And so are we! It’s been a while since I’ve given an update – the last time all our plants were only seedlings! Well, we’ve had quite a few harvests now from the garden, we’ve had plenty of lettuce and herbs like parsley, coriander and basil, thyme, dill, and also other fun things like standard/frenchbreakfast/scarlet radishes (which are easy and I recommend everyone grow them!), kale, spinach, beetroots, snowpeas, french red spring onions, strawberries, bok choy and purple carrots.

Strawberries – we have 3 different types in there now. We get maybe 1 strawberry a week at the moment – but it is very satisfying!

Beetroot and Kale

Spinach on the left and Lettuces, a big cabbage, mint, and two bok choy at the front there.

Snow Peas!! (for some reason I am the most excited about these babies) and Spring Onions. I don’t think I’ll ever buy spring onions again. These are just too tasty!

We planted purple carrot seedlings with mild success. They are in the garden for such a long time (100 days) and by the end you really don’t know if they are going to work or not (not like other things that sit above the surface) Some of them were lovely and big, others were still very tiny or a bit twisted. I think we’ll try carrots once more, but might try other things that yield more and faster.

We used the lettuces, spring onion, parsley, carrots and eggs (from the chooks) in this lovely lunch. The tomatoes are from a market stall that moves between the Jan Powers Markets and the Kelvin Grove Markets. We kept a couple of the older tomatoes, removed and washed the seeds and grew little seedlings from them. We have them in little seed pots waiting to be put into the garden.

It is so satisfying eating food produced in your own garden. 

It is so fresh. So Alive.

If you want to have a go at a garden, remember, it’s really easy – it’s just important to:

1. Prepare the soil – you want the soil to be lovely rich and light with lots of compost and a layer of mulch (sugar cane mulch is good) on top.
2. Water it – when it’s being established – every day. Then once it looks happy every couple of days or so. Just keep an eye on it
3. Weed it -surprisingly this is my favourite part. When you’re weeding you get to spend time relaxing in the warm sun, watching the other plants growing. It’s great to get your hands in the soil.
4. Feed it – Fertilise – we’re just using store-bought stuff at the moment, every 2 weeks. But the plan is to get a worm farm… one day. This makes a MASSIVE difference in the amount of growth.
5. Love it – this is the most important ingredient. Show it a bit of love everyday. Observe and explore the garden, check for new growth. Watch the bees pollinate the flowers. Learn.  Be proud of your garden. Thank it for its produce – “My what a beautiful tomato! Thank you!” I sound like a tree-hugging hippy - but it works.

The greatest thing is that we are still learning and slowly understanding what works the best. Some vegetables thrive, others are a little slower. Even the positioning of the plants in the same garden can change how things grow. It’s really exciting to learn and I can’t wait for the next round of plantings.

Pate!! 

Fresh, local pate at that too! Pate is one of those things that I have really fond memories of from when I was a kid. My mum was a big pate fan (Actually, I’m pretty sure every adult during the 1980’s was a fan of pate – along with smoked salmon, purple eye shadow and Dire Straits). And it was one of those things that even after I found out that it was made of animals livers, I kept on eating it! See, this news would have usually put me off most foods, but not pate. It transcends race, creed and mere offal…. It’s like making a silk purse out of a sows ear.

Actually this sort of food is generally my absolute favourite type of food, which I’ve probably mentioned on this blog a billion times already but I think it’s really important. You can do wonderful things with food and other things with not much money. In another example of this I recently made some gorgeous bread by using this recipe. My first ever time making bread from scratch (without a bread maker) It was divine! It cost me about 60 cents for the ingredients – and about 3 minutes work.  This in comparison to an ‘artisan’ loaf at the markets for $6 a pop! There are so many wonderful things that can happen with a tiny bit of extra effort and less cash.

Anyway, I digress – I’m pretty sure an absence of almost a month from blogging is bad for my little fingers – they’re getting run off their feet with this ranting!…. I was talking about Pate. This Pate. More specifically Free range Goose Liver and Black Truffle Pate, made here in SE Queensland.

Yes.

That’s right.

So creamy. So smooth. Delicate but rich. Luxury OFFAL!

Also a Chili Crab Pate, which was more like a terrine and very delicious. 

I guess a good way of describing how good they both were is that every time I tried one I would exclaim that it was my absolute favourite, then scooped a little pate from the other and exclaimed with equal sincerity that that one was now my favourite.

Look! Even our Puss wanted some – but with such a kick from the chili we thought better of it!

We got these at the Jan Powers Markets, but it’s also at a few other spots too – check out their website for the details.

www.freshchefsfoods.com.au

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OK… so as i’m typing this my V button just popped off the keyboard. Moral of the story for any new parents out there – Close your laptop when you’re finished with it!

(I’m sure some grammar nazis would suggest that perhaps hiding my exclamation point key would be a good thing. )

It got me thinking. Most of the food we eat that tastes brilliant is the food that has love stirred in. Simple food is turned into mega-stars by giving it some love and energy. That’s why a lot of fast food really just sucks. It could taste great. A home-made hamburger can be to die for and I can imagine some southern deep-fried chicken the way momma used to make would have been super tasty. But the ‘Evil Clown and Feckless Chicken’ just don’t care, and as a result it tastes like cardboard soaked in kerosene.

So stir in a little love, a little magic and reap the rewards.

Spiced Chicken and Chickpea Individual Pies

Ingredients

2 Chicken Thighs, chopped

2/3cup each diced celery, carrot and sweet potato

2 medium red onions, sliced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 thumb of ginger, grated

1 can tomatoes

1 can chickpeas

2 tsp grainy mustard

sprinkle garam masala

1 tsp paprika

2 tbsp flour

1 cup stock

handful of herbs from the garden - savoury, thyme, oregano, rosemary, parsley etc.

Method

Use a “sticky” pan – i.e. NOT a non-stick pan. This is the secret to making a kick-arse pie filling. You want it all to stick to the bottom and go brown so you can scrape it up and add the flavour to the pie filling. It adds SO much flavour!

1. Caramelize the onions with some olive oil on medium heat until they’re nice and brown

2. Add the celery, carrot, sweet potato, ginger, garlic and cook on a high heat, stirring until looking cooked.

3. Add the chicken thigh and cook again, get it all nice and brown, scraping the bottom of the pan

4. Add the drained and rinsed chickpeas

5. Add the spices, mustard, and fry off for a bit then add the flour and mix and scrape the pan until the raw flour taste is cooked out. You want it to be nice and brown. (seeing a theme here? Nice and Brown!)

6. Add the tomatoes and stock and herbs, stir through and then let simmer until really thick. It will stick to the bottom, keep scraping it off as you go. Let it get nice and thick.

This makes enough for 4 big individual pies. I halved it and put the leftovers in a zip lock bag in the freezer – it’s like a free meal a month later!

7. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Put the pie filling in a dish and pop a puff pastry lid on top. Brush with egg wash and bung it in the oven. Serve with steamed vegetables (we served it with sauteed kale from our garden)

Radishes are brilliant – and here’s why:

1.  First of all, when you sow the seeds of radishes within about 3 days you can see growth. This is so much faster than anything else in the garden, which can sometimes take up to 3 or 4 weeks! We sow them fairly close together in a big bunch.

2.  As soon as they start to show their sprout leaves you can eat them, roots and all. They’re really fresh and peppery and are a great addition to salads and sandwiches. The stem has a lovely pink hue.

3.  Pick sprouts from all across the plot when ever you feel like a feed - this way you’ll progressively thin out the crop, which will leave more space for the ones you left in to grow bigger.

4.  Once they start growing their very small true leaves you can still nibble on them – Just pinch off any hairy leaves

5.  After a while the radish bulbs will start to bulge just under the surface of the soil. Pick through the plot to find the biggest radishes… and leave the smaller ones… progressively thinning, thinning, thinning the crop. We have often found ourselves standing in the garden, sifting through the plants, pulling one out, wiping it on our shirts and eating them right then and there. It’s a true pleasure.

We have had our radishes in for about 5 weeks and we’ve eaten more than half already! They are absolutely the easiest thing to grow and I recommend giving them a go in a small patch of ground, add some compost, a bit of fertilizer, a very thin covering of mulch and you’ll be laughing!

COMPETITION REMINDER!! We have a mixed case of 24 bottles of Apple and Pear Cider to give away from Punt Road Wines. To enter, all you have to do is write a comment on ANY post on iatebrisbane. Open to Brisbane (and surrounds) entrants only (could you imagine the international shipping fees on a case of cider?!). Check out the details and the tricky little fine print here.

This is what we get every few months or so when the Food Bloggers of Brisbane get together to break bread, share stories and learn a thing or two about blogging, food and about each other. I love it. Blogging can be sometimes a little isolating. As I write this I sit in the back room of my house, we like to call it the ‘Library’, but really it’s just a junk room.  And I write. And I fiddle with photo post-processing, but the best bit is getting out there and finding things to write about. Cooking and gardening is wonderful, But sharing a meal with like-minded people is one of my favourite things about this blog. It has allowed me the opportunity to meet so many new and different people, with such varying backgrounds, but we’re all brought together by our love of food.

Tognini’s at Spring Hill very kindly offered to host us for the night. Their warm hospitality and homely meal made us feel so warm and calm after such a cold week here in Brisbane. Narelle Tognini, the owner (along with her husband Mark) of the 3 Tognini restaurants in Brisbane sat with us and shared the meal, which was a very communal affair, large, overflowing platters of slow-cooked, nurtured food was brought to the middle of the table and we all served each other.

The cheeses were specially selected by Narelle, who explained to us about each… while we all sat impatiently waiting for someone to take the first nibble of cheese! All three were delightful. The Italian Gorgonzola Dulce was the best blue I’ve ever tasted (I’m not much of a fan of blue cheese, so this was pretty amazing), a French soft (and very moreish) wash-rind cheese and Testun di Pecora Chestnut – a very hard sheep’s cheese wrapped, and flavoured, with chestnut leaves.

This is Narelle Tognini (by the way, fellow pronounciation-nazis! She vocalises the ‘g’ – i.e. it’s not silent!). She’s pretty amazing, and quite insprirational. She has worked hard at this business for 17 years and it’s paid off! Her passion for what she does shines through.

One of the mains was in-house hickory smoked chicken breast with Mediterranean vegetables and a delightfully soft polenta. The chef came out to let us know what was in it. Now, I do apologise Mr Chef, but you did tell a table-full of bloggers your recipe. So hence, I must spill the proverbial beans.

This is the recipe!

1 part polenta

2 parts milk

1 part cream

1 part…. butter.

and lots and lots of love.

My mouth waters as my arteries harden!

This was served with slow roasted kipfler potatoes and a simple rocket and parmesan salad.

Also served with the polenta dish was a mound of risotto, with mushrooms, peas and crumbled Italian sausage. Risotto is growing on me slowly. This was very rich but very flavoursome. We can only take a reasonable guess and surmise that the risotto was just as ‘healthy’ for us as the polenta!

Ok, so here’s a sneaky peak around in the fromagerie – the cheese room. Lordy look at those dairy delights! Truffle Infused Pecorino anyone? They also have a whole range of takeaway food, the “Turbo Range”. This is cooked in the restaurant kitchen and vacuum packed. Because the chefs are so creative the range changes constantly. You can pick up a gourmet meal and cook it yourself in under 10 minutes. They have a full complement of deli goods, something that is truly lacking here in Brisbane.

Dessert was a lovely and rich creme brulee with poached quince. It was quite dense but velvety.

To be honest, I don’t think I have EVER eaten so much dairy in one sitting before. The food was beautiful though and you could tell a lot of love and affection went into making it. I really felt like I could have been sitting around an old table in a sprawling backyard in a small Italian village, under a chestnut tree – with family and friends.

My love affair with Finland started a few years earlier though and I have my old choir conductor, Sandra Milliken to thank for this. She also took a study-tour to Finland to learn new choral techniques and instantly fell in love with the country. She has been back many times, mainly in winter, to spend time with friends and write a number of choral songs for choirs to sing. Since then she taught the choir and me a number of Finnish choral pieces and about the Finnish culture. We became well known for our Finnish language singing (one of the hardest languages in the world to learn) and had the great honour to sing for the former-Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen when he made a trip out here. He said our pronunciation was impeccable!

Finland holds a lot of good memories for me. The choir spent time in Helsinki in the heart of winter where I fell in love with the wide cobbled streets, the open air markets and the cold, frozen harbour. We sang a concert in the “Rock Church” , carved out of the rock, where initially I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience while singing one of the more beautiful songs – it turned out to be a heavy case of jetlag! We then skipped up to a village an hour out of town for another concert. This is where I encountered karjalanpiirakat for the first time, on a table full of sweet treats as a snack during the rehearsal with our host-choir.

They had made a number of spiced biscuits and sweets, and also these pastries. At first they look like a sweet too, but they are quite savoury, earthy but very moreish. The filling is made simply of rice and milk and the pastry is made from rye flour. It is served with a mixture of chopped boiled egg and butter. They are extremely tasty, but if you are a staunchly patriotic Finn, you may not want to read the next bit… these pastries beg to be meddled with. A sweet version of a rice custard with cinnamon and a mixed berry compote on top would be divine. Or perhaps a mushroom ’risotto’ with a piece of prosciutto sandwiched between the pastry and filling. Maybe curried egg instead of plain egg on top… I will definitely be trying these again and having a play.

I worked from a few recipes for this but this turned out to be my version

Rice Filling

1 cup Water

1 cup Rice (I used medium-grain, some recipes call for ’shortgrain glutinous rice’ but it shouldn’t matter too much)

1 Litre Milk (or Soy Milk)

Pastry

1 cup Water

1 cup Flour (and a little bit extra)

1 1/2 cups rye flour (it took me 3 shops to find rye flour! You can get it at Woolworths)

1 1/2 tsp salt

Glaze

1/2 cup milk

1/6 cup butter

Eggy mixture

2 hard boiled eggs

2 tbsp butter, softened

Method

1.  Put the water and rice in a saucepan and cook for about 5-10 minutes until the water is absorbed.

2. Add the milk (it looks like HEAPS but it will absorb!) and simmer for about 50-60 minutes, stirring every once in a while until the consistancy of thick porridge. Add the salt and let cool.

3. Mix all the pastry ingredients in a bowl until you get a thick paste. Roll out into a sausage shape the ‘thickness of your wrist’ and cut it into 16 equal sections.

4. Roll out on a well floured surface until it’s about 20 cm in diameter and quite thin

5. If you want to be a bit OCD (or if you are just as bad as me at creating perfect rounds of pastry) trim the sides of the pastry to a perfect circle. For the mums out there – I found using an old lid from a formula tin worked PERFECTLY!

6. take a large spoonful of rice and press it onto the pastry in a oval shape. This is sticky work, you’ll need a clean teatowel to wipe your hands after you do this. Then fold the edges of the pastry over just the edge of the rice in a crimped pattern. It doesn’t have to look perfect.

7. Heat the milk and butter in a pan until boiling. Brush this mixture over the entire pastry and pop in an oven at over 250 degrees celcius (one recipe said 290 degrees! My oven doesn’t get that hot!!)

8. After about 10 minutes brush again with the milk mixture, Then continue to cook until they look golden.

9. Take the pastries out of the oven and brush again with the milk mixture and cover with a clean tea towel so the pastry softens.

10. Boil the eggs until hard, then cool.  (I cannot recommend more highly the contraption pictured above - it’s an “Egg Perfect Egg Timer” and you can get it from homewares shops. As it heats up the edge will change colour and will tell you when it is soft, medium or hard boiled. I’ve never had any surprises (or nasty greeny-grey yolks) when using this product) So… chop up the boiled eggs and mix with the softened butter.

11. Serve warm or cold with a spoonful of the egg mixture on top.

These are great for a snack during the day. We had ours for dinner with a bit of ham and a salad. I served these at work for morning tea last week and they were a hit! I’ve had  few requests for the recipe. Perhaps they might be the next macaron?

So why do we use cutlery anyway?  It started off with the knife of course, slicing off chunks of food, stabbing them with the pointy end and shoving it in your gob. Then came the spoon – for all those not quite pick-up-able, not quite slurpable foods (Porridgefor instance). Then along came the fork. Once this happened, tableware became all rather fancy and then ‘the rules’ kicked in. I was speaking with a group of bloggers recently and Ms Strayed From The Table mentioned her partner does not enjoy going to upmarket restaurants because he simply doesn’t know what to do. I can understand this as some restaurants can be quite daunting. Yes, it is gratifying to experience lavish food and the traditions and rituals that surround it, but sometimes its just as pleasurable to enjoy simple food, eaten simply.

Ingredients

Ridiculous amounts of veges – cut up fairly small. Try: Eggplant, zucchini, capsicum, potato, sweet potato, beetroot, turnip, parsnip, carrot, mushrooms, swede, red onion, etc

Cloves of Garlic – as much as you want

Dukkah  - I use the Splendid Blends one from the Jan Power’s Markets in Brisbane. (3352 6855), or make your own with Sesame seeds, coriander seeds, hazelnuts, chick peas, cumin seeds, mint and salt and roast it all up.

Lamb backstrap or any red meat, Free-range preferably - Or leave this out completely

Cherry Tomatoes

Chopped Nuts (I used Chestnuts, but use whatever you have handy)

Fresh Rosemary sprig (Catherine was lovely and gave some to me from her garden. I’ve kept 4 sprigs of it in a glass of water on my window sill. They’ve started to grow roots – I’ll plant them in the garden in a month or so.)

Fresh Turkish bread or Lavash/Pita Bread. I bought mine from The Hills Bakery, 170 Patricks Road in Ferny Hills (0733515277) - They’ve got new owners, and truly this is a hidden gem of the bakery world. Worth a trip out to ‘The Hills’ to try their Fresh Rosemary Turkish Bread – just delicious. And if you want to have a good chat with a true foodie, definitely spark up a conversation with the owner.

 Method

1. Turn the oven onto 200 degrees Celcius. Put all the veges into a large oven dish with the whole cloves of garlic and rosemary. Sprinkle the dukkah on everything. Cover the tray with a lid or aluminium foil.  Chuck it in the oven. Wait until all veges are tender and a little brown (usually over an hour)

2. Brush the meat with a little oil on one side and press dukkah into the flesh. Sear the meat on all sides then shove it in with the veges, along with the cherry tomatoes and nuts. Cook Uncovered for about 10minutes.

3.Take the meat out and rest it for about 5 minutes, then slice thinly.

4.While waiting for the meat to rest make a yoghurt dressing with natural greek yoghurt, lemon juice (and zest if you’re using fresh lemons… I’m slack and use the bottled stuff if I don’t have fresh lemons) a bit of mint from the garden, a pinch of dukkah, salt and pepper.

5.Toast the bread for a short while and then put the dish of veges, bread and yoghurt on the table. Squeeze the soft gooey garlic from it’s papery skin and use it like butter.  Assemble messy, open sandwiches with the ingredients with your bare hands, get TRIBAL and shove it in your gob.

Uh-mazing!

COMPETITION REMINDER!! We have a mixed case of 24 bottles of Apple and Pear Cider to give away from Punt Road Wines. To enter, all you have to do is write a comment on ANY post on iatebrisbane. Open to Brisbane (and surrounds) entrants only (could you imagine the international shipping fees on a case of cider?!). Check out the details and the tricky little fine print here.

Maybe it’s because the seeds are all so tiny. When you pour them into your hand from the packet your body hardly even registers they’ve landed in your palm, they are that small. I shouldn’t just dismiss them so quickly because of that.

From little things big things grow.

Maybe seeds are a bit like babies. Babies are born every single minute of every day, really isn’t that a bit passe? Yet they continue to astound us. It freaks us all out how amazingly small and fragile their tiny bodies are. Yet, with love and attentiveness they grow and flourish and wriggle and grow a bit more into these incredible, intelligent human beings.

Maybe that’s why I’m so astounded every time I see my little seeds germinate.

So here are our little seed-babies. The top-left is our lettuces, down there are the cute little radishes – those babies are easy to grow!, Top-right is the spinach – growing strong and tall, and there are the cobbler’s peg – the black sheep of the family. Hm-mm…  yes, well I’ll talk about those with you a bit later.

Also – the possums (we think) have found our purple carrots and coriander. Darren went into defense mode and immediately fashioned some very impressive-looking guards for them out of stuff he found in our garage. I’m certain the cute possums won’t be able to get through those fortifications but it’s like an open invitation to eat everything else in the garden! We’re only really worried about the carrots – the seedlings cost quite a bit so we want to protect them!

I wonder what we’ll wake up to in the morning…

And here’s a sneak peak at our next project!! The old chook pen is going to get a bit of a renovation before we get some new chooks next week! I can’t wait!

 

Then you look out your back door for the first time in months and the weeds are up past your armpits. I can’t blame it all on having a little one – we’re all pretty busy… and pretty lazy.

So it’s time for an overhaul. We’ve just had a water tank installed and it’s already half full! and I am becoming SO sick to death of not having fresh herbs to put in my cooking and I really enjoy going out and having a peek at what’s happening with the vegies.  Unfortunately our quails and chickens have moved on. The plan is to get just 2 chickens this time – more than enough eggs for the 3 of us.

Once we (Read: Darren) cleared all the weeds and long grass we found a few troopers still growing – nay – flourishing in the undergrowth. Here’s a list of what we were able to save:

 

pineapple sage – you can eat the leaves and beautiful red flowers
oregano – saved by the longer weeds shading it for a year.
lemon grass – this stuff is HARDY
roma tomato – just decided to pop up from a wild seed, now we have  4 of them.
pineapple – twisted the tops of storebought pineapples and shoved them into the ground then forgot about them
chili – also from a wild seed from last season. It was growing right up against the shed, hence the beautiful long stem – it’s definitely the centrepiece of the garden.
russian tarragon – a perennial. I learned something new
aloe – still kicking.

So we turned over the soil, added some compost, slow release fertiliser and then a bit of potting mix to the areas around the new stuff.

We threw down some seeds:
Mint and thyme – scattered these between the stepping stones, we’ll see how they go.
mixed rock flowers
poached egg flowers
marigold flowers – these are great companion plants
spinach
lettuce
radishes – the very new shoots are so tasty

We also popped in some seedlings from the Ferny Grove Markets and Bunnings
mint
thyme
french red spring onion
rosemary
coriander (a big one – it often doesn’t grow well if it’s small)
chives
basil
sweet chocolate capsicum
tigerella tomato
lemon drop tomato
heirloom tomato
raspberry
strawberry
purple carrots
bok choy
lavender
dill
tatsoi lettuce
butter Lettuce

Coriander

So there you go – 35 different plants – the majority are edible. Hopefully we’ll actually get to eat them! The most exciting thing about this project is that it’s cost us only about $120 for everything including the mulch, mushroom compost, some soil,  fertilizer, liquid fertilizer, seeds and seedlings. We probably could have done it for way less than this but sometimes it’s easier to get more established plants.

I can’t wait to eat it ALL!

A kangaroo we met at Lone Pine Sanctuary on the weekend

10 reasons why YOU should eat Kangaroo Meat

1. It tastes great! it’s not too gamey, rich and delicious. Use it in place of beef.

2. It’s REALLY lean. Less than 2% fat and has less kilojoules than lamb or beef. The fat in it is low in saturated fats and contains Conjugated Linoleic Acid – an antioxidant.

3. It’s high in iron and zinc

4.   It’s high in protein – about the same as beef

5. They emit just 0.003 tonnes of greenhouse gases per animal per year, compared to 1.67 tonnes per cow per year. This is incredible – since some estimate that 18% of greenhouse gasses are caused by livestock. Read more here and here 

6. Kangaroos eat less than sheep or cattle

7. They are less damaging to the top soil as their feet have pads (like dogs and cats) not hooves like sheep and cattle.

8. Kangaroos are wild, not farmed. We have so many kangaroos in Australia and the population boom is caused by humans.  In some areas of the country there are way too many kangaroos because we have put infrastructure in place for other animals (sheep and cattle) to use, like feed and watering holes. They naturally flourish because of this. We caused the Kangaroo glut, and now we’re fixing it. To keep the population in check, the Australian government allows a cull of 10-15% of the kangaroo population each year. Of the 48 species of kangaroo only 5 of the most common kangaroos are for commercial use,  these populations are common and not endangered. The wild kangaroos go through a 12 step checking process before they are allowed onto the consumers plates.

9. By having the kangaroos happily roam wild in their own natural habitat there is no need for costly infrastructure of fencing and feed etc. They are PERFECTLY adapted to their environment!  The animal is killed quickly with a single bullet in its own environment. To me, this sounds less stressful for the animal than going to an abatoir.

10. It’s cheap – it floats around $16 a kilo for a nice steak. Beef can sometimes be twice that much.

So, how do you cook it?  You can use it any meal the same as you would beef or lamb. If you’re going to have it as a steak cook it on a high heat until it is medium-rare. Any longer and it becomes tough, because it is so lean. Make sure you rest it for at least half the time you cooked it for. This will keep all the juices in the meat.