Best Road Trip

A post on Points of Review about a road trip I took with my Mom 5 years ago in November.

It was the best trip ever!

We went to New Zealand, rented a car and drove around the North Island for a couple weeks.

This was the route of our trip.

We started out in Auckland.

My Grandma was born and raised in New Zealand.

And as a little girl my Mom lived in New Zealand for a while.

This is Mom and the car we rented.

She had never driven on the left side of the road, but she did a great job throughout the trip.

There were just a couple times when I thought she was going to run into the side of a mountain!

We loved the little self serve stands they had on the side of the road selling vegetables.



We went at the end of November - Avocado season, I guess.
There were avocados every where!
We even rented a cottage in an avocado orchard.




I shot a gun!
On a boat!
And I didn't hit anything.



This is our automatic clothes dryer.
We stayed over night in a hostel.
It was really nice.
We stayed in a lot of hostels.
Anyway, we washed our clothes, but didn't have time to dry them, so for a day we drove around with a backseat full of wet clothes.
Thankfully, they dried pretty fast!
And you could never do that in Minnesota in November!



The cows didn't seem to mind our car clothes dryer.


We saw dolphins!

And more cows!

This is Mom and Moana.

She is kind of an aunt.

We stayed in a really nice Bed and Breakfast in Auckland.

Breakfast.

Mom and me at another hostel.

Mom cooking at the hostel.

We cooked and ate our way across New Zealand!
The food and spending time with Mom were the best parts of our trip.

We tried to buy local (side of the road) food and try everything that we didn't recognize.

Like canned rice pudding, canned spaghetti, Lamb and Mint flavor chips (crisps), Burger Rings, freeze dried veg. and lots of candy.

Eating dinner al fresco.

In November!

We went to the New Zealand flower show.

Mom with another yummy meal of fresh fish.

Isn't that beautiful?

Spice Puffs

Spice Puffs

3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

5 1/2 Tbs melted butter

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl mix together wet ingredients. Ad wet mixture to dry and stir just until combined. Mixture will be lumpy.

Grease muffin cups. Fill each cup 3/4 full with muffin batter.

Bake for 20-25 mins. until muffins are golden.

Before I baked the muffins I added a tsp each of ricotta cream and pear sauce left over from my cannoli.


And I got to use my new autumn muffin tins.
They were very yummy!





They were so tasty that the chickies only got to try one muffin.
They gave it 9.5 beaks out of 10.

How I Learned To Cook

I started cooking before I was born. After all, I was a bun in my mother's oven!

Ok, let's rip that psychologically damaging imagery out of our minds.

On with my story....

This is my Mom and me. (I still have those big feet :P )

Looks like I'm eating some soup. Yum.

I still eat soup like that too - feet on the table.

~

Before I was born, my Mom worked in a cafe.

After I was born, she took me to work with her.

She would rise hours before dawn, tuck me into a corduroy kangaroo-pouch-baby-carrier-thingy and jog downtown to the cafe.

Then, she would bake dozens of loaves of bread, sweet rolls, croissants, cakes, pies, soups and the special of the day - pot roast, lasagna, ect.

While she beat eggs and kneaded dough, I was still strapped into my snuggly kangaroo pouch picking up cooking tips (and probably napping).

Before I was one, I learned how to use a spoon..... to mix up homemade bread.

Later I progressed to using a knife.

Check out those peeling skills!

And the half chewed cucumber in the salad.

Baking bread with Mom.




And making pie crust.
I'm about 2 1/2 in this picture.





Frying up breakfast.

And here I am at four years old.

~

This might look like a cardboard kitchen (or just a cardboard box, if you're really bad at imagining), but for me - this was my studio.

I wanted to be The Frugal Gourmet.

You don't know who that is?

What?!?

Ok, he was a TV chef with a cooking show and he had an assistant named John.

It was great!

For years and years Frugal Gourmet was the only game I would play.

My Mom was John, so....she did the dishes.

I had a little crock pot and all day long I would put things into it and stir it and put more "secret" ingredients into it.

Then, when my Dad came home we would have candlelight suppers and they would eat my Crockpot Delight.

It took me a long time to figure out why we ate by candlelight.

They must have loved me a lot.

Bearing in mind, I thought salt was a major ingredient and paprika was a magic flavoring.

I wrote a recipe for bread: Take 1 cup salt, 3 cup floer mix togeter and add hony, egg and milk. Beat and leve for 5 houers to rise. Bake at 560 degres for 3 houers.

~

So, that's how I learned how to cook and love food.

Mostly from my Mom, with a little dash of celebrity inspiration a la Frugal Gourmet as a 'secret' ingredient.

Undercover Chicken

Catty is not impressed.

She is not a chicken.

But I think she is such a cute chickie!

Do you think she's laying an egg for me?

(Imagine me rubbing my hands together in anticipation.)

Hmmm, I don't think so.......

But she's so cute!

I'll keep her, I guess.

Wow! I Won!

Yay!

I won most unique interpretation on The Leftover Queen Forum!

I entered my cannoli recipe.

I've already started working on the next months challenge.

If you're not a member join the Leftover Queen Forum!

~

A blizzard is forecast for tomorrow, so I'll have plenty of time to cook.

I really want to make some Russian Lace, snowcream and maple whip, but I need some fresh snow!

Ricotta Souffle Strata

Last month Marx Foods sent me a box of fun stuff.

Mushrooms, chiles, vanilla sugar and smoked salt.

Mmmm, yummy!

Look at it all! Amazing!

I took Lobster and Black Trumpet mushrooms, added some Japones chiles and a little smoked salt. Then with a little help from the girls....

I took 11 eggs.

Yeah, eleven.

6 I used in the strata and 5 I used in the ricotta souffle top.

I layered left over challah bread with artichoke, crab, diced red pepper, the mushrooms, chiles and a little black pepper/salt.

Then I mixed 6 eggs with a cup of whole milk and poured that over the top of the strata.

Then I mixed the remaining 5 eggs with 1 cup of ricotta cheese.

Spread that over the top of the strata and baked it at 325 degrees for 40 mins.

I just wanted to show you how shiny the top was.
It was the tastiest old bread I've ever had.

Red Hot Pear Sauce

Red Hot Pear Sauce

6 to 7 lbs (about 20 med.) pears

washed, peeled, cored and roughly chopped

4 cups sugar

1 9 oz pkg cinnamon Red Hots candies

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cloves

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot.

Cook over med heat until sauce is thick enough to round up on a spoon.

Stir frequently to prevent sticking.

Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Remove air bubbles.

Adjust 2 piece caps.

Process 20 mins in a boiling water canner.

Daring Baker's November Challenge - Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural)........

Ta da!

Ok, I'm a few (24) hours late posting this challenge, but it really wasn't my fault!

It was the sun's fault.

Yes, the sun. If you have ever been to the north in the Fall/Winter you may have noticed a lack of something. Sun. Yes people, we invented SAD. The sun went on vacation to Florida for a week and then another week and...yeah, you get the idea.

I refused to do the challenge until I had natural light to photograph my cannoli! It was a great excuse!

Yesterday the sun came out.

Entonces - aqui estan!

If you want the recipe, please go to Lisa Michele's site.

We start with a dough.

An amazing dough!

It went together like a dream and felt like a Granny's bingo wings.

Of course, if your Granny makes cannoli she probably doesn't have bingo wings, 'cause cannoil take some WWF upper body strength.

Good.

Work up an appetite for those cannoli.

P.S. I used a nice riesling wine in this.

Rolling the dough out.
Use those muscles!
I tried to use a pasta maker loaned to me by my parents.
Stupid machine ate half my dough before I gave up using it.
I found taking a small piece and rolling it out super, super thin and then wrapping the piece around the cannolo form worked the best.



My cannoli forms.
Long story.
My part of the country is better known for leftsa, than for cannoli, so it was impossible to find cannoli forms.
Except.....my Mom went to the local hardware store and found these lengths of pipe for me!
Yay! Copper!
Very heavy.
Are real cannoli forms heavy?




Rolling dough around form.




Dough ready for frying.



Dough fresh from the fryer.

Cannoli with ricotta/lemon filling and cinnamon Red Hot pear sauce.

I canned the pear sauce* myself.

Fancy tea party, anyone?

My entry for the Royal Foodie Joust.

Cannoli with ginger/fennel/cinnamon pear sauce.



So, what did I think of this challenge?

It was a good one.

It expanded my cooking horizons.

I tried cannoli in a Little Italy bakery 2 years ago, but I wasn't too impressed.

Homemade cannoli are much better.

And my pear sauce is awesome. ;)

*Red Hot Pear Sauce

Remember 3 months ago when I asked you all what I should do with a ton of pears?

And you suggested pear sauce?

Ta da!

3 months later.... Recipe here

I decided to try out a savory cannoli idea. I used a slice of locally made smoked cheddar, pickled herring and a dollop of my own pear chutney. It was good.