Fruit - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Fruit

25
Jun
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – The Best Bread and Butter Pudding Ever

categories: Apricots, Bread, Caramel, Desserts, Panettone, Pudding, Whiskey

Winter finally hit Melbourne this week…it’s been zero degrees or very close to it for a number of mornings now. That’s cold!!!! So, given I hate winter why am I so damn happy? Because this weather is perfect for making one of my favourite retro foods – bread and butter pudding.

Mind you, even though it has been crazy cold, look at my pictures of Sunday morning. Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye. Who could be miserable on a day like this?

Another thing that will never make you miserable is this totally awesome Bread and Butter Pudding. I mean it, this baby ROCKED! It was perfect for this cold weather; retro comfort food at its most glorious!

So, what makes a truly great bread and butter pudding? I put it down to the three B’s…

Lets start with the bread. Bread and butter purists would tell you to use plain white bread. Remember last post I said that we don’t subscribe to minimalist notions here at Retro Food For Modern Times? Well that goes double for Bread and Bread Pudding. I like to use a fruit loaf or a sweet bread like a brioche. I have also been known to use a chocolate chip hot cross bun. Or an Almond Croissant. Basically, I like my bread to come loaded with deliciousness before I even start!

In this instance, I had a panettone sitting in my pantry. I’m going to make a confession here. I have no idea where it came from. That’s the weird thing about panettone. I can’t recall ever buying one. Or being given one. And yet, from time to time they appear. Maybe my house is haunted by an Italian Grandmother who whips them up whilst I’m at work. If so, she also does a nifty line in packing and packaging! This was also a gluten free version so ghost nonna, if she exists, seems to be fairly on trend.

Butter. Please use proper butter. Not that other abomination.

Booze – I drenched the dried fruit in Pimms and left it to soak in overnight. And made an amazing whiskey caramel sauce to go with the pudding

The base recipe for this calls for sultanas. I had some dried fruit medley left over from when I make the Plum Wonderful so I used that.

The recipe I used as a base called for Apricot Jam. I’d previously made a chunky Apricot Spread by boiling down some dried apricots in apple juice so I used this instead.

On it’s own, the pudding was kind of fabulous, but what sent it into the realm of super-awesome was the whiskey caramel sauce. This was all sorts of delicious and brought some toasty, almost coffee-like flavours into the mix. Honey and whiskey is truly a match made in heaven and I had the remnants of a lavender honey from another recipe which just added another layer of tasty goodness.

Please, please, please make this. You will not be disappointed. Or if you are…you probably did something wrong – not that there’s a whole lot that could do wrong with this – it’s also super easy to make!

Bread & Butter Pudding Recipe

Whiskey Caramel Sauce Recipe Apricot Spread Recipe

I’m going to be spending my week enjoying the glorious sunshine despite the icy temperatures!

Enjoy your week, whatever you do.

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13
Jun
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – Never Mind Eating For Beauty, This Week is All About the Love!

categories: Curry, Desserts, Dried Fruit, Eggplant, Eggs, Jelly, Plums, Rice, Salad

So last time we left off, I had been eating for love and beauty for 4 days and loving it.

However, through the week, I began to see a certain theme running through my dishes…

Day 5

I made two recipes from Eating for Love and Beauty.

The first was a delicious Egg Curry.

This was very tasty, spicy and quick to make. I will definitely make this again. Also, I didn’t have fenugreek because…well who has? However, I noticed my Garam Masala contained fenugreek, cumin and coriander so I used that in lieu of all individual spices.

I think we all know eggs are a symbol of fertility…I had my egg curry with a Rice Exotica – Saffron & Lime Casserole.
Rice Exotica huh? I think the Swami might be getting a bit saucy!

Sadly, the Rice Exotica, was the least sexy dish of the week. Probably because in my first mouthful of it, I bit directly into a clove which spoiled entire dish for me Yes, it was my fault and I should have been more careful when I was counting them as I fished them out but still, not good. I was also not happy with the texture and I only par boiled my rice initially! I like my rice light and fluffy and this was a bit too mushy and stuck together for me. I dread to think what it might have been like had I cooked it all the way through the first time as per the recipe.

If I was going to make the rice again, which is unlikely, I would probably not cook it at all before bunging it in the oven with the nuts and spices. Hmmm…maybe I will try it that way. Sans the cloves!

Next up was an Eggplant Dish….and lo and behold, the internet tells me that eggplants are a symbol of abundance or fertility, passion and devotion. See what I mean about a theme beginning to develop?

Day 6 – Eggplant Gourmet

This was AWESOME!…

Earthy eggplant, sweet, sour..all sorts of deliciousness rolled into the one dish. The flavours reminded me very much of a Sri Lankan Eggplant dish that sometimes contains cashew nuts…and maybe dates?

(Dear mother given you have started to chime in on here, maybe you could offer some insight into the constituents of an eggplant moju???)

Either way, I had some cashews left over from the Rice Exotica so I dropped them in for extra flavour and crunch. I’m definitely making this again….

I also ate it more as a side dish than as a main. It’s also pretty good cold on crackers or some tzatziki on pita bread.

Eggplant Gourmet Recipe

Day 6 – Lovers Dandelion Salad

If you’ve read my earlier post…(here)…you know I have a bit of a penchant for a bit of foraging. So the Swami’s Lover’s Dandelion Salad was as good a reason as any to go comb the local environment for some dandelion leaves which, luckily, were plentiful.

I loved this salad. There is something about bitter greens that makes me feel incredibly virtuous and just oozy with health! Again, I had no fenugreek sprouts so I just used a sprout combo. I was becoming curious about why the Swami used fenugreek in so many dishes so I did a bit o’ research and hello…fenugreek is sometimes used to cure erectile dysfunction.

When the Swami wants you to eat for love, she doesn’t muck about!

She also says this salad is good for those suffering from mental or sexual debility. I ate mine for lunch a the office and it kind of worked. It certainly gave me a mental boost for the afternoon!

Lovers Dandelion Salad 0

Day 7 – 21 Essences of Kama Sutra

I followed the Lovers Dandelion Salad with the 21 Essences of Kama Sutra Salad although I guess I only had 19 Essences as I subbed a yellow pepper for the red and green peppers and could not find soy sprouts for love or money. Then again, I used my handy sprout combo per the last recipe so maybe I had more than 21 Essences of Kama Sutra! The Swami offers no comment on what the 21 Essences of Kama Sutra is good for. I think she’s letting the name speak for itself.

21 Essences of Karma Sutra — 21 Essences of Kama Sutra

This was also a very nice salad, although if I made this again, I wouldn’t bother with the Lotus Nuts. In the first pack I bought there were two dead moths. That made me gag and I had to throw them out. The second lot of lotus nuts was, thankfully, mothless but also largely tasteless.

I read on the internet Lotus Nuts are good for irritability. Well guess what? After the moths, and having to make two trips to the Asian food store to buy them, then finding they taste of sweet F.A. I guess they are. I was certainly a lot more irritable after all that palaver than I was before I started!

And quelle surprise, also apparently good for impotence!

1 21 Essences Of Kama Sutra

Day 8

It’s Plum Wonderful

I ended my week with the Swami’s recipe for an uncooked Plum Pudding which is basically dried fruit held together with jello. It’s really tasty, and has all the flavours of a plum pudding but is fruitier and not so heavy. It would be a perfect alternative to a heavy pudding, particularly here when it is warm at Christmas.

Plum Wonderful Recipe

I recently read that a good maxim to use when trying to moderate your alcohol intake is to abstain one day a week, one week a month, one month a year.

It doesn’t work for me alcoholwise as I am aiming for far more than one AFD a week but it’s certainly a philosophy I can embrace when it comes to adopting the principles behind Eating For Love and Beauty.

That book, which also had a whole host of other good advice was:

Dangerous Women

Apart from the moths and the failure of the Rice Exotica, Eating For Love and Beauty has been fun and I feel really healthy. It is winter here now and whilst people around me have been dropping like flies with all sorts of horrible lurgies, I have never felt haler or heartier!

I really want to go to the Swami’s retreat now….

I’m going spend my week trying to find a yoga class I can do at lunchtime so I can exercise for health and beauty as well as eat for it. Enjoy your week whatever you do!

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07
Jun
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – 7 Days Of Eating For Love And Beauty… Part 1

categories: 1970's food, Bread, Eggs, Rhubarb, Salad, Vintage Cookbooks

I figured after the alcoholic debauchery of the last post, it was time for some restraint and a bit of detoxification. So, I spent the last week eating for Love and Beauty. Not exclusively mind you but at least one dish per day…and, it was pretty good. Actually, it was better than that – I felt great! I was full of energy, more alert, I was focussed, I steamed through tasks at work, I lost about a kilo in weight, my skin looked great, a cute boy held a door open and winked at me…seriously this shit worked! Imagine if I lived like this…I’d be invincible!

So, this is how the week went down.

Day 1 – Balinese Rice

I know this dish better as a Gado Gado and it is delicious. Mind you, peanut sauce is a bit like bacon…or cheese for me….you could drizzle it over a stick and I would not only eat it but ask for seconds…

I chose to keep my vegies and rice separate because I liked the way it looked on the plate, but you could choose to mix them as suggested by the Swami.

The colours in this are so pretty and fresh as well!

Balinese Rice Recipe

Day 2 – Vitality Bread
I baked bread!

No wait…

I. BAKED. BREAD.

You have no idea how happy this made me. It looked like bread, it tasted like bread, the entire house was filled with the delicious aroma of freshly baked..happy days!

You also have no idea how my heart sank when Mark said “Wow, this bread is great, you can bake a loaf every week.” That won’t be happening anytime in the foreseeable, but I will bake more bread…I really want to do a walnut loaf. But not every week. Life’s too short and yeast is a temperamental little fucker.

In the interests of full disclosure, there were two failed attempts before the loaf of success.

Here is how not to go wrong baking bread.

When they say mix the yeast with warm water…don’t use boiling. Yeast doesn’t like heat.

When they say leave for one and a half hours, don’t think “Well overnight will be even better” and go off to bed. Particularly, in winter. Yeast also doesn’t like cold.

See what I mean? Yeast. It’s the Goldilocks of food.

Vitality Bread Recipe

Day 3 – Chive Relish Sauce

I’m not sure what the original recipe for this would be like…minus any pictures from Eating for Love and Beauty, I didn’t really have a guide. Mine turned out like an Egg Salad. It tasted great with the Vitality Bread so I’m not complaining but I suspect it might have been meant to be a bit more mayonnaise-ish.

Chives Relish Sauce

Excuse the plastic wrap, I took this to work for lunch and took the picture at my desk whilst eating on the fly!

Day 4 – Lover’s Blush

It’s Rhubarb, fool!

Maiden's Blush - A Rhubarb Fool — Maiden’s Blush – A Rhubarb Fool

So much for my (bad) Mr T. impersonation…this is super delicious!

Mind you, in my mind, rhubarb belongs in the Pantheon of Foods That Can Do No Wrong (Bacon, Cheese, Peanut Sauce…) so there was more than likely not going to be a downside with this recipe. I did substitute some Amaretti’s for the wheaten biscuits though and added some orange zest for extra zing!

This was just lovely – tangy, sweet, creamy…and (relatively) healthy. And just look at that gorgeous colour!

Lover's Blush

I’m going to be spending the week doing more eating for Love and Beauty, I have some salads, an eggplant dish and another (jello) dessert! on the menu. In my spare time I’ll be planning how to use my newly bestowed Eating for Love and Beauty super powers ~~to take over the world~~, for good, not evil. Enjoy your week whatever you do!

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28
May
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – Oh, Calcutta, Odessa, Oh Look, It’s Cocktail Hour!

categories: Cocktail, Curry, Feijoa, Grapefruit, Lime, Pineapple, Vodka

I fully intended this week to be devoted to Eat your Way To Love and Beauty, but somehow I ended up drinking my way to oblivion and incoherence!

But you know what? I can now honestly say that I didn’t spend the weekend getting tanked on cocktails. I spent the weekend doing research and development. For you dear readers, I did it for you! I’m selfless like that.

O Calcutta Cocktail — Oh Calcutta Cocktail

I found a version of the first cocktail I made, the Oh Calcutta, in Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty. This combines pineapple, grapefruit, lime and…. curry powder! Yep, a curry flavoured cocktail!

The Swami’s version of the Oh Calcutta suggests you mix the ingredients with spa water. I assumed that was a euphemism for vodka when making my version.

Now, I normally like my cocktails pink and sweet so this was a bit of a shock to my system! Initially I wasn’t too keen on it. Gradually though, the Oh Calcutta won me over. It’s actually has quite a complex flavour profile (whoo hoo, look at me using the foodie words!). There was a slight bitterness from the grapefruit, sweetness of the pineapple, heat from the curry, sour from the lime…the more I drank it the more I liked it!

I was still thinking about it the next day and I decided that, interesting as it was, it needed something more and that something was a little salty kick. So, I made it again but this time I edged the glass (badly) with some ginger salt. I made the ginger salt by bashing some ginger to death in the mortar and pestle and then adding some salt to the mix. I twirled the glass in this. It doesn’t look great but it tasted amazing!

Oh Calcutta Cocktail recipe

In my first version I toppped the entire drink with grapefruit juice instead of using a mixer, in the second version I mixed grapefruit juice and sparkling water. The result was slightly less bitter which I preferred. I also used ruby grapefruit juice so there was a pink tinge to my cocktail!

I’m now thinking ginger beer would be good in this too….version three may well happen next weekend!

But the weekend of cocktails was not over because it’s feijoa season and thanks to a tree that is fully laden over at my mother’s house we are swimming with them…

For those of you unfamiliar with a feijoa (aka the pineapple guava), it is a fruit much beloved by New Zealanders, and apparently Russians and Californians. It is:

“green, ellipsoid, and about the size of a chicken egg. It has a sweet, aromatic flavor. The flesh is juicy and is divided into a clear gelatinous seed pulp and a firmer, slightly granular, opaque flesh nearer the skin”

Boo, Wikipedia boo! That does nothing to convey the joy of the feijoa – huh…come to think of it from now on, I’m going to be calling them fe-joy-as. I once read in an aromatherapy book that you need to be careful when burning Clary Sage oil because the smell of it can make you feel as if you are drunk! I feel a little bit the same about the scent of a feijoa, it is a kind of fruity, floral, heady smell that…it’s what I imagine heaven smells like. Not that I’m likely to find out. There is no doubt in my mind which way I’m heading.

Feijoa Marketing Board…don’t even think about it stealing this, I’m slapping a ™ on “Fei-joy-as…what heaven smells like” ASAP. Happy to negotiate with you on the licensing of my intellectual property for your commercial gain though. Call me. I’m easily bought.

Mind you, someone at the FMB is doing their job. These babies are currently selling in the supermarket for $2 each!

When I told mum I was going to do some feijoa cooking for this she wanted to know if I was going to make jam. It’s that kind of comment that makes me wonder if I’m actually adopted….Jam. Pffft…why make jam when you can make cocktails?

I found a wonderful blog called Feijoa, Feijoa which is bursting with recipes for feijoas and has an whole section devoted to cocktail recipes.

I made the Odessa Cocktail purely because I had all the necessary but each one of the cocktails sound delicious. And as for the recipes…this may well become one of my favourite sites! There are also several jam recipes for my mother to make.

The recipe for the Odessa Cocktail can be found here:

Odessa Cocktail

If you’re wondering why my simple syrup looks like Coke or coffee , it’s because I only had brown sugar in the house. I think it worked though, it added a treacly depth to the syrup. (coincidentally, Treacly Depth would be the name of my indie band…)

The Odessa is a lovely cocktail, it’s sweet but with a little tang from the lime and exactly the kind of cocktail I normally love! Coming after the Oh Calcutta, it seemed a little simple but it was still delicious! My advice to anyone making it would be to strain it really well. I put mine through a tea strainer and it was a little gritty. I would use a finer strainer next time.

I’m going to be spending my week sidling up to people outside the supermarket and asking “Psst…want a feijoa? ..One fifty each or three for three…and they smell like heaven”

Have a great week whatever you do!

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22
May
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – Happy Healthy, Sparkly Birthday to Me!

categories: Cocktail, Cucumber, Desserts, Drinks, Jelly, Lime, Salad, Salad Dressing, Soup, Tomatoes

We had a little birthday celebration at Retro food For Modern Times last week. I also spent the week reading a bit more of Swami Sarasvati’s Eat Your Way to Love and Beauty. Whilst none of the recipes here are from that book there is certainly more than a hint of nourishing my inner goddess about the recipes I made as part of the celebrations. And yes, I did just write the words “nourishing my inner goddess”. Feel free to vomit.

I kicked off the celebrations with a hefty dose of booze. No lame Swami Sarasvati mocktails here. When this blog celebrates we turn straight to the Goddess of entertaining Martha Stewart for inspiration (and alcohol content). And her cucumber and lime gimlet got the festivities off to a fine start.

Now, you may be wondering how I can justify the whole nourishing the inner goddess thing (Ok, I’ll stop saying that now) whilst guzzling gin? Well, it turns out my inner Goddess is a bit of a booze hound. Who knew?

Secondly, I figure the health affirming properties of the cucumber must go some way to counteracting the negative effects of the alcohol. Yin and yang right?

The recipe is here:

Martha Stewart’s Cucumber and Lime Gimlet

There is a bit of pfaffing around with this recipe in that you need to make up a mint simple syrup and steep some cucumbers in gin beforehand but it is worth the effort. It is delicious and an amazing colour! And we had sparklers!

Next up…was my Green Gazpacho. Now, I don’t think I have banged on about my love of this Spanish delight yet but believe me, summer without gazpacho is, in my opinion, not summer at all. It is no longer summer here but luckily all the ingredients were still readily available. I also really wanted to try this with some of the super tasty Black Russian tomatoes I love so much!

If you are planning on making a gazpacho, green or otherwise, please do not go all Atkins and leave out the bread – it really is integral to the texture of the dish. Gazpacho without bread is glorified tomato juice. And no one wants that.

The basic gazpacho recipe follows but you can play with the quantities of ingredients as much as you want. It’s pretty forgiving. And sometimes you need to play around with it. Strangely enough, I wanted my green gazpacho to be green. So, imagine my utter dismay when I blitzed the above and the result was a horrible looking baby pooh brown. It tasted good but looked atrocious!

Classic Gazpacho

I had some watercress in the fridge and I kept adding sprigs of it into the mix until it became greener. The watercress also added to the flavour!

That, along with my dessert was going to be it. Three dishes and done. However, my greengrocer was selling tarragon this week which is a rarity in itself. I love tarragon but it seems to be fairly scarce so I buy it whenever I see it, then figure out what to do with it.

And what better use for tarragon on a week when we are nourish…(I can’t bring myself to repeat it but you know what I mean) than making a Green Goddess Dressing. This is an awesome dressing zingy with tarragon, lemon, chives, yoghurt…lots of my favourite flavours….

And it looks like this:

It’s a gorgeous pale green and it looked super cute in the jug my friend Ali gave me for a birthday present last year.

May 060

To go with the dressing I made a salad of steamed asparagus, broccoli and beans with some raw zucchini, mixed sprouts, avocado and some toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seed kernels and I also made a rice and quinoa mix.

Healthy lunches here I come!

Veggies, Seeds and Sprouts with mixed rices and quinoa — Veggies, Seeds and Sprouts with mixed rice and quinoa

May 065

This salad is amazing, you can almost feel the health bursting out of you as you eat it. And again, just use whatever vegetables you have. The Green Goddess recipe is here:

Green Goddess Dressing

Finally, I wanted a retro style dessert. I recently bought Wobble by Rachael Lane which is filled with delicious sounding recipes for lovely jellies. I love the old-fashioned look of these jellies so they seemed a perfect finale to the celebrations.

I made a version of Rachael’s Persian Delight (below) but with a straight jelly, not a blancmange for the rose layer and a third layer of pomegranate. I would have liked to top mine with the candy floss as per the picture in Wobble but the only place I could find it was a high-end department store who wanted an arm and a leg for it.

Seriously, where is a fun fair when you need one? Although I always find those places a little creepy. I’ve read way too many books where bad things happen in places like that to be entirely comfortable. And don’t even get me started on clowns…. Thanks Stephen King et al, for another innocent pleasure ruined…

The rose layer got a little lost but all in all this was a very pretty dessert and it tasted amazing!

In lieu of candy floss we had more sparklers…

The recipe for the Persian Delight is found here.

Persian Delight Jelly from Wobble

Finally, I thought we might have a little look at what we might expect over the next 12 months. This is what PBS has to say on the subject of one year olds:

“One-year-olds are just discovering their creative abilities”

And

“They experience a wide range of emotions and have tantrums when they are tired or frustrated.”

And

(They) have no understanding of true “writing,” but many enjoy experimenting with marks and scribbles on a surface.

Hmm…sounds suspiciously like the next 12 months may be quite similar to the first 12!

Thanks to everyone who reads this for a fabulous year! It has been heaps of fun at this end and incredibly satisfying to watch this grow from an idea into actuality.

I’ll be spending the week marking and scribbling on surfaces and some of it might even end up in here.

Thanks again, I hope you continue to enjoy this for the next 12 months and beyond!

Have a great week!

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