What’s in the box – 5/6 January 2011

Happy new year, folks, and welcome to 2011 and the first link to the box contents of the year!!

I hope you all had a minimally stressful holiday break and managed to get through the Xmas food binge without having to do all the work yourselves!

We had a very pleasant Xmas at the beach, sharing the  typical Australian summer holiday with a new, young, Afghani friend of ours.  He seemed to cope well with the culture shock and his new skills now include body-boarding and being able to play a card game called “Bulls**t”!  Taught to him by my terribly culturally sensitive teenagers (not!) and with the winner being the best liar,  I’m not entirely sure what his mother would think about the latter.

We have a ridiculously busy January and it looks like I am not going to be all that reliable with this particular section of the blog until the end of the month.  I’m sorry if you are inconvenienced by this in any way, but I promise to be back at full steam in the last week of the month.  To make up for this in some small way, I want to share a delicious seasonal recipe from one of my Xmas presents – Greg Malouf’s beautiful new book, “Saraban“.  I am sure that ham and turkey left-overs are looking pretty tired now, so this vegetarian dish could be just the thing! Greg stipulates white zucchini for this, but I think we can be a bit flexible on that point!

WHITE ZUCCHINI OMELETTE WITH MINT & MELTING CHEESE

100ml olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1 tsp dried mint
4 zucchini, grated (about 350gm)
6 eggs
2 tbsp SR flour
grated zest of lemon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
200 gms provolone, grated

Preheat oven to 180C.
Heat half the oil in a pan and fry onion over low heat until softened. Stir in the nutmeg and mint and fry for another minute. Set aside.
Pour the remaining oil into a non-stick ovenproof fry pan and heat in the oven for 5-10 minutes.
Squeeze out most of the liquid from the zucchini.
Whisk the eggs until frothy, then whisk in the flour,lemon zest, salt, pepper, zucchini and cheese.
Pour mixture into the hot oil. Cover the pan with a lid or foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until nearly set.
Remove the lid and cook a further 15 minutes until browned.
Serve hot with thick yoghurt and fresh herbs, or cold with a relish of your choice.

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