Refried Beans

Refried beans always seemed like such an ironic luxury to me. Like donuts or potato chips, it was always something that was cheap and "common", yet I was never really able to eat, especially not as much as I'd like. Seen as unhealthy or just unusual to order on the the occasions I'd eat Mexican food growing up, I mostly avoided it. Well I've been hankering for it, indeed, and now that I'm an adult, I can eat anything I want! Googling and checking metafilter eventually got me this recipe. The secret ingredient is, incidentally, salt. Seriously, you need a lot of salt for this - it's not just me, I swear.

Prepare:
-Soak 1 cup of dried beans overnight in water
-Quarter 1 small onion and dice half an onion
-Chop about 3 lengths of bacon
-Mince 3 cloves of garlic
-Ready bay leaves, salt, and whole peppercorn

Cook:
-Place soaked beans in a medium pot and cover with water plus add another inch and a half of water. Put in quartered onion, a couple bay leaves, a tablespoon of peppercorns, and 2 tsp of salt (the water should taste like seawater)

-Simmer for an hour or until beans are ready (they should taste edible but still a bit firm; if you take a couple out of the pot and blow on them, the skin should peel). Drain the beans but reserve about 1/2cup of the water-Meanwhile, fry bacon on medium heat in a large pan until completely crispy and all the fat is in the pan. Remove the bacon and set aside

-Fry the onion in the bacon fat until it starts getting translucent and then add the garlic

-Add the beans and a bit of the water onto the pan and start mashing, add more water to reach desired consistency.-Enjoy on its own or in a burrito

Tips:
-Some of the recipes called for adding "salt pork" into the pot when cooking the beans. I think this is just a thick, salted and cured pork to add to the taste of the beans. I don't have it so I didn't use it
-I made this a second time and when cooking the beans in the pan, added about a tsp of pico de gallo and a tsp of cumin to give it a bit more flavor and it came out quite tasty.
-This can also be done with tinned beans, just add them at the same step as the cooked beans.

Shortbread Date Fingers

This recipe I picked up from a Brisbane news magazine and adjusted it to taste. I was happy to use dried dates, as they are a very cheap dried fruit with an exquisite taste. This bar turned out very tasty and I got lots of kudos for it. It's a bit of work with some prep but worth it in the end.
Prepare Base:
-Sift together 80 g (3/4 cup) caster or fine sugar, 1 1/2 cup white flour, 1/2 cup rice flour (or extra white flour if you don't have it) in a large bowl
-Add in about 1 cup of chopped butter and a tbsp of oil and mix until you get fine breadcrumb-like objects
-Add in 15ml cold water and 1 egg yolk
-Knead until it forms a dough and then freeze for 20 min or refrigerate for 1 hr
-After it's cool, roll it out to the size of your deep baking dish (mine was 12''/30 cm by 9''/24cm or something) and then refrigerate for another 20 minutes-Place on deep cooking tray lined with baking paper and bake in oven that's been preheated to 175C/350F for about 25 minutes or until it starts turning brown
Prepare Filling:
-While the base is baking, place about 400gm (almost 1lb, maybe 3 cups) of dried dates in a small pot
-Cover with water
-Add the zest of 1 orange, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon, and a splash of vegetable oil-Simmer for 15 minutes or until it turns to mushPrepare Topping:
-Mix 425 g or ~ 3 cups of self-raising flour with 2 cups caster sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 3/4 tsp of baking powder
-Mix in 1 1/2 cups unsalted chopped butter, with some oil, until coarse bread crumbs are formed
Cook:
-Spread the date-filling onto the base and sprinkle the topping crumbs over it
-Bake at 175C/350F for about 30 minutes or until it starts to get a bit golden on top. Check halfway and make sure it's firm - if not, sprinkle some more oil on top.
-Dust with powdered sugar on top and enjoy

Tips:
-This recipe called for a lot of butter. I used significantly less but substituted a fair amount of canola oil, olive oil and some egg white. It was from a pouring bottle and thus I do not know the exact amounts. Adding another egg or using applesauce and stuff would be a great way to cut out on the fattiness (though the fat is what makes shortbread short).
-The way I presented it was how I did it, but next time around I'd make the base and topping at the same time to cut down on time. Only for the end bit (mixing water and egg yolk) would I separate it. I'd also cut down on the sugar a bit as it was a tad sweet - otherwise, it was mighty tasty

Marinated Feta

One of my friends marinates his own feta and it is so tasty, so I had to copy him.
Prepare:
-1 package of feta, chopped in chunks and placed in a plastic vessel
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 chili pepper, chopped
-Mix the above together and cover with a nice extra-virgin olive oil
-Leave for at least a week (it's okay unrefrigerated)
-Enjoy, of course

Tips:
-Keep the olive oil and use it either as an even-tastier oil for pastas or salads or just keep it for the next batch of feta.

Sesame Noodle with Steamed Veggies and Egg

I was hankering for a nice sesame-sauced noodle dish. I googled around and saw that there is a lot of different ways to make sesame sauce. I tried to synthesize my own.
Prepare Sauce:
-Roughly chop a couple hot chilies, 3 cloves of garlic, and a bit of ginger
-Prepare 1 tsp each of olive oil, sesame oil, Chinese 5-Spice, black pepper, red wine, honey, and fresh chives-Prepare about 3 heaping tablespoons of good unsweetened peanut butter and another tablespoon or two of tahini
-Mix all the above in a food processor with about 1/4 cup of warm water
Prepare Dish:
-Soak any sort of noodles that you like in some water or cook them until they are just ready
-Chop/prepare any vegetables that you like steamed. I used broccoli, cauliflower, and bok choy
-Toast a tbsp of sesame seeds on a pan
-Roughly chop some cilantro and chives
-Ready a couple eggs

Cook Dish:
-Steam vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower take longer than bok choy)
-Crack 2 eggs on a warmed pan with olive oil over medium heat, after 1 minute of frying, roughly mix together

-Once vegetables are steamed, mix noodles through and leave for a couple minutes

-Mix in eggs and sauce, sprinkle with cilantro, chives, and sesame seeds

Tips:
-You can change this sauce anyway you see fit. I put in 3 chilies and it had a lovely amount of heat to it. I think next time I may add a bunch of cilantro to the sauce itself to give it a bit of that nice flavour.
-Substituting eggs with tofu or chicken would be a very welcome addition.

Citrus & Ginger Cordial

My friend Ben recently gave me a large sack of different fruits. I feared early spoilage, what with limited refrigerator space and only myself to feed, and so set about on ways to utilize at least some of the fruits. Glancing around the net implanted some ideas in my head for a citrus cordial - a syrup mixer for creating drinks. I just made up my own ratios of fruit - I think it would be difficult to mess it up.
Prepare:
-Cut several citrus fruits in half, zest some of them as well. I used 2 oranges, 2 small mandarins, and 5 limes of various sizes-Peel and roughly chop a good amount of ginger
-Measure out about 2 1/2 cups of sugar (I used caster or icing sugar)
Cook:
-Juice the fruit-Mix the fruit juice with the sugar, ginger, zest in a medium pot-On medium-high heat, bring to a boil; lower and let it simmer healthily for a while
-Once it has reduced a bit and started getting more syrupy and viscous, turn off heat-Let cool and then filter out the ginger/zest.
-Store in an airtight bottle and enjoy as you wish
Tips:
-The cordial is quite sweet and so you would only use it mixed with soda water and not anything else sweetened like tonic water. I imagine it will go quite well with alcohol as well. I already used a teaspoon mixed with some boiling water and it resulted in a very nice hot lemon "tea"

"Light" Caraway Rye

I love caraway rye bread. I specifically love light, white, airy rye bread with lots of caraway seeds. I did a lot of searching and wasn't able to find what I wanted. This recipe looked good and promising so I gave it a shot. I won't include the recipe here since I copied the recipe almost exactly as the post mentioned (I didn't have molasses so I substituted with brown sugar and some lemon juice). The bread turned out nice but not exactly what I wanted. Not rye-y enough, and a bit sweet. Quite tasty as a bread but didn't come out how I wanted (I want something like this). Oh well. No worries.

Focaccia-based pizza

So I was making my delicious focaccia again and decided to freeze one of them, to see how it would turn out. I took it out of the freezer and waited about 2 hours and then set about making a dynamite pizza. With an easy tasty sauce.
Prepare Sauce:
-In a food processor, mix 3-4tbsp of tomato puree, 1/2 small can of whole peeled tomatoes (with some of the juice), 2 peeled cloves of garlic, a little bit of onion, 1 tsp each of white sugar, dried basil, salt, and oregano.
Prepare Pizza:
-Spread the newly made sauce on the focaccia base
-Put on top your favorite toppings: I think its sinful to have pizza without onion, broccoli, or olives. I also put on zucchini, fresh tomato, and mushroom
-Cover with some freshly shredded cheeses: mozarella and light cheddar work well, I also added a bit of parmesanCook Pizza:
-Preheat oven to around 400F/200C
-Place pizza on a thin pan and put in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until crust gets crispy (depends on thickness of the crust)
-Bon apetit