Lunch with Dot

Today we headed over to my Aunty Dot's on the whangaparoa peninsula to have lunch with Dot, Aunty Ineke and Grandma. It was good to see Grandma again after our trip away and Dot and Ineke enjoyed cuddles with Elsie. Dot made a great soup for lunch which she served with crostini with melted cheese on top (Brie I think). We gave one to Elsie to try  - she loved it! Bread and Brie going on the list! We also got some wonderful photos of Elsie with her Aunties..

Elsie with her Great Aunty Ineke

Elsie with her Great Aunty Ineke

Elsie with her Great Aunty Dot

Elsie with her Great Aunty Dot

8-Hour Bread

Today I made my first ever successful loaf of bread - not only that but it was an amazing loaf of bread!  Crunchy crust, lovely moist, holey inside. Kind of like a ciabatta but with a better crust.  I made it using a no-knead recipe on the internet that was pretty popular about five years ago. The original version takes 24 hours and I intend to try that recipe too at some stage. But here is the guts of the 8-hour version. It's the simplest thing I've ever made and it really truely rocks.

Here is a video showing you how to do all the bits and bobs - the video is for the 24-hour version - the method is the same though - just the ingredients differ slightly. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2006/11/07/dining/1194817104184/no-knead-bread.html


Ingredients:


3 cups high-grade flour
3/4 teaspoon of yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 cups of water


Method:


Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix. Add water and mix roughly by hand until you have a wet 'shaggy' dough (see video, above). Cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 6-8 hours in a warm place.


After 6-8 hours turn the dough out onto a floured bench and fold the sides in to make a round of dough (see video, above. Return round back into original bowl (rinse it out then oil or flour it first though) flipping it over so the folded edges are underneath and you have the smooth surface on top. The dough round will be extremely soft, sticky, floppy & wet - so it may not hold it's shape - don't worry about it. Dust the top with flour (or cornmeal, or wheatgerm, or...) then leave to proof for a further two hours (alternatively, if you have a microwave you can use a fast proof method which only takes an hour). 


Half an hour before the end of the proofing time preheat your oven to 230C with your dutch oven inside.  You can use any material for your dutch oven (ceramic, cast iron, metal pot) it just needs to be a casserole dish with a lid that can withstand temperatures up to 230C (NB. Many casserole dishes are only covered by the manufacturer up to 200C). I used a Scanpan.


Once the proofing time is up and your oven is at 230C remove your dutch oven from the oven and drop the bread inside - same way up. Cook with the lid on for 30 minutes then remove the lid and cook for a further 15 minutes.


Voila!


Fast Proof Method (1-hour proof)


Place folded dough round into a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel then with another dry tea towel. Microwave on high for 25 seconds. Leave it for 5 minutes to rise (I just leave it in the microwave with the door closed - not sure if that makes any difference or not - but I figure its a warm draft-free place). After 5 minutes microwave for another 25 seconds. Leave it to rise for another 55 minutes. Then bake as per above.

Photo Op

Just some nice photo's of the girl at home in Huia...

More Kahawai

Joel - quite the hunter gatherer these days...

On the menu

The puree madness has worked out well. Elsie it seems will eat basically anything - like a little Labrador...


Accepted foods:

• Kumara
• Pumpkin
• Parsnip
• Carrot
• Potato (mixed with a sweeter veg)
• Apple
• Pear
• Mango (but needed help to pick it up as slippery!)
• Baby rice / Farex (but only mixed with breast milk or other purees
• Broccoli (only mixed with other stuff)
• Cauliflower
• Peas
• Corn
• Peach
• Penne Pasta (great for grabbing)

Rejected Foods:

• Avocado
• Broccoli

Solids

Still going well. We invested in this bib which is more reminiscent of a raincoat really...

Puree Madness

Elsie'eating is going really well. I was looking forward to hitting the supermarket this week and making her up a few different purees to expand her repertoire other than kumara, pumpkin, parsnip, apple, pear.


I think I may have got a little carried away....

Kahawai Curry

I cooked the kahawai Joel brought back from Great Barrier tonight into a rather tasty curry. Despite the relatively short ingredient list this tasted really good! It's going on the high rotation recipe list!

Kahawai Curry

ingredients:
1 pound boneless, skinless fish fillets
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 onion, grated on large holes of box grater
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 fully ripe tomato, diced or 1 1/2 cups canned diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon chili powder (cayenne)
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
1-2 fresh chili peppers, cut in half lengthwise

directions:

1. Wash the fish and pat very dry. Cut the fish into 2-inch pieces.

2. Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat and swirl in the oil. When the oil is heated, add the onion, ginger and garlic. Turn the heat to medium-low and let the aromatics cook slowly. Saute until very fragrant, about 5 minutes. Take care not to let it burn!

3. Add the tomato and saute for another 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Use your spatula and smash the tomatoes a bit, to break them up.

4. Add the garam masala, chili powder, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes. This is the masala (spice base).

5. Turn the heat to medium-high. Pour in the coconut milk and the water. When the mixture comes to a good boil, add in the fish and cook for 4 minutes or so, until the fish is cooked through.

Four Generations

Four Generations

Here are some snaps of the four of us in Taranaki. What a special few days we had.

Elsie practicing her sitting with Grandma Marjan

Elsie and her Great Grandmother

I really appreciated spending some quality time with my Grandmother - especially as we got lots of time on the drive up and down. I also loved the way that Elsie and Grandma were just enamoured with each other. Here are some things that I learnt about my Grandmother:

• I learnt that while she'll often not have room to finish to her dinner she always has room for dessert
• I learnt that she never eats her vegetables and you can't make her - even by adding things like blue cheese and walnuts to a salad. Nope.
• I learnt that when she was a child she was prescribed a glass of wine per day by her doctor. This was because she looked sickly. She wasn't sickly, she was tough as old boots. But because she was pale and skinny they prescribed her the wine. She used to have it sweetened with sugar.
• I learnt that whenever you offer Grandma a top up of her wine she always says "I never say no". I also learnt that this is true.
• I learnt the reason that her nickname is Lein (phonetically pronounced like a short 'lean') even though her name is Zacharina Adriana. I could never work out where this nickname came from or why her New Zealand friends called her 'Lyn'. How does one get from Zacharina to Lyn? Well it turns out that Grandma was named after her own Grandmother who was also called Zacharina Adriana. My great great grandmother was teased at school because there is a word that sounds very similar to Zacharina that actually means 'miserable sod' in Dutch. So my great great grandmother appointed herself a nickname that had absolutely nothing to do with Zacharina. That name was Lein. Then when my Grandmother was named after her Grandmother the family also continued to use the nickname. Mystery solved!
• I learnt that we have exactly the same hands. Mum calls them witchy boney fingers. Grandma and I prefer to call them elegant. 

Great Barrier Island

It was great to see Joel again when we both got back to Auckland on Sunday. Here are some of Joel's snaps from Great Barrier Island...

Splish Splash

Now that Elsie is sitting up (albeit in a wobbly way) she can play with toys in the bath (or eat the flannel). Today at Mum and Dad's she really seemed to notice the bath water and she shunned her favourite bath toy (Elmer the Elephant FYI) in favour of splashing her hands repeatedly on the water. She was having such a great time I had to telephone Joel on Great Barrier and update him (seriously...)

I tried to take a photograph but it's hard to capture splashing when you don't know when there's going to be a splash...stinky old grainy iphone photos too...oh well - I still think these are really cute

Choux Pastry Masterclass

Buoyed by the success of yesterday's Rough Puff Masterclass and with more bad weather in Taranaki we girls decided to continue on with a Choux Pastry Masterclass. This is the stuff that you use to make cream puffs and chocolate eclairs etc.

My mum is the cream puffs master. Whenever, we had to 'take a plate' to any kind of school or sport function Mum's backstop recipe was cream puffs. They were the things that she knocked out without needing to think, always had the ingredients in the cupboard (there's always a bottle of cream in the fridge in Taranaki...), and she knew the recipe would always work. Mum's cream puffs are a thing of beauty. Huge, light, airy and reliably overfilled - impossible to eat elegantly. Mum's classic was to fill with whipped cream and serve dusted with icing sugar. Her other variation was filled with homemade custard and topped with chocolate icing (my favourite). Today we broke with tradition and did the classic chocolate eclair combo (melted chocolate on top, whipped cream inside). You can see Grandma doing the chocolate topping in the photo. No idea how she got that chocolate around her mouth though...

Anyway, on with the recipe...


Here is what the recipe said:


Original Recipe Ingredients:


1 cup water
100g butter
1 cup flour
3 eggs


Method:


Combine butter and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove pan from heat, add flour (all in one go) and beat with a wooden spoon (don't ask me why just do as your told) until the flour is incorporated and the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly inbetween. Spoon onto a lightly greased oven tray and bake at 200C for 30min then lower temperature to 120C for 15 min until dry.


But here's what actually happened...


We weighed the butter and put it in the pot. Mum then produces this frankly TINY 1970's Temuka teacup from the cupboard and says "This is what I use to measure the flour and water when I make cream puffs". I flatly refuse to use the Temuka cup.  I don't have my own Temuka teacup! I'm worried about not being able to replicate successful baking in my own home in the absence of the Temuka teacup. Besides, everyone knows that a 'cup' is 250ml - and I'm looking at this Temuka Teacup thinking 'this looks a bit small'. Mum persists, I stand firm and produce a measuring jug. In my mind I'm thinking that perhaps this is going to be the best ever batch of cream puffs Mum has ever cooked because of my helfpful and accurate intervention.  I measure 250ml of water and add it to the butter. Then I use the measuring jug to measure a cup flour. Mum is still grumbling about the Temuka Teacup. I'm still quietly confident. I know how to measure ingredients. I'm an accurate cook. I'm a Pharmacist dammit.


The cream puffs work - but they are not as glorious as normal. About half the size and not light enough. Mum says it's because I didn't use the damned Temuka Teacup. So I took the Temuka Teacup and measured how much water and flour it actually holds. Here's the recipe that Mum has actually been cooking for the past 30 odd years:


Mum's actual recipe:


130ml water
100g butter
110g flour
3 eggs


Method as above.


Or as Mum quite sensibly points out we could just have added an additional egg to the batch we made. So the adjusted recipe would be:


250ml water
100g butter
1 proper cup of flour
4 eggs


Mum also says one should never cook with a Pharmacist.

Working those Uggs

Well I think she is. All wrapped up for the Taranaki weather

Bearnaise Sauce

Thought I would put the Bearnaise sauce recipe we made up here. Only because we left out half the fancy ingredients (you can't get fresh tarragon, chervil or shallots in most NZ supermarkets) so it's a real store cupboard recipe but it worked and tasted good.


Ingredients:


1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion (should have been shallot)
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
Sprig of thyme
Piece of bay leaf
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt Pepper
1 egg yolk
125g butter


Method:


Cut 125g butter into small pieces. Leave it at room temperature


Put the onion, tarragon, thyme, bay and vinegar in a saucepan (I've left out the thyme and bay and it still tasted good). Reduce volume by about 2/3. Mix the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water (just room temp water from tap). Remove pan from heat and place over hot water (a bain marie), add egg and water mixture to vinegar and herbs and whisk until thickened. Then start adding butter, slowly, one cube at a time to start then faster once you progress a bit. Add all the butter. Season with salt, pepper, more tarragon if needed. Voila!

Another terrible photo - but the Steak Bernaise was fab

Rough Puff Pastry Masterclass

The weather was pretty poor today - miserable with a nasty cold wind. So Mum decided to give me a "Rough Puff" pastry masterclass. You always hear TV chefs saying that they would never make puff pastry - too much faffing about - and far easier just to buy the all butter stuff from the shops. I always subscribed to this theory but in the back of my mind I've known that my Mum has always made her own puff pastry. And she's not really a lady that would bother with something that took forever. Her secret?  Rough Puff! Marjan says that she would never bother to make proper puff pastry - personally I don't know the difference but this version was certainly really fast to make.


Here's how you do it:


Ingredients:


70 - 100g cold butter
100g flour
Pinch of salt
Water to bind


Basically its all about the ratio of butter to flour. You can just increase this recipe proportionately using a ratio of 0.7-1 : 1, butter:flour, respectively. We used 90g butter with 100g flour. It made a small amount - enough for the top of a pie - but you'd need to double it if you wanted to do a base too.


Method:


Divde the total amount of butter into four. Put the flour in a food processor with a pinch of salt and cube in the first quarter of your butter. Blitz until you have a breadcrumb texture (like scones). Slowly add water and process until it comes together into a ball (just a teeny tiny bit of water).


Turn out onto a floured bench. Roll your pastry out, pushing the rolling pin in the direction straight ahead of you into a long oblong shape. Dust with more flour to stop it sticking to the rolling pin / bench as required.


Once you have rolled it out take your second quarter of butter and chop small pieces of butter over 2/3 of your pastry oblong. 


Fold the pastry into thirds; fold the 1/3 without any butter into the centre first, then fold over the other end


Give your pastry a quarter turn


Roll out into another long oblong. At this stage you can probably see yellow dots in your pastry where the pieces of butter were. Continue to fold into thirds, give a quarter turn, then roll again until you can't see any more yellow patches and it looks nice and evenly incorporated. For us, this only took about two or three goes.


Once the butter is nicely incorporated, roll out again and chop the third quarter of butter over two thirds of your pastry oblong. Roll and turn a couple of times until evenly incorporated as above.


Rest the pastry for 30mins (longer is fine) in the fridge. This first rest is because the pastry becomes quite difficult to work with otherwise. Marjan says you must have both rests!


Then roll into an oblong and incorporate the final quarter of your butter as above.


Rest pastry in fridge until needed.


The whole process took us about 20 minutes (plus resting). It was easy rolling out. Each long oblong was probably about the thickness of a $1 coin - or as if you were rolling out the pastry to cook with I suppose. Easy peasy.


We used the pastry to make a pear tarte tartin which we ate for dessert after our steak bearnaise (Marjan made the bearnaise sauce). Oui oui! 

Pear Tarte Tartin

The photo is terrible but the tarte was great - and pastry was perfect. I've promised myself that I will never buy shop bought pastry again. This really was too easy. The only thing you need to do is have a little bit of forward planning. Marjan says it's best to knock out your pastry in the morning when the kitchen is nice and cold. Also, what's great is that you can make exactly the amount you need - as Marjan points out - pastry doesn't keep well in the fridge!

Orecchiette

Today we tried to make Orecchiete for dinner. The idea was simple. Make large orecchiette, fill them with pesto, bake and serve with shaved parmesan.

The recipe is simple - but calls for semolina as well as the usual 00 flour:

Ingredients:
200g 00 flour
100g semolina
Salt
Method:
Mix together flour, semolina and a pinch of salt and heap into a mound on the work surface. Make a well in the centre, add a little warm water and mix to a firm, elastic dough. Knead well, then shape into long rolls 2.5cm in diameter. Cut into sections and drag tham, one at a time, slowly over the work surface using the tip of aknife to form small shells. Put each shell upside down on the tip of your thumb and press it down on the work surface to accentuate it's curvature.

The only thing was that we just couldn't get the hang of making the shapes. In the end we gave up and mum whipped up a batch of fresh pasta that we used to make ravioli instead.


After dinner I continued to mess around with the original orecchiette dough - I couldn't make the large shapes but I do think that I became a dab hand at the little ones!  They are currently drying so I haven't tasted them yet.

Ladies head to the Naki

Today the drive to Taranaki. Even though I was all packed last night it was still a mission getting myself and Elsie up this morning and into the car. I very nearly decided to skip the solids and just breastfeed her for convenience but decided to give her a big breakfast in the end. So it was up, nappy, breastfeed, change clothes, entertain her in bouncer, me shower and dressed, Elsie solids, clean up, entertain Elsie, put her down, dismantle and pack highchair, pack her bedding, pack my toiletries, Elsie was crying by this stage so I'm carrying her around and down to one arm now, empty compost, rubbish and recycling out, tidy kitchen, pack Elsie's lunch, dishwasher on, laundry hung out, leave cat food for neighbor, car packed, cat out, alarm on, off!


Here is Elsie having her breakfast before the drive. She seems to like it as she is licking it off the highchair tray..

I haven't done much driving for a few years and I'm really bad at it. So I was pretty nervous. I stopped in Titirangi to fill up and check the car. Petrol in. Bonnet up. Where's the dipstick? Oh well, Ill check the water. Still can't find it. Top up the windscreen washer stuff. Still can't find the dipstick. Look around - no one very likely to help. Systematically search engine left to right, back to front. Can see where oil goes in. Surely the dipstick must be near? Nope. So embarrassing. Had to go into the petrol station and ask someone to come and help me check the oil. Can't believe I've become one of those women!


An hour behind schedule I finally roll up to Grandma's house. Elsie has been a superstar and stayed awake nearly the whole way to the Northshore - just napping for the last 10mins. Inside, a cup of coffee for me and a breastfeed for Elsie and we are off!  Sheesh, I remember the days when hitting the road was easy.


The drive was fabulous, good weather and hardly any traffic. I gradually got my mojo back as we progressed South - now I'm back to thinking I'm some kind of formula One superstar. Me and the rest of New Zealand.  Elsie slept all the way to Pirongia where we stopped for lunch.


We had quite a long stop here. Elsie was in a great mood! Grandma was awesome too - basically skipping out of the car and into the cafe (walking stick left firmly under her carseat). We gave Elsie a breastfeed and then I gave her some solids. I was a bit nervous - I've never fed her solids in public before. I put a bib on her and a muslin cloth over me, sat her on my knee and went to it. She ate it all up. What a good girl. Then she got to have a nice long kick about on the sofa's at the cafe while Grandma and I finished our lunch. Elsie gurgled and smiled at everyone as they entered and left the cafe. She had the whole of Pirongia eating out of her hand by the time we left!


Novice Mother Note: Cafes have highchairs. I hadn't realised this at the time. Would have been easier than having squirming baby on my lap smearing food all over me while trying to act like I knew what I was doing.


Usually when we drive to Taranaki we have to stop and feed Elsie again at Mokau - which is an hour away from Taranaki - but today Elsie was just happy to roll on through. We made it all the way home! That's a five hour drive with only one stop and no crying. Big ups to the little girl. Grandma couldn't see Elsie from where she was sitting in the car and she kept panicking me by saying "Are you sure you didn't leave Elsie in Pirongia Dear?". A quick check of the rearview mirror reassured me that we hadn't left her behind - she was just being a very perfect baby.


We arrived in New Plymouth at 6pm after leaving Grandma's house at 11am. So not bad going really. Elsie continued to smile and play away happily with Grandma while I unpacked, set up her bed and pureed some veg for her. I couldn't believe this as normally this time of day is arsenic hour not least after all day in a car seat. But Grandma seemed to have the magic charm with Elsie - she just couldn't smile at her Great Grandmother enough. Lovely for Elsie, lovely for me, lovely for Grandma. Great day.

Home Alone 2

Lunch while the cat's away

Also, I was trying to capture the beautiful sounds in Huia. Not sure if you can hear the birds in this video clip - I'm still getting my head around working with video. Anyway, the point is it was another gorgeous sunny winter's day and the cat and I got ourselves a nice spot there in the sun listening to the birds. Elsie had a rare 2-hour nap. Bliss!

Sunshine!