Born and Bread from Baker's Delight...

I'm onto a winner here... a lovely selection of new artisan breads from Baker's Delight was here when I arrived home after doing exam supervisions today.

 Beautiful fresh, soft, crusty baguette...

 turkish bread that's destined for breakfast tomorrow

Ciabatta that I couldn't stop sniffing!

I could feel a platter coming on! In the fridge was a ripe avocado, on the shelf was pomegranate molasses and somewhere I have a jar of pickled onions....

The avocado never made it but there was a glorious pumpkin hummus in the fridge with dukkah topping.

So the breads have been christened but I'm looking forward to using more of them later.

Quickest chocolatiest pud....

I am suffering at the moment. All this training (8 sessions per week...) and by evening I'm starving...My favourite course is of course dessert. So tonight at 8pm after re-heated lasagne and fresh asparagus I needed carbohydrates. And I remembered a really quick dessert recipe for chocolate brownie. You may have this awesome recipe...

3/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
100gm butter melted
2 eggs
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
vanilla

....... plus I added walnuts and chocolate buttons. Microwave for 6 minutes in a high-powered microwave then turn out onto a platter and dust heavily with sifted icing sugar.
I could in fact eat a quarter of this but I decided to be good and cut it into 6. Made a real egg custard and poured that over in lieu of cream or ice-cream... and ate it all really quickly.

Rowing World champs

now you may be thinking this has little relevance to food - but I do find the mobile food carts at these events of interest. The World rowing event at Karapiro had to cater for many thousands of people each day and in the whole they did an awesome job. The volunteer workers would have won international awards for being tirelessly cheery and helpful. Everyone I spoke to had words of praise for all the staff they encountered in a uniform.

Here is a selection of the vendors lined up there...

 from coffee to icecream

 to "good sausages..."

 to gourmet wild foods

to a french patisserie next to a coffee cart. Just what the doctor ordered after an hour's drive to get there.

Laura was convinced to eat a donut or two - and the organisers were saved from one sore point when they relaxed the rules about taking food into the grounds. So a nice picnic on Sunday, but we did still spend money at the carts. As my sister pointed out, they seemed to think we might be like a rugby crowd - but we're not! So once they realised we could be trusted not to get drunk and punch people, we were allowed to take food in.

Power to the rowing audience! and congratulations to the vendors who had interesting foods, clean surrounds and prices that were fair.

Kapiti Yoghurt! dream dream...

oh my - if you can find this yoghurt, BUY some and don't tell anyone in your house. Stewart put ours in the freezer, thinking he had frozen yoghurt and indeed very shortly he did.... but I was in fact quite pleased and proceeded to eat it straight from the pottle because if anyone knew I did, they wouldn't want any. Great! More for me!

4 flavours, but I can't wait to see which one goes best with my favourite baklava...

Vanilla bean...

Champagne and Rhubarb...Passion Mango...

Butterscotch!

Tomorrow the champagne one, Thursday the Passion Mango. Flavoured with honey, and it has that tart and intense flavour.

Yum! About $5.50 retail.

luxury in the suburbs

How many of you can match my breakfast this morning - WHITEBAIT fritters. NZ Whitebait fritters. Oh the indulgence!
My Mum gave me some - Dad must be forgiven for throwing it in the green bin... fortunately we were wise to his tricks and found it there amongst the poppy trimmings and with a blowfly circling. Once that was all brushed off we were in business.

Take your 257 whitebait...

Add them to a bowl with eggs and a little flour - a very little please!

Mix.....

Fry in butter in groups.

The egg sets around the fishies.

And once it's brown, you EAT them.

Do NOT believe those West Coasters who say that they only work with mint sauce.