The KitchenMaid

Nectarine tartines with chilli and mint

What’s that saying about necessity being the mother of invention? I apply it to what we eat on a daily basis – I am the self-appointed queen of resourceful cooking. I think I learnt this from my mother, growing up on a farm where you didn’t nip to the shops if you ran out of something, but didn’t get good at it until I was a student with a Mother Hubbard-style pantry. Now it’s such a habit I do it without even thinking, like weaving between two languages without having to translate them in my head.

Sometimes though, the cupboards are full enough that this ‘invention’ is easy. The day after making and photographing the recipes for this week’s Eat Well spread on stonefruit, I opened the fridge to discover lots of good things to make breakfast from (being home alone also helps in these situations – good things vanish less quickly and you can eat whatever you like). This simple tartine (an open sandwich – tartiner means ‘to spread’ in French) was the result.

Nectarine tartines with chilli and mint

I’m not sure this is a recipe, exactly, but a set of loose instructions. You could vegan-ise it by using cashew cream cheese, or use peaches and basil instead of nectarines and mint. Or you could go down a completely different route and use plums and dark chocolate, as in this Black Forest sandwich. The options are limited only by your fridge…

  • 2 slices sourdough or other good bread
  • 3-4 Tbsp cream cheese
  • 1 ripe nectarine, thinly sliced
  • 1/4 fresh red chilli, thinly sliced
  • A small handful of mint leaves, roughly torn
  • Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Toast the bread, then spread generously with cream cheese. Top with nectarine slices, then scatter over the chilli and mint leaves. Drizzle over a little olive oil. Eat immediately. Serves 1-2.

Chocolate avocado butter (aka woke Nutella)

I’m not particularly proud of myself for this, but I developed a bit of a Nutella habit when we were in France. You know how it goes – warm, crusty baguette, cold, unsalted butter, a dollop of shiny, Wonka-esque Nutella – it’s pretty irresistible.

In my defence, the country basically runs on the stuff (which is why strikes at the factory are always taken so seriously). I know that’s no excuse – France runs on cigarettes too, but I managed to not start smoking – but no one’s perfect. I mean, at least I wasn’t eating foie gras for breakfast, right?

Now we’re back in New Zealand, I wouldn’t dream of buying Nutella, especially not when there are some very good local alternatives (such as the so-good-it-sold-out-in-a-day Kindness Spread from Good Bitches Baking and Fix & Fogg). But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss having chocolate for breakfast. Here’s a rather more woke version of the dreaded Nutella that you can whip up in seconds.

Chocolate avocado butter

Recently I lunched at Inca, Nic Watt’s new Peruvian-Japanese joint in the fancy new Westfield Newmarket. I’d go again for the sashimi, personally, but they also do a nice line in table theatre by making guacamole in front of you. You could always do the same with this chocolate avocado butter at home, perhaps as part of a Christmas breakfast?

  • 1 generous Tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 generous Tbsp honey or maple syrup
  • A pinch of salt
  • 1 perfectly ripe avocado
  • Finely grated orange or lemon zest
  • Optional extras: Finely grated dark chocolate, a pinch of cinnamon, a sprinkle of chilli flakes

Beat the cocoa, honey and salt together until well combined. Mash in the avocado and beat until smooth. Stir in the orange or lemon zest. Taste – it may need a touch more salt, or a drop of juice for acidity – and add the optional extras if you fancy. Slather over a piece of sourdough toast. Alternatively, eat from the bowl as if you’re eating Nutella from the jar. Cover any leftovers and store in the fridge for up to a day.

The perfect tuna sandwich

No blog posts for ages and then, what? A sandwich? I’m afraid so. Truth is, I feel like I’ve lost my food mojo in the last couple of weeks. Life seems to have overtaken me; there seems to be too much going on and not enough time to do it in. I’ve been doing a lot of running, so I’m perpetually hungry (and tired), and spending hours in the kitchen is a luxury I don’t seem to have. 

Anyway, I’m hoping normal(ish) service will resume soon. In the meantime, here’s a sandwich I perfected earlier in the year, when I was on holiday, combining lots of running with lots of gardening, lots of reading and lots of sitting on our newly finished deck, thinking how life was pretty sweet.

The perfect tuna sandwich

Not surprisingly, good tuna and good bread are essential to the success of this sandwich. The absolute best baguettes I’ve found in Wellington are the Acme sourdough baguettes from Prefab, the best tuna is the Sirena brand (the one with the mermaid on the tin).

1 x 185g tin good quality tuna in oil, drained (reserve the oil)

2 tsp green peppercorns in brine, drained

2 tsp capers, rinsed and roughly chopped

zest and juice of a lemon

2 tbsp mayonnaise

salt and pepper

Put everything in a small bowl and mix well. Add a little more oil if necessary. Pile into a halved baguette with some crunchy lettuce. Eat immediately.

What have you been up to while I’ve been away?

What’s in your kids’ lunchboxes?

Less than two weeks in and I think I’ve cracked why parents get weepy about their child going to school. It’s not the thought of their little darling growing up, it’s the realisation that it signals the start of more than a decade of making school lunches.

As much as I know I should aspire to be the kind of ‘perfect mother who turns her kid’s lunchboxes into art’, it’s not going to happen. Especially because I am determined that lunchbox duty is a job to be shared by other members of this household who are old enough to handle a knife and go to the shops unaccompanied.

Here we have peanut butter, cream cheese and broccoli sprouts in a flatbread, some carrot sticks, a little parcel of Brazil nuts, a homemade chocolate muffin that’s much more nutritious than it looks (recipe coming soon!) and an apple.

But, crumbs, it’s hard to get my head around. I remember from my own childhood that all I wanted for a long period was luncheon sausage and tomato sauce in my sandwiches (the tomato sauce was Mum’s homemade one, in my defence). I recall my mother inserting all manner of ‘interesting’ things in my lunchbox: a pork pie (unsuccessful), nut-flavoured yoghurt (a disappointment) and – very occasionally, those triangles of plastic cheese (then, my idea of heaven). Nearly 35 years later, I still remember the shame at finding two used teabags in my teal-coloured lunchbox. My little friends Bernie and Jean-Anne ran to the staffroom for help – where the kind Mrs Wilson pointed out that, in fact, they were dried figs. Such things were rare at Atiamuri Primary, where other kids got little packets of crisps and shop-bought biscuits, or sandwiches wrapped up in the blue and white paper that the Sunday bread came in. Some even went home for lunch, returning with slabs of freshly baked Maori bread slathered with butter. There were probably others who had little for lunch and even less for breakfast.

Of course, that’s a far cry from what kids eat today – at least, if you believe everything you read. Pinterest is full of weird charts, which seem mostly designed for dieting adults (‘this snack is only 100 calories’ etc) and I feel thoroughly depressed at my culinary and parenting skills whenever I read Amanda Hesser’s Food 52 blog on what she puts in her twins’ school lunches.

Obviously I spend more time worrying about the contents of their lunches than I do about the weeds in my garden…

So I’m very grateful for Nicola Galloway’s advice on healthy school lunches, which is just about the most useful thing I’ve come across in the last couple of weeks is (and there’s a great cracker recipe in the post too). The basic message is not rocket science – kids need a balance of ‘good’ carbohydrates, protein and fibre to keep them sustained and alert, just like adults do.

I’m not sure what the magic ingredient is that makes them actually eat all their lunch at lunchtime (“I didn’t eat it Mum, I was too busy”) but it is getting eaten (and then some) for afternoon tea so I must be doing something right.

So tell me, please, what do you put in your kids’ lunchboxes? There are only so many more peanut butter and sprout sandwiches I can make this week…

UPDATE: I’ve just created this Easy Tasty Lunchbox Ideas Pinterest board to collate some ideas. Check it out – and let me know if you’d like to contribute!

Good Things: April 2014

T. S Eliot was wrong. April is not the cruellest month – at least not in the southern hemisphere, where it means a slew of public holidays, Easter and settled autumn sunshine. April is all about chocolate and hot cross buns and house guests and ‘is it drinks o’clock yet?’. At least, that’s how it was at our place.

First, the chocolate. As well as the gorgeous gilded bunnies I made with my pal Agnes (I was allowed to do the gilding, she did everything else), the single best Easter chocolate that passed my lips was a dark chocolate bunny filled with cinnamon-infused salted caramel from my local chocolatier, Bohemien Chocolates. I ate it in about three bites, then lay on the sofa in a state of complete satisfaction.

I made two huge batches of hot cross buns – the ones pictured above are made to the Little & Friday hot cross bun recipe, though I found the recipe in the book itself to be rather counter-intuitive and fiddled with it a bit to be sure it would work. I’ve found this to be true of several Little & Friday recipes and I think it’s more to do with editing than anything else. But it’s not very helpful to first-time bakers, is it? Anyway, these were good, but pretty heavy going to eat. I made a mega-batch of the Dan Lepard spiced stout buns the next day and they were much better. A little fiddlier to make, sure, but with better flavours and a much lighter texture.

As for the houseguests – they were of the very best kind. They performed magic tricks, provided high quality childcare, filled the fridge with exciting foodstuffs and good wine and cooked lovely dinners. The house hasn’t been quite the same since.

Instead, I’ve been cheering myself up with this – quite possibly the BEST peanut butter I’ve ever tasted. I didn’t think anything could top Pic’s Peanut Butter (the one with a poem written inside the label, if you can ever soak it off in one piece), but Fix and Fogg Peanut Butter is incredible. The super crunchy is so crunchy you need to spread it in a thick, chunky layer. Essentially, it’s peanut butter made for eating out of the jar. I am addicted. If this keeps up the only thing keeping me from the debtor’s prison will be that I’ll be too wide to fit through the doors…

What helped you get through April?