Category: Nigella Lawson

Grainspotting

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It has recently occurred to me that while I frequently wax lyrical about rolled oats and quinoa flakes and kibbled dust and the like, I rarely consider them in their most natural state: porridge. I have a few childhood porridge-memories – my late maternal grandfather making it for me when I stayed with him, having a bowlful at Nana’s place and bemusing her (I distinctly remember this bit for some reason if you’re reading Nana!) by sprinkling over white, instead of brown, sugar. To be frank I wasn’t the biggest fan of its blandly creamy flavour, I ate it more out of an early-indoctrinated sense of politeness than anything else. But, as you may have gathered from my endless praise, I’m having something of a porridge revolution. I guess that would make this Revolution 1 (as opposed to “number 9…number 9…” get thee to the Beatles White Album if you don’t know what I’m on about. Not that I know what they’re on about.)

Even though it sounds faintly vile, I tend to have cold ‘porridge’ in the mornings – just oats, and whatever other kibbled and ground bits I have to hand, with cold water stirred in, and a dash of cinnamon. The oats soften remarkably quickly – I usually leave them sitting wetly for about five minutes – and the fragrant cinnamon makes me feel like I’m actually eating something more than paste. The ratio usually goes something like; 2 1/2 T oats, 2 1/2 T quinoa flakes, 1 T wheat bran, 1 T ground linseeds, 1 shake cinnamon, water to cover. What you see in the picture above though, is actual porridge…after a Swiss Ball class at uni on Wednesday I felt like something a little sustaining and warm, as it was inevitably raining again. So I microwaved the bowl of oats for a bit and added a swirl of golden syrup – perfect! It’s funny, even though I was not, as aforementioned, a massive fan of it as a child, there seems something so wonderfully comforting about eating it now.

Forget what the Milo and Cornflake and Nutella ads tell you about sustained energy for today’s kids, oats are so filling it’s ridiculous. When I wasn’t having them for breakfast, I always would end up feeling all light-headed and incompetent around 10am, and now I just feel incompetent (sh-k-boom!) but in all honesty, I can putter along quite happily till 1 or 2 without really needing to eat a thing, I realise this is hardly a new revelation – I’ve mentioned it before on this blog in fact – but until you try – she says wide eyed and evangelically – you have no idea of the difference it makes.

Before you run away in fear from my Flanders-like enthusiasm (“it’s less fun that way!”), I present you the dairy-laden spectre of cheesecake.

In the name of journalistic integrity, I can’t tell you toooo much about this cheesecake, as I made it for the September issue of Tearaway magazine. I was getting a bit freaked out because it has been raining nonstop here in Wellington (and most of NZ in fact) for the last couple of weeks – oh, you think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. Utterly, utterly mercifully, it eased up on Tuesday afternoon and I had a window of opportunity to take some photos in natural light. Thank goodness, otherwise who knows what I would have done (my deadline is a-looming!). Anyway, I won’t show you all the rather nice photos I took, because they’re for the mag, but I couldn’t resist just one, especially because it is such a great recipe, and absolutely fuss-free – no gelatine to deal with (which, in my case, inevitably turns into gooey strings instead of folding coherently into the mixture) and no baking. Five points if you guess who the recipe is from. Oh that’s right…

Cherry Cheesecake from Nigella Express.
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By the way, this is only ‘cherry ‘ by way of the conserves that she specifies you heap on top of the finished cheesecake. I’m sure you could use anything you fancy without the Cheesecake Police coming after you.
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Base:
200g plain sweet biscuits (Nigella says 125g but friend, I like a thick base)
75g soft butter (I tend to trust Nidge’s instinct for butter, and didn’t add any more)

Blitz the biscuits in the food processor with the butter, press into a 20cm Springform.

Filling:
300g cream cheese (At room temp, unless you have serious guns)
60g icing sugar
Juice of a lemon
250mls cream

Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice. In another bowl, whip the cream, then fold, about quarter at a time, into the cream cheese. Pile onto the base, smooth…refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight…and that’s it. It does hold together, despite not having much to it, and is coolly, creamily, tangily delicious. I don’t know if it’s just me – do all family parties have a buffet table? – but it is just begging for a can of drained, crushed pineapple to be folded through the mixture too.
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By the way, thanks for the suggestions regarding the brisket, I cooked it tonight (didn’t photograph, as I still find it difficult to make stews look anything other than sloppy), slowly with canned tomatoes, garlic, onion, cumin, nutmeg, a pinch of…tumeric…twas delicious! As I said before, natural light is a bit of a rarity here. Not only does it rain whenever I leave the house, it also seems to be particularly deluge-inous whenever I leave the house for Swiss Ball class at the uni rec centre. Maybe someone up there is trying to say something. We don’t have it so bad though – Mum and Dad have been repeatedly without power, their driveway was flooded and a tree fell over, and Tim’s parents’ farm is a complete mess, with several sheds absolutely smashed. It’s scary how quickly it all happened.

Next time: might be a little while off as I am getting freaked out with assignments for uni. However, I absolutely excelled myself as far as time management goes by mixing and kneading a loaf of bread this morning before work (at 7.30am). I left it to rise in the fridge, and baked it to go with dinner when I got home at half five, and I will blog about it when I get the chance, should the photos be useable.

Finally – finally – Tim and I splashed out on tickets to see the marvelously hilarious Bill Bailey (of the intensely funny Black Books show, etc) when he comes to New Zealand! They were pretty expensive but we run a fairly tight ship most days of the year and it will coincide with his birthday. Tim’s, not Bill’s. And we are totally going to wait at the stage door for him! Squee!

Solid Gold Easy Action

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These potatoes are neither radioactive nor laced with the sort of E-numbers that will keep a three year old awake for a week. It is in fact, my new friend tumeric, which I’m sneaking into everything these days. It has a squillion medicinal properties (and Mum, according to Wikipedia it repels ants if you sprinkle it in the garden), a delightfully earthy sweet flavour, and stains your food pleasingly, eye-scorchingly yellow.

Panchphoran Aloo, or potatoes with whole spices, comes from Nigella’s seminal text How To Eat and is what I made for dinner tonight. HTE is so densely packed full of wonderful recipes that with initial reads it is impossible to take everything in. It took me a while to pick up on this fabulous potato dish but now I’ve made it so many times that I don’t even use the (tumeric-smudged) book anymore. What you want to do: Get lots of floury potatoes, scrub them and then parboil for five-ten minutes. Nigella doesn’t instruct you to do this, but it makes them a lot easier to cook. Drain and dice the potatoes, then toss them into a hot, non-stick pan, stirring occasionally still somewhat golden. Add a spoonful or so of the following and stir: cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fenugreek, fennel seeds, mustard seeds…tumeric. There’s a bit of standing and stirring involved but it’s really simple to make and tastes marvelous, especially with plenty of sea salt.

This is a very cheap meal for me because I have all those spices to hand (including a 500g catering-sized pack of cumin seeds that I’ve made surprising headway with) but I can see why the lesser-stocked amongst you might freak out at an ingredients list like that. I find health food stores really handy for cheap bags of spices and things if you want to start somewhere. There’s one on Cuba Street which has all manner of enticing wee bags of things…that I am quite embarrassingly addicted to purchasing. Last time I was there (on the way to The Dark Knight) I walked out clutching 2 bags of quinoa flakes, a bag of kibbled rye, a bag of ground linseeds and a bag of bran. It’s addictive I tells ye.

By the way, I apologise for the harsh photography. I’m having ongoing camera issues, which, coupled with the total lack of natural light here (it has rained for about 3 weeks straight) does not good food porn maketh. I also apologise if this post is lacklustre…these assignments are keeping me stressed and busy, instead of stressed and stationary.

With the rain and the sleet and the damp and the cold comes a couple of benefits. For example: steamed pudding. I first bought my pudding steamer in the infant days of this blog (back when I had permanent poor exposure and no depth of field, ah, circularity) and it occurred to me that it hadn’t gotten any use in a while. A casual flick through Nigella’s delicious How To Be A Domestic Goddess (while I should have been doing something more productive) had me longing suddenly to introduce butter to its amigos sugar and flour. You have to get going in advance – the whole two hours steaming thing – but apart from that these things practically make themselves. And they’re so delicious, not stodgy at all, but miraculously light. And I love the way a fat, golden jammy slice of this pudding slowly soaks up the milk pooling in the base of the bowl…I highly recommend you look up all your very old cookbooks, you know, the sort that have recipes for salads set with gelatine, and make yourself a darned steamed pudding. Unless you’re in the northern hemisphere in which case maybe wait a few months. It’s one of the best things about this weather.

If I can’t be perky, nothing livens things up like the neighbourhood cat – seriously, I defy you to view this and not feel the slightest stirrings of mirth in your soul.


Above: This isn’t our cat. If the landlord is reading, this isn’t even a cat, it’s…a teddy bear (ceci n’est pas un chat?) But seriously, it’s this kitteh that hangs round our ‘hood and occasionally stands by the door looking cute and vulnerable and what would you do? Turns out that its most natural, ideal sleeping position is…face-planted. Did you know cats can breathe out their ears?

Next time: I’m not sure, again, so I’m also not sure why I persist with this “next time” feature. I bought some brisket though, with a view to cooking it slowly somehow…any suggestions?

A Cake Is A Cake Is A Cake Is A Cake Is A

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Tim and I have been studying the sometimes-unapproachable poetry of Gertrude Stein in our American Lit class. I didn’t know an awful lot about her before this, apart from the fact that she was namechecked in (a) an Anastasia Krupnik novel and (b) the La Vie Boheme number from Rent. (Interestingly, Langston Hughes, who we will be discussing in our next lecture, also had a glass raised to him in this song.) It would be pretty cruel of me to write this post to write this post in the style of Gertrude Stein, if I were to write this in the style if I were, if I were, if I were to write the style of, if I were to, would it, if I were, in the style, in the in the in the Gertrude Stein if I were, if I were to, would you if I were, would you throw your computer out the window and send me hate mail?

And would I even be writing in the style of Gertrude Stein or in fact of the publisher who archly rejected her? “Hardly one copy should sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one.”

Anyhoodle, enough highbrow literary references – on with the cake!

I’ve made Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from Feast before, and her Chocolate Fudge Cake from Nigella Bites, and this cake above, the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake from How To Be A Domestic Goddess is in fact somewhere in the middle of the two. It disappeared quickly and is, like the others in the tripartite, a rather perfect cake. It’s not overly rich, but moist and cocoa-y, and has lots of lovely, creamy icing which softly sandwiches the two layers together. It’s also simple to make, the sort of thing you can knock together on the spur of the moment – as I did. A rose is a rose, but a cake is not just a cake, it brings joy – well, maybe the making of it only brings happiness to a food nerd like me, but the eating of it is something else altogether.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake (slightly adapted because Nigella seems to like using lots of bowls, which is all very well and good if you actually have a dishwasher)

200g butter
200g sugar
2 large eggs
40g best cocoa
150mls sour cream
200g plain flour
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 1/2 t best vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 C, and butter and line two 20cm cake tins. Beat the butter and sugar together thoroughly, add the eggs, cocoa, and fold in the flour, raising agents and sour cream. For some reason the mixture was a little too stiff (hee) for me, I’m sure adding a tablespoon or so of milk won’t harm anything. Spread between the two tins – and it will be stiff stuff – and bake for 30 minutes, allowing the cakes to cool thoroughly after. They will look woefully flat, but once sandwiched thickly with icing it will appear more pleasingly majestic.

Icing

150g dark chocolate
80g butter
125g sour cream
1 T golden syrup
Icing sugar

Melt the butter and chocolate together, and let it cool a little. Stir in the syrup and sour cream, and enough sifted icing sugar to create a deliciously spreadable mixture. Use it to sandwich an ice the two cakes, and then…lick the bowl.

Rather uncharacteristically, it was a two-cake week. Wherefore? Well, the local Glengarry bottle shop had a fire a while back and had only just re-opened…on a whim Tim and I went in for a look, I have to say the people that work there are always very polite to us and answer our questions very seriously (even if we’re wearing those grey trackpants with elasticated ankles…both of us…) Before I knew it Tim had purchased some Guinness and implored me to make Nigella’s world-famous-in-our-flat Chocolate Guinness Cake. I can’t say no to a request like that.

I’ve made this before, several times in fact, and it is always astounding. The combination of dark, bitter beer and chocolate cake may sound like some kind of fusion-nightmare, but it is a ridiculously, rapturously good pairing. It has just occured to me that while I’ve blogged about this cake many times, I’ve never posted a recipe for it, I might as well change that right now. This page in Feast has become smudged with cocoa and smeared with batter; when I open the book a small dust-cloud of flour rises. Therefore it is with no small recommendation that I give you this recipe.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

By the way, I didn’t mistype the amount of sugar. Yes, it’s a scary amount, but…it’s a big cake. And it’s not overpoweringly sweet in the slightest.

250mls Guinness
250g butter
75g cocoa
400g sugar
145mls sour cream (one of those little yoghurt-tub sized, er, tubs)
2 eggs
1 T real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 1/2 t baking soda

Okay. So, set your oven to 180 C and butter/line a 23cm springform tin. First of all you want to get a big ‘ol pan, pour in the Guinness and add the butter – cut into small pieces – and gently heat it so the butter melts. It shouldn’t bubble, keep the heat low. Now, simply stir in the rest of the ingredients – I use a spatula – and pour into your tin. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. The kitchen will smell heavenly, I promise you.

Once cool, ice with a mixture of 200g cream cheese (NOT low-fat), 125mls whipped cream, and 150g icing sugar folded together.

This, like Dame Helen Mirren, only gets better with time. I would find myself making excuses to go to the kitchen to shave off thin slices…and I wasn’t the only one, the cake swiftly shrank, chunk by chunk, getting denser and tastier and intensely more delicious with each day.

What’s that noise? Oh yeah. It’s your conscience, saying “mmmmaaaa-aaa-aake the chocolate Guinness cake…”

And finally, because like cakes, not all cookies are created equal, I bring you, erm, cookies.

These also make a very regular appearance, in fact I hardly even photograph them these days. However there was actually something resembling natural light outside yesterday (hey, it is Winter) after I pulled these out of the oven so I quickly started snapping. These cookies are amazing, as I said I make them lots, but the best thing about the recipe is that it’s so forgiving, and…it contains oats. Much like lentils, oats have a special place in my heart (perhaps near the arteries, holding a cool, soothing hand to whatever their feverish forehead would be) and I love incorporating them into my food wherever possible.

This particular batch of cookies contain shards of intense, 80% cocoa dark chocolate, ground linseeds, poppy seeds and – oh yes I did go there – quinoa flakes. I realise this makes them sound like Little Patties of Earnest Nastiness, but they taste exactly like chocolate chunk cookies ought to, because all the extras just sort of melt into them. They are in fact, my favourite permutation of these cookies, and trust me there have been several varations on this theme.

And they’re practically healthy. I mean quinoa. It even owns lentils in terms of greatness and lets face it, a few nutty flakes of quinoa are more appealing in a cookie than a paste of cooked lentils.

Sugar Never Tasted So Good

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I have been a little frugal with my posting lately. This is partly due to the useless light for food photography (it’s pitch black outside at 5.30pm and glaringly lit within by energy-saver bulbs), but also, happily, because my mother and godmother were in town on a conference and have been recklessly indulging Tim and I in many meals out in town. Being relatively impoverished students we rarely go to restaurants and cafes so this was rather thrilling. As you may have read in my last post, I have been making a lot of soup for dinner – it’s so cheap – but there has been the occasional sweet respite hither and thither amongst the lentils and wholegrains. When it’s this cold outside – and inside – can you see your breath when you exhale in your house? – dinner alone isn’t always enough, one needs more, more more in the form of something (inevitably) buttery and sugary.

Crumble is the pudding I always turn to when I am cold and require quick solace and am unable to ignore my instinct to continue eating after dinner. The other night, as with all nights, I was feeling that way, and decided that an apple crumble for Tim and I wouldn’t be the end of the world. I plumped out the apples with a diced kiwifruit, and made a veeeerry generous topping of crumble (well, what’s the point if it’s only a mere sprinkling?) out of all manner of good things – butter, flour, custard powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, oats, bran…

They were, like every crumble in the world, absolutely perfect. In particular I liked the nuttiness of the oats, the creaminess that the custard powder imparted, and the sharpness of the kiwifruit…


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I made the Pineapple Upside Down Cake from Nigella Express quite a while ago now but never got round to blogging about it what with one thing and another. It couldn’t be easier to make and is very good, I do love canned pineapple (drinking the leftover juice straight out of the can was always something I loved doing as a child) and it caramelises nicely under the batter. Unfortunately my can of pineapple rings didn’t cover the tin properly so I arranged some dried apricots here and there to fill in the gaps. Though you may think Nigella’s assertion that the inclusion of pineapple juice makes the cake layer fluffier is fanciful at best but honestly, it does…

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

100g each of butter, sugar, and flour
2 eggs
1 can of pineapple slices in juice (by my calculations you need 7 pieces), juice reserved
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
2 T sugar, extra

Set oven to 200 C. Nigella recommends either a 20cm tarte Tatin tin or a 23 cm cake tin, I, like perhaps many of you, do not own a tin de Tatin and so used the 23cm cake tin…I think a 20cm one would be better but then I do prefer a thicker layer of cake. Anyway, if you’re using a cake tin it’s not allowed to be a springform or loosebottomed one – for once. Sprinkle the 2 T extra sugar over the base of your tin and arrange the pineapple on top. Then, simply throw the rest of the ingredients in the food processor (or proceed with a wooden spoon) and make sure you remember to add 3 T of the reserved pineapple juice. Spread this over the pineapple, and don’t go eating any batter because there’s not a lot to go round. Bake for 30 minutes then carefully invert onto a plate. Slice into golden wedges of retro-deliciousness.

.It’s not all puddings. Sometimes a gal’s just got to bake gratuitiously. Oh sure, I can tell myself it’s for when Tim gets low blood sugar – and these have justified its existence in that respect more than once – but really, I just made these Apple Blondies for the sheer what-the-heckery of wanting to bake. I knew as soon as I saw the recipe on Kelly-Jane’s blog – and see it too for reference – that I was going to make them, and soon.

The first time I made these, I reduced the sugar greatly (Well, there’s 5 cups! In once recipe!) and halved the icing. They were great, but I realised the icing was there for a reason: it’s frigging magical. So, when I made them again just the other day, I was a bit more careful. I reduced the sugar in the batter, and replaced some of said sugar with dark, crumbly muscovado, which is so dense and caramelly and perfect with apples. I reduced the sugar by about a third in the icing, which meant there was still a nice thick spread of it. I doubled the apple content of the batter and added some milk because it seemed quite dry, which made for a much nicer blondie than my first batch. So, I might as well give you my adaptation of the recipe, but see Kelly-Jane’s blog for the original. Can I just point out though, that the original recipe calls for 2/3 of a cup of butter. Are there any Americans out there who can enlighten me how you measure butter in this way? America has bestowed upon us some fabulous things – Motown, The Baby Sitters Club, Idina Menzel, Johnny Cash, the concept of peanut butter as an ingredient…but I can’t fathom how measuring butter in cups is a good way of going about things.
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Apple Blondies with Brown Sugar Icing
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180g butter, softened
1 1/4 cups brown sugar (or a mix of brown and muscovado sugar, which I recommend)
2 eggs
2 apples, skin on, diced
2 cups plain flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 cup milk
As many walnuts as you like…although I find Brazil nuts lovely here.

This recipe is delightfully simple. Set your oven to 180 C and line a medium brownie tin (13 x 9 inches is what the recipe says) Beat the butter and sugar till fluffy and aerated, then add the eggs. If you are using a wooden spoon like I was, this will take a bit of muscle. Next, merely fold in the rest of the ingredients carefully, adding a little more milk if you deem it necessary. At this point do not whatever you do taste the mixture or you will never make it to the finished product. It is truly delicious stuff. Spread it into your prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes. Once cool, make the icing…

125g butter
1/2 cup muscovado sugar
2 T milk
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
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Melt the butter and muscovado sugar together in a saucepan, then add the milk, stirring all the time. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat. Stir in the icing sugar once it has cooled a little, I didn’t actually measure the icing sugar at all, just stirred it in till I was happy with the consistency. Using a spatula, spread over your now-cooled blondies…

This stuff is wickedly, ridiculously, marvelously delicious. Prepare to win friends and influence people as they bid for a slice of it. If you can possibly help it, hold out till the next day (baking this at midnight if you have to) because it gets even better with a bit of time sitting round. I say this as a big fan of caramelly flavoured things, but it seems to be a crowd-pleaser across the board. Such superlatives have not been bandied about in my flat since the Chocolate Guinness Cake I made for St Paddy’s.

It has been a busy week, inbetween having a lovely time catching up with Mum, Tim and I were also in our first week back at uni. So far my classes are interesting (I’m in my third year of tertiary education and ‘interesting’ is the best I can come up with?) but I think it will be full-on as far as assignments are concerned.

Next time: I try Quinoa for the first time, thanks to Mum for giving me a bag of it…

O Broth, Where Art Thou?

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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:

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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…

Like A Rolling Scone

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Sure, New Zealand has the Fiordlands, and the Franz Josef Glacier, and well, the whole South Island, but really as far as cities go, I truly think Wellington is the best we have to offer. If any bands or singers are reading this, (I’m looking at you, Joan Wasser and Jack White) don’t bother playing in Auckland. Sure it has a million inhabitants, but Wellington has genuine charm and a dense concentration of everything essential for a travelling roadshow – eateries, drunkeries, and self-conscious hipsters. As a pink-cheeked country gal, I still find living in the city rather thrilling. Though, I know I’ve become acclimatised because I have developed a special look of cold, steely hatred reserved solely for those miscreants who dare to walk on the wrong side of the footpath at 5pm. Yes, there is a wrong side.

But as well as charm in bucket-fountain-loads, Wellington also has wind. I felt like the sorry love child of Dorothy Gale and Nanook of the North yesterday as the wind literally manhandled me to work , my 12 coats flapping about and – I kid you not (though I was kidding about the 12 coats) – my iPod headphones flew out of my ears. Yes, it’s windy here.

Where am I going with this? Frankly, nowhere. I just felt like complaining about the weather.

Our flat is close-ish to some local shops, one of which is a small but charming deli, where I bought a crumbly wedge of cloth-aged cheddar on Saturday. The deli boasts an enticing range of cheeses, meats, cakes, and other sundry items – gluten free pasta, quinoa, nifty olive oils, you know the sort of thing I mean. The girl behind the counter not only accepted my business cards graciously, she also suggested quince as a good pairing and gave me a small piece of the cheese to sample before I purchased it. If you ever find yourself meandering aimlessly on Upland Road, thinking “where on earth can I spend my money” may I suggest you stop in here? It’s the only deli on the street, so you can’t miss it.

As it happened I had some of Nigella’s quince glaze still knocking about in the fridge, which would provide a sweet contrast to the sharp, tangy cheese. To provide a third contrasting flavour, I whipped up some oaty scones, based on Alison Holst’s basic recipe, from her Dollars and Sense cookbook that my brother got me for Christmas. I added some extra bits – oats, bran, poppyseeds – and was hoping they wouldn’t end up all lumpen and horrible but they turned out very fluffy and light.

Alison Holst’s Scones…ish.

I got seven good sized scones out of this. I never roll the dough out, just scoop up a scone-sized lump with a spoon. Makes for the least amount of handling and has constantly given me light scones…Could be that I’m too lazy to break out the rolling pin though.

2 cups self-raising flour
2 t sugar (optional)
25-50g butter (guess which I went for?)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water

Heat oven to 200 C. Rub the butter, flour, and sugar (if using, and I used a squirt of golden syrup added with the milk instead) together in a bowl until there are no large lumps of butter. Here I added a handful of bran, a handful of quick-cook oats, and a tablespoon of poppyseeds. Pour in the liquid all at once, and carefully stir till everything is sticky. Careful not to overmix. Put good sized spoonfuls (which I pat into a uniform shape) onto a baking-paper lined tray and bake for about 20 minutes.

Above: The three components worked together fabulously. This particular cheese really is very intense, but there was almost something addictive about the salty astringent cheddar and sweet, sweet quince glaze together. The nutty solidness of the scones provided a calming background to this. Or something. It made for a delightful and elegant supper. I began thinking of other ways I could eat this cheddar- perhaps with maple syrup, a handful of walnuts, and a crisp apple…oatcakes, a smear of honey, and slices of pear…Tim really liked it too, which surprised but pleased me, as his tastes can be a little more conservative than mine. I’ll never forget our terse, lengthy debate over the differences betweeen olive and canola oil….


Above: The scones were also terriff with slowly-melting butter pooling in their oaty crevices. Expense be damned, happiness is a warm scone.

By the way, we – Tim, Katie, Emma, Scott (our fabulous doctor friend) and I watched the first episode of Outrageous Fortune Season 4 on TV3 last night. Friends, it was sublime. Tip o’ the old cap to TV3 for managing to hold on to this gem. Cheryl is as awe-inspiring as ever, and Wolf is back in a big way, which means that Katie and I are constantly having mad palpitations of the heart. Kudos on the producers’ choice of child to play Loretta’s baby – she really is a cutie. The episode started off solidly and then built to sheer gloriousness. The only thing that stings is the lack of Judd, for goodness’ sake come back to Cheryl and don’t get back with Glen or whatever your ex-wife’s name is. That is one plot trajectory that we all roundly agreed would result in boycotting (okay not really, but definitely in fists being shook.) For those of you overseas, I offer a patronising, pitying smile, because you are missing out on TV GOLD. Did you know you can buy it on DVD through Fishpond? Ugh, I’m sorry. (But really, it’s a fact.)

However, you don’t have to live in New Zealand to see this interview with Van/Jethro actor and possibly the best looking famous man in New Zealand, Anthony Starr. (I can’t pretend I’ve never found an All Black attractive – there was the short-lived Doug Howlett frenzy of 2003 – but really, look outside the square, people.) I’ve said it once before but it bears repeating; during scenes with Van and Jethro together, he has chemistry with himself.

Above: As you may have noticed I’m having a bit of a fling with poppy seeds at the moment, I just want to put them in everything for some reason. Luckily Tim and I are way past that “maintain a sense of mystery stage” so I don’t have to worry about the dreaded poppy-seeds-in-the-teeth situation arising, with people delicately pretending to ignore it and then you find out three days later what’s happened (inevitably meeting every possible person you don’t want to see in the process.) It’s the culinary equivalent of hoisting your skirt into your pantyhose (and I’ve so been there too…)

Erm, anyway I had this idea of incorporating poppy seeds and my Boyajian orange oil into a shortbread recipe. Then I thought that adding a spoonful of raspberry jam would be cool. But I also wasn’t sure if it would be a socking great disaster, so in a surprisingly scientific move (from someone pathetically bad at science) I divided the dough into three, leaving a “control” group of plain shortbread so that if my dabbling in experimentation went wrong, I’d at least have a small pile of edible biscuits.

They were all delicious! I couldn’t be bothered coming up with a base recipe of my own, since most shortbread recipes are much of a muchness anyway – hey, I have Scottish heritage, don’t go getting up in arms – so I used Nigella’s basic recipe – 200g butter and flour, half that of icing sugar and cornflour – and did nothing to the control group save a dusting of vanilla sugar. For the orange and poppyseed biscuits I added half a teaspoon orange oil (it’s potent stuff!) and rolled the cylinder of dough in poppyseeds. For the raspberry orange poppyseed biscuits I added orange oil, a tablespoon of poppyseeds, and two tablespoons of Tim’s diabetic-friendly raspberry jam (which is so much better than most commercial jams, because it’s way fruitier.)

Fun and educational!

Above: Shortbread, three ways. There’s probably an off-colour joke in there somewhere, but I’m too lazy, or perhaps not lazy enough, to think it up.

I’m not sure if it’s good news or not but Tim managed to scrape together enough money through various loans to cover the costs of his dental work (appointment this afternoon!) but they will need to be paid off which is kind of worrying especially when we’re trying to save. Seriously, these dentists better be giving him some diamond-plated grillz or something for what they’re charging. Anyway, Tim and I got all righteous and “damn the man!” and wrote letters to both the Minister of Health (David Cunliffe) and the Minister of Tertiary Education (Pete Hodgson). We asked the hard questions – actually they’re not that hard, seriously, how do these people get paid so well to make so many illogical decisions – and I hope we get a reply. A thought-out, not automated reply. But think nice, anethatised thoughts for Tim this afternoon as his teeth get prodded. Whatever we have for dinner tonight, I’m guessing it’s going to have to come in puree form…
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Overheard in our kitchen:

Tim: These carrot sticks are really nice.
Me: Cool.
Tim: What’d you do to them?
Me: Put them in the bowl that the pork fat had been in.
Tim: Ohh…

“Sell Out, With Me Oh Yeah!”

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I never thought I’d have reason to quote the one-hit ska-punk band Reel Big Fish on my blog but life takes you to some funny places. You may have noticed a new feature of my sidebar, if not, may I subtly direct your attention to it? I’ve been aware for a long time that it’s possible to advertise stuff on one’s blog, but I resisted, because of some would-be righteous “it ain’t me” attitude I suppose, (although the idea of being submerged Daltrey-style in a bathtub of baked beans is engaging)…however I figured if I can gain some revenue off this site then I have no reason not to try at least.

I admit, Fishpond is a little expensive but let me state my case; for kiwis, most things are cheaper on Trademe, but this site has access to all sorts of difficult-to-find texts (including Idina Menzel’s gorgeous but not-released-here album I Stand – if you like slightly overproduced MOR, buy it and she might finally come tour New Zealand!*) which you could never find in Whitcoulls let alone on Trademe, and if you are from America or Britain or elsewhere, as I know several of my readers are, why not give Amazon a miss for once and play the Fun Exchange Rate Game? Buy a book for NZ$50 and it will only cost you about three pounds or ten US dollars! Minutes of pleasure to be gained, I tells ye. And to cap it off any moolah I gain is going towards Tim’s and my savings fund. Like I said, there’s no harm in trying…and watch out for subliminal messages throughout the post…

BUY STUFF OFF FISHPOND BY CLICKING THE ICON ON THE RIGHT

Okay, that was veering on the side of super-liminal. I don’t want to coerce people in any way, this is a place of food, and Nigella-worship, and self-indulgent pop culture references, not some kind of mercenary avaricious…um, I’m losing steam here. What I’m saying is, no pressure, nothing ventured nothing gained, and time for ham.


Above: So I made Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola the other night, and it was behaving worse than the most petulant hamster on ANTM, that is, it was very difficult to get a decent shot. I had to resort to using the flash button to get any kind of photo at all. Much to Tim’s horror, I professed my love of the the cola/pork simmering liquid, and only dug myself further into a hole of shame when I tried to explain how I wasn’t eating the pork fat, just the pork attached to the fat…Oh dear. Before I put you off forever, this is a truly delicious recipe, the Coca Cola imbuing the ham with a beguiling, addictive spicy sweetness. In England, you would buy gammon, in New Zealand, pickled pork, and it is merely simmered in a potful of sinisterly bubbling fizz (with a bobbing onion for added flavour) before being briefly flashed in the oven with a treacly, mustardy glaze. Trashy as it sounds, this is one of the very nicest things you could possibly have the good fortune to eat…


Above: A slightly more sedate, less carnal-tastic photo. We managed to make this last THREE meals, even though we could have happily snarfed the entire 1.5kilos by the fistful on day one. I made a surprisingly lovely parsnip orzotto the next day, into which I stirred some diced leftover ham, and then we finished the ham, sliced as above, with a salad the day after that.


Above: This is one of those meals that comes about after scanning your cupboards and fridge and trying to make things fit together coherently…I roasted diced pumpkin, a whole red chilli, a bulb (yes, a whole bulb, what can I say, I like it) of garlic and once everything was done I left the pumpkin to cool a little while I vented any frustrations I might have had on the garlic and chilli in my pestle and mortar, adding cinnamon, sea salt, and olive oil. I don’t know what made me go for cinnamon, I was thinking nutmegnutmegnutmeg as you often do when dealing with pumpkin but made the last minute switch and it was really good – the warmth of the cinnamon reflected the muted heat of the roasted chilli rather pleasingly. So, where was I…I poured the dressing over the pumpkin and added a drained can of borlotti beans, mixing it gently, and finally sprinkled over gorgeously nutty poppy seeds. The only real bad thing about this was…I got the wrong beans. Cannelini beans are great for diabetics, lots of slow-release carbs and little sugar. Borlotti beans have about as much carbs as a steak. So Tim had to have some toast after this. This salad could, if you ate enough of it, make a decent lunch in its entirety as well as being an out-of-the-ordinary side dish which is how we had it. And as you can imagine, it’s even better the next day when the dressing has really steeped into everything.


Above: And of course, there have been noodles. I have eaten so much noodle-based stuff lately, mostly soba or udon floating snakily in broth, but there was also this marvelous stirfry, inspired by a post on the stunning stunning stunning Use Real Butter blog. Sometimes I don’t even photograph the noodle-food (foodle?) we eat in case you become weary of overexposure towards it…actually, and I digress violently and suddenly, I have noticed on my travels that I am one of the only bloggers who talks about more than one meal per post. I don’t see many other bloggers attempting to fashion their titles out of song lyrics or obscure puns either. I don’t know how you do it, to be honest. I salute you for your ability to be concise, regular with your posting, and lucid with your titles. Hopefully my method isn’t too confusing.


Above: Back to the noodles. For all that the stir fry conjures up images of a swift, healthy, crisp dinner, I find that it’s very easy to get wrong, greasy, over and undercooked at the same time, and boring. Somehow though, in my hamfisted way, I cobbled together a really nearly perfect one and true to form, didn’t write down what I did. There were lots of capsicums, and I simmered the carrots and parsnips in with the noodles. The oyster sauce that I added was the thing that made it special I think, along with the miso in the ginger-carrot emulsion (adapted from the recipe on Use Real Butter) that I stirred through. Not just plain salty, but complex and savoury and richly flavoursome. The ginger-carrot thing was supposed to be a salad dressing but something about the combination of ingredients made me think they’d work in a stir fry, and oh, how they did.

It just occured to me recently that I should give credit to Marc, he of the elegant No Recipes blog, for the idea of using green tea as a broth for noodles, he mentioned it on his blog and I tried (and loved) it and wrote about it a post or two ago, and should have known I couldn’t have come up with something as nifty as that on my own…Perfect for after sweating it out after a Bikram Yoga class (and inevitably one gets stuck next to the hairy, flatulent guy who wants to get in touch with more than just his chakras) or indeed any time you want your comfort food to be light but nourishing. I have this quite often, but as I mentioned just before, have spared you many bog-standard shots of it in my white soup bowls…




New Zealand is such a funny little country. I had been working at my current job for about a year when I found out that the receptionist, Kerry, is related to me. In hindsight it makes so much sense, despite our differences there is a kinship between us – fostered, I believe, by a love of the ridiculous and the beautiful – that makes me think “well how could I not have known that he and I were family.” Ah, New Zealand. Probably the only place where your mother taught the guy you just met at the bar, or your gyneacologist lived down the road from you and paid you to mow their lawns as a child, or your dentist is Peter Jackson’s aunty. Possibly even the Garden of Eden had more degrees of separation.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, to be honest. But anyway, across the road from where we work is a small, but perfectly formed, Belgian chocolate shop. I had resisted it for some time, for the obvious reasons – money – but Kerry one day surprised me with THREE chocolates from this shop – Melting Perfection – and I was utterly smitten with them. In the picture above is the White Chocolate Champagne Truffle, the Maple Cream, and the Poire William, which I bought on a whim today after nearly going insane – you think I’m exaggerating – from hours of dealing with invoices. These chocolates are some of the very, very best I’ve ever tasted. The Champagne Truffle was just ridiculous – the touch of alcohol providing that elusive note of flavour that somehow made the white chocolate taste butterier, creamier, but also lighter and not in any way cloying or over-sweet. The chocolates are beautiful, handmade, and taste like they were made by someone who knows what they were doing. If you are ever in Wellington you should absolutely go to their Featherston Street shop (#109, on the way to the railway station) and if you are not in Wellington, then friend, it’s worth the pilgrimage. For loving photography and a list of the imaginative chocolates they sell (and yes, there’s even something there for the sea-salt and caramel kids out there) visit their website: Melting Perfection. Mention my name when you visit their store and recieve a bewildered look!

 

*To clarify – from what I’ve managed to hear online I actually really like Idina Menzel’s new album (of course I do!) but it definitely falls into the realms of that category I dread – Adult Contemporary. It is a lot more polished and less kooky than her earlier pop efforts, probably because she wants to you know, shift some actual units, but is also a heck of a lot better and more real than any other misery-inducing music being put out these days in that bracket. Obviously her personality helps, as well as her unmistakeable voice, but the songs absolutely grew on me, and truly, I don’t listen to any music that I don’t genuinely love (life’s far too short.) I hope she collaborates with Jamie Cullum for the next one, they both have that confessional style of writing, and he knows his way round a likeable tune. Anyway, this album isn’t released for sale in New Zealand, (I’ve recieved many a funny look by asking for it at the counter at CD shops) and so if enough people buy it off a New Zealand site mayhaps her record company will want to send her out here for some kind of promotional tour (probably after I’ve scraped together just enough money from shilling her album to head overseas…)

12 Hour Party People

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Now for the dinner-type stuff, admittedly not as alluring as Budino di Cioccolata, but then healthy can have its charms…

This rather beautiful noodle broth that I made for dinner the other night is starting to feel like a very distant memory. I’m struggling to think of anything I ate in the last 24 hours that had any discernable vitamin content. But oh what a good time we had. Tim and I decided that we owed it to ourselves to bunglingly attempt drunkenness last night, what with the stress of the semester finishing and all. Unfortunately we didn’t get any photographic evidence (I spend 97% of my time in jeans or trackpants so when I do manage to get gussied up I like ocular proof) but we spanned the length and breadth of Cuba St and Courtney Place, dipping in and out of bars, (and stumbling into a house party) before settling in the Welsh Dragon. Mercifully it wasn’t raining and we didn’t run into any weirdos (although there was that wild-eyed lad at 2.30am in Burger King who cried “don’t be sucked in! It’s what the big corporations want!” before dashing off leaving a trail of saliva…) We’d had fish and chips for dinner and I finished the night with a bag of twisties (the best part, in my curmudgeonly opinion, of going out drinking, apart from coming home and going to bed) and then this morning we, along with Paul, Katie and Anna, shared two pizzas and some hot chips for brunch. It certainly seemed like a good idea at the time…


To be fair, Tim and I never go out so it’s not like this is some kind of vicious cycle we are entering. But yeah, I seem to veer wildly between eating healthily and culinary hedonism, I can’t seem to stick to a proper ‘plan’ if you know what I mean. Anyhow, for this broth I used a mixture of soba and udon noodles, which, did you know, are just ridiculously good for people with diabetes. In a 90g serving of noodles, there is something like 64g of carbohydrates, and ZERO grams of sugar. Sorry to be a bore, but as Tim is diabetic, and I cook for him, I have thrown myself rather zealously into the pursuit of foods with a good simple-to-complex-carb ratio.

This was kind of based on the “Noodle Soup for Needy People” from Nigella Express, except that I used almost none of the same ingredients as her. Nevertheless, the recipe itself kicked me into action to make it in the first place, and I certainly have been feeling needy this week, so credit where credit is due. I did something I’ve never tried before, and added (perhaps unorthodoxly) a Zen teabag (Green Tea with Peppermint) to the water in which the vegetables were simmering. I’ve heard of green tea being used as broth for noodles before and was intrigued, and thought the minty aspect could only but perk up the flavours. I also added a spoonful of miso paste, a star anise, soy sauce, and finished with the tiniest shake of sesame oil. So delicious, and so much more complex and exciting in flavour than you might first think. It is also genuinely quite soothing to eat if your nerves are feeling jangled. I will definitely be making this again, and soon…it is like lipbalm for your chapped soul.

I seem to be having something of a Nigella Express renaissance at the moment. It’s always fun rediscovering things…especially now that I have the time to do it.

This Lamb, Olive, and Caramelised Onion Tagine, also from NE, is just so delicious. I could have eaten the whole thing on my own. To be fair, I say that about a lot of things so I understand if you think I’m exaggerating. Trust me, I never exaggerate. I didn’t have the necessary jar of caramelised onions to hand – can you even get them in New Zealand? – so I just browned a couple of sliced onions and added a spoonful of brown sugar, hardly arduous stuff. You barely even need a recipe for this, just adjust proportions according to how many you have to feed. Place diced lamb, (the sort you need to slow cook), black pitted olives, capers, garlic, caramelised onions (or use my method) cumin, ginger, and good stock into a pot and either simmer (like I did) or bake gently for 1 1/2 -2 hours. I added frozen peas, because that’s how I roll, and served it on a nubbly bed of organic burghal wheat.

This post starts and ends with noodles it would seem. In Palmerston North (when I was there for Rent two weeks ago…or was it last week? Time is so blurry these days!) I found this shop by the bus stop which sold heaps of interesting food, including those vacuum packs of egg noodles for 79c! So I bought a couple and used one in a vaguely Chinese stir-fry thing the other day. Mince, a fat red chilli, vegetables, noodles, some soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil – very simple stuff, but very delicious. To be honest I didn’t actually use those chopsticks to eat dinner by the way, just put them in the photo to make it look a bit more interesting…

For dinner tonight I made the Baked Tomato Polenta again, but it didn’t look that great so I didn’t even try to photograph it. Good grief it tastes nice though. Tonight is quite the contrast to last night- watched the director commentary of Rent (again), which totally re-affirmed my love for that film, as well as making me wish they’d just left Goodbye Love uncut, (anyway!) made dinner, read a bit, perused youtube, sat in on some league game happening on TV in the lounge (slightly more interesting than rugby, but then so is paint drying) and here I am. I much prefer to go out on Friday night anyway – there is nothing nicer than waking up in the morning and thinking it’s only Saturday…

"I’m As Free As A Bird Now…"

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“and this bird you cannot change…ohhhhhh….*twelve minute guitar solo*….” ahem. Don’t mind me, I’m just practically floating due to the enormous weight lifted from my shoulders – to wit – my last photography class was today. Hence why I’ve been humming Freebird (a song that will forever remind me of my parents dancing at their 25th wedding anniversary party four years ago…and yes, there’s much more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Sweet Home Alabama for those of you who only have the Forest Gump soundtrack…)

Because I’m feeling so darn sweet I’ve decided to stick to pudding photos tonight…dinner can wait for another day. Last night I was in a sort of crazy limbo zone – I’d submitted my final assignment for photography but I still had today’s class to get through. However after all the many hours of my life that had gone into it (let me tell you, it’s not fun walking home through the red light district in torrential rain at 9.30pm and knowing you have to go back again tomorrow to wrangle photoshop) I decided that a small pudding would be appropriate. So; crumble for two.


Above: I didn’t follow Nigella’s recipe at all (I’m talking about the Jumbleberry Crumble from Nigella Express) apart from cooking times, but I definitely credit her with the inspiration. I mean, I didn’t have anything resembling “jumbleberries” and I always just make up my own crumble toppings…but I wouldn’t have thought to make it had I not been flicking through this book.

My version ended up having a base of canned peaches and a sliced apple. Low-rent, sure, but I love canned peaches, and I have a bit of a nostalgic view of them (well, as nostalgic as someone who only turned 22 last month can possibly be) since quite a few of the puddings I had as a child involved canned peaches…Peach crumble, for one thing, but also peach sponge-topped pudding, peaches and ice cream, peaches, cornflakes and evaporated milk…I tend to make a lot of crumble topping – even for two smallish ramekins – out of foresight, because there’s no use pretending I won’t eat half of it before it gets sprinkled on the fruit. Have you ever tried raw crumble topping? There’s something incredible about that combo of butter, brown sugar, flour…I also craftily added a large spoonful of custard powder which gave a certain creaminess to the crumble mixture, and made the fruit somehow saucier. Anyway before your arteries start throbbing in sympathy I added rolled oats to this as well which means that the butter barely even counts. These were so delicious – I don’t make crumble that much, but every time I do it feels like the perfect, unimprovable pudding and I wonder why the heck I ever make anything else.


Above: Buddino Di Cioccolata, half done. I knew I was going to want something rather ridiculous for pudding tonight to celebrate. What could be more ridiculous than this silky, silky chocolate pudding? (also from Nigella Express)

I used some of my Donovan’s 80% dark chocolate purchased from the Wellington Food Show. I only tried the milk (which is 50%) at the show, so I couldn’t resist having a nibble of this…I was very impressed, it was smooth and dark and slightly bitter but rounded (not sure if I’m describing this properly here) and perfect to counter the richness of this pudding. No recipe this time because I just can’t be bothered but I found a copy of it here (sorry it’s in American measurements though!)


Above: I took this photo on top of our washing machine. The cup was part of a Living Kitchen set that my flatmates got me for my 21st last year and as you can see, doesn’t just have to be used for measuring…This chocolate pudding was just so silky, I realise that’s the third time I’ve used the word but I just can’t think of a more pertinent synonym right now. Seriously, the texture is amazing, and provided you have fairly decent cocoa and chocolate, so is the flavour. Tim, Paul and I ate this while watching Scrubs tonight (that show has managed not to jump the shark yet, am I right? Mind you, there was that musical episode…) and all agreed that yes, Nigella is high priestess of the universe. What better way to celebrate never having to stress about photog again than with chocolate?
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Speaking of amazing women…I’m sorry to keep bothering you with Idina Menzel videos (*voice offstage* “you’re not sorry at all!”) but truly, I am continually astounded by Youtube. (and her, obvs.) Just when I think there can’t be much left to find, a video will pop up that I’ve never seen before. Tim, bless him, keeps pretending to be interested when I relay this information to him. Tonight I discovered what is allegedly Idina’s first performance of Over The Moon from when Rent moved to Broadway. Even if it’s not, it’s the only video of this song that I’ve seen from that era – 1996! – and it’s an amazing piece of history…
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Thank you deeply for the ongoing well-wishing during my photography class, I hope I didn’t come across as too petulant (even though most of the time I probably was being petulant) because I did get a lot out of the class and also appreciate all your kind words! Here’s hoping next term isn’t quite so stressful. If I sound a little manic in this post, well, you already know why. I still have two exams to get through but it’s amazing how much lighter my brain feels already. Oh, and funnily enough all this business with my photography assignment hasn’t put me off Tetris. In the Guinness Book of Records Gamers Edition (yes, such things exist), I found that the record score was 9,999,999. I think I’ve got it in me to challenge that…

Block Rockin’ Beets

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It is a fine time to be a Renthead (insofar as I am able to consider myself one) in the greater lower North Island region as of late. I don’t have time to give a full blow-by-blow review of the production of Rent that I saw in Palmerston North on Friday (“oh no! whatever shall we do!” I hear you cry), well, not yet. Briefly though, it was very good, really quite slickly done with nice attention to detail (I’m 99% sure that the girl who played Mimi had been listening carefully to Daphne Rubin Vega in “Goodbye Love,” it matched note for note.) Also I’m happy to report that the photo of the cast that I saw really must have been a bad one – the guy who played Collins was much nicer looking, and Collins-ier in person. The only thing that really annoyed me was that Mark was far too camp and the waiter at the Life Cafe wasn’t nearly camp enough. Mark is awkward, not camp, and that’s that. All told though, an excellent performance.

Frankly, it’s not a bad time to have me cook dinner for you either. I was at the Design campus from 10.30am till 6.15pm yesterday hunched feverishly behind a computer, moving things slowly from left to right on Photoshop. And I’ll be back there before and after class today. I was somewhat tempted just to have the chippie cook dinner for me last night after all that but Tim, bless him, had endured the rain to get me free range eggs, spinach, and beetroot from the vege market, plus I thought a proper dinner might be good for the brain (not to mention the thighs). Unfortunately it just won’t stop raining which means that it’s impossible for me to get my final shots for the assignment due…tomorrow after work. It’s raining right now in fact. If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s probably because I’ve hightailed it to Tijuana.

I am such a fan of roasting beetroot, and they’re very cheap at the moment. Paired with soft, crumbling, blindingly white feta cheese it enters the realms of “ridiculously delicious.” Seriously, you know how a while ago (perhaps coinciding with the lamentable “cranberry and camembert” trend) it was wildly fashionable to pair spinach and feta together? Well beetroot is feta’s newer, better accessory, as though it had discarded its floor length boho skirt (NB – I loved boho skirts) and picked up…you know I don’t have any clue what is even fashionable these days. A shemagh? Passe already? My point being, beetroot and feta are meant to be together, and you’ll see it everywhere soon, trust me. I’m not even sure if I invented this salad that I made for dinner last night- I mean, I didn’t have a recipe for it but I’m sure I’m not the first to eat it- but here’s what I did, if you’re interested. Shrewdly, Tim bought a LOT of beetroot, so I’m sure they will appear regularly over the next couple of posts (as will carmine splotches over anything I’m wearing while making dinner…)

 

Hey, why not look at it again. I’m tired, and it’s not a great photo, (though I like how you can see the slice mark in the pistachio) so I guess you could consider this filler material.
Roasted Beetroot, Feta and Pistachio Salad with Sumac and Roasted Red Chilli Dressing.
(How cafe does that sound?!)
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2 good-sized beetroot
1 large red chilli, halved and seeded (I used my lovely Orcona chillis)
Feta Cheese (only you know how much you want)
2 or so tablespoons pistachios (I used some from my precious stash that Mum sent me)
Heat oven to 200 C. I never bother to peel or wrap the beetroot, but if this is how you like it then be my guest. I just chop them into chunks, tip them into a roasting dish, (add the chilli here) and leave them in the oven for about 3/4 of an hour. Heating the chilli, funnily enough, seems to take out all the fire but leave behind that magical, smoky flavour. Since I can’t handle much in the way of actual chilli, this suits me perfectly. Once the beetroot is tender, mix together 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 teaspoon ground sumac, 2 tablespoons of water, and the red chilli, finely chopped. Tip the beetroot into a bowl and pour over the dressing, leave to cool. Finally, tumble over your chopped feta and pistachio nuts. I also biffed in the last of the organic sprouts from the Wellington Food Show. This serves two, although I could, without a doubt, eat the whole thing alone. It is a good recipe if you have bought some Sumac and are thinking “now what?!” There’s also something about the red, green and white of the salad that makes me think it would be nice at Christmas…perhaps with some chopped mint sprinkled over.
Because doing uni work all day makes me feel listless and needy, I decided to indulge in some form of pudding – Jill Dupleix’ Banana Berry Ice Cream with brown-sugared yoghurt and Vanilla Apples with Sweetheart Croutes from Nigella Express.

Above: The flavours actually went marvelously well together. The cold zing of the icecream lifted the buttery apples (literally – you chop them then stew them in butter) and the sweetheart croutes were, if kitchly named, a pleasantly crunchy contrast to everything else. But if you are going to make the ice cream – and I highly recommend you do – you should know it sets rock hard. I guess this is because there’s no fat and barely any sugar to keep things mellow. So, take it out of the freezer a good 25 minutes before you want to serve it or you’ll just have a bright pink slab that you can pick up with your hands and take a bite out of (how do I know this…?)

Above: I don’t tend to go in for that whole “million photos of the same dish from different angles” approach on this blog but I couldn’t help myself with this. It really is quite pretty.
My brain is so tired from all this uni stuff, and I really don’t want to go back to the design campus (located handily in the throbbing heart of Wellington’s red light district!) but I’m going to have to. It has been cold, windy and rainy here and I just want to lie in bed all day, watch DVDs, and bake (simultaneously, natch.) Soon, soon though. At any rate I’m sure I’ve learned some kind of important life lesson from this photog paper. More than I learned from that compulsory school trip in sixth form to the Outdoor Pursuits Centre, which I still bear the mental scars from. Why does everyone insist you have to go abseiling or climb an insurmountable hill in order to grow emotionally as a person?
One thing that has shaken me awake though was the discovery of some more videos of The Wild Party on Youtube, including – oh frabjous day – a clip of Idina Menzel singing The Life Of The Party. Seriously, I nearly fainted when I watched the video. She is incredible! For those of you who can’t be bothered looking on Wikipedia, The Wild Party is – was – an off-Broadway show from 2000 based on the Joseph Moncure March poem, and is set in the 1920s. It bears the dubious distinction of being what got me into Rent (Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs originated roles in both musicals.) And for those of you who like it old-school, I also found an amazing clip of her singing Cornet Man from Funny Girl. Go on, indulge me. I’m feeling fragile. And it was my birthday recently…ish…or something.