Short post today because I am typing one-handed while holding a baby.

These were good. Decadent, but nice as a once-in-a-while treat.

Grilled Cheese with Bacon, Tomato, and Egg

From The Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients (per sandwich)

• 2 slices of streaky bacon
• 1 large egg
• freshly ground pepper
• 2 slices of bread
• 4-8 thin slices of cheese
• 2-3 slices of tomato
• butter or margerine

Directions

1. Cook bacon until crispy, then cut in half crosswise.
2. Season egg to taste with pepper and fry until whites are set and yolk is thickened.
3. Layer half of the cheese onto a slice of bread.
4. Top with bacon, tomato, egg, the remaining cheese, and the other slice of bread.
5. Butter the outside of the sandwich.
6. Grill in a panini press or a frying pan with a heavy weight compessing the sandwich. If using a frying pan, flip to toast the other side.
8. Once both sides are golden brown, remove from pan and cut in half.

Thenga Paruppu (Coconut Lentils)

I haven't been feeling up to doing much cooking lately and my days have been pretty helter-skelter, so I can't really do much advanced planning either. That makes dals like this ideal for the days that I do manage to get it together enough to cook something.

Thenga Paruppu

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 1 c. mung beans (sabud moong/whole green "lentils")
• 3 c. water
• 1-2 Tbsp. ghee
• 1 tsp. mustard seeds
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds, ground
• 1/2 tsp. fenugreek seeds, ground
• 1/2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 small (400mL) can diced tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 15 fresh or frozen curry leaves
• 1-2 fresh green serrano or finger chiles, cut into 5mm slices
• 1 c. shredded fresh coconut (or 1/2 c. dried coconut, reconstituted)

Directions

1. Thoroughly rinse the mung beans.
2. Place in pressure cooker with water and pressure cook (on high) for 20 minutes followed by a 15-minute natural pressure release.
3. Meanwhile, heat the ghee over medium heat.
4. Add the mustard seeds, cover, and cook until seeds have stopped popping (30-60 seconds).
5. Add the onion and cook until softened (~5 minutes).
6. Add the ground mustard and fenugreek seeds and sizzle for 10-20 seconds.
7. Add the salt, tomatoes, cilantro, turmeric, curry leaves, chiles, and coconut and stir to combine.
8. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until tomatoes are softened (~5 minutes).
9. Once beans are cooked, stir the sauce into the pot and simmer until flavour meld (~10 minutes).

We needed something for dinner tonight and I actually felt up for cooking for once, so I consulted my short list. I wasn't up for a lot of cooking, but I felt I could do something small and simple and this cream sauce recipe fit the bill.

Dumplings in Cream Sauce

Adapted from Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

• 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 Tbsp. butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 12 white or cremini mushrooms, sliced
• ~100g ham, chopped
• 2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. milk powder¹
• 1 Tbsp. chicken stock powder
• black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 c. grated Parmesan
• 450g frozen dumplings (mini dumplings work especially well)
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 2-3 green onions, chopped

Directions

1. Heat the oil and butter over medium heat.
2. Add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two.
4. Add the mushrooms, cover, and cook until they begin to release their liquid.
5. Add the ham and cook until heated through.
6. Add the milk, milk powder, and chicken stock and bring to a simmer.
7. Stir in pepper and Parmesan and adjust seasoning to taste.
8. Add the dumplings and peas and bring to a boil.
9. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until dumplings are heated through and sauce has reached desired consistency.
10. Stir in green onions and serve topped with additional Parmesan.

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¹ The original recipe called for cream. We only had milk. So I decided to try to approximate cream by adding some whole milk powder to skim milk. I'm quite pleased with how this worked and would absolutely do it this way again in the future. ^Back

I've made a few different chocolate waffle recipes before, but I hadn't tried this one yet. Honestly, it wasn't even really a recipe. It was just a suggested mix-in for the waffle batters in the Breakfast Bible. In theory, I was meant to add 1/2 c. sweetened cocoa powder to the standard batter and then top the resulting waffles with fresh cherries and cherry syrup. In practice, I have never heard of sweetened cocoa powder and I didn't have any cherries on hand. So, instead of that, I did my best to approximate when it came to the cocoa. And for toppings we tried homemade mandarin marmalade and whipped cream as well as bananas and chocolate sauce (with a little peanut butter on mine as well). Delicious!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Waffles

Adapted from the Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 190g whole wheat flour
• 6 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. Dutched cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 90g salted butter, melted

Directions

1. Combine the flour and sugar.
2. Sift in the cocoa powder and baking powder and mix well.
3. Beat the eggs and vanilla into the milk.
4. Stir in the melted butter.
5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.
6. Allow batter to rest while waffle iron preheats.
7. Scoop a portion of batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer directions. Repeat until all batter is used.
8. Serve waffles with your preferred toppings. Fresh berries, whipped cream, bananas, peanut butter, marmalade, and chocolate sauce all work well.

Ann Leckie's latest book Radiant Star features significant mention of a traditional Ooiooiaan foodstuff, peas and pucks -- the "peas" being a small, round, native sea creature and the "pucks" being a sort of circular baked biscuit. And while the recipe is only described in passing in the book, it turns out that nand'Leckie has published a detailed version on her blog using local ingredients, resulting in a sort of fish ball miso soup.

I made it almost to spec. Her recipe calls for wakame; I found dried shredded kelp at the grocery store, and figured that, while non-traditional in miso broth, it might make a better stand-in for skel than wakame. That was alright, but I think next time I'd just go with the wakame as recommended.

The end result is not a favourite for either me or Alex, but it was tasty and reasonably filling. It was also very quick and easy to make, and all of the ingredients are either shelf-stable, frozen, or keep for a very long time in the fridge, making it a good weekday meal. I also think that swapping out the fish balls for something more flavourful (such as fried fish balls or small scallops) or something that absorbs the broth better would improve it, even if that makes it less authentic, and may try that next time.

This recipe writeup uses wakame, and is also scaled up from the blog version by a factor of six, making 5-6 portions.

Peas and Pucks

From Radiant Star by Ann Leckie, via her blog

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp dried wakame
• 6 C water
• 2 tbsp dashida
• 2 tbsp miso paste
• 500g fish balls (fried or seasoned if desired) or (perhaps) scallops
• 2 tbsp cornstarch, mixed with just enough water to form a slurry
• pickled red onion slices for garnish
• 1 package refrigerator biscuits, or 10-12 home-made biscuits

Directions

1. Place wakame in a bowl of warm water to reconstitute.
2. Cook biscuits according to package directions.
3. Combine water and dashida in a pot. Bring to a boil.
4. Add miso paste and fish balls and reduce to a simmer.
5. Once fish balls are fully cooked through, stir in corn starch.
6. Remove from heat. Strain and add wakame.
7. Serve beside (or poured over) pucks, and garnished with pickled onion.

Okay, well, technically this one wasn't a true key lime pie since I didn't make it with key limes. I just used the limes off of the tree out front. I'm not entirely sure what variety they are. But the finished pie came out tasting somewhere in between "key lime" and "Persian lime" and I quite liked it!

I found the amount of filling somewhat skimpy on this recipe. That said, it actually works quite well if you're having it without the whipped cream. The filling is quite sharp and sweet, so I think a "properly" filled pie would actually be overwhelming without the whipped cream to cut it. I've doubled the filling recipe below. But if you want to have your pie without the cream, I'd recommend just doing half the amount of filling.

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo. I guess I'll just have to make it again!

Key Lime Pie

Slightly adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 6 Tbsp. salted butter, melted

Filling

• 1 c. lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. grated lime zest
• 2 cans (~400mL each) sweetened condensed milk
• 4 large egg yolks

Topping

• 300mL heavy (35%) cream
• 2 Tbsp. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Combine the graham cracker crumbs and the sugar.
3. Pour in the butter and mix until evenly dampened.
4. Press mixture into a 23cm (9") pie plate.
5. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 10 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and set aside to cool slightly.
7. Meanwhile, combine lime juice, zest, condensed milk, and egg yolks. Mix well.
8. Pour filling mixture into crust and smooth top.
9. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 10 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Cover and chill overnight if desired.
11. Once completely cool, whip the cream with the icing sugar until stiff.
12. Top pie with whipped cream, slice, and serve.

Plain Waffles (Waffle Maker Recipe)

It turns out that finding a waffle maker that I actually like in NZ is relatively difficult. Most of them seem to make thin, American-style waffles. Or be vertical waffle makers (which don't really work well if you like to put inclusions in your batter). Or they're underpowered. And so on and so on. And rotating waffle makers? Forget about it!

The best option I'd managed to find in all my searching was a very expensive Breville model. But, aside from being pricey, it was also huge. And it still didn't even rotate. So I couldn't quite bring myself to pull the trigger on it. Luckily, Farmers miraculously started stocking some new waffle irons that actually looked somewhat reasonable. So when one of them went on sale for $40, how could I say no? It was a little less powerful than I'd like and had removeable plates, which I generally feel are more of a hinderance than a help. But... for $40, it seemed worth a shot!

And, I have to say, having tried it... it's not half bad! I do miss the rotation. And I wish it were a little more powerful (1200W doesn't seem to be quite enough for some batters). But, overall, it does alright. Especially for the price!

So, after testing it out on some banana-oat waffles (which came out slightly soggy, but were able to be perked up in the toaster), I decided to give it a go with the basic waffle recipe given in the manual. It's very plain, but tasty nonetheless. And it does cook up much better than the oat waffles did. It's pretty similar to my other basic waffle recipe, but I wanted to include this one as well. Just for the sake of completeness.

Plain Waffles

Ingredients

• 2 c. (~260g) flour
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 c. milk, warmed
• 1/3 c. salted butter, melted
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs

Directions

1. Combine the flour and sugar and sift in the baking powder. Mix well.
2. Combine the milk, butter, and vanilla and beat in the eggs.
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. (Some small lumps are okay, but try to avoid any large ones.)
4. Let batter stand while waffle iron preheats.
5. Pour a portion of batter into the waffle iron (mine takes ~1/2 c. per waffle), close lid, and cook until done (~5 minutes on highest setting for me).
6. Remove cooked waffle(s) from machine and repeat process with remaining batter.
7. Top as desired and serve.