Category: Bread and Baking with Yeast

“I Am A Synonym Bun”

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Intrigued? Mais oui, I pretend to hear you say.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you about this peanut butter chocolate slice that I made (recipe care of Nigella, natch) because…it is appearing in a magazine this month and you should all go out and buy that instead! I am published! Okay, it’s not quite Cuisine, or Gourmet Traveller, but Tearaway is one of the better teen magazine in New Zealand and is particularly brilliant because they genuinely welcome contribution from young writers. I grew up reading Tearaway back when it was a newsprint broadsheet (now it is A4 and distinctly shinier) and even though I’m really not sure if cooking is what the kids are into these days, I’ve managed to get in there with my humble food column. Whether it becomes a regular gig remains to be seen, but still, it’s a foot in the door. As Burns would say, “Patience, Monty, climb the ladder…”

*Update 9/6/08 – Just got sent a copy of the magazine in the mail today with a cheque for $30! I didn’t even realise they were going to pay me so as you can guess this was a more than pleasant surprise. I feel like Anne Shirley, or Jo March, or *implodes suddenly from geekiness* I can put the money into our savings account and as for the magazine…”That’s going straight to the poolroom.”
Here’s something I can actually elaborate on:


Above: Long-time readers should know I am friend of the beetroot, particularly when roasted. I’d never heard of making chips out of them, until I found this post on Adaptations, wherein fine slices of beetroot are baked in a low oven till they sort of dehydrate and crisp up and become SO much more delicious than this description would suggest. Of course it does sound like the sort of too-worthy, unnecessary, overcompensatingly healthy recipe that would have you running for the sour cream and chive Pringles. But these are truly delicious in their own right – and beautiful too, like dried rose petals – with a delicate smoky crunch to them that is very moreish. I only made a small amount, because I wasn’t sure if it would work out or not, but I’d definitely commit to making this with lots of beetroot again. They’d make quite a grown-up nibble with drinks…

To augment this I chopped up some carrot sticks and made a quick dip out of Greek yoghurt, the salvageable remains of a disappointing avocado (and a disappointing avocado really stings), sea salt, lemon juice and sumac. Simple enough, but the creamy tang of the yoghurt and the earthy, lemony sumac provided intriguing flavours as they were scooped up by the vegetables.


Above: To offset that very healthy starter, I did a culinary 180 degree turn and served buttery pasta for dinner…it was something I came up with on the spot but I was impressed with how elegant it all turned out to be. I didn’t really measure anything but you hardly need a recipe for something like this. I put fettucine into a pan of boiling, salted water, and while it was cooking I melted a good amount of butter in another pot, letting a garlic clove brown in it which I binned afterwards (that’s to say: I ate it) allowing the butter to really get dark and nutty. Into this I tumbled some chopped walnuts, then turned off the heat while they gently toasted in the residual warmth. Finally I drained the now-cooked pasta, biffed it in with the butter, and added a handful of shredded beetroot leaves (you could easily use spinach) which wilted instantly. Pa-dah. Very, very delicious.

Above: Speaking of very delicious, I give you Shnecken (gesundheit!) or more literally, cinnamon buns. Now Nigella is generally fairly enthusiastic about food, one of the things I adore in her writing. But when she says uncompromisingly, of these buttery, walnutty, caramelly yeasted buns: “God I love them” – then you know, before even commencing, that you are onto something quite promising.

She speaketh the truth. Schnecken = love. These buns are ridiculously wonderful, as delicious as Nigella says and then some, and come from that fabulous book How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I honestly can’t be bothered typing out the recipe (well, methods involving yeast are just so lengthy) but I found a copy here, unfortunately it’s in American, but if anyone outside the US wants to make it (do!!) you need one sachet of dried yeast, some form of brown sugar for the magical, magical syrup and half a cup of butter (how do you measure butter in a half-cup??) is about 125g. Maybe it would have been quicker to type out…

Above: You know that scene in Spiceworld? Where they are all superheroes with a special power? And then Posh Spice appears and she doesn’t even have a power, she just stands there looking gorgeous? (I think she points and winks too, as was the style of the time) That’s what these buns are like. They just sit there, looking fabulous, and you think it’s almost enough just to look at them, until you take a bite…oh my gosh they are nice. The brioche-like dough, the brown sugar with the cinnamon and walnuts…the butter. These are something special. The title of this post came courtesy of Paul, by the way, and worryingly, I can’t remember the context of our conversation but it made me laugh, and I feel that it’s a succinct description of myself, so what better reason to elect it to head of the post?
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Above: Mmmm, food pr0n.


Speaking of porn, I saw Sex and The City on Thursday, and I’m not talking about the titular sex here (as it were), I’m talking clothes – this film was a veritable orgy of fashion. I’m no Stacey McGill, but by my calculations they changed outfits roughly every 3.5 seconds. I was feeling a little cynical about it beforehand (although 2-for-1 cosmopolitans at the bar helped put me in the mood) but it really is a good movie, if you like the TV show. In spite of myself I was excited about what these women had done with their lives and yes – about what Carrie would be wearing. They looked noticeably older – which is nice, considering how they were actually supposed to have aged in the film – and gorgeous, seriously if I have Kim Cattrall’s body when I’m her age I’m going to become a nudist. Mr Big’s constant, childish “ooh I can’t commit” attitude got wearisome, and it did feel as though some plotlines were skated over, but on the whole, very enjoyable, indulgent montages and all. I realise that I referenced the Spice Girls AND The Baby Sitters Club in this post, (what next, po-mo Power Rangers quotes?) A new low, or indeed, high, depending on your view of pop culture.
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Tim and I are, as you might know, trying to save to get back over to England (where we met, three years ago, on our respective Gap years.) We’ve been saving since 2006, and have a fairly tidy sum considering we really had NO money till last year, but we need so much more and so, have started making some serious decisions in the last month or two. For me, it means having rolled oats for breakfast instead of buttered toast (truly, I have it every day: rolled oats, softened briefly in water, with or without the addition of bran, linseeds, wheatgerm- how am I not size 0?); having miso soup for lunch at work; not buying fun ingredients willy-nilly; less meat and more lentils, being strong around cookbook sales and not getting Anthony Rapp’s autobiography and The Rent Book imported at great expense… For Tim it is not buying fizzy drinks and Instant Kiwi tickets; having porridge instead of eggs on toast for breakfast; putting up with the lentil onslaught; and for both of us it means not going out drinking much and not buying DVDs recklessly. Both our bank accounts have become genuinely plumper with all of these corners cut, and our savings account is impressive for two poor students, but really, the only way we’ll get over to England next year is if we win the lottery (and then hopefully we can pay for Tim’s root canal too…but don’t get me started on that.) Any tips on how to save or make money without resorting to eating Pot Noodles 24/7?

“I Had A Brain That Felt Like Pancake Batter…”

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I couldn’t think of a title for this post. Nothing seemed to work in my head. So, when in doubt, why not quote Jack White? He certainly describes how I currently feel, as you will find out later…Unfortunately I haven’t actually cooked any pancakes. Goodness knows what I’ll use for a title when I do…
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This is my 100th post! How about that! Between this, and my six-month blog anniversary, and my birthday all occuring recently, I hope you don’t think I’m one of those girls who bursts into passive-aggressive tears if my significant other doesn’t buy me a diamond pendant to mark the three weeks that have passed since our first date.
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Above: Picadillo, which ended up focussed backwardly. Depth of field, I do not haz it.

There’s something about those cheerfully forced “midweek meals” that womens’ magazines regularly publish that seem so, well, cheerfully forced. In my line of work I am exposed to a lot of womens’ mags and though I keep a keen eye out, it has been a long time since I’ve been inspired by any of the recipes. They never quite get it sounding right, what with their Thai Pumpkin and Couscous Bake and Sausage Chow Mein with 2-Minute Noodles. I mean, everyone needs those midweek meals, including me, it’s just the ones I see seem to be so…colourless. Although I cook dinner at every possible opportunity (sometimes even at lunch) this week has felt particularly practical and magazine-y. Monday: Picadillo, a Cuban mince dish (done in the slow cooker!). Tuesday: Salmon burgers, even the kids will like them! Wednesday – Spaghetti Puttanesca… which Jill Dupleix coyly describes as pasta for “working girls.” I like to think of it (rather gleefully I’ll admit, but how often do you get a name like this) in its more literal sense – Whores’ Pasta. Suddenly things aren’t looking so dull after all…In fact happily everything has tasted great so far.

On Monday night, spurred on by a recipe on the Tea and Wheaten Bread blog, which in turn was using a recipe from Culinary Travels of A Kitchen Goddess, I chose to make Picadillo. It looked easy to make, very cheap, and a bit out of the ordinary. Even though it has risen so alarmingly in price that it’s not much of a cliched student ingredient anymore, mince would still be what Tim and I eat most of from the meat family. And it is difficult to find new twists on it. So when I saw that this had olives, raisins, and lots of spices in it, not to mention that I could bung it in the Crock Pot and forget about it, I had to try it…unfortunately I forgot to put the raisins in. I always forget one crucial thing it seems, even when the recipe is right in front of me. But it still tasted great. To be honest I didn’t initially think there was much point in doing something like mince in a slow cooker – it’s not like it’s going to get any more tender – but it definitely seemed to enhance the deep, mellow flavour. I’ll be making this again for sure this Winter, and hopefully will remember the raisins next time (well, I’d substitute sultanas. I know they’re practically the same thing, but I can’t stand raisins. Maybe I subconsciously left them out on purpose.)

On Tuesday night I decided that I (rather desperately) needed some brainfood, so attempted to make salmon burgers. Because I was in overachiever mode, I made the buns as well, using a laughably easy recipe from Nigella’s Feast, that I have made so many times I know it off by heart. Well at least I hope I do. It is rather late at night that I’m typing this…


Above: the background necessarily blurred because my hands are “neither beautiful nor practical.” Hopefully it looks a bit upmarket on top of that.

Nigella’s Buns (*titter*)

  • 500g high-grade/bread flour
  • 1 sachet yeast (the sachets come in little cardboard boxes, I can’t deal with any other sort)
  • 375mls milk
  • 25g butter
  • 2t sugar

Place the flour, yeast and sugar in a large bowl. If you use a large enough bowl, you don’t even need to get your bench dirty as you can just knead the dough inside it. Well, it works for me…Warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan till the butter has melted and the milk is tepid. You don’t want it too cool, but neither should it be anywhere in the neighbourhood of ‘hot.’ Tip this into the flour, and using one hand (I find it handy – ha! – to just use one) knead this mixture till smooth, cohesive, and elastic. For some reason this mixture comes together remarkably fast. Once it’s looking good, tip the mound of dough onto a plate, and grease the bowl it was in. Put the dough back in the bowl, turning so that all sides get a little shiny, then cover tightly with gladwrap and leave in a warmish place for an hour or so.

In an hour’s time, punch the now spookily-puffy dough (satisfying!) and then shape into buns. Nigella recommends quite small ones, (these are dinner-roll type thingummies) but because I was using them for burgers I made mine bigger, and therefore got less out of the mix. Now, leave them to sit on a tray, covered with a teatowel, for about 20 minutes. You might as well turn your oven to 200 C and sit the tray on top so as the residual warmth helps them to rise even more. Finally, brush with a beaten egg or melted butter (guess which I plumped for, as it were) and bake for 15-20 minutes. Actual timing is a bit vague, it’s dependant on size of bun and type of oven, but reckon on something like that. These babies smell incredible, and though they don’t have the staying power of shop-bought stuff, can be resuscitated the next day in the microwave.


Above: You’re supposed to tap them on the underside to see if they sound hollow, therefore cooked- but fresh-baked bread is one of the hottest things known to man. Use oven mitts, please…don’t go down the same sorry path I did (on the upside, should I choose to commit a heinous crime, the police can’t fingerprint me!)

Above: Breakage.
While all this was happening, I set about making my Krabby Patties, using a tin of salmon, some bran (hey, why not? You can’t even taste it but it’s doing you good) an egg, two grated, parboiled potatoes, and a few spoonfuls of Za’atar. I think the lack of flour was what made them a pain to cook – you had to be insanely delicate with the spatula or they’d break. I had two casualties, and four proper ones. Not too bad. You could quite easily have one patty per bun, but I am a greedy, greedy person so Tim and I had two each.


Above: Ooh they were good. The combination of tender, still-warm buns and slightly crunchy salmon was awesome. Worth the effort, I assure you.
Finally, my pasta a la doxy. This came from Jill Dupleix’ Lighten Up and was a very easy (ha!) meal. You barely have to think while making it. Unfortunately I didn’t have any anchovies to hand, (couldn’t justify spending $4 on a tiny tin of them, yes, I know they’re good) so I just pretended that I was vegetarian for the moment and meant for it to happen that way. I also used pitted black olives, which I know are basically the devil’s snack as far as food purists go, but again, they were much, much, much cheaper than the lovely real thing, and I figured that by roughly squashing them they might look more like something Jamie Oliver would approve of.


Above: Unfortunately this was the best shot I could get, the lens kept steaming up and none of my twirly-fork tricks were working and anyhow pasta seems to get cold and claggy very fast, so I just snapped and served it. Tasted much nicer than the photo looks though. I love how the olives and capers provide an addictive saltiness that is so much more complex than just salt itself.
I am not good at many things – mathmatics, tidiness, committing to a healthy eating and excercise plan – but I am very, very good at Tetris. To paraphrase Stacey from The Baby Sitters Club, it’s true, I’m not being conceited! One of my many addictions is online tetris – if you feel like immersing yourself into this heady underworld, go to freetetris.org– and nearly everyone in the flat is quite into it. Basically it is fairly cruisy until level 9, where it gets a lot quicker, and by level 10 it is quicker again. Everyone was amazed when I got to Level 19 while they were floundering round 8. Now most of the flatmates can make it to about 14, but then on Monday night I managed to get to…Level 31. We didn’t even know it existed. It was insane. And then guess what happened on Tuesday night. I said to Tim, “If I get a score of quarter of a million will you watch Rent with me?” He said only if I got half a million.
Above: The only way this could have been more triumphant was if I’d managed to get a score of 525,600. Don’t worry, I won’t force the poor lad to watch the movie again…but there is that production opening in Palmerston North soon…
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I apologise if this post has been a little lacking in my usual lustre, but with all these essays and photos bearing down on my head like the sword of Damocles I’m feeling pretty weary. (*googles sword of Damocles* – okay it’s not really a pertinent simile.) I got some not-very-good results back today on a test I did in Photography about aperture and stuff – apparently the test was “too easy” and anyone who got under 75% was very disappointing. I got 65% and felt those disapproval rays loud and clear! Seriously though, there are so many numbers involved in digital photography, and that sort of thing makes my head swim. However I have had some fun taking photos for my current assignment. If I get a decent mark I’ll upload a couple for your viewing pleasure, if I don’t, I’ll just go to sleep until next semester. By the way, to those of you who have noticed out loud my improved photography skillz – mostly due to Picassa and my nifty wee tripod – thank you, it means a lot that you comment on it 🙂
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And finally, because I like to talk about the weather even though no-one cares about it, by gum it is rainy here in Wellington. I’m talking get yer ark pronto.

Jonesing For Quinces

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I am taking off to Hawkes Bay for a few days but have an inordinately long post to compensate for my absence (should my absence bother you…)

We have been feasting rather decadently of late. On Tuesday, spurred on by Tim’s loud hints that we hadn’t eaten any meat lately, I defrosted some sausages and used them to fill Piroshki, which are small yeasted buns baked around a filling. They look and sound a lot harder than they are to make, something I always rather like in a recipe. I adapted this from the AWW Meals From The Freezer book, which my brother Julian got me for Christmas a few years ago. I halved it – there is only Tim and I to feed, after all – but it would be quite easy to double back to their original proportions.

Piroshki

Dough:
450g plain flour
1/2 sachet dry yeast
2 T sugar
1 egg yolk
250ml milk, warmed
125g butter, melted

Combine all the dry ingredients, mix in the wet ingredients thoroughly, scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover and stand in a warm place for an hour or so. Oh, and don’t do what I did, which was eat rather a lot of the surprisingly moreish dough…

Filling: (this is the bit I came up with)
1 onion, finely diced
3 fat cloves garlic, minced
3 proper pork sausages (ie, not those greying pre-cooked things that shall not darken my door!)
1 t paprika
1 t ground cumin
1 t dried oregano
1 T slivered almonds (or whole almonds, roughly chopped
1 T red wine

Heat a knob of butter in a pan, and sautee the onion and garlic till softened but not browned. Add the spices, and then – this job is either amusing or vile depending on what kind of person you are – squeeze the sausagemeat out of its casing into the pan. Let it cook through, stirring regularly, then add the red wine (I used Marsala though) and the almonds. Put it aside to cool for a bit, while you deal with the now-risen dough.

Assembly:
Heat oven to 210 C. Divide dough into balls – I got about nine, I think – and flatten each into about 12-15cm rounds. Put a small spoonful of sausagey filling into one of the rounds, and gently pinch the edges together to enclose. You don’t have to be too gentle with these, just be careful not to let the filling break the dough. Place your piroshki onto a baking tray, brush with a beaten egg, and let sit for 15 minutes (I just pop the tray on top of the heating oven, the warmth of which helps them to prove.) Bake for 15 minutes. Eat.
Although I haven’t managed to use the quinces yet, I have made good use (ironically) of the quince glaze I made from last year’s season. A recipe of Nigella’s, this jammy stuff had been hidden in the back of the fridge for too long. I might try freezing my current bunch, as the things I want to make with them are the sort of things I would make in the lead-up to Christmas…

Anyway, I tried marinating some chicken wings in this quince glaze, (two tablespoons) with cumin, garlic, and lemon juice. The alluring sweetness of the glaze became slightly scorched in places which was, of course, completely delicious. They needed a bit of salt to counteract the sugar, but otherwise…rather perfect.

Above: For the less Antipodean amongst my readers, for whom quince season is still months away, I should think that marmalade or honey would make a decent substitute. I served the sticky wings with potatoes that I’d cut into wedges and mixed with olive oil and za’atar – I make this heaps these days, because it is so simple but delicious. Za’atar is a heady mix of sumac, sesame seeds, and thyme, and lends its distinct flavour well to the crispy potatoes. The bowls that these are pictured in were given to me by the very generous Linda, who is always full of surprises!

Above: After marinating the chicken wings in it, I thought the quince glaze might also work well in a loaf cake. What can I say? It was buttery, fragrant and – phew! – delicious. I am taking the cake up to Tim’s parent’s place tonight but had to have a slice myself (just to make sure it had worked out okay…)

Quince Loaf Cake

150g butter, softened
3 T quince glaze
85g sugar
2 eggs
250g flour
2 t baking powder
1/3 cup buttermilk (or milk with a squeeze of lemon juice in it)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream butter, quince glaze and sugar together till creamy and fragrant. Add the rest of the ingredients, tip into a well greased and lined loaf tin (I used a silicone one so didn’t have to worry) and bake for 45 minutes. You might consider covering it with tinfoil after 30 minutes, so as it doesn’t over-brown, but ovens do vary. Once it’s out of the oven, brush with a few teaspoonsful of warmed quince glaze.
As with the chicken wings, any number of jams would make a decent replacement. Although I thought it would be rather mean not to give you the recipe from which sprang forth all this inspiration…from Nigella’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

Quince Glaze
1 quince
750 mls water
750g caster sugar

Roughly chop the quince, (they are blooming rock hard so use a good knife) and put the pieces – peel, pips and all – into a medium sized pan with the water and sugar. Bring to the boil, then let it simmer away for a good hour or so, till gloriously pink and reduced by half. Strain into a prepared 350ml jar, store in the fridge.

It is wonderful with anything apple-centric – a spoonful to glaze an apple pie or mixed in a crumble – and it goes marvelously with ham.

Finally – I made Creme Fraiche. Look how casual I am about it! You can be, too! It is so expensive that I have never actually purchased it but there is many a foodwriter who will try and convince you that you are positively heathenish if there isn’t a pouch of the stuff in your refrigerator. Luckily the bare ingredients – cream and buttermilk – aren’t too taxing on the pocket, and even if they are a bit splurgy, you do get a lot of creme fraiche out of this.

Above: Creme Fraiche!
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Inspired by this blog I decided to have a crack at it quietly just in case it didn’t work out. Well, it did, and now I want everyone to do it. It’s so easy! Simply find some cream – I used 600mls – and a few tablespoons of buttermilk – heat gently in a pan but do not boil – sit in a jar or tub in a warmish place overnight – stir – and pa-dah! Creme Fraiche, to be stirred into mashed potatoes, to add luxury to a pasta sauce, to serve with baked plums…it goes on. Now, our flat is very, very cold these days so after a couple of days I decided to sit it in my yoghurt maker, which did the trick. But I assume most of you aren’t living in digs as derelict as mine, so this shouldn’t be a problem. All the same, see what works for you – this is a surprisingly forgiving recipe.
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Now, because the internet froze up at the eleventh hour, I have to absolutely zoom to pack my clothes (Tim of course, was packed long ago) and run to the train station…I will keep an eye out for Rent posters as we chug through Levin…

Absolut Pask

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Oh I wish it could be Easter, every day. Friday AND Monday off feels like untold luxury now that I’m dipping my toe into what they call “the real world.” For those of you who have been somewhat alarmed by the increasingly saggy faces of various rockstars gracing this blog over the last couple of days, I offer hot cross buns to soothe you:

Above: My first ever batch of home-made hot cross buns. I used Nigella’s recipe from Feast, and it was a very rewarding process – adding the warm spices, kneading the dough, waiting patiently for it to rise, draping over the flour-water paste to make the crosses, and of course, grabbing the tender buns straight from the oven to be slathered with butter.
Above: As it happened, while arranging my buns I unwittingly created a yeasted tribute to the famous Absolut Vodka ad campaign. Just realised at this point that I should probably let you know that Pask is Swedish for Easter. More Easter Baking:

Above: Gluten Free Choc-Banana Brownies. I can’t tell you how excited I am about these. They were rigorously tested for quality in my flat (ie, they got snarfed within minutes) and were pronounced delicious. Now, I can’t pretend that I truly came up with this myself, in fact it started off as an idea which took shape after a bit of internet research.
First of all, I found this amazing recipe in a woman’s magazine (I forget which) for gluten-free peanut butter cookies. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this recipe around, but it kicked me into action and I finally made them. They are risibly simple and yet so delicious; I’ve made them three times since and never managed to get a picture because they go so fast. From this sprang forth the brownie idea, but first…
Peanut Butter Cookies: Please, make these. I don’t even go in for peanut butter and I’m a complete fiend for these.
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar (I use half brown half white, but go nuts)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg

Preheat oven to 180 C. This is what I recommend you do because PB can be a tacky mess. Take a half-cup measure, and put your sugar in a bowl. Then, using a spoon, scoop peanut butter into the half-cup, and then scoop this in turn into the bowl with the sugar in it. Repeat. I’m not trying to be patronising, but the first time I made this I ended up using nearly every baking implement in the house trying to deal with the peanut butter and it can truly be so much simpler…

Mix together the sugar and peanut butter. Add the egg, stir again, and sift in the baking soda. On two trays lined with baking paper, place smallish balls of the mixture which you have rolled with your hands. Don’t worry about flattening them, and they don’t spread tooooo much so you don’t have to stress about that either. Bake for 12-15 minutes. These won’t be at all crisp when you take them out of the oven, but don’t fret, they harden up as they cool.

Now eat one, and just try to stop yourself eating the entire batch, cleaning the kitchen scrupulously, and telling everyone you never made any in the first place.
So amazed was I at the magical properties of this peanut butter that I wondered if the same thing could apply to a brownie. Because brownies by nature are supposed to be shallow and dense, it left more room for error. After looking at some ideas on the internet, I came up with this – and it is so much greater than the sum of its slightly troubling parts…
Gluten Free Choc-Banana Brownies.
Each ingredient plays its own special part.


1 cup smooth peanut butter – to do its magical thang.
1 cup sugar – To provide bulk and sweetness
2 eggs – To bind it together
2 small, very ripe bananas – To make it densely moist
5 Tablespoons cocoa – To distract from the other flavours, and provide a deep chocolate taste
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips – To add squidge and more chocolate, of course 🙂
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda – I don’t know what this does, but it’s very important.
As with the biscuits, set the oven to 180 C, beat the peanut butter and sugar together, add the rest of the ingredients and pour into a brownie tin of regular dimensions. (You know, rectangular, not tooo big) What I did was bake it for 1/2 an hour at this temperature and then turn it down to 150 C, and bake for a further 15 minutes. Perfect.
I realise the combo of ingredients sounds kind of vile, but you don’t taste the peanut butter at all. The cocoa sort of covers everything up. But oh the irony – celiac flatmate Emma was in Samoa over the weekend (as one does) so she didn’t even get to participate. Luckily I am so enamoured of these brownies that I’m going to repeat them again very soon.
And if you aren’t sick of brown things by this stage –
Above: Chocolate Pear Pudding, from Nigella Express. It’s basically canned pears with a chocolate flavoured sponge baked overtop, but oh! How wonderful it tastes. For Heaven’s sakes, buy this book! I made this for pudding last night (Nigella’s Vietnamese Chicken Salad for dinner) and it is perfect to eat while watching Boston Legal and procrastinating about, well, everything.
I hope everyone had a lovely, relaxing Easter break.

Let It Bee

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Apologies for the yawning gap between the last post and this one, but there were extenuating circumstances: (a) uni is incredibly stressful (okay, so it’s mostly photography giving me grey hair and wrinkles but everything is full-on) and (b) our other goldfish, also called Laurim or Taura, died yesterday and I didn’t really have it in me to blog, especially after a particularly draining photog class where my pictures were largely slated by the teacher (who, in all fairness, was most likely correct, but it still stings.) I guess loss is the risk of loving something, but it still saddens me that we are completely goldfish-less now.

Speaking of stings…there’s not much that can’t be fixed by the sight of marzipan bees.


Above: It was Ange’s birthday on Monday (and it’s Kieran’s birthday today – hoorah!) and she requested that I make her the Chocolate Honey Cake from Nigella’s Feast. It was quite easy to make, and in keeping with Nigella’s suggestion I fashioned wee bumblebees out of fondant icing and slivered almonds. Aren’t they sweet!

Above: The cake is not only cheeringly adorable, it is also delicious – the honey gives it an unexpected depth and complexity, while managing to avoid being viciously sweet.

A bunch of us went to Satay India to celebrate Ange’s coming of age. There was seven of us, and we ordered eight curries (they have a two for one deal) and absolutely soaked ourselves in the stuff. I’m not even sure if the photo can adequately convey how much we ate.

Above: As well as all that curry we also got roughly forty-seven pieces of naan. But we managed to dominate the lot. And the cake. Somehow.

Above: Told you we did it!

Other stuff we’ve been consuming lately:

Above: I seriously love making bread, and this particular recipe was very rewarding. At the Kelburn Fair on Saturday I picked up some Cuisine magazines abandoned stupidly, for only 50 cents! Result! And within one of them I found a recipe for Simit Bread, which is a Middle Eastern ring-shaped bun. (Not a bagel though!) I also found an unintentionally hilarious Cosmo from 1975 – full of nudity and innuendo!

Above: These were delicious. I sprinkled them with sumac and sesame seeds, and served them with meatballs, couscous, roast beetroot and brocolli.

Above: The recipe for the meatballs also came from Cuisine and had a ton of different herbs and spices in it, making for wonderfully flavoursome, er, balls. As I mentioned, the Kelburn Fair was on Saturday. As well as the magazines I also got a cool pair of green and blue t-bar high heels for $2, and a brioche tin for 50 cents. It was only Tim, Paul and I in that day because everyone else had travelled to Ohakune for a 21st. So we had…Rod Steward Appreciation Day. Instigated by Paul, this involves sitting in the sun, drinking, and listening to Rod Stewart. I can’t pretend I’m the biggest fan of The Rod – I mean, he has his place and all, and I quite like that “Wear it Well” song, but has anyone actually read the lyrics to “You’re In My Heart” without throwing up? Well have you? But it proved to be a novel way of passing the time.
Speaking of novel ways to pass the time, do look up David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s Dancing In The Streets on Youtube if you ever wanted to know what the greatest music video of all time is. Even better than the ones Michel Gondry did for The White Stripes. To watch this is to truly witness brilliance.

“I’ll Cover You” or, “Today It’s Your Birthday, We’re Gonna Have A Good Time!”

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Firstly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Dad and my younger brother. They were born on the same day, many years apart (but of course!) If I could, I would be singing “Birthday” by the Sugarcubes (ie, early Bjork) in Icelandic: Once heard, never forgotten.

Today was one of those rare days in Wellington, city of much wind, where you could wear a skirt without fear that your knickers will become fair game for passers-by to gawk at. Unfortunately I gauged it wrongly this morning (gauging has never been one of my skills) and ended up sweltering in jeans at the office all day. It is still warm enough here to have the bedroom windows open at 8.30pm. Oh how I love summer, even though it means I have to be super vigilant about not getting my pale, pale skin burnt.
You may have noticed, O faithful reader, that we seem to have been eating a lot of roast cauliflour lately. Tonight was no exception.
Above: Although roasted cauliflour is seriously dear to my heart, roasted beetroot is a close second. You don’t even need to add any oil, (for those of you who worry about such things, as I do occasionally when my jeans feel tight.) Avocado is the perfect foil for my roasted vegetables – it provides cool, silky contrast in texture, and the colour seems to do something lift-y to the whole operation too. One of the best things about summer is how cheap and consistently edible the avocados are. No matter how often I eat them they still taste exciting.
Above: Tonight’s dinner, as well as the roast vege avocado thing, was also Chicken with Soy and Sherry which was basically an idea I got from the New Zealand Cookbook, and some leftover gratin from last night – she says, realising I haven’t even written about the gratin yet – and…
Above: We probably didn’t need this on top of everything else, but I had all the ingredients and it is really rather light. I used the Simple Tomato Tart recipe from The Accidental Vegetarian, and the title does not lie – a few slices is all it takes. I grated parmesan cheese over and cut some dinky stars out of the leftover pastry. It tasted flipping delicious – summery and buttery and tomatoey. Did you know that tomatoes are actually better for you if you cook them? It increases the lycopene in them. Which makes me feel better about eating them on a mound of pastry…
Above: This is the aforementioned gratin, Potato and Mushroom Gratin, specifically, from Nigella Express, which was last night’s dinner. It was quite easy to make, although I don’t recommend you attempt it if you are doing the dishes – the dish is a complete nightmare to clean afterwards, and requires lengthy soaking. The gratin itself tasted great, the mushrooms were a fantastic addition and the fact that it was only cooked in milk meant I didn’t have to rush out and buy any cream.

Above: I served it with the Bacon and Tomato Hash from Feast. This is so simple – just fried bacon and tomatoes – so simple that I passed it by for a long time (also, bacon is kinda expensive.) But it is seriously good, fast, and well, good again. Since there seems to be a theme tonight of revealing what things are after I’ve mentioned them, I might as well tell you that we mopped up the salty tomato juices with the leftover bread that I had baked the night before.
Above: I made this on Sunday afternoon. It is a recipe from the excellent Brenda, from the food forum I am a member of, and this is not the first time I have made it. Let me just come right out and say this: I LOVE making bread. I love kneading it, watching it rise, the smell of it baking…I can see their use, but I don’t think I could ever own a breadmaker – it just takes all the fun out of the process.
With this I made the Chef’s Salad again – that’s how much I like it.
Above: This one was even better than the first one I made, because I had actual chunks of ham in it, not shaved (“ham ends” were very cheap at New World, perhaps because with a name like that no one would buy!)
And that is basically everything we have eaten up until this point.
Much as I hate how whatever they are calling the generation after me tends to overuse the word “Random,” Tim and I had a very random Sunday night. Tim was doing a shift at Starbucks that afternoon, when some American guys came in. They got to talking, after ordering their Venti Mocha Whatevers, and it conspires that these Americans were in fact, in a band that was playing at the San Fransisco Bath House (an ostentatiously named venue in the city) that night. Their name is Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. Their gig was sold out and Tim had never heard of them before, but he must have absolutely charmed them with his, well, charm, because they told him they’d put his name on the door with a plus-one (that’s me!) and he could go to their gig. Tim was pretty stoked with the whole name on the door thing, and came home and told me. You may be asking who this band is. Basically put, they are a punk rock covers band, which may not sound terribly alluring, but I had a massive thing for these guys in third form and so was pretty excited that we could just waltz in for free. And also the idea of one’s name being on the door of an event makes one feel pretty darn grown up.
They were excellent fun, and played some of my old favourites that I used to listen to on Channel Z – like Leaving on a Jet Plane and Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Amusingly, they would say “Okay, for this next song we’re going to play a cover” before every tune they played. Purists may well sneer at a punked up cover of Blowin In The Wind, but how can you resist when they precede it by saying “Here’s a song we’ve basically stripped of any meaning whatsoever.” After the gig we talked to their sound guy, (I’m sure there is a more technical name for what he does) who was very friendly and gave us the set list. Rock and Roll!
It might not be quiiiite as cool as the time the guy who plays “Hands” on Boston Legal went to Tim’s work, but it is giving me half a mind to quit my job and work at Starbucks if only for the occasional celeb sighting. Yes, “You can take the girl out of Hicksville” etc etc.

“My conscience, thou art feta’d…”

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On the one hand: overkill. On the other hand: It’s what Shakespeare would have wanted…

But really, I am going to have to reign it in.

Last night’s dinner used up the last of the pork. I thought there wasn’t much left on the bone, but once I started digging I amassed a sizable pile. To go with I made Feta Bread from The Accidental Vegetarian, and the Red Peppers with Feta and Almonds from Nigella Bites. Except I didn’t have almonds so I used walnuts. I like to get the most out of my luxury items (guess which two things they are this week?) which is why you may notice some repetition in ingredients this week…


Above: Doh! This is the dough after rising for an hour or so – I halved the recipe, and this is our biggest bowl – I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d kept to the original proportions. I don’t know why this photo came out so dark, but I rather like how it looks rather sinister and dark side of the moon-esque…

The recipe was incredibly easy, the only difficult bit was kneading in the feta, mint and olive oil after it rose. I think if I were to make it again, I’d add the oil at the start, as putting it in at the end made the dough completely uncooperative, and nothing would cohere. I eventually managed to bully the dough into incorporating the feta but it looked a bit messy. Luckily it cooked up well and tasted amazing!


Above: The finished product. It tasted wonderful! I think it would be great as part of a ‘bread and dips’ selection.

As I mentioned up there, we had red peppers sprinkled with feta and walnuts to go with. For the two of us, I cut one large red pepper into six – they are still pretty expensive, hence the holding back, as I could eat cooked peppers till the cows come home! This is a very simple recipe – just shove the peppers under the grill for a bit, and that’s about it. I added some sliced fennel for contrast and, well, extra presence of veges. The combination was, not surprisingly, fantastic.


Above: Pretty, too! I imagine this would be fab chopped up and stirred through pasta as well.

After that we all drank wine and beer (prompted by Emma, who had her last exam yesterday) and stayed up yarning till 3am asking all those questions that life throws at you – like, “why are students taxed so bloody much when we earn so little?” and “is it pronounced di-PLOD-oh-cus or dip-lo-DOH-cus?”

Pizza for two, roast veges for twelve…

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Another vegetarian dinner for us, involving one of my very favourite things: melted cheese. I made a pizza base following a recipe from Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess:


Above: The dough, rising on the stove – it is actually covered in glad-wrap but you can hardly see it!

While it was doing its thing, I chopped up parsnips, carrots, onions, and potatoes and roasted them with a little olive oil. I got Tim to grate some cheese (he will, without fail, obligingly do the two kitchen jobs I hate the most – grating cheese and peeling/washing potatoes) and I shmeered some tinned tomatoes onto the pizza base.


Above – the oven-ready pizza.

Okay, I have a confession to make – there was a LOT of cheese and while it tasted wonderful the photo of the baked pizza looks reeally oily in the photo. A bit like the Bobotie that I wrote about below – not very photogenic but tastes delicious. So, I’m making the executive decision to not post the picture…however, here are the roast veges, which didn’t turn out so badly…


Above: Mmmm….okay so it’s a lot for two but…Tim need his carbs?

Tim, Kieran and I went to Kaiwharawhara today to do some various jobs – Kieran to get his stereo fixed, and Tim and I went to Spotlight for some trouser lining and goldfish chow. While we were there I stopped in to a fruit and vege shop and got a big bunch of the most gloriously scarlet rhubarb which I can’t wait to tinker with! Maybe tomorrow…