Category Archives: Styling

Spanish Tapas & Paella – Time for a Sangria

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I had some girlfriends coming over for dinner a couple of weekends ago… I love having people over for dinner so I can try cooking new things, and spend a day in my kitchen putting a meal together. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I know, but I love it.

I wanted to try a new type of cuisine for the girls. I’ve been wanting to try some Spanish cooking for ages, so what better opportunity?! Plus, after a few weeks of dreary winter weather (this was before the beautiful spring days we’ve been having in Wellington), I decided we need some colour. So Spain seemed a good choice on both counts.

I don’t know about you, but my cooking background has mainly been a good grounding in ‘kiwi’ home cooking (which I see as based on British cooking, but a bit lighter, with some Asian flavours and a few unique dishes thrown in). Like most New Zealanders, I cook some South East Asian food at home, as well as Indian, a little Middle Eastern, Moroccan, Mexican (probably Tex Mex admittedly), and French and Italian.

But I’ve never really cooked Spanish food at home. Spanish cuisine, especially tapas, has had a resurgence in restaurants over the last few years, but the food, other than the odd paella, hasn’t made it as far as my home dining table. Am I alone in this?

The thing that I loved about putting a tapas menu together was I could pick lots of little dishes, and prepare most of them in advance. And because they were all new – if one flopped, no problem! I could pretend it never existed! Plenty more food to go round!

This was the menu for the evening:

Spanish Tapas & Paella Party

- White Sangria -
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- Home Made Catalan Tomato Bread -
- Garlic Prawns & Potatoes -
- Pork & Almond Meatballs with Tomato Dipping Sauce -
- Beef & Spinach Empanadas -
- Catalan Spinach -
- Spanish Salad with Smokey Dressing -
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- Paella with Chicken and Chorizo -
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- Tarta de Santiago (St. James’ Cake) -

Clearly, we needed to start the night off with a few drinks. A white sangria was in order.

There are thousands of sangria recipes out there. It would appear that every Spanish family has their own, and I imagine it’s one of those things that nobody makes quite right except your family. Like pav. I based my Sangria recipe on several I found at www.spain-recipes.com. It was gorgeous – I especially loved the apple juice ice cubes. Can’t wait to try it again in summer using my favourite Central Otago stonefruit. 

White Sangria

Apple juice, for ice cubes
1¼ cups water
1 bunch fresh mint
½ cup sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
3½ cups wine
1 pear, cut into chunks or slices
1 peach, pitted and sliced
2 nectarines, pitted and sliced
1 large orange, sliced crosswise
2 small lemons, sliced crosswise
1 lime, sliced crosswise 
3 cups sparkling apple cider

The day before…
Pour the apple juice into two ice cube trays and freeze.

Combine the water, half the bunch of mint leaves, the sugar and cinnamon sticks in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil over a medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Once the syrup is at room temperature, remove the mint leaves and cinnamon sticks and discard.

Pour the syrup into a large container – if you can fit your serving vessel (punch bowl or jug) in your fridge, then use that. I found it easier to use a big plastic container (needs to be able to hold 2-3 litres). Add the wine and prepared fruit. Mix well, cover and chill overnight. Get the apple cider in the fridge chilling, too.

Just before serving
Pour the syrup, wine and fruit mix into your punch bowl or serving jug(s), and mix in the (chilled) apple cider. Add your apple juice ice cubes and the remaining fresh mint leaves from yesterday. P.S., I like the way my fruit randomly arranged itself into a face on the side of the jug!

This mixture filled two big water jugs like this one – there’s a lot of fruit to fit in! For a starter drink at a dinner party, it serves about 8-10. I had some left over so I re-used the apple juice trick and froze sangria ice cubes. I think they’ll make a nice addition to a G&T. And I’m sure there’s a use for all that wine-soaked fruit once you’ve finished the sangria, if you’re into recycling.

By the way, this post has got me thinking about what other parts of the global food map are missing from my repertoire. I don’t really know any cooking from eastern Europe or Russia (except Beef Stroganoff and the less said about that, the better). And I don’t think I cook any South American food. I love making Moroccan dishes but that’s only a small part of the African continent… what other cuisines would you love to try cooking at home?

Sailboat Baby Shower

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One of the lovely ladies in my office is expecting a baby boy next month. Not wanting to miss any opportunity to get clucky, the rest of us organised a surprise baby shower for one of her last afternoons at work. We brought beautiful china teacups into the office, and had a proper ladies’ afternoon tea.

There was a sailboat theme – little sailboats on the invitations, a sailboat card, sailboat biscuits, and sailboat table decorations – one of my clever colleagues made little sailboats out of gorgeous patterned paper in nautical colours. We had a pretty coffee table set with fresh flowers, our afternoon tea delicacies, and beautifully wrapped gifts (I didn’t get any pictures of the set table, so  you’ll have to imagine it. Ready? - ok….. now!). We had dainty club sandwiches, chocolate macaroons, mini savoury muffins and cupcakes decorated in blue. I iced some gingerbread biscuits – baby rattles and sailboats!

I actually used the same recipe as for my Ninja-Bread Men. It’s the best recipe I’ve found for biscuits that really need to hold the cutter shape well. Some biscuits get a bit enthusiastic about rising up or spreading out, and the shape isn’t as clear as you’d like once they’re cooked. Here’s the recipe again. This is a halved mixture – it made about 20 biscuits.

Iced Gingerbread Biscuits

60g butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 190(c). Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Soften the butter if it’s been in the fridge (but don’t melt it), and cream it with the sugar until light and creamy. Add the golden syrup and sifted dry ingredients. Mix to a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for 10 minutes or so, until it’s firm enough to roll out.

Roll the dough to about 4mm thick, and cut out shapes. Place carefully on baking trays (I have one of those baby silicon fish slice type tools, was maybe $4 or $5 – and it is so good for moving dough biscuits without warping their shape). Bake for about 10 minutes, or  until golden brown, and slightly darker around the edges than in the middle. Leave them to cool on the trays.


I just iced them with plain white icing (icing sugar, lemon juice and hot water); you could use a royal icing with egg white if you wanted something a bit fancier.

The mother-to-be in our office was over the moon about the afternoon tea! We sipped tea, and talked about how different her life will be in another month… and clucked over the tiny hats, booties and clothes as she unwrapped them. Awwwwwwwwwwww.

Mid-Winter Dinner… starting with mulled wine

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An update from my post yesterday (now deleted) … we had some friends over last night for a mid-winter dinner. It was terrible weather here so nice to be inside and warm and cosy!

I’ve also just noticed who snuck into the photo at the far end of the table. Funny little fellow.

I went for a dinner with lots of foraging-type flavours – mushrooms, spices, berries, cherries, port, pheasant, cloves etc. We started off with mulled wine. It’s a fairly boring process to take photos of! But here’s the recipe:

Mulled Wine

3 litres red wine (cask is fine, you’re going to make it delicious!)
12 whole cloves
6 Tbsp brandy
1 tsp ground nutmeg
juice of 2 oranges
75g sugar (about 6 Tbsp)
3 cinnamon sticks, broken in half (crosswise)

Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and heat gently for 15 minutes.

You want to get the wine sitting just below a simmer. Don’t let it boil or the delicate flavours will be lost. Once it’s been heating for about 15 minutes, turn the heat off but leave the saucepan sitting on the warm element. Leave the wine to infuse for 1-2 hours. Strain it and then gently reheat it just before serving.

I didn’t take any pictures of the finished product … but basically it looks like red wine! You can also serve it with a piece of orange studded with cloves in the glass – slice an orange, and cut one of the round slices into 6 wedges. Push one or two whole cloves into the peel and pop the wedge into the glass.

Here’s the rest of the menu for our dinner … I’ll post some of the recipes over the next few days.

Mid Winter Dinner

Pumpkin & Pastrami Tartlet
Baked Brie Portabello Mushrooms
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Roasted Free Range Pheasant with Balsamic & Morello Cherries
roast potatoes
baby carrots
minted broad bean mash
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Dark Chocolate & Orange Molten Cakes
with orange and apricot coulis
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