Christmas Cakes at Kakariki

Xmas cakes a gaga...Recipe coming....

Thank you to all those at Kakariki House who bought Xmas cakes this year. If you're eating one right now and you want to know what's in them so you can make one for yourself....read on!

As they appear pretty much word for word in the little 'Organics in Your Kitchen' recipe book by Ceres Organics for the Gluten, Dairy Free Amaranth Fruit Cake. And from a cafe in Paris, Rose Bakery comes a book 'Breakfast Lunch Tea' by Phaidon in which you will find the Traditional Xmas Cake recipe I used.

Fruit Cake (Christmas Cake)
Breakfast Lunch Tea, Rose Bakery.

Serves 6-8
250g sultanas
250g currants
130g raisins
100g chopped mixed oeek (candied mixed peel)
1 apple
3 tbsp marmalade
50ml whisky or brandy
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
grated zest and juice of 1 orange
125g unsalted butter, softened.
125g soft brown sugar
2 tbsp reacle or molases
3 eggs
150g plain flour, sifted.
100g ground almonds
1 round tsp ground cinnamon
1 round tsp ground mixed spice
1/2 tsp salt

Combine the first 9 ingredients (to the orange) and soak overnight.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius.

Butter a 25cm cake tin and line its base and sides with parchment paper.

Beat the butter and sugar till they are light. Mis in the treacle, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Fold in the flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, mixed spice and slat. Finally fold in the fruit mixture.

Spoon into the prepared tin and bake about 1 1/2 hours.

Keep checking after 1 hour. When a knife inserted comes out clean, it is ready.

Remove form the oven and cool the cake in the tin. Take it out and wrap in foil till required.

Make sure you keep turning the cake to ensure the whisky or brandy spreads evenly through it.

(this last part I don't really get. Though I'm sure better and more experienced bakers than me will. Such a little amount of brandy used and all soaked up by the fruit anyway?? I have heard you pour more brandy/whisky over after it is finished and out of the oven and then again a few weeks later as you keep it for flavour and preservation. I poured over one measure in the cakes I made as they came out of the oven. I didn't turn and check them after that though. I also used salted butter and omitted the 1/2 tsp salt).


Amaranth Fruit Cake
Organics in the Kitchen. Ceres Organics

1 cup Amaranth
100g Raisins
100g sultanas
125g prunes, pitted and chopped
1 cup Ruby Grove Pomegranate Juice
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1/2 cup honey
2 large free range eggs, lightly beaten
1/1/3 cups Buckwheat Flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Grease and line a 20cum square baking tin with paper

Cook amaranth in 4 cups of gently boiling water for 15 minutes. Stir regularly. Drain and set aside to cool.

Place dried fruits in a bowl. In a small saucepan, gently boil the pomegranate juice, oil and honey. Pour this over the dried fruits and leave to cool for about 30 minutes. Then stir in the eggs and cooled amaranth, breaking up any clumps. Sift in the flour, spices, baking powder and soda. Mix gently to just combine.

Spread bater tinto the baking tin. Press almonds in to the surface to decorate. Bake for 70 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin. Cut and serve.

(of course everything listed is organic and I'm sure you could use any honey, though they say Kamahi. And also any type of Pomegranate juice for that matter. Frankly you could use rice bran oil or other too. If you could leave out the eggs and perhaps include mashed banana and a tsp of vinegar you would have a very light, gluten free and absolutely Vegan cake (oh, except for the honey. Agave?)

Yoga at Sacred Heart Girls College. Hamilton

Since the beginning of this term I've been teaching yoga to the Year 11 girls at Sacred Heart here in Hamilton East. I get to do this because it fits in well with their PE progamme where they look at managing stress and alternative wellness practices. And I also get to be there because this progressive and forward thinking Christian Catholic school is broad minded about the girls education giving them a wide exposure to many things - awesome. Eilleen Stobie heads the Year 11 PE department and she manages to install me into their school week teaching 12 classes per week for about a month.

My objective is to give the girls a snap shot of yoga. I give them a vocabularly of movement, breath work, rest, contemplation, meditation and sound (we 'OM'). The 'contemplation' part is getting them to watch themselves - or asking them to stop a while to enquire how they feel after an asana, to watch what they're thinking. Relating this to stress I hoped they could see that sometimes all they needed was to stop and to listen and to take a long breath out...as well as to touch their toes regularly....

The asana based work was your basic repertoire of dog, cat, snake, tree, mountain, triangle all good earthy/animal stuff and plenty of other stretches, twists, balances and extensions. Hamstrings tight or what? Poor things! Lots of forward bends and plenty of time in the Childs pose. They mostly do all of this with good humour (hysterics sometimes) especially taking on regular rounds of sun salutes as best they could - kind of. Have you ever tried to bestow the virtue of disciplined physical hardship to a bunch of fun loving 15 year olds? Tough. If you fun-loving 15 year olds are reading this and I hope you are, you did well, real well. You were fantasic. And I'm proud of you.

I would say though the thing they loved must was truely resting and doing such things as sending positive affirmations to friends, sitting cross legged hands respectfully in prayer position and earnestly expressing 'Namaste'. I loved their listening and questions about the philosophy and meanings beyind yoga. When they have so many things that hall their attention away from themselves, that they could learn to listen to their own bodies wisdom and the sense of peace and quiet they can acheive by meditating and feeling gratitude for simple things, is the best thing.

So anyway you girls who are reading this, this is for you.... If you would like to continue on with a yoga practice of your own, I'd like to announce a weekly one hour class in the church hall I use for yoga in Hamilton East. Look at the days and times available and name your preference:

Tuesday 3:30 - 4:30
Wednesday 3:30 - 4:30
Friday 3:15 - 4:15

Cost options: $7 per class. $25 for 4 weeks. $40 for 8 weeks.

Please email me back: katie@sunsalute.co.nz or text me 021 1207 131 with your day preferences. Once I have responses we'll choose the most popular option, I'll contact you all and we'll get started.

NAMASTE
Katie

Carrot Salad with Thai seasoning

This is a salad we had for lunch one day at the Tahere Retreat after the boys had dutifully peeled and grated a whole sack of carrots. It's crunchy, colourful and very tasty with those great sour thai flavours mingling beautifully with the sweet carrot. I found it rifling through Stephanie Alexanders book The Cooks Companian (which I often do) and I'll give you the recipe exactly as it appears there. From memory though I didn't put chilli in, used plenty of both lemon and lime juice and had no lemon grass to use, and I was probably very liberal with the ginger (take the time to chop fresh ginger up nice and finely) which I think worked really well. For Brenda x

2 cups finely grated carrot
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 fresh chilli, seeded and finely chopped
3 cm piece ginger, finely chopped
1 tsp brown sugar
1 stalk lemongrass
juice of 3 limes or 1 lemon
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tbsp freshly torn coriander leaves and finely chopped stems
2 tbsp roughly chopped raw peanuts

Mix ingredients well and leave to marinate for several hours in the refrigerator. This salad is excellent as a bed for yabbies or bbq prawns and can also be part of a series of salads. Serve at room temperature.

Woof! It's food.

For the past 2 weeks I've been cooking at the beautiful Tahere Retreat in Raglan for their yearly 3 week meditation gathering. What a lot of food! Soups, salads, fresh bread, curries, corn and crumbles... And while we are all tired in the kitchen from heat and long 10 hour days, we are buoyed by the loveliness of everyone there, their appreciative manner and beaming smiles....we can't ask for more. If you're reading this and looking for some of the recipes from the retreat, either scroll down or tap on 'Recipe' label below and it'll bring up any recipes I've posted, just a few; Dahl, Quinoa Salad etc or email me for specific ones and I'll put them up promptly. katie@sunsalute.co.nz

Just a reminder Sunsalute yoga classes start up again very soon. Stay tuned for the timetable to be posted here. Until then......daily rounds of sunsalutes and also take time to sit quietly and peacefully... Namaste.