Slack-ish

I seem to be quite slack at updating this thing regularly. I do cook and I do take pictures, but by the time I've had dinner I don't really feel like sitting down and writing about it. So instead, you get the content in batches of when the inspiration strikes. On the upside, you get several recipes at once, so if you're a "once a week" reader, then it's perfect really :)

This month I've been trying to be extra frugal and not spend any money that isn't planned. I was whittling away hundreds of dollars on the incidental "I'll just pop into the supermarket on the way to the train station" purchases. Literally, hundreds! So this month, I said to myself, "No more spending unless it's from a list". The first four days were really really hard! I wanted that takeaway coffee or to go out for lunch or there's a sale on at that store. It's amazing how much time you spend thinking about buying things when you don't have any money!

A few days later it settled down. I realised that I have a ton of food at home and I should make do with what I have instead of constantly buying more. I borrowed a book called The $21 dollar challenge that focuses exactly on that - cooking with what you have instead of buying things you don't use.

On the second weekend of the month, I ventured out to the markets to buy some supplies. Only bought the things that I needed for a couple of recipes: potato bake (already had potato but needed bacon), chicken casserole (The Mad Butcher had thighs for $4.99 a kilo!!), and apple crumble (a friend at work gave me a whole bunch of apples from her father's orchard). Also bought a few household supplies, such as coat hangers and toilet cleaner. I haven't yet ventured out into the world of baking soda for cleaning, but I'm sure the time will come!

Today I noticed that Whitcoulls has a massive sale on books (they're in administration), so bought Yates Garden Fresh Cookbook. It has recipes but also a lot of information on how to grow your own vegies. It's good because it talks about having a continuous vegetable garden, not just about how to grow one thing and be done with it. Might get inspired!

So yes, I have been spending far less money. Unfortunately that means I am not cooking things that all that fancy and they are kind of making me fat. The cheaper food choices are also paired with my current medication that specifically states "watch out as it may lead you to overeat", so I have to be extra-vigilant. But that ice cream just seems so good! Have to be strong.

I also went to a cooking class the other night. I've never been to one before, and I bought this for me and a friend as a birthday/Christmas gift for her. We got all the ingredients and recipe provided and the instruction, and we cooked it right there, and then ate it and shared a bottle of wine. It was really quite nice for $40 each. They do classes several times a week.

Carrot Halwa

I got this recipe off the Hairy Bikers. As I was baking for people at work (self-celebrating my three year anniversary with my current employer), I doubled all the ingredients and rolled out the halwa on a tray so it would make a slice.

This recipe is extremely expensive if you get the saffron and the vanilla pod for the cream. I did buy them and only then noticed how expensive they were. In the end, I didn't make the cream as I was taking the slice into work, so the vanilla beans are still unopened. For the price of gold, it's just as well! Ghee is also not cheap, and you don't actually have to double the ghee if you double the rest of the recipe, because it's used just in the frying of semolina. An Indian person at work said that the whole liquid off the frying is supposed to go into it, but I just poured off the fat into the sink and chucked in the fried semolina.

For the final step, I didn't serve it in glasses or with cream, but simply lay it out on a baking tray, pressed it flat, and put it in the fridge. It set nicely overnight, I then sliced it to take to work.

This is a really tasty dessert. It's not as sweet as I expected it to be (and apparently not sweet enough to be truly Indian, hehe). The cardamom makes it extremely moorish. You can also go without the saffron as it's just for the colour I think.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

My friend Amy linked me to this blog, from which I took this recipe. I am a bit of a klutz when it comes to baking (but not cooking for some reason!), so it was somewhat of a disaster. But the cake still turned out delicious, yet not quite cake-like.

The biggest challenge was melting the white chocolate. The first block I burned. I've got to say though, burned white chocolate is absolutely delicious. Kind of like a caramel cookie. I didn't know what to do when it burned (this was 1 minute + 1 minute + 1 minute in 1200 watt microwave, so anything less nuclear will probably be just right), at first I went through a mental list of friends who could bring me new white chocolate, even thought of the ex's parents that live miles away. Then it struck me -- the dairy down the road! Whoa, this being self-sufficient business is quite a feat!

So here I was, traipsing through Naenae, in pouring rain, in the middle of the cold dark night, in search of white chocolate to go into my cheesecake (yeah yeah uphill both ways in the snow, world smallest violin, etc etc). There was a massive dead seagull on my way even. In fact, I thought it was a dead cat until I saw the wings. Huge.

Naturally, the dairy had every which chocolate bar but white! I did find one block hidden behind some others though, so the cheesecake was saved. Didn't have much luck melting this block properly either, so ended up with a few lumps in the cheesecake. The people at work said it was actually a nice surprise.

I have a silicone cake pan, and didn't quite fit into the baking pan to which you add water. So the cake was misshapen, and when I took the silicone pan out, the cake split as the pan took its original shape. Also, I think I didn't bake the cake enough, so it was a bit mousse-like. It was still delicious though, albeit quite expensive. Dairy is really a luxury item now, isn't it. :( I'm sure it'll be a better cake if I make it another time.

I decorated mine with tinned strawberries.

Knife

Was a little bit dissapointed with the knife that arrived in the mail -- it does not have a slightly curved edge, so I cannot get the piston motion going that is suggested in the video. Oh well, used Flybuys to pay for it, so no big deal. Will be looking to find the 'perfect' knife for me -- I think I need a slightly shorter edge that a chef's knife, with some carbon steel content, a curved edge. Found this one online, but will make do with what I have for now, until at least I have the cutting skills down pat.

Knife Skills

Found this video randomly when I was trying to research what to spend my Flybuys points on. Not sure why I never bothered to learn how to cut things properly, but now that I've watched the video I will definitely make more of an effort to slice things correctly!

I also ordered a new knife and chopping boards because my Flybuys points were expring this month. Can't wait for them to arrive.

Yet another food blog

In the inspiring steps of Julie & Julia and a thousand and one TV chefs out there, I feel compelled to add yet another pollutant to the world of blogosphere.

I am not going to cook every single dish in a book. Mostly because I never like every single recipe in a cooking book. I do have many cooking books. In fact, there is an entire book shelf in my kitchen, filled with recipes. I never considered myself a cook -- I resent the idea of "having something on the table after a day of work" or "It's dinner time, let's eat". For me, food is more than just the fuel that powers my body. It must be delicious and there must be something good on TV to watch or some pleasant company to interact with before I even consider eating. I would never "just grab something" or eat in the kitchen. For me, it is an experience, a joy in and of itself. Besides, food tastes faaaar better when you're hungry :)

I must define my constraints:

• A couple of years ago I felt very overweight and I joined WeightWatchers. I was very successful and lost nearly 20 kilos to date. I went from size 14 to size 8 (New Zealand sizes). The non-gimmicky calories in/calories out science-based concepts of WW really connected with me. I used to have "Cheesecake days" to test the programme, and it still worked. So I am conscious of not eating too much, but I would never restrict myself to "healthy" recipes that in reality mean "rabbit food". After all, it's the portion sizes that really matter.
• I recently had a change in personal circumstances and no longer have as high an income at my disposal. And most of the income that I do have will need to be ring-fenced towards my mortgage. While I am aware and very anxious of it, I still do spend ungodly amounts of money on food. But it also means I am not going to cook 70 dishes in one week just to show to the world what I can do. I like doing this because I like blogging and I like the process of cooking, but at the end it's still my meal. I often cook things that serve 4-6 people and then subdivide it into portions in plastic containers and freeze them. I have a stand alone upright freezer that has drawers (as opposed to those ridiculous "dump everything into this skip bin" freezers that you can never find anything in). It took me a while to find it, and it's amazing -- food doesn't go off and I always have something to eat when I don't feel like cooking. Plus, lunches!
• My laziness comes and goes and I get bored easily. At the moment I enjoy the process of cooking itself. I find Chef Academy more fun to watch than, say, MasterChef or Iron Chef, because it's more about the process than the creation of recipes. I don't really come up with new things, I like following instructions and basking in the glory when I get it right.
• I like interaction with people. It's very likely that I might find this blogging business largely dissatisfying and forget to update it. Oops.

With all that preamble out of the way, Onwards!