Category: Salads

“Now Is The Summer of Our Disco-Tent”

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or, Happy Belated New Year. I am back in Wellington to resume working – flew in today – camping is over for another year. I read 13 books, drank vodka-and-tonics, stayed largely sunsmart and saw lots of family. Perfect. It is the vodka component of that last sentence which gives us our title – the most sublime pun I have ever had the good fortune to experience (courtesy of Mum.)


Above: It’s a disco ball. Shaped like a vodka bottle. Suspended from a tent pole. Camping somehow gets camp-er.

Tim bought it for me impulsively (a habit of his I must remember to nurture and encourage) – a litre of the excellent Absolut Vodka, encased in a disco-reflecto-casing that, with a light trained on it (as we did) becomes a working disco ball, and nothing if not an excellent talking point. You could say it made our summer complete. I haven’t been feeling so well the last couple of days, (kidney trouble I suspect) but I was still sad to leave the annual camping compound. Thank goodness it is a sunny day in Wellington today; I am reminded why I love the place. If it was the usual grey and windy I would probably just feel resentful. Tim isn’t actually here with me, as his sister has just returned from a gap year, so I am armed with DVDs of Sex and The City which I can enjoy wholeheartedly without someone asking for the thirtieth time how Carrie has become a fashion icon.


Above: This is definitely a little behind the times but the colours looked lovely and besides, it’s my blog so I can do what I want, continuity be damned! These delicious sweeties were made my my aunt, (except for the berries; her talent has limits) and we ate this alongside the pomegranate cake at Christmas.


Above: Sample camping dinner – pita pockets, minced beef with cumin, garlic and cinnamon, and salad. I haven’t been so hungry the last couple of days, what with feeling under the weather and all, but we definitely ate well.


Above: The Non-Cake Maker’s Christmas Cake from Nigella’s Feast. For a cumbersome title it certainly is an easy and rewarding baking venture. If it looks a trifle lopsided, it’s because the paper collar baked into the mixture – I do hate it when recipes ask you to line the sides of the tin, because I inevitably muck it up. I used the rest of the rhubarb fruit mince, and while I haven’t tried any cake, it definitely smelled wonderful and seemed like a great idea – just a basic cake mixture, with brown sugar and fruit mince added.

I have with me a bowl of salad, I think I’ll call it lunch, and a whole lot of unpacking to do. Can a certain favourite musical of mine be consulted for an ever-reliable quote? Of course – “It’s gonna be a happy New Year!”

Let The Good Times Roll

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It is hard to contemplate (A) that it is exactly one week till Christmas and (B) that Outrageous Fortune has really finished- it just doesn’t feel like a Tuesday without it. Tim and I are getting up super early tomorrow to go Christmas shopping, so hopefully there is nice weather for it – there were massive wintry rainfalls today which was a bit worrisome.

I’ve been trying to make sure we eat relatively healthily this week. It doesn’t always work.

Above: I always thought that rice paper rolls were a bit like haircuts – best done by professionals. But the recipe in Nigella’s Forever Summer showed me that they were in fact, incredibly do-able. A little fiddly, yes, but nevertheless a simple, impressive, and healthy nibble. We even made them while camping last year, if that is any indication of their non-threateningness (should such a word exist.) I made very simple rolls on Sunday night – just grated carrot, sliced avocado and mint, no noodles or anything. I think they were in fact the nicest ones I have ever made. Once you get into a rhythm of dunking the rice paper, laying the filling on their softened surfaces, and rolling them up, there’s not much to it at all.
Above: The rice paper rolls were a precursor to our actual dinner, which consisted of roasted vegetables, boiled potatoes, and my usual fall-back when I have no idea what to cook for dinner but Tim wants some kind of meat component to the meal – mince spiced with cumin, cinnamon, etc. I added some cooked down red lentils to the mince, just to make it all the more sparklingly healthy, and grated in some carrot. All in all a model dinner…until…

Above: The real Canadian cake! Alicia’s friend sent her a box of Betty Crocker cake mix, complete with a TUB OF ICING and we made it after dinner. Although I am generally vehemently opposed to cakes made from boxes, I was intrigued to say the least. You might not be able to see it in the photo but everything on the packaging is charmingly translated into French as well as English. Anyway, we mixed this up and baked it while watching the Simpsons movie on DVD. How do I put this – the cake was appallingly fabulous. It had this spookily puffy, moist texture, like something not found in nature, and the icing tasted like butter. It also had little clumps of e-numbers, I mean sprinkles, clustered throughout. It tasted pretty amazing, but left me rolling around groaning afterwards, filled with too much sugar.

Above: This was last night’s dinner and I have to say, all self-congratulatory, that it was an absolute stonker of a feed. Tim and I went to New World Metro in town to grab some milk after work and ended up spontaneously buying some steak for dinner. I followed a recipe from the New Zealand cookbook, which basically involves frying it and deglazing the pan with sherry and cream. I used the sherry Mum gave me, and the little bit of cream that I had leftover from the pav. Well. It tasted INCREDIBLE, like restaurant food or something. The smell, when the sherry hits the hot pan and starts sizzling, is sensational.
To go with I made a salad of raw, sliced beetroot, blanched brocolli, and cashews, which was very fresh and crisp tasting, and roasted some potatoes. What a feast.

Above: Tonight I kept it fairly simple. Penne pasta, with avocado and roasted beetroot, capsicum, and courgette. I drizzled over a little of the basil oil that Mum and Dad got me when they went to Australia earlier this year, and it was the perfect foil for the mix of flavours on the plate. The beetroot inevitably stained the pasta, but I thought the combo looked rather festive.
Above: Well, I kept it simple until I started to make baked cheesecake, that is…Apparently we are having some kind of flat barbeque tomorrow, I say apparently because it is Emma that is organising it and I’m not quite sure on the particulars. As long as it doesn’t rain like it did today we should have a jolly old time. Either way I’m always up for feeding people and so volunteered to make the Chocolate Lime Cheesecake from Nigella Bites, using gluten free cookies for the base. It is largely a case of bunging all the ingredients in the processor, the difficult bit is baking it in a waterbath, but not much is difficult in the kitchen when you have Tim to lift things for you. It is cooling on the bench now and smells pretty amazing. I’ll let you know tomorrow night what the general consensus is. I’ve never made a cheesecake before so it’s all a bit exciting.
Alright, it’s now past midnight and I have to brave a shopping mall tomorrow, so I need my sleep.

“Bring Me Flesh And Bring Me Wine”

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“lalalalalala….deep and crisp and even…” Thanks to Mum for the idea for the title by the way. And the donation – we would be eating bread dipped in water were it not for her kind, unexpected cash injection. And – just try and act surprised – this is a lengthy post, so don’t read it if you have to be somewhere in the next hour.

SO, the Team Hadfield Annual Christmas Dinner is officially over. I am officially all kinds of shattered after Tim and I spent over an hour doing the dishes (I washed, he dried, I felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice with the neverending plates appearing) but I can’t really complain since I’m the reason all the dishes were there in the first place. The dinner was a massive success, so much fun, and left us all groaningly full. Here it is – no pictures of Beckham, no kittens, no music reviews. Just FOOD.

As you know from the previous post (that’s if you actually read it and didn’t just pause on the David Beckham picture) I had been making things in advance, and the same pattern continued on Sunday. Tim had work at Starbucks at 7.30am, so I was awake fairly early. That is, my body was awake, my brain was a little on the fuzzy side.

First thing I did was make the ice cream. Sound a little madcap, I know, but I thought the Lemon Prosset would look rather stingy in bowls on its own and this is the easiest ice cream recipe I know. Nigella (who else!) has variations of it in a few of her books, the version I used was the Bitter Orange Ice Cream from Nigella Bites. It defies everything one is taught about making ice cream and shouldn’t work, but oh, how it does. Simply dissolve icing sugar – about 150g – in the juice of a couple of oranges, add 600mls cream, whisk till softly whipped and…freeze. You are supposed to add lime juice to this but I didn’t have any, so I upped the orange hit with a teaspoon of my beloved Boyajian Orange Oil (Nigella actually namechecked it in her books!) which made it headily…you know it’s difficult to find a synonym for “orange” so I’ll stop talking about it.


Above: The Orange Blossom Special…I used a whisk, rather than the electric beaters, because I figured that any extra activity would be beneficial. Considering all the cream.

While the ice cream was a-freezing I got on with the Rugelach. Now, I’m not one to appropriate other cultures – she says – but I think that there is nothing wrong with enjoying the many foods that the world has to offer. I say this because of a photo I saw of Justin Timberlake poking out his tongue in imitation while receiving a powhiri – Maori welcome – on his recent visit to New Zealand. I’m not quite sure why this annoyed me, but I had a bit of a think and concluded that it was one thing for me to make Jewish food, but it would be another thing entirely to say, wear a yarmulke while doing so. Anyway, I was getting so philosophical you could call me Anne of Green Gables and I nearly forgot to actually make the blooming things. Luckily they are a doddle.


Above: Doesn’t the sight of this make you want to convert…just a schmeer? Rugelach is pastry (which has butter, sour cream AND cream cheese in it, making it very sticky but easy to roll out) brushed with melted butter and, for artery thickening effect, rolled around chocolate and brown sugar. It is glutinous, but it was the only glutinous thing on the menu and frankly I’m not a miracle worker. This recipe comes from Nigella’s Feast and is, she says, a Hannukah treat. Nigella herself is actually Jewish, although not a practising one, hence the fact that I used her recipe for ham as well!

My cousin Paul came over at this stage and I realised that (a) I needed more chocolate to dip the truffles in and (b) I really wanted a drink. Luckily I managed to juggle both without detrimental effect, but I will say this – vanilla Galliano is sickly. I tend to enjoy a drier drop. There was a funny limbo time in the afternoon, because I didn’t want to get started on the meat and veges too soon, but of course everything would need quite a long time cooking.

The Fully Festive Ham, also from Feast, is a complete joy to make. It is worth pointing out that what I used was not what New Zealanders would know as ham – here we tend to get ours precooked, which we then just glaze and cook on Christmas day. The stuff Nigella uses – which is easier to find in England than here – is uncooked ham, called gammon, or here, pickled pork. Don’t be put off by the ‘pickled’ bit, it’s truly just uncooked ham. This means you can simmer it in whatever you want. Like coca cola. But that’s another story…


Above: The ham, submerged in a litre each of apple and cranberry juice, plus onion, cinnamon sticks, pink peppercorns and a star anise. You are supposed to use allspice berries but I didn’t have any. Anyhow I thought the star anise looked rather pretty bobbing round and the pink peppercorns would add the necessary earthiness. This simmers away for a couple of hours so it doesn’t really require too much effort.

I stuffed the chickens, which was about as undesirable a job as I remember it to be (and the cavities are strangely cold.) I scrapped the idea of challah, and bought some bread rolls, as well as a gluten-free loaf instead – didn’t have the psychological space in my head for dealing with more dough – so luckily I didn’t have to worry about faffing about with oven temperatures.

The potatoes went in the oven and the kumara and parsnips were chopped up to go in Tim’s electric frypan that he got for his 21st. It is worth knowing that you can quite effectively “roast” vegetables in this machine, if you are feeding a crowd. I made a quick salad, to offer crisp contrast, out of a packet of fancy salad mix and half a block of feta. Ooooh I love feta. I made a quick dressing out of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and that was it – simple is best sometimes (ha!)

Above: The ensalada. The “green stuff” that saved our arteries from all the chicken and ham and chocolate…

As we were setting the table, Emma said “weren’t you going to do some peas?” Bugger! Quickly biffed them in the microwave, and then thought, heck, I might as well make some gravy too. So I poured the chicken roasting juices into a pot, with a spoonful of the cranberry sauce that I used to glaze the ham (which was in the oven at this point) and even though it ultimately makes things gluggy, a spoonful of gluten-free cornflour. While this was boiling up I added a slosh of Marsala, quarter of a porcini stock cube and a cup or so of water and let it bubble away.


Above: “They call it riding the gravy train…” I’m something of a gravy novice, and gluten-free is probably not the best way to start, but it was pretty good stuff. Behind you can see the remainder of the stuffing which I cooked in my silicone muffin tray for people.

And then, it was time to eat.


Above: The groaning board (which handily extends out.) Far left is the ham, then the chickens, and the salad on the right. Of course the chickens were free range, they taste so much better, and as the ham came from our delightful local butchers I was reassured it was a happy pig in life.


Above: Tim’s plateful. I’m full just looking at it.

Mercifully, everyone liked it. The stuffing was very well received, the ham was unbelievably tender (hey, it’s a good recipe) and we all just ate and ate and ate and ate. We had a brief pause between courses, just enough to try and locate a nook into which pudding could fit.


Above: Psychocandy – from front to back, the Rugelach, the Crunchie Bar Slice, and the Chocolate Truffles. For some reason I never got a photo of the ice cream or the Lemon Prosset, but here – one looks pale and slightly orange, the other looks pale and slightly yellow. As Jack White opined, “Sugar never tasted so good.” I’m so glad I decided to do heaps of things- I honestly can’t decide which I like more. By the way, the sweeties above are resting in none other than my Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen platter, which is ENORMOUS. I got it ridiculously cheap on Trademe and didn’t realise how huge it was when I bought it. It is gorgeous though and the perfect vessel for the dessert. Again, a giant “phew” that everyone loved the desserts. I knew the Lemon Prosset wouldn’t fail me!

Now that I have been cooking for two days, washing up for over an hour and typing for two hours…well I don’t know how to finish that sentence but my brain is tired and I’m not looking forward to work tomorrow. It was a seriously rewarding weekend (not least because of all the eating) and I had such a great time cooking up The Feast and feeding people who are important to me. It doesn’t feel that long ago that we had ours last year, and I who knows where we will be this time next year…

By the way if anyone is here at this point -thanks for reading so far and sorry if it is a little uninspired…but to be fair, my sinuses are packed with ham and my lungs are filled with truffle mixture which may have contributed to the syntactical errors and glaring ommissions above…To finish, it has to be said that the only thing that is better than having an enormous Christmas dinner…is roast potatoes for breakfast the next day. Note to self – rekindle your relationship with Pontious Pilates.

Set the Controls For The Tart of The Sun

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Disclaimer – it is getting very late, and I am soo tired, my mind is on the blink…I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink…Hopefully whatever follows is coherent.

It was with the greatest intentions that I swore off cooking pudding for a while, it was also with the greatest of intentions that I started cooking tonight’s pudding. Now, with the benefit of hindsight (she is a cruel mistress!) I can see that something involving homemade pastry, baking blind, separating eggs and using a double boiler probably isn’t the best thing to make when you get home from work. I wish I had some kind of alarm system that would go off whenever I have a fit of deranged domesticity like this, but it does creep up on you. One moment you are craving something sugary, the next you are up to your elbows in temperamental egg yolks.
Firstly, last night’s dinner. It consisted of two salads, which, as unfilling and cold as that sounds, made a lovely meal. Because we are going away for a week on Saturday (home to see my family, the cats, and Muse!) I’m trying to use what we have in the cupboard. Thus, we ended up with this:
Above: This was a mixture of rice vermicelli noodles (the sort that I put in rice paper rolls) with cabbage, beans, brocolli, and one of those fish sauce-and-lime juice dressings. It was a lovely combination of flavours but I have to say vermicelli noodles are a bugger to eat – this might work better with something a little less slippery. A good store cupboard meal.

To go with, I made this, which required a bit more planning.
Above: Where do I start? First of all, I soaked the chickpeas yesterday morning, then cunningly cooked them up with the pearl barley, which meant they were ready at the same time. Meanwhile I chopped up and roasted what was left of the capsicum and fennel, plus a beetroot. While this was happening, I made dressing of the mashed up garlic that was boiling away with the chickpeas, some orange juice, and a little red wine vinegar. Finally I added some chopped up chorizo because Tim was bemoaning the lack of meat present and some linseeds to make it even more virtuous. I realise that the noodle salad’s Asian flavours clash somewhat with the earthier flavours of the chickpea and barley salad but they actually went well together – even on the plate.
Above: Juxtaposition. One of my favourite words when I was studying art in high school – just throw it in conversation, nod sagely, and you will pass.
Both salads tasted great, though probably would have tasted better with bucketloads of oil in the dressing…I think the best way to avoid this is to maximise on flavour and texture which certainly was achieved.
Now to tonight’s dinner:

Pudding technically isn’t essential in the way that carbs are for insulin-packing Tim but my soul was saying, Morrissey-like, “Please, please, please, let me get what I want” and I gave in to its wheedling, by making the Raspberry Curd Tarts from the January 2004 Cuisine magazine. Cuisine is an NZ food magazine and has to be one of the classiest and most elegant food publications in the world. Its recipes aren’t always terribly accessible but this one seemed to be – in that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything – and I really was itching to make some pud.

I started off making the pastry, which then chilled in the fridge while I made the raspberry curd, which involved softly stewing the berries till they collapse in their own juices, before cooking them in a double boiler (or in my case, a bowl suspended over a pan of water) with butter, egg yolks and sugar till thickened. This was an undeniably messy job, and rather disappointingly, the raspberries lost their fabulous scarlet tinge, turning into something that reminded me of a lipstick that Mum used to have.

Above: The curd a-curding. It thickened surprisingly quickly.

What followed was a little nightmarish – draining the curd through a sieve to get rid of the pips. I can’t tell you how many photos I took trying to get an artistic ‘drip’ effect. It would drip like mad and then as soon as the camera flashed the little blighters would disappear!

In between all this I made dinner:

Above: No, I didn’t actually serve dinner festooned with kaffir lime leaves, I just thought the meat patties looks a little…brownly naked without anything on them. I made the patties out of pork mince, garam masala, and some red lentils that I cooked up (you can hardly taste them in the meat!), and had that with some brown rice and the carrots, which I cooked up with fenugreek, vermouth, garlic and paprika following a recipe in the gorgeous Herb Bible that my godparents gave me a while back. Everything tasted great. I’m too tired to think of a fluttery adjective at the moment: this is how it is.

Nearly fainted after dinner when I realised I hadn’t read the bit about blind baking.

Above: The bane of my existence – blind baking, made more excruciating by being executed mini-style. Although there is something satisfying in seeing a crisp, golden pastry shell awaiting its filling.

Finally, I poured the curd into the cooked shells – and was too exhausted to eat anything (also scoffing too much pastry while rolling it out may have contributed to this – hmm, this isn’t the first time I’ve said this…)
Above: Tart, top and sides.
Like I said, I didn’t try any, but Tim and Kieran did, plus Alicia who also works at Starbucks and her mate Vi. The general concensus was that it tasted awesome – thank Heavens is all I can say. Do I recommend this recipe? Hard to say. On the one hand, you could make everything in advance, which would make things a lot easier than hitting the ground running after work. And according to everyone it does taste pretty fantastic, not to mention the fact that the tarts are undeniably cute. On the other hand, I am now a gibbering wreck, not looking forward to going to work tomorrow.
I guess you could call them The Great Gig in The Pie…perhaps a Tart of Gold…okay, okay, I’m going to bed.