Some very scenic breakfasts

The Floral Apron family tour bus has been busy of late. It’s has been a delight to discover that Kiwi’s take their public holidays very seriously and in the month of November we have enjoyed 2 long weekends!! This has resulted in some outrageously scenic breakfasts,

 

And yes; standing out in the elements cooking breakfast for the family was a little chilly. The scientifically minded might put two and two together and work out that gas bottles are not at their most efficient in freezing conditions, there is very good reason that the neighbouring tables are not teaming with fellow bacon enthusiasts.

Then there was the honey toast and tea in the mid south farming heartland;

As you can see it was a hum dinger of a day, but owning to the last few nights spent in a freezing campervan the children or my husband were not interested in trying to recreate scenes from The Sound of Music and had little tolerance for excessive cheer. Onwards we went..

Pies from a bakery always hit the spot for an outdoorsy weekend and the Fairlie bakehouse was notably fine.Then there was this;

If you look very closely in this picture you can see a little campervan parked amongst the pines. If you look even closer you can find me drinking wine and reading a book in that same vehicle and generally sulking that my husband had picked a very very ugly place to call home for the night.
Imagine the surprise and delight the next morning once the storm clouds had quite literally broken and this is the scene that greeted us.

 

There was celebratory rock skimming,

All was forgiven and thoughts turned to lamb for dinner.

 As you can see; life is never dull or colourless in New Zealand.

 

 

Spring Fling

Spring is a series of double edge swords. Sunny days are delightful but the horror of having to reveal legs that have been enjoying a fuzzy winter hibernation is enough to cancel out some of the magic.

Then there are the jolly little blossoms, bursting forth to declare good times ahead, seems such a shame that many of them make me sneeze and wheeze.

Mother Nature has a curious tendency to keep us on our toes.

Undeniably the best bit about spring is the reappearance of bright green veggies. I nearly wept with joy the other day when I spied iceberg lettuce at a reasonable price. However the poster girl for spring veg is unquestionably the asparagus.

The temperate crop only pops up its pointy head after the winter chills have passed. Its pencil thin spears require just a mere steam, and for my preference retain a subtle crunch. Only in season for a short window it creates a giddy sense of luxury to feast upon on it.

In the spirit of celebrating seasonality I can’t help but notice that the tomatoes haven’t quite hit their stride yet, still looking a tad pale and appley.  It seems a shame that these 2 splendid vegetables should not grown in greater unison.

I have taken it upon myself to bring them together and have employed a dash of perky piquancy from a jar of shop bought harrissa to make the whole thing sing.

This is the sort of lunch skinny people eat, and I can’t help but commend them for the restrained deliciousness a plate like this delivers. Yes indeed afew more days of lunches of this calibre and I may well be feeling fit and foxy enough to reveal my winter legs.

 

Harrissa tomatoes with Asparagus and Haloumi -

Serves 2 would be skinny ladies for a glorious sunny lunch.

 

I bunch of jolly spring asparagus

2 tomatoes

1 block of haloumi

A wedge or two of lemon

A teaspoon of harrissa paste

A glug or two of olive oil

1.        In a small bowl combine the harrisa, juice of ¼ lemon and a tsp of olive oil, whisk about then tumble through the chopped tomatoes.

2.       Snap off any woody bits from the base of the asparagus and pop the remaining stalks into a steamer and give them the sauna treatment for 4-6 min. They should remain firmish and definitely not droop.

3.       Whilst the asparagus is cooking fry the haloumi in a frying pan under a thin film of olive oil. Aim to have it beautifully brown and crunchy on both sides.

4.       Divide a slender bundle of asparagus, a hearty blob of tomato and pitched rooves of haloumi on each plate.

Get Set For The Weekend



Porky goodness



Come Friday night all I want is a glass of wine and a little peace and quiet. “Easier said than done,” the mothers of the world cry in unison. Well surely a cheeky crisp white sav Blanc is easy enough to rustle up, and with a just a moments forethought the dinner can magically happen too.

Alarmingly the secret to being cool on a Friday night involves actually thinking about it on a Wednesday.  Yes that’s right it takes me two days preparation to be a fun mummy.

This is the route I took last weekend, and it worked spectacularly well.

Basically as I was doing some sort of mid week frenzied mad dash around the market I spied pork roasts for a good price. One ended up in the trolley, on arriving home it didn’t even make it to the fridge – I just popped it straight in the pan and left it to do its thing, whilst I bellowed and nagged my way through the joys of homework and lunchboxes.

Not that I am a booze hound or anything, but I did use alcoholic ginger beer as my braising liquid.   It perfectly set the tone for the laid back mood I was dreaming of and created a sweet succulence that was pretty damn fine. You could just as easily substitute cider, but for preference I would stick with something that has the moody dry sweetness that only a 375ml brown bottle can.

Pork in Ginger Beer

1 pork shoulder roast (mine was 1.8 kg)

1 leek

A couple of cloves of garlic

¾ bottle of “Ranga” alcoholic ginger beer (about 300ml)

1 bay leaf

2 whole cloves

a pinch of sage and thyme

1.       Preheat oven to 160c

2.      In a large cast iron skillet sear the pork to give a nice bit of colour to the two flat sides, add in the leek, garlic and herbs and sizzle till fragrant. Pour in ginger beer and season well with a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.

 

 

 

3.       Cover the dish with a tight fitting lid then cook for 3 hours or until the pork starts to fall apart when gently poked.

4.       Leave to rest and flavours to develop in the fridge for up to 3 days. When ready to serve, heat on a stove top, then take the pork out to trim off fatty bits and shred the pork into large chunks using a fork. Place the pork back in the cooking liquid and serve with crusty bread and leafy green – and a big glass of THANK GOD ITS FRIDAY WINE!!!



 

Neighbours that can bake

Back in the good old days recipes were swapped across fences. The art of baking was a unifying force as the sweet waft of stoves in action filled streets. I can only imagine it would be a stroke of pure blessed luck to lob alongside cooks that were generous in knowledge and skilled in their craft.

Hence my delight that for the next little while the cosy south island of New Zealand is my home. Christchurch to be precise. A poor wounded city that is bravely rebuilding a future. A city with its fair share of quirks and snarls, but city with quite possibly some of the finest baking I have ever spied.

Let it go on official record that our Kiwi neighbours are damn fine bakers. Fingers crossed that during my NZ tenure I learn a trick or two from my fellow Antipodeans.

Check out this delicious assortment on offer at my local Saturday morning haunt - The Riccarton Markets - baking at its best!

 

The Kiwis are masters of sweet toothsome millimetre perfect slices. A cup of tea with out a little square of one of these is a wasted opportunity.

 

This is Anna - she bakes like a woman possessed every week to deliver cakes that are plump and bursting with interesting things. I stalk her stall every week to see what is on offer.

 

Each little home made morsel is as perfect as can be. The hazelnut ameretti are crunchy on the outside and sweet and succulent on the inside - just like they should be.

Row upon pretty row of macaroons at their picture perfect best, Rose with cinnamon happen to be my favourite, closely followed by salted caramel.

 

 

and yes the custard does playfully ooze from these beauties with each bite.

 

Even the much maligned doughnut is given a delicious twist and turned  irresistible by the deft hand of a Kiwi baker.

 If you want the low down on the biggest, best most delicious thing then just ask a hungry wide eyed boy on limited income!

 Yes New Zealand- with your fairy tale beauty and old fashioned hospitality - I think we are going to get along famously.

Look who has a new toy

 

Just in case it was the lack of a fancy long pointy nosed camera that was holding me back from blogging greatness.......

I hereby vow to only post photos of great quality and have celebrated accordingly with a most glorious cake.

Here she is straight from the oven-

 

Rhubarb with coconut crust cake

 

A bold handsome cake best served straight from the oven on a cold winter’s day. You can play around with the fruit to match the season and your mood, however the bitey tang and blush coloured hue of rhubarb always make a delicious cake.

 

For the cake

80g unsalted butter

275g brown sugar

2 eggs

½ teaspoon of vanilla essence

Grated zest of 1 small orange

230 g sour cream

300g self raising flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

400 g raw rhubarb cut into 1cm pieces

 

For the topping

50 g butter

2 Tbs cream

½ cup brown sugar

1½ cups shredded coconut

1.    Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 24cm spring form tin

2.    Cream the butter with sugar and add eggs, vanilla, orange rind and sour cream, mix well to make a smooth mixture.

3.    Briskly fold in the flour and the cinnamon to make a thick batter, to which 2/3 of the rhubarb is added.

4.    Spread mixture into prepared tin and scatter and press remaining rhubarb on top of the cake.

5.    Bake for 50- 60 mins or until a skewer inserted to the centre comes out clean. Trap for first time players....... make sure the cake is quite well cooked at this stage, as once the topping goes on it is only for a short while. Don't be scared of overcooking- with all of the lovely fruit and sour cream this is quite a moist cake and difficult to over cook.

6.    At the 45 min cooking mark start to prepare the topping. Combine butter, cream and sugar in a saucepan, allow to melt and form syrup then add coconut and cook, stirring constantly for another 2 min.

7.    Spread the hot topping over the cake when it is sufficiently cooked and return it to the oven for 15 mins until it forms a caramelized golden crust.
8. Serve warm with a hearty dollop of cream and hopefully a spot of sunshine.

 

 

Got any photography advice you would care to share over a cuppa? 

 

 

 

Salad days

A little bowl of something crunchy and delicious is my little treat. Actually the mere act of being home and tinkering about with nice lunches is probably a bigger luxury in itself. I won't bang on about why I have ditched bread from my daily routine- what I will do, is show you the greatest hits of lunches past.

 

None of them took more than 5 mins to whip up, and none of them used anything clever - they are just a delicious mish mash of tastes and textures and in the realm of a thousand times nicer than a boring old sandwich.

 

 

A little lunchtime trip to Asia - shaved cabbage, leftover chicken, a handful of peanuts and plenty of herbs and lime.

Yes I have hopped on board the quinoa train. A Lebanese fatoush of sorts, with a nice added bonus of leftover roast lamb bits!

 

 Ohhhhh! a weensy taste of summer. 2 fat peach halves with goats cheese, grilled until brown and artfully plonked on some peppy rocket. The joys of seasonal fare!!

And its lunchtime in Mykanos with this little number. Haloumi cheese how I adore you and your squeaky, salty, oozy ways.

 

 What's on your radar for lunch today?

 

 

How to win friends and infulence people

A thick oozy blanket of sweet zesty goodness is what makes this slice so danm fine.

 

 Originally ripped many years ago from a Delicious magazine this beauty has won me first prize in the Perth Royal Show and helped me out on countless occasions where I have needed to charm a crowd. Infact just last night the school P&C were treated to a batch as I successfully delegated the filling of 400 boxes for an upcoming cake stall. I think it is the astonishingly high volume of sugar combined with plenty of lemony zing has something to do with its luxurious and moreish quality.

 

For the base:

1 ½ cups (225g) plain flour

½ cup (80g) icing sugar, sifted

Finely grated zest of ½ lemon

180g cold unsalted butter, chopped

½ tsp vanilla extract

Lemon Topping

6 eggs

3 cups (660g) caster sugar

Finely grated zest of 3 lemons

1 cup (250ml) lemon juice, strained

½ cup (75g) plain flour

Icing sugar to serve

Method

1.    Preheat the oven to 180⁰c.  Generously butter and flour a 5cm x 24cm x 32cm baking tin and set it aside - This is a trap for first time players as you cant use baking paper as the base needs some traction to anchor it to the pan or it will float to the top once the curd is added.

2.    Make the base first by putting flour, sugar and zest and butter in a food processor, blitz to until it is like coarse river sand.  With the processor going, add vanilla and 2 teaspoons of iced water and whiz again till the mixture clumps into a ball.  Wodge the dough evenly into the prepared tin. Chill for 5 mins

 

3.  Bake the base for 15+ minutes or until the edges are starting to colour and the base is pale golden.

4.    Now get moving on the curd.  In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until they are well combined.  Whisk in the zest and juice.  Sift flour over the top and whisk in until the mixture is smooth.  Set aside.

5.    When the base is ready,   Reduce the oven to 150⁰c.  Once the base has cooled ever so slightly, give the filling a final quick mix, as it will have settled, then pour it over the base.  Return to the oven and bake for 35 – 40 minutes until the topping is firm and stightly crustry.  Leave the slice to cool in the tin on a wire rack.

6.    Once the slice has cooled, use a sharp knife to cut it into elegant long rectangles. Dust madly with icing sugar before serving with a smile.

.

 

 

What grows together goes together

Its easy to fall into some happy sort of lemon, garlic, and rosemary scented pthutz when it comes to roasting a chook. Familiarity breeds contentment after all. But when my late summer garden was happily going crazy it occurred to me that today might be the day to shake things up.

Perhaps it was the gin and tonic(s), perhaps it was the cool breeze blowing after the long hot days but let it go on official record that lime, basil and fennel is a damn fine addition to the chicken roasting world.

So here is the low down.

Take a whopping great bunch of basil, the zest of one lime, a couple of garlic cloves, about a teaspoon of fennel, cracked black pepper and sea salt and a lump of butter. Chop and moosh them all together to form a nice speckled herb butter then insert dollops into the gap between the skin and flesh of the bird. Pop the remaining lime in the cavity along with a garlic clove or two, then drizzle with olive oil and season liberally.

Cook it along side some nice smooth pebbly potatoes for about an hour and 10 mins. My preference is for using charcoal- but that's not my domain, man of the house is the expert there. Although I can report outstanding success' using a 200c oven.

Gracefully carve into appealing chunks and serve alongside a perky green salad and perhaps another gin and tonic. Happy days!

"Sometime's life is a golden gaytime!"

More of an assembly job than a hard and fast recipe this little number I whipped together last weekend when the winds of change were blowing our way.