I spent last weekend in Wellington for a conference. I ate at Little Penang on Dixon Street for lunch on Saturday. We had to queue out the door but the food was worth it, very filling and reasonably priced (about $12 for a plate I couldn't finish). Shelby got Mee Goreng, which I tried and preferred to my dish (Mee Siam with chicken). However, mine had a lot of variety in terms of flavours and textures - vermicelli, prawns, roasted peanuts, spicy chutney, coconut milk, potatoes...). A different ordering system would speed up the queues out the door (upon getting to the counter and ordering something off the chalkboard menu you then have to run through a number of options the menu doesn't make you aware of - like I had to choose what kind of chicken I wanted out of about 6 different types, leading to indecision and slow ordering after I had had about 25 minutes to decide what I wanted in the queue). The items in the warmer at the counter weren't labelled/priced, so that also slowed things down as we had to ask the guy behind the counter what things were. However it wasn't hard to find a free table once we had actually ordered.

For dinner we went to the Tasting Room on Courtenay Place. I had chicken breast with mustard mashed potato, brussel sprouts and water chestnuts and Shelby had fish and chips. The mustard mashed potato has inspired me to try mixing wholegrain mustard into my own mashed potato at home. The food was really good, particularly the chips which came with Shelby's meal, which were cooked twice. We then went to Strawberry Fare for dessert. The place itself was a bit shabby, and the service was a bit slack (our meals arrived without us having been given any cutlery), but the desserts were visually impressive and tasty. I had a berry drenched warmed chocolate cake, which the menu described as having a souffle like texture. It was like Nigella's chocohotopots. Shelby had a cranberry white chocolate cheesecake.

The desserts came with slices of feijoa, biscotti and vanilla icecream.

In both my family's homes there was a feijoa tree, the first one good for hiding in due to its nest like branches, the second good for feeding friends with while playing in the treehouse. My primary school also had a feijoa tree, a source of rumour and urban legend. There is a feijoa tree behind our building which drops childhood memories on the concrete which it overhangs. The hard, bruised fruit would waste away if we didn't collect it (and some of the fruit which nature has treated more kindly by dropping onto the grass rather than the concrete). So far none have been ripe enough to eat raw, but the tart sourness of the unripe feijoas makes a good, tangy pudding.

White Chocolate Feijoa Cake Pudding

recipe originally from here

You will need:

• 10 feijoas
• 1 cup water
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 tsp minced ginger
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 100 g softened butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• enough white chocolate buttons to cover surface

Directions:

1. peel feijoas by slicing off skins with a knife
2. cut feijoas into 3 or 4 pieces per feijoa, depending on size. You want the pieces about 2cm thick.
3. place cut feijoas in pot with water, tablespoons of sugar and ginger.
4. bring to boil and then simmer for 5 minutes or until softened.
5. remove feijoas from pot with a slotted spoon and place in pie dish/cake tin in a single layer.
6. reduce liquid until you have about 4 tablespoons worth, then pour over feijoas.
7. in a bowl cream butter and sugar.
8. sift flour with baking powder into another bowl.
9. beat egg into butter and sugar.
10. fold dry ingredients into creamed butter and sugar, alternating with milk.
11. spread batter over top of feijoas with a spatula.
12. dot surface of batter with white chocolate buttons.
13. bake at 180 degrees until top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean (approximately 25 minutes)

On Saturday I visited my parents as I usually do most weekends. Just before leaving to go and have dinner at Goode Brothers and watch Saving Mr Banks, my dad pressed a bag of pears and passionfruit on me from his garden, with the comment that I should bake something.

On Sunday I bought the latest issue of Taste Magazine. There was a feature on seasonal fruit which included a recipe for "rustic orchard galettes", which seemed like it could be the perfect vessel for my dad's fruit. However, the recipe required a food processor, which I don't have. So I took the idea from Taste Magazine, and googled for a hand made galette recipe, stumbling upon this from Food52. We decided to get a pizza for dinner, and I made the galette for dessert.

The pizza came from Pizza Fresco. We got the Tokyo pizza, which is "full flavored teriyaki sauce with sliced succulent chicken breast, slivered red onions, grilled seasonal courgettes topped with fresh sliced spring onion and roasted sesame seeds". It was pretty good but the teriyaki sauce overwhelmed it a little bit, you didn't really taste anything else. I do like teriyaki sauce though. It wouldn't have been filling enough between the two of us without a dessert as it had quite a thin base.

Fruit Galette

You will need:

• 170ish grams of cold butter
• 2 cups of plain flour
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup refridgerated water
• 2 pears
• 1 apple
• pulp of 2 passionfruit
• 1 peach
• lemon juice
• lemon zest
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 2 tbsp dark cane sugar
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• white of 1 egg
• sugar for crust
• clingwrap
• baking paper

Directions:

1. Cut butter into small cubes and place in bowl with flour, 2 tsp white sugar, salt and cinnamon.
2. Rub butter into flour mixture, working quickly until you have a crumbly yellow mixture. The butter doesn't have to be completely blended in.
3. Sprinkle cold water into bowl and with your hands work quickly into a ball, without being too fussy with it.
4. Make the ball into a disc and wrap tightly with clingwrap.
5. Refridgerate for at least half an hour. I put mine in the freezer for the first 20 or so minutes, but my freezer isn't super powerful.
6. While the dough is in the fridge or freezer, cut your fruit into sections.
7. Combine fruit in a bowl with lemon juice (for flavour, and to stop pears and apple browning), lemon zest, cornflour, dark cane sugar and white sugar.
8. Cut a piece of baking paper and line your baking tray with it. Get the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it and place it in the middle of the baking paper.
9. Cut another piece of baking paper the same size as the first and put this overtop of the dough. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it is an even round shape and approximately 5mm thick.
10. Arrange fruit in the centre, leaving a gap of about 3cm around the perimeter.
11. Fold the edges of the dough that aren't covered with fruit in toward the centre, patching any holes that might occur so that juice doesn't leak out once it starts baking.
12. Brush the folded edges with eggwhite using a pastry brush then brush sugar on top of egg.
13. Bake for 50 minutes in a 180 degree celsius oven on fan bake.

I enjoyed the tartness of the lemon juice, lemon zest and passionfruit pulp combined with the brown sugar syrup which combined with some of the juice which oozed out of the fruit, baked down to an almost jelly textured base. We have heaps leftover for dessert throughout the week too.

My grandmother used to eat half a banana every day with breakfast. It fascinated me as a child, and rather than make bananas seem common place, it elevated them to something mysterious. Why only half? She would keep the other half to eat the next day. What possesses a person to eat half a banana? I now try to eat one banana a day, my own preference for the fruit borne out of the convenience of having a self packaged snack to keep at my desk at work. My grandmother wouldn't have been able to get away with her half a banana a day if she had lived not in a quiet unit across the road from a beach but in my glass box of an apartment. Bananas ripen so quickly during the warmer months that I must buy the greenest at the supermarket, and usually only two at a time. Whilst I don't like eating ripe bananas, they are of course best for baking so if I fail in my banana snacking all is not wasted.

Apart from her penchant for bananas, another strong memory I have of my grandmother is her teaching me how to cream butter and sugar while I stood on her brown stool in the kitchen. She said it was done when it didn't feel gritty. We were making shortbread, something I have never liked. But that is an aside to the whole point of this post - baking with bananas.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Banana Muffins in Kitchen.

You will need:

• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 100g dark cane sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 100g chocolate chips + extra for decorating

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.
3. Add the oil, eggs and sugar and mix with the fork.
4. In another bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together.
5. Mix this flour mixture into the bowl with banana mixture. When everything is only just incorporated, add the chocolate chips and mix quickly.
6. Line a 12 muffin tin with paper cases and spoon mixture into each case. Dot the top of each muffin with extra chocolate chips.
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

I have made this recipe before, exactly as it is in Kitchen, but here I have added more cocoa powder, the chocolate chips, and removed a banana. There's nothing wrong with a bit more chocolate. The muffins are moist and keep for days if kept in an airtight container.

On Saturday night some friends and I went to the Pakuranga Night Market for dinner. I had fried pork buns and mini donuts on a stick:

The donut flavours from top to bottom were coffee crumb, hazelnut, white chocolate rainbow sprinkle and cookies and cream. I was disappointed that they didn't have green tea flavour. I also had a drink which was made of 100% strawberries and blueberries. It tasted like strawberry syrup, but in a good way. There was a lot more sweet stuff than any other time I have been to the Night Market so I also shared a lemon tart with Shelby.

Speaking of lemon, we had a shared morning tea at work today to welcome some new employees. This was my contribution:

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

recipe by Alison & Simon Holst from here

You will need:

• 1 and a half cups caster sugar
• zest of two lemons
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup yoghurt
• juice of two lemons
• 1 and a half cups self raising flour
• tablespoon of soft butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp passionfruit essence (or more)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Use the small side of your grater to grate lemon zest into a large bowl.
3. Put oil, eggs and sugar into bowl with lemon zest and whisk with a fork.
4. Cut your zested lemons in half and then squeeze their juice into the bowl, picking out any pips with your fingers.
5. Add salt and yoghurt and mix again.
6. Add flour and stir until somewhat smooth (you may never get it completely smooth depending on what kind of yoghurt you are using, and this is perfectly fine!)
7. Pour mixture into two sandwich cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The tops should be golden brown and a cake tester should come out clean.
8. Once the cakes have cooled, beat the butter, icing sugar and essence with a hand hold beater.
9. Spread icing over whatever cake you have designated for the bottom and then carefully press the other cake down on top.

This cake is very moist. I have made it so many times with different icing flavours in the middle - I have tried vanilla icing, chocolate icing and lemon icing. Today's passionfruit icing may be the best yet. I have also tried it with a variety of yoghurt flavours as I just use whatever I have in the fridge at the time. Today I used apricot yoghurt, and I think the tang of the slightly sour apricot suits the lemon flavour quite well. I have also tried strawberry, which is nice too and depending on the yoghurt brand can give the cake a pink tinge and lemon for an even stronger lemon hit.