WOAH. That was a month and a half. The first section was pretty damn fine. My husband and I treated ourselves to a week in Rarotonga to celebrate getting through some rather rubbish stuff over the last wee while, and gosh it was bliss. Rarotonga …
Do you get to feeling nibbly late afternoon? Does your mouth start watering as you fantasise about stuffing large handfuls of salt and vinegar chips into your mouth alongside stacks of delicious lovely cheese? Well, friends, have I got a deal for you. Because while …
I am busy looking after my garden, or is it looking after me? It’s working hard, growing many of my favourite treats, including raspberries, zucchinis and cucumbers.
My rangy, imperfect little beginner’s garden is very restorative. I can nurture my plants and enjoy some success, accompanied by kaka, tui and of course my funny little rescue cats who always appear from nowhere to supervise my activities. We’ve had a sad time with disappointing fertility treatments and I entered summer in a rather glum frame of mind. My garden has helped brighten my spirits.
On Saturday night I had the pleasure of dining at the beautilful Bresolin. There were some truly succulent dishes, including Sichuan-seasoned lamb accompanied by pickled cucumber. My garden is working hard on my own cucumbers but they are not ready yet, and inspired by my dinner at Bresolin, I couldn’t wait to make some pickled cucumber all of my own. 
This is a really simple recipe and it’s great to have a stash of pickled cucumber to jazz up your summer salads or cheese boards. Most of this batch has gone into my work lunches for the week – try it mixed with white beans, diced tomato and fresh parsely for simple, healthy salad.
Ingredients:
1 cucumber, skinned and chopped – I like it diced, but it works equally well in thin rounds
1 cup water
1/3 cup white vinegar
3 T caster sugar
2 t salt
Method:
Mix water, vinegar, sugar and salt together until sugar and salt is dissolved. Add the cucumber and make sure it is all covered with the liquid. Good to go after 30 minutes and will keep for a week, covered in your fridge (as demonstrated here with a lovely beeswax cover I was given for Christmas).
I’m in excellent company – Wallace, Gromit and I all love Wensleydale cheese. Crumbly, dense and savoury, Wensleydale originates from Wensleydale, Yorkshire, where it began life as a ewes milk cheese made by French Cistercian monks. It’s now made across the UK from cow’s milk, …
Cheese is pretty much my number one indulgence when it comes to Christmas. I don’t say indulgence with the purpose of getting all judgmental about food (far from it – one of my main approaches in my blog is to enjoy all food without fads …
What I am about to share with you is deeply unorthodox. It’s my own recipe for guacamole, cultivated over the past two decades as I have developed a fully-fledged love of avocados.
I always thought the way I made guacamole was pretty standard. You know, salt, a bit of lemon, avocado of course, and a few other things. But stumbling across a recipe like this one about a decade ago, which infers that much modern guacamole is pretty much a disgraceful mix of inappropriate flavours, I felt both a little shame and a little pride. So maybe I am not strictly orthodox, perhaps it is indeed a little gauche to sprinkle a touch of sugar into your guacamole. On the other hand, if it makes it even more delicious, then what’s wrong with being a little bit of a culinary rebel?
I am particularly delighted to bring my recipe for guacamole to you as it results from kindness and generosity. I happen to have a bounty of avocados in my life right now. I have a regular subscription to the delightful Avo Tree (a little luxury that gets me through some long months of drug treatment which requires me to be alcohol and caffeine- ie all my favourite treats -free). And then, as my most recent Avo Tree subscription sat ripening on the windowsill, imagine my delight when a workmate presented me with a bag from her mum’s avocado tree in Golden Bay! Despite being a long-term lover of the avocado, I had no idea they grew on long skinny stalks in bunches and have to be harvested while still green. Fascinating!
While I have photographed this batch of my uncouth guacamole with healthy peppers and carrot sticks, it really is most delicious and decadent with some tasty salted corn chips. Enjoy.
Ingredients:
Flesh of 2-3 ripe or over-ripe avocados (ha! Like they ever have a chance to get over- ripe when I’m around)
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped finely
1 t salt
1/2 t ground pepper
1 t caster sugar (uncouth)
1/4 t nutmeg (even more uncouth)
1 t chilli flakes
Juice of 1 to 1 1/2 lemons
1 T balsamic or red wine vinegar
Tabasco sauce
Cayenne pepper
Method
Well it’s pretty easy. Put all the above in a large bowl.
The next bit depends on your preferences and available kitchen tools. I prefer my guacamole smooth so I use a stick mixer to blend the lot, but mashing with a fork is perfectly fine too.
Taste after seasoning – I often find I need a little more salt and lemon for my tastes.
Sometimes you just need some gently savoury food in your life, for comfort’s sake. I have felt this way recently. Freshly-baked bread, cheese scones, pulses and hot drinks are the order of the day. Infused oils are an excellent way to pep up most of …
I truly love posting about dessert. I am a huge fan of baking – we have a rich and rightly-celebrated baking culture in our little country and I am happy to leap in, butter, cream and all. It feels particularly necessary right now, as Winter …
Apples apples apples everywhere I look right now. So it’s a good thing I like them so much and an even better thing that I am still resolutely in the apple recipe section of the Edmonds Cook Book. Today I bring to you Edmond’s Apple Shortcake Squares.
What’s special about shortcake as opposed to just regular cake then? I didn’t know either but fortunately trusty Wikipedia was onto it again. Shortcake goes back to at least 1602! And we know this because the great bard himself wrote the character Alice Shortcake in the Merry Wives of Windsor. The short part of things is because the cake ingredients form a shortened crumbly dough, like a shortbread, and it’s baked to set into a cake at a reasonably high temperature.
Strawberry shortcake is the most famous example, first appearing in England where it was served hot with butter and cream. Yes, the idea of all that melty sweet goodness makes my mouth water too. But for true appreciation of strawberry shortcake we need to head to the States, where 14th June is National Strawberry Shortcake Day, the official day of celebration for this delicious treat. It stems from the tradition of celebrating the Summer fruit harvest with strawberry shortcakes. A great tradition indeed as far as I’m concerned.
Back here in Aotearoa I’m supposing apples were more plentiful than strawberries, and hence the good writers of Edmonds made sure the New Zealand home cook could still have a trusty fruit-based shortcake in their repertoire. It’s a good thing they did too, I found this very tasty and also very easy to make. If the shortcake sounds suspiciously like making pastry to you, don’t be put off. It is truly a minimal faff recipe, which is my main criteria for baking, frankly. And with our lovely apples being all seasonal and delicious right now, I promise this will prove popular if you need to bring a plate.
Edmond’s apple shortcake squares
Ingredients:
For the shortcake:
Method:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcsius and grease and line a 22cm baking tin so that the baking paper comes over the top of the sides of the tin (you’ll need it later to hoist out the shortcake).
Simmer the apples with the water, lemon and cinnamon in a saucepan over a low heat until cooked and set aside. While the apples are cooking, make the shortcake.
Sift the flour and baking soda. Cut in the butter and rub it around with your fingers until it looks like clumpy breadcrumbs. Add the water, milk and egg and mix quickly until it comes together into a ball.
Divide this in half. Roll out one half of the dough with a rolling pin until and into the baking tin so it lines the base and sides. Place the apples on top.
Roll the other half of the dough out on a floured board with a rolling pin, until it as long and wide as the baking tin. Place it over the apples and pinch it together with the first piece of dough, so it encases the apples. Brush the top with water and sprinkle on the caster sugar.
Bake for 25 minutes until the top is golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then removing the shortcake from the tin, lifting it out by the extra baking paper peeking over the sides of the tin. Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.
One of the delightful things about days off, along with gleefully sitting around in your pants for as long as you fancy and not removing your slippers EVER, is ample amounts of time to whip up special treats for favourite people. My lovely Mum’s …