Spam

Super spicy asparagus soup or Spam of asparagus spicy soup

Posted by Gary

Asparagus soup is one of those delicious yet uncommon soups [although I’ve made it once before]. I never had it as a kid even though Mum would regularly use asparagus in salads and as a vegetable to accompany meat dishes. We’d always comment about the smell of our urine later in the night and it’s something that still stimulates an olfactory memory.

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Spam of asparagus spicy soup Gary Lum
Spam of asparagus spicy soup
Spam of asparagus spicy soup Gary Lum
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Super spicy asparagus soup
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
40 mins
 
This is a quick and simple recipe that I made up in my head based on the notion that any vegetable can be converted to a soup if you boil it, process it and add cream.
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Australian
Servings: 2
Calories: 500 kcal
Author: Gary Lum
Ingredients
  • 500 grams Asparagus (fresh and cut into 2 centimetre segments)
  • ¼ piece Onion (white or brown)
  • 100 grams Jalapeño Spam (diced)
  • 1 piece Potato (medium and diced into small cubes)
  • ½ cup Sour cream (full cream preferred)
  • 1 piece Red chilli (diced)
  • 1 piece Jalapeño pepper (diced)
  • 2 teaspoons Chilli flakes (dried)
  • 1 teaspoon Garlic powder
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan sauté the onions and Spam until the onions are soft and turning colour.
  2. Add in the asparagus and potato along with the chilli flakes and garlic powder and then add sufficient boiling water from a kettle to leave about a centimetre of asparagus and potato showing above the surface of the water. You don’t want the soup too watery. You can then toss in the finely diced red chilli and Jalapeño pepper. Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes and then check that the potato and asparagus are soft.
  3. Process the soup with a stick blender until it is smooth.
  4. Place some sour cream into a serving bowl, as much as you desire and then pour over the soup.
  5. Serve with some toast if you like.
  6. You can garnish it with something contrasting in colour. I would suggest some red chilli and a grind of cracked pepper.
Recipe Notes

If you don’t like sour cream you could use normal pouring cream or thickened cream. If you wanted to avoid cream altogether that would work too.

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What if I don’t like Spam?

Bacon pieces would be a suitable substitute

What if I’m vegetarian or vegan?

Leave out the meat

Can I freeze some for later?

Yes

Is this safe for children?

Yes, if they like spices. If not, don’t add the chilli flakes and cut back on the fresh spices

Will this soup make my pee smell funny?

If your pee normally takes on a strange odour after eating asparagus then it probably will after eating this soup too.

Can I make a bigger batch for a family?

Sure, just increase the amounts proportionally. You may need to simmer the asparagus longer and it may take longer to process the soup.

Let me know

If you make this recipe please let me know. How do you feel about Spam in soup?

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Slow cooked beef, speck and hot and spicy spam

Posted by Gary
Slow cooked beef, speck and spam with carrot, celery, onion, sugar snap peas, peas, and broccoli
Slow cooked beef, speck and spam with carrot, celery, onion, sugar snap peas, peas, and broccoli

Slow cooked beef, speck and hot and spicy spam is not something you will find in a lot of cook books. As far as I can see it’s not in my Spam cookbook.

Hawaii Spam Cookbook
Hawaii Spam Cookbook

This weekend I got the slow cooker out and loaded it with some ‘casserole’ beef, speck and some leftover hot and spicy spam along with with celery, carrot and onion. I did this video to practice some video editing in Adobe Photoshop.

Slow cooked beef, speck and hot and spicy spam
Recipe Type: Dinner
Cuisine: Australian
Author: [url href=”http://garylum.me” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”]Gary Lum[/url]
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • Casserole beef from Coles
  • Speck from Coles delicatessen
  • Spam (hot and spicy)
  • Celery (3 stalks) finely chopped
  • Carrot (1) diced
  • Onion (½) diced
  • Red wine (1 cup)
  • Beef stock (1 litre)
  • Sugar snap peas
  • Frozen peas
  • Broccoli
  • Dried mixed herbs
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Ginger marmalade (1 tablespoon)
  • Plain flour
Instructions
  1. Dice the vegetables (onions, carrot and celery) and meat
  2. Coat the meat in flour
  3. Brown off the meat in some olive oil in a frying pan and then soften the vegetables (onions, carrot and celery) in the frying pan.
  4. Add everything that has been browned or softened to the slow cooker
  5. Deglase the frying pan with a cup of red wine and pour the wine into the slow cooker
  6. Add the stock, ginger marmalade, some salt and pepper plus the dried herbs.
  7. Turn on the slow cooker and cook for 6 hours
  8. Drain the solids and keep the liquid for reducing to a sauce
  9. Aliquot into microwave safe containers for lunch at work
  10. Steam some sugar snap peas, peas and broccoli
  11. Plate up the meal
  12. Shoot a photograph
  13. Eat the meal
  14. Wash the dishes
  15. Write the recipe
  16. Blog (Verb)

I’m trying to teach myself some Adobe Photoshop skills. I video recorded some of my preparation and edited it in Photoshop. You can watch it here. It’s not very interesting and displays that I need to improve my knife skills. I also need to learn more about transitions and making a logo and adding in audio. Oh well, I will try to get better.

Monday link love

These links are from today’s shared posts on the Canberra Food Blogger’s Facebook Group.

I hope you’ve had a great Monday

This is a photograph I shot yesterday. I thought I’d share it because I like it.

Lake Ginninderra reflections
Lake Ginninderra reflections

My first Jack in the box meal

Posted by Gary
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
My first Jack in the box meal
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I was reminded by a friend today that Jack in the box is best known to microbiologists because of an outbreak of Escherichia coli infection caused by the O157:H7 strain in 1993 which infected 732 people. I’ll let you know if I feel crook.

We started with a quick breakfast at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Honolulu. I had a smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese. It was pretty nice. 

Smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese
Smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese

We left Honolulu today with this view from the Aqua Waikiki Wave hotel. It looked cloudy but it was a beautiful day. #warmandmoist 

Morning view from Aqua Waikiki Wave hotel on Friday morning.
Morning view from Aqua Waikiki Wave hotel on Friday morning.

After picking up a Hertz rental car (Chevrolet Impala—please don’t tell my Holden loving friends that we were forced to drive a General Motors heap with a 3.6 L V6 which I assume is used in commodes back home) we drove up the scenic east coast of Oahu. It was a beautiful drive punctuated with great spots to stop and take in the view.

The view from Diamond Head beach park
The view from Diamond Head beach park
The view from the Hãlona Cove Blowhole lookout
The view from the Hãlona Cove Blowhole lookout
The view from the Hãlona Cove Blowhole lookout
The view from the Hãlona Cove Blowhole lookout

For lunch we stopped in at Waimãnalo and ate at a Jack in the Box. I had a Jack’s spicy chicken sandwich and some delicious stuffed jalapeño peppers. Despite bad history with Escherichia coli I was pretty happy with my meal. The staff were really very friendly.

Jack in the box Jack's spicy chicken burger
Jack in the box Jack’s spicy chicken burger
Jack in the box Stuffed jalapeño peppers
Jack in the box Stuffed jalapeño peppers

We kept driving north and stopped at the Foodland in Lã’ie for supplies. You can tell what I aimed for.

I found spam
I found spam

I periscoped this short movie clip. I’m sorry about the poor quality. I was so excited to see so much spam and corned beef. Did you see the size of the can of corned beef. 

 

 

I did buy some spam. I leave it as a surprise what flavours I bought. I only got two cans.

I love how white these eggs are
I love how white these eggs are
If you love eggs like I do I reckon 18 eggs in a carton is brilliant. Gee I love America.
If you love eggs like I do I reckon 18 eggs in a carton is brilliant. Gee I love America.
Look at all the Processed cheese!
Look at all the Processed cheese!
Yay for Plastic bags. hawaii is not a nanny state like the Australian Capital Territory. Plastic shopping bags are so useful and can be used multiple times.
Yay for Plastic bags. hawaii is not a nanny state like the Australian Capital Territory. Plastic shopping bags are so useful and can be used multiple times.
I nearly bought this Spam T-shirt. I may go back and buy it.
I nearly bought this Spam T-shirt. I may go back and buy it.

After we settled in to our condominium we went for dinner at Kahuku Grill in Kahuku. This place was really good. It was laid back and the staff were extra friendly. The meals weren’t too big and definitely not too small. I had a delicious “Deep bleu” burger with extra pineapple. The beef was juicy and tender, the cheese had a great tang to it. I love pineapple on a burger. The only thing that would make it fair dinkum would be some beetroot and a fried egg. 

The only negative was the lack of lighting. I had to turn the ISO up to 128,000 and shoot wide open at f/2. I kept the shutter speed at 1/40 seconds. It’s a grainy and blurry and the depth of field is way too narrow. Trust me when I say it looked really good and tasted even better 

The Deep Bleu ay Kahuku Grill, Kahuku Oahu with added pineapple.
The Deep Bleu ay Kahuku Grill, Kahuku Oahu with added pineapple.

Have you eaten Jack in the box? Do you like stuffed jalapeño peppers?

Hawaiian holiday day 1

Posted by Gary

We arrived at the Honolulu International Airport yesterday for our Hawaiian holiday aboard Qantas QF3 SYD to HNL. The flight was comfortable and smooth on board the Airbus 330. If you want to see photographs of the meals prior to, during the flight and last night please check out YummyLummyBlog on Instagram.

Today we got up early because we had a tour going out to Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona memorial, the battleship USS Missouri and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl).

For breakfast I sought out and enjoyed spam and eggs.

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For lunch I had a chili dog with sauerkraut and pickled jalopeño pepper.

2015.04.16_12.03.08_003_GARY_LUM_FB

 

For dinner we found a Japanese noodle restaurant known as the Ringer Hut and I had pork and kimchi hotpot.

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I’ve added some of the photographs from Pearl Harbor into a slideshow gallery. When I get more time I’ll process as many of the photographs as possible and post them. You can see some on my main instagram account garydlum.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So this is the beginning of our Hawaiian holiday. Have you ever been to Hawaii? What did you do?

Scrambled eggs Heston style

Posted by Gary

I forgot wilted spinach leaves with my scrambled eggs

Oh well I had spinach leaves and it would have been nice to have something green on the plate.

I’ve been watching a bit of Heston Blumenthal on TV lately and I thought I’d give his scrambled eggs technique a go. I normally cook mine in a frying pan in butter and stir a little once every 15 seconds and the whole thing is usually ready in a couple of minutes.

Heston cooks his eggs low and slow in a bain-marie. I found this YouTube video which shows the technique nicely.

 

 

Heston always seems to add beurre noisette and sherry vinegar. I didn’t do this because I was hungry and didn’t have any unsalted butter or sherry vinegar.

The process of making the scrambled eggs turns out to be really easy although it is time consuming. Putting a glass bowl on a saucepan, i.e., a bain-marie is easy and it’s the first time I’ve used this technique, I’ve never even heated chocolate this way. In my mind it just always seemed like an extra effort and I’m a lazy person and especially a lazy cook.

It takes about seven minutes before anything starts to happen and when it does the fluffy folds of eggs start to come together. By the end the eggs are creamy and really nice. The eggs went nicely with the streaky bacon and the bacon spam.

2015-02-22_09.10.07_008_GARY_LUM_FB

Scrambled eggs Heston style
 
Recipe Type: Breakfast
Cuisine: Australian
Author: Gary Lum
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • Streaky bacon
  • Bacon spam
  • Eggs
  • Cream
  • Salt
  • Dried flowers
Instructions
  1. Put the bacon and spam into a bench top oven and cook for 20 minutes at 200 °C
  2. Get the water in the saucepan simmering
  3. Break the eggs into the glass bowl and add some cream plus a little salt
  4. Place the bowl over the simmering water and gently stir for about 15 minutes
  5. When the eggs start to come together and look like scrambled eggs take the bowl off the saucepan and put the eggs on a plate
  6. Add the bacon and spam to the plate
  7. Add some dried flowers to the scrambled eggs to make it look pretty
  8. Shoot a photograph
  9. Eat breakfast
  10. Wash the dishes
  11. Write the recipe
  12. Blog (verb)
 

 

A nice big saucepan with water
A nice big saucepan with water
Eggs in the bowl
Eggs in the bowl
Eggs in the ban-marie
Eggs in the ban-marie
Yes my oven is dirty
Yes my oven is dirty
Dried flowers from the Essential Ingredient Canberra
Dried flowers from the Essential Ingredient Canberra
Eggs coming together
Eggs coming together
Eggs are ready
Eggs are ready

2015-02-22_09.10.07_008_GARY_LUM_FB

 

How do you cook your scrambled eggs?