Pear and Blueberry Cobbler

We weren’t big dessert eaters growing up. Mum wasn’t a sweet tooth, much to Dad’s chagrin, so for her the purchase and preparation of sweets just wasn’t a priority. The occasional tub of ice cream would appear when I badgered her at the supermarket, sometimes jelly and other times a packet pudding when the urge took hold, but until I was a teen and keen cook myself no dessert.

My dad the sweet tooth would lean into tinned fruit as a substitute or when he was particularly motivated stewed fruit. I wasn’t a big fruit eater as a child so the idea of cooked fruit was a big stretch, unless of course it was wrapped in pastry or hiding under a crumble topping. Like many Australian households our cupboards were well filled with cans of preserved fruit, peaches, apricots, pears and the ubiquitous two fruits not that I’m sure what two actually constituted ‘Two Fruits.’ I never really favoured those either to be honest though Dad always said ‘eat some fruit, it’s good for you.’ So muddle through I would though not a fan of the texture and sweetness of the canned variety.

I think on reflection it’s a generational thing. My parents, both the offspring of war and great depression survivors, had been served fruit prepared like this as an economic alternative. Fresh fruit wasn’t as widely consumed or favoured, nor indeed available. Whilst in more recent history we’ve turned to fresh fruit for lunch boxes and snacks and have been able to offer a wide variety of options to our kids. They’re convenient, easily eaten and if purchased in season affordable. Perhaps this variety and availability has pulled us away from stewed and preserved fruit and our tastebuds become unfamiliar. Maybe our perceptions of fruit of this nature is almost skewed and seen as lesser in some ways.

Last year though cooked fruit and I reacquainted ourselves. Call it curiosity or a craving, I’m not really sure what drove it but I had a yearning for a poached pear. Leaning on google of course this lovely simple dish by famed David Liebowitz was my starting point. I happily enjoyed pears for days for dessert, breakfast and in between. Then this year during a shoot was lucky enough to eat these ruby jewelled delights prepared by my client and realised something. Aside from how delicious poached/stewed/cooked fruit is it’s a bit of a metaphor for how our food knowledge has grown. Previous generations would have cooked fruit in water and sugar. Too many other ingredients wouldn’t have been imagined or considered. Perhaps they’d be seen as indulgent and an unnecessary expense and quite possibly palates of a less adventurous spirit such as those of earlier generations wouldn’t have been enticed by extra flavours. I also realised I’m a similar age to that which my dad was when encouraging me to eat fruit like this. A sign of age? Possibly but probably musings for another day.

So back to that cooked fruit. As I said I’m quite partial to desserts in which fruit is wrapped or topped by something. Whilst I love making pastry, I also love a simple dish that’s moreish, comforting and most importantly easy to throw together. Years ago I was introduced to the idea of a cobbler by a friend. Whilst I’d heard of them on American tv I had no idea what they actually were. I became hooked. This is my version of one perfect for the shift of seasons from autumn to winter. Whilst blueberries have been expensive in parts of Australia recently prices are settling, however if they’re still unavailable in your area you might like to sub in your favourite berry or just leave them out and pay homage to all the gorgeous pears available.

Ingredients:

Fruit:

4 pears, peeled, cored and sliced into 8 wedges. Any variety is fine.

100 gm caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla paste

3 tsp (15ml) apple cider vinegar

200 gm blueberries

1 Tb Water

Cobbler topping:

180 gm butter, cold and cubed

Rind of 1 lemon

½ tsp ground ginger

220 gm self-raising flour

70 gm caster sugar

150 ml butter milk

1 tbs demerara or raw sugar crystals

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c and butter a suitably sized ceramic or glass baking dish. You want the fruit to cover the base in a tightly packed single’ish layer.

Place the fruit, sugar, vanilla, vinegar and water in a wide based saucepan over a low heat. Simmer gently until a syrup forms from the juices seeping out, the sugar has dissolved, the blueberries have softened and the pears are starting to soften but not cooked through, there’ll be purple streaks from the berries starting to stain the syrup. The pears will finish in the oven. Leave to cool slightly in the pot.

Now here’s the game changer. In a food processor or blender in this order place the butter cubes, lemon rind, then all the dry ingredients except the demerara sugar. Pulse 3-4 times until the butter and flour are rubbed together similarly to if you were making scones, little lumps of butter not completely rubbed in is fine. You can of course do this with your hands if you don’t have the relevant appliance. Tip this into a bowl and stir in the buttermilk gently until just combined. It will be wetter than a scone mixture almost like a too thick cake mixture or too wet scone mixture with some dry, buttery crumbs.

In your prepared dish, spread the fruit and syrup across the base. Dollop spoonful’s of cobbler mixture across the top covering the fruit as best you can but don’t worry too much about gaps, the mixture will expand and fill most of these gaps upon cooking. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and cook for 40-45 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Allow to cool for 15 mins before serving letting the syrup temper and not be too hot to eat. Serve with your favourite creamy addition. I love cream or custard, but hubby likes ice cream, both are delicious.

Potato Pancakes

Today is my 100th edition of Food, Finds and Forays!! Cue champagne corks, poppers and fireworks. I perhaps should have written a recipe for a celebratory cocktail with froth and bubbles or a layered cake, cream oozing from the sides crowned with lavish florals atop lashings of flavoured Swiss meringue butter cream but alas the last two weeks had other plans for me.

Winter arrived like a dame on the stage, arms out swept, cape draping from her arms in grandeur singing her aria. Not an arrival like a loud rock band crashing through the stage curtain with its thunderous arrival, rather a resounding entrance that gets your attention and respect in one fell swoop making you sit up and take notice. The mornings are frosty, the nights chilled and the air icy from foggy starts. With the cold blanket that’s swept over us so too did the season’s ills.

With a winter bug nipping at my heels like a pesky puppy I was grounded last week. A bit of a phantom bug of sorts, one day laid low with an overwhelming malaise the next seemingly fine, finally I was felled with whatever it was. Thankfully not the dreaded winter bug we all dread these days. Hot on the heels of that, a quick winter camping trip on a friend’s farm. Mad perhaps but a lovely getaway none the less. Days of winter sunshine and frosty nights around the campfire was strangely just the ticket.

And now here we are, number 100! So I thought we could have a quick wander down memory lane. Two and a half years ago we started with this humble chai cake. A lovely melt and mix her golden crumb with a hint of gentle spice was both enticing and a firm favourite. Her reliable comfort makes her one of the most cooked recipes on the blog. Following on with easy theme has been some delicious easy to throw together dinners that have been popular with my boys, always simple to put together and usually provided loads of leftovers. This one pot meat, veg and pasta dish from my childhood is one of my faves, but I also love this hacked paella to stave off the craving without the faff.

There’s been a strong curry theme too with another one pot number of chicken and rice or a slow cooked lamb and carrot dish for when there’s a little more time and a wintry noodle soup.

But bakes have always had a big run. Both an easy and heirloom chocolate cake and chocky cookies of course. And because we must keep our fruit up, strawberry sheet cake and raspberry and mandarin olive oil cake.

Sooooo many delish recipes that I still love and am super proud of. It’s actually made it hard to decide how to celebrate reaching 100!!! For a person not known for necessarily lasting for 100 of anything it feels like quite the achievement, one worthy of some grand feast. Perhaps a luxurious fillet of beef with a red wine jus or dinner of Lobster with a rich butter sauce of sorts. Or maybe we should toast 100 with a fine champers and luscious cake of fine crumb, clouds of cream and sugar and fairy floss. Yeah all sounds wonderful but it wouldn’t really be in keeping with its 99 predecessors. You see I like to keep things simple fast and tasty here. So simple it is.

My mum loved potatoes. I mean really loved them. Her love of hot chippies and every other iteration of the humble spud is the stuff of legend. As a career woman who was one of the hardest working women I knew and someone who didn’t like cooking potatoes and meals based around them were often her go to. Comfort food for her after perhaps a hard day’s work and indeed an ingredient she could wield into a plethora of meals. 

A frequent recipe on our tables, one taught to her by her great grandmother was what Mum called Potato Pancakes. Somewhere between a rosti, hash brown and pancake and an homage to her German/Jewish heritage of a few generations prior, they were a family favourite. We had them as the star of the plate, but I prefer to cook them with a salad and oozy poached egg. We’ve also had them with leftover corned beef and smoked salmon amongst other things. A little more substantial than a breakfast rosti, perhaps almost a fritter, they make a delicious base for an easy light meal after a busy day.

So my hundred newsletters are bookended with simple humble recipes full of flavour and easy to put together.

Ingredients:

50 gm (1/4 c & 1Tb) of plain flour

1 tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp garlic powder

2 pinches ground white pepper

2 eggs

2 Tb crème fraiche or sour cream

500 gm grated peeled potato lightly squeezed of excess liquid

Oil to fry with

Method:

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a medium bowl beat together eggs and crème fraiche and add to dry ingredients combining well with a whisk. Set aside.

Peel and grate potatoes and gently squeeze excess liquid from the flesh. Discard liquid and tip potato into dry ingredients. Mix well with a large spoon until completely amalgamated. It’s important to only prepare the potatoes just before you’re ready as they will discolour if left too long and more liquid will leach out making it too wet.

Heat a large pan over medium low heat covering the base with the oil. We’re not deep frying but we want the base covered with oil coming up 1-2 mm when the mixture is in the pan.

When ready, using a ¼ cup measure drop mounds of mixture into the hot oil and flatten out. Cook gently until golden brown then flip and cook the other side. It’s important to use a gentle heat  so the potato has time to cook through as well as the out side go crispy and delicious. Cook in batches so as not to over crowd the pan.

Drain on paper towel until they’re all done and serve with your favourite accompaniment.

Makes 8 fritters.

One Pan Sausage and Lentil Stew

I’m sitting at my desk, alternating between staring out the window at my garden and the quiet street free of passing traffic and distraction. Unentertained (is that a word?) I look down to my phone, doom scroll, play a word or two on words with friends, check socials look up again. The radio is humming away in the background with mindless chatter, maybe I should switch to music, something classical known to feed the brain and settle it into productive intellectual waves of thought and creation. Or maybe not.

How can I tell you a story about something delicious that makes you want to cook and eat it? For the first time in 98 issues of Food, Finds and Forays I’m a little stumped. My husband often says ‘I don’t know how you think of something to say every week,’ I always just shrug and think oh it’s easy…until today. Usually, at worst the way to get things flowing is to sit down and magically the words come.

It occurs to me this is almost a metaphor for how this recipe was born and indeed many others, both mine and your own.

We hear all the time from our most admired food writers about seasonality and inspiration. At the recent Sorrento Writers Festival this was a strong theme through the panel discussion titled For the Love of the Cookbook. My mind pondered this during the discussion. Do I do this? Certainly my tastes and cravings reflect this and lead my hands to feed them in such a way.  With this thought still tootling around in my head, no idea what ia was making for dinner, the sun shining Autumnal warmth and mid morning hunger rumbling (never a good away to go shopping, but still) we headed off to our local Sunday Farmers Market. It’s become quite a well known one, not in a particularly scenic setting but always hosting excellent producers many of whom have been coming for the ten years of the market’s existence.

On this occasion my husband joined me. He commented on the bustle of the crowds out enjoying the sun, he noted the familiarity of many producers and with interest of some of the new ones since last he came. I bought a bunch of my favourite leaves, cavolo nero, it’s crisp bright rich forest green leaves creased with folds from veins running higgledy piggledy through the long lush leaves proudly filling half my basket. I could feel my husband’s gaze wondering what I was planning on feeding him with a big bunch of green leaves at my fingertips. Thankfully for him opposite my favourite veg farmer was a new vendor, a beef farmer.

We chatted with the farmer and perused her offerings. It was one of those interactions that makes you fall in love with farmers markets and entices you to try their wares. No sales pitch, no slick fast talking just sharing their love of the land and their animals and hoping you’ll give their meat a try. Obviously we did, we bought some of her sausages, mince for a ragu and some steaks. I still didn’t know what I was going to make for dinner but at least I knew what the star of the show would be.

Later at home, having put my haul away I made a start on dinner. I’m not normally a huge fan of sausages but had an inkling these would be good ones so that’s where I started. I knew I also was yearning for some greens so the cavolo nero was next. Slowly an idea formed, a bit of this, a dash of that, a cup or two of something else. Not what he was expecting at dinner timenhaving seen the sausages come out, but definitely something he enjoyed. It’s delicious, it’s hearty, wholesome and most importantly seasonal.

Ingredients:

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

500gm Sausages, choose ones with some flavour rather than plain if you can.

1 small onion thinly sliced

1 large capsicum (pepper)in large chunks, any colour is fine

2 garlic clove thinly sliced

¾ tsp smoked sweet paprika

2 tsp plain flour

1 Tb tomato paste

5 sprigs thyme, leaves picked

1 ½ c beef stock

1 c canned brown lentils (keep the rest to pop in a lunch time salad)

1 large handful chopped cavolo nero, sub in your favourite green if you wish

Method:

Heat half the oil in a large heavy based pan (such as cast iron if you have it) over medium heat. Add the sausages and brown on all sides. They don’t need to be cooked through just nicely browned on the outside, remove and set aside keeping warm.

Add the remaining oil to the pan and reduce heat to low. Add the onion and capsicum and cook gently five minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook briefly until fragrant. Increase heat to medium and sprinkle over paprika and thyme leaves and cook stirring constantly, again until fragrant, a minute or two. Sprinkle flour in and stir well ensuring it’s well combined and cook off for a couple minutes keeping it moving so it doesn’t catch. Now pop tomato paste in stirring well, it will look like a big gloopy mess, don’t panic that’s fine. Pour in masala mixing constantly and let it bubble for a few moments then start slowly adding the stock stirring constantly so it’s all combined and a nice smooth sauce. Tumble in the lentils and greens, combine well. Place sausages back into the pan gently snuggling them into the sauce, reduce heat to low an loosely pop the lid almost all the way across the pan and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir a few times while it cooks to ensure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Serve with mashed potatoes, rice, pasta or just a simple salad and mop up the lovely sauce with crusty bread.

Chicken, Apple and Camembert Salad

I attended the Sorrento Writers Festival this last week. At the southernmost tip of Port Phillip Bay skies were overcast and grey as they often are down there the waters of the bay like glass, not a breath of wind ruffling the surface. As a young woman I spent many peaceful weekends in this quiet seaside village, walking the clifftops, daydreaming in the shadows of sandstone mansions handed down through generations, the gentle lapping of the tides my soundtrack keeping beat of my footsteps like a whooshing metronome. Whilst popular in summer months Sorrento was still a relatively tightly held area with the summer bustle relatively contained compared to other towns.

A lot has changed down there these days. Famous brand shops dot the main street. Cafes old and new pop up and an international luxury hotel chain has reimagined a beautiful old sandstone hotel with a glamourous makeover. Notably too, the Writers Festival has joined the calendar and in doing so, for one long weekend, has created a hum on Ocean Beach Road.

A smile crept across my face as I took the final turn to the hub of the village. It was a reminiscent day trip as memories washed over me. I met my husband and was married in this town so it holds a special place in my heart adding to my excitement. After finding a parking spot which took more effort than I remembered I headed to the main street for a quick walk before meeting friends for lunch. I was struck by the hum of activity and air of excitement the event generated in the town. Small groups of friends excitedly chattered about sessions they had attended rehashing the nuggets they’d learnt or with anticipation for talks to come later in the day.

After a delicious lunch at a French bistro with some equally excited pals we trundled down the hill to listen to an afternoon session titled The Art of the Cookbook. Featuring two doyennes of Australian cooking and two young stars of the food world a hush fell over the room. Literary creative and author (the best way I can think of to describe her) Jaclyn Crupi introduced Stephanie Alexander, Belinda Jeffrey and Julia Bussutil Nashimura with her warm and humble wit. Wrangling the decades of experience and anecdotes these three women brought to the panel was no mean feat but with her own skill she kicked off with questions for the women about their own cookbook colections. Different responses emerged including recollections of culls during house moves and picking through collections to optimise the content on their shelves. In exploring what did and didn’t make the cut the obvious question was posed….. “How many books do you have in your collection?” As the panellists answered, my sheepish’nish bloomed. Not counting a couple of decades of food magazines my cookbook collection alone exceeded any of those of the featured authors. I leaned to my right to share this fact with one of my companions to which she gasped. I smiled, a little bit proud of the number but pondering the thoughts explored on the topic and my friends reaction. Am I reaching a number needing a cull too. And like one of the panellists who hasn’t culled yet how on earth could I let any of them go? What if I moved one on that contained a skill or recipe I suddenly wanted to master.

I have wondered if the magazines could be the sacrificial lambs. Why do I hang onto them? Are they some kind of trophy I like to store almost like a story of my learning and loyalty to them? Or am I a food literature hoarder?

There are indeed recipes in those magazines I refer back to know by heart and hold as favourites. But do I know which issue they’re in? Or do I even remember the year in which they were published? Well actually no I don’t. I do, however, know that I first heard of Mangomisu in a summer issue of Delicious. Jamie Oliver’s Chocolate Tart, the first one I ever made, chosen for a friends getaway weekend came from Delicious too. I also made a salad that’s reached family folk lore. It’s one even my kitchen avoiding sister-in-law loves to make and share. A ‘special salad’ as it were that evokes oohs and aahs. An unconventional combo perhaps who’s flavour always explodes and prompts compliments from diners.

It's these recipes and writing we learn from most often I think. Recipes that are little nuggets that grow to be favourites that stick in your mind. Ones that evolve and are re-shaped by your own growth in tastes and skills.

As I drove away from that inspiring afternoon in Sorrento, my mind buzzing with ideas, the overcast skies were starting to dim. I felt inspired and open after the day I’d had as the long drive home in traffic stretched out before me. My mind as it does turned towards dinner, and the dishes discussed and recipes I’d recalled. That salad from a long time ago popped into mind and how I could make it my own and make it dinner, another idea was born.

Maybe I’ll hang onto that collection a bit longer.

Ingredients:

¼ c slivered almonds

2 Pink lady apples cut into 8 wedges and cored

25 gm butter

1 Tb olive oil

500 gm chicken tenderloins

Rocket/Arugula

100 gm camembert cheese cut into wedges

Dressing:

1 tb lemon juice

1 scant tb honey

3 tsp Dijon mustard

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

3 sprigs thyme leaves picked

Salt and pepper

Method:

Combine all dressing ingredients, whisk and refrigerate.

Warm a large frypan (we’re going to use the one pan for all the steps) over medium heat and dry fry the almond slivers. Move them constantly by swirling the pan, don’t leave them, they will cook quickly and can go from golden brown to burnt before you know it. Remove from heat and tip from the pan to a cool plate to arrest cooking and allow them to cool.

Return the pan to the heat over med-low heat and add the butter. Melt until just starting to foam and add the apple wedges. Cook 3 minutes one side with out disturbing then turn and cook 2 minutes the other side again without moving. We want to caramelise the outside of the flesh, warm it through and preserve a little bite in the middle. Remove apple to a plate to cool slightly. Wipe out the pan with paper towel and return to the heat over medium heat.

Season chicken pieces with salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper. Warm oil in the pan, add chicken and cook undisturbed until well browned. Turn and cook until cooked through. They should have a little bounce in the middle to maintain moisture but obviously being chicken you want it cooked through. Remove and allow to cool slightly on a plate while you begin to assemble your salad.

On a serving platter sprinkle a bed of rocket. Dot over half the apple wedges and punctuate with the cooked chicken tenderloins. Add in the camembert wedges evenly across the salad, pop the remaining apple on here and there and sprinkle a little extra rocket over. Sprinkle over roasted almond slivers and finally to serve pour over half the dressing. Serve the remaining dressing in a jug alongside the salad for those of us who like to slather on extra flavour as you dine.

Notes;

~Chicken breast cooked then sliced will work here too, we’re just huge fans of tenderloins and they’re super economical.

~You may like to slice up your chicken to build your salad if you think that’s easier to eat especially if you’re serving this as part of shared table or buffet.

Anzac Log

Whenever we host a family function for my husband’s family we’re always met by offers of “what do you want me to bring?” Generally, whenever anyone offers this generous gesture I’m inclined to politely decline preferring to shower our guests with hospitality and an opportunity to dine together without needing to do anything. All this with one exception as established by my sons, my sister in law’s chocolate ripple cake. Though not a lover of cooking she can wield a chocolate cookie and cream and silence a table at dessert time. It’s become a tradition, one that’s unwavering.

Simple though it is, Arnotts Chocolate Ripple Biscuits sandwiched with Chantilly cream is not only a family favourite for us but a tradition known Australia wide. First introduced in the early 1930’s as a promotional recipe by the manufacturers of the biscuit (cookie) the ease with which a delicious dessert could be made elevated the recipe to an Aussie staple that’s stood the test of time and still finds it’s place on Aussie tables to today.

Food traditions hold an important place in families. They anchor us and form part of the structure of those rituals we look to for celebration and togetherness. Things like birthday cakes, or your Mum’s lasagne, the steak your dad cooks just so for family barbecues or your Nana’s scones. Every family has a tradition in which some type of dish is the centre point of the occasion and which you look forward to on receiving an invitation.

Like families, many of our special dates on the calendar also herald the enjoyment of a favourite food. All the usuals come to mind obviously, turkey at Christmas, hot cross buns at easter and even the simple old fashioned Sunday roast. But there’s a few others that come to mind, breakfast in bed for mother’s day, CWA scones at country shows and hot meat pies at the football are all food conventions that come to mind not necessarily at times of note but things we think of connected to special moments and outings.

My Nana was one to create these traditions in our family. I wonder if her food rituals were intentional to create those anchors for us or was it easy to cater for a crowd with the same recipes she knew by muscle memory? I suspect a mix of both but they’re ones we remember, reflect on and in my case replicate.

Anzac day was one such day that I’ve written of before. Every year from early childhood we’d all don our best clothes, Mum and I a dress even though it was usually cold and Dad a suit. We’d find out place near the forecourt of the Shrine of Remembrance near the poplar planted for the 46th Battalion, small flag at the ready to wave when Papa and his comrades came past with mounting excitement knowing my treasured Papa was on his way as the marching bands struck up their chorus. He never liked to stay for the ceremonies after the march proper rather he was happy to recede into the crowds and potter home. On our way home he’d offer to take us out for lunch for a ‘fish dinner.’ Not the dinner that’s immediately coming to mind as you read this rather to MacDonalds! He loved soft white fluffy bread and fish, so to Maccas we’d go. You can imagine the excitement of a little girl being taken there by her grandparents but more so because at the end of that stopover on the way home was tea and bickies at their house, and what other treat would Nana serve on that most solemn of days but an Anzac biscuit.

Still made in our family regularly and most especially at this time of year Anzacs remain a favourite. This year however it’s just the Mr and I, our boys still off on their adventure. So there’s a lot of Anzacs. Never shy of a mash up of ideas and traditions I got to thinking about food traditions and how I could use some of those bickies up.

Also not shy of tinkering or embellishing as one of my friends used to say (Hi Kate!) I wasn’t happy with straight chantilly cream and chocolate ripple biscuits. So as I’m wont to do I threw a bit of this and a bit of that in the mixer and ended with Anzac Log.

If you somehow have Anzacs leftover this year or can manage to sequester 12 cookies I can’t recommend this more. The biscuit recipe is HERE or you could of course use bought ones if time or motivation is lacking.

Ingredients:

12 Anzac biscuits

1 cup thickened cream (for whipping)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp icing sugar

100 gm cream cheese at room temp

2 Tb crème fraiche

Toasted coconut flakes

Method:

You’re making this dish on the one you’ll serve it on as it can’t be transferred so choose a rectangular or oval serving dish roughly 20-25 cm long. Make room in the fridge for this dish.

In a stand mixer combine cream, vanilla and icing sugar. Mix on medium high until just whipped to the stage of soft peaks. Add in cream cheese and crème fraiche and increase speed to medium high. Mix until completely combined and stiff enough to spread but not too stiff, we don’t want it to separate and make butter.

Take your first biscuit and spread a spoonful of cream mixture on it. Taking the next bickie, sandwich it on to the first and spread another scoop of cream on the underside. Now that you have the two they’ll stand up on the plate so you can build it from here continuing the crem and sandwich process until all the biscuits are used up. With the remaining cream mixture coat the log completely so biscuits can’t be seen through the cream. You can tidy up the plate with some damp kitchen paper towel as pictured.

Pop a few toothpicks across the top like candles on a birthday cake. Drape cling wrap lightly across the top and place in the fridge overnight. Though simple it’s not a last-minute dish.

To serve sprinkle toasted coconut across the top and serve cutting thick slices at a 45 degree angle.

Notes:

If you don’t have crème fraiche you can sub in sour cream but do make it full fat please. The light stuff is too thin.

Shredded Coconut is a good substitute for flakes if unavailable. You can toast them in a dry fry pan moving constantly until lightly golden.

Pizza Pie

Cold days outside, a brown velvet patterned couch, pillows, a blanket and snacks at the ready. I’d flick on the old television housed in a woodgrain laminate box finish, an image would appear out of the analogue snow that appeared momentarily while it warmed up and received the reception, I’d settle in snuggled up anticipation built. The weekend afternoon movie of the week starting with the introduction of movies of the era, a prelude with a usually notable theme. Black and white usually, characters would emerge as the story began. Sometimes an old war drama, a western (not my favourite but always elicited the interest of my Dad) a musical or a comedy and generally stars seemingly drawn from the same pool, the golden era of Hollywood. A, perhaps, unusual pastime for a child.

I loved these old movies and my afternoons snuggled up escaping into far off stories and locales. Wind and rain could batter the windows but, in my imagination, I was elegantly sweeping down grand winding staircases with show tunes my soundtrack or delightedly participating in some slap stick prank eliciting canned laughter. I was enamoured with Shirley Temple my own dancing toes tapping away on the couch in time with her deft moves. I was swept away with the romance of Gene Kelly spinning his dance partner around looking adoringly at her. I would giggle with mirth at Lucille Ball’s hilarious antics and laugh until my sides hurt at Jerry Lewis and his straight guy Dean Martin. Not only funny with their impeccable timing they’d launch into song on occasion too making them the perfect blend for my proclivities. Most notably in the 1953 movie The Caddy the song, perhaps more famous than the movie, was the famous song That’s Amore. It had a catchy tune, one that’s stood the test of time, that rings like an ear worm at various appropriate moments to this day. Even as a child though the one take away I gathered from that fun and romantic tune was the line that referred to pizza pie.

Whilst a fairly traditional family culinarily, meat and three veg anyone (?), we did indulge in the odd ‘exotic’ pizza. My dad’s cousin married an Italian fella who was a pizza chef and owned various restaurants around our area. With ‘mates rates’ we’d often dine in their eateries, lavished with love by them through delicious pizzas in abundance. The atmosphere would be festive, the food hearty and the hospitality warm. We developed a deep love of pizza through these happy evenings becoming astute pizza critics. I remembered asking our Italian relative a few times what pizza pie was, even trying to order one but was always met with a polite Italian shrug. Even he was a little mystified as to what exactly Mr Martin was singing about.

It's a culinary question that has stuck with me. No matter where I’ve travelled, particularly America, its one that’s stuck in the archives of my mind without an answer. Elusive and unanswered. I’ve also been challenged by the answer to a good and traditional pizza base having tried a plethora of recipes, until recently. As I flicked through the beautiful pages of yet another Italian cookbook (is there ever enough?) I was struck by the ease of the proffered pizza recipe. In my ongoing pursuit of said classic I steadied myself for yet another attempt at restaurant worthy homemade pizza. With little effort, basic ingredients and hope I’d found my go to recipe for pizza and the one I’d commit to memory for life.

But still, what the heck is pizza pie? Google elicits answers in the millions but nothing definitive. Armed though with technique skills and inspired by a now memorised pizza dough recipe I was determined to create a pizza pie as I imagined it. With a few tweaks to that wonderful dough recipe, layers of flavourful small goods, melty cheese, sauce, a few veg and some patience I built what I thought might be the dish in Mr Martin’s mind as he serenaded a sweetheart with notions of pizza pie and love. As I pulled that tray from the oven the rich aromas of pizza enveloping me a smile crept across my face. Allowing it to cool for a while before slicing into it whilst agony, an important step to allow some of that steam to rise out through the small chimney in the top layer. I felt like that young girl again the song quietly thrumming in my head “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amoré…” Both childlike anticipation and memories swirling I finally cut into the round pulling a wedge from the tray, stretchy cheese strings breaking away. One bite and my eyes gently closed a smile creeping across my face and a lifetime of wondering no more.

I’ll never know if my pizza pie is the one of Mr Martin’s imaginings but it’s definitely the one of mine and definitely one for the recipe memory.

Ingredients:

400 gm plain flour (bread flour is great if you have it but don’t rush out and buy it if you don’t)

¾ tsp/5gm dried yeast

¾ tsp salt/5gm (I use fine table salt here not flakes)

¾ tsp/3 gm sugar

300 ml lukewarm water

1-2 Tb commercial pizza sauce. Aim for a spreadable one, I’ve used passata and will at a pinch but it’s quite wet and can create a soggy base.

½ tsp dried oregano

½ an onion finely sliced

75 gm sliced ham

60 gm finely sliced salami. Choose your own adventure here, we like it hot but you do you.

75 gm chopped bacon

1 cup/100 gm grated cheese. I like a flavourful mixture with bits from the fridge or cheddar but if you prefer milder mozzarella that’s fine too.

½ a small capsicum/pepper finely diced

80gm/1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup baby spinach leaves

1 egg beaten with a splash of milk for glazing

Polenta for the pizza tray. If you don’t have any just used baking paper.

HOT TIP! When you first think “hmmm pizza pie” ( or any yeast baking) turn the oven light on. NOT the oven temp just the light. This elicits enough warmth alongside the ovens closed draught free environment to create the perfect dough proving environment. Now as you were…the instructions!

In a stand mixer combine all dough ingredients and mix on med-low speed until combined, you may need to scrape down a couple of times. Increase speed to medium and mix for 5 minutes while you tidy up. If you don’t have a mixer do this first in a bowl with your hands until a shaggy dough then tip out onto a bench and knead lightly until smoothish. In a large bowl using your hand spread a splash of olive oil to grease, tip dough into the bowl and loosely cover with lightly oiled cling wrap (you can gently oil the top of the dough if oiling cling wrap feels fiddly). Place bowl in the lit oven and leave to prove gently in the there for at least two hours or more than doubled in size. If your oven doesn’t have a light or the light is on the blink as they often are leave in a warm draught free spot.

When ready remove dough from its proving spot and tip onto a lightly floured bench.

Preheat oven to 220c fan forced.

Divide into two even portions and lightly knead by had to form two balls. Pop onto a tray in a warm spot to rest while you get organised. They just need 15 mins to do so. Take these few minutes to prepare your toppings.

Prepare tray with a light spread of olive oil and a sprinkling of polenta grains. You could use baking paper if you prefer but the oil and polenta creates a lovely finish on the base. Take one ball and stretch by hand gently across the width of the pizza tray or to a 30 cm circle. Spread over your pizza sauce one spoon at a time leaving a 2 cm border. You may not need all of the sauce, see how you go, then sprinkle oregano leaves. Start your meat layer next with ham then salami then sprinkle over bacon. Spread over the grated cheese evenly. Then layer vegetables starting with spinach then mushrooms and finishing with capsicum, set aside. On a floured bench stretch or roll your second dough ball to equal size. Gently pick it up and lay over the layered pizza. It should fall to the edge of the sauce where the sauce free border is. Gently fold and crimp with your finger as pictured to seal. Snip a hole in the centre to release moisture as it cooks. Brush the pie all over with egg glaze and place in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown and crisp on the base. You can gently lift with a spatula at the edge to check the base. Return for five minutes to crisp up if needed.

Remove from oven and leave to cool for 2 minutes before cutting into it. Serve with mood music of romantic tunes of moons and amoré and perhaps a lovely glass of Italian red wine.

NOTE: you’ll notice in the photos I have the cheese on top. I’ve since changed my method to allow the moisture and steam from the veg to escape easily without the cheese layer stifling it as described above.

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.

Peach and Tomato Salad

January has felt long. Not bad long as in ‘dragging on’ but good long. Languorous, restful, and leisurely, the good kind of long. The kind of month where we’ve not risen with the sun but rather slept until her warmth reaches the window and its glow dances across your eyes rousing you. When chores wait, books are read from start to finish, perhaps work is on the shelf for a bit and the year feels full of possibility.

 I’ve felt suspended this January however. Maybe stuck, maybe just in denial, the latter being a fairly regular visitor for me at this time of year. I always start the year full of ideas, hope and determination and like most of us, irrespective of how challenging or otherwise the months become, generally limp across the finish line come December. That fresh new diary or calendar however always inspires me to dream big.

 The pace of January allows the mind to wander doesn’t it, mine certainly does. You start wondering what you could achieve in the year without the pressures of time marching by. Time feels somewhat suspended, our minds are less cluttered without deadlines and routines weighing us down. I buy myself a new diary every year and excitedly open it to the first page, fresh and smooth with that gorgeous new book smell. This year will be the year I stick to routine, to task, to the steps towards the dreams inspiring my resolutions….or so I tell myself each year when I start filling the pages.

 I’m always led by good intentions, certain that’s all it takes…isn’t it? Maybe it’s a sign of a positive attitude, never say die, always having hope. Maybe I’m delusional. Let’s face it me and my best intentions don’t always end in the intended outcome. Remember that two-month road trip I was going to take you on? A little jaunt around New South Wales and southern Queensland where we were going to discover all manner of secret treasures and country gems, well it started well, got a bit lost or forgotten and then ended in a limp to the finish. I had the best of intentions and imagined a lovely collection of posts like a travel blog I could look back on you could enjoy as a vicarious holiday with me. It’s the perfect example of best laid plans falling over or perhaps my lack of follow through and the perfect example of why no matter the sense of wonder and hope a new year offers me I’m not well suited to new year’s resolutions and the consequent let down that befalls me.

 Our social media feeds and perhaps even our conversations are full of chatter about our resolutions or goals for the coming year at the moment, but have you noticed in recent times this waning? The resolution seems to have made way for ‘the word,’ the one people look to for guidance through the course of the year or perhaps to inform intentions as they come up rather than one big profound promise they make themselves. In following the posts of others on the ‘word’ of the year it seems to me these words can act as an umbrella for those promises that may have previously looked and sounded like resolutions but feel less pressured and gentler. Anyway a few years ago I tried a word, again with all the best of intentions imagining the things that word might drive me towards. Trouble was, life took over and I kind of forgot what my word was. I know, who forgets their word. Clearly I’m not well suited to grand and profound gestures such as resolutions and words.

 Fast forward to 2024 and the posts were coming think and fast. “Geez do I need a word?” I ask myself again because heck it must work for all those other folks dreaming big if they keep doing it or why would they repeat the exercise each year. Anyway, whilst pondering this a post popped up in my Instagram feed on this very topic. Eloquently presented by Em, her word felt more like a philosophy than a grandiose dream of lofty heights from whence one could fall in a dithering mess again by the end of the year’s first quarter. “A philosophy,” I thought, now that’s something I could do and live by and draw on continually.

 So, drawing on a conversation I’d had recently with my son in which I’d suggested the key to a good life and urged him to pursue it I arrived at a word. It’s not one to overwhelm me but rather to excite me. This year, for me the word is ‘Curiosity!’ I have no idea where it will take me because I have no mountainous dreams, ok maybe I do but if I keep them filed under ‘Mountainous Dreams’ and they remain on that peak with me only half way up towards the summit I won’t feel like a failure, but I do know that a year in which I’m fuelled by curiosity can only be a good one…ultimately. Let’s see how it goes and maybe you could check back on me in December. I may or may not be the one crawling one handed towards the finish line with my other hand gripping a glass of bubbles ready to cheers the end of another lap.

 On the subject of bubbles, during that wonderful lap of New South Wales, we visited with friends who took us to a gloriously indulgent restaurant, perhaps a loose segway but stay with me. In a gorgeous boutique hotel set in stunning rambling gardens we enjoyed a sumptuous meal of the freshest, loveliest ingredients creatively curated into superb dishes. One of which has stuck in my mind…and phone camera roll. Tonight, we’re enjoying a Bill Granger Miso Roast Beef recipe (gosh wasn’t that sad news over the Christmas break) and, led by that curiosity I’m nurturing this year, I’m recreating that dish,with my take on a fresh summery salad. Served at Bell’s with a wonderful plump ball of oozy burrata perched atop, I’ve changed it up a bit to suit the two of us tonight but if you want to impress a crowd you could definitely replace the bocconcini with a globe of creamy goodness.

Ingredients:

2 tomatoes cut into large chunks. If you have access to them grab the interesting varieties that are well ripened, they have so much more flavour.

2 yellow peaches, ripe so they come away from the seed easily, cut into chunks of similar size to the tomato chunks

2 Tb extra virgin olive, one with good flavour

3 tsp red wine vinegar

Pinch of salt flakes

Good grind of black pepper

100 gm baby bocconcini drained

2 heaped Tb whole roasted hazelnuts (skinless) halved

20 small basil leaves

½ tsp ground sumac

Method:

In a medium sized shallow bowl large enough to hold everything combine the oil vinegar and salt and pepper and whisk until combined. Swirl bowl so the puddle of dressing coats the base of the bowl. Place the peach and tomato chunks in a single layer over the dressing puddle. Dot the hazelnuts here and there across the top along with the bocconcini pieces. Sprinkle over the basil leaves finishing with a sprinkle of the sumac across the top. Don’t stir the salad before serving rather present in that lovely layer. The salad will have macerated in a fashion while it floats on the dressing puddle.

Serve immediately, if needing to transport you could drizzle over the dressing and sprinkle over the sumac just as you serve.

Moroccan Spiced Chicken and Prunes

Forty years is long time. A lot can change in that period of time both in our own lives and the world around us. Four decades spans nearly half a decade, many markers in history and on average nearly half a lifetime. It’s a chunk of time that can pass in what feels like a blink of an eye on reflection and in which we’ll experience a huge number of life’s miletsones, good, bad or otherwise. It’s also the part of life in which many people’s career span. My husband has worked in his career for forty years and this week that’s all come to an end and he’s taking a well-deserved rest.

Over four decades, on average, two generations turn over. In that time one generation will ‘rise up’ moving thorough childhood, adolescence, education and selection and training of a working life. They will perhaps meet a life partner and start a family and forge a home for themselves. They’ll use their education and training to work towards goals big and small, perhaps build towards legacies or collaborate towards ones in communities and economies of meaning to them. In the second half of those forty years some will choose to reproduce and enjoy parenthood and nurture a new generation. Those first forty years often pass in a blur but hold a period in life in which grow and expand.

All the while we’re moving through all these life milestones in our own lives the world shifts and changes. The last forty years globally we’ve stood witness to many shifts and changes. We’ve flexed and groaned against the confines of development bursting out from a world that to many probably already felt extraordinary but has seen changes unimaginable previously. From black and white free to air television received through roof top antenna we now stream whatever programs and movies we desire to screens as small as our hands. We don’t need to rue missing an episode or the disappointment of choosing between more the one airing we wanted to view. Music too is available at a whim. We neither wait for the release of vinyl, CD or cassette nor buy furniture to store collections of such. We don’t make mix tapes for pals or need to listen through a whole record for favourite songs. Our entertainment whims both beckon and await our every desire at the end of our finger tips.

In the last forty years there’s been more than a fair share of unrest too. More than a dozen wars of significance have erupted, and many more incursions, disputes and battles fought. Turbulence has redrawn borders and relationships reshaping geography and diplomacy both locally and globally leaving in its wake changed relationships big and small between countries, populations and even friendships and families.

Since the early eighties we’ve gone from taking a traditional camera everywhere with us to taking photos of our-‘selfies’ on a telephone that goes everywhere with us. We can answer any question we have on that small device and update ourselves on any event happening anywhere in the world in real time immersed in a 24 hour news cycle. The internet became the predominant platform for communication for everyday domestic and business users creating a 24/7 world. We began communicating through social media and text messages relegating the handwritten word to almost redundancy and left behind encyclopaedia, letters, newspapers and thank you notes.

In 1983 we enjoyed a golden age of music. Remember tines like Thriller, Girls Just Wann Have Fun, Flashdance, All Night Long and Uptown Girl? Oh and Ghetto Blasters? Movies had a special moment in time too, Risky Business, The Big Chill, Monty Python all big releases in a time of now seems like one of innocence. I had my last year of Primary school that year and my husband his first year of employment. Beginning trade training, he then progressed to further education. He enjoyed all the adventures of his twenties, travels, friendships and everything in between until he met a girl (that would be me) and we built a family and life, from Melbourne to Darwin and back. He’s travelled the world, worked on off shore rigs, down underground mines, on dusty plains home to large scale rural operations as far as the eye can see and small remote pump stations in the middle of nowhere. His work has seen him begin at the first rung on the ladder and mentored by those senior to him until he climbed the ladder leading the next generation. But now that’s all come to an end and now it’s time for him to have a rest.

Before he begins his next professional adventure we’re heading off on an adventure of our own. We’re packing up our new caravan and heading north. Heading north we’ll start in Wagga Wagga and track north towards lightning ridge before heading east. I’m excited head to the Galah Magazine Photography Prize events and exhibition as our half way point before we meander south along the coast….he’s excited to not have to answer phone calls and emails.

I will however still work. I’ll continue writing and creating here for you. I’m not entirely sure what it will look like but I will keep popping into your inbox. I suspect it will be a mix of travelogue, simple recipes from our time on the road and maybe some reflections and stories from our travels. It won’t be a series of dishes created from cans or dehydrated camping packets nor will it be endless bush bbqs and riversides campfires constantly. When we travel and go camping we don’t make sacrifices with our food so hopefully you’ll enjoy what I come up with. I can’t promise it will always appear at the same time as that will largely depend on internet access but I’ll still as closely to that schedule as that allows. I’ll be spending this weekend cooking and vac packing meals to give us nights off from cooking but ensure delicious dinners still await at the end of days exploring, much like the delicious chicken dish below.

Ingredients:

4 Chicken thighs roughly 150gm each cut into 6 chunks each

1 ½ tsp salt flakes

½ tsp ground white pepper

2 tb olive oil

3 eschallots peeled and halved lengthwise

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground coriander

1//4 tsp smoked paprika

15 gm fresh ginger chopped into fine matchsticks

½ long red chilli finely sliced

3 garlic cloves peeled and finely sliced

75 gm prunes whole pitted

Whole peel of a lemon in long strips, keep the fruit for the juice later.

Pinch of saffron threads

2 tb currants

2 cup chicken stock

1 Tb honey

Method:

Preheat oven 160c fan forced.

Sprinkle salt and pepper all over chicken pieces and toss to distribute. Over medium heat warm 1 tb of the oil in a pan that can go in the oven later, that has a lid that fits snugly. Cook chicken pieces in two batches until browned on the outside but not cooked through, set aside and keep warm.

Add second tb of oil to the pan and reduce heat to low. Add eschallots cut side down and caramelise 3 minutes. Turn over and cook on the other side for two minutes. Sprinkle in the spices and cook off briefly until fragrant. Add ginger, garlic and chilli and cook while stirring constantly, again until fragrant. Toss the fruit in and scatter over saffron threads, and pieces of lemon peel and cook while stirring again for a minute. Splash in a good glug of the stock to deglaze the pan scraping up any stick bits off the base of the pan, pour in the remaining stock stir and bring to the boil. Return the chicken and any juices to the pan and stir in the honey and a squeeze of juice from half of the lemon used for peel, mixing thoroughly. Place lid on securely and place in the oven for 50 minutes, stirring half away through cooking.

Serve with steamed rice sliced fresh chilli from the remaining half chilli and a sprinkle of fresh herbs such as parsley, mint, basil or coriander.

You may also like to grill a halved lemon cut side down to give the dish a fresh light zing.

Easy Aussie Beef Party Pies

105 years ago families and groups of friends trekked to a suburban cricket oval to cheer and support their football teams in the first Football Grand Final Game. Armies of fans gathered to support the warriors they’d followed for the winter months in a game unique to our land known for it’s brutal toughness and parochial supporters. Through the decades, lines were drawn across suburbs and regions defining an almost tribal fan base whose rivalries spilled over into conversations and relationships sparking many contentious though generally good-natured debates and battles. In more recent decades, football became a national game, it’s reach extending into all states and territories and it’s culture pervading sports fans who’d previously followed other codes.

Football rivalries have defined the histories of many Australian families, my own, no exception. My dad joined his own local footy club as a junior in 1949 as a 15 year old lad new to the area. Working as a porter at the local railway station, an older colleague and mentor, noticing his need to be involved in his community and make new friends in his new home, extended an invitation to him to come down to the nearby footy ground and watch a game. He soon joined the club beginning a sixty plus year membership. He was dedicated to his club and its members often siting the camaraderie he enjoyed there as the one constant in his life and solace that kept him young in old age and gave him purpose in his retirement and widowhood.

My mother’s family too were dedicated fans of the game, all following the ubiquitous Collingwood football club as did my paternal grandmother. Whilst all football allegiances are parochial Collingwood has an aura and presence all its own in Melbourne. It was one that enjoyed the loyalty of the workers and those who lived in the heavily populated, then, inner suburbs that ringed the city it’s following becoming generational continuing to today. In my early years I was a Collingwood supporter in the way as children we inherit other characteristics of our parents, almost like a genetic code. My memory of this is thin at best but I very clearly remember the turning point at which this changed.

As and eight year old in grade two of primary school one of my class mates was the daughter of a coach of one the more famed football teams. With stars in my eyes, their success during the season of 1979 came to my attention. Growing up in a home of two dedicated football fans, sports news was on the tv, radio and in newspapers ad nauseum so even as a child I absorbed these updates. It became increasingly clear as the year progressed that Collingwood was going to be challenged by its traditional rival and as is the way of children I was keen to back a winner. To her great credit my Mum didn’t try to sway me. Perhaps she thought it was a passing phase and the expected success of the family team would sway me back. At the end of an exciting season the finals culminated in a battle of the traditional rivals, Carlton meeting Collingwood. Battle lines were drawn between the two suburbs that bordered each other and across football loving Melbourne and inadvertently in our household. Calling on favours and friendships Mum managed to nab two tickets to the game that attracted nearly 114,000 enthusiastic fans. In scenes reminiscent of the great gladiatorial battles of the colosseum the game swung back and forth. Sat next to the Collingwood cheer squad some of those ebbs and flows of the game were tough for a little girl to swallow, indeed I remember I resting my head on mums shoulder at half time re-thinking my football rebellion. Perhaps she consoled me with some smugness thinking she was providing a child a tough lesson. As the game progressed and with controversy that remains questioned some 44 years later Carlton rose up and claimed victory and perhaps my mum learnt her own tough lesson about allowing a child to follow her heart my Carlton support cemented

In recent weeks the football season of 1979 has been on my mind as it has the minds of many football fans and the fans of the two heritage teams. In an exciting season and as the finals edged closer to the last Saturday in September a repeat of the 1979 Grand Final line-up looked ever possible, though alas it was not to be, Carlton missing out on a place in the final play off for the premiership cup at the final hurdle. What doesn’t change however is the festivity of the week. Football’s unique characteristic is its unifying nature. Not only does it provide community hubs for local teams and their followers and consequently a ‘home’ of sorts for members it brings communities together following the wider league. This weekend regardless of whether your team is playing or not groups of friends and families will gather for BBQs and to watch the big game together. Those whose team isn’t playing will switch allegiances for the day choosing a team to cheer on as will many who don’t follow a team but find themselves at festivities enjoying the event. I’m torn because let’s face it as a Carlton supporter I can’t follow Collingwood but as a Victorian I can’t cheer for an interstate team….the morals of footy run deep. I’ll decide on the day.

One thing the doesn’t change is the food. Aside from the obvious that always makes an appearance, this year I thought I’d have a go at making my own party pies, the natural accompaniment to the sausage roll or perhaps the traditional rival, just like footy teams.

I’ve tried to make them as simple as possible. I’ve used mince rather than making a chunky slow cook, reflecting the type of meat pie you’d enjoy at a footy game only miniature. In doing this I suggest using the best frozen pastry you can get your hands on. I’ve used Careme shortcrust, if you have a favourite recipe and the time to make your own by all means do so. In addition to mince and frozen pastry I also suggest using patty pan trays with their half sphere holes rather than a more traditional pie shape that you’d achieve using a muffin tray. Afterall you’ve cheering to do rather than fussing with pastry in tricky trays.

Ingredients:

1 small onion finely diced

1 bacon rasher finely chopped

1 tsp each of finely chopped thyme and rosemery

2 tsps of extra virgin olive oil

500 gm beef mince

1 Tb plain flour

1 Tb worcestshire sauce

2 Cups beef stock made with good quality stock cubes (I use oxo)

2 tsp tomato paste

1 tsp salt flakes ( you may need to add more depending on the salt content of your stock cubes, traust your tastebuds)

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method:

500-600 gm frozen Shortcrust pastry. Use the best you can afford for flavour and flakiness. You may like to use a mix of shortcust for the base and puff for the top.

In a large fry pan, over medium-low heat, sauté onion, bacon and herbs until onion is translucent. Push this mixture to the edge of the pan, increase heat to med-high and add Beef mince whole to the pan and allow to brown on one side for a few minutes. Flip the meat as a whole to brown on the other side a few more minutes before breaking up and continuing to cook through. Once it’s nearly done start mixing the onion and bacon mix through. Keep an on the onion mixture while cooking the meat to ensure it doesn’t brown. You can move your pan off centre while cooking the meat to protect the onion mix.

Once the meat is almost browned, drain off most of the juices that have eeked out from the meat. Return to the heat and add the flour mixing through the meat and onion mixture and allow it to cook off for a few minutes as you would if making a white sauce. Once the flour is slightly browned and completely combined with the meat (it will look a little gluggy, this is fine) add the tomato paste and worcestshire sauce, stir through and cook for two minutes. Reduce heat to low and slowly add the beef stock stirring until completely added. Increase heat to med, bring to the boil before reducing heat back down to low and simmer for 15 minutes or until liquid has thickened and reduce by a third, it should still be fairly wet but thickened. Remove from heat and cool to room temp before popping the mixture in a sealed tub or bowl and refrigerating until completely cool, overnight is fine.

Preheat oven to 200c, grease and line two 12 hole patty pan trays.

Thaw pasty. Choose a pastry cutter or glass slightly larger than the rim of the patty holes in your tray. Cut your pastry rounds and place in the tray holes gently pressing into place. Keep your pasty off cuts to re-roll for the tops. Your pastry bases should overhang the holes by 1-2 mm to be able to seal the top to. Spoon meat filling into each pastry case no higher than the rim. Using remaining pastry and the same cutter cut a second set of rounds to top the pies. Brush the underside of the round with egg wash then place onto top of pie. I like to brush the whole underside rather than the edges to seal as it’s less fiddly. Gently press edges to seal and brush tops of pies with egg wash. Cook in the oven 15-18 mins. Serve hot.

Apricot and Cardamon Sweet Buns

Earlier this week I was coaxed out early in the morning for my walk by the sudden burst of warm spring weather. My usual listening wasn’t available at the earlier hour so I searched for a podcast to keep me distracted. I was up to date on all my usual favourites so thought I’d search for something new and landed on this one. Listening to Ruth and Julia chat all things food was obviously right up my alley but the premise of the podcast and where that went was of greater interest. Julia invites older women (she’s 61) on Wiser Than Me, to chat about life and what it’s taught them. I was taken with the conversation enjoying listening to Ruth’s recollections on her career in food writing, but one statement jumped out at me, “the only thing that really keeps you young, is constantly doing things you don’t know how to do.” Somewhere in my subconscious I knew this to be so. We’re advised to do puzzles, learn a language or even a musical instrument to stay young, but hearing an older woman (she’s 75) who I admire, state it as her greatest piece of life advice brought it to the surface.

Also this week this substack dropped. I love reading Kate’s words, always beautiful describing her world and observations in a captivating and artful way. She described her experience of being stopped in her tracks, quite literally while driving from home through country Victoria, by the captivating site of a landscape jewelled by shades of gold and emerald. This moment in time that drew her to the roadside to inhale the ‘wonder’ of its beauty was the theme for her ponderings this week. Wonder and it’s importance in life, in moments and in the everyday. It felt both fitting and in keeping with the thoughts of Ruth. Wonder and knowledge and a fulfilling life.

A month or so ago I enrolled in and began an online course to improve my baking skills called The Science of Baking. I have a reasonable knowledge base for baking but lots of gaps and no real understanding of the chemistry of the ingredients I use and how everything interacts. Working my way through this course has been both enlightening and exciting. I know, very geeky of me but we all have our thing right? Anyway what’s been most exciting is the learning, joining the dots, filling the gaps and gasping at all the ‘lightbulb’ moments. Whilst educational it’s been enlightening and invigorating.

With a lifelong innate sense of curiosity flavour ideas often come to mind. Some work, some don’t. Sometimes my curiosity is driven by an unusual recipe with an ingredient combination I may not have previously tried or one I can’t even imagine tasting. Like the ‘Secret Ingredient Spaghetti” recipe, spoiler alert, dark chocolate in Spaghetti Bolognese doesn’t work. Other times classic combinations reimagined into something new is a delight and revelation all its own.

My newly acquired skills have inspired many flavour ponderings recently. Often popping in my head in the middle of the night, hi there hot flushes and insomnia, remembering these can be a challenge, “sit down brain fog.” Sometimes though I do manage to retain the idea and see it through to fruition.

Golden tangy apricots came to mind when my face was warmed by all this premature balmy weather. Juice dripping from glowing orbs one of summer’s great joys. But alas not yet. Still weeks to go until they, with their orchard fruit family, appear in stores, but the dried variety are ever present and available. Richer in flavour I remembered enjoying them in a sweet, yeasted bun as a child, encased in fluffy sweet dough and drizzled with white chocolate, they were a favourite bakery treat. As is my wont however, and armed with my burgeoning knowledge of yeast and wheat I pondered a reimaging of sorts of my much-loved childhood favourite. Imagining a more mature flavour pairing than the one of my youth I mixed and measured, waited and shaped and waited again. Like that child with anticipation, I perched near my oven, its light on, peering through the glass watching the ‘show’ of yeast, sugar and all their comrades at play growing into plump, fluffy yeasted buns of my own.

And there it was…wonder!

The union of learning and wonder colliding to create delight and awe. The invigorating realisation that at any step in our day and journey there’s always something round every corner to learn and take our breath away.

Seeing an idea evolve to a successful completion is a wonder all its own and one urge you to try. Don’t be shy of trying to cook with yeast. It’s an ingredient that can intimidate even the most skilled and experienced cook but one that is the root of some the most delicious foods in life and that has endured throughout centuries.

Ingredients:

Buns:

120 gm Dried apricots, roughly chopped

500 gm bread flour

3 tsps dried yeast

½ tsp all spice

2 tsp ground cardamon

80 gm golden caster sugar (white is fine if that’s all you have)

100 gm of very soft butter

200ml of room temp milk (you can microwave this for 30 seconds if you’re in a rush or baking spontaneously)

2 eggs, room temp again please

50 gm candied citrus peel

Finely grated zest of one orange

1 heaped tsp salt flakes

Icing:

2/3 c icing sugar

2 Tb sour cream

2 tsp orange juice from the zested orange.

Method:

In a small bowl cover apricots in boiling water, set aside to soak while you prepare your other ingredients.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine all other ingredients. Drain, apricots and press you’re your hand to squeeze out remaining liquid and add to the bowl with other ingredients.

Set stand mixer to med low until all dry ingredients are amalgamated, 1-2 minutes, then increase speed to med and knead for 8 minutes. It’s quite a sticky dough, don’t be tempted to add flour, just let it do its thing. I like to stop a couple times during this part and scrape the sides down to help things along.

While the dough is mixing, grease a large glass bowl with butter (see notes), set aside.

When kneading is complete, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Again, don’t be tempted to add more flour, just a light sprinkling if it needs help to not stick to the bench and your hands. Give the dough a light knead by hand just to make sure the fruit is evenly distributed. Place smooth side up in the greased bowl loosely covered with cling wrap and set aside in a warm draft free spot to prove until double in size.. see notes.

If proving in the oven, remove. Preheat oven to 180c and line a baking tray with baking paper.

When doubled in size (about two hours) turn out onto a lightly floured surface again. The greasing in the bowl should help this along. Gently divide the dough into 12 equal sized pieces shaping into ball shapes. Line up on the tray and leave in a warm spot again with a tea towel over the top. This will let them puff up slightly and relax after being handled. Rest them for 30 minutes.

Brush with an egg wash and bake for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool completely and ice with combined icing ingredients. You may like to sprinkle with roasted almond flakes or toasted coconut flakes.

Or you could rip one open hot and slather in butter and enjoy with the oozy butter running between your fingers, your choice.

Notes:

If it’s cooler where you are or you lack a warm spot for your dough try this tip. Turn the light on in your oven when it first occurs to you to cook buns. The ambient warmth from the light will be just right for a consistent temperature to help your yeast along and of course an oven is guaranteed draft free.

While your dough is in the mixer fill the glass bowl with hot tap water to warm it up. The dough will be a nice temp from mixing to kick off the proving process, warming the bowl first ensures the dough isn’t ‘shocked’ by being transferred to a cold bowl.

Strawberry Yoghurt Mousse

In her most excellent newsletter this week, Kate Mildenhall reflected on reading and the role it plays in her personal and professional lives. Celebrating her passion for the ‘pastime’ from childhood through to adulthood she also recognised its now important function in her profession as a fiction author. One of the things she noted was the genesis of her characters. Quoting Maggie McKellar’s brilliant book Graft in which, when citing works used in the construction of her book, she says, “This book stands on a library…” Struck by the quote Kate goes on to reflect on her own work and reading. Whilst acknowledging the seeds of her two protagonists in her latest book, her two daughters, she also reflects on characters previously in tomes previously read and the “DNA” in the catalogue of her own internal reading library. The evolution of all the characteristics of those fictional individuals perhaps swirling around and melding into new characters, drawing different qualities from all those personalities on the page and reimagined into new ones.

On the other side of the country, bathed in sun, toes in the red dirt of The Kimberley dear friends are holidaying in Broome. We’ve holidayed with our friends frequently and as happens we have many ‘in jokes’ from our adventures. Technology being what it is postcards aren’t the method by which folks stay in touch on holidays rather we send each other quick messages, perhaps including a phone snap to share with a pal we think they may like or be amused by. Sharing a couple of photos with me in a message, my friend sent a photo for my husband and one for me. They’d visited an historical site sharing an image of aeroplane wreckage for hubby and one of CWA memorabilia for me featuring recipes from long ago. The ones captured were concoctions created by women living in remote Australia perhaps tapping into their culinary creativity with whatever was available in the store cupboard. As is my wont I zoomed in on those snippets of food history, curious to read the food writing and instructions and most importantly the recipe. ‘Amy Johnston Cake’ caught my attention, my food and recipe writer brain immediately clicking into gear. Deciphering the instructions of B. Andrews of Newstead I imagined what “a little milk…..fairly thinly……1 teacup….1 breakfast cup” all looks like. What do they weigh or measure too, and how thin is fairly thin? Translation aside it all sounds delicious and one I will work on and share. Which leads to my thought that, this is the recipe of another, one that I’ll play with and meld to a modern language and help evolve to something with measurements and instructions longer than that which fits into a letter to an editor of an organisation’s traditional newsletter, but still, the creation of B Newstead. Or is it? Is it one whispered to her in haste at the school gate amongst parents collecting kids or passed down from a favourite aunt? Or is it one carrying the DNA of hundreds of previous recipes she read or cooked or ate. Is it one she thought required a tweak here or there. A touch of flavour from her tastes and preferences. How far back in the narrative of her personal cooking ‘library’ could she indeed travel to record the history of this cake?

At her recent event in Melbourne Nigella Lawson was asked how she felt about people changing or tweaking her recipes. Sadly I don’t remember her exact words but very much do her sentiment. She reminded her audience that like them she’s a home cook and that’s how we cook and create. That, as new ingredients become widely available and understood we add them to our cooking, to the recipes we already know. Likewise as our skills grow we try new things and tweak, this way and that to both suit our skill sets and what we prefer. Reassuringly she loved the idea that her writing gave readers the platform to go forth and tap into their intellectual libraries and create new dishes.

As a child one of my favourite desserts was chocolate mousse. Whenever we went out to dinner as a family I would always order a dish of the brown fluffy pudding to end my meal. These nights were rare, always to celebrate something and enjoyed after mum and dad had saved their pennies to indulge in such revelries. As such as you can imagine we ordered special dishes, always our favourites and for me no such outing was complete without the full stop of mousse. I often couldn’t really fit it in and would pass half a glass to my dear old dad who perhaps encouraged my largesse in the hope he would benefit from my child like stomach that clearly didn’t match my ambitious appetite.

Mousse remains a favourite or more precisely any creamy pudding really. So too does the notion of mingling recipes and ideas, creating new ones. As a young woman I worked for a small family catering company whose owner tried to teach me to make chocolate mousse. I’d watch with fascination as her gentle determined folds amalgamated the oozy melted chocolate mixture with fluffy whipped egg whites and stiff whipped cream. Her deft hand

would amalgamate the mixture to enticing silken mounds of chocolate clouds spooned into little bowls to set. Unfortunately, that recipe is filed under “recipes by wonderful older mentors I should have written down,” dear old Mavis having long ago left us. There’s a plethora of variations on the theme though, a theme I’ll gladly explore one day though with our boys moved on one I’d wind up eating on my own. My husband, whilst a firm chocolate lover, is not a fan of desserts flavoured with chocolate, he does however love anything flavoured with strawberry whilst I love anything creamy and set and am quite enamoured with anything reliable and versatile. Drawing on our wants and my internal library of flavours, textures and techniques, I offer you Strawberry Yoghurt Mousse. Like a favourite lipstick she’ll take you from breakfast all the way through to dessert, you can thank me later.

Should you be considering a mousse for breaky you can set these in a jar and sprinkle some crunchy breakfast accoutrements on top like granola or coconut chips like you would a chia pot. Alternatively set them in a pretty glass and top with more fruit, perhaps a drizzle of syrup of your chosen variety and whipped cream, or ice cream or any dessert like adornment that takes your fancy.

Ingredients:

1 c thick Greek yoghurt, preferably set not the smooth creamy Greek like version.

½ c of fully cream milk. I use almond milk so by all means you do you.

130 gm strawberries trimmed, hulled and roughly chopped pureed

¼ c honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 gm gelatine leaves, I use platinum, it’s the most readily available in sheet form at major supermarkets.

Method:

Clean and prepare four small glasses or dessert dishes suitable to hold the mousse as pictured. Each serve will make ¾c of mixture. Place them on a small tray suitable to place in the fridge, set aside.

Put the yoghurt in a large bowl and set aside. Fill a small jug or bowl with cold tap water and place gelatine sheets in to soak and soften for a few minutes until they feel soft and squishy. In a small saucepan combine milk, honey and vanilla and warm over a low flame until all combined and smooth. The mixture shouldn’t be hot only just warm. Remove gelatine leaves from the jug of cold water and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Take the warm pot from the heat, drop the gelatine sheets into the warm milk mixture and stir continuously until completely combined and they’ve disappeared. I like to pour all of this into the jug I used for the water, this will help it cool faster if it’s out of the warm pot.

While the milk mixture is cooling use a balloon whisk to whip the yoghurt mixture like you would cream. It won’t gain the volume and structure of whipped cream but it will be smoother than set yoghurt and a little more voluminous with a few small bubbles of air and look like swoon worthy swirls. Add the strawberry puree and again whip vigorously combining thoroughly. Once amalgamated take your jug of cooled milk mixture and slowly pour into the yoghurt mixture all the while whipping well with your whisk to completely combine.

Pour the mixture evenly into your four prepared glasses and refrigerate for at least four hours to as much as overnight.

As I mentioned earlier you can use this for a fancy dessert and dress appropriately or as dessert. I love a little drizzle of pure maple syrup and perhaps even some curls of white chocolate for dessert or some crunchy granola for breaky.

If you’re catering to a crowd or prefer a larger serve this recipe will scale up very well by just doubling everything and using the size glasses you prefer.

Antipasto and Quinoa Salad

My eyes have felt irritated this week. An almost gritty feeling, not itchy, not burning, nor like there was something in my eye, just like I’ve been constantly caught in a dust storm. I suspected a mascara needing replacement but it’s not that old.

Shivering through the days still, my mind was still entrenched in winter. Soups, casseroles, hearty fortifying fare fill our tummies while ensconced in woolly jumpers and the like trying to stay warm. With still a few weeks to go of winter and biting morning frosts I’m definitely still in winter mode. Maybe my eyes are just cold…is that even a thing?

Our bedroom window perched at tree top level looks skyward. We don’t sleep with window dressings closed, rather we like to be woken by growing light in the morning. Cloud cover, fog and grey, still greets us most mornings as we move through August and the last weeks of winter. As daytime rises so too does the sun. Cloud cover melted away by warming sun, broken up and burnt off reveals warming bright glowing sunshine, the kind that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. The sunshine has had a particularly golden glow recently, one that catches your attention and creates its own sense of warmth, ‘warm light’ my photographer brain would say. Skinks and geckos are burrowing out of the mulch in the front garden rising to the warmth, a morning sunbake to great an enticement to ignore. Kookaburras basking, perched on low eucalypt branches, thawing from overnight frosts take advantage of the small reptiles succumbing to temptation, swooping down feasting on their prey. The daphne and hellebore are nearing the end of their bloom while the hydrangeas and fig show the first sign of bud. And that golden glow. Lasting all day not just in the day’s bookends of golden hours but enduring during the day. The sun’s arc is shifting, poking higher through the canopy. That light, it’s richness, the product of the wattle bloom. Soft, small, fluffy pom poms in huge tight clusters weigh heavily from the soft wooded ends of the various species of acacia surrounding us. My car and windows are covered in fine yellow dust, at the right time of day in the right breezes clouds of pollen blow through like tiny yellow fairies catching the light almost sparkling. My eyes, I realise, are trying to tell me something I’ve not quite noticed yet, the seasons are turning. Spring is on the way.

As if the only sign of a visceral shift in seasons noticed by my eyes wasn’t enough I should have noticed things changing by my own shift in the kitchen. While the odd slow cook dots the menu here and there the hearty fare that would normally appear nightly is waning and my cravings lean more towards liter dinners. The move to the next season also signals the the move towards the emergence from our self-imposed hibernations when we seek out the company of pals, begin entertaining more, pondering dinners outdoors and picnics. While the temperatures don’t quite lean themselves towards balmy evenings and dinners outdoors yet I do start yearning for the meals we’ll enjoy in the months to come on such evenings. Like the weather, the produce available doesn’t quite lend itself to a variety of fresh salads but with a little inventiveness and a few things form the store cupboard I can create something akin to a summer salad that’s still satisfying enough to fuel my internal thermostat and help me stay warm once that gorgeous shoulder season sunshine sets each night in anticipation of the coming warmer months.

Antipasto and Quinoa Salad served in a savoury yoghurt puddle feels like a culinary bridge between the seasons to me. Quinoa for protein and satiety, and a variety of veg, a mix between preserved summer veg and some fresh all cooked to marry together with the traditional flavours of the Mediterranean. Served in a puddle of Greek yoghurt laced with the basil, lemon and garlic vinaigrette dressing from the salad. It’s enough to be a meal on its own or a delicious and fancy salad to accompany all the delicious BBQ’s meats we’re looking forward to enjoying in the coming months.

Ingredients:

100gm/ ½ c of quinoa

2 capsicums/bell peppers of different colours if available, cored and cut into quarters/cheeks or 1 260 gm jar of grilled capsicum in oil drained

3 french shallots, peeled and quartered lengthways

1 zucchini, ends trimmed, sliced in 1cm discs

½ c sundried tomatoes in oil drained and chopped if necessary. If you have the cherry tomato variety they’ll probably be a nice size left as they are.

1 cup of finely shredded and chopped tuscan kale or similar such as spinach, silverbeet or regular kale

Dressing:

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove crushed

1 Tb finely chopped fresh basil

1 Tb fresh lemon juice

½ - 1 tsp salt flakes to taste

1 cup Greek yoghurt

Method:

Preheat oven to 210c. Cook quinoa according to packet instructions, drain and cool.

Whisk together dressing ingredients mixing vigorously to emulsify and thicken, set aside. In another small bowl whisk yoghurt with 2 tsps of the dressing and set aside.

On a lined tray place fresh capsicum cheeks skin side up and in the oven for 30 minutes until skin is blackened. Remove from oven and place the capsicum in a sealed plastic bag to cool. On the same tray place the cut shallots inner cut side up, drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven at 190c. After ten minutes when the cut edges have almost blackened turn the onions over and return to the oven for a further ten minutes. Remove and cool.

If you have a grill pan heat over a med-high heat or the same with a medium sized heavy based frypan until just smoking, it needs to be very hot. Brush the pan with olive oil and cook zucchini immediately 3 minutes each side until nice grill marks form or each side is caramelised, cool on paper towel to drain. Once cool, slice the discs in half to make them more bite sized. While they’re cooling remove capsicum from bag and peel away the singed skin, it should come away easily. Slice into 1 cm wide strips.

In a large bowl combine quinoa and all vegetables gently folding to keep the veg whole.

On a serving platter plop the yoghurt in the centre and using the back of a large spoon gently make circles gradually increasing in size until it’s all spread out to the edges of the plate in a ring forming a mote of sorts. Much in the way of adding sauce to a pizza. Gently pile the salad in the middle of the yoghurt puddle in a pile mounding to a peak in the middle. When ready to serve drizzle the dressing all around, it will drizzle down through the pile and mix more as your guests serve themselves.

Notes:

To make things easier for yourself you can use premade antipasto in the flavours you prefer just be sure and buy the veg preserved in oil not vinegar as obviously there’ll be a significant flavour difference. You might enjoy eggplant in place of the zucc for example.

A 260gm jar of chargilled capsicum can be used in place of the two fresh caps.

If quinoa isn’t your jam replace with one you do prefer such as farro, rice or barley. Any small similar grain will work. If you wish to use pasta instead of quinoa use a small shaped one like macaroni and use 200 gm.

Creamy Pork Pasta

Standing in front of the noticeboard, rifling around in my handbag for a pen and my diary my eyes scanned the roster. A groan of exasperation escaped. I had a split shift, not especially unusual on weekends where I’d wander to the gym or a walk around the city, I was loving working in but this one was 3 ½ hours. Too long to spend at the gym, at least for me it was and too short to go home and return, it was an awkward break that I was dreading.

A time before phones, social media and endless scrolling. A time when rosters were posted on noticeboards, when noticeboards were still a thing and schedules were maintained in diaries, it was the early 90’s and I worked in hospitality. I loved it, the pace, the variety and the joy of ensuring guests enjoyed a good time. I was a waitress by day, and on weekends, a ‘hostess’ on the door of the Hotel nightclub, all 5’3” of me. City hotels, their restaurants and bars held an air of glamour as did a night out enjoying the experience. The venue I worked in was extremely popular and a reservation in the themed restaurant or admission to the nightclub highly sought after and weekend staff very busy.

After a busy lunch shift caring for happy revellers dining before weekend theatre matinees or taking shelter from winter weather after morning city shopping sprees (also a thing of the past) I changed out of my uniform contemplating what on earth I was going to do with myself. A quick peruse through the entertainment section of the Saturday newspaper and I decided to take myself to the movies. It really was the time of the dinosaurs having to use a newspaper to choose a movie, where we’d see our favourite actor featured and blindly decide to see the feature without prior knowledge of the film’s story. Patrick Swayze was taking the leap into a serious role starring in a film, set in poverty stricken, Calcutta. I was 21, probably more naive than I’d have admitted at the time and it was the first time I’d taken myself to the cinema alone. Whilst the film does finish on a hopeful note it was, for very young me, somewhat traumatic. With no one to de-brief with and still 1 ½ hours to kill before my shift I decided I needed a lift and that in my newly asserting air of maturity (tongue firmly in cheek with the benefit of hindsight) I’d take myself out for an early dinner. Also a first time experience I walked down the road from the hotel in which I worked to a small Italian trattoria I’d been eyeing off keenly. Feeling very sophisticated I walked the tree lined entrance lit with gently waving festoon lights asking the host in his crisp white shirt and apron for a table for one. Taking my seat, I ordered a chardonnay (did I mention it was the 90’s?...Still love a Chardy too) and started people watching. Now to set the scene, remember no phones to scroll through and look occupied with, five pm and very few fellow diners, in fact none and a restaurant full of highly professional hospitality staff poised and ready to serve. There wasn’t a lot of people to watch, I’d sat myself with my back to the front window therefore couldn’t watch the passing parade and well I really had no idea what to do with myself. Reading the menu for perhaps longer than was strictly necessary, something that doesn’t happen now having thoroughly studied the menu online before venturing out, the waiter took his time greeting me and chatting with me possibly sensing my discomfort. Confused by the elevated nature of the Italian fare on offer the waiter directed my attention to a dish he thought I’d enjoy. An odd sounding dish whilst still quite simple in the way of Italian food that adventurous me was happy to try and agree to in my discomfit and be left to sip my wine taking in preservice preparations in the restaurant. From what was probably a quiet kitchen, my meal was presented to me quite soon after ordering. The aroma rose to greet me first, making my increasingly hungry stomach rumble. Steam mingled with the freshly grated parmesan cheese sprinkled over my meal by my attentive server adding another layer to the interesting bouquet enticing me. Left alone to enjoy my dinner I plunged my fork into the pasta tubes nestled in the pale coloured sauce threaded with small pieces of pork and dainty jewel like dice of carrot. Nutmeg tickled my tastebuds as I took my first mouthful and the cream swirled around my mouth. A layer of white wine revealed itself and a faint hint of freshness from flecks of parsley unfolded. I was suddenly very occupied of mind and distracted by the superb plate of handmade pasta before me. Deciding dinner for one wasn’t so awful after all, my full attention given to my carefully crafted meal completly undistracted by conversation just an internal discussion between my tastebuds and me to keep me occupied.

I’ve never forgotten that afternoon for all its lessons both in being adventurous and that wonderful combination of flavours.

Ingredients:

300 gm minced pork (not lean)

1 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 eschallot finely minced

1 garlic cloved finely minced

½ cup carrot finely diced (I know this is an odd instruction but our ideas of what it’s a small carrot varies and actual measures works)

1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg and extra to finish

1 tsp salt flakes

125 ml white wine

250 ml cream

1 tb finley chopped flat leaf parsley

Your favourite pasta. I like to use a rigatoni or penne. We eat around 75gm of dried pasta person for the four of us. This quantity will coat that amount of pasta nicely.

Parmesan cheese to serve.

 Method:

Warm a medium sized heavy based pan over a medium heat. Add oil, turn heat down to low and add eschalot and carrot. Cook gently five minutes. Add garlic and nutmeg and cook gently for one minute. Push everything to the edge increase heat to medium and add pork. Brown five minutes until just cooked through breaking up lumps with your spoon as it cooks. Stir everything together, adding salt and increase heat to med-high. After a few minutes cooking at the higher heat, it should be starting to sizzle. Pour wine in, letting it bubble for a minute then reduce heat simmering until decreased by half. Pour in cream and simmer for a until slightly thickened, stir through parsley. Tip cooked pasta in and stir through until pasta is well amalgamated. Grate over additional nutmeg so the heat of the of the dish releases the lovely aroma. Serve with parmesan cheese sand black pepper sprinkled to taste.

Curry Chicken NoodleSoup

Reluctantly, I throw off the covers yawning. My feet hit the ground the cold under foot curling my toes registering with my brain and alerting me to what awaits. Blearily I pull on clothes and shoes, grab ear pods and head out. As I open the door a cold wind blasts my face, making me pull my head down in to my jacket collar like a turtle retreating into my shell hiding from the cold. Nonetheless I step forward and keep going. Even the morning chorus of birds is subdued still reluctantly unfurling from their slumber with a burgeoning winter song calling the dawn. Light is peaking through the trees emerging from the horizon as I hit my stride, one foot in front of the other my brain and body awakening….

Suddenly I’m startled.. The alarm on my watch is buzzing, trilling it’s pleasant tune, most probably composed after hours of research into notes that both awaken and don’t startle, the fine balance between alerting the wearer to the hour without setting their heart racing like the abrupt clanging of the old fashioned alarm clock. Yes awaken. The cold bracing morning walk of my dreams was exactly that, a dream. I’ve dreamed, both literally and metaphorically of being a morning person most of my adult life. That rumbling you feel right now as you read this is the earth jittering as those who know me personally read this and are currently throwing their heads back in hysterical laughter reminiscing, of moments with morning me, speechless until a morning caffeine hit and time to ease into the day. I’m just not a morning person, dream though I may of early starts beginning with a brisk stride under my belt followed by zen me sipping my morning brew fondly gazing at the scene through my window as birds flutter about joining me in my morning reverie before I launch into the day proper. Days finishing with an almost smug satisfaction as I reflect on the long list of ticks held in my head representing the day’s achievements. Alas I am not she and at nearly 52 I fear I may never be.

On the weekend, as I scrolled through emails, I happily noticed one of my favourites had arrived titled ‘I Need a Carrot.” Intrigued, I opened it expectantly hoping for a carrot recipe, I’m quite partial to a carrot…but I digress. She, similarly, spoke of mornings and went on to speak of her carrots. Little promises she makes to herself during the week to entice herself to complete otherwise challenging tasks. Promises of reward if you will, to keep putting one front in front of the other. Her and I spoke once in DM’s of mornings. She prompted me to focus on the feeling afterwards rather than the steps between where I lay and that feeling. It’s great advice though searching through my addled and foggy morning brain for that nugget Lindsay had offered me to throw back the covers is often a fruitless hunt, clearly. Like her earlier advice I also love the idea of a carrot, an attempt to fool myself into a prize at the end of completions to tempt me forwards to the finish line. But unlike Lindsay I’m yet to find the discipline to take the steps to win myself offered prizes and therefore the achievement of those goals, like rising early and meeting the day with a brisk walk (read: dreaded exercise) and a whimsical gaze out the window sipping coffee like some dreamy tv commercial.

One thing I do imagine and daydream about when I finally take my walk after brekky and coffee is what I’ll eat for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s my carrot, a delicious dinner that awaits me at the end of the day and the time to bring that together. Weirdly to some, that end of day kitchen time is like a meditation to me. Time where I stop and retreat to my happy place to respond to the day by creating something tasty. On days like the cold winter ones we’re experiencing at the moment I get through the days on the wings of the promise I make to myself to create a bowl of something warming to end my day with. Something laced with warming spice served with plumes of steam rising from it’s surface to lick the cold tip of my nose with it’s aromas and warmth.

I’ve spoken before of my deep abide love of soup both here and here. Like then, it endures as does my love of spice. Soup should be an experience of it’s own, hands warmed by the bowl, spoon plunging into its broth, swirling on the hunt for individual favourite ‘pearls’ of ingredients floating through its wake, and in this case, slurpy noodles coated in all its flavours. As I type this, having made Curry Chicken and Noodle Soup to photograph for you, I’m a little distracted. It’s cold, the scene outside my window is bleak, black clouds shrouding the day in a dusk like filter, but there’s soup in a pot on the stove for dinner. I’ll keep typing, no soup for me until the work is done.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

700 gm chicken maryland or similar pieces with skin and bone still attached.

2 large garlic cloves finely chopped

1 litre chicken stock

20 gm finely grated ginger

1 lemongrass stalk bruised, white part only

1 red chilli sliced, seeds in or out. The spice choice is yours.

1 makrut lime leaf crinkled with a squeeze in your hand

1 brown onion peeled and sliced

3 cardamon pods bruised with the back of a knife to crack the pod

1 tsp ground turmeric

3 tsp curry powder, the run of the mill kind

1 large carrot peeled and sliced in thickish slices, say nearly 1cm thick

¾ cup of sliced green beans

2 cups of water

200-300 pkt fresh egg noodles

Fresh herbs to serve such as basil, parsley, mint and dare I say….coriander (just not in my bowl)

Coconut cream to serve.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c, stay with me here I know this sounds odd. In a medium baking dish drizzle olive then place chicken pieces in the dish, drizzle more olive oil over the top and sprinkle flakes over the chicken. Place in the hot oven and bake 25 minutes or until the skin and edges are just starting to brown and blister but the meat is not completely cooked through.

While the chicken is starting in the oven. Prepare the onion and spices. In a large heavy pot, over medium heat, warm a good glug of olive. Reduce the heat to low and add the onion cooking gently for five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and cook briefly until fragrant. Add the curry powder and cardamon pods and again cook for a minute to draw out the fragrance. Remove the chicken from the oven and add to the pot including any oil and drippings and the lime leaf. Stir to combine and coat the chicken in the spiced juices, pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 30-40 minutes or until the chicken comes away from the easily but not falling off.

Remove the chicken from the pot. Tip the vegies into the broth and increase heat slightly, cook ten minutes while preparing meat. With two forks gently pull the meat from the bones. Discard the skin but return the bones to the pot to eke out every last morsel of flavour while you finish the soup. Shred the meat before returning to the soup and if needed chop to bite size pieces of necessary. Return meat to pot and cook a further 5 minutes.

When you’re nearly ready to serve, cook noodles following instructions on the packet. Distribute noodles evenly amongst four bowls. Gently ladle soup over the noodles. Like you would add cream to pumpkin or tomato soup, swirl a spoonful of coconut milk over the soup and top with fresh fragrant herbs.

Spinach and Cheese Rolls

My mum used to say that you’re a mum forever. She was talking about the mothering instinct. Though always reassured we were fine and knew what we were doing with all the usual bravado of the young, she worried. I think, still, too much or maybe in our relationship I’m still the young. Still the one who thinks she should have relaxed, she did worry more than most and at times that felt a little stifling. I could feel myself wriggling and shifting against it's chastening clinch, rebelling even just a little. I was not a particularly rebellious kid but did stand by decisions and wants probably challenging her anxiety unfairly.

More and more now I’m starting to understand. I do worry about them obviously, driven by my overwhelming desire for all their hopes and dreams to come true. That’s the thing I want for them. The usual want for them to find happiness, success (however that looks for them) and love is behind all the fulfillment of all those ambitions they hold, perhaps that fulfillment is life’s pinnacle.

Our youngest was home to celebrate his 21st birthday this last week. Our eldest is in remote Western Australia adventuring with his friends. Both far from home, both far from what traditionally would be ‘safe.’ Both reaching for the stars and reaching for their dreams.

One of things I asked boy two before his return was what he’d like me to cook for him, wanting to have the larder stocked. Amongst all the usual things like a roast we had Spaghetti and planned for his birthday celebrations. We love a charcuterie platter, lovely cheeses, mini cheeseburgers and surprisingly he requested spinach rolls.

I say surprisingly because it’s not something I remember him enjoying and surprised that they were something he’d request. His absence and his return have presented many surprises. When I reflect some don’t surprise me or indeed shouldn’t have. His wisdom falls way beyond his years, something in part I knew but which shone more brightly after six months apart. His maturity and capability, characteristics we felt evolving in our many phone calls in the months apart more evident in our midst. Witt, charm and warmth bubbling forth though always there but now held in a self-assured yet humble man.

I made the spinach rolls for him amongst the list of other culinary requests. Amongst other morsels, I served them during a Sunday afternoon gathering to celebrate his milestone birthday. Moving around the terrace to the sound of laughter, kookaburras and the crackle of an open fire warming us in crisply cool winter sunshine offering platters and drinks I could hear his laughter and chatter with our friends, that of a happy confident man. Happily nibbling on a spinach roll raising one to me in praise and smiling across the gathering, a nod of recognition, of thanks, of mutual admiration perhaps.

It hit me then, we notice their changes in the small things and we notice them acutely after an absence. We farewelled young men chafing at the constraints of their youth and our parenting and welcome home independent happy self-sufficient adults. Though missed his explorations of the world and establishment of his adult life far afield allowed him to flourish on his terms in his own space without the shadow of our worry. It also allowed us to evolve into parents of adult offspring who enjoy their company as adult companions and trust their adult decisions without needing to worry.

As we walked the long, crowded hallways of the airport towards another goodbye, the hum and bustle of passengers coming and going, announcements interrupting my thoughts I felt the lump in my throat grow, my eyes fill with tears and my chest swell. We’ll miss him terribly as he returns to this chapter but pride bloomed as all my emotions mingled and swirled.

I think as my mum said you’re always a mum and no doubt in some ways always worry about them but perhaps that worry is tied more to hope for them and all their aspirations and perhaps just little of grief missing their glorious presence.

Now I can wait for the next time we see Boy One and all the excitement to see his evolution….I wonder what he’ll request for dinner….

Ingredients:

1 bunch of English spinach yielding around 220 – 250 gm of leaf once trimmed of stalks.

3 spring onions (scallions) sliced and chopped

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

500 gm firm ricotta. Not the creamy stuff in the tub, it’s lovely spread on toast but no good for this.

200 gm feta. I prefer a mild smooth one like Danish for this recipe.

20 gm finely grated romano or parmesan cheese

1 egg beaten

½ tsp each dried oregano and dill

½ tsp salt flakes

Finely grated rind of a lemon

2-3 sheets of puff pastry. I’m not going to be too pedantic about how many as a) it depends how big yours are and b) how thickly you pipe or spread your mixture. I use this one but ran out after making nine lunch size rolls and used the rest of the mixture in filo pastry I had in the fridge.

1 egg extra for an egg wash

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c and line 1-2 baking sheets/trays.

Heat olive oil in a medium sized pan over medium heat. Saute spring onion 1 minute until fragrant. Add spinach and stir frequently for a few minutes until just wilted. Pour off and discard any excess liquid then tip spinach mixture into a strainer. Spread spinach around the strainer into a layer then place a compatible sized bowl on the mixture weighted with a can or some other item from your pantry. This will help push out any extra moisture while it cools.

While the spinach mixture cools, take a large bowl and combine cheeses, egg, herbs, salt and lemon rind and mix thoroughly with a fork. I like to do this with a fork almost mashing it together, this combines things better without turning into a cream like a mechanical mix would. Once spinach is cooled squeeze out any remaining liquid then stir through cheese with a wooden spoon mix completely.

Prepare your pastry cutting your sheets to strips the size of roll you’d like to make, either ones for a meal of small party size ones.

I use a disposable piping bag available from the baking aisle in the supermarket for this next step. Pipe or spread a sausage of mixture down the middle of the pastry strips you’ve cut. Spread the egg wash down the edge and roll towards this edge to seal the roll up with the roll resting on top of the seal. Slice each roll to the size you desire. Line up, on a baking sheet, with a little room between each so the pastry will cook properly all the way round as it puffs and expands. Brush the outside with egg wash and pop in the oven for 40 minutes.

They’re delicious hot or cold but if you’re planning on enjoying them hot give them a few minutes to cool a little.

Chicken Cottage Pie

***Warning no chicken soup was made or consumed in the creation of this story or recipe***

I listened to this episode of Lindsay Cameron Wilson’s podcast, The Food Podcast on my walk recently. It’s one of my favourites so you’ll have heard me refer to it before. In the episode Lindsay takes us behind the creation of her podcast and storytelling. One of her centrepoints was the history in her family and that of others of chicken soup. While the podcast was a brilliant listen for those interested in podcasting, writing and sharing stories the chicken soup thing is the one that swirled in my mind as I walked that day, a brain worm if you will. For Lindsay’s family and Fanny Singer, her guest, chicken soup presented mixed feelings and memories of everything always smelling of broth and the constant of its aroma in her recollections. It got me to thinking about my own memories of chicken soup.

I’d never tasted chicken soup until perhaps my early teens. I’ve mentioned before my mother’s disdain for cooking, thus her small repertoire. Perhaps she brought to adult hood the recipes she remembered from her own childhood, perhaps my grandmothers didn’t’ make chicken soup for her. As a girl, at my friend’s house one weekend, offered lunch, I looked in the pot curiously at the chicken and vegetable soup offered. The pool of golden broth jewelled with finely grated colourful vegetables, noodles and tender poached chicken looked and smelled enticing eliciting a dutiful rumble from my stomach. Later that day I promptly reported back to Mum asking if she could make some, instead of our usual scotch broth or pea and ham. I’m not sure if she sought advice from my friend’s mum Joan or she winged it but it was just as lovely and joined it’s soup cousins on high winter rotation. It also began a love affair with chicken soup and indeed all soup for me.

When you fall down the rabbit hole of chicken soup it’s like a culture all it’s own. It’s a dish that in each cuisine in which it dwells tells a story of that cuisine’s characteristics and culture. The Thai’s combine theirs with noodles and spices, the Greeks their distinctive lemon threaded Avgolemono, the Italians Brodo, the Chinese the inspired union of chicken with Corn and of course the iconic mother of all chicken soups Jewish Penicillin, the answer to all that ails. One that’s perhaps not tied to a particular country of origin but rather of the culture of the jewish faith for whom all tradition revolves around food.

One commonality weaves it’s way through all chicken soup culture is the comfort it brings. That gentle golden flavour of a broth slowly simmered with the flavours of whichever vegetables, seasonings and herbs chosen to build the layers is unique in cooking in it’s universal ability to provide a sense of home, comfort and nourishment.

What, I hear you ask, does any of this have to do with Cottage Pie? Well my friends as much as I love soup I also live in a house full of men, though two are absent at the moment, and soup sometimes isn’t enough. One, in particular, calls soup flavoured hot water *insert eye roll* and the other two while soup lovers are quite partial to another traditional comfort food, cottage pie and there my friends is the intersection of chicken soup and cottage pie. All the flavours of salty chicken broth finely diced veg and chicken topped with a blanket of mash baked in the oven until the sauce ozoes and bubbles at the edges is the perfect marriage of the comfort and flavours of chicken soup with the heartiness of pie.

Ingredients:

1 kg potatoes cooked and made into mash. Just like you normally would for dinner with

loads of butter and cream.

500 gm Chicken Mince

2 Tb Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 leek, white part only chopped

1 carrot diced

½ stick of celery finely diced

1 corn cob, kernels sliced from cob

1 garlic clove crushed

2 Tb chopped flat leaf parsley

3 sprigs fresh thyme leaves stripped from stalks

40 gm butter

3 Tb plain flour

625 ml of chicken stock. Fresh, made from stock cubes, premade, however you like it

½ c frozen peas

1 tsp salt flakes and fresh cracked black pepper

2 Tb almond flakes

15 gm butter extra melted.

Method:

Make mash and set aside.

In a large heavy based pan, cast iron if you have it, warm 1 Tb of the olive oil over a med-high heat. Cook the mince both sides then breaking up until almost cooked through. Remove from pan to a bowl and keep warm.

Reduce heat to low, adding the second tablespoon of oil. Add the Leek, carrot and celery to pan and cook gently on low for 5 mins, until leek and celery translucent. Stir regularly to prevent any browning. Pop the corn kernels in and stir through leaving to cook for another five minutes. Add garlic and herbs and cook briefly until fragrant. Stir butter through veg until melted and completely combine. Increase heat to medium and sprinkle over flour. Stir thoroughly again and cook flour off like you would for a white sauce, 3’ish minutes. Reduce heat to low again and slowly drizzle in stock stirring constantly to combine well and prevent any lumps. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes so the sauce reduces a little and thickens. Stir through the frozen peas and cook for a further 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 180c. In a suitably sized ovenproof dish spread the chicken and veg mixture evenly. Cover the top in the spoonfuls of mashed potato, spinkle over almonds and drizzle the whole top with the extra melted butter.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the potato peaks and almonds are crispy and sauce is bubbly and oozy on the edges.

Parsnip and Cashew Soup

As I sit in front of my computer writing, gazing out my window intermittently, autumn rain and cold winds blow through drawing winter nearer. Rain doesn’t always find us here, indeed where I live it often splits around us, moving to the north and south of our little valley, something about the topography of the area perhaps. Not so the Mornington Peninsula, a beautiful stretch of land bordering the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay on which greater Melbourne is settled. Home to market gardens and vineyards her soil is rich and productive, rainfall plentiful and the coastal fringe framing the region home to generations of holiday makers. It’s also the home to creative and cook Amy Minichiello.

I first met Amy in 2018 during an online course hosted by Sophie Hansen. Whilst the course focussed on sharing food stories on social media, it’s participants gathering from many fields. Amy and I lived relatively close (an hour and a half) and just clicked. Encouraged, during the course, to build relationships and collaborations Amy generously allowed me to photograph her at work in her beautiful cottage kitchen at the end of the peninsula. Her sweet boy toddling at our feet she cooked us a lunch of potato soup, bread and chocolate cake. A grateful reward at the end of our shoot on a day where wild Southern Ocean weather lashed her windows howling through the gnarly old tea trees who’s twisted branches are like a narrative of the coastal squalls they’ve witnessed. Abundant vignettes of fruit and vegetables adorned her bench, a collection of old wares and china sat proudly on the shelves and treasured books fondly perched up high, watch over all while she floated around her cosy kitchen oozing warmth and bringing life to the ideas that whirl in her creative mind.

We went on to work together a couple more times all the while building a body of work towards Amy’s dream of creating something grand with her ‘Recipes in the Mail’ project. Every time I visited Amy on the peninsula cooler weather, sometimes rain and always a canopy of clouds, prevailed. Never dampening spirits, it somehow always added to the cosy atmosphere that envelops you as you wander through the vegetable and herb garden towards a warm welcome at her front door. Greeted by rose perfumed air and sweet giggles from her little ‘assistants’ and sometimes a crackling fire, a visit to the tranquil oasis in which she weaves her magic is always a balm for the soul and always one for the appetite too.

Amy called on her social media community to send her their food memories from their families along with the recipes inspiring the reminiscences. She was flooded with beautiful letters all pouring their hearts out and of course much-loved delicious recipes. As she slowly ploughed through them, inhaling the love in the stories and recreating the recipes, an idea bloomed in her heart and gathered momentum. Surely if she loved reading and cooking from these recollections, others would too. Her community enjoyed her posts, entranced by her whimsical prose and images, pushing her forward. I was privileged to be invited to capture Amy in her happy place and the passion she holds for this wonderful time capsule of food memories she’s created.

So as the scene outside my window reminds me of those days creating, and I procrastiscroll, I stop and smile. It’s happening, her dream is coming to life with the publication of her book Recipes in the Mail finally announced in her morning post.

No one leaves her seaside cottage, hungry and no one leaves without feeling like they’ve been wrapped in a blanket of warmth and friendship. Her food is wholesome, comforting and earthy. Never fussy yet always layered with flavours. So as I reflect on all that this book will be, I’m inspired to create the same comfort and earthy nourishment for my own lunch, to both warm the soul and body. Silky smooth Parsnip and Cashew soup topped with a foil of sour cream and chives should do the trick. Perhaps if you need some wholesome comfort or warming today a hot bowl of soup in your hands and belly will do the trick for you too.

Ingredients:

500 gm parsnip peeled and trimmed, roughly chopped into large chunks

2 garlic cloves, one kept whole one peeled and crushed

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

25 gm butter

1 leek, white part only sliced

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

150 gm whole natural cashew nuts

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

2 cups of water

Sour cream and chives to serve

Method:

 Preheat oven to 180c and line a medium roasting dish with baking paper.

Toss parsnip chunks and whole garlic clove in 1 tb of the olive oil, spread in a single layer in the roasting dish, sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt flakes and bake in the oven for 45 minutes until edges are caramelising, turning half way through.

 While the parsnip cooks melt butter and warm remaining tb of olive oil in a large heavy pot like a cast iron over a medium heat. Reduce to low and add the leek cooking gently for 5 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent the leek browning. Sprinkle in the nutmeg and thyme and add the crushed garlic clove briefly cooking off until fragrant. Increase heat to medium and tumble cashews into the pot stirring constantly, cooking them for a few minutes, again preventing anything from browning. Squeeze roasted garlic from its skin and add to the pot with roasted parsnip and stir to combine. Increase heat to med-high. Pour in stock and water again stirring and bring to the boil. Reduce to heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until everything is soft.

 Allow to cool to hand hot, not steaming. If you have a stick blender you can blend straight into the pot until smooth. I use a high-speed blender. Ladle the soup into your blender or food processor and blend until silky smooth. Return to wiped out pot warming up again and adjust seasoning to taste. I use white pepper but you do you, black will also be delicious. With the salting of the parsnip and stock I find the soup salty enough for me but you may like to add some salt flakes. I suggest you do this in small pinches at a time stirring between each addition.

Top with a spoonful of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh chives and enjoy. With the addition of cashews this is a hearty meal and will serve 4-6 hungry tummies well.

Classic Chicken Sandwich

Growing up, Saturdays always dawned busy. Weekends didn’t begin with lazy lie ins and a leisurely breakfast served at a table warmed by morning sunshine. Rather I’d wake to the sound of a vacuum cleaner and mum urging me to hurry up and get ready for dance class. Three hours on Saturday mornings when I’d flex, twirl, point and stretch my way through rigorous ballet and tap classes that I loved all while Mum would dash about performing all the normal life tasks of a family and household. Cleaning completed she’d whizz through the local supermarket stocking up for the week no doubt exhausted by lunch time at the frenetic end of week demands of adulting and mothering after a week of work.

Whilst she didn’t enjoy cooking, no doubt feeling like it was just another thing to do at the end of busy and often draining workdays she did enjoy a delicious meal. A vexing contradiction but one that did motivate a couple of signature dishes of a throw together pastry free quiche and a one pot hearty beef and pasta casserole of sorts. Whilst not drawn to the kitchen, time was anchored, for her, in traditions around food. Fish on Good Friday, Ham on Christmas day, Hot Cross Buns, Plum Pudding all the menu points that anchor us to time on the calendar, a particular holiday, its traditions and memories. 

Perhaps it’s this anchoring sense of food at the table at particular points on the calendar that motivated her unwitting establishment of traditions outside those more notable days across the year. Little edible signposts we could rely on during the week, a meal to look forward to. Saturdays were highlighted but one such tradition. I’m not sure if this little reward of a favourite lunch after all the hubbub of life tasks was something for mum to look forward to and offer her an edible pat on the back for the morning’s hard work or for us all to look forward to. Our family’s love of a traditional pastie runs deep and for a long time this was what we all looked forward to on Saturdays. Not the home-made variety like my Nana made and which motivated my version but ones from our favourite local bakery. Warm steaming vegies and meat encased in handmade flaky pastry that rained down on the plate with each bite just like a home-made one and almost as good, and that little pleasure at the end of all the rushing. Another Saturday lunch that featured regularly was one that remains a firm favourite of mine and one I offer you my riff on today.

Arriving at the deli counter at the supermarket for the weeks sliced ham and bacon the comforting smell of roast chicken emerging from the rotisserie was one that drew oos and ahhs from shoppers and one my Mum loved. Stopping at the bakery on the way to the car with her laden trolley she’d pick up fresh bread, loading everything up, rushing to return to pick me up and get home for lunch with all the bulging brown paper bags in the back (remember those?). Skipping down the path towards my mum waving form the driver’s seat, I remember being greeted by the aromas of fresh bread and roast chicken mingling together wrapping me in anticipation for the empty tummy I carried, that tummy rumbling the whole way home. Rushing to carry bags inside we’d pop everything away before the chicken cooled too much. Rewarded for our haste we’d then sit down to thick, fluffy slices of fragrant, still warm, white bread sandwiched around miraculously still steaming succulent chicken pulled from a just roasted bird. Such a simple sambo is not one I make very often these days but on the very odd occasion when I do I’m still overwhelmed with the memories and nostalgia of those very simple lunches shared by mum and I after our very different but busy Saturday mornings. 

But I do still love a chicken sandwich and as is my want I’ve embellished the simple version of my childhood to something a little more sophisticated though still somehow quite simple and still evocative of oos and ahhs.

Ingredients:

200 gm cooked cubed chicken cooled **

100 grams chopped bacon fried off to just crispy, cooled

2 Tb garlic aioli

2 Tb plain mayonnaise like Kewpie

1 Tb sour cream

1 Tb finely chopped fresh chives *

1 Tb roughly chopped pistachios

Freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Bread or bread rolls and embellishments such as cheese and salad accoutrements of your choice. I’ve used crusty Italian style ciabatta rolls, cos/romaine lettuce, swiss cheese and fresh tomato.

Method:

Combine all ingredients mixing well. You can adjust the aioli, mayo and sour cream to your preference tasting as you go but I do suggest you maintain the proportions to preserve the flavour. I prefer this amount to help hold everything together well and because, well frankly, it’s DELICIOUS!! The mixture can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container until ready to make your sandwiches. You may like to make ahead like this to take to a picnic or away on a weekend jaunt.

This amount makes 3-4 rolls/sandwiches generously filled. If the chicken is chopped more finely you can make a more delicate sandwich for a refined affair or luncheon shared table perhaps, with some finely sliced iceberg lettuce or cucumber slices.

Notes:

** I’ve used a store bought roast chicken known in Australia as BBQ or Chargilled BBQ chicken and overseas as Rotisserie Chicken.

*If fresh chives are unavailable you can use ½ Tb of dried chives or even one spring onion/scallion finely chopped.

Lamb and Carrot Tandoori Masala

Today, Wednesday, dawned cloudy, foggy and damp from overnight rain. Humidity hung gently in the air, not too overwhelmingly so but enough to signal sunshine behind the foggy shroud. A weather metaphor for the morning ahead couldn’t have been more apt. Birds chorused outside and a hum buzzed throughout the house. Today was the day, the culmination of years of hard work, planning and anticipation. Today was the day our eldest son, his girlfriend and friends set off, cars loaded to the gills, on their round Australia adventure on a quest chasing sunshine, sea spray and the red dirt of the outback.

They’ve planned this journey since the start of their apprenticeships. Days starting before dawn on cold mornings trudging through mud or when morning humidity warned of a hot work day ahead toiling on building sites. Days when muscles ached from hard physical labour. Days of working through the uncertain months of a pandemic and lockdowns while the rest of world sheltered in fear in their homes when enjoying the rewards of the daily grind were impossible. All the days of one foot in front of the other motivated by a dream, finally culminating in today.

We started the day enjoying breakfast together, a meal my husband called my last ‘fix’ of mothering. Bacon and eggs with oozy yolks, thick crusty slices of toasted sourdough and hot coffee. A last few moments to relax together, chat and hear about all the plans one last time. I peppered him with questions desperately trying to commit their initial itinerary to memory, imagining their toes wiggling in the sand of rugged isolated beaches, glowing young faces warmed by sunshine. In my mind’s eye I could see them watching sunsets over the Indian Ocean their hearts happy and full. I couldn’t stop looking at him soaking him in for these last hours. I was taken back a few months ago to when his brother set off on a similar adventure following the Pacific Ocean and was reminded how fleeting our time is, nurturing them and preparing them for the world.

Things went quickly from there as he rushed inside and out packing last necessities and triple checking everything and grabbing a few last supplies from the fridge including some meals I’d cooked for him, vacuum packed for safe keeping. Ensconced in his home on wheels for the next while he set off from home for the last time for who knows how long, us following along for last goodbyes at the home of his girlfriend. Greeted by birdsong coming from high in the eucalyptus canopy above, our Boy, his girl and her family gathered in the driveway in high anticipation as the minutes ticked down to departure. All chatting amicably, parents avoiding the inevitable, the travellers signalled the time for goodbyes. Many tears many many hugs and many orders to drive safely, travel well, look after each other….all the wishes and all the anxieties bubbling forth while tears were wiped and extra hugs snatched…. and off they roared, up the hill in the yonder to see visit all the dots along the map of their imaginings and follow the sun and their hearts and dreams.

I’m immeasurably proud tonight a little melancholy, but proud. Proud of the strong, resilient, caring and capable men our boys have become. Though they feel far away tonight they’re in my heart. Tonight, we’ll sit down to a dinner of the other half of one of the meals in those vacuum packs. A Lamb and Carrot Tandoor Masala Curry split in two, shared by us and them apart but together and in my heart I’ll feel just a little closer, the goodbye a little easier.

Ingredients:

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 kg lamb cubed in large chunks. I use shoulder or boneless shanks

2 onions chopped into rough chunks or sliced

3 garlic cloves minced

2 Tb minced ginger

2 large carrots peeled and chopped into large chunks

3 Tb Tandoori Masala spice mix **

1 tsp sweet paprika

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp ground Szechuan pepper or ¼ tsp black pepper ground

2 Tb tamarind paste/pulp

3 cardamon pods bruised

1 400g can crushed tomatoes

2 C beef stock

Method:

 Preheat oven to 180c.

In a large ovenproof pot (that has a well-fitting lid) heat the oil over a med-high heat. Season lamb with salt flakes and brown in the warmed pot until just sealed. No need to do this in batches or to brown too much. Remove with a slotted spoon or tongs, leaving the moisture in the pot. You can add a little more oil here if needed. Reduce heat to low and add the onion and carrot cook for 5-10 minutes until onion is translucent. Increase heat to medium and add garlic and ginger and saute briefly until fragrant. Sprinkle in all the spices and cardamon pods and cook off for 1-2 minutes until aromatic. Pour in tomatoes and stock and stir until everything is well combined and bring to the boil. When gently  bubbling return meat to the mixture and add tamarind and stir again. Cover with the lid and pop in the oven for two hours stirring half way through. The meat should be falling apart and the sauce lovely and thick.

Notes:

 **I use Gewerzhaus Tandoori Masala mix however I, more often than not, run out and have  my own version. As follows

 2 Tbs ground coriander

1 ½ Tb ground cumin

1 tsp each:

ground ginger     

ground garlic

ground cloves

ground fenugreek

grated nutmeg

cinnamon

black pepper

cardamon

ground fennel

cayenne pepper

turmeric

½ tsp ground dried chilli powder

Combine all in a jar, shake until well combined and store sealed with a secure lid in a cool dry place.

 This is a zingy and tangy curry. If your palette is a little sensitive to spice or you’re cooking for kids you might like to make it with half the masala spice mix the first time to get a feel for the flavour. You can also serve it with cooling yoghurt as a condiment.