Saturday 25 February 2012

Summer of Cider

The variety of ciders available these days is craaazy!

Recently my Husband celebrated his 30th birthday and for the special occaison collected 30 different ciders for a little cider tasting. It was a lot easier than you'd think! The most unusual flavour was a Tutti Fruti cider from the UK. 



My current favourite Cider is Rekorderlig, a Swedish cider. The flavours are amazing! These are in pretty high demand and seem to be in short supply so can at times prove to be hard to your hands on.


Stocking up on strawberry and lime:



And the pear in action:



If you havn't already done so, you should give it a try.
You won't regret it!
 
Available in Tauranga from Liquorland wholesale and Za Bar.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Neenish Tarts

Nothing wrong with a little bit of good old fashioned baking! 

I used the Neenish Tart recipe from my trusty Edmonds Cookbook for these.

Sweet shortcrust pastry - for pie cases
Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar before adding egg and beating well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Mix into creamed mixture, stirring well. I cheated and used my food processer which I am slightly obsessed with at the moment (it can do pretty much anything!)


Turn mixture onto floured surface and knead well.
Cool pastry in the fridge for 15 minutes. 


Roll out to 2mm thickness, cut into rounds and use to line mini muffin cases. Prick bases. 
Bake for 12 minutes or until cooked. Cool before filling . . .



Filling Ingredients
Beat together:
Half a can of sweetened condensed milk
Half a cup of sifted icing sugar
The juice from one lemon
(Edmonds also calls for 100g of butter but I omitted this!)

Refrigerate to set.
Aaand ice tarts half and half with first vanilla, and then chocolate icing. 


Voila! Fairly impressive looking and delicious. Success.

Lolly cake!

Thanks to NZGirl I recently received a few tins of Highlander Sweetened Condensed Milk for an Influencer Review . . . the idea is that I use these to whip up a little baking and let them know how I go. 


So last night I went on a bit of a baking binge . . .

The first of my experimentations was Lolly Cake, a childhood favourite. On a really bad day you are still quite likely to find me down at the bakery picking up a slice of lolly cake to treat myself!


Ingredients:

100 grams of butter
1/2 a can of Sweetened condensed milk
1 packet of malt biscuits
1 packet of eskimo lollies


This is easy peasy. As it doesn't require any oven baking, I'm not sure that I can even call this baking as such!

Use a food processer to turn the malt biscuits to crumbs. 


Turn into a bowl and add the chopped up eskimo lollies.


Melt together the butter and sweetened condensed milk, before stirring in with the malt biscuit/ lolly mixture.


Leave to cool, form into a roll and cover in gladwrap. It would be at this point that you would also roll in coconut to coat, if you were that way inclined! 


Refrigerate (I did this overnight)

Cut into slices. 


Consume.



I always had an inkling that Lolly cake wasn't exactly the healthiest of food, but after making it myself I was just a little put off by the fact that it is basically just butter and sweetened condensed milk! Lucky Highlander also give you the option of using their 'lite' version sweetened condensed milk, but this is still definitely one to exercise portion control with!


Monday 20 February 2012

Astrolabe - Mac's Brewbar

82 Maunganui Road
Mt Maunganui

Astrolabe is definitely my favourite bar in the Mount . . . a little retro, with an awesome beer garden, great drinks menu and delicious food! The perfect place to enjoy the sunshine and kick back with good food and cider.

If you are in NZ and have not already done so, text 'summer' to 393 and you will receive a text voucher for two free Isaacs ciders (your choice of apple, pear or berry), to redeem at Astrolabe (or your nearest Macs Brewbar). The voucher will be valid through to the end of April- how handy. Mine obviously did not last that long!


I shared one of the Macs Platters- the 'Double Dipper'. They say this should feed 2 to 3 as an entree . . . two of us had this for lunch and for that there was too much food, never a bad thing! A delicious assortment of nibbles and dips, I especially enjoyed the perfectly cooked squid and blue cheese and peanut wontons. 


Hanging out at Astrolabe kind of feels like you are at a friends house or bach! 


Without a doubt the highlight of my weekend.

Saturday 18 February 2012

Lazy Sunday . . . Roast Lamb

In my aim to eat only free range meat, last Lazy Sunday we indulged in a Harmony Foods  seasoned Lamb.

Absolutely delicious and 'guilt free'. I have to admit that I had always made the assumption that lamb and beef in NZ would of course be free range . . . but apparently not! 

As Lamb is pretty expensive here, this was a bit of a treat. However, I was surprised to find that the free range meat at The Good Food Trading Company (my local favourite at the moment) is what I would think of as comparable to supermarket meat prices.

So here is the lamb . . .

Before:


And After:


Ta Da!



I made up a batch of onion gravy, which I love and is super easy. It doesn't have to be complicated like a lot of the recipes I've seen for this are.

I just dice two large onions and brown off in a pan along with garlic and rosemary:


Gradually add a cup and a half of vege stock, season with salt and pepper and leave to simmer for a bit - as little or long as you like (until roast meat and vege are just about ready to eat):

 
Before whizzing in the food processor with a roast potato to thicken it up a little. Easy as that!


That, along with roast potatoes and fresh steamed green beans were the perfect accompaniment for a Lazy Sunday Lamb Roast.


Just lovely!

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Happy Valentines Day my lovelies!

Look what arrived in the post today, care of NZgirl - new Sunsilk Straight lock shampoo and conditioner to try . . .  Thank you! 

 
Smells divine, cannot wait to try it on my tresses! 
Will it help with keeping my hair nice and straight? Will keep you posted. x

Saturday 11 February 2012

Mexican Night: Tamales

I've tasted Tamales previously, but just the one time, on honeymoon in America, and have not since come across them anywhere in NZ. So I thought I'd give making them myself a go. And for a first attempt I thought these were pretty impressive, if I may say so myself!

First things first. The key ingredients, Corn Husks and Masa Harina are available here in Tauranga from The Good Food Trading Company


The whole process with Tamales takes some time. The Corn Husks need to be soaked to soften them, recommended for a minimum of two hours and overnight if possible. I left the decision to make these to a little late in the day so I soaked for a couple of hours before blanching in a pot of boiling water. Worked a treat.

While the soaking takes place you are left with plenty of time to put together the other main elements - the masa dough mix and tamale filling:



Masa Dough ingredients:

200 grams of butter
2 cups of Masa Harina
2 teaspoons baking powder
handful of coriander
Salt and Pepper to season
1 cup vege stock

I used my food processor for this. Whip the butter and then added the masa, baking powder, coriander, salt and pepper. Mix together well before adding the stock slowly until the dough forms a firm ball.
 
For the tamale filling whip up a chilli - I made mine vegetarian, with an onion, one can of black beans, a can of mixed beans (mashed), chilli, garlic, and coriander. You want this to be a fairly thick/ dry chilli mixture. 

And then I grated some cheese.

To assemble the tamales, lay out a nice wide Corn Husk and spread onto it about a quarter cup of the masa dough. I found the best technique was a combination of using my hands and a rolling pin covered in glad wrap. To the middle of this dollop 2-3 tablespoons of the filling and a sprinkling of cheese. 


Roll the masa over to encase the filling . . .


. . . before wrapping up into a little parcel. Cut a few husks into strips to use to tie the parcels. This was a lot harder then it sounds. Apparently you can also use twine, I didn't have any, but may source some for next time around. By the last tamale I got pretty lazy and was just twisting and tying each end.


Cook the Tamales by steaming them for at least an hour and a half. 


And then they are done! Well worth the wait . . .
they are so delicious - really really tasty! 


I didn't use nearly as much of the filling mixture as I would have expected, so reheated what was left, mixed in a can of chopped tomatoes and served up as a side to the Tamales with a dollop of guacamole.


Yum!