Baking With Not So Small Children

Baking With Not So Small Children

It’s a testament to my optimistic nature, the triumph of imagination over reality, but somehow the stupidity of baking with a two year old became the joy of baking with a ten year old.

The children are in varying stages of COVID recovery at the moment, so before they arrived for the holidays, I stocked the house with Christmas Holiday levels of comfort food, games, and film-based distractions. 

One of the things I had planned was some baking because after three years in La Sombra I am just getting to grips with the oven ... and misery loves company.

In my defence, my oven is gas-powered and had the added spice of being delivered without a single number on the temperature dial: It has all the character traits of a blast furnace.

So, I decided to enlist the help of the erstwhile hazard child in perfecting a brand new vegan cake. 

Ironically, looking back at the previous baking post, this cake did contain tinned pears. Long gone are the days of "they're my favourite" but eight years of cooking with Esme has refined her reactions to perfection.

She is the master of understatement, has the nose of a bloodhound and the discernment of a Michelin inspector, and her approval is now measured by a single deadpan nod. 

I live for that nod.

Esme is my favourite kitchen buddy. She's calm, creative and inspirational, and very, very emo.

So when I invented a cake involving chopped pear, cinnamon and nutmeg I wanted Esme's help to perfect the recipe.

Once we had done our chores, as I did eight years ago (and many times since) I laid everything out on the counter, turned on the oven, took a deep cleansing breath and called Esme into the kitchen.

What happened after that moment is a blur. 

My mixture was wrong: I had gone too hard on the nutmeg and not hard enough with the salt. There was milk where there should have been pear juice and not enough floof powder. 

I felt suitably chastised as I spooned the mixture into the cake tin under her disapproving stare.

As I turned around from the oven though, the emo had fallen away from Esme. There instead was the two year old with a passion for unbaked cake batter, violence and pithy banter.

And she was right about the cake. It was the best one yet.

Sunday, 24 April 2022 Comments: 2

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Meat Free Monday: Beetloaf

Meat Free Monday: Beetloaf

It being scarf and hat weather down here in the southern hemisphere, I was hankering after something earthy, and a bit stodgy, to fill my vegan belleh. After a morning tramping round Zealandia, I somehow managed to do a search on my phone, while pushing both girls on the local swings (because I am multi-tasking QUEEN) and found a very promising recipe over on Oh She Glows for Lentil Walnut Loaf.

I usually give lentil-loaf the side eye, because past experience has taught me that it usually ends up as a vaguely cohesive slab of sawdust and rat droppings. Still, God loves a trier, and I needed comfort food.

As always, my spur of the moment cooking meant I had to get creative with some of the ingredients, so below is the original recipe, with my notes on the right. Also, please note that the instructions on the original are about twelvty hundred steps long, and I don’t have that much patience, so I was a little more efficient with my assembly method.

Beetloaf

2 tins of lentils, drained and rinsed	Off to a good start. I was extra sure to rinse my lentils of that weird foamy liquid that seems to dwell in the tins of all pulses.
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped	We had no walnuts. In fact, we had no nuts of any kind in the house. Instead I used 1 cup pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil	Check
2 cups sweet onion	I used onion. Not entirely sure if they were sweet or not. I was too busy mopping my crying eyes to notice.
3 garlic cloves	Yup, and I made sure ours were bit fat cloves to boot. Because Mediterranean.
1 cup finely chopped celery 1 cup grated carrot	We don’t have celery as a general rule. Right now, I do have a metric ton of beetroot, so I substituted these two ingredients for grated beet.
1/3 cup peeled and grated sweet apple	Check. Except I have to be honest, I didn't peel the apple. Nobody noticed.
1/3 cup dried cranberries (chopped) or raisins	I used raisins. I wasn't sure whether the chopped instruction was supposed to apply to both dried fruit options, but I didn't chop my raisins. I don’t have that sort of time.
2 teaspoons fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)	It’s the middle of winter; safe to say I'm on the dried herbs right now.
1 teaspoon dried oregano	Mine was a generous teaspoon.
Fine sea salt, to taste (I use about 1 teaspoon)	OMG me too!!! It's like our minds are one.
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste	OK, I flat out forgot to add the pepper.
3 tablespoons ground flax	Pretty sure we have never had this in the house. I used 3 tbsp of coarse semolina assuming this was something to do with texture.
1/2 cup oat flour	I used normal, slummy, wheat flour.
1/2 cup spelt bread crumbs (or bread crumbs of choice)	My breadcrumb of choice today was normal bready breadcrumbs.
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)	Not with my children, sunbeam!
For the Glaze: 1/4 cup ketchup	I may have been slightly generous
2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce or apple butter	I toyed with the idea of using marmalade instead, but in the end I just left it out.
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar	I emptied the dribble we had left in the bottle. It was about 2 tbsp. Probably.
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup	Ends on a high! Hashtag nailedit!

Method:

1. Set oven to 180oC and get out food processor. Drain lentils into colander and stick under a running tap.

2. If turning perfectly good future toast into breadcrumbs, do this first. Put in a big mixing bowl.

3. Put onion and garlic into food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Scrape out into a pan, add some oil and salt and set on a low heat to sauté.

4. Rinse the food processor and then add the pumpkin seeds. Pulse until chopped. Add to the pan with the onion and garlic

5. Measure out the raisins, herbs, flour, flax substitute, and add to the breadcrumbs. Go back and add the pepper you forgot.

6. Wonder why you feel the need to visit the toilet. Remember the lentils still under the running tap and turn off tap. Bang colander to drain excess water, grab 2 handfuls of lentils and put in bowl and add the remaining lentils to the food processor. Set to frappé.

7. Check on onion/ garlic/ seeds mix and stir if necessary. I had a few toasty bits in my pan, but these really added to the flavour.

8. Grate apple and beet. Beware the beet spray. Add to mixing bowl.

9. Add lentil paste to bowl and mix everything together.

10. Line a loaf tin with parchment paper. Add the mixture and squish the whole thing down as hard as you can.

11. Mix the glaze mixture together and pour over the loaf. Shove in oven for 60 minutes.

12. Remove from oven. Put on cooling rack for 15 minutes then use the parchment paper to lift out the loaf and allow to cool for as long as you can before cutting.

We ate this with jacket spuds, onion gravy and peas. Frankly it was the perfect winter comfort food, and didn't taste at all of either sawdust or rat droppings.

Oh and PS, I will write about something other than food soon. I am currently processing the terrifying spectre of Olive being 3, which I'm sure we will all laugh about in a few days, once my tears have dried enough for me to type.

Monday, 6 June 2016 Comments: 0

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Meat Free Monday: Entertaining

Meat Free Monday: Entertaining

This is not a post for vegans, this is a post for people who are lumbered with/ overjoyed to be catering for vegans, and would like to look amazing. 

Introducing more vegan meals to the family, is a part of my gradual move from vegetarian to vegan. For my own sanity, it needs to be gradual, because while the move away from meat being an easy one – don’t ask, it involves Edwina Curry, a bacon sarnie and a major epiphany – I find the idea of never again eating seafood utterly fucking terrifying.

I'm also horrendously bad at planning ahead when it comes to meals, which it turns out is rather important when it comes to having some of the go-to ingredients for vegan cooking. No mind, I'm an ex Girl Guide, so below are three very forgiving recipes, complete with my notes on how I mangled them.

Pulled Pork with BBQ sauce

Our friend was coming over for a BBQ, and having seen the endless shares of that BBQ jack fruit video on social media, I was keen to give it a try. Unfortunately, when it came to actually do something with a tin full of anaemic fruit segments, I couldn't find the video for love nor money, so I tracked down something that seemed to follow similar lines.

To cook the jack fruit, I used this recipe from The Minimalist Baker:

2 20-ounce cans young green jack fruit in water (NOT in syrup or brine)	I had a single tin – no idea how big – and it was plenty for my dinner and lunch the next day
1/4 cup BBQ seasoning (2 Tbsp brown sugar + 1 tsp paprika + 1 tsp garlic powder + 1/2 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp pepper + 1/2 tsp chili powder)	My version, based on what I had in the cupboard: (1tbsp Muscovado sugar + 1tsp paprika + pinch of salt + crack of pepper)

Method:

1. Drain tin and cut the cores off the segments. In reality, I’m not sure if you NEED to do this, unless you are a super stickler for that “shredded pork texture”. 

2. Throw the BBQ seasoning and jack fruit in a pan and sauté. Make sure you get lots of crispy bits on the outsides, which will probably happen as soon as you turn away to refill your wine glass, because that’s what sugar does when you’re not looking. 

3. Dump a mugful of water into the pan, and stir to “deglaze” the pan/ save the pan from sugary death, and then turn down to a simmer. Feel free to get on with other things at this point, but keep an ear out for the water evaporating, and the sugar bonding permanently with your pan, and top up with water until the jack fruit is fall apart soft, the sauce has once again reduced, or you get bored. 

4. Use a fork or a spatula to squish the segments so that they splay out into pork like fronds. 

5. Spoon over a few tablespoons of the BBQ sauce of your choice (we used Jamie Oliver’s one) 

6. Stuff into the bready receptacle of your choice, and watch indulgently as the vegan in your life shovels it into their face with the grace, and restraint, of a starved wolverine.   

Koftas and shiitake mushroom curry

I made this recipe in response to Keith’s demand that I “make something special” with the purple cauliflower we got in our weekly veggie box. Jeez, way to heap on the pressure there, chief. I was scanning through one of my go-to books, and I came across a Paneer Kofta recipe that gave me an idea.

I amended the sauce recipe from Anjum’s recipe thusly:

50g cashew nuts	I only had almonds, because for some reason we only ever have almonds, so I used those instead.
8 tablespoons vegetable oil	I used waaaaaay less than this, 2 glugs at most.
3 black cardamom pods	Green cardamom pods work just fine
2 large onions, sliced	That’s one onion too many for my household
25g root ginger, grated, (peeled weight)	Check
4 fat garlic cloves, peeled and grated	Double check
4 large tomatoes, quartered 2 tablespoons tomato puree	I used a tin of chopped tomatoes instead.
1/2-3/4 teaspoon chilli powder	With my children?!? Nope!
1 rounded tablespoon ground coriander	Triple check
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cumin	I used 2tsps, because I love cumin
1/3 teaspoon turmeric	I can’t be bothered with 1/3 tsps, one whole tsp is my minimum
2 teaspoons garam masala	I may have gone big on the garam masala.
salt, to taste	Oops, forgot
5-6 tablespoons double cream, plus more to serve	Not very helpful for a vegan, so I used a tin of coconut milk instead
1 rounded teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves	I don’t have these. I don’t know anyone who does have these.

Method:

1.Put the almonds in a dish and cover them with boiling water for 15 minutes

2. Put the onions, garlic and ginger in a food processor with a little water and blitz to a paste 

3. Add some oil to a pan and cook gentle until the onion stops trying to murder your senses 

4. Add the spices and cook until they become fragrant. You know they are ready when members of the family put their head round the door “just to see what’s going on”, even though they ate lunch 30 minutes ago and can’t possibly still be hungry. 

5. Add the tinned tomatoes and soaked almonds to the food processor and blitz until smooth 

6. Add to the pan and cook for 10 minutes. 

7. Add the tin of coconut milk, slap a lid on the whole deal, turn the hob down to “barely a bubble” and leave to mellow for as many hours as you have in the day. If you manage to make this the day before it will be even better.

In order to make some vegan friendly koftas, I wanted to keep it simple to let the cauliflower come through, sing, of whatever else TV chefs say about wafty vegetables. I found a super easy recipe at The Almond Eater which only needed a little adaptation:

1 cup uncooked quinoa	There is no quinoa in my house. Couscous worked very well instead
2 cups water	You only need 1 cup of  boiling water with couscous
1 cauliflower head	Mine was purple. Because special.
2 garlic cloves	Check
¾ cup gluten free breadcrumbs	Mine were full gluten. Extra on the gluten in fact, because that’s what I had.
2 tbsp flour (preferably all purpose, whole wheat or oat)	Just plain flour. Sorry. Will do better next time. Am not whole food goddess just yet.
	5 dried porcini mushrooms

Method:

1. Chop the cauliflower into vague florets and put them in a pan of water to par cook. 

2. In a food processor, turn the dried porcini into powder (I was close, but I got bored waiting) and add it to a bowl with the couscous and boiling water. Cover and leave for 10 minutes. 

3. If using actual bread, put in food processor and turn into breadcrumbs. Add to bowl. 

4. Drain cauliflower allow to cool a little, put in food processor with garlic cloves and blitz to teeny tiny bits. Add to bowl. 

5. Mix the bowl contents around for a bit. It will look like it will never stick together, and will fall apart as soon as you try and cook it, so sprinkle the flour over (and keep mixing through) and then start squishing the mix together in your hands like a toddler holding a hamster. Keep going until the whole thing turns into a cohesive and stiff mass. If it’s too wet, add a bit more flour and keep hamster killing until it feels firmly bonded. 

6. This is where I go old school: get a wok, or a deep pan, or a deep fat fryer and get it heating up. Sorry to the healthy people out there, I'm over the "lightly fried and then baked" method of cooking, if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly. Don't even get me started on oven baked chups.

7. Roll the mix into golf ball sized meatballs and drop into the hot oil in small batches. 

8. Eventually you will end up with a platter of cooked cauliflower balls and some creamy sauce. Combine, serve with rice or flat bread and enjoy.

Chocolate and Fig Cookies

In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit that the other members of the family were a lot more impressed with these cookies from The Minimalist Baker than I was. I have certain expectations when it comes to cookies; they have to be a certain texture and because of my lack of forward planning of such staples as almond meal, I think I strayed dangerously close to land of cakey texture. I think if my mind had been expecting baked cake bites instead of cookies, I would have been set.

1 cup dates, packed and pitted (soaked in warm water for 10 minutes, then drained)	I used 1 cup of dried figs instead and they worked so, so very well
1 medium ripe banana (~1/2 cup mashed)	I may have under bananad. In hindsight, this was a big error.
2 Tbsp salted creamy peanut butter	I used Fix and Fogg's chocolate peanut butter. Next time, I will use a little more.
1 cup almond meal (ground from raw almonds)	This is where I ran out of talent and had to use normal self raising flour instead. I hang my head in gluteny shame.
1 cup rolled oats (gluten free for GF eaters)	I put these in raw, as they recipe suggests. Next time, I think I will toast them first.

Method:

1. Set oven to 180oC and pray oven is having a good, even, cooking day.

2. Put soaked-and-drained figs into a food processor and turn into fig-fetti.

3. Add banana and peanut butter and combine.

4. Add the flour/ almond meal and oats and pulse until the whole lot comes together. If, like me, it comes together suspiciously easily and doesn't look like the dough above, you need more banana.

5. Take out a muffin tin, spray with oil and dollop a good tablespoon of dough into each muffin dimple.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and firm. Turf onto cooling rack and leave to cool.

7. Set aside expectations of cookies, and instead enjoy the rich flavour and virtuous texture.

Saturday, 21 May 2016 Comments: 0

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Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork - A Guest Post

Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork - A Guest Post

The fam and I are currently off on our world tour, which left me with a bit of a conundrum: Do I give you all a rest from my inane drivel, or do I make judicious use of the schedule function?

I sort of did both, and I am over the moon that Genie from Bunny Eats Design has agreed to share one of her super tasty recipes with you. She may not be a mum but she's got it dialled when it comes to what sort of food makes kids tick. 

I also reckon this would make a great dish for early Baby Led Weaning when junior hasn't got the chompers to get through tougher cuts of meat.

......

I was delighted when Tasha contacted me about writing a guest post for her. The Maybe Diaries is one of the few “Mummy blogs” I read. 

I don’t have kids but I was a child once and my parents never made us a separate children's meal. My family are Cantonese, and the Cantonese are a people of adventurous, curious appetites. We ate whatever they ate, even if it was whole fish with fins and bones intact, tongue stew, raw oysters or sushi. I know that lots of kids love sushi today, but I can assure you, back in the late '80s and early '90s, Kiwi kids (and some adults) thought eating seaweed, raw fish and cold rice was weird. 

Today I'm sharing a recipe that I love to make and appeals to kids of all ages. The combination of savoury and sweet as well as the ability to customise each plate easily works well with different tastes and appetites.

I use my slow cooker’s removable ceramic crock and glass cover as a container to marinate the meat overnight. Feel free to use a different container if you don’t have the fridge space.

Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 2kg (approx 4.5lb) pork shoulder, skin removed (see crackling notes below)
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 oranges
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 pinch chilli flakes (optional)
• 1 onion
• Salt and pepper to taste

To serve:

• Soft tortillas, bread rolls, salad greens, coleslaw or potato salad
• Sour cream, mayo or guacamole
• (or all of the above)

Preparation

1. Using a sharp knife, remove the peel from the oranges. Cut each orange in half, squeeze the juice into the slow cooker and add the halves into the slow cooker, cut side down.
2. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, chilli flakes (if using), garlic and bay leaves to the to the the ceramic crock. Mix.
3. Add the trimmed pork and turn the meat in the marinade to coat all sides of the pork. Pop on the lid on the ceramic crock and place the crock into the fridge to marinate overnight.
4. Take the ceramic crock out of the fridge and place into your slow cooker for 20 minutes before turning it on. Peel and slice 1 onion. Add to slow cooker.
5. Cook pork for 8 hours on low. Turn pork once (if possible) during the cooking process for more even cooking.
6. When pork is cooked, remove and discard all mention of bone and the 3 bay leaves. Ladle out as much liquid as you can into a saucepan and boil, uncovered until reduced by at least half. In the meantime, shred the meat while still inside the slow cooker by gently pulling it apart with 2 forks. Add the reduced sauce back to the slow cooker and mix the shredded pork into the sauce. Taste and add salt and pepper to your own preference.
7. Serve with your choice of soft tortillas, bread rolls, salad, sour cream, mayo or guacamole. I also make sure there’s a bottle of hot sauce on the table. Keep tea towels or napkins in easy reach.

Crackling

I once thought you could only crackle the skin on pork belly but you can actually work magic on any pork skin. I used to throw out pork shoulder skin, now I know better!

Save your pork skin and follow these instructions:

1. Once the pork skin is removed, place on a chopping board, fat side down (skin side up). Using a sharp knife, carefully make vertical or diagonal cuts 5mm or ¼ inch apart along the skin, cutting all the way through the skin but not all the way through the fat. This will enable the skin to crisp up nicely and make it easy to cut later (or break apart once cooled).
2. Cover with a generous sprinkling of coarse sea salt, rub salt into cuts and place the skin on an oven proof tray (I used a square cake tin) and refrigerate overnight uncovered. This will dry out the skin further.
3. An hour before serving, pre-heat the oven to 220°C. Bake pork crackling for 20-30 minutes until crunchy and golden (even bordering on black in the tiniest of places).
4. Remove from oven allow to cool enough to cut or break apart. Adds a lovely crunch to a pulled pork tortilla!

Tip: The more fat clinging to the skin, the more chewy your pork crackling will be. Too little fat and your crackling will be dry and hard – like a potato chip. I like a little bit of that lovely gelatinous fat so remove the skin accordingly.

Tuesday, 25 August 2015 Comments: 2

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Burning Down the House

Burning Down the House

I’m writing this from the warm comfort of the new house, which tells you a little about how this story ends, but not much about the small bumps along the way.

Maybe the biggest of which was nearly burning down the house on our first day which, even by our usual standards of property devaluation, is pretty effective.

The new house boasted a gas BBQ housed in a lovely covered courtyard type affair which made it an obvious choice for dinner last weekend when the entire kitchen was boxed up and our friend was visiting.

After a quick trip to stock up on supplies, we threw open all the connecting doors and I took up position in the kitchen, and Keith at the BBQ.

There were smiles, there was chatter, there were children running around … there were flames engulfing the BBQ.

“WATER!” Keith shouted through, “I need WATER”

By now he had turned off the gas but there were still flames everywhere that were showing no sign of going out.

Under the wooden pergola.

I stood in the kitchen, playing what is probably best described as “box roulette”. Remember that the whole reason we are having the BBQ in the first place, is because we haven’t unpacked the kitchen, so there’s nothing for it but to start ripping into boxes, because buggered if I have the first idea which box might hold anything of use.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the craft unit, and set to tipping out the contents into a pile on the kitchen floor, and filling them up at the sink, passing each one to our friend to take to Keith. 

Between the toilet roll inners, tissue paper and glitter it wasn’t long before I had created a rather ironic craft bonfire in the middle of the kitchen floor. 

After several container loads I turn to see the flames had now turned into plumes of thick grey smoke which were billowing in fabulous style and, on meeting the pergola roof, funnelling straight into the house.

“DOORS!!!” I bellow, “CLOSE THE DOORS!!!”

Incidentally, the children think this is the most amusing thing they have seen since the movers hoisted their beds up the outside of the house.

I do not.

It took 4 more containers to finally put out the fire, and at the point the flames went out, the BBQ made sure we knew it had properly given up the ghost by ejecting the buttons off the front to lie in a sad, smouldering puddle on the floor.

That reminds me, I really need to order some sort of fire extinguishing device.

And a new BBQ.

In other news, our new neighbour came over to inform us that her cat had taken one look at Harry and refused to leave the house and would we mind if she put up a fence to stop Harry from being able to reach her back door.

Ummm, not at all lady, thanks for saving us the cost of doing it ourselves.

There’s only one small problem with the fence and that is for reasons known best to … well I actually have no idea who … the fence, despite being 6ft high, has a gap at the bottom so big that Olive can walk under it with only a slight stoop. 

Well done lady, you basically just made it a ton harder for us to get Harry back from your garden. In terms of how effectively your fence will hinder the dog’s movements, my assessment is somewhere between chocolate fireguard and our ex-BBQ.

Thursday, 6 August 2015 Comments: 0

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