I’m playing catch up today, so I’m going to summarize my weekend in a single blog post. I’ll try to keep it brief, which will be hard because it was a fantastic weekend too jam-packed with fun stuff to bother blogging. On the food front, Sunday was the highlight, when Tim and I baked Afghan Biscuits, a cornflake-based cookie hailing from Tim’s native New Zealand.
Afghan Biscuits are pretty simple, made with sugar, butter, cocoa, flour and cornflakes, then topped with chocolate frosting and a walnut. The recipe was originally published in Edmonds Cookbook, the NZ “stalwart of cookery”. But what’s with the name? Why are they called Afghan Biscuits?
There doesn’t seem to be a concensus on the matter. Theories abound, and I wish I could say it had to do with hound dogs or warm blankets. No, most agree that Afghan Biscuits are named after the Afghani people, where the cookie base represents their skin color, the dark chocolate icing their hair, and the walnut kernel the turban. Racist or not, the cookie is a New Zealand phenomenon, and they’re pretty tasty and we had lots of fun baking them.
Side note – there was no Wikipedia entry on Afghan Biscuits so I created my own. It’s my first Wikipedia page and I’m pretty excited, though I don’t know why.
Diary for Saturday, February 14, 2009
Swim
A glorious, long, Saturday morning swim.
Breakfast
Bircher Muesli with Bananas and Yogurt
Lunch
Poached egg on toast with avocado and steamed spinach
Saturdays are always good days for eggs because we can get them fresh at farmer’s market. Tim makes superb poached eggs and this particularl day was no exception. I enjoyed mine on a piece of toast smeared with avocado, served with a side of steamed spinach.
Walk
In the afternoon, Tim and I took a long walk to Gill Wing, a kitchen shop in Angel. On our list of potential purchases: two chef’s knives, two cookie sheets, and one bread loaf tin. That shop is freakishly expensive. We skipped the knives but almost caved in to a salad spinner. In the end we walked away with a cookie sheet and loaf tin for £23. Madness! But necessary for the Afghan Biscuits.
The walk was about five miles round trip.
Dinner
Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese with Salad and Vino
Seeing as it was Valentine’s Day, Tim and I decided to avoid the outside world and have a nice dinner in. Tim made one of his specialties: Veggie Spag Bowl, made with TVP. It’s delicious, especially with a nice bottle of wine. I took care of the salad.
Diary for Sunday, February 15, 2009
Breakfast
Bircher muesli with yogurt (no banana!)
Swim
A short swim on Sunday. I had another rubbish sleep the night before, who knows why. Wine? Noise? Either way I was sleepy in the morning so kept the swim short and sweet.
Lunch
Poached eggs with avocado, toast, steamed chard and tomatoes
Seeing as we had eggs and avocado and delicious bread and yummy greens, I couldn’t help but having a redo of Saturday’s lunch. The egg was a bit overdone but I didn’t mind. Runny yolks don’t always appeal to me.
Snack
Afghan Biscuits and Tea
Dinner
Leftover Dal and Raita with Basmati Rice and Sauteed Swiss Chard
I sauteed the swiss chard with onion seeds and onions, then added a bit of garam masala and a fresh tomato. Kind of an experiment but it turned out really yummy!
Ooh, the Afghan biscuits look so tasty! Thanks for the recipe link!
Those Afghan biscuits made me drool all over my paperwork. 🙂
Drool?! That’s hot! You guys should make these – they’re totally easy and they’re great because they make small little cookies that won’t break your calorie budget (if you have one!).
I really disagree with your explanation of why Afghan biscuits are so-called. New Zealand back in the day was not a multi-cultural society at all; and I doubt most Kiwis would have even heard of Afghanistan, let alone met someone from that country, or been able to describe how they (might) look and compare them to a biscuit. Sure the makeup of the country has evolved a bit in recent years, but Afghan biscuits are much older than the recent change in what it now means to be a “Kiwi”.