Christmas Bells Are Ringing…

December 2, 2008March 12, 202012 Comments

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!

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…

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.

Festival Medley

November 12, 2008July 24, 20189 Comments

______________________________________________

I’ve been back from Christchurch for a day now, and although a little tired from travelling, I was absolutely going to update but…

I have been a trifle distracted…

By…

Nigella Christmas.

Look at her go. Did you know she’s nearly fifty?

It arrived in the mail yesterday from home – an entirely unexpected present to say congratulations for finishing university. I’ve barely been able to tear my eyes away from this book since I first opened it – it’s truly gorgeous and very Nigella – in the first few pages alone she is urging me to purchase lychee liqueur. Economic downturn – what economic downturn? It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but there will be those who peevishly gripe at her lavish tendencies…completely ignoring the fact that, if you look beyond the blue cheese and pistachios and the pricey, difficult-to-find unguents, she has many practical, healthy and cost-effective recipes that are also very easy to execute. How else could a mere serf like me afford to cook from her books so regularly? Defensiveness aside, it is a beautiful book and I really thrilling at the thought of what I might make first from it.

I had a lovely time down south, even though Christchurch itself was not as immediately charming as Wellington. And it’s alarmingly flat compared to my hillocky adopted home. I don’t know why this bothered me…Anyway, I was working – yes, working – at the Southern Amp music festival, putting up anti-smoking signage and monitoring it throughout the event. This was a bit more full-on than it sounds, I wasn’t just swanning about watching music all day (again, excuse my defensiveness), and those posters and voluminous adshels don’t just erect themselves. Happily, I did get to see some brilliant bands, including Weta, a New Zealand band that I loved back in 2000 but sadly never got to experience much of since they broke up. For some reason they decided this was the place to get back together, and they were absolutely marvelous – all the songs sounded as cracking as they did when I was 13.

I also got to see the Charlatans…

Although whether the lead singer saw us is a whole other story. His hair was fascinating, a thick, homogenous bowl cut that clung over his eyes as though by suction. They played an all-too-brief set…perhaps they were miffed that their description in the brochure for the event described the pinacle of their achievements as a supporting slot for Oasis.

The Dandy Warhols were there, an intensely languid lot who bore the mild insult of being billed below The Living End. The Dandy’s slot was excellent as I’d forgotten how many of their songs I knew and liked, and because they played one of my favourite songs ever, the cumbersomely titled “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth.” Jordan Luck, a New Zealand musical legend – and yes, the word is bandied about a lot these days – was brilliant live, and is looking alarmingly like Rod Stewart in his later years. You better believe I warbled tunelessly along to “Victoria”, “Who Loves Who The Most”, “I’ll Say Goodbye” and “Why Does Love Do This To Me?” Helping me at the event was a Scottish guy from work who has been in the country for a month, it was an interesting juxtaposition considering I can’t remember ever not knowing those Jordan Luck/Exponents songs whereas it was his very first time hearing them. We also managed to catch the end of Fur Patrol’s set – lead singer Julia was in fine voice and had gorgeous hair which I coveted on the spot – and finished off by seeing Dimmer, a band who have had enormous critical acclaim but who I’ve never really heard anything of. They were pretty darn brilliant, playing these enigmatic, hypnotically droning songs, while intriguing frontman Shane Carter gyrated lovingly with his guitar. And got us all joining in on a rousing, spontaneous chant of “John Key…*silence*…yeah…”

The above paragraph will possibly make little sense if you aren’t actually in New Zealand. However, as a gal who grew up in the pre-Google age, reading Baby Sitters’ Club books and wondering what on earth a Twinkie or a barrette or a Ring-Ding was, vindication I say! I do however apologise for the fact that the title will only make sense if you have some knowledge of [title of show], that much cannot be helped.

We also saw this guy: Lindon Puffin. He described himself as visually reminiscent of Morrissey…um? I can’t say his music was entirely gripping, but sweet mercy the man is funny. If you see his name at any event, try and catch him because the laughs come at you thick and fast like soft-serve ice cream. I’m from the North Island so I can only imagine how funny his jokes about Oamaru and Picton are if you’ve actually been there.

I did, I really did have a whole lot of food stuff planned for this post, seeing as it is an actual food blog and all, but frankly the photos weren’t that great – and in this bloodthirsty and friend-against-friend age of blogging, you need decent photos just to keep your head above water – and it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten what I was going to talk about. Here’s a snippet though…

So, last week sometime – or was it two neglectful weeks ago now – I roasted a large slab of piggy, following a lovely recipe in Cuisine magazine using sherry and fennel seeds. I had a prowl through my Wagamama Noodle cookbook for inspiration to use up the leftover cold pork, and following a recommendation, checked out the gyoza recipe. I ended up veering shamelessly off-course of the recipe (not least because I didn’t have any wonton wrappers) but ended up making baked spring rolls, flavoured with all kind of good things – fish sauce, ginger, sesame…If you’ve ever made rice paper rolls before – and if you haven’t, they’re not as scary as they look – you should totally try popping them in a hot oven for a while. They crisp up wonderfully but, because there’s no oil involved, are still incredibly healthy. Since the concepts of “deliciously crispy” and “virtuously healthy” hardly ever meet to shake hands, this is quite an exciting breakthrough for me.

Above: These crisp little parcels, while a little time consuming to roll up, can also be assembled well ahead of time and baked at the last minute. Did I mention that they’re good? They’re sooooo good.

Unfortunately it looks as though my dreams of seeing Leonard Cohen are not to be. The old so-and-so sold out within moments and as I was flying back from Christchurch on the day they went on sale, I completely missed out.

Next time: I promise to try and do something that actually resembles a food blog post.

Pineapple Express

November 3, 2008March 12, 202013 Comments

A very, very swift post from me – I know my exam is tomorrow, but Tim and I have studied ourselves into a brick wall and can nay do more. We’ve been watching some audio commentaries on The Mighty Boosh DVD (yes, we are earnest commentary-watching folk) and giving our brains a well-needed airing before everything we’ve crammed in there floats lightly out our ears.

Saturday’s weather was beyond awful – gale force winds and pelting rain. Sunday, however, in typical Wellington fashion, was the complete opposite – an unutterably beautiful day. I purchased a pineapple at the vege market for a dollar and imagined I would sprinkle it with chopped mint and fresh ginger and serve it for a sparklingly healthy dinner. Then Tim said “or we could dip it in chocolate?” Brilliant. I was sold.

In fact I went one better, and used a recipe of the blessed Nigella Lawson’s from her gorgeous book Forever Summer .

Caramelised Pineapple with Hot Chocolate Sauce
1 ripe pineapple
demarara sugar (Nigella specifies 250g)
200g dark chocolate
125ml Malibu
125ml cream

Preheat the grill to very hot (or the barbeque!) Slice the skin off the pineapple then chop it into wedges. If you like, thread them onto soaked wooden bamboo skewers or just leave them plain like I did. Lay the pineapple on a layer of tinfoil and sprinkle with the sugar. Pop under the grill till caramelised and deep golden in colour. For the sauce, simply melt the chocolate and stir in the Malibu and cream. Pour into a bowl for people to dip the pineapple in. I resolutely sprinkled the pineapple with mint though and it added its pleasant, reliably perky flavour to the whole thing.

You should probably know that we lowly (soon-to-be-ex) students don’t carry anything as highfalutin’ as actual Malibu. Instead I used a harsh splash of this Malibu doppelganger stuff of Katie’s called – charmingly – “Wipeout.” The look of Malibu in the same white bottle, minus the smooth rumminess.

Above: Cool mirror effect on the shiny dipping sauce. It’s probably the aluminium in the Wipeout liquor that makes the chocolate so reflecty.

We ate dinner (a quick feast of steamed red potatoes, proper beef sausages, roasted capsicum and carrot sticks) outside because it was so glorious, and at 7.30pm we were still able to be comfortably al fresco with our pineapple. It is a wonderful pudding – the taste of scorched fructose and smooth, smooth chocolate mingling very pleasantly with each other, people leaning over each other sociably to access the fruit and sauce – heck, I’d go for two pineapples next time.

I haven’t mentioned this so far because I’ve been so busy promoting the Otaua video (and in case you’re wondering, the case is going on hiatus for three weeks so no proper conclusion yet) but if you like, clickety click HERE to witness a rather amazing thing. You may remember that I went on a plugging spree for the late Broadway musical [title of show]. Well it’s over now, but some spry fans organised – and just let me try to explain this properly – a music video to ‘9 Peoples’ Favourite Things’, one of the songs from [title of show], using fans of the show holding up pictures of the lyrics. As in, one word per person. If all this makes no sense, watch the video anyway because Tim and I are both in it! Yayyy! Participation from miles afar! But actually, don’t even try to look out for us because we zoom by in a flash and your retinae will chaff with the strain of it all. But there’s still something for everyone. For Broadway fans, there’s Jonathan Groff *swoons*, Patti LuPone, Shoshana Bean, Amy Spanger, Seth Rudetsky, Betty Buckley and Cheyenne Jackson *swoons again* amongst others. For the average punter, have fun trying to spot America Ferrera, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, TR Knight from Grey’s Anatomy and for those who like to dip your toe on either side of the fence, check out the spunky Bebe “Lillith” Neuwirth. Follow the link in the grey box for stills and names, and you’ll actually get to see me.

See, there was no need to flinch, I didn’t even try and make you watch the Otaua video again. But if you’re on youtube anyway with nothing else to do…As it is we are on a rollicking 1900 views, which is flipping amazing. Hopefully in three weeks we can make the change we want. In fantastic news, Otaua and the video itself were on the TV1 national news show here in New Zealand, they gave us a good two minutes and showed lots of clips of Otaua looking clean and lovely and untainted by oil plants. Hilariously though, they showed a clip of the mayor of Franklin, Mark Ball, and said that it was my dad. Not sure what the mayor thinks of this…

Speaking of change, in a day or two I’m guessing things are going to go absolutely nuts in America. Even a bare plot summary of my beloved RENT which this blog is named for should indicate that I’m pretty left leaning. (Hint: lesbians ahoy!) I couldn’t be more hopeful that Barack Obama gets in as president, and that Sarah Palin fades quietly into obscurity (I know, I know, I’m not American, but let’s put it this way, I’ve heard many, many women say that she in no way speaks for them by virtue of her gender). It’s times like these that I get a particular song stuck in my head…’Louder Than Words’,a stunning ditty from one of Jonathan Larson’s earlier works, Tick, Tick…Boom! If the words look a little cheesy on paper, click here for a somewhat poor quality vid of the final Broadway cast singing it to get the full effect.
Why should we
Blaze a trail
When the well worn path
Seems safe and so inviting?

How, as we travel
Can we see the dismay
And keep from fighting?

Cages or wings
Which do you prefer? Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby
Don’t say the answer
Actions speak louder than words!

What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?

If we don’t wake up
And shake up the nation
We’ll leave the dust
Of the world wondering why

Why do we stay with lovers
Who we know, down deep
Just aren’t right?
Why would we rather
Put ourselves through hell
Than sleep alone at night?

Why do we follow leaders who never lead?
Why does it take catastrophe to start a revolution
If we’re so free? Tell me why – someone tell me why
So many people bleed

Cages or wings
Which do you prefer? Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby
Don’t say the answer
Actions speak louder than words!

Gelatine-age Kicks

October 28, 2008March 12, 202019 Comments

What a kerfuffle. I apologise heartily for neglecting the blogs I normally peruse loyally. If it’s any consolation, between studying for my exam next Tuesday, stressing about WPC Ltd’s attempt to bring their ‘environmentally friendly’ waste oil treatment plant to my hometown, vigorously promoting the protest video on youtube, and working, I’ve barely managed to attend to this blog. What can I say, it’s rather difficult to type when you’re shaking your fist at people. It makes me so furious that the WPC and members of the Franklin District Council that support them can go to bed at night, placidly untroubled about what they’re doing to an entire community, while I find myself reading the same page of Kerouac’s On The Road seven times because I’m so distracted with worry (perhaps also due to this book not being nearly as good as everyone claims it to be, perhaps not.) The hearing to decide the fate of Otaua is happening today and tomorrow, so you understand that I’m a little jittery. I’d like to say now that it was four years to the day on the 29th that my maternal grandfather died. He spent most of his final years living just up the road from us, and I imagine him watching over the proceedings, perhaps also with a fist held angrily aloft.

To the food: There is something about recipes involving gelatine that fills me with trepidation, I think it stems back to an incident involving Neenish Tarts when I was a child. The recipe called for the filling to be set with the dreaded stuff, which formed stringy, gummy strands the moment it hit the mixture. As people politely bit into the finished tarts, their teeth would meet with clumps of it, the texture of chopped up erasers marring the otherwise smooth and creamy filling. My gelatine experiences since then have been few and far between. Earlier this year though I spontaneously purchased some gelatine leaves from Kirkcaldie and Staines and decided to use them the other day to make Apple Tea Jelly, a recipe from the September 2005 Cuisine magazine that has held my attention ever since I read it. The weather is finally warming the shoulders enough to make this sort of thing even worth thinking about.

Above: Gelatine leaves. Nigella Lawson raves about them, which is enough to get me to hand over significant amounts of coin for something. But don’t they look like some kind of ethereally golden church window? Hold them towards the sun and the Hallelujah chorus practically starts playing. Of course, those with a delicate constition may want to ignore the sole ingredient in these fairy-like sheets: pig skin. Moving along!

Powdered Turkish apple tea can be found in most supermarkets, but I happened to acquire a half-full box from my aunt after a comprehensive cleanout of her well-stocked pantry (which, up until said cleanout, was always something of a mystical haven for me, my version of Narnia). I never knew what to do with the stuff – it’s too sugary to actually drink (I prefer a stiff black tea or something a bit more minty and natural, thankyou), and although the powder is intensely delicious eaten by the spoonful – like the best sour apple sweets you’ve ever tasted, dissolving ascerbically on the tongue – the idea of eating the whole lot makes me wince. So when I found this recipe, which uses a good amount of the stuff, I verily leapt with joy.

Above: The apple tea powder. Seriously, if you have some kicking around, try eating it with a spoon. It’s intensely yummy, especially if you have what Nigella refers to as a sour tooth, rather than a sweet one. I have what I call a “fat tooth.”

The recipe is very simple and specifies six 100ml dariole moulds, but since I was only feeding Tim and myself, I poured the whole lot into a little 600ml, old-fashioned Tala tin – also from that same aunt come to think of it. (Cheers, Lynn!)

Apple Tea Jelly

600mls boiling water
6 leaves gelatine
6 Tablespoons powdered apple tea

I funked it up a little by adding an apple-friendly chamomile teabag to the boiling water for a spell, and strewing some finely-chopped mint through the mixture once it was nearly set. But first: dissolve the apple tea in the boiling water. While that’s happening, soak the gelatine leaves in a large lasagne-style dish filled with cold water for about a minute. They will soften slightly, and then, one at a time, pick them out of the water, squeeze them – which is rather squelchily pleasurable – and stir into the boiling apple tea, whereupon they will dissolve instantly. Pour the gelatined apple tea into your chosen receptacle, and then refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.

Above: The unminted jelly, ready for refrigeration.

When you’re ready to eat it, find a likely looking person (in my case, Tim) to dip the tin briefly in hot water and turn it out onto a plate. I refuse to do such things myself, I know it will only result in tears – not necessarily mine – and jelly in my ears.

And what a beauty it is! Shivery, diaphanous, and with a subtle, fragrant apple flavour that is a million miles from whatever lurid, food-colouring flavoured stuff you can get out of a packet. I love packet jelly, but this is just absolutely gorgeous stuff, alluringly wobbly and very impressive to the casual passer-by (“you made jelly? Not out of a packet? Ooooh.“) I imagine it would be wonderful on a hot summer night, after some kind of spice-heavy dinner.

Like I said, I have been attempting to study for my English exam next Tuesday. In fairness to WPC Ltd, there has been one other thing distracting me from my books: The Mighty Boosh. I’ve been a fan for a while now but Tim and I got ourselves a DVD of Season Two and watched all six episodes in one sitting. I laughed so much I nearly pulled a muscle. It’s sheer brilliance, a little like Flight of The Conchords only British and surreal and even funnier (I realise I seem to compare everything to FOTC but that’s because people are generally afraid to try new things unless they can relate it to something they already know. Gelatine – it’s like Flight of the Conchords, only it dissolves in hot water!) More loveable than Little Britain, more endearing than Mr Bean, more surreal than Green Wing, and almost as sharp as Blackadder. Actually I’d put it on a par with Black Books. Hath there existed greater praise for comedy?

The other exciting thing going on – okay, so you already know about Neil Young coming to town, but guess who else is going to be here in January. You’ll never guess. Okay: Leonard Cohen. The gravel-and-maple-syrup voiced lothario himself. Since Tim and I were lucky enough to witness Rufus Wainwright earlier this year, that will be my entire Canadian Music Tripartite that I’ve managed to see in concert and I’m only 22! I honestly never thought I’d get to see Mr Cohen, at least not in New Zealand of all places. I couldn’t be more excited than if Idina Menzel herself decided “what the heck” and booked a tour of New Zealand even though you can’t actually buy her albums in shops here (are you listening, Warner Brothers Records?) Although there have been whispers over the ether that Morrissey himself *faints* might be paying a trip to New Zealand in January. As you can imagine, what with one thing and another, I’ve been having a lot of mood swings lately. Thanks awfully for sticking it out with me.

Finally, further proof that the cat is secretly on quaaludes:

Above: “I’m under your bed, befriending your dust bunnies…” He just sat there, with enough of him sticking out so we could see him. A desperate cry for attention (as if he doesn’t rule our lives already) or something more sinister?

Wait, what’s that you say, Oscar?

If the above makes no sense, visit I Can Has Cheezburger? for further info (it still may not make sense, but you should get a laugh out of it.)

Next time: Not sure, though I’ll try to keep it coherent. I did buy myself (with the aid of a voucher) the Wagamama Noodle cookbook which I’ve been getting lots of use out of, so mayhaps something from that. The video on youtube has hit a mighty 1800 views, words can’t express my gratitude to those of you who have been watching it. For further information, keep checking the Otaua Village Blog for updates.

Still Hungry and Frozen

October 15, 2008March 12, 202022 Comments

I was highly excited anticipating the one-year-anniversary of my blog. I invisaged all manner of things – maybe some kicky new features, or a photo essay dedicated to the cat, or some kind of conceptual baking, or maybe a video, something new and fun to try and make our relationship last beyond the honeymoon, “hey this blog is mildly diverting” stage and into full-on commitment. But then I had to hand in a 3000 word essay, and if that were not enough we exceeded our 20gb internet limitation…by a lot. We lack the technology to make a cooking video happen and I was not feeling telegenic in the slightest. So, a few days late, I apologetically offer you this post, like a bunch of wilted flowers and slightly melted chocolates purchased at the last minute from a petrol station.

But really – it is exciting to me that this blog has existed for a whole year. I remember having the epiphany to make one, I don’t remember when, it was just an idea that made so much sense to me. I’d read blogs and thought “I’d like to do that,” and I read other blogs and thought, hubristically, “well I can definitely do better than that.” Little did I realise that my badly lit photos taken on auto were not going to cut it with fickle blog readers. I rather naively assumed that my terrible photography would be seen as charming and positively daring, but actually it was just…terrible. And as I learned new skills (helloooo macro function) I gained more readers. But I’d like to think it’s the content and recipes as well as the photography that makes people stick around, especially because my photos still have a long way to go. Indeed if you have a little time on your hands and you’re up for a laugh, why not peruse my very early archives? I truly thought that all I had to do was put my opinion out there and the adulation would pour in. I love my blog wholeheartedly and with complete bias though, it has been a haven, a diary, a self-indulgent soapbox, a recipe file, and a record of my life for the past, swift-moving year. I look forward to seeing how long it lasts.

I went to the vegetable market on Sunday and gamely trudged back up the hill with my spoils, (sweating like a donkey all the while, as is the nature of Wellington hills) but it wasn’t till I got my breath back and stopped perspiring that I realised how utterly gorgeous the vegetables were. They made me want to don a voluminous cape and floppy beret and paint them in a still life. Fellow food-bloggers, tell me I’m not the only one who thinks food is really preeettyyy.

I mean these would not look out of place in some medieval, suckling pig feast. I’ve honestly never purchased shallots before (don’t faint, but I’ve always used onions instead when a recipe asked for it, well I am a student) which is probably why I’m so embarrassingly enthusiastic, but they were cheap and rather beautiful so I grabbed a bunch.

Oh asparagus how I love you. Especially when it’s two fat, healthy bunches for $3, that can last for four separate dinners. I used the shallots and asparagus in an intriguingly delicious recipe from Simon Rimmer’s excellent, inspiring cookbook The Accidental Vegetarian. It was so monumentally good that I considered making the whole thing again the next night, or perhaps eating the whole lot on my own and pretending it never existed. I’ve altered the recipe a bit as Rimmer’s version was more coconut-happy than I go in for. It’s a little fiddly but not difficult, and makes the kitchen smell completely fabulous.

Rendang Shallot and Asparagus Curry

50g butter
75g brown sugar (yes, it does sound like a lot and yes, I used less for the two of us)
20 banana shallots
400g asparagus
400ml tin coconut milk
3 T toasted dessicated coconut
Coriander to serve

Melt the butter in a pan, add the sugar and when it starts to dissolve throw in the shallots, peeled but left whole. Turn down the heat and cook slowly for at least 20 minutes, (he recommends 45 but they were more than fine with less). Blanch the asparagus and refresh in cold water. I sliced them into two-inch lengths.

Curry Paste:

1 onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
3 red chillies, or however much you desire
1 tsp ground coriander
1 T tamarind paste (or substitute lemon juice)
1 t tumeric
1 t curry powder
1 stalk of lemon grass (which I left out because I didn’t have any)
pinch of salt

Whizz the lot together in a food processor, or chop and mix everything well like I did using my mezzaluna. This results in a chunkier but no less flavoursome paste. Heat a little oil in a pan and gently fry the paste, carefully, and stir in the coconut milk, letting it bubble away and thicken slightly. Add the now magically caramelly shallots and the blanched asparagus, letting it simmer for about ten minutes. Finish by stirring through the toasted coconut and chopped coriander. If you like, add a handful of frozen peas to beef it up (as it were) quite easily. This should serve four-six.

The combination of flavours were so perfect – zingy, spicy, earthy, fresh, sweet. I truly could have eaten this whole thing surruptitiously by myself. And shallots – oh my! Rich, mild, gently oniony, what have I been missing out on all this time!

My blog’s one year of existence coincided rather bittersweetly with the closing of [title of show], one of the most exciting new shows on Broadway…I, of course, make this statement without having seen it at all, such is the nature of being a theatre fan from New Zealand. Rice Krispie treats are referred to in one of the songs, and I’ve had a distinct hankering for them ever since hearing it for the first time. Nigella has a version made with melted marshmallows which indeed sounds delightful, but I opted for an old Edmonds recipe for what we in New Zealand call Rice Bubble Cake, using honey and butter to bind the cereal together in sugary squares.

Rice Bubble Cake

125g butter (incidentally, one year ago a block of butter was $2.70 from the corner shop, now it’s $5)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon each of honey and golden syrup

Melt the butter and sugars together till gently bubbly. Once it has bubbled away for a little while, remove from the heat and carefully stir in 4-5 cups rice bubbles. Spread this into a waiting square tin, and allow to cool. The butter-sugar mix will be very hot, so don’t go sticking your face into it or anything.

Rice bubble cake makes me reminisce twofold; I remember making this with mum as a child, wanting to eat the buttery sugary mixture so bad and not thinking it would be enough to cover all those rice bubbles. It also reminds me of my gap year in a boarding school in England, where the kitchen would serve up cakes of some sort for afternoon tea with soothing regularity. One of the mainstays of afternoon tea was rice bubble cake, sometimes it was sublime and sometimes it was crumbly and oily and weird. We never knew what happened behind the scenes to make it so, and frankly I don’t want to know. But for those of you who’ve never tried this before, I know it looks a little odd, but just try and stop at one piece. Or three. Crunchy, texturally delightful, caramelly, buttery – it’s great stuff.

To paraphrase [tos], let my blog be the Rice Krispie Treat?
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Overheard in our kitchen: (in the throes of discussing what we’d do if we won the $30 million lotto this weekend)

Me: I could fund my own cookbook and get it done next year. Then I could create my own stage show around it, where I bake stuff and tell hilarious anecdotes and feed the audience and…maybe sing and dance…
Paul: You mean like an infomercial?
Me: NO! Like a proper stage show! But with baking, which I’d give to the audience! And it can promote my book but also be a fantastic piece of theatre in its own right!
Tim: So…it’ll be an infomercial.
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Well, I do have plenty of hilarious food-related anecdotes (particularly involving grapefruit and Jersey Caramels as friends and family will know from the many times they have been told). But that’s the thing about imagining what you’d do if you won the lottery, especially if you have a particularly vivid imagination like me – your mind bounces from concept to concept and then you get overexcited and your heart starts to thump wildly with the very fullness of your own potential excellence and then you remember that you haven’t won $30 million at all.

As I said earlier in this post, I handed in a 3000 word essay – well it was my final essay for uni. I have an exam on the 4th but my lectures, assignments, etc, are over for good. Luckily I’ve finished on a relative high, getting A’s on two essays (on the social influence of Idina Menzel and the subordination of female Beat poets respectively) and loving all my papers. I started this blog while still in the middle of uni, now that I’ve come to the end of that time it’s a little sad, but also exciting to think what might be in store for me next. Hopefully you, the reader will stick around with me – I’d flatter myself that this is kind of a fun read – and not just come here if Tastespotting tells you to.

In the words of Rent: “How do you measure a year in the life…how about love?”

In the words of the always inspiring Nigella Lawson: “I have made the most of being a food obsessive. For good or bad, it’s my life, it’s me and I don’t see anything changing.”

And appropriately, in the words of [title of show]: “I’d rather be nine peoples’ favourite thing than a hundred peoples’ ninth favourite thing.”
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So true. Quality over quantity any day. And ah, maybe next year I’ll do something more exciting to mark the occasion.

Corn As High As An Elephant’s Eye

September 29, 2008March 12, 20209 Comments

I hope this isn’t going to be the blog post equivalent of that friend you have who sees you occasionally in the street, smiles brightly, and as they zoom off into the distance they cry breathlessly “We really should catch up for coffee sometime!” And then you don’t hear from them for three months.

I apologise for being woefully slow at updating. Sure, I have been busy, but I haven’t managed to convince Tim of my theory that since turning 22, approximately 25 minutes out of every hour just vanishes. Even now, I should be doing useful things, like washing my hair and packing for my business trip (the airport shuttle arrives at 8.00am tomorrow), re-editing my essay and maybe getting to sleep an hour ago.

A sign of my commitment: The promised peanut butter popcorn.

So, I attempted the notorious recipe on Hot Garlic’s site.

I’ll be frank, cold even: I’m not one of those sorts for whom a peanut butter sandwich is a good time. The idea of schmeering it on popcorn was faintly troubling. But, won over by enthusiastic testimonials, I gave it a go.

It was so good that after Tim and I wolfed it down like famished hyenas, I promptly made another batch. Oh sure, popcorn is good, but smothered in peanut butter and chocolate? (and you know I augmented the amount of butter that the recipe recommends) This stuff is remarkably delicious, and a testament to that old saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Speaking of corn and the magical forms it can take…I have a new favourite gluten-free cake. Much as I love chocolate I find those super-rich flourless cakes can be cloying, throat clogging and frankly a little samey (although yes, delicious.) I don’t mean to sound condescending and bandwagon-jumping to the genuinely intolerant, once you make this cake all fist-shaking thoughts will fly airily from your wheat-shunning minds.

I found the recipe in the New World supermarket magazine…a mag that I’m not a huge fan of but which regularly redeems itself with such finds as this.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cornmeal Cake

Disclaimer: the cat is faceplanted on my left leg and I don’t have the heart to shove him off and find the recipe so I’m transcribing it from memory. I’ll change any erroneous details asap.

250g soft butter

1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

Juice and zest of 2 lemons

1 cup cornmeal (aka polenta…not instant though!)

1/2 t baking powder

150g ground almonds (there’s no escaping them)

2 T poppyseeds (my contribution to the recipe)

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg yolks and lemon juice/zest. In another, non-plastic bowl, whip the egg whites till stiff. I know it’s a pain when recipes ask for separated eggs, but persevere. And don’t kick it old-school like I did and manually whisk the whites. It hurts. Add the cornmeal, baking powder, almonds and poppyseeds to the butter/yolk mix and then gently but robustly fold in the whites. Bake in a 22cm, greased and lined tin for an hour – about – at 175 C. When it comes out of the oven, squeeze over more lemon juice, mixed with a little icing sugar, which will settle deliciously into the cake.

Mine got a little (okay, very) dark in the oven, so keep an eye on it and cover with tinfoil if you’re worried. This cake is intensely good – soft, moist, tangy, lemony, ohhhh I’m drooling quite immodestly right now just thinking about it.

And within, a gorgeous, rich, distilled-sunshine colour. I don’t know how long it lasts because we ate it stupidly fast, but I daresay it has a few days in it.

A million thanks to those who watched and commented on dad’s protest video in my last post. And if you haven’t watched it, may I not-so-subtly direct your attention towards it with my many links? Truly though, it means so much! We’ve amassed over 700 views on youtube already, which is pretty amazing since, well, Otaua village is pretty tiny and we only have so many friends and friends-of-friends to sing its praises to. So, to those of you who actually did watch it, a heartfelt thanks. And watch it again! It’ll be grand!

Speaking of youtube I have been monumentally distracted lately by the thoroughly engaging and HILARIOUS new musical called [title of show], about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical…if you like Flight of the Conchords AND Broadway (the latter is kind of necessary, lots of it goes over my head I’m sure and I consider myself fairly well-versed) then you’ll love it. But here’s a clip giving you a little more info anyway…It’s going to close soon so if any of my readers are ridiculously fortunate enough to be living in New York, go see it!

Finally – what is that substance on our mossy, damp patio? Could it be…sunshine? Okay, so it rained all day today, but this patch o’ concrete literally hasn’t seen the sun since about February.

And I know I’m wearing odd socks, I’d like to think it represents my free-spirited, left-brained, artistic temperament but some would say it merely represents my inability to find matching socks.

Don’t Think Ice, It’s Alright

September 19, 2008July 24, 201816 Comments

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I understand the prevailing trend these days is to profess adoration for dark chocolate, the higher in cocoa mass and the more intensely bitter the better, preferably savoured by candlelight with a perfectly aged red wine. Me, I could take it or leave it. I love it for cooking – rarely use anything else – but in terms of eating, I am the fiendiest fiend for white chocolate. I know, it’s not even “real” chocolate, and it’s nothing but sugar, and doesn’t even have any cocoa mass by which to measure its superiority against other chocolates…but I LOVE it. If I know there’s some in the house I can barely concentrate, and find myself blindly standing by the cupboard, stolidly chewing away at whatever’s left of my white chocolate resources. Whereas dark chocolate – well, it’s pretty telling that I have four blocks of the stuff sitting in my wardrobe (because (a) I stock up if it’s on sale and (b) we don’t have a lot of cupboard space in the kitchen), and haven’t touched the stuff.

But I’m only human. I see chocolate, unwrapped and vulnerable in front of me and I gotta take a bite. This particular stuff – Donovan’s 80% cocoa dark chocolate, has its own cromulent gratification, in spite of not being my first choice. Smooth, sharp, with an uncannily refreshing, rather than rich finish, it was the perfect thing to embiggen my otherwise low-rent sorbet…

I got the idea for this from a Jill Dupleix recipe for “ice cream” made of only two ingredients – bananas and raspberries. Berries being expensive, I thought I could make another version using canned pears. I poshed it up by adding some shards of the aforementioned dark chocolate and changing the name…

Banana, Pear, and Bitter Dark Chocolate Sorbet (see, doesn’t sound like something out of a can at all when you put it like that)

3 very ripe, large bananas
1 large or 2 regular sized cans of pears, well drained
45g dark chocolate, chopped roughly

Ideally you should do this in a food processor. But I was feeling lazy…or ecologically minded if you will…and used a fork. Mash the bananas and pears together till they are uniformly smooth. Fold in the chocolate. Freeze, stirring occasionally. This makes about 750mls…I think. If you want more, all you have to do is add more bananas or another can of pears. It could probably do with a blast in the food processor after a certain amount of freezing, but once again, I was being serenely carbon neutral with my fork. I’m sure it would be far superior made in the food processor, but it really depends on whether you want to serve it to people or just eat it by yourself.

It’s so healthy you could practically have it for breakfast. Even with the chocolate because you know, antioxidants! If you want to serve it to polite company though you need to leave it on the bench for a while to soften. Because it has no added fat it freezes rock solid and you will get fissures in your teeth trying to eat it. I think I got elbow fissures trying to scrape up a spoonful for this photo. But when I left it out of the fridge (for ages actually, I’d forgotten about it but our kitchen is so arctic that it hadn’t melted in the slightest) to soften, I was pleasantly greeted by a delicious flavour combination. The delicate flavour of the pears, the texture of the bananas, the occasional surprise of dark chocolate made for an excellent mouthful. Better yet it cost me diddly squat to make. Supermarkets will sell overripe bananas for a song, canned pears are always cheap, and okay, chocolate is expensive but if you can get it on special it’s not too bad. Which is why, when Tim and I trekked to Pak’n’Save to do our groceries and I saw 250g blocks of chocolate for $2 compared to the usual $6, I stocked up.
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When I was up home last weekend, my mother – ever the teacher – gently brought my attention to some misplaced apostrophes in my blog. As I want to be a sub-editor one day…and consider myself pretty au fait with grammatical concepts…I apologise sincerely. By the time I’ve written and edited these posts and grappled with the screen freezing up and photos uploading I tend to miss a few things. I’ll think twice next time I sneer at someone else’s poor punctuation. And indeed, feel free to tell me if there is an apostrophe out of place somewhere causing you offense.
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Next time: I attempt to make Peanut Butter and Chocolate Popcorn from the Hot Garlic blog. With not a little trepidation I must admit, as I wasn’t born with American tastebuds but the way everyone raved over it…and I do love my popcorn maker…well, my curiosity was piqued.
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Your daily kitty cuteness update:
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He’s still doing it.

O Broth, Where Art Thou?

July 6, 2008March 14, 202015 Comments

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Just because it is summer in America, does not (unfortunately) mean it is summer in New Zealand. Just putting it out there – while y’all are consuming sorbets and frozen yoghurts and cooling salads, we have had snow in previously un-snowed locales, closed roads, gale force winds…Because of the said seasonal conditions, I have been on something of a soup kick lately. We’ve had it in various forms all week for dinner, and it’s ideal for combatting the incessant sharp chill of winter that permeates our damp, un-insulated, World Health Standard-violating flat.

Soup 1:

Above: Gold on gold…a taste of sunshine for when it’s rainy outside. This soup is something I came up with while riffing on my standard pumpkin soup recipe. Basically it is the same – roasted pumpkin, mashed roughly with a wooden spoon and with stock stirred in – but I added dense, mushy cooked red lentils, a good 2/3 cup which and pretty much made it a complete meal. As well as this I sprinkled over plenty of yellow tumeric, as you can see in this picture, and ras-el-hanout, a spice mix to which I am quite addicted. It isn’t too obscure, most places these days are stocking it, and it imparts headily warm, aromatic, gentle spiciness.

As well as being seriously healthy, pumpkin and lentils are two of the cheapest things around these days. The lentils I used were some organic ones my mum sent me and the pumpkin was from the local vege market. Mmm, moral fibre and actual fibre in one bowl.

To go with the soup, and to augment the sunny golden-ness, I whipped up a batch of cornbread. The recipe I use is Nigella’s and is a favourite of mine, it always works and can be fiddled and faddled with to no ill effect and is the perfect accompaniment to almost anything (particularly butter…)

Cornbread

175g cornmeal (or polenta, same diff so look for either)
125g plain flour
45g caster sugar
2 t baking powder
250ml full fat milk
1 egg
45g butter, melted

Set oven to 200 C. Grease whatever you’re using – a muffin tin, a 20cm-ish brownie tin, etc. What I usually do is melt the butter in a decent sized microwave-proof bowl. Then I stir in the milk and egg with a fork. Then tip in all the dry ingredients, mix till just combined – don’t worry about lumps – then pour into your receptacle and bake, for 20-25 minutes. I have made this with superfine cornmeal and the more granular stuff, and a mix of the two, anything is fine really although the granular stuff gives slightly more bite to your finished product.

We had this soup again, with leftover cornbread for mopping up, the next night. This time I roasted some carrots as well and mashed them in once tender. They gave an added note of natural sweetness which was quite effective…
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Soup 2:

One of my favourite things about Cuisine magazine is Ray McVinnie’s Quick Smart column, where he gives, every month – how does he do it? – an exhaustive list of meal ideas and recipes based on a particular theme. After reading his promptings to make any number of soups, I tried this. I sauteed finely chopped onions and garlic, then added some chopped free-range bacon, stirring till cooked. I added diced, floury potatoes, dried thyme, and porcini stock, and allowed it to simmer till the potatoes were utterly tender and melting into the stock. I sprinkled over some nutmeg and pink peppercorns and biffed in a crisp green handful of chopped spinach, which wilted on impact. This deliciously thick, comforting soup was what Tim and I ate while watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on DVD. After we finished watching it we weren’t overly impressed, but the next day we were repeating quotes back and forth and cracking up…anyway it’s worth it for Jack White’s cameo as Elvis Presley alone.

On Friday night Tim and I had fish and chips, a decision perhaps fuelled by the amount of wine I had at after-work drinks that afternoon (nothing to worry about, but put it this way – I didn’t make it to Bikram yoga.) Through work I scored free tickets to see Samuel Flynn Scott, one of New Zealand’s most prolific musicians. He is well-known for his work with the Phoenix Foundation and the Eagle vs Shark soundtrack, as well as dabbling in other side projects yet…I’d never really heard any of his stuff. All I knew about him was that he was endowed with a fullsome beard and had participated in our Smoking: Not Our Future campaign. What can I say – we had a great night. He and his equally beardy band Bunnies on Ponies were tight, charismatic, fun, and the banter mercifully tended to err on the side of witty. Because I’ve never really heard much of their music I wouldn’t want to make any comparisons in case they were absolutely wrong but…they had a kind of ModestMouse-happyREM-SplitEnz thing going on. They finished with a rousing cover of the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society, a ditty that I love…

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On Saturday I was lucky enough to catch up with my mother and my godmum, who were in town for a language teachers’ conference…after an enormous lunch with them at the Black Harp Tim and I had soup number 3 for dinner – a light, noodly Japanese-style broth.

Soup 4:

I have stopped buying exciting ingredients with such mad gay abandon these days, partly because of money, partly because of lack of space, but when I found some dried borlotti beans going very cheaply at the Meditteranean Warehouse in Newtown I consciously ignored that rule…They were soaked, and simmered up for Nigella’s Pasta e Fagioli from Nigella Bites. It couldn’t be simpler – it is basically just cooked up beans and pasta. I added a tin of tomatoes and a splash of sherry, and it made for a perfect Sunday night dinner. No accompaniments necessary, apart from a spoon.

Tim and I start back at university tomorrow. It seems like just yesterday that I was dashing up hill and down dale in February trying to register for my classes in the sweltering heat and now I’m in my final term. I’m doing three 3rd year papers this semester, hopefully it’s not too gruelling, but then I think to myself, surely nothing could be as gruelling as the photography paper. By the way, I finished up with a good, solid B as my final mark for that particular gem of a class, not bad eh what? And in a matter of months I shall be Laura Vincent, BA…

I Fought The Raw And The Raw Won

July 1, 2008March 14, 20208 Comments

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So. Raw, Vegan Food. Doesn’t exactly inspire lusty salivation. Especially not in the middle of a cold, sharp winter. I have nothing against shunning meat – why, some of my best friends are vegetarian! But I feel it’s a bit like deep-frying and haircuts and hiking: better done by other people. And I suppose I can see the thought process behind veganism, you know, don’t harm animals, sustainability, etc. But two crucial words: no butter. It just seems so strident, so militant, so charmless. And is there anything more unloveable than forced-smile cupcakes made with a cup of mollasses and powdered egg replacement?

I’m hoping here that the vegan community doesn’t rise up with fists and come to bludgeon me with a sustainably produced baseball bat. What I’m trying to say is, while I don’t think a life without butter (don’t get me started on cheese) is really a life lived, I do, despite appearances, love diversity and finding new recipes and being healthy. Some of the best places to look for these are vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, because of what they lack a certain fresh inventiveness is inherantly required. And this is where my raw, vegan stint came in.

It’s not difficult to imagine the benefits of a raw vegan diet. No nutrients lost, no consumption of anything even vaguely guilt-inducing, no animal fats. I also absolutely could not live off it. For one thing, how would Tim get his carbohydrates? Raw potato, methinks, is not that appetising. And I have no desire to create “cakes” using a dehydrator. But there is a wealth of interesting stuff out there, a particular favourite of mine being the above salad. It was ambitiously labelled a “tagine” on the original site I found it on but…it’s a salad. It’s filling and delicious though, and almost indecently healthy, which is something I always appreciate. I give you my adapted recipe.

Raw Cauliflower Salad

1/2 a good sized head of cauli
1 beetroot
2 carrots
a small handful each of dried apricots and dates
1/4 cup nuts – pistachios are good, as are brazils
Poppy seeds

Basically, you need to chop everything Very Small. That’s all. It’s a bit of a pain, but try to enjoy it as part of the cooking process. Mix everything along with the poppy seeds in a large bowl and pour over the dressing. This is better the next day and makes quite a lot.

Dressing:

1 T tamarind paste, soaked in 1/2 cup water for 30 mins
1 T olive oil
1 T ground tumeric
2 t cumin seeds
1 t coriander seeds

Using a pestle and mortar, bash up the seeds with the olive oil. You could of course, use ground spices and a fork. Add the tamarind water and tumeric, and carefully pour over the salad, mixing it thoroughly (I find a spatula useful here, for scraping out the dressing from the pestle and mortar and mixing the salad without flinging.) Add salt, you’ll probably want a good amount, plus lashings of coriander and mint, which really make this work.
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Seriously, this is very good stuff. I happily ate it as dinner in its entirety (along with some rice for Tim) and…it also goes surprisingly well with proper pork sausages. Another recipe I tried but photographed badly was merely a large beetroot, topped, chopped, and blitzed in the food processor. I stirred in lots of sea salt and coriander and served it as is – we both loved it. Beetroot is so good for you and so cheap this time of year.

Above: This is, of course, Nigella’s classically brilliant Thai Cole Slaw, which I’ve made about a squillion times. You can find a rough guide to the recipe here in one of my much-older posts. And, also composed entirely of raw vegetables and various flavourings.

This is not something I could stick to – as you can tell by my posts about ice cream – but I’ve had fun finding recipes and there’s nothing wrong with eating things as fresh and untampered with as possible. I imagine that the cauliflower salad would be fabulous at a buffet dinner, or as an unorthodox inclusion on the Christmas table (perhaps more applicable to a sunny New Zealand Yuletide though) or just in the fridge for picking at when peckish as one inevitably is 24/7.

I gotta say though, there are some…interesting raw folk out there on the internet. Reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons, where Lisa has the crush on the hardcore vegetarian, who doesn’t eat “anything that casts a shadow.” Hee!

Back to the real world. These are of course, cooked, but quite healthy…I like to keep a stash of muffins in the freezer for if Tim gets low blood sugar or needs a boost. Freezing them is a good way of making sure they don’t get absent-mindedly inhaled (you know how that happens) and it is a good excuse for me to happily potter round the kitchen with butter and sugar without feeling as though I’m contributing to Tim going blind or gangrenous one day (diabetes is a slow but harsh mistress.)

I somehow over the years acquired a few copies of the New World Essentially Food magazine, which, I have to say, can be a little hit and miss with its recipes. Some of them read like packet instructions, and some are just plain undelicious sounding, but it would be hugely uncharitable to say that I don’t enjoy this magazine and haven’t used it. Anyway, within its pages I found this Pumpkin Muffin recipe and loved the sound of it – not least because pumpkins are one of the few very cheap vegetables these days. I added some also-cheap carrot to the mix too. I’d give you the recipe, but Tim and I tidied our bedroom and as is so often the case, I am beggared if I can locate anything, including that particular magazine. If anyone’s really champing at the bit for these though, email me and I’ll see if I can hunt it down and reply. The muffins were so good (sorry!) – hearty and moist and cinnamony.

Above: So good. So good they get the Italicisation of Approval. And yes, I really did look for that rogue magazine.

Well, I’m now off to watch Outrageous Fortune. Thrilling! The only thing on telly really worth watching (apart from Nigella of course) and the best thing New Zealand has done in my 22 years at least.

Next time on Hungry and Frozen: I have no clue at this stage. But at least you won’t have your expectations dashed!

Primal Ice Cream

June 28, 200816 Comments

I said I was going to feature my raw-vegan-food experimenting, but, I lied. Should probably have thought a little harder before commiting to that “next time” feature. To make up for it; a post about ‘gasp’ JUST ONE DISH. The reason for such uncharacteristic brevity is not a sudden foray into the soul of wit, but to display my entry for the Ice Cream blogging event – my first ever go at a blogging event – at Mike’s Table: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Frozen Desserts. While the name doesn’t trip off the tongue, it did get me inspired to make something frozen, perfectly timed for Wellington’s bitterest winter since July 1929. Disregard that last bit, as I made it up, but don’t disregard this amazing Cinnamon-Date ice cream. Which I also made up. See what I did there?

You may well wonder, where does she get off saying her own creation is amazing? Well, frankly it is. Lucky break, I guess, but there’s no need for false modesty. I’ve made this before, and looking back it is a nice pat-on-the-back reminder that I really did learn a bit in my photography class since then.

Above: All together now, “I wanna live with a cinnamon girl, I could be happy, the rest of my life…”

Cinnamon Date Ice Cream

This is an original recipe insofar as I (a) haven’t seen it anywhere before and (b) entirely invented it myself. Having said that, I am studiously avoiding googling it in case there are forty-squillion variations and it’s common as muck. You don’t need an ice cream maker for this because…I haven’t got one and have made perfectly lovely stuff without it. This is altered slightly from my original recipe, but only in the name of improvement.

150g dates, chopped
1/4 cup muscovado sugar
50g butter
1/4 cup water
2 t ground cinnamon
1 400g (or so) tin sweetened condensed milk
Full cream milk
500mls (2 cups) cream. Okay, so it’s not going to win any health awards.

Probably the most difficult thing about this recipe is chopping the dates. They are sticky and don’t take well to cleaving (well, would you?) Firstly, melt the butter in a good sized pan and stir in the brown sugar. Once it has combined into a caramelly puddle, tumble in your dates and water and stir thoroughly. The dates will soften and the whole thing will become almost jammy, add the same amount of water again if need be. Remove from the heat, and stir in the cinnamon and condensed milk. Now, fill up the empty can with full-cream milk and tip that into the pan, stirring the whole thing together thoroughly. Finally, whip the cream and fold it into the mixture. It will be a little odd as the date mixture is so liquidy, but persevere and it will come together without any trouble. Taste – and taste again because it’s so nice – and decide for yourself if it needs any more cinnamon. Pour into a container and freeze, stirring after a couple of hours to break things up a bit.

This is intensely fabulous – as I noted first time around, the cinnamon makes it somehow warming even though it’s frozen. The tooth-dissolving sweetness of the raw mixture is banked down when it freezes, leaving only caramelly smoothness. The dates become marvelously toffee-ish when frozen, almost like chunks of praline. Very grown-up stuff, and the perfect ice cream for winter.

So, there it is; my entry. I should note that I enjoyed being able to revisit one of my recipes, as I can’t really afford to test them out rigorously. I look forward to seeing what other people have come up with, to store the inspiration for when we are enjoying balmier climes…

I’ve already mentioned once or twice that I long to write one brilliant cookbook, but as I was walking to work (via a visit to Tim at Starbucks) I had – and one must turn to Elphaba who says it best – “a vision almost like a prophecy; I know it sounds truly crazy, and true, the vision’s hazy…” It was so unbelievably simple that I ground to a halt. I want more than just a cookbook-I want – one day – a bakery/cafe, where I make all sorts of goodies – including inventive gluten-free fare, fresh-baked bread rolls, and any number of amazing cakes and cakelets. Tim could make the coffee and manage the mathmatical side of things, and he could also be my chief recipe taster. I could purchase lots of mismatched, otherwise-unloved second-hand chairs and cutlery and cups and saucers and play only fantastic music over the speakers. Tim’s coffee would be incredible (the boy has talent) and we’d have Havana and Mojo and Illy and all the other big names fighting to be our providers. In the summer I could make tubs of ice cream to dish out by the coneful, and in the winter, a huge pot of ever-simmering soup. We’d live in the flat above the shop, and never branch out into a franchise – just keep it cosy and exclusive. We’d have a whole host of regulars – possibly including an inscrutible customer who drinks black coffee and types on their laptop and eventually goes on to write the great New Zealand novel – And from there I could write and finance my cookbook, while doing a little freelance subediting on my computer (no, I haven’t let go of that one, it’s just the idea of a life spent hunting solely for mis-placed semicolons seems a little…cold.) And one day our bakery-cafe would be known as an icon of wherever it may be located.

Well, a gal’s got to have a dream, doesn’t she? I don’t know why it suddenly hit me that this was what I wanted, I’ve never had any real desire to work in hospitality (I can tell you now, I’d be a terrible waitress) and I even worked in a bakery for the better part of a year without thinking it was where I wanted to make my career. But such is the prerogative of youth. Tim even seemed enthusiastic. Well, I said “accounts” very quickly and “chief taster” loud and slow. Obviously it can’t happen for a good long while – does there still exist those cosy little shops with flats above them? But you might as well know because there’s only so long I can keep this thrilling, distracting idea hugged to myself, and I don’t see any reason why it can’t work out exactly as I’d like it to.

Finally – we had a visitor on Thursday.

One of the particularly charming things about where I live is the dense cat population. I’d never seen this particular kitty before though. He was a solid, brickish cat, entirely grey, and BIG. He reminded me of the late Micky, a cat who was also barrell-like and vocal. This cat had the most peculiar miow, it sort of went…mirwooo.