chain of yules

23 Comments

__________________________________________________

I am currently waist-deep in Christmas Dinner preparation, and the cranberry levels are rising…

Let’s not analyze my handwriting too closely…does the fact that I can’t seem to commit to one particular way of writing the letter ‘f’ mean that I’m really, really deep and creative?

So, every year I host a Christmas dinner for our flatmates, (plus any significant others, hangers-on and plus ones) partly to celebrate my ability to insist upon cooking for large numbers of people but also to have some quality togetherness during this busy time. The day before is always a little full-on, but enjoyable, with the anticipation of feeding people and cooking vast quantities of stuff mixed in with the confusion of trying to follow my hopelessly non-linear list.

This is what the menu is shaping up like this time:

Dinner:

2 Roast Chickens
Pear and Cranberry Stuffing
Cornbread and Cranberry Stuffing
Ham in Coca Cola
Roast Potatoes
Roast Capsicums
Roast Kumara
Involtini
Green Salad

Pudding:
Chocolate Pavlova with Raspberries (or maybe strawberries…whatever’s cheaper at the markets tomorrow morning really)
Ginger Crunch Ice Cream
Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream
Maybe some sugar-free jelly if we can find any packets kicking round the place. I had plantain ice cream planned but the plantains I had must have been a little old and tired, because it doesn’t quite taste right. I may panic at the last minute and make another pudding…it happens.

If you’re a long-time reader, you’ll see that I’ve repeated a couple of recipes from last year – for example, both the stuffings and the involtini. The involtini, a recipe from Nigella Bites of seared eggplant slices wrapped around nutty, herbed bulghur wheat and baked in a tomato sauce, is also a repeat from last year, minus the feta this time as a friend of ours is a dairy-free vegetarian. Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola is already a proven winner but I’ve never done it at Christmas before. But the Coca Cola that the ham is simmered in is cheap as and if nothing else will provide a talking point should conversation run awkwardly dry.

Even though my list specified otherwise, I got started today with the cornbread stuffing. I had to hustle to get this shot – you can see that some of the cranberries have already released their juices in the heat of the pan while others are still clinging to their dusting of ice particles.

Sometimes I wonder if I have heritage arching back to the American south. Or at least, some storybook version of it. I’ve never actually been there but the cuisine considered generally to be from that region seriously appeals to me. I can eat cornbread till the cows come home. Despite having to actually make the cornbread and then humbly crumble it, this stuffing really doesn’t take long to make at all. While it’s mighty fine roasted in the cavity of a chicken, the excess is more than wonderful baked separately in a loaf tin.

You’re taking already golden, buttery cornbread, and then stirring it into cranberries and another 125g of melted butter. This is a concept that either makes sense to you or it doesn’t. Me, everything makes sense with more butter added. If it appeals to you also, please find the recipe HERE. It comes from Nigella Lawson’s book Feast. Like the Spice Girls, all five of whom I was fiercely loyal to as a youngster, I cannot and would not want to choose a favourite Nigella book. But if you fancy an introduction to La Lawson you could do worse than start here with this magnificent, all-encompassing cookbook.

Not quite as visually appealing but still excellent is the Pear and Cranberry stuffing from Nigella Christmas, a book that naturally comes into its own at this time of year. Its combination of fudgey, gritty dried pears, sharp cranberries, and rich pecans (I substituted almonds because that’s what I had) is particularly fantastic, with salt and chopped onion stopping the whole thing from becoming like another pudding.

Pear and Cranberry Stuffing

Nigella Christmas

500g dried pears
175g fresh or defrosted frozen cranberries
100g breadcrumbs (preferably from bread that has gone stale than the dusty packet stuff)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
zest and juice of 1 mandarin
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons maple syrup
125g pecans
1 tablespoon maldon sea salt or a light sprinkling of table salt.

Either soak the pears overnight or cover them with boiling water and leave for a couple of hours. Drain once the water is cool. Place all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix thoroughly – even though it may feel a little spooky, just wading in with your hands is probably the easiest way. Either stuff your bird and bake accordingly or place in a loaf tin and bake at 200 C for about 25 minutes or until golden. Note – dried pears are pretty expensive. I tend to half the pears and up the breadcrumbs, but you could also make up half the weight of the pears in dried apricots.

The chocolate pavlova comes via Forever Summer (with whipped cream on the side, instead of smothered over it this time). I’ve made it before about 2 years ago, and loved it. However something was working against me today because while it rose up promisingly in the oven, it deflated completely once cooled. But what it lacks in height it makes up for in enormity – it spread out heaps. So I’m staying chilled out on that front.

Speaking of chilled, you know I love my ice cream. I’m particularly proud of this one because it’s completely dairy free but also staggeringly good. I’m not implying the two are mutually exclusive, but it’s not always the most straightforward path to deliciousness when you’re restricting particular ingredients.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

6 egg yolks
50g brown sugar
2 tins coconut milk (not low fat)
2 tablespoons good cocoa
200g dark, dark chocolate, chopped

Gently heat the coconut milk in a wide pan, while mixing the egg yolks and sugar together. Once the coconut milk is good and hot, but not in any danger of boiling, pour it over the bowl of egg yolks and sugar, stirring all the while. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, then pour the egg-coconut milk mixture back into it and keep it on a gentle heat, stirring constantly. It takes a while – at least 10 to 20 minutes – and you need to keep stirring – but it will thicken up into a custard of sorts. Once it is sufficiently thickened, remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa and chocolate, allowing it to melt into the mixture. Let this cool then freeze. Makes around a litre, maybe a little more.

The unfrozen mixture is amazing – the thickest, lightest, softest chocolatey custard ever. Once frozen, it’s even more sublime. The coconut flavour isn’t actually overly noticeable to if you want to amp it up a bit, stir in some toasted dessicated coconut before freezing. This is magical stuff – don’t let the fact that you have to make a custard put you off. I’ve made custard-based ice creams a billion times before without them turning into scrambled eggs, and if laughably clumsy I can do it, trust me, so can you.

I was actually really dithery over this particular post as I am going to be in an article about this blog in the Sunday Star-Times on Sunday, and I had this feeling that whatever I write today might be kind of important. This is the first time this blog has got any proper media attention, and I’m pretty nervous about seeing myself in a national newspaper. What if I look awful? (I had to maintain this half-smile thing, I’m really more of a big-toothed grin person, probably from my years of having to smile convincingly at ballet examiners while trying not to cry at that failed pas de chat.) What if I come across as horribly self-absorbed? (I mean, I am a bit, but still). What if someone, fuelled by Tall Poppy Syndrome, punches me in the street? Although I should mention (did someone say self-absorbed?) that the lovely lovely food blogger Linda is also being featured in this article tomorrow. I’ve never actually met Linda properly but you don’t always need to be face to face with someone to know they’re a fantastic person – I look forward to sharing a page with her. I also must say, massive kudos to the Sunday Star-Times for picking up on the idea of food blogging as a viable story option. I’m not saying that my blog is the most important issue happening to the nation right now, but seriously. I’ve been waiting for this.

If you are new to this blog, led here by your own curiousity after reading the article – cheers! Hopefully this is something you want to read more of – if not, I’m afraid I’m basically like this all the time. Maybe check out this post where I made my own butter which should quickly give you a good idea of whether or not you’re going to want to come back here.

__________________________________________________

Title comes via: the resplendent Aretha Franklin and her absolutely stonking 1967 single Chain of Fools. If you’re new here: I tend to cut off straightforwardness to spite my own face when it comes to titles. But I’ll always explain them to you happily.
__________________________________________________

On Shuffle while I’m cooking:

– The Deal (No Deal) from the concert recording of Chess, featuring such luminous talent as Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, Adam Pascal, Kerry Ellis, and the marvelous Clarke Peters of The Wire. Maybe something about the mathmatical precision of the game they’re singing about helped me keep focussed today.
– Speaking of Idina and Adam…while I may have allowed one or two Christmas songs to infiltrate my listening, Christmas Bells from RENT is the seasonal song that works all year long, but is obviously particularly nice at this time of year. The million different storylines being moved forward in this song makes for a listening experience that’s little short of astonishing. You can hear it here but if it all makes no sense then this visual might help unpack that somewhat. I care about this stuff.
– Mis-shapes from Pulp’s obviously amazing Different Class. Tim and I were lucky enough to see ex-Pulper Jarvis Cocker live at the Town Hall on Thursday night, he was utterly utterly wonderful, running through the cream of his solo material before blasting out an unexpectedly perfect cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in honour of Ozzy’s birthday. But after all that I felt a bit of a need to hear some Pulp tunes, like this particularly urgent track.
_________________________________________________

Next time: Well, if I haven’t made it onto the Listener’s list of the most influential and powerful New Zealanders for 2009, then it has been a failure of a week. Oh my gosh, I’m just kidding…and that list has already been published. Next time there may well be a recap of the Christmas Dinner and everything that happened. Look out for it – there’s nothing like an exhausted person who has eaten too much trying to make a sparkling, witty blog post.

riding on the avo-lanche

9 Comments

_________________________________________________

Gotta admit, I wasn’t feeling entirely joyful about it being the 1st of December today. At all. But after watching the 30 Rock season 3 Christmas special with Elaine Stritch and Alec Baldwin singing together I’m starting to feel a bit more welcoming towards this whole yuletide thing. I get a little panicky every year about things like presents, and finding time to buy them, but on the whole I like Christmas – how could I not? So much eating and cooking, so many songs to sing lustily, and a good time to connect with the whanau or whoever has come to represent family in your life.

This Sunday the official traditional flat Christmas Dinner will be happening once more – it’s something I’ve put on at my flat every year for whoever lives there and any plus-ones since 2006, and as I said in the invitation, just because we’ve moved into a nicer place with a better kitchen there’s no reason it can’t happen again. I’m really excited about getting all the food organised, not so much about the logistics…It’s partly an excuse for me to feed a lot of people but also for everyone we like to get together and enjoy each other’s company before everyone takes off home. Not that I’m going home any time soon – I’m working up until noon on the 23rd. That said I’m very glad to have a job at all these days, unlike Tim who isn’t exactly rolling in shifts at Starbucks. If there’s any Wellington-based media-type folk out there reading this, give him a job! I like him, so he must be worth taking on. Isn’t that reference enough?

Anyway, with all the intense food pending, I’m trying to keep the dinners a little light and chilled out here this week. Hence this quick, vegan-as-anything but also seriously flavoursome and hearty Thai salad of rice stick noodles, tofu and green vegetables. It’s not perfect (tahini is eye-wideningly fat-laden, like, avoid reading the nutritional information if you don’t want to cry) and I’m not even sure if it’s actually Thai at all, more like “a dish with fish sauce in it” but let’s not get hung up on semantics. What would Nigella say? “It’s authentically good.” There is a lot of avocado in this which makes it much sexier than it would be otherwise, so don’t be tempted to leave it out. Avocados are getting cheaper and cheaper here in New Zealand which is a mitzvah as you can buy lots of them and luxuriate in spreading it on toast, adding them to salads, placing slices alongside dinner, or simply sprinkling a cut half with good salt and maybe a little vinegar and eating the lot with a teaspoon.

Thai Rice Stick, Tofu and Green Vegetable Salad

From a little cookbook I like to call “Laura’s Mind”.

100g rice stick noodles
2 ‘fillets’ of firm tofu, diced (those 8cm-ish square blocks that come in packs of four at the vege market is what I’m talking about)
1/3 cup natural peanuts
8-10 spears asparagus, chopped into 2cm lengths
Small bunch bok choi, washed and chopped roughly
1-2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons tahini
Handful sugar snap peas
1 perfectly ripe avocado
Small bunch fresh mint

Boil the rice stick noodles in salted water till they’re opaque and slippery. I’m not sure if this is the accurate way to get them cooked, please let me know if you have a better method. While they’re cooking away, heat a nonstick pan to good and sizzling, and add the tofu, stirring with a spatula to let it turn golden but not burn. Next tip in the peanuts and asparagus, stirring as you go. Sprinkle over the fish sauce and drizzle over the tahini, mixing thoroughly. Add the bok choi and a tiny splash of water, allowing it to quickly wilt in the heat. Turn off the heat – it doesn’t matter if the asparagus isn’t totally cooked, some crunch is good here.

When the noodles are done, drain them under running cold water for about 10 seconds. Finally, chop up the avocado, sugar snap peas and mint. Divide the lukewarm noodles between two plates, top with the tofu-asparagus-peanut-bokchoi mix and finally cover them with green chunks of avocado and crisp sugar snaps, adding a sprinkling of mint to each plate.

The mix of textures makes this salad amazingly enjoyable to tuck into, plus the creaminess of the avocado with the protein-rich peanuts and densely grained tofu means you’re hardly going to go hungry. The fresh, cool mint and the pungent saltiness of the fish sauce see off any over-richness that all that texture could cause when partying together on the plate. As you can see it’s pretty seasonal in nature, but as long as you keep the avocado in you could substitute other green vegetables – brocolli, beans, edamame – and you could of course use cashews or sesame seeds instead of the peanuts and peanut butter instead of tahini. As this is a little something I’ve made up, I’d completely love to know if anyone has actually tried it themselves. Let me know what you think!

So, another reason to be thankful that it’s December already, instead of going into shock because your mind still secretly thinks it’s mid-August, is that Tim and I are going to see Mr Jarvis Cocker on Thursday night, supported by lovely lovely Wellingtonians The Phoenix Foundation. If you don’t know who Jarvis Cocker is, he’s the erstwhile frontman of the band Pulp, maker of pop songs that sound amazingly upbeat but are actually yearningly painful, and rather gorgeous in his own elbowy way. I’m really excited. I love his solo work which is good as I don’t think he’s known for performing songs from his Pulp heyday. Not that I was overly caught up in the whole 90s thing, being a year or so too young and deeply occupied being solemnly and obstinately passionate about the Spice Girls. But for what it’s worth I do remember disdainfully ignoring all boy bands and having an unrequited crush on Blur’s Damon Albarn, writing in my diary that I hated his then girlfriend Justine Frischman of Elastica even though I really had no idea who she was. Rock’n’Roll!

_________________________________________________

Title of this show brought to you by: Sufjan Stevens’ ridiculously pretty, light-as-a-macaron song Avalanche. Listen and love, even if you think you don’t like modern music. Fun facts: 1) I actually kinda hate when people call avocados “avos” but what can you do? and 2) For about a year I genuinely thought Sufjan’s name was ‘Surfjan’.
_________________________________________________

On Shuffle these days:

No Intention by Dirty Projectors from their album Bitte Orca. This song winkles its way into your consciousness so gently that if it hadn’t been completely thrashed on one of the radio stations I occasionally stream I almost could have missed it altogether. Unusual and entirely engaging stuff.

Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time from Jarvis Cocker’s eponymous solo album, a song featuring horns pleasantly reminiscent of that other Cocker from Sheffield and typically fantastic lyrics. Fingers crossed he sings this one on Thursday.

I had a fantastic weekend going up north for Tim’s cousin’s wedding, but after many hours in a van with non-stop inoffensive crowd-pleasing music, I’ve had the urge to listen to something slightly more – although relatively – polarising. Therefore plenty of Richard Hell, Tourettes, early White Stripes, and, um, Alice Ripley (whose solo stuff is near-impossible to find on youtube, that’s how underground she is) have also been featuring heavily on my iPod this week. Also memorable was the discussion Tim and I had in the van on the way home about how we should buy a bouncy castle and put it on the roof, although I think I can pinpoint the epicentre of my overtiredness to the conversation we had about whether you could domesticate a calf and get it to fetch things and curl up at your feet while you watch TV. I said yes, Tim wasn’t so sure. I was all, “Tim, I grew up next door to a farm. I think I’d know.”
________________________________________________

Next time: this week will be largely given over to preparing for the mighty Christmas Dinner. Menu to be confirmed along with a progress report next time and you can bet that with our biggest guest list yet, it’s going to be a feast of health-compromising proportions. Bring it on!

this post has no title

8 Comments

_________________________________________________

It is SO sunny outside. Sure, anyone can talk about the weather, but as Wellington spends 97% of its time shrouded in gale force winds and grey skies, good weather always comes with the element of surprise. This afternoon Tim and I are unfortunately going to be spending several hours of said sunshine on a train to Palmerston North to see his family (the stuck-in-a-train bit is unfortunate, not catching up with whanau which will be awesome). We’re going to be away most of the rest of the week so don’t be alarmed and hold candlelit vigils while singing We Shall Overcome if there’s not a lot going on here or on my Twitter.

While I’m talking about obvious stuff, how about the fact that it’s less than a month till Christmas!? In the words of Mike LaFontaine, “Wha’ happen?”

So, there are cookbooks and then there are, you know, seminal texts that you live your life by. By this I mean any words committed to paper from the pen of (or should that be committed to pixel by the typing hands of?) Nigella Lawson. It has been a little while since I’ve made any specific recipe of hers and I had this real urge to reconnect with her recently. But then at the last minute I had my head turned by this recipe in last weekend’s edition of the Dominion Post. A bit like that flaneur-ish painting where the wife thinks her husband is paying attention to her but doesn’t realise that his eyes are focussed instead on another comely lass. (I’m only describing it in such detail because I couldn’t find the actual painting after a quick Google Image search, if someone knows the name of this painting feel free to speak up.) Actually it wasn’t such a degrading act as that – I just liked the sound of this cake – Nigella remains there for the reconnecting some other time. But what use was that Art History paper I did in 2006 if I can’t make dubious metaphorical connections between Nigella and paintings that I can’t remember the name of?)

It’s a truly simple cake and doesn’t seem to be in any way flouncy or exciting but its uncomplicatednicity is what drew me to it. It’s ideal with a cup of tea, ages well and is a delight to eat – a cake of the old school, buttery and solid.

Sultana Cake

adapted from a recipe by David Burton, found in the Indulgence section of the Dominion Post

225g butter
450g sultanas
3 eggs
145g raw sugar
145g white sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
170g standard flour
170g wholemeal flour

Set the oven to 160 C, and line a square-ish tin of around 20cm square. The size isn’t a deal breaker though so don’t go weeping over your tape measure.

In a saucepan, cover the sultanas with cold water and bring to the boil. Drain off the water and while the sultanas are still hot, cut the butter into pieces over them and allow it to melt.

Whisk the eggs and sugars till thick and creamy, then fold in the baking powder and flours. Finally stir in the sultana-d butter, pour mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Slice when a little cooled.

See? It’s not particularly glamourous, but still rather perfect in its own way. I added a little Boyajian orange oil to the sultanas in the saucepan, which didn’t overpower the cake in any way but added a little heady fragrance to its otherwise matronly aesthetic. I also didn’t use 450g sultanas because I only had about 200g but to be honest it was plenty. I’m not one of life’s gaugers, but 450g does seem like a lot.

As I mentioned last time, we got ourselves tickets to see the Wailers out in Porirua last Friday. It was a brilliant night, with the journey almost as memorable as the gig itself. While heading out to the Te Rauparaha Arena we found $20 which we thought was a good sign. Not so cool was the fact that in our haste to get to the train station, I didn’t bring any ID with me and the gig was strictly R18. There’s something about my face that brings out the skeptic in any bouncer (plus apparently Tim and myself collectively skew very young in the looks factor) and despite pawing through my purse desperately I didn’t have anything on me that identified my age. In the end one of the trawling security police came over, asked me a few questions and radio-d someone who was able to look me up on some kind of citizen database and confirm that I am in fact, 23. Despite the mellow, sunny sounds of Katchafire surrounding us once we finally got inside, it took me a while to chill out.

Katchafire were fantastic though – delivering warm, dynamic sounds and generating an awesome energy. We were under no illusion that the band headlining wasn’t the exact original Wailers but they were still more or less the real deal, featuring original members in their line up, and it was an amazing opportunity for us. Despite seeming to be a bit disjointed – not quite possessing the soul that Katchafire had -they played a fantastic set. Buffalo Soldier was my particular favourite of the night, but the Exodus that they finished with was also an amazing moment. If they’d played Trenchtown Rock or No Woman No Cry I would have also been happy (I don’t know if that’s a really obvious choice of favourite) but there was so much gold in there that it wasn’t until the train ride home, (where a Danish tourist was deeply sick to the point that the train actually stopped and let him out for a bit to alleviate himself) and everyone started singing along together to even more Bob Marley songs that I noticed their absence.

Massive apologies for lacking in lustre (and a proper title) this time round – it has been a busy, busy time and I’ve been completely exhausted! My brain can’t seem to come up with the goods this week. I hate the idea of blogging just for the sake of it but there is also something to be said for discipline and sticking to a schedule. Hopefully next week the blogging part of my brain will have limbered up. Total apologies if you’re a first time reader. This basically happens to me every November – I get tired and panicky. Look forward to it. But be comforted by the fact that no matter how terrible my writing is in this post, the sultana cake is really, really good.

_________________________________________________

Title of this post brought to you by: I’m tired and I’ve got a train to catch. I haven’t got time to dither around thinking up cute food-related puns. And I’m sorry. But even in my uselessness, you bet I’m referring to Elton John’s song from Yellow Brick Road, This Song Has No Title. I don’t care how particularly unhip Elton John may be, this album is amazingly good. Not just relatively good compared to other albums of its time, or compared to other Elton John albums – it’s just singularly brilliant.
_________________________________________________

On Shuffle these days:

There was a guy at Duke Carvell’s last night with a Marc Kudisch-y mustache going on which inspired me to listen to the amazing Central Park from the also amazing See What I Wanna See. (click the link to listen to it)

To counteract this Broadway fruitiness, I’ve also been listening to Shapeshifter’s new album The System Is A Vampire – they’re back with a vengeance and went to the #1 spot with blinding speed which is a bit of an achievement in this CD-eschewing day and age.
____________________________________________

Next time: It’ll be December! And I’ll be planning the great traditional flat Christmas Dinner which is trucking on again this year. Just because we’ve moved house doesn’t mean I still don’t want to force Christmas food onto people. Check out here for 2008’s offering. Equal madness and then some will surely ensue.

winehouse

10 Comments
Firstly, consider your attention drawn to the following video, created and deftly edited by my very clever flatmate Jason of Nektar Films, Wellington, as the intro sting for the Rising Star award at the recent 2009 Handle the Jandal awards. Starring my hands. Funnily enough, my hands would be the body part I’m most sensitive about. Instead of being tapered, elegant and expressive, they’re almost aggressively stumpy and charmless, rounded and dimpled like the extremities of some vintage Kewpie doll. “Neither beautiful nor practical”, as a flatmate once aptly pronounced them. Anyway, gosh, there’s a lot to be thankful for and this isn’t supposed to be the Painful Scrutiny Half Hour – let’s just watch the video.
Fun, huh! Get it? Rising cupcake, rising star! It was Nigella’s cupcake recipe, which I don’t need a book to refer to for these days, pumped full of baking powder. That video was filmed in early October but the special cupcake is still sitting in a tupperware container in our fridge – we just can’t say goodbye to it. I’d hazard a guess that it’s not the most edible of products right now. The Handle The Jandal awards were held at the Embassy cinema where Peter Jackson held the premiere of Lord of the Rings years ago. Even though I was really looking forward to seeing all the music videos and seeing who won, it’s no stretch to say that it was hugely exciting seeing myself…well, my hands…moving across the enormous screen in such a gorgeous setting.
To the food! I am a pasta fiend, of Garfield-ian levels of fiendishness, but I’ve never tried cooking it in anything other than boiling, heavily salted water. I’d considered it however – thinking that some kind of broth flavoured with wine or garlic that the pasta absorbs while softening up could be kind of fun. A cursory once-over of Google shows that it already exists, which didn’t bother me in the slightest – it’s not so revolutionary when you think about it.

 

I didn’t refer to one particular recipe as it seemed we all had the same idea. Although, I also didn’t use a whole bottle of red in cooking my pasta as some have – that felt more extravagant than I could deal with comfortably – but a good 600mls went into the cooking water (and then the rest went into a wine glass) creating a wonderfully heady, plummy fragrance as it bubbled away.
Because the ratio of wine to water wasn’t that heavy, the pasta I used didn’t take on a dramatic amount of colour, but it was definitely a good solid pink. I used an Argentinean pinot noir that I grabbed very cheaply at On Trays in Petone, and bucatini pasta that I got marked down at the Meditteranean Warehouse in Newtown. People, bucatini is seriously cool. It looks outwardly like spaghetti but it actually a hollow tube – like thin, edible straws. In hindsight though, I think something a little denser might have worked better – the pasta is very difficult to slurp up satisfactorally due to the tube shape. Wind drag or something.
Red Wine Spaghetti
500-750 mls red wine (nothing too expensive)
At least 500 mls water
Lots of salt. Never undersalt the pasta water.
200g Spaghetti, Bucatini, or other long pasta
Butter
Bring the water and wine together in a large pan, salting recklessly. Once it’s bubbling away, add the pasta and allow to cook through, stirring occasionally. Drain, adding a tiny dab of butter, and dish out onto two plates. I served this with a little sliced steak, fried in a tiny bit of butter with that heavenly Marsala wine, plus zucchini, capers and mint.

Was a little tempted to up the saturation on Picassa to make this more of a “velvet theatre curtain” colour.

The pasta takes on a rich pinkish tint and holds a deliciously winey flavour. The steak in Marsala and buttery zucchini slices worked excellently with the pasta’s savoury richness while the salty capers and icy mint provided clean, fresh contrast. It’s pretty glam, but not scary or overwhelming to make for your next dinner party.

Tonight Tim and I, along with our flatmate and several other usual suspects, are heading out to Porirua to see The Wailers perform, (as in what were once Bob Marley and The Wailers, yes) supported by Hikoikoi and Katchafire. It’s sure to be a amazing night with all that stunning musical talent, plus the legendary-ness of the Wailers – we’re both seriously looking forward to it. Speaking of things we’re excited about: Jack White’s latest outburst of prolific activity, The Dead Weather, is coming to New Zealand in March! Why they’re playing all the way out of town in the Logan Campbell Centre I can’t fathom but we’ve got our tickets and we’ll get there from Wellington somehow. It’s not the same as a White Stripes tour (soon, please? We love you too Meg) but still very, very exciting stuff. Look them up on Youtube or something if you want to know more.
Title of this show brought to you by: Have you seen Glee’s take on Ms Amy Winehouse’s Rehab? It’s pretty addictive. Although, no video on Youtube? For shame, rights-holders, for shame! How are people going to get into it otherwise?
On Shuffle these days:
Stroke: Songs For Chris Knox, an album benefitting New Zealand musician and artist Chris Knox who had a stroke earlier this year. The album features some seriously excellent talent both local and international, reflecting just what he means to people – The Finn Family, The Verlaines, Yo La Tengo, Lambchop, The Mint Chicks, etc. I can’t pretend like I ever knew much about Knox’s music apart from the persistent Not Given Lightly, but I always loved reading his Max Media cartoons in the NZ Herald while I was growing up, thinking that I understood the content even though it was basically over my head. I also really enjoy his more recent, always vinegar-sharp stuff, often featured in Real Groove magazine. I look forward to exploring more of his music through this particularly good cause.
Also, as alluded to before, I’ve got hold of the music from Glee. I love how Lea Michele sounds so damn happy to be there whenever she sings – I don’t know if it’s the Broadway coming out in her but it’s not a quality you’d hear in most pop stars of the last decade. Nice to see Kristin Chenoweth popping up in there, although I wish they’d given her some better songs…My favourite Kristin Chenoweth-song-from-tv remains Birdhouse In Your Soul with Ellen Greene. It is genius. Anyway, despite not even being a fan of a lot of the material they cover, there’s something so ridiculously exuberant and joyful about the delivery that you can’t help but love anything Glee does. Also do you actually understand what Defying Gravity being sung on New Zealand mainstream TV could mean for, well, everything? Significant stuff, I predict (hope).

icecreamadelica

13 Comments

On the whole I don’t really go in for reviews that compare one thing to another, because it feels as though the author is too bored to find words to describe something on its own terms. Don’t even get me started on those slightly hysterical NME magazine reviews, you know, “This band sounds like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sonic Youth solemnly making daisy chains and chewing vitamin pills together while Van Halen stand by, clapping slowly.” (That said I haven’t read NME since 2006, maybe things have changed?)

My point is, Tim and I went to a fantastic Latin restaurant/bar called Amigos for dinner the other night, and while I was there I couldn’t help but think it could quite easily be the new Sweet Mother’s Kitchen (another eaterie in Wellington, and enormously popular) if only more people knew about it. And then I felt bad, because Amigos was amazing in its own right and was created completely independently of anything else. But it has a similar vibe going on – funky surroundings, food that’s authentic, inexpensive, and fun, plus delightful staff. Tim and I both wanted this dish that involved french fries covered in four different kinds of meat with egg and cheese (I know, and it was amazingly good, and yes, they do lighter/vegetarian food too) and the waitress said that we could share one dish between the two of us as they’re huge servings. Nice, right? I’m sure most places would try and make you pay the extra money for two dishes without warning you on the size. The food was incredibly good – I’d love to go back and try some of their other dishes. Also on Fridays (and other nights) they apparently have parties and clear the tables and play music and have lots of drink specials. So, lazy writing and all, if you like Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, you’ll probably love Amigos too. It’s right near Moore Wilsons and above Happy at 118 Tory Street (phone 04 385 1222), and open for lunch and dinner all week long. And now you know!

If I ever end up getting offered some kind of mega-million-dollar cookbook deal for this blogging lark, I think I’ll definitely have to have a chapter devoted to ice cream. I love it and I love coming up with new recipes for it. Clicking on the “Ice Cream” tag for this blog will back up that statement with cold, sugary fact. With this in mind, remember that time I made Ginger Crunch Slice? Me too! I can’t stop thinking about it! In fact I’ve made about five more batches since that first one I blogged about. Then I thought how the fudge-like ginger icing would make fantastic…ice cream. Yes. The more brain-space I devoted to it, the more utterly genius it sounded. With a little time up my sleeve today I made a small test batch to see if it would actually work. And it really did.

You know what didn’t work though? Okay, so I made the ice cream, photo-ing as I went, put it in the freezer to freeze, took it out to take a photo, dropped the container on the floor, and it broke. And all of a sudden we’re out of appropriately sized Tupperwear or old takeaway containers. Argh! Fortunately the plantain ice cream from last week had just got finished and so I was able to rinse out its container and transfer the Ginger Crunch Ice Cream into it. By which stage it had softened considerably and I was also considerably covered in it and thus I couldn’t really be bothered trying to get a cute finished product photo – but at least there’s last week’s post with its cute spoonful of plantain ice cream to keep you happy should this gaping hole in my photo essay offend.

It’s not a scary recipe at all, despite having the word “ice cream” in its title. Ice cream, like bread and pastry and chicken stock is one of those things that sound so much harder to make at home than they really are. But this particular ice cream took barely 10 minutes. It’s the easiest of the hard-sounding stuff.

Spillages are unavoidable. Really.

Ginger Crunch Ice Cream

Makes about a pint. I think. Wikipedia’s stance on the pint is a little confusing.

50g butter
2 heaped tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 cup icing sugar
300mls cream

In a heavy based pan, melt the butter and golden syrup together gently. Once you have a deliciously buttery, caramelly liquid pool, take it off the heat and stir in the icing sugar and ground ginger. Then whisk the cream till it’s significantly thickened but not actually whipped into peaks – it should still have a bit of movement and formlessness to it. Using a spoon, scrape the gingery mixture into the cream and mix it in relatively forcefully, to break up any larger pieces of ginger icing. Pour into a container and freeze. You don’t need to churn this – just let it soften slightly before serving. And don’t drop the container. If you want more of this, as well you might, just use more cream. If you’re getting to the stage where you’re whipping up say, a litre of cream, you might look at doubling the ginger mix ingredients.

This stuff is extremely good. The gingery mixture seeps into the softly whipped cream, countering its richness with a zingy warmth. Larger pieces of the ginger mixture become all chewy and incredibly delicious once frozen. It just works so well. I can imagine this being a really good accompaniment to fruitcake or Christmas pudding, especially in places (like New Zealand!) where Christmas falls in the middle of summer.

This container no longer exists, and to be honest the ice cream isn’t going to stick round for long either.

That said, if I ever do get offered a squillion-dollar cookbook deal, all my ice cream recipes are here for free on this blog, thus rendering the ice cream chapter kind of pointless. Although I guess there’s no point stressing over something that hasn’t even been in any danger of occurring yet.

Last night Tim and I were fortunate enough to witness the All Whites qualify for the FIFA world cup by winning their game against Bahrain. What’s this? I hear you say. Laura, I thought you hated all sports with a fiery passion that shall smoulder eternally! Well, I kind of do. I appreciate that it makes a lot of people happy, that on the whole it keeps you healthy and that it provides a safe environment for young people to connect with each other and learn skills. I think specifically I dislike how sports are forced upon young people throughout their schooling. Sure, some youngsters can appreciate the joy of chasing a ball with a hockey stick or running from one side of a field to the other, but let them come to it naturally in their own good time. Don’t force them into PE classes when it clearly makes them sick with misery, and what kind of sick minded teachers still get students to pick people for their teams? If my children – should I ever have them – ever want to get out of doing sports at school, you bet I’ll write them notes. (“Yes, young Sebastian does have cramps.”)

All that darkness aside, I don’t mind soccer, and indeed it can be quite exciting, if a little long at 45 minutes a side. I think it was the romance of the situation that I got caught up in – the last time we’ve qualified to have a punt at the World Cup was 1982. Ricki Herbert (I love that deliciously flamboyant “i” on the end of his name) was a member of that soccer team and now he’s come back to coach the Wellington Phoenix, several of whom also play for the All Whites. We were total underdogs, having been not wildly outstanding in the first qualifier in Bahrain, and not exactly being world leaders in this particular sport. Suddenly every single ticket had sold out – there was barely a visible seat in the stadium, which never ever happens – not even when David Beckham came to town. All things that made for a ridiculously exciting game.

It was an amazing night of intense happiness and togetherness from the crowd and there were a lot of people I knew in the audience – like my cousin Paul who flatted with us last year – who had been following this forever and who were deeply invested in the outcome. Like I said, I’m not into sports but blind passion does make sense to me. I’m not actually a very good sports viewer, partially because I get incredibly bored, but also because no matter which side I’m supporting, I always feel bad for the team that loses. The audience occasionally booed Bahrain which I thought was a shame, given that they were trying to achieve exactly what we were but on the other side of the world and with only a handful of supporters in the audience. It’s never fun watching people lose, but all that was quickly forgotten at the sight of the normally deadly calm Ricki Herbert jumping round hugging his team jubilantly. Look him up on Google images – don’t you think Will Ferrell should play him in the movie of his life? Apart from the booing and the sadness of seeing the losing team lose, the only other thing that really annoyed me was the presence of streakers at the end. Firstly, it wasn’t their moment, and secondly, they weren’t even properly nude. At least be committed.
_________________________________________________________________

On Shuffle while I’m typing away:

Tim and I were watching Dazed and Confused the other night (oh hi, young Anthony Rapp, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg and half of Hollywood) and found myself listening to Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do from Frampton Comes Alive! the next day. I’m not even a fan or anything, but there’s something about this song…it’s so slinky and groovy.

The entire cast recording of the 2008 revival of Gypsy, which is one of the most sharp, polished performances I’ve ever heard commited to a compact disc. I hope a good production of this comes to New Zealand sometime soon. Seriously, isn’t Patti thrilling?

Finally – Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new song IRM from her album of the same name is as super-listenable as anything else she’s ever done. I like how it takes its time commiting to a particular direction, and you can really hear Beck’s sound on the production which is no bad thing. Plus she’s gorgeous.

________________________________________________________________

Title of this post comes to you via the amazingly good Primal Scream album Screamadelica; I’ve said it before but there is never a bad time for this album, incidentally it is particularly good in summer and therefore would also make an ideal accompaniment for ice cream. Find it if you don’t have it!
________________________________________________________________

Next time: I found more plantains at Moore Wilsons! Rejoice! Not sure how I’m planning to act on this but I think…more ice cream.

plantain in vain

11 Comments

_________________________________________________

I don’t know why, or what it says about me, but I go through these intense, whirlwind infatuations with foodstuffs, consume vast amounts of them, and then move on, breaking it off as fast as it started. There was lentils, then oats…later tofu followed by soy products in general…then plantains. At the moment it’s tahini. Make of this what you will. The only good thing we can take from this is that my eating patterns usually settle into something more normal afterwards. Like, not soy products six times a day. This post will outline my brief but heady flirtation with plantains.

As far as food goes – as far as any old thing goes, in fact – plantains are pretty special. They look like bananas, but clenched and stumpy. Like a banana that has tensed up in anticipation of getting a punch to the face. They’re infomercial-tastic in their multipurposeness. They start off green, tight-skinned, firm and savoury, with a flavour echoing kumara (or sweet potato.) Then they progress into a yellow shade, becoming sweeter – but wait there’s more! They finally blacken, becoming even softer and more sweet in the process. Something particularly cool about the plantain is that they have similar complex carbohydrates that you’d find in a potato, but they cook in about ten seconds flat. If you have the deep misfortune to be a coeliac type-one diabetic, you could do well to look these up.

I grabbed them on a whim from our local supermarket because they were cheap and intriguing, like all good things in life. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be stocking them any more. The lesson is – I should have updated this blog sooner. However bear in mind that a lot of the time, bananas can be readily substituted for plantains – even in savoury dishes. The following though, is something you’ll have to get the actual article for. I first dipped my toe in the water by taking firm green plantains, peeling them, slicing them thickly and frying them in a sizzling dab of butter and drop of rice bran oil till they were golden and crisp on the outside.

And there you have it. Looks like banana, tastes like potato. Truly. They cook up in about five minutes, but have that same solid, fluffy bite of a baked potato. With a banana’s potassium! This made a fantastically sunny side dish to something – I can’t even remember what it was now – and was repeated several times over in the following days.

Following an idea from Simon Rimmer’s The Accidental Vegetarian, I tried stirring some fried, sliced plantains through dahl made with red lentils. Amazingly, surprisingly good. The graininess of the lentils and the fried plantains worked excellently together. However the photos I took were kinda heinous and I won’t subject you to them. You’re better off without them.

Realising I’d enthusiastically brought far more plantains than I could really deal with, and that they were ripening with alarming speed, I decided to use them for sweeter pursuits, and turned them into Plantain Ice Cream. A cursory Google search didn’t throw forward any recipes so I made up my own. I threw about 6 ripe, soft plantains into the food processor and blended them till smooth. I then added 2 crumbly tablespoons muscovado sugar and 2 tablespoons of juice from a can of pineapples and continued to process till it was light, fluffy and moussy. I considered adding some coconut milk but decided to leave well alone and not be so damn obvious with my flavour pairings. When I say moussy – the blended plantains really were curiously aerated and could actually have been chilled and served as some kind intensely natural alternative to those powdery, whizzed up instant puddings of my youth.

And then I froze it.

Having made virtuous ice creams before of fruit and not much else, I remembered how utterly rock-hard they set, and had intended to give this a cursory second blitz in the food processor before tasting it. Well there must be some enzyme in plantains which makes them awesomer than other fruit because it was perfectly spoonable straight from the freezer. Curiouser and curiouser!

And completely, amazingly delicious. The fun thing about it is that you’re more or less eating just fruit, which is quite the exciting concept to grasp when your brain is sending “ICE CREAM, OOH BABY BABY” messages around your body. It tastes sugary, but it’s pretty damn healthy. In terms of taste, sure it’s banana-y, but the plantain is somehow zestier, zippier, (apologies for the supercilious vagueness of my description there) almost citrussy compared to the banana. Which is not to say that you couldn’t get perfectly fine ice cream out of a banana, I’ve done it myself and you may substitute freely if plantains aren’t available. Just make sure you process it again after it has frozen, to break up the ice crystals it will form.

I just realised that I’ve purposefully not included a photo of the dhal that I snapped just before it was eaten because it was terrible, whereas these carefully styled photos of ice cream are here on display. In the past I might have obstinately included the terrible photo of the lentils simply because I have this feeling that blogging about what you’re cooking and eating should show what you’re eating as it exists in real life, not how it looks in a studio set-up, painstakingly lit and strewn with vanilla beans or…autumn leaves or something. And yet here I am, choosing the created over the real. I mean, I can assure you that I stood there leaning on the windowsill, eating the ice cream while I was taking photos of it, but it was in my bedroom, on my chest of drawers, and that blue fabric is a scarf of mine. Eh. I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this. I’d like to think I’m relatively principled in my aims for this blog. But ice cream is prettier than under-exposed, grainy CCTV-esque footage of lentils, let’s face it.

I guess I shouldn’t get so wound up about stuff I can’t really explain adequately. All that aside, the ice cream is an ideal use of this beguiling fruit and worth letting them sit around to ripen for. Cooling, refreshing, not at all heavy and arrestingly delicious. Thus…if you see plantains at your local market or whatever, don’t be afraid of them. They’re cool. Take a walk on the wild side.

Tim and I just got back from seeing Elaine Paige live in concert. What a night. She was so dynamic, so engaged, so sparklingly classy and in such good voice. I know I joked a while back that I’m surprised she didn’t play Elphaba in the London transfer of Wicked, but truly – she has been in so many shows, and it was amazing to hear a kind of retrospective of many of these. As she was singing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, I reflected on how astounding it is that I have been able to see the original London and the original Broadway stars of Evita sing this song in less than six months, in New Zealand – Patti LuPone back in July, and now Elaine Paige. She didn’t sing Nobody’s Side, as I’d hoped, suspecting a live version would have more passion and soul than her strangely (or not so strangely, really) sterile pop version. Instead she came out and sang Someone Else’s Story, and then I Know Him So Well, with the orchestra filling in on the other part. Well, I guess she had to do that one. There were so many classic songs she gave us that it was hard to keep track but a highlight was when she poured herself into the character of Edith Piaf and gave a stunning rendition of Je Ne Regrette Rien. It was an incredible night and…we were easily the youngest there. I felt lucky to be a part of it all.

If you get the chance, check out Glee on TV3 on Friday nights at 7.30pm (with repeats on C4TV at the same time on Wednesdays). It’s a bit strange to me to see all these Broadway stars plastered across New Zealand media channels and hearing people talk about them. Not in a snobby way, like I don’t want anyone to know about them – but literally in a strange, blinky kind of way. I double-take every time I see a picture of Lea Michelle or Matthew Morrison in a local magazine. I’m just used to a large chunk of the pop-culture stuff I like being completely obscure to the general population. If it means that things like choirs and singing and musical theatre and dancing are made to seem okay and ‘cool’ to young people, then bring it on. All that aside, I’ve seen most of season one already and it is sharp as a tack and great fun. Find it!

__________________________________________________

On Shuffle while I type

Smart Women by Stephanie J Block, from her debut album This Place I Know. While I admire SJB and think she’s a fantastic singer, actress, and surely person too, I really didn’t click with her album. But this song from it, oh my. I’m obsessed with it. Don’t even try to listen to it or you will be too. It’s beautiful.

Dominoes by The Big Pink from their album A Brief History Of Love. Okay, the lyrics to the verses are kind of useless, and it is maybe derivative and will probably get ridiculously overplayed, and normally the only music from Big Pink I’m interested in is the one coming from The Band but all that aside…WHAT a chorus.
__________________________________________________

Title comes to you via…The Clash, Train In Vain. Why? Because…I like The Clash almost as much as I like inserting rhyming words awkwardly into places they don’t belong.
__________________________________________________

Next time: I predict that next time I will be deeply, deeply in denial that it’s November already and a good chunk of it has passed at that.

raw into gold

10 Comments

______________________________________________________

I realise most food is better for you in its most untampered, natural, unadulterated-by-animal-products form, but some things about going full raw don’t quite sit right with me, and it’s not the obvious (no butter). Take that stalwart of the non-meat eater’s reportoire, lentils. Lentils are so good for you it’s almost obscene, but how are you supposed to eat them raw? Hmm? And then what about potatoes? How do you eat them without applying heat of some kind?

Though, complex being that I am, I can get every bit as excited about the rawest of raw vegan recipes as I might over some butter-thick seven layer chocolate cake. Sometimes you read through an ingredient list and everything just makes sense. This happened when I was perusing Elle’s New England Kitchen and found this recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. The name is basically correct – there’s cinnamon in there and you roll them up – but don’t go getting a mental image of some kind of buttercream-smeared sticky bun. This is a whole different beast, and it’s probably better to think of it as a Cinnamon Roll in its own right, rather than a substitution for something else. Funny how you often have to go through these mental processes when eating ridiculously healthy food – “this is exciting, this is a treat, I’m not missing out at all“.

Anyway, I was reading through the recipe and realised I actually had all the ingredients in my pantry – even the agave nectar, which was a Christmas present last year. The method sounded fun and Elle painted an enticing picture of how the finished product tasted. So on Monday I set aside my buttery prejudices for the time being, and gave these Cinnamon Rolls a go.

It’s slightly terrifying in places – the sushi-style rolling of the mixture had me worried, plus the slicing of the now rolled up log, which threatened to crumble every time the knife came near it – I guess I’d go to pieces if someone was trying to cut me up too, haha – but overall it is very do-able, with plenty of faffing and stirring and mixing and measuring to make you feel like you’re actually doing something in the kitchen.

Raw Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

You can just, of course, simply call them Cinnamon Rolls, but I like to keep the “raw vegan” bit there at the start in the same way that if I actually wash the dishes I like to tell Tim about it repeatedly – why yes, I would like a medal for it, and thank you.

Don’t go freaking out at the list of ingredients – it’s all pretty simple straightforward stuff really, and most of it can be found very cheaply in both supermarkets and health food shops. Substitute honey for agave nectar if you like, if anything it would probably add a more complex depth of flavour – agave nectar is viciously sweet and not much else.


1 1/4 cups ground flaxseeds (I actually used whole, but we’ll get to that)
1 1/4 cups ground almonds
1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 pinch sea salt
1 cup soft pitted dates
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup olive oil
1/8 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup sultanas (the original stated raisins, but um, ew. I shall irrationally prefer one foodstuff over another very similar foodstuff.)
1/4 cup nuts of some kind

I am not the hugest fan of ground flaxseeds – the texture and flavour can be all murky and gluey. However – lesson learned – whole flaxseeds don’t really grind themselves down in a food processor. If anything, the whizzing blades make them ever more defiantly whole. Luckily this didn’t affect the finished product, however I imagine the texture would be a bit different – and probably less crumbly – if you use the ground flaxseeds that the recipe actually asks for.

Tip the flaxseeds, almonds, 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon and pinch of sea salt into a large bowl.

Blend the dates and water till very smooth. I actually soaked the dates in boiling water for about half an hour beforehand just to make them super soft. Scoop out just over half and mix it into the flaxseeds/almond mixture, along with the olive oil and agave. Mix really well – it shouldn’t be too dry but add a tiny bit more date mixture if it does.

Carefully flatten this mixture on a sheet of baking paper, making a good sized square of around half an inch thick. Add the rest of the cinnamon to the the date mixture in the blender, along with the sultanas and pulse briefly to mix. Spread this thinly and evenly over the square of mixture, making sure all surfaces are covered to the edge. Sprinkle over the nuts and a few extra sultanas.

Here comes the tricky-ish bit – using the baking paper for help, carefully roll the mixture into a tight, fat log. Don’t be afraid of it – the mixture should hold together. Keeping the log wrapped in baking paper, refrigerate for an hour or so to let it get good and firm. Slice into discs as thin or as thick as you like, using a very sharp knife. The good thing about this mixture is that if a slice looks like it might fall apart, you can simply press it back into shape using your fingers.

“Icing”

If you want – feel free to top it with this intriguing mixture.

1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for at least four hours
1/8 cup water
6 Tablespoons honey
Juice of an orange

Blend the cashews thoroughly with the water. Add the honey and orange juice and continue to blend till the mixture is thick and smooth. What with my palate being used to buttercream and such I wasn’t sure how to take this, but as you can imagine something that full of cashews must taste good. 6 Tablespoons seemed like a lot of honey to me, but you need it for the texture – I stopped at three though. Instead of the orange juice I used a couple of drops of Boyajian orange oil, basically because I have some in the fridge and like to think it’s a useful purchase. This becomes a thick, hummus coloured mixture that is strangely good…I think next time I make these I’d be just as happy to leave the cinnamon rolls uniced.

These are actually…completely delicious. Nutty, rich, wholesome but toothsome, and warm with cinnamon. One roll is pretty filling – I guess it’s all the protein and such – and keeps you full of energy for a long time. Of coure, let’s not get carried away, these are possibly hugely calorific, what with all the nuts and dried fruit and oil and so on…but – and I hate focussing on calories anyway – you can be assured that every particle, every last molecule of these is doing you good. They’d be sweet as without the topping but I guess it makes the finished product more aesthetically pleasing, as well as providing a bit of textural contrast as you bite into each disc. I’ve been eating them for breakfast for the last week and I definitely make it through to lunch without wanting to eat my body weight in chocolate – not a bad litmus test of any foodstuff, really.

Last night we saw Mamma Mia, of which New Zealand was lucky enough to host the international touring cast. A friend of ours from England is in the cast and got us tickets to their final show. The story is more lightweight than a baby kitten holding a helium balloon but it’s great fun, the cast was gloriously talented and classy and we spent the whole time grinning away, even though neither of us are what you’d call ABBA fans. Hilariously, one of the male leads was played by Michael Beckley, known to New Zealand audiences as Rhys from Home and Away…It was also a bit mind-boggling just catching up with this friend of ours in the cast – she’d been a student at the performing arts school in England that Tim and I worked at in 2005, and now she’s in the international tour of a top-selling musical. She’s the first person we’ve seen (in person, Facebook doesn’t count) from that time of our lives and it felt a bit like Glinda dropping in to see Dorothy in Kansas or something – a strange overlapping of worlds. But fun!

___________________________________________________

Title of this post comes to you via: Straw Into Gold, a bewitching song that doesn’t really see the light of day that much from Idina Menzel’s debut album, Still I Can’t Be Still.
___________________________________________________

On Shuffle while I type:

Junk – a collaboration between Eyedea and Abilities from their album By The Throat. I love it. It’s one of those songs that cleverly combines minty freshness with the feeling that you’ve heard it a million times before already.

Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You sung by Sherie Rene Scott and Norbert Leo Butz on the original off-Broadway cast recording of Last 5 Years. This song. Those driving piano notes…the way Sherie says “I open myself one stitch at a time”…it’s almost too good to listen to, except that would be silly.
______________________________________________

Next time: Everything’s been a bit plantain-heavy lately – I do get overexcited by stuff – and so I have lots to show for myself. Will try and get on to it a little swifter than I was with this post!

slice of heaven

15 Comments

Marvel at the joy that is butter and sugar mixed together.

When left to my own devices of a weekend I tend to start baking without even thinking. Ginger Crunch or Ginger Slice or even Ginger Crunch Slice if you want to be equal-opportunistic, is something of an example of traditional New Zealand baking and for some reason it has been top of my to-do list for a while…I guess since I last baked something. Sometimes I can be thinking about baking something but also excitedly anticipate the next thing I’ll bake after that – special, huh.

Google Ginger Crunch and you will be met with roughly the same recipe from all the usual reliable channels – Edmonds Cookbook, Alison Holst, Chelsea Sugar (who I am deeply suspicious of now that they’ve released chocolate-flavoured icing sugar – I hate the term ‘nanny state’ but that’s what, of all things, sprang to mind when I saw it on shelves) etc etc. I can now say with confident confidence, that the Ginger Slice I made yesterday improves greatly upon anything you will find on Google. I say ‘improves’ not ‘is vastly superior and practically perfect in every way’ because in all fairness, I simply added a few crucial elements to the various traditional recipes floating round everywhere and would not have come up with it in the first place were it not for what has been set in place by Edmonds et al.

Ginger Crunch Slice

Base:

  • 250g soft butter
  • 1/2 cup dark muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)
  • 2 teaspoons ginger
  • 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 2 tablespoons bran (optional, I just happened to have some in the cupboard)
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

Set the oven to 180 C. Grab a regular sized square or rectangular brownie/slice tin – you know the kind I’m talking about – and tip in the rolled oats. Put this tin in the oven for a couple of minutes while the oven is heating till the oats are nicely toasted but absolutely not burnt.

Using a wooden spoon or spatula or some other kind of utensil that takes your fancy, beat the butter and sugar together till light and creamy. Muscovado sugar is a little dense and crumbly so fear not if some of the sugar remains in lumps. As I said, brown sugar is fine too, and is what I generally use if I see muscovado sugar asked for in a recipe. But muscovado was cheap at the local supermarket…

Tip in the toasted oats (putting a sheet of baking paper into the now-empty brownie tin), bran, flour, ginger and baking powder. Stir together carefully till it looks like biscuit dough, soft and clumpy. Tip this mixture into the brownie tray, pressing down with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15-20 minutes till nicely golden on top.

Icing

  • 100g butter
  • 3 heaped tablespoons golden syrup
  • 2-3 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 2 1/2 cups icing sugar

This is one of the simplest and loveliest icings you can make. While the base is baking, gently melt together the butter, golden syrup and ginger in a small pan over a low heat. Once it comes together in a golden spicy puddle, remove from heat and stir in the icing sugar. As soon as the base is cooked, pour the icing over it, still warm and smooth out if necessary. Refrigerate for 1/2 an hour or so before slicing into fingers.

I lined this photo up all carefully on the benchtop and then realised that I couldn’t see into the viewfinder and that the icing was moving faster than I could take photos and this is why you see the icing being poured from a mysteriously hovering vessel with no-one apparently holding on to it. But the price is right.

Ah, the cutesy things we do with our food for the sake of our food blogs.

Anyway: this stuff is quite ridiculously amazing. Adjectives fail me.

Not to sound like the girl who cried ‘ridiculously amazing’, I admit I say this about lots of things that I blog about, but I guess this means I only cook stuff I really like to eat, right? The base is thick and biscuity, with a slight nutty quality from the toasted oats. The icing is incredible, fudgey and dense and throat-warmingly gingery. So delicious you’ll want to pour it all over your own head. Together? Faintmakingly excellent. There’s something about the caramel qualities of golden syrup and dark brown muscovado that provide the perfect vehicle for ginger’s heat and fragrance. Kindly don’t just take my word on this – make it immediately! It’s so easy and quick and you’ll have people simply falling at your feet with gratitude. If it was physically possible, I would have fallen at my own feet after eating a slice of this slice. As I said earlier though, it was entirely inspired by the original recipe that you will find in the Edmonds Cookbook and other stalwarts of New Zealand food-making that I duly salute here.

It’s actually currently Labour Day weekend here in New Zealand, which means that drearly melancholy Sunday afternoon feeling that can sometimes set in is bypassed by a happy Monday off work. My weekend is a mellow one but I’ve got a few ailments that I’m trying to fight off so it’s nice to just have time to chill out. On Friday night Tim and I had the immense joy of seeing Little Bushman combining their considerable talents with that of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Town Hall, for an evening of incredible, incredible music. The sound ranged from the deepest psychedelic rock to the most hushed of gentle ballads, amplified by the full-on orchestra surrounding them. Our tickets were a bit of a last minute acquisition but I’m so glad we went.

No thanks whatsoever to Ticketek though, who made us pay $8 extra for “venue pickup”. After waiting 20 minutes in line at the venue we were told that we had to go to the Ticketek office down the road to get the tickets. While I’ve got my ranty hat on, can someone who falls under the category of ‘powers that be’ please enlighten me – why on EARTH are theatres built with seats from which you may be hidden behind an enormous pillar or can’t actually see the stage? And then tell me why companies like Ticketek can charge enormous amounts for “restricted view” seats? It makes no sense. By the way, we’re going to see Elaine Paige. Or at least, we’re going to hear Elaine Paige while seeing an enormous pillar’s dramatic interpretation of Elaine Paige. Maybe we can stick a cutout of her face on the pillar? (I don’t actually know if we’re literally behind a pillar, and it is admittedly my fault for not buying tickets sooner, but my point stands: why? Also: I hope she does Nobody’s Side! Am currently listening to Chess like there’s no tomorrow.)

Title of this post brought to you by: That perennially sunny song from Dave Dobbyn and Herbs, Slice of Heaven, from the Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale soundtrack. We had it on video (taped off the telly) when I was young and it was completely thrashed. I could probably act it out for you from start to finish I watched it so often as a wee nipper. After the movie was done it would fade into Mr Bean’s Christmas special which funnily enough we were also happy to watch year-round. I dunno if this song has also been thrashed – though not as much as some of Dobbyn’s tunes – but listening to it now still makes me feel happy

On Shuffle While I Type:

– Nature of Man from Little Bushman’s album Pendulum

– Welfare Mothers from Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps – was on a complete Neil Young kick today and while I’m not someone who chooses favourites, this amazingly good track is definitely up there with the other thousand favourite songs I have.

–Minuet by Idina Menzel from her debut album Still I Can’t Be Still. You won’t find this in shops but it’s a gem worth tracking down…seldom have I heard an album so full of personality, depth, honesty, so full of self as this, plus the mid-to-late 90s overproduction is adorable. It’s ideal for blasting loudly on a weekend morning.

Hope all the New Zealand readers have a peaceful, restful, generally super Labour Day break. And that everyone makes this ginger slice. It’s marvelous! Feel free to pronounce it ‘slee-che’, people will think you’re really sophisticated if you do.

 

cinnamon girl

9 Comments

Even though I’m usually about as rock’n’roll as Rod and/or Todd Flanders today I make an exception: I wrote this operating on about three hours’ sleep, having danced merrily till 5am on Saturday night at San Francisco Bath House to the enchanting stylings of the UK’s DJ Skitz and Deadly Hunta (who charmingly professed a liking for my peanut butter cookies and therefore I’ll not hear a word against him.) However other members of our entourage returned home around 10.30 on Sunday morning which gave me some perspective. Anyway, you have been warned: coherency at this stage is likely to be a joke, at best.

It was also at 10.30 yesterday morn when I quietly photographed this Kumara (sweet potato) Spice Cake, making the most of the crisp, chilly Sunday light. I pilfered the recipe from the lovely lovely Hayley’s blog, knowing as soon as I read her post that I’d have to recreate it as soon as possible, because it sounded so fantastic.

I adapted the recipe slightly. I added some cinnamon. I didn’t have any white chocolate in the house so dark chocolate was drizzled over instead. Now, I love me some white chocolate – I’d spread it daily on hot buttered toast. But I do think that the dark chocolate I substituted contrasted so awesomely with the sweet earthiness of the cake and its spices that it would be hard to use anything else. It’s a complete breeze to make and happily requires a bundt cake tin, thus justifying me actually owning one.

Kumara Spice Cake.

The title is a bit dubious, so if you know you have fussy people to feed I’d just refer to it as spice cake or something. The rest of the world knows the secret ingredient as Sweet Potato but here in New Zealand we call it by its Maori name, kumara. Your word is more universally explanatory but I like ours better.


Ingredients

1 large Kumara/Sweet Potato, peeled and chopped
125g soft butter
75ml Maple syrup (I used mostly golden syrup and a little maple flavoured syrup because I am a bad person and real maple syrup is ridiculously expensive. Unfortunately maple flavoured syrup doesn’t give a lot of flavour so it was a slightly pointless excercise.)
75ml Golden Syrup
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 and 3/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarb soda

White chocolate icing

2 T cream
100g white chocolate (or dark!)

Cook sweet potato in a saucepan of lightly salted water for 15-20 min until tender and drain well, running cold water over the colander to cool it down faster. You should be able to mash it with a spoon but feel free to puree it in a blender, either way it needs to be smooth with no lumps.

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease and flour a 6 cup bundt cake tin.

In a bowl, beat the butter, maple syrup, golden syrup, and sugar together until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition. Fold in sweet potato puree. Sift flour, ginger, bicarb soda into the bowl and fold in gently till combined. Spoon batter into prepared pan, smoothing top. Bake for 45 min until cake pulls away from sides and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and dry. Cool in the pan for 10 min or so.

This is just our kitchen bench. It’s wide enough that it creates a kind of limitless visual space on film, ideal for when I want to attempt fancy-looking photos. I am still in wonder at how decent our new kitchen is.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and add the cream then drizzle over the cooled cake. Watch out for the chocolate running down the wavy dents in the cake – fun! Using a silicon spatula, scrape out the bowl with the icing in it and eat the rest once you’re done. Magical stuff.



Not a bad job considering I was drizzling chocolate, taking photos and trying to remain standing on two feet this whole time.

There is something strangely alluring – to me at least – about cakes which have vegetables in them. It’s fun to tell people after they’ve had a bite, and to think about cake offering nutrients (the actual kind that a food nutritionist would recognise. Not emotional nutrients.) It also opens a new world of texture and flavour possibilities. This cake is amazingly good so don’t be scared of the vege content. The kumara keeps it amazingly moist, offering a subtle but particular flavour, and an absorbent, softly sweet carrier for the more strident ginger and cinnamon.
_____________________________________________________

The title of this post is brought to you by everyone’s favourite model train enthusiast: Neil Young and his song Cinnamon Girl off the crunchier-than-cornflakes album Rust Never Sleeps._____________________________________________________

On Shuffle Whilst I Type:

A dirty great ton of RENT.

I’ve been watching the RENT final performance DVD. It’s beautiful and beautifully done. It should be required viewing for everyone in the world. In the words of Lars Olfen, it’s a mitzvah. I’m so glad someone decided to make this happen. I say this now because I’m on a dirty great RENT high, give me a few days to calm down and get cynical.
_____________________________________________________

If you are in Auckland and get the chance to go to the I Love The Islands benefit tonight, do it! There’s a lot of horror in the world but the earthquakes that deeply damaged Samoa and American Samoa recently have stuck with me, I guess because New Zealand has not so much close ties with Samoa but a total overlap, a weaving of the fibres of our fabric that make up some metaphor of what we are or…something. Basically, it’s completely terrible what’s happened, the line up for I Love The Islands is amazing and it’s for a really good cause. Do it if you can.

in the flesh?

6 Comments

_____________________________________________________

Note: Post edited 14th October to remove a lot of details which I, in my naive over-excitement, talked about far too loudly. This means you get the blog equivalent of films that get the swearwords and love scenes bleeped out for airlines, but the story is at least safe. Although, as the media has never had the slightest inclination to get in touch with me before it’s flattering to think that this blog could shake things up.

Okay, guess what. I hate suspense so I’ll tell you right now: I got interviewed by a nationwide publication about my blog. Never mind that I’ve been trying to thrust my food blog onto peoples’ radars for years now. I’ve been keeping this a secret for a good week and a half till the story got confirmed. Which it has been. Turns out I should have kept it quiet a bit longer as it’s not being published for a while but what can you do? I mean, there will be other food blogs, don’t think it’s a feature entirely devoted to my blog (all in good time, are you listening Cuisine magazine?) but whatever, it’s me! I’m giddy with excitement! How do famous people handle it? Important note: The story is due to run sometime in November. Deal with it.

That said, I may completely regret spreading this news far and wide when the story is published, as I really have no idea how, apart from sweaty, I came across in the phone interview. I spent the rest of my day second guessing myself (“I didn’t quote [title of show]! I didn’t convey my love for Nigella adequately!) The aforementioned Ange and I were talking about how interviews with celebrities always hinge on how petite they are and how they glow with thousands of luminous spheres. You know. “[Insert starlet here] enters the room, her delicate wrists offsetting her endless eyelashes and skin as dewey as a meadow after the rain. Despite wearing a plain grey tracksuit and not a lick of makeup, she exudes effortless chic and charming approachability. Merely gazing at her is like walking down a Parisian boulevard.”

It made me wonder how my intro would run. “Laura walks straight into the doorframe as she attempts to enter the room. She is wearing $6 men’s grey trackpants, the kind that Wolf from Outrageous Fortune wears in prison, and her thighs are even larger than she claims on her blog. She should really consider a deep-conditioning hair treatment…and she’s glaring at me.” Well, you’ve got to make the jokes about yourself before everyone else does. Anyway, let’s all hope for the best that I made a good impression and focus on the joyful fact that I’ve had my first proper interview. It’s really exciting, right? I was jittering all over the place when I found out and completely unable to concentrate. And also, finally, finally, the New Zealand lifestyle media is waking up to the fact that there are flourishing food blogs out there and that people might be interested in them.

To the food:

I think, lately, I’ve been eating so much tofu and soft, diaphanous rice stick noodles and coconut-drenched everything that I now instead crave something more animalistic and hearty. And they don’t come much heartier than lasagne.


I’m not going to give you a recipe for it, because I don’t think anyone needs it and I don’t even really know what I did…just a buttery, nutmeggy bechamel in one pot, tomato-sauced beef mince with garlic and red wine in another…all layered up with sheets of pasta and topped with cheese and finally baked for a while. I’m not saying that everyone should know how to make lasagne like a spider knows how to spin a web or they are failures at all aspects of life…just that it’s not something you necessarily need to stick slavishly to a recipe for.

I haven’t actually made lasagne since September 2007 (having a blog makes you know these useful facts) and I’d forgotten how rather brilliant it is…The best bit is the bubbling cheese on top (and only on top…who can afford to put cheese in every layer?) but the whole combination is amazing – soft pasta, milky sauce, rich, red-winey beef…If you possibly can, wait till the next day before eating it as the layers all settle in together and the flavours really develop feelings for each other. And it won’t fly everywhere when you try and cut it. I think the reason that I never make lasagne is that it’s a complete mission to cook and uses every pot and pan in the house, but seems so rustic and old-school that no-one thinks you’ve gone to any effort. Good lasagne is a bit of a revelation still though. And a squillion miles removed from those deepfried, crumbed Toppers that you used to be able to get from the school canteen. I feel slightly uneasy just thinking about them.

Continuing on this meaty theme, (with apologies to flinching vegetarian readers – although you can hardly claim that there’s a lot of meat on this blog), I finished off the Maryland chicken pieces last night by making Nigella Lawson’s Garlic Chicken from her seminal text How To Eat, the sort of recipe that garlic was surely invented for.

Garlic Chicken

2 heads garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled
400mls olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
16 chicken wings

I scaled all this down accordingly for two large chicken legs. Don’t feel you have to stick to chicken wings for this either.

Put cloves of garlic in a small pan of cold water, bring to the boil and boil for ten minutes. Drain, push the cloves out of their skins (a little messy, but easily done) and whizz in a food processor with the lemon juice and olive oil. Or you could just mash/chop them roughly like I did, which, although you don’t have a food processor to clean, is actually much more of a pain to do.

Pour the garlic mixture over the chicken and marinade in the fridge overnight or whatever (I tend to err on the side of ‘whatever’ but no doubt this will be nicer the longer you leave it) When you’re good and ready, roast at 210 C for around an hour. Serve sprinkled with salt and perhaps with more lemon wedges for squeezing over. Easy as that.

Don’t even think about skipping the bit where you have to boil the garlic. It’s this which softens the eye-watering viciousness of it all and keeps the entire dish a mellow delight as opposed to some kind of excercise in how to encourage early-onset balding. The garlic marinade permeates every nook and cranny of the chicken while making it all good and crisp and magically delicious. I served this with ratatouille (eggplants have come down in price, rejoice!), new potatoes (which I frugally boiled in the garlic water, hoping it would impart some kind of wafting flavour…it didn’t) and roasted asparagus, also fantastically cheap these days. A totally fabulous meal full of flavours that totally kick winter to the curb. Even though it has been freezing and blisteringly windy and rainy for the last week. You tell yourself what you have to.

___________________________________________________

The title of this blog is meatily brought to you by: Pink Floyd’s In The Flesh? from that troubled album The Wall. The bombastic guitars and wry lyrics make it a genius choice for a concert opener, a practice adopted by steely erstwhile Floyd member Roger Waters. Check it out here, in a clip from his In The Flesh DVD which would have a profound effect on my mid-to-late teenage years. We saw him live in 2007 opening his concert with this song – bliss. Aside of that, don’t you think he and Richard Gere are a bit doppelganger-y? They could surely play each other in the respective biopic films of their lives.
__________________________________________________

On shuffle while I’m a-typing:

Standing In The Rain from local group Opensouls, from their album of the same name. We saw them at Bodega on a whim last Friday and they are fantastically sassy live -somehow managing to sound straight out of the sixties but also really fresh and modern and funky. Beautiful stuff, I highly recommend it.

Rising 5 by Hudson Mohawke from his forthcoming album Butter. This song seems to be all over every single radio station I flick between. It’s really sunny and summery for want of a better word, and for some reason reminds me of the sounds I was listening to in England back in 2005, which is not to say it sounds dated. Pitiful explaining aside, anyone calling their album Butter must be worth a listen.

_________________________________________________

Next time: Contritely, I probably won’t mention the interview again.