the best brunch

I've mused before about my undying love for that perfect meal mashup of breakfast and lunch. Whether it's hungover laughing with friends in a cafe over copious coffees and shakes and juice, or whether it's at home cooking perfect scrambled eggs for someone you quite fancy, followed by some sweet music and plunger coffee in the sun on the couch, I just really really love brunch.

In Wellington last weekend, me and my friend, seedier than I was, went on a brunch excursion. I wanted something totally delicious, and having had my fair share of under poached eggs and packet hash browns, I knew exactly the place: Cafe Polo in Miramar.

Out there we trekked, and after a very well executed flat white we made the wise move to a more open table given the neighbouring unruly children's squawking was worsening my friend's hangover by the second. Just as we re-settled in, two plates of glory arrived: friend's vege feast with no artichokes and avocado instead, as well as creamy mushrooms, and spinach, and mine probably the best brunch ever. Homemade sourdough, two perfectly poached eggs, certainly the best cafe hash browns I've ever had, ripe avocado and Polo smoked salmon.

I was inappropriately groaning with delight at every mouthful, and my friend was too overwhelmed to speak, such was the hangover-curing qualities of what was on the plate. We let it settle with more good coffee and left extremely satisfied indeed.

Cafe Polo, which I've had dinner, and lunch at before.


82-84 Rotherham Terrace, Miramar, Wellington. Phone (04) 380 7273. An important word of warning: they are not open Sundays! 

bathe in feijoas, bathe in glory

A quick post while I bathe in Tuesday Night Netball glory (came back from a 10 point deficit to win by 1, holla!) and share with you more feijoa loving, before I flee to Wellington at an ungodly hour in the morning.

As explained earlier, the neighbours up the road offloaded some beauties the other day, and into the baby loaf pans they went. I've altered next Monday's Good Morning segments so I can share these with you now instead. I suppose you could make it into a big loaf, and likewise these would probably work in muffin pans. Get creative! They're delicious. Hot out of the oven, particularly good, but the next day slathered in leftover caramel ginger cream cheese icing? Off the freaking chain.

Baby Feijoa Loaves

adapted from here 

1 cup of chopped feijoas

1 cup boiling water

1 cup soft brown sugar

50g butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

Place feijoas, butter, sugar, water and vanilla in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Softly boil for about 5 minutes then allow to cool.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Carefully add feijoa mixture and combine gently with a wooden spoon.

Grease an 8-cup mini loaf pan with butter or cooking spray. Spoon mixture into each cavity, filling to just over half way.

Bake at 180C for 30 minutes until golden.

These are great served warm just with butter, or dusted with icing sugar. 

They’re simply the best though iced with a ginger cream cheese icing (an adaptation of Lucy's caramel cream cheese icing, found here) once they’re cool (beat 200g room temperature cream cheese with 50g soft butter, 1 tsp ground ginger, about half a cup of brown sugar and a bit of golden or maple syrup.) Enjoy them while you still can, especially as this weather cools down, and if you've just dominated a game of netball it's totally legit to indulge. 

let's get ready to crumble

Just like asparagus and mandarins, and fresh figs and cherry blossoms, feijoas are one of those magical treats whose seasonality has not been engineered to appear glossy under neon lights all year long. It seems in the upper parts of the north island every second person has, if not a great abundance, then at least an easy supply of these fragrant, squidgy, green fruit. A friend had a couple of us over for dinner the other night, and she had done an after work raid of her feijoa tree in order to make crumble for dessert. The crumble recipe came from the recently released and completely gorgeous Pipi The Cookbook, and was a simple, inspired take on this classic dessert. 

I'm the first to admit I am very much a throw together kind of cook, and my crumbles of the past have always been of the non-purist variety. Adding coconut, and cinnamon, and hazelnuts, or ground almonds, and never being content on just one fruit, this recipe requires discipline just to trust in its simplicity. It's worth it. My friend gave me a photocopy of the recipe and I recreated it at home with apple and rhubarb. Served with just creamy vanilla ice cream on the side, it was bliss.

Feijoa Crumble 

(from Pipi The Cookbook, by Alexandra Tylee) 

A lot of feijoas, peeled and chopped, or 2kg cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices

1/2 cup caster sugar (I used raw sugar)

1 1/4 cups flour

1 3/4 cup whole rolled oats

3/4 cup soft brown sugar (again, I used raw sugar. It was all we had!)

2 teaspoons baking powder

250g butter, melted

If using apple, put in a saucepan with a quarter of a cup of cold water, sprinkle over the caster sugar and cook until soft. This step is somewhat unnecessary with feijoas though.

Mix the other dry ingredients together in a bowl and pour in the melted butter. Luscious luscious melted butter.

Drain the apples and put them in a baking dish. Or just fill your baking dish with feijoas, if using them. Spoon the crumble over the top, don't push it down flat.

Cook in the oven for one hour until the crumble is completely cooked and golden brown (mine didn't need an hour, but keep an eye on it). Serve with cream or ice cream.

Crumble reminds me of my Grandma, who I had the pleasure of spending a nice quiet weekend with here in Auckland. Her apple crumble, a feature of childhood trips to the farm, was second to none. It's such an easy, pleasing, warming dessert, and a great one to have in your winter repertoire.

Yesterday our friends up the road dropped us off a couple more bags of feijoas, and whilst enjoying them simply on their own one after the other after the other, I stumbled upon this blog dedicated to them and them only. Plenty of inspiration there if you're stuck with what to do with them - I'll be taking the baby loaves I conjured up along to Good Morning next Monday 7 May. Stay tuned!  

love thy liver

Love thy liver is my current mantra of choice, others in the past having been "I'm unattainable!" and "gin shots are the way of the future" but it's desperate times when you're buying fresh juice on a Monday and a Tuesday in an attempt to make yourself feel better post-weekend. Given that a $7 a day liver-lover fresh juice habit is highly unsustainable, yesterday I dusted off the juicer and made my own.

Carrots, beetroot, fresh ginger and a dash of lemon and I am feeling marginally closer to detoxification. Chuck in a decent run and a bikram yoga class and I'll be right as rain, I'm sure.

Since last weekend featured no vegetables and lots of wine, I'm hoping this weekend will feature an abundance of vegetables and no vomiting in friend's beds. Work lunches this week have been throw together salads again; on Monday I over feta'd slightly, but with the basil pesto, lemon juice, crunchy sprouts, avocado, cannelini bean and crunchy cos lettuce it was a winner nonetheless. A virtuous picture of health I am...

eats and giggles

I've had one of those ridiculously fun weekends where I drank more than I ate and laughed more than I thought possible and as well as unleashing my inner karaoke monster to a group of unsuspecting new friends and strangers with the belting out of Celine Dion, I also fell asleep in a taxi, woke up fully clothed on a couch, and had a very sociable time indeed. Auckland is fun.

Checking out the sights and sounds, there were hello drinks here, a goodbye party there, a hungover lunch, a new necklace and a vintage cardy, record store day, some lolling in the sun, some home made garlic bread and beers, some delicious indian food, some funny texts about crushes, ciders on a basketball court, the aforementioned karaoke, some vietnamese coffee, a hungover lunch, cups of tea, laura's feijoa cake, my feijoa gems, the looking at and planning of cool looking parties, and a netball game. I relate a little too well to the girl who wrote this and I fear it's going to be one of those Mondays, but I'm remaining optimistic. This week I've got treats for you, but right now it's time for some sweet sweet dreams.

pumpkin, ginger, and dates dates dates

Having failed at my goal of this finally being the Easter I make Hot Cross Buns, I still have other Autumn food related goals which remain. I spent Easter driving up to Auckland, where I'll be for the next wee while, and while here there is plenty of eating and drinking and cooking and baking to be done. There may even be a spin-off blog along the lines of this one required, but watch this space. So with the rain falling and the weekend impending my main weekend goal is pretty simple - attempt to recreate Domain and Ayr's pumpkin ginger and date muffins.

I know muffins are incredibly passe, but these things are a meal in themselves and a damn tasty flavour combination too. I had a delicious coffee there last weekend when on a brunch date with my little sister, and as well as the totally unnecessary muffin entree and coffee, I also indulged in a banana and coconut smoothie with spinach, and an excellent if not a tad dry bircher muesli.

I've made pumpkin scones before, so I don't think these will be too hard to try. Failing that, I'll find yet another use for the fresh figs growing in the backyard, having already used them in a variation of this cake, and a variation of this tart coupled with mascarpone, honey and fresh thyme. Failing that I might just reacquaint myself with Auckland based friends and family. Failing that I'll just drink the bottle of Tanqueray on my dressing table. Only time will tell. Happy Friday x

pretty, easy and delicious

Holy lack of blog posts, Batman! I don't think I've let it get this long, like, ever. What does that mean I've been up to? Wouldn't you like to know. Well, in case you do, it means I've been busy. Very, very busy. 

I have this thing where I get these outlandish ideas in my head, and then put ridiculous amounts of pressure on myself during what often could be, on it's own, a stressful time as it is. It happened a lot during my uni days, and often my way of dealing with it would be to say yes to that extra waitressing shift, yes to that night out, and then I'd find myself tearing my hair out when the law library closed at midnight and my essay was due the next morning. It happened to a similar extent during the 17 days of burger eating and date blogging I undertook last year (which I've been reminiscing about, by the way. There were some really bloody good dates in there you know!), and it's happening a tiny bit now. Apart from the fact I very often have trouble saying no, when faced with impending times of intense pressure I can be expected to do any number of things. It will often include saying, about a million times, "but I'm sure it'll be fiiiiiine".

It might also include: doing things I know I shouldn't just because it'll add to the drama of it all; an overwhelming need to curl up in the foetal position; a few too many wines, kebabs, hungover brunches, games of "sake waters" and talking smack when under the influence; the planning and execution of parties (more about that later); the top to toe scrubbing of the kitchen; the praising of friends and colleagues and flatmates; and undoubtedly, unnecessary stress.

But! All times of stress and hangovers will be happier and achievable if punctuated with a few things. Friends, cider, rose in the sun, giant beanbags, sunshine, cooking magazines, yarns, and a very easy adaptation of an Annabel Langbein pie-type-bread thing called Sausage, Tomato and Olive Pissaladière, for example. I jaunted up the coast for lunch last Sunday at my Aunt and Uncle's, and this easy and absolutely delicious lunch was on offer. I'd attempted to make myself presentable, but my Uncle swiftly picked that I'd had a back to back weekend of ridiculous nights out. Get this in the oven, impress whoever you're serving it to and momentarily forget all that stresses you. Sunday lunch bliss.

It's a little bit like my brunch calzone but without the yeast, and this recipe, like the brunch bread, is easily adaptable with other toppings. Someone emailed me recently with tales of work-shared-lunch success when throwing everything he had on a Sunday night into a brunch bread - including bacon, cheese and spaghetti: YUM. The message? Improvise! And success will be yours.

Sausage, Tomato and Olive Pissaladière
(made lovingly by my Aunt Robyn, and the recipe came from Annabel Langbein in Life and Leisure magazine)

Annabel explains that traditionally this French classic contains anchovies, and also that it's great served warm or cold on a picnic. This time of year, it's a pretty much amazing Sunday lunch with a green salad on the side, and I'll be making a tart inspired by this one on Good Morning this coming Easter Monday.

Pastry Base
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
100ml olive oil
150ml lukewarm water

Topping
1/4 cup olive oil
4 large red onions, very thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, and a few sprigs for garnish
1/2-1 tsp finely chopped red chilli, to taste
salt and pepper
200g cherry tomatoes, halved and juice squeezed out
12-16 pitted and halved black olives
2-3 raw pork and fennel sausages, skinned and torn up
salt and pepper

Pastry base
Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Mix oil and water together and tip into flour. Mix with a knife until the dough comes together; it will be soft and supple. Cover and rest for at least 30 minutes, r overnight in the fridge.

Topping
Place oil in a frypan with onions, garlic, thyme, and chilli. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes then uncover and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes until the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 220C, leaving the baking tray inside (this will get the pastry crisp, according to Annabel). Roll out baking paper and roll out the dough on top into a large rectangle - about 24cm x 40cm. Fold in edges of dough by 1cm to form a raised border.

Spread cooled onions over prepared base and top with tomatoes, olives, and sausage meat. Garnish ith sprigs of thyme and bake until crisp and golden, about 30 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Like I said: easy and delicious. And also pretty and easy, which my new awesome hairdresser told me my hair was going to be like when he recently cut it, and to which I replied, without thinking "just like me!" He laughed out loud. I was mortified and just trying to be funny and was clearly joking. Anyyyyway. Try the tart! And slightly less sporadic blog posts to follow soon, I assure you, including a pretty sweet party and some tasty pulled pork. Stay tuned.