A bit of this and that - whatever's going on in my life. Wish I could be blogging about some crazy backpacking adventures but instead it's likely to be all food, wine, more food, knitting, Wellington and whatever else takes my fancy. Chevere?
I decided not to buy any bread at the supermarket this week and instead bake it all myself. I love kneading the bread, watching it double in size, having the smell of bread baking wafting through the house and then finally eating a slice with lots of butter and homemade jam while it's still hot. We'd normally spend over $10 a fortnight on bread so for that price I figure we can make some delicious loaves ourselves.
The base ingredient is high grade flour - 5kg costs just over $6. And yes it is possible to carry 2 5kg bags of flour plus all the other groceries to feed 3 adults for a fortnight home by yourself - it's called a backpack! It probably weighs less than what I carried on my back while backpacking and I managed to lug that around at 3000m above sea level, and in the 40 degree Amazon heat.
There's still wholemeal bread and english muffins in the freezer from last week's bread-making exploits so I'm topping that up so we have a variety of breads to choose from at breakfast time and for lunches.
Last night I quick mixed up the dough and kneaded Chocolate Raisin Bread and left it to rise while I went to work (and made a triple batch of empanada pastry to chill in the fridge) - it calls for rum to soak the raisins in. I don't keep rum in the house (there was one exceptionally bad hangover from a night out dancing salsa in Colombia...) and so I used brandy. You could also use orange juice if alcohol at breakfast time isn't your cup of tea...
At work I whipped up a batch of orange muffins for the countertop, cut veges for a roast veg salad, taste tested a new recipe for ham and artichoke croquettes (yum!), and finished off a batch of empanadas. Then it was home again to cook some more (love having a job where I get paid to do what I spend all my spare time doing any way!).
While the chocolate raisin bread had its second rising I folded empanadas for our freezer. If you freeze them 'raw' you can chuck them in the oven for half an hour and voila, dinner in a hurry when you can't be bothered cooking. This time I did corn and cheese (humita) for the vegetarian flatmate and rump steak for the carnivores.
The two loaves rose overnight ready to be baked this morning. And so breakfast was chocolate bread fresh out of the oven with homemade plum jam and a cup of tea. Mmm.
Right now I've got lemons squeezed ready to turn into lemon curd and need to pop out to get a jelly bag so I can attack some of the mint for mint jelly to use for Christmas gifts if it turns out well.
Better get cracking on that because I have a dinner date with some friends tonight at the Argentine restaurant because I don't have enough empanadas in my life already!!! So I'll leave you with two things, a photo of the Chocolate Raisin Bread and a video I made of my grandma making empanadas because noone makes better ones than her!
P.S. My neighbour just knocked on the door and gave me a set of brand-new gardening tools that she got given but thought I might use more than her. How lovely is that?! I think a batch of scones or muffins might be making their way over there!
Tortillas are one of those things that although you know you could make them from scratch yourself, we always end up buying. No more. My flatmate whipped up a batch from the Edmonds cookbook on Saturday night and although they were not all that pretty, they tasted good.
Like most things that taste good, they didn't hang around very long. Last night we had to whip up something quick and easy for dinner so we could head out to watch the game. Tortillas once again. This time Sophie Gray's "frugal flour tortillas". They looked a bit more like naan than tortillas but boy are they delicious. Even better one batch uses only 2 2/2 cups flour, a small amount of oil, baking powder, salt and water. Much cheaper than buying them ready made!
The dinner tortillas we filled with a chili mixture made with kidney beans from the freezer, a tin of tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons of red lentils and the usual seasonings (a couple of fresh chilis, coriander from the garden etc). We bulked them up with lots of veges - tomatoes, avocado (only 50c each at the moment!), capsicum - and the first of the cos lettuce from my garden. It's growing like crazy. Lunch today was tuna tortillas.
I think we have a new favourite bread for lunch! And it's so much cheaper than vogels too :-)
The kitchen's been temporarily taken over by a flatmate and her friends testing out a fancy camera by filming their chili making attempts. I'm so looking forward to dinner tonight! Need to quickly whip something up for dessert though. No idea what to make...
They've moved the kitchen table into the middle of the room. I'm liking it there. We just need a couple more dining room chairs though.
P.S. I just discovered the most amazing blog of a woman cooking her way through the Edmond's cookbook. What a legend! Here's the link - theedmondschallenge.blogspot.com
It's the last week of class so today instead of a lecture we had a shared lunch (we are a small class).
The only criteria was that we had to talk about how our dish related to globalisation and popular culture in the Pacific. I was going to make pineapple pies, a la Samoa, after finding this recipe on a blog. However the heavens weren't aligning and my first attempt was thwarted by a lack of coconut cream and the second by the internet going down meaning I couldn't access the recipe.
The clock was ticking and I only had a few hours left to conjure up something (I did nip to the shop for more coconut cream in the end), and so today a new recipe was born. Empanadas, island style.
Pastry
2 cups flour
50g butter
1/2 tsp salt
Water to mix
Rub the butter into the flour and salt mixture. Add water, stirring with a bread knife, until it forms a stiff dough. Put it in the fridge to chill while you make the fillings.
That's my generic empanada pastry recipe. You can double or triple it depending on how many people you have to feed.
Pineapple filling
1 400g can crushed pineapple in its own juice
1 generous tbsp custard powder
1 tsp sugar
Tip the tin of pineapple into a pan/pot. Add the custard powder and sugar and stir on a low heat until it thickens nicely.
Chuck everything in a pot and stir over a low heat until it's thickened up nicely.
Assembly
Assemble as you would regular empanadas - roll the pastry out on a floured bench, creating circles of pastry by tracing around a ramekin or plate of your choice with a sharp knife. Run a wet finger around the edge of the circle, place a tsp or tbsp (depending on the size of the circle) of filling into the centre and close by pinching around the edges. Press around the edge with a fork or fold like you would a cornish pasty (like a wee stegosaurus).
Brush with a beaten egg and cook at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Dust the pineapple ones with icing sugar to serve.
So easy and so delicious if I do say so myself. The class seemed to love them (yay) and not a single one was left on the plate...
The dishes the other students brought were so delicious too. It was a proper island feast with keke saina (Samoan biscuits), kumara cooked in coconut cream, coconut buns, taro chips, out of this world Hawaiian Ono (sp?) chicken, chop suey, surimi salad made with best foods mayo (of course) etc. It was a lot of fun. I'll miss this class. Speaking of which I should really go and finish my homework...
Do you know what is really REALLY annoying?! Deciding to whip up some pastry before going to bed so it can rest in the fridge overnight, ready to turn into spectacular, yummy goodness in the morning, and then finding you don't have the most crucial ingredient in the pantry even though you swear you picked up a can at the supermarket.
I have a class shared lunch on Monday with a Pacific theme. I'm making pineapple pies as they're basically an empanada but with coconut cream in the pastry. COCONUT CREAM. The one thing I don't have on hand. Now I have a bowl of butter rubbed in flour sitting on the bench that I can't do anything with until the supermarket opens. Even more annoying is that I had to make a special trip to the supermarket already tonight to get tinned pineapple for the filling.
Grrr.
On a more positive note my grandparents arrived in Wellington bringing goodies from mum.
one bag of lemons that will become lemon curd
lots and lots of rump steak (empanadas in the making!)
roasts (must be time for another dinner party...)
a cake mixer (which I am so excited to use and is so big it will live under the table)
One of the easiest and tastiest Peruvian dishes you can make is palta rellena which just means stuffed avocado. I whipped some up tonight as I cooked a chicken dish and of course the pommy flatmate couldn't eat that.
Simply combine mayonaise, diced red onion, a tin of tuna (you can use shredded chicken instead), spring onion, a splash of lime or lemon juice and a pinch of chilli in a bowl. Half an avocado lengthwise and remove the stone. Spoon the tuna mayo mixture into the hole left by the stone. And that's it - it's so incredibly easy. Serve 1/2-1 avocados per person. It makes a great entree or light lunch. I didn't write down any measurements because the recipe comes from my head and I never measure anything (which makes writing up recipes for staff to follow at work soooo difficult!).
I forgot to take a photo before it got scoffed, but here's a photo of a similar one my grandmother in Buenos Aires made. Her's has a different filling but it gives you the idea. Even better avocados were only 60c this week. Fingers crossed they get cheaper yet because I could happily eat one every day!
Tonight we did our fortnightly grocery shop at Pak n Save.
In honour of the occasion I prepped most of the dinner before I left for class
so all it needed was to be popped into the oven for 30 minutes when I got home.
We had the vegetable crumble from the Comfort: Food for Sharing cookbook. If you don’t already own this
book, buy it! Mine’s well-thumbed already – the lemon curd recipe is especially
good.
Basically all it involves is a crumble topping – wholemeal
flour, cheese, rolled oats, butter and herbs – and the filling is garlic, onion
and pretty much any vegetables you have on hand with a tin of tomatoes chucked
it. It’s perfect for using up leftover vegetables at the end of the week (makes
a nice change from slow cooker ‘end of the week’ soup).
Because dinner was ready so early I had time to give the
fridge a good clean and the freezer a de-icing while watching Shorty before
heading off to do the shopping. It’s so much easier to do when the shelves are
getting a bit bare!
The reason I’m boring you with the ins and outs of my
grocery shop are because of an article I read on stuff today. There’s been a
lot of talk lately about budgeting, rising food prices and families not being
able to afford to eat healthily. We are most definitely not perfect in any way,
but I thought I’d share some of the ways we keep our costs down while still
enjoying healthy and most importantly, TASTY food.
·Write a shopping list. This is stuck to the
fridge so if you use the last of something write it up straight away. If it’s
not on the list, it doesn’t get bought.
·If you do run out of something, IMPROVISE.
·Always keep milk powder in the pantry to avoid a
dash to the dairy if you run out. If you live with someone who doesn’t like the
idea of powdered milk, put it in the old milk bottle and they’ll never know the
difference. We also buy enough milk for the two weeks and stash a bottle in the
freezer until it’s needed.
·On that note, use your freezer. If you’re
cooking, make extra and put it in the freezer for a rainy day. I also
buy a tin of tomato paste and freeze it in ice cube trays before tipping it
into a snap lock bag so it’s always on hand and nothing gets wasted. If you
bake a cake or muffins, freeze half for later. Sometimes I don’t quite finish a
bottle of wine – if you freeze it in a snap lock bag it’s great for adding to
gravies, risottos and tomato sauces. I
also grate ¾ of the block of cheese and freeze it to make it last longer –
stops anyone slicing off massive hunks.
·Don’t waste anything. Make soup with any
vegetables that are starting to look sad and freeze it for lunches. Any fruit
that’s going a bit soft makes awesome crumble, smoothies or add it to some
baking.
·Buy everything in its least processed form; it
normally works out cheaper. I can’t believe people buy things like kidney
beans, lentils and chickpeas in cans. It is so easy to cook them from dry and
it works out at about a third of the price. As for ready-made pasta sauce,
what’s wrong with a tin of tomatoes, some tomato paste, garlic, onion and fresh
herbs?
·Making things from scratch is much more fun and
a lot more budget friendly. For a price of a jar of jam you can make several
jars – and they make a great gift for friends. All you need is a kilo of sugar
for each kilo of seasonal fruit (under $2 a kilo). I even ask my friends to
give me their jars instead of recycling them – saves buying any!
·Buy the house brand items if they are cheaper.
They normally taste the same. There is a couple of exceptions to this rule –
baked beans and bread.
Nothing beats Vogels but we save it for toast and use a cheaper sandwich bread
and even better, homemade bread for sandwiches.
·If you are going to be busy later in the week,
cook two meals at once and chuck one in the fridge/freezer – cheaper than
takeaways. Also jazz leftovers up and you’ve got another meal e.g. cook more
roast veges than you’ll need and chuck the leftovers on a pizza, through cous
cous, in a risotto or on a toasted sandwich.
·Don’t say no to anything that is free. Use your
contacts. I am very lucky to have parents that farm and fish – not paying for
snapper is a very sweet deal! This rule applies when hosting a dinner party
too. When people ask if they can bring something, don’t be afraid to ask them
to bring a bottle of cream or some berries for dessert for example.
·You don’t need to eat meat every night.
Vegetarian meals are often cheaper and nutritious too. We eat vegetarian or
fish the majority of the time because my flatmate doesn’t eat meat, but even
for all the meat eaters out there it’s worth having a meatless night once or
twice a week. Vegetarian food isn’t bland or boring. Lentils are your friend! I
recommend healthyfood.co.nz for recipe ideas.
·Invest in an easiyo maker. Less than $3 for a kg
of greek yoghurt and even cheaper if you nab the sachets when they’re on
special.
·Shop at a vege market if there’s one near you.
We do a supermarket shop once a fortnight but a vegetable shop at our local
school, weekly. The prices are a heck of a lot lower and $20 goes a long way.
You can also get 36 eggs for $6-7. Often you can get things like very ripe
bananas for under $1/kg – I chuck them in the freezer to use in baking. If
something like broccoli is really cheap one week I’ll buy a couple and parboil
then freeze it in snaplock bags – much cheaper than the stuff in the
supermarket frozen section!
·Buying in bulk sometimes works out cheaper (like
for a 5kg bag of flour or 10kg bag of potatoes) but not always, so check the
prices carefully. E.g. today I found 2x 500ml oil was cheaper than a 1 litre
bottle.
·Cleaning products – now this is where we save a
fortune! Thanks to mum putting me onto Wendyl, we barely spend a cent on
cleaning products at the supermarket. The only things we really buy are bleach
(very occasionally), cloths (the cheapest brand) and dish washing liquid. I’m
going to start trying to make the beauty products too – got to be better than
putting all those chemicals on your skin.
·In a flatting situation, do you all need
separate toothpastes?
·This one’s not to do with food shopping but not
having a clothes dryer keeps our power bill right down. Clothes racks are a
godsend (especially when you stick the dehumidifier next to it) and we try to
only wash the sheets/towels when the weather’s nice.
·Garden! Pots are cheap and I’ve managed to grow
silverbeet and herbs very successfully in them. Right now I’ve got lettuce on
the go too. Seeds are cheaper but you can’t go wrong with a 6 pack of vege
plants for less than $2 at Bunnings.
I hope that didn’t come across too preachy. We manage on
$30 per person a week ($90 total) including rubbish bags etc. We definitely
could cut that down if we were on the bones of our arses but that much keeps us
not wanting for anything (like cheese and butter and the occasional tub of ice
cream).
I love hearing new ways to save money and make meals go
further. The destitute gourmet Facebook page is a treasure trove of followers’
ideas. Is there something you do that isn’t on my list?
I love our neighbours today, even though the toddler (I assume) has buried my parsley plant in soil - as if the slugs/snails, cats and caterpillars weren't doing enough damage in the garden already :-(
The reason I love our neighbours is that they let us borrow their vacuum cleaner. Ours broke a few weeks ago so the carpet's been looking more than a little sorry. Now it's looking so clean! I got the flatmate to take them over a jar of our homemade kiwifruit jam to say thanks.
I've been thinking that it's nice that we get along with our neighbours and actually know who they are - it's so easy in the city to live in your own little bubble. Ours may be a little rough around the edges, what with their parties every week (but at least their singing to 10 guitars at 6am is in tune) but they are always really friendly and give free Maori lessons too. The kids are a lot of fun (when the toddler's not digging up my plants he helps me out with the watering can) and we steal borrow their cat from time to time as well.
It was a good job the floor finally got vacuumed because a couple of old friends came around for tea. We polished off a couple of bottles of some very good wine (Stoneleigh pinot gris and Mt Difficulty pinot noir), a fair amount of roast beef with all the trimmings, and chocolate cake with berry coulis. Delicious! It was such a great evening - I think we'll have to do it more often.
When we do roasts we do a separate tray of veges that don't touch the meat and also yorkshire puddings and a nut roast to make it just as exciting for our vegetarian flatmate - not that she was home this evening anyway.
Her nut roast (like a meatloaf shaped giant stuffing) recipe is pretty tasty but tonight we were down a couple of ingredients and it turned out to be one of those times where the 'thrown-together-bits-we-had-in-the-pantry' tasted even better than the real deal. Even carnivores like it served as a side dish.
First boil one cup of dried pearl barley for around 10 minutes until softened.
In a food processor blend 1 cup mixed nuts, 1 onion, 2 slices bread, 2 eggs, salt/pepper, and dried herbs.
Add the barley, 2 grated carrots and 1/2 cup of grated cheese.
Put it all in a loaf tin and put it in the oven with the roast to cook for one hour.
Voila, something to serve to that awkward vegetarian that comes over for dinner (or that awkward vegetarian you live with 7 days a week, 365 days a year haha).
Multi-tasking. I think I've proven today that I am just as adept at this as any other woman.
I drank a cup of tea while drying my hair and running late for uni.
I weighed up the pros and cons of borrowing a couple of lemons off a tree from a garden down the street while crossing the road without being struck by a car. (And no, I'm doing going to steal their fruit, even under the cover of darkness, though it's awfully tempting).
I cooked dinner while setting off the smoke alarm.
And right now I'm typing a blog entry while watching a cheesy romantic comedy, drinking a Pisco sour, staring at the pile of washing I should be folding and putting off doing the washing up.
Speaking of Pisco sours, if there's a better way of using raw egg white, I haven't discovered it yet.
On that note, the bottle's just about empty so if anyone knows where I can find Pisco in New Zealand, I'm all ears.
I cooked a typical Peruvian meal tonight hence the Pisco sour for afters. Rice, fried green bananas and egg makes a simple and substantial meal that is sold in most cheap restaurants in Peru and better yet is normally the most budget friendly item on the menu.
To jazz up the rice you can make tacu tacu instead. It's rice fried with beans and served in a pattie-shaped mound on the plate. In Peru it's one of the many ways of serving up the same chicken and rice but with a different name.
There were no white beans in the pantry so I used chickpeas. I also switched out yellow chili sauce for chili powder.
Here's the recipe:
Boil white rice then drain it.
Fry one diced onion in a generous splosh of oil. Add the chili powder.
Add the cooked rice and beans to the pan. Stir fry on a high heat until it starts to get a bit of a brown skin.
While that's cooking in another pan fry chopped green banana in oil (one per person).
Dish up the rice mixture (the tacu tacu) - like a big pancake-like pattie. Put the green banana on the side.
Quickly fry up one or two eggs per person and pile them on top.
Enjoy.
Mine doesn't look all that pretty or taste as authentic as the real deal from a cheap roadside diner but it's filling and tasty enough.
The proper recipe is in this great Peruvian cookbook The Food & Cooking of Peru by Flor Arcaya de Deliot that I plan to slowly cook my way through - a bit of a Julie Powell style challenge. It might take me a while to pluck up the courage to cook the tripe dishes though!
typical breakfast of spicy sausage and patacones
(fried banana) in Tarapoto, Peru
What do you do on those nights when you just can't be bothered cooking? Takeaways? Beans on toast? Or throw together something incredibly simple with ingredients you always have on hand?
Tonight's been one of those nights for me. Therefore dinner is one of the simplest meals in my repertoire - spag bol, the meatless kind.
Serves around 4 people
Put 2 pots of water on the stove top to boil. In one, boil 1 1/2 cups red lentils for 8-10 minutes. The other is for the pasta (used 1/2 bag budget spaghetti - that's 30 whole cents worth).
Chop a couple of cloves of garlic and one onion. Fry in a little oil. Then add the lentils, a can of tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, soy sauce, vegetable stock, worchestershire sauce, salt & pepper, dried herbs and either a little water or red wine. Chuck in any vegetables sitting in the fridge or freezer - tonight's had capsicum, frozen veges and handful of baby spinach stirred through at the end. Top with cheese and voila, a cheap, easy and healthy meal that took bugger all time to prepare.
It's just missing the meat, really. The original recipe can be found on the Healthy Food Guide website. It was in the first issue I ever bought which has been well thumbed as it tells you all about how to cook pulses and beans which saves a bundle being able to buy them dry rather than in a tin.
The parents dropped by last weekend bringing with them a stash of snapper fillets for my freezer. Yum! I cooked some up tonight with garlic chips on the side and a winter salad of cabbage, brocolli, spinach and celery with a blue cheese sauce. It was the first time I've battered a fish in anything other than beer. I had to hunt for a recipe due to not a drop of beer to be found in the house. Shock, horror. That was never a problem when flatting with males - there was at least a can of double brown to be found down the back of the fridge if you were truely desperate. The wine rack is looking rather full though, but wine-battered fish...??? Maybe experiment on something a little less yummy than snapper in case I fudge it up!
CRISPY BATTER - FROM THE EDMONDS COOKBOOK
1/4 cup cornflour
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
Oil for frying
Sift it into the bowl. Gradually whisk in milk until it forms a smooth batter (duh). Dip the fish into it, and fry until golden.
NB: paraphased that a bit.
No beer batter, but not half bad.
Anyway, last time I was up North we spent a day fishing up the Coromandel. Unfortunately I didn't catch A SINGLE THING!!!!! Luckily my dad caught enough for all of us. That's when I took these pictures. (No pictures of tonight's feed because I couldn't wait to dig in!)
It's samoan language week so to celebrate I thought I'd share the chop suey recipe I got given in my samoan night class a couple of weeks ago.
ani ani, ani ani saina, fiu, ga'o, lialia, sosi, fasipovi/fasimoa/fasipoa'a, masima ma pepa
onion, garlic, ginger, oil, vermecelli, soy sauce, beef/chicken/pork, salt and pepper (to taste)
Tipi ma fufulu le fasipovi. Fa'asosi ma tu'u i le pusa aisa. Cut and wash the meat. Soy sauce it (put on enough to induce a heart attack, and then add some more) and put it in the fridge.
Falai le aniani, aniani saina, fiu ma le fasipovi ile ga'o. Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and meat in the oil.
Sasa'a le vai vevela i le lialia. Pour the hot water on the vermicelli.
E vela loa le fasipovi sasa'a iai le lialia ma saeu. When the meat is cooked, add the vermicelli and stir.
Fa'apuna ma tī i lalo le ogaumu. Bring it to the boil then lower the heat.
E vela loa le lialia, tapē le ogaumu. When it's ready, turn off the heat.
Here's some I made with red cabbage, choko and mixed veges instead of meat.
If sapasui isn't your cup of tea check out Robert Oliver's Me'a Kai for some tasty, Pacific-inspired cooking. I so want that cookbook - if only it didn't come with a $70+ price tag (ouch!).
I'll leave you with this Samoan sunrise...because it is so darn pretty!
I love doing the weekly grocery shop. Most Saturday mornings I get up, chuck on a beanie to cover the bed hair (that's right, 7 weeks of growth is enough to cause bed hair, which excites me no end - it's growing!) and head down the road to Newtown School.
On the way there's often a group of Samoans selling sausage sizzles to raise money for a church or school or family holiday back to the islands. It'd be rude not to buy one, and so I arrive at the market hurridly wiping tomato sauce off my chin. Every so often I have to pull a u-y and head back to the atm because I've realised at the first stall I've forgotten the money.
The best thing about the market is how cheap everything is. 30 odd eggs for $6. All sorts of fruit for 99c at the moment. And best of all yams are down to $4 already when they are still over $8 at Pak n Save. $20 later, laden down with a myriad of fruit and vegies I head home for a spinach nest and cup of tea if I've got enough time before work.
Tonight I used some of these goodies that were going a bit soft to make a crumble was all the gorgeous colours of autumn falling leaves. There wasn't much that wasn't in it - braeburn, pear, persimmon, kiwifruit both green and gold, mandarin...so delicious and served with a small dollop generous drowning of custard.
It followed goat casserole. Sneaky meat while the pommy lass is out of the house.
The only thing the crumble was missing was feijoa. But that's alright. Here's some feijoa jam I prepared earlier.
And here's a parting shop of the first bounty from the vege patch. We're very proud of our wee radishes, which is a good thing since I didn't stagger the planting, they're going to be ready all at once - whoops!
That's autumn over. Fingers crossed the warmish weather lasts until the end of the month when I'll be in beautiful, warm Samoa!
When I was a kid, mum used to preserve peaches in big glass jars that sat on the top of the shelf all winter. They were incredibly delicious either by themselves or even better with custard or in a peach upside down cake. Now that tinned peaches are so cheap, I guess there isn't really much point, unless you are lucky enough to have a peach tree in your backyard. Unfortunately I don't, but I did go back home for a visit last week and found the crabapple tree covered in ripe fruit, just asking to be made into jam. And so, here is my first ever (quickly followed by second ever) attempt at making crabapple jelly.
First we picked the fruit from the tree, rinsed it all well and pulled the stalks out.
Then we chopped all the fruit in half, just cutting out the hard core bit at the bottom of the fruit (keeping all the pips and what not for pectin purposes), and discarding any fruit that was getting a bit fuzzy or had a big maggotty worm camping inside it. It was roughly 1kg of fruit.
Then we put it in a large pot, just covering the fruit in water but not so much that the fruit starts to float. Here the recipe says to add a stick of cinnamon. I didn't. Then bring it to the boil and simmer for half an hour. After that you need to put all that fruit into a jelly bag and let the liquid drip overnight (careful not to squeeze the bag or the liquid will go cloudy).
Dad rigged up this contraption using twine and wooden spoons - number 8 wire mentality there. For the second batch Mum made good use of a bar stool. Note: if you tip the bowl on its side in order to get it to fit into the middle of the bar stool, you will need to ladle all the liquid out. At least I know where I possibly inherited my ditziness from :-)
The next morning there should be around a litre of liquid sitting there. Simmer the liquid for 10 minutes, removing the skin at the end, then add 1 cup sugar for every cup of liquid, stir it in until dissolved, and then simmer a further 10 minutes. Remove the skin and pour into sterilised jars.
Then it's all ready to eat or gift or eat some more. Preferably with a cup of tea and a freshly baked scone. "Easy peasy", as Jo Seagar would say.
With a southerly ripping its way across the country, yesterday was definately a stay-in-bed-and-do-nothing day. What a luxury! I did actually shower and put on fresh pajamas. The cold made the forays outside of bed few and far between only for a steaming cup of Healtheries rhuburb and apple tea - luxury buy of the week.
By the time flatmate number 1 arrived home, I was in the mood to eat, but so not in the mood to cook. Leftovers jazzed up it was. While she headed down to the shops to rent the all important Outrageous Fortune season 6 (going to the exhibition next week and we were just 3 episodes shy of watching all 6 seasons since December), I kept an eye on the cooking.
On Saturday night we had friends over for a roast (who came bearing Saint Claire and Roaring Meg pinot noirs and a late harvest riesling for dessert - amaaaaaaaazing!). At the time we chopped up extra vegies and cooked them in a non-meat-contaminated pan for later in the week - smothered in a buttery, honey glaze, mmm.
So last night it was these veges + risone + leftover brocolli and feta filo pie (cooked by the pom) for dinner.
And this pizza base + veges + feta+ sauce made from good ole t-sauce mixed with garlic, smothered with cheese for today's lunch.
Not bad for venturing outside of the duvet for the least possible time, cooking time. Oh and there was also leftover pinot noir too *picture happy, grinning mumsie here*
Today was one of those days where like a true housewife mumsie I spent the entire afternoon barefoot (well I would've been had the temperature risen above so friggin cold you'd think you were at Scott Base) in the kitchen.
I had a bright idea the other day that the person who ate the last slice of bread should have to bake the next loaf. Of course that person was me. I didn't mind because I have a brand new bread bin that is so ridiculously cute. Yay for closing down sales and bargains to be had. No bread bin that adorable should be left empty and so I got to work. This is the recipe I always use. It's yummy, but not too yummy. My flatmate makes an incredible loaf that never lasts more than a day because it is that good. Sneaking a piece on your way to the bathroom at 2am kind of good. Thus, that is not every day bread.
Normally I leave it out in the sun to rise - a bit of a problem today. Solution = turn the oven on and sit the dough on top of it. And since the oven's on, might as well get some baking down while you're at it. Cue anzac bikkies (my all time favourites) and Bill and Ben's ridiculously easy date loaf. When a bag of dates winds up in the shopping trolley it's a not-so-subtle way of flatmates saying "MAKE US SOME DATE LOAF, MUMSIE". Another thing that doesn't last more than 1 day. Served with a scrape generous mound (a la Julia Child) of butter of course.
Tangelo & tequila jelly
Then it was off to Samoan class but not before juicing (in my hands - note to self; buy juicer) the tangelos that didn't get eaten last week and making jelly for dessert. Tequila and tangelo jelly. It's an Annabel Langbein recipe from her Pacific inspired recipe book, except hers has lemongrass, lime and rum. I didn't have rum so tequila it was. Any attempts to turn the jelly onto the plate from it's rammekin nest failed. How the heck do you achieve this? Ideas? I tried sitting it in some hot water and slipping a knife around the sides, but it still didn't work. But I could hear Meryl channeling Julia ("never apologise")and left it in the cups - it looked rather awesome if I do say so myself. Except for tasting the tiniest bit burnt - don't use the pot with the burnt bottom next time. Success.
Loving all things Samoan at the moment and so dinner was Luau (sp?) which is basically palusami without any corned beef.
Luau
Take one can of coconut cream and a bunch of silverbeet/spinach (taro leaves if you can find some, which I can't) and simmer for about 45 mins. I added a pinch of chilli, garlic, salt, vege stock and there should be lemon too but we're all out. Serve on rice. Fatty and delicious!
I made soup too. Let's call it an experiment in what happens when you blend orange pumpkin with purple cabbage. I'm about to whizz it up in the processor to see. Every time I look into the crockpot I'm reminded of Bridget Jones' epic blue string soup. It looks about as appetising. Hoping it doesn't taste too 'interesting'.
And check out my latest pot garden pic. They're all still alive, although the basil looks like it needs a trip to the infirmary. For that I blame the cat, but that is a WHOLE 'nother blog entry.
