Mexican Eggs

My eggs with chorizo, capsicum and tomato was another part of my Easter breakfast bonanza - a delicious, decadent breakfast every day of Easter, yum. This was actually day one. And it was a good start.

I have called this Mexican eggs as the flavours remind me of Mexican-inspired food. I have never been to Mexico (although I hope to one day) so I have no idea how authentic this is. But Mexican eggs is easy to remember, so there you go. 

This is super easy to make, and pretty quick too. It's a fabulous weekend breakfast as you can afford to be super lazy. It's not one of those recipes you need to watch like a hawk - not something you want to be doing blurry-eyed first thing on the weekend! Weekends are for relaxing and unwinding and de-stressing. This will do the trick. 

I don't eat onions, but if you do I would totally recommend adding them to this dish. But, you don't have to. I didn't and it was still delicious. I cooked us two eggs each because we were feeling greedy. If you served this with toast, you could easily have one egg per person for a filling breakfast. 

You need:

1 large capsicum, sliced thinly

2-4 cloves of garlic crushed (depending on how much you love garlic)

1 stick of chorizo, sliced

1 tsp paprika

3 tomatoes, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

4 eggs

salt and pepper

olive oil   

Heat a dash of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and turn your oven on to grill at a high heat (about 200 degrees). 

Put the chorizo, capsicums and garlic (and onions if you're using them) in the frying pan and cook until the capsicums are soft. Add the paprika, tomatoes, parsley, salt and pepper and cook until the tomatoes are soft, about five minutes. 

Make four dents in the capsicum mixture and crack an egg into each one. Cook for two minutes and then pop under the grill for another two to three minutes until the eggs are just cooked. You still want the yolks runny when you serve it (unless you don't like runny yolks - by all means cook the eggs to your liking). 

Serve immediately - yum! Enjoy your weekend, sit back and relax. 

Corn Fritters (gluten free)

I love long weekends. I particularly love extra long weekends! I also love breakfast. During my working week breakfast is fast and dirty as I fly out the door to make it to the train on time. Toast, perhaps a smoothie if I am feeling particularly energetic. (My favourite smoothie - one banana, a handful each of frozen berries and spinach, and about half a cup of coconut water or enough to make it a consistency you're happy with. Delicious!)

So long weekends give me the opportunity to indulge in breakfast. And this long Easter weekend, indulge I did. 

I started with corn fritters. I love corn fritters. I read an article by a well-known chef the other day who said that you wouldn't really serve corn fritters to adults, they are really a dish for children. Hmm, well this adult disagrees. So it seems do all the cafes that serve corn fritters! 

One of the brilliant things is the variety of condiments you can serve with corn fritters! As kids we always, always had corn fritters with Worcestershire sauce. That's what my parents did, so that's what we did. Worcestershire  is a delicious accompaniment, something about the salty, tangy zing it adds. But, so many other things also work, right down to good old tomato sauce. My favourites are a spicy chilli sauce, fruity chutney and plum sauce. 

So, here is my recipe for gluten free corn fritters. If you don't want or need them gluten free, just substitute the flour for regular flour. 

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

2 eggs, separated

1/2 - 3/4 cup gluten free flour (I used a mixture of tapioca flour, corn flour and corn starch) 

1 tsp gluten free baking powder 

1/4 cup milk

Salt and pepper

Put the egg whites in a bowl and whisk until they are stiff. Put the egg yolks, corn and baking powder in another bowl and mix. While you are stirring the corn mixture, gradually add the milk and flour to make a thick batter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Gently stir through half the egg whites until well mixed, then add the remaining egg whites. You should end up with a smooth, pourable batter. 

Heat oil in a frying pan on a gentle heat and cook spoonfuls of the mixture until the fritters are golden brown, flip and cook until golden on the other side. Don't let the pan get too hot, you want to make sure the mixture cooks right through. 

Serve with you favourite sauce, sit back, relax and enjoy the long weekend! 

 

Quick and easy dinners

You know those nights when you need something nourishing quick - either you can't be bothered or you're coming or going from the gym or a meeting. You need dinner and you need it fast. This week I had two of those nights. I had the added issue that we have not been shopping for a while so our cupboards are looking rather bare. Here are two of my quick and easy dinners.

First, my Throw it all in the pot pasta. The title says it all and I make this quite often. Whatever I can dredge up from the bottom of my fridge's vege drawer goes in. Pasta like this can be a bit boring, so it's important to make sure it has a flavour punch. I did this by whizzing up a quick pesto - I use basil, cashews, chilli, parmesan, garlic and olive oil. If you can't be bothered making pesto, other flavour punches can simply be added by using chilli, garlic and lots of fresh herbs such as parsley.

So, to make the pasta I got my frying pan going with some oil and fried some chilli and garlic. In went mushrooms, corn, peas and broccoli heads. To speed up the cooking time I threw the broccoli stalks in with my boiling pasta. When the pasta was done, I simply drained the whole lot and threw it in with the rest of the veges. I had some leftover chicken, so in that went too. I mixed the whole lot together with most of the pesto and some of the pasta cooking water to make it a bit saucy. I topped it off with some pesto and, in true Jamie Oliver style, "olive oil drizzled from a height". Done.  

Although it's a bit of a funny colour, don't be put off because this next dish tastes amazing. This is my version of Tom Yum Soup.  Note I say my version, I have no idea what authentic Tom Yum Soup tastes like, but this does the trick for me. It's super quick, easy and only uses one pot!

You will need: ginger (chopped finely), lemongrass, a tomato, mushrooms, green veges, capsicum, Nam Prick Pao (a Thai chilli paste that you can pick up from an Asian grocery store), fish sauce, lemon juice, corriander and prawns.

Put 3 cups of water into a pot. Add a 2 teaspoons each of the ginger and lemongrass and bring to the boil. Add a chopped tomato, a handful of chopped mushrooms, some chopped beans (or whatever green veges you have), half a chopped capsicum and 4 tablespoons of Nam Prick Pao. Let that bubble away for about 10 minutes and then add a handful of rice vermicelli noodles. When the noodles are almost done, add about 200g of prawns. Boil until the prawns are cooked, or warmed through if they are precooked. Don't overcook your prawns! Remove from the heat and one tablespoon of fish sauce, some chopped corriander and the juice of a lemon.  
This will serve two for a hearty dinner. You won't be disappointed.

Wild pork roast

My Dad went on a hunting trip to the South Island recently. On his way back through Wellington he stopped to drop off some wild pork. Lucky me!

My poor, poor freezer though! I had to resort to carefully stacking everything in until there wasn't a speck of space left, and then quickly slamming the door shut to hold everything in there. This worked well until my partner opened the door to get something out, only to have half the contents of the freezer collapse on him. Oops. (Of course, it was his fault for opening the freezer - what was he thinking? He he).

Anyway, a giant leg roast was taking up the most room, so it had to go. And by go, I mean it was time for dinner.

As with all wild meats, wild pork needs to be treated carefully. It generally has little fat on it, so you can easily wreck it by drying it out. You skin a wild pig, so wild pork does not have that protective layer of skin and fat that supermarket pork has.

I made my roast a nice little bed of veges to sit on - apples, yams and garlic as well as some rosemary, salt and pepper.

Into the tray I poured some wine, water and pineapple juice. All of these things I thought would give the pork a lovely flavour and tenderness.

I covered this tightly with tinfoil and put it into a really hot oven (250 degrees) and immediately turned it down to 150 degrees for about three and a half hours.

Now, I was so excited about how my roast turned out, that I forgot to take photos! Mind you, as delicious as it was, it just looked like a big hunk of cooked meat, so you're not missing out on too much!

As I carved the meat, I spooned over some of the juices left over in the pan - this helps to ensure it stays lovely and tender as you serve it.

There are only two of us to feed, and despite me piling our plates high - pork is such a treat as I rarely buy supermarket pork (and only ever free-range) - we had a lot left over. So, I thought I would share my ideas for the leftovers.

On the first night of leftovers we had pork fried noodles with Chinese-inspired flavours - I used a marinade of sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, chilli, rice wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. (As an aside, worcestershire is the most ridiculously hard word to spell!! Not to mention that you don't pronounce it anything like it looks, but don't get me started on that one).

I quickly stir-fried some carrot, broccoli and mushrooms, and added the pork as it only needed to be heated through. Some more sauce plus the cooked rice noodles, and dinner was done!

The next night we had tacos - this time I didn't flavour the pork directly, but added a delicious chilli salsa to the pork and salad on the tacos. The meat was still so tender and delicious, yum, yum, yum.

There was even enough left over for lunch the next day!

So, thanks very much Dad!!!

Lamb shanks

I don't often buy lamb. It's fair to say I'm a bit of a lamb snob. I'll admit it.

I'm a farm girl - I grew up helping Dad kill and butcher our own sheep. I unknowingly became accustomed to eating the best lamb, and I find that supermarket lamb just does not cut it. It's not as tender, it's not as tasty, it does not look as good (I'm often skeptical whether "lamb" in the supermarket is actually lamb).

Whenever I go home my Dad makes sure I head back with a suitcase full of delicious homegrown and home killed lamb. (Fitting it in my miniature freezer is always a challenge but I have found that, where there is a will, there is a way).

The other day I had a real treat - lamb shanks. Yum.

I wanted to try something different, so I asked Google for some ideas. I found this recipe from Jax Hamilton (of MasterChef fame).

Naturally I changed it a bit, so here's my adaptation of the recipe, and what I did.

2 lamb shanks
Flour for dusting, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 springs of rosemary, picked, chopped
160ml red wine
120ml balsamic vinegar
2 T brown sugar
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C. Dust the lamb shanks with the seasoned flour.

Fry the lamb shanks in the olive oil until they are well browned. Remove and add the garlic and rosemary for a couple of minutes.

Put everything into a casserole dish. Cover with a lid or tinfoil.

Cook for about one and a half hours. Check the lamb shanks - they should be falling off the bone and beautifully tender.


I served my shanks with mashed carrot and pumpkin, peas and blanched spinach. (I love lamb and spinach, I think they are such great friends).

It's fair to say, the result was delicious. The right balance of sweet and savoury. Meaty and tasty. Everything you want out of a winter time meal. Topped off with a hearty glass of red wine, it was wonderful.

The rest of our Christmas dinner feast

Believe it or not, we had even more food at our table on Christmas Day. Although, I should clarify by explaining that we had both Christmas lunch and dinner. Dinner was a more grand affair, but we still had to eat at lunchtime.

Lunch was more on the healthy side.

Marinated prawn skewers with two types of marinade - sweet chilli and lime; and satay. We also continued the seafood theme with two lip-smackingly good crayfish.

We also had a giant slab of beef. 2.5kg of delicious rump steak. We seared it on the bbq and then cooked it with the hood down and served it with mustard. Yum.

All up, lunch was pretty tasty!

On to dinner. We have already seen the turkey and accompaniments. Yum. But there was so much more!

I made a tasty kumara salad. Boil 2cm chunks of kumara until just cooked (don't over cook it, or you will have mushy salad). To the drained kumara add unsweetened yoghurt, orange juice, chopped orange, salt and pepper. Sprinkle over toasted pumpkin seeds just before serving. This salad is also super tasty with fried bacon.

We didn't need bacon in the kumara salad as we had a giant leg of beautiful free-range ham. I have never had hot ham at Christmas (we always serve cold ham), but hot ham was requested so hot it was! We peeled off the layer of skin and scored the fat. We covered the scored ham with maple syrup and brown sugar and studded it with cloves. We cooked it for an hour at about 150 degrees.

Finally we had the dish which I am most proud of.

Yup, those are our beautiful home-grown potatoes.

Boiled with mint and served with butter. Pure, delicious simplicity.

What a delicious feast!

Left over turkey

Now that I had cooked my beautiful turkeys, what was I supposed to do with all the left overs? And there were a lot of leftovers!

For the left over Christmas turkey I had seen Jamie Oliver make a delicious-looking Asian-inspired turkey salad on one of his Christmas shows. When my partner's sister mentioned someone had recommended this particular salad, we decided we had better try it.

We were reasonably true to the recipe, except where we didn't have ingredients, specifically sesame oil and mint. We also swapped the clementine for a couple of mandarins.

This salad was delicious! You should totally try it. Really easy to make too. Give it a go.

Next up was the leftover turkey from New Year.

I had a bit of a craving for pasta, so decided to see what I could do with my turkey. I also wanted something quick and easy and filling as we had some visitors.

I boiled up some plain penne pasta. While that was on the go, I put the turkey into a dry frypan. I let that heat up and sloshed in some white wine. I probably put about half to three quarters of a cup of wine in. I let that simmer down for a while to let the wine flavour soak into the turkey. I then added some frozen peas, and a slosh of cream, probably about the same amount as the wine. I let this all simmer down and thicken slightly. I mixed this all in with the pasta and some grated cheese and put it in a dish. I scattered the top with a packet of slivered almonds and some breadcrumbs for some crunch.

I baked it in the oven until it was golden and lovely. It was delicious! I served it up with a yummy green salad. Dinner done!

Turkey accompaniments

For our Christmas dinner I made a number of sides to accompany my delicious turkey.

Firstly, I made Jamie Oliver's get-ahead gravy. I saw Jamie making this gravy on his Christmas Special show and decided it looked like a great idea. I made my own stock in my crockpot to use instead of water. I used a chicken carcass, celery, carrots, bay leaves, thyme and garlic.

The make-ahead gravy was delicious, and such a good idea. It made for one less thing to do on Christmas Day.

I also made two (yes, two!) different cranberry sauces to go with the turkey. A raw sauce and a cooked sauce. The raw sauce a friend made for a Thanksgiving Dinner she hosted, and it was amazing! So, I had to ask for that recipe! It's so simple - one cup of cranberries (you can buy them frozen at Moore Wilsons in Wellington), one cup of sugar and one whole orange (just remove the white pith in the centre of the orange). Blitz this all up in the food processor until you have a smooth-ish consistency. A little texture is nice, you don't want complete mush.

For the cooked sauce I used the same ingredients and quantities, and simply put the cranberries, sugar and copped (peeled) orange into a saucepan and boiled it up, as though I was making a jam.

The raw sauce was very sharp and fresh, the cooked sauce was much more deep and intense. It's hard to say which one I liked better, and there seemed to be no consensus on Christmas Day either, so I would say that either is a winner!

I also made stuffing to go with the turkey.

Firstly I finely chopped a carrot and celery and fried this slowly in butter. I took the very small amount of left-over turkey stuffing and some bacon and added this, continuing to fry gently. After removing from the heat I added dried cranberries, thyme, parsley, breadcrumbs, orange zest and orange juice. The mixture was quite soggy.

I greased and lined a loaf tin with tinfoil, leaving it overhanging the tin. I put the stuffing in and covered it with the overhanging foil. I cooked the stuffing in the oven for about an hour. It was delicious!

Christmas Turkey

Well, I have been very slack over the past few weeks with my blogging. I have been cooking up a storm, but no blogging! I apologise to all my loyal supporters. To make it up to you, I promise the coming days will provide you with a blogging frenzy.

Christmas was awesome, brilliantly awesome. I love Christmas. What better time of the year to cook and cook and cook. I have lots of Christmas stories to regale you with, so bear with me. They will all come in handy next year (or, in my case, when we have our mid-winter Christmas dinner).

I’ll start with my turkey. Why? Because I cooked two. Why? Because I had two :-)

We have a flock of wild turkeys on our family farm and my wonderful Dad shot two and escorted them to Wellington for me (well, technically he didn’t come down only to bring the turkeys - he and my Mum came to visit my sister and I, but still). How lucky am I? Two beautiful, free-range wild turkeys hand-delivered for Christmas.

The only problem I encountered? Where on earth do you find room to store two massive turkeys in the freezer while you wait for Christmas to arrive? My solution? Pull everything out of my tiny freezer, including the shelf, and either eat or give away as much as possible and then jam one turkey in, packing the remaining frozen goods around it, slam the door and pledge not to open it until it’s time to defrost. One down, one to go. I surveyed our work freezer, nope right full. My sister’s freezer? Nope. (Dad also kindly bought with him some mince, steak and sausages from a recently butchered home-kill beast, so they had to find a temporary home in my sister’s freezer, no room in mine!) Hmmm, need a plan. Luckily my sister’s flatmate’s aunty (how many degrees of separation is that, haha) has a giant chest freezer and she was happy to provide a temporary home to my turkey. Yay!

Wild turkeys are different to farmed turkeys in a number of ways. Firstly they have a lovely gamey taste. Second, they have very little fat on them and therefore require careful cooking. My turkeys also came with another special addition, (animal lovers close your ears) a few shotgun pellets... Only one family member found one in her dinner, luckily before she bit down on it!

So, what did I do with these turkeys?

The first one I cooked for Christmas Day. I had been reading up about brining. Naturally, I had also been watching Nigella Lawson Christmas (as an aside, I am now the proud owner of Nigella's Christmas cookbook - what a great present!) From my reading and from Nigella’s advice, I was convinced that my turkey would benefit from a brining before cooking. According to my research, a brine should make the turkey much more tender and juicy.

I followed Nigella’s brining instructions, kind of. I mixed water, salt, maple syrup, honey, pepper corns, black mustard seeds, bay leaves, crushed ginger and garlic, a couple of oranges, cloves, and a couple of cinnamon sticks. I soaked the defrosted turkey (I defrosted it overnight in the fridge and for half a day in the kitchen) in the brine for 24 hours. I used a giant plastic bin, the ones you get from the Warehouse. Usually this bin houses my winter bedding; it found a temporary home in the spare room. I have read that you can also use a giant bucket or basin. I’m pretty sure my Mum has used the laundry tub in the past. Because it’s summer, I also had to make sure my turkey remained chilled to ensure I didn’t give everyone food poisoning. I did this by adding a bag of ice every 12 hours to the brine. This seemed to work.

I made a stuffing of free-range pork sausage meat, breadcrumbs, thyme and orange juice. I stuffed this between the skin and meat of my turkey breast to try and ensure the breast meat remained lovely and moist. I also tossed a little loosely in the cavity of the turkey for extra flavour.

I put half an orange in the turkey cavity to add flavour. Before cooking I smothered the turkey in butter to add more fat. This was kind of fun in a gross kind of way.

I cooked the Christmas turkey in an oven bag. Interesting logistics getting the turkey into the bag...

I cooked the turkey for six hours at 150 degrees. I think this was about half an hour too long. But, the result was still delicious!

As I was carving the turkey and plating it for serving, my partner was pouring over the turkey cooking juices that accumulated in the oven bag. The cooked turkey was just slurping up those juices and the result was the most delicious moist turkey meat.

The second turkey I cooked on December 31 as a New Year's Eve treat. This time I brined it as before, but cooked it without the oven bag. I covered the turkey in a bottle of apple cider, about a cup of orange juice and about 200g of melted butter. I used this liquid to baste the turkey every half an hour throughout the five hours of cooking at 150 degrees. The result was equally delicious and tender. This was a much more labour-intensive method compared with Christmas when we just put the turkey in the oven and forgot about it, but considering it was bucketing down outside this wasn't a problem!

I'll blog soon about the sides I served with my turkey.

Marinated feta

I have been experimenting again, and wanted to share the results.

I have feta in my lunchtime salad every day. I usually just have normal feta, nothing special - usually whatever is on special when I'm at the supermarket. I love feta, but I find that sometimes I can't use it all before it goes off. There is nothing worse in my opinion, than wasting food.

By chance the other day, I had the most delicious marinated feta from the deli section at the supermarket. I didn't want to buy a whole block of feta as I was going away for a couple of days, but I still wanted my feta in my salad (I am absolutely a creature of habit when it comes to my workday breakfast and lunch). I spotted the feta in the deli section and decided to give it a go.

Oh my goodness it was delicious!!!

So, I decided to find out if I could recreate this myself. Turns out you can!

I just took my standard feta, chopped it up into chunky bits and jammed it into a jar. Around the feta I layered rosemary, thyme and dried chilli as well as peppercorns. I considered putting some sun-dried tomato in, but decided I had enough flavours. Might try that next time.

If stored in the fridge, the feta should last for at least a month. But, I have no doubt you will have eaten it all before then!

One thing to note if you decide to give this a go - raw garlic is a no-go. Same if you decide to make any kind of flavoured oil. Raw garlic can lead to botulism. There are a number of sites warning of the risk of storing raw garlic in oil. So, best to avoid. I have successfully used dried garlic before to give a lovely garlic tang (Wellingtonians - you can buy this from Moore Wilsons).

Green pancakes with lime butter

On the recommendation of two workmates, I made a delicious dinner last night that I just had to share. I have discovered the most delightful chef - Yotam Ottolenghi. His cookbook, Plenty, is beautiful, just gorgeous. He also writes a regular column for the Guardian

I made the pancakes for dinner last night and served them with haloumi. Yum. I only made about 1/4 of the butter, as 100g would have been way too much. I used lemon instead of lime, as I didn't have any limes. Lemon was pretty tasty. The butter and pancakes are a little time consuming to prepare, but cooking is super quick.


For the lime butter
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
Zest 1 lime plus 2 tbsp lime juice
½ tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper
1 tbsp coriander leaves, picked
½ garlic clove, finely chopped
½ tsp chilli flakes

For the pancakes
110g self-raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
50g unsalted butter, melted
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cumin
150ml milk
10 spring onions, finely sliced
2 green chillies, finely sliced
250g baby spinach
1 egg white
Olive oil, for frying

First, make the lime butter. Put the butter in a medium-sized bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until it turns soft and creamy. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Tip everything out on to a sheet of clingfilm and roll into a sausage shape. Twist the ends to seal, then chill until firm.

For the pancake batter, put the flour, baking powder, egg, butter, salt, cumin and milk in a mixing bowl, and whisk until smooth. Add the onion and chilli to the batter. Put the spinach in a pan with a splash of water, cook until wilted, drain, squeeze dry, then roughly chop and add to the batter. Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and carefully fold it in to the batter.

Pour a little oil into a heavy frying pan and place on medium-high heat. For each pancake, ladle two to three tablespoons of batter into the pan and press down gently. You should get smallish pancakes, about 7cm in diameter and 1cm thick. Cook for a minute on each side, until a nice golden-green colour. Transfer to a paper towel and repeat, adding oil as needed, until all the mixture is used up. Keep the cooked pancakes warm.

To serve, pile up three pancakes per person and place a disc of flavoured butter on top to melt. Serve a flavoursome leaf salad on the side.

I also think mini versions of these would be so perfect for canapes. Perhaps with cream cheese and salmon. Yum.

Sourdough

I have been tentatively experimenting with bread recently. My past experiences of homemade bread don't bring back fond memories. Rather, homemade bread for me reminds me of hard, flat, doughy yuckness. I hasten to add that these memories are formed of my own bread-making sessions, not those of my accomplished bread-making friends.

However, I am tackling my food-foes, so bread needed to be tackled.

A friend from work recommended sourdough. I happen to really like sourdough, so it was settled. I would make sourdough. Turns out, you can't just make sourdough. Internet research informed me that in order to make sourdough I needed a sourdough starter. Said starter needs to mature and get nice and stinky (hence, sourdough). So began my exploration into sourdough. In a nutshell, a sourdough starter is flour, water and yeast, left to ferment and collect all the wonderful wild yeast in the air. I have seen suggestions for variations of the starter - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall uses rhubarb in his. I decided that, as a first-timer, I should stick with a more simple mix. As long as you feed it (flour and water), the starter should last indefinitely. The starter looks like you imagine a flour and water mix would - a rather insipid colour, with a few bubbles due to the fermentation.

So, with my starter "started", it was time to make sourdough!

I used this recipe to make my sourdough. It's quite a time-consuming process, but only in that you have long gaps where you are waiting for the bread to rise. I don't consider that a problem as I can always amuse myself in the kitchen!

All the ingredients needed a good knead. What a great way to get a workout in the kitchen!!

Leave it to rise and find something else to do in the kitchen.

Lovely and risen!

The finished product! A little darker than I would have liked, I think it was possibly a little to high in the oven. That's easy to fix next time.

The bottom however, was a beautiful golden colour!

I cooked my bread on a pizza stone to try and ensure the oven held the heat. It seemed to work well. The texture of the bread was lovely and soft, no doughy yuckness. So, sourdough - a success! Onto the next bread...

Dinner inspired by Christmas

I had some friends over for dinner last weekend. The weather was miserable, so I decided that we needed some winter warming food. Because we don't go for the heavy, warming food at Christmas time, I decided to experiment with a mid-winter themed dinner.

I have been browsing Martha Stewart's website recently, as she has some wonderful recipes. She has a great Holidays section, where I found some delicious-looking Thanksgiving and Christmas dishes. I was looking for something a bit different, but still with winter-warming qualities. It was difficult to narrow down what I wanted to make; at one stage I had about five or six different recipes open in my browser. It seems I may have to have another mid-winter Christmas dinner to try the other recipes!

But I eventually did narrow it down. Firstly, I roasted a beautiful big chicken (free-range of course). I made Peach Stuffing which was delicious! I really, really enjoyed this stuffing. I had a mini-disaster with the parsley, but that didn't seem to affect the dish. I went to the local market earlier in the day and purchased what I thought was a lovely big bag of organic parsley. The woman selling it obviously thought it was parsley too, as she had labeled it so, and we even had a quick chat about it! Anyway, when it came time to add the parsley, I opened the bag only to discover it was kale! Oh dear. Not to worry, my dish just didn't contain parsley. I'm sure the addition of parsley would have enhanced the flavour though. (I ended up just steaming the kale and serving it with a squeeze of lemon juice and some salt and pepper - delicious).

The next dish I made was Apple, Leek, and Butternut Squash Gratin.It was super easy to make, and delicious. I think I found it had too much liquid in the bottom once cooked. Next time I might ensure the leeks have very little liquid. I don't have any sherry, so I just used white wine instead.

I wish I had a photo of this finished dish, as it really was very pretty. I layered uniform pieces of the apple on top, so it had a lovely pattern when served. In fact, one of my guests was concerned that we were digging into the dessert! I couldn't find any sage for the dish, but it didn't seem to matter. This was a really tasty dish too, I would make it again.

I had heaps of food left over. (I was so paranoid about not having enough, so over-compensated but cooking about twice as much as I needed). However, this was not a problem, as I used the remaining chicken, stuffing, gratin and kale to make a delicious chicken pie. I simply made a roux of butter and flour and gradually added milk until I had a nice thick, creamy sauce. I then added all the left-overs and mixed it well. I baked this in some short pastry and we had pie for lunch and dinner for the next two days. Yum.

Mushroom soup

I cooked dinner for some friends the other night and for a starter made mushroom soup. I love mushroom soup. Growing up, I used to love making mushroom soup after picking mushrooms growing wild on the farm. There would be a small window of opportunity when the mushrooms would flourish and we would be out there picking as many as we could find.

Now that I am a city slicker, I have to resort to store-bought mushrooms. I grabbed a mixture of button mushrooms and the big flat brown mushrooms from my local supermarket. I think if you were willing to widen your search and perhaps go to a specialty vege store, or an Asian supermarket, you might find a wider variety of mushrooms. I had some dried mixed mushrooms, so I re-hydrated them with some boiling water, and added them to my soup.

Anyway, I was talking up the deliciousness of my soup at work the next day, and my workmate asked for the recipe, so here it is. This is based on the Edmonds Cook Book version, and Jamie Oliver's recipe but as always, I have modified them both to suit.

Melt a knob of butter and some olive oil in a saucepan, add a chopped onion, some garlic and about 500g of chopped mushrooms (depending on how many servings you want - this will make enough for about four). I also added my re-hydrated mixed mushrooms. Cook until the onion is clear and then add a few tablespoons of flour. Cook for a few minutes, and then add three cups of liquid. I used a mixture of milk and stock, but you can use only stock if you want. Vege stock is fine, but chicken stock also works really well.

Boil this mixture for about 5-10 minutes. Add some salt and pepper and parsley to taste. At this point, I used my stick blender to blend up some of the soup (I just gave it a few bursts in the pan - I wanted to keep some of the texture). When serving, I prefer to squeeze some lemon onto my soup. My partner is not a fan however, so I served the soup up with a wedge of lemon beside for my guests if they wanted.

This is super tasty - enjoy!

More pumpkin muffins

I made pumpkin soup for dinner the other night. Super easy - put the raw pumpkin, potato, onion, stock and a few spices (cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper) into the slow cooker and left it for the day. (As I have mentioned before, I love my slow cooker!) Just before tea, I got out my stick blender to turn it into soup. It was so tasty, with a nice spicy bite to it from the cayenne.

We had the leftover soup for lunch today, but I had a bowl extra that I didn't want to chill and reheat again. I decided to try and use it. Because I made the soup quite savoury, I thought sweet muffins wouldn't quite work. So, after a quick google, I decided to make Pumpkin and Cheese Muffins

What a find! These muffins are beautiful! Such a wonderful light texture and so super tasty. The recipe calls for cheddar cheese, but I had Edam in the fridge and it worked. The uncooked mixture was a little more dry than I expected or am used to.

The finished product though, was pretty close to perfect. I will certainly make these again, and I don't think you would need to be restricted to pumpkin. Curried kumara would be a good one to try. My soup was quite thick, so you would need to ensure that whatever puree you used wasn't too runny. If using pumpkin, I think you could substitute the cheese for feta, and add some spinach. If adding spinach, I would make sure the spinach didn't add too much liquid. Yum. I will do some more experimenting and let you know how I get on.

My idea of the perfect dinner

Yup, this is it, my idea of the perfect dinner. Seafood. All from beautiful Northland, and all gathered and caught by my family.

The scallops were so big and tasty. Although I didn't dive for them, I did help shuck them! I cooked them very simply in butter and garlic.

We also had some fresh snapper which we dusted in flour and again, cooked in butter.

Lastly, we had a beautiful crayfish, thanks to my brother. I boiled it for five minutes, cut it in half and then finished it off in a griddle pan. Again with butter and garlic. Delicious!

I love to keep seafood very simple, especially when it is this fresh and such good quality. To top off this extra-special meal, my friend headed down to the fish and chip shop and came back with half a dozen fresh bluff oysters. Heaven on a plate!!

Cooking with my crockpot

I'm not a fan of winter, it's fair to say. However, winter does have one positive point as far as I'm concerned - winter food! Winter means I can dig out my crockpot and crank it up. I use my crockpot several times a week. I find it easy, convenient and the resulting dinner is so, so tasty.

I have a really basic crockpot (not unlike the one below). It has two settings, high and low. I purchased a timer for about $6 from a hardware store (Mitre 10 or Bunnings I think), so I can control when it switches on and off. I used to turn it on before work, but was finding that sometimes the meals dried out as they were on for almost 10 hours. I set the timer to switch my crockpot on around 10-11am and off again at 6 (depending on what I am cooking).

As I mentioned in an earlier post I often use my crockpot for cooking stock. But, it has so many other uses. Curries, casseroles, stews, and more.

When I am cooking meat in my crockpot, I only use the very cheapest of cuts. It's a waste to use more expensive cuts of meat in a crockpot, as you are not doing them justice. A crockpot is slow, gentle cooking. I prefer chuck and stewing steak, shin, shanks and lamb neck. I have also had success with chicken thighs and legs.

Further to my experimentation with lentils, I made a very successful lentil and chickpea curry the other day. I used red curry paste, coconut milk, vege and of course, lentils and chickpeas. (I pre-cooked the lentils and chickpeas - I keep a store ready in my freezer).

Now, I must admit, I am a little bit of a freak when it comes to being orgainsed. As well as frozen chickpeas, I also keep ready-to-go crockpot meat in my freezer. I find that meat tends to only come in giant packs. So, I get it home, chop it into bite-sized pieces and put enough for a meal in a snap-lock bag and toss it in the freezer. The night before, I then take the pre-chopped meat out of the freezer, put it in the crockpot with whatever else I'm using, set the timer and it's ready to go. I don't have time to be fussing about with it before work.

You may be wondering, what about browning the meat? Well, I don't. I don't find it adds anything, and it's also annoying. It creates a mess and for little gain. Jamie Oliver agrees with me. He did an experiment with browned and un-browned meat, and decided he actually liked the un-browned better.

Some of my favourite crockpot meals are beef stews with red wine, vege (onion, carrot, kumara, potato, pumpkin - I use whatever I have), beef stock, chilli and loads of salt and pepper. You can also add soy sauce, garlic, tinned tomato and various herbs and spices you might like. The great thing about a beef stew is there are no hard and fast rules. You just have to make sure you have enough liquid (at least a couple of cups), and some depth of flavour.

The same goes for lamb. Lamb, rosemary and apricots are all good friends and I made a tasty Moroccan-inspired stew the other day with lamb neck. Lamb, garlic, red wine and orange is also a tasty combination.

If you are using meat on a bone (shin, neck, tail, shanks etc), don't worry about the bones, just put the whole lot in the croackpot, by the time it has finished cooking the bones will be clean and you just have to fish them out before you serve. They add so much flavour.

There are so many things you can do with a crockpot, I would recommend getting it out of the cupboard and experimenting. It's hard to go wrong, just make sure you have enough liquid (if in doubt use more rather than less) and make sure you cook it for at least six hours. Any less and your meat will still be tough and not meltingly tender like it should be. Enjoy!

Lentils

I have been cooking with lentils this week. I have never really successfully used lentils before, except for split red lentils in soups and curries.

This week I made two recipes using puy lentils, purchased from my local Indian food store, and they were both so successful.

First I made this a delicious sausage, red wine and lentil dinner. I really recommend making it. Super easy, and so, so tasty. I used really good quality venison sausages from Lovat Venison, that I picked up from the Sunday markets. Really beautiful sausages that I thoroughly recommend.

I had way too many lentils left over that I needed to use up (next time I make that recipe, I possibly need to evaluate the quantity of lentils I cook!). So, I made a mince and lentil lasagna. It was a great success. It's fair to say, my previous experimentation with lentils have been nothing less than a debacle. However, this lasagna was so tasty!

I cooked up mince, garlic, onion and eggplant, added some tinned tomatoes, red wine and the leftover lentils and layered up the mixture with lasagna sheets and cheese sauce as per usual. The result was wonderful. Next time I am tempted to ditch the mince and just use the lentils!

Chilli Jam

Mum grew the most amazing chillis this year. They were huge, and you could barely see the plant for all the chillis on it. And they were hot! I made the mistake of chopping them and, once I was done, wiping my unwashed hand against my eye and mouth - bad mistake. I was in so much pain for at least an hour. Learnt my lesson there!

Anyway, I raided Mum's plant when I was home in February (I got a shopping bag full, and it barely looked like I had dented the plant) to make chilli jam. I used Annabel Lanbein's recipe off her TV series, The Free Range Cook. It was pretty easy to make, although because I don't have a decent blender (it's on my wishlist), I think next time I make it I will boil everything up and then blend it with my stick blender. Mum posted me some chillis yesterday (turns out that little plant is still going strong!), so I will make some more this week.

As well as being delicious, it makes a beautiful gift. My friend J Rex's partner took a jar home a couple of weeks ago. J Rex made pumpkin and lentil patties for dinner the other night with chilli jam on the side. The report-back was positive. Always good to hear. (I've also asked for the pumpkin and lentil patties recipe - sounds delicious).

Chicken Stock

Ok, I'll admit, chicken stock is not exactly a sexy topic. It is however, a staple in the kitchen, and I have a fail-safe way to make the most delicious chicken stock.

It's simple, fast to prepare and, like I say, you're doing well to make a hash of it. What is my secret? My crockpot.

A crockpot makes making any stock - beef, chicken, vege so, so simple. Following our roast dinner the other night I put our (free range - but that's a debate for another day) chicken carcass in the crockpot, threw in a chopped carrot and onion, a few squashed garlic cloves, salt, pepper and a bay leaf, filled it up with water, turned it onto to low and went to bed. The next morning I woke to the most delicious, golden chicken stock, ready to have the fat skimmed off, strained, and popped into containers in the freezer. Done! No endless stirring or watching, and no house full of chicken-stock steam.

I sometimes add a leek and/or celery to my stock, my sister adds fennel - it all depends what is in the fridge. Jamie Oliver advises I should also add various herbs, but again, it all depends what is in my fridge, or in the case of herbs, my freezer.

Now I have a wonderful supply of delicious, healthy chicken stock ready to go whenever I need.