but without songs we're lost | beetroot and balsamic tart

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Where did June go? It seems like those weeks before the solstice dragged, and just when I thought the middle of winter was never going to come, it disappeared into days with familiar routines and rhythms. There's not much to report - it's been cold, days have passed, and cooking at Maitland has been feeling a little uninspired - at least, from my perspective it has. We've been eating lots of soup: spiced carrot, jerusalem artichoke, french onion, potato, leek and kale..

Sometimes at this time of year, I find myself getting a bit sick of soups. Most of the time, though, I'm a soup fan - I spent a good amount of time in a previous flat making soup for flat dinners despite 3/6 of my flatmates not believing soup to be a 'proper meal'. Speaking of 'proper meals', I recently invited a friend over for dinner with this text: "I'm making porridge for dinner, do you want some?". He arrived at Maitland about 45 minutes later and the first thing he said was "Are you actually making porridge?" I  was.

Beetroot is one of those polarising vegetables - people seem to either love it or hate it. Growing up, we didn't eat much beetroot and so it wasn't until a friend cooked beetroot soup for me one night - made simply with beetroot, red wine and onions, and eaten with feta cheese, I realised how much I'd underrated it as a vegetable. Beetroot is now an autumn and winter staple in our kitchen. We make soup with it, roast it, or use it in risottos. There's something about the purple colour that I find myself craving. I've also made roast beetroot hummus (delicious), and beetroot bread (a hot pink mess) and I'm yet to try making beetroot brownies (a Hugh recipe, of course) ... but one day soon!

However, one of the nicest ways to enjoy beetroot is to make a simple tart - this would be the perfect dish to take to a fancy pot luck, or if you want to have a slightly more special dinner with minimal extra effort. It's also based on a Hugh recipe - the man is a genius, after all.

beetroot & balsamic tart

beetroot - either 3 large ones or a bunch of baby ones
3-5 cloves of garlic
about 20g butter
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
pastry - you can either make this yourself (not as hard as it seems), or if you're pushed for time, use pre-made puff pastry. We've made this both ways - either way tastes delicious. 
2 shallots
a few parsley leaves
lemon juice
olive oil
1 tsp mustard - preferably the seedy kind.

Halve the beetroot, or cut into small-ish pieces if you're using big beetroot. Heat the butter in a pan, and add the beetroot. Let the pan get quite hot before you add the balsamic vinegar. Cook on a medium heat for about 30 minutes, covered. It will smell delicious. When it's ready, the beetroot will be softer and shiny, and there will be a small amount of dark purple, syrupy liquid.

While the beetroot is cooking, roll out your pastry until it's the size of the oven proof container you'll cook this in. You want to have enough beetroot and pastry to cover the bottom of this container in a single layer of beetroot - not too crowded, but not too spread out.

When the beetroot is ready, place them cut side up (if you've halved baby beetroot) in the dish. Pour the syrup over them too. Lay the pastry over the beetroot - tuck this in at the sides. Bake for about 20 minutes at 200ºC, until the pastry is golden and puffy.

While the tart is cooking, make the dressing. It's not strictly necessary, but if you've got the ingredients you won't regret making it. Chop up the shallots and parsley leaves, and mix these with the lemon juice, olive oil and mustard. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, invert the tart onto a plate (be careful doing this, I nearly dropped a whole one onto the floor once!). Pour over any remaining beetroot juice, and serve with the dressing and some feta cheese if you like.

This would make a good lunch by itself - we've eaten this with salads from the garden, left over risotto, and on one memorable occasion, multiple other tarts including one with tomato, goats cheese, and thyme - back when tomatoes were in season.

Stay tuned - our fridge is currently stocked with several bottles of unpasteurised milk (Hi, Dad!), soon to be made into haloumi.. so next time you might hear some cheesemaking stories..

  title from irresponsible tune - the dirty projectors

i feel it in my bones | spiced beetroot & caramelised onions on bread

There's something special about coming home after going away. Today I returned to Maitland and tonight J followed suit. The kitchen is filled with gifts we've brought with us - spring onions from Mum's garden and lemons from the tree at Fitzroy St, organic leek seeds from the Hill St farmer's market my parents frequent, an old book of music with some familiar tunes for the piano, milk and quark from Merrell, wild thyme from somewhere around Cromwell, eggs from Moeraki. We're lucky and blessed here - and tonight I definitely feel appreciative of the people whom I always miss, in some way or another.

For Easter I flew back to Wellington, where I grew up, to see the family. Pictured above is Mum, Dad and I at the top of Brooklyn hill on Easter Sunday. Shortly after this photo was taken, the rain set in, and we returned home completely drenched (but happy). My brothers and sister still live in Wellington and it's hard sometimes to be the only sibling on a different island. Even though it's not that far when you think about distances in astronomical terms (although no distance on the Earth seems large when you think about exactly how great a distance one light year is...) I still miss them. In many ways, though, we're still close. My current favourite pair of jeans initially belonged to my brother A, my brother S recently visited, my sister E (pictured with me below) probably still has her hair in the French braid I did this morning at the airport for her. In my parents' fridge there's a jar of aubergine pickle and they're also enjoying roast apricot jam: both made at Maitland. 

Perhaps the highlight of my Easter weekend was when A came and cooked dinner, and S drove up the hill after the game at the stadium, and the lounge was filled with all six of us, just like it once was almost every night. And I guess even though Dunedin and Maitland are now my home, it's always so good to be just the six of us: whether it's in Wellington over Easter, in the Wairarapa over Christmas, or in fact, anywhere in the world. The place doesn't matter so much as seeing those other five familiar faces ...

You might have wondered where I've been. Just like life has its ups and downs, so does my cooking motivation. The past couple of weeks I've only just had the energy to make simple lentil curries or baked spaghetti squash (more difficult than it first appeared). However, perhaps due to watching a couple of Hugh's autumn at river cottage episodes over Easter, my inspiration has returned! Here's a recipe for what I made for dinner last night .. 

spiced beetroot & caramelised onion on bread

I thought very carefully about what to call this one. Technically, you could call it a "toasted sandwich" but those words together in my mind conjure up an image of spaghetti and cheese toasted sandwiches, a favourite of me and my siblings for those after school afternoon teas. There is no appetite like the after school appetite of a teenager!

It might seem like this is a bit fiddly, using multiple pans, but it's the perfect thing to make when you're really just moseying around on a Sunday evening/night, maybe put some emily king on, and really enjoy chopping and cooking and stirring ..

2 baby beetroot (or 1 medium-sized)

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 onion, red or brown

1/2 tsp honey

balsamic vinegar (about 1/3 cup, but I never measure this)

olive oil

butter or a high-heat oil, eg coconut

bread - if you're me, it will be something seedy

cheese - optional, but I used quark and also a bit of cheddar 

cherry tomatoes or 1 tomato

spring onion

thyme (optional)

1 lemon

The first job is to caramelise the onion. Chop the onion into fine half-rings and briefly sauté in a hot pan with a little oil or butter. When they've cooked for a couple of minutes, add the honey and balsamic vinegar. Cover, turn the heat down to medium, and cook for 20-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

The next job is the beetroot. I didn't peel these, just removed the top and long roots, and grated them with a cheese grater. Heat a small amount of butter or coconut oil and add the mustard seeds and ground cumin. Chop the garlic finely, and add both the garlic and beetroot to the pan when the mustard seeds start making a popping noise. Cook for about 10 minutes on a medium heat.

Chop the tomatoes and spring onions into small pieces. Add chopped thyme if you've got it, and make a simple dressing with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil.

If you've got a sandwich press the next part will be simple. We don't, and it's not too difficult. Slice the bread, assemble, press down a little and then toast in a hot pan (I reused the caramelised onions pan) until golden on the outside. Slice, and then tip the tomatoes over the top.

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If you clicked on the emily king link above and enjoyed "georgia" - why not enjoy even more this version - made by some talented folk including one of my closest friends' talented brother who's been playing the piano in a remarkable way since pretty much forever. He's the one on the keyboard. 

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title from step - vampire weekend