New Zealand Home Cook

The Beaut patch

bonfood — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:41:56 +0000

We have recently got back from a few days lazing at our bach named after the Isle of Beaut, Scotland (my husband ancestors hail from there). It is inland 170km from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, well basically let me tell you it is in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by high mountain ranges (winter ski field is ten minutes up the road), a river, sheep, Llamas, cattle, willow and native trees, it is a restoring backwater.

With no power and bathing choices being; tank water, an outside fire bath or a bucket of river water it is perfect for exploring my off grid side. Admittingly I don’t rough it entirely as well as I like to imagine, usually I am hankering for makeup, a fresh blow dry and high heels after three or four days. It all makes up for it to see LB running barefoot with honey bees and enjoying nature, eating popcorn and hanging out with her friend from Nelson Luca.

Food however makes the whole experience much more pleasurable. Reading, cooking, eating, drinking, sleeping…..then repeat is generally the daily rhythm of the Beaut Patch breaks. We are lucky to have a tiny gas fridge and a gas cooker.

I try to plan meals that are simple enough to make in my Bach kitchen but never plain.

Our first night I cooked a spicy beef and red kidney bean chilli con carne and filled a soft burritos.

RECIPE

Beaut patch Burritos

Ingredients

4 Tablespoons Olive oil
Small Green pepper chopped
One onion chopped
1 garlic clove chopped
250 grams beef mince
1 teaspoon cumin
Pinch of chilli flakes (to taste)
Tomato paste
400 grams tin of chopped tomatoes
400 grams chilli red kidney beans (rinsed if in brine)
Two cups of water while it simmers over the fire
6 Soft burritos
Iceberg lettuce sliced
Chopped tomatoes
Grated cheese
Sour cream
Optional spring onions, advocado

To make

Chop onion and green bell pepper, chop carrot finely, finely chop the garlic.
Heat olive oil over medium heat and add the carrot and onions, cook until softened, this may take 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic and beef mince, fry until browned. Add the cumin and chilli flakes, season a little with salt as you go.
Add the tomato paste and cook off for a minute. Add the tin of kidney beans and the tomatoes, add a cup of water. Bring to the boil, lower heat to a simmer. Leave to cook for 30-50 minutes. The flavours will mingle and develop. Add more water if it gets to dry.
Serve with burritos, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and cheese.

Sometime you need to go far away to appreciate simple honest food. I tastes so much better cooked over the fire, or maybe it fills me with thanks to be eating anything at all so far away from civilisation.

All things pretty and nice

bonfood — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:58:23 +0000

I woke up boxing day feeling energised to be creative. In fact I have been cooking up a storm in the lead up to Christmas even more than usual. It is a luxurious pleasure to have free time and endless warm summer days to cook and bake all those recipes you coveted over the year and make them my own. I have been pushing the boat out and trying some new techniques and recipes I have not made before. If my Strawberry & lime curd cream Puff (photo below) may not look that pretty, it tasted beautiful.

New Zealand’s own home grown cooking celebrity http://www.annabel-langbein.com/tv-series/ has fantastic recipes that are always amazing. This recipe came from her book The Free Range Cook and It turned out almost the same as her photo. I found it easy to make the choux pastry in a saucepan with melted butter, water and flour. It was a bonus I got given homemade lime curd for christmas as she had suggested lemon curd. Rather than let it sit in the pantry for a year (which is what normally happens to random Christmas presents like that) I decided to put it to good use folded into whipped cream. I am not usually a big baker, preferring to cook savoury dishes.

My husband, daughter Lucia and I headed to the Christchurch Botanical Gardens for a picnic. Lucia loved sitting on the picnic rug and opening her new Dora Lunchbox and looking inside to find homemade mayonnaise colesaw, humus & smoked chicken wraps.

I managed to spend over $500 on food in the days leading up to Christmas. Are you shocked? see I had found this stunning picture in my Dish magazine for a Strawberry tart. It had a sweet short crust pastry, filled with a french goats cheese, 500 grams of italian mascarpone, orange liqueur, orange zest, icing sugar then filled with topped fresh strawberries glazed with apricot jam and fresh mint leaves. I also held a cocktail party at my home on christmas eve and catered finger food for 14 people. I will have to save that for another post.

Here is a picture of my exquisite Strawberry tart. It was so much fun to make.

caramelised nuts – walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds

bonfood — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:56:45 +0000

Salty, sweet, crunchy and utterly moorish. I am so proud of myself for finally getting around to making these, now I must stop eating them. I never realised just how easy it is to caramelise nuts.

I have been in love with caramelised nuts for quite a long time, I love caramelised hazelnuts sprinkled over a hot smoked salmon, roasted beetroot & vinagarette leafy salad greens. Today I plan to break these up (once I stop munching on them) and scatter them over a roasted beetroot salad and serve that alongside my onion, thyme and parmesan tart.

I also think these would be just plain lovely served with drinks on Christmas eve in a little bowl. You may like to give everyone their own bowl!.

RECIPE

ratio is up to you to decide, this is how I did it.

Two handfuls or so of walnuts and sliced almonds
2 tablespoons of Extra virgin olive oil
3-4 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
teaspoon of sea salt or to taste
big pinch of cinnamon

heat olive oil gently over a low to medium heat (be careful not to burn)
add brown sugar, sea salt, cinnamon and stir together
add the nuts, cook gently until everything gets thick and sticky.
spread nuts out on to baking paper to cool for ten minutes.
break up into pieces.

apple butter french crepes at bedtime

bonfood — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:25:39 +0000

These were meant to be for afternoon tea, by the time I made the crepe batter, laboriously stood over the hot stove and made each individual crepe, was distracted with household routine, came back to prep and cook the apples, and then lovingly put this simple little dish together, serving time was bed time. I love naughtiness and anyone watching their waistline would have headed straight to bed without these. I smeared the dish in 60 grams of butter, enclosed each rolled crepe with soft cooked apple, sprinkled plenty of caster sugar over the top and dotted with cold cut butter. This was then baked in a hot oven until the crepes went a bit crispy on the edges and the sugar and butter melted into delicious goodness. Luckily my always hungry brother-in-law was around to help eat these all up. I served mine with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Oh la la.

Grateful for Spring

bonfood — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:58:31 +0000

It makes me feel so productive to bake and cook, these are some of the things I have been enjoying …. Blueberry and chocolate bit muffins.

Lentil salad, new season sautéed courgettes, blanched green beans, sweet red onion and feta cheese. Gently tossed in a simple squeeze of lemon juice & my best New Zealand extra virgin olive oil. Season, season, season. The perfect accompaniment to a greek oregano & lemon roast chicken.

Early season tiny broad beans, podded , dressed raw with lemon juice, sea salt and a tickle of olive oil. After a half hour of therapeutic broad bean podding, I decided to put this Haloumi salad together. Not strictly traditional, I have no idea if they eat broad beans in Greece. It was delicious, after some quick googling for further inspiration and desire to keep it as simple as possible; I decided on a tahini, honey, lemon juice & olive oil dressing. The greek haloumi was wonderful fried nice and crispy golden, the trick is too eat the haloumi hot immediately.

A highlight of a recent trip to Wellington, New Zealand was a visit to a Cuisine magazine recommended restaurant http://www.capitolrestaurant.co.nz/ . When I saw the Creamy pumpkin, sage, parmesan and pine nut risotto on the menu I was excited, when it came to the table it was a decadent wet style risotto, which I love. Pure comfort food. I have been dreaming of this risotto ever since, so was even more excited when I came across a recipe for it in an Old Australians Womans Weekly magazine. This version as per my photo below had half a cup of mascarpone and parmesan cheese through it. Definitely not for lettuce leaf eaters!, which I am certainly am not. The recipe was divine.