rice and oats are all from the same family of plant: Grass.

Being a bit different I often try cooking things "outside the dots" and substitute one grain for another. In this case I use oats as many cultures use rice. So while may think of Paella as being a Spanish dish, it relies on rice which originates from Asia.

In Europe Oats has a much longer history. Its hard to imagine that my earlier European ancestors did not cook more interesting things with Oats than the modern western (god help me, American) idea that oats = porridge.

So, without further adieu I'd like to present my Savory Oats "Asian style" with

• Oats,
• Fish, 
• Ginger, 
• Garlic,
• Spring Onions,
• Capsicum (or as it can also be called Paprika, but not the spice..)
• Sesame oil
• Rice bran oil (or other vegetable oil, like sunflower, rapseed, peanut ...)
• perhaps a touch of paprika (dried spice like Hungarian) for colour,
• and a touch of Tabasco sauce

So we start with frying up the chopped garlic, ginger, fish, spring onions and capsicum. Gentle heat, not "immolation" material ...

next, we have the amount of oats we want (for a single serve I go with half a cup), ready to tip into the mix.

So we tip this in and then add an amount of water to make sure its all wet but perhaps not totally covered ...

Adding the water cools the pan but the residual heat will bring it back to the boil soon, so we cover it and keep an eye on it to reduce the heat as soon as it starts to gently boil ...

usually 5 or 6 min is about right, but its important to keep an eye on it till you get the hang of this so as to make sure its always a bit moist in there ..

At about the 6 min mark, lift the lid and give it a quick stir around, breaking up the fish.

Myself I usually want the oats to still be whole and visible, not turned to porridge, but to each their own.

So then serve it (or add a little more water and let it cook longer if you want  the porridge thing) and add a dash of Tabasco sauce (for those who like a more spicy touch) and some soy sauce.

and remember ... Oats is better for glycemic index than is rice, and is also accociated with lower cholesterol in the diet.

Have a glass of white wine with it too ;-)