Category: vegan

how long has this been going on…?

12 Comments

If there was a defining recipe of my childhood, the above cake would be second only to microwaved Marmite and cheese sandwiches. Which is where you take many bread slices, butter them, spread them with Marmite, pull several slices of cheese from the block with the wire cutter, layer them all up in a stack on a plate (probably plastic and not microwave safe) and then nuke until the cheese is bubbling violently. Allow to cool slightly, then eat. Alternatives include tomato sauce and cheese (like a low-rent Margherita pizza…kind of) and, uh, golden syrup and butter. In fairness, this was in the days where I was dancing in every spare minute, and there wasn’t a lot of time or access to fancy snack foods. It’s no wonder I gravitated instinctively towards the improvisational and energy-dense. Plus I love melted cheese.

What I baked the most in my childhood though, for family members’ birthdays, for Calf Club (a kind of elaborate rural pet day, FYI) competitions and simply for my own entertainment, was this cake recipe which came with a glass bowl Mum bought in the 80s – one of those round, slightly opaque baking dishes with high, ridged sides. I suspect it became my go-to cake because it was very simple and didn’t involve any expensive ingredients and therefore wouldn’t be too stressful to my parents that I was making it so often. I didn’t realise it at the time when I was a kid, but it’s completely vegan – using water, vinegar, baking soda and oil in place of the richness and raising abilities in butter and eggs. These ingredients mean that it’s a fairly spartan-tasting cake, which I also didn’t really realise at the time, since I didn’t have much to compare it to. In hindsight, I feel a bit sorry for everyone in my family who had to choke down slices of it every time I insisted on baking it, but at least I was always generous with the icing.

After all this you might wonder why I even emailed Mum for the recipe. Partly curiosity about how whether I’d still like it, and partly in recollection of its dairy-free-ness, which makes it pretty attractive to me right now in these times of brutally expensive butter. Mum did say “wouldn’t you rather just turn off the heater and eat butter instead?” to which I respond…I’m sorry…that I want to have my cake and eat it too. I have made a few additions to the recipe though, so that you’re not stuck consuming the same firm, pale brown disc of cake I grew up on.

My Childhood Chocolate Cake, Improved Significantly

The title needs work, but at least the recipe doesn’t anymore.

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 3 tablespoons cocoa, good dark stuff like Equagold if you can get it.
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/3 cup plain oil such as rice bran
  • A pinch of salt
  • 2 tablespoons malt vinegar or balsamic vinegar
  • 3/4 cup fruit juice of some kind, watered down a bit if you like (like, 1/2 cup juice, 1/4 cup water)
  • Optional but excellent: 100g very dark chocolate (I use Whittakers) roughly chopped.

Set your oven to 180 C/350 F, and line a 20cm tin with baking paper.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl and stir in 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup brown or muscovado sugar (or just 3/4 cup white sugar)

Using the back of a spoon, make a well in the centre (like, a bit of a hollow/valley in the flour-cocoa mixture that you can pour liquid into. I used to spend ages on this bit, smoothing the mixture into precarious sand-dunes. Mind you I used to think those hideous framed sand-oil-water things were really cool) and pour in the oil, salt, vinegar, and fruit juice.

Using a spatula, stir everything together thoroughly, transfer to the prepared tin, and bake for around 40 minutes. Once cool you can ice, or it’s just as fine plain.

Mum concedes that it wasn’t the nicest cake but it was good for kids because they just want to eat the icing anyway, and it was very easy to put together, so “it never felt like a waste of time baking it.” In case you’re wondering where the changes were made, I upped the cocoa, and added brown sugar and chopped chocolate. These helped make it a little darker and richer. Then, I changed the liquid content from plain water to juice – the reason I say you can use any juice is that the flavour itself doesn’t seem to be overly strident once the cake is cooked, instead adding an overall extra layer of sweetness and distracting from the slightly fizzy vinegar aftertaste which could sometimes otherwise linger.

In short, and the reason you might want to make it at all, it’s a really delicious cake now, instead of being a cake that was okay for kids in the early 90s who didn’t know any better and who were mostly interested in the icing on top anyway. It has an unambiguous chocolate flavour with a pleasingly un-dry texture – almost bordering on brownie-like with the brown sugar and lumps of dark chocolate. It’s really good.

So good I made it twice this week, and tested it out on friends of ours on Friday night. So I can now tell you it also goes well with red wine.

In fact the consumption of this cake was just the beginning of what has been a fantastic weekend. On Saturday night Tim and I met up with another friend of ours at Foxglove to see the mighty pairing of David Dallas and PNC, down in Wellington on account of Dallas’ new album The Rose Tint, which you can download for free, what? Whoever did the sound last night deserves a gift basket of seasonal fruits or something because not only could we hear every single word – always fun at a hip hop gig – it also wasn’t so loud that I left with ringing ears and a bleeding nose, or vice versa. Very fun night. Continuing with the theme of mighty pairings, Tim and I were invited out to lunch by Kate of Lovelorn Unicorn and her husband Jason, we went to this place in Miramar called The Larder and it was all just highly delicious. Wish all weekends could be like this – don’t think I’d get bored of it in a hurry. (Can’t completely speak for Tim though, considering The Warriors and the All Whites both lost their games.)

Title via: Ella Fitzgerald. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any footage of her singing How Long Has This Been Going On but a voice like hers can stand tall in audio form alone.

Music lately:

I was listening to some Be Your Own Pet for the first time in about three years, (I think?) I’ve never met one other person that thought their music was good, but their songs still capture my ears after all this time. Fire Department, for one.

Paul Robeson, Going Home, from his Carnegie Hall concert in 1958. I don’t know why it is, but all his stuff on vinyl is always in the “we’ll pay you to take this” bin at record shops. Which works out nicely for me.

Next time: Kate and Jason were talking about Nigella Lawson’s recipe for snickerdoodles today from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, and I realised I’ve only made them once, and that was in 2006, and that they were so good and I can’t believe I’ve never revisited them. That time might be now. But on the other hand, I recently won a copy of the lovely Flip Grater’s cookbook and it’s full of recipes that I want to try repeatedly. So, it’ll likely be one of those options.

 

o souperman

11 Comments

This soup actually cured my cold. Either that or my cold was on its way out and the bold quantities of garlic, ginger, and chilli in this soup merely opened the door for it, put its hand in the small of its back (the soup’s hand, the cold’s back…I think) and kindly but firmly steered it outwards.

Soup isn’t always the most exciting thing to have for dinner – it’s generally never fried, crispy, crunchy, chocolate dipped, or any of those things that can be so, so good about eating. However this recipe is courtesy of Yotam Ottolenghi, whose way with food is always exciting. That said, you’ve got to make sure you really read the ingredient list, simple as it looks, and don’t miss anything out. Each thing, from the sticks of celery to the bay leaves play their important part, allowing the soup to neatly dodge the whole “wait, what? This is just bits of herbs floating in warm water” vibe.
Unfortunately I can’t avoid my “awful low-lighting and also prosaic soup composition photos” vibe. First comes the better control of photography on a Winter’s night, then comes the better composition. I promise you I’m reading…well, looking for, my camera’s instruction manual.
Garlic Soup

From Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty

Serves 4

4 shallots (or an onion) finely sliced
3 celery sticks, finely chopped
40g butter (optional – just use the oil if you like)
2 T olive oil
25 garlic cloves, finely sliced (yes, peeled and sliced, sorry)
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger root
1 tsp finely chopped thyme leaves
200ml white wine
generous pinch saffron threads (optional…because I accidentally left it out)
4 bay leaves
1 litre good-quality vegetable stock
1/2 tsp sea salt
Parsely, coriander and Greek yoghurt and harissa to serve.

Fry your shallots or onions and celery in the butter and oil till soft and translucent – keep an eye on them, don’t let them turn brown. Add the garlic and continue to cook over a low heat, then stir in the ginger and thyme, followed by the wine which will bubble up and reduce down a bit. Then add the saffron, bay leaves, salt and stock and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Note: I acknowledge peeling and slicing all that garlic is a big pain, but it’s worth it in terms of flavour. Maybe a buddy you can enlist, in exchange for feeding them soup?
Ottolenghi says to blitz with a hand blender or in a food processor but I didn’t have the energy for that – all the lifting and the assembling and the cleaning on a cold dark night…and it seemed just fine as it was.
As I said, every ingredient is important – the wine against the hot pan, evaporating into concentrated savoury goodness, the vigorous burst of ginger heat, the softened, traditional flavours of the onion and celery. The heavy spoonful of yoghurt isn’t exactly essential but I would definitely not leave out the green garnishy things on top – coriander’s fresh taste goes well with the rest of the soup, but it also makes it look a bit more presentable. If you don’t have harissa (I did) you’ve got a number of options – stir in some sambal oelek, chopped red chilies, or replace the olive oil with chili oil. Or, of course, ignore the chili altogether.
I realise I’ve spent nearly this whole thing saying how not-fun soup is, but this stuff is truly gorgeous (not-not-fun?), a broth of flavours unfurling like flannel sheets grabbed straight from the dryer – warming, comforting, lightly textured.
Work took me down to Christchurch on Saturday, and I was fortunately able to have a quick catch up with Mika of the mighty fine Millie Mirepoix blog who coincidentally was also down from Wellington. The chilling rubble of half-formed houses and the constant road-blocking cordons, the cracks in the road and the buildings that you had to look at twice to register that they were leaning on an angle or sunken in the middle made me feel a bit queasy and sad inside and it would’ve been easy to get stuck focussing on that. Not that it shouldn’t be focussed on (it should! But in a “now what” kind of way, maybe? Not really my place to say) but what I mean is, it was really good to see a friendly face amongst it all, and to contribute in a small way to the local economy by getting coffee and a really, really good Cherry Ripe Slice at Beat Street Cafe and another fantastic coffee from Black Betty’s. If you’re heading to Christchurch I totally recommend these places – they’re open, they’re friendly and they’re serving up seriously good food.
________________________________________
Title via: Laurie Anderson’s intriguing, staccato yet tranquil O Superman. Admittedly I don’t know a lot of her stuff (only really this and Language Is A Virus), and it can be, to someone attuned to songs being a bit verse-chorus-verse-chorus and so on, a bit challenging, but I do like it a lot, and not just because Idina Menzel cites Anderson as someone she studied for her character of Maureen in RENT (I heard Anderson first, so!)
________________________________________
Music lately:
Lena Horne – who died just over a year ago now – and her beautiful version of I Got Rhythm from the Lovely and Alive record.
Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart. Heard it this morning for the first time in ages on the radio. It’s a bit obvious, but it’s always good. (Speaking for the original only, not cover versions…)
____________________________________
Next time: My invention of gingerbeer scones possibly hasn’t been thought of before because they weren’t as wildly gingery as I thought they’d be…but they were still delicious, and I took photos of them anyway.

filling up with brandy, killing with a kiss

19 Comments

That’s brandy pooling round the edge of the bowl, by the way, not melted butter. Wait, which is more concerning first thing in the morning? Don’t think I’d be above adding melted butter to my porridge. It’s only one step removed from apple crumble topping.

Despite being shackled with a dull, greyish-beige colour and a name that implies the theme of Coronation Street tolls for ye (or indeed, the theme of the eponymous prison-set show) there is a lot to love about porridge. It’s cheap. It sustains. It’s warm. You can cook it pretty quickly. It contains such good things as – according to Wikipedia – fibre, protein, iron and magnesium. And I also have this thing where, if I make porridge, I feel like I don’t have to do the dishes right away – just fill the oaty pot with water and leave it sitting in the sink for the rest of the day.

One way to make your morning porridge distinctly less greyish-beige is to topple spoonfuls of sultanas soaked in a syrup of sugar and liquor over it. What pushed me towards such sybaritic early-morning behaviour is a recipe in the Floriditas cookbook, Morning Noon and Night. Floriditas is a beautiful cafe in Wellington. Tim and I would eat there all the time if we could afford it. Till that time comes, we can eat like them whenever I make recipes from their cookbook. Morning Noon and Night’s recipe calls for Pedro Ximinez sherry to soak your dried fruit in, and not having any of that, I used quince brandy. I realise quince brandy itself is a fairly specialised ingredient, but I believe regular sherry or brandy, Marsala, Cointreau or Grand Marnier, probably some whiskys or bourbons, or nigh on any liqueur or fortified wine (maybe not Midori though) would be lush as a substitute.

If you’re wanting to make quince brandy, because if you move fast you should still be able to get hold of some, all you have to do is chop up the fruit (don’t bother to peel or anything) and tip into a kilner jar or similar. Add a cinnamon stick and top up with brandy (as cheap as you like) then leave in a cupboard for about 6 weeks. It tastes and smells amazing, and the recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s significant book How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

Porridge with Pedro Ximinez (or whatever) Raisins (or sultanas)

Adapted slightly from Morning Noon and Night, the Floriditas cookbook.

Note: I used sultanas, because, even though they look exactly the same as raisins, I just prefer them. But, showing what being a Nigella acolyte can do to you, I also included some golden raisins, which for some reason I can deal with because they look so pretty. I get mine from Ontrays in Petone, but please don’t feel your breakfast is a failure if you only use regular ones.

  • 250g raisins or sultanas
  • 190mls Pedro Ximinez sherry; or more or less whatever you like, I used Quince Brandy
  • 50g sugar
  • 50ml water

Dissolve the sugar and water in a small pan, then boil for about 5 minutes till thick and slightly golden. Watch carefully. Place the raisins in a bowl, pour over the syrup and refrigerate till cool. Then add the alcohol, mix well, and either transfer to jars or a container and refrigerate again. Leave as long as you can – these just get better with time.

Porridge

  • 1 cup porridge oats soaked overnight in 1/2 a cup water (soaking optional)
  • At least 3/4 cup water
  • Good pinch salt
  • Good pinch cinnamon

Place the oats, water, salt and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to the boil, continuing to cook (stirring continuously) till thick and creamy. Please use this amount of water as a guide only – depending on your oats and your preference, you may need way more.

Pour into two bowls, top with spoonfuls of the raisins and a little syrup.

This is so delicious – the soaking makes the oats soft and creamy despite only water being used, the cinnamon brings warmth of flavour to the potential dullness of the oats, and the soft, swollen fruit releasing a small burst of gently alcoholic syrup into your mouth with every bite. And as long as you’re a bit prepared the night before with the syrup and the soaking and everything, it comes together in bare minutes. If you’re not down with ingesting a tiny bit of alcohol first thing in the morning – and that’s completely up to you – some equally excellent options could include replacing the sherry with orange juice, or doing away with it entirely, doubling the sugar and water, and adding a good spoonful of vanilla extract or a generous dusting of ground cinnamon.

The sultanas would probably make decent gift for someone – they can be employed in many different ways, in cakes, on yoghurt, in puddings, or as we did last night, over ice cream. Mum, my godmother and my godmother’s sister (that sounds complicated and austere, think of them as aunties) came down to Wellington for the weekend and Tim and I had them over for dinner last night. Mum turned up with a purple cauliflower and a block of butter, which some people might not think is a very good gift, but most people aren’t me. Both were received with much excitement. It has been a really lovely time catching up with them and seeing Mum again although her visit came with some sad news – Rupert, the cat we got in 1997 from my Mum’s sister who wasn’t allowed cats at her then-house, had been put down after a his longterm nose cancer got the better of him. I loved that cat so much and in his fourteen year stay with us he outlived so many other co-pets that it almost seemed like he’d just carry on living forever. His surprising appetite, his ability to warm a lap, and his look that suggests that he can understand how much you love him but he doesn’t care anyway because he’s a cat and that’s how he does, will all be missed hugely by me.

RIP Rupert. This is our last photo together, when we got back from our holiday overseas two weeks ago (yes, I added the black and white to make it more dramatic, but still. Look at the disparity between our enjoyment of this moment. That’s classic Rupert.)

Title via: How Did We Come To This, the final song in Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party, the musical which has the heavy honour of introducing me to both Idina Menzel and Julia Murney back in 2005. If you ever suspect you could be into musical theatre, this might well be the cast recording that confirms that for you.

Music lately:

Treme Song by John Boutte – it’s a rare, rare soundtrack that I make the effort to find, but a few – like the music from the TV show Treme – are better than your average unnecessary cash-in attempt. This song is just so good, and I was reminded of that when we had book group on Friday at the lovely Kate’s house and it accompanied our discussion of Confederacy of Dunces (and other things).

Next time: Mum brought down a massive box of feijoas from Nana’s tree (thanks Nana! And your tree!) and my godmum Viv told me about how she replaced the dates in a sticky date pudding with feijoas…and I think I have to try replicate that immediately. Either that, or something featuring purple cauliflower.

 

like eating glass

13 Comments

I was supposed to have this blog post sorted last night, but by 7.30pm I was a loose-jawed, slumpy mess and didn’t really have what it took to stage a decent blog-comeback. However, I managed to at least get dinner done – the following recipe for Glass Noodles and Edamame – whilst bearing the increasingly shackle-like load of jetlag that I can’t seem to shake. I don’t want to complain about it as such, (oh poor me, I travelled so much and now I’m just too fatigued for words), I just want to draw your attention to the fact that I did make it at all despite wearing a heavy cloak of semi-somnolence, and therefore you should be able to make it on any given day. That said, I understand if exhaustion and unmotivation of the non-travel variety is part of your day-to-day routine. I’m not the only person ever to feel sleepy, or worse, sleepy in the middle of cooking something involving a little concentration, causing you to collapse to your knees into a bowl of soaking noodles and cry ceilingward, What have I doooooooooone?

But this is do-able. Plus, it comes from the Ottolenghi cookbook Plenty, which Tim got me for my birthday. We’d actually also reserved ourselves a table for an evening at Ottolenghi the restaurant on the day after my birthday. (The day of was all booked out. A month in advance.) It was such a cool night. They made a huge fuss of us having come all the way from New Zealand, gave us prime seats, our waiter was genuinely friendly, our food was genuinely amazing. It was also wildly expensive but it’s not the kind of place we go often…or ever. So we put the price in the back of our minds while we feasted on tender shredded brisket, cheese-stuffed zucchini flowers (the first time either of us had tried them), barley with asparagus and radicchio, so many beautiful flavours, followed by a plain but perfect vanilla cheese cake carrying crunchy, sugary, caramelised macadamias. I’d been a fan of Yotam Ottolenghi’s for a while now, and I found it hard not to grin throughout our meal.

Plenty allows me to recreate those beautiful flavours and combinations at home. It’s a completely vegetarian cookbook, with no pudding recipes (yet I love it still) and when I saw the following recipe for Glass Noodles with Edamame Beans, I could see it was one of those dishes that largely relies on your cupboard being stocked up, as opposed to any skill, and therefore is ideal for the first meal after a month away. There’s a little heating and chopping involved, and then suddenly you’ve got this gorgeous piled-up pile of salty-sweet noodles and edamame beans that taste so nutty and creamy they betray the fact that they are actually a vegetable.

I know glass noodles as vermicelli or rice noodles, but kept the name because it sounds kinda pretty. However I removed the “Warm” from the start of the title – maybe I read too many Baby-Sitter’s Club book scenes of Kristy Thomas describing the SMS cafeteria lunch offerings – but whenever I see the word “Warm” in a title (and it does appear a bit, you know, “Warm Salad of Lamb and bla bla bla” etc) I always mentally add the word “socks” afterwards. Warm…socks. Not cool, but there it is. I get frozen edamame beans – soybeans – at the supermarket up on Torrens Terrace or in Moore Wilson (if you’re in Wellington) but if they’re too hard to find, this would still rule with frozen peas as a substitute. That said, my ancient Aunt Daisy cookbook has a recipe for “Soya Bean Rissoles” (easily digestible seems to be their selling point) so they can’t be that obscure, right?

Glass Noodles and Edamame Beans

From Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty

  • 200g glass (rice, vermicelli) noodles
  • 2 T sunflower, rice bran or other plain oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely diced
  • 300g podded, cooked edamame beans
  • 3 spring onions
  • 1 fresh red chilli, chopped finely
  • 3 T chopped coriander, plus more to serve
  • 3 T shredded mint leaves
  • 3 T toasted sesame seeds

Sauce

  • 2 T grated galangal or fresh root ginger
  • Juice of 4 limes or 1 – 2 big lemons
  • 3 T peanut or rice bran oil
  • 2 T palm sugar, crushed or 1 T dark brown sugar
  • 2 tsp tamarind pulp or paste
  • 1 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt

Soak the noodles in a bowl of hot water for five minutes, or until soft. If, like mine, they don’t soften up right away, tip them into a pot with a bit more water and simmer for a bit. Don’t let them get too soft and collapsing though. Drain.

Whisk together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

Heat the sunflower or rice bran oil in a large frying pan or wok, and add the garlic. When it starts to go lightly golden and smell amazing, remove the pan from the heat and add the sauce and the noodles. Gently stir together, so that you incorporate the sauce but don’t crush the noodles, then add the edamame beans, plus the spring onion, chilli, coriander and mint.

Divide between plates or pile onto a platter and scatter over the remaining beans, sesame seeds and coriander.

Notes: I used sambal oelek instead of chilli, lemon instead of lime, and brown sugar instead of palm – and I just didn’t have any coriander or tamarind. My cupboard is pretty well stocked but I’ve been away for a month and wasn’t going to spend heaps on a few ingredients when I could wait till the vege market this Sunday and get them for cheap. I also didn’t use mint because it grows up on the roof at my place and it was raining and freezing and windy and I just didn’t want to go outside to get it.

Please scuse the photos by the way – now that the late-afternoon darkness is a daily occurrence, I really need to remember how to take decent night-time photos.

Even though I wish we were still traveling and doing things like this:

…on a cold and rain-soaked evening I’m so happy to be back in the kitchen, and this is just the recipe to welcome me back to it. The flavours of chilli, ginger, garlic and soy lift the bland, slippery noodles into something substantial and the beans not only look gorgeous, their pistachio-like taste makes this fairly cheap dinner taste luxurious as. As Ottolenghi suggests, you could double the soy content by adding tofu to make it more of a meal, but I loved it as is.

Actually this isn’t even my greatest jet lag achievement. I did manage – somehow – to make caramel ice cream at Mum and Dad’s place on our first day back in the country, and I helped with the feijoa and apple crumble that went with it. Have you ever separated 6 eggs on 2 hours’ sleep? I don’t recommend it, but my drive to make everyone ice cream overrode my drive to be sensible. We did have a great weekend at home, landing at 5.30am only to be whisked up to the Manukau Heads to see Dad’s band Apostrophe play at a school fundraiser. Despite calling to mind something that Coco Solid once mentioned about the particular awkwardness of performing in the daytime, it was my first time seeing the band play and it was very cool. I don’t think it was just the jetlag that made the songs sound so good – between absorbing all those Dad-penned tunes and seeing Mum make up a bread and butter pudding on the spot with bits of leftover hot cross bun and bread rolls, I left for Wellington with a bit of a “my parents are awesome” glow. We managed to see heaps of family on our short time at home which was so great, even if the later it got in the afternoon the less sense we made.

Just checked the clock and it’s 9.20pm which is the latest night I’ve had yet since we got back on Saturday morning – yuss.

Title via: Bloc Party’s Like Eating Glass from Silent Alarm. I remember when they were all new and exciting and now they’re just…a bit old and exciting. When Kele Okerere sings “it’s so cold in this house” it’s like you can see the puff of air coming from his mouth.

Music lately:

I haven’t had time to listen to much since I’ve been back but of course there’s Apostrophe, my dad’s band – they have so many good songs but to be fair, I really can’t judge ’em unbiasedly, anyway the only thing of theirs online is their single The Skeptic, check it out.

Next time: I’ve got a day off on Friday and I’m going to be baking SO many things. Or at least, more than one thing. I’ve missed baking. There might also be a moment-by-moment recount of how I felt during Wicked. I will also be catching up on all the food blogs on Friday, looking forward to all the pending inspiration.

 

just a little too soft, al dente

14 Comments

In a triflingly small number of sleeps, Tim and I will not be in New Zealand anymore. For a whole month. So don’t come looking for us. Unless you’re in London, in which case by all means come find us. Unless you’re into knife crime. Even though I never once felt unsafe during my time in London, well, at least up till July 7th 2005, I still can’t help thinking “knife crime!” said like the scene-change ‘dun-dunn!’ on Law and Order. But we’ll be fine. We’re confident, like Maria Von Trapp. Thanks so much to everyone who has emailed in offering ideas and websites and even their roof for us to stay under. And a massive thanks to my godmum and her family who loaned Tim and myself some awesomely functional luggage, especially compared to our sorry, carpal-tunnel-inducing offerings.

I can’t say that it has really made its way through to my brain properly – that instead of getting up and going to work every day, I’ll be on the other side of the world to where I am right now, for a month. Firstly, there have been some extremely heavy events both locally and overseas filling my mind – natural disasters, disastrous man-made situations…plus I was up in Auckland again on the weekend just been, this time working at ASB Polyfest (amazing but exhausting) so between that and Pasifika the weekend before, there hasn’t been much time to really properly consider it. Somehow it’ll all come together though. As I said. Confident. Like a Von Trapp.

Part of making it all come together is using up any perishable food. This might mean chugging a hefty volume of soymilk, or it might mean lots of thrown-together pasta dishes like the following, where a vegetable that’d otherwise curl up remorsefully in the fridge becomes the star. The star of what I named Sexy Pasta. I just looked at our dinner and the name appeared to me, organically and fully-formed.

Admittedly, it looked a lot sexier in person. Now that we’re further into the year and darkness falls earlier, I need to try and remember how to take decent photos at night.

But look at those ingredients. Hello. You don’t have to use pappardelle – it’s unfairly more expensive than other kinds of pasta, and I’m pretty unlikely to get it again for a long time, after the moment of wacky extravagance that got it in my cupboard in the first place. Regular spaghetti is more than fine, although something with a bit of width, like fettucini, would be great. I use almonds a lot because I bought a kilo from Moore Wilson’s for relatively cheap (much cheaper than buying little packets in the long run, I mean, and also cheaper compared to other bulk nuts) but use what you have – walnuts, pinenuts, pecans, cashews or Brazils would all rule.

Sexy Pasta aka Pappardelle with Roasted Capsicums, Sesame Garlic Toasted Almonds, Capers, Lemon and Mint

  • 160g pappardelle pasta or 200g other pasta
  • 3 capsicums
  • 1/2 cup whole almonds (be generous, this is your protein)
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed of their salt
  • Half a lemon
    Handful of mint leaves
  • Bring a large pan of water to the boil with plenty of salt, cook the pasta according to packet instructions (around 10 minutes) and then drain.

While this is happening, set your oven to 220 C. Halve the capsicums, remove the core and stem, and place cut-side down on an oven tray with some baking paper on it. Roast for about 20 minutes or until they’re a little blackened. Remove from the oven, tip them into a bowl and cover with gladwrap (this will make it easier to remove the skins later) and turn the oven down to 200 C.

While they’re roasting, finely chop the garlic clove. Once you’ve removed the capsicums from the oven tray – leaving the paper where it is – replace them with the almonds and the garlic. Drizzle with the sesame oil, and use a spatula to get it all mixed well, so each almond is slickly coated with oil and the chopped garlic is well dispersed. Return to the oven for about 5 minutes – make sure you keep an eye on it, burnt nuts are no fun.

Carefully peel the skin from the capsicums – should come away easily enough – and tear them into strips.

Finally – assemble. Divide the pasta between two plates, then divide the strips of roasted capsicum over that (including any syrupy juices that appear in the bottom of the bowl). Tumble over the almonds and the capers, squeeze the lemon’s juice on the top, and then rip the mint into bits and sprinkle over.

Soft, slippery capsicums, tender wide ribbons of pasta, salty capers, the sweetness of the almonds roasted into popcorn-crunchy, sticky nutty garlicky excellence, the fresh hit of the lemon and mint. The flavours and textures plow into each other to create a seriously gorgeous meal.

The next post’ll be the last one before our trip, but I’ll try to jump on here occasionally during our time away, to be all like “here’s a fuzzy picture of a hot chocolate I had” and “look! Me in front of a Krispy Kreme donut shop!” etc…

Title via: PNC’s recent single Murderer off his upcoming album. I love his music and it ably translated live, too, when we caught the end of his set at Homegrown earlier this month. I first heard this song a while ago and when he mentioned both Pad Thai and al dente I thought “huh, I’ll most likely end up using that in a title sometime…”

Music lately:

Gary Numan, Are Friends Electric? Whether they are, not much gets my head swaying dreamily from side to side, Stevie Wonder-styles, like this tune.

While looking for Julie Andrews singing Confidence on youtube I found this clip of her tapping and singing Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious with Gene Kelly. As well as being half adorable, half bewildering, it showcases the incredibly polished, staggeringly professional nature of stars at the time. When in doubt, lightly banter.

Next time: Like I said, last post before we go, and I’ve got a recipe for Chocolate Jam Bars for you. And I’ll maybe require some advice on how to be separated from your blog that you love for a month.

 

i hope you like jammin’ too

11 Comments

Firstly – got unexpectedly mentioned in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper today in the Focus section, very exciting. With the title of Comfort Food even, something I feel strongly about (well, that food comforts, at least). So if you’re here because of that, you clearly overcame the hurdle of some funny printing on the photo, making me resemble a hyperactive 12-year old who’s just eaten a pineapple Fruju. I guess I look like that in real life plenty to be fair. The generous comparison to Nigella Lawson made me smile and do a self high-five although I did wonder about the mention of “skinnier” – is that positive/negative/true/necessary? Anyway, I hope sincerely (and unsurprisingly) that you like what you read and stick around.

Given the events of the past few days making jam might sound misguidedly whimsical, but my intentions were practical. I had a whole lot of rhubarb in my fridge from a lady at work who has an enthusiastic plant, and it needed using. This jam recipe keeps for ages in the fridge and involves not much more than a little time, a bit of stirring, and a few thousand granules of sugar.

But first: a non-jam related preamble. I flew back to Wellington from Auckland today. I’d been working at Pasifika festival at Western Springs. Ate some awesome chop suey and a massive steamed pork bun from the Samoa village for lunch. Then immediately regretted it because my already indecent sweatiness from the fiery sun was compounded by the heat of the food. Cooled my insides with this juice from the Niue village called Tropical Crush – banana, apple, pineapple and coconut blended together.

Had a run-in that I thought was pretty funny.

I was talking to this kid who mentioned she was going back to Wairoa after the festival.

“My boyfriend’s from Wairoa” I said.

She asked what his name was.

He doesn’t live there anymore, I said, but I mention his mum’s family’s name.

She knew someone with that name in Wairoa, turns out it’s Tim’s cousin.

“Is [Tim’s cousin] your boyfriend?” the girl asked, suddenly confused.

“Nooo” says I jokingly, “he’s a bit young for me!”

The girl still looks thoughtfully at me, squints and says “nah…he’s in Year 12 isn’t he?”

Year 12 is 6th Form, FYI, or just under a decade younger than myself. Refrained from asking “so just how old do I look to you?” because I remember having a skewed idea of what age was and what constituted being a legitimate grownup and that sort of thing. So instead I smiled and said “small world huh”.

I also caught up briefly with Mum and my godmum Vivienne who were at a Spanish course in town (received a txt saying “Talofa y Hola”) which was very, very lovely. But it was hard to maintain that relentlessly upbeat work-mode in the face of the incomprehensible disastrousness continuing to unfold in Japan. The footage was both numbing and terrifying. I really hope you all quickly get in touch with anyone you know over there.

So again I turn to Aunt Daisy, whose quantity of recipes, old-timey resourcefulness (there’s a lot of things that weren’t great ‘back then’ but hot damn they knew how to be resourceful) and her resolutely authoritative tone brings me comfort always, but especially now. I’m not sure if Aunt Daisy was super kindly, or more of the snapping-turtle variety of older lady, but when she drops lines like “Cut bread into 1 inch cubes. Roll in condensed milk (sweetened). Fry in hot deep fat” I feel like I’m posthumously sinking into her blouse-clad bosom for a big hug.

This jam recipe is very simple, even though it’s not instant. Nevertheless I managed to burn it while – haha! – tweeting about how great my jam was. I acted fast – removed the pan from the heat, chucked it in the sink which I started filling with cold water, and then grabbed a spatula and transferred the jam to a bowl. I slid a cautious spoon into the bowl of jam half an hour later, tasted it and…all was forgiven. It tasted amazing. The sugars of the rhubarb had become toffee-intense during their brief scorching, and apart from the general texture being a little sticky instead of jammy (nothing that adding a bit of water while reheating couldn’t fix) the jam was completely salvageable. Still, it’s probably better if you manage not to burn it at all. So save the self-congratulatory tweeting till after it’s off the heat.

Rhubarb and Dried Fig Jam

Recipe from Aunt Daisy’s Favourite Cookery Book

Aunt Daisy asks for 6 pounds of rhubarb and 6 pounds of sugar and 1 1/2 pounds dried figs. This means you need roughly 2.5 kilos of rhubarb. Different times back then. I’ve adapted it a bit to suit my needs, the good thing is the method works for however much rhubarb you have.

  • Rhubarb (at least 400g)
  • Sugar
  • Dried Figs

Weigh your rhubarb and then measure out the same weight in sugar. Trim and chop up your rhubarb, place in a non-metallic bowl, layering with sugar from your measured amount. Reserve any excess sugar. Cover the rhubarb and leave overnight, or some similar length of time (like, if you do this in the morning you could come back to it late afternoon or in the evening).

An incredibly awesome pink syrup should have formed in the bowl of rhubarb, and everything should be all soft and shiny from the sugar. Drain off the syrup (reserve for adding to soda water or vodka or whatever you like, really) and tip the rhubarb slices into a pan with the remaining, reserved sugar from your initial measurement.

Bring to a simmer and don’t go tweeting about how cool you are, because the sugar heats up fast. Instead, keep stirring. The fruit should collapse fairly quickly and start to smell amazing. Time will vary depending on your quantities, but if you’re feeling like it’s going to turn into a blackened mess, just tip in a little water or better yet, some of the syrup. Aim for ten minutes or so stirring over a low heat.

Chop up as many dried figs as you like, I’d go about a cupful or a decent handful per 500g. Add them to the rhubarb mix and simmer till the fruit softens and disappears.

Pour into hot, sterilised jars.

Rhubarb and figs aren’t as sexy as raspberries or peaches or anything. Rhubarb’s sweetness is austerely astringent and dried figs have a kind of medicinal, camphor-chest sugariness to them. Simmered slowly together though, they bring out the best of each other, giving you jam of rich, honeyed, fructose-deep flavour, interspersed with the unmistakable grit of fig seeds. It sets good and thick and can handle a little overheating. Cheers, Aunt Daisy.

In case you’re thinking “great, now I have a sodding great pile of jam to use up”, you could consider making it into these steamily delicious Germknodel, using it in this loaf cake, spreading it on top of hot homemade bread…or on buttered toast using whatever you’ve got.

One thing about making your own jam – it gives you time to be grateful that you’ve got the time, resources and ability to make jam.

Title via: another late-great, Bob Marley and his song which of course isn’t about homemade preserves at all….Jamming from his album with the Wailers, Exodus.

Music lately:

Been so busy but…we were flicking through radio frequencies on the way to the airport this morning, and Sinead O’ Conner’s Nothing Compares 2 U came on. Something about the upward direction of her “Nuuuuthing” on the the chorus always gives me shivers.

Next time: Your guess as good as mine – I’m heading back up to Auckland again for work on Thursday, and so my dream of making that mango pickle is now fading a bit with my distinct lack of time…

we go in a group, we tour in a troupe, we land in the soup

9 Comments

This minestrone has many, many good things going for it. You can make it up as you go along to suit what you’ve got (that’s what I did). It doesn’t cost much. It’s filling. It’s delicious. It’s vegan. It’s full o’ vitamins. It made me feel better about the increasingly forlorn group of parsnips in the fridge, it might have a similar effect on you. Depending on what you add to it, it can be as summery or as stodgily wintry as you like. And it takes hardly any of whatever effort you’ve got left at the end of the day.


Maybe it’s just me, and I realise being lacklustre isn’t the best way to push a recipe, but the one negative about this soup is…with all that good-for-you worthiness and vegetables-only content it’s not necessarily the most wildly exciting thing to be eating. If you’re up for it, some fresh, buttery scones would be fantastic alongside, or at the least some (also buttered) toast.
However while you wouldn’t think there’d be much to it (for example, because I told you) it’s delicious and sustaining and comforting and, as I said, pretty cheap too. All good things now, and indeed at any time. And while I love stirring chilli and spices into food, what could be seen as holding this soup back is also part of its charm – the simplicity of flavour. Much of it comes from the alchemy of stirring onions over heat and simmering the sweet, starchy parsnips and kumara. They lift it from being a bowl of aimlessly boiled vegetables into something pretty superb.
Undemanding Minestrone
Use whatever related vegetables you have: a combination of leeks, other kumara varieties, potato, frozen peas as well as canned beans/chickpeas/lentils would all work here.
1 onion
4 spindly or 1 fat parsnip
1-2 zucchini
1/2 a big orange kumara
Handful of small pasta like risoni or the bashed up remains of a packet of pasta or a few tablespoons long grain white rice.
Olive oil, salt and pepper. If you don’t have olive oil, use butter instead.

Slice the onion up thin. Heat the oil in a wide pan, and stir the onion slices in it over a gentle till properly cooked and browned slightly but not blackened. Grind in some salt. Chop all the rest of your vegetables into small chunks, add them to the hot pan and stir for about five minutes till they’ve started to become tender and have gained some colour.

Pour over enough water to come an inch above the vegetables, bring to a good bubbling simmer and tip in the pasta (or rice). Allow to simmer gently for another ten minutes or so, until the pasta is cooked through.
At this point you can leave it covered until you need to reheat and eat it – if this is any longer than a couple of hours then put it in the fridge.
As I said, one of the cool things about this minestrone is that you can add what you like to it depending on what you have. Its simplicity is great, but don’t let that stop you. Tomatoes. Canned beans. Finely chopped cabbage. Barley. Carrots. Pesto. Chilli sauce. Whatever you’ve got, this minestrone can probably accommodate it. It’s magic as is though, the pasta grains swelling up and absorbing the liquid flavoured by its vegetable inhabitants, the sweetness of the starchier ingredients stared down by the bolder onion and zucchini.
Meals like this are our thing at the moment. I’m away this weekend and next weekend for work and then the weekend after that, Tim and I take off on our Massive Exciting Overseas Trip so as well as wanting to eat things that don’t cost much, it’s good to get through whatever’s in the fridge. That said, I did run into Millie Mirepoix at the supermarket today and was convinced (okay, convinced myself, but she was an enabler) to buy a couple of gorgeous, perfumed quinces, which will need some fairy immediate attention.
I haven’t even thought that much about what I’ll do with this blog while I’m away – I think I’ll try to get a post done as close to our leaving time as possible and then just leave it as is, hoping for the best that you’ll all be there when I get back. As Christine Ebersole as Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens said, “when violets return in Spring, will you?” I’m not sure it’s all that relevant really considering New Zealand’ll be heading towards winter come April, but this song makes me buckle at the knees with its beauty and I just like a chance to link to it semi-gratuitously.
___________________________________________
Title via: Together, Wherever from the always quotable, always listenable Gypsy, a musical I would really love to see for real one day, till then making do with a couple of different cast recordings and my DVD of Bette Midler’s made for TV movie version of it. I also found this amazing clip of Liza and Judy singing an abridged version of this song…I love you youtube.
___________________________________________

Music lately

Till Tomorrow by David Dallas, I love this new video of his by Special Problems with its constantly moving, animated wandering hotdog and mustachioed donut visuals. Plus the bouncing, offbeat rhyming calling to mind, in a really good way, Can I Kick It?

Thunder On The Mountain by Wanda Jackson. Another of her tracks that sound both fresh and ancient, with a fast beat, full-on horns, and Jackson’s deliciously roguish voice.
________________________________________
Next time: either way probably something in a jar because I’ve still got to make that mango chutney, plus I’m halfway through making this recipe for dried fig and rhubarb jam from my Aunt Daisy cookbook.

better get that dough sister

14 Comments

Not all food blogs are created equal. Some get abandoned, their last update around the May 2009 mark, often saying something like “I’ve been so busy lately…” Some have light pink text on a dark pink background, briskly searing the eyeballs like marinated tofu laid in a hot pan. Some get book deals (pick me!) And some are resources that continuously inspire with their fresh perspective, genuine wordsmithery, love of food, and crack up humour. Like Hannah’s blog, Wayfaring Chocolate. Here’s yet another recipe via her writing that I’ve appropriated cuz it looked so good.

Although maybe I should say sounded so good. Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles sounds wildly delicious, at least to me. But. Because I gave my almonds and brazils a once-over in a hot pan, and they hold their heat, the chocolate melted and dispersed through the mixture in the food processor. Instead of bordering-on-adorable chocolate studded balls of cookie dough like Hannah’s, mine were…uniformly brown. After eating one I moved on pretty fast though. They really have a cookie dough flavour, but in a rich, textured way as opposed to the more instantaneous sugar rush of that which this imitates. If you were feeling up for it (and possibly if you’re serving them to guests) you could actually dip these or drizzle them with dark chocolate. And if you’re feeling super up for it, you could probably chop these up and stir them through vanilla ice cream. But they taste mighty amazing unadorned, whether or not you find them attractive.

I actually tried dusting them with this vanilla sugar I got given for Christmas but by the time I got the camera sorted the sugar had kind of absorbed into the surface. So I moved on.

No-Bake Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles

With thanks to Hannah from Wayfaring Chocolate

  • 2/3 cup almonds
  • 2/3 cup cashews (I used brazil nuts which I figured gave a similar texture)
  • 2/3 cup oatbran (blitz oats in the blender to make this if you haven’t got it)
  • 1/4 teaspoon (or more) ground cinnamon
  • Pinch salt
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar (I used golden syrup)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • About 50 grams dark chocolate (has to be dark stuff to make this vegan, but do as you please) roughly chopped

Toast the nuts in a pan over a low heat if you like – gives intensity of flavour, although definitely makes this ‘not raw’ if that’s what you’re going for.

Process everything up until the syrup into a fine-ish rubble.

Add the syrup, vanilla and chocolate and process again till the mixture comes together. If it’s looking super dry, add a tablespoon or so more syrup.

Roll into balls in the palm of your hand – it will feel like it won’t stick but keep rolling, it works.  Freeze…then eat.

They taste absolutely wonderful, which is why I present them to you without any fear of what they look like. The nuts themselves give the truffles luscious body and softness (and in fact they’ll probably do the same for your hair) their texture giving an almost-chocolatey bite to complement the actual chocolate. I know oatbran doesn’t sound so fun but it gives general bulk to the truffle mix and whatever dusty oat-ness is there disappears into the rest of the ingredients, as well as adding to the general, but genuine, cookie dough stylings of this recipe. Don’t leave out the salt, it means whatever flavour’s there hits you that much faster, as well as hinting at that salted-caramel thing by bringing out the best of whatever form of syrup you end up using.

These are fantastic when you arrive home seriously hungry (or as a hasty breakfast on the run if it comes to it – all those oats and nuts keep you going for a while) and obviously keep just fine for ages, stashed in the freezer. If you’re the kind of person who makes and freezes meatballs for a later date (and I am, very occasionally, that person) then…make sure you label things correctly. Biting into a frozen meatball while simmering these beauties in tomato sauce would be a grim outcome for such efficiency.

At this point in three weeks, Tim and I will be in London! We’ve still got a few nights’ accommodation to book there but apart from that we’re suspiciously organised. And, loving the sugary sweet names of the hostels we’re staying at in Berlin and Warsaw respectively: The Helter Skelter and Oki Doki. A bit like how I like to make stupid words like “ham” when I’m playing Scrabble rather than trying to win, I can’t lie that their respective names influenced me to want to stay there.

Yesterday Tim and I spent most of the day on the waterfront at the Homegrown festival, the first one I’ve ever attended instead of working at, and the first time it has rained on the day. Wasn’t a thing though, as the bands were performing in big sturdy tents, and we mostly loitered between two in particular. Took in such excellence as Coco Solid, PNC, The Phoenix Foundation, The Clean, Nesian Mystik (I’m pretty sure It’s On could’ve been released yesterday instead of 2002 and still be as smooth as freshly churned butter) ending the festival with a loud, aggressively athletic and seriously fun set from Die!Die!Die!.

Title via: Even though I never actually once really liked the music of Pink, Mya, or Christina Aguilera (Lil Kim, you’re fine by me) somehow the whole was greater than the sum of its parts and I still have a fondness for their melisma-tastic take on Lady Marmalade for the film Moulin Rouge (possibly because at one point in time I watched this film at least once a week. Possibly also the amazing Missy Elliot’s work on it – I distinctly remember driving somewhere with Dad one time, and him turning it up on the radio and telling me to listen to the production values.) And let’s take some time to appreciate the original by Labelle, who wore costumes no less astonishing.

Music lately:

After Homegrown we went back out to Happy to catch the back end of a quadruple bill raising money for Christchurch, namely Brains and Mammal Airlines. We’d never seen Brains before but liked them a lot, lots of dark moodiness and full-on drums and I’m very tired so that’s as far as I’ll try to go describing what we saw. Go listen and make up your own mind here.

Defying Gravity, from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Wicked, which belongs to the wonderful Idina Menzel. I hadn’t listened to this song in so long, and I know it’s prosaic, but for want of a better decision I’ve set my ringtone to the vertigo inducing coda of this song (if you can’t deal with sung dialogue, maybe skip to the final minute and a half or so.) Everyone call me!

Next time: saw this recipe for mango chutney after it was linked to on Twitter, and as luck would have it, mangoes were going reasonably cheap at the market today and as such, I’m pretty sure this is up next.

a custard pirate lost at sea

11 Comments

In the middle of writing this, there was a small but hefty-feeling earthquake in Wellington. At first it felt like a truck backed into our flat. Then the bottles on top of our fridge started clinking together and everything shook. I dove under the table which holds up the computer that I’m typing on, clutching my phone – just like I’ve imagined doing a million times over the past week actually. I’m normally over-scared of earthquakes as it is, but hot on the heels of last week’s disaster in Christchurch a jolt like this, even though it was forty km deep and only went for about 10 seconds, had me unable to stop my hands from shaking while I tried to text mum to let her know. And then Christchurch got some aftershocks themselves. Ugh. Am looking very respectfully at the ground, at the hills in the distance (well, what I can see over the high rise apartments) and at the sky and asking them all to just…keep still.

First of March today, meaning it’s only about three weeks till Tim and I head off on our massive-for-us trip to London, Berlin, Warsaw and LA. It has also been a week since the earthquake in Christchurch, which is hard to believe – time goes fast enough as it is, but that was really a blur. And we’re not even in it.
After the fantastic time I had on Saturday baking and selling it for Christchurch at Grow From Here with Millie Mirepoix I got to thinking even more about comfort food. As I said in my last post, on Tuesday night when I got home, I made Tim and I a risotto. Since then we’ve eaten soup, curry, more soup, rice and beans…there’s something about food that’s hot and soft and bowl-confined, and I don’t want to overthink it, which administers delicious psychological aid when times are tough.
One good reason not to overthink it is that I’m lucky to be in a position to choose what is my opinion of comfort food at all in this time, when plenty in Christchurch are eating whatever’s in their rapidly warming freezer, whatever they can reach or whatever they’re given.
Nevertheless, if you need comfort food, then the zenith of yieldingly soft bowl-food is probably this coconut custard semolina, which I invented fairly successfully this evening. It’s hot, it’s fast, you eat it with a spoon. Another example of how I’m really not doing so badly is I fully struggled with what to call it. On the one hand, it’s really just custard flavoured semolina made with coconut milk, why I’ve named it thus. On the other hand I hate the word semolina but to call it coconut custard would be misleading given its ingredients. Yeah, this is how I think sometimes.
Of course the food that brings you peace might be some seriously spicy prawns or a giant steak or something (both of which appeal right now to be honest). Just in case you were considering it, don’t let me tell you what your comfort food is, or that you should buy into the concept at all. However, the very act of making what is considered comfort food can be comforting in itself, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The stirring, the heat, the slow thickening of textures, the minimum of chewing required.
At best you’ve cooked yourself something and have the attitude of: Look at me being inevitably comforted by this so-called comfort food against my better judgement! Looook at me! Oh my, I feel a sense of calm. At the very least you’ve cooked yourself something that will stop you feeling hungry for a bit, and which costs hardly anything.
Instant Coconut Custard Semolina

2 tablespoons semolina
1 heaped tablespoon custard powder
1 can (400mls?) coconut milk or coconut cream
Brown sugar

A little whisk is one of the best tools here but if not a wooden spoon or a silicon spatula is more than fine. In a small pan, mix together the semolina and custard powder so there’s no lumps. Mix in enough of the coconut milk to make a smooth paste, then tip in the rest. Don’t worry if it’s a grey-ish colour from the coconut milk, it goes more golden as it heats up. Stir over a low heat for about five minutes.

It thickens quickly – at first like white sauce, before stiffening up significantly, like really thick cake batter. At this point take it off the heat, spatula it into a bowl or two, and pour over as much brown sugar as you like.
Initially I would’ve said this just serves one but it probably wouldn’t be silly to divide this generous bowlful between two people. Looking back, one can of coconut milk is maybe a lot for one person. But it’s delicious, so if you want to eat the lot yourself you have my blessing and my example to follow.
Until you add the brown sugar it’s a formless, hot bowl of gently-flavoured mush. Which is more or less what I was aiming for. The grains of semolina swell and disappear, muting the coconut flavour somewhat. The milky vanilla of the custard powder is subtle in all ways except for the yellow food colouring. It’s incredibly easy to eat, a thick, smooth, coconut scented paste untroubled by any semblance of texture. And then with the sweetness of the brown sugar it all makes sense somehow, the flavours immediately enhanced. The coconut, vanilla custard and melting caramelly sugar are all gorgeous without overpowering each other, but feel free to add a shake of cinnamon, which is one of the most comforting flavours I can think of, or some vanilla extract if you like.
Back to where I started, I can’t believe we’re actually going to be going on our holiday so soon. I’m a bit nervous (as I am about all things) but I also seriously can’t wait. As I’ve said before, if anyone has been to London, Berlin or Warsaw recently and knows something good, your shared knowledge would be hugely appreciated. It’s a different world now to back in 2005 when we were there. No more sequined boho skirts (as was the style at the time) for one thing.
____________________________________________
Title via: local maven of tunes, Sam Flynn Scott. Mostly a member of the Phoenix Foundation, but also does his own delightful solo stuff occasionally too, like this song Llewellyn from his album Straight Answer Machine. He’s also pretty fantastic on Twitter, one of those types where you nod and shout “me too” after everything you read.
____________________________________________
Music lately:

I’ve been listening to the music of Michael John LaChiusa, both startling and awesome in its time signatures, pastiche of styles, and subject matters. Not much of it is on youtube, but Gloryday from See What I Wanna See, which I did track down, still gives me thrill-shivers every time I listen to it.
________________________________________
Next time: Again, one day at a time. Got some raw vegan chocolate truffles that I made which may end up being next in line though…

see these ice cubes, see these ice creams

11 Comments

More ice cream! Am I obsessed with this stuff or what? Look: I had a can of lychees stashed in the freezer in the hopes of recreating this drink I had a Thai restaurant in Panmure. Without warning, in the middle of the day, the idea of lychee and cucumber sorbet manifested in my mind, eclipsed the previous idea, got the jump on anything else I’d been planning to blog about, and left me more or less unable to concentrate from then on till I could make it happen.

Saturday was spent catching up with close friends and family in fast succession (amazingly fun and good for the soul) but today, Sunday, stretched ahead with no real agenda. It was one of those monumentally rare, still blue-skied days in Wellington and rather than nuking myself in the afternoon heat, the cool shade of indoors was the ideal environment to make this fragrant, juicy sorbet. Because of the high water content it’s icier than most which is why – sorry – I recommend the double-blitzing in the food processor. That said it’s barely hard work to make, and if you do it all on one day, you can get away with washing the processor just the once. (We don’t have a dishwasher so most decisions that don’t revolve around how I can work more ice cream into my life tend to revolve around how I can minimise potential dishwashing.) All you’re doing is freezing then blending then freezing then blending. Then eating.

Yes, you’re putting a salad vegetable into your pudding, but something about cucumber’s chilled, melon-ish texture and the lychee’s perfumed slippery softness makes them ideal buddies to share a loving and iced existence together.

Lychee and Cucumber Sorbet

  • 1 can lychees in syrup (they only seem to come in syrup, so that’s what I used)
  • 1 decent-sized cucumber

Now, I’m guessing you don’t actually have to freeze the lychees beforehand, it really doesn’t add anything to the recipe, but as I said I started off thinking this was going to be something else.

So: freeze the can of lychees overnight, or longer if you’re like me and forget about it. Peel your cucumber, then halve it lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon (I just ate them, felt a bit wasteful otherwise) before chopping into chunks.

Open up your frozen can of lychees and tip into a food processor (it’ll probably take some gouging and digging with a knife like mine, but it’s possible it could come out clean) along with the cucumber chunks. Process the heck out of it, pausing to spatula down the sides occasionally – this will take a while to get rid of any errant solid bits.

Pour into a container and freeze for a couple of hours before – I’m sorry – processing again till very smooth. You can leave out this step but it’ll be all chunky and icy and rough. Refreeze and then serve as and when you wish.

Making up new ice cream is one of my favourite ways to use my brain (and I know this is a sorbet, but I give the umbrella heading because “iced dessert” sounds way too corporate) and luckily for everyone around who has to deal with me, this worked out exactly as I’d hoped. There’s only so many ways of saying fragrant without sounding weird/awkward, so to be straightforward, this stuff smells sooo good and tastes just as wonderful: juicy and hydrating and sweet. The second blitzing gives it more of a frozen coke consistency, rather than a granular, tooth-fissuring grittiness.

Scraped by the frosty spoonful, its diaphanous minty green colour barely hints at the strength of summery flavour it brings. These photos were totally taken on my bed by the way. I try to keep my food photography as real-life as possible without too much tutu-ing round but that’s where the light was, and it’s really not implausible that I’d eat ice cream in bed.

Title via: That exercise in then-exciting minimalism, Drop It Like It’s Hot by Snoop Dogg and my then-crush Pharrell (the song’s still good and of course he’s still good looking, but I don’t have a poster of him on the wall or anything).

Music lately: 

We had such an amazing time at Nas and Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives concert on Wednesday night. Might’ve just been the atmosphere but every song felt really important and significant…like this one. 

The sadly gone-early Patsy Cline with Stop the World – this is a gorgeous live recording of her singing this song. She was what I guess you’d call a consummate performer, filling every word with genuine but not excessive emotion. 

Next time: I feel like it has basically been nonstop pudding lately so I’m hoping the next one will involve vegetables a-plenty, and not by putting them into a sorbet, either.</p>