Back into it

Mike has recently gone back to work (shocked?!?!  We were!) which currently involves traveling to India for several weeks at a time.  Hence the radio silence at this end: eggs and beans on toast for tea don't make particularly interesting blog posts!

Well, he's back this week so we've been having more interesting meals again... And baking too!

We've also been blessed with some amazing weather over the past couple of weeks, very different to the crazy storms we had last month.  Callum is adamant Spring is here already and I've even been able to hang washing on the line again - hooray!  Our lemon tree is heaving with juicy lemons so today's job was using a few of them up:

Lemon & Rosemary Chicken

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon good olive oil

1-2 tablespoons pine nuts

Juice of one large lemon, plus one lemon thinly sliced

Salt and pepper

4 small skinless, boneless chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Roughly combine everything except the chicken in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle (you want it to stay chunky).  Place lemon slices in the bottom of a baking dish, put the chicken on top and then spoon lemon and garlic mixture on top of breasts.

Bake chicken until cooked through, about 25 minutes depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

Tonight I'm serving this up with couscous, sautéed silverbeet and lots of green beans.

Rainy Day Bunny Cake

With a cold, wet Wellington winter's day ahead, I suggested baking a cake to the boys this morning.  Mike got in first and requested a carrot cake (I think Daniel wanted another race car!) so after checking we had enough carrots, the two boys and I got busy baking.

Callum came up with the name Bunny Cake, presumably because rabbits eat carrots :)

175gm brown sugar

2 large eggs (I used free range size 7 egs)

150ml rice bran oil

200gm wholemeal flour

2t baking powder

1t baking soda

3t mixed spice

Grated zest of one lemon

200gm carrots, peeled and grated

110gm sultanas

50gm desiccated coconut

50gm chopped walnuts 

Grease and line 2 round cake tins.  Preheat oven to 170 C (160 fan forced).

Whisk sugar, eggs and oil for 2-3 minutes until sugar has dissolved.  Combine flour, spice baking powder an soda in a bowl and then stir gently into egg mixture, followed by remaining ingredients.

Divide batter equally into prepared tins and bake in middle of the oven for 25 - 30 minutes, or until skewer inserted into centre of the cake comes out cleanly.

Cool in tins for 10 minutes or so, then turn out onto a wire rack.  Once cakes have cooled completely, sandwich together with a layer of cream cheese icing, then top with the rest of the icing and some crushed walnuts.

Cream cheese icing

2 tablespoons butter, softened 

1/2 package (125gm) Philadelphia cream cheese 

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Juice and zest of one lemon

Cream butter and cream cheese till smooth.  Add sifted icing sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time.  Add juice and zest and continue to beat until soft and fluffy.

No Butter Cookies

Not getting much done in the kitchen (or around the house!) this week as Mr B is working hard on getting the new bathroom finished.

Here's a great store cupboard recipe for spice cookies though - good for keeping hungry tradies happy at morning tea time AND dairy free.

1/2 cup oil (I use rice bran oil, but any vegetable oil is fine)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

pinch salt

Preheat oven to 200 C and line a couple of baking trays.

Mix ingredients in the order listed.  Roll into walnut sized balls and press lightly with your thumb to flatten if you like.

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes.  Cool on tray for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Makes around 30 cookies.

Penne al Salmone

I don't think I'll ever get this tasting quite as good as the version Mr B ordered in Tuscany.  But it's good enough to take us back to that wonderful day of shopping and eating!

Penne al Salmone

Serves 2

Approx 1 cup of dry penne pasta

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
100g smoked salmon slices

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup milk

Cook pasta until al dente in a pot of salted, boiling water.  DO NOT add olive oil to the pasta water, unless you want your sauce to slide right off!

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over a medium heat and add the garlic.  When the garlic is fragrant, add the salmon.  You can turn the heat off fairly quickly, leave the salmon in the pan to take on the garlic flavour.

Mix the milk and cream well.  Then, in another saucepan, melt the butter until frothy and then add the flour.  Slowly add the combined milk and cream, stirring constantly, to make a white sauce.  Once all the cream has been added, remove the garlic from the salmon pan and then tip the salmon into the cream sauce and mix together.

Drain the cooked pasta, reserving the water.  Add pasta to the sauce and mix well over a low heat.  Add 1/4 cup of pasta water if the sauce has thickened too much.  Your pasta should now be just coated with beautiful, creamy salmon sauce.

My boys LOVE this dish, if Mr B will actually let them share ;)

Kitchen Nightmares

We've all had them!  In fact, my Dad (and my sister AND my brother) just love telling the story of my "first" kitchen disaster: serving up cold scrambled eggs and beans on toast because I was too inexperienced to have everything ready at the same time.  Apparently that's one story that just never gets old.

We had an old friend visiting from out of town last night.  A good friend, but someone we hadn't seen in 5 years so I was looking forward to cooking something different.  An old stand by by from our Singapore "menu" but something I hadn't cooked in a while (or at all since we arrived back in New Zealand), thai red curry with prawns.

I spent most of Wednesday morning combing the shelves at Countdown and Yan's Supermarket and then of course had to make another "quick" visit to Countdown again on Thursday for a few more vital ingredients.  Another hour of chopping and prepping and then I got down to business, grinding up a thai red curry paste in my mortar and pestle.

Lesson #1: You will nearly always regret buying kitchen tools from the Warehouse.

My curry paste was *almost* ready and smelling amazing when disaster struck: the mortar splintered into a thousand pieces rendering my curry paste inedible.  Fortunately I managed to rustle up a quick salmon pasta instead, so poor old Mr B and our friend weren't going to be left to fade away.  But I am still disappointed that I didn't manage to make the curry.  Oh well, another day perhaps!

What are some of your kitchen disasters?  And where can I find a decent mortar and pestle around here?!?!

Happy Birthday Mr B!

Absolutely knackered today after cooking up a birthday storm for Mr B.  So I'll just post a few pics of all the party food!

Race car cake (requested by Callum)

Birthday lunch

Racing teddies

And a change of pace for dinner: gyoza followed by tonkatsu.  Yum yum yum!

Nana Rosie's Apple Pie

Whenever my family get together it's usually around a table full of food: Uncle Mark's curry, Aunty Dolly's desserts, Aunty Shirl's corned beef pie and mushy peas.. And Nana Rosie's apple pie.

A couple of weeks ago, John-the-Electrician came to do a few more jobs in the almost-finished kitchen.  He also brought round a bag full of apples from his garden!  So the first thing I did was call Nana Rosie for a quick lesson in making pie.

I've changed her measurements to grams, and used all butter rather than butter and lard (sorry, Nan!) but here it is for posterity :)  

4-5 cooking apples, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tin blackberries (optional)

2 household tablespoons caster sugar

240gm self raising flour

2 flat household tablespoons sugar

115gm cold butter, chopped 

(or 60gm butter and 60gm lard)

Approx 100ml cold water

Place apples and 1 tablespoon sugar in a microwave proof dish and heat, covered, on high for 3-4 mins.  Remove and allow to cool.  Drain blackberries and set aside.

Rub fat into flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add cold water slowly and mix with a knife until dough just comes together.  You might not need the full measure of water, or you may need a little extra.  Turn pastry onto floured surface and knead a couple of times.  Divide roughly 2/3 for base and 1/3 for pie lid.

Roll out base and line a lightly greased pie dish.  Refrigerate while you prepare the lid and filling.

Combine apple, blackberries and remaining 2 T sugar.  Put apple and blackberries into lined dish, put lid on top and seal.  Brush lightly with milk and pierce top with sharp knife to allow steam to escape.  Sprinkle with a wee bit of caster sugar.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes in a moderate (180 deg) oven or until pie is golden and pastry is cooked through.

You could add cinnamon and vanilla to the apple filling, but if you're lucky enough to have home grown apples, leave it out and enjoy the apples and berries as they are :)  Serve with cream or (my favourite) vanilla ice cream.