Entertaining!

  Yeeehah a slither of freedom tomorrow, I reckon the worst thing about lockdown apart from cooking for one is Bunnings being shut, it limits the ability to action the projects you all of a sudden have time to do. A pretty basic dinner tomight as I had lunch and am not so hungry, this was inspired by Yottam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi book Jerusalem, same process different ingredients, and a use for some of that bloody hummus I made! This one scored quite highly.   Hummus with Roasted Carrot, Chilli, Spring Onion and Lime   For the Hummus 1 tin chick peas, drained, or soak your own overnight and cook. 3 T tahini Juice of 3 lemons 2 cloves garlic, peeled ½ a chilli ½ t each salt & pepper A glug of olive oil   For the topping 5 Carrots 3 spring onions A chilli A lime 4 T olive oil Combine all the hummus ingredients in the food processor and blast, drizzle in some cold water until it gets to a nice smooth consistency, this is the tric...

  I am fully over lockdown today, I was awake at 5am and had made dinner by about 7am I decided on curry for my chicken but had run out of garlic and ginger, so I strained the worchestershire sauce and used the remnants, I have amended the recipe a bit so it is sensible and you don’t need a round of sauce to make it. Tedious amusing myself all day with bugger all to do waiting for updated requirements around level 3 so I could make a plan for the staff GRRRRRRRR.     Chicken and Carrot Curry  1/3 of a leek, sliced 1 onion, sliced 2 T Oil Thumb sized piece of ginger, diced 4 garlic cloves, diced ½ a wildfire chilli, sliced ½ t turmeric ½ t cumin seeds 1 t ground coriander 2 small black cardamom pods 1 t ground clove ½ t cayenne pepper 1 bay leaf ½ t salt 2 tomatoes, diced A small handful of coriander stalks 1 t worchestershire sauce 100ml greek yogurt 2 carrots thinly sliced 2 large chicken breast cut into large chunks 1 C...

Now that the garden is officially done I got about it in the kitchen today, first up was a mango, citrus and avocado salsa, which got a score of “insufficient at best” that was the comment form the headmaster on my school report one year , bloody classic I thought, the parents were ambivalent about it mind you. I made a round of soap with some old oil, managed to tip a substantial amount of it on the floor so that is a bit cleaner than normal. I knocked up a round of worchestershire sauce, which takes about 12 seconds, it takes longer to clean the treacle tin so you can repurpose it, but it does take some time to age. I decided lemon soap would be the next batch so added lemon zest to a bottle of oil to steep. I needed a big jar so transferred the chick peas, I got my guess wrong and they did not fit in the new jar so now I have hummus on the go too. Cooked a pretty yummy pork chop to go with the average salsa for dinner. So here is the dinner from the other night it is far more w...

  Another mint day in Sunny Hawera today, the garden is officially a park and I now have a moratorium on gardening. I had a crack at the front of the bus with a tin of paint and a paint brush, lucky the engineer does not read the blog…..I hope! I had some egg yolks in the fridge for some reason, so I knocked up a round of mayo this morning, of course then I just had to use it, so on the risotto it went. This is a light and fragrant risotto, I had shop stock which is much clearer that my home made stuff and the rice seemed really white, (not sure what sort it was) without cheese or cream the mayo just added a bit of sumptuous.   My green purple flowering broccoli from Goldbush Micro farm is incredible. Listening has been RNZ all day, Kim was back ,she delivered up my favourite Rolling Stones song and interviewed a friends daughter. I reckon you need to be a pretty exceptional human being in some way to get on Kim’s show. Music 101 also delivered up some goodies, including my ...

  I got a bit carried away on the performing enhancing elixir last night and the blog went by the wayside! I got hold of another prime piece of salmon and cooking was out of the question so I opted for raw fish. I had made some jelly with the left over bread and butter pickle juice a few months ago, it always irks me to throw it away and no matter how hard I try I can never gauge it right. So I started saving it up I had about a litre of it and I think I added 4 teaspoons of gelatine, I recall having to go for a second round to get it to set. The result is outstanding. So I cut the salmon into very small dice, squeezed the juice of half a lime over it, gave it a drizzle of Ohura oil, a sprinkle of capers and fresh mint leaves and served with diced pickle jelly. Boom dinner! Sad to say if was a poor sponge for copious quantities of wine, a bowl of mashed spud would have served me better. I received a delivery of the new seasons Hamden Estate Rose today, needless to say I did not e...