Walnut and Apricot Meringue Torte

Intro

I can't make pavlova, well not as good as Mum anyway, but I can make this very fine pavlova-ish dessert which always looks amazing when I take it as a plate to shared meals. Its not at all tricky to make but looks like you have real talent. 

Ingredients

Meringue

• 4 egg whites
• 1 cup castor sugar
• 150 walnuts

Topping

• 80g dried apricots
• 1 tablespoon brandy (at least)
• 300 ml whipping cream
• 350g can apricot halves

Praline

• half cup castor sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• half cup chopped walnuts (I usually toast these with the first measure)

Method

Meringue Method 

Chop the walnuts roughly, place on an oven tray and bake in a moderately slow oven for 5 minutes. Remove and cool. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, add the sugar very slowly beating all the while until all sugar is incorporated. Fold in the cooled walnuts. Take 2 oven trays, grease them lightly and line with baking paper (or dust with cornflour). Mark a 25 cm circle on each. Divide the meringue between the 2 trays and spread it out into neat circle shapes. Bake in a moderately slow oven for one hour, changing tray positions half way through. Allow to go completely cold. The meringue disks can be stored in airtight bags or containers for a few days if needed. 

Filling Method

Cover dried apricots with boiling water, stand covered 20 - 30 minutes. Drain, puree in blender or processor, push through a sieve. Stir in brandy. Whip the cream and fold together with the apricot puree. 

Praline Method 

Place the sugar and water in a small pan, stir without boiling until sugar has dissolved, boil rapidly 5 to 10 minutes or until a light golden colour. Add the walnuts, pour the mixture onto a lightly greased tin, tray or plate. When set, break into pieces and chop roughly. 

Assembly

Place 1 meringue disk onto a serving dish. Put a third of the apricot cream on top, then put the second meringue disk on top of that. Spread half of the remaining apricot cream over the top disk. Pipe a circle of generously sized rosettes around the outer edge and place a circle of apricot halves inside that. Sprinkle praline over everything. It looks good if the rosettes are about the size of the apricot halves.

Grape Sauce

Intro

A yummy variation on tomato sauce, I collected this recipe over the fence when I was a Child Bride. Our neighbours, Bruce and Julie Gallagher, had a grape vine and used to make this sauce from the ones not quite sweet enough to just eat. 

Recipe

Simmer together gently in a preserving pan for 1.25 - 1.5 hours or until beginning to thicken:

• 2 kg grapes
• 5 cups vinegar
• 4 cups sugar
• 4 teaspoons salt
• half teaspoon cayenne pepper
• half teaspoon black pepper corns
• 2 teaspoons whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

Skim seeds and spices off and blend for 5-10 seconds. Bottle in hot clean bottles. 

NB This can be quite thin sometimes ... seems to vary. Occasionally I have helped it thicken with a few teaspoons of cornflour mixed to a thin cream with cold water, then stirred into the simmering sauce stirring all the while.

Caramelized Mango, Bananas or Pineapple

Intro

This is a Bill Granger recipe that works really well for mango and pineapple to. I have 3 of his cook books now - he is the only chef whose books I covet and must own. I love that everything I have cooked of his has turned out perfectly. 

Recipe 

Peel and slice fruit: 3 bananas or 2 mangos or half a fresh pineapple. 

Melt below ingredients together in a heavy frypan until it forms a caramel and darkens:

• 60g butter
• 90g brown or demerara sugar
• half teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 tablespoons water

Add the fruit an toss through for a few minutes until well coated. Yummy with crepes for breakfast.

Crepes

Intro 

Take note bambini: crepes are completely different to pikelets and you cannot use the same batter recipe and just make it thinner. It took me ages to learn that lesson and I share it with you now. The secret to crepes is all in the technique and patience with the batter. I got this recipe from a Julie Biuso book back in the 80s. Its good for sweet or savoury fillings. I love it with caramelised mango, bananas or pineapple. 

Recipe

• 115g flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
• 300ml of milk plus a bit more (maybe)
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

Sift the four and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle and tip the eggs in. With a whisk start stirring gently drawing the flour in from the edges - at the same time start adding the milk in a thin stream keeping the mixture a thick cream consistency. Continue adding all the milk and the melted butter. Whisk well then set aside for at least 30 minutes. This does something to the starch particles and is important. You may need to add a bit more milk as it does thicken on standing. 
Heat a heavy based pan and lightly oil the pan with a papertowel. Once the oil starts to smoke pour in about a quarter cup of batter and quickly swirl it around tipping the excess batter back into the bowl. It should form bubbles quite quickly. loosen the edges with a palette knife then flip the crepe over for half a minute or so. Tip it out onto a rack and keep making crepes. They are pretty fast to cook and if I make a double quantity of this I interleave the hot ones with the ones cooked earlier to keep them warm.

Parmigiana di Melanzane

Baked eggplant with Mozzarella

Intro

One Christmas Day my mate Dave rang me from some Balkan hell-hole, Pristina I think, and I started crying over some bloke who'd stood me up the night before (turns out his Mother had been rushed to hospital with a heart attack). Anyway one thing led to another and Dave, who was quite distressed that I was crying, suggested that what I needed was a nice week in Naples and why didn't I pop over and he'd meet me there. Lack of money was no problem - he would pay. 

So 8 days later I found myself in Rome, exploring on foot, feasting my eyes and soul on the glorious churches and galleries. I truly didn't have much money at all and I used to squirrel away a spare bread roll from the Youth Hostel breakfast buffet to get me through the day. On the last day I had to choose between visiting the Colosseum or buying a slice of pizza for tea. The Colosseum won - of course. 

That evening I hopped on a train to Naples, I'd bought the ticket when I'd arrived, and made my way to the prearranged 'hotel', a particularly seedy one with very dodgy stains on the wallpaper, run by a a pair of old ladies with hairy legs and men's socks. And then I got an email from Dave; he was stuck in Kosovo, snowed in and didn't know when he would be able to get over..... so I went for a walk. And you know what, sometimes the universe just provides because I found a large note in the gutter and had enough money for the few days until Dave managed to hitch a ride over with the Italian army. 

Dave is a kindred soul; we both love food and drink and it was a glorious week in Naples. I ordered this dish in a little trattoria across the street from our 'hotel' and it was breathtakingly, heartbreakingly, divine. 

PS I foolishly entered into an agreement that in exchange for the trip of a lifetime to Naples, which cost Dave an enormous amount of money because we both had a very good time and we drank a lot of laphroaig, I would provide him with a lifetime of wine.....

Recipe

• 1 kg aubergine (eggplant)
• salt
• oil for frying
• 300g mozzarella, thinly sliced
• quarter cup fresh basil leaves
• Italian tomato pasta sauce

Slice the aubergine into 1cm rounds. Sprinkle both sides with salt and place on a rack or sloping plate or sieve so the juices drains away. Leave for 1 - 2 hours (I often miss this step if I'm in a rush and it doesn't seem to matter much). Drain and pat dry. Shallow fry the slices on both sides in smoking hot oil until golden brown - don't crowd the pan. Drain on paper towels. Spread a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a small gratin dish, put a layer of aubergine slices in next, then a layer of mozzarella and a few basil leaves, then sauce and keep layering again until ingredients are used, finishing with a few basil leaves. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees (200 celcius) and serve hot with crusty bread to sop up the juices.

Italian Tomato Pasta Sauce

Intro

Don't buy bottled pasta sauce ever again. Just don't do it. It takes about 15 minutes to make this simply gorgeous sauce - and it works just fine with plain tinned tomatoes. Don't be tempted to buy flavoured tomatoes or to dress this up with too many extra flavours or ingredients - its big enough on its own. 

Recipe

• 1 kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 3 x 425g cans chopped Roma tomatoes,
• 4 - 6 plump cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt
• quarter cup of olive oil
• fresh basil leaves

Heat the garlic in the oil at a low sizzle until its just starting to colour. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper then simmer for 15 - 30 minutes until you have a nice thickish sauce consistency. Tear some basil leaves in at the end. I use this for Cannelloni which the kids love and for one of my all time favourites, Parmigiana di Melanzane.

Old Fashioned Lemon Drink

Intro

Diane Edyvane's old fashioned lemon drink is world famous in Levin after she served it up at our annual volunteers morning tea party. Everyone in Horowhenua (except me) grows lemons and Diane and Fred are no exception - acres of citrus including limes, several varieties of lemon, grapefruit etc. Sometimes she uses a few limes as well as lemon in this cordial - just for a change. This is another old family recipe - not my families - but Diane remembers her Mother making this, as did hers - often with tartaric acid and epsom salts as well as the citric acid. 

Recipe

• 6 lemons (8 or 9 if small)
• 1.5 kg sugar (1.3 kg)
• 50 g citric acid
• boiling water

Peel the rind off two lemons. Place peel plus 2 cups of sugar in food processor and process until well ground. Squeeze the juice from the six lemons and mix juice with lemon sugar, the remaining sugar and the citric acid. Add boiling water making total volume up to 3 litres and stir to dissolve. Cool and store. Serve diluted with water about 1 part cordial to 5 or 6 parts water depending on taste.

Caramel Anzac Slice

Intro

This is, without doubt, the very best of my recipes for slices. It has all my favourite flavours: coconut, caramel and rolled oats. These are reminiscent of Anzac biscuits - a great Kiwi classic (yes - I will give recipes for these too).

Recipe

Base

Cream together

• 200g butter
• 150g sugar

Add

• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Press mixture into a greased swiss roll tin. Cook 10 minutes at 175 degrees celcius.

Filling

Melt together

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 25g butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup

Pour over the partially cooked base then add the topping..

Topping

• 70g butter rubbed into
• 1 cup rolled oats (organic oats are worth it - truly)
• half cup coconut
• quarter cup flour
• quarter cup brown sugar

Sprinkle over the topping and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees celcius.

Shortbread

Intro

When I have been poor, especially at Christmas time when the bambini expect things like Christmas presents and a Christmas meal, I have given gifts of food. One year I made Cashew Fudge packed into Christmas tins, another year Chocolate Truffles packed into small timber boxes which the kids dad made me out of pine offcuts which I washed green with watered down paint. Another year I made shortbread which I wrapped in cellophane and tied with red and gold ribbons. Tomato Relish, Tomato Sauce and Lemon Honey and also good gifts which people liked receiving.

Recipe

Cream together until white and fluffy

• 1 pound (454g) of butter
• 250g icing sugar

Sift together then fold in to the butter mixture in 2 or 3 batches:

• 400g flour
• 100g rice flour
• 110g cornflour

Form into 2 logs, wrap in glad wrap, greaseproof or tinfoil and refrigerate until firm.

Slice into 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick slices, put onto a greased baking sheet and mark tops with a fork making 3 rows of evenly spaced prong marks. Sometimes I use a wooden scottish shortbread mould with thistle marks.

Bake slowly at about 140-150 degrees celcius for at least 30 minutes, maybe 45 - maybe longer. They do not want to be coloured at all and are best when quite dry.

Tomato Sauce

Intro

Another one of Nancy Ransom's recipes - and its so yummy. I havn't made this for ages but I used to do a big cookup every year when I could buy tomatoes by the boxful from the market gardens for about $4. Des used to grow magnificent beefsteak tomatoes in his glasshouse - big as your palm - and I guess thats how come Nan accumulated these recipes utilizing the surplus.

A kitchen whizz is fine for chopping everything up and also for whizzing afterwards before bottling.

Recipe

Simmer together in preserving pan for 2.5 hours:

• 6 pounds tomatoes, chopped roughly (3kgs)
• 2 pounds onions, sliced (1 kg)
• 2 pounds apples, chopped roughly (1 kg)
• 3lb sugar (1.5 kg)
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 15g ground ginger
• 15g garlic

Tie these together in a square of muslin and throw in as well:

• 15g whole allspice
• 15g whole cloves
• 15g whole peppercorns

After the 2.5 hours is up, add vinegar and simmer for another half hour

• 1.125 litres malt vinegar

Remove muslin and bottle (in really hot sterilized bottles).

Oven Fried Chicken

Intro

I do cook real food, although from looking at the blog so far it would appear we live on cocktails, antipasto and enormous amounts of chocolate :) 

So for the first of many recipes of 'real' food (since tequila and chocolate apparently aren't) here is a chicken ovenbake. I make these a lot because they cook on their own while the chef is socialising with guests :) This is my oldest chicken bake - one I found as a Child Bride suddenly required to produce an evening meal every night! I reckon you could use this as a marinade, use chicken wings or niblets, and throw these on the bbq instead of in the oven. I'd double the marinade quantities. The best way to marinade I know is to put the ingredients into a plastic bag, squish to combine then throw the meat in. Suck all the air out - with a reverse balloon pump thingee of course and certainly not with your mouth ;) - and then just turn the bag over and wriggle the meat apart a bit every now and then. 

Recipe

• 500g chicken drumsticks
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• 3 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
• a few drops of tobasco sauce
• 2 teaspoons of curry powder
• half teaspoon oregano
• quarter teaspoon paprika
• 1 chicken stock cube

Place chicken in an over proof dish in a single layer. Combine all ingredients together, brush over the chicken. Bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes, turn chicken over, baste with any remaining marinade, Bake for another 15 minutes.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Intro

1 part Anita, 1 part my Mum and 1 part Rosalie :) 

This recipe has lovely layering around it and the intro may well end up longer than the recipe! Back in the day, when I was a kid, my Mum and Dad used to have these lovely dinner parties. Graham Greig (work colleague of Mum's) and Anita (his wife) were regular guests. Anita made this gorgeous Chocolate Mousse cake once and, fortunately for us gave the recipe to Mum. Apparently, its an old Hudson and Hall recipe and I did track it down many years later but this modified 'made up' version is heaps easier to make. 

Mum used to make this Mousse Cake for high days and holidays using sponge cake and a packet mousse mix and lumps of cake rather than layers. So not the Hudson and Halls recipe as such, or method actually, which involved many fine layers of homemade cake and mousse and hours of faffing about. The original recipe is hideously expensive to make and we were not a wealthy household but we took the concept! 

Then one Christmas in the mid 80s I put my finger into a bowl of chocolate mousse that Rosalie Blake's son Jeremy had made from a recipe he got from their neighbour Sarah Hodge in Manakau. Stunning. Just 1 word for it. So, the recipe entered its final incarnation and I use Rosalie / Sarah's mousse recipe, Mum's method and Anita's concept. This is only made on very special occasions - birthdays really. But wait - there is a final twist to the tale ... years later, my widowed Mum and Anita's widowed husband Graham got married. and one of the first times I went for a special meal (Christmas or something) I took a Chocolate Mousse Cake ... and that's when I found out that the dessert was actually based on Anita's recipe. 

Recipe

Melt gently together in a double boiler (or a microwave if you are impatient) until a nicely combined smooth mixture - don't over melt or over stir.

• 300g good chocolate*
• 125g unsalted butter (salted works just fine)
• 25g cocoa powder (yes use a scale)
• 50g castor sugar

Separate

• 5 eggs - throw 1 yolk away (or feed it to the cat)

Add 4 lightly beaten yolks to the chocolate mixture and stir until just combined - then stop immediately (or mixture may curdle) Beat together until stiff (but not quite pavlova stiff):

• 5 egg whites
• a pinch of salt

Gently fold into the chocolate trying not to smash too much air out.

Whip cream until soft peaks form (don't over whip because it makes it harder to work with)

• 300 ml cream (whipping cream / double cream - don't know what else its called)

Gently fold this into the chocolate mixture as well, taking care not to smash the air out. 

Take some cake** and break it into golf ball sized pieces. Get a spring form tin and put a thin layer of mousse on the bottom of the tin. Put bits of cake in and pour mousse in the gaps, then plonk more cake and more mousse in until the tin is full. If you use a large tin the cake will be shallower, if you use a smaller tin the cake will be very deep. Its best to use a larger tin because this is a very big dessert cake that feeds about 10 (or 4 teenage boys). 

Cover it with tin foil and refrigerate until firm. At least 6 hours - preferably overnight. When ready to decorate, lift tin foil off, slide a hot knife around the edge of the tin, loosen the spring form tin, take tin off, place a serving plate on top and tip cake and plate upside down. Remove the base of the tin by sliding a hot knife underneath it. Smooth the top if desired with a hot knife. Decorate with whatever you like. I often use piped whipped cream and halved, hulled strawberries or tinned mandarin segments. My kids love broken flaked chocolate or Belgian seashell chocolates or Ferrero Rochers (yes - the bambini are horribly spoilt but they love me so its all good). 

* Good chocolate means not compound chocolate and not that crappy Cadbury palm oil one but real chocolate. Whittakers is great. Milk is perfect or sometimes I use 50/50 milk and dark Ghana. Don't only use a dark one or it will be unpleasantly bitter. If the mousse tastes grainy or doesn't form a delightful creamy smooth texture it is usually crappy, cheap, nasty chocolate (and I've been caught out a few times). 

** I usually buy a plain trifle sponge or pair of round sponges from the supermarket but I sometimes make a chocolate sponge. It makes a firmer cake which is a bit more filling.

Gin Gimlet

Intro

I propose Gin Gimlet as the Summer drink of choice this year. Last year we only had 2 summery days so didn't need one but the previous year we did Margaritas - which, despite containing the devil's liquor (tequila), made for a memorable summer.

Recipe

• 1 part gin
• 1 part Roses lime cordial (up to 3 parts really but I prefer 1:1)
• ice

Mix it up and drink.

Cheese Puffs

Intro

Another one of Nancy Ransom's recipes, this one was brought home by Des from Te Kowhai which was THE wedding reception lounge in Horowhenua - back in the day. He was a chippie by trade but was surprisingly good at baking. Apparently he was the cook when he was stationed in the Pacific as a young man during WWII - which explains why a man of his generation, working in a macho industry, living in traditional, conservative, small town NZ in the 60s actually knew one end of a wooden spoon from the other! 

Recipe
Sift together:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 and a half teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt
• pinch of cayenne

Combine together then add to the dry ingredients above :

• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup milk

Then fold in:

• 1 and a half cups grated tasty cheese

This should be a wet, lumpy, sloppy-scone consistency. Put tablespoons of mixture into greased patty tins and cook for about 5 minutes in a very hot 400 degrees fahrenheit oven. Serve immediately.

Margarita

Intro

Less said about tequila the better. Just remember children: it is not your friend and will leave you dying in a ditch as quick as look at you*.

Recipe

• tequila 1 part
• triple sec 1 part
• lime juice 1 part
• cracked ice

Shake, strain and pour - or not, whatever.

* Also, it is impossible to be sad if you are drinking tequila.

Lemon Coconut Slice

Intro

This is a slice I 'invented' in the process of trying to replicate a lemon slice I tasted while staying at The White House, a ski lodge in Ohakune. I never did get it right but my slice is pretty good. Everyone grows lemons in Levin - except me - so whenever I get given too many to use quickly I make this.

Recipe

Pastry

Cream 60g butter then add 2 tablespoons sugar beating until just combined - don't overmix or it will be tough. Add 1 lightly beaten egg then fold in 1 cup plain flour and 2 tablespoons self raising flour. Knead very lightly then rest in fridge in 20 mins. Press into a swiss roll tin - it will be thin.

Filling

Spread over a half quantity of lemon honey.

Topping

Mix together then sprinkle evenly over the lemon filling:

• 2 eggs
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 and a half cups of thread coconut

Bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees until the top is lightly browned and the base is cooked through.

Chocolate Pudding

Intro

This recipe dates from about 1991. I had a friend called Fran Lewis who used to bring this dessert whenever her and Pete were invited for dinner. Eventually she gave me the recipe and its now my kids all time favourite dessert. Its a microwave pudding so you can be eating it just 15 minutes after walking into the kitchen. Connor is the King of cooking this and he started making it when he was about 10.

Recipe

• 60g butter (2ozs)

In the microwave melt butter on high power for 30 seconds. Use a wide bottomed dish or bowl that you will cook the pudding in. Pull it out and lightly stir in the following - don't over mix it or the pudding will be tough.

• half a cup sugar
• 1 egg
• half a cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Scrape the batter off the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper so it sits neatly on the bottom of the dish. Set aside.

In a small bowl mix together:

• half a cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa

Sprinkle evenly over the batter. Gently pour one and half cups of boiling water over the back of a spoon onto the batter. Cook for 6.5 minutes at 100% power. Stand for 2 minutes.

Chocolate Cake

Intro 

So this one has to be first up because having just baked one, William has eaten about 1/2 of it and its barely cool enough to hold in bare hands! We don't usually ice it because the kids aren't big on sweet stuff but the original recipe had icing so I've included it. 

I found this recipe back in 1985 when I was living in Tin Can Bay, Queensland. We were working 12 hour days, 7 days a week and cashing our pay cheques and doing grocery shopping was a nightmare. We were living in a fully furnished holiday flat with only the bare essentials of kitchen equipment and a daggy wee bench-top stove. This recipe fit the bill because I could whip up something yummy from the pantry really quickly with a wooden spoon and cooked in a meat dish. 

Recipe

Preparation

• Turn oven to fan bake 180 degrees.
• Prepare either 2 small cake tins or 1 big one (a roasting dish is fine) by greasing with butter or lining with baking paper (my favourite).

Method

Sieve together:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 and half cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Beat lightly together with a fork: 

• 2 eggs
• half  a cup milk

Boil together:

• 4oz (125g) butter
• 1 cup of water
• 3 and half tablespoons cocoa

Once the butter and water mix comes to the boil pour it into the flour mixture and stir it together, tip in the egg mixture when its about half mixed. Tip the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. 

Icing

Melt together:

• 2 oz butter (65g)
• 1/3 cup water (should be milk but I use water)

Add:

• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 500g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Beat until smooth adding more liquid or icing sugar as required. Ice cake while slightly warm.

Why I started this blog

Because I lost my favourite cookbook for a few months and it was terrible - just terrible. I couldn't make Caramel Dumplings or Shortbread or Apple Cake - things I have been cooking since I was a kid. So here it is, my new digital surrogate, a cook book for posterity and being online the kids can look up recipes whereever they are, whenever they need them. Some of my recipes are old ones, old family ones, and I love the thought that my kids will be be able to cook recipes my Mum remembers her Grandmother cooking for her. Other recipes are new ones that I want to keep handy for posterity. Enjoy.