Sunday, June 6, 2010

Our new kitchen arrived! well nearly! we have cabinets and benches made from super nice wood :) our landlord is very talented - a retired carpenter- and he made them by hand with the help of his friend. I was getting ready for university one day and his friend told me my landlord has cancer! At this stage it's just hear say but still!!!

Last week I did the 40hour famine. I raised $222. At the end of the 40hours i was starving but it was for a great cause! Thanks to all those who sponsored me :)
http://www.famine.org.nz/nzanz

Today was a public holiday and as a break from my exam study the bf and i went to the Plant Barn and got two pots, soil and herbs. Our red Herbplanter is super cute and now houses chives, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme and we transefered Barbados (our chilli plant) into the top. Turns out Barbados was two plants who are now aptly named Barb and Ados. Hopefully all the Herbs will flourish it was a bit of a gamble planting them in winter. For the other pot we were going to plant garlic but our old neighbour is a huge gardener and when he came over for a visit he said garlic is much better in the ground so now we are thinking maybe a lime tree. Told you my KeyWi Lime Pie was a success!

Photos to follow :)

Sunday, May 30, 2010

SUPER EASY KeyWi LIME PIE

So my boyfriend is from America, right? New York is where he was born but moved to New Jersey as a kid (right by the hudson so still very close to New York). And as most Americans do he went away to university- this lead himto Florida- personally i dont like the idea of Florida reminds me of raisins and old people and tacky palm trees (no offence!! i just think there are other places in the USA that look more appealing to visit) but the bf, well he loved it there. He loved the Keys. The Keys are the little islands trailing off the peninsular all connected, so i'm told, by a road!!!! I hear they are very low lying and global warming is going to swallow them right up. Anyway I digress... Key West was the favourite of the bf- he loved the hippy life style and while I laugh in an I'm-embarrassed-for-you kind of way at his photos of horrible jandals (flipflops), braclets and anklets, long hair and hawaiian shirts he has a smile of good-times-of-old on his face.
So this brings me to my dessert of the night:



KEY LIME PIE
I found a recepie in '4 Ingredients' (which is a great Australian book- good for students and flatters as it is all easy dishes with 4 ingredients) while looking for the weeks meals and remember how the bf practically inhailed his last piece when we were in The States for a wedding in '08.
So here is a combination of that recipe and one from the internet that also looked good :)
http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/keylime.htm

Ingredients:
  • --> wine crackers (only because i saw them first- i'm a freedom baker and would use any plain biscuit type... gingernuts, digestives- all good options)
  • --> 100grams butter (melted)
  • --> small can of condensed milk -397grams (which equals exactly 14 ounces)
  • --> 4 limes (two for the zest and all 4 for juice)
    --> 4 egg yolks (keep the whites for an optional simple and yummy meringue topping



Instructions:
whisk the zest of two limes (finely grated off the lime) with the 4 egg yolks
this takes about 2mins - and should turn lightly green -
next time i will add two drops of green food colouring because its fun :)
then add the condensed milk and whisk
add the lime juice and whisk - set aside to thicken
for the crust -crush the bikkies - to do this i put all of them in a big mixing bowl and smashed them with a mug (see pics)
then add the melted butter
add this crumbly mixture to the pie tin - i used a casarole dish and if you want put it up the sides too
then bake for about 10mins till lightly browned at 190C
make sure to wait for the bikkie base to completely cool
and add the self thickened lime mixture- bake for about 15mins at 160- it should still be wobbly in the middle (go on, jiggle it)
refridgerate for 3 hours

and taaadaaaa a key lime pie

eat with whipped cream OR add a meringue topping like a lemon meringe pie

MERINGUE INGREDIENTS
  • -->egg whites
  • -->sugar
  • --> dash of salt
beat the egg whites until stiff, beat in 7.5 table spoons of sugar and dash of salt
top over the cooled keywi lime pie and bake at 150C for around 10mins till lightly browned on top!!!


WOOOOHOOOOO :)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

And so it begins...

And so it is that here I sit in my half-kitchen writing my new food blog. Half-kitchen? Yep, that's what I said. We have no cabinets, no drawers, horrible metal benches (hardly any benchspace!), leaky taps and an inconsistant oven. Sounds like a perfect place for an aspiring food blogger to start doesn't it! Well let me mention that I'm also a university student.... ohhhhh so you're poor? I can just hear you readers thinking to yourselves. Yup!!! I'm poor! I also don't have as much time as the average food blogger does either BUT if you are willing to stick with me through my lack of time, money, experience and kitchen facilities I really do think that this could be the start of something beautiful becase I LOVE TO COOK and I LOVE TO TAKE PHOTOS. To me those are the key ingredients (my first cooking pun!) to be a food blogger and hey it helps to have a target audience... those who also are at university or broader those who remember being at university and want to relive it through me. And so it is born... university foodie's adventures.


** I apologise right off the bat for my poor spelling, punctuation, grammar etc. I have never been good at english ever since I dropped it in 5th form (7 years ago) but I have been told a blog may help me improve this. (excellent another reason to start this)