Cookie (Not Cheffy)

Right, no time to be shy, because it will just come across as false modesty: the truth is, people go crazy for my carrot cake. Strictly, it’s not mine, but the flour-dusted work of Hilary Biller, Jenny Kay and Elinor Storkey who wrote the unglamorous but indispensable 101 Fuss-free Bakes (Struik, 2005). But I have tweaked it slightly, making it moister and spicier (and, thereby, even more irresistible). The cream cheese icing is the cherry on top: fluffy, buttery and slightly tart.

The recipe makes two cakes, one which I’ll take to family or the office and the other that Arthur eats half of (no, I’m not joking, it’s that good), before taking it to his company, where it is met with joyous cries of “Cake or death? Cake, please!” (here’s the joke, in case you don’t know it). So, finally, after much (relentlessly persistent) cajoling from friends and colleagues, here is the (moister! spicier!) famous carrot cake recipe. Like all good baking recipes, it’s super simple (the only fiddly bit is the carrot-grating) and never fails. (more…)

Today, New York Times blogger Pete Wells set a challenge to rewrite this recipe as a short series of tweets. Here was my try at it:

TWEET 1: Prep 4 ‘chokes in water + lemon juice. Mix 1.5 lemonsZest, 750ml brdCrumbs, 80ml ParmChs, 80ml chpd parsly, 1tblsp chpd rosemry, #nytrc

TWEET 2: 6clv mncd garlc, 1 chpd carrt, 1.5tblsp capers, s&p. Baking pan: 1slcd onion, ‘choke stems, 4sprgs parsly, 2clv garlc, 1slcd carrt. #nytrc

TWEET 3: Stuff ‘chokes w mix > pan > drzl olive oil. Add bit water, 125ml wine. Cover w foil. Bake @ 400d 4 1.5hrs. #nytrc

Not easy! The queen of this format is cookbook. Follow me on Twitter at michelle_matt.

I took some of my favourite baked bolognaise around to a friend whose ill husband has lost his appetite – and he ate two helpings! She asked me to share the recipe, so I’ll reveal all below the break… . What’s nice about this sauce is that you can just scale up this recipe until it fills your biggest ovenproof container, and freeze the leftovers for quick suppers or gifts for busy friends – it survives the freezer very well. It’s also good on sandwiches for lunch the next day.

Admittedly, I saw this on a Jamie Oliver show about eight years ago and remembered it, but I think I’ve probably tweaked it quite a bit over the years. It’s garlic-free, because Arthur hates garlic, but so packed with tomatoey goodness and rosemary undertones, that you really don’t miss it. If you do, just add a clove or two to the onions.

Baking the sauce allows the tomato flavour to really develop and makes the mince nice and juicy. It’s vastly superior to a stove-top bolognaise, I think.

Baked bolognaise
Serves four

one tbls olive oil
one big onion, finely chopped
half tsp dried chili flakes
one tsp brown sugar
one tsp balsamic vinegar
65g tin of tomato paste
300g beef mince
200g pork mince
small glass red wine
two heaped tbls Ina Paarman sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped
425g tin of whole tomatoes
two smallish sprigs of fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
500g spaghetti
grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

In a pot with ovenproof handles heat up the olive oil and then add the onions and slowly sweat till translucent. (You can also cook this in a normal pot, and transfer it to an ovenproof dish later). Add the chili flakes, brown sugar and balsamic and allow to caramalise.

Add the tomato paste and cook briefly. Then add the mince in a couple of batches, to brown. Once browned, toss in the red wine and allow the alcohol to burn off, then add the chopped sundried tomatoes and tin of whole tomatoes. Stir to combine, breaking up the whole tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper.

Cut a piece of baking paper to cover the top of your ovenproof pot. Tuck a couple of springs of rosemary into the sauce and then cover with the paper, pushing down around the edges of the sauce to seal.

Put the pot into an 180°C oven and bake for an hour. Get your spaghetti boiling 10 minutes before the timer goes. Take your sauce out of the oven and carefully take off its paper lid. It’ll look quite dry on top, with orangey red bubbles of tomato sauce hinting at the juicyness underneath. Lift out the rosemary stalks, give the sauce a good sir and serve on the spaghetti, with grated cheese.

Variations:
Use mixed beef and ostrich mince, available at Pick’n'Pay, and add a few chopped rashers of bacon when frying the onions.
Add a couple of chopped anchovies near the beginning of cooking for extra savouryness.
Add a couple of grated carrots and/or courgettes to bulk up the sauce and add veggie-vites (great for picky kids).
Add chopped mushrooms for extra low fat meatiness.
Add a little bit (100g) of very nutritious chopped liver or liver paste – this doesn’t make the sauce “livery”, but gives it a silky texture after baking.

*Thanks to Catmiz for the Flckr pic.

If there are two things that Arthur despises, it’s beetroot and goats cheese. You see the problem. One of the few benefits of him being away was that I could make this yummy salad for supper. I roasted three small beetroot for about 40 mins, the took them out and peeled and chunked them onto a bed of rocket, topped with about six pecan nuts and a third of a chevin log (cut in slices) and sprinkled with an orange juice vinagrette. Ah, earthy beetroot staining everything red and hairy-tasting cheese – Arthur doesn’t know what he’s been missing…

He actually would have been sad to miss another salad I made this week. It’s one of my favourite self-invented dishes, made from bits and pieces in the store cupboard and fridge one Sunday lunchtime. It’s my Red Bean, Avo and Feta Salad. Sounds good, hey? I love the texture of this salad – creamy from the avo and beans, with a crunch from the leaves and red pepper. The dressing is mouthwateringly tangy and nutty. This recipe can serve two generously or four-to-six as a side: (more…)

I’ve learned a lot about quinoa tonight (not least of all that it’s pronounced KEEN-WAH not KWUH-NOAH, which is what I’ve been calling it since I first heard of this “superfood” a couple of years ago). I also learned that, although it’s kinda like cous cous in that it consists of small spheres with a nutty flavour, it isn’t in fact prepared like cous cous (which is what the lady I bought it from at the market told me).

After staring balefully at the little hard grains that I was trying to steam cous cous-style, and finally coming to terms with the fact that they weren’t going to magically turn into the frog-spawny mass I knew it was supposed to look like, I turned to the interweb. Quinoa is, in fact, boiled for 10 – 15 minutes. It’s also imperitive that it be rinsed before cooking, to remove a bitter layer that covers the grains called saponin. Well, it was too late for that, as the quinoa was already mixed in with the onions, courgettes, broccoli and asparagus of my healthy quinoa salad lunch (it’s amazing how good I can be when Arthur is away).

So I added a bit more water and boiled it – ah, perfect, slightly al dente, translucent globes with a distinctive thin white germ running around their tiny equators. After all that, the veggies are not the crunchy green I initially planned, but some roasted pine nuts, chopped almonds, sunflower and sesame seeds have restored some toothsome salady texture and added a complementary nutty flavour. The quinoa isn’t too bitter at all (apparently a lot of the saponin has been washed off by the time it gets to the consumer) and I’m looking forward to a good three-weeks-to-go-until-the-wedding low-fat and nutritious lunch tomorrow!

*The picture of quinoa is from www.organicjar.com. My camera is broken :-(

One of the things I’ve been busy with lately is our cosy homewares show at Curious, Whetstone & Frankley called Nest. I couldn’t resist and bought this bowl by Jesse Breytenbach (sharing shelf space with bronze bunnies by Janine de Waal and a ceramic rabbit by Homebakes). The cool thing about the bowls is that we’ve been selling them filled with hot soup. I made roast tomato and aubergine for the opening on 2 July. It’s the simplest thing: (more…)

This is the first “fancy” meal I’ve cooked in a long time: fennel, blue cheese and pecan tartlets by good ol’ Phillippa Cheifitz in the latest issue of Taste magazine. Hectically rich, but good. I had to add some water to the pastry (not called for in the recipe) to make it bind, but maybe that’s not Phil’s fault. Ihave been out of the cooking game for a while.

June was a hellish month. No, nothing awful happened – I just completely overcommitted to work; a typical newbie freelancer mistake. June was also the month I realised that without cooking, life’s not much fun for me. Cooking is the way I get my mind out of work mode after a challenging day. It allows me to indulge all my senses, while doing soothing things like mindless chopping, or kneading of dough, or stirring of risotto. It’s something I do well – I’m almost always proud of the results – so it makes me feel good. And I love eating something new and exciting (and homecooked) every night.

So, hopefully what that means is that this blog is back. I’m not sure how many people out there missed it. But I did.

The last of the mangoes are glutting our fruit aisles, saying “summer’s over” with their sunset skins. I’m not hugely fond of mango, but I’ve finally found a way to make it truly shine. Blitz a really ripe mango with some yoghurt and alchemy occurs: it makes the silkiest sweet smoothie in a gorgeous shade of peachy orange. It’s positively luscious.

Simply, all you do is: peel and roughly chop up one ripe mango (leaving behind the seed, of course). Whoosh this to a pulp, using your handy Braun stick mixer and its 500ml tall mixing cup (if you don’t have a stick mixer, I’m not quite sure how you survive, but you could use your food processor). Add four big tablespoons of plain yoghurt (Bulgarian, Greek, whatever), a couple of drops of The Vanilla Man’s vanilla extract, and a teaspoon of Honeyguide’s raw gingered honey (ginger and mango are like Ginger and Fred). Whoosh it all together again and then blend in enough milk to thin the smoothie to a cream-like consistency.

Enjoy; with a spatula to scrape the last of it out the glass if you’re like Arthur!

Sunday night is movie night. Whether it’s the cinema, the TV-movie, a DVD or, if you’re us, Season 3 of House*, there’s nothing like allowing your brain to relax and be entertained before heading into a new week.

Some things just go together: Love and marriage, horse and carriage, tomato and basil, movie and… popcorn! I’m a complete carb junkie, and I love popcorn. But, until fairly recently, I wasn’t very good at making it well consistently. Over the years, though, I’ve learned a few tricks, (*cue perky infomercial voice*) and now I make perfect popcorn every time. (more…)

Before summer breathes its last sunny sigh, a scrummy salad using one of my favourite fruits (I love having them piled in a fruit bowl in the kitchen, just for their nectarish scent and blushing colour).

Smoked chicken and nectarine salad
serves 2

Salad

½ pillowpack of mixed salad leaves
1 smoked chicken breast
½ Dalewood Wineland brie
1 nectarine
4 pepperdews*
small handful pistachio nuts, shelled

Dressing
1 tablespoon orange juice
3 tablespoons fruity olive oil
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Slice all the ingredients, except the salad leaves and pistachio nuts. Plate the salad leaves and put the smoked chicken breast, brie, nectarine and pepperdew slices on top. Mix the orange juice, olive oil, vinegar and seasoning until emulsified and dress the salad with it. Top with the pistachio nuts and serve.

Right, bring on the butternut soup, the broccoli gratin, the roast chicken, the mashed potato, the mugs of hot chocolate… there’s a nip in the air.

*If you live overseas, use bottled red roast peppers instead; they’re sweet enough although they don’t have the tangy bite of pepperdews