Boxing Day with the twits

We had our orphan's Christmas lunch food marathon this year with the usual suspects this year, which left my sisters (aka The Twits) to their own devices for the day. To make up for the fact that we "Ruined their Christmas" by not spending it together, Neil and I had them round for Boxing Day lunch.


We knew straight away what we were going to serve:

• Cherry tomato, bocconcini & pesto tartlets
• Neil Perry's succulent chicken with tzatziki (from Good Food)
• Spinach, walnut, goats cheese and pomegranate salad with lemon vinaigrette
• And Lee bought around her specialty - vegetarian couscous salad.

And what's Christmas (or Boxing Day) without a decadent sweet treat like Blueberry cheesecake!

Post-dinner (and once the food had settled a bit) we headed down to Double Bay for a kick around with Neil's new football. It was a great day!

Gingerbread: Take 2

I'm stubborn when it comes to cooking and wasn't about to be beaten by something as simple as gingerbread... so the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to make the liquid base. Then during our weekly trek to the supermarket a few hours later I picked up a lamington tin... this was a round I was going to win!

Since gingerbread batter is so thick, I made sure that this time when I tested the cake for doneness I put the skewer in horizontally through a crack in the top. I found that even with the shallower pan, it still had a bit more to go, and I ended up adding 15 minutes to the cooking time.

Round 1 result vs Round 2 result

The cake was lighter than expected and the cinnamon sprinkled on top (which I was going to leave out) was 'the icing on' the icing on the cake. I don't think this is going to last long in the tin...

I really am my grandmother's grand-daughter

For my 21st birthday, Nana as always, took charge of baking the cake. The request was for 'the usual' - chocolate - which Nana could churn out whilst sleepwalking with both hands tied. I arrived home from Auckland (where I was studying) and a few nights later we had a big dinner at Mum's. The end of the meal came and out came the cake - two layers of Nana's signature chocolate cake sandwiched with mock cream and topped with a thick layer of chocolate icing and coconut. It was perfect as always... but Nana was first to point out it 'wasn't the cake she had been planning'. You see, Nana had tried not one, but FOUR different recipes to make the perfect birthday cake and each attempt had ended up in the bin. It was too dry, or didn't rise high enough, or an ingredient was omitted... Mum was shocked to hear she had thrown away completely edible cakes because they weren't up to Nana's very high cake standards and we all had a good laugh at Nana's kitchen perfectionism.

Well, after last week's icing disaster (which was very close to being a 'bin' moment), I've just returned from throwing away an attempt at Gingerbread with Lemon Glace Icing from the August 1986 issue of The Australian Women's Weekly.

My first mistake was to substitute the required pan size. The recipe called for a lamington pan, which I didn't have, so I just lined a round tin. My second (and most fatal) mistake was not adjusting the cooking time to suit a deeper baking tin. As with all gingerbread batters, this one was quite 'dry' so when I tested the cake, the skewer came out nice and dry and I pulled it out to cool. It took almost an hour for it to sink, but I blamed it on a careless transfer to the wire rack. I went ahead and iced the cake thinking all would be okay... but instead of cutting out a photo-worthy piece, I ended up with a 'cooked on the outside raw on the inside' slice worthy of nothing more than the wheelie bin downstairs.

So I took my lead from the original kitchen perfectionist and bundled the whole lot into a plastic bag and into the bin. if there was any doubt I was cut from Nana's apron cloth it's gone now. I just hope my next attempt(s) don't end up in the wheelie bin as well!

A 50/50 success on the biscuit front

I bought some new kitchenalia this week - two cookie cutters (a dog bone and a foot), a rolling pin and some measuring cups - so I was looking for a new-old recipe to try them out on. I figured biscuits were the way to go, and found a recipe for Vanilla Glaze biscuits in Nana's recipes. I stayed true to the biscuit recipe, but did do a small modification to the glaze... adding pure orange essence just because I hadn't used it in a while.

The baking part was easy, but when it came to the glaze things came a little unstuck with the first batch. As you can see, the glaze cracked while it was firming in the oven. I put too much faith in the timer and wandered off instead of watching their progress... ooops. The second batch went a lot better, with the glaze firming in two minutes (rather than the four that made the other lot ugly). The taste test (still warm from the oven... the only way I'll eat biscuits) was passed and I was forced to go in for a second - just to check the cracked ones were edible of course.

Banana-na Cake

Nana's a prolific banana cake baker. Every time I stayed at nana's she'd always have one sitting on the bench to be taken home to Auckland. Most of the time it made it back intact, but once or twice we'd get hungry on the way home and eat a slice. Work lunches that next week were the best! I delved through Nana's recipes positive I'd come up with at least one banana cake recipe, but on my first pass I came up empty handed. Then... success! I'd put a pile of recipes aside in my 'to try' pile and 'Bella's Favourite Banana Cake' was among them.
Our hopeless oven did cause a few problems, with the cake taking 1hr 15 rather than 45 minutes to cook. I was a bit worried about the result, but it turned out perfectly! It was a high, moist cake that wasn't 'soggy' in the middle or on the bottom.
I had a few limes left over from dinner the night before (mmm Frangelico and lime on ice), so made a tart lime icing with the zest and juice of two limes.

Delish!

Cooking a "decent dinner" for the twits

The twits (aka my beloved sisters Amy & Lee) made the mammoth journey from Manly into 'unsafe' Surry Hills just to eat my food today. I was touched... really!

I was told it had to be a 'decent meal otherwise we're not coming'. With such expectations to live up to I got up early and hit the Pyrmont Growers Market with Sarah & Joh. The menu came together pretty easily as we explored the stands. A big bag of the most summery tasting vine-ripened tomatoes and a large bunch of basil were quickly earmarked for bruschetta.
A few stalls along I found some green beans and bright, firm capsicums, so they were put down for the veg part of the meal. A huge ciabatta loaf and some creme fraiche also went into my bags. Neil scored some beautiful smoked shortcut bacon, and I also got a huge bag of broccoli and some Lemon Myrtle pasta. Yum! Breakfast was a hard choice, but I managed to narrow it down to a large, sultana-filled snail from the patisserie.

A trip to the fishmonger with the cripple (aka Neil) in the afternoon yielded four nice red snapper fillets which would be steamed with lime wedges and a basil leaf for the main.

I wanted dessert to be something a bit special that I hadn't tried before, so I decided on a chocolate and apricot tart that Sarah had made for Andre's birthday dinner in June (pic below). We hunted high and low for the recipe in her vast collection of mags, and finally found it in Delicious.

So the menu in the end was...
Tomato bruschetta (ciabatta brushed with leftover roasted garlic, diced tomatoes, shredded basil and Horopito oil)
Red snapper with capsicum sauce
Green beans, red & yellow capsicum and cherry tomatoes
Chocolate & apricot tart with creme fraiche

And the twits ate every bite!

The pasta disaster that turned into a winning dinner!

We've had a packet of Barbushco Lemon Myrtle Fettuccine sitting in the cupboard awaiting the perfect sauce since our June excursion to the Good Food and Wine Show. This weekend I searched high and low for the perfect sauce recipe that would show off the flavour of the lemon myrtle, but everything I found was either heavily oil or cream based.

This pasta called for a light sauce and just a few veges to let the subtle lemon myrtle flavour shine through.

So here's what I came up with....

Lemon Myrtle Fettuccine with Broccoli & Mushrooms
250g lemon myrtle fettuccine
1/2 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 medium head of broccoli, chopped
4 large mushrooms, sliced
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup white wine
100ml cream
Salt & pepper to season

• Saute onions and garlic in a large frying pan until soft. Add broccoli and mushrooms and cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes.
• Add stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Sprinkle over zest and add wine. Stir to combine and leave to simmer for a further 10 minutes or until the liquid reduces by half.
• Cook the pasta in boiling water until al dente.
• Add cream to the sauce and simmer for 2-3 minutes or until sauce has thickened. Season to taste.
• Drain pasta and return to the pasta pot. Pour over the broccoli and mushroom sauce and stir to combine.

To be honest, I thought it was going to be a disaster, but it was REALLY, really good. So try it...