Category: Side Dishes and Snacks

strange but not a stranger

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As Liz Lemon, a character from 30 Rock and my kindred spirit would say: “aw, blerg”. It’s a third of the way through July already and I have only just now managed to put pixel to webpage. This is partly because Tim and I have been quietly absorbed with Dexter (brutal but good!) and with rewatching season 2 of 30 Rock (brutal but good!) and, of course, packing all our earthly belongings into boxes and suitcases (merely brutal!) in anticipation of the big move this Friday. Or, as they might say in a Baby Sitters Club book, The Big Move. Unlike bicoastal Dawn or choice-burdened Stacey it’s not really a difficult wrenching decish for us. We’re excited about moving.

I haven’t really been doing a lot of cooking lately, because we are trying to use up what’s in the cupboard and fridge. And not make anything huge that needs to be frozen or eaten over several days. Or use too many pieces of cookware. Which restricts us a schmeer. Last night Tim had spaghetti on toast before choir and I had a pub quiz after work. Monday night we went to Red Tomatoes Pizzeria and Cafe. On Sunday we cooked up 12 sausages at lunchtime that we’d defrosted from the freezer “for space-saving purposes” and…honestly…by nightfall the two of us had eaten them all. Not kidding. 12 sausages, two people, 6 hours. Saturday night was Burger Fuel because we had to be at the Film Archive by 7pm for the showing of my beloved Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps. Friday night was take-out satay noodles from Chow Mein Cube on the Terrace. Tomorrow night we’ll be getting takeaways because everything will be packed away and on Friday we’ll get takeaways because we’ve been moving all day. You get the idea. I’m really not cooking. And I can feel myself occupying more space than I normally do. Which is why next week I’m promising myself to embrace vegetables and shun sugars. But for now, it works. It’s simpler this way.

It doesn’t completely resemble the innermost circles of Hades here though. There has been some cooking – prior to all the non-cooking – occurring mostly because of the divine inspiration I garnered from the latest Cuisine magazine. Despite having a fridge rapidly emptying and a cupboard filled with increasingly disparite spices and condiments, I found myself turning pages of my Cuisine magazine and saying to myself rapturously (and loudly) “I can make this! And I have the ingredients for this! And also this! And still further recipes!”

So I did.

One rather genius dish that I tried was a Fiona Smith recipe of diced vegetables, basted in a salty dressing of miso, mirin, sugar and oil, roasted and mixed gently through sushi rice. Engaging stuff, yes?

Miso Roast Sushi Salad

The vegetables need to be cut into small, equal pieces so that they roast quickly and evenly without scorching the sauce. I found the amount of vegetables, once chopped, to be enormous, so ended up more than halving the amount. I suspect this is a very forgiving, adaptable recipe and can be changed up depending on what you have, more or less. I used a mixture of kumara, carrot, and parsnip. I left out the mushrooms because Tim doesn’t like them and the tofu because we just didn’t have any and it was still, despite this, just right for two people.

2 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 teaspoons caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sushi rice
1 1/4 cups water
4 cm strip kombu (optional)

4 tablespoons miso paste (you could happily sub this for black bean sauce)
2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 tablespoons sugar

200g firm tofu, cut into 2cm chunks
4 cups chopped winter vegetables (pumpkin, carrot, kumara, parsnip)
2 cups mushrooms, quartered

Preheat oven to 200 C.

In a small bowl, stir together the first measure of sugar with the vinegar and salt and set aside. Place the rice in a colander, run under cold water then sit to drain while you prepare the vegetables. The draining step is apparently quite important so make sure this is the first thing you do.

Whisk together the miso, mirin, peanut oil and second measure of sugar. Chop all the vegetables into small cubes and mix in with the mushrooms and tofu in a large bowl, adding the sauce and coating thoroughly. Spread onto a paper-lined baking tray and roast for 20-25 minutes till the root vegetables are tender.

While the veges cook, place the rice in a medium saucepan with the seaweed if using, and cover with the 1 1/4 cups water. Bring to the boil, stirring, then clamp a lid on and cook at the lowest heat possible undisturbed for ten minutes. Take off the heat and leave undisturbed for ten minutes. Tip the rice into a large bowl and remove the kombu if used. Pour the vinegar mix over and stir gently, then add the roasted veges and tofu and carefully combine the lot together. Serve in bowls with sesame seeds and coriander with soy sauce and wasabi to serve if desired.

Serves 4.

This is very, very cheap and utterly delicious, the sort of thing you can happily eat by the heaped forkful while sitting cross-legged in front of the heater watching a DVD. It will, without a doubt, become a regular dinner this winter chez nous.

As I mentioned, last Saturday we went to see Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps at the Film Archive, and a very satisfying night it was too. We were part of a bare handful of under-forties whippersnappers present in the audience. It was a wonderful experience – big, beautiful sound, comfy seats, Neil in all his sneery glory on the big screen and of course his songs. Ohhhh the songs. I was tempted, in order to assert my right as a whippersnapper to be there, to state loudly, “I know! I’ve seen him live! It was a moment of spiritual clarity!” Speaking of films, I really, really can’t wait for Away We Go to open here in NZ (about 12 months after it opens in the USA, naturally). It has the most incredible cast and I’m not kidding, the trailer nearly made me tear up. And it has cameos from Catherine O’Hara, who I have a mad crush on (Catherine, call me!) and Broadway’s Allison Janney! Still speaking of films, we have been perusing the NZ Film Festival guide and circling various films we want to see, but mostly trying to find the most delightful foreign name for someone listed as working on one of the films. So far our hard-to-trump favourite is an actor called Knut Berger. Together, we salute you.

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On Shuffle whilst I type feverishly:

Carry That Weight from Abbey Road by The Beatles (I love this song. It’s like launching into the built-up end of an epic, Hey Jude-like song without having to wait for the build-up. It’s like fast-forwarding to the “it’s meeeee!” part of Defying Gravity. It’s instant gratification.)
Welfare Mothers from Rust Never Sleeps by the divine Neil Young (was there e’er a cooler opening line than “people pick up on what I’m putting down”?)
Planet Z from Still I Can’t Be Still by the divine Idina Menzel (Tim actually admits to liking this song. Heavy. Very heavy. Also: buy this album. It’s ridiculous.)
Roadrunner by Modern Lovers from their eponymous album. I think I could listen to this song a squillion times and never tire of it. And I have a mad crush on the ageless Jonathan Richman. Call me, Jonathan!

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In other significant happenings, Tim garnered an A and a B for two respective honours papers at uni which is just backflip-inducingly awesome. This is most likely the last blog entry I’ll post from this flat. Considering this very flat is where I began this blog as a mere blog-ling in the October of 2007, that’s…something. Right? We’d be much obliged if you could think happy, good-weather, box-lifting thoughts for us come Friday. Who was the patron saint of severely pulled muscles due to lifting from the back instead of the legs? We should probably be lighting a big old candle to him or her right now. (Not just being PC here, I wikipedia-d it and there really are a lot of lady saints.)

souperstar (do you think you’re what they say you are)

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Beetroot soup. Not the most wildly titillating words someone could whisper in your ear. Especially…lukewarm beetroot soup. But beetroot soup must have something going for it if Nigella Lawson has no less than three different recipes for it. And if anyone can bring the titillation, it’s La Lawson. I mean, I say this as a beetroot fan from way back, but this following soup is not only delicious in the traditional sense – it tastes good – it’s also visually delicious. Check it out…

This soup is the deepest crimson, perhaps what the word “love” would look like if someone threw it in a blender and added vegetable stock. Sorry, got a bit carried away there with my imagery. Look how beetroot affects me so.

Having said that, I didn’t entirely follow Nigella’s recipes, I sort of did a cross between the one from How To Eat and the one from Forever Summer. To clarify, the soup from HTE is basically boiled beetroot blended with stock, while the FS one is roasted beetroot blended with stock and sour cream. I roasted the beetroot but didn’t add sour cream…wait, are you still interested?

Roasted Beetroot Soup

2 large beetroot (I’m talking actual beetroot, not anything from a can)
1 teaspoon ground cumin (I actually used ras-el-hanout because I am a bit addicted to it)
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
Optional:
250g sour cream (which I didn’t use but I’m sure is nice)
Feta and capers to serve

Wrap the beetroot in tinfoil and bake at 200 C for 1 and a half hours, or until you can plunge a cake tester into them easily. Unwrap partially and leave to cool somewhat, then carefully peel by rubbing off the skin (seriously, that’s what you do) and chop them roughly. Biff into a food processor and whizz till kind of pulpy. Add the stock…maybe in batches…and blitz once more until it resembles soup. Add the sour cream if you so wish, ladle into bowls and sprinkle over feta cheese and capers.

While you’re making soup you might as well get some bread on to go with. To be honest the beetroot soup doesn’t really need a carbohydrate chaperone, but if you’re making something a bit more lentil-and-vegetabley the following would be perfect. And it doesn’t even knead needing. I mean need kneading. Excuse me.

Above: And it’s nubblier than a sweater on The Cosby Show. It’s funny, the words ‘seedy’ and ‘grainy’ aren’t so attractive when used in conjunction with darkened streets and online video quality respectively, but when used to describe bread they become highly desirable adjectives.

This recipe comes from Nigella Express and is not entirely unrelated to a recipe from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, only simpler. It’s also a good example of why both books are so marvelous…

Lazy Loaf

200g best quality sugar-free muesli

325g wholewheat bread flour

1 sachet (7g) instant dried yeast

2 teaspoons sea salt, or 1 teaspoon table salt

250mls (1 cup) skim milk

250mls (1 cup) low-fat water (just kidding y’all, they haven’t invented that yet)

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the water. Mix all that together. Tip into a silicone loaf tin (or a normal one, lined with baking paper and flour). Put into a cold oven, then immediately turn to 110 C and leave for 45 minutes. After these 45 minutes are up, turn it up to 180 C and bake for a further hour. Unorthodox, yes, but once you have completed these simple tasks you’ll have a loaf of real bread.

If you don’t have actual muesli to hand, you can just use about 180g rolled oats and make up the rest (and then some) with any dusty kibbled bits you have to hand – wheatgerm, amaranth, linseeds – in this modern age I know you have something like that in your pantry. I basically threw everything at it – all of the above plus poppy seeds, ground linseeds, kibbled rye and bran. Which is why I wasn’t in the slightest bit stressed that I only had plain white bread flour. You should also know that this is wonderful the next day, sliced and grilled and shmeered with avocado (which is what we had for breakfast this morning).

Above: And like everything in life, brilliant with butter.

Cultural roundup time! Are you ready to absorb my recommendations? On Monday, Tim and I went to see a singer called Jolie Holland. That’s right, the word Jolie is being used without “Angelina” preceding it. She was absolutely stunning, with a kind of old-school blues vibe about her. I’m talking 1800s old-school. She had an absolutely gorgeous voice, she bantered generously with the crowd and, non-insult to non-injury, she did a cover of a Leonard Cohen song (the ever-stunning Lady Midnight, for those of you playing at home.) She played guitar on many songs but we were lucky enough to see her play a kind of rough-hewn violin-fiddle thing (yes, that would be the technical term) and for her lengthy encore she invited the warm-up act, a man whose name eludes me, to sing with her. And it is a shame that I can’t remember his name because he was quite a gem – if some of his songs did sound a little similar to each other it didn’t matter because the voice he sung them in was so rich and lovely.

Last Saturday we went to Te Papa museum to see the Monet painting exhibition. If any of my readers are passing through Wellington I heartily recommend it, I’m a bit of a geek for the Impressonists and have been since I was a child (it’s no wonder I was so popular) so it was a genuine thrill for me to see some of the exemplary works of this period up close and personal. And, be still my beating heart, included in the mix were two Degas sketches and a sculpture…

On Thursday I had a double-bill night, beginning with Tick…tick…Boom! at the Garden Theatre which was everything I’d hoped – ie, it didn’t suck – and followed by the band of Montreal. It was, for reasons mentioned last time, hugely exciting for me to see TTB live, and the cast seemed to be as happy performing in it as I was watching them. They all sang gorgeously, had sparky chemistry, and really seemed to get the characters as opposed to just singing the lines with their faces forming the appropriate expressions. Erm, I could go on. I actually saw it again on Friday night, which should tell you a lot about me as a person. But truly, I can’t say enough nice things about this production. Hearing those fantastic songs live – magic.
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of Montreal were brilliant live, lead singer Kevin Barnes all enigmatic and urchin-like with his blue eyeshadow and orange sparkly tunic. Although light on banter they were heavy on theatrics – including a fellow who came out wearing an impressive array of animal masks and a grey-leotarded person who would swing from bars on the ceiling – and the music was a ton of loved-up swirly-electro fun. The audience was painfully hip (lots of carefully chosen vintage dresses, arty tshirts, canvas shoes and disdainful looks) and there is, in my heart, a special dark hatred reserved only for the bloke in front of me who was not only tall and bouffant-y of hair, but, insult upon insult, wearing a large trilby hat, the circumference of which completely blocked my view as he swayed intuitively from left to right at the very same time as me. May his view one day be obstructed in a similar manner. Hopefully by someone in a sombrero.
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Finally, speaking of soup – and back to food now – after purchasing a half-price can of chesnuts, I made the lentil and chesnut soup from How To Eat. Friends, it is extraordinarily good. It’s also not that photogenic. But I wanted to throw it open wide to you all, you foodie types, what would make a good substitute for the chesnuts? Because they’re too expensive to make this soup a regular option. I tried substituting potato, which was pleasant enough but too similar in texture to the cooked lentils to be really delightful. Any thoughts?

Christmas Bells Are Ringing…

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So with all the feasting that ensued on the night of The Christmas Dinner, I entirely forgot to take a photo of the actual roast chickens. However, as the following photo essay demonstrates, there’s still plenty to see. I’m seriously exhausted, and it’s pretty late so I’m going to be dialogue-lite and let the pictures largely speak for themselves.

Above: I whipped up some pomegranate ice cream on Sunday morning, after I returned from the vege market. Literally – get it – Whipped? Cream? Okay, I told you I was tired, which is a perfectly legitimate excuse for dodgy puns.

Nigella keeps her pomegranates close and her cranberries closer. It’s a great thing that these berries are so expensive because she puts them in everything. Oh, I can’t be snide though because they really are rather Christmassy, the frozen ones looking like holly berries in thawing snow, and their fresh sourness can perk up otherwise heavy fare quite effectively.

Cornbread, Cranberry and Orange Stuffing (adapted from Feast)

This mixture is so delicious it almost didn’t make it into the chicken. Don’t for goodness sake be put off because you have to make cornbread first, it’s the easiest thing in the world and the recipe can be found here.

In a large pot, simmer 300g cranberries with the juice and zest of an orange. Add 125g butter slowly till it turns into a glossy, pinky-orange sauce, then crumble in the cornbread and stir to combine. When you’re ready to bake it, stir in 2 eggs and stuff your bird and roast, or spread it into a loaf tin and bake it at 180 for about 25 minutes.

Above: In front, Pear and Cranberry stuffing, and in the back, the cornbread stuffing. I may have made a bit extra so that they could stand in as another vegetarian dish. Inexplicably, I never liked stuffing as a child so you can see I am making up for lost time here.

I bought a brace of peppers at the market on Sunday morning and roasted them as soon as I got back. They seemed to just get silkier and more delicious as the day went on and were perfect served at room temperature, so the rich olive oil, clean fresh pomegranate, and salty caper flavours shone through vibrantly.

Chargrilled Peppers with Pomegranate (Nigella Christmas)

6 red and/or yellow peppers (although I got 7 to allow for muck-ups and nibbling-while-cooking)
Seeds from 2 pomegranates (although one is more than fine, Nigella)
2 T fresh pomegranate juice (just give the fruit a squeeze while seeding)
2 t lime or lemon juice
60ml extra virgin olive oil
15ml garlic olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Maldon sea salt
3 T drained capers


Set your oven to very, very hot – like 250 C. Cut the peppers in half, removing seeds and stalks, and place cut-side down on a baking tray. Roast in the oven till they blister – about 15 mins. Remove and carefully chuck them all into a bowl, quickly covering it with gladwrap till the peppers cool down considerably. From here it will be very easy to remove the skins – just pull them off. Tear the peppers into strips and place them in a serving bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Serve at room temperature. I made mine at about 11am and served it at 8pm, so it benefits from a bit of a sit. I just kept it covered and on the bench, although it won’t come to any harm in the fridge.

The involtini is another one that tastes best when it’s not piping hot. This turned out to be an amazing combination of flavours and textures, so much more than just a token vegetarian dish. There was hardly any left afterwards but what was there made for a luxe lunch the next day, microwaved for a bit and served with salad and leftover roast veges.

Above: The marvelously summery Sangria (and yes, we used those tacky plastic ice cube things…well, they’re practical! And this was hardly a classy joint to begin with.)

Poinsettia, a mix of cranberry juice, cointreau, and sparkling white wine (1 litre, 125 mls, and 750mls respectively) is an enchanting combination that completely owns Buck’s Fizz in terms of festive drinkability. Tip of the cap to Nigella, for all that she half-heartedly protests that she’s not much of a drinker, she can certainly navigate her way round a liquor cabinet.

The table! We managed to fit eight of us around it, not entirely comfortably though…

Above: The roasted pepper salad and boiled new potatoes with mint from our herb patch. Notice the gorgeous yellow bowl which was a Christmas present from the parents last year, and the beautiful Christmas crackers which were really way too classy for us. They contained real presents, like pens, corkscrews and measuring tapes. Nifty or what? True to form, as well as forgetting to photograph the chicken, I forgot to bring the parsnips out of the oven at all until after we finished the main course. They instead became a refreshing palate cleanser between meals, something to consider for your next dinner party perhaps…After dinner we played charming parlour games (well, we played Scattergories, is there a more satisfying game for bookish, wordy BA students to tackle?)

Drama! Tim is the only one in our flat capable of turning jelly out of a mould. He may be the only person in the world who can do it…perhaps we can never know.

The white chocolate almond cake was utterly gorgeous, although the problem with cakes that have white chocolate in them is that you quite often can’t actually taste the white chocolate as much as you’d like (who am I kidding, as much as I’d like.) So I upped the ante by drizzling over a melted milky bar, Jackson Pollock-styles (hey, I got an A in an essay about him in first year, I feel sufficiently qualified to pay homage to him via the medium of baked goods.) This is a fantastic cake for entertaining as you can make it in advance and it keeps beautifully, but looks rather impressive as far as puddings go. I’m not sure if it was supposed to rise much – or whether it has something to do with our oven – but the cake rose hugely then sunk, leaving a crevice that I filled with chopped pistachios (it was going to be silver cachous but they were $5.50 for a small cannister at New World – um, no thanks – and besides, the still-festive pistachios are actually pleasant to eat.)

Above: The official pudding table: the white chocolate almond cake, the “tortova”, pomegranate ice cream, red and green jelly, and strawberries, also virtuously purchased from the market. The chocolate torte turned out to be marvelous, somehow crisp and chewy at the same time and punctuated by welcome chunks of dark, dark chocolate.
It was altogether a fantastic meal shared with fantastic people, although it was such a shame that Emma couldn’t be there. She was however present in our minds and hopefully gets back to New Zealand asap safe and sound!
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In other news: I’m reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Tim found an old copy somewhere while dropping some stuff off at the Salvation Army, and I do love old books, (not those horrible shiny reissues with conceptual cover art) so he grabbed it for me. It was one of those that I knew I should have a look at one day, but the curmudgeon in me has this thing where the more a book is recommended to me, the more I stubbornly refuse to read it. I don’t know why, perhaps hype annoys me, but that’s certainly the reason I’ve never read The Kite Runner. Anyway, To Kill A Mockingbird is really very good, (she says condescendingly – didn’t it win the Pulitzer or somesuch?) I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve also recently read Nigella Lawson’s unofficial biography, forwarded to me by the ever-thoughtful Linda. It is a cracking read, I think I devoured it in a day or two on my lunchbreaks at work but…it’s really not very well written. It quotes her cookbooks as though they were interviews – as though I don’t know them all word for word anyway – but it’s worth it for the luscious pictures of Nigella. What a beauty. I must say, it’s not a good book for the self esteem, as it constantly reiterates how goddess-like and creamy and striking she is and it can leave the reader feeling somewhat homely. I definitely recommend it for a bit of light reading though. Okay, this suddenly turned into Laura’s book corner, so I’d better get going…
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Next time: I attempt chocolate macaroons (the quick, chewy kind, not the faint-making Hermes kind) and make Ed Victor’s Turkey Hash with the scant leftover roasted chicken from the Christmas dinner.

I Fought The Raw And The Raw Won

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

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

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

Raw Cauliflower Salad

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

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

Dressing:

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

Above: So good. So good they get the Italicisation of Approval. And yes, I really did look for that rogue magazine.
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Well, I’m now off to watch Outrageous Fortune. Thrilling! The only thing on telly really worth watching (apart from Nigella of course) and the best thing New Zealand has done in my 22 years at least.
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Next time on Hungry and Frozen: I have no clue at this stage. But at least you won’t have your expectations dashed!

Lentils, Rhubarb, Burghal Wheat and Humidity (Wait! Don’t Run Off!)

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Okay so the title isn’t really selling it much but I’m too brain-weary to come up with a kicky pun.

Sorry to be a complete bore and talk about the weather and the rising price of dairy again, but good grief! Tim had to get up at 5am this morning to go to work at Coffee Bucks, and the sky was be-flashed with lightening and rain was bucketing down. By the time I went to work at noon, it was intensely humid. I mean, I was sweating like a mule carrying a barrel of tequila. So I figured it was safe to wear a dress. After work (where I embarrassingly stuffed up every single invoice I was supposed to enter – there’s a Neil Young song that described my mood perfectly but as I like to keep things clean I won’t tell you which one it is) there were gale force winds abound and everyone was looking at me disapprovingly for wearing so little clothing. I know, “four seasons in one day,” etc, but really! What’s a girl to wear? Get it together, Wellington!

We watched the report on Campbell Live tonight (bless his enthusiastic socks) and it is just unnacceptable (okay, I feel the pain more keenly than some about the lack of butter, but whatevs) that butter can be sold for upwards of $5. You practically need to take out an overdraft to make a bowl of macaroni cheese. A family was interviewed and they are driven to using margarine instead of butter because it’s too expensive. Margarine? What is happening to my country!?

Rant over.

I’ve been experimenting, by the way. With lentils. And rhubarb. Now, I know there are a lot more potentially exciting things I could be experimenting with, but I am totally smitten with making up recipes.
Above: I didn’t make this up. I wish I did though, it’s so head-smackingly simple but also seriously delicious. It is basically pasta, baked with onion, garlic, tomato passata and cheese, and the recipe came from this great Medditeranian Vegetarian cookbook I got for Christmas. My mother is determined to keep me in pink peppercorns, so I thought I’d use some to mildly pungent effect sprinkled over the top, along with what’s left of our dismal parsely plant. We had this for dinner the other night and I can see it becoming a regular fixture.
Above: Now this, I actually did invent and I am rather proud of it. It is a very simple salad and goes as follows:
Raw Zucchini and Carrot Salad (sorry, that’s not a very enticing title)
-2 good sized carrots
-2 zucchinis of the same size
Wash, but do not peel the vegetables, and grate them. Yes, this is a pain, so you might want to employ the nearest child/friend/other half to do it for you.
Mix your orange and green shreds together in a large bowl. Pour over 1 teaspoon of basil oil, then stir thoroughly, and repeat. I only have basil oil because my parents gave me some, so if you don’t have any I’m sure good olive oil and chopped basil will do. Finally, sprinkle over some good salt, stir, sprinkle over a little more and stir again. This is important, it sort of brings the flavours together (or gives it flavour in the first place, if you will.)
Not to talk myself up or anything but I personally find it very edible. I could just sit there and eat a whole bowl full.
Above: Despite Tim being all “when I was a kid we ate what we were given” he is kinda picky about mushrooms (and eggplant!) but Nigella’s mushroom risotto was hoovered down without complaints when I made it for dinner the other night. (Okay, I’ve just made him sound like a whining vacuum cleaner when he’s really so much more appealing than that…) 
Above: This festive burghal wheat salad is from Nigella’s Feast and is part of a menu for a Mezze party (oh, how I long to throw a Mezze party now). Since I pretty much had all the ingredients I thought I’d give it a shot for last night’s dinner. However Tim really wanted to go to this all-you-can-eat restaurant (I said I didn’t want to because my head cold was being unpredictable and I didn’t want to pay for a meal I couldn’t taste) but it was with a sinking heart that I cooked this because I knew nothing could really live up to the imagined wonder of an all-you-can-eat. Which reminded me of that Simpsons episode – Lawyer: “Tell them what happened next, Marge.” Marge: “We drove around looking for another all-you-can-eat restaurant.” Lawyer: “Then what?” Marge: “We went fishing” (sobs) Lawyer: “Does this sound like the actions of a man who’d had all he could eat?”
Ahem, anyway, I used some dried cherries that I got from Santa, and substituted juicy pomegranite seeds for the pomegranite molasses, and walnuts/pinenuts for the pistachios but it was basically the same burghal wheat salad Nigella had in mind. It was also seriously good- fresh and not at all heavy but also somehow deeply flavoured too, and Tim was won over by the meatballs I made to go with.
Above: Well, this is definitely something I’ll be making again. It is from Jill Dew-plee-icks’ New Food (okay, her surname is Dupleix but NCEA Level 2 French isn’t getting me any closer to figuring out how to pronounce it)
Cooked brown lentils (ooh, lentils!) are simmered with onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, and canned tomatoes till they form a richly textured earthy sauce, and natural yoghurt is stirred in before you pile the lot onto cooked pasta. It is SO good and I am disproportionately happy to find another good lentil recipe. Again, why didn’t I think of this? By the way, the yoghurt was homemade- my aunty gave me her yoghurt maker and it is my New. Favourite. Toy.
Above: Rhubarb and Apple Crumble Tartlettes. Does that sound like something you’d want to make? I got the idea for these the other day and since I had all the necessary ingredients I had a go at trying to produce, in food form, the vision that was in my head (I know, I know, they aren’t the bloody Sistine chapel, but this is pretty exciting for me.) And my idea actually worked! They are a triumph! Seriously, I finished making them this morning at 11.00am and by the time I got back to the flat from work at 5.30pm there were only two left. Once I figure out the minor details I can post the recipe here if you like. They are pretty easy to make, even easier if you don’t make your own pastry like I did (I acknowledge the two schools of thought, one being “Life’s more rewarding if you make your own pastry” the other being “Life’s too short…”) And crucially, they taste pretty fantastic. I think I’m drunk on my own power.
Yesterday was seriously humid as well, not the most pleasant weather to be at the Vege market but Tim and I trekked in all the same (eh, he does all the heavy lifting.) Tim went to work and Ange came over, and we watched Chicago. Do you know why? Because I realised that oh-so-smooth Taye Diggs (ie, Benny from Rent – and Mr Black from The Wild Party, if you want to go even further) is the anouncer/piano player guy. Yeah, we are boffins. He certainly makes a fine MC but it’s a shame he didn’t get to sing. Also it’s scary how healthy and alive CZJ looks next to Renee Zellweger, who, all the same, does a stirling job – I can’t even imagine Ashlee Simpson taking the role of Roxie in the West End – ugh! I’d forgotten what a good movie Chicago is, I think its strength lies in the fact that it is so darn SLICK. And John C. Reilly is pretty heartbreaking.
PS – I know I said I’d been experimenting with lentils, and it’s true – I tried cooking up red lentils and using them in a muffin recipe. I decided to call them Lentil-Bran Patties (even though they were actually muffins, this title was mostly to annoy Tim- “But they AREN’T patties!”) but they were remarkably good. A little stodgy, but…yeah, good, and of course, very, very healthy. Another thing to catch a cab back to the lab for…’cause I KNOW you’re all gagging for the secret recipe to my Lentil-Bran Patties.