Another Saturday night…

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Isn't the weekend great? Recently I've had a bit of an obsession with starting the weekend with pancakes and after a bit of experimentation with buttermilk pancakes, crepes, et al, I have decided that keeping it simple actually works for me! It means I can quickly crank out 6 pancakes – so enough to feed the two of us, and concentrate on enjoying my Saturday morning. So (if you're interested) my pancake ratio? 1 cup milk, 1 cup self raising flour, 1 egg, pinch of salt, mix, pour, cook. Think this may be Jamie Oliver inspired originally but can't recall. Works for me, covered in yoghurt, raspberries, bananas and cinnamon sugar. Nice.

Spent some time at the river today, sitting in the sun, reading and watching the water. Sometimes I find it strange living in a city where the river is the heart – coming from Auckland and having lived so long in Sydney – both of course, harbour cities, I always imagine in days gone by when the river served more of a purpose – merchants, tradesmen, travellers – such a different world. I imagine it would have felt al lot more like the Asian rivers where so much life and commerce exists on the river and it's banks.

Munich seems quiet tonight – perhaps it's just a bit early still?

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Come Mister Tally man, tally me banana…

So today I decided that my bananas had reached perfect ripeness for banana bread making. I'd actually never eaten banana bread until I first moved to Australia – at home we always had the much lighter banana cake. Banana bread however is a staple of the Australian cafe diet, best devoured on the morning commute with a take out flat white in the other hand – the way thousands of Sydneysiders start their morning in or on the way to the office.

Luckily, I can enjoy the banana bread without the office politics, and after trying many recipes I have settled on a favourite, originally created by Kerrie Sun (with minor modifications depending on my mood on any given day) which is actually I believe the most popular recipe on taste.com.au and can be found here, or below for my slight changes. Either way it is delicious and absolutely never fails. Best warm out of the oven or toasted for brekkie, slathered with butter – yum! The original recipe calls for skim milk and low fat spread – I say cut the crap, there is no pretending this is anything other than cake, even with fruit in it. Full fat all the way!

Taken from Kerrie Sun's Recipe on Taste.com.au, my changes in red – see above link for original

Ingredients:

265g (1 3/4 cups) self-raising flour

40g (1/4 cup) wholemeal flour (purely for flavour and colour, not out for health reasons, I promise)

1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon

Ground nutmeg to taste

140g (2/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar (I often use raw sugar instead)

125ml (1/2 cup) skim milk (honestly, who puts skim milk in a cake? It's like asking for a skim hot chocolate with extra marshmallows)

2 eggs, lightly whisked

50g butter, melted, cooled

3 overripe medium bananas, mashed

Either a handful of chopped walnuts or a handful of 70% dark chocolate broken up (depending on how virtuous you're feeling)

 

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush an 11 x 21cm (base measurement) loaf pan with melted dairy spread BUTTER! to lightly grease. Line the base and 2 opposite sides with non-stick baking paper, allowing it to overhang.

Sift the combined flours and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and nuts or chocolate and make a well in the centre. Place the milk, eggs, melted butter and banana in a medium bowl, and stir until well combined. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface.

Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. Cut into slices to serve.

This recipe works every time and never lasts for long in our house.

Tomorrow we are off to Therme Erding – for those not in Germany, the Therme is a great big indoor waterpark with saunas and heated pools, mineral spas and the like – especially when the weather is a bit crappy they are the best way to spend a day – good for the skin – and the soul.

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When Irish Eyes Are Smiling…

While I am 100% New Zealander, I lay claim to Irish blood through my mother's side of the family, so I was feeling very pleased with my Irish Soda Bread today.

I love fresh bread but the idea of leaving dough around in warm places to prove has a tendency to have me heading for the bakery. Enter Soda Bread – genius! You can make it start to finish in a leisurely 45 mins or an hour if you are really cruising, so plenty of time to make it for Sunday brunch.

Enjoying Gordon's cookbook as I am, I used his recipe (which the publishers have placed online as a preview here) and it turned out absolutely perfectly – and was gorgeous with one of my favourite breakfast/brunch creations – scrambled eggs with feta, ham and olives – so good! (if I do say so myself) I'm thinking next time I'll throw a handful or two of mixed seeds at the bread for even more goodness.

Drizzly weather continues – hoping to get out and take some photos outside over the next few days. Warmed up this evening by introducing my OH to Sang Choy Bow – it's always interesting to remember that Asian foods I take for granted, having grown up in the antipodes, are not so well known over here – I always think of it as Asian tacos! No photos of cooking or eating however as it was too good not to eat quickly! Next time, I promise.

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Lox & Bagels

I have mentioned this already, but just to reiterate, I am breakfast mad – given that I am up early, I spend quite a lot of time during the wee small hours picturing exactly what I am going to have for breakfast, and today was no exception.

I love smoked salmon in the morning, but usually find hollandaise a little rich for ordinary weekday eating so that counts eggs benedict out. What better solution than the ultimate goodness of smoked salmon, cream cheese, and capers on a beautiful wholemeal bagel? A lightly dressed salad and hey presto, deliciousness on a plate. (Unfortunately we had a meeting not long after breakfast so in the interest of Kiwi-Germanic relations I had to leave out any red onion this time).

>>> Update: for those looking for lox and bagel recipes it is very simple. Lightly toast your bagels, leave to cool slightly, smother with cream cheese, add capers, very finely sliced red onion and top with smoked salmon, with cracked pepper to taste. Delicious.<<<

In other, and very exciting news Amazon delivered a day early so I have my brand spanking new copy of Gordon Ramsay's new cook book 'Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cooking Course' in my hot little hands! First impressions? The recipes are great and accessible if a little random, the advice and tips from Gordon seem to be solid and useful but the photography is a little, well… dreary. We all know that photographing a chicken pie isn't the easiest thing in the world – but given that there are many recipes without photos I wonder why they chose to illustrate that one? No matter, the book is fantastic and I can't wait to get stuck in! A more in depth review after I've cooked properly from it.

We have finally conquered the birthday cake so tomorrow will be a baking day – on the agenda: Mini Passionfruit and Raspberry Cheesecakes (yum!) and an as yet undecided loaf – Banana? Carrot? Zucchini? Lemon Drizzle? I will have to see how the day strikes me – but whichever way the recipe will be here for you to enjoy.

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Show Us Your Schloss. . .

Another one of those beautiful late Summer, early Autumn days, which called for (I thought) sautéed mushrooms and fried eggs for breakfast – it is so nice that my work hours let me make breakfast a proper main meal – I have never been one of those people who can get by without eating in the morning, give me eggs, fruit, cereal, bacon or all of the above and I am a happy man.

But I digress, as Autumn comes along I start craving all those earthy flavours – root vegetables, squash, pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato for those not from NZ) and of course mushrooms – which means you will be seeing plenty of those ingredients in recipes on this blog in days to come – no baking today however as we are still working our way through birthday cake…watch this space!

 

So after a cruisy start (and an excellent coffee at Trachtenvogl) we headed out to Schloss Nymphenburg – I had been when I first arrived in Munich but as winter was approaching all of the statues had been put away in their winter storage boxes – today however they were all on display – I was particularly taken with the statue of Hades (below) who cuts a rather dashing figure – don't you think?

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(and no, despite the trident it really is Hades – at his feet is his 3 headed friend)

 

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