Pumpkin Curry?!

Well, I don't know if I should call this a curry, it may not be, perhaps I should call it a aromatic spicy pumpkin stew. It's pretty quick and easy to whip together, and is great comfort food.

Apple Shortcake

I don't normally bake sweet things at home (I'll buy them tho). But feeling the need for something sweet...

Apple Shortcake
So so easy to make, preheat oven to 180C

220 grams flour
1 tsp baking powder
125 grams butter (cold and diced)
1 egg
2 Tbsp Milk
1 tsp sugar

Put the flour, sugar, butter and baking powder in a blender or rub in by hand until similar to breadcrumbs.

Mix the egg and a little milk in to the flour mixture to form a dough. Cut in half and roll out each half to the same size. Place one layer down and then place sliced (and cored) apples on top, so they overlap each other a little, sprinkle with sugar (I use brown with some nutmeg and cinnamon), place 2nd layer of dough on top, brush with milk, trim and bake for 25 minutes.

Cut while it's still hot and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Catch-up

Well I've been a little lazy about getting my posts up here, Internet is dreadfully slow at home at the moment, so am "borrowing" works bandwidth. I thought I'd do a little photo essay type thing over a couple of post, so enjoy...

First time for everything

I’ve never cooked pork before, ever, and I hardly ever eat it. I do however consume, ham, bacon and other cured pig meat.

Pork wasn’t really a meat cooked in my household when I was growing up, and I also recall hearing when I was younger about Cysticercosis, a tapeworm that you can get from undercooked pork that lives in your brain. So I think that may be a big factor in the avoidance of pork.

So this was a little adventure, I had in my fridge a nice sized fillet end leg of pork and all fears of worm brain related deaths put aside, I started to work on this lovely piece of meat. I firstly took out the bone for easier carving later and then realized I knew nothing about cooking times, duh, so thanks to the New Zealand Pork Industry Board website that changed quickly (25-30 minutes per 500g and an internal temperature of 71˚C-76˚C, the temperature will rise about 5˚ when resting). I made a few incisions into the meat and stuffed in garlic and sage leaves, rubbed it down with salt and oil, giving the skin side a thorough massage of salt.