Keeping warm

It's July! Term is over, winter holidays have begun, and overnight temperatures are consistently below freezing. Keeping warm in houses built for summer is a high priority.

I was very excited to find this on my trip to Kinokuniya Sydney a few weeks ago; I'm still working my way through it and haven't picked my first recipe to try yet. But looking forward to having lots of excuses to turn on the oven this month. (Recommendations welcome!)

Speaking of excited, we got two care packages from the US in the last week - full of healthy treats, as you can see. The resulting jumping up and down helped us generate some heat.

Hot chocolate season is in full swing, of course. I've topped up my stash of hot chocolate mix (using this recipe), as well as some suitably giant American marshmallows from Costco.

I can't give up on fruit salad just because it's winter, even if I do have to use canned apricots and peaches. (These make the salad more appealing to Miss B, so whatever works, I guess?)

 

This week one of our friends had an impromptu winter cookout housewarming, including breaking in her new fire pit. I brought along the ingredients to make s'mores, and since graham crackers are hard to come by in Australia I made my own - the classic version (on the right) following this recipe, and a grain-free version (on the left) using this recipe.

I also brought this along for us to nibble on while dinner was coming together - a hot spinach dip. I've made this several times over the past few weeks, but I haven't been following a precise recipe - it's basically 1 part sauteed baby spinach to 2 parts a combination of cream cheese, Boursin-style fresh herbed cheese, and sour cream - how much of each depending on what's in the fridge. Add seasoning to taste - salt, pepper, lemon juice are what I generally go for. Bake in a 350F/180C oven for 20-25 minutes until hot and bubbling. Serve with crackers. A good way to warm people up on a cold winter's night.

Hope you're keeping warm where you are - or cool, as the case may be.

Strategic cooking

A lovely place for a hike, except for the part where I don't really like to hike

The first half of June seemed to involve an epic amount of cooking (unaccompanied by any photo-taking or blog-posting, alas - hence the entirely gratuitous scenery shot of a recent trip to Blue Moutains National Park). During that two-week stretch I had close to two dozen people over for meals, in varying amounts and combinations, all associated with DP's programme in one way or another (ie, mostly - but not all - teapot people). Enough of these events were back-to-back that I had the opportunity to experiment with re-purposing leftovers strategic cooking in a way that I was comfortable with, rather than starting from zero every time.

Here are a few of the hacks I came up with, mostly to do with starters and desserts - I think because I'm used to cooking a main meal most nights anyways, it's the frills that drive me around the bend.

Starters
This is not rocket science, but worth noting - a sturdy dip such as either of these will hold well for a couple of days. Maybe freshen the second batch with a squeeze of lemon or a slug of olive oil before serving?

• Basil-cashew-parmesan dip (I made a big batch of this, divided it, and served it two nights running to non-overlapping groups of guests)
• Garlicky sun-dried tomato spread (ditto; the second use was part of a bigger starter spread for a large group)

Desserts

• Chocolate ganache (I made a big batch of this; the first night I drizzled it over brown sugar pound cake and vanilla ice cream; by the second night it had firmed up in the fridge and I used it to fill a batch of Essential Cookie Sandwiches for a simple dessert for a non-teapot-person visitor.)
• Flourless chocolate cake (I served this in slices with whipped cream the first night, then in rounds, topped with roasted pears and maple whipped cream (an homage to the flavors of poires belle Helene) the second night)
• Caramel apple upside down cake (again - first night in slices with cream (ice? whipped? maybe a choice?), second day in hefty chunks in muffin cases as part of a lunch dessert spread)

It's probably worth noting that both the chocolate and the apple cakes were just as delicious the second day and not at all dried out or otherwise deterioriated.

Extras
In the event that you make a very large batch of nice homemade rolls one night and happen to have a lot of leftovers, they make excellent garlic rolls to accompany the next night's main course (particularly if it's something Italian, which it usually is in my house). Simply cut nearly all the way through each roll in an X-shape, then drizzle generously with butter that has been melted and combined with lots of chopped garlic. Wrap tightly in aluminum foil and re-heat for 15-20 minutes.

I also tried out some new stuff, which I'll write up as soon as I make them again and take some pictures of them. Hightlights to come include an entirely GF meal, something Miss B refers to as "flat tasty chicken", and my new favorite dessert.

Five/one

Happy Friday! Time for another installment of Five Things That Make Me Happy and One Thing That's Pissing Me Off:

1. I had to stay up super late last night to finish a major assignment - but now it's done and ready to go out the door and off my mind in time for the weekend.
2. The weather in Canberra is suddenly summer-warm and it's lovely to have the windows open and be able to eat meals outside.
3. I love going away, but I also love not going away - really looking forward to a weekend at home.
4. Miss B is tackling learning a new skill that she's been working up to for ages - and she's making amazing progress at it. It's fantastic to watch.
5. I've been digging into my bookmarked recipes for spring and summer cooking inspiration; I made this herbed feta dip for a starter recently, subbing cilantro/coriander and basil in for the herbs specified in the recipe. A hit!

And:

6. I can't believe, in the throes of my deadline fog last night, that I forgot to post! NaBloPoMo fail #2!

Reverse engineering

Last year when we were living in temporary accommodation and I had only the TUK at my disposal, I had to dispense with certain aspects of company meal prep (since dispensing with the company was obviously not an option). Appetizers were an obvious choice, especially after I discovered a fresh and delicious basil-cashew-parmesan dip readily available in my local supermarket. This was wildly successful with any number of guests, and especially with DP, who took to requesting it before every company meal. Once I unpacked my food processor, however, I began to think less about how tasty and effortless it was, and more about how much each little tub cost. And since its primary ingredients were right there on the label, I thought it might be feasible to concoct my own version. This is the result of my experimentation.

Reverse engineered basil-cashew-parmesan dip
I prefer the consistency of this to be on the chunky side, as that is more like the original dip. If you prefer a smoother, more pesto-like consistency, then you will probably want to add the extra olive oil, as indicated below, and maybe even a bit more.

2 cups firmly packed basil leaves

.5 cup roasted salted cashews

.5 cup shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese

1 clove garlic

1 anchovy

2 tsp lemon juice

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

salt

Place all ingredients except olive oil and salt in bowl of food processor, and puree to a chunky paste. Drizzle 2 Tbsp of olive oil over, sprinkle with salt, and process again. Look at consistency and add third Tbsp of olive oil if desired.

Makes about 1 cup of dip. Serve with pita chips or other tasty dip-conveyor of choice.

Basil overload

So, my basil has done rather well this year. I think it’s over four feet tall at its highest point—definitely taller than Miss B and nearly chest-high on me. Now that the weather has cooled off, it has slowed down, but is still flourishing. I know my days of walking out the back door and picking a leaf (or a handful) are numbered, and that I’ll have to start thinking about doing a major harvest soon, before we get a frost.

What to do with it? I’m planning to make some more pesto, and with very limited freezer space right now I’m also looking for shelf-stable ways to preserve it—possibly drying some and canning some. I found an obscure recipe for Basil-Pepper Jelly that looks like a good way to preserve some of this and, as a bonus, use up the bags of Italian fryers my prolific gardener friend T. has bestowed upon me.

Deconstructed salad

Clockwise from top: pita chips, hummus,
cucumber sticks, grape tomatoes, Caesar dip, baby carrots

One of my cooking idiosyncracies is that I absolutely loathe cutting salad. I’m not really sure why; it could just be that I’m impatient. Or it could be that people always throw salad in to recipe and menu discussions as an afterthought, as if it’s a snap—you know, all that “serve with a tossed salad”; “all you need alongside is a salad”; etc.—when cutting and making dressing for a tossed salad involving more than one ingredient can take up a pretty good-sized chunk of time. It’s not hard, but it is fiddly, and not my first choice of activity when I’m trying to get dinner on the table for the hungry hordes, or for that matter, lunch on the table for my hungry self. I don’t find “knife work” (that’s cheffyspeak for “cutting up things”) soothing at the best of times, and right before I want to eat is definitely not the best of times.

Action points

Conferences are great, especially if, like me, you work alone most of the time. They allow you to re-connect with friends and colleagues, resolve problems in a five-minute discussion that would’ve taken days over email, brainstorm projects for the future, talk about things using jargon and shorthand that only your co-workers can understand and appreciate. They send you home feeling professionally recharged, motivated, and inspired.

Brain block

I’ve been a little slow about posting lately. (Sorry about that. I’ve got a lot on the brain.)

I’ve been slow on the uptake in other areas, too, if that helps. An explanation, by way of a digression: one of the by-products of having a child in preschool is that they meet other kids. Those other kids have parents. If you’re lucky, your child will hit it off with some other children, and you will hit it off with some other parents. If you’re very lucky, some of those children and parents will be related to each other.