start me up

__________________________________________________


First post of the new year! Well, if I can't be fashionable, I might as well aim for fashionably late. I've been largely away from technology while on holiday, and then coming back into full time work has, funnily enough, kept me ridiculously busy. To be honest it was a little liberating being apart from my blog but now I'm ready to spend some quality time with the kitchen and slide back into blogging like a pair of old socks. Hopefully the 'good writing' section of my brain gets swiftly awoken, but in the meantime, to make up for all the no-blogging I bring two recipes that are flipping delicious.




Looks like I'm as adept as ever in the kitchen.

I found this recipe for chocolate beetroot cake in a Jill Dupleix book that I got for Christmas from Nanna a couple of years ago. I've professed my love for all things roast beetroot in the past, but was completely intrigued, nay, consumed with the idea of using it in a cake. I have to admit I used a drained can of beetroot, which is perhaps not what Dupleix had in mind, but hey ho, the finished product was delicious, without betraying any of its vegetable-y origins. And call me a freak, but butter, sugar, and pureed beetroot mixed together is...bizarrely good.


Chocolate Beetroot Cake, adapted from New Food by Jill Dupleix

I made quite a few changes - canned instead of fresh pureed beetroot, I used a food processor to make it, and I used 250g melted butter instead of a cup of oil because that's how I roll.




1 cup cooked beetroot, pureed
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
250g butter, melted
1/2 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs

If you're using canned beetroot, drain it and then puree it in the food processor (which will take a couple of goes, whizzing and spatula-ing) then add all the rest of the ingredients, blitz to a pinkish-brownish batter (once again, scraping down the sides with a spatula occasionally) and pour into a 23cm paper-lined cake tin. Bake at 190 for roughly 45 minutes.




Above: Seriously, there is no hint of beetroot in the finished product, but you're left with a moist, surprisingly light, unthreateningly plain chocolate cake. It's delicious. Don't be afraid...

While wandering aimlessly through the revamped Moore Wilson's Fresh (off Tory Street in central Wellington) on Sunday, it struck me that I haven't eaten roast lamb in forever, so I purchased a goodly slab of it and made off home to cook my spoils. I also purchased a bottle of Moore Wilson's fresh-squeezed orange juice, they literally have a guy there squeezing it for you. Once you've tried it, it's difficult to go back to any other bottled orange juice. It's so fresh you can practically feel the vitamin C coursing through your veins with every sip.

.

Using a suggestion of Nigella's, I rubbed the lamb in olive oil and ras-el-hanout, that utterly, ridiculously deliciously fragrant spice mix. I roasted it for an hour and a half at 210 C, basting occasionally. To go with, I made a salad from a book I got for Christmas from my godfamily that I'm quite wild to cook my way through: Christelle Le Ru's French Fare..

..............................................................

Salade d'Aubergine (I don't think I need to translate this?)
.
1 aubergine
1 shallot
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 red pepper
1/2 bunch parsely
55g feta cheese


Preheat oven to 210 C (375 F) Prick the aubergine with a fork and wrap it in foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, roll the pepper in foil and bake for about 10 or 15 minutes. Halve the aubergine, remove the flesh (it shouldn't be too hard to peel at this stage) and press the flesh very firmly in a sieve to remove any juice. Remove seeds from the pepper, and chop both vegetables relatively small. Peel and finely chop the shallot. Mix all the vegetables together with the olive oil and chopped parsely. Finally, season with salt and pepper and crumble over the feta cheese.

This deliciously summery salad, which is quite versatile - I used mint instead of parsely and scattered some chopped walnuts through - went marvelously with the lamb, in a sort of pseudo-Meditterranean way. For tonight's dinner I stirred the leftover, chopped lamb into the leftover salad, to which I added more feta and walnuts, plus the seeds of half a pomegranate, and served it with some grilled courgettes and wild rice. The lamb itself was tender and pink and pastorally delicious, and maybe even nicer second time round...

. ..........................
It's not a bad time to be me lately: tomorrow a whole bunch of us are going to see The Arctic Monkeys, then on Thursday Tim and I fly up to Auckland for the Big Day Out festival on Friday (ie, omgaaaaaah NEIL YOUNG) and then the following Tuesday I am - have mercy - going to see Leonard Cohen. I finally caved and spent a rather frightening amount bidding online for a ticket to his sold out gig; I figured it was only money and a once in a lifetime experience, but don't even try to ask me how much I purchased it for because I'll nay tell ye.

Well, that wasn't so taxing, so hopefully I can keep up this food blogging lark with more regularity than I did over the last couple of weeks. I hope all your 2009s are getting off to a cracking start and I look forward to getting back into reading all the other fab blogs out there!
Edit: Actually, this is taxing. I've tried for the last fifteen minutes to split up the paragraphs in this last section but they persist in messily squishing themselves together! Aaargh! *shakes fist furiously at blogspot*

My Funny Valentine

Ah, Valentine's Day. The day where I say to Tim: "It's just a commercialised, Americanised cold-hearted event thought up by Hallmark in order to sell more cards" while inside I'm thinking "pleeease do something for me!!" I honestly don't want much. I meant what I said about it being commercial and tacky. Well Tim, bless him, completely exceeded expectations and not only got me a card but also got me (even though I told him not to) a beautiful bunch of flowers - delivered at work! So, for one of the few times in my life, I got to be that smug gal who walks home clutching a bouquet.

For my part, I made a rather nice dinner last night. Nothing too taxing - a free range bird, some potatoes roasted stickily in garlic, some frozen peas. But also the nicest thing to eat, to be honest - there is nothing so simple but also celebratory as a roast chicken.

Above: The only thing I love more than roast chicken is planning what I'm going to do with the leftover meat. Because chicken breasts are very expensive, having the cooked meat to toy with is rather thrilling.

Above: At the behest of Nigella's Feast, I chopped potatoes into cubes and roasted them with olive oil and garlic cloves. After a while I threw in some cauliflower, because you all know how I feel about this particular member of the brassic family. I must admit, every time I took the tray out of the oven to have a stir, I ate more and more of the sweet, sweet, crispy bits...we were rather lucky that there was anything left for dinner.

For dessert, however, I put in a bit more grunt. I had a concept, which didn't entirely materialise as I thought it might...but hey. It's the thought that counts on Valentine's Day, right?

Above: Admit it. If you took this photo yourself, you'd be quite proud. I don't think I'm too forward in thinking it would not look out of place on a much more chi chi food blog. Especially when you take into account the fact that I don't take particularly good photos in the first place. I like this so much that I'd better actually tell you what it is - Pomegranate Ice Cream. Monumentally easier to make than the name would suggest, you merely stir icing sugar in the juice of a couple of ruby-red pomegranates, add some cream, stir some more, and freeze. It tastes heavenly. Almost unfathomably good. And it comes out a very pretty, Valentine-y pink colour.

Look what happens when you stir it!

Above: Ooooooooh.

To augment this, I made some flourless chocolate brownies, (the recipe for this, along with the ice cream, can be found in Nigella Express) and the Barbados Cream from How To Eat. Barbados Cream is equal quantities of cream and Greek yoghurt stirred together briskly, with dark brown sugar sprinkled over, left in the fridge overnight. It tastes amazing - creamy and tangy and intensely caramelly.

Above: Pa-da! Yes, that is a heart made out of berries. To be frank this didn't turn out how I'd hoped, visually, I think I was yearning for some kind of Donna Hay style-presentation. Considering I don't like Donna Hay all that much I guess I shouldn't try and channel her, especially considering how generally cack-handed I am - it could only end badly. Luckily everything tasted good. According to the flatmates (the night wasn't toooo romantic) the brownies are amazing, which is always nice to hear about something you have baked. Everything tasted great together, even if it didn't look so pretty.

I have been making other stuff lately:

Above: I mentioned in my last post about how enamoured I am with my new yoghurt maker. I am LOVING having yoghurt around (like chicken breasts, and, well, everything, yoghurt is pretty expensive) and used some of it in this Greek Yoghurt Cake that I found in Jill Dupleix' New Food. It is a very easy to make, and bakes into a large, golden, fragrant cake. I was pleased with how the whole 'dust-icing-sugar-over-cut-out-shapes' went, but to be honest I was even more pleased with how good it tasted. I made this on Wednesday in order to herald Kieran's brief returning to Hadfield before he went back to work in Napier.

Above: I made this for dinner the other night. Burmese Salad from the Healthy Salads book, grilled potatoes with tumeric, steamed beet greens (or pinks as they ought rightly to be named), and meatballs flavoured with, inspired by a recipe in New Food, sake. It was pretty great, not to mention totally, smugly healthy.

Above: Our entire flat (which now includes my cousin Paul, hoorah!) got really quite drunk after pudding last night, which means that it was No Fun getting up for work this morning. However it is in complete sobriety that I wish you Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers (but I love you every day of the year!)

I DO Like Green Eggs And Ham...

Above: What a genius idea - crepes, flavoured with pesto, wrapped around slices of ham. Nigella, you magnificent woman. Having said that, I wouldn't be making this if I hadn't found some heavily reduced pesto at the supermarket - these days companies will quite coolly charge you $9 for a small tub of flavourless green sludge.

Green Eggs and Ham (from Nigella Express)
- 1 egg
- 75g flour
-75g pesto
- 150mls skimmed milk (I used half full fat and half buttermilk because that's what we had)

Mix all this together, heat up a pan with a tiny bit of oil (or use non stick) and fry this mixture, in dollops of a quarter of a cup or so. When the top looks dry and the edges are cooked, flip and cook for a little more. This makes about 5 or 6, perfect for two. Delicious, and all the more charming for it's name being Seussical. I could eat these in a house, I could ("could" meaning I have the ability, not that I want to) eat these with a mouse - our flat is currently plagued by the wee blighters.


This was tonight's dinner, by the way. I know I normally waffle on before getting to the food part, but I'm tired, and being tired makes me type recklessly, heedless of syntax or flow. Apologies.



Above: This was the rest of tonight's dinner. In the background on the left you can glimpse the Green Eggs and Ham, and to the right is - surprise - roasted beetroot with avocado. I didn't make a big deal of it, surely you don't need to see another photo of this! In front however, is what Marjorie Dawes from Little Britain would call "Summin Else!" Oeuf En Cocotte, also from Nigella Express, could not be simpler or more elegant. I actually used some white truffle oil, that I had bought myself, as Nigella recommends - it was quite exhilarating. The basic premise of this recipe is that into ramekins go plain, but quality ingredients: A free range egg, a spoonful of cream, Maldon sea salt, truffle oil. This is then baked quickly in a bain-marie till softly set. I'm sure this would have been perfectly pleasant on its own, but with the white truffle oil it truly tasted magical. It is difficult to describe the flavour of this stuff (mercifully, it tastes good) but it is sort of rich and savoury and earthy...and gratifyingly, it tastes of expense. We finished off the last of the homemade bread with this, its grainy texture went nicely with the unctuous eggs.



Above: This is the Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, which has the wondrous virtue of being super easy, but also wonderfully intense. I had passed this by for a while, as it only had two eggs and 100g dark chocolate in it - How dense could it be? I scoffed (worryingly...) But yesterday I felt like doing some baking and gosh darn it, we had all the ingredients. The batter is faint-makingly liquidy (250mls boiling water goes into the mix) but all comes right in the end. The texture is incredible - fudgy, warm, somehow almost mocha flavoured (I think it's the muscovado sugar that does that,) and yet resolutely cakelike - comforting and sliceable, not rich and moussy. If you have this book, it is definitely worth the $3 or so to buy the muscovado sugar, not to mention the fact that the batter tastes out of this world delicious.

Now for something completely different. I mentioned in previous posts that I got a Jill Dupleix book from Nana for Christmas, New Food. For the last couple of days I have been making myself her overnight muesli, or "Summer Porridge" as I like to think of it (I forget what the recipe is actually called.) It is very good - not exactly delicious, but it couldn't be more virtuous than if it was made of lentils, and you know I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. Basically, you get your bowl, put in half a cup of rolled oats and quarter of a cup of water. Leave in the fridge overnight. The next morning, grate in an apple (if you like the misery) or slice in a banana, (much easier) and away you go! I usually dispense with the fruit (because my alloted time for "figuring out what the heck to wear today" almost always runs over into my "dealing with fruit" time.) I stir in some LSA (linseed, sunflower seed and almond meal) and have it with soymilk, which I genuinely enjoy the taste of. You leave the house not only filled with Low-GI goodness but with the absolute smugness that can only come from having a stupidly healthy breakfast.



Above: This is not something I have cooked, but is worth looking at all the same - the sunrise this morning. This photo was taken at Victoria University, where Tim and I expand our minds...While you marvel at the beauty of the photo, spare a thought for Tim, who took the photo at 5.30am while on his way to make Orange Mocha Frappuccinos for about a million people.

In other news, Ange came round last night and we, with Emma, watched my feature length documentary on Jonothan Larson, the late author of Rent (did you know that Rent won a Pulitzer Prize? Tim still doesn't like it even though I told him that.) Then, as these things happen, we ended up watching the whole movie AGAIN. And Tim sat through the whole thing, completely mocking it. This made me think of when boys in school throw mashed potato at you and trip you up because they secretly like you. (Although I have to agree with him - the "Bon Jovi" moment in Santa Fe is completely overwrought.) Anyway, we ate the chocolate loaf cake throughout (except for Emma, as it wasn't gluten free) and everyone agreed that it was amazing. If I had the energy I'd type out the recipe for you, but if you really want it let me know and I can do it another day. "Another dayyyyyyyy..."


In OTHER, non-Rent-related news, there is apparently a new Nigella book (I know, already!) coming out in October called "Nigella's Christmas." I wonder if we grass-hut dwelling New Zealanders (I kid, we have had electicity since like, 1982) will actually see this book before Christmas arrives. Anyway, excitement!