Category: Vegetables

Pink Goes Good With Grain

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If anyone can tell me what is behind the (admittedly forced) pun in my title you win a million dollars.

Not. But, I would be kinda tickled if anyone can work it out.

Mum got me a bag of quinoa – something which I have, nerdily, been quite wild to try for some time now. I never thought I’d come across something more virtuous than lentils, but here I am. Life sure can take you on some interesting journeys. The Incans called quinoa the “mother of all grains” and are you going to argue with that recommendation? It contains forty squillion different vitamins and minerals and has more protein than any other non-meat product, and with all this you’d expect it to be kind of high maintenance, right? But no, a two year old could cook it. All you have to do is let it simmer for ten minutes, no pre-soaking or anything. As if all that weren’t thrilling enough, it actually tastes really good. Closest in texture to couscous, but much lighter, it has a somewhat nutty flavour which lends itself nicely to having chunks of roasted vegetables folded through…


Of course, adding roasted beetroot instantly turned the entire bowl of quinoa bright pink. Also in the mix was roasted carrot, walnuts, chopped spinach, and a perhaps-slightly-toooo-generous spoonful of ras-el-hanout. I thought about drizzling in some olive oil but the quinoa is so light and fluffy that I didn’t want it to be bogged down with gluggy oil.


Above: I did something very similar with some wholewheat pasta – more roasted beetroot, spinach, etc, but this time I included some mashed cloves of roasted garlic. The sweet nuttiness of the beetroot complemented the nuttiness of the pasta (I really need a new synonym to describe nuttiness huh?) and the garlic was a perfect addition. Again, as soon as I gave it a stir, the whole lot turned irrevocably, gaudily…pink.

Above: Once more – with organic burghal wheat. You probably don’t need me to point it out, but this inexplicably became tinted the pinkest of them all, which contrasted pleasingly with the snowy feta (added at the VERY last minute here for photographic purposes.) After that I kind of cooled it on the beetroot front but look, they’re really cheap and good for you, okay? And sometimes you have to take what you can get.

So it has been a bit of a wholegrain orgy in my kitchen lately. I know I’m smitten with them, but trust me, they’re more alluring than their earnest, hessian-weave image would suggest. And it’s not all roasted beetroot, for example, witness rolled oats cleverly disguised as pancakes…

I made these following an old recipe of Alison Holsts’s. It doesn’t make a lot, so is suited nicely to a cosy, lazy Sunday breakfast for two. They are surprisingly filling, but aren’t stodgy or lumpen at all.

Oaty Pancakes

3/4 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

1 t baking powder

1 egg

2 T sugar

2 T butter, melted

Pour the milk over the rolled oats in a good sized bowl, and leave to sit for 5-10 minutes, perhaps while you potter round getting the rest of the ingredients. Stir in the rest of the ingredients without overmixing, and add a little more milk to slacken if the batter looks too stiff. I did. I also melted the butter in the pan I planned on cooking the pancakes in, before tipping it into the batter (thus saving on dishes! Like a true student.) These work best as smallish cakes, about the size of one of Jennifer Lopez’ hoop earrings circa 2002 (meow!) and need flipping once bubbles appear. Don’t leave them for too long though as the bubbles aren’t as obvious with all those oats in the way. Eat however you want, with butter, with golden syrup, whatever.

All these various foods – oats, quinoa, burghal wheat, wholewheat pasta – are not only delicious they are also incredibly good for you. They are filling – when I used to have toast for breakfast I would not only be intensely hungry at lunch, I would also have that horrible empty-head-empty-stomach feeling. This is why I eat so much of them: So that I don’t end up buying chocolate bars at 10.00am, and so that I don’t feel bad about the big ol’ chocolate cake that I made this afternoon (and will blog about soon…)

In other news, I’m really enjoying all my papers so far this term. I may not feel that way when I’m wading neck-deep through assignments but so far, so enjoyable…however I am being positively haunted by advertising for Wicked in Melbourne, even long-suffering Tim pointed out a poster in excitement to me before – “oh” – realising it’s an Australian performance. Nevermind, these things all happen when they’re supposed to and it wouldn’t be so bad to see it in the West End even if I have to wait a while…Speaking of Broadway I am currently in love with the Spring Awakening soundtrack, if you don’t mind a little salty language and teenage angst the songs are utterly gorgeous.

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!

What Am I? Chopped Liver?

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Obvious, but how could I let that title pass me by? I also considered “De-liver-ance” and “An Offal-y Big Adventure.” Sometimes I spend forever diddling over a title and now I have an embarrassment of riches. But truly, liver: it ain’t that bad. It’s not all that cheap either, unfortunately – a 300g pot of chicken livers costs $3.50. Considering the nature of offal – the fact that it’s so undesirable – shouldn’t it be cheaper? But after prowling through my Nigella books and also spurred on by Claudia Roden’s The Food Of Italy, I decided to dip my toe into the heady world of eating vital organs.


Above: Claudia Roden’s Chicken Livers with Marsala. As well as being generally disliked by children world-over, liver is also not going to win any Miss Photogenic sashes any time soon. Even soft-focus didn’t really help.

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Overheard in our kitchen:

Me: Tim, don’t hate me but…
Tim: (urgently) What did you do?
Me: We’re having liver for dinner.
Tim: Ah. (nonplussed silence ensues.)

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This was actually genuinely very, very good. Oh, I won’t lie, livers can have a funky texture – almost chalky in places, and disarmingly squishy in others – but they taste fine. Tim really liked it too. But then how could you turn down anything dripping with butter, bacon, and ambrosial Marsala wine? Probably a running shoe could be embiggened by being cooked in those ingredients.

Fegatini di Pollo al Marsala (sounds so much sexier in Italian, doesn’t it?)

200g chicken livers
1 small onion, chopped
15g butter
2 slices pancetta or bacon, chopped
6 T dry Marsala

Clean the livers and leave them whole. I should point out here that I diced them, because I felt I could handle them better in smaller chunks. Fry the onion in the butter, until soft but not browned. Add the bacon and fry for 2 minutes, stirring, then add the chicken livers. Saute quickly, turning over the pieces until browned but still pink inside. Add salt and pepper to taste and the Marsala. Cook for 1-2 minutes longer, then serve over noodles with lots of chopped parsely.

That wasn’t the end of my foray into liver though. Inspired by a couple of meatball recipes in Nigella’s How To Eat, I thought that combining beef mince and chopped liver to make meatballs would not only make the mince go further, it would provide intriguing flavour and add lots more vitamins. Livers are very, very healthy you know. Probably wouldn’t be so healthy if chickens were able to drink alcohol like humans.

Now I want to put liver into every meatball recipe. These were fabulous – soft and light and almost smoky in flavour. And because of the liver, we got eight meatballs each. Woohoo! I also added an egg, a grated carrot, some bran, a pinch of ground cloves, and a tablespoon of semolina. Frankly, the mixture looked completely nasty, but once they started to bake the kitchen smelled incredible. I whipped up a quick sauce by reducing some red wine (the dregs of a bottle from Tim’s and my night out a few weeks ago) and added a tin of chopped tomatoes, some dried oregano, and a spoonful of butter, before piling the whole lot over some rice. Tim flipping loved these. Hoorah for offal!
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Above: The obligatory whisk-with-something-attached photo.
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Not liver, but I’d completely forgotten to mention this so here it is. After Tim’s tooth operation last week (the utterly stupid dentists only completed about a quarter of his necessary work and then sent him off, unable to get an appointment for another week) he was in some crazy pain, so a dinner in puree form was my challenge. I came up with a Potato, Carrot, and White Bean Mash, which filled his need for carbs (and my need for legumes) as well as providing vegetables and protein. It was beyond simple, I just boiled the heck out of 500g unpeeled floury potatoes (hey, it was a cold night and we eat big) and 2 chopped carrots. I drained a tin of cannelini beans, before tipping the veges over them in the colander. This I tipped back into the pot, and using the masher, pulverised the lot. Because of the nature of the ingredients, this is never going to be super-fluffy, but nonetheless it’s worth getting out the whisk. I whisked in some milk, butter, salt and nutmeg, and piled this puffy, orange-and-white mash into two bowls. It turned out to be incredibly comforting stuff – warm, soft, buttery…If you are ever feeling fragile, I totally recommend it. It is probably worth mentioning that this would serve 3-4 normal people as a side dish.
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It is so nice to be on holiday but a bit depressing that it’s basically half over already. However, I can hardly describe the joy I felt in reading a book for its own sake. Just grabbing a book that I wanted to read. I turned to page one of Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch on Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning I’d finished it. It was so good – so fully realised – so sinister -and so heartbreaking by the end. Thanks to everyone who attempted to vote for me at the Bloggers’ Choice Awards – I have no idea when it closes but I’m more than happy to reciprocate if there are any bloggers out there also having a go. And uh, yeah, their page is a little, shall we say, obtusely designed.

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Next time: In complete contrast to chicken livers, I dabble in raw vegan cookery. I’m not joking! Although cookery is obviously the wrong term. Perhaps ‘assembly’?

“Sell Out, With Me Oh Yeah!”

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

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

BUY STUFF OFF FISHPOND BY CLICKING THE ICON ON THE RIGHT

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


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


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


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


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


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

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




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

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

 

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

“I Am A Synonym Bun”

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Intrigued? Mais oui, I pretend to hear you say.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you about this peanut butter chocolate slice that I made (recipe care of Nigella, natch) because…it is appearing in a magazine this month and you should all go out and buy that instead! I am published! Okay, it’s not quite Cuisine, or Gourmet Traveller, but Tearaway is one of the better teen magazine in New Zealand and is particularly brilliant because they genuinely welcome contribution from young writers. I grew up reading Tearaway back when it was a newsprint broadsheet (now it is A4 and distinctly shinier) and even though I’m really not sure if cooking is what the kids are into these days, I’ve managed to get in there with my humble food column. Whether it becomes a regular gig remains to be seen, but still, it’s a foot in the door. As Burns would say, “Patience, Monty, climb the ladder…”

*Update 9/6/08 – Just got sent a copy of the magazine in the mail today with a cheque for $30! I didn’t even realise they were going to pay me so as you can guess this was a more than pleasant surprise. I feel like Anne Shirley, or Jo March, or *implodes suddenly from geekiness* I can put the money into our savings account and as for the magazine…”That’s going straight to the poolroom.”
Here’s something I can actually elaborate on:


Above: Long-time readers should know I am friend of the beetroot, particularly when roasted. I’d never heard of making chips out of them, until I found this post on Adaptations, wherein fine slices of beetroot are baked in a low oven till they sort of dehydrate and crisp up and become SO much more delicious than this description would suggest. Of course it does sound like the sort of too-worthy, unnecessary, overcompensatingly healthy recipe that would have you running for the sour cream and chive Pringles. But these are truly delicious in their own right – and beautiful too, like dried rose petals – with a delicate smoky crunch to them that is very moreish. I only made a small amount, because I wasn’t sure if it would work out or not, but I’d definitely commit to making this with lots of beetroot again. They’d make quite a grown-up nibble with drinks…

To augment this I chopped up some carrot sticks and made a quick dip out of Greek yoghurt, the salvageable remains of a disappointing avocado (and a disappointing avocado really stings), sea salt, lemon juice and sumac. Simple enough, but the creamy tang of the yoghurt and the earthy, lemony sumac provided intriguing flavours as they were scooped up by the vegetables.


Above: To offset that very healthy starter, I did a culinary 180 degree turn and served buttery pasta for dinner…it was something I came up with on the spot but I was impressed with how elegant it all turned out to be. I didn’t really measure anything but you hardly need a recipe for something like this. I put fettucine into a pan of boiling, salted water, and while it was cooking I melted a good amount of butter in another pot, letting a garlic clove brown in it which I binned afterwards (that’s to say: I ate it) allowing the butter to really get dark and nutty. Into this I tumbled some chopped walnuts, then turned off the heat while they gently toasted in the residual warmth. Finally I drained the now-cooked pasta, biffed it in with the butter, and added a handful of shredded beetroot leaves (you could easily use spinach) which wilted instantly. Pa-dah. Very, very delicious.

Above: Speaking of very delicious, I give you Shnecken (gesundheit!) or more literally, cinnamon buns. Now Nigella is generally fairly enthusiastic about food, one of the things I adore in her writing. But when she says uncompromisingly, of these buttery, walnutty, caramelly yeasted buns: “God I love them” – then you know, before even commencing, that you are onto something quite promising.

She speaketh the truth. Schnecken = love. These buns are ridiculously wonderful, as delicious as Nigella says and then some, and come from that fabulous book How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I honestly can’t be bothered typing out the recipe (well, methods involving yeast are just so lengthy) but I found a copy here, unfortunately it’s in American, but if anyone outside the US wants to make it (do!!) you need one sachet of dried yeast, some form of brown sugar for the magical, magical syrup and half a cup of butter (how do you measure butter in a half-cup??) is about 125g. Maybe it would have been quicker to type out…

Above: You know that scene in Spiceworld? Where they are all superheroes with a special power? And then Posh Spice appears and she doesn’t even have a power, she just stands there looking gorgeous? (I think she points and winks too, as was the style of the time) That’s what these buns are like. They just sit there, looking fabulous, and you think it’s almost enough just to look at them, until you take a bite…oh my gosh they are nice. The brioche-like dough, the brown sugar with the cinnamon and walnuts…the butter. These are something special. The title of this post came courtesy of Paul, by the way, and worryingly, I can’t remember the context of our conversation but it made me laugh, and I feel that it’s a succinct description of myself, so what better reason to elect it to head of the post?
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Above: Mmmm, food pr0n.


Speaking of porn, I saw Sex and The City on Thursday, and I’m not talking about the titular sex here (as it were), I’m talking clothes – this film was a veritable orgy of fashion. I’m no Stacey McGill, but by my calculations they changed outfits roughly every 3.5 seconds. I was feeling a little cynical about it beforehand (although 2-for-1 cosmopolitans at the bar helped put me in the mood) but it really is a good movie, if you like the TV show. In spite of myself I was excited about what these women had done with their lives and yes – about what Carrie would be wearing. They looked noticeably older – which is nice, considering how they were actually supposed to have aged in the film – and gorgeous, seriously if I have Kim Cattrall’s body when I’m her age I’m going to become a nudist. Mr Big’s constant, childish “ooh I can’t commit” attitude got wearisome, and it did feel as though some plotlines were skated over, but on the whole, very enjoyable, indulgent montages and all. I realise that I referenced the Spice Girls AND The Baby Sitters Club in this post, (what next, po-mo Power Rangers quotes?) A new low, or indeed, high, depending on your view of pop culture.
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Tim and I are, as you might know, trying to save to get back over to England (where we met, three years ago, on our respective Gap years.) We’ve been saving since 2006, and have a fairly tidy sum considering we really had NO money till last year, but we need so much more and so, have started making some serious decisions in the last month or two. For me, it means having rolled oats for breakfast instead of buttered toast (truly, I have it every day: rolled oats, softened briefly in water, with or without the addition of bran, linseeds, wheatgerm- how am I not size 0?); having miso soup for lunch at work; not buying fun ingredients willy-nilly; less meat and more lentils, being strong around cookbook sales and not getting Anthony Rapp’s autobiography and The Rent Book imported at great expense… For Tim it is not buying fizzy drinks and Instant Kiwi tickets; having porridge instead of eggs on toast for breakfast; putting up with the lentil onslaught; and for both of us it means not going out drinking much and not buying DVDs recklessly. Both our bank accounts have become genuinely plumper with all of these corners cut, and our savings account is impressive for two poor students, but really, the only way we’ll get over to England next year is if we win the lottery (and then hopefully we can pay for Tim’s root canal too…but don’t get me started on that.) Any tips on how to save or make money without resorting to eating Pot Noodles 24/7?

12 Hour Party People

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Block Rockin’ Beets

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

“To Days Of Inspiration…”

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In one week Tim and I will, bar a couple of exams a-looming, have finished our penultimate semester at university. Scary stuff. Almost as scary as watching how much oil felafels absorb. Good grief. There I was thinking they were practically health food.

Above: I mean, what with the chickpeas and all. I even threw in a handful of organic sprouts (freebie from the Wellington Food Show!) I loosely followed a recipe from gorgeous blog The Puku, but had a bit of trouble making the chickpeas (whizzed into crumbs by the food processor) to form a manageable “paste” – refrigerating your felafel before frying helps though.
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Above: Kindly ignore the carcinogenic bits. I’m truly terrible at shallow and deep frying, and it seemed that the small cakes blackened as soon as they hit the pan, sponging up an awful lot of oil without really cooking. They tasted fabulous despite all this, and don’t take that long to warm through. Delightfully crunchy and nutty, warmly fragrant with cumin seeds…it’s worth having the kitchen (inevitably) reek of oil and the house filled with smoke. And there’s something about felafel that always reminds me of The Adventures of Hercules (used to be on Friday nights, before Xena), it used to be family viewing in my house and I’m sure there was some kind of humourous interlude regarding felafel. I realise I’m rambling here…
Speaking of those sprouts, I’ve had ZERO response from the people I handed out my business card to at the food show on Sunday. Still, nothing ventured…
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Above: This soup was intensely annoying to photograph. I’d point the lens towards the bowl, the lens would steam up…repeatedly. So; sorry that it’s not a great photo. The unfortunate thing about photographing one’s dinner prior to consumption is that I’m usually very hungry and impatient.
Despite all my complainings about what a horrible time of year it is academically, it is a marvelous time to be in Wellington. One reason. The Wellington Library Book Sale. Ohhhhhh it’s awesome. The library itself is amazing enough (They have the Wicked soundtrack and Cat Power and the John Peel compilations, and that’s just their CD section) but their sale is, as Marjorie Dawes might say, “summin else!” I haven’t had time this year for an extensive perusal but have managed to get my sticky paws on a couple of back issues of Cuisine, Gourmet Traveller, and Taste, and a most brilliant discovery – Claudia Roden’s Food of Italy book. It’s not a new book by any means (my copy was reprinted in 1999) and it’s as fat as a chick-lit novel with no pictures. But I read the whole thing in two nights, and long to make everything from it. Nigella (of course) is the reason that Claudia Roden caught my eye in the first place, and I heartily suggest you look her up. Anyway, minestrone is one of the recipes in the book, and is what inspired last night’s dinner.
Which ended up not resembling minestrone at all. But hey. It started off that way, with onion, carrots, celery and potato sweating it out in a pot. I added parsnips, which gave it an incredibly delicious sweetness, and a porcini stock cube from a parcel Mum sent me a while ago. A spoonful of tomato paste, and a handful or two of barley…and that was it. Very simple, but very, very good. I love being inspired in the kitchen.
Above: To go with, because I was so fired up with Italian-nicity by Roden’s book, I decided to tinker with her baked polenta recipe to create something…not exactly original, (though I’ve certainly never seen it done before) but magically delicious at least. And face it, which is more important here?
I’m not quite sure if this recipe technically worked as such so I’m a little reluctant to hand out the recipe. It’s kind of like eating a liquidised margherita pizza. And if you’re wondering, the answer is yes. That is indeed my breakfast smoothie of choice.
Above: Tim and I ate ALL of this, even though it probably could serve four. And, uh, we could have ate more, had there been some to hand.
Baked Tomato Polenta
150g polenta
600mls water
400g can chopped tomatoes
Cheese and butter at your own discretion…

I’m not sure that it matters whether or not you use the coarse, gritty polenta or the finer, flourier stuff. I used a mix of both because I had a tail-end bag of each. Oh and if you can’t find it at the shop, try looking for “cornmeal” (same diff…)
Put the polenta and water in a good sized pot, and stir vigorously to break down any lumps. Bring to the boil slowly, stirring in one direction only. This is very important. I couldn’t even begin to imagine why. Now it’s worth pointing out here that when I made this last night, it didn’t really boil but thickened hugely, with the occasional slow-moving bubble breaking the surface. I can only presume I was doing the right thing as the end result tasted fab. As it gets very thick keep stirring, keep this up for a couple of minutes over a low heat. Add butter if you like (and I do!) and a handful of grated cheese too. Remove from heat, stir in the can of tomatoes, which will turn it a glorious orange colour. Spread this mixture into a small roasting dish – the sort you might bake brownies or slice in – sprinkle over grated cheese and cover with foil. Now, bake it for about 45 minutes, removing the foil and grilling it at the end if you like. Now, this won’t quite be sliceable – unless yours turns out as Roden intended – but there is nothing wrong with a sludgy scoop of it in a bowl. It is ridiculously good; it belongs in the upper echelons of “ultimate comfort food.”
Tim got up at 5am today to go to a pub with Paul to watch Man U (about whom Paul is fanatical) play Chealsea. For everyone’s sakes, I’m so glad they won. I prefer a more leisurely start to my Thursday, (first sleep-in of the week!) so I rose at 8am, and, thinking I had the flat to myself, began singing VERY LOUDLY and expressively along to Rent. It was with a red face that I greeted Emma as she came out of her room some time later. My singing voice could charitably be described as “thin, but lustily enthusiastic”… I decided to do a repeat performance of Nigella’s muesli muffins that I first made earlier this year (click *here* for the link to the recipe, which I can’t be bothered posting twice) and loved. With their oaty interior and potential for fiddling with (and fiddle I did) they seemed like the ideal thing to make this morning for when Tim returned home, bleary eyed.
Above: As with last time, I didn’t have any actual muesli to hand, so improvised with rolled oats, linseeds, currants, and chopped, dried apricots. Instead of buttermilk I used half milk and half Greek yoghurt (that I had incubated a few days previously). I reduced the sugar and squirted in a rippling spoonful of golden syrup, just for kicks.
Above: I love this recipe. Tim and I had one each and I put the rest in a Tupperware container, to try and shove into our crowded freezer. I’ve taken to making a batch of muffins and freezing them, either for Tim when he gets low blood sugar, or just for a snack to stop myself buying forty-five chocolate bars from the 4-Square down the road in a moment of desperation. Surprisingly useful on both counts.
This time tomorrow I will be in Palmerston North, for Rent, before zooming back to Wellington again on Saturday morning. I’m pretty excited although it has come around so fast that I haven’t had much time to think about it (which is probably a good thing, as it squashes such deep-seated issues as Their Collins is white! and Will people moo? and such and such) I have my final photography assignment due on Tuesday, and it’s going to mean a lot of time spent, mole-like and dry-eyedly blinking behind the computers at uni. I can’t even be sarcastic about how “fun” that’s going to be.
It’s probably worth mentioning that we have something resembling a flat cat (emphatically not a pet, as they are forbidden on the lease, and anyhow I’m 99% positive that a cat this sleek must belong to someone.) It is a gorgeous little tabby – the sort that hasn’t quite grown out of “large kitten” stature and never will – and he comes and visits us regularly. We have dubbed him Oscar (as in Wilde – well, we are a flat of BA students) and he is really flipping adorable. I’m sure many of you won’t need me to prompt you, (and I apologise if this errs too far on the side of geeky for some of you) but if you feel like a dose of kitteh hilarity then you really should visit I Can Has Cheezburger? Lolcats galore!

“And Wednesday, don’t mention Wednesday…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

Visions of Sugarplums…

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It’s this time of year -though not exclusively of course – that my thoughts turn to baking, and I have this incredibly strong desire to bake something sugary and smear it thickly with buttercream, preferably tinged mint green or pink, even though I don’t even like pink that much…

I mean I do feel like this on a fairly regular basis, but rightaboutnow my proclivity is particularly insistent. What time of year is it exactly? Essay time. And it’ll happen again in the midway point of next semester. I have a sqillion lengthy essays to complete in rapid succession, plus a 6-part photo assignment and a 15% test on Photoshop (which is still completely over my head). Instead of being able to concentrate on “The Mediated Nation” and “The Public Sphere” and so on, I keep thinking about baking. With the feijoa cake and Anzac biscuits but a distant memory now, (I know, it was three days ago, aren’t I petulant!) it feels like forever since I whipped up a fluffy batch of cupcakes or made a layered sponge, or drizzled white chocolate over something. Gahh!
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Above: It’s lucky I enjoy cooking dinner so much. Tim and I are trying to cut back on our spending, another reason I can’t bake too much, though it’s difficult when food is my main vice and it grows ever more expensive by the day. I mean, I always cook with economy in mind, but I like the finer things in life as far as food is concerned, too. Although they don’t soothe my desire for buttercream, lentils are definitely pleasing to the soul – and cheap.
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There aren’t many foods left that are this delightfully inexpensive. I love filling my snaplock bag to the brim with red lentils at the bulk food section of the supermarket, only to have the weighing machine eject a price sticker that says something like $0.86.

Because we ate so much junk over the last couple of days – I ate a large bag of twisties on the train to Levin, had KFC for dinner while there (and mighty fine it was), and fish and chips for Friday night’s dinner – I was pretty desperate for the presence of some vitamins and minerals at our next possible meal. So on Saturday night I made a lentil curry, which is basically my not-quite-fully-formed lentil soup recipe but with less water. Thick with tomatoes, spicy with cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, garlic, and of course, lentils, I’m not sure how authentic it was (notice I didn’t call it dhal) but as Nigella says, it was “authentically good.” I’m afraid that even though I covered it hopefully in coriander, the photo of the finished product was so awful that I elected not to show it here. Much as I love them, cooked lentils aren’t terribly photogenic and it would take greater skillz than mine to make them so…
Above: The very sight of this dish practically erased any remnant traces of KFC from my system with its chlorophyll-green symphony of…okay I’m getting carried away, but it is healthy and vibrant looking, and if healthy food looks good then that’s half the hard work done. Of course, it has to taste fabulous, which this certainly does. I came by this recipe via Healthy Salads From Southeast Asia by Vatcharin Bhumichitr, a book I love, every time I read it I want to make something. And, it was only $11 from Borders on a table with all those other authorless, soulless, step-by-step cookbooks! Kapow!
Green Salad with Coconut and Mint Dressing

100g mange tout, topped, tailed, halved
100g French beans, trimmed and halved
1 small cucumber, halved lengthwise, deseeded, and diced
100g Chinese cabbage, roughly shredded
100g broccoli, cut into small florets.

I should point out here that what I used was a mixture of frozen beans, frozen peas, cucumber, broccoli and regular cabbage. Still kosher, I’d like to think.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and one by one blanch each vegetable – yes, even the cucumber – for about 4 minutes, refreshing in cold water and draining well. Place vegetables in a large bowl and set aside.

For the dressing: Heat 2 T vegetable oil in a pan and fry 1 clove of garlic, crushed, until golden brown. Add 2 small green chillies, finely chopped, 2 t sugar, 3 T coconut milk, 1 T fish sauce, and a few tablespoons of water, and stir well. Remove from the heat and stir in 2 T lime juice and 1 T finely chopped mint. Pour this over the vegetables and stir well. Delish.

I should also point out that because neither Tim nor I are ‘ard enough, I reduced the chilli component considerably. Feel free to do so yourself.
Above: I finally made my first recipe from my new Jill Dupleix book, Lighten Up, in the form of her Cauliflower and Barley Risotto. Barley, like lentils, is stupidly cheap, very good for you, and not terribly sexy. However according to Nigella in How To Eat, a risotto made with barley is called an orzotto, and I have to say, giving it an Italian name makes it much more alluring. The recipe was straightforward enough – sauteed onions, carrots, and cauliflower stems, then barley, white wine, cauliflower, stock…simmer…serve. I roasted the cauliflower itself first, because I am pathologically incapable of walking past a floret without shoving it in the oven. I think should I make this again – and I will, it was delicious – I’ll stick with this method.
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Above: Surprisingly creamy and delicious, and very ‘comfort food’ in nature. I didn’t have any walnuts, as the recipe specified, so I scattered over pumpkin seeds and flaked almonds instead.
We really cannot afford to spend too much on food, but frankly we don’t have any space either. If our kitchen is practically a cupboard in its own right, can you imagine the size of the cupboards within said kitchen? Luckily lentils tend to have a high turnover so I don’t worry about buying them in large amounts…
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So, though I long to take a week off to bake lamingtons or purple cupcakes or who knows what, I have to force my sluggish brain to stay focused on the Venture Tripartite and Banal Nationalism. Don’t get me wrong, I love university, and learning, and the Venture Tripartite truly are an incredibly charming lot, but I’d like to meet the person who could muster enthusiasm for writing essays…
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PS – not that I’m garnering for praise here – ah heck, I always am to be honest- but I finally did something about my dreary header and uploaded a photo I took in our kitchen and tinkered about with on Picassa. You like?
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PSS – Tomorrow marks 12 years since Rent first moved to Broadway at the Nederlander theatre. If this is significant to anyone here other than me, I’d love to know, and if it’s not…did you know that it won a Pulitzer Prize? Thank you, Jonathan Larson…