Tag Archives: cookbook

Ice Cream – virgin attempt

Ice cream is happiness condensed.
~ Jessi Lane Adams

#13 Milk, Honey & Cinnamon Ice Cream – Page 380

No time to write now, as I am catching a domestic flight tomorrow morning & I’m tired & haven’t packed… but… I made my first ice cream ever, and it was fun.

Tried a teaspoon of it just then. It’s a little sherberty (I only whisked it twice in the night and have no ice cream maker) and I think I sprinkled in way too much cinnamon in my excitement, but it’s still pretty delicious (how wrong can you go with milk, cream, honey, cinnamon??). :-)

OK, on to packing… good night!

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Jam FAIL!

#8 Lemon Vanilla Jam – Page 265

It was rolling along nicely until the end… where it turned, sadly,

Sticky, sticky, gooey, gooey, HARD BAD BAD.

If all the raindrops were lemondrops and gumdrops

…oh what a rain it would be!

Wow, random, thinking about Barney songs.

What a day…… for part of the afternoon, I was draped like a sick bird (or ballerina with 2 broken legs) on the couch at home. I had left work early because I couldn’t sit straight or think straight there after all. My head was totally achey, and I felt chocked up with rubbish. Hello Sore Throat, Runny Nose, Achey Eyes… :-(

How absolutely disgusting, after a splendid weekend with friends in Beach Wonderland (Coro). Maybe I overdosed on sun……? Is such a thing possible after too much cold wind in Wellington???

Anyway. In view of my exploding head and growing nausea I decided to do 3 things:
1. have a bath (mmmm)
2. wash my bedsheets (at long last)
3. make something in the kitchen

It is thing-to-do #3 that I will write about today.

Peeked in the fridge. What did I have? Oh yes, lemons aplenty from my parents.

I thumbed through “Falling Cloudberries” (as is my habit now) lazily, not really thinking I would make something from here today. But to my delight, I saw:

#7 Little Lemon Cakes – Page 261

OK! I feel immediately better.

I made the mix with the butter, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, flour, lemon rind, milk, baking powder – mmm what a good smell! And put dollops of it into two muffin trays since I haven’t yet bought myself ramekins.

Alas, the icing sugar didn’t really work, and I don’t know how to fix it. It was just wet and clumpy – so I guess I won’t be using it…

Hmmm and the oil and flour on the trays were evidently not enough… the cakes are stuck… oops. Taste = fluffy and light and lemony, not too bad.

Kourapiedes

It took me years to figure out that you don’t fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it.
~ Claudette Colbert

All good things start with butter it seems… so, this evening’s recipe was:

#6 Kourapiedes – Page 135

Butter, sugar, egg, etc… brandy substituted with rum + kahlua… sticky, gooey, sticky.

Browned in the oven, they then played in the icing sugar like frolicking dolphins…

Tessa Kiros said they melt in your mouth… well, she’s right. They do. :-)

In which my family came to dine

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.
~ Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story


This post won’t be a long one, since I am very sleepy!

My family drove down today to stay for the weekend :-) Naturally, I thought a good dinner was necessary. It was also the perfect opportunity, I thought, to try 4 recipes from “Falling Cloudberries” tonight! Remind me never to be so ambitious again… I started at 4pm and was still rushing along at 7! (Luckily it was mostly fun! Plus we got to shop at MOORE WILSON’S :-)


On the menu tonight were:

#2 Tzatziki (Yoghurt, Cucumber, Garlic & Mint Dip) – Page 76
#3 Stuffed Eggplants – Page 117
#4 Spanakopita – Page 153
#5 Baklava with Nuts & Dried Apricots – Page 129

… along with 5-grain sourdough with dukkah, olive oil + balsamic vinegar, barbequed lamb, mini stuffed red peppers, and vanilla ice-cream as extras.
And: Dad’s red wine
And: Matt’s coffee with Kahlua

Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth, but you are dooooomed if you try cooking all by yourself (if you are me). I owe tonight’s successful dinner to good help. For instance, Ben shelled pistachios and Matt manned the barbeque + washed dishes along the way. The afternoon rolled along in a whirl of squeezing cucumbers, de-fleshing eggplants, breathing in the scent of tomatoes + garlic, making filo triangles, drizzling syrup over the nut & apricot baklavas…

What I love so far about Tessa Kiros’s book is the way love + family just seem to consume every page of her beautiful book… and how her recipes involve simple things like cucumber, Greek yoghurt, tomatoes – so average people like me can follow them. I also like how her recipes require time and effort, but in perfect amounts so you don’t look at them and despair before you even begin. And she sure makes good food!

So we didn’t have a big enough dining table, so my family, Matt and Tim had to sit on chairs/couches and balance plates on our laps and put glasses on the floor – but it was fun nevertheless…

And now, one warm shower later, I’m sleepy, and my hands still smell faintly of garlic and almonds (kind of eeky and gross, but cool too).

Wow, this post sure got long. Bonne nuit x

Lemon & Oregano Chicken

Today I went in to Borders at lunch time and emerged $82.50 poorer, but with “Falling Cloudberries” by Tessa Kiros clutched triumphantly under my right arm.

So… here we go, I guess? This is the book I am going to be cooking through*:

falling cloudberries

#1 Lemon & Oregano Chicken – Page 106

One sunny walk home later, I made a spur of the moment decision to commence my cook-through project this evening.

Lemon and oregano chicken, and sauteed potatoes. OK. But oops! The potatoes did not look too healthy, and we didn’t have a whole chicken! So I decided to cook a modified version of the bird (with tenderloin strips) and penne with grilled vegetables (not in the book) instead.


High heat + grilled vegetables. Penne in a generous pot of gently salted water. A quick sauce of chopped garlic, basil + parsley. Chicken drizzled with fresh lemon, butter, salt, pepper. There is something therapeutic about cooking… I’m not sure what it is. Suffice to say it was a very satisfying process cutting, peeling, smelling.


The chicken turned out just a little crispy on the outside, and teasing on the tongue in lemony, salty, cheeky winks. Verdict? Delicious without being too complex. Will attempt again, maybe with a whole chicken next time. :-)

* Cook-through? What?