I have been having a marvelous summer, I’ve ticked off so many things on my Summer Goals list without even meaning to, only about five things left to go! I thought I’d start my return to blogging by sharing my summer instagrams with you.

Wellington: Eating, drinking, Christmas parties, and more recently, gigs. This weekend I went to Fleet Foxes and Beirut – too much fun.

Auckland: Awesome Christmas family time, shopping and strolling in Cornwall Park. All the food.

Raumati: Holidaying in a spacious bach with lots of good people. Rain, sunshine, barbeques, fancy NYE dinner complete with cat’s ears, fluffy neighbour kittens, and I Have Never in the best fort ever.

Nelson: The ferry, a bed and breakfast with a glorious garden full of tuis and friendly cats, beer tasting, magical treehouses. Not pictured: Emma’s amazing wedding! I was too busy helping Jason take the official photos to grab any snaps.

Sorry for such photo-heaviness, I only put up about half of what I wanted to! If you’d like to follow me on instagram, search for kate_mcleod.

A long weekend lunch of caramelised garlic tart, pesto potato and green bean salad, ribboned asparagus salad, club sandwiches, and plum yoghurt cake for dessert.

Ottolenghi’s caramelised garlic tart, from Plenty. It’s a wee bit of work but very, very worth it. I subbed the hard goat’s cheese for some grated cheddar.

Ingredients

• 13 oz/375g all-butter puff pastry
• 3 medium heads of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 cup/220ml water
• ¾ tbsp fine/caster sugar
• 1 tsp chopped rosemary
• 1 tsp chopped thyme, plus a few whole sprigs to finish
• 4 ¼ oz/120g soft, creamy goat’s cheese
• 4 ¼ oz/120g hard, mature goat’s cheese
• 2 free-range eggs
• ½ cup/100ml heavy/double cream
• ½ cup/100ml crème fraîche
• salt and black pepper

Have ready a shallow, loose-bottomed, 28cm fluted tart tin. Roll out the puff pastry into a circle that will line the bottom and sides of the tin, plus a little extra. Line the tin with the pastry. Place a large circle of greaseproof paper on the bottom and fill up with baking beans. Leave to rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas Mark 4. Place the tart case in the oven and bake blind for 20 minutes. Remove the beans and paper, then bake for a further 5-10 minutes, or until the pastry is golden. Set aside. Leave the oven on.

While the tart case is baking, make the caramelized garlic. Put the cloves in a small saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to a simmer and blanch for 3 minutes, then drain well.

Dry the saucepan, return the cloves to it and add the olive oil. Fry the garlic cloves on a high heat for 2 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and water and bring to the boil, then simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Add the sugar, rosemary, chopped thyme and ¼ teaspoon salt. Continue simmering on a medium flame for 10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated and the garlic cloves are coated in a dark caramel syrup. Set aside.

To assemble the tart, break both types of goat’s cheese into pieces and scatter in the pastry case. Spoon the garlic cloves and syrup evenly over the cheese.

In a jug whisk together the eggs, creams, ½ teaspoon salt and some black pepper. Pour this custard over the tart filling to fill the gaps, making sure that you can still see the garlic and cheese over the surface.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C/Gas Mark 3 and place the tart inside. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the tart filling has set and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little.

Then take out of tin, trim the pastry edge if needed, lay a few sprigs of thyme on top and serve warm (it reheats well!) with a crisp salad.

Dinner tonight was Yotam Ottolenghi’s soba noodles with aubergine and mango, but with avocado instead of mango, and also with tofu (online here or here). It was unbelievably good. The recipe is from Ottolenghi’s book Plenty, graciously lent to me by Laura and Tim. Everything I’ve tried from it has been excellent, will be getting my own copy quick smart.

We had this fabulously garish cake for Kim‘s birthday celebration (as well as a million other great foods). I was about to say I made it, but actually no. First I declared to Kim that I would make her a birthday cake, then informed Jason than we would be doing so, and as usual, he just went ahead and made it while I was busy doing other things. Story of our lives, poor Jason! It was strawberry layer cake and other people seemed into it but I’d have liked it a lot better without the fake strawberry flavour, ick.

That weekend Jason made brioche french toast from his Bouchon cookbook and it was amazing buttery crispy melt-in-your-mouth goodness. We also went to high tea at Martha’s Pantry, which was perfect aside from forgetting my camera, and the hangover that caused me to forget it. After four weeks of mild detoxing, healthy food and no alcohol, it was all a bit much indulgence and I’m still not quite over it! More green things, please.

I’ve been drawing and playing about with making things more than I have in a long while. Maybe I’ll show you a few more things, and tell you why that is sometime soon.

I’m one of the bloggers who have answered a few food related questions for Mallory, for example what’s your perfect food day? and I’m so enjoying reading about other people’s eating habits and favourite foods. There’s a lot going on besides that, so I suggest you hop on over and make yourself hungry.

Here are a few of my favourite food posts from my own archives.

The best (and biggest) breakfast I’ve ever had.

What I ate when I visited Austin, TX.

Dinner and a Movie: Days of Heaven

The top ten things I ate in America.

Black bean and lime quinoa salad recipe.

Cookie delivery.

My bachelorette party. Part 1, Part 2.

Breakfast at Miss Jackson, near where we sublet an apartment in St Kilda.

Walked out past the St Kilda pier to look for blue penguins (we saw one, nothing is cuter).

The rooftop bar, Curtin House.

Lemon ricotta mushrooms at Milkwood, so good.

We found the taco truck, and it was awesome.

£1000 Bend.

More to come shortly.

I made cupcakes for SPCA Cupcake Day at work. They tasted of chocolate, guinness and cream cheese icing and looked like little boats.

Wellington on a Plate happened, and I went to Cafe Polo and munched on this delicious vegetarian burger: ricotta patties, beetroot chutney, hummus and walnuts, with onion rings and truffled fries, woah.

Another time, ages ago, I had their big vegetarian breakfast and it proved insurmountable.

I also had an amazing Welly on a Plate 3 course meal at my fave Floriditas, but it was dark so I didn’t take any photos. So you may instead see photos from my previous two visits.

Not to mention all the lovely meals I’ve shared with friends at various homes. Looking forward to spring, summer and more salads, outdoor meals and cider in the sun.

(I know this picture does not show breakfast in bed but that is where I took the tray next)

I caught the most terrible cold (flu maybe even?) on our last couple of days in Melbourne. Let me tell you, that last day of packing, carting around suitcases in the freezing cold and flying home was no picnic! Thank goodness for my lovely husband. So presently I am at home, healing and I had the small pleasure (I like those) of enjoying my first breakfast on my new fog linen tray from marvelous Melbourne store Mr Kitly. Hopefully soon I’ll be well enough to go through the rest of our photos, for now I’m back to reading Game of Thrones and watching too much Twin Peaks. Til then, friends.

On the ferris wheel by the Yarra.

View from the window of the St Kilda apartment we’re renting.

Quina porridge (and baked eggs for Jason) at Birdman Eating.

Jason had his hair cut at Dr Follicles, which comes with a free Coopers ale.

Smith Street.

Lost and Found Market.

Can’t believe we still have about five days to go! Love it here.

Speaking of the Ambeli (and Floriditas, Cafe Polo and more), I can’t wait to share pictures of the food I gorged on when my parents came to visit this past week. So much food! I’ll try and break it up between other posts…

Hello chickens, did you have a lovely weekend? We finally hauled ass out to Miramar for our brunch fix, at the lovely Larder. After Millie‘s glowing review a few weeks ago I’d been super keen to get there, and was not disappointed. I had poached eggs with hollandaise on a potato rosti with spinach and balsamic mushrooms, and those mushrooms were possibly the best I’ve ever had. I can’t stop thinking about them! Call me crazy but they were the indisputable highlight of my weekend. I cannot believe there was a time I wouldn’t have touched mushrooms with a ten foot pole.

Jason had croque monsieur with a side of hand-cut fries which were also pretty great. Our friend Laura had the exact same thing as me because it was awesome and also because I copied her.

The rest of my weekend was spent drinking red wine with friends, going to the vege markets, roasting things, making giant lima bean stew with pesto, and raspberry breakfast bars, and going for a huge walk along the blustery waterfront. How about you?

Also, Zoe of Pretty Zoo (who is such a sweetheart) has a wee interview with me over on her blog. Stop by and read here if you like.