viva las veges

_________________________________________________
.

It's the miracle of life! I have borne fruit! (well, a vegetable, to be precise)




To grow you is to love you.

It seems I can't pick up a magazine or lifestyle section of a newspaper without some recessionista sighing smugly about how they are positively overrun with their homegrown zucchini and if they have to eat another fritter they will just die. Tim and I, with all the best intentions, embraced our inner hippies and exchanged a large amount of coin for various packets of seeds, a bag of potting mix, a pair of gloves that make your hands chafe and a trowel that bends at the slightest pressure. Three months of tenderly weeding our little garden, gently throwing coffee grounds and potassium-rich banana peels at it in the anticipation of a bounty of zucchini, beetroot and runner beans...


And our impotent, nutrient-deficient soil threw forth one, solitary sodding zucchini.


I couldn't be prouder. Okay, so gardening isn't as easy as every chatty columnist claims it is, (I mean, exactly where are our beans and beetroot?) but the endorphin increase I got from this single vegetable must equal a positively delirious hallucinogenic head rush if you actually manage to harvest an actual garden of edible goodies. So we're planning to buy some more seeds and start again - the grow must go on...





The zucchini was sliced lovingly and went into a ratatouille to accompany the above roasted chicken on Sunday night. I had a feeling that I hadn't eaten meat in forever and needed to remedy this immediately by consuming the sort of protein you just can't get from lentils. When we do eat meat I want it to be good. Luckily the chicken I purchased from Moore Wilson's was tender and fleshy and tasted like the happiest ex-bird ever to socialise and dust-bathe in its natural environment.


While I was being unorthodox, and continuing with the homegrown theme, I thought I might as well make some flatbread to mop up the chicken and ratatouille juices. I don't know about you, but if the gap between the present moment and when I last made bread grows too wide, I become a little antsy. Making bread is just something I really enjoy - watching the unlikely mixture of flour and liquid come together as I knead it, the slow swelling of the yeasted dough, and the incredible smell it imparts as it bakes. To say nothing of the ridiculously wonderful taste of it hot from the oven (with butter, thank you...)


I've made this recipe a couple of times before, it's a very easy dough to work with and while home-made flatbreads aren't perhaps as visually rewarding as a proudly towering traditional loaf of bread, they are just as delicious and make a meal feel like a feast.




Garlic and Parsely Hearthbreads adapted from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson.

500g bread flour
1 sachet (7g) instant yeast
1 tablespoon nice salt (if you're using iodised table salt, halve this amount)
300-400mls warm water
5 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 190 C. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in the water and oil. Stir to combine then knead till it becomes a soft, springy dough, which I find happens quite quickly with this particular recipe. Form into a ball, wash out and dry the bowl, tip in a little olive oil and turn the ball of dough in it before covering it with clingfilm and leaving it to rise for an hour or so. Meanwhile, trim the tops off two large heads garlic, dribble with a little olive oil and wrap loosely in tinfoil, then pop n the oven to cook for about 45 minutes. If you sit the bowl of dough on top of the warm oven it will aid the rising process.





Once the dough is sufficiently risen, punch it down and leave it while you remove the garlic from the oven and turn it up to 200 C. Divide the dough in two and press each out into a large, roughly oblong shape (you will need two lined baking trays for this) Prod them with your fingers to make dimple marks and cover them with a teatowel and allow to prove for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Nigella recomends blitzing the cloves of garlic (squeezed out of their skins) and a good bunch of flat leaf parsely in the food processor but you might find it easier just to chop it all together. Mix in a little olive oil either way, and spread this fragrant mixture across the dough.

Bake for 20 minutes or so until the breads are golden brown and cooked.


These are unbelievably delicious.





Is it slightly obscene that the two of us ate roughly one and three quarters of these enormous flatbreads on Sunday night?

I've also been doing a bit of baking. I like to keep the old tin full at all times in case of any unexpected dips in blood sugar from The Diabetic One, but I just like to bake selfishly for its own sake too, to be honest.

I found this recipe in the February/March edition of the magazine Essentially Food. It can be hit and miss in terms of content, but it's improving and they are really worth sifting through because there's almost always a couple of brilliant recipes in there. This is one of them - Belgian Slice. I don't know if y'all around the world get Belgian biscuits which are essentially two small spicy cookies bound with jam and bearing a disc of pink icing. What they have to do with the nation of Belgium is beyond me - perhaps they'd be more appropriate if they smelled of fine beer and were sandwiched together with aioli, but who am I to question culinary history? This following recipe is infinitely easier, combining the flavours of Belgian biscuits in non-threatening slice form.





Belgian Slice

120g butter
120g sugar
1 egg
1 Tablespoon golden syrup

2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 170 C. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and beat well. Mix in the golden syrup and then the dry ingredients. Press the mixture into a baking paper lined swiss roll tin and spread carefully and evenly with the jam. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Essentially Food recommends covering it with pink-tinted icing before sprinkling over raspberry flavoured jelly crystals but as I didn't have any in the house, I compensated by adding raspberry flavouring to the pink buttercream instead.




There's something about the refined, spiced biscuit underneath and the garish, artificially flavoured buttercream and the contrasting textures of each that is both comforting and strangely delicious. Like a culinary crossroads between "childish" and "grown-up" flavours.

I'm really tired this week, all this going out to gigs and such is kind of catching up on me. My feet are bruised from being constantly stood on in audiences and my neck ached all last week from craning my neck (being undertall, I was doing this quite a lot...) The Kills last Wednesday were great fun, I was right up in the front and could practically grope their achingly hip, Kate Moss-dating ankles. However being up the front meant we were dealt a terrific mauling due to the extremely vigorous jostlings of the audience. We emerged feeling like potatoes that had been pressed through an expensive ricer (well those weren't Tim's exact words). At Kings Of Leon on Friday it wasn't much better, even though we were considerably further back. They were in cracking good form and handsome as ever, even though they didn't talk as much as they did at their concert last year. The next big thing on my horizon is the production of The Winter's Tale, directed by (gasp!) Sam Mendes, up in Auckland and Sylvie Guillem back here in Wellington later next month. I think I can confidently say that watching Shakespeare and ballet should be fairly moshpit-free.
.

In other news, (self-pimping alert here) I've been asked by menumania.co.nz to write for their blog. Check out my first post by clicking ---------------> here. I'm still finding my feet with the direction I want my posts to take but it's fun to stretch myself and certainly an honour to be noticed and invited!
.

Next time: Bearing in mind that what I say will happen next time often bears little relation to what actually happens next time...I have this pie recipe I really want to try from an old edition of the gorgeous Cuisine magazine. Watch this space.

Corn As High As An Elephant's Eye

I hope this isn't going to be the blog post equivalent of that friend you have who sees you occasionally in the street, smiles brightly, and as they zoom off into the distance they cry breathlessly "We really should catch up for coffee sometime!" And then you don't hear from them for three months.


I apologise for being woefully slow at updating. Sure, I have been busy, but I haven't managed to convince Tim of my theory that since turning 22, approximately 25 minutes out of every hour just vanishes. Even now, I should be doing useful things, like washing my hair and packing for my business trip (the airport shuttle arrives at 8.00am tomorrow), re-editing my essay and maybe getting to sleep an hour ago.

A sign of my commitment: The promised peanut butter popcorn.

So, I attempted the notorious recipe on Hot Garlic's site.

I'll be frank, cold even: I'm not one of those sorts for whom a peanut butter sandwich is a good time. The idea of schmeering it on popcorn was faintly troubling. But, won over by enthusiastic testimonials, I gave it a go.

It was so good that after Tim and I wolfed it down like famished hyenas, I promptly made another batch. Oh sure, popcorn is good, but smothered in peanut butter and chocolate? (and you know I augmented the amount of butter that the recipe recommends) This stuff is remarkably delicious, and a testament to that old saying "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Speaking of corn and the magical forms it can take...I have a new favourite gluten-free cake. Much as I love chocolate I find those super-rich flourless cakes can be cloying, throat clogging and frankly a little samey (although yes, delicious.) I don't mean to sound condescending and bandwagon-jumping to the genuinely intolerant, once you make this cake all fist-shaking thoughts will fly airily from your wheat-shunning minds.

I found the recipe in the New World supermarket magazine...a mag that I'm not a huge fan of but which regularly redeems itself with such finds as this.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cornmeal Cake

Disclaimer: the cat is faceplanted on my left leg and I don't have the heart to shove him off and find the recipe so I'm transcribing it from memory. I'll change any erroneous details asap.

250g soft butter

1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

Juice and zest of 2 lemons

1 cup cornmeal (aka polenta...not instant though!)

1/2 t baking powder

150g ground almonds (there's no escaping them)

2 T poppyseeds (my contribution to the recipe)

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg yolks and lemon juice/zest. In another, non-plastic bowl, whip the egg whites till stiff. I know it's a pain when recipes ask for separated eggs, but persevere. And don't kick it old-school like I did and manually whisk the whites. It hurts. Add the cornmeal, baking powder, almonds and poppyseeds to the butter/yolk mix and then gently but robustly fold in the whites. Bake in a 22cm, greased and lined tin for an hour - about - at 175 C. When it comes out of the oven, squeeze over more lemon juice, mixed with a little icing sugar, which will settle deliciously into the cake.

Mine got a little (okay, very) dark in the oven, so keep an eye on it and cover with tinfoil if you're worried. This cake is intensely good - soft, moist, tangy, lemony, ohhhh I'm drooling quite immodestly right now just thinking about it.

And within, a gorgeous, rich, distilled-sunshine colour. I don't know how long it lasts because we ate it stupidly fast, but I daresay it has a few days in it.

A million thanks to those who watched and commented on dad's protest video in my last post. And if you haven't watched it, may I not-so-subtly direct your attention towards it with my many links? Truly though, it means so much! We've amassed over 700 views on youtube already, which is pretty amazing since, well, Otaua village is pretty tiny and we only have so many friends and friends-of-friends to sing its praises to. So, to those of you who actually did watch it, a heartfelt thanks. And watch it again! It'll be grand!

Speaking of youtube I have been monumentally distracted lately by the thoroughly engaging and HILARIOUS new musical called [title of show], about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical...if you like Flight of the Conchords AND Broadway (the latter is kind of necessary, lots of it goes over my head I'm sure and I consider myself fairly well-versed) then you'll love it. But here's a clip giving you a little more info anyway...It's going to close soon so if any of my readers are ridiculously fortunate enough to be living in New York, go see it!

Finally - what is that substance on our mossy, damp patio? Could it be...sunshine? Okay, so it rained all day today, but this patch o' concrete literally hasn't seen the sun since about February.

And I know I'm wearing odd socks, I'd like to think it represents my free-spirited, left-brained, artistic temperament but some would say it merely represents my inability to find matching socks.

I Fought The Raw And The Raw Won

_________________________________________________


So. Raw, Vegan Food. Doesn't exactly inspire lusty salivation. Especially not in the middle of a cold, sharp winter. I have nothing against shunning meat - why, some of my best friends are vegetarian! But I feel it's a bit like deep-frying and haircuts and hiking: better done by other people. And I suppose I can see the thought process behind veganism, you know, don't harm animals, sustainability, etc. But two crucial words: no butter. It just seems so strident, so militant, so charmless. And is there anything more unloveable than forced-smile cupcakes made with a cup of mollasses and powdered egg replacement?


I'm hoping here that the vegan community doesn't rise up with fists and come to bludgeon me with a sustainably produced baseball bat. What I'm trying to say is, while I don't think a life without butter (don't get me started on cheese) is really a life lived, I do, despite appearances, love diversity and finding new recipes and being healthy. Some of the best places to look for these are vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, because of what they lack a certain fresh inventiveness is inherantly required. And this is where my raw, vegan stint came in.





It's not difficult to imagine the benefits of a raw vegan diet. No nutrients lost, no consumption of anything even vaguely guilt-inducing, no animal fats. I also absolutely could not live off it. For one thing, how would Tim get his carbohydrates? Raw potato, methinks, is not that appetising. And I have no desire to create "cakes" using a dehydrator. But there is a wealth of interesting stuff out there, a particular favourite of mine being the above salad. It was ambitiously labelled a "tagine" on the original site I found it on but...it's a salad. It's filling and delicious though, and almost indecently healthy, which is something I always appreciate. I give you my adapted recipe.


Raw Cauliflower Salad

1/2 a good sized head of cauli
1 beetroot
2 carrots
a small handful each of dried apricots and dates
1/4 cup nuts - pistachios are good, as are brazils
Poppy seeds


Basically, you need to chop everything Very Small. That's all. It's a bit of a pain, but try to enjoy it as part of the cooking process. Mix everything along with the poppy seeds in a large bowl and pour over the dressing. This is better the next day and makes quite a lot.

Dressing:

1 T tamarind paste, soaked in 1/2 cup water for 30 mins
1 T olive oil
1 T ground tumeric
2 t cumin seeds
1 t coriander seeds


Using a pestle and mortar, bash up the seeds with the olive oil. You could of course, use ground spices and a fork. Add the tamarind water and tumeric, and carefully pour over the salad, mixing it thoroughly (I find a spatula useful here, for scraping out the dressing from the pestle and mortar and mixing the salad without flinging.) Add salt, you'll probably want a good amount, plus lashings of coriander and mint, which really make this work.
.

Seriously, this is very good stuff. I happily ate it as dinner in its entirety (along with some rice for Tim) and...it also goes surprisingly well with proper pork sausages. Another recipe I tried but photographed badly was merely a large beetroot, topped, chopped, and blitzed in the food processor. I stirred in lots of sea salt and coriander and served it as is - we both loved it. Beetroot is so good for you and so cheap this time of year.



Above: This is, of course, Nigella's classically brilliant Thai Cole Slaw, which I've made about a squillion times. You can find a rough guide to the recipe here in one of my much-older posts. And, also composed entirely of raw vegetables and various flavourings.


This is not something I could stick to - as you can tell by my posts about ice cream - but I've had fun finding recipes and there's nothing wrong with eating things as fresh and untampered with as possible. I imagine that the cauliflower salad would be fabulous at a buffet dinner, or as an unorthodox inclusion on the Christmas table (perhaps more applicable to a sunny New Zealand Yuletide though) or just in the fridge for picking at when peckish as one inevitably is 24/7.


I gotta say though, there are some...interesting raw folk out there on the internet. Reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons, where Lisa has the crush on the hardcore vegetarian, who doesn't eat "anything that casts a shadow." Hee!





Back to the real world. These are of course, cooked, but quite healthy...I like to keep a stash of muffins in the freezer for if Tim gets low blood sugar or needs a boost. Freezing them is a good way of making sure they don't get absent-mindedly inhaled (you know how that happens) and it is a good excuse for me to happily potter round the kitchen with butter and sugar without feeling as though I'm contributing to Tim going blind or gangrenous one day (diabetes is a slow but harsh mistress.)

I somehow over the years acquired a few copies of the New World Essentially Food magazine, which, I have to say, can be a little hit and miss with its recipes. Some of them read like packet instructions, and some are just plain undelicious sounding, but it would be hugely uncharitable to say that I don't enjoy this magazine and haven't used it. Anyway, within its pages I found this Pumpkin Muffin recipe and loved the sound of it - not least because pumpkins are one of the few very cheap vegetables these days. I added some also-cheap carrot to the mix too. I'd give you the recipe, but Tim and I tidied our bedroom and as is so often the case, I am beggared if I can locate anything, including that particular magazine. If anyone's really champing at the bit for these though, email me and I'll see if I can hunt it down and reply. The muffins were so good (sorry!) - hearty and moist and cinnamony.

Above: So good. So good they get the Italicisation of Approval. And yes, I really did look for that rogue magazine.

.

Well, I'm now off to watch Outrageous Fortune. Thrilling! The only thing on telly really worth watching (apart from Nigella of course) and the best thing New Zealand has done in my 22 years at least.

.

Next time on Hungry and Frozen: I have no clue at this stage. But at least you won't have your expectations dashed!