Wordless Wednesday: New Zealand - Week 3

Meaty dinner at Capitol in Wellington

5pm "porridge" at Joe's Garage in Wellington

On the ferry in Queen Charlotte Sound from the South Island to the North Island

Black swan in Lake Rotorua, fluffy begonias in Wellington

Aratiatia Rapids near Taupo (top), Champagne Pool at Wai-o-tapu Geothermal Area (bottom)

Wordless Wednesday: New Zealand - Week 2

Life-changing granola at Mountain Range lodge in Wanaka

Tasty pavlova in Franz Josef and goat cheese mushroom tart at Hopgood's in Nelson

Lake Wanaka (top), Punakaiki (middle), Abel Tasman National Park (bottom)

Wordless Wednesday: New Zealand - Week 1

Some of the food enjoyed so far

Lake Wakatipu and various flora around Queenstown

En route to and at Milford Sound

Christmas Stollen

The last Christmas baking project was the making of an authentic Christmas Stollen. It was definitely the most involved project, since it required 3 risings of the dough, plenty of kneading by our resident kneading expert (Mihai), discoveries of new ingredients in the local suburban supermarket (dried currants), and many hours devoted to the process on Christmas Day. The results were mixed - I found the Stollen we collectively created a little dry, but my stepfather seemed to enjoy it more than any of our other baking projects, so I guess it just depends on your taste.

Christmas Stollen
Adapted from Under the High Chair

6-8 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon yeast
1½ cups warm milk
¼ cup dried cherries
¾ cup golden raisins
¾ cup currants
1½ cup almonds, chopped
¾ cup sugar
1½ cups butter, plus extra for brushing loaves, at room temperature
3 eggs
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons rum

1. In a large bowl, combine warm milk and yeast. Allow to sit 10 minutes until yeast is dissolved. Add 1 cup of the sifted flour and mix to form a sponge. Let sit in a warm place until doubled.

2. Meanwhile, combine cherries, raisins, and almonds and set aside.

3. When sponge has sufficiently rested, beat the soft butter with an electric mixer. Beat in sugar and blend until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, followed by the salt, lemon rind, and rum. Mix in the fruit and nuts with a spatula. Add all the sponge and the remaining 5 cups flour. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if too sticky (we ended up adding around 1 more cup).

4. Cover dough with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

5. To shape dough, toss it onto a floured board and divide in two. Pat dough into a rough oval and fold over one third of the dough lengthwise onto the other two thirds. Repeat with remaining dough. Place each loaf on its own baking sheet and brush with butter. Allow to rise again until almost doubled in bulk.



6. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake loaves for about 40 minutes until they are a dark golden brown.

Cranberry Coffee Cake

I invited my high school friends to come over while I was at my mom's house for Christmas, since many of them also make the pilgrimage home - we couldn't get everyone, but 5 out of 7 of us got to see each other. When they came by, I had a fresh lemon pie ready for them, and also this cranberry coffee cake for something a little more conventional. While I baked the lemon pie under my mom's supervision, I just followed Deb's recipe for this one, with only minor modifications. The resulting cake is great - very nicely moist and tart, not at all dry. As my mom pointed out after the fact, an interesting experiment would be to make our family lemon pie with the cranberry filling instead (since both the lemon and the cranberries would do a good job striking the balance between sweet and tart). Perhaps this coffee cake can also be made with the lemon filling to complete the switcheroo.

Cranberry Coffee Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1¾ cups sugar
2 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (6 ounces)
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, divided
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Generously butter a 9-inch round springform pan. Line bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter parchment.

2. Pulse cranberries with ½ cup sugar in processor until finely chopped (do not purée).

3. Mix together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together 1 stick butter and 1 cup sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in the vanilla last and beat until well mixed. Add in the flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour, mixing with a spatula until just combined.

4. Spread half of batter in pan, then spoon cranberries over it, leaving a ½-inch border around edge. Spoon small bits of the remaining batter over the top of the cranberries and smooth them out gently.

5. Blend remaining ¼ cup sugar with remaining tablespoon each of butter and flour using your fingertips. Crumble over top of cake.

6. Bake until a wooden pick inserted into cake (not into cranberry filling) comes out clean and side begins to pull away from pan, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 30 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely, crumb side up.

Lemon Pie

So it's a little embarrassing that I haven't updated this blog since the end of August, when school started again. Mihai and I have certainly had our fair share of delicious home-cooked meals since then, but despite my best intentions (we even took pictures of them), I just haven't had time to write about them. However, over the last few days there was quite a bit of Christmas-related baking at my mom's house, so I thought I should share some of the results.

First up is a family recipe - lemon pie. This is a somewhat unusual dessert, one that I've never had outside my mom's house, and one that my mom has never had elsewhere either - she got the recipe from one of her aunts many years ago. The unexpected elements (such as using yeast but not having to knead, and putting the pie into a cold oven) all work together well to deliver a not-too-sweet but perfectly tangy dessert that goes very well with a cup of tea. Mihai is very excited that I finally learned how to make this (having made it twice over the last few days), so that now we can have it not just at my mom's house.

Lemon Pie



For the filling:

1 to 1⅓ medium size lemons (if you have Meyer lemons around, so much the better)
1½ cups sugar

For the dough:

¾ cups warm milk
1 teaspoon sugar
1 packet of dry yeast or 1 cake of live yeast
3 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
200g butter (cold or frozen)

1. Boil a pot of water. Place the lemons in a bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Pour off the water and repeat two more times. (I know it's very tempting to skip/shorten this step, but don't give into that temptation! This three-peat of hot water is very important to make sure the lemons lose their bitterness.)

2. Cut up the whole lemons into pieces, and purée in a food processor (rind and inside part together). Transfer the purée into a medium or large bowl.

3. Dissolve the teaspoon of sugar in the ¾ cups of warm milk, and then add the yeast. Wait until bubbles form. (Make sure the warm milk is truly warm, not hot, otherwise the yeast will die and the bubbles will never form.)

4. While waiting for the yeast to activate, mix the salt and the flour together in a large bowl. Take the cold or frozen butter and grate it on a box grater into the bowl with the flour, stopping every few grating motions to mix the grated butter with the flour so that it doesn't all clump together.

5. By this point your yeast and milk mixture should be bubbling, so pour it into the flour-and-butter bowl, and mix the dough. Once it is mixed, divide into two halves, and roll out one half of the dough into a rectangle. Transfer the rolled-out dough onto a 9x13 cookie sheet (ideally one with edges). Don't try to make the dough rectangle large enough to fill up the entire sheet - it's actually best if it doesn't.

6. Take the 1½ cups of sugar and mix it with the lemon purée. When you pour all that sugar on top of the lemon purée, it always seems like too much sugar and my mom and I always feel like we should lower the sugar amount - having made this mistake at least once, we now know that with less than the 1½ cups of sugar, the filling becomes much too tart, even for us.

7. Spread the lemon and sugar mixture on top of the rolled-out dough on the cookie sheet, leaving a 1-inch border around the edges.

8. Roll out the second half of the dough, making sure it's at least as large as the first rectangle. Transfer this new rectangle on top of the dough+filling in the cookie sheet. Pinch the edges of the two dough pieces together, and tuck underneath the bottom layer to make sure none of the filling can leak out. Once all the edges are secured, use your hands to gently massage the top layer so as to spread the filling closer to the now-sealed edges. Use a fork to prick the top layer of the dough and also to create one small round hole in the middle of the top layer to let air escape.

9. Place the cookie sheet with the pie into a cold oven, and turn it on to 320°F. Bake for 35-40 minutes until it turns a very light golden color. (Baking it further won't damage the dough, but will cook and caramelize the inside lemon-sugar mixture too much.) Cool completely before slicing into diamond-shaped slices and enjoy!

Cooking in Cape Coed 2

A couple of years ago, Mihai and I missed the chance to spend a week with our friends in Cape Cod (I don't remember now what kept us from going), so we were happy that we could make it this year for a repeat of Cape Coed (Cape Cod + attendance by guys and gals = Cape Coed). We were there for just a few days, but the combination of good weather and great company made it a very worthy trip. (The only downside was my sun-induced burn/rash - apparently Japanese car windows are not made of proper glass that would block the harmful UV rays. Duly noted and sunblock will be applied before any future car trips.) I also got to amuse myself by helping out in the kitchen during the few days we were there, and decided to write about it all in one slightly-longer-than-usual post.

Day 1: Raspberry Yogurt (Birthday) Cake

Unfortunately, I don't actually have a picture of this simple cake I made for Anna's birthday on our first night in Cape Cod. I think I was a little preoccupied by the fact that we inserted the birthday candles into the cake while it was still rather hot (and we had of course forgotten to buy the little plastic candle holders), with the result that the candle wax melted into the cake before it was time to bring it out. Luckily, my kind friends reassured me that the wax cannot possibly be poisonous and proceeded to bravely eat the cake anyway. The recipe can be found on Clotilde's site.

Day 2: Summer Squash Gratin



Our group included a couple of vegetarians, so this squash gratin (that I had tried out earlier this summer and hadn't blogged about) seemed like a delicious, filling main-course. I followed Heidi's recipe pretty closely, but I did take out the red pepper flakes and used the store-bought breadcrumbs that were available rather than making my own in the vacation-house conditions. (Though let's be honest, I would probably use store-bought panko, just like I did in the version of the gratin pictured above, rather than buy bread for the sole purpose of making breadcrumbs.)

Day 3: Carrot-Avocado Salad and Tomato Pie



I'll admit that carrots and avocados sound like an unusual combination for a salad, but Mihai and I think that it is actually a surprisingly delicious combo. We had first thought of trying it out when we had tried this salad earlier in the summer:



Our verdict on this one was that even though we had a much lower bean-to-carrot ratio in our version than in the original recipe, there were still too many beans for our taste. We did like the cooked carrots a lot more than we expected and were curious how much more to our liking the salad would be with avocados instead of beans (both are filling enough to make this more than a side salad). As if reading our minds, Deb posted about such a salad just a few days later. This was much closer to what we were thinking, but more of a side dish than a main-course - I changed the proportions (much more avocado) in the version below.

Carrot and Avocado Salad
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 bunch carrots, peeled and cut into ⅓-inch segments on a bias
5 avocados, pitted and sliced
a handful of cilantro, chopped
a few tablespoons olive oil, divided
juice of half a lemon
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
Coarse salt

1. Either roast the carrots or cook them in a skillet on the stovetop. (Mihai likes the skillet method result; I am a bit lazier and prefer the ease of the oven roasting.)

Option A) Roast the carrots.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss the carrot pieces in a medium bowl with two tablespoons of olive oil, cumin, and a generous of a helping of salt. Spread them on a roasting sheet and roast for about 20 minutes, or until tender and browned.

Option B) Cook the carrots in a skillet.

In your largest skillet over medium high heat, toss the carrots with a splash of olive oil. Let them cook in a single layer. Keep cooking, tossing gently every three or four minutes until the carrots are deeply browned.

2. Once the carrots are cooked, toss them in a bowl with the chunks of avocado, chopped cilantro, a couple more tablespoons of olive oil, the lemon juice, and salt to taste.

Serves at least seven.

Tomato Pie
Adapted from Simply Recipes

I also made this Tomato Pie - I know it doesn't look pretty, but it sure is delicious (if you read the ingredient list, you'll understand why - anything covered with a mixture of mayo and this much cheese which is then baked in the oven cannot help but be scrumptious).




1 9-inch pie shell (I used Clotilde's Easy Olive Oil Tart Crust)
½ yellow or red onion, chopped
3-4 tomatoes, cut in half horizontally, squeezed to remove excess juice, roughly chopped, to yield approximately 3 cups chopped tomatoes
¼ cup sliced basil (about 8 leaves)
2 cups grated cheese (combination of Gruyère and Mozzarella)
¾ cup mayonnaise

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place pie shell in oven and cook for 8-10 minutes or longer until lightly golden. If you are starting with a frozen crust, you'll need to cook it a little longer. If you are using a homemade crust, freeze the crust first, then line the crust with aluminum foil and pre-bake it for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes. (With the olive oil crust I used, I didn't have to weigh down the crust with beans or rice, but perhaps this would be more of a necessity with a conventional butter crust.)

2. Squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the chopped tomatoes, using either paper towels, a clean dish towel, or a potato ricer. (Kushal helped me with this and I had him just use his clean hands.)

3. Sprinkle the bottom of the pre-cooked pie shell with chopped onion. Spread the chopped tomatoes over the onions. Sprinkle the sliced basil over the tomatoes.

4. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated cheese, mayonnaise, and a sprinkling of salt. Spread the cheese mixture over the tomatoes.

5. Place in oven and bake until golden and bubbly, anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes.

Serves eight.


Day 4: Watermelon-Feta Salad and Beets with Goat Cheese

On the last day Mihai and I were in Cape Cod, the boys grilled yummy burgers and Anna made guac, so we probably had too much food overall, but isn't that part of what vacation is all about anyway? (To be fair - I hadn't originally planned on serving the beets along with the watermelon-feta salad, but they were left over by part of the group that had arrived before us and it seemed a shame to let them go to waste.)

Watermelon-Feta Salad
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen



3-4 large tomatoes, diced
¼ watermelon, diced
1 large yellow (or orange) bell pepper, seeded, cut into ⅓-inch cubes
1 large English hothouse cucumber, cut into ¼-inch half-moons
5-6 very thinly sliced radishes
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
8 oz feta cheese, cut into small cubes
¼ cup thinly sliced fresh mint leaves, divided
½ cup plain Greek-style yogurt
1 teaspoon dried oregano

1. Toss first five ingredients and two tablespoons olive oil in large bowl. Add half each of cheese and mint.

2. Mix the remaining cheese, mint, and oil in a processor (or just a small bowl if you don't have a processor handy); add yogurt and oregano. Process just to blend (do not over-mix). Season dressing with salt; mix into salad.

Serves at least seven.

Beets with Goat Cheese



1 bunch beets
a few ounces goat cheese
a few sprigs of basil
extra virgin olive oil

1. Boil the beets in a pot of water (with a splash of white vinegar added) for approximately 45 minutes or until you can easily pierce the beets with a fork or a knife. Pour the water out of the pot.

2. Peel the beets, slice thinly, and arrange on a platter.

3. Crumble goat cheese over the top of the beets, chiffonade the basil leaves and sprinkle on top, and then drizzle with the olive oil.

Serves at least seven.