Category: Vegetarian

all aboard for bun time

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On the offchance that you don’t have Easter-fatigue already, the hamster on the treadmill in your pancreas pulling muscles from scampering double-time to produce insulin to deal with the spike in sugar consumption…

I love baking with yeast and what with hot cross buns being a legit excuse to get things fermenting, I tend to make my own and have done for a while now. I repeated the hot cross buns I made last year, from Alison Holst’s Dollars and Sense cookbook. While I admire Holst and what she’s done for cooking in New Zealand, I’m not a great fan of her writing. Cannot fault her hot cross buns at all though – they’re very straightforward to make, generously buttery, smell incredible while baking and taste brilliant. They don’t keep like shop-bought ones but in the likely event of having stale leftovers you can make a completely life-changing bread and butter pudding out of them. Recipe: here!

Seriously. So good. All spicy and soft and full of the rich, yeasty scent of achievement at having kneaded the dough by hand. They come out a little flatter than their bought counterparts (all the more surface area for smearing butter over) and are lighter in colour, but truly far nicer than anything out of a plastic bag. You could use this recipe any old time of year minus the crosses to make spiced fruit buns. As making the crosses was really the most difficult thing about the process, I’d be happy to leave them off and enjoy these long after Easter has gone.

Last night – Easter Sunday – Tim and I went to So So Modern‘s launch for their new album Crude Futures at San Fransisco Bath House, one of the few places lit up along a quiet Cuba Street. They were supported by a whole mess of local talent, including the fantastically happy Alphabethead who we saw supporting Tourettes the other week (and whose mixtape I finally bought), Tommy Ill, who we disapointingly arrived too late for, and a bit of Diana Rozz, who I haven’t formed an opinion on yet but…I liked the lighting during their set. For a while there in 2006 it seemed like we were going to So So Modern gigs every weekend, so there was a weirdly nostalgic feel seeing them again live. They gratifyingly mixed tunes old and new and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I bought a wooden laser-cut “Modern” badge (there were also “So”, “Crude” and “Futures” badges for sale) which is rather sweet – a bit like something Millie Dillmount might wear to a job interview if she were alive and well in 2010 to signify her societal position to all who see it.
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Title brought to you by: Iggy Pop’s droning yet strangely upbeat Funtime, from his Bowie-collaborating solo album The Idiot. “I don’t need no heavy trips” insists Iggy. Of course, who would when there’s hot cross buns fresh from the oven?
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Music while I type:

Speaking of 2006 – Fire Department by from Be Your Own Pet‘s eponymous debut album. I used to love this band back when I first moved to Wellington, but absolutely everyone I knew really hated them. Luckily for absolutely everyone, BYOP broke up. Their music is – was – all big and scrappy and not that clever but in that really clever way that makes a lot of other music sound comparitively laboured and overwrought. This is underwrought brilliance. So much so that heck, they get two songs on this list and you can have Take That Walk, from their Summer Sensation EP while you’re at it.
Valentine by Delays from their album You See Colours. While revisiting 2006’s self-conscious tunes I also stumbled across this which we used to thrash heartily. None of their further output really did anything for me but this song is such a delirious mess that nothing else is necessary.
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Next time: I got myself all hyped up about making hot cross buns and now with Easter behind me I’m not sure what direction I’ll be heading in foodwise. You’ll be the first to know though…

it’s sweetness that i’m thinking of

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Girdlebuster pie. There’s not much I can say about it that its list of ingredients doesn’t explain better. There really isn’t one positive thing about these ingredients. It’s a menace to society. This pie is as punk as they come.

Tim: We should have this pie before and after dinner.

I made Girdlebuster pie from Nigella Christmas three weeks ago for Rod Stewart Appreciation Day. However, I also made a roasting dish full of macaroni cheese and plenty else besides, and hadn’t banked on how full everyone would be. The pie remained in the freezer. My best friend was visiting Wellington and came over for dinner last week. I planned on serving this pie triumphantly for pudding. However the dinner I made filled us up too much and we were too tired to eat anything else. The pie remained in the freezer. I began to wonder if the pie was cursed.

In hindsight this is kind of stupid, and maybe I just need to stop overfeeding everyone I meet.

Unable to deal with it sitting there sullenly by the tray of ice cubes, I brought it out after dinner last night. Holy cow. It won’t just bust your girdle, it’ll dissolve your teeth. Potentially it will remove years from your life. But people, it tastes incredible.

Girdlebuster Pie

From Nigella Christmas. Who else could this have come from?

  • 375g digestive/superwine/Girl Guide biscuits 
  • 75g soft butter
  • 100g dark or milk chocolate, chopped
  • 1 litre coffee flavoured ice cream
  • 300g golden syrup
  • 100 light muscovado sugar
  • 75g butter
  • 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons bourbon (I used whisky)
  • 125ml cream

In a food processor, blast the biscuits, the butter and the chocolate pieces till it’s all crumbs. In all frightening honesty I added a little more butter as it seemed too dry. Press into a 23cm pie plate (I had a 25cm one which was sweet as) working carefully to form a ‘lip’ of biscuit higher than the rim of the dish if you can. Took me a while but wasn’t too tough. Freeze, till solid.

Let the ice cream soften, then spread it into the biscuit base carefully. Cover in clingfilm, return to the freezer. Meanwhile, put the sugar, syrup and butter into a saucepan and let it melt over a low to medium heat, then turn it up to boiling for five minutes. It will get darker and bubbly but try and let it stay there as long as you dare. Without it burning fully of course. Remove from the heat and add the bourbon. It will hiss and splutter a bit. Add the cream, stir in thoroughly, then allow the sauce to cool a bit. Pour it over the pie to cover the ice cream layer, and return to the freezer. Serve it straight from the freezer – no need to let it thaw.

I always offer a sneer when a recipe says to cut into small slices because it’s rich. With that in mind, kindly don’t sneer when I ask you to do the same here. This isn’t so much rich as deadly, deadly sweet. Its sweetness is like anaconda venom. Fun at first, but then five minutes later you can’t feel your legs. Maybe I’m mixing my metaphors here. Long story short, don’t wear a high-waisted pencil skirt while you’re eating this (fellas, I’m looking at you too).

Apologies for the terrible photography. For some reason my camera was on a particularly grainy setting…like there was a dusting of sugar across the lens…

Aside from the fact that one slice sent me into a frantic, blinky downward spiral as my blood cells united to try and fight off the caramel sauce, it is rather delicious. It’s not rocket science – chocolatey biscuit base, cold, creamy ice cream centre, and sauce, darkly toffee-d and deepened by the splash of alcohol – but experiencing them all together is something of a revelation, like every single public holiday and birthday and bar mitzvah condensed into one pie dish. It’s delicious, but it’s hardcore. Eat with trepidation.

Tonight I went to a preview of BOY, a film by the exceptionally talented Taika Waititi (of Two Cars, One Night and Eagle vs Shark). Boy is a rather stunning film, with lots of quickly cut light and dark moments, gorgeous visuals (including hand-scrawled animation) and perfect music choices, but what really moves it forward is the beautiful acting performances from everyone on screen. Go see it if you can – it’s pretty easy to love.
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Title brought to you by Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance! Such an excellent song! That it deserves more exclamation marks! The video I link to is her looking amazing while performing at the Smash Hits awards in 1989. I wonder if they still have the Best House/Rap/Dance outfit award? This song is from her album Raw Like Sushi, which is just the sort of simile I’d employ if I was making that album too. Love your work, Neneh.
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Music while I type:

Lazy Line Painter Jane by Belle and Sebastian from their EP of the same name. I wouldn’t say I’m a Belle and Sebastian fan but I do love this song – from it’s purposefully strummed opening chords to the rather glorious coda five minutes later. Worth sitting round for.

Grandmaster Flash, The Message. The other day Tim was singing away, all “Don’t. Push. Me. Cause. I’m. Close. To. The. Edge” while we were doing groceries and kid you not, I told him to stop singing Limp Bizkit. Oops. Either it has been too long since I’ve heard this song or Tim is really bad at his vocal interpretations. Either way we both kind of suck. You have to admit, taken out of context, those lyrics do have a nu-metal tang to them. Unlike us, this song doesn’t suck. Hypnotic beat, relaxed delivery, and completely, completely classic.

Vampire Weekend, Cousins, from their latest album Contra. This is the first song Vampire Weekend has put out there which has really gripped me (not that they care, I’m sure.) It’s so high energy and catchy and over before you know it and all those other good things that a pop song should be.
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Next time: I might make something a little more grown-up. I have two quinces in the fridge, I’m trying to work out how to best celebrate them being in season, I’m thinking sorbet…

shiksa goddess i’ve been waiting for someone like you

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More cake! That’s just what it’s like living with me. There will be cake.

Last weekend was a small miracle in that Tim and I had time together. I don’t mean to sound useless. I have friends to spend time with. I also like being alone. I welcome being alone. When I’m alone I can sing hideously to showtunes, eat more cake mixture, do impromptu soft-shoe dancing, and entertain fantasies of winning rap battles with my deft flow and astounding vocabulary. But for once Tim wasn’t making coffee for people on the weekend and so we were able to do all sorts of leisurely things, including finally seeing what’s on the second floor at Moore Wilson’s. Turns out that while there’s groceries and alcohol on the ground floor, upstairs they sell basically everything else in the world. It felt like we spent 7 hours up there browsing, each aisle bringing the fresh wonder that comes when you realise how many different kinds of bowls there are specifically for ice cream.

My favourite bit was the cookbook room, where I found myself instinctively drawn somehow to a book entitled The Jewish Princess Cookbook, by Georgie Tarn and Tracey Fine. I didn’t realise that a Jewish Princess was an established thing, but the book entirely dispells that ignorance on my behalf. Some Jewish food I love (Challah at me!) some is a little more challenging, but I definitely see eye-to-eye with the way that food seems so central to everything.

The first recipe I tried from this charming book was a Honey Cake, which rather delightfully contains four different types of sugar. Not in major quantities, but it’s still fun to say it out loud to shock passers-by. The cake filled the house with the warm fragrance of spices and honey, in fact for the duration of its time in the oven it was rather like living inside a giant scented candle. I managed to wait till the evening to enjoy this cake with a large mug of scalding but astringent green tea; it was a perfect combination. This cake is quick to make, dairy-free, and flipping delicious.

Honey Cake

From The Jewish Princess Cookbook

225g plain flour
115g caster sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
50g clear honey
115mls golden syrup (a slightly difficult measurement to come to, roughly 1/3 of a cup plus 2 tablespoons)
50mls oil – I used rice bran
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
80 mls smooth orange juice

Preheat the oven to 170 C/325 F. Grease and flour a 20cm cake tin (I used 21cm, the cake batter didn’t notice) In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and spices. Pour in the honey, syrup, oil and eggs and beat well to a thick, smooth mixture. In another bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the orange juice, stirring well (it will fizz). Quickly add to the cake mixture, spread the mixture into the cake tin, and bake for 30 – 40 minutes. I ended up baking it for 50 minutes (with tinfoil covering for the last 15 minutes).

It tastes so good – almost chewy on top with moist, dense cake underneath. The honey and golden syrup gently add complexity of sweetness and the spices make it smell incredible. It’s one of those fantastic cakes that gets better after a day or two although naturally it’s a losing battle to make it last that long. This book is awesome for any food lover, especially as it’s an American book which has a UK edition using metric measurements – genius! Don’t doubt for a second that you’ll be seeing it more in this blog.

Fittingly, two of the public figures I most admire in this world – Nigella Lawson and Idina Menzel – are Jewish. Though, Idina famously documents her lack of Bar Mitzvah in haunting song while touring and Nigella, well look at all her pork recipes. She is not a lady who shies away from a cloven hoofed animal.

If I sound a bit all over the place it’s only because we’re heading up to Auckland to see the Dead Weather tomorrow night. I’ve got a whole lot of meetings tomorrow and Thursday but am finding it a little hard to concentrate…I said over dinner tonight that while I love the Dead Weather’s music, what’s really making my heart do a soft-shoe dance of its own is the fact that Jack White is in this band and we’re going to be seeing him. Tim agreed. No offense to the other deeply talented band members, Jack White is just pretty special. We watched White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights last night, it’s a beautiful and thrilling documentary which tracks their journey performing across Canada in 2007. By the end I was even more fascinated by Jack and Meg White and was wishing that they’d spend some time in the studio again. I guess releasing this DVD and their first live album is a step in the right direction.

Title comes to you via: That man with a vatful of talent Jason Robert Brown, and his song Shiksa Goddess from his musical Last 5 Years. It was originally sung by the truly loveable Norbert Leo Butz who here seriously resembles Dexter’s Michael C Hall, yes? Who also spent time as a hoofer on Broadway? Notice you never see them in a room together? Anyway, I don’t elevate myself to the lofty ideals of the song’s title but love it all the same. This musical is pretty heftily emotional and this song is nothing but welcome humour. And I like saying the word “shiksa”. Satisfying.

Music lately:

White Stripes, everything really, but for the sake of neatness let’s pin down one song: Let’s Shake Hands, from their tenth anniversary concert in 2007 in Novia Scotia…I love the way Jack says “let’s be friends, Meg”.

Stylo, the new Gorillaz song, featuring Bobby Womack and Mos Def. I’ve always loved this creation right from the start and this meditative, shuffling song is as engaging as anything they’ve ever done. From their new album Plastic Beach.

Megumi The Milky Way Above, from local Connan Mockasin’s album Please Turn Me Into The Snat. I’ve never ever been a real fan of the undoubtedly creative and talented Mockasin – his music almost makes me feel a bit queasy, like I’m spinning round too fast or like the sound is too floaty…or something. But what do you know, I really, really like this song. It’s a bit difficult to describe but it’s pretty lovely.

Next time: Tuna! In a fit of extravagance, coupled with a fear of having no omega-bla-bla-bla in our diet, I bought a juicy, crimson tuna steak and cooked it respectfully. Also you may expect a run-down of how the Dead Weather concert went…

who’s gonna keep the coffee sweet with secret recipes

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Chocolate is already so good on its own that a cake has to do a lot to really knock a sock or two off. I feel like my eyes have been narrowed and my heart hardened by all the confoundingly-dry-yet-unpalatably-rich wedges of cake stacked in cafe cabinets. Sometimes however a recipe comes along that reminds you not only what’s so exciting about this dark flavour in cake form but also that homemade stuff often tastes nicer. The recipe I found on A Twist Of Spaghetti for Cappucino Chocolate Cake is one such example of this. There’s nothing overtly flashy about this but it tastes good.

This cake very quick to put together – witness the instructions below which aren’t much more than a long-ish sentence – and it also has contains no eggs. Despite never buying anything less than a tray of eggs at a time, they always seem to be the things I run out of first.

Cappucino Chocolate Cake

Recipe care of Chef Aimee at A Twist of Spaghetti

1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa (good cocoa – I use Equagold Premium Dutch Cocoa)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
3/4 cup strong coffee
1 teaspoon coffee liqueur
1/4 cup flavourless oil, like rice bran

Set your oven to 180 C/350 F. Combine wet ingredients then tip in the dry ingredients and stir till well blended. Pour into a 21cm caketin, lined with baking paper, and bake for 35 – 45 minutes.

Glaze (optional)

Melt together 2/3 cup chopped dark chocolate and 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur, and drizzle over the cake. My drizzling kind of failed so I went for the “thickly smear” option instead.

This cake is moist, light, and keeps for days, despite not having an awful lot holding it together. The coffee flavour wasn’t flamboyant but intensifies all that cocoa very pleasingly. It’s the sort of thing that you can whip together in moments for when someone announces they’re dropping by, and according to the recipe source the yoghurt can be replaced with a soy alternative to make it dairy free.

Miracle of miracles, Tim isn’t working at all this weekend. Apart from when he requests the time off months in advance, it’s the first time he’s had a weekend off since roughly…February 2006. What do couples even do on the weekend these days?

Title coming at you via: Finale from Broadway musical In The Heights – the music is so gorgeous, I can only imagine that it’s pretty brilliant live. Lin-Manuel Miranda won a Tony for writing the score when he was only 28! Seriously.

Music lately:

Buffalo, the brand new offering from locals The Phoenix Foundation. Would I like this song as much if it were not sung from the perspective of a buffalo? Probably, because the music itself is fantastic, both driving and twinkly at the same time. They’re offering a (limited) free download of the song on their website so get in there if driving and twinkly sounds like your thing.

Bring Me Coffee Or Tea by wurstrockers CAN from their album Tago Mago… mysteriously good.

Next time: I actually don’t know. Guess I’d better cook or bake something this weekend then…but after all this talk of the Cappuccino Chocolate Cake I’m in the mood to make it again. Which would be nice for me, not so useful for the blog…

rod only knows

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As I struggled ineffectually to transfer a roasting dish of Nigella’s macaroni cheese into oven, it made me think of that ecclesiastical conundrum, Could God make chilli so spicy that even He couldn’t eat it? I’m not to compare Nigella to any god, but it made me chuckle, and when you’re faced with roughly ten squillion kilos of macaroni cheese what else can you do?

Sunday was an intense day on many levels, as the last home game for the Wellington Phoenix happened to fall upon Rod Stewart Appreciation Day this year. It was a day of such parlour games as “pin the mole on the Rod” (awesomely organised by Anna, with medals for prizes) and listening to his many albums on repeat. I have to admit I’m not really a fan of Rod Stewart but there is definitely plenty of scope for appreciation. The eternal blonde hair. The boundless fertility. The early pout, which became the latter-day leathery smirk. The ludicrous lyrics for You’re In My Heart. The weird chest-swelling feeling you get in spite of yourself during Rhythm of my Heart. The actual fabulousness of Stay With Me, technically a Faces song, so. The leopard print…apparel.

So if a whole bunch of people are descending upon you for soft-rock and pre-football cheer and you’ve insisted on catering, there’s not many other options but to provide kilos of macaroni cheese, Nigella-style.

Three days later, I’m still too full to even think about it for a good long time. I’m so full I can’t even deal with typing out the recipe from Nigella Christmas. Just think of any decent macaroni cheese recipe you know and then increase the ingredients TENFOLD. (It did taste so, so very good by the way, or at least I thought so.)

Perhaps all the dairy products went to my head or something but I found myself making cupcakes at 10:00pm the night before then rising early the next day to ice them with Rod Stewart’s official tartan. Or at least as close as my collection of food colouring could get to it.

Yes, it’s electric pink instead of red but…I feel like it’s what Rod would have wanted. While I was at it I thought I might as well ice the rest of the cupcakes in homage to the mighty Wellington Phoenix (or “The Pheen” as they are known…in my head.)

Okay, simplistic, but what were you expecting? A sensitive and detailed buttercream rendering of the Phoenix crest? A lovingly crafted sculpture of Ricki Herbert’s head made from marzipan? Maybe if they win the league.

Unfortunately everyone left before I got to bring out the pudding…which means we’ve still got an entire girdlebuster pie and ice cream cake sitting in the freezer, awkwardly untouched. In fairness to everyone attending the day was about Rod Steward and the Phoenix, not my ability to make pie for people, PLUS with the macaroni cheese and everything else we ate in the morning (the spread was bolstered by people bringing in fruit, bagels, chicken, buns etc) thoughts of eating even more were most likely the last thing on peoples’ minds. This evening Tim and I finally busted into the ice cream cake, which was amazingly good and perhaps even nicer being eaten with the knowledge that we didn’t have to share it with anyone else.

Please excuse my actually rubbish photo! It was dark and the subject was melting. My peace offering is a recipe for the Peanut Butter Sauce poured over the ice cream cake – you may think that Nigella kind of goes on about it but a mere spoonful of this will assure you that she speaks the truth. And then some.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Sauce

From Nigella Express

175ml cream
100g smooth peanut butter
100g good milk chocolate, chopped (I’d recommend Whittaker’s…I used dark chocolate because that’s what I had)
3 tablespoons golden syrup

Tip the ingredients into a pan and gently melt together over a low heat, stirring occasionally. I used a mini whisk to move it about. It might look a little grainy and non-cohesive at first but if you keep it warm and stir it frequently you will end up with a thick, glossy pool of sauce. Sauce that tastes incredible.

Incidentally, it hardens up when left in the fridge and can be turned back into sauce by sitting the container in a bowl of hot water for a while. But once solidified, it can be eaten by the spoonful and tastes like some kind of ridiculous Reeses Cup-style peanut butter chocolate truffle…I can’t see it lasting now that we’ve started it. And I guess I could always just keep the Girdlebuster Pie in the freezer till next year’s festivities?

In a very happy end to the day, the Pheen won against the Newcastle Jets, making it their 19th consecutive unbeaten game at the stadium and putting them that much closer to the finals. By the game’s thrilling conclusion I was almost teary eyed, but whether it was the game or the missed opportunity to eat Girdlebuster Pie is anyone’s guess. It may have also had something to do with the fact that the young offspring of various Phoenix team members ran onto the field to find their respective parents, and while I always think children are like horses, best admired from a distance and looked after by someone else, it was heart-into-puddle adorable. A draw forced the game into excruciating overtime but the Phoenix scoring two goals in swift succession made it one of the more exciting sports events I’ve seen in my entire life, I know that’s not saying much. But it’s true.
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Title brought to you by: While I was toying with labelling this Bigmouth Strikes Again instead I lean towards an awful pun courtesy of the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows from Pet Sounds. I know it has been used in far too many romantic comedy soundtracks but it really is a gleaming gem of a song.
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Music lately:

Freedom 90′ by George Michael from his album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1. I am truly not a fan of George Michael’s music at all but this song is exempt from anything: it is amazing. The jingle-jangle piano is intoxicating. If someone could make me a mixtape of every song from the 90s featuring that piano sound I would love them forever. (I know for one there’s a Primal Scream song that would make a good starter for this project)

I Ran (sang here by Manoel Felciano) from LaChiusa’s intriguing Little Fish, a musical about quitting smoking but also about the larger things in life around it… I am more or less obsessed with the cast recording but especially with this song. If you can find and listen to Gavin Creel singing this then you are doing well.

Almost Out Of Water from Who Says You Can’t Dance To Misery by Tourettes featuring Anna Coddington. Just because it’s pretty and all doesn’t mean the grittier stuff on this album isn’t equally brilliant, but I do love the way Coddington’s gorgeous vocals float over the airy melody…. Hope he tours down to Wellington again soon.
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Next time: I have Friday off work (time in lieu for working at Homegrown on a Saturday) so I’m looking forward to sleeping in and going for a leisurely morning blog. A while back I made this chocolate cake recipe from the Spaghetti Twists blog that was so fantastic that I’m going to share it with you all…maybe by that stage we will have finished the macaroni cheese leftovers in the fridge. Maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I love leftovers. It’s just that this macaroni cheese seems to be regenerating itself or something.

Oh yeah! And if you are a New Zealander, I totally recommend that you buy this month’s CLEO magazine, because I’m in it! For this blog! (Can’t imagine why else I’d be there) There’s also the rather fantastic Chloe Sevigny on the front plus a Bachelors calendar that comes recommended by my mum AND my Nana.

let’s have a ball girl and take our sweet little time about it

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My nana is seriously fantastic. She’s the only person in my life who will txt me to say that RENT is on TV and that she’s going to tape it, while also being able to identify buttonholing and stitching on a opshop dress of mine as dating it back to the 1950s. She was one of the very first readers and supporters of this blog back in 2007 and has always been a positive presence in my life. As if all that weren’t enough, a while back she commented on a tofu-centric post on this blog with Tofu “Balls”, a recipe she “used heaps over 20 years ago.”

I guess the title isn’t overly inviting – anything with inverted commas seems a little hesitant. That said, these literally are balls of tofu – just because there’s not any meat doesn’t make these any less, erm, ballsy, so there’s no need for them to cower behind quotation marks. Amusing thought they may be.

All hesitancy aside, they’re really, really delicious. I did kind of tweak the recipe – I love tofu, I love rolled oats, but I don’t think I can face them together. The combination belongs back in the shadows of “over 20 years ago”…for everyone’s sake. That said, if you’re game, then certainly go ahead and use them instead of the breadcrumbs/ground almonds.

Tofu “Balls”

With thanks to Nana for the heads-up.

In a food processor, mix the following till a crumbly mixture forms.

1/2 cup chopped peanuts or cashews
1 finely chopped onion
2/3 cup soft breadcrumbs, or 1/2 cup ground almonds
1 egg (optional – leaving it out makes these vegan)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 Tablespoons Shoyu or soy sauce
1 block firm tofu (I used half, or two squares, from those four-packs of firm tofu you get from the vege market)

Roll into balls, not too large – about the size of the old 50c pieces, or a walnut. The second time I made these I rolled them in ground almonds which was rather nice, but the world won’t fall apart if you don’t do it. Heat a little rice bran oil in a wide pan, and cook till the balls are crisp and browned on all sides.

Nana also recommended a sauce made by bringing peanut butter, lemon juice and water to the boil in a pan while stirring with a spatula, although I imagine any kind of dipping sauce you have to hand would work with these – chilli sauce, for example…

Forget your fear of tofu and maybe your further fear of well-meaning vintage recipes involving tofu. These are so good! A crunchy without, nutty and mouthfilling like peanut butter within. The tofu has a really lovely fresh flavour which balances out the richness of the nuts, but the softness of the texture means that they really slow you down – which is why you don’t want to roll them too large. They went brilliantly with a crunchy green salad of sliced cabbage, sugar snap peas and avocado, plus soba noodles, slippery and cool with sesame oil and soy sauce. Because tofu is so awesome and kind of holds everything together you can afford to toy with these as you wish. If you wanted to you could also add into the food processor a number of ingredients…sesame seeds, tahini, sunflower seeds, lemon rind, chopped ginger, garlic…As well as being a very filling main meal, you could make them even smaller – like bonker marble sized – and serve with toothpicks and a variety of dipping sauces at your next soiree.
Busy times lately – Tim and I spent both Thursday and Friday night at the cocoon of body heat that is the San Francisco Bath House firstly to see Brooklyn – as in New York – band Dirty Projectors, then local sensations Mint Chicks last night. Dirty Projectors have this unusual, intriguing sound – kind of minimalistic, with wonky time signatures, chunky drumbeats and flutey harmonies that take the role of instruments in places. Occasionally the sound got a bit repetitive, (and all those “ehhh-ohhhs” make me think of the Tellytubbies) although if I could sing like the gorgeous ladies in the band I’d probably do the same thing over and over too. They all looked really happy though which tends to endear me to performers, and damnit if I haven’t been humming the stunning No Intentions constantly. I’m glad we went and saw them – there’s some extraordinary talent within the band, I just wonder where they’re going to go from here with their sound.
Two of the Dirty Projectors. They looked so young, and for some reason the more the girl on the left – the main female voice – belted, the younger she looked…
The Mint Chicks’ set last night was fantastic although so loud that I occasionally felt nauseous. A compliment? More than any other local band I can think of they always feel like A Big Deal whenever they roll into town. That said, the audience – largely composed of new-in-town or returning students – seemed a little disengaged. Like the couple who spent 90% of the time pashing extensively next to me. Why even leave the house! Hopefully it was a good experience for the Mint Chicks themselves, they all looked completely impassioned while onstage but who could know? The sound quality seemed decent, so the scrawlyness of their music translated really nicely into a live setting and didn’t turn into a incomprehensible blur of noise. Their older songs sounded as brilliant as ever and their newest track Bad Buzz was maybe my favourite moment – it’s such a ridiculously fantastic song as I clumsily tried to explain here. I hadn’t seen them live since 2006 so it was wonderful to catch them again, hopefully they stick around and keep on creating…
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Title brought to you by: Ball and Biscuit from Elephant, the album you probably own if you’re a casual White Stripes fan. Casual we are not.
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Music to blog by:

The Dirty Projectors’ No Intentions, as above, from their album Bitte Orca. See? Intriguing! Hummable!

I Cut Like A Buffalo from the Dead Weather’s debut album Horehound. The music video for this is compelling stuff. I hope sincerely that Jack White recreates that dance on stage when we see them live on the 17th. I don’t think I’ll be that functional on the 16th. 2005 seems a long time ago.

Patti LuPone singing Rainbow High – say what you will about Andrew Lloyd Webber, but the music to Evita is stunning, and this cabaret performance from LuPone at Les Mouches in 1980 is particularly ferocious. Makes me want to grab a microphone and snarl “so Christian Dior me!” too. Wish someone would stage a version of it here.
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Next time: we’re having a combined Wellington Phoenix pre-game get-together/Rod Stewart Appreciation Day thing tomorrow (long story…actually no, that explains it all really) which I’m catering (self-imposedly) and the menu is growing more and more dizzying in proportions…no doubt I’ll have plenty to blog about. Like Nigella’s Girdlebuster Pie. Do you not want to know more with a name like that?

what’s that in the bread it’s gone to my head

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That’s right I’m quoting Jesus Christ Superstar at you.

Sometimes I get really behind with what’s hot in food blogging. I mean this sincerely, not in some kind of “oh, aren’t I above it all” manner. I’m really just a bit useless. I’ve completely missed the waka with matcha-flavoured-everything, have never been brave enough to make macarons, I may never get an SLR lens, and I’ve only once used the word “umami” with any confidence. And only this weekend did I get around to paying any attention to the no-knead bread trend care of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day crew. Seriously, people have been going nuts about this posse since about 2007 which is tantamount to forever in blog years. For whatever I lack though, I bet there’s not many food bloggers who could keep you abreast of both the local music scene and the non-local musical scene, even if you have no interest in either!

Witness my incredibly complicated bread plaiting skills. I’m not sure if it’s even really challah if there’s only three strands to your braid. Like mine.

So, the credo of these breadmakers is that you can easily incorporate breadmaking into your everyday life, using their relatively revolutionary no-knead method. It seems so simple that one wonders why we’re always told to knead bread in the first place, an almost wilfully difficult move. I came across them while hunting for a recipe for challah, that soft, sweet Jewish bread. Let it be known that I generally ignore Valentine’s Day – apart from the fact that it’s a bit nauseating and awkward, it seems disloyal to my aggrieved, unvalentined younger self to pretend like I’m accustomed to it now. But I do enjoy surprising Tim with a bit of dramatic baking now and then and blaming Valentine’s Day for covering the kitchen and myself in flour seems reasonable. I also anticipated that we could have any leftovers as French Toast for dinner on Monday night. Challah – the non-gift that keeps on giving.

Nigella Lawson, the person I usually turn to like a flower leaning towards the sun, despite repeatedly exclaiming her love of challah has never included a recipe in her books for it. For shame, Nidge. A quick search through Foodgawker and Tastespotting revealed how many, many bloggers were raving about the no-knead method. Now, I actually like kneading. I like the entire bread process. But I also am all for innovation and was curious to see if all this talk was justified. Plus this recipe included a hearty amount of butter, so my trust increased.

Isn’t it mountainous? Don’t you just want to climb it?

The no-knead method removes the very part of the process that most people aren’t keen on. All you do is stir together ingredients, leave them for two hours, shape, leave, and bake. No kneading whatsoever. It felt a little bizarre not plunging my hands into the soft dough but it rose rapidly, was very easy to shape into traditional-ish plaits, and rose almost alarmingly on its second sitting.

No-Knead Challah

Recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, via Mise en Place

To be fair, recipe probably chosen because of the high butter content, not the no-knead concept.

1 1/2 tablespoons (or sachets) instant yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
125g melted butter
1/2 cup honey
4 eggs
7 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, mix together everything except the flour. Then add the flour and stir to make a stiff, soft dough. Cover loosely (don’t seal it off) and leave for 2 hours at room temperature till risen and flattened on top. At this point, divide the dough in half and divide each of these halves into three balls. With one set of three dough balls, roll them between your hands to make longer strands and plait them together on a tray lined with a sheet of baking paper. Repeat with the other three doughballs. Cover loosely with foil and leave to rise for a further hour and a half. Brush your loaves with a beaten egg and sprinkle with poppyseeds or sesame seeds if you wish, and bake at 180 C/350 F for 40 minutes.

 

Seriously, I think I’ve made breakfast cereal more complex than this. It’s every bit as simple as they claim. In terms of deliciousness this bread is off the chain. No mere sweetness pervades this flaky, moist bread – it has a honeyed, layered flavour that somehow cries out for even more butter to be spread across its feathery-soft cut slices. It’s just unbelievably good, especially considering the complete lack of effort that went into it.

Oh, baby do you know what that’s worth? Ooh heaven is a place on earth.

So, despite the fact that this bread already basically tastes like French Toast, I decided to do the whole breakfast-for-dinner thing again tonight. Slices of challah were dipped into cinnamon-warm, whisked eggs. A couple of precious rashers of bacon were fried in butter and set aside. Into that resiny, salty butter went the eggy bread. Once that was done, the whole lot was drizzled with the tiniest capful of actual maple syrup. It’s not something we could afford to eat every day, on too many levels, but it makes for one heck of a special dinner. We hardly ever have bacon (having lofty ideals of purchasing only “happy pig” products is also very expensive) and this is the first time I’ve ever bought real maple syrup. It was certainly a heady experience – salty, darkly sweet, bacony, eggy, buttery…pretty magical stuff.

The only problem with this bread is that it makes me incredibly drowsy. I can actually feel my body growing heavy and tired after eating it. While growing sleepier I imagine baking a giant challah so I can just slumber on top of it, chewing pinched handfuls when I require sustenance…

Title brought to you by: The Last Supper from Jesus Christ Superstar. I saw this musical in 1994 with all manner of well-known New Zealanders in it – Jay Laga’ia, Margaret Urlich, Frankie Stevens, Tim Beveridge… It affected me greatly – I was into fashion design at the time and can still remember drawing countless, perhaps slightly misguided pictures of Mary Magdalene sitting on a donkey, wearing a plunging burgundy velvet dress, multicoloured shawl, and Janet Jackson-style microphone. if you ever hunt down the cast recording it’s so rewarding. By which I mean it’s like crack for the ears.

Music these days:

Electric Wire Hustle, They Don’t Want. We saw this super smooth local trio at San Francisco Bath House on Saturday night, and they were very cool. Like, they launched into their encore with a five minute drum solo. Mesmerising stuff.

Lullaby of Broadway from the original cast recording of 42nd Street, which I found at Slow Boat Records this weekend – I think this might have been the first musical I ever saw, in about 1991 with most the fabulous Australian cast – Nancye Hayes, Leonie Page (who I’d go on to see in West Side Story and Me and My Girl), and so on. I distinctly remember Mum saying she wouldn’t buy the cast recording it if it didn’t have the tap dance sounds on it, luckily for me it did. That cassette got absolutely thrashed, but I can’t imagine how they recorded it all. Listening to it again, in all its old-Broadway pomp and circumstance reminds me why I loved this so much in the first place – revival, anyone?

Next time: This week is very busy as we’re gearing up for Homegrown this weekend, it’s likely to be pretty enormous. I’m going to be working there all day till it’s done and it will be exhausting but hopefully pretty rewarding and enjoyable also. But exhausting. So I’d better steer clear of the challah if I don’t want to end up fast asleep, snoring softly in a guitar case somewhere. And I will make that vegan banana cake!

to yoga, to yoghurt, to rice and beans and cheese

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Today I spilled boiling hot tea on myself three times (and once on my office chair). I burnt my left hand on a hot pan while cooking dinner and whacked the other hand on the corner of the bench as I walked into it instead of past it. Finally I dropped beetroot on our telephone. Truly. It’s like I’m in a Florence & The Machine song or something. I’m not sure if clumsiness begets more clumsiness – I know from experience that it’s really, really easy to have one thing go wrong in the morning and then not even give the rest of the day a chance to do right by you, when that happens there’s no doubt you’re going to walk into doorframes. But today I woke up feeling relatively optimistic. I guess it just shows…I’m plain clumsy.

Such clumsiness is partially the reason why you’re more likely to see recipes on this blog that don’t involve sugar thermometers or weighing egg whites or…you know, that sort of thing. Rice and Beans involves – at least the way I make it – none of the above. It’s stress-free, one-pan, traditional comfort food. Not traditional to me personally, but sometimes just knowing it’s comfort food to someone is in itself comforting…right? And I always have room for adopting new traditions.

Rice and Beans

I kind of made this up on the fly, inspired by a dish I had at the amazingly good Amigos on Tory Street.

Heat a wide, non-stick pan and toss in a finely chopped onion and plenty of finely chopped garlic. The first time I made this I added a diced carrot, the second time I added a diced zucchini. Once this has softened a little, without browning too much, add a pinch of smoked paprika, a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard, a teaspoon of coriander seeds and 2/3 cup of long grain rice and stir through. Pour in 250mls water, cover, and simmer for five minutes. Add more water, stir, cover – the kind of rice you use affects the amount of water you need and basmati seems to need more water than other kinds. Add a splash of beer, a drained tin of corn kernels and a drained tin of red beans. Add more liquid if the rice still needs it, partially cover and let it simmer over a low heat for a further ten minutes. Serves 2 generously. Maybe cover with feathery, torn coriander leaves or stir grated cheese through if you like.

This is one of the cheapest, nicest, heartiest dinners you can make for yourself. It’s quicker if you use canned beans but cheaper if you take the time to cook up dried – up to you. The savoury warmth of the spices and the beer against the soft, grainy beans and rice is simple but incredible. And, as you will know once I’m done telling you, rice and beans are quoted in La Vie Boheme which put the idea in my head in the first place. (Truly. Was listening to it, thought, “huh, am now hungry for rice and beans”. Power of suggestion, right there.)

Sunny Santa Fe would be…nice

While you’re buying red beans for the above recipe, you might as well stock up good and proper for this Santa Fe Ceasar Salad. The recipe comes from Simon Rimmer’s The Accidental Vegetarian, and the first hundred times I flicked past it I was all “hmm, bit random” but all of a sudden on flick-through #101 it seemed like a something I wanted to try. Allow me to fast-track this process for you and just tell you to make it already.

Santa Fe Ceasar Salad

I didn’t use any chillies. I had some pita bread that I used instead of tortillas, and I didn’t have any parmesan to hand so just left it out. Still so good.

1 Cos lettuce, trimmed
2 soft corn tortillas
1 tin pinto or kidney beans, drained
2 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
1 ripe avocado, chopped
fresh coriander leaves

Dressing:

125mls good mayonnaise
125mls plain unsweetened yoghurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
100g freshly grated parmesan cheese

Whisk dressing ingredients together, set aside. Break up the corn tortillas, dry-fry in a hot pan till a little charred. Tear up the lettuce leaves, place in a bowl with the cooked tortillas, drained beans, avocado and chillies. Fold through the dressing, top with coriander leaves and sprinkle with parmesan to serve.




Clearly, the dressing is sublime, what with the eggy, oily mayonnaise, rich garlic and sharp vinegar coming together. The crunch of tortilla croutons against those grainy red beans and the crisp lettuce is marvelous. It’s surprisingly filling and while not entirely healthy, you could certainly do worse. You could have an actual ceasar salad.

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Title comes to you via: Surprise! La Vie Boheme from RENT, the musical that inspired the title of this blog and also inspired me to go to both Levin and Palmerston North to see local productions of it. I love this bit of the musical so much that I’m going to direct lucky you to both a stealthy clip of the Original Broadway Cast in 1996 and the altogether shinier 2005 film version where most of the still-stunning original cast reprised their roles. Oh sure, you could be snide about a bunch of self-titled bohemians prancing about shouting out their carefully chosen influences, I say this is laziness and it’s much better to look beyond that and actually love it for the joyfulness, the inclusiveness, the catchiness, and the awesomeness of rhyming “German wine, turpentine, Gertrude Stein”…
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Music while I type:

Laurie Anderson’s O Superman which you can find on the album Big Science. Breathy but direct, strangely meditative, this song made itself known to me via a few different channels – a John Peel compilation, an American Lit paper with a delightfully passionate teacher (“Language! It’s a virus!”) and RENT (as in, all roads lead to) with Idina Menzel’s character Maureen being clearly something of an homage to Anderson as witnessed in the sublime Over The Moon. Seeing The Groove Guide twitter about this song today, plus hearing another of her songs on Radio Active this evening made it feel like I’d be lying if I didn’t put it down here.

Bucky Done Gun by M.I.A from her album Arular. I first saw the music video to this song in a hotel room in Germany in 2005, it’s as acid-bright as her hand-penned album artwork. It was about the most exciting thing I’d heard in a year clogged with Razorlight et al. Five years on it still thrills and I still wish I could handle a jumpsuit like her.

Matthew and Son. It’s my absolute favourite Cat Stevens song. You know I could tell you why, but I’ll let Mr Cat Steven’s snake hips in this video do the talking for me.

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Next time: I found this highly do-able recipe for vegan banana cake on the Savvy Soybean’s blog and long to try it. I appreciate both savviness and soybeans in a person so have no doubt this recipe will be good.

"eggs milk and flour, pancake power"

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Without wanting to sound like Kristy Thomas pitching for the Kid-Kit – do you remember when you were a child, and you went to a friend’s house, and it was so much more of a heightened experience than your own existence at home? Their toys seemed cooler, they had a haybarn, they were allowed to stay up later, they called their parents by their first names… Sometimes there was the disquieting reverse of that where leaving home for someone else’s affirms how comparatively safe you feel in your own space and how you just have to hold on and let the minutes pass until you can return – ah, childhood. I realise of course that I’m looking at this through the fairly privileged gaze of someone who grew up with loving parents and so on.

But anyway, I have this distinct memory of being down the road at my then best friend’s place, and her mum made us pancakes in the middle of the day for lunch. We ate them with sugar, lemon juice, whipped cream and – and this which I remember well over a decade on – leftover chocolate icing. For lunch. Have you seen Scarface? (I’ve been in the same room while it was on, which was plenty.) You know that scene where he’s surrounded by mountains of cocaine? These pancakes-for-lunch with chocolate icing were like the equivalent of that for 9 year old me. But you know, somewhat less alarming.

Living away from home means these childhood thrills can be recreated at your leisure and while it’s obviously not the same, a decision to have pancakes for dinner still comes with a certain satisfaction, a feeling that you’re Pippi Longstocking or something. Whimsy aside, pancakes do make a fantastic unconventional dinner – filling, cheap, easy to eat with the fingers, sociable, not too fussy. Tim and I decided it had been too long, too, too long since we’d seen Thoroughly Modern Millie (possibly I was the stronger force on this decision being made) and we invited our friend Ange over to watch it. For some reason the idea of pancakes for supper seemed amazingly delightful too – so that’s what we had.

I used a recipe of Nigella Lawson’s from Nigella Bites. I replaced the milk in the pancakes with soymilk to make them dairy-free and truly, these were the best pancakes I’ve ever made. I’ve made some sad, rubbery pancakes in my time and these reaffirmed my faith in the practice. They were fluffy, light, well behaved, quick to bubble, and a pleasing even nut-brown. I’d like to think it was the magic of soy that made this happen.

American Pancakes

From Nigella Bites

30g/2 Tablespoons melted butter (I replaced this with 1 T Rice Bran oil)
225g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
300mls full fat milk OR magical soymilk
2 eggs
Butter for frying (again – used a little rice bran oil)

Beat all the ingredients together, or just blitz them in a food processor. Heat a good non-stick frying pan, add a little butter or oil, then get pancaking. You can make these as large or small as you wish – I kept them relatively small but do as you please. When you see bubbles emerging on the surface, flip them over and cook for a minute or so on the other side. I find a silicon spatula useful for this.

I piled them onto a plate covered in tinfoil and they kept perfectly happy until the mixture was used up, so don’t feel you have to feed everyone but remain slavishly chained to the stovetop. Makes enough to thoroughly satiate three hungry people, could probably feed four really. Nigella reckons “25 pancakes the size of jam jar lids”.

To go with I made the blueberry syrup from Nigella Express. Had some bloobs (as I’ve been calling them, not annoying at all!) that I found on special at Moore Wilson’s and it seemed like as good a use of them as any, as well as making the pancake dinner seem like a bit more of an occasion. It took all of five minutes to make but tasted relatively complicated – what more can you ask from a recipe?

Blueberry Syrup

From Nigella Express

Not just for pancakes – this would be brilliant on vanilla ice cream and as Nigella says, it does become rather jammy the next day and is perfect spread on buttery toast.

125ml (1/2 a cup) maple syrup or honey
200g blueberries

Put both ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil. Let it bubble gently for 2-3 minutes then pour into a jug. Like so!

I can’t afford maple syrup – not even with my shoes from The Warehouse and op shop sweaters – and I have a feeling that even if I had some I’d be too scared to use it. I’m okay with this, and used honey instead. I wouldn’t recommend using fake maple syrup, as there’s only two ingredients and blueberries are so beautiful that you don’t want to be gumming them up with synthetic flavourings.

Ange provided the lemons from her bountiful tree. The pancakes were, as I said, pretty fabulous. The satiny blueberry syrup was gorgeous – thick and sweet and studded with juice-bursting berries. It was a good night.

Am heading up to Auckland tomorrow for meetings, then going home to see my family, then on Monday Tim and I are back in Auckland for the Laneway music festival. Which would be why it’s 10.36pm and I still haven’t packed yet…I’m getting really pretty hyped up for Laneway, the line up is both ridiculous but manageable which is a kind of a miracle for music festivals these days. It’s going to be an intense day but I’m really, really looking forward to it.

Title brought to you by: the Pancake Crimp from The Mighty Boosh, Series Three. Howard Moon enters Vince Noir’s bloodstream to save him from the Spirit of Jazz, and has to remind his protective white blood cells that they’re friends, reminding them of the good times they had making pancakes. You know?

On Shuffle while I type:

Cornet Man by the superlative-worthy Barbra Streisand, from the Original Broadway Cast recording of Funny Girl. Bought this from Slow Boat the other day, had been meaning to for a long while and did not regret it. Her voice is just gorgeous, all rich and sinuous.

Tender by Blur from their album 13. I love this song so much and have since the moment I saw it for the first time on Video Hits back in 1998…actually I wonder if I saw it on MTV Europe? Maybe it was too late for that. Anyway, I don’t really care if the lyrics are a bit appalling or whatever, it’s such a lovely tune – it almost seems broken up into hooky compartments which come at you one after the other – and every time I hear it I feel all comforted, like I’m wrapped up in a woolly blanket.

Walk on Gilded Splinters, by Paul Weller from the Wire Soundtrack …And All The Pieces Matter. Because the music in The Wire is 99% diegetic, it’s nice to hear the music stretched out comfortably in a compilation like this. I love the guitars in the song and how it shuffles along but not without punch…I just love this song.

Next time: I made these fantastic raw cookies the other day – it’s not often I get enthused about the concept of raw baking but these were not only easy and practical, they were seriously good tasting. Once I get back to Wellington…you’ll be hearing about them.

lime warp

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I have never been a fussy eater. But when I was younger, and I don’t think this classifies me as “fussy”, olives were too salty, ginger was too spicy, and I couldn’t quite see the point of black liquorice. As my tastebuds have aged, and no doubt reduced in numbers, I can suddenly eat olives by the oily handful and, well, the briefest of glances over this blog will show how much I love ginger now. Liquorice I still have no time for. There’s a photo of me on my first birthday showing how I, with quiet resolve, plucked a black jellybean from my birthday cake and chewed on it. The photo shows my immediate distaste upon chewing. I’m very sure that if I ate a black jellybean now I’d pull a pretty similar face. And while my tastes have expanded, I still have that Homer Simpson-like quality of “Ooooh look, food, I’m going to eat it all!” documented at that birthday party long ago.

I first tried preserved lemons last year when my godmother gifted me a jar of them that she’d made herself. I was never exposed to them as a child – Morrocan chic hadn’t quite reached the rural outpost where I lived – but I’m sure they would have seemed aggressively salty and sour to my young self. Right now, to my current collective of tastebuds, they are so, ridiculously good. I’m pretty sure it’s not how they’re supposed to be used, but I love just eating slices of lemon whole, straight from the jar. This Christmas just gone, inspired by the now long-consumed preserved lemons I was given, and hungry for more, I decided to make my own as edible presents for people. Obviously I couldn’t blog about this prior to Christmas, but now that we’re safely in January…it’s on.

Predictably, I turn to Nigella Lawson and her engaging book How To Be A Domestic Goddess. In the final chapter, all about preserves and pickles and jams and other exciting things, she has a recipe called “Edith Afif’s Lime Pickles”. The recipe is a little quirky but seemed straightforward enough, and the end result is exactly like preserved lemons, but with limes in their place. I couldn’t afford as many limes as Nigella asked for so used a mix of limes and lemons and didn’t feel bad about it at all. Limes are expensive but lemons are not, the salt I found for about a dollar at the supermarket and the olive oil doesn’t have to be fancy so all up these are a rather tidily priced gift. As I believe in self-gifting, I set aside my own personal stash as well as divvying up the fruit slices into pretty jars for other people.

Edith Afif’s Lime Pickles

From Nigella Lawson’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess

10 limes (or a mixture of lemons and limes)
1 kg coarse salt
Approximately 500mls olive oil, not extra virgin
1 tablespoon tumeric
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 dried chilli peppers, crumbled.

I have a confession to make. I completely forgot to add the tumeric and am retroactively kicking myself about it as I’m sure it would have looked gorgeous and tasted amazing. But the end result is still fantastic without it so don’t fear or go on a dazed mission to the supermarket if you don’t have any in the cupboard.

  • Cut the fruit into eighths lengthways and cover the bottom of a baking dish with them. Cover the limes in the salt and then put in the freezer overnight. I actually forgot about them for a couple of days and they were perfectly fine.
  • Remove from the freezer and thaw. Rinse under running water in a colander. I saved some of the salt which had absorbed an amazingly citrussy flavour and used it on a poached egg. A worthwhile recycling effort. Shake the lime/lemon slices to remove most of the water, and divide between clean jars (fills roughly 3 x 350ml jars).
  • Mix the oil and spices together in a measuring jug then pour into each jar. Add more oil if the slices aren’t covered.
  • Close the jars, put away in a cool dark cupboard for a week or so – the longer the sit, the more ridiculously good they’ll taste.

Nigella says “you either have a sour tooth or you don’t” (and I maintain that I have a fat tooth, if not several) but I think these have mainstream appeal. The sharp, satiny slices of lime and lemon give this incredibly savoury, mouth-filling citrussyness, not overly salty even though they were blanketed in salt at one point. Sliced or chopped finely they add a softly sour kick to basically anything – salads, couscous, pasta, tagines, anything Mediterranean. As an added bonus the oil surrounding the fruit slices takes on a gorgeous flavour and can be spooned from the jar and used as a useful condiment in its own right. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t use these in something. Even though they sound like something other people do and you don’t, preserved lemons (or limes…or lemons) are completely within reach and not difficult at all. It’s a tired argument but if I can handle making them without any ensuing trauma, basically anyone could.

So, I heard this wacky rumour that food blogs need to have decent photos. Which is a shame because I made this amahzing Feta Bread on Tuesday night and even though it tasted like a dream it didn’t photograph so nice. While I was considering just uploading my ugly photos anyway as good photography isn’t so much a right as a pleasant surprise round these parts, I think I’ll just quickly share the recipe instead.

Feta Bread

From Simon Rimmer’s The Accidental Vegetarian

This makes two large loaves. You could halve the recipe if this scares you, but you will eat all this bread, trust me.

  • 15g (2 sachets) instant dried yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 600mls/1 pint warm water
  • 1 kilo strong bread flour
  • 2 T salt
  • 4 T olive oil
  • 350g firm feta cheese, crumbled – I used Whitestone which was perfect – solid chunks of sharp cheese. If you use a softer variety it will likely disperse into the dough and you won’t get any noticeable bits of feta in the bread, but it’s not the end of the world.
  • Handful of mint leaves

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in a little of the water. This will take about five minutes. Tip in the flour, the rest of the water, and mix to a dough. Knead for 7-10 minutes until it forms a springy, firm dough that isn’t sticky. You may need to add a tiny bit of extra flour or water but go very gently with this. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, leave it to rise for about 2 hours. It will rise to spookily large heights. At this point, punch it down and knead the oil, mint and cheese into the dough. What Simon Rimmer doesn’t tell you is that this is a mission and a half. The dough doesn’t really absorb the cheese at all and you kind of have to prod the bits of cheese in with your fingers and hope for the best. Coax the dough into two loaf shapes on a paper-lined tray, cover with a clean teatowel or a bit of tinfoil and leave at room temperature for 40 minutes. Finally, bake at 180 C/350 F for 30 – 40 minutes, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s just right.

This bread is off the scale good – softly chewy, almost buttery in flavour which is odd considering there’s none in there, crusty, and punctuated by chunks of gorgeous feta cheese and cool mint leaves. You could actually leave out the feta and still have wonderful bread – it’s not exactly a recipe I can afford to make every week for that very reason. But it does make a lot of bread, and amazing stuff it is – shoved in a sandwich press for a minute or so, it makes the most incredible toast. The first loaf didn’t last long but we sliced up the second, bagged it and froze it, toasting slices straight from the freezer. We finished the last of it yesterday and I’m actually feeling a bit fragile knowing that it’s no longer in our lives. The feta aside, there’s nothing unusual or different about the method so, putting aside the possibility that I am a bread whisperer, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher why it turned out tasting so outrageously delicious.

I’m feeling much better than I was at the start of this week, which is good of course. On Thursday we attended an awesomely elegant book club initiated by our ex-flatmate, but not ex-friend Ange, and last night we finished Season 4 of The Wire. Gruelling? I felt like how a potato must feel after being mashed. Absolutely mind-blowingly good though, but now I’m torn about whether to recommend it or not – it’s utterly brilliant but you get emotionally invested in characters against your will and none of them are really ‘safe’. That’s all I’ll say…Tomorrow is that rare delight – a public holiday. (Wellington Anniversary Day) This year’s a bit desperate as two of the usual public holidays have the useless bad timing to fall on a Saturday so I’ll have to enjoy tomorrow even more. I’m sure I’ll be able to entertain myself, if nothing else the fact that it’s a Monday and I get a sleep in will be pretty fantastic.

Title comes to you via: Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Show…those of you who wanted to have probably already seen the film so instead I link you to a clip of the utterly lovely Raul Esparza of the 2000 Broadway revival cast vibrato-ing his lungs off. I love the music from Rocky Horror, it reminds me of the score to Hair in some ways because it’s so joyful and all over the place and the lyrics and melody don’t flow in the way you might expect it to. “It’s just a jump to the left…”

On Shuffle while I type:

We’re going to Laneway music festival next Monday so in honour of that fact we’ve been refresher-coursing the acts that are going to be there including…

Katrina by the Black Lips, I love their scrappy, poppy sound and can’t wait to see them live.

I Had Lost My Mind by the deeply intriguing Daniel Johnston. 

Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine. It would be easy to narrow one’s eyes in dislike at Florence Welch, what with her unattainably long legs and doe eyes and tendency towards music videos where she canters about with flowers in her hair and floaty capes and no trousers. But her music is gorgeous and this song in particular is pretty astounding – she’s closing the festival and I’m very excited about hearing her sing it live.

Next time: Last week we invited Ange over for pancakes and Thoroughly Modern Millie (ie the second greatest film in existence, after A Mighty Wind, and that is truth.) The pancakes were flipping marvelous and I think I got a decent photo or two out of them so…that’s what you’re likely to be seeing.