good things

1. Fried haloumi served with apple sorbet.
At the greek place diagonally opposite Stalactites. We had to order this dish twice and it made Dan so ecstatic he couldn't pronounce orgasmic.

2. Sandy made his first cake!
First I got a text message asking if the Passionfruit Sponge was a bit hard for a first time baker. I felt mean but I had to say yes, it took me forever to get that cake right. Next day I got a text asking me what it means to cream butter and sugar and it made me nervous but he did me so so so proud making the Prune and Whisky cake. And the next day he said "this baking thing rocks! everybody loved it." Oh yes folks we have another convert.

Oh yeah, and my sister had a baby!!!! I'm still so vagued out i can't even tell you how awesome that is.

go postal

I was thinking the other day about what cakes are best for mailing. Because it's my favourite thing to bake for people and i'm not gonna stop just because of a little thing like distance. I remember a couple of years ago I was really impressed when S's mum sent her an orange and poppyseed cake for her birthday. I think the trick is to fit them real snuggly into whatever container you're posting so they can't move around. Anyway, I decided on Brownies this time because they age quite well, are solid and can be carved into cutesy little shapes if you're feeling so inclined.

Brownies of course are a bit of a holy grail type of baking - so often they disappoint, being too dry, not chewy enough or just not chocolatey. Extensive web research took me to this recipe from Orangette for "best-ever brownies". Too cocky? Maybe not because they were damn damn good. Don't think I didn't use 2 blocks of Lindt 70% proof chocolate though.

The best thing about these brownies, after posting them off to adulation, was freezing them into icecream sandwiches to put in my sister Marion's freezer. And now that she's popped my little nephew out she's allowed to eat them. They are so so so good frozen.

Chocolate Brownies
Adapted by Orangette from Baking with Julia and meddled with by me just a tad.
There's a tempting picture of these at Chef Kristy

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
240gms unsalted butter
180gms best darkest chocolate you can find
2 cups raw sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 handful of chopped nuts - I used walnuts and pecans

Center a rack in the oven, and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt; set aside.

Melt the butter and the chocolate together in a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir frequently. When the chocolate and butter are both melted and smooth, add 1 cup of the sugar to the mixture, and stir it for 30 seconds; then remove the mixture from the heat, and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Put the remaining 1 cup sugar and the eggs into a medium bowl, and whisk by hand to combine. Little by little, pour half of the sugar and eggs into the chocolate mixture, stirring gently but constantly with a rubber spatula so that the eggs don’t scramble from the heat. Beat the remaining sugar and eggs on medium speed until they are thick, pale, and doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Using the rubber spatula, gently fold the whipped eggs and sugar into the chocolate mixture. When the eggs are almost completely incorporated, gently fold in the flour and half the nuts.

Pour and scrape the batter into an unbuttered 8-inch square pan, a heavy non-stick one is good. Scatter the rest of the nuts on top. Bake the brownies for 25-28 minutes, during which time they will rise a bit and the top will turn dry and a bit crackly. After 23 minutes, stick a knife or toothpick into the center to see how they are progressing. They should be just barely set—not too raw, but still fairly gooey (mine took about 28 and were possibly a little mushy in the middle). Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack. When they’re completely cool, cut them into rectangular bars to serve. Or carve into love hearts etc.

For ice cream sandwiches cut them in half into thin slices and put a good couple of inches of vanilla ice cream in the middle. Re-freeze. Gobble. Collapse in ecstatic goodness.

cakes and the cake lady

I love geeks who cook. This is the insides of a PC in gingerbread!

And talking of genius cakes, Nat the cakelady is doing an art project with Jo where they hitch around Oystralia and talk to truck drivers and take pictures. Pay them a visit.

the less sweet beet?

You know, I really love silverbeet. I can tell it's love because I don't just like to eat it, I feel the need to protect it. I worry about how people seem to think of it as inferior to spinach. It's so unfair because silverbeet is better really - it doesn't turn into a little pile of nothing, it doesn't make your teeth go funny and fuzzy. Best of all, it's so easy to grow so you can always have some for all your greenery needs. Still being a bit homeless myself I went over to Marion's to pick some from her crazy overrun underloved garden and made pie. Pie making seems to be what i do these days.


Silverbeet Torte
My cousin Tessa made this for Chrismukkah dinner (see picture) and it rocked. We kept calling it a pie and she got a little irate and insisted we call it a torte. As far as I knew a torte was a cake. Dictionary.com agrees. But hey, if she wants it to be a torte that's fine. Either way it's real yum and has a great texture in the middle because of the egg and potato - it's a bit like spanish omelette in that way. I made the recipe as it is below but I'd probably make the dough without using a food processor next time as I think it was a little overworked. I made mine round as suggested and a little flatter - about 3 inches high.

Dough:
200g p flour
1/2 tsp salt
1+1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup cold water

Whizz flour and salt in food processor. Drizzle in oil and then water. Process dough for about a minute until it forms a ball. Remove to floured surface and knead for 2-3 mins until supple and smooth. Place in bowl, cover with cloth, refrigerate for 2 hours. Preheat oven to 200c & lightly oil a 28cm pizza tray (or whatever).

Filling:
150g silverbeet leaves and stalks (or rainbow chard), washed and drained
1 tbsp salt
1 medium potato (150g), boiled whole & roughly chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped parsley (I used more of course)
150g crumbled "stretchy" cheese (fontina, asiago, mozzarella or feta - I used fetta and some swiss that was in the fridge)
freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg
2 tbsp extra virgin oil
sea salt

Finely shred and chop silverbeet. Place in colander and toss with tbsp of salt. Leave for 20mins, then rinse and squeeze dry (Tessa says you can skip this step but I'm such a stickler I didn't). Mix silverbeet with chopped potato, diced onion, parsley and cheese. Season with pepper. Whisk the egg with the olive oil and mix through the filling. Taste for salt.

Roll two-thirds of dought on floured surface into a circle to cover base of pizza tray. Spoon on the filling, leaving 2cm border of dough. Stretch back the edge of dough over filling pleating it as you go. Dampen with water. Roll remaining dough a little smaller and drape it over the filling. Press to seal with the pleated edge. Pierce here and there with a fork then drizzle top with remaining oil and scatter with a few grains of sea salt. Bake for 20 mins or until golden. Leave to settle 10 mins before cutting.

simple things

Simple pleasures like zucchini from Ruth's garden quickly browned then covered in mint, fetta and eggs for omelettes I could eat everyday.

Or tomatoes tasting good like you know they won't in a month or two so you grab some basil from the garden and a bit of cheese and have the best pasta ever nestled down in front of an old musical.

High Society was just perfect. There's Grace Kelly with her too perfect waves. How does she get her hair to stay like that? There's Frank Sinatra as the cynical little reporter for the gossip rag (damn he's short!). And there's Bing Crosby all romantic fool singing sweetly. It was great to see everyone being so enthusiastic about drinking. This is a movie not just with a drunk scene but a hangover scene too. Grace even has a memory blackout about whether she's gotten it on with Frank or not!

And then I realised that this movie is the forerunner to The OC. Frank and his photographer girl are the outsiders coming to Newport (yes, the same newport) expecting to hate the idle rich. They pooh poo all their luxuries in the excellent "Who want to be a millionaire?" The pretty rich girl has all the men falling all over her and there's a nasty patriach lurking. But then surprise surprise, these filthy rich mansion dwellers turn out to be pretty darn nice people too and they teach our working pals a thing or two with a bunch of great songs. Oh if only it was all that sweet and simple.

and more friends

a little plug for foodgoat who has been having the most brilliant photo posts recently. this excellent knifeblock for one.
darth vader out of butter. for two.
cakes that look like butter. for three.
and then there's an evil satanic child with peas.
go. go see...

guess who's procrastinating?

I am trying to write job applications and, taking Az's advice, I've been using the thesaurus to avoid repeating myself over and over. But it doesn't understand me! Like when I feel geeky saying that I'm "excited" by the potential of peer advocacy I look up excited and get:
- keyed up
- thrilled
- provoked
- agitated
or maybe:
"I am hot and bothered about the possibilities offered by such an approach."

Yup, now that's super professional. Gahh I hate doing the self-promoting schtick.