Number 5 Restaurant - Degustation

Last night's dinner out at Number 5 Restaurant in Auckland city was fantastic. We had a delicious six courses and a sorbet which was incredibly well wine matched. The beauty of this meal was coming away feeling satisfied but not over full. The presentation was fantastic and it all tasted as good as itlooked. I even ate a little bit ofvenison...pretty goodforsomeone who does not eat red meat!

• Beetroot cured salmon with crab mayonnaise - my favourite dish

• Seared scallop, pea puree and quail egg - John's favourite

• Confit onion and goats cheese tart -

this would be a

super easy one for a dinner party starter.

• Tea smoked venison carpaccaio

• Lemoncello Sorbet

• Seared Duck Breast, Celeriac puree - I have cel

eriac growing in the garden so it was great to have this as part of a dish.

• Warm Orange and Almond pudding

Oooby Box - My excitement for a Monday

Every Monday an Oooby Box of about a dozen different fruits and vegies gets delivered to our front door. I get an email a few days before telling me what will be in it. The idea is the food is sourced as locally as possible - it cuts down on the carbon foot print and it is organic or has had minimal sprays in the growing process.

Some weeks (like this week) the contents are pretty standard fruits and vegies that you would get at the supermarket. Other weeks there are things in it that I have never cooked with before...Daikon Radishes were an example recently, chestnuts were another (I made a yummy chicken stuffing and also caramelised some).

I really like the concept and the challenge of trying new things. I do have to admit that there have been a couple of things that I haven't been up to the challenge of cooking...cavolo nero and chokos...but they feed our worm farm and compost so I guess I can live with that.

Oooby (http://ooooby.ning.com/) have a road side stall in operation in Grey Lynn where you can take any surplus from your garden to sell. Maybe one day I'll have enough of something to do that?

The Magic Of 'Sprinkles'

When faced with the choice of about 30 different doughnuts Isabella (three years) was always going to go for the one with sprinkles (hundreds and thousands I think is the 'adult' name). It amazes me how little people are so attracted to often hideous colour combinations and a texture that is a cross between sugar and chalk.

Anyway, when faced with a long wait for a train, a doughnut complete with 'sprinkles' made a boring wait into an adventure in the eyes of a three year old. To me that is magic.

It just goes better in Le Creuset - Braised Lamb Shanks

If I was asked what my favourite kitchen implements were, (am I odd to have even thought about an order of favourites?), my answer would have to be my Le Creuset cookware...and especially my large casserole dish.

Maybe I am biased but I really do think they make a difference to the finished product. I love slow cooked meals - the ease of throwing a few simple things together that will slowly, magically turn into something amazing over several hours, the smells wafting through the house all day and of course the finished product is always divine.

Le Creuset has a lifetime guarantee - maybe that justifies the price? I really like the idea of passing on my cookware to the next generation...I know I'd love to receive something that. Hard to tell if Isabella at three years old will be as into food as I am. I suspect she won't get much of a choice.

Tonight's dinner is a bit of a special one. The return of my husband after over three weeks away overseas. It is kind of fitting that I make something he loves..despite the fact that I won't be easting it myself. I don't eat red meat...except for the odd exception like bacon!

My recipe for Braised Lamb Shanks...isn't very precise.

It always starts with searing the meat in hot oil in the same dish they are going to be braised in.

It always has a chopped onion or two and garlic chucked in.

There is usually a lot of red wine in there...about a bottle for 4-6 shanks. I do go with the rule that the wine has got to be as good as what you are drinking...preferably what you are drinking with it.

There is usually tomatoes - a tin or like I did today half a dozen that were quite ripe in the fruit bowl.

Salt, pepper...a few fresh bay leaves (yes I grow them especially for this dish)

After that it is whatever is in the fridge or pantry...sometimes chopped potatoes (we are having mashed tonight with them), maybe mushrooms.

I try to make sure the meat is covered when it starts cooking, then cook it at about 120 for at least 4-6 hours. It is sometimes necessary to add a bit of liquid if it dries up too much.

I avoid stirring the dish as the meat gets so soft if falls apart.

Oh ....and there is freshly baked bread to soak up the juices tonight.

Comfort food for a cold night- Feijoa Cobbler

The recent feijoa crop from our two trees was fantastic. Each day we had at least a bucket of new fruit on the ground. Pretty much everyone in our family love them so plenty get eaten straight away. Lots more were given away.

The rest were cooked in vanilla syrup and preserved for special nights over the rest of the year. I suspect most of them will end up in crumbles and cobblers...and maybe a few in 'Painted Apple Moths' a potent cocktail we make for guests - especially those from overseas.

What seems to be the start of the cold weather was a good excuse to break out a jar and make feijoa cobbler. There is always enough for two nights, and it is always better the second night...or the secret spoonful cold out of the fridge when no one is looking.

Feijoa Cobbler - Cuisine Magazine online

25 medium feijoas

1 cup castor or white sugar

100g butter

1 cup self raising flour

250ml milk

½ teaspoon vanilla essence Preheat the oven to 180°C. Halve the feijoas and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Place the flesh into a small baking dish with a sprinkling or sugar and a little butter and allow to soften in the oven. Cream the sugar and the butter together, Next add the flour, then add the milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Remove the baking dish from the oven and pour the batter over the fruit to cover. Place back into the oven and cook for around 30 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 6.

Sour Dough Success - It was worth the effort!

I love sour dough bread but since it requires a 'starter' I've always stuck to commercial yeast for my regular bread making. Thanks to a helpful mother I now have a starter to use for bread making (see previous post). Sour dough starters use 'wild yeast' from the air in the initial stages...one of the reasons I chose this as part of the name of this blog. The other reason was a recent dramatic event where a large heavy glass bottle of feijoa syrup we were using for cocktails exploded dramatically, shattering the empty bottle beside it, sending shafts of glass several metres across the kitchen and lounge and embedding glass in the heavy glass splashback behind the cooktop. My brother who has a little bit too much knowledge about brewing beer informed me it was 'wild yeast' that had cause it to fermentand subsequently explode. I guess that was an example of one of my disasters?

My sour dough starter has been lovingly tended for well about three weeks now. Not being one to follow recipes to the letter I have changed from one original recipe and gone to another sour dough starter recipe that allows the starter to be kept in the fridge.

This afternoon was the first successful baking. While the finished product was a little flat for my liking the taste was great, especially still warm from the oven with butter melting in to it!

Bella loved it too!

More to Japanese Food than Sushi - Daikon Radish Salad Recipe

This week's Oooby Box contained a few challenges...one was Daikon Radishes. The whole appeal of getting a box of fruit and veges delivered is forcing me to experiment with new things rather than sticking to the tried and true.

This salad was amazing. Incredibly easy, a real Japanese flavour and I'm sure incredibly healthy too. It's just a shame I didn't have more family here to appreciate it.

Ok the photo is from the internet...the finished product wasn't hugely attractive.

Daikon salad with Wasabi dressing – serves 8

2-3 cups grated daikon (peeled)

2 cups grated carrot

1 pear, peeled and grated

1 Avocado, peeled, destoned and diced

Dressing

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

½- 1 teaspoon Wasabi paste

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon rice vinegar (or white vinegar)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

3 tablespoons rice bran or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Place grated daikon in a sieve and sprinkle over a teaspoon of salt. Stand for 30

minutes then squeeze out any excess liquid. Place in a bowl with the remaining

salad ingredients.

Mix all the dressing ingredients together and toss through the salad just before

serving.

Grazie Al Volo!

While it seems like a bit of a cop out writing a post about food and having take away pizza as an early post I think the pizza from Al Volo can be easily justified!

This totally authentic Italian pizza restaurant (yes even the staff are Italian) makes the best pizza I have ever tasted - anywhere in the world. They are great as a take away but even better fresh out of the woodfire oven and straight on to your plate eaten with a glass (or bottle) of Italian Red.

When we were in Italy a few years ago we specifically drove to Naples for a day trip to eat pizza, it is the home of pizza, only to be horribly disappointed.

The thing that really struck me as we ate (and drunk) our way around Italy was the simplicity of the food. It really got me thinking about how I often overcomplicated meals I was preparing. In Italy (and at Al Volo) the simplicity of the flavours is what makes the food so divine.

Just for the record - Al Volo pizza was the dinner of choice of Isabella (3) tonight. I expected that one pizza would easily be enough for us - she managed to eat half all by herself!

Suicide by Sour Dough?

The smell of baking bread is a familiar one in our home. I'm sure there will be future posts about the different breads I make. Sour dough bread has always been one of my favourites. I've had a few less that successful attempts at making a sour dough starter and then the bread in the past but after seeing a River Cottage programme devoted to making bread I was inspired again. The only hitch is that the growing of the sour dough starter requires a hot water cupboard or a warm spot...considering it is winter and we have not hot water cupboard this becomes a bit difficult. I enlisted the help of my Mum to start the starter. It is now bubbling (or should I say festering away) on my bench. We had a false start last weekend but the plan is to make a loaf from the starter this weekend. It has better be good! The starter has had daily halving, feeding and stirring for over two weeks now. The smell seems right - not pleasant but 'right'.

A blog in the baking

A well known bumper sticker begins...I'd rather be... mine would read, "I'd rather be cooking". Not the day to day family meals that suck the fun, creativity and enjoyment out of cooking but the creations that are sometimes days or weeks in the planning and are savoured rather than consumed (or inhaled in the case of some members of the family).

My grandmothers and mother all had hand written recipe books, lovingly added to over the years and with splatters of food from sitting on the bench while the 'cooking action' happened. 
It occurred to me that I will not have one of these treasured collections of both recipes and in fact family histories to pass on, so I started working on this blog.
It is both a way of collecting and organising recipes and memories for today and for the future.
I use it as a reference and a way to record special experiences and hope that in the years to come it will be used by my family, friends, and anyone else who is interested.