Scraping the Bottom of the Fridge

Us Wallys are a frugal pair. We never throw away food: food! Why throw it away? Do something with it; re-imagine yesterdays meal. To us it is no different to throwing away hard cash and that is another thing we never do.

Another thing we do not enjoy is shopping. It is time we begrudge throwing away; time that we could better use to do something truly memorable or creative, or simply to sit and stare at the walls. Choice is a great luxury.

Where is all this heading we hear you ask? Clearly if we do not waste food and do not shop, unless we have to, it is inevitable that, from time to time, we find ourselves ‘eating the fridge’. That is, we pull out anything lurking in it’s darkest recesses and in the bright, well lit, front and we attempt to use it all up at one sitting. Sometimes we do this with friends; usually we stretch it to 3 courses. Only then can we truly say that it is time to go to the shop.

You would think now we are all embracing coronavirus, things would be a little different, but, for us they are not. Now, more than ever, our meanness with waste and time is proving to be a life saver. If we are not out shopping for food, then we are not exposed to the present danger that scares us.

Right now, life is undiluted, time is undisturbed; the weather is hot. We may be in lockdown, but there is food in the fridge, some simple vegetables and herbs in the garden, and plenty of things to keep us occupied. Life is good.

Short and sweet was the order of the week simply because we are putting together a longer piece for the near future. In the meantime, please let us know what you think of our work by using one or all of the buttons below. All the best, stay safe. The Wallys. xx

Alioli

A simple, traditional Spanish dipping sauce that packs a massive punch.

Ingredients

5T Olive oil
1t Vinegar
.25t Course salt
2 average garlic cloves

Add olive oil and vinegar and this is all you need in order to make Alioli. Easy.

Method

Usually this food is made with a pestle and mortar. I do not know about you, but I do not take one camping! Today, at home, I tried a campers version, using what most of us might have in a tent or camper van. It takes quite a time and is fairly hard work too, but it is well worth the effort.

Grate the garlic, with their skins on, ideally using a fine grater. Alternatively smash the cloves with a rock, or a knife and put your mashings into your little bowl.

Grate garlic into your little bowl
Add salt
Mash the grated garlic into the finest possible paste by using the back of your spoon pressed and rubbed against the side of your bowl
Add the vinegar to your bowl and carry on mashing your garlic, salt and vinegar together

Mashing garlic, salt and vinegar together

Now begin to add your oil a little at a time, mashing the garlic mix until it firms up and becomes creamy looking. I use half a teaspoonful of oil at a time, or less, and press the spoon very firmly and rapidly around and around the side of the bowl.

Only add more oil when your mix looks like this.

Repeat, dripping in the oil and madly mashing until you have a reasonable amount of paste.

I find this method does not give a very stiff dipping paste. It is more of a dipping sauce. A pestle and mortar gives fantastic results; did I mention that?

Here is some I made earlier by using our pestle and mortar.

The resulting sauce is delicious and is great when used for:-

Dipping bread into
Drizzling onto sushi before rolling them and dipping the sushi into at the table as you eat them.
Adding to curry just before serving
Dipping onion bhajis into
Adding to a marinade, say; lime, ginger and coconut.
Drizzle over pizza just before, or after cooking

Homemade Alioli made by using a pestle and mortar.

Making this simple food is simply hard work. Remember, nothing worth having comes easy.

We hope that you will give this little recipe a go. If you do, let us know how you get on and please pass on any tips or improvements. Please use the reply button below, or press ‘like’ to register your approval.

Of course you are very welcome to join our merry band of regular readers by pressing the ‘follow’ button below. Every time we post an article, you will receive an update. All the best, us Wallys. xx

LAKSA

Probably the fastest, tastiest, hearty soup you can make.

This delicious coconutty soup hails from Malaysia. We make the simplest version possible. Feel free to add anything that takes your fancy. There are dozens of variations on the internet.

Follow the recipe stage by stage and it will be a doddle.

Ingredients

100g Rice noodles
300ml Tin of coconut milk
1t Soy Sauce
4 Spring onions, sliced length wise into ribbons and cut into 5cm lengths
½ Sweet red pepper cut into thin slivers
Chillis, thinly sliced, or powder, to taste
1 Plump garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 Thumbnail of ginger, thinly sliced and and then cut into strips
1 Lime, zest and juice
Fist full of Bean sprouts
¼ Cup Sweetcorn and/or peas/beans/shredded cabbage

Method – Stage 1: vegetables

Prepare the vegetables quickly, keeping everything wafer thin.
Drop the vegetables straight into the saucepan as they are prepared.
Zest the lime straight onto the vegetables.

Method – Stage 2: Noodles

Place noodles into a second pan.
Pour boiling water onto the noodles, stirring them to separate them.
Place a tight fitting lid onto the pan
Cover with a towel, or tea towels, to insulate
Leave to stand for 5 minutes

Method – Stage 3: Laksa Soup

Pour over the vegetables, the coconut milk, soy sauce and lime juice.
Bring to the boil
Simmer for no more than 5 minutes.

Method – Stage 4: Assembly

Pour some of the noodle water into the soup, so that the vegetables are comfortably covered.
Drain and then place the noodles into 2 bowls.
Immediately ladle the soup onto the noodles and eat.

The vegetables should have some crispness. You can add salt, but remember soy sauce can be very salty.

This is often served with coriander leaves, halved hard boiled eggs and finely sliced and raw spring onion, some, or all, placed on top of the soup. When cooking, turmeric powder can be added, as can curry spices, as this is very often served as a curry soup. All variations are based on the basic recipe above. Some ingredients are often wizzed together to form ‘Laksa Paste’ and then pre-fried.

Feel free to ‘like’ this article and to ‘comment’, critique, or praise what we do. Also, please follow us using the ‘Follow’ button below. Jen and Dave. xx

Spicy Singapore Noodles

This is a full flavoured, unctuous meal. It takes no more than 20 minutes from starting to prepare, to eating.

For 2 people

Probably the most flavour in the least time ever in a campsite!

Ingredients

*1in diameter bundle of Spaghetti (¼ to 1/3 of a packet), Spaghetti doubles as noodles – try it!

*1T oil

*1t coconut oil

*5 or 6 types of vegetables, thinly sliced, see the photo for inspiration, (We used, in order of longest to least amount of cooking time: ½ Carrot, 1 onion, 1 stem from some broccoli – outer peeled away as it can be stringy, 1/2in root ginger, ¼ large red pepper, 1 fat garlic clove, ½ large courgette, 1 large tomato).

*Chilli flakes/powder to taste, optional.

*1T Sweet Chilli Sauce

*1T tomato puree/passata/chopped tomatoes

*1T light soya sauce (1t if it is the very dark one)

*No salt

Method

*Prepare all vegetables and lay out in the order for frying – take no more than 5 minutes on this task.

Cooking the Noodles

*Break the pasta into 3in lengths and drop into a large saucepan

*Boil a kettle of water and pour over the spaghetti.

*Put onto the stove and bring to the boil, then simmer til only just cooked

The stir fry

*While the pasta is cooking

*Heat the two oils together, the coconut oil will froth, this is fine. It should be hot.

*Keeping the oil hot through out, fry each vegetable type, in order, for a minute each. Not the courgette or tomato. Keep stirring.

*Add your chilli flakes/powder to last, stir.

*Add the sweet chilli sauce, the tomato puree and the soya sauce and continue stirring.

*Add your penultimate fast cook vege/s, for me that was courgette.

*Drain the pasta and add to the stir fry, keep stirring.

*Turn off the heat, add the tomatoes and stir.

Dinner is ready!

Remember to let us know what you think of this easy-peasy meal by leaving a comment below. Ta!

POT LUCK BIRTHDAY OFFERINGS

Recipes for a Camp Birthday

Take one Birthday Boy

Make him look as silly as you can.

Agree to bring a couple of plates of finger food to his ‘pot luck party’ and spend half a day agonising over what to make. We decided on:-

Two very full Dinner Plates one of Onion Bhajis and another of Thai Fishcakes.

ONION BHAJIS

Ingredients:

3c Chickpea Flour (also known as Gram Flour)

2 Eggs (optional)

3 – 4 average sized onions, very finely sliced

1T Curry powder, or asian spices.

Salt to taste

Water to give correct consistency.

Oil for frying.

Method

*Beat the eggs into the sliced onion so that the onions are well coated.

*Mix all the dry ingredients together.

*Stir the dry mix into the onions, add water to give a ‘soft drop’ consistency (more or less)

*Taste and adjust the flavourings and salt.

*Heat the oil and fry heaped t’s of the mix. This can be shallow or deep fat frying.

*When golden on one side, flip them over and cook the other.

*These small Bhajis cook quickly, so you’ll soon have a production line going.

Serve hot or cold.

To make them a little more exciting: add coconut milk, rather than water, when mixing. Fry in part ordinary oil and part coconut oil: coconut oil froths as it fries, this is normal. Add fresh coriander, or mint. Add garlic. Add chilli (not always popular at parties). Once cooked, sprinkle a little salt over them. Make them using other vegetables– fantastic, but keep spare flour handy, as some vegetables make the mix sloppy over time and, if this happens, you will need to mix in more flour.

Really this is a chuck it all together recipe. As long as the consistency is about right and the vegetables have some of the mix on them, you will have a good result.

THAI FISHCAKES