Broken Arm

Uh Oh.  In a senior citizens moment for me I managed to trip over a bike rack, while walking towards the ATM (okay yes and concurrently ferreting around in my wallet) in the supermarket carpark.  It was all set to be a fabulous day – Joel was looking after Elsie who had gone down for her morning nap beautifully. I had a master plan; visit the organic butcher (for Elsie), visit Harvest Wholefood (Elsie again), visit Moa to see if I could score any nice dresses for work in their end of season sale (that one was for me). To begin with I wanted to get some cash out of the machine. And then I fell.

I knew the moment that I hit the concrete that I had hurt myself. You just know. Normally, when I trip, I’m immediately back up on my feet, talking a million miles a minute, heart racing and blushing. This time everything seemed to go very quiet. In fact I didn’t even know I had fallen until I was lying face down on the concrete. I stayed down there for a moment thinking through, did I hit my head? Can I moved my legs? Everything seemed to be in order so I started gathering myself up. I knew my arm hurt and immediately thought of snowboarders – who are always falling over and sticking their arm out to break their fall. Snowboarders always seem to hurt their wrists – so I checked mine over. Amazingly, a physiotherapist popped up from nowhere. We ascertained that I could move my wrist okay. A passing mother assigned her toddler to collect and return my purse and all its contents to me. And I decided, bugger it. I’ll carry on with my day. Off to the butcher I headed. That went well. Then off to Moa. I tried on about 10 dresses. It was a bit difficult as increasingly I couldn’t move my left arm, but I soldiered on purchasing three. Off to harvest wholefoods. I got a great deal on organic apples – I was rather embarrassed at the till when I couldn’t lift my handbag and I struggled to get the money out of my wallet to pay. “My arm hurts – I fell over this morning” I said apologetically to the man behind the check out as a queue began to form. Having completed all my assigned tasks I headed home . By this time I could hardly move my arm – it had become quite bruised and swollen – so I hid my shopping in the wardrobe and off to WhiteCross we went. Yep I’d broken my arm. Well, fractured my radial head to be precise. Everyone kept telling me that it was the best fracture to get and should heal really well. The only problem was that Joel was heading over the Great Barrier Island at the weekend and I could lift Elsie, put her to bed, breastfeed her, get her in and out of the high chair or change a nappy. Uh Oh indeed.

Charlotte's Light Scone Recipe

Ingredients:
350g self raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
85g butter - cubed
3 tbsp caster sugar
175ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
squeeze lemon juice
beaten egg - to glaze


Method:
Preheat oven to 220C.
In a bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder.
Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in sugar.
Place milk in a jug and microwave for 30 seconds
Place baking sheet in the oven to heat up.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, add liquid and combine with a knife.
Sprinkle the bench with flour. Turn dough out onto bench and fold 2 - 3 times.
Shape into a 4cm deep circle on the baking sheet and cut into wedges.
Glaze with egg wash then bake for 10min.

Guava Jelly

Trying this at the moment...


Ingredients:
Guava
Sugar
Lemon juice


Method:
Put guava in a saucepan and just cover with water.
Bring to the boil and simmer until fruit is soft.
Strain through a muslin cloth for at least 24 hours.
For every 1 cup of guava juice add 1 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice.
Boil vigorously until jelly meets the setting test (put a small amount onto a cold plate and when it cools it makes ripples when you push the jelly from the side).
Watch carefully - this stage only takes about 10mins. 
Let it stand for about 10mins. 
Pour into hot jars and seal.

Charlotte's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts


Method:
Preheat oven to 175C.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add in eggs one at a time.
Stir in vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in water, add in salt and stir into flour with chocolate chips and walnuts.
Place spoonfuls on a baking sheet and bake 10mins

Cardamom Coffee Icecream

Been meaning to make this....


Ingredients:
6 green cardomom pods
375ml milk
250ml double cream
1 tablespoon instant coffee
115g caster sugar
5 egg yolks


Method:
Crush cardomom pods, place into saucepan with milk, cream and coffee.
Heat gently until boiling point, remove and leave to infuse for 20min.
Beat sugar and egg yolks until pale and light.
Stir in the cream, strain into a saucepan.
Heat gently, stirring constantly over a low heat for 8-10min until the mixture is thick enough to coat the bak of a spoon. Do not boil.
Cool and follow instructions for your icecream maker.

Feijoa Paste

This was a roaring success in my book. Really yummy - great with blue cheese.


Ingredients:

1kg feijoa pulp

1.2kg sugar

6 apples - chopped (skin, core and all)

Method:

Peel feijoa's until you have 1 kg of pulp reserving the skins. Set the pulp aside in a large heavy based saucepan for later.

Put the feijoa peel into a saucepan with the chopped apples. Just cover with water and bring to the boil. 

Simmer for 10mins then strain off the 'fruit stock' and discard the apples and the skins.

Add the fruit stock and the sugar to the feijoa pulp in the heavy based saucepan.

Boil the hell out of it for 4 - 8 hours - until the mixture turns a deep red colour and it comes away from the side of the saucepan. I made two batches and it took around 7 hours each time. Stir periodically to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom of a pan.

Pour into a swiss roll tin and leave to set (we also poured some into sponge tins which was nice as you could cut it into nice wedges once set). Generally leave it exposed to the open air to set - otherwise it will sweat - you want it to dry really.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is from Marcus Wareing's 'How to make the perfect...' cookbook. I haven't tried it yet but I like the fact that it uses caster sugar - as the granulated sugar was obvious in the last batch that I made.


Inredients:
180g strong white bread flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of fine salt
115g softened unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
170g 70% chocolate chips or chopped chocolate


Method:
Preheat oven to 170C fan.
Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a paddle attachment at high speed.
Mix in egg at low speed.
Add vanilla.
Fold in flour in two batches with a rubber spatula.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Roll into a 25cm x 5cm log on a lightly floured surface.
Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Line a baking sheep with baking parchment.
Cut log into 20 slices.
Bake 12-15min then cool on the baking sheet.

Moist Lemon Ring Cake

Still trying to use up a glut of lemons. Francine kindly sent me a link to this recipe for a lemon syrup loaf. It's a 'bung it all in the food processor' recipe which is perfect as I don't have any electric (or otherwise) beaters here in Westmere.  I also didn't have a loaf tin so I made it in a standard ring cake tin - it worked perfectly - I didn't need to adjust the cooking time at all.  Definitely a keeper. Yum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/8059974/Moist-lemon-cake-recipe.html

Perfect Anzac Biscuits

I've tried a few Anzac recipes this year - with some disastrous results - but this one is currently the winner. I like my Anzac bisuits crispy - and this recipe gave me the perfect texture. The mixture was really quite dry..I had to squish them into shapes on the biscuit tray - but the outcome was great.

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 trays with baking paper.

Place flour, coconut, sugar and rolled oats in a large bowl.

Melt butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan (don’t burn!), then add bicarb and water.

Fizz! Stir butter-foam into dry ingredients and mix well.

Roll a heaped teaspoonful into small balls and place on trays.

Leave about 3cm between them. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Cool slightly before lifting off with a spatula to cool on wire racks.

8-Hour Bread

Today I made my first ever successful loaf of bread - not only that but it was an amazing loaf of bread!  Crunchy crust, lovely moist, holey inside. Kind of like a ciabatta but with a better crust.  I made it using a no-knead recipe on the internet that was pretty popular about five years ago. The original version takes 24 hours and I intend to try that recipe too at some stage. But here is the guts of the 8-hour version. It's the simplest thing I've ever made and it really truely rocks.

Here is a video showing you how to do all the bits and bobs - the video is for the 24-hour version - the method is the same though - just the ingredients differ slightly. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2006/11/07/dining/1194817104184/no-knead-bread.html


Ingredients:


3 cups high-grade flour
3/4 teaspoon of yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 cups of water


Method:


Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix. Add water and mix roughly by hand until you have a wet 'shaggy' dough (see video, above). Cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 6-8 hours in a warm place.


After 6-8 hours turn the dough out onto a floured bench and fold the sides in to make a round of dough (see video, above. Return round back into original bowl (rinse it out then oil or flour it first though) flipping it over so the folded edges are underneath and you have the smooth surface on top. The dough round will be extremely soft, sticky, floppy & wet - so it may not hold it's shape - don't worry about it. Dust the top with flour (or cornmeal, or wheatgerm, or...) then leave to proof for a further two hours (alternatively, if you have a microwave you can use a fast proof method which only takes an hour). 


Half an hour before the end of the proofing time preheat your oven to 230C with your dutch oven inside.  You can use any material for your dutch oven (ceramic, cast iron, metal pot) it just needs to be a casserole dish with a lid that can withstand temperatures up to 230C (NB. Many casserole dishes are only covered by the manufacturer up to 200C). I used a Scanpan.


Once the proofing time is up and your oven is at 230C remove your dutch oven from the oven and drop the bread inside - same way up. Cook with the lid on for 30 minutes then remove the lid and cook for a further 15 minutes.


Voila!


Fast Proof Method (1-hour proof)


Place folded dough round into a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel then with another dry tea towel. Microwave on high for 25 seconds. Leave it for 5 minutes to rise (I just leave it in the microwave with the door closed - not sure if that makes any difference or not - but I figure its a warm draft-free place). After 5 minutes microwave for another 25 seconds. Leave it to rise for another 55 minutes. Then bake as per above.

Kahawai Curry

I cooked the kahawai Joel brought back from Great Barrier tonight into a rather tasty curry. Despite the relatively short ingredient list this tasted really good! It's going on the high rotation recipe list!

Kahawai Curry

ingredients:
1 pound boneless, skinless fish fillets
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 onion, grated on large holes of box grater
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 fully ripe tomato, diced or 1 1/2 cups canned diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon chili powder (cayenne)
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
1-2 fresh chili peppers, cut in half lengthwise

directions:

1. Wash the fish and pat very dry. Cut the fish into 2-inch pieces.

2. Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat and swirl in the oil. When the oil is heated, add the onion, ginger and garlic. Turn the heat to medium-low and let the aromatics cook slowly. Saute until very fragrant, about 5 minutes. Take care not to let it burn!

3. Add the tomato and saute for another 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Use your spatula and smash the tomatoes a bit, to break them up.

4. Add the garam masala, chili powder, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes. This is the masala (spice base).

5. Turn the heat to medium-high. Pour in the coconut milk and the water. When the mixture comes to a good boil, add in the fish and cook for 4 minutes or so, until the fish is cooked through.

Choux Pastry Masterclass

Buoyed by the success of yesterday's Rough Puff Masterclass and with more bad weather in Taranaki we girls decided to continue on with a Choux Pastry Masterclass. This is the stuff that you use to make cream puffs and chocolate eclairs etc.

My mum is the cream puffs master. Whenever, we had to 'take a plate' to any kind of school or sport function Mum's backstop recipe was cream puffs. They were the things that she knocked out without needing to think, always had the ingredients in the cupboard (there's always a bottle of cream in the fridge in Taranaki...), and she knew the recipe would always work. Mum's cream puffs are a thing of beauty. Huge, light, airy and reliably overfilled - impossible to eat elegantly. Mum's classic was to fill with whipped cream and serve dusted with icing sugar. Her other variation was filled with homemade custard and topped with chocolate icing (my favourite). Today we broke with tradition and did the classic chocolate eclair combo (melted chocolate on top, whipped cream inside). You can see Grandma doing the chocolate topping in the photo. No idea how she got that chocolate around her mouth though...

Anyway, on with the recipe...


Here is what the recipe said:


Original Recipe Ingredients:


1 cup water
100g butter
1 cup flour
3 eggs


Method:


Combine butter and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove pan from heat, add flour (all in one go) and beat with a wooden spoon (don't ask me why just do as your told) until the flour is incorporated and the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly inbetween. Spoon onto a lightly greased oven tray and bake at 200C for 30min then lower temperature to 120C for 15 min until dry.


But here's what actually happened...


We weighed the butter and put it in the pot. Mum then produces this frankly TINY 1970's Temuka teacup from the cupboard and says "This is what I use to measure the flour and water when I make cream puffs". I flatly refuse to use the Temuka cup.  I don't have my own Temuka teacup! I'm worried about not being able to replicate successful baking in my own home in the absence of the Temuka teacup. Besides, everyone knows that a 'cup' is 250ml - and I'm looking at this Temuka Teacup thinking 'this looks a bit small'. Mum persists, I stand firm and produce a measuring jug. In my mind I'm thinking that perhaps this is going to be the best ever batch of cream puffs Mum has ever cooked because of my helfpful and accurate intervention.  I measure 250ml of water and add it to the butter. Then I use the measuring jug to measure a cup flour. Mum is still grumbling about the Temuka Teacup. I'm still quietly confident. I know how to measure ingredients. I'm an accurate cook. I'm a Pharmacist dammit.


The cream puffs work - but they are not as glorious as normal. About half the size and not light enough. Mum says it's because I didn't use the damned Temuka Teacup. So I took the Temuka Teacup and measured how much water and flour it actually holds. Here's the recipe that Mum has actually been cooking for the past 30 odd years:


Mum's actual recipe:


130ml water
100g butter
110g flour
3 eggs


Method as above.


Or as Mum quite sensibly points out we could just have added an additional egg to the batch we made. So the adjusted recipe would be:


250ml water
100g butter
1 proper cup of flour
4 eggs


Mum also says one should never cook with a Pharmacist.

Rough Puff Pastry Masterclass

The weather was pretty poor today - miserable with a nasty cold wind. So Mum decided to give me a "Rough Puff" pastry masterclass. You always hear TV chefs saying that they would never make puff pastry - too much faffing about - and far easier just to buy the all butter stuff from the shops. I always subscribed to this theory but in the back of my mind I've known that my Mum has always made her own puff pastry. And she's not really a lady that would bother with something that took forever. Her secret?  Rough Puff! Marjan says that she would never bother to make proper puff pastry - personally I don't know the difference but this version was certainly really fast to make.


Here's how you do it:


Ingredients:


70 - 100g cold butter
100g flour
Pinch of salt
Water to bind


Basically its all about the ratio of butter to flour. You can just increase this recipe proportionately using a ratio of 0.7-1 : 1, butter:flour, respectively. We used 90g butter with 100g flour. It made a small amount - enough for the top of a pie - but you'd need to double it if you wanted to do a base too.


Method:


Divde the total amount of butter into four. Put the flour in a food processor with a pinch of salt and cube in the first quarter of your butter. Blitz until you have a breadcrumb texture (like scones). Slowly add water and process until it comes together into a ball (just a teeny tiny bit of water).


Turn out onto a floured bench. Roll your pastry out, pushing the rolling pin in the direction straight ahead of you into a long oblong shape. Dust with more flour to stop it sticking to the rolling pin / bench as required.


Once you have rolled it out take your second quarter of butter and chop small pieces of butter over 2/3 of your pastry oblong. 


Fold the pastry into thirds; fold the 1/3 without any butter into the centre first, then fold over the other end


Give your pastry a quarter turn


Roll out into another long oblong. At this stage you can probably see yellow dots in your pastry where the pieces of butter were. Continue to fold into thirds, give a quarter turn, then roll again until you can't see any more yellow patches and it looks nice and evenly incorporated. For us, this only took about two or three goes.


Once the butter is nicely incorporated, roll out again and chop the third quarter of butter over two thirds of your pastry oblong. Roll and turn a couple of times until evenly incorporated as above.


Rest the pastry for 30mins (longer is fine) in the fridge. This first rest is because the pastry becomes quite difficult to work with otherwise. Marjan says you must have both rests!


Then roll into an oblong and incorporate the final quarter of your butter as above.


Rest pastry in fridge until needed.


The whole process took us about 20 minutes (plus resting). It was easy rolling out. Each long oblong was probably about the thickness of a $1 coin - or as if you were rolling out the pastry to cook with I suppose. Easy peasy.


We used the pastry to make a pear tarte tartin which we ate for dessert after our steak bearnaise (Marjan made the bearnaise sauce). Oui oui! 

Pear Tarte Tartin

The photo is terrible but the tarte was great - and pastry was perfect. I've promised myself that I will never buy shop bought pastry again. This really was too easy. The only thing you need to do is have a little bit of forward planning. Marjan says it's best to knock out your pastry in the morning when the kitchen is nice and cold. Also, what's great is that you can make exactly the amount you need - as Marjan points out - pastry doesn't keep well in the fridge!

Bernaise Sauce

Thought I would put the Bearnaise sauce recipe we made up here. Only because we left out half the fancy ingredients (you can't get fresh tarragon, chervil or shallots in most NZ supermarkets) so it's a real store cupboard recipe but it worked and tasted good.


Ingredients:


1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion (should have been shallot)
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
Sprig of thyme
Piece of bay leaf
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt Pepper
1 egg yolk
125g butter


Method:


Cut 125g butter into small pieces. Leave it at room temperature


Put the onion, tarragon, thyme, bay and vinegar in a saucepan (I've left out the thyme and bay and it still tasted good). Reduce volume by about 2/3. Mix the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water (just room temp water from tap). Remove pan from heat and place over hot water (a bain marie), add egg and water mixture to vinegar and herbs and whisk until thickened. Then start adding butter, slowly, one cube at a time to start then faster once you progress a bit. Add all the butter. Season with salt, pepper, more tarragon if needed. Voila!

Another terrible photo - but the Steak Bernaise was fab

Orecchiette

Today we tried to make Orecchiete for dinner. The idea was simple. Make large orecchiette, fill them with pesto, bake and serve with shaved parmesan.

The recipe is simple - but calls for semolina as well as the usual 00 flour:

Ingredients:
200g 00 flour
100g semolina
Salt
Method:
Mix together flour, semolina and a pinch of salt and heap into a mound on the work surface. Make a well in the centre, add a little warm water and mix to a firm, elastic dough. Knead well, then shape into long rolls 2.5cm in diameter. Cut into sections and drag tham, one at a time, slowly over the work surface using the tip of aknife to form small shells. Put each shell upside down on the tip of your thumb and press it down on the work surface to accentuate it's curvature.

The only thing was that we just couldn't get the hang of making the shapes. In the end we gave up and mum whipped up a batch of fresh pasta that we used to make ravioli instead.


After dinner I continued to mess around with the original orecchiette dough - I couldn't make the large shapes but I do think that I became a dab hand at the little ones!  They are currently drying so I haven't tasted them yet.