Category: Chickpeas, Lentils, Pulses Etc

"In The Cold, Cold Night…"

4 Comments

___________________________________________________

Baby, it’s cold outside…in Wellington, at least. Talk about hungry and frozen. I didn’t plan on making vegetable soup this early on in the year but what else can you do in this situation?

Above: Vegetable soup always reminds me of home, of making a large vat of it every weekend in winter, and letting it sit warmly in the crock-pot, only getting better with time.
I don’t follow a recipe, but I think you have to have onions, celery, and carrots – the basis of many a slow-cooked meal – and I like to really let the vegetables cook (I refuse to say sweat!) before adding any liquid. Because I was all out of the classic King’s Soup Mix, I just used some lentils and barley that I found in our pantry. By the way, King’s Soup Mix isn’t nearly as declasse as it sounds – it’s just a prepacked bag of lentils, beans and barley. It is very cheap, and so good for you – I don’t know why people don’t make this all the time.

So that was dinner last night. To go with I made a rather sassy Puy lentil, pea and feta salad. After adding peas to my lentil soup the other day, it struck me that this humble frozen vegetable could be paired with lentils in other ways. The earthy darkness of the Puy lentils, the perky green sweetness of the peas and the creamy saltiness of the feta was surprisingly moreish.
Above: I didn’t actually measure anything so I can’t give you an exact recipe…however I did make a dressing out of three tablespoons each extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar. With so few ingredients it should be easy to recreate it yourself, if you are so inclined.
_________________________________________
Above: Unfortunately I remain intimidated by our new camera, as you can see by this picture where the meal is out of focus and the wooden spoon is in. I tell you, I can’t seem to get it the other way around. I’d like to think there’s something wrong with our camera…but I suspect it’s still me.
—————————
—————————–
More soul food (if you can see it in that photo, anyway!) tonight in the form of a layered meat and pasta dish from Annabel Cooks, by NZ author Annabel White. It is very basic, a kind of no-effort lasagne – cooked small pasta is mixed with sour cream and cream cheese, and layered with mince that has been cooked in the usual spag-bol kind of way, topped with cheese, and baked. It sounds too simple and seen-it-all-before to be any good, but in fact I think she’s on to something. Much depends on the quality of your meat sauce, I’d recommend using red wine in it, and a tin of tomatoes instead of some premade pasta sauce. It is very comforting bowl-food, and helped to stave off the chilliness of our (inevitably freezing) student flat momentarily.
==================================
==============================
As Nigella The Wise says in How To Be A Domestic Goddess, the benefits of colder climes are largely culinary, and I heartily concur. I can’t wait to try out more soups (getting ever-closer to The Lentil Soup), rich casseroles, melting stews, baking more bread in the weekends (proving it by the heater if need be), dusting off my pudding steamer…and, er, my Pilates DVD…

Pride Goeth Before A Fall…(Unless You Have Whipped Cream)

9 Comments

As if 5000 hits wasn’t exciting enough, I got 10 comments to boot! (And only TWO of them were from my mother!) I felt like a ‘real’ blogger, the kind who quite coolly amasses double figure comments on a daily basis and has an RSS feed and takes beautifully lit photos…okay I’m still genuinely struggling on the photography front and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to install an email subscription enabler thingy but…

Thanks everyone for making it happen 🙂

I couldn’t spend too much time on my high horse though. Last night I tried making the Lemon Meringue Cake from Nigella’s Feast (although it first appeared in Forever Summer) with the idea of putting fresh passionfruit in the middle instead…and nothing would go right. Crucially, I got a tiny bit of yolk in the egg whites – the first time that has ever happened – and true to form, they just would not hold shape. Recklessly, and I admit, a little maniacally, I just biffed the whole lot in the oven anyway where…it got burnt.
However, all was not lost. Luckily the chargrilled stage gave it more of a caramelised, rather than carcinogenic flavour, and with lashings of cream and the airbrushing effect of lots of icing sugar it went from this:


Above: Yes, that is the top layer of the cake in the background. Anyway, here’s the ‘after’ snap:
Above: I would have loved to have taken one of those photos where everything in the background is blurry – it’s such a pretty cake – but despite repeated attempts I can’t figure out how. Shutter speed or aperture or something…any tips? Anyway, I guess the lesson here is actually: when in doubt, smother it in cream. Despite the odds, this cake tasted wonderfully good – the textures really define it, as you sink your spoon softly into meringue, then sponge, then cream, then fruit, then sponge, then meringue again. There is something truly exquisite about the elusive fragrance of fresh passionfruit and it proved an excellent contrast for all that sweetness. All I can say is, if it tasted this good, imagine how delicious it would have been had I not cocked it up at every step of the way.
In case you thought we’d only been having pudding for breakfast lunch, and dinner (which incidentally, is how I imagined living my life by now when I was a child), you would be sorely mistaken, my friend. (Surprise! It’s lentils!)
Above: Another step in my increasingly arduous quest to find the ultimate lentil soup. I think the triumverate of brown, red, and French lentils is pretty essential, as is plenty of garlic and coriander. As well as chopping garlic into it, I’ll biff in a couple of whole cloves to gently impart flavour as they simmer. For something so robust, this flavour seems to get lost easily here. Coriander gives the almost too-earthy pulses a kick. I tried making it with spring onions instead of plain ones, but it definitely is better with the latter – spring onions are too delicate in flavour.

Above: The addition of frozen peas worked, giving it a slight sweetness, more texture variation, and they were also aesthetically pleasing (oooh I sound very serious now). Finally, taking a tip from Nigella, I splashed in a little dry sherry. I am getting ever closer, and when I find the prototype you can be sure I post the recipe here.
I realise I am sounding a little Gollum-esque (heck, even I can picture myself hunched over, hissing “pressciousssss“) but what can I say. I like lentils. I’m not sure they will ever be ‘sexy’ in the manner of chocolate and the like – perhaps unless Kate Moss decides that she’s into them – but they are not without their charms.

Relay for Life this weekend. I have a deep, deep hatred of relays after PE being compulsory in my schoolgirl years, but this is for a very good cause and I understand that the popular kids won’t be choosing the teams. And more importantly, it’s about being there, not actually running (finally! A concept that works!)

Lentil As Anything

3 Comments

Turns out that the Guinness cake is “the nicest cake in the world” according to Paul. He’s not wrong. Like a good casserole, fine cheese, or Helen Mirren, it just gets better with age. On Tuesday I ate three pieces of the damn thing. Small pieces (evening things up, you know) but nonetheless: three. So there have been lentils aplenty to atone.

But you don’t need me to tell you that the oft-maligned, unsexy lentil is actually seriously awesome. Or do you?

Above: This was Sunday night’s dinner. I must admit that I ate a whole ton of jellybeans that were supposed to be for Tim -should his blood sugar go low- while he was at work. I figured the only way to undo this would to make lentil soup. Now, I don’t have a hard and fast recipe for this, as I am still experimenting in the hopes of finding the perfect prototype. I think this could be close. I sauteed two onions, and added lots of garlic, some ginger, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and turmeric. While this was softening and becoming headily aromatic, I tipped in half a cup each of organic Puy lentils, organic brown lentils, and red lentils from the bulk section at Pak’n’Save. Into this went a tin of chopped tomatoes, enough water to cover everything, plenty of salt…and that was it. It was pretty magical. Almost more of a curry than a soup, deeply flavoured with a marvelously thick texture. I thoroughly recommend you try it, especially if you find yourself crouching at the freezer with a spoon, surreptitiously eating your way through a tub of ice cream, or accidentally eating a whole loaf’s worth of overbuttered toast. Hey, we’ve all been there. Well, I have at least…

Above: This is what we had for dinner on St Patrick’s Day. Somehow it conspired that we had all the ingredients for that Autobahn classic, wedges with cheese, bacon, and sour cream. Even though there are probably far better uses for the bacon, at the time I couldn’t think of a better one. I served this with roasted capsicum and beetroot, which I drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Above: Larb, with Cambodian Cucumber Salad from my Healthy Salads of Southeast Asia book, which was Tuesday night’s dinner. Larb is a bit of an in-joke for Tim and me – I guess we’re odd like that – we were playing Scrabble this one time (by the way, for someone who read the dictionary for kicks as a child, I am awful at Scrabble), and I used the word Larb. Tim said it wasn’t real, I told him he was uneducated, and he asked if I could use it in a sentence. All I could think of was “this is my larb.” Anyway, we found this kind of hysterical (I don’t expect you to, that’s why it’s an in-joke) but finally wikipedia proved me right. I still didn’t win that game. The cucumber salad is a great use of this particular vegetable, crunchy with cashews and dressed with fish sauce, garlic, and other such good things. I liked it a lot, and Tim said “yes” when asked if it was nice so you might be seeing this again. I’ll only tell you larb story this once though, promise.

Above: Lentil Cashew Cakes! (I’m not actually quite sure what to dub them; ‘patty’ sounds too earnest and I find something suspicious sounding about the word ‘fritter’ so ‘cakes’ will have to do.) I saw this recipe in the recipe column of the Sunday Star magazine section. It was written by the wonderful Ray McVinnie, whose column in Cuisine is always outstandingly inspiring, so I should have known these would be nothing less than brilliant. Cooked up brown lentils are mashed with cumin, garlic, coriander, eggs, chopped cashews and a little flour, and fried till cooked through (I used my awesome non-stick pan that I got for my 21st.) These chubby little cakes are fantastic – the soft crunch of the cashews provides the perfect foil for the unfamiliarly grainy texture of the lentils. To go with, I chopped some cucumber up, tossed it in some Greek yoghurt with ginger and garlic (adapting another recipe from this column) and steamed some brocolli. Oh, and there were more wedges:
Above: Wedges!
Easter is just around the corner and though I’m not looking forward to doing assignments instead of flying home, I am very, very excited about making my first ever batch of Hot Cross Buns (Nigella, of course!)
Oh yeah – we went to the cricket on Saturday. Technically we got a good deal: we paid $25 for a ticket to the cricket, (which I don’t like), a tshirt (which I’ll never wear), a beer (which I don’t drink), and a piece of toast with (excellent) bacon and (watery, curiously fishy) eggs at the Loaded Hog before the game. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think Sports=Bullying (at least when I have to be involved, anyway) so it begs the question, what on earth was I doing there? Well, I was more than prepared to stay at home but I got told that it would be fun and that I should come and that it was a great way to spend nine hours of your life. So with this in mind it would be facetious (but not out of character) for me to slate cricket entirely; just because I hate something doesn’t always make it morally abhorrent. But for real: It is intensely tedious. At about 2pm I almost became frantic, panicky even , with boredom and no forseeable conclusion to this charmless game. There were many times when I turned to Tim and asked him – genuinely – if they were still playing or just having an hour-long team talk, because that’s what it looked like. There is literally nothing to see, and nothing to do but sit. I can’t emphasise this enough. On a positive note, we were sitting amongst the Barmy Army, who are truly a delightful bunch, convivial and entertaining and ready with a song for every possible eventuality. They chanted “Micheal Vaughan’s Barmy Army” for a full eleven minutes. Their insanity kept me sane. So, no more cricket. At least I know for sure now that I don’t like it. Does anyone want a free tshirt?

Camera Obscura

5 Comments

A warning: Tim and I have a new camera. It is very shiny and cool and high tech, but I just can’t take any decent photos. Please stick with me though. Hopefully these are just teething problems, and not a chilling vision of things to come for this blog.

I was planning to go to a Bikram Yoga class with Ange after work today, but we decided it took up altogether too much brain-space and so we went for an equally zen peppermint tea and soy chai respectively. On the way home, at the library, I got myself the River Cafe Two Easy Book, and the first Barefoot Contessa book. No offense to my American constituency, (or constichensy if you will; rewatched O Brother Where Art Thou last night and had forgotten how wondrous it is), but a lot of American chefs don’t really appeal to me, particularly – gasp! – Martha Stewart, who I just don’t get. (Fear not though, I can’t see the charm in Delia either.) Ina Garten, however, or the Barefoot Contessa as she grandly entitles herself, I really like. There is something so wonderfully, bosomly comforting about her, and all her recipes seem warm and delicious and inspiring. I can’t wait to peruse this book.
Above: You are still going to get the same old Laura-calibre photos until I figure out how to make the camera heed me. Seriously, I thought it would be instant Donna Hay up in here, but I guess there’s more to it than that. The food, by the way, in the above photo is of a casserole I made from Nigella’s How To Eat – the first casserole of the year. I absolutely love stews and the like though, so I was secretly excited when the weather was cold enough on Monday to warrant such a dinner. Notice the elegant bowl, Christmas present from the parents. Another stew I have made this week comes from the Hudson and Halls cookbook that Mum sent me. It was supposed to be Chicken Marengo, but I had no button mushrooms, so I suppose it is only Chicken Marengo-esque. Nevertheless, this is a seriously moreish dish, I couldn’t believe how great it tasted. It must be the inclusion of the magical elixer that is Marsala – but more on that later…
Could someone – perhaps American or well-travelled – explain what the deal is with Santa Fe? Does it possess some kind of mystical properties that I am not aware of? I only ask because it is mentioned quite a bit in Rent- there is a whole song devoted to how they want to run away to this place, plus numerous other references – and then on the Fame soundtrack, Montgomery also sings about his longing to escape to Santa Fe. I wikipedia’d it (as I am wont to do with this sort of thing) and although it certainly seems very pleasant, the site didn’t really offer much info. Anyone? Interestingly, these two songs are some of my favourites on the respective soundtracks (who am I kidding, I can’t choose)…perhaps Santa Fe has got to me, too.
Above: Amazingly, this photo is even worse than the above. This picture shows an apricot crumble I made the other day, using some fruit that Stefan had bought back from the Hawkes Bay. You don’t want to know how much crumble mix I ate…the finished product got generally glowing reviews from the flatmates, but I can’t pretend that the oat bran I put in the topping made it healthy.
Above: Un-hummoused Chickpeas…(which is to say, chickpeas with cumin, olive oil, sesame seeds, and lemon juice) and –

Above: Morrocan Vegetable Stew. Guess what we served it on? Couscous! I have to say, if there is one thing Nigella has taught me, it is how to make a good vegetable stew. I am forever in her debt. Onion, garlic, carrot, parsnips, canned tomatoes, red lentils…a pinch of cinnamon and tumeric…beyond easy. This was dinner for Tim, Paul and myself on Wednesday (I took pity on Paul who couldn’t be bothered cooking dinner.)
Above: The photo may not be so fab, but let me tell you friend, this tasted LUSH. I had been nursing a small idea for this very creation for some time now, and it came to glorious, calorific fruition yesterday. In case you thought I was doing nothing but lentils these days.
White Chocolate Macadamia Ice Cream with Marsala-Butterscotch Sauce. Does this sound good to you? I got Ange, Paul, Tim and Emma to test-drive it for me, and they loved it, Emma said it was even better than the Cinnamon Date ice cream. This is definitely a grownup dessert – the Marsala gives the sauce a seriously delicious flavour.
=============
White Chocolate Macadamia Ice Cream with Marsala-Butterscotch Sauce
Ice Cream:
-4 egg yolks
-50g plain sugar
-50g light brown sugar
-500mls cream
-125mls full fat milk.
-200g White Chocolate with Macadamias (can I just mention here that I got this chocolate by mistake and decided to pretend that I meant it to be that way, and it ended up being really good. So, I’m sure plain white chocolate will suffice just fine.)
=
Being the cream and milk to the boil in a pot. While this is happening, gently whisk together the egg yolks and sugar till combined. As soon as the cream and milk starts to bubble, take it straight off the heat, pour it over the yolks and sugar and whisk thoroughly. Then, transfer this mixture back into the pot (which you have rinsed and dried) and stir constantly over a very low heat. You are making custard, so you don’t want to overcook it at all, but for heaven’s sake don’t stress. If I can do it, so can you. Keep stirring till it is well, the consistency of custard, then remove completely from heat. Melt the white chocolate, stir it into the custard thoroughly, let it cool and then freeze. Try not to drink it as it’s chilling.
=
Marsala-Butterscotch Sauce
-50g butter
-50g muscovado sugar
-200mls cream
-1 T Marsala (I used my All’uovo, which is sweeter, but I’m sure dry would still be wonderful)
-1 T custard powder mixed with a little water.
Melt the butter and sugar together in a pot. When the sugar has dissolved into the butter, add the cream, and let it simmer for a bit. Pour in the Marsala, and finally the moistened custard powder, allowing it to thicken gently. It will thicken more on standing. If it sits for long. I’m just saying…
Above: Ah, the soothing balm of lentils. After all that sugar I needed something intensely healthy to calm me down and this soup had two different types of lentils in it. Oooh…I know I’ve said it before, but I have a theory that eating lentils just immediately cancels out anything. I long for a scientist to prove me right.
=
It’s flipping chilly in Wellington at the moment – and not chilly in the BSC sense, but really very cold. “Sunny Santa Fe would be nice…”

Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!

3 Comments

So Uni is more hardcore than anticipated. Despite having the word “beginner” in the title and being at first year level, my photography class is unbelievably, intimidatingly advanced. I thought I’d stumbled into the PhD masterclass by mistake. I’m terrified to mention that I just want to take nice snaps of casseroles and cupcakes, in case it isn’t avant-garde enough. The teacher is, shall we say, a little unhumourous…but I shall persevere. For your sake!

Tim and I desperately need to do some groceries (damn you Kieran, for leaving us bereft of a car!) Which is why we end up having disjointed meals like this.
Above: From the top: breakfast sausages, brown lentils, salad leaves, and couscous with ras-el-hanout. (A muskily delicious spice mix, by the way.) I’m toying with this brown lentil recipe in my head, I can’t decide if it is to be a kind of salad dressing or more hummous-leaning, either way it is amusing to annoy Tim by calling it “Lentil Paste.” I’ll let you know which way I eventually go.
Encore une fois! I made the Pasta with Beurre Rouge again and Tim wisely decided that in fact, it was a magically delicious dinner. I promise you, he conceded this without any pressure from me.
Last night Tim, Emma, Paul and I went to a pub quiz in town, and came first equal! We won a $100 bar tab. Which means we have to go back to that awful pub to spend it sometime. Still. $100! Team Hadfield for the win! We thoroughly trounced everyone else, which is quite a satisfying feeling, let me tell you. Sufficiently emboldened, we may try another pub quiz next week.
Above: Well, I clearly haven’t learned any skills from my photog class yet. But don’t judge these lush, buttery scones on their appearance. Please?
My mum and I used to love watching the Two Fat Ladies show when it screened in New Zealand. One thing we particularly lol’d over was when – I think it was Clarissa – was making soup, and she said helpfully to the camera that it was a “useful way to get rid of leftover Stilton.” This seemed so amusingly extravagant to us. So as I made these scones, thankful that the recipe would require the rapidly aging Camembert that Tim’s aunt and uncle gave us a while ago, I couldn’t help but chuckle. And crave a wheel of cheese.
Peppered Camembert Scones
This recipe was first posted by Kerryanne on the food forum I frequent.
3 cups SR flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cracked black pepper (I used pink peppercorns. Recommend!)
100gms camembert,chopped
90g butter,melted,cooled.
1/2 cup milk + 1/2 cup water
Preheat oven 210 C. Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in pepper and cheese.Make a well in the centre. Combine butter, 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water.Pour into well. Using a knife,mix until just combined.Turn out onto lightly floured board. Knead gently until dough comes together. Divide into 8 portions. Roll each into a ball and flatten slightly.Place on greased trays,allow for spreading.Brush tops with a little milk. Using a small sharp knife make 3 slits in top of each damper (I forgot to add the slits, and they were okay) Bake 12-15 mins,or until golden and skewer comes out clean.
For tonight’s dinner I tossed some pasta with a can of salmon, some capers (it’s worth looking for the salt-packed ones, they are far superior to the brine-pickled capers,) a tin of tomatoes, and lemon juice.
Above: Also made with things from our cupboard, although a heck of a lot more cohesive than our last dinner.
Received a package in the mail from Mum today – a Hudson And Halls cookbook, from the late seventies – filled with delightfully camp (I know, it’s all to easy to say camp around these two) musings and wonderfully conversational recipes. For those of you who don’t know, Peter Hudson and David Halls had a TV cooking show in New Zealand in the seventies and eighties, and basically perked up the genre with their, well, perkiness. I anticipate perhaps making “Posh Soup” or mayhaps the “Super Duper Pancake…”

Lentils, Rhubarb, Burghal Wheat and Humidity (Wait! Don’t Run Off!)

8 Comments

Okay so the title isn’t really selling it much but I’m too brain-weary to come up with a kicky pun.

Sorry to be a complete bore and talk about the weather and the rising price of dairy again, but good grief! Tim had to get up at 5am this morning to go to work at Coffee Bucks, and the sky was be-flashed with lightening and rain was bucketing down. By the time I went to work at noon, it was intensely humid. I mean, I was sweating like a mule carrying a barrel of tequila. So I figured it was safe to wear a dress. After work (where I embarrassingly stuffed up every single invoice I was supposed to enter – there’s a Neil Young song that described my mood perfectly but as I like to keep things clean I won’t tell you which one it is) there were gale force winds abound and everyone was looking at me disapprovingly for wearing so little clothing. I know, “four seasons in one day,” etc, but really! What’s a girl to wear? Get it together, Wellington!

We watched the report on Campbell Live tonight (bless his enthusiastic socks) and it is just unnacceptable (okay, I feel the pain more keenly than some about the lack of butter, but whatevs) that butter can be sold for upwards of $5. You practically need to take out an overdraft to make a bowl of macaroni cheese. A family was interviewed and they are driven to using margarine instead of butter because it’s too expensive. Margarine? What is happening to my country!?

Rant over.

I’ve been experimenting, by the way. With lentils. And rhubarb. Now, I know there are a lot more potentially exciting things I could be experimenting with, but I am totally smitten with making up recipes.
Above: I didn’t make this up. I wish I did though, it’s so head-smackingly simple but also seriously delicious. It is basically pasta, baked with onion, garlic, tomato passata and cheese, and the recipe came from this great Medditeranian Vegetarian cookbook I got for Christmas. My mother is determined to keep me in pink peppercorns, so I thought I’d use some to mildly pungent effect sprinkled over the top, along with what’s left of our dismal parsely plant. We had this for dinner the other night and I can see it becoming a regular fixture.
Above: Now this, I actually did invent and I am rather proud of it. It is a very simple salad and goes as follows:
Raw Zucchini and Carrot Salad (sorry, that’s not a very enticing title)
-2 good sized carrots
-2 zucchinis of the same size
Wash, but do not peel the vegetables, and grate them. Yes, this is a pain, so you might want to employ the nearest child/friend/other half to do it for you.
Mix your orange and green shreds together in a large bowl. Pour over 1 teaspoon of basil oil, then stir thoroughly, and repeat. I only have basil oil because my parents gave me some, so if you don’t have any I’m sure good olive oil and chopped basil will do. Finally, sprinkle over some good salt, stir, sprinkle over a little more and stir again. This is important, it sort of brings the flavours together (or gives it flavour in the first place, if you will.)
Not to talk myself up or anything but I personally find it very edible. I could just sit there and eat a whole bowl full.
Above: Despite Tim being all “when I was a kid we ate what we were given” he is kinda picky about mushrooms (and eggplant!) but Nigella’s mushroom risotto was hoovered down without complaints when I made it for dinner the other night. (Okay, I’ve just made him sound like a whining vacuum cleaner when he’s really so much more appealing than that…) 
Above: This festive burghal wheat salad is from Nigella’s Feast and is part of a menu for a Mezze party (oh, how I long to throw a Mezze party now). Since I pretty much had all the ingredients I thought I’d give it a shot for last night’s dinner. However Tim really wanted to go to this all-you-can-eat restaurant (I said I didn’t want to because my head cold was being unpredictable and I didn’t want to pay for a meal I couldn’t taste) but it was with a sinking heart that I cooked this because I knew nothing could really live up to the imagined wonder of an all-you-can-eat. Which reminded me of that Simpsons episode – Lawyer: “Tell them what happened next, Marge.” Marge: “We drove around looking for another all-you-can-eat restaurant.” Lawyer: “Then what?” Marge: “We went fishing” (sobs) Lawyer: “Does this sound like the actions of a man who’d had all he could eat?”
Ahem, anyway, I used some dried cherries that I got from Santa, and substituted juicy pomegranite seeds for the pomegranite molasses, and walnuts/pinenuts for the pistachios but it was basically the same burghal wheat salad Nigella had in mind. It was also seriously good- fresh and not at all heavy but also somehow deeply flavoured too, and Tim was won over by the meatballs I made to go with.
Above: Well, this is definitely something I’ll be making again. It is from Jill Dew-plee-icks’ New Food (okay, her surname is Dupleix but NCEA Level 2 French isn’t getting me any closer to figuring out how to pronounce it)
Cooked brown lentils (ooh, lentils!) are simmered with onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, and canned tomatoes till they form a richly textured earthy sauce, and natural yoghurt is stirred in before you pile the lot onto cooked pasta. It is SO good and I am disproportionately happy to find another good lentil recipe. Again, why didn’t I think of this? By the way, the yoghurt was homemade- my aunty gave me her yoghurt maker and it is my New. Favourite. Toy.
Above: Rhubarb and Apple Crumble Tartlettes. Does that sound like something you’d want to make? I got the idea for these the other day and since I had all the necessary ingredients I had a go at trying to produce, in food form, the vision that was in my head (I know, I know, they aren’t the bloody Sistine chapel, but this is pretty exciting for me.) And my idea actually worked! They are a triumph! Seriously, I finished making them this morning at 11.00am and by the time I got back to the flat from work at 5.30pm there were only two left. Once I figure out the minor details I can post the recipe here if you like. They are pretty easy to make, even easier if you don’t make your own pastry like I did (I acknowledge the two schools of thought, one being “Life’s more rewarding if you make your own pastry” the other being “Life’s too short…”) And crucially, they taste pretty fantastic. I think I’m drunk on my own power.
Yesterday was seriously humid as well, not the most pleasant weather to be at the Vege market but Tim and I trekked in all the same (eh, he does all the heavy lifting.) Tim went to work and Ange came over, and we watched Chicago. Do you know why? Because I realised that oh-so-smooth Taye Diggs (ie, Benny from Rent – and Mr Black from The Wild Party, if you want to go even further) is the anouncer/piano player guy. Yeah, we are boffins. He certainly makes a fine MC but it’s a shame he didn’t get to sing. Also it’s scary how healthy and alive CZJ looks next to Renee Zellweger, who, all the same, does a stirling job – I can’t even imagine Ashlee Simpson taking the role of Roxie in the West End – ugh! I’d forgotten what a good movie Chicago is, I think its strength lies in the fact that it is so darn SLICK. And John C. Reilly is pretty heartbreaking.
PS – I know I said I’d been experimenting with lentils, and it’s true – I tried cooking up red lentils and using them in a muffin recipe. I decided to call them Lentil-Bran Patties (even though they were actually muffins, this title was mostly to annoy Tim- “But they AREN’T patties!”) but they were remarkably good. A little stodgy, but…yeah, good, and of course, very, very healthy. Another thing to catch a cab back to the lab for…’cause I KNOW you’re all gagging for the secret recipe to my Lentil-Bran Patties.

Let The Good Times Roll

3 Comments

It is hard to contemplate (A) that it is exactly one week till Christmas and (B) that Outrageous Fortune has really finished- it just doesn’t feel like a Tuesday without it. Tim and I are getting up super early tomorrow to go Christmas shopping, so hopefully there is nice weather for it – there were massive wintry rainfalls today which was a bit worrisome.

I’ve been trying to make sure we eat relatively healthily this week. It doesn’t always work.

Above: I always thought that rice paper rolls were a bit like haircuts – best done by professionals. But the recipe in Nigella’s Forever Summer showed me that they were in fact, incredibly do-able. A little fiddly, yes, but nevertheless a simple, impressive, and healthy nibble. We even made them while camping last year, if that is any indication of their non-threateningness (should such a word exist.) I made very simple rolls on Sunday night – just grated carrot, sliced avocado and mint, no noodles or anything. I think they were in fact the nicest ones I have ever made. Once you get into a rhythm of dunking the rice paper, laying the filling on their softened surfaces, and rolling them up, there’s not much to it at all.
Above: The rice paper rolls were a precursor to our actual dinner, which consisted of roasted vegetables, boiled potatoes, and my usual fall-back when I have no idea what to cook for dinner but Tim wants some kind of meat component to the meal – mince spiced with cumin, cinnamon, etc. I added some cooked down red lentils to the mince, just to make it all the more sparklingly healthy, and grated in some carrot. All in all a model dinner…until…

Above: The real Canadian cake! Alicia’s friend sent her a box of Betty Crocker cake mix, complete with a TUB OF ICING and we made it after dinner. Although I am generally vehemently opposed to cakes made from boxes, I was intrigued to say the least. You might not be able to see it in the photo but everything on the packaging is charmingly translated into French as well as English. Anyway, we mixed this up and baked it while watching the Simpsons movie on DVD. How do I put this – the cake was appallingly fabulous. It had this spookily puffy, moist texture, like something not found in nature, and the icing tasted like butter. It also had little clumps of e-numbers, I mean sprinkles, clustered throughout. It tasted pretty amazing, but left me rolling around groaning afterwards, filled with too much sugar.

Above: This was last night’s dinner and I have to say, all self-congratulatory, that it was an absolute stonker of a feed. Tim and I went to New World Metro in town to grab some milk after work and ended up spontaneously buying some steak for dinner. I followed a recipe from the New Zealand cookbook, which basically involves frying it and deglazing the pan with sherry and cream. I used the sherry Mum gave me, and the little bit of cream that I had leftover from the pav. Well. It tasted INCREDIBLE, like restaurant food or something. The smell, when the sherry hits the hot pan and starts sizzling, is sensational.
To go with I made a salad of raw, sliced beetroot, blanched brocolli, and cashews, which was very fresh and crisp tasting, and roasted some potatoes. What a feast.

Above: Tonight I kept it fairly simple. Penne pasta, with avocado and roasted beetroot, capsicum, and courgette. I drizzled over a little of the basil oil that Mum and Dad got me when they went to Australia earlier this year, and it was the perfect foil for the mix of flavours on the plate. The beetroot inevitably stained the pasta, but I thought the combo looked rather festive.
Above: Well, I kept it simple until I started to make baked cheesecake, that is…Apparently we are having some kind of flat barbeque tomorrow, I say apparently because it is Emma that is organising it and I’m not quite sure on the particulars. As long as it doesn’t rain like it did today we should have a jolly old time. Either way I’m always up for feeding people and so volunteered to make the Chocolate Lime Cheesecake from Nigella Bites, using gluten free cookies for the base. It is largely a case of bunging all the ingredients in the processor, the difficult bit is baking it in a waterbath, but not much is difficult in the kitchen when you have Tim to lift things for you. It is cooling on the bench now and smells pretty amazing. I’ll let you know tomorrow night what the general consensus is. I’ve never made a cheesecake before so it’s all a bit exciting.
Alright, it’s now past midnight and I have to brave a shopping mall tomorrow, so I need my sleep.

Epic Proportions

2 Comments

I didn’t realise how long it was since I’ve last posted here, so another long post, sorry! This time of year is pretty busy though, and I can’t believe that there is only one week till I go home for Christmas 🙂 and Kieran leaves our flat 😦 although obviously, he will always be a part of Team Hadfield.

Above: It has been so humid and tropical in Wellington lately that we have been eating our dinner outside a lot. I made this for dinner the other night, using some chops that Tim’s parents gave us when we went to their farm in September to help with docking. After defrosting them (naturally, I hadn’t kept them in the fridge for three months) I baked them with some of the cranberry conserve that Santa gave me last year, mixed with a little dry mustard powder. They were delicious, all sticky and blackened and meaty. To go with I made the Egyptian Tomato Salad from Nigella Bites, using some of the tomatoes we got from the vege market. This recipe is very easy and really summery. You peel the tomatoes, slice them up with some spring onion, pour over a little olive oil, and leave it to sit for a while for the flavours to develop. The potatoes I just parboiled and fried in my non stick pan in cubes, with some cumin seeds and plenty of salt.

On Friday night I didn’t even have dinner (Tim had some toast and leftover lentil soup) because we went to the stadium to see the Phoenix vs Queensland, and by the time I’d got home from work there wasn’t any time to cook. It was a very warm, muggy night, perfect for being outside, and the game was lots of fun. We went with Kieran (flatmate) and Alicia (Canadian who also works at Starbucks) and I have to say that being in a crowd of soccer fans (I think there was just over 9000 people there, pretty good for a non-Beckham game here) is a great way of letting out any repressed anger you might have as you yell and curse and chant along that “All we want is a decent referee.”

Above: I wish I could say I made this! Tim, Kieran, Alicia and I went out to breakfast the next morning (how very Sex and The City! I thought to my unsophisticated self) at Epic, on Willis Street. They serve the most amazingly enormous and imaginative breakfasts, for very reasonable prices. The above – savoury French toast with mushrooms, chorizo, spinach, grilled capsicum, hollandaise and chutney was only $13, and being the glutton that I am, I got a couple of hash browns on the side. It was seriously good and slowed me down too – I hate paying for tiny meals – and everything tasted of quality, not as though it was out of a packet.

Above: Tim ordered the big vegetarian fry up and then, rather idiosyncratically, asked for bacon and kranky on the side. He had started eating this by the time I took a photo of it, but really, it looks pretty good, huh? Tim said his eggs were cooked perfectly.
Above: Kieran had the Mexican Big Breakfast, with corn fritters on the side, and Alicia had the three-egg omelette. Everything was sooo good! We got there bang on 9.00am (quite an achievement on a Saturday morning, especially since we had been drinking the night before) and there were hardly any people there, but it filled up quickly.

If you are ever in Wellington, make sure you check this place out. There was also a blackboard menu which I forced myself not to look at for fear of never being able to make a decision. Kieran and Alicia got latte bowls, Tim got a flat white (I think the general concession was ‘good, but not as good as Starbucks’) and I got a lovely spirulina.
Tim had work to go to, but Kieran and Alicia and I made the most of the sun by driving out to Island Bay, which is near to the airport. I’d never been there before – it’s such a jewel of a place on a sunny day, real postcard stuff – blue sky, blue-green sea, the cliffs…we chilled in the sun (and yes, I schmeered myself with copious amounts of sunblock) on the pebbly beach and tried to avoid being bitten by the mosquitos that were as big as 747s.


Above: Island Bay. Unlike many beaches in NZ, this one has sun-warmed pebbles instead of sand.

When I got home I started making a pavlova. I didn’t have any real motivation to do it, in that we weren’t celebrating or something like that, but I had a pomegranate, and I had lots of egg whites in the freezer, and since we are all going home for Christmas soon it’s a nice time to eat that sort of food. So, following the recipe for Pomegranate Pavlova in How To Be A Domestic Goddess, I started whipping those egg whites into shape.

Above: Everything was going fine until I realised I’d ran out of cornflour, and of course in the unstable world of pavlova every ingredient is crucial. So I thought maybe I could substitute it with custard powder, which is mostly cornflour anyway, right? Well, I sifted it in, poured over the vinegar…and it made this funny bubbling noise. So I folded it all together, spread the shiny mixture onto the baking tray, and put it in the oven quickly. Then I looked at the ingredients on the custard powder and it had cream of tartar in it. Uh oh! I thought. And hoped for the best.
Anyway while it was baking I got on with dinner, which was good old spag bol (hey, we are students) I put some of the red wine that I wasn’t drinking in the spaghetti sauce, which made it smell delicious. I also added some red lentils to it, which cooked down into nothing and added texture and of course, added healthiness. But of course you all should be familiar with my lentil obsession by now…


Above: We ate outside again, because it was so warm. The spag bol tasted great – if only cheese wasn’t so expensive, we could have grated some over the top.

We were sitting outside drinking and talking (Tim: beer, Emma: Loud and Lola Cosmopolitan mix, Kieran and I: Red Wine) when the timer went off for the pav. I checked for signs of disaster but apart from being ENORMOUS (it has expanded to take up nearly the whole darn baking tray, which I think the cream of tarter may have had a hand in doing) it seemed to be absolutely fine. I whipped some cream and spread it thickly over, and then came the fun part.
Above: You may or may not know this, but one of the more effective ways of seeding a pomegranate is to hit it repeatedly with a wooden spoon till the ruby seeds rain down. So, here I am, well, smacking the pomegranate.

Above: This pav was soooo delicious, all crisp and sugary without and yieldingly marshmallowy within. The pomegranate also makes a great topping – it looks gorgeous and its fragrantly acidic, crunchy seeds go well with the cream and all the sugar. This is the third pav of Nigella’s that I’ve tried and I have to say they are fantastic recipes.




Above: From the top, the Pomegranate Pav, the Nectarine and Passionfruit Pav, and the Chocolate Raspberry Pav. They make me think of Miss World contestants, all lined up like that. Which do you think looks the prettiest? I sure can’t decide…

In other news: Less than ten days till Christmas! Aaaaahhh!!!

"The Brain, The Brain, The Centre of The Chain."

5 Comments

The title doesn’t have much to do with anything except for the fact that I am very excited, in a sniffly, boffinish way, to have discovered a Baby Sitters Club blog wherein a 20-something woman goes back and re-reads the books and then writes up all the glaring logistical errors and continuity flaws. The quote is taken from the BSC movie, something I had forgotten about until recently. Yesterday’s obsession is todays’ charmingly kitsch retro-pop-culture…so watch out. And by that, I mean that I have been on Trademe for BSC books. Shh!

We don’t have a heck of a lot of food in our cupboards at the moment. After the massive spree that was shopping for the Christmas dinner, I didn’t want to spend any more money on actual groceries. Let me tell you, I am looking forward to the vege market tomorrow.

Above: This here is the very last of the leftovers, and indeed, the last of most of our vegetables. I’m not so good at ‘making up’ salads, but I was proud of this concoction – the rest of the roast chicken, with roasted cauliflower and red peppers, avocado, and capers. It was so unbelievably delicious! We had this dumped on top of rice, and it was surprisingly filling (you know, for a salad.)

Above: Fish Pie. It is actually a kind of low-rent fish pie that I make a lot in Winter, and since the weather was jarringly cold and wet the other day I decided to have another go at it. Basically it is a can of tuna stirred into white sauce with anything else you have in the fridge – in my case, frozen peas and beans – and topped with breadcrumbs made from crushing toasted bread in your hands. It was inspired by a recipe in the NZ Cookbook, which uses a splash of sherry in the white sauce. I used the sherry Mum gave me recently – its first outing! – and the sauce smelled divine, all winey and warming and delicious. We had this with rice too, some Basmati that Mum sent us (and yes, it does taste a lot nicer than Budget Long Grain.)
Above: Lentil and Potato Pie…you may or may not know that I have a slight obsession with lentils, I think it’s just because they are so good for you that I find their very presence in my meal soothing. This was such an easy dish to make, and came from the NZ Cookbook also. Just layers of onion, potatoes, and brown lentils (I biffed a handful of red lentils in too just for kicks) and then pour in some stock and bake for an hour. I used the Knorr porcini stock cubes (that Nigella uses!) that my aunt brought back for me from Italy, which are so intensely savoury and almost fudgily dense with flavour that they make any bland combination of flavours taste wonderful. This was even better the next day, cold for breakfast, as unappetising as it sounds.
Above: I served the potato-lentil amalgam with mince. Just mince. Sometimes I try so hard to make mince exciting and different to what we had the night before (ie, Bobotie, anyone?) that I forget how nice it can be on it’s own, just fried with some onion and a splash of soy sauce (for Alison Holst Chic!) It reminds me of this time when I was much younger and Mum was away for the week somewhere. Dad cooked us mince and mashed potatoes, (and no doubt some veges too, knowing Dad) plain as anything, and suggested that the two were nice mixed together. It was so delicious I can remember this meal over ten years later. So, simple can be your friend.

I didn’t post last night (Mum, I’m talking to you, here) because of the stonkering fabulous Friday night line up on UKTV. After America’s Next Top Model on 3, there is the genius Green Wing on UKTV, followed by Little Britain, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Shameless. The only thing missing is the old Men Behaving Badly, which I always had a soft spot for. But for real, what a night! How is anyone supposed to move from the telly to go out and do Friday night-type things?
Anyway had better go and cobble together a meal before Tim gets home from making syrup-cinos, so…

Good Bive!

Above: I know, I said no more kittens and music and non-food stuff but…I didn’t mean it. Got this photo off a colleague of mine who was also at the game and could nay resist.

Set the Controls For The Tart of The Sun

4 Comments

Disclaimer – it is getting very late, and I am soo tired, my mind is on the blink…I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink…Hopefully whatever follows is coherent.

It was with the greatest intentions that I swore off cooking pudding for a while, it was also with the greatest of intentions that I started cooking tonight’s pudding. Now, with the benefit of hindsight (she is a cruel mistress!) I can see that something involving homemade pastry, baking blind, separating eggs and using a double boiler probably isn’t the best thing to make when you get home from work. I wish I had some kind of alarm system that would go off whenever I have a fit of deranged domesticity like this, but it does creep up on you. One moment you are craving something sugary, the next you are up to your elbows in temperamental egg yolks.
Firstly, last night’s dinner. It consisted of two salads, which, as unfilling and cold as that sounds, made a lovely meal. Because we are going away for a week on Saturday (home to see my family, the cats, and Muse!) I’m trying to use what we have in the cupboard. Thus, we ended up with this:
Above: This was a mixture of rice vermicelli noodles (the sort that I put in rice paper rolls) with cabbage, beans, brocolli, and one of those fish sauce-and-lime juice dressings. It was a lovely combination of flavours but I have to say vermicelli noodles are a bugger to eat – this might work better with something a little less slippery. A good store cupboard meal.

To go with, I made this, which required a bit more planning.
Above: Where do I start? First of all, I soaked the chickpeas yesterday morning, then cunningly cooked them up with the pearl barley, which meant they were ready at the same time. Meanwhile I chopped up and roasted what was left of the capsicum and fennel, plus a beetroot. While this was happening, I made dressing of the mashed up garlic that was boiling away with the chickpeas, some orange juice, and a little red wine vinegar. Finally I added some chopped up chorizo because Tim was bemoaning the lack of meat present and some linseeds to make it even more virtuous. I realise that the noodle salad’s Asian flavours clash somewhat with the earthier flavours of the chickpea and barley salad but they actually went well together – even on the plate.
Above: Juxtaposition. One of my favourite words when I was studying art in high school – just throw it in conversation, nod sagely, and you will pass.
Both salads tasted great, though probably would have tasted better with bucketloads of oil in the dressing…I think the best way to avoid this is to maximise on flavour and texture which certainly was achieved.
Now to tonight’s dinner:

Pudding technically isn’t essential in the way that carbs are for insulin-packing Tim but my soul was saying, Morrissey-like, “Please, please, please, let me get what I want” and I gave in to its wheedling, by making the Raspberry Curd Tarts from the January 2004 Cuisine magazine. Cuisine is an NZ food magazine and has to be one of the classiest and most elegant food publications in the world. Its recipes aren’t always terribly accessible but this one seemed to be – in that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything – and I really was itching to make some pud.

I started off making the pastry, which then chilled in the fridge while I made the raspberry curd, which involved softly stewing the berries till they collapse in their own juices, before cooking them in a double boiler (or in my case, a bowl suspended over a pan of water) with butter, egg yolks and sugar till thickened. This was an undeniably messy job, and rather disappointingly, the raspberries lost their fabulous scarlet tinge, turning into something that reminded me of a lipstick that Mum used to have.

Above: The curd a-curding. It thickened surprisingly quickly.

What followed was a little nightmarish – draining the curd through a sieve to get rid of the pips. I can’t tell you how many photos I took trying to get an artistic ‘drip’ effect. It would drip like mad and then as soon as the camera flashed the little blighters would disappear!

In between all this I made dinner:

Above: No, I didn’t actually serve dinner festooned with kaffir lime leaves, I just thought the meat patties looks a little…brownly naked without anything on them. I made the patties out of pork mince, garam masala, and some red lentils that I cooked up (you can hardly taste them in the meat!), and had that with some brown rice and the carrots, which I cooked up with fenugreek, vermouth, garlic and paprika following a recipe in the gorgeous Herb Bible that my godparents gave me a while back. Everything tasted great. I’m too tired to think of a fluttery adjective at the moment: this is how it is.

Nearly fainted after dinner when I realised I hadn’t read the bit about blind baking.

Above: The bane of my existence – blind baking, made more excruciating by being executed mini-style. Although there is something satisfying in seeing a crisp, golden pastry shell awaiting its filling.

Finally, I poured the curd into the cooked shells – and was too exhausted to eat anything (also scoffing too much pastry while rolling it out may have contributed to this – hmm, this isn’t the first time I’ve said this…)
Above: Tart, top and sides.
Like I said, I didn’t try any, but Tim and Kieran did, plus Alicia who also works at Starbucks and her mate Vi. The general concensus was that it tasted awesome – thank Heavens is all I can say. Do I recommend this recipe? Hard to say. On the one hand, you could make everything in advance, which would make things a lot easier than hitting the ground running after work. And according to everyone it does taste pretty fantastic, not to mention the fact that the tarts are undeniably cute. On the other hand, I am now a gibbering wreck, not looking forward to going to work tomorrow.
I guess you could call them The Great Gig in The Pie…perhaps a Tart of Gold…okay, okay, I’m going to bed.