Category: Podcasts

Vegeree

Hello friends and welcome to the best of February!  The nicest thing I made this month was a vegetarian kedgeree (vegeree geddit) from Jamie Oliver.  This recipe is from his Everyday Superfoods book and it is a belter!   Kedgeree is a dish of spiced rice, usually made with smoked fish which grew to prominence in Colonial India.  Traditionally, Kedgeree is a breakfast dish but I had mine for dinner. And as much as I love a bit of smoked fish, this was so delicious I am not sure if I will even bother to try the classic version after eating this one!

 

Vegeree1

This is a dish to eat with your eyes before shovelling it down.  It is so pretty and bright.  I can see why it became popular for breakfast – those bright reds and greens and yellows would put a smile even on my totally-not-a-morning-person face.  I used normal basmati rice, not brown and beans not peas for my vegeree.

Vegeree – The Recipe

I apologise for the state of this page.  It is more than somewhat food splattered!!! (but the sign of a good recipe I always think).

Vegeree (2)
Vegeree via Jamie Oliver

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

The Best book I read this month was Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law by Mary Roach.  I loved learning about the different interactions between humans and animals. Not as fun but also fascinating is the book I am partway through – Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists. As someone who mostly reads fiction, it was good to have two non-fiction recommendations this week!

Feb Faves

Cookbook

Our theme for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club this month is Charity Shop book and we spent a lovely Saturday morning having brunch and then shopping for our books.  I bought three books during our shopping which was quite the haul.  The one I am cooking from is a massive tome called Australia’s Favourite Recipes. From the photography in the book, I initially thought it was from the 1970s or 80s but I later found out it was published in 2010!  Unfortunately, I am somewhat regretting my choice – not because of the dated photos but the book is so tall that it does not fit into any of my bookshelves!

Australia's Favourite Recipes

I was intrigued to find within its pages a recipe for a chicken dish called Shakuti.  This is possibly a recipe for the Chicken Xacuti mentioned in the Tim Key episode of the Off-Menu Podcast.  I had never heard of this curry before.  And now I have a recipe!  The Baader-Meinhof effect at work!

Watching

We saw Death on The Nile which I LOVED. The scenery was spectacular and made me want to go to Egypt to see the sights myself.  The Dining with the Dame for this will be later this year.

Listening

I’ve started listening to the Twin Flames podcast and am very much enjoying the current series of Rabbits.  The Rabbits novel is also great!  I’m devastated that the shipping for Path Cards outside the US is so expensive.  I would buy a pack for sure if it was anywhere near reasonable!

 

 

Moving

Along with my beloved Zumba classes, I am now doing Sh’bam classes at the local gym and LOVING them!  I love an exercise class where it feels more like fun than hard work and this certainly fits the bill!  Looking forward to shifting some of those covid kilos through dance!

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Tomorrow is a public holiday here to celebrate Labour Day.  I will be celebrating the introduction of the 8-hour workday with a sleep in, a trip to the gym and some baking which hopefully will feature here shortly!

Have a wonderful week!


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The Ultimate Shawarma….Man!

For my modern take on Turkish food, there was only one choice.  It was always going to be shawarma.  And my first thought was that I could give some props to my girl Sabrina Ghayour.   I own all of her cookbooks and Persiana remains one of my favourite books to cook from.  Sabrina’s recipe for ultimate chicken shawarma comes from her book Feasts and it is totally delicious!!!!

Chicken Shawarma 2

But, as I was cooking the shawarma, I reallised I had another connection (that does not involve late night stops at the Hollywood Palace) and that connection is my new favourite podcast, or actually set of pods.  I ‘m sure I have spoken about my love of the true crime pod before and some time ago I started listening to Small Town Murder.  I virtually inhaled every episode so I was able to catch up on the back catalogue of then 80 something episodes pretty quickly.  I’m listening to  Episode 114 as I write.

Chicken Shawarma3

But what do you do when you run out of pod and don’t want to wait a whole week to hear more from the funniest guys in podcasting?  Well, in my case, despite barely knowing one sport from another, you start listening to their other pod Crime In Sports.   And let me tell you, you don’t have to know anything about sport to enjoy it.  

Both of these pods are amazing, the hosts, James Pietrogiallo and Jimmie Whisman are hilarious!!!  And the stories!!!! Who knew????

For a good start to the level of crazy Crime in Sports reaches, why not give Episode 58 a try? 

#058 – If He Could Kill The World… – The Terribleness Of Viacheslav Datsik

This tale contains neo-Nazi’s, naked snow wrestling, armed robbery, unrestrained testicle pummelling, bare handed escapes from Russian mental asylums and the self-nicknamed Red Tarzan.  Believe me, amongst all the, what James and Jimmie would call nudnickery, there is not much time for too much sport. 

Another favourite of mine comes from my own country…

#058 – Such is Annihilation – The Chaoticness of Ben Cousins

Aka…you hid your meth where?

Chicken Shawarma4

What has all this to do with Shawarma you ask?  Well, there are some recurring characters in Crime in Sports, a few special guests that pop in for a fleeting moment in each episode and one of those is the Shawarma man.  Spawned in Episode 32, (Dave Meggatt), the Shawarma man invariably refuses to serve some hapless and very confused sporting criminal some lovely lamb shawarma.  I wonder what he would think about Sabrina’s chicken version!

Chicken Shawarma1

Just quickly back to Sabrina, her shawarma contains normal pickles.  I made some pickled turnips for mine.  Normally when you see these they are a gorgeous hot pink.  This normally comes from beet juice.  I think beets are the food of the devil so I added some radishes to my turnips which turned my pickles a much paler but still rather pretty pink.

That’s me done!

Read and cook Sabrina, listen to Small Town Murder and Crime in Sports and tell me what you think!

Also, please let me know your favourite cookbooks and I’m always up for a good pod recommendation.

For now?  

Sign says closed!

 

 

 

 

REPOST – Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Podcasts + A Giveaway

Hey people of the internet..I know, it’s been a while… it’s been a pretty shitty start to the year.

My step father passed away a couple of weeks ago and it’s been a horrible, weird, grief filled couple of weeks.  Maybe I’ll talk about it more in time but at the moment….it’s still all a bit too raw. I had written most of this post on the Peter Piper cocktail before all the shit got real.  So, here it is, pretty much unedited because I just want to get something out to resume some semblance of normality….

Don’tcha just love it when two three of your favorite things come together in a perfect storm of awesomeness?  Of course you do!  Which is how I came to find the Peter Piper cocktail.

Peter Piper2The original Peter Piper Cocktail comes from a recipe by Georgia Hardstark and Alie Ward.  So, here are some things you need to know about Georgia Hardstark.

  1. She can make a mean cocktail
  2. She loves vintage clothes
  3. Along with Karen Kilgariff she is the host of one of my favorite new podcasts, My Favourite Murder

One of which would be reason enough to like her.  All three combined? OMG….massive girl crush!

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Also, here are some things you need to know about the Peter Piper cocktail.  Actually, no just one.

The original recipe requires dry vermouth.  Do not assume that just because you had dry vermouth the last time you made a cocktail, that you will still have dry vermouth.  More specifically, do not wait until you have your vodka on ice in the damn cocktail shaker to realise that the dry vermouth has either disappeared into some Bermuda Trianglesque worm hole surrounding your bar cart or you drank a damn sight more of those Lord Suffolk cocktails on NYE than your memory has so far allowed you to admit. My money’s on the worm hole.  Because you know, a lot of things go missing from that area of the dining room.  And the stuff that is left?  The levels also mysteriously change.  Spooky..

Also, the girls used pepper vodka, I made my own chilli infused vodka and used that.  That is super easy to make – I just chopped up a Bird’s Eye Chilli and put it into a 100ml jar filled with vodka and left it for about a week.  And  there you have it.  Spicy vodka, perfect for mixing with pickle juice, and because you have no dry vermouth, a splash of Fino sherry.   With a kick of heat from the vodka, briny sour from the pickle juice, a hint of sweet and nuttiness from the sherry….the Peter Piper is truly a thing of beauty!  Perfect to drink with some salty chips whilst listening to your favourite podcast!

Peter Piper4As far as I am concerned one of the best things to come out of 2016 for me was a new found love for the podcast.  I have always been a big pod listener but l feel that last year raised the bar.  So, whilst we sip our Peter Piper’s I’m going to take you through my Top 5 of the pods I discovered and loved in 2016.

These are vaguely in order of my discovery of them and not necessarily my love of them.  Except the first three are probably also my top three in terms of love too.

1. The Black Tapes

It’s kinda X Files with loads of creepy children, music that will make you die within a year of hearing it, missing wives, and villain who looks like a Sexy James Bond.  Not to mention evil monasteries and people having their faces ripped off.

Start with:  You really need to listen to these in order.  Start with S1, Episode1.

Standout Episode:  The creepy knocking on Alex’s sleep tape gave me chills

2. Tanis

What have I not already said about my love for Tanis.  (Brought to you by Pacific North West Stories who also produce The Black Tapes?).

Oh yeah – Both The Black Tapes and Tanis have been on  hiatus for a while but The Sandy Island episodes which are for Patreon subscribers only?  Totally amazing and made me fall in love with Tanis all over again.  Also see my Tanis inspired cocktail posts:

Here for the Eld Fen Martini

Here for the Navigator

Here for the Sex on The Breach

Start With: As with The Black Tapes you need to listen to this in order

Standout Episode: I really liked S1 E3, The Girl in The High Tower which touched on the death of Elisa Lam.  And anything with Geoff Van Sant.  Or MK.  So all of them.

3 My Favourite Murder

Who thought a podcast about murder could be hilarious?  Well, let Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff change your mind. And just in case you are wondering, never disrespectful about the victims.  They may not be the best researched of all the true crime pods that I will list but they are by far my favourite.  I love these gals!

And OMG, the memes that have come out of this.  From the catch cry “Stay sexy, don’t get murdered” to “You’re in a cult, call your dad” to “Here’s the thing, fuck everyone”

Don’t Start With: The Canadian Greyhound Bus Cannibal.  This one scared the crap out of me.  I was almost too scared to go on public transport for weeks after listening to this one!

Start With:The Alphabet Killer.   This is absolutely what fascinates me about these things.  No spoilers but how did that thing become his thing?  Also the one on Israel Keyes.  He looks like a guy you would see at a beachside pub wearing a polo shirt and boat shoes and talking too loudly to his bros.  Not a serial killer, rapist, bank robber and arsonist.   The Israel Keyes episode also spawned the now famous rules of hiking:

  • Go in packs of five
  • With knives
  • With fucking Rottweilers
  • With knives taped to your hands
  • And knives taped to your Rottweilers
  • And then just tons of guns
  • And just start shooting at any sound you hear
  • Anyone who fucking approaches you – shoot them

Other: They also have the best fan made merch. I  just ordered one of these “Stay sexy, don’t get murdered rings” off Etsy. I feel it’s my version of the WWJD bangle.

4. Casefile

This is also true crime but from Australia.  And if  MFM is  entirely personality driven, Casefile is the facts ma’am just the facts. The host is even anonymous.  This is not exclusively Australian content but there is a lot of it on here, proving that when it comes to nutters and psychopaths, we can certainly hold our own with the rest of the world!

 

Start With: Peter Falconio. I remember this case so well.  I also remember how they demonised his poor girlfriend in the media.

Standout Episode: Snowtown.  OMG.  Find out what happens when a group of people who individually were only ever going to be losers and fuck ups meet up.  Spoiler – it ends with bodies in barrels.

In Adelaide.

Of course.

5. The Sofa King Podcast

These guys started following me on Insta so I gave their pod a listen and have not stopped.  It’s a mix of true crime, cults, conspiracies, mysteries, and things that go bump in the night.

 

Start with: Their take on Dahmer.  Because no one else will tell you that they found a painted preserved penis in his work locker.  For real.

Standout Episode:  The 411.  This is about people going missing in National Parks.  I laughed so hard whilst listening to this that I had to pull my car over to the side of the road because I was no longer capable of driving.  Believe me, you will never see Gary Coleman in the same light!

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Peter Piper Cocktail

A delicious savoury cocktail

Ingredients

Scale
  • 125ml chilli / pepper vodka
  • 60ml pickle brine
  • Splash fino sherry or dry vermouth
  • Cornichons, pickled jalapenos, green olive to garnish

Instructions

  1. Add the vodka, pickle brine and sherry to a shaker filled with ice.
  2. Shake it like a polaroid picture.
  3. Pour into 2 glasses and garnish with a sliced cornichon, a green olive and a pickled jalapeno.
  4. Enjoy!

Okay, so I have a couple of 1990’s magazines and a 1990’s cookbook on pasta and risotto, all from my personal collection to share with readers.  Point me in the way of your favourite podcasts or let me know if you share my faves and these can be yours!  Leave a comment here, on Facebook or Instagram or tweet me.

Have a wonderful week! And give someone you love a big hug….

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The Dishiest Halloween Dish – Black and Blue Salsa

Wow!  It’s been sooooo very long since I have done one of these posts.  I think this is worth the wait though. Ever since I found the recipe in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Light & Easy, the Black and Blue Salsa, as I have come to call it, has been on high rotation in my kitchen! And it’s a perfect meal for a Halloween dinner, given it’s dark and spooky colour!

black-and-blue-salsa2You can see it top of the photo here as part of the salmon burrito bowl (except it was on a plate) that i had for dinner the other night. The main ingredients of the salsa are black beans and blueberries hence the black and blue name.

 

If this combination appears strange to you, don’t worry it did to me as well. But trust me, it works!  It also looks quite lovely on a plate because the dark colours contrast nicely with against greens, chicken, fish etc.  Hugh describes it as “dark and devillishly well flavoured, ,this is hot sharp, sweet and smoky all at the same time”  He’s right, it is also totally delicious and highly addictive as well as being jam-packed with healthful ingredients!

black-and-blue-salsaI like this with some coriander added.  The original recipe does not have it.

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Black and Blue Salsa

A delicious and healthy salsa, perfect with chicken, fish or any grilled meat

Ingredients

Scale
  • For The Salsa
  • 400g can of black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 200g blueberries
  • 1 small red onion, chopped
  • 2 medium hot red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
  • Handful of coriander leaves, chopped

For The Dressing

  • 1 garlic clove, smashed
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 tsp cider vinegar
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • Salt and Pepper

Instructions

For The Dressing

  1. Combine the garlic, lime juice, paprika, sugar, cider vinegar and oil in a jar. Shake well to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let sit for around half an hour to let the flavours develop.

For the Salsa

  1. Combine the blackbeans, blue berries, onion an chilli in a bowl
  2. Strain the dressing to remove the garlic and pour over.
  3. Mix well.
  4. If possible, let stand for half an hour before serving.
  5. Just before serving sprinkle the chopped coriander over the top.
  6. Enoy!

Notes

  • You can also add diced avocado into this. I left it out this time because I already had avocado on my plate.

Elsewhere in life….

Watching

I am mid way through S2 of Narcos and thoroughly enjoying it.  Ditto Stranger Things

Narcos

Reading

My  current read is Truly, Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty.  I loved one of her previous books, Big Little Lies but I am struggling with this one.

Tasty Reads

The October Choice was Preserving.  I chose The Modern Preserver by Kylee Newton. I loved this book and it is likely to be my Tasty Reads book of the year.  I have made so many things from it and every one of them has been great!

The only book likely to beat it from top position at the end of the year is the November / December choice  – Free Choice.  On the back of some very high review praise, I have chosen Stirring Slowly by Georgina Hayden.

Described as a “new modern classic” by none other than Jamie Oliver, I am looking forward to picking this up and getting stuck in!

Podcasts

Seeing as my favorites Tanis and The Black Tapes are both on between season hiatus, I have started listening to My Favorite Murder.  It’s a comedy true crime podcast and I love it.  I think the two hosts are brilliant and I am so glad I still have 30+ episodes to go before I am caught up!

http://www.feralaudio.com/show/my-favorite-murder/

 

 Other

OMG.  I have started running.  Well, I have started staggering around the back streets and local track in a facsimile of running.  But it’s a start.  I am doing the Couch to 5k program and am midway through week 4.

My aim is to be able to do a full 5k by Christmas.  We’ll see.  It really starts to ramp up after this week, I am a little nervous. And the thing is,  I totally hate doing it when I am doing it.  My chest aches, my legs ache, I am slow and ungainly and huff and puff like a pack a day smoker.  But everytime I do it, I get a little bit better.  And that feels marvellous!

This week I am looking forward to cooking the Cherry Flapjack Granola from Stirring Slowly and a Tom Yum soup from another Tasty Reads favourite, Adam Liaw’s Big Pot.

What are you reading / watching  / listening to?

What are you looking forward to cooking?

Have a Happy Hallloween, a fab week and to borrow a catch phrase from my new favorite podcast, “Stay sexy; don’t get murdered”

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Tanis Inspired Cocktails #4 – Sex on The Breach

With my love of puns, there was no way I could resist this.  The Sex on the Breach is my Tanis inspired version of a variation of the classic Sex on The Beach. sex-on-the-breach

And now for the PSA. If you are in the PNW and you are contemplating having sex in the breach?

Don’t.

Cease.

Desist.

Stop. It. Now.

At best The Breach contains mutant cuttlefish, psycho squirrels, TARDIS like cabins, strange creatures lurking in the shadows, Eld Fen, and has sent more than person totally loopy….Lord only knows what kind of hellish offspring would result from any sort of hanky panky within those grey pancake walls.

sex-on-the-breach2

I found this version of a Sex on the Beach on Drinks Mixer and was really interested to see how the mix of Chambord, Midori and Pineapple juice would turn out.  In my head I wanted it to have a more murky tinge.  In reality, the lovely deep red was a lot more pleasant to the eye than the colour I had in mind!  Also, the original called for Cranberry juice.  I had Pomegranate juice in the house so I made it with that.  Feel free to sub in cranberry juice in your version if that’s how you roll. It is totally delicious too!

Here’s the  recipe:

Print

Sex on The Breach

Celebrate the Season Finale of Tanis with this super tasty cocktail!

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 part vodka
  • 1/2 part Midori® melon liqueur
  • 1/2 part Chambord® raspberry liqueur
  • 2 parts pineapple juice
  • 4 parts pomegranate juice

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients with ice.
  2. Stir gently, strain and serve.

Notes

  • You can substitute cranberry juice for the pomegranate juice

With the Season 2 Finale of Tanis imminent (this week?), why not make one of these to sip on as you listen.  Unless, of course you listen in your car.  In which case, read my PSA above.

There are so many questions that the finale may answer.

  • Will Nic find Tanis?
  • And if he does….then what?
  • Who the fuck is Mike?   Solved.  See below.
  • Will Nic find Sam Reynolds and Morgan Miller?
  • Can Nic trust CameronEllis?  Will anyone ever be able to separate CameronEllis’ first and second names?
  • Should Nic trust Nathaniel Carter and Veronica Pillman?
  • Will they ever stop calling Karla or is it Patrcia Corrie, Marcus Corrie’s widow?  The dude is still alive.  Batshit crazy but alive and incarcerated at Tesla Nova.
  • Did Nic and MK do it in S2E10? (Yes, they totally did).

And the most burning question of all.

@TanisPodcast WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY IMAGINARY INTERNET BOYFRIEND GEOFF VAN SANT?

He better be boozing in a bar somewhere and not have been lured into the breach by someone/ something only to  end up eating his own arm or gouging out his eyes with a spooky Tanis rock like….Oh!  That’s who Mike is.

sex-on-the-breach-3OMG, I can’t wait for the S2 finale….so excited!  And whilst it is sometimes incredibly frustrating to have to wait for the next instalment, I actually kind of love that in a world where everything is on-demand this is something you have to wait for!

I have had a fabulous time doing this series on Tanis and I hope that you have also enjoyed both it and the cocktails!

I don’t think I have said this before but to the makers,writers, actors of Tanis, THANK YOU for making one of the best podcasts, actually the two best most original, creative, well produced podcasts around.  I could not love your work more and I hope you view this tribute as my way of saying thank you for the amazing work you do!   And thanks for the retweets!

Hmmmm…what next I wonder?  Maybe a Black Tapes series?  Who knows?

Stay tuned.

And keep looking.

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