All posts tagged: to do list

The Demystification of Cheesecake

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Mum always had a few baked goodies in her repertoire. When I lived at home and was asked what caked I wanted for my birthday, “Cheesecake!” is what I would say. Mum would make a GIANT pan of cheesecake. Not typical a family size cheesecake that fits in on a plate or a 23cm (9″) round tin, but a family-reunion size glory that could only be assembled in a roasting pan. Everyone else would have polite obligatory slices, only making a dent in it. I would get to polish off the rest of the cake over the following days. Good times. That was well over a decade ago now and I never once tried making a cheesecake for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat cheesecake, I’ve bought lots of cheesecake and requested them to be made for me too. I guess cheesecake has always been somewhat of a delicious enigma. I add things to my bucket list because I want to understand them and get to know them better. This post is the demystification of cheesecake. …

Flirting with a Russian ballerina

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I’ve always been scared of making pavlova. The crisp but delicate shell and frothy interior threatening to any non-baker. The fancy Russian ballerina name doesn’t help any either. What is it trying to be exactly? Any kind of baking that is more science than art is taboo to me but I was determined to give it a whirl. I put it on my bucket list at the start of summer and I’m glad that I got to conquer it. I was never been a huge fan of pavlova. It is a national treasure here in New Zealand and the dessert kiwis think of fondly in summer. A pavlova melts in the mouth like a cloud and doesn’t require any chewing, just a quick inspection in the mouth to get the flavour and and down it goes. Made mostly from egg whites and sugar, it lacks…substance. After reading many recipes, I settled on Nessie’s recipe from Baking Equals Love. Nessie is a fellow kiwi and an accomplished baker, only recently blogged about her first pavlova. I …

Caprese Salad

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This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event I have started to encourage us to try new food related things. If you have a blog and have tried something new this month, come and join this event. I put Caprese Salad on my Summer To Do List because I always loved the simple, contrasting ingredients. Summer tomatoes + soft milky mozzarella fior di latte + green fragrant basil. It looked easy but I’d never made it before. Since I just made mozzarella fior di latte from scratch, Caprese seemed to be the perfect way to enjoy it. The gist of it: Cut the mozzarella and ripe truss tomatoes into thick slices. Alternate slices on a platter. Tuck fresh whole basil leaves here and there. Finish off with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and black pepper. Dig in with forks 🙂 Check back tomorrow to see what I made with the rest of the mozzarella.

Turn up the heat

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Without a doubt, summer is here. I have been getting up early to get a head start on a mountain of work and to be honest, it’s not so hard when it’s already light. Working hard makes it easy to be wholesome, though I’m sure December will bring plenty of social appointments. It always does. Tofu the bunny likes getting up early but hides away all day in the heat. It’s near impossible to find him in the backyard in the day, but I suspect he’s dug himself a loaf sized trench beneath the bushes or perhaps even under the house to cool off in. Your growing edge is the part of you that is still learning, trying new things and experimenting. It’s the area of your life that you are improving and working on. I find that cooking new things also helps me understand flavours better and why I love or hate certain foods. To push my growing edge as a foodie, I wrote a list of delicious tasks I wanted to achieve over …

Summer is coming and I’m not ready.

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This spring really flew past. I got busy. I was a machine. I slacked off. I did a ton of designing. I designed a new logo. I designed lots of new logos. I settled on one. I designed a bunch of different headers. I haven’t settled on a header yet. Maybe a revolving header subject to my whims will be the way to go? The list I wrote at the start of spring was a little neglected. In the end, list-wise, I didn’t do nearly as well as I wished. I can honestly say that I succeeded in 6 out of the 10 items on my list. Another 2 were attempted and the last 2 I didn’t even attempt. Here’s a summary of my spring to do list. 1. Declutter the kitchen One half done, one half to go. This is the nice half. 2. Build a compost We didn’t consciously build a recycled palette compost bin, but I realised there’s a compost pile living at the bottom of our garden already. It’s currently the heft of …

Declutter the kitchen

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When you live in a rental property, there’s not a whole lot you can do with a poorly laid out kitchen. There is one drawer in our kitchen. One. So we’ve learned to live with that precious drawer. We’ve introduced freestanding drawers into our kitchen and I keep boxes inside my cupboards for various knickknacks that other people might put in drawers. I mean, aren’t drawers just a stack of boxes with handles? I’ve had this set of white corner drawers since I was in high school. It was great in a corner of a teenager’s bedroom, but looked out of place in the middle of our kitchen. It stuck out too much and it didn’t hide enough.We had cookbooks, bags of potatoes and onions, stacks of shopping bags and tablecloths that needed homes. This spring, we added a whole lot of useable space to our kitchen by adding a long buffet/sideboard. I grabbed this from an online auction site and my initial intention was to paint it with blackboard paint. But when we got …

Attempt Mozzarella

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Last week, a friend delivered some raw, organic milk to us. Lucky! They were struggling to get through the milk this week with some family away and the cow producing a whopping four to six litres a day. A day! That’s mind boggling to me. The Koala and I can go through one day’s worth in a week if we try really hard. With that in mind, sharing a milking cow with up to six other households would be wonderful. Still on the cheese making buzz, I tried my hand at mozzarella. Something must have gone terribly awry because the texture wasn’t the mozzarella I was hoping for. Instead, the nubbly, slightly crumbly, cauliflower-like balls firmed up into firm white rubber. Not my finest cheese making moment, but if anyone is looking for cheese that looks like cauliflower, look no further! Still, we grated it and melted it onto home made pizzas: smoked chicken and black olive, smoked salmon and capers. It tasted just fine. I made pizza dough for the first time in forever …

Make Hollandaise Sauce

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I made a ten egg hollandaise sauce once. Don’t be impressed, it wasn’t my intention. Years ago, long before I got into cooking, I tried to make hollandaise sauce. The sauce split on me. The recipe I found had the tip to salvage split sauce by adding it to egg yolks in place of butter. So I took my split sauce and added it to two egg yolks. It failed. So I tried to salvage it again. Ten eggs later, I had ten egg hollandaise sauce. That experience meant that for years, I didn’t attempt hollandaise sauce again for fear it would take ten eggs to get right. Well, it was time to put on my big girl pants and give it another try. Here in New Zealand, Eggs Bennie (Benedict) are held in high regard. On their own or with couple of strips of streaky bacon or smoked salmon and the compulsory toast or toasted English muffin, this dish can be found in cafes in every nook and cranny of the country. It takes …

Halloumi with Balsamic Reduction

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There is an almost unbearable smugness that comes with frying up a piece of home made halloumi. It might be a bit of work, but the satisfaction and the cheese is completely worth the journey. A couple of weekends ago, I roped in my best friend Coco into a day of cheese making. She is more adventurous than I when it comes to cheese, but we have a mutual love of squeaky cheese or halloumi. As a virgin cheesemaker, I didn’t have a single specialty item I needed to make cheese, so instead of buying each new item on it’s own, I opted for the easy way out and bought a Mad Millie Fresh Cheese kit. There are several kits available, but for me, the fresh cheese kit meant quick results so fresh cheese it was. The fresh cheese kit also makes feta, quark, cottage cheese, cream cheese and ricotta. It’s not cheap at $70NZ but the items soon add up when bought individually and at least I knew I have all required pieces. The …

Spring Time Fun Time

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This Spring, my to do list focuses more sorting, new beginnings and the garden with just a few new culinary adventures. Declutter the kitchen Build a compost Plant herbs Get a cast iron frypan Make pesto from scratch Live on $2.25NZ per day for 5 days for charity Make hollandaise sauce Bake something from scratch Make Pâté Make cheese What do you hope to do this Spring?…or Autumn for my northern hemisphere friends.

Winter Can Kiss My Ass

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It’s the last day of winter! Woohoo! Spring officially starts tomorrow here in Auckland and I am super glad to see the end of the cold weather. The start of winter saw The Koala and I return home from our adventure in Thailand and Laos. I got really sick when we arrived home and didn’t come right for about 2 months. So for the first chunk of winter, I barely touched my to do list. It was only in August, the final month of winter that I’ve really felt up to tackling this mini bucket list. It was a mad rush to the finish line and in the end I only failed one entry. Not bad. Here’s a reflection on the list this month. 1. Make Spaghetti alla Puttanesca I always wanted to try this and this winter, I first tasted Spaghetti alla Puttanesca in Pai, Thailand. This may seem strange, but this tiny town in Thailand has surprisingly good food. Since we’ve been back, I’ve made this dish at home several times. I adore anchovies so …

Make Biryani

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Lamb biryani is my regular order when we get Indian food delivered. I was introduced to it a few years ago when an Indian co-worker brought in a huge pot of biryani for his birthday lunch. Even after almost crying due to a whole green chili I mistook for capsicum, I fell in love with the dish. The one bowl wonder is comforting, the mild blend of spices, the slow cooked, super tender meat very appealing. Sadly, not many restaurants offer this dish. I guess it’s because it’s considered peasant food, not restaurant food. It’s time consuming to make and probably not all that popular here in New Zealand. It’s the last week of winter so I’m trying to cross off my winter to do list and last week’s CSA box included both carrots and cauliflower. I decided to attempt a lamb biryani. I roughly followed the recipe from Cuisine Magazine which can be found online here. While the recipe generously suggests this will serve 4, I think it’s more like serves 6 to 8. Even with …

Tame An Ugly Root

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I always wondered what to do with the horrid looking vegetable known as celeriac. I remember seeing them at farmers markets before but never eaten it or tried to cook with it because it was so ugly. I put it on my winter to do list without thinking too hard about where I was going to get it from. As I was getting nearer to the end of winter and still no celeriac in sight, I put out a public plea to see if anyone knew where I could get my hands on one. Natz from my local Nosh came to the rescue celeriac was not only available, but on special that week. How’s that for luck? The celeriac at Nosh were already trimmed and nowhere near the freaky the specimens I’d seen before. From the top, you could almost call it pretty. Since we were having a roast, I decided to mash it since it sounded safe and easy. I carefully sliced off the skin and chopped it up, boiled it and The Koala …

Roast Pork With Crackling

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Ah pork crackling. Crunchy and salty with a layer of slightly gooey richness just below the surface. It’s that still chewy layer that gets me. Crackling shouldn’t ben bone dry and crunchy all the way through. Unctuous and flavoursome, that layer of fat before the meat is glorious. My parents opened a roast dinner shop in Bayswater when I was in high school and I was always spoilt with roast meat sandwiches. We had roast chicken, roast lamb, roast beef and the king of roasts, roast pork with crackling. I didn’t take it for granted if that’s what you’re thinking. After all these years, roast pork is still my number one choice when we get roast dinner takeaways. I’m ashamed to admit I never tried to roast a pork with crackling. Until now. I searched far and wide for the crackling recipes known to man. And then of course, I took the best recipes and I took a few shortcuts. The recipe below is based mostly on the hands down, best recipe you can find …

Apocalypse Spaghetti is for Sluts

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The Koala’s fascination with conspiracies and the end of the world coupled with my love of survival tips and post apocalypse fashion mean that post apocalyptic movies and TV programmes are held in high regard around here. I don’t truly believe that shit is going to hit the fan in our lifetime. But I guess the old adage, “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best” works in this situation. Before shopping day, or before OOOOBY box Tuesday, when I’m scraping together what little fresh food we have to make a meal or even using pantry only or freezer only ingredients, I always think to myself, “I hope society doesn’t crumble tomorrow, I’m not prepared today”. I hope that when it all comes crashing down, we will have a full fridge and pantry. Being city dwellers, there will be little fresh food at the end of days and while looting will be a popular past time, so will eating food from cans. Being able to conjure a few meals from pantry only ingredients is a …

Make French Onion Soup

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I’ve always wanted to try French Onion Soup. I guess it’s the golden cheese and toast topping that sets it apart from other soups. It always looks so rustic and lovely and caramalised onions are delicious so I added it to my to do list at the start of this winter. This winter has not gone well. I’ve been sick for six weeks so far with a cold and then a nasty, lingering cough. As much as I love hibernating in winter, I prefer the choice of hibernation. I jokingly call this quarantine, but I’d trade all these days off work to be well again. I get chest and back pains if I sit or lie a certain way, or strain my chest muscles the tiniest bit. I feel pathetic. I can’t open tight jars, I can’t cut pumpkin or kumara, I can’t fill the kettle to the top and carry it two steps to it’s spot away from the sink, I can’t reach up to get things out of high shelves, I can’t lift a roast …

Cook Curry Goat

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Since I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall’s curry goat episode on River Cottage, I’ve been obsessed with trying curry goat. Curry goat is curry goat. Do not call it goat curry. There’s a difference. I’m not sure what the difference is, but asking for goat curry at any Jamaican eatery is sure to have you ridiculed and branded as a floundering noob. I tried a delicious Carribean curry goat over the summer at Splore Festival (pictured). The food stall was run by catering company Jamaican Me Hungry and the goat was divine (though it could have done with a little food styling). I couldn’t wait another two years to try curry goat again so last week, I made curry goat at home. Goat Meat Goat meat isn’t popular here in New Zealand. No, our prized beast here is lamb. But as tasty as lamb is, it can can be expensive and often reserved for special occasions. I have never cooked with goat meat and I can’t say I’ve eaten it many times, but I’ve enjoyed it every …

Winter to do list

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It is impossible to imagine that winter is starting back home in Auckland. We are finally acclimatising to the the heat of Thailand but due to fly home to the start of winter very soon. Even though it is warm here, I’m glad that I’ve been pondering my winter to do list for quite some time. These are 10 things that I’ve always wanted to eat, cook or experience. 1. Make Spaghetti alla Puttanesca A dish to get promiscuous with. This quick, fiery dish is reputed to be named after the ladies of the night (ie. Whore Pasta). I tasted it for the first time for breakfast in Thailand (of all places) after a night on the turps. It is made using ingredients from the pantry and is a tasty pasta to serve to any sluts in your life. Perhaps wait until after you have all eaten to tell your friends they have just eaten Whore Pasta. They’ll either think it’s funny or hold a grudge. 2. Cook curry goat I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall’s curry …

Autumn To Do List Summary

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As the Autumn season draws to a close it’s hard to believe we’re almost June already. The next few months will fly by and once the silly season hits, it will be over once again. I have this weird sensation over the last few months, that we are hurtling. Time won’t sit still. I feel like I’m in a shopping trolley that’s crashing down a steep hill. The flat nowhere in sight. I want some stillness. Being in Thailand and Laos over the last 4 weeks has been a good mix of stop and go. It’s been hot. Real hot. Not long now until we come home to the emergence of winter. This Autumn as been great. Auckland has had many warm, sunny days. Easter for example was all promise of torrential rain, but turned out to be beautiful blue skies all long weekend. Autumn fashion is hawt. I like tailored stuff more than showing skin. Tailored coats and cute jackets. Smart hats and sexy boots. Dresses, tights and colourful scarves. This Autumn, I wrote …

Try A New Fruit

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On the way to and from Pam Bok Waterfall in Pai, Thailand, there is a farm. Huge cracks in the ground appeared a few years ago (and continue to grow in number) means that the owners can no longer grow as many crops as they used to. With the land deemed worthless and crop production down, this can mean very hard times for a farmer. In a stroke of genius, they have opened up what is left of their farm to the visitors that pass every day to get to the waterfall. After a day of exploring the nearby hot springs, canyon and waterfall by bike, we stopped by the “crack farm” for a refreshing roselle juice. Roselle are a hibiscus flower that look more like rose hip. If you have had hibiscus juice before, it is similar to that, if not, I guess it tastes like a watered-down glass of cranberry juice. As the only visitors there and just one table, you really feel like you are guests in someones home. Our friendly, Thai-speaking …