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kitchen and garden diaries

Monthly Archives: March 2012


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fresh peach and raspberry coconut and almond upside-down cake (gluten free)

I am pretty excited to be writing some posts inspired by Hill Street Farmer’s Market, of which this is the first. Not only is the produce fantastic, but in order to get to the market and back, before Saturday football, I have to duck out of the chaos that is family breakfast time. Shortly after 8am, with just the littlest member of the family under one arm, I was able to close the door behind me and breath in the still morning air. Anyone with kids will relate to what a luxury that is.

There was no traffic, a few students with remnants of last night’s fancy dress to smile at, evoking memories of footloose and fancy free days …and the promise of good coffee. No one asked me the same question 15 times in steadily higher pitch, from the back seat, or tried to draw me into refereeing side by side seat kicking match. Within moments of leaving the house I had decided this was a little outing I really needed to take every Saturday. So I figured I had better get something good. Something I couldn’t get from the local supermarket.. something I really needed to visit the farmers market for. I got a basket full.

First up, it’s the turn of the perfectly ripe peaches and sweet end of season raspberries. Some of which were just eaten fresh, but some formed the base of this gorgeous peach and raspberry upside -down cake. You start by lining the base of a cake tin and greasing it – sprinkling it with a little granulated sugar and covering it with peach slices. They don’t need to be beautifully chopped because it looks completely stunning anyway and having the peaches a bit randomly cut just adds to the charm. Between the peach slices, dot a few raspberries.

For the cake bit I used bigger quantities than usual as hoping it might actually last through the weekend, rather than be demolished in one sitting. 100g of melted butter , just less than a cup of soft brown sugar, 4 – 5 spoons of yogurt – beat it all together then in with 4 eggs, just under a cup of coconut flour, 1 cup ground almonds and a couple of spoons of brown rice flour, 1 tsp gf baking powder. It looks like quite a dryish cake mix so you kind of need to spoon it fairly carefully over the fruit – smooth it over and bake it. Once again I forgot to check the timings but it was probably close on 40 mins. It goes quite brown on the bottom and springs up.

More market treats coming later.


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rosemary roast pumpkin and beetroot salad, with feta, pear and courgette

Picked up a whole pumpkin this week for $2. Been looking at it, trying to summon the energy to hack the thing up. I have heard of people roasting it whole and scooping out the flesh afterwards, but I had a nice tray of caramelized chunks in mind, so baking it whole didn’t seem like a good plan. Got Jake to chop it and we were away.  Roasted with whole garlic gloves, whole chillies (frankly just wanted to use some up and was intrigued as to whether roasting would make them hotter or mellow them out …mellowed them on this occasion, but chillies are like kids – you can’t expect consistent behaviour. ) Covered in rosemary leaves, from the garden, rubbed in olive oil (the olive oil stops the rosemary burning) coarse sea salt and pepper. Oh, and a big chopped beetroot.

Covered a large plate with chopped cos lettuce, shaved courgette and slivers of pear. Piled on about a third of the pumpkin (the rest will be soup for tomorrow) and everything ele from the roasting tray – crumbled over some goat feta, and dressed with more olive oil, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.


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Rather excellent chocolate orange cakes (gluten free)

Modesty is a virtue …. but if you create a really excellent recipe then it’s only fair to shout about it. Especially if it has chocolate in. Even more so, if it’s really easy to make, and kind of healthy, if you are like me, and class anything with a ground almond base as healthy regardless of what the other component parts are…the chocolate is dark chocolate anyway, and everyone knows that’s the healthy kind.

Start by melting about 70g (or 3 rows of a bar of dark ghana if, you want to get really specific about measurements)  and about 40g of butter over hot water – grate in the zest of an orange. While it melts, whisk 4 eggs. Now usually I’m a bit lazy with my whisking – a quick whirl around, and I’m in with the sugar. Today I just had a bit more time – everyone was either out,or occupied, so I found myself in a bit of a trance with the whisk in hand and next thing the eggs were all properly fluffy. Add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar to the eggs and whisk it in – then 1 and 1/2 cups of ground almonds and 1/2 cup of brown rice flour. Add the juice of half an orange and a teaspoon of gf baking powder (if you like – these cakes rise fine without because of the eggs so if you want to keep the ingredients pure and simple you could skip it – but it will be a bit fluffier and puffier if you put it in).

Whisk in the chocolate mix, pop in muffin cases and they are ready in about 12 – 15 minutes – same with all cakes. they are ready when they ‘spring back’ to the touch or a knife comes out clean.

Now all that’s left to be decided is what to eat them with – I’m thinking a large scoop of greek yogurt will do very nicely. (If you’re wondering how I know these are  good when I’m yet to eat them then that would be the ‘fresh from the oven taste test’ I conducted earlier.. baker’s perk. So, little chocolate orange cakes, you have inspired me to create a ‘top picks’ tag … so in the future I can search my hundreds of recipes and find you and others like you.


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slow cooked lamb and chick pea curry

I used a pile of lamb leg steaks, bone in, and cooked this slowly over the course of an afternoon (about 5 hours) so that the end result was a cross between a mild curry and a ‘bone broth’ sauce.  The lamb becomes braised and falls apart so there is no need to cut the steaks up. If you leave a bit of fat on the steaks when you cook them it, makes a very rich sauce indeed.

Start with a little coconut oil and some onion and garlic – then add spices – I think curry is an area you can be very slapdash with the spices provided you don’t go too wild with the chilli. Being a bit random means you keep getting slightly different results, which keeps life interesting. For this one I used a fresh chilli, a good lump of grated fresh ginger, turmeric, cumin, garam masala, star anise, a cinnamon stick, cardamon pods, salt and pepper. Get the lamb steaks straight into the hot pan and brown them with the spices. Then a tin of chick peas, a couple of carrots, some chopped dried organic apricots and a handful of sultanas. Cover completely with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar (if you have it) and bring to the boil on the stovetop and then put in a low oven and cook slowly – it would be done in 2 hours at about 160 but I kept adding more water and cooked around 140 for about 5 hours.

You do need to eat around the bones (the meat will have completely fallen off) and keep an eye out for a rouge cinnamon stick but that kind of stuff is hardly a major hardship. We had it with fresh mint leaves and slivered almonds and a side of cucumber mint yogurt, some mango chutney as well as rice and poppadoms.. be as regular readers of this blog will have figured then we can be a bit greedy around here.


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spinach, rocket, courgette, avocado and bacon salad with toasted pumpkin seeds and a side of macaroni cheese

So macaroni cheese is a bit of a favourite with the kids. I’m pretty fond of a bowl myself, but it really needs a good salad. The one in the picture is kind of self explanatory.

Is there any need to post a macaroni cheese recipe? Imagine everyone has their own little way of making it – not exactly rocket science. I use butter and either cornflour or rice flour to make a roux (used to use plain flour back in the carefree glutenous days)… slowly add milk, stirring all the time and then it’s in with a mountain of tasty cheddar. Stir in the cooked pasta and whatever else. Sometimes bacon but we had the bacon on the salad this time. Sometimes toasted pumpkin seeds on top – but they were in the salad too…ditto spinach. Extra cheese grilled on top and a little sprinkle of paprika – the paprika’s become a bit of a ritual – Dad just aways makes it that way so you pick up the habit – it’s pretty good if you haven’t tried it.


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strawberry, rhubarb and honey ice-blocks

No one was keen to hang around while I took a photo of the finished ice-blocks .. here’s the puree. They are a pretty good way to get the kids into eating rhubarb. Just made with stewed rhubarb with a couple of frozen strawberries thrown in to sweeten it and a squeeze of honey. Blended and poured into the super-dooooper ice block maker. In fact last night we actually had the ice-block maker in the middle of the table and poured in the puree as we sat down – it froze while we ate the main course…if that’s not incentive for kids to eat their beans up I don’t know what is.


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garden beans dressed with olive oil, lemon, parmesan and almonds with chilli, lemon blue warehou and buttery polenta

Yesterday, a lovely friend gave me a bag of beans fresh from her garden.

I cooked them and dressed them in olive oil, lemon juice, and slivers of parmesan and almond. Yes, I was feeling a bit fancy, but these beans deserved the best – they were a gift after all.

I used some of the world’s hottest chillies ( really these in in the A league of hot – the sort where your throat starts to catch just walking past them) to make a lemon , garlic , chili blue warehou parcel.. you know the kind that Jamie Oliver made fashionable back in the day. You fold it up in foil and then bake and the fish kind of steams inside the parcel and takes on the flavours around it. That’s the theory anyway, but I was a bit slapdash with my folding, and I overcooked the fish. Still – the foil made for a pretty photo glinting in the evening sunlight and we squeezed the roasted lemon over which meant even my super-dry fish was edible, especially with a heap of buttery polenta on the side…and those ever-so fancy beans.


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rhubarb, plum, apple and ginger crumble with coconut, almond and chia topping (gluten free)

Chop the fruit and grate over some fresh ginger – shake a little sugar over if you are so inclined – maybe honey if you want to be healthy.

Mix the crumble topping by chopping up a little room temperature butter (maybe a cm off a block – about 30g) and rubbing it together using fingertips with 1/2 cup of coconut flour, 1/2 cup ground almonds. Add a spoon of chia seeds and a spoon of sugar. Pat the topping over the crumble and bake until fruit is soft. 30 – 40 mins at 180 – might have to turn the oven down if the topping looks too brown before the fruit is soft.


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strawberry, rhubarb and honey banana bread

if you ignore the chocolate chunk peeking out to the left hand side of the loaf then this batch of banana bread is actually sugar free. There’s just the meanest handful of chocolate chunks scattered through , more of a token than anything else. A braver person could leave them out completely and have a truly sugar free loaf,  but not me.  Because around here then banana bread just isn’t banana bread without the chocolate. It’s not that the kids aren’t flexible about (some) stuff but this is their favourite lunchbox snack and whilst they can tolerate me messing about with chia seeds and different fruits they put their feet down over the issue of chocolate chunks. I have raised them well.

Large mashed banana mixed with about half a cup of rhubarb and strawberry puree (was making some for J – just fresh rhubarb stewed with some  frozen strawberries thrown in to sweeten it up and then blended)  a thin slice of butter melted (at a guess 40g) a big squeeze of honey (no idea of the measure – 1/4 cup maybe) , large spoon of yogurt and then beat in 2 eggs and 2 cups of self raising flour. Ready to bake – took maybe 40 mins with the kids periodically prowling around the oven asking when it would be out.

I guess you could make this using coconut / rice flour / ground almond – I will try a gluten free banana bread soon. The main trick with gluten free seems to be to add more eggs as you then get the ‘rise’ from the eggs. I didn’t leave G hungry with yesterday’s baking though – there’s a gluten free plum, rhubarb and apple crumble with almond, coconut and chia topping post coming later.


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lazy girl’s pea and parmesan risotto with bacon and silverbeet and a side salad of shaved courgette, beetroot, avocado and feta

For those of us who live on Wellington’s rugged South Coast, where the wind is relentless and the soil is quite frankly a bit rubbish for growing stuff in, then cooking with freshly picked produce is a rare pleasure. Our own little garden has not exactly provided bountiful suppers, and so it was a real reat to discover Houghton Valley Community Garden this afternoon.

J sat contentedly on the camomile lawn surveying the bulging beds below, while the very friendly locals explained the basics of community gardening… there are no rules , no chiefs – muck in, take what you like and enjoy the garden. The sun shone, there was hot tea and they didn’t laugh when I mistook the silverbeet for rhubarb. So this is the first in what I hope will be many posts inspired by produce from the community garden.

I was planning on making a risotto for dinner, and even had ideas of simmering and stirring it slowly adding the stock ladle by ladle.. but then we spent too long out enjoying the Autumn sunshine and arrived home to the clock ticking rapidly towards bedtime and the kids demanding food with some sense of immediacy.

Put aside thoughts of ‘proper’ risotto and went for the lazy girl’s version instead. Start with a nob of butter and a few chopped garlic cloves then add a mug of risotto rice and about a pint of fresh chicken stock. Cover it, bring it to the boil and then turn it down to simmer.  In a separate pan cook some chopped streaky bacon with silverbeet. The silverbeet was so fresh it was literally alive (had to carefully wash off a few spiders – luckily just the little ones!). While everything cooked I shaved the garden fresh courgette  and beetroot with some chunks of avocado and crumbled feta.. oh and not forgetting the 3 cherry tomatoes from our own garden. After about 20 – 25 mins put some frozen peas and grated parmesan in the risotto – then after a couple more minutes it’s cooked. Dish it up with the bacon and silverbeet on top of the rice – squeeze of lemon over to help absorb the iron from the silverbeet (and because it tastes good) and the salad on the side – dressed with a little olive oil, apple cider vinegar and more lemon juice.

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