Category: Ice Cream and Sorbet

hot lunch jam

14 Comments


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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.

icecreamadelica

13 Comments

On the whole I don’t really go in for reviews that compare one thing to another, because it feels as though the author is too bored to find words to describe something on its own terms. Don’t even get me started on those slightly hysterical NME magazine reviews, you know, “This band sounds like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sonic Youth solemnly making daisy chains and chewing vitamin pills together while Van Halen stand by, clapping slowly.” (That said I haven’t read NME since 2006, maybe things have changed?)

My point is, Tim and I went to a fantastic Latin restaurant/bar called Amigos for dinner the other night, and while I was there I couldn’t help but think it could quite easily be the new Sweet Mother’s Kitchen (another eaterie in Wellington, and enormously popular) if only more people knew about it. And then I felt bad, because Amigos was amazing in its own right and was created completely independently of anything else. But it has a similar vibe going on – funky surroundings, food that’s authentic, inexpensive, and fun, plus delightful staff. Tim and I both wanted this dish that involved french fries covered in four different kinds of meat with egg and cheese (I know, and it was amazingly good, and yes, they do lighter/vegetarian food too) and the waitress said that we could share one dish between the two of us as they’re huge servings. Nice, right? I’m sure most places would try and make you pay the extra money for two dishes without warning you on the size. The food was incredibly good – I’d love to go back and try some of their other dishes. Also on Fridays (and other nights) they apparently have parties and clear the tables and play music and have lots of drink specials. So, lazy writing and all, if you like Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, you’ll probably love Amigos too. It’s right near Moore Wilsons and above Happy at 118 Tory Street (phone 04 385 1222), and open for lunch and dinner all week long. And now you know!

If I ever end up getting offered some kind of mega-million-dollar cookbook deal for this blogging lark, I think I’ll definitely have to have a chapter devoted to ice cream. I love it and I love coming up with new recipes for it. Clicking on the “Ice Cream” tag for this blog will back up that statement with cold, sugary fact. With this in mind, remember that time I made Ginger Crunch Slice? Me too! I can’t stop thinking about it! In fact I’ve made about five more batches since that first one I blogged about. Then I thought how the fudge-like ginger icing would make fantastic…ice cream. Yes. The more brain-space I devoted to it, the more utterly genius it sounded. With a little time up my sleeve today I made a small test batch to see if it would actually work. And it really did.

You know what didn’t work though? Okay, so I made the ice cream, photo-ing as I went, put it in the freezer to freeze, took it out to take a photo, dropped the container on the floor, and it broke. And all of a sudden we’re out of appropriately sized Tupperwear or old takeaway containers. Argh! Fortunately the plantain ice cream from last week had just got finished and so I was able to rinse out its container and transfer the Ginger Crunch Ice Cream into it. By which stage it had softened considerably and I was also considerably covered in it and thus I couldn’t really be bothered trying to get a cute finished product photo – but at least there’s last week’s post with its cute spoonful of plantain ice cream to keep you happy should this gaping hole in my photo essay offend.

It’s not a scary recipe at all, despite having the word “ice cream” in its title. Ice cream, like bread and pastry and chicken stock is one of those things that sound so much harder to make at home than they really are. But this particular ice cream took barely 10 minutes. It’s the easiest of the hard-sounding stuff.

Spillages are unavoidable. Really.

Ginger Crunch Ice Cream

Makes about a pint. I think. Wikipedia’s stance on the pint is a little confusing.

50g butter
2 heaped tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 cup icing sugar
300mls cream

In a heavy based pan, melt the butter and golden syrup together gently. Once you have a deliciously buttery, caramelly liquid pool, take it off the heat and stir in the icing sugar and ground ginger. Then whisk the cream till it’s significantly thickened but not actually whipped into peaks – it should still have a bit of movement and formlessness to it. Using a spoon, scrape the gingery mixture into the cream and mix it in relatively forcefully, to break up any larger pieces of ginger icing. Pour into a container and freeze. You don’t need to churn this – just let it soften slightly before serving. And don’t drop the container. If you want more of this, as well you might, just use more cream. If you’re getting to the stage where you’re whipping up say, a litre of cream, you might look at doubling the ginger mix ingredients.

This stuff is extremely good. The gingery mixture seeps into the softly whipped cream, countering its richness with a zingy warmth. Larger pieces of the ginger mixture become all chewy and incredibly delicious once frozen. It just works so well. I can imagine this being a really good accompaniment to fruitcake or Christmas pudding, especially in places (like New Zealand!) where Christmas falls in the middle of summer.

This container no longer exists, and to be honest the ice cream isn’t going to stick round for long either.

That said, if I ever do get offered a squillion-dollar cookbook deal, all my ice cream recipes are here for free on this blog, thus rendering the ice cream chapter kind of pointless. Although I guess there’s no point stressing over something that hasn’t even been in any danger of occurring yet.

Last night Tim and I were fortunate enough to witness the All Whites qualify for the FIFA world cup by winning their game against Bahrain. What’s this? I hear you say. Laura, I thought you hated all sports with a fiery passion that shall smoulder eternally! Well, I kind of do. I appreciate that it makes a lot of people happy, that on the whole it keeps you healthy and that it provides a safe environment for young people to connect with each other and learn skills. I think specifically I dislike how sports are forced upon young people throughout their schooling. Sure, some youngsters can appreciate the joy of chasing a ball with a hockey stick or running from one side of a field to the other, but let them come to it naturally in their own good time. Don’t force them into PE classes when it clearly makes them sick with misery, and what kind of sick minded teachers still get students to pick people for their teams? If my children – should I ever have them – ever want to get out of doing sports at school, you bet I’ll write them notes. (“Yes, young Sebastian does have cramps.”)

All that darkness aside, I don’t mind soccer, and indeed it can be quite exciting, if a little long at 45 minutes a side. I think it was the romance of the situation that I got caught up in – the last time we’ve qualified to have a punt at the World Cup was 1982. Ricki Herbert (I love that deliciously flamboyant “i” on the end of his name) was a member of that soccer team and now he’s come back to coach the Wellington Phoenix, several of whom also play for the All Whites. We were total underdogs, having been not wildly outstanding in the first qualifier in Bahrain, and not exactly being world leaders in this particular sport. Suddenly every single ticket had sold out – there was barely a visible seat in the stadium, which never ever happens – not even when David Beckham came to town. All things that made for a ridiculously exciting game.

It was an amazing night of intense happiness and togetherness from the crowd and there were a lot of people I knew in the audience – like my cousin Paul who flatted with us last year – who had been following this forever and who were deeply invested in the outcome. Like I said, I’m not into sports but blind passion does make sense to me. I’m not actually a very good sports viewer, partially because I get incredibly bored, but also because no matter which side I’m supporting, I always feel bad for the team that loses. The audience occasionally booed Bahrain which I thought was a shame, given that they were trying to achieve exactly what we were but on the other side of the world and with only a handful of supporters in the audience. It’s never fun watching people lose, but all that was quickly forgotten at the sight of the normally deadly calm Ricki Herbert jumping round hugging his team jubilantly. Look him up on Google images – don’t you think Will Ferrell should play him in the movie of his life? Apart from the booing and the sadness of seeing the losing team lose, the only other thing that really annoyed me was the presence of streakers at the end. Firstly, it wasn’t their moment, and secondly, they weren’t even properly nude. At least be committed.
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On Shuffle while I’m typing away:

Tim and I were watching Dazed and Confused the other night (oh hi, young Anthony Rapp, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg and half of Hollywood) and found myself listening to Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do from Frampton Comes Alive! the next day. I’m not even a fan or anything, but there’s something about this song…it’s so slinky and groovy.

The entire cast recording of the 2008 revival of Gypsy, which is one of the most sharp, polished performances I’ve ever heard commited to a compact disc. I hope a good production of this comes to New Zealand sometime soon. Seriously, isn’t Patti thrilling?

Finally – Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new song IRM from her album of the same name is as super-listenable as anything else she’s ever done. I like how it takes its time commiting to a particular direction, and you can really hear Beck’s sound on the production which is no bad thing. Plus she’s gorgeous.

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Title of this post comes to you via the amazingly good Primal Scream album Screamadelica; I’ve said it before but there is never a bad time for this album, incidentally it is particularly good in summer and therefore would also make an ideal accompaniment for ice cream. Find it if you don’t have it!
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Next time: I found more plantains at Moore Wilsons! Rejoice! Not sure how I’m planning to act on this but I think…more ice cream.

plantain in vain

11 Comments

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I don’t know why, or what it says about me, but I go through these intense, whirlwind infatuations with foodstuffs, consume vast amounts of them, and then move on, breaking it off as fast as it started. There was lentils, then oats…later tofu followed by soy products in general…then plantains. At the moment it’s tahini. Make of this what you will. The only good thing we can take from this is that my eating patterns usually settle into something more normal afterwards. Like, not soy products six times a day. This post will outline my brief but heady flirtation with plantains.

As far as food goes – as far as any old thing goes, in fact – plantains are pretty special. They look like bananas, but clenched and stumpy. Like a banana that has tensed up in anticipation of getting a punch to the face. They’re infomercial-tastic in their multipurposeness. They start off green, tight-skinned, firm and savoury, with a flavour echoing kumara (or sweet potato.) Then they progress into a yellow shade, becoming sweeter – but wait there’s more! They finally blacken, becoming even softer and more sweet in the process. Something particularly cool about the plantain is that they have similar complex carbohydrates that you’d find in a potato, but they cook in about ten seconds flat. If you have the deep misfortune to be a coeliac type-one diabetic, you could do well to look these up.

I grabbed them on a whim from our local supermarket because they were cheap and intriguing, like all good things in life. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be stocking them any more. The lesson is – I should have updated this blog sooner. However bear in mind that a lot of the time, bananas can be readily substituted for plantains – even in savoury dishes. The following though, is something you’ll have to get the actual article for. I first dipped my toe in the water by taking firm green plantains, peeling them, slicing them thickly and frying them in a sizzling dab of butter and drop of rice bran oil till they were golden and crisp on the outside.

And there you have it. Looks like banana, tastes like potato. Truly. They cook up in about five minutes, but have that same solid, fluffy bite of a baked potato. With a banana’s potassium! This made a fantastically sunny side dish to something – I can’t even remember what it was now – and was repeated several times over in the following days.

Following an idea from Simon Rimmer’s The Accidental Vegetarian, I tried stirring some fried, sliced plantains through dahl made with red lentils. Amazingly, surprisingly good. The graininess of the lentils and the fried plantains worked excellently together. However the photos I took were kinda heinous and I won’t subject you to them. You’re better off without them.

Realising I’d enthusiastically brought far more plantains than I could really deal with, and that they were ripening with alarming speed, I decided to use them for sweeter pursuits, and turned them into Plantain Ice Cream. A cursory Google search didn’t throw forward any recipes so I made up my own. I threw about 6 ripe, soft plantains into the food processor and blended them till smooth. I then added 2 crumbly tablespoons muscovado sugar and 2 tablespoons of juice from a can of pineapples and continued to process till it was light, fluffy and moussy. I considered adding some coconut milk but decided to leave well alone and not be so damn obvious with my flavour pairings. When I say moussy – the blended plantains really were curiously aerated and could actually have been chilled and served as some kind intensely natural alternative to those powdery, whizzed up instant puddings of my youth.

And then I froze it.

Having made virtuous ice creams before of fruit and not much else, I remembered how utterly rock-hard they set, and had intended to give this a cursory second blitz in the food processor before tasting it. Well there must be some enzyme in plantains which makes them awesomer than other fruit because it was perfectly spoonable straight from the freezer. Curiouser and curiouser!

And completely, amazingly delicious. The fun thing about it is that you’re more or less eating just fruit, which is quite the exciting concept to grasp when your brain is sending “ICE CREAM, OOH BABY BABY” messages around your body. It tastes sugary, but it’s pretty damn healthy. In terms of taste, sure it’s banana-y, but the plantain is somehow zestier, zippier, (apologies for the supercilious vagueness of my description there) almost citrussy compared to the banana. Which is not to say that you couldn’t get perfectly fine ice cream out of a banana, I’ve done it myself and you may substitute freely if plantains aren’t available. Just make sure you process it again after it has frozen, to break up the ice crystals it will form.

I just realised that I’ve purposefully not included a photo of the dhal that I snapped just before it was eaten because it was terrible, whereas these carefully styled photos of ice cream are here on display. In the past I might have obstinately included the terrible photo of the lentils simply because I have this feeling that blogging about what you’re cooking and eating should show what you’re eating as it exists in real life, not how it looks in a studio set-up, painstakingly lit and strewn with vanilla beans or…autumn leaves or something. And yet here I am, choosing the created over the real. I mean, I can assure you that I stood there leaning on the windowsill, eating the ice cream while I was taking photos of it, but it was in my bedroom, on my chest of drawers, and that blue fabric is a scarf of mine. Eh. I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this. I’d like to think I’m relatively principled in my aims for this blog. But ice cream is prettier than under-exposed, grainy CCTV-esque footage of lentils, let’s face it.

I guess I shouldn’t get so wound up about stuff I can’t really explain adequately. All that aside, the ice cream is an ideal use of this beguiling fruit and worth letting them sit around to ripen for. Cooling, refreshing, not at all heavy and arrestingly delicious. Thus…if you see plantains at your local market or whatever, don’t be afraid of them. They’re cool. Take a walk on the wild side.

Tim and I just got back from seeing Elaine Paige live in concert. What a night. She was so dynamic, so engaged, so sparklingly classy and in such good voice. I know I joked a while back that I’m surprised she didn’t play Elphaba in the London transfer of Wicked, but truly – she has been in so many shows, and it was amazing to hear a kind of retrospective of many of these. As she was singing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, I reflected on how astounding it is that I have been able to see the original London and the original Broadway stars of Evita sing this song in less than six months, in New Zealand – Patti LuPone back in July, and now Elaine Paige. She didn’t sing Nobody’s Side, as I’d hoped, suspecting a live version would have more passion and soul than her strangely (or not so strangely, really) sterile pop version. Instead she came out and sang Someone Else’s Story, and then I Know Him So Well, with the orchestra filling in on the other part. Well, I guess she had to do that one. There were so many classic songs she gave us that it was hard to keep track but a highlight was when she poured herself into the character of Edith Piaf and gave a stunning rendition of Je Ne Regrette Rien. It was an incredible night and…we were easily the youngest there. I felt lucky to be a part of it all.

If you get the chance, check out Glee on TV3 on Friday nights at 7.30pm (with repeats on C4TV at the same time on Wednesdays). It’s a bit strange to me to see all these Broadway stars plastered across New Zealand media channels and hearing people talk about them. Not in a snobby way, like I don’t want anyone to know about them – but literally in a strange, blinky kind of way. I double-take every time I see a picture of Lea Michelle or Matthew Morrison in a local magazine. I’m just used to a large chunk of the pop-culture stuff I like being completely obscure to the general population. If it means that things like choirs and singing and musical theatre and dancing are made to seem okay and ‘cool’ to young people, then bring it on. All that aside, I’ve seen most of season one already and it is sharp as a tack and great fun. Find it!

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On Shuffle while I type

Smart Women by Stephanie J Block, from her debut album This Place I Know. While I admire SJB and think she’s a fantastic singer, actress, and surely person too, I really didn’t click with her album. But this song from it, oh my. I’m obsessed with it. Don’t even try to listen to it or you will be too. It’s beautiful.

Dominoes by The Big Pink from their album A Brief History Of Love. Okay, the lyrics to the verses are kind of useless, and it is maybe derivative and will probably get ridiculously overplayed, and normally the only music from Big Pink I’m interested in is the one coming from The Band but all that aside…WHAT a chorus.
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Title comes to you via…The Clash, Train In Vain. Why? Because…I like The Clash almost as much as I like inserting rhyming words awkwardly into places they don’t belong.
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Next time: I predict that next time I will be deeply, deeply in denial that it’s November already and a good chunk of it has passed at that.

brown sugar, how come you taste so good

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I’ve got a bit of that Sunday night ‘blah’ feeling that can happen after a really good weekend. The reason for this weekend going so well was because several family members (Mum, godmother, godmother’s sister) coming from afar to visit, acting as entourage for my godsister who was having her university house ball. Now that they’re gone and my mind has to turn to practical things, like waking up early tomorrow for work…You know how it goes. Of course there are several cures for such feelings: make sure you live in a charming flat on Cuba Street for one thing, listen to the relentlessly sunny revival cast recording of Hair, eat tofu, absorb the happiness of those around you that the Wellington Phoenix football team actually won a game, that sort of thing. I happen to be doing all those things simultaneously right now so there’s barely a moment to feel wibbly.

I spontaneously invited everyone round for dinner on Friday night. We had take-out noodles from my noodle hut of choice: Chow Mein Cube on The Terrace, plus hot chips from the excellent chippie across the road. I made a salad and they bought the wine. Pudding consisted of brown sugar meringues that I’d made that evening after work (I know, how deranged housewife am I) and two different kinds of ice cream, Kohu Road vanilla and Whittaker’s Peanut Slab. It is with some pinkness of cheek that I admit my love for the peanut slab ice cream, since I had so emphatically stated that Kohu Road is the only kind of non-homemade ice cream I’d ever consider buying. Well, now I can add Whittaker’s to the list. It’s flipping lovely stuff.

These meringues have the edge on their paler sisters – I normally find meringues to be a bit too blatantly, in-yer-face sweet, whereas here the brown sugar gives complexity of flavour and a pleasing dark caramel taste. You could of course use something like muscovado sugar for an even more intense experience. I found this recipe in Italian Comfort Food by the Scotto family, a cookbook that persists in changing my previously held perception that all American cookbooks are unusable and ask for incomprehensible ingredients like Bisquick and half-and-half.

Brown Sugar Meringues

Adapted from Italian Comfort Food by the Scotto Family.

4 egg whites
1 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 140 C/300 F and line a tray with baking paper. You may need two trays but I managed to squish everything onto one. This recipe is so simple you could fit it into a Twitter update. Whisk egg whites till frothy. Carry on whisking, slowly adding brown sugar till a stiff meringue forms. Drop spoonfuls onto tray, bake for an hour. You should get 16-18 out of this. And I made it with an actual whisk so don’t feel like you can’t either. No need for heavy machinery here.

What’s really, really fun is then to take spoonfuls of ice cream and sandwich it between two meringue halves. This becomes almost impossibly sublime after a day or two when the meringues have softened slightly. It’s so good you practically need to slap yourself back into reality afterwards. The contrast between cold, creamy ice cream and resolutely dry room temperature meringue is surprisingly seductive while the strong caramel of the slowly cooked brown sugar counteracts any excessive sweetness. They’re aesthetically pleasing too, calling to mind those fancy macarons that you see all over the place but in a much simpler, ramshackle fashion.

It’s a little difficult to really paint a picture in words how delicious this is, especially when it seems so simple. I might have to eat another so that I’m inspired into further colourful description.

If your life is like the Tom Wolfe novel Bonfire of the Vanities you might consider making your own ice cream to go with the meringues. It will drive home to your dinner guests that you are an aggressively accomplished cook. Their self esteem will wither and the only way they will be able to jump over this raised bar is by baking individual souffles at their next dinner party. Even if your life is not like a Tom Wolfe novel and does not involve making individual desserts while wearing pearls, and even though we’re all well aware by now that there is perfectly sufficient stuff available on the market, making your own ice cream is not difficult. To paraphrase an argument that I often employ (if the Dire Straits were that good, surely I’d like them?) if ice cream was really that difficult then surely I wouldn’t be able to achieve it.

A while ago I got it in my head that palm sugar might be a delicious ice cream flavouring. It is highly likely that I should have been focussing on spreadsheets at the time which is why the idea was not immediately acted upon. However this time of idea-incubation allowed me to also consider adding kaffir lime leaves to this icecream-in-my-mind.

Last weekend I had a crack at it, making a custard boldly infused with kaffir lime leaves and a syrup of palm sugar. The two were mixed together and frozen and I’ll be honest, it actually worked. The flavours were subtle but intriguing. Not overtly limey and not wildly sugary, but both elements definitely present, cutting through the frozen custard with their unfamiliarity.

I’ll give you the recipe I used – which I made up – but I’m not quite sure it’s the exact final prototype yet. There was something about the texture that I wasn’t entirely sure about. However Tim, with his simple rustic wisdom, said I was overthinking and he couldn’t see anything wrong with it. So feel free to give it a go yourself.

Palm Sugar and Kaffir Lime Leaf Ice Cream

4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons brown sugar
600 mls cream
5 dried kaffir lime leaves
4 lumps of palm sugar (does this make sense? Palm sugar generally comes in rounded lumps. There might be a better way of describing it)

Heat half the cream (300mls) with the kaffir lime leaves in a pan till it’s pretty hot but not boiling, just slightly wobbly. Remove from heat and let it sit for a while to allow the lime leaves to infuse. Whisk the egg yolks and brown sugar together gently, then pour the heated cream into it, still whisking. Rinse and dry the cream pan and then transfer the egg-sugar-cream mix back into the pan and heat it gently, stirring all the while, till it thickens into custard. This isn’t hard at all but it can be good to have a sink full of ice cold water ready to plunge the pan into to stop it cooking. You can choose to remove the lime leaves at any stage here, but I left them in as long as possible.

Put the custard aside to cool while you put the palm sugar into a pan, and add 1/2 cup water. Heat very gently till a syrup forms. Depending on the palm sugar it may take a while to break down. The aim of this excercise is more to melt the sugar into a usable liquid rather than cook it into a caramel, if that makes sense. Once it has dissolved into liquid put it aside to cool for a little bit before whisking it into the custard (with lime leaves removed) and finally, stir in the final 300 mls cream. Sorry if this all sounds a bit complicated.

Pour into a container and freeze, stirring occasionally. It makes around 900mls which is a good, non-threatening quantity for an experimental batch like this.

Anyway it must have been pretty good because Tim and I managed to get through it in less than a week. Largely aided by the fact that it tasted so mind-blowingly smashing sandwiched between meringues. Be not afraid to try it. The instructions may not fit on a Twitter update but they’re pretty straightforward.

Last night the lot of us – Tim, myself, visiting family members went to La Kasbah, a Morrocan restaurant down the Left Bank arcade of Cuba Street. It’s an adorable place with a short but solid menu, gorgeously painted walls and friendly wait staff. We were all very much taken with our meals and in particular I loved the tumeric-yellow bread that came with the breads and dips. Well, I hope it was tumeric that gave it that radioactive tint. I’d love to know their recipe because it’s gorgeously moreish stuff. It was a seriously lovely night and I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for another BYO to add to your inventory.

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The title of this blog is bought to you by: The Rolling Stones
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On Shuffle whilst I type:

Where Do I Go? sung by Gavin Creel and the Tribe from the 2009 revival cast recording of Hair. It’s more thematic than plot-heavy, which makes sense for a show that follows its own rules, but I have the feeling that this is currently among the best ways to spend a few hours on Broadway right now. The current Broadway cast is so full of energy and joy that even a million miles and continents away it is impossible not to love them.

Meadowlark by Patti LuPone from Patti LuPone at Les Mouches. Recorded in 1980 this is an utterly gorgeous and occasionally hilarious album.

You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket (live) by the White Stripes from the Blue Orchid single. Thought this song is most excellent on the album, live it just…soars.
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Next time: Nigella Lawson has this chocolate Coca Cola cake in How To Be A Domestic Goddess, and I thought it might be fun to switch the cola for ginger beer. It was flipping lovely, let me assure you, and you’ll be finding out all about it in good time…

instant karma

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What’s exciting about Easter when you’re a kid? The chocolate. When you work full time? The chocolate…and the five day weekend. Since I’ve finished uni the holidays have completely dried up so I’ve been anticipating this long weekend with glee for quite some time. Tomorrow I’m zooming up to Auckland to see the Bridge Project production of The Winter’s Tale (a play by this underground, cult author named Shakespeare) which has made its way round the world to New Zealand, leaving excellent reviews in its wake. Even at face value it’s interesting – the Oscar and Olivier award-winning Mr Kate Winslet, Sam Mendes is directing it and it features a jaw-dropping cast including Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Hall, and Sinead Cusack. For a Shakespeare nerd like me, it’s going to be one heck of an evening. Sunday morning I’ll be back in Wellington to make hot cross buns…and I’m almost as excited about that as I am about the play tomorrow.

For some reason, it has been forever since I’ve made couscous – the food so nice they named it twice. I can’t think why, other than I’ve been distracted by brown rice for too long, because couscous is the perfect fast food, just add boiling water and you’re good to go. I can’t think of any other starch that’s so utterly instant. Even after having a glass or three of wine at a a colleague’s farewell get-together on Wednesday, I was able to deal with it and make a perfectly acceptable dinner. If I’d had to make something that required more concentration, like a risotto, it’s quite feasible that I could have flagged the lot and headed out for fish and chips instead.

Just as easy as couscous is what I made to go with it – halved tomatoes, roughly chopped butternut squash, cauliflower florets and foil wrapped beetroot, bunged in the oven and roasted for an hour. Not fast, but also not requiring any great amount of thought or committment. When the veges were nearly ready, I heated cumin, coriander and fennel seeds with a dash of cinnamon and ginger in a dry pan, then added the couscous and mixed them altogether. At this stage they smelled heavenly – just the sort of spices you want to have on a chilly evening. Boiling water was poured over, I removed the pan from the heat and covered it with a plate. A bare minute or so later the granules of couscous were tender and swollen, and I forked through a little butter before dividing the lot between two plates. On top of this went the vegetables, a tumble of baby spinach leaves, and chopped capers and walnuts. For a dinner so simple, comprised of ingredients in such unadulterated form…it was delicious.

Today has been pleasantly blue-skied but you can tell it’s Autumn and not midsummer January – it’s chilly in the shade. Tim and I decided to capitalise on our time in the sun and set off towards the beautiful Botanical Gardens (or “the botans” as we call it), a mere ten minute walk from our flat to feed the ducks, a favourite activity of mine. Never mind that whenever we go we are the only twentysomethings amongst the toddlers and encouraging parents, it’s really fun. Tim and I got to the duckpond and noticed with trepidation that there were bits of bread floating untouched in the water. I tossed a morsel of bread hopefully towards the water where it landed with a splash, and was met with a look of disdain by one of the ducks. One of them – I swear – actually sighed. It slowly paddled towards the piece of bread and ate it dutifully before looking at me as if to say “Happy now? We’re full, give us some peace already!” I guess we weren’t the only people who had decided to feed the ducks that day.

Dejected, we left the duck pond. Fate had other plans though, because as we headed up the road to our flat, we were lucky enough to see a tui – one of New Zealand’s native birds – barely a metre and a half away from us in a tree, singing his wee heart out. If the ducks had complied and done what they were supposed to, we would have missed the tui completely. Must have been meant to be.

(photo care of google images – I’m good, but not that good)

For some reason there is quite a significant urban tui population in Wellington. Whenever I see them I always wonder if they go and visit the tui in the forests and countryside, and talk about inner-city pressure and complain that you can’t get a decent kowhai flower in the middle of the night or something. Anyway, I’ve never seen one so close before and this particular specimen was adorable – quite rotund and almost like something out of a Disney cartoon as its stomach puffed in and out comically while singing its distinct, discordant call. Presently, a second tui appeared and Tim and I decided that there was some kind of burgeouning courtship happening, because both of them engaged in this hilarious behaviour where they fluffed out their feathers, and coyly pretended to ignore each other while hopping from branch to branch. Eventually they flapped off together to another tree – I get the feeling Tim and I were cramping their style, and obstructing how they were trying in their way to be free. (ahem, can’t resist quoting Leonard Cohen unnecessarily there). I’m no audobon, heck, I’m not usually even that fussed on nature, but it was quite an enchanting moment and completely unexpected in this big-city setting.

Hmm. Somehow we decended into the ornithology round-up segment, my apologies for those of you who were expecting recipes and instead ended up with curmudgeonly ducks and rutting native birds.

By the time we got home I was hungry and managed to convince myself that the best course of action would be to make us some instant ice cream, as it would use up some of the fruit taking up space in the freezer, plus there was this bottle of cream in the fridge rapidly deteriorating. Nevermind that we’d just gone for a hearty walk, my need to create food comes first!

Yes, that’s right. I decided to make ice cream as a quick snack. But how? I hear you cry. Well, with the glazed eyes of a fifties housewife in an advertisement, I’ll tell you! Once you try this, no other foodstuff will satisfy!

I put two frozen, peeled bananas and about a cup of frozen boysenberries in the food processor and whizzed them to an appealing purple mess. Then, with the motor still running, I emptied in about 250mls cream. To explain it scientifically, the whole lot just kind of seizes together and turns into ice cream. The most deliciously textured, amazing ice cream you will ever try. The trick is to eat it right away, because freezing it for another day ruins the beautiful texture. Not only does the flavour of the berries shine through, you also get the delightful taste of fresh cream. And the colour is out of this world. All that in about 30 seconds and it fed Tim and I generously. For more people, just add more stuff. You could use any combination of frozen berries – or try with just frozen bananas. The important thing to remember is to keep the ratio of liquid to frozen fruit fairly even. You could of course use yoghurt, which wouldn’t be wrong, but I can’t emphasise enough how lovely the simple taste of cream and fruit is in this.

It’s just as quick to eat as it is to make, too. And yes, Tim did eat his out of a beer glass – or ‘barfighting mug’ as we call them. What can I say, he’s a student. I had mine in a Nigella Lawson measuring cup. What can I say, I’m weird. But seriously – make this stuff. It’s so good it actually deserves it’s own fifties-style Madmen ad campaign in celebration of it – something along the lines of: “with this instant ice cream, now I have more time to iron his shirts!”

I hope you all have a lovely Easter break and do whatever it is that makes you happy. As I said earlier, I’m pretty hyped up for my hot cross buns on Sunday, but the age old question must be raised – to add or omit chocolate chips? I know they’re not traditional, but then neither am I, and I did the trad thing last year…Any suggestions?

smoke on the water(melon)

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For all that I adore summer, and the lighter, crisper, juicier sort of cooking that comes with it, the whole thing can quickly become a little fraught. I mean, there’s the overbearing heat, which can swiftly turn me from sassy cookstress into wilted puddle, unable to eat anything other than frozen peas. Also, and I guess this is because I am an overthinker, I get really dithery – do I go rice-papery and Japanese or mezze-bowley Greek salad-y or maybe some kind of Moroccan influenced flatbread wrap thing and I can’t choose so would it be weird to go Italo-Thai? There’s nothing like indecision to make you sweaty. Finally, I sometimes find myself unable to focus on anything approaching practicality, and instead become obsessed with making something sweet….

This was one of those times.

It was, I believe, back in October when I first felt the stirring desire to make watermelon sorbet. Unfortunately watermelons just weren’t around. Luckily I am emotionally study enough to wait patiently. They have finally become cheap at the markets and my wish is not only attainable, it’s much more seasonally appropriate.

I didn’t have a recipe to follow so I scoured the internet, and finally ended up with the following, a pastiche inspired by several sources.

Watermelon Sorbet

1 large watermelon
1 cup sugar
500mls water
1 egg white

Scoop out all the flesh from inside the watermelon and puree it in a food processor (I had to do it in batches since my watermelon was so huge). A lot of recipes said to strain the juice and discard the flesh but I thought that was kind of a waste of flavour and texture. Unfortunately that meant I had the relatively nightmarish task of picking out the black seeds. You choose what you’re up for. Meanwhile, bring the sugar and water to the boil in a pan on the stove, without stirring, and let it bubble away till reduced by half (but not burnt). Once this is cooled, pour it into the watermelon puree, stir, and then tip the lot into an appropriate container and freeze till solid. What you want to do now – and again, not the simplest of tasks – is puree the now-frozen watermelon and syrup in the food processor, which breaks down any inevitable ice crystals. Finally, whisk the egg white till stiff and carefully fold it through the pureed sorbet, then pop it back in the freezer. Don’t be put off by the egg white step, you can’t taste it at all and it gives the sorbet a great texture. Plus you won’t need an ice-pick to scrape out a bowl of sorbet.

Et voila. Sunset-coloured summery goodness in a bowl is only 24 hours, six bowls, and a sticky food processor away. Don’t let that put you off though. Not only is this delicious, it’s also very pretty, and not entirely unhealthy. I imagine it would be fairly awesome if you blended it with vodka and quaffed it from margarita glasses. For those of you paddling through winter on the other side of the hemisphere, it is worth waiting for, although this stuff is so good that you might as well pay $16 for a watermelon flown in from Madagascar to make it. Indeed, you might think watermelon in its unadulterated state is quite refreshing enough, thank you, and to a certain -extent it is – the stuff is like solidified vitamin water. But for those times when you just can’t leave well alone…

I actually bought two watermelons from the market. Well, I bought them, Tim brought them home…a fair transaction, I feel. For my next trick, I used a sizeable portion of the second one to make this incredible salad from Forever Summer by my (unwitting) muse Nigella Lawson. The combination may sound a little unusual but it works. As if I was going to question Nigella.

Watermelon, Feta, and Black Olive Salad (serves 8)

1 small red onion (which I left out because I didn’t have one)
2-4 limes depending on juiciness
1.5 kilos ripe watermelon
250g feta cheese
a bunch each of fresh flat-leaf parsely and mint
3-4 T extra virgin olive oil
100g pitted black olives

Peel and halve the red onion and slice finely. Put the slices in a small bowl with the lime juice. Meanwhile, remove the rind from the watermelon and cut into smallish triangular chunks. Either slice or crumble the feta and put them both into a wide shallow serving bowl. Tear up the parsely and chop the mint and sprinkle both over, followed by the onions and their juice, the oil, and the olives. Mix it gently and season with black pepper if desired.

I can’t remember what I served this with, but it really was lovely – cold, crisp watermelon against soft, salty cheese and tangy olives.

So, if cultural experience was a cup of soymilk, mine would be running over right now. Firstly, I am so excited because the Wellington Fringe Festival has started and would you believe it – someone is putting on a production of Jonathan Larson’s (ie, he who penned RENT) incredible musical Tick…tick…BOOM! This is pretty big stuff for me. Remember, I’m the one who travelled at (surprisingly) great expense to both Levin and Palmerston North to see their local theatre groups’ respective productions of RENT. As well as that, I’m seeing the band ‘of Montreal’ later this month, then in March Tim and I are going to see painfully hip band The Kills (one of them is dating Kate Moss…yes, they’re that hip), and as previously mentioned last time, The Kings of Leon and The Who.
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Finally, and this is where it gets really silly, we are going to see Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin in their showcase for the Auckland International Arts Season in July. I mean, this is huge. LuPone is so legendary on Broadway that it hurts. Just Wikipedia her. She originated the role of Eva Peron in Evita and Fantine in Les Miserables, and was most recently making people weep with joy as Rose in the Gypsy revival. She has Tony awards coming out the wahzoo. She’s a diva of the first water. I really have no idea what she is doing coming to New Zealand to be honest, but what an opportunity. I’m so all a-flutter it’s no wonder I can barely decide what to make for dinner. Oh yeah, and Mandy Patinkin is pretty awesome too. He has been all over Broadway – including starring with Toni Collette and the late Eartha Kitt in Michael John LaChiusa’s short-lived but intense The Wild Party – but y’all will probably mostly know him for his role as Inigo “you killed my father, prepare to die” Montoya in The Princess Bride.

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It is pretty busy in Wellington this weekend. It was Waitangi Day on Friday, and because it was a public holiday Tim was working at Starbucks. Because it is a weekend Tim was also working yesterday and today. Not to make your frappuccino tangy with the taste of guilt or anything, work is good in these uncertain times and I’m happy with my own company…every weekend… Further to this there was the Rugby 7s, an international rugby thing (seriously, that’s about as specific as I can make it) which is, I understand, 3% about rugby and 97% an excuse for drunken men to dress up as Borat and beer wenches and invade town at great speed.
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Next time: will probably be something involving my new favourite toy – a small container of proper sweet smoked paprika. I’ve been meaning to buy it for ages but price put me off. Luckily for me there was a sale at Kirkcaldie and Staines and I got a tin for a song. Unfortunately the reason it was so cheap was because its best-before date is April. Whatevs, at the rate I’m going I don’t think it will be a problem. This stuff is addictive and leaves normal paprika in the dust in terms of flavour. Actually, what is normal paprika but red coloured dust? How have spice companies got away with misleading us so flagrantly for so long?

Don’t Think Ice, It’s Alright

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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…

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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.

Primal Ice Cream

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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.
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Above: He wasn’t camera-shy, either.
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Next time: Forty-seven different dishes in one post, including, definitely, the raw veganry.

“Some Things I Cannot Change…”

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…”But till I try I’ll never know…” Argh. I mean, I posted those Tetris photos last time breezily saying how I was prepared for them to be criticised. Heck, I even quoted Back To The Future. But secretly I thought they were cool. The teacher absolutely hated them and told me as much in our interim presentation on Wednesday (worth 20% of the assignment’s grade!) I kid you not, I actually started to tear up right there in class. My throat got tight, my nose got prickly, and I could only but sullenly nod at her before racing out of the class to sob in the girls’ loo for 20 minutes. Once again; she was well within her rights to say that, also, they probably were “technically awful,” but how the heck am I supposed to pick up the camera and carry on with the assignment now? On top of that everything negative that she said about the last assignment in class applied directly to what I had done. I felt like I was twelve years old again. I felt like hugging my mother. I felt made of fail.

So yeah, I hit the butter pretty hard.


Above: After watching a performance on youtube of ‘Popular‘ from the musical Wicked, featuring Kristen Chenoweth and the ever-ridiculously-astounding Idina Menzel, (yes, my fangirl-ness extends to youtubing musicals I’ve never even seen), I felt like creating some pink and green iced cupcakes. After all, as Glinda says, “Pink goes good with green.” I don’t know why I thought cupcakes would be a good way of expressing this, or indeed that it needed to be expressed at all, but it certainly filled my baking-as-catharsis brief for the time being…


Above: And looked rather cute to boot, no?
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I’ve made these so many times and in so many forms that I don’t need a recipe, but you might: Take 125g each of soft butter and caster sugar, beat till fluffy with a wooden spoon, add two eggs, (beat beat beat) a little vanilla extract (beat beat) and 125g flour (still beating with your wooden spoon). Finally, you scoop the mixture into a 12-bun muffin tin, (with paper liners in each indentation) or into 12 or so endearingly pretty silicon cupcake holders like mine. Bake at 180 for about 15 minutes. This recipe is courtesy of Nigella, and is actually in every single book she has done, in one guise or another. Double the recipe and add baking powder and it becomes a Victoria Sponge recipe, to be baked for about 30-ish minutes in two paper-lined 20cm springform tins, and sandwiched together with any number of combinations of things…cream, lemon curd, jam, mascarpone, stewed rhubarb, banana slices, dulce de leche…


Above: I’ve made these biscuits/cookies (choose as applicable depending on hemisphere) and seriously loved them. Just to show how versatile the recipe is, in the book they are called chocolate chip fruit and nut cookies. In the ones I made there were none of these components (apart from a certain necessary amount of cookie!) and instead I doubled the oats, loaded in pumkin seeds, and then threw caution to the wind by adding linseeds (some throw caution to the wind by, I don’t know, skydiving. I add linseeds.)

I managed to refrain from eating all the mixture this time.

And yes, I did manage to get some study done yesterday, but I truly had hit a brick wall when it came to the photography assignment and couldn’t bring myself to get started on it again. I’ll need to harden up soon and get on with it, but yesterday I couldn’t help but wallow, walrus-like, in the solace of the kitchen for a little longer…


Above: It just occured to me that if you zoomed in on this picture, maybe upped the saturation somewhat, it might look like an early Pink Floyd record sleeve. This technicolour mix is actually an uber-wholesome combo of ripe bananas and frozen berries, plus a spoonful of brown sugar, which I turned into ice cream. Well, is it ice cream if there is no cream in it? Jill Dupleix thinks so, and I salute her for coming up with such a splendidly delicious recipe, but the finished product has more of a sorbet-like granular, slushy texture. No matter, it tastes pretty incredible and can claim to be gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, almost sugar free (one tablespoon! and it was my idea, not the recipe), and even vegan. Who would have thought I’d ever make something vegan?

This came to be, not only because I had a whole lot of cheaply bought baking bananas that I couldn’t get rid of fast enough, but because Tim and Paul (with a little help from the rest of us) valiantly cleaned out our fridge (well, one of them; we are a two-fridge family in this flat) which was so bung that the ice growth on the back wall had literally grown over some of our food and encased it. Anyway, they found a half-bag of frozen berries that I’d bought and were going to biff them (I know) but luckily thought I might want them. And so, to justify their existense, and to get rid of the scary bananas, I made Jill Dupleix’ icecream from Lighten Up.


Above: I don’t go in for bananas in a huge way, but good grief this is delicious. And not because of all that it lacks, or even because of all the vitamins and potassium it contains (though I believe they do add that extra zing) but because of what it has: a gorgeous, deeply pink hue; an amazing sorbet-like texture, and the intense flavour of fruit, unadulterated and allowed to taste of itself. (I know, I know, I’ve totally been drinking her Kool-Aid)

I think (lazily) that Dupleix’ recipe is a little unnecessarily complicated, so here’s what I did: Take six or so ripe bananas (cut away any brown bits) and chop them very roughly into a bowl. I mean, cutting them in two is fine. Tumble in 150g of frozen raspberries (I had a berry mix which gives a lovely purple tinge to the pink mixture) or more if you like, I didn’t bother to measure what I had but I think it was actually more than that. I also added a tablespoon of brown sugar to add a little sweetness; Dupleix specifies fresh berries which are sweeter. Leave them for twenty or so minutes for the berries to soften. Throw the whole lot in the food processor, blend till thoroughly smooth. Tip back into the bowl, or an icecream container, and freeze, stirring to break up ice particles at some stage of the proceedings. You won’t be sorry.

Whither the dinner in all this?


Above: On Wednesday night I put sausages, potatoes, onions (love roast onions) yellow peppers and beetroot into a couple of roasting dishes, shoved them in the oven, and came back maybe an hour later to find dinner ready. Although Tim likes his sausages fried, they are so much easier done in the oven and I admit I rather like the hard, crispy exoskeleton they acquire after roasting. You probably already know how I feel about roasted beetroot; if not: LOVE IT.

This weekend is going to be instensely busy, what with extended family driving down from home, old-but-not-forgotten flatmate Kieran showing up on our doorstep yesterday with several bottles of hard liquor, creative differences with my photography teacher to sort out, tests to study for, mini-essays to write, and The Food Show. You can guess which of these things I am excited about. I have been practising for the Food Show (Hello, I’m a food blogger in the Wellington region. May I take a photo? Hello, I’m a food blogger….)
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Oh and I booked a ticket to see Rent in Palmerston North next Friday. Am very excited, even if I’m going alone. Tim wouldn’t be tricked by reverse psychology (“didn’t want you to come anyway!”) and there was no pending birthday to use an excuse, in fairness to him he was a very good sport about it last time. As luck would have it our recent flatmate Stefan has moved to The Palm so I have a spare room to crash in. All’s I am saying is, they’d better not kill off Mimi like Levin did…that’s right, I’m still not over it.