Spring knitting project

Although it looks like a bit of a mess, this is my latest knitting project - the February Lady Sweater. It feels like ages since I knitted something challenging for myself, so it's nice to sink my teeth into this project. We're off to the Coromandel this weekend for some rest and relaxation - the place we're going has no internet or cell phone coverage which will be interesting as I honestly can't remember the last time Matt has had to do without either of these luxuries for more than a couple of ours at a time.

Happy Labour Weekend everyone.

Lamb Wednesday

Last night it was lamb shanks for Lamb Wednesday. I slow cooked them in merlot and made a wild rice and vegetable risotto/pilaf type thing. Not much meat on the shanks, but I think on the whole it was a success.

Asparagus!

I can't believe it's that time of year again - the asparagus has arrived! To compensate for a day of poor eating (on a whim, I made pikelets for afternoon tea - Matt and I ate 14 of them in about 3 minutes), I put together an asparagus, potato, egg and mint salad for dinner.


The asparagus is so fun and novel at this end of the season - it feels like such a treat and is so much fun to harvest. In about two weeks, we will be stockpiling it in the fridge and off-loading some to anyone who'll take it, but for now it's still delicious and new and fresh and a reminder that summer is just around the corner.

I think I might just stay inside by the fire today...

SEVERE WEATHER WARNING.
ISSUED BY MetService AT 8:06 am 09-Oct-2009
MEDIA
HEAVY SNOWFALLS FOR MARLBOROUGH AND CANTERBURY TODAY.

A deepening low over the Tasman Sea is expected to move towards northern New
Zealand today. A band of heavy rain and snow lies across northern South Island
areas and is moving slowly north.
Snow is already falling to low levels in
parts of Marlborough and Canterbury and is expected to continue for
much of today before easing this evening and clearing Saturday
morning.
Snowfalls of 25 to 35cm are expected down to about 400 metres today
with lesser falls to 200 metres, especially in inland valleys and
basins.

Almost famous..

There was an article in yesterday's Press about Matt and Tim and Christchurch Modern. Nice photo (though hard to see here) and pretty nice article too....

How did I miss this?

I don't remember the last time I ate French toast. It must have been years and years ago. So when Matt bought a loaf of bread home for dinner last night that we never ate, i woke this morning and decided to give French toast a crack (I can't remember when I last ate it, and I'm pretty sure I've never made it).

I made up a batter with eggs, cream, caster sugar and milk, and give it a go.


By crikey! How good is French toast? Man, I feel like I've been missing out on this. Why didn't anyone tell me it was so good? I ate 5 pieces, and for some reason the bread was lighter and easier to eat than before it was drenched in eggy goodness and fried. I totally could have kept eating.


We had some maple syrup, and I made some cinnamon sugar, and some yoghurt with honey and nutmeg. We both had the full range of condiments on each serving. Golly gosh, it was incredible. Miles better than the pancakes I usually make, and even nicer than my homemade crumpets.

I'm pretty certain these will feature again in our kitchen on another Sunday morning soon. Or maybe tomorrow, for a Monday morning treat?

Just hanging.

Boo hanging with the cool kids on High St on Friday evening.

New Zealand's favourite recipe?

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, there is this competition on right now to find New Zealand's favourite recipe. The current number one recipe has been sitting in the prime position since shortly after the competition started (winners are based on votes, so the biggest deciding factor is not really how good your recipe is, but how many friends you can get to vote for you).

Anyway, I digress. The current winning recipe is for "Kristie's Ultimate White Choc Passionfruit Mudcake". Wowsers. Since it seems to be getting more and more votes, I decided to give it a crack.

Our oven is not the easiest to control, and I think I over cooked the cake slightly. It had a ganache type icing, which I tried to make before we drove into work yesterday, but for some reason it didn't set and so I had to take it in the car and ice the cake whilst moving.


It still never really set, so the cake looked all gooey and a bit sickly (the cake itself was pretty unhealthy, but the icing was pure evil - just cream and white chocolate with a touch of passionfruit).



The taste test results? Well, it was a bit dry which was totally my fault. I couldn't hack the topping, and after once piece of cake, couldn't bring myself to go back for more. Anyone who knows me well will know that this is a very bad sign, as I have been known to devour whole cakes which are only mediocre in quality just because I am so much of a cake monster. Everybody at Matt's work was polite, but nobody loved it.

I think Kristies sure has a lot of friends. I hope this isn't New Zealand's favourite recipe.