Thanksgiving Dinner

Here is our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner before: And after:We had roast chicken with cranberry sauce, roast sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and green beans. For dessert we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream (sorry, I forgot to take a picture).

As you can see from the first picture, I got the cranberry sauce from a can, and a ready-made pumpkin pie from the supermarket bakery. I had not intended to do this. Being on a budget, however, I was surprised to find that it was cheaper to buy both these items rather than to make them from scratch. Even cheating - by making it with pumpkin pie filling in a can - was more expensive!

Apparently, the North American art of baking is being lost. It is rare to find someone who has the time, budget, and inclination to cook from flour, sugar, butter, etc (except in food blogs - see links). Maybe this is why the faculty are gobbling up my baking so readily! It is generally accepted that cookies come from a tube of dough, frosting comes in a can, muffins are packet mix with milk added, pie crusts are not made but bought, and afternoon tea for guests is bought at a bakery on the way home. This is a tragedy! (Can you tell I'm calling for a counter-cultural revolution?!)

The tragedy of packet cooking aside, the other possible tragedy of big dinners is wasted leftovers. So the chicken and veges were made into potato-topped pie and the pumpkin pie was happily consumed in the following days. My one dilemma was what to do with the cranberry sauce because most of the can was leftover. After a stint in the freezer as I deliberated, the sauce was drained of excess liquid and became the filling, along with a red eating apple (skin on), for a cranberry & apple shortcake. Here it is with some apricot yoghurt, before being devoured.

P.S. Check out the library blog my mum contributes to here. It is a great resource for teachers and lovers of children's books. She is 'Lynn, P. North', and you can see a picture of her display "Kikorangi Blue" there too. Well done, Mum!

What's Black and White and Red All Over?

Homemade pizza of course!

This was the glorious result of using up the leftovers in our fridge. The toppings included tomato paste, fresh tomato, bacon, red capsicum, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and mushrooms (which I forgot until the last minute, which is why they are on top!) All this was served with fresh salad leaves. Yummmmmmm!

Not quite 'black, white and red,' but not far off, is a discovery of our friend, Claire. She brought these 'cookies' over last night to share with us and compare with the NZ biscuit.

So our conclusions are: Dream Puffs are two-thirds the size of Mallow Puffs, have a lesser proportion of marshmallow, are very sweet, and the raspberry is a bit like the 'deluxe' versions available in NZ at present (e.g. jaffa). Worth a try, but not quite the same!

Trapping and Triumph

In the latter end of summer we have had a problem with those pesky little fruit flies that always seem to come home with us from the greengrocer! They wouldn't be a problem under usual circumstances, but the fact we have insect screens over the windows and keep the door closed to keep cool, means they are trapped inside our home (and multiply)!

Since fly spray would circulate through the air vents to our upstairs neighbours, this wasn't really an option. Our friends, April and Claire, shared a simple way to trap these pests, and humanely release them outside (though my instinct was to squish them mercilessly). A slice of banana (or another strongly scented fruit) is put in a glass. The glass is then sealed with plastic (Saran/Glad) wrap and small holes pierced in the top. (This was reminiscent of bugs brought to school!) The flies were attracted by the fruit, worked their way into the glass through the holes, and then couldn't make their way out (thanks to the stretchy, clear properties of the plastic). This ingenious solution caught 10 flies within 24 hours, and over the following days, 'netted' the rest. Isn't it great when simple, cheap solutions work just as effectively as the usual quick-fix?!

On another note, I got some jam and made another two batches of Grandma T's Spice square, with better results than last time (see here)! Some was used for a faculty coffee break and we consumed the rest. This time I doubled the cake part of the recipe so it was thicker overall. Our various guests over the last week have all given it a thumbs up!

A Call to Cater

The past week or so has been a flurry of first classes and catering functions. My new job, as catering assistant to the Dean's office, kicked off with a hiss and a roar on the Friday before classes started. With some input from my boss, Lynne, I planned and catered for the faculty and spouses dinner at the start of the academic year. An 'old' friend, April, and a 'new' friend, Amanda, helped me prepare and serve a three course meal. Talk about pressure to perform! Not only my lecturers, but also their spouses, had their first taste of my food, and formed ideas (and expectations) of my offerings for the remainder of the year. I hope the bar hasn't been set too high.

For those who want to know, the menu was as follows:

Appetisers - creamy dip with carrot, cucumber & celery sticks, and pita crisps
- crackers with a selection of cheeses (French brie, goats, & various shades of cheddar)

Main/Entree - chicken thighs, stuffed with roasted red capsicum & wrapped in bacon
- lettuce salad & pasta salad (both laden with vegetables)
- a wild rice medley
- fresh bread and butter

Dessert - chocolate and lemon yoghurt cakes
- vanilla icecream
- fresh fruit platter


All the planning came together smoothly and it was deemed a success by Lynne, my helpers, and the faculty. One of the most enjoyable parts of the job, apart from the good food and great help, was the privilege of interacting with the faculty in a social setting. Another highlight was being hosted in the home of Phil & Polly Long, having free reign in their kitchen and access to all their beautiful (possibly antique) dinnerware and their handmade pottery servingware.


The food must have made an impression because it resulted in an 'on the spot' request for me to cater for a library function this past week so a lemon and a chocolate cake were duly dispatched. This then expanded to an order for 120 chocolate chip cookies, advertised as the incentive to attend library orientation for new students! Apparently they were well received also.


When the cookie order was placed the caveat was "no nuts please". Thinking chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip biscuits were one and the same, this came as a bit of a surprise. Further research, however, revealed quite a difference in recipe and result. I used this recipe, and found the accompanying story rather sweet. Be warned: the recipe yielded 3 dozen cookies, not the 4 dozen promised... thank goodness I had enough extra ingredients!


These two extra jobs have been perfectly timed by God. The money was provided just as we had to purchase a new electric kettle/jug. We discovered the stove-top kettle was rusting from the inside out, so two days of boiling water in a pot for the numerous cups of tea we (well, one of us) consumes was getting a bit tiresome!


My more regular catering duties were also fulfilled during the week too. The faculty meeting coffee & dessert consisted of baby lemon meringue pies and chocolate zucchini muffins. The faculty at coffee break enjoyed savoury zucchini muffins and cheese and crackers left over from the faculty dinner. As you may have guessed, there were a few zucchini left over from the dinner too!


Some more focus on the actual reason for being here (i.e. study!) is needed now, as my call to cater has eased off for a wee while at least.

Coconut Cupcakes

This recipe was adapted by our friend, Tien, from an online coconut cake recipe she found. She made cupcakes instead, and they're scrummy! We had them with fruit-salad-icecream from the Filipino bakery around the corner from Tien's place.

2 c all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 c butter
1 c sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 c coconut milk
1 c flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Prepare cupcake cases in muffin tins.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt together, and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Mix in vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and coconut milk, mixing well between each addition. Fold in flaked coconut.

Spoon batter into cupcake cases. Bake until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. The original recipe for a cake says 1 hour, but start with 15 minutes and check after that.

Bible (Edmonds Version)

Being a New Zealander, living on a student budget in Vancouver, Canada, has a tendency to lead one to nostalgia for familiar food. Not that Canadian food is that much different overall, but the influences of Quebec and U.S.A. are obvious to me! Croissants in a can, anyone?!

The first item to enter the suitcase on the big move over was not my Holy Bible (shock! horror!... a theological grad student without a Bible?) because I knew I'd be able to find plenty of those when I got here (and after 8 months we have 5 versions). It was, in fact, my Edmonds Cookery Book - the NZ cooking bible. This wise decision was verified not long after we arrived when, within a week of meeting them, two different Kiwis over here exclaimed, "You have your Edmonds! Can I borrow it?"

This lead me to thinking... I wonder if it is online in any form? and Can you order it from Amazon, etc.? A quick search reveals an even better gem than my 1999 edition - the 3rd edition from 1914 - facsimiled and typed out at an online archive here. I haven't tried anything from it yet, but it reveals the change in NZ culinary history when compared to my copy.

My edition has been put to use tonight. I made the short pastry for a bacon and egg pie that isn't really a pie. It doesn't have a pastry lid so it's more of a quiche. Then again, the eggs aren't beaten with milk, just cracked over the onions and bacon and topped with grated cheese. We've come to the conclusion that it could be a 'piche'. It isn't that glamorous to look at so there isn't a picture, but N did have seconds so it can't be bad.

Spice Square

This is my Grandma Thomas's recipe. Nathan requested it this week (thanks for emailing it to me, Mum). I had a desperate moment when, partway through making it, I discovered that the half-jar of jam in the cupboard... the only jar of jam... was very mouldy after a warm summer break! Read the variation below to see how I solved this dilemma.

4oz butter
4oz sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp golden syrup
1½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp cinnamon
raspberry jam (jelly)
raspberry or strawberry jelly (Jell-o) crystals

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and syrup. Sift together flour, baking powder and spices, and add to creamed mixture.

On baking paper, spread or roll out dough to twice the size of a sponge roll tin. (It will be thin!) Spread half the dough with raspberry jam. Use paper to fold dough in half, enclosing the jam. Trim paper and slide into tin. Bake 20-25 minutes, at 350ºF.

When cool, ice with plain butter icing and sprinkle over jelly crystals. Cut into squares.

Variation: if jam is unavailable, reserve jelly crystals for sprinkling on icing, then sprinkle the remainder of the packet on the dough in place of the jam. This makes a thinner, slightly chewier filling than jam, but tastes much the same!

Raspberry Bars

(adapted from Taunton’s Fine Cooking Magazine – Dec 2006)

Yields about 4 dozen bars.

375g unsalted butter at room temperature (plus more for pan)
1⅔ c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3½ c all-purpose flour
2oog hazelnuts, toasted & chopped (1⅔ c)
2 c raspberry jam

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a 9x13-inch baking pan.
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour and mix just enough to incorporate. Add the nuts and mix until just blended.
Press about two thirds of the mixture into the prepared pan. Spread with raspberry jam, then crumble the remaining dough on top. Bake until the top is lightly browned, about 1 hour. Cool and cut into squares.

Yummy as a dessert, served warm with icecream!