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.

Rangiputa - again!

This is the place that gave me the recipe with which to enter Master Chef - the gorgeous fish cake with smoked capsicum salsa.
We were treated again to a return visit during Labour Weekend.
The olive trees were in full bud with bees a-buzzin'...

The sea was without a ripple

and the dolphins were in the bay

All that was missing was the fish - but not for want of trying.
The bait almost jumped into the boat, but after that we had our work cut out. Very little fish resulted... but who cares! We had a marvellous time in the sun with  good friends.

Stew's Birthday

Okay it's not really a food post, but we had 18 for dinner and I had work that day so it was an exercise in organisation and relaxation. We shifted the outside table in , covered everything in white cloths and had the simplest meal - a whole fillet on the barbeque, caesar salad, potatoes dauphinoise and a huge chocolate log and apple strudel to finish.

 

Oliver arrived from Wellington

 The Howick chapter pulled funny faces....

 My brother Craig was in town unexpectedly

 Richard enjoyed the beers and food as usual

 Big McWatson got heavy with the photographer,

 Ann captured some of the food (for once it wasn't all eaten before we remembered to take pics.)

 Stew tried really hard to enjoy himself

 The olds made it too...

and as usual, everyone stood in the kitchen while I tried to cook. Pete!

Searching for Doughnuts...

There just has to be a REAL doughnut somewhere in Auckland ..... fried, not baked, and crispy crust with real cream, coated in cinnamon and sugar.
I'm trying, oh dear I'm trying.... through several so far but no luck.

Dinner Party Thursday at the Hobbs'

We've been entertaining on a Thursdays a lot lately ... it's the last day of the 'working' week for me and I often feel like I can cope with the cleaning up afterwards on my day at home.

Adie and Grant came along - fresh from haircutting services. Stew had corrective eye surgery that afternoon too so we were all pretty spruced up and ready to eat.

The Menu:
Homemade oat biscuits (super easy) with Miriam's Chicken Liver pate

My homemade dukkah served with fresh walnut bread and olive oil for dipping

Seafood chowder - wonderful with fresh clams, salmon and prawns and accompanied with a little ciabatta and lots of butter (that's for me).

A salad of spiced venison fillet, caught by Stew a few months back, with roasted kumara, baby spinach and roasted red capsicum. Unfortunately (as is often the case at our place) the food was consumed before a camera could be found...! But it was wonderful, very colourful, and I loved the dressing.

Simply coat venison or lamb fillet with toasted cumin, fennel, mustard seeds, lemon zest and ground pepper and marinate for an hour. Cut the kumara into wedges and roast - I use the electric frypan for this. Toast some pine nuts, roast a red pepper and slice, and make the dressing. When you're ready, cook the venison quickly over the bbq. Cover with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes then slice thinly. Pile all the ingredients into a large bowl and top with this dressing:

Dressing:

Half cup greek yoghurt, quarter cup lemon juice, a pinch of paprika and a few leaves of mint finely sliced.

Followed all this with a simple dessert course which is very unlike me - for one thing I'm not a blue cheese fan, and for another I like sweets. But this was very elegant and easy.

Blue cheese, pear and honey parcels with that walnut bread, toasted this time.

Peel and slice enough pears to give half per person. Slice and fan the halves on squares of baking paper.

Crumble about 50gm good blue cheese over the top. Top with a tablespoon of honey and a good dollop of thickened cream or runny cream.

Staple them up into parcels that won't leak and bake 20 minutes. Let them rest for a while if you like. Cut them apart and present on platters - one for each guest.

We had a bottle of First Knight Ambrosia from the Food Show, made in Gisborne. It was utterly divine with the pears - as you can see from the amount left in the bottle.

MasterChef Book Series One coming soon.....

can't wait - I get a copy for me! and I have a recipe in it I'm told. Famous-ish at last....
Wonder if I can get the Masterchef top 12 to meet for a signing session?

Experimental Meringues

so I'm experimenting with ideas for the October chef-fest and I wanted to try meringues with marshmallows inside them. Which I made tonight .., they are yummy as only meringues can be but maybe not quite worth the extra effort of enclosing the marshmallows. Yet! My cooking colleague Gary suggested freezing the marshmallows so I can get the meringues cooked while the marshmallows stay soft and creamy... I tried this and it was definitely better but still not quite right.

Mainland Butter giveaway with Simon Gault

International, Masterchef Simon Gault (I met him - famous by association again...) in association with Mainland Butter has launched a series of webisodes. Simon, like many excellent chefs, agree that the simple things in life are the best and shows this by cooking some mouth watering recipes inspired by his love for Mainland Butter.

To celebrate one of life’s simple pleasures I'm very pleased to be able to offer a Simple Pleasures competition prize pack for one of my readers including; Simon Gault’s book Nourish, a months supply of Mainland Butter along with some spicy fruit loaf and a cooler bag.

Cool! Free stuff! and what's more, it's free USEFUL stuff....

To be in the draw to win visit http://www.asimplepleasure.co.nz/

and find the answer to the following question:

What does Simon Gault serve with one of New Zealand’s

favourite fish?

Snapper topped with________________

Email me with your answer and I'll draw a winner by 15th September 2010. Good luck!

The Shoestring chef

this sounds wonderful - wish there was something near me like this... very useful! Cooking classes for $15 every Thursday evening in Kingsland by the Shoestring Chef - email them to learn more. It's held at Crave cafe amongst industrial buildings in Kingsland, behind the main shops. I want their lights! And their large White's Aviation photo of Auckland!

October chef-dom

I've accepted an invitation to do a cooking evening as a fundraiser... last weekend in October, in Rotorua.   why do I do this! It sounded like fun, and if I can help then I always like to... they've sold tickets already, and they're not printed yet. Must be a good sign.
But! what do I cook? I'm thinking of asking everyone who buys a ticket to answer 4 simple questions and then designing the evening around that. Should be achievable...? Shouldn't it...?

love competitions?

enter here for a chance at $1500 travel...

Love friends like this...

We go for a drink and we end up being served beautiful fresh bread and a platter of fresh seafood.
AND I have the link for everyone - fresh seafood delivered to the door... no need to go out on a rainy weekend now! Solander Gourmet Seafood