Summer Shrimp Stir-fry

I never in a million years thought my summers would look like they do in Wellington.  First of all - it's January, and all of the calendar-y type things that the teachers put up in my classrooms had snowflakes for January.  Hearts for Feb, shamrocks for March, eggs for April, flowers for May, sunshines for June, ice cream cones for July, sailboats for August, fall leaves for September, pumpkins for October, turkeys for November, and evergreen trees for December.  And that's how the year went, none of this sailboats in January business. 

Oh!!  And the crappiest thing about it?  My birthday used to be in the summer time, and we'd do really cool stuff for it like go to the water park.  The place that has water slides and wave pools and things that generally involve hot weather and cool (but not freezing!) water to submerge one's self in.  And usually sunburn.  Now I only get sunburned because there's a big frickin hole in the ozone layer above NZ and Aus, not because I spend all of my time running around in a bathing suit. 

Now what do I do for my birthday?  Curl up on the couch under 17 blankets and make the hubs watch girlie movies in an effort to conserve heat.  Last year we did rent a bach at a winery and spend the weekend, but all the vines were dead for the year and it wasn't that pretty.  Mostly we sat in front of the fire. 

Anyway, back to summer things that are different. 

Please note, I am not complaining, just observing.  [Mom, I'm lookin at you!]

Exhibit A: The beach. 

Me and Jonno's private beach and I'm not telling you where it is!

Back in the US, we would go to the beach for a week each summer because it was over 2 hours away.  Here in NZ, I can walk to a beach.  In fact, I can walk to many beaches.  And I'm within driving distance of a few different surf beaches, depending on which way the wind is blowing.  The problem?  You need a wetsuit to go anywhere near that water, what with our proximity to Antarctica and all.  Yeah, that always puts a bit of a damper on my ocean swimming intentions.  It does however make a great ice bath for the legs after going for a punishing run - just wade on in on the way home. 

Exhibit B: Baking???

Plum and Lemon Cake - an easy way to glory among your workmates.

The only baking done in a Washington DC summer time was when it was rainy outside and the air-conditioning was going full blast inside, therefore making going near a hot oven bearable.  In Wellington?  Lots of baking can still be done!!  Good for my taste buds, not for my fitness resolutions.  Last weekend I made Mairi's Plum and Lemon Cake to bring to work, and by the time I remembered to go take a photo of it, this was all that was left. 

Exhibit C: Stif-fry in the summer

I'm not sure why this is so different, but in my world it's light years away from anything I've had back home.  But!  That's doesn't mean that people back home shouldn't make this in the summertime.  You should.  If you appreciate summer veggies like I do, then you. should. make. this.  Just please wait until June or July when the stuff is in season.  You really don't need to be eating a tomato that's traveled farther than you ever will, ever, coz you know that's where those winter tomatoes come from - Mars.

Difference difference difference, argh!! 

Ok, as Jonno would say, "rant over".  I'm adaptable.  I'm happy.  But for my 30th birthday next year, we're damn well going somewhere warm to celebrate!


It's a rainbow for summertime!  With tomatoes on the side for picky husbands.

Summer Shrimp Stir-fry
serves 2 with leftovers

• two handfuls of frozen shrimp, whichever size you like
• one tin of sweet corn, or two ears of corn that have been already cooked
• 1/4 of a red cabbage, shredded
• 1 punnet cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 small zucchini, diced
• large handful of fresh greenbeans, end snipped off and broken into bite-sized pieces
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/2 red capsicum
• 1 cup rice

1. In a wok or large fying pan, heat some olive oil on medium heat.  Throw in the onion, capsicum and zucchini and saute' until soft.
2. Meanwhile, cook the rice according to the directions.
3. Also, boil up some water in the jug and pour over the frozen shrimp in a bowl to defrost.  Use the rest of the boiling water to start the green beans in a small saucepan.
4. Drain the shrimp and add them to the wok/pan, adding a little more oil and some salt and pepper as well, stir to coat and combine.
5. Once the greenbeans are cooked, drain and add to the pan.
6. Stir the cabbage into the mix and take off the heat.
7. Serve the stir-fry over buttered rice and top with tomatoes.

Sesame Beef and Noodle Salad

Noodles!! Noodles are fun, aren't they?  Even the word is fun.  Noodlenoodlenoddle.  Use your noodle! 

And other such silly things.

Now for the serious.  This noodle-y salad thing is seriously good.  So good that Jonno went back for seconds, even through it had some kick to it.  Jonno does not like much kick.  If you could measure the heat in something in terms of a soccer/football goal kick, Jonno likes things at a gentle tap to the goalpost that the goalie doesn't seem to be leaning towards.  This dish seemed to have somewhere in the region of a decent sock right at the goalie's head kind of kick. 

Oh dear, I think I've really been affected by living with Jonno (he who watches only sports on television) when I start using sport analogies in my food posts.  *Headdesk*

ANYWAY.

I don't know if it was because I made this dish at 8:30 at night after we'd gone for our run and were starving like some lions in the middle of a gazelle shortage, or what, but hot damn it was tasty.  Perfect for the summer time, nice and quick and you can use any extra veggies you might have on the verge of 'science experiment' status lounging around in the fridge.

Sesame Beef and Noodle Salad
adapted from Taste Magazine

• 800(ish) grams thick lean steak, trimmed and sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• 2-4 cloves garlic, depending on how much garlic you like
• 1 tbsp sambal oelek (Indonesian chillli paste, found in Asian grocery stores)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/8 cup white vinegar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 450g packet udon noodles
• 1/4 red cabbage, shredded
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• any other veggies you have on hand, I threw in some red capsicum

1. In a wok on medium heat, toast your sesame seeds until they begin to darken, about 7 minutes.
2. Dump the sesame seeds and garlic into a medium-sized bowl, and use the back side/bottom end/pestle to smush the garlic and sesame seeds together.  Add sambal oelek, soy sauce, caster sugar, white vinegar, and oil and mix together. 
3. Add the meat to the sauce mixture and then dump it into the hot wok.  Add the noodles to the wok and work them into the sauce to get them coated.
4. Cook steak for 1-2 minutes on a side while the noodles cook in the sauce at the same time. 
5. After a few minutes, add the veggies, stir through the mixture, then remove from heat.  Dinner is served!

New Year's Resolution Taco Salad

I'm back!!  Ok ok, I've been back in NZ for a week now, but you know I have to read through all of the wonderful posts that were waiting for me in my Google Reader before I could buckle down to do my own. 

What should be on my NY Resolutions: de-cluttering.  This is my junked-up coffee table, in all its junky glory!

In true New Year's style, Jonno and I have started our very own fitness regime in which he is the tyrant and I am the oppressed, jiggly peasant masses.  [Sorry, the word 'regime' just set me off on the semi-tangent.]  So far, we're a week into the Couch to 5K training program, which is a Big Deal for a non-runner like to me even consider making running part of my workouts.  Have I mentioned I hate(d) running?  For realz.  Hateness.

But it's really not so bad right now, mostly because it's gorgeous summer here in Wellington, or at least way better weather than over in America.  If I had attempted to start this thing over there, in the cold and snowingness and rainy dark and generally crappy weather, my training program would fizzle out faster than [insert non-offensive joke here].

So, you see, there's still kind of a problem with this whole exercise and eat well thing, namely being that I'm a food blogger and I still love love kissy kissy huggins love food.  Except for horseradish, nah I'll never ever touch that stuff, man.

When making our Grand Plans of 2012, I statutorily declared to hubs that I would not, WOULD NOT, abandon my foodie nature and give up eating the good stuff.  There may have been some foot stomping thrown in there too, just for good measure.  I need my chocolatepizzamexicanbutterpancakescurryhamburgers food.  To survive. 

Teaser: that Buttermilk Chocolate Cake is to die for.  I'll blog about it soon!

Solution?  Buy less cheese.  That's all that we could agree on.  So I keep making yummy things and taking photos of them and consuming them, but now maybe I'll share them instead of hoarding them in my refrigerator.  That would be nice of me, wouldn't it?

It would also be nice of me to share this easy recipe/idea for a quick taco salad, great for these summer nights when you don't want to spend any time near anything hot and you want to make something relatively healthy.

Please note: Jonno protests this being called a 'taco' salad, since there is really no actual taco anywhere in this thing.  My argument is that it's what you would put IN a taco, and you could really get some tortilla chips and spoon it up with them.  So there, Jonno, taco it is and forever will be. 

Match Point is a slightly disturbing movie, but it's by Woody Allen, so not all that surprising really.

Taco Salad
Serves: 4

• One bag salad greens, your choice
• 2 large boneless chicken breasts
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• one tin of sweet corn kernels
• one tin of beans - kidney, cannelini, chickpeas, or even Wattie's chili beans would work
• one large onion
• one capsicum, diced
• one punnet cherry or grape tomatoes
• 3 tbsp fajita spice (McCormick's makes a great one)
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Chop up chicken into bite-sized pieces and toss in a bowl with lime juice and fajita seasoning.  Put in the fridge to marinate a little.
2. In a large skillet or frying pan, swirl around some olive oil over medium heat.  Coarsely chop your onion (don't cry, it's not sad!) and saute' until soft, but not much more.  Remove onions from the pan.
3. Throw the chicken in the hot pan and brown up.  Sprinkle a little more fajita seasoning over the chicken, and season with salt and pepper.
4. While the chicken is hotting up, chop up the capsicum, drain the corn, and rinse the scungy gross brine off the beans.  Once the chicken is sufficiently cooked and will not poison anyone, toss in the corn and beans to warm them up and get all mixed up in the seasonings.
5. In a large serving bowl, compile the tace salad thusly: greens, capsicum, onions, chicken/corn/bean mixture, tomatoes.  The juices from the chicken/corn/bean mix should be sufficient to dress the greens, but if not, toss a little olive oil and lime juice in there as well.

Other veggies could make an appearance in this tasty dish, and cilantro/coriander chopped over the top may send it into orbit, but I did not have any on hand, sads.  Give this a try, if you believe that salad can actually be dinner.  Or just make it for lunch, whatevs. 

Guacamole is a Good Decision

I make really strange decisions sometimes. I’m not sure my brain is wired properly. I wear weird combinations of clothes that I swear look awesome before I leave the house, and then later see photos of and have one of those "what the hell was I thinking?!" moments. 

Once for bookclub, I brought two bags of yeast rolls as my ‘plate’ because I (a) had just mastered making a bread product with yeast (!), and (b) I thought everyone would love them as much as I do and of course 7 people would polish off 24 rolls. Heh. What really happened was that not one was eaten, even by me because everyone else brought food that was much more fun than rolls, and since I put the fresh-from-the-oven rolls in a plastic bag and the moisture couldn’t escape they got all soggy and I had to throw the whole thing out later that night. Sorry for the run-on sentence.

This ‘pasta’ (I’m not sure what it’s actually called because the packaging was literally all in Greek) was one such strange decision. I found it in with the foreign foods at the grocery store and thought that the long hollow noodles looked like fun. Wrong! They are slurpy little buggers and you end up wearing half of your pasta sauce on your shirt coz its gets into the noodles and then falls out when you try to eat them. Also, the sauce doesn’t really stick to them, so the meal ends up more like ‘pasta with a side of tomato sauce’ rather than your normal spag bol. I’m sure they have some practical food use, but since I can’t read Greek, I’ll never know what it is!

Guacamole, on the other hand, is always a good decision. Especially technicolour guacamole.  You can't go wrong holding a bowl of guacamole.  Just broke a lamp?  Make some guac.  Need to say sorry to a friend?  Bring a bowl of concilatory guacamole.  'Accidentally' adopted a new pet or three and have to break it to your partner gently?  Yeah, guacamole might not be enough.  But it would make a good start!


So bright, it almost hurts your eyes.

I learned how to make this from a waiter at a restaurant just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They had a guacamole cart that they would wheel over to your table, with all the ingredients all chopped up, and then proceed to create avocado bliss before your very eyes. It’s so easy and visually stunning and not to mention yummy that you can’t not make it. The hardest part about making guacamole is just remembering all eight of the ingredients – when I’m shopping for the ingredients I pretty much have to walk around holding up however many fingers of ingredients I have picked up. It probably looks like I’m flashing gang signs whenever I do that. I try to ignore the funny looks.


Brightness dimmed by fun filter.  And yes, I did make this funky blue bowl, aren't I clever? :)

Serve this with plain tortilla/corn chips. The best ones I’ve found in NZ are the homebrand ones at Countdown, all nice and salty. None of this cheese-covered nonsense with my guacamole!! *Shakes fist* Also, don’t puree’ the avocado into a paste-like consistency. I’ve seen this done and to me it takes a lot of the flavour out it. I like my guac chunky, with lots of complementing flavours all mingling and getting to know each other in the bowl, not whizzed to greeny-gray gluey stuff.


Mexican-style Guacamole

• 2 large/3 small ripe avocados (they should be slightly squishy)
• 1 red onion
• 1 chilli pepper
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• 1 lime or bottled lime juice
• ¼ cup chopped coriander/cilantro
• Salt

Note: a food processor is useful, but not essential.

1. Finely chop the red onion and garlic cloves.
2. De-seed the chilli pepper and finely chop.
3. Halve the tomatoes and scoop the seeds and pulp out with a spoon. Dice up the remaining fleshy bits.
4. If you have a food processor, pulse the red onion, garlic, chilli pepper, tomatoes and coriander/cilantro a few times, until nicely incorporated but not pureed. If no food processor, just pile them all up on your cutting board and run your knife through it all until you have a uniform size going on. Dump into a bowl and incorporate well.
5. Cut the avocados in half and use your knife to remove the stones. Scoop out the green stuff into your bowl and use the back of a large spoon to smush the avocado up.
6. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and a good squeeze of lime juice, then mix everything together gently.
7. Make the guacamole a few hours before or up to a day before serving to let the flavours develop.
8. Store covered in the fridge to delay the avocado turning brown, then take it out a bit before serving to let it warm up.  Serve at or close to room temperature, not cold.

Gratuitous parting kitty shot: Lucy has a cute little beauty mark on her nose, like the little diva she is.

Winner Winner, Chicken (with Penne Pasta) Dinner!

Yesterday started like any normal lazy Sunday, with a good lie-in til the sun was well past the midday mark, but don't tell my mother that! It ended with my husband dancing in the street and us staying up til 1am and beyond like naughty children because we were way too buzzed to go to sleep.

In case you're wondering what all the fuss was about, the All Blacks smashed the Wallabies in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup. 

It was like Christmas Eve when you’re 5, only you don’t drink two more Dark & Stormies just to calm your nerves when you’re a yay-high. The productivity level of New Zealand will be at an all-time low this week, I’m predicting. At least it will be in our pod at the office coz the rugby is all we can talk about!

Here’s a little taste of last night’s celebrations:



Lightning-fast arms of joy!



The cider and the beer may be gone, but there was still some rum to calm the nerves post-game!

Before all that happened though, there was a brilliant dinner (if I do say so myself). This comes straight from The Pioneer Woman’s blog, which I love and can't get through the day without reading, otherwise I might melt. This dish was freakin’ easy – about 15 minutes of prep time, then 1.5 hours in the oven and boom! – and so tasty you’d think it took a lot more work than it does. It also doesn’t take many ingredients, which our bank account rather appreciates as the cost of food continues to climb.  Serve with some broccoli or other neutral green vegetable, you don't want to take the spotlight off this chicken.  Crusty bread is also recommended for cleaning your plate of sauce.  No dish soap necessary!

I wanted to take a bath in that sauce.

Penne with Chicken Thighs
from The Pioneer Woman, original blog post here, with step-by-step photo instructions,  witty commentary and a printable (and more precise than I can be bothered with) recipe

All it takes is some chicken thighs, some bottled marinara sauce of your choosing, onions, garlic, and some penne pasta. 

• Season chicken thighs, then brown in a little bit of oil in a large skillet (oven proof!) or Dutch oven, a few minutes per side.  Set aside on a plate.
• Chop up an onion or two and a couple cloves of garlic.  Saute the onion for a few minutes, then add the garlic and let the wonderful aromas waft through your house. 
• Add bottled (or your own homemade) marinara sauce to the pan and then reintroduce the chicken.  Pour the juice that may have accumulated on the plate into that pan too, you'll thank me later.
• Cover and pop into a 180C oven for 1 to 1.5 hours.  Go put your feet up, or if you're like me, decided that it's time to rearrange the pictures on your walls.
• About 10 minutes before the chicken is done, pop some penne into boiling water and cook as per directions on the packet.
• Plate it up and try not to burn your tongue on the hot chicken!

And go the All Blacks!

Social Baking: Cheese Scones & Berry Yoyos

Growing up I remember getting up early on a Saturday just to watch cartoons, and I would sit in front of the TV from 8 or 9am straight on through til noon when the boring adult shows came on, like Masterpiece Theatre.  My favourites were Garfield, the Smurfs, Captain Planet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Winnie the Pooh.  It pains me something fierce that Hollywood has ruined three out of those five with live action/CGI theatre releases.  Ruined, I say! 

*While researching my childhood, I came across this site, which has a complete listing of all the 80's cartoons and any DVD releases put out, so you can relive those golden Saturday mornings of eating your cereal in front of the tube in your pj's.  I know what I'll be doing next weekend!

I also had the live-action version of Rainbow Brite on beta and I'm pretty sure our beta machine went the way of the dodo due to death-by-over-Rainbow Briting.  God I loved that multi-coloured with the awesome boots.  Who else could pull off saying, "Hey Glumface! Next time there's a rainbow, look up!  You'll feel better!"  I mean for realz, homegirl had it goin on. 

Those boots are to DIE for.

That is the ONLY reason I would ever consider getting up during the single-digit hours on a weekend of my own accord.  I like my sleep and am a champion sleeper-inner, a fact my mother (hi Mom!) still bemoans.  Seriously, she called us this Sunday at 11:15am.  I may have said I was awake, but only awake in the sense that my mind was no longer in deep slumber state.  I was still horizontal, eyes crusty, voice hoarse from screaming at the rugby the night before, husband snoring beside me.  It took a full 10 minutes of poking and prodding for Jonno to wake up, and of course once he was on the phone Mom couldn't resist give him stick for being asleep sooo late on a Sunday morning.  Even from thousands of miles away she still manages to give us a hard time. :) 

So how I was convinced that 10am on a Saturday morning was the perfect time to cash in a Social Cooking voucher is beyond me.  Like so far beyond comprehension that I'm pretty sure some clouds would explode or something if we tried to figure out why I agreed to getting up early on a weekend.  But the promise of a good coffee before our baking session and the fact that we were going to be baking did make up for the early hour. 

*Has that Rainbow Brite picture burnt your retinas yet?  I can't see colours right now...

The Social Cooking kitchens are in a gorgeous spot down on Chaffer's Marina, and right next to Port Cafe, which I am very happy to say serves a lovely mocha.  The format of the class was pretty conducive to really getting into it: first the instructor gives a demo of the steps and then turns you loose to work in pairs on that day's recipes.  Now, while I am happy to be in amongst it all with everyone else, I hate hate hate with a passion getting called up in front of a group to do something, and that was pretty much the first thing that happened that morning.

We were given aprons and name tags.  The instructor asks who among us is a baker and, of course, I got pointed to by my mates.  No pressure there, right?  Heh.  Not unless you're a huge introvert with a seething fear/hatred of being stared at. 

Cue shrinking and attempting to hide behind my mate.  Unfortunately, she spotted my name tag and said, "So Christina, do you want to come up here and cream this butter and sugar?"  How do you say, "No, I'd really rather not coz then people will look at me and I might possibly melt into a puddle on the flow, and that would be really hard to clean up and you don't want that do you?"  So I stood there, creaming butter and sugar, while everyone watched, for like an eternity.  She couldn't move on to something else while I creamed, noooooo, she had to make everyone watch while I finished my task.  I about died.  But then it was over and we got down to the business of making yoyo's, which I had never had before. 

The biscuits themselves are so darn cute, and you could probably get creative on how you do the tops.  One thing that we did learn was that they don't spread, so however much you press them down into a disc, you will be trying to shove double that plus filling into your mouth.  Strategic baking, I tell ya!


Sweet, buttery goodness.

Now, I have to confess I was a little skeptical when I read the recipe before we made them.  "These are sweet biscuits, right?  For dessert kind of thing?  But there's no chocolate!"  I'm not very good at having non-chocolate things for dessert.  But it turns out yoyos are a delightful mouthful of joy, and so easy to throw together.  Look, aren't they pretty?


Berries make everything better!

For the second act, we made "The Best Cheese Scones in NZ".  Should be called "The Best Cheese Scones to Make If You're Really Lazy!" coz they were super easy and only required three ingredients: regular all-purpose flour, shredded cheese, and milk.  Mix, dump, bake, enjoy.  Kind of like in a rugby scrum. 

Scones for the lazy baker!

In all the morning was pretty fun, and we got both recipes done and dusted in about 1 hour 45 minutes.  Which is good, because if it hadn't been fun, I might have had to break some heads.  Imaginary heads though, I'm a nice person!  I don't know that I would have gone to this particular class of theirs if I hadn't been with friends though, as I'm decently competent around the oven and could have put these together if I had been so inclined.  What makes it is that you're baking with friends.  Anyway, on to the recipes:

Yoyos, from Social Cooking

makes about 10 sandwiches (20 biscuits)

Biscuits:

• 175g butter, softened
• 1/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/4 custard powder
• a few drops of vanilla extract

Filling:

• 50g butter, softened
• 1/2 cup icing sugar (or 1/4 icing sugar, 1/4 cocoa powder for chocolate)
• 2 tbsp custard powder
• optional: few drops of flavouring
• optional: fresh or frozen berries

1. Biscuits: Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy.  Add vanilla and mix in.
2. Sift flour and custard powder together to break up the lumps, then mix into butter mixture.
3. Roll spoonfulls into a ball with your hands, but don't handle too long or the butter will start to melt.  Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, about 1 inch apart. 
4. Press down into flat discs with a fork or some other implement of distruction.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C, until just golden and no longer soft.
6. Filling: Beat all ingredients together with a wooden spoon.
7. Once the biscuits are cool, spread filling on half.  Top with a berry or two for added flavour and colour and sandwich with an un-frosted biscuit.  Scrumtious!

The Best Cheese Scones in NZ, from Social Cooking
makes about 8 big honkin' scones

• 2 cups of self-raising flour
• 2 cups of shredded cheese, your choice of flavour
• milk to mix
• Optional ingredients to add: chopped parsley, chives, basil, parika, chopped chillies, spring onions, the list is endless!

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Place flour, cheese, and any optional ingredients you've added into big bowl and mix together.  Form a well in the centre and add a little bit of milk.
3. Mix ingredients together, and add milk as necessary until they are all holding together but not any more.
4. Dump big handful-sized mounds onto a lined baking tray.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden.  They're so good you don't even need butter!

Springy Pizza

Here is one of my favorite "getting to know you" questions: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?? 

 

I always say pizza, for many reasons.  Mostly it's because I take these questions way too seriously and therefore have an answer that I would actually be happy with in real life.  Coz you never know when you'll find yourself stuck in a magical universe where you are only allowed to eat the one food that you specify at the beginning of your stay, like a special kind of hell.  (Clearly I've read too many fantasy books with alternative magical universes.)  I'm determined to be less uncomfortable than everyone else in that hell!  See in my mind, pizza is so loosely defined that you can really put anything on a pizza, and you can switch it up all the time, you just have to have it on a crust.  The possibilities are way better than if you said you wanted to bring steak to One Food Hell, I mean that's just silly!

 

Also, I just love pizza.  Deep dish Chicago-style, flat and floppy New York-style; thin crust, stuffed crust, or garlic bread crust; square, round, saucey, non-saucey white pizza; vegetarian or supreme or just plain cheese, I love them all!  Do you remember Domino's thin-crust pizza from back in the day?  It was huge and round and as thin as paper and my Mom hated it because she thought it tasted like cardboard, but man that was some gooood cardboard!  Then when I was a senior in high school Pizza Hut had The Insider, which was stacked like this: bottom layer of thinnish crust, layer of four cheeses, more crust, tiny bit of sauce, then more cheese and only one or two toppings.  I think the point was to appreciate the cheese, and appreciate I did.  I distinctly recall going to Pizza Hut like once a week that year with my boyfriend and another couple, and who actually goes to Pizza Hut? 

 

Last week we gave making our own pizza dough a go for the first time, and I'm pretty sure we'll make it every week for the rest of our lives.  I got the recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Pioneer Woman Cooks.  It's so easy, I passed it off to Jonno to make the dough, and after a quick lesson on what a dough hook for the mixer is, he was away laughing.  And giggling.  And dancing with glee.  The dough needs about an hour to rise in a warm place, or if you're lacking in warmth during a southerly, in a low oven.  Then you splash some olive oil on a baking sheet, plonk the dough on, spread it out, and give yourself a nice crust around the edges! 

 

The sauce recipe came from the dark recesses of my brain, but I'm not sure you can call it a recipe because it only uses two ingredients: one can of tomato puree and one 140g pot of Pizza Sauce Tomato Paste.  This will make enough sauce for 4 pizzas if you're thrifty with it, so save the leftovers for next week. :)  And you will make it again.

 

After reading everyone's tweets about "yay spring = asparagus" and asparagus tarts, I put on my sheep hat like a good little follower and bought myself a bunch of expensive asparagus last weekend, fully knowing that husband hates it.  I had thoughts of making theKitchenMaid's asparagus tart, but decided to put them on this pizza instead coz Jonno had thoughtfully pulled them out of the fridge for me. 

 

I was reeeeally excited about the asparagus on my pizza!

Then I put on some mushrooms, another food-hate for husband, just to be sure he wouldn't steal any of my pizza.  To round it out I added onions, ham, and pineapple, pretty much because husband had already thoughtfully cut them up for me. 

 

Verdict?  My own version of heaven, that I will take to One Food Hell if I have to!

This pizza is really just a vehicle for the veggies.  And the cheeeeeeese.

I also love making pizza at home because you can use whatever veggies and cheese you have in the house that you want to use up - last night we used Edam cheese!  You just pop it into a hot oven and bake for 10 minutes!

 

Great Spring Toppings

• asparagus
• onions - yellow or red
• mushrooms
• basil
• courgettes
• spinach

Pizza Sauce

• one can tomato puree
• one 140g pot of pizza sauce tomato paste

Pizza Dough
from The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond, online version here
makes 2 pizzas, each enough for 2 people
can be made a few days before you want to use it!

• 1 teaspoon Active Dry Or Instant Yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour (or you could use 2 cups wholemeal flour and 2 cups regular)
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1. Sprinkle yeast over water.
2. In a mixer with paddle attachment (you can do this by hand, you'll just need some muscle!) combine flour and salt.  Drizzle in olive oil and continue mixing on low speed. 
3. Pour in yeast/water and mix until combined.  Form a ball with your hands.
4. In another bowl, drizzle some olive oil and then roll your dough around in it to coat it.  Cover with plastic wrap and either (a) leave in a warm place for 1 hour to rise or (b) stick in the fridge for up to 48 hours to use later.
5. When you're ready to use the dough, sprinkle some olive oil on a baking sheet and spread it out to cover all the surface area.  Plop the dough on said baking sheet, and use your hands to spread it out as thick or thin as you want it.  Don't forget the edge crust!
6. Spoon on sauce, strategically place toppings, then sprinkle over with cheese.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes in a 220 C oven.
8. Don't burn your tongue!

Seasonally Challenged: Vegetable Soup

I fed my husband vegetables last night, lots of em.  Six different veggies, to be accurate.  And no meat, potatos, pasta or rice.  Miracle?  Nah, just starve him til he'll eat anything!

Shooting from the hip vegetable soup!

Disclaimer: I know that it is coming on spring, and this recipe is mostly tinned and winter veggies, but I have said that I am seasonally challenged, so I'm just living up to the hype!


This was last night:

• Cheeky pint with workmate and his lady.
• 6:30 @ home: husband dishes out a snack of pita bread and hummus.
• 7: 00 Cracked a bottle of wine - the alcohol held off hunger for a while so I could catch up on Grey's Anatomy.
• 8:00, me, "oh, guess it's time to make dinner!"  I checked the recipe for the Minestrone I had planned to make.  $h!t, it takes hours.  We didn't have hours, the growls coming from Jonno's monster of a stomach were drowning out the rugby game, that's when you know it's bad!
• Delivered bad news to husband, he takes it stoically then astonishingly is still able to think on his feet: "isn't there some soup frozen in the freezer?  Just throw that in a pot, she'll be right!"
• Sure enough in the freezer there is an ice cream container full of what looks like chicken soup - we're saved!
• Not so fast - the soup is only chicken broth, left over from when I roasted a chicken and then thriftily used the bones to make stock.
• Me: "Didn't I buy some chicken the other day?  I'll just cook up one of those and chuck it into my already-defrosting stock and we'll have chicken soup.  Boom!"
• Nope, I didn't buy chicken, I bought pork chops.  Fail.
• In a strange twist of fate, I had just bought celery, which I never buy because we both hate the flavour of raw celery.  It tastes like sweet grassy nothingness, you know it's true!
• Bonus: other actual vegetables in the house (as opposed to frozen ones, usually reserved for stir-fry), so boom!  Vegetable Soup!
• 8:45 Put Round 1 of veggies in the pot, then go back to Grey's and another glass of red.
• 9:00 Round 2 of veggies plus herbs, more Grey's.  Possibly more wine.
• 9:20 Grey's is done, I remembered that I was supposed to feed my husband, dish some out and actually sit down and talk to husband for the first time that day. 

Lesson learned: label what you freeze!  I also discovered some kind of dough in the freezer, and I have no idea what it's for.  Could be pierogies, bread, pie.... 

And maybe I should start reading recipes before I plan them for the week?  But come on, who has time to actually read things, especially when the rugby is on, which it is constantly right now.  Thanks Rugby World Cup, for usurping my husband and stalling our lives for six weeks.

Oh, oh, but wait - RWC you make up for all your time-stealing by giving us ships to explore this weekend!  Ahoy mateys!  Five grey Navy boats (ships?) are currently gracing our office view and taunting us with their cool gadgety-looking things.  So.  Cool.

Spontaneous Vegetable Soup

Serves: 6 at least

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 L chicken stock or broth
• 1 tin cannelini beans or kidney beans
• 1 large kumara, sweet potato, or white potato
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1 tin sweet corn
• 2 tsp chicken or vegetable boullion or stock powder
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp rosemary
• salt & pepper

1. Defrost frozen stock or bring liquid stock to a rolling boil in a large pot.
2. Round 1 of veggies: beans, kumara/potato, carrots - into the pot for 15 minutes.
3. Round 2: celery, onions, corn, plus the herbs and stock or powder.  Season with plenty of salt and pepper.  Let simmer for another 10-15 minutes. 
4. You could also through in some pasta in this last step, but don't cook too long so that pasta doesn't get all soggy and floppy.
5. Serve to an unsuspecting yet starving family.

Will Sustain Life: Shrimp Stirfried Rice

This one is a Will Sustain Life with an exclamation point, as in,"Yay, this will sustain life and more!"

We went to New Plymouth for the rugby last Thursday.  Jonno was cheering for the USA, I was cheering for Russia.  I know, I should be rooting for my yankee brothers, but what can I say, my loyalties are screwy!  My favourite thing about the night was Captain Clever, the captain for the USA team.  I thought he should be a superhero. 


A Kiwi backing USA and an American pulling for Russia.

On Sunday when we got home, I did a Very Important Thing and organised our home study.  This had been bugging me for weeks, and upon arriving home from seven hours in the car playing crazy nerd games with my husband, I thought, "Now is the perfect time to tackle the bogey that is the study."  Not anything about relaxing or doing something about the pile of laundry that was starting to swallow the bathroom floor or about putting something together for dinner that was healthier than the last three nights pizza I had endured.  (Ok, 'endured' might be a bit strong - I loved every bite of all that pizza, even if some of it was frozen from the supermarket. I loves me some pizza!)  Nooooo, I was fully in 'Must Organise or Die' mode and nothing was gonna stop me!

I pulled out all my boxes of craft stuff and re-categorised everything, I filed all of our important papers into a new filing system, I even re-framed a photo and painted the frame black which is something I've been threatening to do for about eight months now.  I found our wedding decorations and made plans to create something arty with them one day.  I boxed up everything related to the seventeen different projects in various stages of 'bought the supplies and just barely begun' so that they looked pretty and weren't sitting out all over the show and thus reminding me of my failure to get past the starting line.

Meanwhile Jonno was sitting on the couch, watching the rugby - his Very Important Activity for the next month.

All of a sudden, I hear behind me, "Honey, don't you think we should do something about dinner?"  I realised it had gone way past dark out and my tummy was arumblin', aka past the point of logically being able to think of something to make for dinner and into the slightly-panicky phase where anything edible will do.  Jonno had a scared look on his face, like he was afraid I had forgotten to feed him. 

I always hate it when it gets to this point, when you're so damn ravenous that you can't even wait for the water to boil for pasta, you must have food thisveryinstant.  This time, I did a very new and novel thing for us - I went and looked at what food we had in the kitchen!  (Usually I just declare any thought of actually making food pure foolishness and beg for takeout.)  Lo and behold, in the freezer were some shrimp and some frozen veg, and lightbulb!  Shrimp Stirfry!!  This also helped to reduce the number of soy sauce bottles lurking in our cupboard down to three, all of which are in a semi-full state.  I'm pretty sure the kitchen elves are having a laugh at us somewhere behind all the pasta they stocked up on last month. 

Here are the details on my surprising food win on Sunday.  The stars must have aligned!

Shrimp Stirfried Rice
about 4 serves, super-easy for the lazy meal

• 2 cups frozen pre-cooked shrimp
• half a bag of frozen veggies, stri-fry mix if you have it
• 1 medium onion
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 oyster sauce
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (ish!)
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 2 eggs

1. Start your rice and cook as per directions.
2. Put the shrimp in a bowl full of very hot water to defrost.
3. Steam up your frozen veg.
4. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then cook them as you would scrambled eggs in a small frying pan or in a non-stick wok if you have one.
5. Roughly chop the onion, then put it into a hot wok with a swirl of olive oil.  Once the veggies are done, shake any excess water off and add to the onions in the wok.
6. Add the sauces to the veggeies and season with a little salt and some pepper.
7. Once the rice and shrimp are done, turn the heat down to low and add them to the wok at the same time, and give the whole thing a swirl of soy sauce, and let it all get to know one another for a minute or so - you don't want to cook the shrimp for too long because they will go all rubbery.
8. Roughly chop the scrambled eggs and add them at the very last possible second.
 

You could also add chopped capsicum, green beans, broccoli - the sky is the limit on the veggies, but this is what I had in my kitchen and therefore what my starved brain thought would be enough to sustain life for another night!  Also, my husband loves pineapple in anything Asian-related, and if we had had some, that would have been a nice addition to this too.

What have you thrown together in a moment of hungry desperation that turned out better than you thought?

...Now back to the rugby!