A serve of stubbornness with a side of veggies

I have a stubborn streak. A real stubborn streak. In fact my stubborn streak can get so bad I can refuse to do the simple things, like brush my teeth everyday or brush my hair, just because I’ve been told self-grooming (which goes out the window during a depressive stage) is important for my recovery. Phffft to self-grooming. Phffft to recovery. 

I know, childish, right?

My stubborn streak’s always been around, it’s just I didn’t realise how bad it was until I was chatting with my psychologist a few weeks ago. For example, I’ve never been one to go for anything mainstream: popular fiction, phffft; popular band, absolutely no way; popular television show, get real. In fact, if I do find myself loving something popular, like Game of Thrones, I’m shocked when I can understand all the references made about it. I’m so used to being one of those people that says, ‘what’s that?’, ‘who’s that?’, ‘never heard of them’. Stubborn? Slightly.

Then there’s the stubbornness I have when I’m given advice on getting ‘over’ my depression. I simply try to shut people down or tell them I’m already aware of whatever it is they’re telling me. Totally stubborn.

Or when a conversation turns to health and I take everything as a personal affront and so, first, get mad, and then ignore the conversation that’s taking place around me. Ignorance is, after all, bliss, right?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not that much of a stubborn git to not abide by the law. Good girl, Fiona. I also follow the social conventions of friendship (I’ve watched too much Big Bang Theory with that statement. HA, which is popular…but had become too popular so I stopped watching it. Damn it!), which is partly why I have such wonderful friends around me (the other part is because I’m secretly slipping them illicit drugs to keep them thinking I’m a joy to be around).

However, finding more and more examples of being stubborn doesn’t shed any light on WHY I’m stubborn. So this week my psychologist and I did a little more digging into the life and times of Fiona Tristram. We spoke a bit more about stubbornness itself, and then touched on being compassionate to oneself, the feeling of empowerment and what happens when you lack control over your own life. She then steered me to two TED talks by Brené Brown, one on vulnerability the other on shame. (Btw both are fabulous talks.)

Mixing what I’ve learnt all together this is what I’ve come away with: Stubbornness can come from fear, which is simply a cover for shame – shame of failure, shame of rejection, shame of vulnerability. What I really need is to accept my vulnerabilities because it’s in these vulnerabilities that I’ll find honesty within and about myself.

Simply put, it’s about being kinder to myself and accepting who I am, imperfections and all.

Of course we’ve all heard this before. I need to love me for me…blah blah blah. But who really LISTENS to it? Who really BELIEVES they are okay EXACTLY AS THEY ARE? Not bigger, smaller, smarter, funnier, wiser, faster, prettier, more masculine, stronger, fitter, BETTER. Who?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we ALL have vulnerabilities. One of mine is my weight, but every time someone talks about their health around me doesn’t mean they’re trying to send me a coded message to lose weight. It’s not all about me, after all.

Maybe to release me of my stubbornness, which only holds me back, I need to understand my vulnerabilities more. I need to understand what scares the bejesus out of me and then, compassionately, I need to accept that fear. I have a feeling that by accepting it, it will no longer have such a strong hold on me.

In order to start being compassionate to my body I’ve made this easy vegetable soup recipe. It’s good for my health, good for my taste buds and good for my soul. I hope you enjoy it.

Are you stubborn? Do you think you know why? 

Vegetable soup with crumbled feta

Vegetable soup with crumbled feta
By The Self-Raising Kitchen

Serves 6

Ingredients
50g butter
2 leeks, finely sliced
1 carrot, diced
300g cauliflower, roughly chopped
600g sweet potato, roughly chopped
2 celery sticks, diced
6 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
750ml chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Method
In a saucepan melt the butter on a medium heat. Then add leeks, carrot, celery, thyme and bay leaf. Cook for 5 minutes or until the leeks turn translucent.

Add cauliflower, sweet potato and stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer until vegetables are really soft. Take saucepan off the stove. With a stick blender puree the soup until a smooth consistency. Season to taste.

Serve in bowls topped with some crumbled feta and a small dash of extra virgin olive oil.

Smoked salmon chowder and no-knead bread

Do you fancy yourself as a baker or a cook?

I am certainly the latter. The problem with me and baking is the precision needed. Precision is not my forte. I’m more of a feel-as-I-go, lots-of-tasting kind of girl.

That’s why bread making is not really my thing. HOWEVER, this no-knead bread recipe that I found in my sister’s latest edition of Donna Hay is a WINNER, people. It involved a bit of stirring to bind everything, a little patience and then some quick cutting and manoeuvring of some very sticky, wet dough. Whack it in the oven and Bob’s your Uncle, so to speak.

The bread goes incredibly well with this divine and ridiculously simple salmon chowder. We had plenty for leftovers and it was delicious warmed up, again, two days later. 

Campbell’s liquid stock now does a fish stock so that should be easy to find in your local supermarket. The smoked salmon fillet can be found where the sliced smoked salmon is in the cold section. Supermarkets provide a packet with off cuts of fillets, which are cheaper and work perfectly fine in this recipe. 

Other than that, tuck into these two delightful recipes and enjoy. 

Smoked Salmon chowder with corn and dill.

Smoked salmon chowder with corn and dill

Adapted from Donna Hay magazine Issue 75

Serves 6 

Ingredients 

50g unsalted butter
2 leeks, trimmed and thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
600g potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 litre fish stock
100g crème fraîche
370g smoked salmon fillet, skin removed and flaked
2 corn cobs, kernals removed
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
juice of one lemon
¼ cup dill sprigs
salt and pepper

Method
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leek and cook for 4 minutes or until soft. Add in the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the potato, stock, salt and pepper and cook, covered, for 10 minutes or until the potato is soft.

Remove from the heat and, using a hand-held stick blender, blend to a thick soup. Return the soup to a medium heat, add the crème fraîche, salmon, corn and dill and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Check seasoning and add salt or pepper if required.

Add the lemon rind and half of the juice, stir to combine. Taste and ensure the lemon is to your liking. Add more if needed. Serve with no-knead bread rolls.

No-knead bread

No-knead bread rolls
From Donna Hay magazine Issue 75

Ingredients
4½ cups (675g) ‘00’ flour
1¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
3 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1½ teaspoons table salt
2⅓ cups (580ml) water

Method
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix to form a wet sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to stand for 4 hours or until dough has tripled in size and has large bubbles.

Turn out onto a well-floured surface, divide into 7 pieces and shape into rounds. Oil the base of a 30cm-round heavy-based ovenproof saucepan with flour and place the rounds inside. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow to stand for a further 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 220°C. Remove the plastic, cover the saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for a further 20 minutes, or until the bread is golden and sounds hollow when tapped lightly. Turn out and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Makes 7 rolls.

No-knead bread

Chicken and corn soup - good for the soul

I've had a wee bit of the sniffles here in The Self-Raising Kitchen.

Whenever I get sick I crave my brother-in-law's chicken and corn soup with loads of ginger. It's warming for your tummy and good for your soul.

Chicken and corn soup

I normally make this soup using chicken drumsticks. Once cooked I discard the bones and skin - they add wonderful flavour to the soup - and tear up the meat.

Shred your chicken by using a fork

Today I only had one chicken breast in my freezer and it's just too hard to get in the car to go to the shops for a couple of chicken drumsticks. I have a cold after all.

My original notes for the chicken and corn recipe as told to
me over the phone from my brother-in-law about 8 years ago.

This recipe is perfectly simple to cook when you're not feeling on top of the world. It is also full of flavour when you need something comforting, other than tissues and a pillow.

Chicken and corn soup
by my BIL (brother-in-law)
Serves 2

Chicken and corn soup

I normally follow my nose when it comes to the ingredient amounts for this recipe. However, I've measured out what I was putting in the pot today so feel free to add more or less of things as you like.

Ingredients
230g chicken breast (or 3 to 4 chicken drumsticks)
30g ginger, roughly sliced
1 small onion, sliced
800ml water
200g creamed corn
2 heaped tsp cornflour
1 egg
3 spring onions, finely chopped
Salt

Method
Place water, whole chicken breast, ginger, onion and a good pinch of salt in a pot. Cook on high until boiling and then simmer for about 1 hour or until the onions are really soft.

Pull chicken out and shred. Return back to soup and add creamed corn. Return to the boil.

Dissolve cornflour in a little cold water and add to the soup to thicken.

Whisk egg lightly in bowl until just combined. To add the egg to the soup, first start whisking the soup and then slowly pour the egg into the spot you are whisking. This should give you small shreds of egg in your soup.

Take the soup off the element and add the chopped spring onions.

Serve and enjoy!

SRKitchen on tour - French onion soup, beef cheeks and strawberry mousse

Join me while I give you my account of how I prepare to take The Self-Raising Kitchen 'on tour' and cook for a party of seven.

A work colleague turned awesome friend Tracy (@gadgetgirltracy) and her rockin' partner Angela (@nerfenstein), saw my previous SRKitchen 'on tour' post and wanted to know how to get in on the action. You see the rules are simple, you pay for the ingredients, I cook for you and a group friends/family/other(?) of your choosing in your house. Easy!

Once a date was set (or a second date in our case) planning started and I was looking forward to a cooking tour to the Gold Coast.

Wednesday, 22 August
I complete menu discussions with Tracy and we decide on:

Entree

French onion soup with gruyère bread

Mains

Slow cooked beef cheeks with soft polenta and greens

Dessert

Strawberry mousse with Persian fairy floss (ok, she didn't know about the fairy floss)

Friday, 24 August
5.00pm: The official work week has finished so it's time to get my cook's hat on. I'm off to search for Persian fairy floss and ingredients for the strawberry mousse so I can make it first think in the morning.

Thanks to the awesome world of twitter (@TIFFINbitesized @nataschamirosch @Fridayology @digellabakes @thewordonfood @trisharoe1) I found lots of places in Brisbane selling Persian Fairy Floss. I purchased mine at Greenslopes IGA. The other suggestions were: Rosalie markets, Black Pearl Epicure, Zone Fresh at Windsor, Delicatezza at Michelton and Sourced Grocer at Teneriffe. I'm sure there are plenty more.

THE DAY Saturday, 25 August
8.45am: Coffee is made. Thanks, beloved. An essential element to the day.

9.00am: Strawberries being pureed and the mousse making has started.

Strawberries, lemon juice and sugar blitzed in the food processor

9.30am: Mousse completed and in the fridge to set.

Strawberry mousse ready to set in the fridge. If you are looking
for this recipe I used this one from the Easy French Food blog.
Would I use it again? I most certainly would.

9.50am: Time to make my shopping list.

You see this was one of my more calmer and saner meal plans so I was pretty relaxed about getting everything done, even though I had to drive to the Gold Coast (although it is only 40 mins from my house). 

10.20am: I'm in the car and off to my local fruit shop, butcher and supermarket.

11.20am: DISASTER has struck! My butcher has 12 beef cheeks (which is enough for about 3 'on tour' meals) but they are FROZEN. I will not use the microwave to defrost as it ruins the quality and taste of the meat, in my opinion. So it is time for a luke warm bath for my cheeky bits of beef.

Got frozen meat and don't want to use the microwave?
Leave the meat in a luke warm tub of water. Keep checking
the water and replacing it if it turns cold.

12.00pm: still waiting, waiting, waiting for my cheeks.

12.14pm: another coffee is made.

12.30pm: Preparing to slice onions in food processor to save my eyes.

There is something about me and onions. We are not friends. I love eating them and using them in my cooking, but when is comes to cutting them I cry like a five year old who just had her ice cream full off the cone and onto the footpath. I can even be sitting in another room of someone cutting onions, crying.

12.50pm: time to pack the car. Beef cheeks have defrosted enough. Woo hoo!

The load heading to the Gold Coast. Please take special note of
the casserole dish in the right corner of this photo and read on.

1.16pm: I'm on the road and hoping like crazy that everything makes it in one piece.

1.59pm: Made it! Now it's time to give hugs and kisses to my two beautiful hosts, get unpacked and get started.

But first, check out my view from the kitchen.

Tracy and Angela have a spectacular house on a canal, Gold Coast.

And my office for the afternoon. Bliss!

Tracy and Angela's beautiful kitchen that I've already managed to mess up.

2.30pm: Cooking needs to start. The beef cheeks need at least 3 hours to cook. I'm planning on entree to be served at 6.30, and mains about 7pm. Therefore I want the beef cheeks in the oven by 4pm at the latest to give me 30 mins gap.

2.55pm: Chopping of onion, garlic, herbs etc done, now to brown meat. CRAP I've left my casserole dish at home. Do you remember in the photo the red dish in the corner of the photo? Yes, well it hasn't moved from that location. Oh well, I have another pot that can go in the oven that will have to do.

3.25pm: beef cheeks are ready for the oven. Perfect timing and I've given myself some great wriggle room if the cheeks aren't tender enough by 6pm.

If you are looking for the beef cheeks recipe I used please go here.

Beef cheeks in stock, red wine and herbs ready for a 3 hour stint in the oven.

Time to start the soup.

There's nothing better than the smell of butter and onions cooking. With this recipe you get to fill your house with this smell for a good 30 minutes while you caramelise the onions for the soup.

Caramelising onions for the delicious French onion soup.

I discovered later in the evening, somewhere around dessert, that one of our guests hates onions. Excellent, and here I am offering onion soup! I was assured that she loved the soup, however.

See below for the recipe to this one by the iconic Delia Smith.

4.00pm: I have enough time to gossip with my hosts.

5.30pm: Time to get serious as the first guest, Tracy's mum, arrives. I need to start prepping the beans and broccoli. I want to get these part cooked in boiling water and then place them in ice water so later on all I need to do is fry them with a little butter to heat them up before serving. I'm also getting the french stick sliced and gruyere cheese grated ready for grilling. These will go in the bowls for the soup.

6.15pm: I check the cheeks and I'm very excited as they are just falling apart, as planned, of course. At this point I leave the pot out of the oven until I serve as it will stay hot for a while. Time to free up the oven so I can grill the cheesy bread for the soup.

6:40pm: All guests have arrived. It's time to plate up the entree.

I pour the soup in a terrine that sits in the middle of the table for people
to help themselves. If they like, they can then easily dig in for seconds.

I give each person a bowl with a grilled gruyere cheese
crouton on top. The soup is then ladled on top ready for devouring.

6.50pm: My guests seem to be happily consuming the soup so I focus my efforts on making the polenta with grated parmesan and butter, and frying off the beans and broccoli.

7:30pm: Mains are ready.

Slow cooked beef cheeks with polenta

Looking back, I would have thickened the gravy the cheeks cooked in. Last time I made this dish I was working with a crap oven that used to suck the life (ie juices) out of everything so was left with very little gravy. However, with Tracy and Angela's awesome oven the cheeks quite happily cooked in plenty of juices. It would have been nice to have this thickened a little with some cornflour. I know for next time.

About 8.30pm: Sorry, I started loosing track of time around this point. Time for dessert.

Strawberry mousse topped with Persian vanilla fairy floss.

The evening for me drew to a close just before 9.30pm. I had the car repacked and had even scored a special gift from Tracy and Angela. They very generously bought me a voucher for an Indian cooking class and a strawberry plant. No doubt you will be hearing about the cooking class soon and getting a few recipes as well.

I had such a wonderful night with my hosts and their family. I love cooking for my own loved ones, but it felt extra special being invited into Tracy and Angela's home to cook for their family when I had never met any of them before.

My seven beautiful guests that allowed me to cook for them.

So to the seven wonderful guests who humoured me on Saturday evening, and sat down to eat a meal from a self-trained cook and person they had never met, I thank you so very much. We had a laugh, some very good belly laughs actually, and that is exactly what family and food should be about.

I love this shot. Great family fun!

French onion soup
By Delia Smith

Ingredients

700g onions, thinly sliced

2 tbls olive oil

50g butter

2 cloves garlic,crushed

½ level teaspoongranulated sugar

1.2 litres good beefstock

275 ml dry white wine

2 tbls Brandy

salt and pepper

To serve:

French bread or baguette, cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm)

Gruyère, grated

  

Method

In a large thick-based saucepan heat the butter and oiltogether. Add the onions, garlic and sugar, and cook over a low heat, stirringoccasionally, for about 30 minutes or until the bottom of the pan is coveredwith nutty brown, caramelised film. (This browning process improves both thecolour and flavour.)

Next add the stock and white wine, bring to the boil andsimmer, covered, over a low heat for about 1 hour. Season to taste and, if youfeel in need of something extra warming, add 1-2 tablespoons of brandy.

SRKitchen version: When I’m ready to serve I grill the breadwith the grated gruyère in the oven. If you prefer crunchier (and proper)croutons, drizzle olive oil over the bread and bake in a high oven for about 10mins, or until brown.

Place the croutons in each bowl and either you ladle the soupinto each bowl or put it in a lovely terrine and let your guests dig in and serve themselves.