Non-Stop Sunday Cookfest Extravaganza in Seven Chapters

After so many weekends where I have hardly had time to make toast, I finally had a chance to redeem myself this weekend.

Whenever I can spend a whole weekend cooking, I feel like I've accomplished something worthwhile. Not that the other things I do aren't worthwhile...I just get a deep feeling of satisfaction from cooking.

This weekend's inventory included:

Chapter One: Mystery cupcakes with mystery icing (coming to an IMBB near you on 24 March)

Chapter Two: Whole wheat bread - From my mother's recipe that she wrote out on a 4x6 index card for me when I went away for my first year of uni in 1990.

Chapter Three: Banana bread - From straight out of my head. I basically chucked some stuff into a bowl. One of Cake's stock jobs in the kitchen involves mashing bananas with the potato masher as he knows it will lead to hot banana bread within an hour. I've never been a big fan of bananas in any form, but this is one of Cake's favourites, so it gets made a fair bit in our house. My recipe, if it can be called such, involves 3 to 6 riperiperipe bananas, 2 eggs, a splash of oil (I'm guessing somewhere between 1/4 and a 1/3 of a cup), a hefty dose of vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg (all fresh ground), brown sugar (a cup and a half or so, sometimes split half and half with white sugar), orange blossom water, toasted pistachio nuts or hazelnuts or pecans, a chopped soft pear, baking soda (4 teaspoons), baking powder (1 teaspoon) and enough whole wheat cake flour to make a dough that is marginally wetter than a drop-scone consistency.

I bake it at around 350 until it's brown on top and a knife comes out clean. I pull it from the oven, cut 2 thick slices, lavish them with butter and present them to Cakes. Although this recipe makes an enormous loaf (I use oversize pans) it's usually gone within 12 hours.

Chapter Four: homemade chicken stock - Having  learnt my lesson about stock on the stove (which is that I am too scattered to be trusted with a $300 stockpot a duck carcass and a stove)...plus I don't have a stockpot anymore (also part of learning that particular lesson). I bunged two roasted chicken carcasses with plenty of meat left on and the onion wedges caramelized from roasting still shoved up their bottoms, a handful of organic baby carrots, a few ribs celery, lots of garlic, fresh parsley, a bay leaf, sea salt, cracked pepper, an additional onion, halved in my slow cooker on high with water to cover and left to cook for the better part of 18 hours, adding water as necessary. Amazing. It has been magically transformed into cubes in my freezer and awaits its next incarnation.

Chapter Five: Three onion and Merlot soup - Another slow cooker success. 3 huge sweet onions, 1 purple onion and one sharp yellow onion plus a giant knob of butter in my slow cooker on high for 4 hours, stirring occasionally, after which I added the better part of half the contents of a bottle of nice Merlot and a bit of beef broth. I let is burble away in the cooker for 10 hours. How simple is that? There's no need to watch it the way you have to on the stove (especially if you're like me and you get impatient and try to turn the heat up in an effort to get it done faster!) and the onions are gently caramelized and lovely by the end.

Chapter Six: Roast beef - As an example of how food-oriented my family is, I got a gorgeous big roast of beef in my Christmas stocking. My mum made these enormous stockings for us one Christmas, and this roast damn near filled it up. Well, that and the little farting Santa doll. 

I always use Nigella Lawson's cooking times for roasts, because they are fool-proof. Although, this time, I increased the heat a little (see above re: impatience) and the beef came out a little less moo-ey than I normally like. Cakes and I are rare meat eaters, so unless it still moos when prodded firmly, it's too well done for us. That said, it was nice anyway. I cut little pockets in the meat and slid in some cloves of garlic, which always helps. Otherwise, I rubbed it with a little oil and left it alone. I poured the rest of the Merlot in the pan with a bit of beef broth and left some garlic cloves to roast in there. It made the nicest, darkest richest gravy. I caught Cakes drinking it from the gravy bowl after he offered to clean up the kitchen. Sneaky Cakes. When he left the kitchen in disgrace, I had a drink too.

Chapter Seven: Smashed potatoes - Need I say more? gorgeous yellowy, skin-on potatoes with cream, buttermilk, butter, salt and pepper. Nothing else. Yum. I used a fair bit more liquid than I usually would, and the potatoes came out beautifully light and mouss-ey. I think that had partly to do with my use of Yukon gold rather than my traditional russet. I may just have switched potato teams for good!!

 

Chapter Eight: A really nice salad of creeeeaaaaamy Bulgarian feta, crisp romaine, red onion, campari tomato, a squeeze of lemon and the tiniest splash of balsamic. And cracked pepper.

Phew.

I need to go lie down.

Comments

[Zarah Maria]

So much FANTASTIC-looking food! Mmmmm! Love your blog!

[Nic]

I just adore the tower of smashed potatoes. Yukon golds are definately my potato of choice for smashing.

[Molly]

Beautiful food and photos! That roast looks absolutely scrumptious...I'd LOVE to find that in my stocking!

[Lyn]

I was (and still am) definitely a volcano-maker when it comes to mashed potatoes. My sister and I used to compete over who had the tallest mountain and who could make the most impressive lava flow. The mountain just seems to be the right way to put potatoes like that on a plate!