More about me. less about the cooking

For a moment there I thought disaster may have struck. The entire Debbie does Edmonds project rests on the chances of my being able to find several small pieces of paper. You see, cooking 556 recipes is a bit of a logistical nightmare, so I have a system. As each recipe is finished it gets the date written next to it in the book and a tick next to it’s name in the index. I also note down what I have cooked on a given day on little bits of paper so that when I do get around to sitting down to write the blog I can remember what I cooked. Well I thought I had lost this weeks. This would have been a disaster as there were no fewer than 16 recipes cooked in the last 7 days and the chances of me being able to remember what they were are slim to none.

Anyway. The happy ending to this somewhat boring story is that I found the piece of paper. Yay. Sorry, I know it’s not much of a punch line but I’m doing the best I can here.

I didn’t cook anything between Monday and Saturday but with very good reason. I will now justify myself although I shouldn’t really need to… Tuesday is quiz. We came third. Now if the team that had come first had not turned up we would have come first – this is not as silly as it sounds because the team that won were new, so the team that normally came first came second, and we came third. Confused yet? Might I add that the team that normally comes first is also relatively new and before they turned up we used to win every week. I’m just saying this to highlight that we are not getting thicker, the new people are just smarter than us. I’m not sure this line of conversation is doing me any favours.

Wednesday night was dinner at my Stepfathers – my family tree is a constant source of amazement to people. Suffice to say that I have more step parents than real parents. I actually have more step parents than blood aunts and uncles. I have one (legitimate – otherwise who knows) blood related cousin who was born last year. I also recently discovered than my grandparents mothers were cousins. Not that this is terribly surprising seeing that they both came from a very very small island called Yell (apt?) somewhere between Norway and Scotland. I had always suspected that the family tree might fork back on itself more than one would like but I’m not sure I needed the proof.

Thursday afternoon I was dressed as Ginger Spice outside the vector arena. Alone. Apart from the confused looking group of contractors working on the paving outside. And the group of executives having a meeting in the restaurant. Watching me. Possibly thinking I was a prostitute.

Friday night was spent recovering from Thursday.

So Saturday I was thinking about what to cook. For a while I had been thinking about doing Scotch Eggs. I like a good Scotch Egg but they are hard to come across. I had an exceptional one in Te Anau once. I also had an abysmal one from the Fresh Choice (or the “Rape of Roslyn” as it was colloquially known in it’s earlier days) although it was vegetarian. In my humble opinion vegetarians have enough good food without bastardising Scotch Eggs, if you want Scotch Eggs you need to man up and eat dead animals or at least call them something different – Welsh Eggs at least. Gosh I am really on a roll tonight aren’t I…

The scotch eggs were good. I had to cook them in hot lard, which made my house STINK. Very very badly. I don’t eat pork and the lard made my house smell very porky. But aside from that they were good. I may have put the sausage meat on a little thick as in one spot they didn’t cook all the way through. I know that is very bad from a food safety viewpoint but against the odds I’m still alive.

For dessert I made chocolate soufflé – this was kind of like lite chocolate mousse. Too much gelatine to be honest – possibly that was partially my fault as I was slightly heavy handed with the gelatine as I had had issues in the past with things not setting. I am beginning to think the recipe testing in 1966 may have been a little patchy.

I also made some Lemon honey in anticipation of making something else to put lemon honey on. That didn’t happen until Sunday night but I enjoyed dipping my (clean, freshly washed) finger in the bowl and licking it. Mmmmmm

I was going to write up Sunday as well but there were no less than 8 recipes and seeing I have waffled so much about the slightly irrelevant I’m not at all sure I have time. Besides if I don’t get on to it and make something now. There will be nothing for pudding – heaven forbid!

Husband Heaven

Monday night – last week – was another bake fest. No “pear Jam” this time though. I am slightly concerned that my colleagues will come to distrust the baking – and then what will I do with it all? So I tried to keep it all relatively on the down-low on Monday night.

The husband was looking hungry when I got in. He had already got to the point where he was prowling the freezer. From the depths he managed to retrieve a pack of chipolatas. I had predestined these chipolatas for the Edmonds – Chipolata Spaghetti. It required me to boil the chipolatas which I had never done before. The recipe was as follows – boil spaghetti, drain, place in the bottom of an oven proof dish. Boil chipolatas. Cook onion and tomato in a saucepan, pour over spaghetti, add cut up chipolatas, sprinkle generously with grated cheese.

It was odd but not bad. The husband liked it – I can only imagine he thinks his life would be better if I cooked more food with spaghetti and sausages in the same meal – perhaps Wattie’s were on to something there?

I made Grated nut cakes – the recipe gave me the option of using ground almonds or grated coconut. Coconut won out almost purely from a cost perspective. This was a truly strange recipe – it was of the rub the butter in variety but was baked in “patty tins” – such a cute name! The mix was so dry I had to knead about of a quarter of the dry ingredients into the mix to get them to go in. they were surprisingly good – somewhere between a muffin and a scone. Quite coconuty too, which suited the dense texture. I suppose they were a little like mini coconut breads. I served them with my homemade tamarillo jam – they went down a treat.

Pear Jam – Yeah right

It’s been a long time, I know, but I have been slack on the writing not the cooking so perhaps you will forgive me. My colleagues however may not forgive me – that is something we will cover later on. Stay tuned

Not last Monday but the Monday before – yes it has been that long – I did a little baking, I’m quite good like that. I decided to make something quick and easy and I decided upon chocolate cake. The recipe was good but, as per usual, did not include a tin size. I was somewhat unsure what to use and settled upon an 8” round. End result was ok but really quite domed on the top.

I also made rice – the Edmonds way. I didn’t follow the recipe entirely seeing that the recipe was for cooking 1 tbsp of rice. 1 TBSP! Anyway, the method itself was not bad, I ended up with cooked rice so I was relatively happy, what more could I expect.

Saturday I somehow got roped into assisting the husband with insulating the underside of the house. Our house is quite low to the ground and with the beams etc there are some areas that only I could fit through – oh yeah, me and the spiders. I managed about 3 hours (the husband swears it was 1.5 hours max) before I quit. Not bad really. It wasn’t so much the dark, damp claustrophobic spider infested-ness it was the fact I had to lie on lumps of rock, on my back, while little bits of polystyrene, dust cobwebs and spiders fell in my eyes. Not ideal.

Anyway enough of that. Sunday was football so I vacated the house while the husband continued the good work. He’s a trouper. Football - we lost again. I got some minor bruising. We went to the clubrooms for the after match spread, the club rooms still served crate bottles so it was almost like being back in 1966.

After football I had to come home and bake because of the aforementioned expectation from the colleagues around baking on a Monday. We have trained each other well. I stopped in at the supermarket on Saturday and they had some nice looking plums for $5 a kg so I bought a kg and made some plum jam. I think it’s ok, I only made two rather large jars so if it isn’t great it won’t be too hard to get rid of.

The husband was fractionally less than impressed with my poor effort in the insulating department so I decided to placate him with food and a multi-course extravaganza. I started with Kedgeree. I like Kedgeree. The husband also liked Kedgeree. For those not in the know this is basically smoked fish, cooked rice, hard boiled eggs and butter. How could that ever be bad! Butter makes everything better. I think when I’ve made it in the past it had curry powder in it but I may be imagining.

Next course was savoury marrow entrée – thank goodness it wasn’t sweet marrow entrée although to some extent that will become relevant later on. This was surprisingly good. Cut marrow into 2” long sections, remove seeds, steam until soft. Cook onion and tomato together until soft. Put marrow ring on round of buttered toast, add tomato mixture, sprinkle with cheese. As I said, surprisingly good, who would have though.

Now when you buy marrows – or large courgettes as they are called at the Silver Bell when the vegetables are more or less half the price they are at the supermarket – they come in packs of two. Now what does one do with ones extra marrow I hear you ask. You make marrow filling. Steam marrow then cook with butter, sugar and lemon juice. No serving suggestion. So what do you do? Wait for it. You put it in a sponge cake and tell your colleagues it’s pear jam.

The perfect foil to my marrow delight was a Light as Air Sponge. I had not struck one of these before but others definitely had, it was a fond childhood memory of several consumers. It wasn’t quite as light as air but it was pretty light. Good thing it was crammed full of marrow filling to keep it grounded. One helpful soul even went up the road and fetched cream. Bless.

In my defence it did look and taste like pear jam. If I had told them it was sponge with marrow filling and cream it would not have shifted off my credenza.

I also made Saratoga chips. A.K.A potato chips or crisps. I made use of my Mandolin to cut the potatoes wafer thin. I love my Mandolin. I made use of my husband to individually hand dry each potato slice after it had soaked in water for an hour. I love my Husband too. I’m really very lucky in so may respects.

I fried these up and they were pretty good but them I am a firm believer that deep frying almost anything improves it. The husband helped to dispose of the proceeds. I smelt like oil and had very very odd dreams.

Mothers Day = Baking Day

Sunday was when the real baking happened - a combination of Mother’s Day and the Monday morning expectations. To go with the already made Butterscotch I decided that it was necessary to make a few baked treats.

I started with Chocolate Coconut Clusters – Edmonds seems to be quite big on sandwiching two biscuits together and we wonder why we have an obesity epidemic! These were chocolate and coconut biscuits, helpfully spooned onto a tray by the husband I might add, sandwiched together with chocolate butter-cream icing. I do think that biscuits sandwiched together do look nice but they are damn hard to eat.

Knowing my Step Mother is partial to the odd date – of the edible variety, I’m not about to blog on her social life here – I decided to make caramel date fingers – these were dates cooked with brown sugar and water until they were a paste like consistency, sandwiched between two biscuity/pastry layers. They were pretty good although due to some oven overcrowding with the fruit cake I had to cook it on a much lower temperature than recommended – it came out fine. No one complains anymore anyway.

Sorry about the spoiler in the previous paragraph but yes, I also cooked fruit cake. I decided my grandmother would quite like fruit cake. More fruit cake that is. Due to my need to get to my grandmothers by 3pm, so I could get out by 4.30pm, so I get home to make (spoiler alert) Butterscotch pie to get to my stepmothers by 7pm I had a few issues with oven timing.

It was not helped by the fact that I also needed to sterilise the jars for my (spoiler alert) Tree Tomato jam. I was a little nervous about putting the jars in at 150 degrees. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do it. It was only later that I realised that wet jars would have been dripping onto cooking fruit cake. Good think one didn’t explode with the extreme temperature though.

The tree tomato – I have a need to call it Tamarillo that I am finding hard to suppress – jam came about because it is tree tomato season. I saw them at the Parnell markets - $4 a kilo – a bargain. I had gone quite early because I have issues around not liking to pay for parking which meant that I was almost the only customer there. Not that that stopped me from virtually raping and pillaging the Kaimai cheese stand. Good cheese. Damn good cheese, particularly the washed rind. Unfortunately my cursedly logical brain – the same one which refuses to allow me to pay for parking – balked at paying $10 for something that I didn’t strictly need that was also extremely fattening. *sigh*

Anyway, back to the jam. I made it while watching the Shortland Street omnibus – nice little bit of telly that but 2 hours of back to back shorters with no ads is almost a form of torture. It helped to have something to take my mind off peeling the tree tomatoes – I don’t like real tomatoes in their raw state and I think my prejudice may have rubbed off. I then ended up watching a Western with Matt Damon – watching may have been a slightly strong term in reality. Mostly I watched my tamarillo (it just slipped out, I couldn’t help it) jam. It was a very pretty colour with lots of seeds. I have no idea, however, what the hell I am going to do with it.

Now after the mornings’ baking and the trip to the Grandparents I rushed home to make butterscotch pie. Not bad but possibly not entirely deserving of the title of butterscotch – it was a brown sugar and cornstarch filling topped with meringue – made from a miserly 1 egg white. This was not helped by the fact that I beat the egg white to early and when I went to put it on the pie it became somewhat sad and deflated. It was enough meringue in the end and as I say people have learnt not to complain. I have trained them well.

A Week's a Long Time in Baking

A week has been and gone as has the baking. Let me surmise.

Monday was Dominion pudding – steamed pudding with jam in the bottom. Not bad but I did use some of my quince conserve which was perhaps a little too firm, especially when I ate left over pudding for dinner on Wednesday. I am well aware that those are not healthy nutritional habits.

Thursday needed dessert so I made sago baked custard. I am a sago fan and I’m not afraid to say it. I’m actually quite a big fan of milky bland food in general – have I mentioned I like Custard? Sago custard requires you to first cook your sago – I have never struck this before. I assumed it intended me to simply boil sago. I may have under estimated the degree to which sago swells up as I ended up with a solid gluey mass in the saucepan. Round two with a higher water to sago ratio proved more effective.

I added my now cooked sago to the bottom of the pie dish and then added my custard mixture. Pie dish was at absolute maximum capacity which made for some challenging manouvering. Good thing I’m extra tallented. Finished result was not bad but possibly not worth the effort. Mine was better because I garnished with nutmeg, husband was jealous.

Saturday I felt the need to work on the soup section – Vegetable soup to be precise. It was soup, with vegetables – not a big shock. Chopped vegetables in chicken stock. Can’t complain, I had it for lunch at work on Monday. Would have benifited from Barley I think.

Sunday was mothers day. I now use opportunities to provide gifts as opportunities to rid myself of baking. I decided to make butterscotch – who wouldn’t like to get butterscotch? I have vivid memories of making butterscotch with my Dad once when I was very young – the cream of Tarter was ever present in the cupboard from then on and I’m fairly certain was never used. This batch of butterscotch was not bad although I do think it could have possibly been cooked longer, even though I took it past “hard crack” on the sugar themometer. You live and learn.

Shame on you!

Edmonds, I’ve found you out. Sunday afternoon – after drying off, I decided it was time for just a little more baking. I made Khaki cake. And do you know what? You probably don’t. Khaki cake is the exact same thing as the morning’s chocolate peppermint cake but with 1tbsp of coconut added. Come on1 That’s hardly a new recipe. Stranger still it says to cook Kakhi cake for 5-10 minutes longer than chocolate peppermint cake. For 1 tbsp of coconut? Actually I did need to cook it 5 minutes longer but I’m putting that down to the poor quality of my oven and possibly human error with temperature setting rather than the effects of the coconut.

Anyway, it was pretty good. The recipe said to fill it with chocolate buttercream icing but perversely there is no recipe of orange buttercream icing. There was however orange buttercream icing, which was very nice, if not all that buttery.

I also made coconut dream. This was voted by one (rather influential) member of staff as the best thing to come out of Edmonds so far. Now I might argue that that lofty position belonged to the coconut kisses with passion fruit icing or the marshmallow slice but I’m sure my opinion counts for little. Coconut Dream is a cakey base covered with a beaten egg, coconut and peanut topping. It wasn’t bad but I’m not a huge peanut fan, I would have preferred almonds I think.

So that had the tins filled. For dessert I made blancmange. Well I attempted blancmange. I still seem unable to heat milk to a sufficient temperature on my stove without burning it but I had taken it as far as I could and it was not looking particularly set. I was tempted to add more cornflour. I didn’t. I should have.

I did give it a couple of minutes in the microwave just to make sure that I had cooked all the cornflour there to it’s full capacity. I had. I thought perhaps the transformation in texture between hot and cold would be more drastic than I was anticipating. It wasn’t. Several hours later it was a semi congealed mess with the consistency and appearance of a very large bowl of mucus. Sorry but it had to be said. The only plus I can find is that it slipped down the plughole very nicely.

Because I can never cook too much milk on my stove in one day I decided to make white sauce. That’s not entirely true. I felt like cauliflower cheese. There was a white sauce recipe in Edmonds – but oddly not a cheese sauce recipe. Usually Edmonds tends to towards more variations on a theme rather than less. In fact white sauce is almost the worse culprit for that treatment – I will be particularly enjoying my caper sauce – capers in white sauce – the ideal accompaniment to boiled mutton head. Mmmmmm
And I know you are all dying to know how the quiz went. We came second again. I am almost getting resigned to it. I felt slightly better knowing that the team we keep losing to is actually coming first in the national competition. We are not that far behind. Well not in a national sort of context.

10 years younger

Ok, so I have been reprimanded for being slack again but I have been busy, and in my defence there has only been a small amount of cooking in the last week. That doesn’t sound like much of a defence does it.

Tuesday night was the quiz. We came second again. AGAIN. Turns out I do not take defeat well. In fact, I’d prefer not to take it at all. We eye balled the competition and they are WAY older than us. In quizzes age is a distinct advantage. We are using this as an excuse. Not to mention the fact that I am almost the youngest member in the team (apart from the husband, I am one part cradle snatcher or two parts Cougar) and still called on to answer the questions about Beatles lyrics – In Eleanor Rigby which of the following was not mentioned – Darning his socks, smoking his pipe or died in the church. First correct answer wins a jar of jam.

This brings me to another interesting point. I was lucky enough be invited to the opening of Savour NZ on Thursday at the Langham and met a couple of people who have occasionally tuned in to the blog. I think I may have surprised them a little. Perhaps there is a late Fifties woman in me doing the writing? Did the knitting and the crocheting do that? To put it in quiz format, I’m too young to have been Elvis’s love child and old enough to have been around (all though not reliably continent) when Bucks Fizz won the Eurovision song contest. Hopefully that gives you a rough ballpark.

Enough about me – back to the baking. Monday was my only week night in so I made caramel nut loaf which has dates in it and honey tea cakes. The loaf wasn’t too bad but could have benefited from a liberal application of butter. I forgot to put baking powder in the honey tea buns. Such a shame as they looked quite nice – hone, ginger and a little orange zest. Seemed rather a shame that they were somewhat more dense than could be rationally explained away.

Saturday I was quite busy running around doing this and that but I did make a little time for Edmonds. I made Sardine Napolitaines. I have a confession to make, I had never eaten sardines before. I haven’t canvassed enough of the general populous to know whether this is normal but I also discovered that I definitely don’t like sardines and that no amount of tomato sauce and cheese will be changing that. Just too fishy which is odd considering I like anchovies and salted pilticks. Go figure.

Sunday was the baking marathon. I got up at eight which was quite a good effort for Sunday I thought – especially as when I left at 10 the husband had not managed to permanently evacuate his (our) flea pit. We have not reached the ideal 1950’s situation of kind single beds. There is always time.

I have strayed off topic again. I had to get up at eight to do baking for Football. Apparently, ladies still need to bring a plate even when they are playing. I made Chelsea buns, which were in reality just cinnamon pinwheels, and chocolate peppermint cake. Both went quite well but the husband was most upset when no baking deliveries were made to bed. Hmmmmm, no answer to that is there.

We lost Football by the way. The other team turned up. This has always been an omen of doom for us. It also rained. Rained is an understatement – if you were in Auckland then cast your mind back to Sunday lunch time. I was spectacularly sodden, the only bit of luck I had was the remote for my car still working.