To hot not to really.....

I am writing this from my kitchen table, ambient temp in the room about 35 degrees. Why do tomatoes, so essential for the best condiment known to woman, appear right when it is least comfortable to have the oven on, or indeed be anywhere near the kitchen at all? While I ponder this & other mysteries of the universe (Marmite , the appeal of those incredibly sad animal rescue programs on TV, Rap music....) I have a couple of kilos of homegrown tomatoes roasting away in the oven. My desire for delicious pizza sauce has outweighed my desire for a nice cool house.

Instead of standing over a bubbly pan or several hours I am taking the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall route and making an oven roasted sauce. Place about 1.5-2 kg of tomatoes on an oven tray. I use a mixture of heirloom cherry tomatoes from plants Mum gave me & a slightly bigger variety called Tommy Toe. This I brought solely because I have a cat called Tommy, as you can see I'm quite the scientific gardener.......

Anyway, toss your chosen tomatoes with a good glug of Olive oil, a clove or two of chopped garlic, a few sprigs of thyme & a few of oregano, sprinkling with plenty of salt & fresh pepper. Roast in a 180C oven for about 45-50 mins until the fruit has collapsed, with tinges of brown. You may also have collapsed from the heat, can I just say its worth it?

Let the tomatoes cool for a while, then either push through a sieve or commender your Mums retro cool orange Mouli, (burnt melted bits where it was left on the stove countless times optional). Actually with the resurgence in interest in sauce making I have seen this beauty, certainly a bit more stylish than mine.....! Unlike a food processor a mouli gets rid of skin & pips, saving you having to skin hundreds of cherry tomatoes, surely the quickest way to a complete sense of humour fail.
This recipe makes about 500 mls of sauce depending on the moisture levels in your tomatoes If you find it a bit thin for your liking reduce it down by rapid boiling in a saucepan. Use right away or pop into the freezer for a taste of summer another day.....

I used a little of this as a basis for homemade pizza. Due to the fire ban in Auckland at the moment (we have not seen rain in weeks, the lawn looks like a brown and Mr PK is the only person happy about it, no mowing required....) the pizza oven is a no go. I spied a pizza stone at Farro on special for $20 and decided to splash out. Yet more heating up of the oven, but homemade pizza is SO much better than brought........

My go to pizza dough is here, if you have not made your own before I urge you in the strongest yet least bossy terms I can to try. A great crispy base, rich roasted sauce, a bit of mozzarella, maybe a few basil leaves, how good does that sound? 
I am a real purist when it comes to pizza, I think I am going way out when I put mushrooms on. Strangely I am married to a man who thinks Tandoori chicken & banana is completely acceptable as a pizza topping, at least making my own I have complete control. I do enjoy a hot pizza out of the oven topped with prosciutto, I like it cold & chewy rather than crispy after cooking, but its up to you.  Control freak I hear you murmur? Hmmmm.........

Are you having a tomato glut at the moment? 

Supperclubs & Sauce....really good sauce

Saturday's supperclub was a grand success, great guests, good food (if I do say so myself....) made for a fun evening, and no nervous breakdowns in the kitchen to be had...I had food bloggers on the guest list, including Alli from Pease Pudding, Mairi from Toast (who took the pics, thanks!) and Becs & Miriam from Lovely Wee Days, so no pressure then........

The menu was based on recipes from the new Supperclub Cookbook, I chose a mix of dishes which would work together as a delicious dinner and also let me cook for 8 people in a very ordinary kitchen with one oven without stress or to much alcohol. My guests enjoyed........

Kir Royale

Chipotle Lime Popcorn

French Onion Soup with Gruyere Toasts

Pork Belly Stuffed with Sage & Fennel

Quince & Apple Sauce

Potato & Celeriac Gratin

Braised Peas with Lettuce

Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts

Pavlova with Raspberries & Salted Caramel Sauce

Cheese- Kikorangi Blue

Crescent Dairy Flat White

Mahoe Very Aged Gouda

Oatcakes

Fig & Aniseed Bread

Fig Compote

Coffee & Mini Peanut Slabs





Pork and crackle, mmmmmmm







Can you make Pav better? Yep, add sauce......





How I do love cheese





The cutest little baby Peanut Slabs.........





I have been asked for the Salted Caramel Sauce recipe, this is true ambrosia, I'm pretty sure if you drizzled some on a bit of cardboard it would be a fine pud.

Salted Caramel Sauce (adapted from The Supperclub Cookbook by Kerstin Rodgers)

250gr  Sugar (Could use plain or caster)
1/4 cup of water
1/2 cup cream
1/2 tsp sea salt (don't use iodised table salt for this, if you don't have sea salt beg steal or borrow some)

Put the sugar & water in a heavy saucepan over a medium heat & leave to melt. Don't stir or fiddle, it just needs to melt. If you notice a little graininess say a silent prayer to the God of Sauces & hope it browns and turns to caramel before seizing up. This NEVER happened to me when I was growing up using thin crappy saucepans, now I am a grownup and used cast iron it does occasionally but as long as it isn't full grainy you can recover.
When the sugar turns brown (not black, when it will be bitter) take off the heat & whisking, add the cream. It will bubble and spit so be careful, when it has become a thick silky sauce, add your salt. Taste (carefully, this stuff can strip your tongue when boiling) and when cool store in a jar in the fridge. Administer a large spoonful straight when feeling sad, bored, sunny,  annoyed, happy, irritated, fed up or to decorate a pav or with ice cream. Or anything else.

To finish these are the flowers I had for the table. My mother went out in appalling weather & picked them from her garden. Thank's Mum.





Tomato sauce, yes please.........

Before I start my ramble, I just want to say how touched I was by your kind comments after the loss of my Dad, what a lovely bunch you are, I was very moved, thanks so much:)

Now on with the show.....

When life throws you lemons apparently you should make lemonade. Life is throwing me tomatoes, so the obvious solution? Good old fashioned tomato sauce. By sauce I mean ketchup style, as opposed to something you might put onto spaghetti or pizza. I don't know why I suddenly have a craving to make this, I never have before, and Mum certainly raised a wry smile when I asked for some of her massive tomato crop.

Mum made her own tomato sauce when we were growing up. Dad always seem to think we were on the cusp of a world shortage, and grew Beefsteak like it was the last vege on earth. Waste was just not acceptable, so like most woman of her generation she preserved, bottled and stored the excess. Except for beans, they were just force feed to five children until we begged for clemency.........I think she finds it funny that what was done then out of necessity is suddenly so cool.
Old malt vinegar bottles (they were glass back then) filled to the brim with red lined the kitchen shelves, next to bottled golden queen peaches and christmas plums. I would come home whining from my friends house's complaining about having to have homemade, I wanted bought sauce, Watties if you please....or even Heinz at a push.
It was yet another indignity to be borne, along with getting dropped off at school in the huge old blue Falcon (my younger sister has cerebral palsy so could not walk, we would both beg Mum to park around the corner pleeeeeese!) and having to check Dad's Western books out of the library when I picked up my Moosewood cookbook and Sweet Valley Highs......oh the shame) It's amazing I'm fairly normal.......

This recipe comes courtesy of Sally Cameron, from NZ Gardener Homegrown series, the Tomato edition. It uses plenty of tomatoes, and isnt to difficult to make.....

Sally's Tomato Sauce

3 kg firm ripe tomatoes (I used a mix of cherry, Black Krim, Roma and Beefsteak)
2 onions, peeled
5 medium apples
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
2 tbsp salt
750 gr brown sugar
Pinch cayenne
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole allspice
2.5 cm fresh ginger root, peeled
1 tsp black peppercorns

Roughly chop the tomatoes, apples and onions and place in a large pot. I didn't bother peeling the apples. Bring to the boil and simmer for approx 30 minutes until the fruit is soft and pulpy. The original recipe say to push the mix through a sieve, but I used Mum's mouli, which was really easy and produced a great result. It is also what she used, and I thought you might like to admire that fab orange, yeoww!

Return the mixture to the saucepan and add the vinegar, salt, sugar, cayenne and lemon juice. Tie the peppercorns, cloves and allspice in a piece of muslin (or a clean hankie if you don't have muslin) and throw into the pot also. Stir gently while everything comes to the boil, then leave to simmer gently for about 1 1/4 hours.

I suspect I could have left mine a bit longer to make a slightly thicker sauce but it will depend on how much liquid was in your fruit. It will still taste amazing so don't stress. Take your bag/hankie out and pour into sterilised bottles or jars. I run mine through the dishwasher, but you can also let them sit for 10 minutes in a 110C oven. Either way make sure they are warm before you add the hot sauce or there will be tears and shards of glass from A to B........

This makes enough to fill ten 350 ml bottles, which is quite a lot of fish and chips. Give a bottle to someone who has never had the real thing, it is quite a difference. If they are a child don't be surprised if they give it back, kids can be ingrates........

Green tomato's and red sauce.....

Back online (yes, it was a much extended holiday.........) and busy making fresh tomato sauce. Well it would be 'fresh' tomato sauce except once again we have had a mildew explosion in the garden and my tomato plants have shriveled to sad wizened shadows. I will let the picture speak for itself.........

Anyway, as so often it's tinned tomatoes to the rescue. With the addition of onion, garlic, plenty of fresh basil and a good pinch of sugar I have a very respectable sauce for my wee pizzas. My basil crop has been fantastic, which has soothed my squashed gardening ego somewhat, and produced a delicious jar of fresh pesto. I deviated from my usual mortar & pestle method of preparation and went all high tech with my food processor. I actually started using my blender, but it is so utterly useless I would have had more success rubbing the leaves between my fingers, so food processor it was. I loathe washing kitchen 'gadgets' at the best of times, but washing something that didn’t even do the job was especially irksome. The processor results in more 'chopped' leaves, which I don’t think is quite as nice as mortar crushed, but I was working with industrial quantities and I didn’t want my arm to fall off........



Pesto: Into your functioning blender, or food processor, put a good clove of garlic, copious handfuls of sweet basil, seasoning, and a palmful of pine nuts (or a mix of peanuts and pinenut, more economical and very yum) and blitz together. Then drizzle in olive oil, I use Spanish olive oil brought in two liter tins, it lasts for ages as it is protected from the light (the enemy of oil) and is more economical than smaller bottles. I have long since stopped worrying what this says about my oil consumption. I figure if I am eating oil I am not eating butter, which despite its utter deliciousness even I acknowledge I should try and consumer less than my body weight of annually.....

To prove I am not a complete failure in the garden please gaze in pleasure at my lovely fresh chilies, I have Habaneras, and cayenne peppers busy resisting mildew (bless them!) and fattening up daily  I feel a Mexican momento coming on.......

P.S All was not completely lost on the tomato front, I did make nine jars of Green Tomato pickle, nothing beats it on hotdogs or burgers, mmmmmmmm!

I think I'm ready to face it........

By 'it' of course I mean the trauma that is a Masterchef audition........what was I thinking dear reader??? A more stressful, (and ultimatly fruitless) few days I cant remember, clearly I have a temprement (not to mention face and DOB)  for blogging, not TV. While my gravy let me down (it was a bit tough caramalising onions on a nuclear commercial hob for a novice I'm afraid....), my new improved yorkshire pudding batter was rather fabulous, when I can bear to even think about Toad In the Hole again I will happily share it with you.
So blog I shall. It has been a while, as you can see I am still playing with the layout. I got myself a couple of photography mags (I had to look apature up in the dictionary...), and have been practising but we still have a way to go.........!
Supper last night was rather lovely, a piece of snapper lightly coated in flour and egg, then shallow fried with steamed asparagus, all swathed in hollandaise sauce, yummy. The sauce took all of five minutes in a little bowl over a pan of simmering water, honestly.......
Take one egg yolk and place in said bowl, with a teaspoon of lemon juice,a teaspoon of white wine vinegar,  salt and pepper. Pop over a small saucepan of simmering water, so the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water, and use a small whisk (mine came free off the front of a cooking mag years ago, it's perfect....) to combine. Keep whisking while the mix heats up gently, then start adding in cubes of cold unsalted butter, I used about 50 grams. I know just reading that is giving you a pain in the chest, but bear with me.....keep adding your butter while contiuously whisking to emulsify, and also avoid the sauce overheating, which turns it into an oily mess and makes you cry. If this looks at all possible simply lift the bowl away from the water and whisk like mad. Taste and add more lemon if you like. Delicious, just dont have it every day....