Tienes Hambre?

I made salsa last night and it was delicious. It was also extremely easy and cheap so I have resolved that as long as I have my own tomato plants, I will  make my own salsa (bar when I'm at the Ponsonby International Food Court. The salsa at that Mexican place is phenomenal, I've been known to ask for a little extra to take home with me).

Spicy Tomato Salsa

6 tomatoes
1/2 a red onion
1 red chilli (seeds removed)
olive oil
coriander
cumin
lemon (or lime)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

I diced the tomatoes, red onion and chilli first and mixed everything together with a splash of olive oil. I roughly chopped the coriander and added it with the juice of half a lemon and a pinch of cumin then seasoned to taste with salt and pepper

Easy peasy.

The salsa was delicious and had the perfect bite. I made my favourite Vegetarian Mexican Beans  and had a burrito for dinner. Vegetarian Mexican Beans are perfect to make if you're having friends over or if you want enough to take to work for lunch for the rest of the week!

Vegetarian Mexican Beans

1 leek
2 carrots
1 red onion
1 chilli

Chop roughly and add to a big frying pan with olive oil. When the leeks have softened, add the rest of the ingredients in the order provided.

2 cans of pinto beans
1 can of black beans
1 can of tomatoes
Tio Pablo Mexican Seasoning
coriander

My mother is Californian so I've been brought up with Mexican food and I absolutely love it. This is one of her favourite dishes because she loves vegetarian food and probably because she knows it will always make enough to feed our whole family, plus some.

My Pommes d'Amour

My flatmate and I bought two tomato plants on Labour Day last year from the Ponsonby Plant Centre.  Since then we have both endeavoured to rear them to brilliance, watering them most days, feeding them special plant growth food, trimming the suckers that grow between the branches and tying them carefully to the wooden creeper fence we found handy in our garden.

Patience is not one of my virtues and to be honest, my flatmate has been responsible for feeding the plants since I gave up on them in December. B But they have finally started to produce fruit and my oh my, am I proud of them!

We can hardly keep up with supply in our house at the moment.

There’s something quite fantastic about eating the fruits of your own labour. Interestingly though, having never grown my own fruit or vegetables there was something quite daunting about eating them as well.

Tell me if you recognise this twinge of anxiety I started to feel... I’m so used to eating the perfectly shaped and huge tomatoes bought from the supermarket that picking them off my own plant felt almost too easy. My tomatoes taste better than any tomato I’ve ever bought from the supermarket. While smaller, they have the perfect amount of tanginess and fleshiness and luckily I have since learnt to trust in my own tomatoes. Do any other vegetable cultivators ever experience this worry though, I wonder?

They do require a bit of maintenance. One of the plants is a bit more temperamental than the other. I often find it wilts a little if I don’t feed it one day and then as soon as I do, the tomatoes get so full the skin on them splits. The other plant's fruit is a bit more consistent.

There are over 10,000 types of tomato worldwide, I'm growing Sweet 100s. I think the trick to growing them is simply to keep them well watered and in a sunny area of the garden. People warned me about pests and diseases attacking my plants but I've had no problems. Not even with birds, which I have plenty of around my house. 

Did you know that tomatoes are great antioxidants and have been shown to rid the body of skin diseases and fungus disorders? Some say that people who eat a large amount of tomatoes have a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, prostate, lung and stomach cancer! 

Ironically, tomatoes come from the same family as tobacco and nightshade.

Tonight I am going to make a salsa to go with a guacamole. I’ll chuck a chilli in with it and/or maybe a bit of cayenne pepper, lime juice, garlic, red onion, coriander and a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. I may use a little of my favourite Tio Pablo Mexican Seasoning which I use in my Mexican Bean dish. I haven’t thought too much about how I’m going to make it but I’ll do a bit of research and post the recipe (if it works out) up on here tomorrow.

You may have noticed, this week’s blog does not recount a Sunday lunch with Hamish. He stood me up this week, so I’ll be telling my own kitchen stories. An empty belly makes the best cook I've been told... He could of course make it up to me with a dinner. (Hamish, if you happen to be reading this that was a hint, I’m free Wednesday night.)

Hello there...

For some time, I have struggled with the small kitchen in my Grey Lynn flat. While it contains the necessities, (stove, oven and my personal favourite, the dishwasher) it really isn’t big enough or well equipped enough to satisfy my cooking desires.  This is no excuse for laziness, I really do love the idea of cooking amazing meals for my flatmates and friends. Small kitchen or not though, I suppose I do need some inspiration…

Luckily, I happen to have a wonderful friend and long time neighbour who has generously offered to cook Sunday lunch and talk food with me weekly, in order for me to talk food with you!

Introducing Hamish Keith, self-confessed cultural odd-job man and unprofessional cook extraordinaire. I’ve been lucky enough over the years to enjoy many of Hamish’s dishes and have picked up much of what I know and understand about food from him.

Today Hamish will be cooking an Elizabeth David recipe, Green Pea and Lettuce Soup. If that doesn’t excite you, don’t despair; I didn’t exactly start salivating at the prospect of peas either. Not the most exciting vegetable in the universe, peas remind me of all that depresses me about English food culture.

We begin with a glass of Murray’s Barn Sauvignon Blanc that goes down a treat as we discuss what Hamish deems the requirements for a modern kitchen. The subject has taken some predominance in Hamish’s mind recently as he has been redesigning his kitchen for an upcoming renovation.

Five requirements for the modern-day kitchen:

1. Can it give me lunch?

According to Hamish, every kitchen should be able to provide at least two spur-of-the-moment lunches. For example, ready to make in Hamish’s kitchen today is either the Green Pea and Lettuce Soup or, a Two Cheese Spaghetti he promises we will make another Sunday.

I suppose this is a rather good idea for an enthusiastic entertainer. I make a note to self to figure out two signature dishes to have available in my kitchen at all times. I am always looking for ways to refine my hosting prowess.

2. Good cookbooks

Because sometimes you need inspiration. Hamish recommends a few classics. Elizabeth David, Anthony Bourdain, Marcella Hazan and Larousse Gastronomique top his list at the moment.

3. Pots n’ pans

Hamish has a collection of wonderful looking iron pans, pots and casserole dishes. He also has some great omelette pans. He is adamant that every kitchen must have a pasta boiler and steamer and raves about the second-hand enamel pot he uses for risotto.

I ask why he uses enamel and iron pots and pans and he replies that the pots and pans he uses simply help to make his dishes the way he likes them. His wife Ngila uses a range of Teflon products, I guess it’s a matter of to each his own…

4. A coffee machine

More of an extravagance than a requirement in my books, but one of Hamish’s personal necessities I suppose.

I wish I had a coffee machine in my flat but it probably wouldn’t fit. It would be very grown up though.

5. Ample chopping boards and sharp knives

“Nothing is more dangerous in a kitchen than a blunt knife,” says Hamish, which is why he gets his knives sharpened monthly by Blade Runner, a service that comes to you and is relatively inexpensive and reliable.

Interestingly, Hamish owns a few ceramic knives and points out that only one place in Auckland offers a ceramic knife sharpening service to his knowledge.

Luckily, for all the ceramic knife owners out there, House of Knives offers a ceramic knife sharpening service for a selection of ceramic knives.

Lunch is coming along nicely. 300 grams of butter, the heart of an iceberg lettuce, sliced finely, and a bag of plain frozen peas have been cooked gently together until everything has been coated in butter. We add 500ml of water and a splash of Lowry Peaks Lemon Splash, salt and 2 cubes of sugar and cook until everything is soft. Blending everything into a creamy mix, we hold a bit of the liquid aside to add in later. Following this we return the soup  to the pot and add the extra liquid and warm. Before serving, Hamish adds some lemon zest to the plate. (The lemon splash and zest is Hamish's addition to make it a bit more summery.)

I was just reading the intro from French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David in which she talks about the food processor’s impact on French cooking. “Bland, monotonous and in the end characterless food from the processor could all too easily become the new plague,” she says. Fairly dramatic perhaps, but certainly thought provoking.

We use a food processor for our soup, and it’s by no means a bland or characterless lunch.  I think perhaps Elizabeth is more concerned about current trends like "the light purees, the fluffy sauces and the fish mousselines so loved by today’s restaurateurs…" The French, however, did invent the Robot Coupe, otherwise known as the food processor, which has made all of this hoohaa possible. She kept making the point though that simplicity is a virtue, and there was certainly nothing complicated about this soup.

I am enjoying Elizabeth David. Hamish has kindly let me borrow his copy of her book French Provincial Cooking and so far, having read the introduction as I promised Hamish I would do, I have found her writing very thought provoking and inspiring. Much of the introduction discusses how French cooking has changed and the expectation tourists have on gastronomic tours of the country. I’ve started thinking more about a gastronomic tour of my own as a result.

As you can see from the pictures, we enjoyed our lunch very much. We even cracked open a lovely bottle of French Chardonnay to accompany it.

The soup itself was surprisingly sweet. The lettuce provided a very nice base for the dish and even though we put the soup through the food processor, there was still the odd crunch, making it quite a substantial meal. I can’t wait to get my hands on the Lowry Peaks Lemon Splash. Follow this link for a list of suppliers in Auckland.

I thought the soup would be equally nice chilled and put the leftovers in Hamish’s fridge for him to try cold. I’m looking forward to hearing his verdict.

We enjoyed a delicious loaf of Wild Wheat Sourdough with our soup and discussed the mother yeast that’s used to make it. Apparently no two sourdoughs are the same, as the mother yeast helps to take on and absorb the characteristics of the place it’s made. It was a rather romantic way of looking at the unfussy sourdough, I thought.

Our loaf had a lovely crunchy outer and the perfect amount of air and softness inside. Check out the pic.

Hope you enjoyed my first blog entry! Stay in touch! You might have something to add so please share it with me. I'm open to meal ideas as well so feel free to tell me what you would like to see made...

Gina