Inappropriate salad

Oh hi there kids

Pull up a chair. Have a cup of tea. Yes I did make that cake, yes it does have a vegetable in it, yes you can have some. No there is no icing on it. There isn't anybody who has time for that.

I recently discovered a terrifying phenomenon; inappropriate salad. Before you get too carried away (saucy!), I have to tell you the story.

I was feeling self-imposedly rather unwell. And a Major Babe wanted to go to Paraparaumu, so that we could frolic like majestic sealions in the surf. And have Wendy's. While any kind of frolic is enough to get me to go anywhere*, I think the Wendy's was selling point for MB.

Which is possibly why MB was very much less than impressed when I ordered... a salad.

To be fair, there was a lot of pressure on me. There was a line. And I was hungry. So hungry I had actually already gone once through the line (pushing a small and weedy child from my path) to get chips to eat in the line the second time around. And the board had really small writing. And I felt that quite possibly iceburg lettuce would cure my feeling of imminent stomach, head, and liver death.

This is a picture of me. Except, there were more seagulls. And more gay.

Photo credit: http://thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-salad

The salad itself was inoffensive, but I, and those around me, really thought that a line had been crossed. When you drive for 45 minutes to get fast food, and you get a salad? I can't decide if I should get a small but glittery certificate or a slap. Can supply mailing address for certificate, yes.

Anyhow, I got over myself by eating half of MB's chips covered in mince sauce covered in plastic cheese, using my salad fork, and order was restored to my world. Then we went on the waterslide for like, three hours. I got so excited that I accidentally threw a volleyball into my friend's face. And then threw it into my other friend's face. Then had to go paddle in the corner for a bit to calm down. Then I had an ice cream. The end.

So, having established that I like salad, here is a RIDICULOUSLY delicious one to make in summer, when sort of coloury squishy things** are in season.

THIS is one of the things in season. It is a sassy tiny courgette. It is, literally, me. Except a courgette.

Mad photoshop skills right thurr.

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Epic salad.

THINGS:
1 red capsicum, roasted & diced
3 corn cobs, microwaved and kernals sliced off
2 limes, juiced (also zest if you want, I guess. Whatever)
1 red onion, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Bitchload of fresh coriander (highly technical term)
2 avocados, diced
salt and pepper (I assume people just do this anyway, then one time, this guy was like "the recipe you gave me didn't taste like anything! I don't understand! And I realised, I forgot to specifically tell him to add salt. Bitches***, please! Salt is delish. Also, don't eat things in cans cos sneaky salt. But just putting salt on things not in cans? Ideal! Best case scenario! Also, I like pepper a lot)

DOING:
Put everything in a bowl.
Eat it.
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Right so, peace out people. Eat things. Frolic. I like all of you indiscriminately much.
(Especially you, Liz)

Until next time.

EN


*Lies. Babes in bikinis. That is all.
**capsicums, eggplants, courgettes, tomatoes, chillies, corn. COLOURS!
***I will henceforth use this to mean, fab sassy people of all denominations who I like.

Pancakes and Paleos.

Ahhh... Pancakes.

For years I have been vaguely suspicious of wheat. What is wheat? It rhymes with feet. Should we be eating something like this? If Fleetwood Mac had been Wheatwood Mac, would they be famous? Would Rhiannon be about a pancake?
I think we can say, unequivocally, yes.

Wheat is all around us. Possibly it has some sort of vaguely devilish agenda. Possibly not. However, it is safe to say, that I distrust it entirely. Who are you wheat? Why are you in my meat product? Why are you in my delicious sauce? Who am I? Confusion and panic ensues.
Luckily, there is an answer.

Years ago, when I was merely a moderately joyful nutritionist, I thought to myself, why pancakes?

Here is why:

- It is a cake at breakfast

- It is a cake you make in a pan

- It is actually a long-guarded secret passed onto me by the excited nutritionists of the misty mountains, but, anything can go in a pancake. 

And this is true. Anything. My special (no, not "special, just special) pancake consists of baking powder, eggs, milk and... things! Grated apple. Banana. Wheatgerm. Oats. Often they don't really function as flat inanimate objects that are able to be flipped but, you may have lost that particular battle, but you can still cover it in syrup and eat it, so really; You 1: Pancake 0. Win.

But yes. What gets me onto this is this. A story.

Betty was having a good day. She had found a whole pouchful of berries to share, and was sitting with the others by the fire cooking a small bird that had been shot down on their walk that day. They had walked from sun-up to just before sun-down that day, because the weather was changing and they had to get down from the hills, so the bird and the berries were welcome in the cold.

Next to her, Pam looked sunk in concentration. The oldest one of all, at 27 years, Pam didn't have enough teeth left to chew the stringy bird, so had extra berries and four large green leaves that had been growing under a rock near a river, but she didn't look well. She was the second oldest person that most of them had ever known, after Dave, who reached 32 before dying of hypothermia one winter. Pam looked up, and smiled. Her thin skin pressed against her sunken cheekbones. She wouldn't have too many winters left in the hills.

Tomorrow they had to continue down, towards the sea. The next few weeks they would spend walking, picking their way across the swampy areas until they reached the sea and a good place to camp for the wet season. When they got there, they could have a fish. Betty liked fish, and knew they help her try for a child. Her last three hadn't made their first year, but maybe born earlier in the year, this one would have a better chance. She was already 21, old, and wanted to spend some years with her child before heading off to the big cave in the sky.

A sad, but (plausibly) true story. 

When people tell me they plan to do this I feel so sad. Why would you eat so little and walk so much? Would your job be fine with this lifestyle? Where will you hunt your game? What will you wear tramping everyday? How do you plan to deal with the elements? Do you really like watercress this much?

However, so be it. Anybody who would like to receive prehistoric tips, please come my way. I will give you a sharp stone and a sack, and point towards the mountains.

Evil goat curry?

Goaty curry.

So! Hello my dear fan(s), etc.

Now, your first question may in fact be; why would I ever deliberately eat something as uniquely hilarious as a goat?

Well. I have one simple answer. Goat, while being a completely stupid animal, does, honestly, taste amazing. And, it’s a bit different and will (possibly) impress people. Or freak them out completely into a mad spotty sulk (ref, teenaged brother). Mostly impress. Another also, v. v. cheap! Goats can be located close to any rural locality, tied to fences, staring madly at you with evil flat yellow demon eyes. A bit of accidental-on-purpose wild reversing and goat is yours. Lies, all lies, dear farmers. I bought mine from new world. Or so you think.

Now.

Evil goat:

stolen from: ant0525.wordpress.com 

----------DA RECIP.-------------------------------------------------------

Things:

-bits of goat (I used 1kg, with bones and bits. Bones totally make curries have more interesting flavour AND provide fascinating conversation of the what-exactly-is-this-I-dearly-hope-it’s-a-peppercorn variety)

-2 cans tomatoes

-2 onions

-2 carrots (or other rooties)

-garlic

-ginger

-spices*

-water. You may or may not wish to refer to this last as “mineral aqua”. My shampoo does.

-oil, butter, or whatever floats your boat. Obviously. Do I even need to include this?

*goat is a sort of northern indian-ish thing? Right? Is that racist? Hope not. Anyhow, so I use a random sprinkling of cardamom, pepper, sumac, fenugreek seeds and dried chillies. If you have some or all of these, then chuck them in. I just bash it in my mortar first, but whatevs. How much? “A pinch” is the technical cheffy term. Look, it’s not fucking baking alright?

Fry onions til they go clear. Add garlic, ginger, and spices for a couple minutes. Chuck in goaty bits. Fry until brown. Add tomatoes, carrots, and a couple cans of water. Bring to boil then put on low and simmer for 3 hours or until bored. (Note: The longer the better. Also, the longer the more digestible. Do you have a slow cooker? K cool. Want to just braise it in a low over for however long? You go girl. Just cook it until the stock has reduced right down and the meat is falling off the bones. YUM!)

Eat.

Ya so, I made mine with gorgeous little flatbreads** and boring rice that dad made me make “and make it PLAIN so Paddy will eat it!!!” (Paddy didn’t eat it) and some divine baba ghanoush with burnt aubergine… Holy Jesus it was delish. Yumyumyum. Also, super cheap and healthy and fun cos it’s like.. what’s that? A motherfucking GOAT! Bam.

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Other things.

I think there should be an acceptable signal for “you are a shit driver” that I can give people without having to be terrified that they will subsequently come and beat me up in a comical and palmerston-north-type manner. But, sadly, until there is, I will just have to further perfect my eye roll and lip curl.

Also, I am getting business cards. Wooo! Who wants to have some excited nutritiony and sporty fun?

(chorus of excited cheers in the background, as expected.)

Good. Good.

Hmmm…. Next time perhaps I will make something mean. Any suggestions? I want falafal. Falafel? Filifil. Fuluful. Just fried chickpeas, get in my life.

Wait batedly, etc.

Ciao.

Excited nutritionist.

**flatbreads: (stolen and wildly adapted from dish magazine)

- 2 cups flour

- 4t baking powder

- random ground spices

- random chopped green herbs

- 1 cup milk/yog

blend it. roll it. chop it. fry it.

Guest Blog: Meg's unpronounceable and DELICIOUS cake.

Hi kids!

I’m pretty excited to be writing my first ever blog! Seems a bit odd that I would be picked (and when I say ‘picked’ I actually mean ‘forced my way into’) to guest write a blog named “excited nutritionist”. Although generally rather excitable, I am in no way, shape or form a nutritionist. I am a cake hungry bitch, and for me butter beats BMI so here is the disclaimer: This is not a healthy recipe, it is intended as part of a balanced diet under the “soul food” category (top of the healthy eating pyramid, middle of Maslow’s Hierarchy), so by all means eat it! Just go for a run beforehand or something.

Our annual Mid Winter Christmas party had rolled around and I am Dessert Girl. Last year I made trifle, which is delicious, easy and contains sherry (double points for adult alcohol!), this year I decided to leave tradition behind and make something I was unable to pronounce.

Tres Leches. It’s from South America (or something, it sounds Spanish though right?) and translates to mean ‘three milks’. Don’t get confused as one friend did and think that the recipe calls for anything weird like platypus milk, it’s just three different types of regular ol’ cow’s milk: Sweetened condensed, evaporated and cream. Yes my small and exited nutritionist friend, these are probably the least healthy of all the milks but shutit! This cake tastes like opening presents round the fire while it snows out. It’s basically a simple sponge cake that is soaked for longer than you care to wait in deliciously sweet creamy goodness and then covered in cream. Having recently come in to some honey I decided to make it even more Christmassy with a honey cinnamon twist.

THE RECIPE

Here is what you will need;

Flour

baking powder

sugar

milk

eggs (separated)

vanilla

cinnamon

a little bit of salt

honey

cream

sweetened condensed milk

evaporated milk

more cinnamon.

I have a lovely cake mixer meaning that I don’t have to utilise my poor weak arms.

Start out by separating out 7 eggs, put the whites into a large bowl, they are going to grow drastically in volume (I put mine in the cake mixer). Pop the yolks into whatever you can find. Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks like this.

While the egg whites are a-whisking, cream half a cup of soft-ish  butter and a cup of white sugar. Then add the yolks slowly and mix well. By now the egg whites should have transformed into a lovely cloud of denatured goodness.  The bowl that I creamed the butter and sugar in was on the smaller side so I transferred the egg whites into a different container and replaced them with the creamed butter.

Now combine 2.5 cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, around 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and add to the creamed butter alternately with 1 cup of milk while the cake mixer is on slow.

Fold in the egg whites super carefully, I believe you have already had super detailed and helpful hints on this in the feeling friandy post. Pop the whole thing in a cake tin. If you have done it right it should look like this but less blurry and pixelated.

Now it goes into the oven at 180 for around ¾ of an hour. That is a huge guess, so do the knife test. I never actually check the time when I put things in ovens. Just taking a stroll on the wild side.

Now you can clean up the huge mess you just made (didn’t mention the large amount of dishes this recipe required at the start did I) and make the delicious, sweet creamy goodness. In a jug combine one can of evaporated milk, one can of sweetened condensed milk, ½ cup of cream, 3 tablespoons of honey that you have liquidised in the microwave and around a teaspoon of cinnamon.

When the knife tells you the cake is done take it out and poke lots of holes in it. I used a paintbrush (we have weird kitchen utensils) and pour the sweetcreamygoodness all over it. Get as much as you can in the holes you just got a bit excited about making. Now you cover it and let the goodness soak in. For two hours on the bench and two more in the fridge.

That is a loooooong time to wait and I need constant stimulation so I made decorations. Melt white chocolate and pour into the piping bag this man will gladly show you how to make http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrDe3X7_tuA. 

Then draw snowflakes on another piece of baking paper like this.

If you want them not to look like a 6 year old on a sugar high drew them, you could draw a template to put under the baking paper (as mentioned prior, I was strolling on the wild side).

Whip the rest of the cream up with some icing sugar and more honey and frost. Artistically arrange the snowflakes so it looks pretty.

Done!

Love you guys long time

Cake Hungry Bitch.

It's cold give me soup.

Well! Hello there again my friends! Hey girl!

After another successful day of successfully not getting lost in Auckland (Success!) I have retired to my boudoir to drink mint tea (with honey. If you don't sweeten herbal teas they TASTE DIFFERENT TO WHAT THEY SMELL! And this bothers me greatly.) and muse upon my successful day.

What made this day so successful, small excited nutritionist? You may ask. And I would reply; I got up early and DID things! I gymmed! I walked to the City! (You just go vaguely in the direction of that rather unattractive pointy building and you don't get lost, I discovered) I chased a seagull, critiqued art in an extremely professional manner, spent money on things, and ran the Poodle. Good.

Auckland art gallery is really quite... It's like a delicious fennel and pork sausage with horseradish and a beer in your other hand; interesting, challenging (it may drip on your very nice blazer your mum got you) and just perfect. Do you like art? You should! Art galleries are great because you can wander round and have a little visual feast and be as utterly irritating as you possibly can without anyone even NOTICING let alone rolling their eyes and muttering under their breath. I went with Pretentious Lesbian #2 (I am obviously the more pretentious), and it was just fabulous! We discussed at length why Impressionism was dumb; why neo-Expressionism is a rip off, and probably doesn't even mean anything; and whether some dots on a particular Manet-ish thingy should be called splats or splodges and whether we could make a better one, given half an hour and a glass of wine. We basically won at art.

After a bit more art, we needed cake, obviously, so we went to this asian cake shop on High Street, which sold EVERY CAKE. I got a green tea sponge cake. Weird. And a "tea egg". Weirder! Apparently it is a Taiwanese thing (Taiwan either is, or isn't, part of China for Cute Girlfriend and any other geographically challenged people out there) where they put the egg in a big tureen full of tea and soy sauce. It was 90c. Do you know how obsessed I am with eggs? I am truly smitten. Apparently in the 60's there was an "egg a day" club. I want to BE this club! Tea Eggy was fished out of a giant pot for me and friendly asian gave me instructions (try not to eat the shell. I assured her I would do my best). I peeled him and we ate half each and it was... quite delicious! Sort of subtle soba-type flavour. Yum! I love tea eggs! I will attempt to make these in the future, possibly. I will let you know.

Anyhow! Yes yes, Excited Nutritionist, you were annoying at an art gallery and ate an egg. What are we cooking today?! Aha! I thought, since it is BLOODY FREEZING in Auckland (fell below 15 the other day!) I would teach you little chickens to make delicious, nutritious, ridiculously low-effort soup. Also cheap. Why wouldn't you, really?

Here is a diagram I made about soup.

This is my diagram of soup. One day you all will be able to make soups like a pro. In the meantime, follow my lovely steps of soupness below.


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THE RECIPE!

Grandma's pea and ham soup
(whatever grandmother. Take your pick. Mine was my great-grandma and she was a nutcase, possibly an alcoholic, and loved to make pea and ham soup. This was back in the days when having a blender pretty much made you the talk of the town, so this soup was at the forefront of food fashion.)

This soup is quite a thin soup, and is an epic bright green colour. Yum. Bits of ham. YUM! In all honesty, if you don't have a ham bone lying round, put in whatever you want. Bit of bacon. Some sausages. Lentils. Dog's bone? The split green peas (which you can get dried in supermarkets, usually near cans of things) are just so good with meat, but hey. Go crazy.

2 cups of split green peas that have been soaked overnight*
2 cups water
1 ham bone (or, if truly desperate, random bits of pig)
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
herbs! The more the merrier!**
salt and pepper

optional: chuck in a chopped potato with the onion and garlic. It will make your soup thicker, but taste a bit like potato, which tends to overwhelm things a wee bit.

1. Chop onion and garlic and herbs
2. Put everything except salt and pepper in v. large pot.
3. Simmer it for an hour (like a very low boil, you can only just see the bubbles rising)
4. Pick the ham off the bone (I rip it up and fry it then add it back to soup after it's been pureed, but feel free to puree it too if you want, or just add it back whole.) and remove the bone.
5. Puree soup
6. Season soup! Go mental with the salt and pepper. Make it "pop". If you truly want to weird things up, put in some lemon juice. Woah!
7. Eat soup.

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So yes! That is Soup! I am quite hungry now. Possibly, now that Uncle and Aunt have gone to bed, I can sneak back into the kitchen and eat some left over rack of lamb that may or may not be lurking in the fridge. He he he.

Goodnight my little soupsters! I hope you all have a lovely Tuesday! Cute Girlfriend is coming back from some Australian city full of gays and malls, she better have gotten me a novelty t-shirt or I will sulk into my soy latte.

Coming up next instalment... Possibly duck? Possibly satay? Any suggestions? Email me you smelly people.

luv
Ruby


*you don't have to do this. If you don't, your soup will take longer to cook and possibly be a bit sort of... chewier...? Fibreier? But hey, whatever, I'm not the boss of you!

**the most delicious with ham tend to be english-y sort of herbs e.g., sage, bay leaves, thyme, parsley. If you put in oregano or, god forbid, "mixed herbs", your soup will taste like cheap pizza. If you put in rosemary, it will taste like rosemary. Don't do that.  But, if you put in curry spices, it will probably be delicious but odd. When using herbs, fresh is best! Do you live in Dunedin? Steal some from the botanic gardens! Fun! Don't know what a herb looks like? Trial and error baby! You will either end up a) disgusted, b) delighted, c) high. Do you have questions about herbs? Email me. I will make up a story about fennel.

***thanks to women's weekly, whose recipe I looked at before not following.You go girls.
http://www.nzwomansweekly.co.nz/

Feeling Friandly?

Well! Hello again people!
How are we all? Good I hope. Have any of you eaten anything particularly delicious today? Or any other day? Do please tell me so that I can compete/daydream/drool a little. Mmmmmmm, food!


So! Still in Auckland. What a day!

I don't want to boast, but I have actually faced numerous perils today. Including, but not limited to nearly falling in Aunty's pool (twice! Just sayin') and touching weed-killer (surpisingly painful); and it is only now, at 6pm ish, that slightly grubby nutritionist gets to sit down with the Poodle and a glass of what is quite possibly strawberry liquer* (suggestions for how to spell this are welcome) and de-stress from the suburban safari.


Tonight, I am going to share with you a rather special little thingy, which I have only recently been introduced to; the Friand. Hurrah! They will soon become your favourite things as well.

These are my little friandies, just after extraction from the muffin cups. NOTE: not as pixellated in real life.


Friands (and, as I'm sure you're aware, I do say this word in a rather sangre-froid french sort of way; but if you are not up to this, just pronounce it how you will. I will only laugh at you if I overhear you, and, unless baking as a conversational topic gets about a billion times more popular over the next month, I most probably won't) are amazing. They are similar in appearance to little muffins, but substantially quite different.

Muffins, as I'm sure all my little nutritionettes are well aware, are basically butter, flour, eggs, and baking powder, plus delicious extras. Like a slightly less rich cake batter. Friands, on the other hand, are just sugar, egg whites, and a minuscule amount of flour. Instead of the baking powder as the rising agent, it is egg white, just like in pavlova and meringues, but, because it is combined with flour, it doesn't have a gooey texture, just a delicious soft light sweet inside. So many adjectives.

Friands are super easy to make, as long as you do NOT overmix! Foolish people. And be gentle with the batter as if it was the crying child of an extremely large and angry man. This recipe I have adapted from a cute BBC one** (ergo, the queen most probably made them), and takes about an hour of faffing around from start to in your mouth. Obviously if you are quite shit at cooking they will take longer. Also, if you are like me and chronically unable to measure anything it may take slightly longer as you panickedly attempt to stem lemon zesting-related blood flow from going over everything with one hand and pick bits of eggshell out of your life with the other.

These are cute friands as they sit in the oven. They rise quite a lot then fall slightly as soon as you take them out. Not pictured: mess.

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THE RECIPE!

The Queen's Friands

Makes 12

50g flour
200g icing sugar
120g ground almonds (can substitute other ground nuts or finely chopped coconut thread if suitably desperate)
150g butter
6 egg whites
3 lemons (you will only use the skin)
optional: berries to decorate

- Heat oven to 200 C.
- Grease 12 muffin pottles.
- Melt the butter and let it cool a bit (or it will accidentally cook your egg whites later. Fail).
- Mix almonds, icing sugar and flour (it's better if you sieve it all, but if you don't, probably nothing will happen, so don't stress.)
- Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks (i.e. almost stand up when you try make little towers with them like you used to with bubble baths, but the tips just fold over.)
- Make a well in the centre of dry things. Put in egg whites and zest of all three lemons (if you don't have a zester, grate the skins. If you don't have a grater, just peel the lemons and chop the skin into tiny bits. You povo.)
- Pour in slightly cooled butter and gently fold all the ingredients together. This is quite important to do right, but don't freak out! Just do big folds, quite slowly, using a spatula or flat wooden spoon. You are trying to keep your egg whites as fluffy as possible.
- When everything is JUST combined, place scoops of mixture in muffin cuppies. Mixture should be quite wet and fluffy. Don't let it go higher than edges of cups cos it will rise during cooking.
- Decorate with berries if you so desire.
- Put in oven for 15-20 mins or until golden brown and tops are JUST feeling firm to the touch. Do NOT stick a knife in to check! They are not muffins, they are delicate and sensitive.
- They can be tricky to get out. Make sure you have greased the trays well! Haha too late now! Try slicing around edge with a knife very gently, then scooping even more gently with a spatula.

EAT THEM!
Good with tea. Or coffee. Or probably beer, I don't know. I am drinking strawberry fizzy something and they are bloody good with that!

Enjoy!

This is a terrible picture of me gently massaging friand batter. So gentle! See the lovely egg white maintaining its... dimensions? Foaminess? Not squashedness? That.

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Right so, good luck my little friends! Just you wait. You will fall in love.
Okies... I am off to make dunner. Favourite Aunty is back and we are making (read: she is making and I will be scurrying and chopping things) roast lamb and leek and cauliflower gratin. Yum. Few things in this world are better than friands, but I think roast lamb is most definitely one of them.

Ummmm to look forward to... I go to somewhere in the Waikato to go for a run. Will I get lost? Probably. Will I eat a pie? Possibly? Will I hideously embarrass Cute Girlfriend in front of farmers? Most definitely.

Get cooking!

I adore you all
(especially you, Meg).

Ruby

PS give me ideas, women! Give me inspiration. I want to cook something weird. Challenge me to a souffle or something! Or all you gluten-free weirdos out there; what would you most like me to make once again edible to you sad people?




*I have just been informed they are "wild alpine mountain strawberries from Europe". Indeed.

**http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2114/blueberry-and--lemon-friands

What can you do with beer?

Well! Hello there everybody!
How are you?
I am good. Here I am in Auckland. Writing a small blogette about being an excited nutritionist, because I am both excited, and a nutritionist. The more times I say "nutritionist" in my head, the less like a word it sounds. Is it even a word? Spell check does think so but, I have my issues with spellcheck (thankyou, autocorrect, icecream.)

In the form of a short list, this is why I am in Auckland:

1. I quit the army (everyone was mutually satisfied by this.)
2. I entered a "fun run" in Otorahanga (where is this? Don't worry, nobody else knows either. I plan to just drive south-ish until I reach a part of the Waikato where there are more swanndris than subarus, and then ask a cow or something)
3. My aunty will pay me to do things like clean windows and mince around in an apron. Ideal!

So! In a spirit of being the best house elf ever, I got up this morning and decided to bake bread! Hurrah!

[This is a picture of my bread, taken with my incredibly terrible camera phone. Gosh it is bad. This shows delicious bread straight after coming out of the oven. It smells AMAZING. But you cannot smell it from this picture. Just imagine. Look at the golden brown loveliness. MMM. Bread.]


I was sort of bullied into crawling out of bed at 8 something by my bladder so had to get up, and as we had eaten all the bread yesterday (my uncle and aunt have a billion jars of exciting little thingies nestled at the back of the fridge and, in a spirit of sound scientific enquiry, I was forced to try all of them. On toast. With cheese) there was a panic moment. No bread! What am I going to put my delicious poached eggs on so that I can gently puncture the yolks and have delicious melty yolk on my toast with salt and pepper and feta and chutney? Enthusiastic Family Friend, attempting to deflect my meltdown, suggested I go down to the dairy (100m away) to purchase bread. I considered this for about thirty seconds before dismissing it as a loser's solution. I would MAKE bread! Go me!

After two coffees and a snuffle into various cupboards I worked out that in fact Uncle and Aunt had no yeast; what you would call a limiting factor in bread construction. No matter! Through my extreme nutritionist's knowledge I knew of another sort of bread. The "quick bread". Quick breads are bread that are leavened with baking soda (or baking powder) instead of with yeast, and are therefore quite quick to make cos you don't have to proof the yeast or raise the dough before baking. Soda bread is the quick bread most people think of, and it is a quintessentially Irish sort of thing; bit stodgy, full of butter, and tastes like a scone. Great with potatoes, probably. I don't know. I don't really like scones that much so tend to avoid making soda bread. Maybe one day I will reinvent it in a delicious way. You will just have to wait and see. Most quick breads have this sort of scone-y taste, APART FROM....

Beer Bread!

Yes. I realise this sounds weird. But let me briefly attack your mind with some sweet science. Beer has yeast in it, right? (Yes, it does, you idiots.) So... if you put it with some flour and various other little bread bitties, it will turn into bread? Remarkably, yes!

There are a few different ways of making beer bread, and I have adapted them to create a very easy, incredibly cheap, way of making bread that will be ready in about an hour (depending how crap you are at measuring things) and taste just like delicious expensive non-student bread. And is also, obviously, more delicious and healthier than the other shit recipes I found on the internet. One called for HALF A CUP of butter! For a recipe that served 6 people! WTF! Ergo, mine is better.

Here goes:


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THE RECIPE!

Ruby's quite delicious beer bread

serves 4 if you are very hungry/large hairy man/small but fat woman or 8 if you are just peckish.
(Alternatively, try out some cool maths by halving the recipe! Fun!)

Ingredients:

6 cups of flour
6 teaspoons baking powder*
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of honey (or white sugar)
2 bottles of beer (the cheaper the better)
1 tablespoon of oil (or melted butter)

Optional: little seeds for sprinkling. E.g. sesame, poppy. Or chunky salt, or rosemary. Take your pick.

Grease large high-edged baking dish. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Can be metal, or ceramic or whatever. Metal will cook your base better.Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl. Make a well. Pour in beers, oil and honey. Fold mixture (this means you fold in the edges to the middle, turning the bowl round a bit with every fold). Do NOT overmix, you fool! Just combine enough that most of the flour is mixed in. It should be quite a wet mixture. Scoop into greased dish. Put into oven. Bake for 30 minutes. Take out and brush a bit of oil over the top and put your sprinklies on. Bake another 10 mins, or, until the top is turning golden and when you tap the loaf it is hollow sounding.

Enjoy! (Amazing with cheese, or soup, or... anything really.)
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So yes! That is what i have spent my morning doing. Also drinking coffee and patting the poodle. And writing this and eating bread. I shall be off now to make something off my life. Or make a sandwich. It is raining today, typical Auckland. But I will go for a run anyway COS exercise is the flip side of the coin from delicious food. I'm not taking the poodle though because last time I did he ran about a k then just sat down and stared at me and I had to drag him all the way back, up a hill, while he tried to remain sitting.

To look forward to next (possibly) week:
I may or may not tell you how to cook a duck. Anyhow, it will be fun.

Ciao my little beauties

Ruby.



*Note! A sneaky tip. If you have baking powder, and it looks a bit old and scummy, and you don't remember it being new within the last sort of 3 months, it is shit. Don't use it, it won't work. Baking powder is usually just baking soda, which is alkaline, and cream of tartar, which is acidic, and it works by making a reaction which makes little carbon dioxide bubbles make your thing rise. If the powder is old, all the chemicals have broken down a bit, and won't work as effectively, if at all. An alternative is just to make your own baking powder with 1 part baking soda to 2 parts cream of tartar, to make up the volume of baking powder required.

On a related note, if you are making things with acidic ingredients (like lemons, yoghurt, berries, etc.), you can just use baking soda cos then the acid will balance it out. Fun baking fact for the day.