Mini lemon tarts using the best short crust pastry

I have acquired a new recipe book, actually it is an encyclopedia - written by the doyen of Australian food writers - Margaret Fulton. A lovely birthday gift from my Wellington family.
When I have time, I pour over it most days. I have uncovered some tremendous ideas and hints to improve my preparation, cooking and presentation of food. In a few words, this bible is an absolute gem! 

One morning I set about making a few lemon tarts for our hard working painter. To my dismay I discovered I didn't have short crust pasty in my freezer, what to do! 
.....I turned to Margaret for inspiration.
Her book has heaps of recipes for short crust pastry. Being an old fashioned sort of girl I chose the simplest one, it brought back lovely memories of 'Homecraft' classes at high school. Yes, there were easier and quicker choices in Margaret's book, but this time I chose not to use them.
This recipe is making pastry the old fashioned way. Unfortunately we don't have a marble top but it explains all the other right steps to ensure the best result for your pastry. And I found this pastry particularly nice as it was not sweet.
Plain Shortcrust Pastry - Margaret Fulton
Can be used for savoury pies, pastries etc.
225g (8oz) plain flour
pinch of salt
90g (3oz) chilled butter (diced)
about 3 tbsp iced water
squeeze of lemon juice
Sift flour and salt into a bowl
Add cold diced butter. Rub into flour using thumbs and tips of fingers ( I used my pastry cutter to get it started), lifting your hands above the bowl to aerate the mixture - until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs.
Mix water and juice and add a tbsp of liquid at a time using a round ended knife. When dough starts to cling together use your fingers to form into a ball. If needed, sprinkle in a little more liquid to dampen any mixture in the bowl and using the ball to gather up bits of dough. Dough should leave the bowl clean.
Place on floured board and knead lightly using the the heel of your hand to form a smooth dough.
Wrap in gladwrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Roll pastry into the shape you require, cut out tart shapes and place in (lightly greased) tin. Prick bottom of tart shell lightly with a fork.
Chill again for 15 minutes.
Bake in a hot oven 230°C or 450°F for six minutes then check, if they have puffed up just lightly push down with the back of a spoon then bake for a few more minutes until they are cooked and light brown. While still warm place about a spoonful of lemon curd in each tart. (Please see my blog for lemon curd recipe). Allow to cool.
I ended up with about two dozen lovely mini lemon tarts - perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. But the recipe would also make enough dough to line a 20 - 23 cm (8-9inches) pie plate of flan ring.
It was absolutely the best pastry I have ever made (and tasted) and I felt quite pleased with myself.

While mixing the dough I was thinking of my cooking tools. I inherited the pastry knife from my late mother and my daughter rescued an old (but in good nick) pastry cutter from a charity shop, my original one from my 1970's 'hope chest' was no longer useable. It made me wonder who will want my kitchen drawer of useful bits and pieces when I go. I would like to think my family will want to keep some of them. As they say, one woman's junk is another woman's treasure. I think of my Mum every time I use her well worn bone handled knife. I like to think they will remember me in the same way.

rub in butter until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs

make a well in the centre and add liquid a little at a time

The end result - I love lemon tarts!

Parsnip dip

Parsnip might not be everyone's favourite vegetable. But I have always enjoyed eating them. Especially roasted but I love them mashed or mashed with carrots - along with a generous knob of butter and salt and pepper (of course).
Last November I transplanted a large tray of seedlings into my humble garden. Within weeks I had a massive green display of lush parsnip tops - in fact they overtook my garden. Great to see them grow so well but I was a little concerned about the lushness of the greenery - what was happening down below......?
Plan A - this week it was time to see if there was anything worth eating. (I did try this a month or so ago and ended up with a parsnip about the size of child's pencil!).
First step - grab the green bit, next step - pull - I said pull! I wasssss pulling - in fact with such purpose the green bit came out (and I fell back hard on my bottom) and the bit I really wanted, the white parsnip bit - was still firmly in the ground!
At this point (in a sitting position on the path) the man of the house happened along. 'You are not pulling hard enough' - watch he said - like this - pull! and exactly the same thing happened.... point made - but thanks for the demo!
Plan B - a rather serious, really big dig finally got them out! And the reason they were so hard to remove - they had formed into a strange underground triffid shape. Ummm... aren't they supposed to be a simple conical shape he asked!

In spite of their extreme ugliness - after I had finished with them they tasted absolutely wonderful! If you do not like parsnip - really give this a try. 
Kristeen's Parsnip Dip.
Make sure the parsnips are scrubbed well - if fresh from the garden there is no need to peel them.
Toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper, place in a roasting pan and cover tightly with tinfoil.
Bake in a moderate oven. They should done in about 1 hour, test by poking a knife through the tinfoil.

Once cooled a little, place the parsnips and any oil and juices left in the pan into a kitchen whizz, and depending on the amount of parsnips, add about one teaspoon of curry paste and seasoning, test to your taste and add more if necessary.
If a little thick, (and with the parsnips still warm) drizzle a little oil into the mix while the whizz is running, this will ensure a smooth texture and make it easier to serve as a dip. Garnish with a few toasted sesame seeds.
We had our (still slightly warm) dip with a new rice cracker we have come to enjoy. We could have easily ate the whole bowl in one sitting but thought it best to save some to enjoy with drinks another night. I hope you enjoy this simple little dish. It is perfect for my vegetarian and vegan friends.

What summer and other things?

This blog is about a number of random things - mostly simple things that have made me happy lately.
It has not been the greatest summer here in Welly, and apart from a couple of really hot days it has been mostly warm - ish, along with the odd day or two without any raging winds.
So almost on cue at the end of summer my Isle of Capri tomato plant sprung into action. I picked three lovely ripe tomatoes. We plan to eat them today in a very ceremonious way.
The plant is laden with many more that I am willing on to ripen before it gets too cold and dark.

There are about 20 more tomatoes to ripen - yay!

I planted beetroot in my garden, not a great crop but managed to winkle a few to put into a salad. This recipe is one of those random ones, roast this and that, add a wonderful grain or two, add a bit of parsley, squeeze in some lemon, drizzle extra virgin olive oil and top it off with roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and viola! You have lunch made for a week.....Yum!

Roast beetroot and parsnip, black rice and quinoa salad

I have blogged before about our lovely old lemon tree. In spite of (some) branches covered in lichen, it keeps on producing. This year we have a bumper crop. And what do you do with them all - you make lemon muffins with crunchy sugar lemon topping, a large roasted lemon cake and of course a jar or two of lemon curd. Wonderful!

Our magic lemon tree

My fav roasted lemon cake - gorgeous with yoghurt

And finally my latest 'find'. Last week I helped move office for a charity I volunteer for. They did not want this old but lovely 1960 - 70's? telephone table. Score! I handed over a generous monetary donation and squeezed the table into my little car before they could change their mind. However, I now have a bit of a problem - we really have nowhere to put it in our house. Every bit of space is already occupied. And hubby does not share my love of such furniture. Clearly I have a lot of work to do to convince him otherwise.

My latest little find

Preserving and pickling stuff

There is a real resurgence of people interested in preserving now. We all took it for granted when we were younger. It was something our mothers and grandmothers generally did. Most homes in the 50's and 60's had a lovely supply of fresh produce from garden fruit trees and well tended vegetable gardens. And of course, bottling and preserving was one of the ways to ensure nothing was wasted. It meant the pantry was always full of very inexpensive jars of jam and fruit, chutneys, pickles and sauces to consume and gift throughout the year.

I knew all the jars I saved would be handy

In the 1970's and 1980's we went through the deep freezing craze. We owned one such humungous deep freeze. For me, it was always a bit of a challenge to retrieve the items from the very bottom. Usually a large beast would be purchased, chopped up, packaged and stored. By the time you got down to the Spanish chops at the bottom of the freezer you were well sick of the lamb. And don't ask what happened to the cheap bits of bagged beef!
I don't know too many people who go to the trouble of packing their freezers with half a beast or one ton of fruit and vegetables nowadays. But it is good to see the massive revival in jam making, pickling and preserving. It is fashionable again, "to do it yourself"....
I would have a least 4-5 jars of various chutney, pickle, mustard and jams (open) in my fridge. I love sauces and pickles and adore it with crackers and cheese, smeared on vegetable pies, slapped on a meat sandwich or drizzled over my homemade chips.

The huge bag of cloves and peppercorns in my tomato sauce mix

This year a request came from my hubby to make Nana Spence's tomato sauce (long story and no direct relation to me). He raved about it - so the recipe was duly acquired. I am not sure how to obtain permission to post the recipe on my blog as sadly Nana Spence is long gone, but I am working on it.
I also made my mothers green pickle which ended up a bit of the Edmond's recipe and a bit of what I remember she used to throw in -  namely green runner beans, cucumber and cauliflowers from the garden.
To make the tomato sauce we had to purchase a very expensive, super, duper, shiny mouli. We also had to buy sauce bottles. So I think my first batch of sauce was probably a little costly - future batches will be cheaper (gift recipients - please return my little bottles for next years batch!).
I made my marmalade this year from beautiful, juicy grapefruit donated by The Redcliffe Homestead B & B in Taradale, Hawkes Bay. Thank you Sue, it is especially delicious.
I get so much pleasure looking at all the little jars and bottles lined up in my pantry. It makes me smile and the hours and hours of work are so well worth it.....

Lamingtons and sponge making

I am a lover of books. Any sort of book. I can be quiet as a mouse flicking through most sorts of books but especially recipe books, ooohing and aaahing and drooling over the ingredients and photos, while always on the lookout, of course, for new ideas.
While visiting Elaine I was handed a copy of  the book 'The Mackenzie Muster - A Century of Favourites" published in 1989 and reprinted many, many times. It is a real beauty, clearly a classic that has stood the the test of time. Full of interesting farming recipes, tips for cooking for big, hungry country folk and catering for crowds. It kept me enthralled for ages. Some of the recipes were pretty 'out there', for example - lamb on a rope! ( If you have a yearning to cook this dish let me know and I will send you the recipe).
So I found myself searching in the book for a good sponge recipe as I had offered to make a few dozen of the classic Kiwi Lamingtons for a local fund raising event. I don't recall having ever made Lamingtons before. But I thought it might be a good idea to make chocolate and strawberry Lamingtons from scratch.... "no store bought sponge for our customers", says I.
I found an easy recipe in the previously mentioned book - 'a big sponge for shearers'! My thinking was, it had to be the 'perfect never fail' sponge, something that has been alluding me for sometime now.
I adore the countryside and love the smell of fresh farming air etc but I can honestly say I have never had to cook for shearers or any farming folk for that matter. In fact you couldn't get a woman more 'city like' than me. But I imagined hungry shearers were pretty hard to please so decided to give the recipe a try.
I am sorry to say I still haven't perfected sponge making and my attempt at baking the 'big shearers sponge' was an utter failure. Not to waste anything, said 'cake like' sponge was dispatched to the freezer for later use in a large trifle.
Six eggs down and back to the drawing board. I turned to Donna Hay's Chocolate recipe book and managed to produce one smallish sponge that I considered almost acceptable but not perfect. But unfortunately it was clearly not big enough to make dozens of Lamingtons.

My attempt at a sponge

By this stage in the morning I was completely 'sponged out' so resorted to asking dear hubby to pop down to the supermarket and buy one large unfilled sponge.

My conclusion through all of this is experience -  making Lamingtons from scratch was a real test of sponge making skills. It was also very time consuming, requiring a lot of patience and a lot of careful dipping and rolling in coconut. (I found the chocolate coating originally too thick and caused the sponge 'cube' to actually fall apart - not helpful.)
I used a Taste recipe for the strawberry Lamingtons and a good old reliable Edmond's recipe (slightly watered down) for the chocolate ones.
Once all the 'issues' were sorted out I considered all the effort absolutely worth it.

Result: They were really nice after all the drama! I was on the morning shift at the stall and my Lamingtons were (thankfully) slowly disappearing to happy customers for $2 each.
My mother always made wonderful sponges, I really wish I had noted down her secret to the perfect sponge. I will just have to keep on trying......

Roast Pumpkin and Mexican Green Mole

While I have some knowledge of Mexican cooking, it is mainly in the 'bog standard' recipe range. In fact I am such a novice I wasn't sure how to pronounce 'mole', how sad is that! I do now! I made this Mexican Vegetarian dish a few weeks ago. In fact I enjoyed it so much I have launched into seeking out other Mexican recipes. The recipe in question came from a wonderful blog called Pease Pudding http://peasepudding.wordpress.com/?s=roast+pumpkin+with+mexican+green+mole
The author of the blog is Alli Pirrie-Mawer, a woman with 'many strings to her bow'. I met Alli in 2012 when she organised the NZ Food Bloggers Conference during Wellington on a Plate. Due to her work commitments no meeting was planned in 2013 but we have been informed another one is in the pipeline for 2014. I can't wait. I had such a marvelous time at my first one in 2012.

First step done

I am feeling a bit lazy to write out the recipe here but if you go to the link http://peasepudding.wordpress.com/?s=roast+pumpkin+with+mexican+green+mole Alli is more than happy for you to copy it.
I thought two kilograms of pumpkin was a lot for a meal for two of us (even taking into account left overs) so I halved the recipe. I wish I hadn't as we had two (last minute) extra guests for dinner. Thankfully it turned out to be quite enough. It was so delicious we ate the lot in one sitting - sadly no leftovers for my lunch!
I am not a fan of really hot food, so I measured the chilli part very carefully and I put in a little less. I found it perfect to my taste, but one guest needed more heat and piled on extra Chipotle chilli!
I could not find the pickled Jalapeno Chilli in our local shop so they were not added (but I thought it was hot enough without them). Again my guest said they should have been added, mmmmm.... you might like to add them. I found the pumpkin seeds a really nice addition to the mole, they gave the sauce such a great texture. I served it simply with tortilla wraps (quickly warmed/ lightly browned in my fry pan).
Mexican cooking is definitely taking me into unchartered waters but I have now started on a journey to try as many recipes as possible.

Roast Pumpkin and Mexican Green Mole
The final look before serving, it had been sitting a while so not as 'orangey' pretty as Alli's blog photo

A few nights ago we had Oaxacan Green Mole Stew, sourced from one of my vegetarian cook books called Moosewood Restaurant - Cooking for Health. The basis of the mole verde was a can of Tomatillos and luckily I had one in my cupboard, purchased some time ago. Actually the Tomatillos were the most expensive part of the dish! The beans came from my garden and I managed to find five corn cobs for $4.00. While extremely tasty (and it used lots of stuff I had 'hanging out' in my pantry) it is not as pretty to look at like Alli's dish - which may be the decider whether to make it again. (By the way both dishes are great for Vegans).

Oaxacan Mole Stew

So, thank you Alli, your Roast Pumpkin and Mexican Green Mole recipe must be shared - it has become a real favourite of mine too.

Bulgar Wheat, Corn and Zucchini Salad

I am just loving the beautiful corn on the cob in the shops at the moment. It is so good to eat, so tasty and sweet. It reminds me of my childhood going through very tall rows of corn growing in our vegetable patch, always searching for the biggest cob and picking it straight off the stalks. We ate it steaming hot with piles of butter, salt and pepper. Even now (although I don't - that would be greedy!) I could easily eat two large cobs in one sitting.
One time, during one of those corn picking expeditions, I came out in a terrible red itchy rash all over my bare arms and legs. I remember (at the time) feeling quite worried I might be seriously ill but I am pleased to say I recovered fairly quickly from the generous dusting of pollen. To this day I am still very allergic to many forms of vegetable, grass and tree pollens.
This Ruth Pretty recipe is a good one to use during the corn season (when or if you ever get sick of eating buttery corn off the cob). Actually I made it for the first time last year, and it ended up being one of the great platters for my birthday (and our wedding) party celebrations.
If you are like me and always in a bit of a hurry, it is fine to use a kitchen whizz to chop up the onions and herbs together. You may prefer to do it the old fashioned way so the onion is a little chunkier. I couldn't get fresh dill locally so used a little dried dill instead which was fine.
I love the crunch and the colour of this salad. And not only does it provide another way to eat fresh corn, it's a great recipe to use up all those excess zucchinis growing in your garden too. 
It's delicious served on its own or as a side dish at at BBQ or summer lunch.
Last week I helped delivered some meals to a Bellyful (vegetarian) client. It was perfect timing to arrive on her doorstep with a portion of this salad, as she was wondering what to have for her lunch!

Bulgar Wheat, Corn and Zucchini Salad

Ruth Pretty – SST Jan 2012

Serves 5-6 or 10-12 as part of an array of salads

Ingredients

¾ c bulgar wheat

4 cups of boiling water

2 corn cobs, cooked and cooled

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

2 zucchini, finely sliced (use a vegetable peeler)

½ red onion, finely chopped

¼ cup finely chopped dill

½ cup finely chopped Italian parsley

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

1tsp flaky salt

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method

Place the bulgar wheat into a large bowl and add boiling water. Stir, cover and set aside to soak for 45 minutes.

Drain through a large sieve, discarding the water.

Transfer the bulgar wheat to a clean tea towel, wring to extract the excess water and tip into a large bowl. ( I forgot to do this step but draining it in the sieve for about 30 mins was ok).

Slice kernels from the corn cobs and add to the bulgar wheat. Add the chilli, zucchini, onion, dill and parsley.

Pour the lemon juice and oil into a jug with S & P. Whisk well.

Pour dressing over the bulgar wheat mix, toss ingredients together.

Cover the salad with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour or overnight for the flavours to develop or keep for up to 3 days.

Serve chilled or at room temperature.