Spiced Apple and Rye Hand Pies

I woke to the sound of a kookaburra’s call a few mornings ago. The sentinel of his flock perhaps, a call to arms to indicate the first slivers of light appearing through the trees on the horizon. It always goes quiet after his call. It’s a long string of distinctive caws increasing in volume and energy to a final crescendo before silence falls. I imagine his fellow flock members stirring in their eucalypt branches sandy eyes blinking open winged feathers ruffling as they stretch and meet the day as he nods off from the night shift keeping watch. Is it the same Kookaburra doing this job every morning or do they take turns? Are they even so organised a species? Who knows, it’s these cerebral meanderings that float around my mind while I procrastinate from the inevitability the breaking light heralds. Probably time to ruffle my own feathers and rub the sand from my eyes.

The calls of the morning are quieter at the moment. It’s autumn and we’ve freshly switched off day light saving time. The damp cold stillness that the turn of the season towards winter brings settles over all of us. Nature its own beacon to the shift. Leaves turn all the colours of their own red, orange and gold rainbow, plants slow their growth and animals start their pre hibernation routine fattening up for the coming cold. We humans are similar in a fashion. We become drawn to foods that warm and nourish our bodies and minds. Porridge for breakfast a promise that helps draw the covers back, hot tea at morning teatime to warm from the inside out and stews and soups to comfort and nurture at the end of the day to fill bellies and fuel our bodies to keep us warm.

Not only do we look to warm hearty fair to warm us from the inside out and stoke out internal furnaces we’re also are drawn to particular flavours and their memories evoked by the season. Spices often compliment such meals the warming notes of specific extracts doing the heavy lifting. Be they in that porridge, tea, a stew or slow cook but most particularly in a bake, spices can add complexity and sensation to a dish that adds another dimension and layer to the experience. If you look through my recipe collection you’ll note it’s no secret that I adore cooking with spices. The shift in seasons and my proclivity to lean on them got me to pondering this, procrasitpondering if you will. And it occurs to me that this is not just rooted (see what I did there? Rooted? Ginger, coriander, wasabi) in my love of flavour but also the extra elements their characteristics offer to enhance a meal. Characteristics like sweet, savoury, earthiness, warmth, brightness, freshness amongst others all create a dance between themselves and other ingredients in your cooking. Much in the way music does to a song spices can create a cohesion to all the components of your culinary creations.

And so to the season. As we let go of the warmer weather and flavours like makrut lime, lemongrass, basil and mint amongst other summer flavours we turn to autumnal ones. Interestingly not only do they lend the colours of the season but flavours that settle over us with recollections and experiences whose memories come to life as the flavours erupt on our palettes. Pumpkin, maple, chestnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, apples pears and all those beautiful warming spices like ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and the like form the foundations of many of our favourite recipes that bridge our journey from hot weather to cold.

Laying in bed listening to the silence around that Kookaburra’s call, the breeze tumbling overnight rainfall droplets from the leaves on which they’d settled knowing it was cold outside I didn’t crave fruit or salad, I craved something baked. I yearned for my home to be filled with aromas of sugar, butter and spice, the cosiness that evokes and the delicious morning tea I would pull from my oven at the end of that fragrant alchemy.

Notes:

I use a blender (vitamix) to make my pastry in this instance. You can follow the same instructions in a food processor. If you have neither or prefer to use your hands employ a traditional method of rubbing butter into the dry ingredients doing the job of the blades, make a well in the centre and add the wet ingredients and bring together with your hands again doing the work the blades would do and give a short simple knead to bring together.

Makes 12 Hands Pies

Ingredients:

125 gm cold butter in small cubes

150 gm plain flour

70 gm rye flour (you can substitute wholemeal wheat flour here if you prefer or even use plain white flour. If using plain white you may find you only need one Tb of the water).

1 scant tsp cardamon ground

20 g/1 Tb caster sugar

1 egg yolk

60 gm sour cream

1-2 Tb ice water

2 large green apples, peeled and cut into thinly sliced chunks

2 Tb brown sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt extra

An extra egg for brushing pastry beaten with a splash of milk

Demerara sugar to sprinkle

Method:

In a blender or food processor (see above if you have neither) add cubed butter, flours, caster sugar, cardamon and a pinch of salt. Doing this step in this order, butter first then dry ingredients, is important as it integrates the butter and flour more efficiently and therefore reduces the time under mix and the chance of the dough becoming overworked. Pulse the machine a few times until the butter and dry ingredients are integrated in the way they would be if you’d rubbed them together with your fingers. A few lumps of butter is fine and in fact preferable. In a small bowl, beat together the egg yolk and sour cream. Add the wet mixture to the mixture in your blender/processor and pulse a few times again until the mixture has come together mostly. Tip the mixture out onto a bench and use your hands to finish bringing everything together gently. Pat down into a disc, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Prepare apples and tip into a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle over brown sugar, cinnamon and salt and stir well until sugar is completely coated. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 180c and line a large baking tray with baking paper.

Remove pastry from fridge and roll out to a thickness of 3mm. Cut rolled pastry into rounds. I’ve used a tin lid of 11.5 cms across. To assemble pies, take a round in your hand, holding like a taco shell and brush the edges with the egg wash. Spoon a heaped desert spoonful of apple into the centre and pinch the edges together to seal. It will look like an overgrown dumpling. Continue this until all rounds are stuffed. Line up on tray and brush with egg wash and sprinkle over demerara sugar. Bake for 25-30 mins.

Eat warm or cold, with cream or custard or whatever your autumnal heart desires.

Pumpkin, Marmalade and Hazelnut Muffins

I did a shoot for a client recently creating Autumn content for her slow living platform. Amongst other things one of the headline features of her work is food so as you can imagine there was a lot of conversation around seasonality.

We worked on one of those beautiful trans-seasonal days where the ends of summer nudge up against a budding autumn. Cool mornings and earlier sunsets bookend the days, the first of the leaves have started to turn threaded with veins of warm tones and our appetite for autumnal foods stretches from its hibernation. Our Sicilian feast featured, amongst other delights, rich ruby coloured stewed pears, apple cake (my favourite) and some delicious vegetable jewelled salads. It was a delight to shoot such beautiful heartfelt recipes and of course ‘clean them up’ afterwards. Tough job but someone’s gotta do it and all that. In the days that followed, as I sat at my desk editing, the conversation around seasonal eating and food shopping rattled around my head. These conversations with clients seem to rise to the top in my thoughts while I edit guiding my work, but this time I found myself thinking far deeper. How on earth do we eat seasonally in a have it now world where we can manipulate nature to deliver whatever our hearts desire precisely when we do? Tomatoes in the depths of winter sure aren’t as sweet and plump having matured in football field sized hot houses but when you want a fresh tomato you want a fresh tomato right? Then there’s some foods that flat out can’t be engineered to appear on our plates out of season without having their passports stamped jetting to our shops from crops across the oceans.

There’s all the usual commonly shared advice about shopping and eating with the seasons. Shopping at farmers markets, seeking out cheaper produce which usually denotes it’s abundance at market and therefore it’s time in season and of course the inherent knowledge of seasonality that many of us have. But with all this in mind I circled back to wondering how hard it actually is in a highly curated and engineered world to live by this in practice and resist the temptation to respond to an out of season craving.

I’m the first to put my hand up as one who does eat what I feel like, fresh tomatoes on toast on frosty winter mornings? Hell yeah. Soup in summer because I feel like it? Definitely! But I’m also the first to seize on figs when they appear at the green grocer. Carefully carrying the prized plump, soft, vulnerable globes in one hand awkwardly steering the trolley with my other hand, I’ll indulge every week until they disappear from the shelves. And when those spheres of sunshine in the form of mangoes start appearing? Get out of my way sista, they’re mine!!

While all of this is definitely seasonal shopping and eating what I did realise from all this ponderous behaviour was that quite possibly seasonal eating starts in the tummy. In our hot summers we often don’t feel like eating or feel like just having something lite. We reach for salads and seafood making the most of that which is abundant to us and which our climate and location does a wonderful job of creating. As the seasons turn our appetites return. We feel cold and need warming up and start yearning for soups, casseroles and puddings to fuel our body’s internal thermostat. And of course, the ingredients for all these are indeed driven by nature’s cycles our appetites, blooming with the crops that will feed them.

Whilst the idea for these muffins has been at the back of my mind for a while, it sat in summer hibernation. I just couldn’t see the wood for the trees and let it bloom while mango juice dripped through my fingers and I imagined dinners of juicy tomato salads.

But as the crisp mornings have greeted me on morning walks recently I’ve noticed a yearning for the flavours of the season and started cooking some of those warmer delights. So bloom, these muffins have. Autumnal sweet pumpkin roasted first, marmalade and crunchy hazelnuts all meld together to make a light muffin with a spiced streusel flavour cap on top that dust your fingers as it crumbles. Don’t be put off by what seems a longish list of bits and bobs below or a fiddly step in the middle, it’s so worth it and makes the first delicious bite with a warm drink all the more wroth it.

If you’re not a marmalade fan like I wasn’t for the first 45 years of my life, try subbing in apricot jam. It will still play tart foil to the sweet pumpkin without the bitterness of marmalade.

Streusel:

1/3 c plain flour

1/3 c brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp salt flakes

40 gm butter

1 tb finely chopped hazelnut pieces (I buy them pre chopped, but you do you. If chopping your own go slowly to try and achieve small similarly sized pieces.)

Ingredients:

200 gm pumpkin peeled and cubes into small pieces around 1-1.5 cms

2 c plain flour

¼ c plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cardamon

¾ tsp salt flakes

½ c brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarb soda

¼ c hazelnuts lightly chopped in large pieces

½ c oil of your choice, I use whatever I have, if you prefer olive oil go for it, if you lightly flavoured also fine. There’s enough flavour in the spices to mask a strongly flavoured oil like extra virgin.

2 eggs beaten

1 tsp vanilla

¾ milk of your choice. Non-dairy works fine here if that’s your preference.

2 Tb marmalade. If yours is chunky or the peel in long strands you may need to cut them. I leave the measured amount in a small bowl and plunge clean kitchen scissors in to snip them to smaller more manageable sized pieces.

Method:

Line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases.

Preheat oven to 190c.

Toss cubed pumpkin in 2-3 tsps of olive oil. Spread in one layer on a lined baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until just soft and mashable with a fork. Allow to cool.

Combine streusel ingredients, except hazelnut pieces, and rub butter in until completely combined and resembling wet sand. Using your fingers mix in hazelnut pieces. Refrigerate until required.

In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients for the muffins and stir with a whisk to thoroughly combine. In a second bowl combine oil, eggs, vanilla and milk and whisk.

Halve roasted pumpkin pieces and mash one half reserving the other in whole cubes. Whisk the mashed pumpkin into the wet ingredients.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the combined wet ingredinets and gently fold together until dry ingredients are almost combined. Over the top of the batter dollop drops of marmalde and give the mixture a few more gentle folds.

Take your prepared muffin tray and half fill each case with batter. Top each case of batter with a few cubes of pumpkin, roughly 3-4 each, then top muffin with the remaining batter. Don’t worry too much if the pumpkin cubes aren’t all covered as the streusel will sort this out. Sprinkle streusel over each muffin evenly using up most if not all of the streusel. Pop in the oven 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clea,

Serve warm with butter because YUM or store cooled in an air tight container.

Chilli and Sesame Spiced Pecans

Grade 3 in primary school was one of my favourite years of school. I had the loveliest teacher, Mrs Scully, who married during that year. She was kind and sympathetic to my mathematical foibles and encouraging of my curiosity and talents always cheering on my wins. Not only did she marry that year but became pregnant and, I now suspect, unwell. During her absence she was replaced by a few different teachers plugging the gaps. One in particular, a kindly retired older lady, Mrs Kirby, captured my attention. She, like me, could be inclined towards daydreaming and no doubt frustrated some, but not me. We grew carrots from carrot tops, experimented with iodine drops on bread (that’s an interesting one) and we explored history. She announced, one day, that we’d be beginning our first ‘project.’ Taking out our prized scrap books and exploring the subject, she explained how this homework task should be completed while encouraging us to take wide latitude and explore the topic. One which encompassed geography and history she introduced us to the spice islands. I was fascinated, as you can imagine. I came home excitedly telling mum about the big project I was to complete, I felt like such a big kid in my nine year old body. All of a sudden that huge collection of small jars in Mum’s cupboard were fascinating. They had a history and value as a commodity, they were like the paints for the palette of portraits of history. Mrs Kirby clearly knew her topic and knew how to excite a room full of curious little faces.

We went to the bookshelves that framed our fireplace taking out all the relevant volumes of our encyclopaedia collection. Mum helped me find the relevant tomes in which a region to Australia’s north faded into a collection of islands previously known as the Spice Islands, a place where nutmeg, mace, clove and pepper set European traders and the use of spice worldwide on a new course.

We carefully made small packages of each spice using glad wrap, sticking each one into the pages of my scrap book labelling with their exotic names. I made a map of the archipelago burning the edges and soaking it in tea in my attempt to replicate an ancient artifact to include in the pages of my discoveries and treated that book with kid gloves. Proudly walking into school the morning that project was due I presented my findings to Mrs Kirby for share time. With enthusiasm she opened that book, eyes wide, sniffing enthusiastically at the potpourri of fragrance wafting up from my precious book holding a collection of spices from Mum’s kitchen drawer.

That project comes to mind often. It was the spark that lit the flame of a love affair with spices for me and perhaps paved the path of curiosity like crumbs on a trail to follow. They appear often in my cooking, in cake, soup, curries and even nibbles. That same curiosity inspired by Mrs Kirby still moves me today.

Late last year on a trip to my favourite spice store I noticed a jar of a style of chilli I’d not seen before. In fact I’d only ever seen it in paste form, so obviously, intrigued I bought a jar. Sprinkled on eggs, in toasties and on salads I’d become quite familiar with the flavour but was wondering what else I could do with it. It inspired me to combine it with its paste form, a few other complimentary ingredients and of course glorious Australian pecans.

Wonderful teachers spark curiosity in their young charges which, hopefully lasts a lifetime and inspires lifelong discovery.

Ingredients:

1 Tb maple syrup

2 tsp gochugaru paste (Korean chilli bean paste)

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 pinches of salt flakes

¼ tsp sesame oil

1 Tb sesame seeds

3 Tb extra virgin olive oil

3 C raw whole pecan halves

½-1 tsp of fresh Gochugaru flakes to taste or half that of dried chilli flakes crushed up. (I use this one)

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c and line a large baking tray.

In a large bowl combine oil, syrup, chilli paste, seasonings, sesame oil. Whisk well until emulsified and completely combined. Sprinkle in sesame seeds, whisk again to distribute evenly through the oil mix. Tip in pecan halves and stir thoroughly until all nuts completely coated in the mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl ensuring all the mixture coats the nuts. Tumble the mixture onto the tray and spread evenly. Bake for 30 minutes turning and stirring halfway through cooking. When times up remove from oven and sprinkle over the gochugaru or chilli flakes and stir again. I like to do this straight out of the oven while the nuts are still sticky. The flakes with stick to the nuts and give another and different layer of spice flavour.

To cool, spread a sheet of baking paper over your kitchen bench or a clean cool tray. Tip the cooked nuts onto the tray to cool. This effectively removes them from any remaining moisture and from the heat of the tray and helps them cool quickly. Nuts will keep cooking in their own heat after being removed from the oven so this step is important to avoid a burnt flavour from the residual heat.

Savoury Pizza Muffins

A few kilometres from my home the urban sprawl recedes, the land and fields opens up and rolling country hills emerge. As you crest the hill from which this view unfolds, you feel your shoulders fall, your lungs exhale and the rat race fall away. A belt of bushland and hobby farms scaped with eucalypts borders the divide between greater Melbourne and rural and agricultural valleys. As you emerge from that winding bush road at the top of the hills t that ring your first glimpse of the valley a the grid like pattern of vineyards and orchards unfolds, like a mosaic of jade and emerald toned tiles enriched by red volcanic soil. It’s the route we take most often when we head out exploring both for camping trips and weekend getaways. The one that draws me out rain hail or shine.

The divide between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Australia is just over five kilometres from our front door. Whilst it’s a well-worn and loved path for us drawing us out like a magnet it’s one that was, for a while, beyond our reach in recent years. That ‘while,’ the one Victorians endured during those most recent unmentionable years, the ones where we were asked to protect ourselves by remaining within a perimeter of a 5km radius of our homes. It was a period that the world over changed things for us all, some good, some not so good, some temporary some enduring. It’s a subject we could talk and write about infinitely. For us though one of the biggest ones that’s lasted for us has been my husband’s work from home routine. In my own work this is a mostly normal thing but for him it’s been a big change. His work life has taken him around the world, to oil rigs, mines and major infrastructure sites, so shrinking his professional life to a 10 square metre home office with a view of hour letter box has been a radical shift. During the period in which this was mandated and necessary it was acceptable and one we could all swallow. In the post lockdown world in which hybrid work arrangements are the new norm, living and working within the same four walls interminable can be a little harder to justify to yourself and therefore tolerate. The benefits do indeed outweigh the negatives like commuting and the like but sometimes those benefits still need balance.

The restlessness created, by a life lived in one location, sometimes needs attention at the end of the work week. If you’ve been reading my thoughts for a while, you may remember we’re now empty nesters which makes the weekends quiet. Perhaps the hubbub of living with young adults made our hours outside work fuller, they were certainly busier, nonetheless they’re quieter and makes the hours spent at home feel endless. Harking back to our pre-kids life where weekends were always busy in other ways, we’ve been trying to venture out a bit more. The lack of commuting fatigue we used to feel makes the prospect of a Sunday drive far more inviting than it used to be. Living as close as we do to beautiful countryside is a privilege that affords a huge range of beautiful places to explore. We’ve been taking advantage of that and exploring more, tourists in our backyard if you will. We’ve taken a few misty drives in nearby rainforest lined hills some where we’ve ultimately found some sunshine and some shrouded in gorgeous fog. As much as I love the hills in winter and all that gorgeous mist you really can’t beat a day trip in spring. One where you can head out somewhere new and undiscovered and find a spot to park the car and take a walk, find a new spot for lunch or set up somewhere scenic for a picnic.

All that talk last week of salads and sunshine made me think about a picnic or two in the coming months. I quite like the idea of whipping something up quickly on a Sunday morning after waking to sunshine and a good weather report. Nothing to tricky, just something that ticks all the boxes and can be packed in a basket quickly with a few extra bits like fruit and a thermos of coffee (for me, I’ve still not converted him) and a cosy blanket to spread out and relax on. Something like Savoury Pizza Muffins, a fluffy, oozy combo wrapping all the traditional flavours of a classic ham pizza. They’re pretty handy too for little fingers, hungry during school holidays and easy for said little fingers to make too…winning!

Ingredients:

100 gm butter melted

300 gr self-raising flour

1 tsp salt flakes

1 ½ tsp dried oregano leaves

100 gm fresh ham roughly chopped

200 gm grated hard cheese. I use a combo of sharp cheddar and parmigiano, but you can use anything you like that’s flavourful. It’s a good way to use up ends in the fridge.

4 spring onions/scallions chopped

2 eggs beaten

¼ c/60ml extra virgin olive oil

200 ml milk

¼ c pizza sauce. I just use a bought one usually and freeze the remaining if I don’t expect to use it quickly. Any remaining homemade sauce you have in the fridge to be used up is also fine.

Preheat oven 180c. Line a muffin tray with 12 liners and spray them with cooking spray. I don’t use spray very often but the cheese makes these a little sticky even with the liners.

Melt better in the microwave and set aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, oregano, cheese, ham and spring onion. In a smaller bowl or jug combine the cooled butter, milk and eggs. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture into the centre. Gently, with purposeful strokes, fold the two together until almost combine. Drop spoonfuls of pizza sauce on the mixture dotted around the top then complete the folding process with only a few more folds. The pizza sauce should be like marble threads through the mixture not completely mixed through. This will give you pops of tomatoey richness in random bites as you eat. You don’t want to over mix like with regular muffin methods or they’ll be chewy and tough.

Spoon into prepared muffin cases and bake 20 minutes, until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool to at least warm. As tempting as it is, eating them fresh out of the oven when the cheese is oozy and the sauce steaming is a sure fire ride to burned mouth hell.

Store in the fridge if there’s any left over and warm briefly in the microwave if you want them that way or leave to return to room temp for ten minutes before eating. They’ll also freeze well.

Pecan, Date and White Chocolate Blondies

In 2008 Jessica Seinfeld published her first cookbook, Deceptively Delicious. Born of the frustration of feeding small fussy eaters, she devised a wide variety of recipes addressing all the usual nutritional concerns of parents. Her creations were low in sugar, high in nutrient density and full of vegies and supposedly loved by her kids, her and her famous husband alike. Seemingly the perfect combination. Hers was a not a particularly unique niche except for the big ticket item in her mix and the meaning behind the clever title of the book. Her recipes were not only vegie forward and loaded but the veggies were hidden. And not just a rudimentary disguise but at almost where’s wally, espionage level disguises. Vegetable purees were added to a plethora of dishes not normally noted for their vegetable content and smug parents the world over patted themselves on the back for their ingenuity and trickery. Parents 1, kids 0!

I remember buying the book fascinated by the concept thinking that I too could trick my kids into believing a vegetable loaded brownie really did taste as good as the more traditional style. With budding enthusiasm, I opened that tome convinced I could beat those boys at their own veg resistant game. I was soon deflated. Have you read it? In order to embark on the Santa Claus style deceit, I was going to need to purchase an additional fridge to store the enormous range of fruit and vegetable purees I was going to be required to keep stored to stir through her recipes. I was then going to smile and wave as I handed my kids ‘treats’ containing all sorts of smoothly pulped, pre-cooked potions. Whilst a great concept it honestly sounded more time consuming than the dinner time disputes we were engaging in and frankly I was pre-occupied enough with the parental ruses of Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

Aside from the time load I envisaged this method creating, front of mind for me, was the possibility that this would also make my boys unfamiliar with vegetables and therefore even more unlikely to eat them. When you search “hiding vegetables in food” in google the web offers up 9,000,000+ suggestions. As parents, we’re clearly not alone in our pursuit of vegetable love by our kids. It’s one of the many we seem to have aspired to as, enen by parents who perhaps even themselves don’t love veggies. Like sleep and toilet training it’s on the list of things we know as parents we’re meant to tick off. The list of tactics and strategies is long, full and often amusing. Spaghetti Bolognese with handfuls of grated veg, hamburgers or rissoles also loaded with grated veg, multi-coloured smoothies and my personal favourited sausage rolls with, you guessed it, grated veg. Who could even parent without a grater?

I had my own collection of strategies and recipes for fostering a love of veg with varying levels of success, or perhaps I should say ticking that veg quota box. We had ‘rainbow slice’ a collection of grated and diced veg encased in an egg and cheese mixture, also known as zucchini slice, but I wasn’t going to use the Z word. It’s a vague riff on this one, maybe I’ll share it with you soon. I also made ravioli soup, a simple pumpkin soup with kid size veg ravioli, corn and peas. Just between you and I, it was pumpkin soup loaded with pumpkin, carrot, potato and sweet potato for the ‘non pumpkin eaters.’

Like the short list of veg happily consumed here, introducing new fruit could also be a precarious path. But like veg, I had my ploys….or maybe I missed my calling as a quick thinking James Bond type spy. In an ‘adventurous’ moment as a mum I thought I’d try medjool dates with the lads. Reaching into the fruit bowl with curious little fingers and trepidatious eyebrows raised my son picked up one of the wrinkly squishy little blobs and asked what he was holding. I had one of two choices to make, honesty (as if) or another santa clause style fairy tale…. ”Oh, that’s caramel fruit!” I nonchalantly replied. “You know them. They’re the ones I use to make sticky toffee pudding.” It worked, he ate the fruit and I ran off to the pantry to hide while I silently fist pumped a parenting win.

Now, I’m not necessarily advocating the veg puree laced cakes and treats. Frankly they don’t really taste that great, at least not in my experience. I’m not singing the praises of parental deceit either, though a little white lie here and there, in everyone’s best interests won’t really harm. I’m just a mum sharing a little parenting hack or two from the other side. Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy a box grater and Caramel Fruit.

Are these blondies healthy in the traditional sense? Depending on what philosophy you’re living on, probably not. Do they contain fruit? Well yes. Yes they do. They have caramel fruit.

Ingredients:

220 gm white chocolate chopped

225 gm butter chopped

220 gm brown sugar

120 gm white sugar

1 tsp vanilla (because can you really bake without it?)

4 eggs beaten

220 gm plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt flakes

125 gm pecans chopped

100 gm medjool dates chopped ( toss in a sprinkle of flour to help them separate)

70 gm white chocolate chopped extra

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c (140c for fan forced). Grease and line a 19cm x 30cm baking tin, the sort you’d use to make slice/lamingtons/brownie.

In a small saucepan, combine chocolate and butter and melt until just melted and combined, don’t let it cook too long or heat too much, it should be lukewarm. Pour into a large bowl to cool. In a second smaller bowl, combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.

Once cooled, add eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, nutmeg and salt to the cooled melted butter and chocolate. Gently fold everything together with purposeful but gentle folds ensuring everything’s combined but not overmixed. Sprinkle in pecans, dates and white chocolate, again folding gently with only a few strokes. Pour into the prepared tin and bake 35 minutes or until the edges have pulled away from the tin and look slightly browner and crispy and the centre is just firm, but a skewer comes clean.

Cool completely in tin and cut into squares of your preferred size

Deep Fried Zucchini

You know the scene. Quiet shuffling about, murmurs of good morning, bags put away, staff congregating in the tearoom. Bleary eyes focused on a morning brew to wake them up, avoiding returning to desks, a day’s work awaiting their attention. Leaning on the wall scrolling phones warm cup in the other hand, morning greetings muttered, the congregations grow. As the caffeine settles in and flows through veins eyes brighten, shoulders rise, eyes, however, remain averted from clocks avoiding the inevitable. Conversation begins, gathered near the water cooler folks begin to chat, a polite “how are you today?” of “did you see….on tv last night?” The water cooler conversation, the centre of millions of workplaces, where workers commune, bond and share. Sharing secrets and stories funny and sad, hashing out problems professional and personal pouring their hearts out and supporting colleagues and friends. The tearoom, staffroom or whatever you call it, is the social and emotional heart of millions of workplaces the world over.

I’ve written before about my early career in hospitality. It’s a busy sometimes demanding industry. The experiences and personalities you encounter widely varied, fascinating, funny, sad and everything in between. If there’s any workplace in which ‘water cooler’ or staff room conversation is needed it’s those in hotels and restaurants. Many of the stories could make you toes curl with horror or your sides hurt with laughter. Sometimes the challenges of being ‘up’ for customers or dealing with the plethora of personalities and needs presented require a big debrief during and after shifts.

The hotel I worked in was not of a refined nature. It had a themed restaurant using a concept imported from the US and therefore offering ‘American style’ food, burgers, nachos, philly cheesesteak, all the favourites. Like many hospitality properties of it’s ilk the staffroom was well stocked with staff meals freely available. Usually dishes made from surplus, they were fine and nourishing but not as delicious or appetising, obviously, as the meals served to paying diners downstairs. And sometimes the de-brief or bonding session required, needed something more than a quickly shovelled down, free meal.

We were lucky where I worked, we could buy meals off the menu for a nominal fee outside service hours. On particularly busy days or when staff were tired or needing a rest before heading home ‘splurging’ on a restaurant meal before leaving was a common treat. I discovered many delicious dishes I’d never heard of spending that $5 sometimes, (I know, 5! It was a long time ago remember) many of which have remained with me. One is a dish I’d never seen or heard of even though I’d travelled to the states a few times on family holidays. It was one well shared with pals, a finger food, one we could dip and munch on while nattering, Deep Fried Zucchini with Ranch Dressing. It was weirdly one of those dishes not especially eye popping or intricate in it’s execution but particularly delicious and popular.

Little morsels like these are perfect little nibbles to fuel conversation, maybe with a delicious drink or shared amongst friends next to other tasty things.

Ingredients:

1 large zucchini cut in to 1 cm slices

1/3 c plain flour

½ tsp each of onion powder, garlic powder and salt flakes

¼ tsp ground white pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1 egg beaten with a tsp of milk

1 c panko breadcrumbs

10 g finely grated parmesan cheese

2 Tb sesame seeds

Neutral flavoured oil for deep frying

Dressing ingredients:

½ c sour cream

1 tb garlic ailoi

1 tsp finely chopped fresh dill (or ½ tsp dried)

½ tsp salt flakes

Method:

Combine all dressing ingredients cover and store in fridge.

Set up three bowls. In the first one combine flour, spices, salt and oregano. In the second bowl the egg and milk was and in the third the breadcrumbs, parmesan and sesame. Take each slice, one by one dip in the flour mixture, then egg then crumb mixture like if you were making a chicken schnitzel. Place them all on a plate to rest before cooking. A little 30 minute rest before cooking helps set and hold a little making them easier to work with.

Fill a medium saucepan 1/3 the way up with the oil. In my pan this took ¾ ltr. Over a medium heat warm the oil to 180c. If you don’t have one use the cube of bread method. Drop a small piece of bred in the oil and if small fast bubbles form at the edges and it moves gently its ready. If it boils it may be too hot. I like to tap the heat down sliglty to med low once I’m happy. You can obviously use an electric deep fryer if you own one, I don’t so cant offer any advice beyond that.

Drop in 3-4 slice at a time cooking for one minute in total. Stay with them, give them a gentle turn halfway through cooking to ensure even browning. Remove from oil with a slotted spoon, placing on plate lined with paper towel to drain the excess oil.

Serve warm when all cooked with the dressing, a glass of your favourite ‘something delicious’ and solve the world’s problems while bonding. Alternatively it’s a delicious starter on an antipasto board or to hand out with dollops of dressing at a drinks get together.

Autumn Drop Scones

When life gives you lemons, make cake, though in this instance not the cake you’re probably expecting me to describe.

I must be in some kind of existential mood during autumn days marked by morning fog, afternoon sunshine and showers of red, gold and orange leaves. Between last week’s cat and mouse metaphor and this week’s ‘lemon’ like week in the kitchen.

It all started with the purchase of a baking book by famous author and chef Alison Roman. It’s a most luscious book with a plethora of gorgeous recipes I’m dying to try. One in particular, featuring raspberries, seemed like a pretty good place to start. The juicy little ruby like jewels are my favourite fruit and always draw my attention in any baked good or dessert and indeed any recipe, so what better place to start. Well somewhere else seemed to be the answer. It was an epic fail. No reflection on Ms Roman’s delicious sounding recipe, indeed it’s known as the cake that started it all. Trying to nut out what went wrong sent me down a rabbit hole reminiscing about another raspberry cake recipe I used to love and how I could give it a new twist. After a lot of reading, I was convinced I was onto something and gave my idea a go. Two attempts later, two cakes in the bin and I was starting to think I was jinxed where raspberry cakes were concerned. Google suggested one of two problems would be responsible for blonde bakes, not enough sugar or too low an oven temp. Neither appeared to be a problem, then, in what felt like a scene out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie, moments from the preceding raspberry cake episodes and a somewhat blonde roast chicken of a few days prior flashed before my metaphorical eyes. It had to be the oven. Like a tenacious dog with a bone I dropped everything and ran to the store to purchase an oven thermometer. Armed with this most vital instrument inserted front and centre on the middle rack I turned the oven on, perched on the floor watching through the glass door of the oven like a child watching their favourite tv show, I waited for the patiently for the all-important click to tell me the oven had reached the set temp, but as you’re probably expecting we weren’t even close to the required heat.

After a few days wait, expecting to be rewarded for my patience with an immediate repair, the technician casually informed me I had another ten days to wait for the part to arrive and a return visit. Like a child who’s lost their favourite toy I felt bereft, like part of me was missing. Dramatic? Much! But seriously, this was akin to having my camera removed from my grasp (yes it needs a service and a clean as much as my oven door but I can’t bring myself to find a week or two to live without it). You’ll be happy to know I drove to the warehouse to collect the part myself and as you read this it’s being installed…but I digress.

Not normally a naval gazer I found myself ponderous. A lot of people would be relieved to not be able to cook. I can cook my around a problem and usually enjoy a challenge so what was driving my foot stamping angst. Was it the technician’s casual ‘oh ten more days’ comment? Given my 30 minute proximity to the spare parts warehouse and frustration, quite possibly. Was it my unfulfilled love of creating for you guys? Well absolutely, yes. But more importantly losing the oven or indeed my camera for a service, should I actually unhinge myself from it, also takes away my pull to creativity. I was both stifled and frustrated by a lack of integral instrument for creation. One friend mentioned she could go weeks without using hers which made me realise mine is on most days, used for all manner of cooking. Like my camera that often travels everywhere with me I often walk into the kitchen and turn on the oven while a recipe idea unfolds and this made me realise how creating of all manner is integral to my joy and fulfillment.

This is so for many people with a plethora of ways in which they express their creativity. The creative arts, performing arts, gardening, food, writing, the list is long and varied as are the reasons.

Creativity can free your mind from the everyday allowing your brain and body to enter a different realm from that in which you dwell on a daily basis. Often our routine lives can be mundane or lacking fulfilment. Creating can deliver this to us in big and small ways whether it be as an act of meditation keeping hands busy and minds distracted or the ‘return’ of joy when our creativity comes in the form of something we can share with others like cooking or gardening. It can obviously offer yields in the form of income too, when one chooses to follow creative careers but most importantly as Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book Big Magic, “In the end, creativity is a gift to the creator, not just a gift to the audience.”

Gilbert also suggests that living a life of creativity is one driven more by curiosity than by fear. This notion of curiosity brings me back to my cooking dilemma, wanting to concoct a sweet treat for you, dear readers, that you’ll enjoy and that is interesting and not too difficult and one that doesn’t require an oven. Autumn sunshine warmed my kitchen, glowing through my one and only deciduous tree ablaze in red leaves. Mandarins, bright, shiny, glowing orange orbs adorned the fruit bowl atop my kitchen bench and an idea took shape. I recalled this cake from last year I still love and wondered on a notion of reforming it into a small bite size snack with a cuppa. Gazing fondly on china in my Nana’s crystal cabinet, a notion took shape into the form of Autumn Drop Scones, or Pikelets depending on where your Nana is from….but that is quite possibly another essay for another day.

I hope you enjoy my fluffy and buttery drop scones dotted with plump little currants and warming citrus notes from early season juicy mandarins.

Ingredents:

¼ c currants

Rind and juice of 1 mandarin

25 gm unsalted butter

1tbs honey

1 c self-raising flour

¼ c caster sugar

¼ tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp ground cardamon

50 gm Greek yoghurt

1 egg

¼ c milk, any milk is fine, I use almond but you do you

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

Method:

In a small bowl, combine currants, juice and rind, butter and honey. Stir a few times to just combine and microwave 40 seconds. Yes you read that correctly, just a quick zap in the microwave until butter is barely melted. Stir well and leave to return to room temp while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, give them a quick whisk to aerate and combine and set aside. In a third bowl (sorry) whisk together yoghurt, egg, milk and vanilla. Pour into the butter and currants mixture, stir then fold into the dry ingredients mixing until just combined as you would for a muffin mixture.

Heat a large heave based fry pan over medium heat with a greasing of neutral flavoured oil and a dob of butter. When just foaming drop dessert spoons of mixture into the pan shaping and lightly smoothing. Flip when edges are cooked and underside is browned.

Serve warm with a spread of butter. They’re also delicious with some honey or even some marmalade. They’ll keep well for a few days in an airtight container…if they last that long.

White Chocolate and Vanilla Cookies

As you cross the freeway from one side of the verdant hills of Gippsland to the other the landscape opens up. The road becomes a little rough reminding you that you’re on that ‘road less travelled,’ pot holes and bumps slow you down, the road narrows and the hum of commuter traffic recedes. Fields stretch out left and right, dairy and beef farms, wineries and small hamlets dot the landscape as you climb in to the hills and towards one of the area’s loveliest bush walking destinations.

We’d set off in this direction a second day in a row having checked out a winery in the area the previous day. Visiting dear friends who’ve embarked on their own tree change we were keen to get out again, explore the area and stretch the legs. My husband suggested this jaunt, one, taking us up into the gentle rolling hills of Bunyip State Park. Through winding roads lined with eucalypts and ferns the route ascends the park’s eastern trail with views sweeping out across to the west horizon. The route is shaded by the canopy of towering mountain ash and fringed with stunning emerald green fern forming home to a diverse range of small wildlife. You quite literally feel yourself breathe out reaching to let the car window down a little taking in the birdsong and cool forest air as you drive the sweeping bends. After a small disagreement with google maps we found our destination, setting off, the Mr, myself, our friends and their three adult daughters found the small opening in the roadside growth and began our walk. Lush rain forest greeted us only a few steps in, the music of waters gently meandering the bordering streams, our soundtrack. We naturally break into two groups, the young and fit up front and those preferring to take in the scenery at a gentler pace, shall we say, bringing up the rear. Fallen leaves form a carpet for our footfall and release an earthy fragrance with each step up the slope of the trail. Moist earth creates a home for fungus and cools the air as we walk, talking, solving the problems of the world and also just taking in the forest calm…whilst inhaling the fresh mountain air….or puffing and panting labouring up the hill side climb….whichever way you want to look at it. Sometimes the forest is silent but as the path twist and turns forward the whooshing of bubbling waters encourages us onwards, the occasional sound of a distant car reminding us we’re not too far from civilisation. Before too long the sounds of gushing water grow nearer and the happy voices of the forward party rejoicing at reaching our destination become louder as we approach, edging us to our destination. We’re rewarded with the stunning view of waters cascading over boulders, a soft mist moistening our faces and a breeze coming off the rushing torrent. After stopping a while taking in the view we start the trek back. Taking the view from the reverse perspective always shows a landscape in a different light. I stop to take more photos having already shot many along the walk in. The walk back a seemingly easier one, a trek that feels like it’s all downhill, in the best possible way.

Or maybe the walk back to the car and picnic ground was easier, with the knowledge that a morning tea picnic awaited. Whilst beautiful, our walk did get the legs working, filling our lungs with fresh forest air and working up a bit of an appetite and one deserving of the cake and bickies I’d baked the day before. Thinking about those treats on the walk back, hungry, I started imagining some other ideas for baked goods I could try. Remembering a can of condensed milk in the pantry at home I considered a slice perhaps, but then wondered if you could make cookies with it.

We gobbled up the goodies I had made but over the next couple days, many baking trays and a few large jars full of variations on the theme I’ve come up with the quickest, yummiest vanilla white chocolate cookie I’ve ever made. One you can throw together in a hurry when an impromptu country drive and bushwalk beckons.

Ingredients:

150 gm of soft butter

½ C sweetened condensed milk

¼ C brown sugar firmly packed

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

2 tsp miso paste

300 gm SR flour

150 gm white chocolate chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c (fan forced). Line two large baking trays with baking paper and set aside.

In a stand mixer or large bowl using electric hand beaters, combine butter, milk, sugar, vanilla, and miso. Mix on low until everything has just come together then increase speed to med-high and beat until light and fluffy. Stop beaters, add flour and mix on low speed until just combined. Add chopped chocolate and continue folding together with a wooden spoon until completely combined.

Roll into walnut size balls spaced on the trays to allow space for a little spread. Pop in the preheated oven and bake for 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few mins before laying out on a wire rack to cool completely, though quality control tasting while still warm is always ‘essential.’

Makes 40 small cookies

Notes:

*For a different flavour you can add peanut butter in place of the miso.

*Soft butter? Let’s face it, most of us don’t plan for butter creaming and whipping indeed the call to bake something yummy usually comes out of the blue. If you’re like me and not an organised baker you can slice up the cold butter, pop it on a small plate and warm it in the microwave on 10 second bursts, checking after each 10 seconds to make sure you don’t overdo it and melt the butter. But hey if you do, keep going until you brown that butter and make this instead.