Happy Birthday Queenie

The first Monday in June is a public holiday in New Zealand to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. It's our last long weekend until Labour day at the end of October and pretty much marks the beginning of a dreary winter. What better way to celebrate than to have an afternoon tea served on fine china. Tiaras compulsory of course.

We had a lovely range of goodies including pikelets with cream & jam, little bread cases filled with a cheesey corn mixture and topped with tomato, chocolate cake and club sandwhiches. My contribution to the tea was something quick and easy because I was going out the night before and didn't have much time to bake. I made my reliable, tried and tested orange cake. It's one of those ones where you bung everything in the food processor - no creaming required and best of all it doesn't even need icing. I've blogged about it before and you can find the entry.
here

Mama's Got A Brand New Bag #2

I wrote this random post and filed it away in draft but since I've not been baking much lately I figured it was time for this little piece of randomness to be used.

Some time ago I had a day to myself in Wellington, my home town. Well actually Upper Hutt is my home town but Wellington is where I worked for over 15 years. They say you can't beat Wellington on a good day. Unfortunately the day I visited was drab and drizzly. This is a photo I took of Wellington harbour from the bus to Upper Hutt looking out towards Oriental Bay.


Here's a look at the sea from the east coast of New Zealand, this time looking across to Kapiti island. This was on my bus trip home to Palmerston North.



I had a lovely wander around Wellington and took the opportunity to snap a few photos. Here's a sculpture on Featherston Street that caught my eye.


And here's a picture of one of New Zealand's cultural icons - buzzy bee. It's right beside the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere.


It's quite appropriate that Buzzy Bee is not far away from "the beehive" - our parliament building.


I did a little shopping at Moore Wilson's which is an Aladdin's cave of foodie accessories. When I spied the little blow torch in my favourite shade of turquoise and at a reasonable price I just had to have it; similarly the lime green kitchen timer. I usually use the timer on my microwave but many's the time I've either forgotten to put the timer on or wanted to use the microwave for something else in the middle of baking. My new timer is magnetic and will stick to the fridge. It's also big enough to take with me if I leave the room to go update my Facebook page or whatever else might be on the agenda for the day. Here's a tip for you re timing in general which is quite useful. As you put your cake in the oven, note down the time on a piece of paper. Sure it won't help you if you leave the room and get distracted by something but it's a good standby if you are in the kitchen and had forgotten to put the timer on. The tea towels - well they're in my favourite colours and I couldn't pass them by. Lastly some Maldon sea salt which has been smoked - I've not tried it yet and I'm sure it'll be good although I'll be judicious about what I use it on/in. Once I made a rogan josh curry which called for paprika but all I had was Spanish smoked paprika. I can tell you it does NOT have any place in a curry and it's a fusion combination that doesn't work. I am the laughing stock of my Indian friends who take great joy in reminding me of my faux pas.


If you are in doubt about my favourite colours check out my shoes....

What's in a name?

My mother and I enjoy a good play on words and are also known for using malapropisms. It’s our greatest fear that one day we’ll say something and people won’t “get” the humour and think we are just stupid like a certain US ex-President. When I was growing up we always referred to Rhubarb as Rupert and a popular winter dessert in our household was Rupert Crumple. Today I present to you a very tasty Rupert cake recipe.

I had a large amount of cream left over from a dinner party and thought it would be a good idea to use it up in a cake that perhaps called for buttermilk in keeping with my well publicised theory that dairy is pretty much interchangeable. My mother-in-law had given me some rhubarb from her garden so I searched for rhubarb and buttermilk and came up with a recipe from Allrecipes.

I read a lot of the reviews which mentioned cutting down the sugar, upping the rhubarb, adding oats to the topping and adding extra spices so I decided to tweak the recipe and see how it turned out. I’m pleased to say that this is definitely a keeper. It’s a very moist and tender cake, probably on account of all that wonderful fat from the cream. Usually I don’t know how well cakes keep because more often than not I take my baking efforts to work and there are never any leftovers. Most recently I baked this cake for my father-in-law’s birthday and it was eaten over a long weekend. If anything the cake got moister.

Rhubarb and Ginger Cake
Makes a 9" x 13" cake

Ingredients
½ cup butter (4 oz)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup cream (or milk) soured with the juice of half a lemon or 1 tablespoon of white vinegar
4-5 cups sliced rhubarb
½ cup crystallised ginger washed (to get the sugar off), and sliced (optional)

Topping
¼ cup butter (2 oz)
1 cup brown sugar (very lightly packed)
½ cup rolled oats (regular, not quick cooking or steel cut)
1 tsp cinnamon

Method
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add egg, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon and beat well
Into a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt
Add dry ingredients alternately with cream to the butter and sugar mixture.
If desired toss the rhubarb in a little flour (I omitted this step with no ill effect)
Add the sliced rhubarb and ginger
Spoon into a lined and greased 13” x 9” cake pan
Combine butter, brown sugar, rolled oats and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake at 350 degrees F/180 degrees C for 40 minutes or until cake tests done.


This is the cake before going into the oven - just use your imagination for how delicious it looked after baking. I'm sure it would be delicious served warm from the oven with a dollop of cream on the side.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

.... make Yucca!


While living in the US we we were introduced to a wonderful party drink called yucca (yucka) and despite having an abundant supply of lemons I'd never actually gotten around to making some of my own. The weekends have been sunny and the pool has been hovering around 30-31 degrees celsius/88 degrees fahrenheit - perfect conditions for a nice refreshing batch of yucca or as I like to call it "electric lemonade".

I think what had put me off making yucca until now was the fact that the original recipe calls for a 5th of vodka (750 mls) and unless you have company that's just a little too much alcohol for two people. Also, I've been unable to find a large enough glass jar. I scaled the recipe down by about a quarter and use an empty Ocean Spray Cranberry juice jar which works pretty well.

Here's the recipe:

Yucca Cocktail

Ingredients
175 mls vodka - approximately 6 fluid ounces
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Ice
3-4 large lemons, deseeded and chopped small enough to fit through the mouth of your jar
A large glass jar with a wide mouth lid

Method
Mix vodka and sugar in the jar
Add lemons and ice
Wrap in a towel and shake until the sugar dissolves and the towel is starting to stick to the jar

Serve over ice in a tall glass
Enjoy

A Viola for Valentine's Day

I feel like a big old blog fraud because I haven't posted since last year or participated in any blog events. Just as well I hadn't made any new year's resolutions about posting more often. This past weekend I invited my friend Marti around for dinner because her husband was out of town and I thought she might like company on Valentine’s Day.

On the menu was Chicken Marbella which is a classic recipe that never goes out of date and is a great make ahead party dish. You can google it and find a frillion entries about it including one by my cooking hero Ruth Pretty. I served the chicken with chunky cut, pan fried potatoes seasoned with my current favourite condiment - smoked Marlborough sea salt from the Smoke and Spice Company. This spice blend reminds me a little of McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning and I highly recommend it, especially for steak or lamb on the barbeque. It is also great on fresh tomatoes on toast - Vogel's of course. For a bit of green we had some steamed green beans sprinkled with toasted flaked almonds.

Dessert was something quick and easy – my mum’s lemon mousse(previously posted under a Hey Hey It’s Donna Day entry) which I served in mini brandy snap baskets and decorated with canned boysenberries. The combination of sweet yet tangy mousse, crispy brandy snaps and juicy berries was fantastic. Marti asked for seconds which was a nice compliment.

My husband and I aren’t much into Valentine’s day and we didn’t even buy each other a card this year but look what I got……


This little pansy had self-seeded and was growing in the middle of our back lawn. My sweetie mowed around it especially for me - wasn't he thoughtful.

Joe Crow Chicken

As photos go, this is as uninspiring as they get, but the recipe is completely worth it.

We recently purchased a new barbeque for the summer season - a big stainless steel mothership of a barbeque. My role is the preparation of the food rather than the actual cooking and I have a major issue in that all my husband wants to cook on the barbeque is sausages, steak, meat patties and the occasional shrimp on a skewer. All in all a barbeque is just a giant and expensive kitchen appliance. My goal this summer is to encourage him to be a little creative and this recipe was my first attempt. First I had to get over my aversion to using chicken meat other than breasts. Yes I know that thigh meat is moister and more succulent than breast meat, but by the time I cut out all the fat and oogey bits, the meat that's left is very messy looking - especially when I forget to buy boned thighs. My tip for any like-minded chicken choppers is to use lots of minced garlic in the marinade to conceal any bits of fat that might be left on the meat.



Tequila Lime Chicken

Ingredients
Chicken
Olive or avocado oil
A generous slosh of tequila (I used Jose Cuervo Gold - don't waste your good Patron or Herradura on this)
Juice of 2-3 limes
A squirt of sweet chilli sauce or some finely sliced fresh red chilli
A handful of chopped coriander/cilantro
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

Method
Place your prepared chicken in a bowl
Add a little oil and mix with the chicken to combine
Add remaining marinade ingredients and leave to marinate for 4-6 hours or even overnight
Cook on the flat plate of your barbeque until done

This would be delicious served with a mango or kiwifruit salsa

Blogging By Mail - 10 Things or Less

Stephanie, from Dispensing Happiness organised another round of her highly popular Blogging by Mail. Blogging by Mail brings back good memories for me because it was a BBM event which was the kick in the pants for me to start blogging. I'll always be thankful to Stephanie for that. This time the brief was "10 items or less". Can you believe that 116 participants signed up for this round?

The wonderful Allison of Sushi Day sent me a box of goodies. She wasn’t sure what she could send from California to New Zealand so opted to fill my box with some of her favourite things. If you are a fan of sushi you really need to check out Allison's blog - it's awesome.

Candy corn: In honour of Halloween. We don’t celebrate it in a big way in New Zealand but the retailers are starting to catch on.

Green tea: Allison packed her favourite brand – Numi Gunpowder Green.

Mochiko: Allison suggested making this into a pudding which you can do in the microwave. I did a bit of googling and came up with a recipe for Mochiko Chicken on the Allrecipes site which sounds mighty tasty.

Inari: I had no idea that these little tofu wrappers came in a canned form and will be keen to try them out.

Coconut water: A favourite of Allison’s boyfriend Son.

Dry roasted edamame: I’ve only ever had fresh edamame before and these little slightly salty snacks are a delicious treat.

Honey Maid Graham Crackers: Allison wasn’t sure if we got these in NZ and she’s right, we don’t. The closest thing would be a digestive biscuit or a superwine. I think these are destined to become a pie crust and I’ll have to pick a typically American pie filling to go on top.

Quadratini Wafers: Made in Italy. Allison warned me that these little not too sweet vanilla flavoured wafers are addictive. She wasn’t wrong. I shared some with my co-workers at afternoon tea time but the rest were all mine and there aren’t any left!

Mixed rice crackers: The perfect snack to have with drinks for a Japanese themed dinner party.

Candy wipes: You might miss these in the photo as they look like a roll of candy but actually it’s little individual wipes which you moisten to use. A great thing to have in my handbag for emergencies.


Thank you Allison for a thoughtful package and of course a big shout out to Stephanie for organising yet another fantastic round of blogging by mail.

If you want to check out what I sent to my swap partner go and visit Melody at The Trap Door.

When’s the next one!