Category: Christmas

i see red i see red i see red

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So every year I do a Christmas dinner thing with my flatmates (which we’ve started having at lunchtime but I still call it Christmas dinner, I don’t know) where we get together for some good eating before going our separate ways. That’s all it was in 2006, the first year, but with my intense love for making feasts, it’s expanded into a bit of a mystique-surrounded juggernaut…I’d like to think. There’s usually some point – in this case, Thursday night – where a bit of frantic cooking happens. Which, by the way, is my idea of a Good Time. In case you were thinking “well she brought this on herself”. That’s right I did. Nigella Lawson’s Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce was the last thing I made before going to bed.

Nigella seems convinced of how awesome and red her cranberry sauce is, so this year I took her at her word and tried making it for the first time. I feel a couple of decent sauces at Christmas – or any time – can act like a distracting poncho or statement hat to aggressively carved meat or disappointingly ungolden roast potatoes. It’s an easy recipe, to call it child’s play would insult the child. A fairly motivated bunny rabbit could probably manage this. (Of course, no offense to rabbits either. But their massive population indicates they are…fairly motivated by nature.)

While this sauce was made very late at night, the photos were taken very early in the morning. I ended up eating way too many teaspoonfuls of the sauce while taking these photos to try and get it looking right, probably a sign that the ‘soft focus sauce in a teaspoon’ look wasn’t the best choice. Seemed like a decent idea at the time…

Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce

(her words, not mine. Although I like flourish so will leave it as is)

From Nigella Christmas

  • 350g cranberries (not dried ones, although frozen is perfect, the freezer’s usually the only place you can find them anyway)
  • 200g sugar
  • 45mls cherry brandy, OR Grand Marnier/Cointreau, OR the juice of an orange
  • 1/4 cup water

Throw everything into a pan, bring to the boil and then simmer away for about ten minutes till the berries start to soften or disintegrate and release a lot of juice. Stir occasionally. After about ten minutes, give a final aggressive, berry-breaking stir, then allow to cool slightly before pouring into a jug and refrigerating.

When you get up the next morning (if you made it at 11.30pm like I did) it will have become as solid as jelly – that’s all the pectin in the cranberries’ round red bodies. Give it a good stir before you use it and maybe thin it down with a tablespoon of hot water if you like, but spoonable cranberry sauce is just fine.

Apart from the complete ease of the recipe, it’s gorgeous and tastes fantastic – the lack of ingredients allows the sharp lemony taste of the cranberries to shine, without being too overtly sour. It did occur to me as it was bubbling away on the stove, that a jar of this would make a pretty nice Christmas gift.

Title via: Split Enz, I See Red from their album Frenzy…I accidentally just typed it as “Splut” which is actually kind of appropriate given the NZ accent. When I was a kid this was one of the songs Dad’s band covered so I’ve always been fond of it, it reminds me of Sunday afternoons when they’d have band practice in our garage.

Music lately:

Brian D’arcy James (aka Burrs in The Wild Party…aka you’ve probably seen him in womens’ magazines posing with celebrities during his stint as Shrek on Broadway) A Michigan Christmas from his album From Christmas Eve to Christmas Morn. I was SO happy when I found out he had a Christmas album. This is the only track from it I can find on youtube, but I totally recommend the whole thing. His voice (and eyebrows) astounds.

Nas and Damian Marley, Tribal War ft K’naan from Distant Relatives. Speaking of things that deserve capitalisation, I was SO SO happy when I heard the news they were coming to New Zealand – heard rumours from a reliable source a few months ago, but wasn’t counting on it coming to fruition. Not only are they coming to NZ, they’re doing a Wellington show too! I love it when acts do that – no flights to Auckland, no taking leave, no accommodation costs…Seriously good news all round.

Next time: As I said, this is just a quick post…full rundown of the Christmas party, plus those vegetables I promised last time.

 

“super funk christmas”

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It’s rapidly zooming towards 1am. I still haven’t packed my bag for my flight home tomorrow afternoon. I do know that my overweight luggage fines will be such that they will probably be able to build and name a new wing of the domestic airport in my honour. The kitchen is covered in food. Oh yeah, and I’ve got work till 1pm tomorrow. Eek. Gotta say, Tim is being quite Florence Nightingale-esque amongst all this. Like a human cold compress. He’s rationalising all the Christmas presents into my bag while I type out this self-absorbed piece, and he’s got to be up at 5am tomorrow for work. Christmas can take you to some strange places. With all of that in mind, you know, be nice. I may not be lucid. But gosh darnit I will get this blog post done. My public needs me… I think.

In a salute to the season I made something bordering on ridiculously Christmassy today. It’s a simple but very clever idea that I discovered on the food forum I go on and would make a rather cute little gift, yes? Just looking at them makes me glad it is this time of year so that this sort of carry-on is allowed to even happen.

Even the hasty photo can’t disguise how cute these are. Simply face two candy canes together nose to tail (I trimmed the bases to make them more heart-y). Melt a little white chocolate, and carefully pour it into the recess till the two halves are somewhat poetically bound as one whole, and let it set firm. Can’t say I don’t recommend eating any leftover white chocolate either.

Dinner has been a bit all over the place lately, as both of us are going away to our respective homes for Christmas and therefore don’t want to be having a whole lot of perishables sitting around wilting glumly. Last night’s dinner was the result of several ingredients bought spontaneously at Moore Wilson’s while on a last-minute mercy dash for ingredients. So spontaneous that we ended up doing a dizzying circuit between Moore Wilson’s three adjoining stores, starting at Grocery, moving to Fresh, then to Alcohol, then back to Fresh and finishing in Grocery. Lists, and over-the-counter painkillers, were quite possibly invented for times like these.

But it ended up being a perfect pre-Christmas dinner.

Bodacious Hot Dogs (as opposed to the normal, watery ones) (that would also make a good band name)

It’s the ingredients that give it the edge over the usual stuff. Long, tapering sausages, a crunchy, doughy, seed-studded sourdough baguette, tomato sauce, Colman’s mustard, a tangle of caramelly fried onions. I chose these locally made sausages called Acme, and while I can’t find a website, if you see them it’s definitely worth dealing with the price they go for. They are expensive but completely free of additives and filler, and sweet fancy Moses do they taste good. Like a pig in tubular form. (Apologies to any vegetarian readers…you know I don’t eat a lot of meat). The onions I fried in butter and added a splash of balsamic vinegar, which evaporated in a whoosh of eye-blinking acidity and gave them an intensely savoury, honey-dark flavour. You could also try sprinkling over Worcestor Sauce for a similar effect. The hot, hot mustard against the sweet tomato sauce and rich pork, all sitting inside some really good bread was spectacular. Except I was so full afterwards – hotdog shock perhaps – that I basically had to sit there in a state of complete inactivity for an hour.

I recommend it sincerely. Italics are the most sincere of all the typefaces.

This may well be the last post I do before the New Year, and I’m going to quietly ignore the fact that it is written while half-asleep and neglecting all other tasks at hand. For all that I stress about it, Christmas means a lot to me – we’ve spent it with the same people, give or take a few variations, my entire life. To me, Christmas is about family. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be flying home to spend it with them. (And to cook a giant, Nigella-heavy Christmas lunch for them.) Whatever this time of year means to you, I truly, truly hope that the time is spent with people you love and in a mellow, chilled out way. With lots and lots of good food.

Title brought to you by the late Marc Bolan of T-Rex, whose murmered message of glad tidings was the reason I even considered making my “Hark!” playlist in the first place. Plus I realised I’d barely referenced Christmas in any of my post titles this year. Plus I just like saying “super funk Christmas”….Super funk Christmas!

Whatever music I’m listening to right now, it’s probably brilliant. Okay I’ll do this semi-properly. I’ve been listening to Kristin Chenoweth singing anything but particularly Christmas songs (reading her autobiography will make you want to do that), Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night and the 2009 revival cast recording of Hair quite a lot lately.

Next time: Will deal with itself. In the meantime, I’m curious – what do you want for Christmas? It’s completely okay to say a diamond ring, instead of world peace (although of course I want world peace, whatever that even is). Me? I don’t even know – I don’t need much. Food and ingredient-type things are always my favourite things to give and recieve. I’ve had coconut scented shower gel on my mind, more blusher, I’d like to get a grip of Te Reo Maori as a language, love anything second hand or pre-loved in terms of kitchenware or really anything – like some hideous 70s dinner plates – an iPhone would be fun even though I only text about three people and call even less, and to be honest having a couple of pet cats would be great (none of this is a hint in the slightest by the way Santa, but it is if you can get perfect skin under the Christmas tree). But when I think about it I’d be quite happy with nothing much at all, the best thing will be just getting together with family who I haven’t seen in ages and having a big feed. Don’t let this somewhat sanctimonious, ‘end-of-It’s-A-Wonderful-Life‘ statement hold you back from sharing your heart’s desire though, no matter how frivolous. And while you’re at it, what’s your favourite Christmas song? I’m so indecisive I have a whole playlist (not to mention Christmas tapes from when I was a kid that still get brought out every year) because in Spice Girls as in life, I can never pick favourites.

And till next time, in the words of Marc Bolan I hope you have a super funk Christmas and a golden New Year. Yeah.

california tuber alles

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On Friday we had our Office Christmas Party. Capital letters because it feels like some kind of social institution…articles, columns and entire pull-out sections of glossy women’s magazines emerge at this time of year offering advice on office parties and how to organise/survive/acquit yourself with dignity/deflect awkward photographic evidence from said shindig. Ours was largely without incident and I had a marvelously pleasant time. I only mention it because I bonded particularly with a colleague while eating our lunch about how much we loved leftovers, in particular barbequed sausages, eaten cold for breakfast early the next morning while standing at the open-doored fridge. That moment of connection achieved more than a thousand team-building activities involving blindfolds and ‘trust’ games, I promise you.

And no, I’m not just saying how much I love leftovers because Nigella goes on about them too. Although I will allow that she kind of makes it easier to admit to such activities…like picking at a chilled roast chicken while standing at the fridge, perhaps alternating with a spoonful of raspberry jelly or trifle from its bowl that you’ve surruptitiously peeled the clingfilm back on…

As you can imagine we definitely had leftovers after last Sunday’s flat Christmas dinner. Some things got demolished, like the ham in Coca Cola. But it turns out that I made enough potatoes to service another three Christmas dinners. Not that this is any kind of problem…On Monday night I used some of those potatoes in a Spanish Omelette, from Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Express.

A golden, eggy crust containing hot chunks of new potatoes and juicy capsicums. It’s quick and it’s fabulous. We don’t eat potatoes that much and I forget how good they taste. There’s a simple evolutionary reason – Tim is usually working when I go to the vege market on a Sunday, and there’s really only so much I can deal with toting back to the flat. Having a glut of leftover potatoes this week has been no burden whatsoever – cold with gherkins, sauteed with coriander and cumin seeds and cinnamon, simmered in a vegetable curry – delicious. I love them.

Spanish Omelette

From Nigella Express

225g boiled new potatoes
4 eggs
75g chopped roasted capsicums
3 spring onions, finely chopped
75g grated Manchego or Cheddar Cheese
1 teaspoon butter
drop of oil

Turn on the grill and let it heat up. If the potatoes aren’t already cooked, halve and boil them until tender then drain. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, then add the capsicums, spring onions, cheese, and potatoes. Heat the butter and oil in a small, oven-proof frying pan and when hot, tip in the omelette mix and cook gently for five minutes. Eventually, the base of the omelette should begin to feel ‘set’ and rather than trying to flip it, instead sit the pan under the grill for a few minutes to set the top. Turn the omelette out onto a plate to cool. Even if it’s slightly wobbly it should carry on cooking as it cools. Slice into wedges. Note – I left out the cheese and used a lot more potatoes.

I’m not sure if this a great photo to display the merits of this dish, but it really does taste good. My omelette kind of fell apart as I attempted to slide it onto the chopping board and a bit of it stuck to the pan because SOMEONE had a huge fry-up one weekend when I wasn’t there and damaged the nonstick finish. The fact that it was non free-range eggs and those permanently soggy supermarket hash browns made it not so much insult to injury as an offense worthy of a punch to the face. (Don’t worry, Tim only got a verbal facepunch. I am pretty anti-violence, even when it is involving the nonstick finish of my good pan.)

A week has now passed since I was in the Sunday Star-Times Sunday magazine. So far, no movie deals or cookbook offers but I have had some interesting, and often completely lovely, correspondence. I don’t mean to keep going on about it, but be nice, this is the first time anything like this has happened. I was once in an ad for Camera House when I was three years old, but at the time I didn’t have a food blog to promote and thus it was just a one-off opportunity. These days, who knows? A three year old blogger could well be my biggest competition, and they’ve probably got more Twitter followers than me too.

Speaking of the passage of time, it’s now ten days till I go home for Christmas. To which I say: aaaaargh. It feels like I have a lot to achieve and not much time to achieve it in, which would be…accurate. However, I Skyped with Mum yesterday and managed to get some thoughts in order (my thoughts previously were: Christmassdkfhsdfwph). I’ve spent today serenely making edible Christmas presents for people which has been great fun. All will be revealed recipe-wise after Christmas to make it fair on those actually receiving these gifts. Tim is hunting for our little $2 shop Christmas tree and I’ve been playing my traditional Christmas playlist, (entitled “Hark! Merry Christmas from Laura!”), where I’ve gathered together seasonal tunes by artists I love (you can hardly claim to have lived till you’ve heard Johnny Cash and Neil Young duetting on The Little Drummer Boy) and artists that I’m dubious about at all other times but Christmas (you can hardly claim to have lived till you’ve heard Twisted Sister’s aggressively upbeat take on O Come All Ye Faithful.) Every year I scour the internet for more tunes to add to this increasingly ridiculous list and I look forward to doing it again this year. All that and I’m going to tape some tinsel to our bookcase. Fa la la la la. Bring it on.

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Title comes to you via: The Dead Kennedys song California Uber Alles. I know it’s barely significant but I really find it very hard to pass up something that amuses me like this. I like to think the title tranlates to “Potatoes above all”. Or something.
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On Shuffle lately:

Obviously some Hark! selections, including…

O Holy Night, sung by the ever-ridiculously-astounding Julia Murney and also Max von Essen, who I don’t feel quite so strongly about. I do like how it remains gently but firmly secular in its delivery. And how Julia Murney sounds incredible.

And then…The Avenue by Roll Deep, from their album In at the Deep End. Rediscovered it recently – takes me back to the summer of 2005 when I was in England and it still holds up as an ideal happy summer tune.

Out of the Blue by Julian Casablancas (if you thought I was going to say Julia Murney again, then ten points to you) from his solo debut, Phrazes for the Young. I like his album but it does have a lot of awkward song titles…Though really, as I’m a Pink Floyd fan I can hardly judge him. Anyway, this song chugs along merrily and has a joyfully sing-along chorus. And every time you listen you can think of Mr Casablancas and his lovely eyes and floppy hair which is no bad thing at all.

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Next time: I may cook even more potatoes, since Tim miraculously had the day off today and was thus able to be my pack-mule at the vege market. I may also provide even more Christmas music ridiculousity…

hot lunch jam

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Disclaimer: this particular post is photo-heavy, so if your internet browser has all the thrust of an electric toothbrush you may want to consider coming back another time. Although, these photos were all hastily snapped on the Automatic setting so they probably aren’t that big, pixel-wise. You should also know that I’m still in a stumbling haze of fullness and am quite, quite sleepy on top of that. Who knows where this heady combination could lead us. But – tonight’s post will be – hopefully – a kind of recap of the day that was the Flat Christmas Party. I’ll return to what you could call regular programming with the next post. I guess now is as good a time as any to be a new reader – if you can handle all this then we’re going to get along just fine!

My assessment is that yesterday’s lunch was our best Christmas dinner yet – although each year has its fond memories. (Like the rugelach of 2007….that’s all I can think about right now actually)

THE FEASTENING



Nigella’s Soft and Sharp Involtini from Nigella Bites, minus the feta but with many toasted macadamias, pecans, almonds and hazelnuts added. In my experience, involtini is basically stuff wrapped around other stuff, in this case slices of seared eggplant (one of the more boring jobs of the weekend) rolled around spoonfuls of herbed, nutty bulghur wheat and baked in tomato sauce. I was smugly eating it cold for lunch today at work – it’s even better after a day or so.

The roasted chooks. I love the way they’re sitting here in the same roasting dish as if they were buddies. It’s also partly necessity – our oven isn’t very big. We got two plump Rangitikei Free Range Corn Fed chickens, and according to the Rangitikei website the chickens are lovingly raised and are able to safely roam in the grass. The site is certainly convincing and I have no reason to believe these chickens weren’t raised in a safe, humane way – I find it very difficult to buy meat these days that hasn’t been.

Stuffing for said lucky chickens. On the left, Cornbread and Cranberry Stuffing from Nigella’s Feast, and on the right, the (dairy-free!) Pear and Cranberry Stuffing from Nigella Christmas. Both divine – the butteryness of the cornbread stuffing would be bordering on ludicrous if it wasn’t for the sharp berries interrupting each mouthful. The pear stuffing is moist and lusciously rich without being overwhelming, because it’s basically just fruit and nuts.


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Silky, slippery roasted Capsicums with Pomegranate from Nigella Christmas – I bought about five packs of past-their-best capsicums from the market yesterday morning, then completely forgot that the recipe needed pomegranates. Never mind – we also needed coffee, ice and a loaf of bread so we picked up the pomegranate from Moore Wilson’s straight afterwards. (Where we are now Silver Customers on their loyalty programme!) Pomegranates really are excitingly Christmassy. But to be fair, before I got into Nigella pomegranates were linked in my mind, for some reason, with other mythical things like unicorns and reindeer (okay, reindeer actually exist, but they sound like they shouldn’t). How things change. Avocados were also cheap and perfectly ripe at the market – so they were added spontaneously to the feasting. Avocados are never not a treat.

Above: The gorgeous Scotty! Not only visual proof that we actually have friends, Scotty is modelling the Poinsettia cocktail, or at least my simplification of Nigella’s recipe for it in Nigella Christmas. I upended a bottle of dry bubbles and a bottle of cranberry juice into a large bowl, and topped it up with Cointreau and ice. The bubbles were kindly provided by Ange, the cranberry juice by Megha and Ruvin, and the Cointreau…well, we’ve been nursing that bottle since Ange’s sister left it at our old flat a few years back. The Poinsettia is intensely drinkable but not overwhelming – ideal whether the sun is over the yard-arm or not. If you’re wondering where his natty headwear is from, Anna and Paul brought along some gorgeous Christmas crackers which, once pulled to shreds, produced silver hats of such crisp quality and hatmanship that Tim and I decided to hold on to them for next year’s party. The jokes were woeful though. “Q: What do you get if you cross a skeleton and a detective? A: Sherlock Bones.” So wholesome and inoffensive it’s bordering on sinister.

As well as this there was a vat of boiled new potatoes with mint from our garden (which is where the only near-disaster of the day happened – I turned the gas on under said vat of potatoes without realising there was no water in the pot yet. Luckily an angry sizzle alerted me to this fact; apart from the occasional scorch mark the potatoes were unharmed) the Ham in Coca Cola from How To Eat (which was from the butcher in Waiuku, gifted to be by Mum and flown back to Wellington with me and frozen last time I went up home.) It was perfect pork – not weighed down with fat and gristle but utterly pink and deeply flavoursome from the Coca Cola. Also there were salad greens, roasted root vegetables, and a loaf of Heidelburg bread.

After all this eating we all kind of staggered round in a dazed stupor, bodies weighted to chairs by all the food. Blinking slowed down, just breathing in and out became unhurried and meditative. We chose that moment to have dessert.

Chocolate Pavlova from Nigella’s Forever Summer. As I complained about on Twitter, I did something wrong and while enormous, the pav wasn’t very high. However, whatever I did made it taste amazing. I wish I knew! I drizzled it in dark chocolate, covered it in cheap strawberries from the market, and served the whipped cream on the side for those who wanted it. The plate that the pav is sitting on was a present from Emma, a Dunedin-based former flatmate who was also at the very first Christmas Dinner we had in 2006.

Chocolate Pavlova

Forever Summer

6 egg whites
300g caster sugar
50g good cocoa
1 tsp balsamic or red wine vinegar
50g dark chocolate, chopped roughly

Set oven to 180 C. Do the usual pavlova thing: Whip up the egg whites till satiny peaks form, then continue to beat them while adding the sugar a tiny bit at a time. Once the sugar is all added the mixture should be thick, shiny and stiff. Sift in the cocoa and sprinkle over the vinegar, folding in carefully along with the chocolate. Spread mixture into a 23cm circle on a baking paper lined tray. Immediately turn down oven to 150 C and leave for about an hour. Once done, turn oven off and leave pav to cool completely.

If I don’t tell you, no-one will – I made this entire pav just using a whisk. You, however, are more than welcome to use electric beaters or a cake mixer. It doesn’t make you a bad person, just a person who can, unlike myself, locate their electric beaters.

Neither of the ice creams let me down – the chocolate coconut version was rich, intense and bounty bar-esque, while the ginger ice cream was described as “ridiculous” by Ricky – call me when you find yourself offered a better compliment for your ice cream.

Despite nearly everyone saying they don’t like candy canes (and fair enough, it’s like eating toothpaste) we somehow all ended up chewing thoughfully on one by the end of the day. Also bolstering the pudding table were some amaretti that we bought on sale from the Meditteranean Warehouse in Newtown (on sale because their best-before date was ages ago but I don’t believe in worrying about that sort of thing) and some dark chunks of Whittaker’s Chocolate. Eventually people started to leave until it was just Tim, myself, Scotty and Ange playing spirited and politically charged card games. Our flatmate Jason arrived home from doing film work at the cricket in the rain and we chilled with him for a bit (and had already saved him a plate of food from before). While it was a shame he couldn’t be there during the day, as the Christmas Dinner is about flat solidarity, but there was no way around it – Sunday was the only day the majority of us were free to make it happen.

Tim and I after the stragglers left at around 5.30pm. Please bear in mind that I was up till 1am the night before somewhat manically stuffing slices of eggplant with bulghur wheat. I’d like to think I own my inability to take a decent spontaneous photo. By the way, the eyepatch came in one of the Christmas crackers, it’s not a regular accessory for Tim. Although, what with his diabetes and all that ice cream, he might as well get used to the feel of it. Kidding! We spent the evening watching Glee, nibbling at leftovers, and reading over all the lovely comments I’d got on my blog since I was fortunate enough to be on the front cover of the Sunday Star-Times Sunday magazine.

So, like I said, the Christmas dinner (even though it was actually a lunch, I’m just affectatious that way) was a roaring success, with people already locking in their availability for 2010. I didn’t intend it to become a giant homage to Nigella Lawson, although in hindsight…I probably did. An enormous thank you to everyone who came, who contributed with their fantastic presence and also with actual things that I asked to be brought along. Again, if there are any new readers drawn here after reading the article in the Sunday Star-Times, welcome welcome welcome and hope you see something in this madness worth sticking round for.

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Title of this post comin’ atcha via the great Irene Cara and the hyper-percussive Hot Lunch Jam from one of my favourite films of everrrr, Fame. Also known as “that film that really didn’t need remaking at ALL.”
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Music that’s happening to me these days:

My Doorbell and Passive Manipulation from the White Stripes’ wonderful wonderful 2005 album Get Behind Me Satan. We had a DVD of them playing live on while I was writing this, Jack and Meg White are both mesmerisingly compelling (LOVE it when Meg sings) and if there are any spelling mistakes in this post I blame them entirely.

The entire Time Is Not Much album, the seriously stunning debut from local MC, the soultastic Ladi6. Every time it finishes it feels like it should just…be started again. It’s that good.

Shout Out by the Honey Claws. Just try to listen to this song without jiggling. It can nay be done. ________________________________________________

Till next time: I’ll be doing a bit of dedicated basking in the truly nice feedback I’ve received about the article/cover story in the Sunday Star-Times Sunday magazine. Lest any astute readers notice that Nigella Express was the only book of Lawson’s that didn’t get a look-in this Christmas and start to suspect something (I’m not sure what, just…something) I made a Spanish omelette using a recipe from said book and leftover potatoes this very evening. If the photos turn out okay you’ll probably be seeing it up here before long.

chain of yules

23 Comments

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I am currently waist-deep in Christmas Dinner preparation, and the cranberry levels are rising…

Let’s not analyze my handwriting too closely…does the fact that I can’t seem to commit to one particular way of writing the letter ‘f’ mean that I’m really, really deep and creative?

So, every year I host a Christmas dinner for our flatmates, (plus any significant others, hangers-on and plus ones) partly to celebrate my ability to insist upon cooking for large numbers of people but also to have some quality togetherness during this busy time. The day before is always a little full-on, but enjoyable, with the anticipation of feeding people and cooking vast quantities of stuff mixed in with the confusion of trying to follow my hopelessly non-linear list.

This is what the menu is shaping up like this time:

Dinner:

2 Roast Chickens
Pear and Cranberry Stuffing
Cornbread and Cranberry Stuffing
Ham in Coca Cola
Roast Potatoes
Roast Capsicums
Roast Kumara
Involtini
Green Salad

Pudding:
Chocolate Pavlova with Raspberries (or maybe strawberries…whatever’s cheaper at the markets tomorrow morning really)
Ginger Crunch Ice Cream
Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream
Maybe some sugar-free jelly if we can find any packets kicking round the place. I had plantain ice cream planned but the plantains I had must have been a little old and tired, because it doesn’t quite taste right. I may panic at the last minute and make another pudding…it happens.

If you’re a long-time reader, you’ll see that I’ve repeated a couple of recipes from last year – for example, both the stuffings and the involtini. The involtini, a recipe from Nigella Bites of seared eggplant slices wrapped around nutty, herbed bulghur wheat and baked in a tomato sauce, is also a repeat from last year, minus the feta this time as a friend of ours is a dairy-free vegetarian. Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola is already a proven winner but I’ve never done it at Christmas before. But the Coca Cola that the ham is simmered in is cheap as and if nothing else will provide a talking point should conversation run awkwardly dry.

Even though my list specified otherwise, I got started today with the cornbread stuffing. I had to hustle to get this shot – you can see that some of the cranberries have already released their juices in the heat of the pan while others are still clinging to their dusting of ice particles.

Sometimes I wonder if I have heritage arching back to the American south. Or at least, some storybook version of it. I’ve never actually been there but the cuisine considered generally to be from that region seriously appeals to me. I can eat cornbread till the cows come home. Despite having to actually make the cornbread and then humbly crumble it, this stuffing really doesn’t take long to make at all. While it’s mighty fine roasted in the cavity of a chicken, the excess is more than wonderful baked separately in a loaf tin.

You’re taking already golden, buttery cornbread, and then stirring it into cranberries and another 125g of melted butter. This is a concept that either makes sense to you or it doesn’t. Me, everything makes sense with more butter added. If it appeals to you also, please find the recipe HERE. It comes from Nigella Lawson’s book Feast. Like the Spice Girls, all five of whom I was fiercely loyal to as a youngster, I cannot and would not want to choose a favourite Nigella book. But if you fancy an introduction to La Lawson you could do worse than start here with this magnificent, all-encompassing cookbook.

Not quite as visually appealing but still excellent is the Pear and Cranberry stuffing from Nigella Christmas, a book that naturally comes into its own at this time of year. Its combination of fudgey, gritty dried pears, sharp cranberries, and rich pecans (I substituted almonds because that’s what I had) is particularly fantastic, with salt and chopped onion stopping the whole thing from becoming like another pudding.

Pear and Cranberry Stuffing

Nigella Christmas

500g dried pears
175g fresh or defrosted frozen cranberries
100g breadcrumbs (preferably from bread that has gone stale than the dusty packet stuff)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
zest and juice of 1 mandarin
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons maple syrup
125g pecans
1 tablespoon maldon sea salt or a light sprinkling of table salt.

Either soak the pears overnight or cover them with boiling water and leave for a couple of hours. Drain once the water is cool. Place all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix thoroughly – even though it may feel a little spooky, just wading in with your hands is probably the easiest way. Either stuff your bird and bake accordingly or place in a loaf tin and bake at 200 C for about 25 minutes or until golden. Note – dried pears are pretty expensive. I tend to half the pears and up the breadcrumbs, but you could also make up half the weight of the pears in dried apricots.

The chocolate pavlova comes via Forever Summer (with whipped cream on the side, instead of smothered over it this time). I’ve made it before about 2 years ago, and loved it. However something was working against me today because while it rose up promisingly in the oven, it deflated completely once cooled. But what it lacks in height it makes up for in enormity – it spread out heaps. So I’m staying chilled out on that front.

Speaking of chilled, you know I love my ice cream. I’m particularly proud of this one because it’s completely dairy free but also staggeringly good. I’m not implying the two are mutually exclusive, but it’s not always the most straightforward path to deliciousness when you’re restricting particular ingredients.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

6 egg yolks
50g brown sugar
2 tins coconut milk (not low fat)
2 tablespoons good cocoa
200g dark, dark chocolate, chopped

Gently heat the coconut milk in a wide pan, while mixing the egg yolks and sugar together. Once the coconut milk is good and hot, but not in any danger of boiling, pour it over the bowl of egg yolks and sugar, stirring all the while. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, then pour the egg-coconut milk mixture back into it and keep it on a gentle heat, stirring constantly. It takes a while – at least 10 to 20 minutes – and you need to keep stirring – but it will thicken up into a custard of sorts. Once it is sufficiently thickened, remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa and chocolate, allowing it to melt into the mixture. Let this cool then freeze. Makes around a litre, maybe a little more.

The unfrozen mixture is amazing – the thickest, lightest, softest chocolatey custard ever. Once frozen, it’s even more sublime. The coconut flavour isn’t actually overly noticeable to if you want to amp it up a bit, stir in some toasted dessicated coconut before freezing. This is magical stuff – don’t let the fact that you have to make a custard put you off. I’ve made custard-based ice creams a billion times before without them turning into scrambled eggs, and if laughably clumsy I can do it, trust me, so can you.

I was actually really dithery over this particular post as I am going to be in an article about this blog in the Sunday Star-Times on Sunday, and I had this feeling that whatever I write today might be kind of important. This is the first time this blog has got any proper media attention, and I’m pretty nervous about seeing myself in a national newspaper. What if I look awful? (I had to maintain this half-smile thing, I’m really more of a big-toothed grin person, probably from my years of having to smile convincingly at ballet examiners while trying not to cry at that failed pas de chat.) What if I come across as horribly self-absorbed? (I mean, I am a bit, but still). What if someone, fuelled by Tall Poppy Syndrome, punches me in the street? Although I should mention (did someone say self-absorbed?) that the lovely lovely food blogger Linda is also being featured in this article tomorrow. I’ve never actually met Linda properly but you don’t always need to be face to face with someone to know they’re a fantastic person – I look forward to sharing a page with her. I also must say, massive kudos to the Sunday Star-Times for picking up on the idea of food blogging as a viable story option. I’m not saying that my blog is the most important issue happening to the nation right now, but seriously. I’ve been waiting for this.

If you are new to this blog, led here by your own curiousity after reading the article – cheers! Hopefully this is something you want to read more of – if not, I’m afraid I’m basically like this all the time. Maybe check out this post where I made my own butter which should quickly give you a good idea of whether or not you’re going to want to come back here.

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Title comes via: the resplendent Aretha Franklin and her absolutely stonking 1967 single Chain of Fools. If you’re new here: I tend to cut off straightforwardness to spite my own face when it comes to titles. But I’ll always explain them to you happily.
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On Shuffle while I’m cooking:

– The Deal (No Deal) from the concert recording of Chess, featuring such luminous talent as Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, Adam Pascal, Kerry Ellis, and the marvelous Clarke Peters of The Wire. Maybe something about the mathmatical precision of the game they’re singing about helped me keep focussed today.
– Speaking of Idina and Adam…while I may have allowed one or two Christmas songs to infiltrate my listening, Christmas Bells from RENT is the seasonal song that works all year long, but is obviously particularly nice at this time of year. The million different storylines being moved forward in this song makes for a listening experience that’s little short of astonishing. You can hear it here but if it all makes no sense then this visual might help unpack that somewhat. I care about this stuff.
– Mis-shapes from Pulp’s obviously amazing Different Class. Tim and I were lucky enough to see ex-Pulper Jarvis Cocker live at the Town Hall on Thursday night, he was utterly utterly wonderful, running through the cream of his solo material before blasting out an unexpectedly perfect cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in honour of Ozzy’s birthday. But after all that I felt a bit of a need to hear some Pulp tunes, like this particularly urgent track.
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Next time: Well, if I haven’t made it onto the Listener’s list of the most influential and powerful New Zealanders for 2009, then it has been a failure of a week. Oh my gosh, I’m just kidding…and that list has already been published. Next time there may well be a recap of the Christmas Dinner and everything that happened. Look out for it – there’s nothing like an exhausted person who has eaten too much trying to make a sparkling, witty blog post.

Christmas Bells Are Ringing…

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So with all the feasting that ensued on the night of The Christmas Dinner, I entirely forgot to take a photo of the actual roast chickens. However, as the following photo essay demonstrates, there’s still plenty to see. I’m seriously exhausted, and it’s pretty late so I’m going to be dialogue-lite and let the pictures largely speak for themselves.

Above: I whipped up some pomegranate ice cream on Sunday morning, after I returned from the vege market. Literally – get it – Whipped? Cream? Okay, I told you I was tired, which is a perfectly legitimate excuse for dodgy puns.

Nigella keeps her pomegranates close and her cranberries closer. It’s a great thing that these berries are so expensive because she puts them in everything. Oh, I can’t be snide though because they really are rather Christmassy, the frozen ones looking like holly berries in thawing snow, and their fresh sourness can perk up otherwise heavy fare quite effectively.

Cornbread, Cranberry and Orange Stuffing (adapted from Feast)

This mixture is so delicious it almost didn’t make it into the chicken. Don’t for goodness sake be put off because you have to make cornbread first, it’s the easiest thing in the world and the recipe can be found here.

In a large pot, simmer 300g cranberries with the juice and zest of an orange. Add 125g butter slowly till it turns into a glossy, pinky-orange sauce, then crumble in the cornbread and stir to combine. When you’re ready to bake it, stir in 2 eggs and stuff your bird and roast, or spread it into a loaf tin and bake it at 180 for about 25 minutes.

Above: In front, Pear and Cranberry stuffing, and in the back, the cornbread stuffing. I may have made a bit extra so that they could stand in as another vegetarian dish. Inexplicably, I never liked stuffing as a child so you can see I am making up for lost time here.

I bought a brace of peppers at the market on Sunday morning and roasted them as soon as I got back. They seemed to just get silkier and more delicious as the day went on and were perfect served at room temperature, so the rich olive oil, clean fresh pomegranate, and salty caper flavours shone through vibrantly.

Chargrilled Peppers with Pomegranate (Nigella Christmas)

6 red and/or yellow peppers (although I got 7 to allow for muck-ups and nibbling-while-cooking)
Seeds from 2 pomegranates (although one is more than fine, Nigella)
2 T fresh pomegranate juice (just give the fruit a squeeze while seeding)
2 t lime or lemon juice
60ml extra virgin olive oil
15ml garlic olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Maldon sea salt
3 T drained capers


Set your oven to very, very hot – like 250 C. Cut the peppers in half, removing seeds and stalks, and place cut-side down on a baking tray. Roast in the oven till they blister – about 15 mins. Remove and carefully chuck them all into a bowl, quickly covering it with gladwrap till the peppers cool down considerably. From here it will be very easy to remove the skins – just pull them off. Tear the peppers into strips and place them in a serving bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Serve at room temperature. I made mine at about 11am and served it at 8pm, so it benefits from a bit of a sit. I just kept it covered and on the bench, although it won’t come to any harm in the fridge.

The involtini is another one that tastes best when it’s not piping hot. This turned out to be an amazing combination of flavours and textures, so much more than just a token vegetarian dish. There was hardly any left afterwards but what was there made for a luxe lunch the next day, microwaved for a bit and served with salad and leftover roast veges.

Above: The marvelously summery Sangria (and yes, we used those tacky plastic ice cube things…well, they’re practical! And this was hardly a classy joint to begin with.)

Poinsettia, a mix of cranberry juice, cointreau, and sparkling white wine (1 litre, 125 mls, and 750mls respectively) is an enchanting combination that completely owns Buck’s Fizz in terms of festive drinkability. Tip of the cap to Nigella, for all that she half-heartedly protests that she’s not much of a drinker, she can certainly navigate her way round a liquor cabinet.

The table! We managed to fit eight of us around it, not entirely comfortably though…

Above: The roasted pepper salad and boiled new potatoes with mint from our herb patch. Notice the gorgeous yellow bowl which was a Christmas present from the parents last year, and the beautiful Christmas crackers which were really way too classy for us. They contained real presents, like pens, corkscrews and measuring tapes. Nifty or what? True to form, as well as forgetting to photograph the chicken, I forgot to bring the parsnips out of the oven at all until after we finished the main course. They instead became a refreshing palate cleanser between meals, something to consider for your next dinner party perhaps…After dinner we played charming parlour games (well, we played Scattergories, is there a more satisfying game for bookish, wordy BA students to tackle?)

Drama! Tim is the only one in our flat capable of turning jelly out of a mould. He may be the only person in the world who can do it…perhaps we can never know.

The white chocolate almond cake was utterly gorgeous, although the problem with cakes that have white chocolate in them is that you quite often can’t actually taste the white chocolate as much as you’d like (who am I kidding, as much as I’d like.) So I upped the ante by drizzling over a melted milky bar, Jackson Pollock-styles (hey, I got an A in an essay about him in first year, I feel sufficiently qualified to pay homage to him via the medium of baked goods.) This is a fantastic cake for entertaining as you can make it in advance and it keeps beautifully, but looks rather impressive as far as puddings go. I’m not sure if it was supposed to rise much – or whether it has something to do with our oven – but the cake rose hugely then sunk, leaving a crevice that I filled with chopped pistachios (it was going to be silver cachous but they were $5.50 for a small cannister at New World – um, no thanks – and besides, the still-festive pistachios are actually pleasant to eat.)

Above: The official pudding table: the white chocolate almond cake, the “tortova”, pomegranate ice cream, red and green jelly, and strawberries, also virtuously purchased from the market. The chocolate torte turned out to be marvelous, somehow crisp and chewy at the same time and punctuated by welcome chunks of dark, dark chocolate.
It was altogether a fantastic meal shared with fantastic people, although it was such a shame that Emma couldn’t be there. She was however present in our minds and hopefully gets back to New Zealand asap safe and sound!
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In other news: I’m reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Tim found an old copy somewhere while dropping some stuff off at the Salvation Army, and I do love old books, (not those horrible shiny reissues with conceptual cover art) so he grabbed it for me. It was one of those that I knew I should have a look at one day, but the curmudgeon in me has this thing where the more a book is recommended to me, the more I stubbornly refuse to read it. I don’t know why, perhaps hype annoys me, but that’s certainly the reason I’ve never read The Kite Runner. Anyway, To Kill A Mockingbird is really very good, (she says condescendingly – didn’t it win the Pulitzer or somesuch?) I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve also recently read Nigella Lawson’s unofficial biography, forwarded to me by the ever-thoughtful Linda. It is a cracking read, I think I devoured it in a day or two on my lunchbreaks at work but…it’s really not very well written. It quotes her cookbooks as though they were interviews – as though I don’t know them all word for word anyway – but it’s worth it for the luscious pictures of Nigella. What a beauty. I must say, it’s not a good book for the self esteem, as it constantly reiterates how goddess-like and creamy and striking she is and it can leave the reader feeling somewhat homely. I definitely recommend it for a bit of light reading though. Okay, this suddenly turned into Laura’s book corner, so I’d better get going…
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Next time: I attempt chocolate macaroons (the quick, chewy kind, not the faint-making Hermes kind) and make Ed Victor’s Turkey Hash with the scant leftover roasted chicken from the Christmas dinner.