Shameless Plug: Let Them Bake Cake - A Fisher & Paykel Bake Off

Ok ok this is a total shameless plug, but the lovely folk at Fisher & Paykel Appliances sent me a super awesome goodie box and I loved it so much I wanted to share with you all in case you were keen to win one too!!

Fisher & Paykel Appliances are sponsoring NZ Hottest Home Baker and are running an online Bake Off!  All you have to do is upload a photo of something you've made on the Let Them Bake Cake gallery and let people vote on your baking creation. There is a grand prize worth $10,000 and also bonus prizes each week of these super cool goodie boxes.  They give away 20 goodie boxes a week so there's a pretty good chance of winning one! 

Mint and Coriander Zucchini Ribbon Salad for one

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink. ~ Epicurus

I love cooking. 

Before this weekend, I thought I knew why I loved cooking.  Turns out, I had no idea.

I thought I loved cooking because of the process of turning raw ingredients into something delicious. A love for the magical alchemy of spices, heat, and seasoning.   See when I lived on my own in Dunedin, the reason I lived off eggs on toast and frozen meals and didn't cook myself proper dinners, I told myself, was because I didn't have a proper kitchen and all my gadgets.

However, when my husband went away on a boys trip this long weekend and I found myself cooking for one again. And despite having a perfectly equipped, well-stocked kitchen, I reverted to the old eggs on toast for dinner.  Sacre bleu! 

Talk about a revelation.  Cooking for one is no fun.  Looks like, my love cooking isn't for any poetic enjoyment of the art itself, but simply a love of sharing good food with people I love.   Food and kisses are made to be shared no? 

The Quintessential Quince 2: Quince Paste, Jelly, and Pickle

The jelly- the Jam and the marmalade,
And the cherry and quince "preserves'' she made!
And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear,
With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare--!
And the more we ate was the more to spare,
Out to Old Aunt Mary's!
~ James Whitcomb Riley, Old Aunt Mary's. 

I read an hilarious article the other day that analysed why Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be the celebrity that people love to hate at the moment.  In a nutshell, it's pretty much because she's drop dead beautiful, filthy rich, talented at acting, writes cookbooks, has gorgeous children, famous friends, and a hugely successful business.  It's just so thoroughly unlikable that there is nothing this woman is not good at.    Dreadfully tall poppy I know but there it is.  Us mere mortals have to contend with having lots of things we are not good at.

Of the many things I suck at, singing in particular has never been a strong suit.

As a kid, when I was into tap dancing competitions, there was one routine where I had to sing and dance at the same time.  What I lacked in on tune-ness, I made up for in loudness.  I remember axe-murdering those high notes so loudly and so badly, my dancing teacher had to stifle belly laughs.  Yes, I would've been one of those auditions on the X Factor.

Another thing I've never been good at is jam making. When I got given these gorgeous quinces from Catherine at work, I had imagined spending a sunny afternoon channeling domestic goddesses of old like Old Aunt Mary, lovingly stirring pots of gorgeous ruby red quince paste and jewel-like crystal clear quince jelly.  How it ended up was with me standing over an angry spitting pot of liquid hot quince magma at 2am in the morning that refused to set.  Delicious tasting mind you, but less paste or jelly like and more what you would imagine hot molten lava to look like: a cloudy, lumpy, muddy red gloop. 

{The good quince jelly, the bad quince jelly}

The Quintessential Quince: Maple Chardonnay Slow Roasted Quinces

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon.

~ The Owl and the Pussy Cat, Edward Lear (1871)

The quince is a quirky little fruit.  

If you haven't experienced quinces before, they are a bit like a cross between a very hard pear and a quava in texture, practically inedible in its raw state but when you cook it for long periods, its white flesh slowly develops a gorgeous ruby red hue that tastes of fragrantly floral tartness. 

I know I'm romanticising them a little but heck I'm not the only one, according to myths, legend and wiki the quince was the fruit given to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love by Paris the Prince of Troy and ancient Greek brides would nibble on quinces to perfume their breath before entering the bridal chamber.

This quintessential autumnal fruit is rather old-fashioned and these days isn't all that common to come by.  They are rarely seen in supermarkets plus the quince season is quite short. You kinda gotta know people who know people.

Forgive me readers, for I have not posted...

{quince pickle + oxford marmalade}

Forgive me readers, for I have not posted.
It's been 20 days since my last posting...

Peanut butter truffles

Practice is the best of all instructors ~ Publilius Syrus

My dancing instructors used to always drum into us to practise, practise, practise.  Everyone starts off completely rookie but to remember your routine / get down in the splits / perform well in front of an audience / pretty much get good at anything: you have to do it over and over and over again.

Which is all good and dandy when you're talking about whirling around in a sparkly costume but a completely different story when you're learning to put in a cannula.

Today was my very first go at putting in an i.v. line and...well, I wasn't a natural.  I managed to jab myself with a (clean) needle.  Then managed to stab straight through the house surgeon's vein and give him a massive bruise at the back of his hand.  Oh dear.

Surely I can only get better at it right?!?

I know at least that baking definitely gets easier with practice, as does making truffles.  Have made a few different types of truffles over the years: good old ganache truffles, eggnog truffles, raspberry truffles, oreo truffles and most recently these Peanut Butter Truffles.  And it's gone from a stressful messy process to a kinda fun messy process.  One can only hope this medicine thing is similar....

Apricot Cream Cheese Muffins for Dad

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. ~ Feodor Dostoevski

We are all of us creatures of habit.

I've only recently noticed just how many habits I've collected along the way: how I have coffee in the morning before the cereal, how I always sit on the right-hand side of the bus,  how I check the same websites every morning.

My Dad was no exception.  In fact he could've been the poster boy for habitual living.  We used to go out for lunch as a family every weekend.  For years it was BB's Cafe in Wairau Park.  And every single weekend he would order exactly the same things: a cappuccino in a bowl with chocolate, a ham and cheese croissant (heated) and an Apricot and Cream Cheese Muffin.

We were such regulars, I even ended up working at the place.  And Dad would still come in, every Sunday, for his coffee, croissant, and muffin. 

It's eight years today since he passed away.  And I can still see him sitting there just like it was yesterday, with the paper in one hand and a muffin in the other.  So today, I broke my morning habit to bake Dad's favourite muffins and remember all his quirky habits with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes.

Apricot and Cream Cheese Muffins for my Dad.  I love you.  I miss you so much.  

Resisting the inner fat kid: Roasted Kumara and Almond Salad with Feta and Chickpeas

I have an inner fat kid.

Much like the proverbial angel/devil on one's shoulder, my inner fat kid whispers delicious nothings in my ear:  Go on, eat that whole family sized block of chocolate, you know you want to...

And from time to time, I succumb to its urgings.  Yes, I ate that whole bar of Whittakers Hokey Pokey Chocolate. On my lonesome.  For breakfast. 

What's more, I've found the more you feed the fat kid, the stronger they get.

Like when my two besties came down for a girly catch up weekend a couple weeks back.  It was a glorious weekend of gossip and giggles, wine and cheese and chocolate and churros.  An epic eat-a-thon weekend.

{harbourside markets, wellington, nz}

But, alas when one is knock, knock, knocking on 30s door, one finds that for every binge, there needs to be an equal and opposite detox.  So the plan was to atone my eating sins with exercise and healthy food for a few weeks. 

It was super hard.  Inner fat kid was not happy.  Inner fat kid resisted.  There was a lag period, a struggle for dominance, a battle of the wits with the casualties being a whole pack of hokey pokey flavoured marshmallow easter eggs, another whole packet of pineapple lump easter eggs, half a block of blue cheese, lots of ice cream and half a block of black forest chocolate.  Junk food: why you so tasty??

But eventually I triumphed, with the help of some delish salads like this Roasted Kumara and Almond Salad with Feta and Chickpeas.