It is the Queen’s Birthday holiday here today, so having a day of pottering around and relaxing. Actually, the first thing I did this morning was get up and watch last night’s final of Masterchef New Zealand. Even though I knew who had won, it was a really exciting end to the series with Aaron Brunet (one of the favourites from the beginning) beating Paula Saengthian-nam by 1 point. If you haven’t been following it, then this is of no interest to you of course, but the series started just as we arrived in New Zealand and I have been following it since the beginning. http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/8749806/Masterchef-nearly-bombed-out
I’ve been cooking myself a bit this weekend, though nothing like on the level of these people. I made a really rather good variation of leek and potato soup with added bacon that I found in ‘Next’ magazine. You can find a similar recipe here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3505/ I also made an apple and pear crumble to use up some apples and some rather hard pears. I cooked the apples and pears first with only some added cinnamon, and used Delia Smith’s tried and trusted crumble topping of 225g flour, 150g brown sugar and 75g of butter.
Apple and pear crumble
I sometimes like to make an oat/flour mix, especially if making a rhubarb crumble, but a classic plain crumble always works.
Still on food, I bought tamerillos today to try. I’ll report on what I think in the next blog.
Tamerillos to taste
Finally, the visiting cat, has also decided it is interested in taking up cooking as a hobby.
Delia, Nigel or perhaps Ken Hom?
Thistles and Kiwis 