Category: Nigella Lawson

“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.

“I’ve Said It Once Before But It Bears Repeating”

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To liberally paraphrase Elton John, Saturday night’s alright for writing essays. It has to be. I shouldn’t even be here, but I’ve allowed myself a break from wrangling Renaissance English. It’s not a good sign when I can’t even understand any of the essay questions…I can’t be hating on this though, even when it means I’m stuck behind the computer typing feverishly all weekend. How could you possibly dislike a play (Jonson’s The Alchemist) which contains the phrase: “Thou look’st like Antichrist, in that lewd hat?” (which makes me long to find something fitting the description of a lewd hat.) Of course you couldn’t. But still, 2500 pithy, succinct, brilliant words need to be produced asap.
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Don’t even get me started (truly, I said plenty enough in the last post) on the interim photographs I’m supposed to present on Wednesday for my next photog assignment, which is, just for kicks, worth 20 percent of the final grade of said assignment. Who knows when I’ll have time to do them, between classes, essays and work – perhaps if, Yorkshireman-style, I get up half an hour before I go to bed and work for 29 hours, I might just get it done.

Now, I know using the microwave to actually, y’know, cook, basically means you forfeit your right to consider yourself a decent human being in some circles. Oh, I won’t lie, I don’t think the microwave is that brilliant as a sole means of producing meals. It sure helps though.
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When I was younger – maybe ten? – there was a lengthy stretch of time where we didn’t have an oven for some reason and we cooked all our meals with an electric frypan and the microwave. I still remember this amazingly good “feather pudding” that Mum used to whip up occasionally, golden syrup on the bottom and sponge on top…anyway, snapping out of that radioactive haze of reminiscence, surely a microwave can’t be that bad if it managed to produce something like the chocolate pudding pictured above. This pudding is just stupidly chocolatey and rich. And it cooks in 5 minutes…literally.


Above: The batter is magically delicious too. Don’t lose a finger (or your tongue!) on the processor blades.

Microwave Chocolate Pudding (from Nigella’s How To Eat)

  • 120g butter
  • 250g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 100g light brown sugar
  • 1t vanilla extract (if it’s essence then don’t bother)
  • 125ml cream (yes, cream)
  • 40g plain flour
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 3 eggs

Butter a 1 litre bowl generously. In the food processor, whizz up the chocolate till it is in rubbly, small chunks. I’m warning you, this will make the most unholy sound, so be ready. Don’t make this beside a sleeping baby or in a monastery or something. Add the butter, whizzing again, and the sugar, and then the rest of the ingredients. Scrape into the bowl, cover tightly with microwave safe clingfilm. Cook on high for 5 minutes, or until set – it might take an extra minute or so as ovens vary, don’t put it in for too long though or it could turn to delicious rubber. Remove from the oven, pierce the clingfilm and then cover the bowl with a plate and sit for ten minutes. I don’t know why, this is just what Nigella says. Who am I to argue. Serve. Feel your thighs expanding with every mouthful.

 


Above: Once more, with feeling.

I was obviously seriously frazzled while writing my last post as I didn’t even add a “Lentil Power” tag to it though we had demonstrably consumed lentils. We haven’t had any since, but I did make another dish from Jill Dupleix’ Lighten Up. This book has proven to be very useful, I mean, I wasn’t that fussed when I first flicked through it at the bookshop but I have used it heaps so far.


Above: Not a great photo sorry, but it was getting cold and I couldn’t seem to get rid of my own shadow!

This is a very, very simple lamb tagine. On Thursday morning Tim and I went to the store to spend a grocery voucher I got given for my birthday (thanks Mum and Dad! We’d be eating dust otherwise…”zoom in on my empty wallet.”) We took a calculator to make sure we didn’t go over and were very discerning and frugal, but I found some stewing lamb for very cheap so bought a heap of it to make various slow-cooked things over winter. This recipe involved sauteeing an onion, carrot, and lamb with various spices – ginger, tumeric, paprika, saffron – before stirring in honey, dates and dried apricots. I didn’t have the apricots, and I added some spinach at the very end, but I think it doesn’t matter too much. I served it over an earnest pile of brown rice and it was delicious. Not terribly innovative – I daresay I could have come up with this on my own eventually – but a simple, unfussy combination of flavours that take care of themselves and taste reliably good together.


Above: While we are in vaguely North African mode, I give you Pasta with Sauce A-la-Marrakesh, from The Accidental Vegetarian by Simon Rimmer. I soaked the chickpeas on Thursday night (proactive lady is proactive) and simmered them as soon as I got home from work on Friday. The spaghetti sauce is made up of all sorts of good things – tomatoes, (tinned in my case), a shake of cumin, cinnamon and tumeric – I added a diced carrot but completely forgot the flipping flaked almonds even though I knew that I had some. Welcome to my brain.

So the production of Rent in Palmerston North (two hours from here by bus/train) got a positive if disappointingly vague review, and I gotta say that I feel honour-bound to see it, if only because it’s there, you know? How it will pan out I don’t know. I am a little concerned that from the promotional picture I saw, Collins looks rather old and white and Mark appears to be balding (Levin 1, PN 0) but…maybe it was badly lit or something. “We’ll see, boys!”

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In other news, Paul managed to come within pit-spitting distance of my Tetris score (he got to level 41, I got level 45) proving once again that the Vincent genes are pure, distilled excellence. Tetris has become so entrenched in our routine that I composed WWF-style stage names for us: Paul “The Suth” Sutherland, Laura “Two Hands” Vincent, and Timothy “Tim” Herbert. Aw, I need to get out more. Can’t though, because of all these essays and assignments…which brings me full circle. Have a good weekend!

PS: 10,000 hits! I’m a real blogger!

“And Wednesday, don’t mention Wednesday…”

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Yesterday was a bad day for me. Oh sure, a decent enough day in a global sense but, on my own terms it was pretty rough. .

I had Photography. This was all well and good until we had to display our assignment photos (that we’d handed in on Tuesday) and get critiqued, one at a time, by the teacher. The teacher told me that my photos were completely unsuccessful, in front of the entire class, and now I guess I’m just waiting to see if I failed or not. I wasn’t the only one, she didn’t seem to like anyone’s efforts, which made for an incredibly uncomfortable three hours. After all the time I put into the photos it was all I could do not to burst into tears (which I am wont to do at inopportune moments) and run screaming from the class. Mercifully I held it together, but really what do you say to someone when they tell you that your photos are terrible? Are you supposed to say “thankyou so much for that valuable insight! Now I’m all fired up for the next project!” The point is, she may well have been right – the photos probably weren’t that great – it is a bloody beginner paper after all- but her opinion counts because she’s doing the marking.

Catharsis over! On the upside I was pleased enough with my Media essay that I handed in yesterday (managed to slip in “the subordination of women” although didn’t find a place for “juxtaposed”) and I saw the Magic Dog on my way back to the flat. The magic dog is this snowy white Samoyed that lives down the road from us and Tim and I get a bit worked up when we see it. Trust me, it’s one majestic beast. Tim and I decided this dog was magic and assigned it properties as such – you know, if it sniffs you, you will never die from drowning, where it urinates shall spring forth an ancient oak tree, that sort of thing.

When I was a lot younger I had this nightmare about the Donny and Marie Show, which is odd because I’ve never in my life seen an episode. They starting singing I’m a Little Bit Country and A Little Bit Rock’n’Roll. Marie then sang “I’m a little bit crunchy,” turned into a giant Crunchie bar and Donny bit her head off. It was this that I reminisced still-nervously about as I made homespun Crunchie bars.

By the way – oh the irony! – the above is a very special photo for me because it’s the first one ever where I’ve managed to manually do that sharp-foreground-blurry-background thing that has so long eluded me. Hello macro button! I’ve finally found you! No more complaining about it, I promise. Thanks for all the advice, too 🙂 If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have known that the macro button was capable of such wizardry.

This recipe is so easy yet so rewarding. First of all, the kitchen smells like caramel while the sugar is cooking. Then you get to watch the mixture whoosh up when you add the baking powder. It’s fun, and stress-releasing, to bash the finished product into shards and chunks with a rolling pin. It tastes amazing. Oh, and there’s only three ingredients…

Cinder Toffee (Nigella’s words, not mine) from How To Be A Domestic Goddess

200g caster sugar (I used regular to no obvious ill effect)
4 T golden syrup
1 T baking soda


Above: does making this for a Type-1 diabetic with sore teeth make me a bad person?

Liberally butter a 21cm square tin, although this will fit into whatever you’ve got around that size to be honest. Mix the golden syrup and sugar to a granular paste in a heavy bottomed saucepan, and then cook it over a low heat. This takes a wee while but it is fun to watch the sugar go all melty and ripply like in the picture above. Simmer gently for about 3 minutes, it will darken but you don’t want it to be too dark. Once it has bubbled away for a while take it off the heat and using a fork or something stir in your tablespoon of baking soda. It’s a bore, but it might pay to sift the soda into a small bowl first so you don’t end up with lumps. The caramel will foam up awesomely. Quickly spread into your tin and leave it to set, which will take at least an hour. Tip out of the tin, bash with a rolling pin (don’t even try to slice it!) and dip or drizzle with chocolate as desired.


Above: It tastes so good, just like proper Crunchie bars. Which I happen to love.

But I had this idea that folding some honeycomb into the batter for one of those self-saucing puddings (or as I knew it as a child, “Chocolate Floating Pudding”) might be kinda cool. It wasn’t, I have to admit, entirely successful – I think I had unnattainable dreams of a butterscotchy sauce with chunks of still-crunchy honeycomb in the finished product – but it still tasted rather good.

Mmm, gooey. I had planned to make a pudding last night as a “Yay Wednesday’s Over For Another Week” kind of thing but was too exhausted in the end. Mayhaps tonight…Oh and just in case you’re worried I’ve been spending the last couple of days cleaning my teeth with muscovado and washing my hair with treacle: We have been having worthy, healthy dinners. Not quite soul food, but definitely brain food.


Above: This lentil and pumpkin take on shepherd’s pie came from Jill Dupleix’ Lighten Up, and while it can’t replace the real thing, it was very pleasant and warming and just stupidly healthy. It had five vegetables in it. And if lentils weren’t enough…I’m a little ashamed to admit this…I added a handful of rolled oats to the mixture. Well, they sort of disappear, so it’s not like I was being insanely militant. The good thing about this dish was that between the lentils, the pumpkin, and the oats, there were more than enough long lasting carbs for Tim so I didn’t have to boil up some rice or anything. We had this with roasted cauliflower, just to bring another vegetable to the party.

Speaking of roasted cauliflower, the next night I repeated the Orzotto for dinner – barley being cheap and superhealthy – and managed to cram in spinach, capsicum, and carrots to the mixture. It looked so depressingly earnest that I didn’t even bother to get photographic evidence, but it tasted pretty good.

By the time I got home last night I knew I wanted pasta and had decided on carbonara until I realised we had no cream. So instead I used the rest of the bacon that I splashed out on for my birthday, and fried it in butter till crispy. I then added a generous slosh of Marsala, more butter and served it over spaghetti to which I’d added some peas. Alongside was roasted beetroot and broccoli, and it was…just what I wanted.


Above: I find pasta SO comforting. I suppose nothing beats a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes, but for low effort, quick balm to the soul, pasta is my carb of choice.

It’s not all dire as far as my education goes though. I got an A- for an English essay I did…and if nothing else my photography assignment has introduced me to the awesomeness that is Richard Maxted whose work I was inspired by. Don’t try and google him – he has a lamentably low profile on the internet. In a moment of “why the heck not” I sent him an email using the contact address on his site…and he replied, was incredibly nice, and even answered some questions to provide quotes for my assignment. Seriously, he’s kind of a big deal in the photography world (though he has no Wikipedia page!) so for him to actually reply was very exciting. If you feel like looking at ridiculously good photography go to his website and wait for the red asterisk to turn fuzzy (you then click on it to enter the site.) I had planned on uploading a couple of my own photos here but now I’m far too disillusioned so I’ll leave you with one of Maxted’s rather more reliable works instead.


Above: Guess what this is a photo of.
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Toothpicks. Clever, yes? Hopefully his help can save my grade…*update* 9/5/08 – Thanks for the kind words! but I’d just like to make clear that (having had a sense of the-teacher-is-always-right instilled into me at an early age by my mother, who teaches) it’s not exactly being told I was rubbish that I object to (it sucks! but if they’re technically bad photos then that’s that) it’s the fact that it was done in front of the whole class for three hours. I am sure there was a less heartbreaking way to do it. Didn’t want to make it seem like I was on some kind of woe-is-me, heat-of-the-moment vitriolic rampage (heck, I’d cooled off thoroughly by this stage. Can you imagine how worked up I was at the time?) But yeah, the teacher was of course well within her rights to give me her unadulterated opinion. Cheers 🙂

Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding…Seriously, Anything!

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You know, making your own pasta is no harder than installing an aviary or Olympic-size swimming pool.


Above: I’m not sure if it says more about my skill as a pasta maker or the standard of my machine, but the end justifies the means – thank goodness. It’s hard to see it when you are grinding metres of dough through a squealing machine (why does it squeal so?) and flinging jets of flour over your jeans, but homemade pasta is truly, truly transcendent.

Although difficult in execution, last night’s dinner was very simple – pasta dressed with butter and nutmeg, plus a vast bowlful of steamed brocolli and roasted cauliflower. Tim and I get notoriously tense when making pasta (the flatmates start to get nervous about visitation rights) but last night we were okay, mostly because the pasta maker wasn’t its normal shrieking, squealing self. Considering you have to roll each lump of dough a squillion times, it can be a little jarring on the nerves.


Above: Homemade pasta is lightyears ahead of storebought fresh pasta. I use a very simple recipe of Nigella’s, which isn’t as terrifyingly yolky as Jamie Oliver’s pasta (possibly not as good either, but great for a feasible after-work dinner.) For each person, tip 100g flour into a bowl, followed by an egg. So, for Tim and I, 200g flour and 2 eggs. This stuff is pretty filling but I usually make more than I need per person because it’s so good. Stir to mix, then knead until it forms a cohesive ball. Let it rest for an hour, then roll out in your pasta maker and cut as you wish. You only need to cook it for about ten seconds in boiling, salted water before it’s done, at which stage you should drain it and add whatever sauce you like. This stuff makes particularly good lasagne, as you don’t have to worry about precooking it. Making pasta may be do-able, but taking a photo of it is a pain in the neck. It wouldn’t stop steaming up. I took about forty photos, all the while frantically waving my hands to dispel the fog.


Above: Real figs! In our kitchen! At work my boss’ wife bought in a whole bag of them from her tree. I took a couple for last night’s pudding. It was quick, yes, but pudding nonetheless. Sometimes you just need something more…Aren’t they beautiful? There’s something about figs, they are so exotic and other worldly compared to, I don’t know, bananas. I looked up a couple of Nigella recipes – one from How to Eat and one from Forever Summer and decided to amalgamate the two by putting these pink-and-green beauties in the oven for 15 minutes with cinnamon, cardamom, honey, and a little butter.


Above: Tim didn’t really go in for them – as I suspected – so all the more for me. Delicately perfumed, deliciously spiced, kinda healthy, and ever so pretty to look at.

I should have known. In my last post, I talked about pancakes in the title, even though I hadn’t made any, and then mentioned that should I actually make some, I’d be stuck for a kicky title. Well here I am. My brain still feels like pancake batter, for what it’s worth. Maybe more so…anyhow:


Above: After reading this post on the stunning Use Real Butter blog, I decided to give Chinese Spring Onion Pancakes a go. Very plain ingredients – flour, water, salt, oil, spring onions – are turned into gorgeously moreish flat little parcels. The method is a little fiddly but if you think of it more as “fun” than “labour-intensive” it helps.

First you roll your dough into pancakes, sprinkle with salt, oil and spring onions, then roll up into a cigar. You then twirl this cigar into a coil and then flatten this into a pancake again, which makes a rather satisfying squashy noise.


Above: Roughly, the three stages of the pancake-making. For goodness sakes though, go to Use Real Butter for the recipe and a detailed outline of what to do – my expertise only stretches so far.

Finally you fry the flattened cakes in hot oil, and then serve.


Above: Like I said, there’s not much to these, yet Tim and I didn’t even make it to the table – we just stood there at the kitchen bench, wolfing these down, sprinkling them with sea salt at every bite. They are intensely good, and would, I think, be marvelous served (sliced in half or quarters) with drinks at your next shindig.


Above: For a proper feed after the pancakes, and because I like to keep the intervals between my lentil consumption brief, I made this lentil casserole au gratinee (that is, au grilled cheese) made by simmering diced onion and carrot, tinned tomatoes, red lentils, a bay leaf, and one diced sausage. I added some frozen peas at the end, tipped it into a loaf pan, and sprinkled over some grated cheese before popping it under the grill. I concede that lentil casserole doesn’t sound like much of a good time, but it certainly looks inviting – melted cheese can perk up almost anything. This was pretty delish, and even though there was only one sausage, it tasted surprisingly meaty.

You may be surprised to see me blogging so soon after I professed to have a ton of schoolwork to do. Well, I’m 3/4 of the way through my lamentable Media essay and decided I needed a break. I’ve got plenty to talk about, it just sounds as though it was typed by monkeys (“it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times”) As for the photography assignment, I swear it’s literally taking years off my life, in the manner of The Machine in The Princess Bride. I don’t mean to come off as all “woe is me, I’m a uni student taking exciting specialised papers, now the world owes me a living,” but seriously, if I have a heartattack next week, you’ll know why. Long story short, we have to print and mount six photos for this assignment due on Tuesday. I printed them out, which was fine (although I’m only satisfied with three of them in print, I’ve got no time – or energy – to reshoot them) but the mounting is going to cost $60! And it will end up cutting off the detail in one of the photos…and I have no choice but to hand them in. I don’t want to be a bore and keep going on about it, but seriously, I was nearly in tears after taking the photos to the framing place. Oh, and I have to hand in some photos and a proposal for my next assignment by Monday.


Above: The lack of baking round here has been driving me nutty so once I got home from work yesterday I thought it wouldn’t be so bad if I made a quick batch of biscuits. It’s not like I’m banning myself altogether from baking, it’s just I really don’t have the time. Dinner is necessary, triple layer white chocolate mocha sponges…aren’t quite.
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The recipe for these biscuits came from an Australian Women’s Weekly chocolate cookbook that I’ve had for so long that I forget how I came by it. This recipe for fruit and nut chocolate chip cookies never stood out to me before, but I wish I’d thought about it sooner – it is so easy, and delicious, and quick, and fairly cheap, and can stand all manner of alterations. As it is I didn’t have any chocolate (would most likely have already scoffed it if I had anyway) but I had dates, and pumpkin seeds, and so strew them through the mixture to pleasing effect. I imagine you could add anything you like – nuts, chocolate, chopped dried apricots, cocoa, whatever. I’ll give you the recipe as I made them, because they are seriously good.
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Date and Pumpkin Seed Cookies
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125g soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (push it down with a spoon to pack in as much as possible)
1 egg
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
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Heat oven to 180 C. Cream butter and sugar till smooth and fluffy. Stir in the egg, oats, and flour. By the way, the oats seem to melt into the baked cookies- they just disappear. It’s amazing! Stir in 1/2 cup dates, chopped and 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, roll into balls and place on a paper-lined baking tray. Flatten with a fork and bake for 10-15 minutes. Let them sit for a bit before transferring to a plate or something. How many you get out of this depends on how big your balls, erm, are, and how much mixture you eat. I know I mention this a lot, but what can I say. I eat a lot of mixture. But really, yesterday I ate a silly amount of the cookie dough, there would have been a lot more if I hadn’t…
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They were just right – quick to make, so I could get on to writing my essay without feeling like I’d done too much procrastinating – and almost healthy what with the oats and fruit and seeds.
As Homer Simpson says, “I don’t think cookies are gonna make me feel better. Oh, crunch, mmmm, oh god, oh mmmm, they’re delicious. Oh, so happy! Oh, go, they’re … They’re gone.”

You might not hear from me for a bit, on account of all the schoolwork. Or you might hear from me every five seconds, because of procrastinating…(our room really does need a tidy) Also if you can, spare a thought for Tim, who is currently having mad toothache. The dentist gave him a list of things that need to get done to him, which will cost somewhere in the region of $4000. Which is basically how much we have saved to go over to England. The irony, it makes my teeth hurt. Seriously it’s great that we have free dental care for kids under 18 in New Zealand, but what on earth makes the powers that be think that turning 19 means you are suddenly able to fund a root canal? What makes them think that university students are able to find $4000 down the back of their couches? Really, what?
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Am currently drinking a mug of “Zen” tea (green tea and peppermint blend) but at this stage I’m feeling so un-Zen that I’ll have to start snorting the tea leaves to feel an effect. Nevermind; The Food Show is coming to town in a couple of weeks, the assignments will get handed in, and then I can stop feeling so sorry for myself and bake something ridiculous!

Jonesing For Quinces

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I am taking off to Hawkes Bay for a few days but have an inordinately long post to compensate for my absence (should my absence bother you…)

We have been feasting rather decadently of late. On Tuesday, spurred on by Tim’s loud hints that we hadn’t eaten any meat lately, I defrosted some sausages and used them to fill Piroshki, which are small yeasted buns baked around a filling. They look and sound a lot harder than they are to make, something I always rather like in a recipe. I adapted this from the AWW Meals From The Freezer book, which my brother Julian got me for Christmas a few years ago. I halved it – there is only Tim and I to feed, after all – but it would be quite easy to double back to their original proportions.

Piroshki

Dough:
450g plain flour
1/2 sachet dry yeast
2 T sugar
1 egg yolk
250ml milk, warmed
125g butter, melted

Combine all the dry ingredients, mix in the wet ingredients thoroughly, scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover and stand in a warm place for an hour or so. Oh, and don’t do what I did, which was eat rather a lot of the surprisingly moreish dough…

Filling: (this is the bit I came up with)
1 onion, finely diced
3 fat cloves garlic, minced
3 proper pork sausages (ie, not those greying pre-cooked things that shall not darken my door!)
1 t paprika
1 t ground cumin
1 t dried oregano
1 T slivered almonds (or whole almonds, roughly chopped
1 T red wine

Heat a knob of butter in a pan, and sautee the onion and garlic till softened but not browned. Add the spices, and then – this job is either amusing or vile depending on what kind of person you are – squeeze the sausagemeat out of its casing into the pan. Let it cook through, stirring regularly, then add the red wine (I used Marsala though) and the almonds. Put it aside to cool for a bit, while you deal with the now-risen dough.

Assembly:
Heat oven to 210 C. Divide dough into balls – I got about nine, I think – and flatten each into about 12-15cm rounds. Put a small spoonful of sausagey filling into one of the rounds, and gently pinch the edges together to enclose. You don’t have to be too gentle with these, just be careful not to let the filling break the dough. Place your piroshki onto a baking tray, brush with a beaten egg, and let sit for 15 minutes (I just pop the tray on top of the heating oven, the warmth of which helps them to prove.) Bake for 15 minutes. Eat.
Although I haven’t managed to use the quinces yet, I have made good use (ironically) of the quince glaze I made from last year’s season. A recipe of Nigella’s, this jammy stuff had been hidden in the back of the fridge for too long. I might try freezing my current bunch, as the things I want to make with them are the sort of things I would make in the lead-up to Christmas…

Anyway, I tried marinating some chicken wings in this quince glaze, (two tablespoons) with cumin, garlic, and lemon juice. The alluring sweetness of the glaze became slightly scorched in places which was, of course, completely delicious. They needed a bit of salt to counteract the sugar, but otherwise…rather perfect.

Above: For the less Antipodean amongst my readers, for whom quince season is still months away, I should think that marmalade or honey would make a decent substitute. I served the sticky wings with potatoes that I’d cut into wedges and mixed with olive oil and za’atar – I make this heaps these days, because it is so simple but delicious. Za’atar is a heady mix of sumac, sesame seeds, and thyme, and lends its distinct flavour well to the crispy potatoes. The bowls that these are pictured in were given to me by the very generous Linda, who is always full of surprises!

Above: After marinating the chicken wings in it, I thought the quince glaze might also work well in a loaf cake. What can I say? It was buttery, fragrant and – phew! – delicious. I am taking the cake up to Tim’s parent’s place tonight but had to have a slice myself (just to make sure it had worked out okay…)

Quince Loaf Cake

150g butter, softened
3 T quince glaze
85g sugar
2 eggs
250g flour
2 t baking powder
1/3 cup buttermilk (or milk with a squeeze of lemon juice in it)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream butter, quince glaze and sugar together till creamy and fragrant. Add the rest of the ingredients, tip into a well greased and lined loaf tin (I used a silicone one so didn’t have to worry) and bake for 45 minutes. You might consider covering it with tinfoil after 30 minutes, so as it doesn’t over-brown, but ovens do vary. Once it’s out of the oven, brush with a few teaspoonsful of warmed quince glaze.
As with the chicken wings, any number of jams would make a decent replacement. Although I thought it would be rather mean not to give you the recipe from which sprang forth all this inspiration…from Nigella’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

Quince Glaze
1 quince
750 mls water
750g caster sugar

Roughly chop the quince, (they are blooming rock hard so use a good knife) and put the pieces – peel, pips and all – into a medium sized pan with the water and sugar. Bring to the boil, then let it simmer away for a good hour or so, till gloriously pink and reduced by half. Strain into a prepared 350ml jar, store in the fridge.

It is wonderful with anything apple-centric – a spoonful to glaze an apple pie or mixed in a crumble – and it goes marvelously with ham.

Finally – I made Creme Fraiche. Look how casual I am about it! You can be, too! It is so expensive that I have never actually purchased it but there is many a foodwriter who will try and convince you that you are positively heathenish if there isn’t a pouch of the stuff in your refrigerator. Luckily the bare ingredients – cream and buttermilk – aren’t too taxing on the pocket, and even if they are a bit splurgy, you do get a lot of creme fraiche out of this.

Above: Creme Fraiche!
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Inspired by this blog I decided to have a crack at it quietly just in case it didn’t work out. Well, it did, and now I want everyone to do it. It’s so easy! Simply find some cream – I used 600mls – and a few tablespoons of buttermilk – heat gently in a pan but do not boil – sit in a jar or tub in a warmish place overnight – stir – and pa-dah! Creme Fraiche, to be stirred into mashed potatoes, to add luxury to a pasta sauce, to serve with baked plums…it goes on. Now, our flat is very, very cold these days so after a couple of days I decided to sit it in my yoghurt maker, which did the trick. But I assume most of you aren’t living in digs as derelict as mine, so this shouldn’t be a problem. All the same, see what works for you – this is a surprisingly forgiving recipe.
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Now, because the internet froze up at the eleventh hour, I have to absolutely zoom to pack my clothes (Tim of course, was packed long ago) and run to the train station…I will keep an eye out for Rent posters as we chug through Levin…

“Crumb By Crumb…”

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I like to spend my Thursdays doing everything I shouldn’t – browsing the internet, reading non-uni literature, (*ahem* Baby Sitters Club books) and baking frivolously. Today was a fairly exemplary Thursday, in that I baked two cakes (one of which I made up!)


Above: Remember this one? At the requests of Tim and Paul, and because there was – surprisingly – an errant can of the stuff in the fridge, I made the Chocolate Guinness Cake from Nigella’s Feast again, after only just having made it a couple of weeks ago for St Patrick’s Day. I have to say, if I were Homer Simpson the sight of the mixture for this cake, which begins as butter melted into the Guinness, would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Indeed, if I was a beer drinker, Guinness with chunks of butter floating in it would probably be my beverage of choice.

You think I’m bluffing, don’t you?


Above: It was as good as ever. Dark, dense, moist, complex, fabulous. What can I say? Go buy Feast! You won’t be sorry!


Above: I had an idea for a Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge in the middle of photography class yesterday. I quickly jotted down a rough recipe in my excercise book (and went back to paying attention straight away, don’t worry!) and tried it out today.

Mercifully, it worked! I don’t have the money to triple-test my recipes a la the Australian Woman’s Weekly (obviously I make a special exception for lentil soup) so I need things to work first time round.


Above: It tasted lovely, too – grandmotherly, somehow, with the pear and the nutmeg and the custard-softened crumb of the cake going marvelously well together. As I ate I mentally patted myself on the back for this burst of inspiration.

If you feel like being my test kitchen, I would not mind in the slightest 🙂 the idea of someone actually making my recipe would in fact make me seriously happy.

Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge

150g soft butter
150g sugar
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons custard powder
200g flour
2 t baking powder
1 t ground nutmeg
1 pear, diced
3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 C and butter and line a 21cm springform tin with baking paper. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and custard powder at the same time, and beat till incorporated together. At this point, sift in the flour and baking powder, and add the nutmeg, diced pear, and milk, folding together gently. Spread into your prepared tin, and if you like, arrange some pear slices across the top like I did. Bake for 50 or so minutes, depending on your oven, till a skewer comes out clean. I found it took an hour in our oven, but they do vary. You may want to put some foil over the top for the last 20, if it is getting too brown. Finally, grate some fresh nutmeg over, or sprinkle over a little pre-ground. Slice into fat, golden wedges and eat with a cup of tea.

It is great fun thinking up recipes. I don’t know how people like Nigella end up with over 100 for their books though. I’ve only come up with about 15 max, and no one is going to want to buy a cookbook that woefully slim!

Today in the paper (in the ‘Life’ section) there was an article about Nigella, entitled “Curvy Goddess or Dumpy Frump: Too Much of A Good Thing?” The article ended up, characteristically, being about nothing much at all. Shame on you, Dominion Post, for having such a tabloid-style title, and for intimating that someone with Nigella’s hourglass figure is “dumpy.” However, thanks for the delicious picture of her. This picture is supposed to be showing how much larger Nigella has become in the last ten or so years, however I say she looks incredible. The article is poorly researched, describing her as a “celebrity chef” and then saying she has had no formal training as a cook. It makes much of her high calorie recipes and ignores the fact that much of her food is packed with vegetables (as I found out when I went through her books, armed with post-it notes)…

In music news (insofar as I can call my opinion news), two gals I am monumentally obsessed with at the moment are April March and Joan As Police Woman. This is all courtesy of Ange who is remarkably commited to ferrying excellent music from her computer to mine and Tim’s via memory sticks.

Check out “Eternal Flame” on Youtube by Joan As Police Woman – this song is seriously beautiful. And April March’s delightfully kooky Chick Habit, an English song off her largely French language album, can be found here – no music video though.

And if you reeeeeeally feel like indulging me, this video from eight years ago of Idina Menzel singing a song from The Wild Party musical, is one of the reasons that I truly love Youtube.

PS – I’m pretty sure I was joking about the butter and beer…but then as I said, I’m not a beer drinker, so who knows? 😉

“Run For Your Life…”

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Can you believe the final day of March is upon us already? My body clock is still ticking along as though it is late February, when in fact a whole quarter of 2008 has passed.

Because this is Wellington, and not say, Connecticut, we have no discernible Autumn to speak of – no crunch of fallen leaves underfoot, no crispening of the evening air – instead, Winter seems to have launched with a whoosh, and before you know it the drains are blocked with mulchy leaves and your shoes get soaked when you merely leave to check the mail. The upside of this grey, damp onslaught?

Soup.


Above: Tim and I bought the biggest pumpkin we (*cough* he *cough*) could carry at the vegetable market, and I used it to make soup last night. I have actually never made pumpkin soup before – I guess I am too busy faffing with lentils – but it has always been a favourite. I wanted to roast the pumpkin though, rather than do the usual method of simmering it in stock. I developed this recipe after making the Pumpkin Puree from Nigella’s How To Eat, and…I think it is pretty awesome. It is intensely creamy without the addition of any milk or cream, plus, you don’t need a blender to make it. I love my blender but dragging it out from under our computer table in our bedroom (hey, our flat has almost no storage space) and cleaning it after can seem like way too much effort sometimes.

Roast Pumpkin Soup

Preheat oven to 200 C. Take half a large pumpkin, and chop that half into eight chunks (or just four, if your pumpkin is not that big.) Encase each pumpkin chunk loosely in tinfoil, pinching the edges together. If you want to add a teaspoonful of butter with each piece, feel free (I certainly did.) Place in a roasting dish and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size. Test the pieces with a skewer after this time has passed – you want it very soft, with no resistance.

Carefully open the tinfoil parcels and one by one, scoop the orange flesh into a pot. This is a tiny bit messy. The flesh should be highly yielding, but give it a go with the potato masher to get rid of any lumps anyway, adding more butter if you wish. At this stage you have yourself a perfectly serviceable bowl of pumpkin puree, which you can place with pride at your dinner table. For soup however, pour in four cups of stock (I used porcini), stirring with a wooden spoon after every cup of liquid. If you need more liquid, by all means add more. It should be thick and not too watery. Now, merely heat it over a low flame – don’t let it bubble – and before you want to serve, grate over some fresh nutmeg and add a tiny pinch of ground cumin.

You could make this Thai, by adding curry paste, fish sauce and coriander, or serve it Morrocan-style by upping the cumin and adding cinnamon, tumeric and tomato paste. Just don’t try and take a photo of it because the camera lens steam up something crazy, as you can tell by the above picture. This soup won’t be quite as velvet-textured as something blended, so knock yourself out, but even in its rough and ready state it still looks like distilled sunshine and tastes warm and fabulous.

On Saturday night, Emma, Ange, Paul, Tim and I went to the Relay For Life. I have to say I have very mixed feelings about the night. Because Emma works with the ANZ Bank, we were signed up with their team and given the 10 till midnight slot. The fact that it was raining very heavily didn’t help with the enthusiasm, but when we got to the event and the ANZ tent was absolutely soaked through, with no lighting but for some glowsticks and rapidly-fading police-style blue revolving lights, with some frozen hash browns that Paul was asked to cook, and some bowls of (admittedly pleasant) salad lying on the ground with dripping people stepping over them…I wondered what the heck we’d gotten ourselves into. Since ANZ is apparently one of the most wealthy corporations in New Zealand, I expected at least a table to put our gear on and some slightly more welcoming digs. And some light. On top of all that, the woman in charge of the tent was incredibly unpleasant to us, even though we had volunteered our time and money to help out her business. She seriously made us feel uncomfortable and unwanted and frankly, I am glad I don’t hold any accounts with ANZ if this is their representation. Paul had to leave early to go to a party, and the rain made Emma’s elbow sore, so it fell upon Ange, Tim and I to keep the alarmingly phallic ANZ baton aloft.

I am very proud to say that I didn’t stop moving for our entire 2 hour segment, even though my shoes were filled with water and the persistent showers meant that I was beyond saturated. I walked most of the time, but I did manage to run a whole lap, which I was pleased with. And yes, that is Iron Maiden that I quoted in the title, the song was running, if you will, through my head as I circumnavigated the track! I truly am no runner – I have actually never in my life owned a pair of running shoes and spent Saturday night in an old pair of Converse – so this was quite an achievement. To be frank though, the ANZ tent was so hostile and dank and horrible that it was something of an incentive to stay on the track.

At 8.30pm there was a candle ceremony, which was very moving despite the fact that it was held in an underground carpark. It made me realise how many people – and a few cats – I know that have died from cancer. I also thought briefly of Nigella Lawson, who lost her mother, her sister, and her first husband to cancer. Even though walking for hours round and round a circuit in the rain is not my first idea of fun, it was a surprisingly contemplative time for me. Tim ran for a bit, and Ange, who has amazing stamina, managed to get ANZ’s fastest lap. We live in a time of such incredible leaps and bounds in knowledge, technology, science, everything – who knows that one day we won’t have a cancer-free world. I certainly hope so.

We got given a goodie bag beforehand, and in said bag was an RFL tshirt, a blue ANZ hat which leaked its dye onto my forehead, and a few other bits and pieces, including these small bags of rather classy scroggin (or scrottage, as it is forever called to me). I decided to use this yesterday to make some muffins, slightly adapting Nigella’s Muesli Muffin recipe from Feast.


Above: After removing the vile dried banana pieces, I chopped this all with my mezzaluna, and added some rolled oats and bran to make up the 250g required for the recipe. I am so in love with these positively healthy muffins that once our ex-microwave gets replaced, I plan on making lots and freezing them, to be nuked as required throughout Winter.

Muesli Muffins

  • 225g plain flour
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 250mls buttermilk *I had none so used plain milk with some lemon juice added
  • 1 egg
  • 175g brown sugar
  • 80 mls vegetable oil
  • 250g good muesli

If you don’t actually have muesli, I recommend a mixture of rolled oats, bran, and whatever seeds, nuts and dried fruit you like. This is very simple: Heat the oven to 200 Celcius, and grease or line a muffin tray. Combine the flour, baking soda and sugar in a large bowl, then stir through the muesli. Pour in your egg, buttermilk and oil, and using a wooden spoon, mix gently till barely combined. As with all muffins, you do not want to overstir this, so go easy. Divide the mixture between the twelve holes in the muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes.


Above: The muffins. They are so full of goodness and health that I didn’t feel too bad about smothering them with butter before eating…

April is going to be a busy month. I have about forty squillion assignments due, I am flying up home for my best friend’s 21st, going with Tim’s family to his grandparents’ wedding anniversary party, hopefully taking in a performance of Rent in Levin, and turning 22 somewhere in the middle there. I’m exhausted just thinking about it…

Absolut Pask

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Oh I wish it could be Easter, every day. Friday AND Monday off feels like untold luxury now that I’m dipping my toe into what they call “the real world.” For those of you who have been somewhat alarmed by the increasingly saggy faces of various rockstars gracing this blog over the last couple of days, I offer hot cross buns to soothe you:

Above: My first ever batch of home-made hot cross buns. I used Nigella’s recipe from Feast, and it was a very rewarding process – adding the warm spices, kneading the dough, waiting patiently for it to rise, draping over the flour-water paste to make the crosses, and of course, grabbing the tender buns straight from the oven to be slathered with butter.
Above: As it happened, while arranging my buns I unwittingly created a yeasted tribute to the famous Absolut Vodka ad campaign. Just realised at this point that I should probably let you know that Pask is Swedish for Easter. More Easter Baking:

Above: Gluten Free Choc-Banana Brownies. I can’t tell you how excited I am about these. They were rigorously tested for quality in my flat (ie, they got snarfed within minutes) and were pronounced delicious. Now, I can’t pretend that I truly came up with this myself, in fact it started off as an idea which took shape after a bit of internet research.
First of all, I found this amazing recipe in a woman’s magazine (I forget which) for gluten-free peanut butter cookies. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this recipe around, but it kicked me into action and I finally made them. They are risibly simple and yet so delicious; I’ve made them three times since and never managed to get a picture because they go so fast. From this sprang forth the brownie idea, but first…
Peanut Butter Cookies: Please, make these. I don’t even go in for peanut butter and I’m a complete fiend for these.
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar (I use half brown half white, but go nuts)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg

Preheat oven to 180 C. This is what I recommend you do because PB can be a tacky mess. Take a half-cup measure, and put your sugar in a bowl. Then, using a spoon, scoop peanut butter into the half-cup, and then scoop this in turn into the bowl with the sugar in it. Repeat. I’m not trying to be patronising, but the first time I made this I ended up using nearly every baking implement in the house trying to deal with the peanut butter and it can truly be so much simpler…

Mix together the sugar and peanut butter. Add the egg, stir again, and sift in the baking soda. On two trays lined with baking paper, place smallish balls of the mixture which you have rolled with your hands. Don’t worry about flattening them, and they don’t spread tooooo much so you don’t have to stress about that either. Bake for 12-15 minutes. These won’t be at all crisp when you take them out of the oven, but don’t fret, they harden up as they cool.

Now eat one, and just try to stop yourself eating the entire batch, cleaning the kitchen scrupulously, and telling everyone you never made any in the first place.
So amazed was I at the magical properties of this peanut butter that I wondered if the same thing could apply to a brownie. Because brownies by nature are supposed to be shallow and dense, it left more room for error. After looking at some ideas on the internet, I came up with this – and it is so much greater than the sum of its slightly troubling parts…
Gluten Free Choc-Banana Brownies.
Each ingredient plays its own special part.


1 cup smooth peanut butter – to do its magical thang.
1 cup sugar – To provide bulk and sweetness
2 eggs – To bind it together
2 small, very ripe bananas – To make it densely moist
5 Tablespoons cocoa – To distract from the other flavours, and provide a deep chocolate taste
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips – To add squidge and more chocolate, of course 🙂
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda – I don’t know what this does, but it’s very important.
As with the biscuits, set the oven to 180 C, beat the peanut butter and sugar together, add the rest of the ingredients and pour into a brownie tin of regular dimensions. (You know, rectangular, not tooo big) What I did was bake it for 1/2 an hour at this temperature and then turn it down to 150 C, and bake for a further 15 minutes. Perfect.
I realise the combo of ingredients sounds kind of vile, but you don’t taste the peanut butter at all. The cocoa sort of covers everything up. But oh the irony – celiac flatmate Emma was in Samoa over the weekend (as one does) so she didn’t even get to participate. Luckily I am so enamoured of these brownies that I’m going to repeat them again very soon.
And if you aren’t sick of brown things by this stage –
Above: Chocolate Pear Pudding, from Nigella Express. It’s basically canned pears with a chocolate flavoured sponge baked overtop, but oh! How wonderful it tastes. For Heaven’s sakes, buy this book! I made this for pudding last night (Nigella’s Vietnamese Chicken Salad for dinner) and it is perfect to eat while watching Boston Legal and procrastinating about, well, everything.
I hope everyone had a lovely, relaxing Easter break.

To Be Sure, To Be Sure

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Happy Saint Paddy’s! Some of you (cough*mother*cough) may be pleased to know that instead of dressing in green and going out on the slosh like everyone else, I am stuck here, blinking behind the computer working on my photography assignment. I could not be more nervous about handing it in tomorrow, the only thing more sobering than that is the thought of the assignment I have to do after that (first photos in by Friday, if you please!) not to mention all my other essays for English and Media that are looming ominously!

But there is always time for a little seasonal silliness.


Above: Nigella’s Chocolate Guinness Cake from Feast. An obvious – some might say mainstream choice, indeed – I’m sure versions of this will pop up all over the blogosphere – and yet so appropriate. Not to mention unarguably delicious. I’ve made this cake before, and it was every bit as simple as I remember – just melt and mix and pour and bake and then inhale, gratifyingly, the chocolatey, spicy scent it imparts while in the oven. By the way, that is one of Tim’s t-shirts in the background (which he obligingly held up for me). I’ve noticed that photos seem to look better with an uninterrupted wall of colour behind, unfortunately there are no uninterrupted spaces in our flat.

Right, back to the assignment. I made soup last night with THREE different types of lentils in it, but that will have to wait for a time when I am less frazzled and can give such an exciting dish the reverence it deserves.

Let It Bee

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Apologies for the yawning gap between the last post and this one, but there were extenuating circumstances: (a) uni is incredibly stressful (okay, so it’s mostly photography giving me grey hair and wrinkles but everything is full-on) and (b) our other goldfish, also called Laurim or Taura, died yesterday and I didn’t really have it in me to blog, especially after a particularly draining photog class where my pictures were largely slated by the teacher (who, in all fairness, was most likely correct, but it still stings.) I guess loss is the risk of loving something, but it still saddens me that we are completely goldfish-less now.

Speaking of stings…there’s not much that can’t be fixed by the sight of marzipan bees.


Above: It was Ange’s birthday on Monday (and it’s Kieran’s birthday today – hoorah!) and she requested that I make her the Chocolate Honey Cake from Nigella’s Feast. It was quite easy to make, and in keeping with Nigella’s suggestion I fashioned wee bumblebees out of fondant icing and slivered almonds. Aren’t they sweet!

Above: The cake is not only cheeringly adorable, it is also delicious – the honey gives it an unexpected depth and complexity, while managing to avoid being viciously sweet.

A bunch of us went to Satay India to celebrate Ange’s coming of age. There was seven of us, and we ordered eight curries (they have a two for one deal) and absolutely soaked ourselves in the stuff. I’m not even sure if the photo can adequately convey how much we ate.

Above: As well as all that curry we also got roughly forty-seven pieces of naan. But we managed to dominate the lot. And the cake. Somehow.

Above: Told you we did it!

Other stuff we’ve been consuming lately:

Above: I seriously love making bread, and this particular recipe was very rewarding. At the Kelburn Fair on Saturday I picked up some Cuisine magazines abandoned stupidly, for only 50 cents! Result! And within one of them I found a recipe for Simit Bread, which is a Middle Eastern ring-shaped bun. (Not a bagel though!) I also found an unintentionally hilarious Cosmo from 1975 – full of nudity and innuendo!

Above: These were delicious. I sprinkled them with sumac and sesame seeds, and served them with meatballs, couscous, roast beetroot and brocolli.

Above: The recipe for the meatballs also came from Cuisine and had a ton of different herbs and spices in it, making for wonderfully flavoursome, er, balls. As I mentioned, the Kelburn Fair was on Saturday. As well as the magazines I also got a cool pair of green and blue t-bar high heels for $2, and a brioche tin for 50 cents. It was only Tim, Paul and I in that day because everyone else had travelled to Ohakune for a 21st. So we had…Rod Steward Appreciation Day. Instigated by Paul, this involves sitting in the sun, drinking, and listening to Rod Stewart. I can’t pretend I’m the biggest fan of The Rod – I mean, he has his place and all, and I quite like that “Wear it Well” song, but has anyone actually read the lyrics to “You’re In My Heart” without throwing up? Well have you? But it proved to be a novel way of passing the time.
Speaking of novel ways to pass the time, do look up David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s Dancing In The Streets on Youtube if you ever wanted to know what the greatest music video of all time is. Even better than the ones Michel Gondry did for The White Stripes. To watch this is to truly witness brilliance.