Ginger Fudge Slice

Intro
This recipe is really delicious just plain as is, but for a special occasion flash it up with melted dark chocolate:

• dip each square diagonally in melted chocolate,
• splatter chocolate on top,
• line tin with tin foil and spread a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom, then add biscuit mixture, when set add chocolate on top as well.

Recipe

• 4 ozs butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons condensed milk
• 1 packet wine biscuits (plain sweet)
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup crystalized ginger

Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and condensed milk. Cook gently, stirring all the time, until sugar is dissolved.

In a kitchen whizz or food processor grind biscuits into fine crumbs, and the walnuts, and the crystallized ginger. Mix butter mixture into crumb mixture. Press into a tinfoil lined tin and refrigerate. Cut into small squares once set. Store in refrigerator.

Loquat Pie

 

Intro

For a few years a Summer highlight for our family was the Organic River Festival at Kimberly River. The Festival went through a few changes and is no longer held which is a dam shame. However, back to my story.... Couple of years back I helped a good friend on his stall. He manufactures gorgeous organic fruit juices and apple cider vinegar under the label Coral Tree. We sold organic plums from his orchard but he also had this massive crop of loquats from lovely old tree. We decided to try and make something from the loquats using organic ingredients as far as possible. A hunt around the internet, a few trial batches and voila - Loquat Pies. 

Recipe

Prepare 4 cups of washed, seeded and chopped loquats (use flesh and skin only) . Simmer together with half a cup of water until soft and pulpy (about 30 minutes). 

Sift these together:

• 2 tablespoons flour
• quarter teaspoon all spice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar

Add to the fruit and stir over heat until mixture thickens. Cook for 1 minute.  Allow to cool then use as a pie filling. I used this Sweet short pastry recipe but used organic flour and organic honey instead of sugar. A simple fruit crumble topping completed the pies.

Mushroom Rolls

Intro

I seem doomed to be forever surrounded by bloody vegetarians. My kids bring them home now; my daughter has had 2 close friends who didn't eat meat and my son's gorgeous wife is a vego too. Fortunately Bloke #2 was a vegetarian and over the 7 years or so we were together I gathered a few good recipes up. He loved pastry and pies and these 'sausage rolls' are so tasty I stopped making meat-ones altogether. 

Recipe

• 500g mushrooms - finely chopped by hand or in a food processor,
• 2 large onions, finely chopped by hand - they bruise in a food processor,
• 4 tablespoons olive oil,
• 3 large garlic cloves - finely chopped,
• 2 teaspoons curry powder,
• 1 teaspoon tumeric,
• 40z fresh breadcrumbs (fresh bread slices in food processor),
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley,
• 2 eggs,
• salt, pepper,
• flaky pastry - prerolled sheets or a block rolled out 2-3mm thick.

Heat the oil in a frypan, add the spices and garlic and cook gently for a minute or so. Add the onions and saute for a few minutes then add the mushrooms and cook until soft. Add the parsley and breadcrumbs and stir through. Remove from heat, cool a little then add the eggs, allow to get cold. Assemble as for your favourite sausage rolls. 

Method

Lay out rectangles of pastry (cut pre rolled squares in half), place the mushroom filling in a long sausage shape down the middle. Fold pastry over sealing edges with water. Make a few slashes or decorative cuts in the top. Glaze with beaten egg, sprinkle on a few grindings of coarse sea salt, cracked pepper or dried herbs. Cut into pieces as big or small as you like. Place on a greased baking sheet spaced apart to allow for pastry to rise. Cook in a hot oven , about 210 degrees, until pastry is golden and well risen.

Chocolate Fudge Slice

Intro
When I was at primary school my best friend was Denise; actually she is still is one of my very best friends now. You know the kind: you can ignore each other for months and months and months then when you do get together you just pick up where you left off.

It was the late sixties when 'good' mummies were home by after-school 3pm, cooked yummy nutritious meals every night and had full cake tins. My Mum's baking included sultana cake, chocolate cake, coconut cake, ginger crunch, peppermint slice, coconut macaroons and a cruncy biscuit made with Greg's instant pudding; it came in all sorts of different flavours and the biscuits were different every time. I remember three things that Denise's Mum, Verna, made: yo-yos, coconut ice slice and chocolate fudge. My kids love this now and its easy to make. Sometimes I jazz it up with a few raisins or walnuts but its perfectly nice as it is.

Recipe

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tblsp cocoa
• vanilla essence
• 1 pkt plain sweet biscuits (eg super wine)
• 6 ozs butter - melted

Break the biscuits into pieces - not too small is best. Place in a bowl with all the other ingredients and combine.

Press into a greased or tinfoil lined biscuit tin / tray. Ice with chocolate icing and store in fridge until set. Cut into small squares once set.

Thai Pumpkin Salad

Intro
Kiwi's eat pumpkins. I discovered - quite by accident - that some people around the world don't. Apparently some people consider pumpkins as stockfood!

I discovered this one night after inadvertently horrifying a young German lad who needed a bed for the night. He was hitchhiking through NZ and had come into the library late one afternoon looking for accommodation and it had just seemed rude to not take him home.

I've met a few interesting people this way - or just picking them up like the Czech lads of a few years back. They pitched their tent on my back lawn and spent a week camping out, reading books and swimming in the sea. A few months ago Youji from Japan, who was cycling around NZ, left his bike at the library overnight and came home for a homecooked meal (he ate like a horse - everything I gave him) before heading down to Wellington to stay with #1 Son. We are a friendly lot in Levin; my neighbour collected a French couple at the supermarket on New Years Eve just gone. They saw in the New Year at my place, stayed across the road for a few days and then headed down to my sister's home for a week before heading across Cook Strait.

Anyway, pumpkins. I love roasted pumpkin and this is a strong, tasty salad that stands up well to plain bbq steak or roast chicken. The leftovers are yummy in a sandwhich with crunchy lettuce.

Recipe

• 1 butternut pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes,
• 1/4 cup olive oil,
• 1 cup roasted salted almonds, roughly chopped into thirds or halves,
• 200g feta, crumbled into chunks,
• 1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced,
• 1 bunch coriander, torn into leaves,

Place the pumpkin cubes in a large roasting dish and toss through the olive oil. Roast in the oven until cooked (about 20 minutes at 180 degrees or 375 fahrenheit).

Remove from oven, allow to cool then mix together with the remaining ingredients in a glass bowl (its prettier that way). Pour on some of the dressing and gently fork through to combine.

Dressing

• 4 cloves garlic: peeled and crushed,
• zest and juice of 4 limes,
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce,
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce,
• 2 tablespoons palm sugar or muscavado sugar or brown sugar,
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil,
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil,
• 1 fresh red chilli, sliced finely,
• salt, pepper.

Combine together in a jar. Keeps in the fridge for a week.

Variation:
Omit coriander, add seeded sliced cucumber, cubed avocado, thinly sliced red onions and feta cubes

Pet Food

Intro There are people who come into your life for short periods but whose impact and memory stays with you forever. Dorothy Picken is one such person. (And Travis my beautiful boy is another ...)

She was the Levin Librarian before my time and led the building project for the existing Levin Library which opened in 1965. Upon leaving Levin she went down to Wellington and was for many years the Library School librarian at Teachers College in Karori, where I did my librarian training. This involved a series of 3 six week residential block courses over 2 years with extramural assignments in between. One of the lovely things Dorothy did was make her home available for Levin girls boarding in Wellington for the residential courses.

She had a great collection of NZ painting and pottery and I was so impressed with her huge weaving loom which dominated the dining room. She made the most beautiful striped rag rugs from recycled fabrics including bed spreads and sheets - and so fast. She just got stuck in and worked at the task for hours every day until it was done.

Dorothy was a great cook, had a home with splendid views over Wellington and was one of the most interesting people I had ever met meaning that I inevitably had late evenings rushing to get the homework and next days prep done because the evening meal conversation and food and view had been so interesting.

While I was staying with Dorothy my hubby and I had just bought our first dog, a golden labrador puppy called Jess, which Dorothy very kindly allowed to stay overnight in the house once. She gave me 2 recipes which I will share here: homemade pet food (for Jess) and Marmalade (which I loathe eating but love making).

Recipe

• 1 kg tripe
• 250g ox liver
• teaspoon or 2 of salt
• grated carrot and root veges
• 500g beef
• 250g kidney
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 450g tinned oily fish (mackeral etc) optional
• 1 tablespoon vegemite

Chop meats and boil with salt for 1 hour, add vegetables and rice and simmer for half hour. Add oats and vegemite and simmer for half hour stirring often as it thickens (it catches easily).

Put into containers. Keeps in fridge for a week but freezes well until needed.

Image: Dorothy Picken led the new Levin Library building project in the 1960s. This photo was taken shortly after it open.