Struan Farm

Having a Bowl

John celebrated a birthday a few days ago here at Struan Farm. We'd had the official family birthday party involving cakes a few weeks ago with other family members, so this was a low key dinner after a very hot summer's day.

I decided to make a fruit salad for dessert, with Piopio Berry Orchard strawberries and blueberries, of course, to be served in the "really cool ice bowl" from Nadia Lim's new cookbook "Let's Eat."  Provided it turned out.

This project takes some time, definitely overnight, but is well worth the effort. You need two bowls that nest with a gap between them. The larger bowl is lined with thinly cut pieces of citrus (I used lemons and limes I had on hand), edible flowers and herbs (maybe even cucumber slices?). I even tossed in some pomegranate arils. The smaller bowl is then set on top of that and the rest of the side gaps are stuffed with the same type of "stuff." It may help to use a skewer or something long and thin to wedge things down. Water is then poured in between the two bowls, with ice cubes used to weigh down the smaller bowl so it doesn't float completely. This is then put into the freezer overnight (suffice it to say that a sufficiently large, flat spot should be cleared out ahead of time).

The next day or thereafter, remove the smaller bowl from the inside. When you're ready to use the bowl, tip the outside bowl upside down on the kitchen bench on a tea towel. Patience is required. Nadia says "a few minutes." In my case it took about ten on a very hot day, but the ice bowl does drops down. 

And if you're lucky, it looks beautiful, like mine! I filled it up with fruit salad for John's birthday dessert. We're even able to reuse the bowl, it's back in the freezer.

One Side Down

I've continued my search for interesting side salad recipes for our annual family Boxing Day luncheon here at Struan Farm. My first experiment (the "blah" potato salad) will definitely be not on the menu. But good news, I made the "Spiced Kumara and Hummus Salad" from the December issue of NZ House & Garden Magazine, and YES we have a winner!

Both John and I loved it. It's the sort of recipe that can be made in quantity, tastes and looks great. The only downside is that it will need to be made that morning. But since I'm making pretty much everything else beforehand I've made an executive decision that we'll run with this and hopefully one other. Fingers crossed that pomegranates, one vital ingredient, don't disappear from local markets in the meantime...

Kumara is peeled and cubed, then tossed with sumac, smoked paprika, chile paste, smashed garlic, olive oil and sea salt flakes before roasting. The hummus is made in the food processor with drained, tinned chick peas, garlic, tahini, soy sauce, mirin, lemon juice, olive oil and liquid honey. To serve, a layer of hummus is topped with some rocket/arugula leaves and the cooled roasted kumara, followed by more rocket, crumbled feta, chopped chives and pomegranate arils. Pomegranate molasses is drizzled artfully on top just before serving.

One side down!

Lessons from the Camembert Snowflake

I'm sharing this with you just so you know that not everything I do here at Struan Farm turns out 100% all of the time! But that doesn't stop me from experimenting, trying new things.

A few days ago a FB friend shared a link to a recipe for this Camembert Snowflake. It looked a bit rich but interesting, and I decided to try it out with a few changes. The recipe calls for filling the puff pastry with cranberry sauce and bacon, which just didn't do it for me. I decided to try it using onion marmalade instead, thinking it would be a bit more savoury, still sweet but not quite so fruity sweet.

Two circles of puff pastry are sandwiched together with the sauce/filling in between, with a circle cut out in the middle for the camembert. I wasn't terribly artful folding my snowflake sides, they were wide and short. That, plus the quantity of cheese, makes me think a larger circle of puff pastry might be a good idea here. Unfortunately with the size of our standard puff pastry sheets that means piecing together four for the top and four for the bottom, not quite as economical as the one+one I used here. 

The cheese in the centre is slit, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with fresh rosemary. The puff pastry is brushed with an egg wash before baking for 20 minutes or so at 180C. In my oven it took about five minutes longer for the puff pastry to be browned as I wanted it to be.

After it came out of the oven I wasn't able to lift the snowflake off the baking paper or sheet without it falling apart. Perhaps you might be able to do so. I tried using a metal pizza paddle, which should have worked, but the snowflake was just too fragile so I sampled it there. 

The verdict: very good but very rich. I'd prefer more pastry to sop up the quantity of gooey, warm cheese, a higher pastry:cheese ratio. Basically it's way too rich for us me but I can see some people (namely John) enjoying it immensely.

Staking 101

I'm sure you'll be curious as to how the heirloom tomatoes and my staking efforts are going this year here at Struan Farm, and I can report happily thus far!

Proper staking was meant to be my learning goal for this year on the tomato front. Each week I have trod dutifully out to the tomato beds and repositioned the ties, also pinched off the "laterals" that grow in the crotches of the branches. This avoids the tomato jungle scenario we've had the past few years, is meant to get more light and air to the plants to avoid fungal disease, and the plants to focus on growing fruit and not foliage. This past week I was amazed by the amount of growth, seeing how easily things can get away from me if I were to drop the ball. I'm also beginning to think I understand which plants might be "determinate" vs. "indeterminate." (Tomato buzzwords for those who've mastered the secret handshake.)

Some green fruit is in evidence, along with flowers. The plants in the raised bed near John's workshop seem to be slightly ahead of the ones in the backyard. Not sure if that's because of better soil, different light, or the varieties. I haven't gotten that scientific, not enough time in the day. Perhaps next year, once I get through Staking 101!

Report from the Farm's Kitchen

This weekend at Struan Farm I tested out two new recipes and continued baking for Boxing Day. I was keen to try out The 5+ A Day Charitable Trust's "New Potato Salad with Fresh Herbs" as a possible side dish for our annual family celebration. I'm on the hunt for sides that are tasty and can be made easily in quantity somewhat ahead of time. 

They actually changed the name of this recipe from "Potato and Tabouleh Salad" after I queried where the bulgur wheat was. (Yes, I'm a stickler for detail, there are those of us out there, still. Or perhaps I just overthink things, my brain being somewhat under-utilised.) They reported back that the concept originally was to have the potato replace the bulgur wheat to be gluten free and trendy. Okay, but then it should have been called "Potato Tabouleh Salad," n'est-ce pas? I guess they decided to opt for something that is probably more accurate when I prompted them to think about it. (I'm beginning to think I could be viewed as a pain for being pedantic, not everyone appreciates it.)

Unfortunately, while this is easy to make and healthy, both John and I thought it was pretty blah. It's missing something. I prefer my same old, same old potato salad with new potatoes, corn, red onion, cherry toms and pesto to this one. So the side beauty contest continues.

On a more positive note, we still had some snapper in the freezer from the neighbours, so I tried out "Oven-Roasted Fish with Herb and Pinenut Relish" from the current issue of Dish Magazine. This was an absolute winner!

The snapper is brushed with oil, seasoned, and put on a baking tray with tomatoes and baked for 10 minutes at 220C fan bake. The relish is what makes the dish though--amazing flavours. Chopped toasted pinenuts, capers, lemon, herbs, raisins, spring onion, olive oil. We both loved it, and I will definitely make this again.

Then it was back to Boxing Day. To date I'd made a batch of cream cheese Christmas cookies, two batches of mini cupcakes, and one batch of chewy fudge brownies. I was able to knock off another batch of cream cheese cookies, with different types of sprinkles, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. At this point I've got the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe memorised and can knock those off in my sleep. I did make these somewhat smaller than I usually do to fit on a tiered dessert stand and achieve a greater number of cookies.

Still outstanding on the Boxing Day Baking To Do list are another batch of chocolate chip cookies, another batch of brownies, and a few different slices. I'm worried that the latter won't freeze terribly well, so I'll wait to make them until a few days before the main event. Of course we'll have Piopio Berry Orchard strawberries and blueberries as well, it wouldn't be Boxing Day at Struan Farm without them!

Compassion Abounds

The elderflower bushes I've grown from cuttings taken from sister-in-law Anna's old house are thriving here at Struan Farm. This year they're flowering beautifully. Makes me think I should try to make an elderflower cordial or something with them. Nicola Galloway, author of "Homegrown Kitchen" recently posted links to a few recipes using elderflowers on her FB page.

The stalks are meant to be poisonous, one must snap off just the head of flowers to use them. Find more info here.  

I was interested to read that elder flowers are a symbol of "compassion" in Victorian flower language. So let's just say that compassion abounds here at Struan Farm!

A Scape Caper

Remember those garlic buds waving in the wind in the veggie garden here at Struan Farm? Well, they've been chopped off as recommended to help get larger garlic bulbs for harvest. I'd read that they were edible, so decided to give them a try.

Thankfully I came across this article  from Bon Appetit cooking magazine with some great ideas on how to use garlic "scapes." Our neighbour had brought us some freshly caught snapper we were having for dinner, so I mixed up the finely chopped scapes with butter and pan fried the snapper. They taste just like garlic (no real surprise there).