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So what are all the cool people doing on a Friday night in the Christmas holidays? Why they come home from and work and prepare “Eggs au Fromage”.

I imagine calling something “au fromage” back in NZ in 1966 leant a certain European sophistication to “hard boiled eggs cooked in cheese sauce”. I actually thought this might be ok. Ahhh how wrong I was. The white sauce was made with grated onion, which I thought, might add a certain extra flavour – it did, but it wasn’t a good addition. The whole dish was not aided by the fact that it looked decidedly as though it had already been eaten once - the onions browned slightly during the initial cooking giving the sauce an unappetising beige colour and lumpy texture. I think enough has been said about this recipe – it was not one of the culinary jewels I had hoped to find.
Back on the baking front I am a little behind – but with good reason. While I am currently going to work, almost no one else is and if I can’t get rid of my baking at work then it will stay at home. And then I will eat it. This is the bakers dilemma I think – I enjoy the process of baking but I really shouldn’t be eating it all!

Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas all! It has been a flurry of Edmonds related activity in the house in the past couple of days and now that I’m thoroughly exhausted and with a couple of celebratory drinks warming me from the inside I felt it was time to blog. Apologies for poor grammar and spelling – I’m already embarrassed about how many attempts it took me to spell “thoroughly” right.

So, it’s been a while. I’m sure you have all been thoroughly (right first time!) too busy to worry about life in Edmonds land but just in case you are reading this to pass time once you are back at work I’ll fill you in.

Christmas eve I came home to work to find myself in 1966 – in my absence the neighbours had visited and dropped off a bottle of wine and chocolates. Emergency baking had to be done – Shortbread creams and cheese biscuits supplemented by Christmas cake (which was surprisingly good in my own raisin-despising and completely humble opinion). Both recipes were quite unremarkable – I could do with some decent biscuit cutters too. Cheese biscuits would be better made with Tasty rather than Edam but I think that observation could be true for life in general – of course it’s all about what’s in the fridge isn’t it.

Christmas day itself was an Edmonds extravaganza – turkey (Edmonds timings), sage and onion stuffing, Sausage stuffing, Xmas pudding, brandy butter (or hard sauce which I think sounds much more interesting – nice oxymoron) and Pav.

Turkey was pretty good – or so I’m told. Truth be known I’m mostly in a roast for the gravy. Anyway I cooked it upside down with foil under the breast until it was done then flipped it over, whipped the foil off and browned the breast. Husband said it was the best turkey he’d ever had. He’s not really one for random complements but he possibly has bad Turkey related memory recall as I can remember him saying that to his Mum over several previous Xmases. Lets just say it probably wasn’t the worst Turkey he’d ever had.

Stuffings – sage and Onion was better than Sausage and I expected it to be the other way around. If I figure out why in my pursuit of leftovers I’ll let you know.

Xmas pudding was pretty damn good really – although I’m not convinced that the big chunks of almond do anything for the experience. Lots of custard. I like custard more than gravy. If I ever need to get my jaw wired I’m going to be in heaven! Hard sauce was good but then it’s fat and alcohol so it was never going to be bad.

Pav was just a baby pav, not a 12 egg, 12” high, cloudlike confection. It was a 3 egg, 2” high albino field mushroom on steroids. The Husband went back for seconds though - but he feels about pav the way I feel about custard – and I’ve never met custard that I couldn’t find something good to say about.

And now, as they say, I’m spent. I’ve eaten so much that it hurts to yawn, I’m sure that some of you have been there too. Good night – Merry Xmas!

Conserve or Not Conserve

My Conserve is a little runny. By a little I mean really quite water like

Making jam and related products is an emotional roller coaster. That seems to be an extremely absurd statement but it is unfortunately true. One never knows how their jam is going to turn out, no matter how many precautions you take. I'm not quite sure I can cope with the emotional consequences of runny conserve at the moment. I may have to re-boil it with some added setting agent.

I feel like a bit of a jam failure. A domestic un-goddess.

On the bright side Paula from Timaru has bought my Christmas cake. Paula you are a shining light in a night that would have otherwise only have been remembered for its runny conserve. Merry Christmas!

Strawberry Fields

Do you ever have one of those moments when you are about to go to bed and you realise that you haven’t done your strawberry conserve preparation? No? Welcome to my world.

I had bought 6 large punnets of strawberries for making conserve (whole berries in a heavy jelly in case you were wondering). This requires the berries to be hulled and covered in sugar overnight. Unfortunately it was 10.30 when I realised I hadn’t done this. It takes some time to hull 6 large punnets of strawberries.

The worst bit is that I will now have to make conserve when I get home. And I won’t get home before 8.30pm. Has anyone got any spare Christmas spirit? Or possibly spirits?

Don’t forget about the cakes and puddings on trade me everyone – they close on Thursday night…

The Ghost of Christmas Present

The Debbie does Edmonds project is resting on the fact that I can get a serious amount of baking done on the weekends. If this weekend is anything to go by I could be in trouble.

Isn’t it amazing how busy things get at Christmas! I keep thinking I’ve got plenty of time left to do things but I absolutely haven’t – I keep forgetting appointments and engagements I’ve made but it seems I’m booked solid from now until Christmas – admittedly that is only a week away – but I can’t understand how it has happened without me noticing.

And then there is xmas shopping. I am very over Christmas shopping, if I was smart I would have given everyone a very nicely wrapped lump of coal fro Christmas, but then I would have probably had to go to 4 different shopping centres in Auckland looking for coal… I could always use the now infamous Christmas cake (3), it shares several similarities with coal – colour, texture, carbon content.

This all feels a little like it’s leading up to an excuse for poor Edmonds activity doesn’t it.

Well in reality it wasn’t that bad. I made 5 recipes – all on Sunday afternoon as we spent most of the weekend showing the Husbands Mother the sites (!) of Auckland. No thankfully she didn’t buy a house – she is much too polite for that.

So anyway back to the cooking. I made Christmas Mince Tarts, Strawberry Jam, Special Jelly, Grantham Macaroons and Mint Sauce – some really quite high effort recipes there so I am awarding myself extra points for effort.

Christmas Mince Tarts. Made using flaky pastry which seems wrong to me – not that I eat mince tarts but I always imagine them as little delicate things made out of sweet short pastry. The quantity of mince was also enough to make about 4 dozen mince tarts – slightly excessive for the 6oz of flaky pastry called for! I made the mince and the pastry in the food processor (it said chop with knives, it didn’t say I had to be holding the knives) and I used half butter, half lard because the recipe said butter or lard and lard is cheaper and I love lard. I did an excellent job of the rolling and folding (if I do say so myself). The pies turned out rather utilitarian looking due to the flaky pastry but got a rather enthusiastic response from the Husbands Mother (but she is a very nice person) and a very subdued, but not negative response from the Husband (this means they were better than average – I have learnt the response code).

Strawberry Jam – My first foray into the world of Jam making. Suffice to say that the jam did eventually set (I added pectin as I was a nervous virgin jam maker) despite me tipping the jars every 5 minutes to see whether it had set. I should add here that I don’t really like Jam either but you will be beginning to wonder what I do like.

Special Jelly – not really all that special the way I made it. I had two attempts at this. Jelly crystals into bowl – add hot water, add cold water, add milk, add beaten egg white, turn into mould and set. The first attempt I added the hot water and swished the bowl around too much and all the undissolved gelatine stuck to the sides and I added the milk and it curdled so I poured it down the sink. The second time I added the hot water and stirred gently but the gelatine still didn’t dissolve properly so I added the cold water, still hasn’t dissolved properly. At this point I thought about warming it up to try and dissolve the gelatine but I figured if it told me to add cold water it was supposed to be dissolved be now. So I chucked the milk in and it curdles again (note I don’t care so much this time) and folded the egg whites in and poured it into a bowl. The result was not terribly special – it separated into two layers, the gelatine was still in undissolved lumps. I think a picture says a thousand words.

Granthan Macaroons are nothing to write home about. Standard biscuit, a little gingery, nothing special. Possibly more special than the jelly though.

Mint sauce gave me an excuse to attack the mint jungle in the garden. Hardly even counts as a recipe – chopped mint, hot water, sugar and vinegar – but I’m taking it anyway.

All Quiet on the Kitchen Front

Have you missed me?

I have done no cooking this week. I do feel bad – and some of you will find that hard to believe, but my heart is not made entirely of stone. With the mother and the Husbands Mother and the constant stream of Christmas parties (and resulting hangovers- let’s be honest) the kitchen has not been high in my priorities.

Having got home “early” tonight – that’s before 10 but after 9 – I have managed to put about half of the Christmas baking on Trade me. Please someone, buy something. If you aren’t doing it for the baked good do it to support un unregistered mental health charity. That is me by the way in case you missed it – subtlety is just one of the issues I face.

They are all listed with Debbie does Edmonds in the title – I did struggle with what category to put them in – I did toy with antiques/pottery and crafts/woodturning but settled for something boring and correct. The auction numbers are Xmas cake (1) – 132007431, Xmas cake (2) – 132009744, Xmas pudding (1) – 132011701 – concerningly in the time it took me to write three trade me ads there were 4270 listings created on Trade Me. More concerning perhaps is the fact that it took me three attempts to calculate that – and I work with numbers for a living!

And now it is 11pm again, and I still haven’t brushed my teeth, and I really would like to read some of my book but I don’t think it’s going to happen, and the rabbit is liking the end of the extension cord, and it’s plugged in, and so I really should go.

Good night

What's Round, Firm and Concerningly Pale?

To pick up where I have left off, we now have four Christmas puddings. I have no idea what to do with four Christmas puds! Unlike the Christmas cakes the puddings won’t even be able to serve as building materials as they are entirely too spherical. They are very unyielding things though. I am slightly concerned by this – my past experiences have taught me to believe that Christmas pudding is a dark brown, vaguely spongy thing that comes in a red plastic bowl. Mine seem to be a slightly more Pakeha shade of pudding and made of entirely sterner stuff. Should I be concerned?

I managed to encounter another issue with the basics of cooking this weekend. I made up the mix for one of the puddings, got three-quarters (now that I’m back in 1966 I speak exclusively in fractions – ½ lb, ¾ pint, ½ breakfast cup etc) of the way through the recipe and read the words every home cook dreads. Leave overnight. Never mind – I have the worlds most useful cooking appliance – my mother – who kindly put my pudding on to steam before I got home from work so that I will not be up until midnight waiting for its allotted 5 hours to elapse.

Unfortunately however the time with the mother in the house has been prematurely shortened. I try not to take it personally that she has bought a house of her own within a week of being in the country. I think I’ll blame it on Edmonds. So in a pre-emptive strike we’ve exchanged her for the Husband’s mother for the next week. Now if she buys a house as well just to get away from me I may take it personally.

Since I have been resting on my cooking laurels a little in the last week with the mother in the house I thought I should produce something at least vaguely interesting tonight. While we had dinner cooked by the mother and her Tom I did manage to produce a not half bad Caramel Apple custard from the “Cold sweets” section. This consisted of an apple puree with a layer of caramel custard on top –I was going to take a photo but it was an entirely unappealing colour combination and totally inappropriate for a blog photo debut.

I’m not a big fan of pureed apple – can’t stand it actually – so it wasn’t going to be a big hit with me but the other members of the house downed it without complaint. The caramel custard wasn’t half bad but then I am a self-confessed custard freak so my opinion counts for very little.
I’m afraid there will be no cooking tomorrow night as I will be Christmas partying again! Stop chastising me – I have a whole year to catch up on my cooking – I’ll get there, I promise!

An Ode to the Fat Outcast

Two of the puddings are merrily steaming away in their pots of water. So many things cooking on the stovetop does become as bit of a logistical issue – hence my decision to split my pudding making over two days. They take 5-8 hours each to cook, which seems like and inordinately long time to me.

Making Christmas puddings is much less labour intensive than making Christmas cakes. No creaming and folding etc just chuck it all in a mixing bowl. I did manage to find Shreddo at the local supermarket – I think I probably doubled their monthly suet sales. This may just be me but suet smells fantastic – meaty in a baking kind of way. That sounds so wrong but it is sooooo right.

I think animal fat is highly underrated –yes I know it’s highly saturated etc etc, don’t get me wrong here – it’s not health food. Besides I bet you use butter without thinking twice – don’t you! Blue top milk in the cup of tea perhaps? Crackling? What I am saying is that we seem to shy away from these things now – lard, dripping, suet - and they’ve gone out of fashion but they can be so fantastic. These heavy, rich, hard fats do things that your extra virgin olive oil, your rice bran oil or even butter could never dream of doing. Honest! We should treat them as a luxury not food pariahs. Ok I’ll get off my soap box now, promise.

So my puddings are in their pots on the stove and I won’t be here to take them off the heat unfortunately. I have to go out to Christmas in the park – that’s given my geographical location away – so the Mother will be removing them from the heat at the appropriate time. Not that she is staying at home all night – oh no – she, her Tom and the husband are all taking a trip back to the 1970’s and going to the Angus Steakhouse for dinner. It really is a night for animal products.

The Lucky Kumara

So I didn’t cook last night. Or tonight. Get over it. You can be so demanding you know! I still love you though.

I may also have eaten peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Some days I embody culinary genius.

I did, however, prepare my fruit tonight. I know how to prepare fruit now. I may have been a little enthusiastic with my raisin tossing in the sieve over the sink. I may have had to pick most of the contents of the sieve back out of the sink. Just remember if you find a piece of Kumara peel in your Christmas pudding it’s good luck, think of it as a pudding charm that won’t break your teeth.

So four Christmas puddings this weekend, I think.

Back on the Horse

I have climbed back out of the doldrums of baking unproductiveness everyone. Last night I knocked four recipes off. I can almost hear the crowd chanting my name. To be fair it was a team effort. I would like to thank my Mother for her supreme dish washing – for the first time ever some things were even washed before I had finished them, so I re-soiled them and they got washed again – Marvellous!

And then there was her skill at rolling biscuit dough into little balls – unsurpassed. Full credit to the Husband for assisting in this part of the operation, it was obviously taxing as the combination of this and his early morning under-house crawling saw him passed out on the couch by about 8.30pm. Conveniently before the dish washing commenced – coincidence?

So anyway enough of the dedications and applause – let’s get down to the cooking. Last night I successfully produced Date Loaf, Golden Syrup Cookies and Butter Kisses and Butter cream icing (for the kisses you understand). Everything received a high degree of praise today. Must remember not to set such high standards for myself!

Date Loaf – was apparently fantastic. I took half of this into work, thinly sliced and lightly spread with butter (thanks Mum…) and it disappeared at near record speed. Several people were even seen to partake in more than one or two (or three or four) pieces – you know who you are.

However there were a few hitches in its making and this is why the blog goes out after the baking is consumed. Do you ever get to the end of a recipe, put the mix into its tin, are just about put it in the oven and then think… it’s a bit odd that there was no baking powder in that? Hmmmmmm. In my defence it’s one of those odd recipe’s that Edmonds does sometimes where the ingredients are in with the method. So I had to scrape it out off the tin, off the paper liner, back into the bowl, chuck the baking powder in and give it a good solid mix. End result, surprisingly, was apparently fantastic.

Golden Syrup Cookies were by comparison a dream. Very plain cookies with a hint of golden syrup and ginger, the dough was rolled into balls by my competent team of assistants and then rolled in sugar. The resulting product was crunchy and sugary on the outside and still quite soft in the middle. The only issue we had was the lack of fan in my oven which sees me moving trays from one shelf to another every 5 minutes.

Butter kisses a similar story in terms of ease of preparation. The dough had to sit on the bench for a while due to the oven backlog but this didn’t seen to cause any issue. These were a little like melting moments or yo yo’s, made with icing sugar and sandwiched with butter cream flavoured with brandy (intended for Christmas cakes according to the recipe). Butter filled with butter – how could that be bad.

And on a final note - I was cheeky enough today to put a tip jar out at work to offset some of the costs of the project and I sincerely thank my colleagues for their generosity. Your obesity is my gain!

The Shame

Ok so I didn’t cook anything last night. Even worse – we had fish and chips. Believe me, I can feel the shame.

There was a reason, I didn’t get home until late and there was some moderate tidying to do before my mother arrived and the Husband was crawling under the house sabotaging the Freeview – he even got up at 4am to sabotage it just a little more. That folks, is commitment.

There has been mention that my mother will be able to lift some of the pressure of the Edmonds challenge. Now firstly, shame on you, that is completely against the rules, unless you were referring to her doing the dishes which I’m all for. Secondly, the majority of the challenge is the baking and my mother is an exemplary cook but not a baker. She once called my from the UK to tell me she had made scones.

So there will probably be some baking tomorrow. Possibly. Maybe.

Faux whitebait

Despite last nights uncertainty that there would be any activity on the edmonds front I got straight off the computer and straight into the kitchen. I'm such a trouper.

no baking though, that would have been silly. I found Mock Whitebait fritters. There does seem to be a reasonable amount of mock food in the Edmonds - mock chicken, mock crab. Can't be entirely sure why you would have mock chicken? Was there a chicken shortage in the mid 60's?

Anyway, mock whitebait fritters. What magical ingredient would you use instead of whitebait? Why grated potato of course! I was thinking rosti - mmmmm rosti. In reality it was a bit like corn fritters but without the corn. It would have been better with corn. I covered mine in mint jelly, the husband had katsu sauce and lime pickle - unsurprisingly these were not authentic serving suggestions.

For the love of Ginger Crunch

I’m not sure whether any amount of icing will save Christmas cake (3). It has been sitting upside down on the bench serving duty as a pot stand for the last two days. It’s not a bad pot stand really despite some minor stability issues owing to the peaked top. Something about it reminds me of that TV ad that used to be on with Lenny Henry –
“Should I feed it to the birds chef”
“Not if you want them to fly”

I was thoroughly glad and inordinately proud to have my 3 Christmas cakes cooked (and overcooked in one case). My smugness came a little to soon. While casually leafing through last night I discovered the Christmas pudding section - 4 of the damn things! Really! And each requiring something near a day to cook, and me without a pudding basin! This is going to end in tears sooner than I imagined.

Contrary to what people might think after my raisin related rant of several days ago I secretly quite like Christmas pudding. I think it might be the custard. As much as I dislike raisins I do have quite a thing for custard. Not quite as serious as my feelings for potatoes but in the same general area.

So after yesterday’s missive I managed to churn out some ginger crunch and coconut cakes. Ginger crunch is a strange beast. People don’t seem so keen on ginger flavoured things in general but put out ginger crunch and it’s like a herd of stampeding beasts. I guess you could say the ginger crunch got a thumbs up. Coconut cakes not so much. Not that they were bad but they couldn’t live up to the excitement of Ginger Crunch. And they weren’t really cakes either, they were scones. There is quite a big difference between cake and scones in my ever so humble opinion. They might have been quite nice with cream and jam or possibly even better with cream and passion fruit curd. Or custard…

And what am I going to cook today? Wellllll, I did cook 9 recipes over the weekend and I do have to rearrange my house tonight in order to fit my Mother who is going to be visiting for approximately 4 months from the UK. I’m not sure if someone can technically visit for 4 months but anyone who could potentially do the dishes and isn’t me is more than welcome in my house. It’s not looking all that positive on the cooking front tonight, I’m exhausted and all this talk of potatoes and custard has made me ravenous.

Ba Humbug

So Christmas cake (3) was not an overwhelming success. It would be fair to say that it was a little overcooked with charcoal-ish tendencies on the extremities. I’m going with the theory that a sharp knife and a boatload of icing fix most baking issues. Perhaps xmas cake with a hint of smoky flavour will catch on? Now that’s optimism.

Christmas cake (1) went into the oven at 8am this morning (the wonders of pre-prepared fruit) with a heavy-duty foil layer around both the tin and the top. As a result this one is a far more appealing golden brown.

Christmas cake (2) has just commenced its mammoth 4 ½ hours o baking. This recipe was monstrous – I ended up having to split it between two humongous bowls. Not that the Edmonds bothered to indicate this. I could have probably guessed by the size of the tin the booked suggested to use. If the book had suggested a tin size that is. Apparently in the 60’s women were born with an innate ability to make up half a recipe and didn’t require such piffle as tin sizes, temperatures and times. So I crammed as much of the mixture as I could into my tin and threw the rest in the bin. Ba humbug.

On a non Christmas cake related note I have churned out a couple of other recipes as well. Last nights dinner was corned beef (boiled to the Edmonds specifications), with boiled potatoes (again a la Edmonds) and mustard sauce (no surprises where the recipe was from…) It got the big thumbs up from the husband but then he is a generous soul. The generosity has not spread to dishes yet.

For lunch today I churned out a couple of “Eggs with Spinach and Cheese”. Now there were surprisingly good. Take ramekin, put cooked spinach in, add grated cheese, break in egg, more spinach, more cheese. Bake. Ground breaking stuff but surprisingly good – almost like a little quiche in a cup. The husband’s opinion was that they were ok but that you might as well just poach the eggs. I would think it would be quite nice done with sautéed mushrooms and a bit of blue cheese. Mmmmmmm.

While the eggs were baking I whipped up a batch of honey snaps. They turned out to be the sort of thing that you can just whip up on a moments notice, a sort of thin honey and ginger biscuit. Not bad but not terribly exciting. Unfortunately they also turned out to be the sort of thing that you can leave in the oven and forget about while you eat your eggs with spinach and cheese. As a result the second batch of honey snaps looked like a biscuit version of Christmas cake (3). Oops!

Day One

Christmas cake (3)

Due to a largish night last night I may not be in the best frame of mind today to start the project. Unfortunately 3 Christmas cakes wait for no man.

I have to lay it on the line and say straight up that I’m not a big fan of Christmas cake. To clarify, by “not a big fan” I mean I don’t eat it, ever.

The thing is I don’t like raisins and I like sultanas even less. It’s a texture thing. Under normal circumstances I will quite happily pick the raisins out of things (baked goods, cereals, curries etc) and feed them to helpful family members, work colleagues or rabbits. Christmas cake doesn’t fall into this category in that by the time you pick out all of the raisins there isn’t really anything left so most of my Christmas cake experiences are eating other people’s discarded icing.

But as Christmas cakes require a certain amount of time to mature I will have start on them now if they are to be eaten at Christmas time – if not by me then by someone else.

The De Luxe 7th edition Edmonds has three Christmas cake recipes – creatively labelled Christmas cake (1), Christmas cake (2) and Christmas cake (3). Naturally I decided to start with #3

Now, as I mentioned, last night may have had some impact on my performance this morning. I started creaming my butter and sugar and at this point I actually read through the recipe – about three steps on I was supposed to be adding the “prepared fruit”. No suggestion was given on exactly I was supposed do to the fruit to prepare it and being a Christmas cake virgin I was at something of a loss. I am getting the feeling that in 1966 the Edmonds cookbook had expectations about people’s level of baking knowledge which is possibly not all that relevant to today.

So, naturally, I turned to Alison Holst, who advised me to wash my fruit – ok, that I can do. And good idea it turned out to be considering that the water went a particularly filthy brown. At this point I again consulted Alison who advised me to dry the fruit in the sun– and here was the kicker – in order to get the fruit completely dry it should be done a day ahead. Could you not have mentioned this earlier Alison and I would have just lived with having dirty fruit?

So to cut an increasingly long story short I ended up with a very nasty, sticky brown tea towel and only slightly damp fruit.

I then proceeded to forget to add any of the spices so they had to be added into the already mixed batter right at the end. On this point, the book helpfully listed 1 dessertspoon of spice in the ingredients. Dessertspoon? Spice? I put in 2 teaspoons of mixed spice but if anyone has any suggestions on what measure a dessertspoon actually is I would be grateful – add to that list a teacup and a breakfast cup (why couldn’t they use teacups for breakfast?) which also turn up in some of the baking recipes.

So at the moment my cake is enjoying it’s 4 hours in the oven and I am thumbing the Edmonds for dinner ideas. Stuffed Marrow anyone? Not ideal hangover food I think.

Crying Wolf

Earlier today I sent an email to several of my close friends at work outlining my little venture. We have had a couple of recent resignations at work and I intended to piggyback on there to catch people’s attention – and to mess with their heads a little. The email went a little like this…

I thought I should tell you guys that I’m thinking of leaving too! I been approached with a really great job back at the chocolate factory and I know I haven’t been here long but I think it’s just too great an opportunity to pass up. At least you guys will have a more reliable source of chocolates!

No really, Just joking

I am pregnant though – only 10 weeks gone so you guys can’t tell anyone for a couple of weeks until I’m passed the safe point. It’s been a bit of a surprise for us! I just wanted you guys to be in the know unless you figured it out and started asking questions

No sorry that’s not true either but I do feel on a bit of a roll

But I do have an announcement

Some of you might have heard already that I’m planning to cook everything in the 1966 edition (I thought it was 1967 but I got it wrong) of the Edmonds Cookbook. Some of you might have heard of the Julie/Julia blog – I’m planning on doing the same thing. So I’ll be cooking all 556 recipes within a year and writing a blog of it as I go. Why – I thought it would be fun. Feel free to remind me of that later.

Kick off is on the 1/12 and I’m going to have to get going on my 3 Christmas cakes very quickly

http://debbiedoesedmonds.blogspot.com

Oh yeah, and the baking is going to have to be disposed of somewhere. I’d appreciate it if you’d all try to prevent Hannah from doing me any physical harm when I bring it in.

Debbie

The reaction was so good that I then forwarded it on to friends and family with a little explanation of why I had sent the email. To all my Friends and Family who received my email today outlining this venture I would like to reiterate again that I am not, and have never been pregnant. Some of you may have not managed to get all the way through the attention grabbing mid section of said email in which case I would like to reiterate that it was just a joke.

Again, I’m not pregnant. I’m not. Not even a little. My mother will not be a Grandmother in the recent future and don’t congratulate my husband (although commiserations and general sympathy are always warmly received).

So in Summary –There are no buns in my oven (all though there will literally be not only buns but rock cakes and scones in the near future), I’m not pregnant, Knocked up or up the duff.

Honestly – would I lie to you?

Here she goes

Ok, so the idea is that I’ll be cooking everything out of my old Edmonds cookbook – circa 1967 or so – and cooking it within a year. That’s 556 (or so – this “or so” may be a recurring issue) that’s a lot of butter, lard, suet and shortening. Kick off on December 1st.

In current years, we Kiwi’s have moved away from our Edmonds with its red titles and blue text, attracted by glossy pictures and descriptions of what the food is actually supposed to turn out like – shame on us for abandoning our culinary roots! I will admit that while I turn to my Edmonds for pancakes, scones or coconut ice I am likely to shun it in favour of something a little shinier when I go beyond the basics.

To look back to my classic Edmonds (De Luxe – that’s two words by the way, not one – Edition, 7th Printing) there must be some jems of our food history which we have unfairly abandoned in favour of Fusion, Café food and gastro pub cuisine – surely? Perhaps Moonshine Biffs are the new biscotti? Does food have to come from somewhere more exotic than our own backyard to be cool?

Of course it’s not all an ardent impassioned statement on Kiwi Cuisine – I’m a glutton for punishment (and probably just a glutton at the heart of things). A couple of years back I read the Julie/Julia blog and I thought - I'd like a bit of that action. I’m strangely enthusiastic about this form of culinary torture- guess I’m a food masochist at heart.

In light of the last comment – yes there are several recipes including “variety meats”. No I’m not happy about it.