Cauliflower and Fennel Soup

As the bowl was placed in front of me I was both curious and cautious. The room was full of happy relaxed diners, laughter rang through the air, logs burning in the old wrought hearth warmed the space as I responded to questions of what was on the menu. I didn’t know the answer. To the bemusement of all my friends I’d allowed our hosts to decide and allowed myself to relax and enjoy my 30th birthday.

Set in rainforested hills in the eastern ranges the gorgeous old homestead and outer buildings emerged through the ancient tree ferned garden below the canopy of giant snow gums. Many of us, young parents, away for a weekend sans children had been looking forward to our little mini break to celebrate my birthday not the least of whom me. I’d considered a number of options for my celebration but settled on the homestead tucked away in the forest with windows that framed the lush landscape, comfy beds and lovely hosts who offered to cook dinner for us all. Uncharacteristically for me and after several calls from our hosts I’d relinquished the menu to their experience and skilled hands asking just for a meal to warm everyone up. You see I’m a July baby and knew our night away in the hills would be chilled by the soft filter of rolling mists through the densely forested landscape.

As a busy young mum of a toddler the days leading up to the event were, as always, busy. It wasn’t, however, as busy as it would have been had we self-catered thankfully, which left me time to cook…of course. Grateful for everyone’s efforts in making the effort and journey to our little mid-winter escape I decided to make small gifts of thanks to leave for them on their pillows for a midnight snack. We arrived first, settled in and took a walk to reacquaint ourselves with the setting. Popping in and out of everyone’s rooms I left little bags of my homemade white chocolate truffles in their rooms and settled in to await everyone’s arrival.

Amongst the old turn of the century buildings was an old church that acted as common area and lounge. Together we all relaxed after arriving and settled in enjoying some nibbles and bubbles.

As the fog rolled in and the sun set we all walked over to the main house no one more excited than me to be cooked for. I love winter food and surprisingly was looking forward to the surprise of a menu in which I’d had no input…most unlike me. Still rubbing my hands together to try and warm them a bowl of soup, steam curling up off the surface was a welcome offering. Inhaling the aroma rising up I couldn’t quite place the ingredients. Mostly a creamy coloured concoction it smelt delicious and appeared thick and hearty. Bringing a full spoon to my lips it was a strange feeling not knowing what I was about to eat. It seemed perhaps everyone felt the same as a hush settled over the room and we all took our first taste. Murmurs of approval replaced the hush as everyone started discussing the first course also trying to place the delicious flavours until one friend, a country girl, suggested perhaps cauliflower. Not an ingredient widely embraced 20, ahem, plus years ago. Some weren’t sure, others confirmed yes it was indeed cauli and indeed our chef confirmed Cauliflower and Parmesan soup.

Like many dining experiences it opened my eyes to new flavours. It taught me about embracing and making the most of what the season offers and to be creative with those ingredients.

I’ve made a soup similar to that one many times. It always makes me smile in the way sensory memories do. But more recently, in my lifelong journey with ingredients and flavour, I’ve become enamoured with fennel. It’s super versatile, cheap and uniquely flavourful. There’s loads of ways to cook and enjoy fennel but one I’m particularly loving is in soup. Bringing this new love together with winter cauliflower and the lessons learned that night in the verdant misty hills of eastern Victoria I can now warm cold hands, on Cauliflower and Fennel Soup.

Ingredients:

1 Tb olive oil

1 small onion roughly chopped

300gm/1 small fennel or half a large one trimmed of green stalks and base and roughly chopped

500gm roughly chopped cauliflower into pieces the size of cherry tomatoes or big strawberries

I garlic clove chopped

1 tsp nutmeg freshly grated if possible

30 gm butter

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock.

In a large heavy based pot, such as a cast iron one if you have one, heat the olive oil over low heat. Add the fennel and onion and cook gently for five minutes. When softened and starting to turn opaque add the cauli, garlic, nutmeg and butter and again cook gently five minutes stirring a few times to keep things moving and prevent anything from browning. Increase heat to medium, pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Once boiling reduce heat back down to low and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the vegetables are able to be mashed by a fork. Turn heat off and allow it too cool slightly for 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a blender or food processor and briefly whizz until smooth (as pictured)**. Season with salt and pepper return to wiped out pot and gently warm to serve.

** you can also use a stick blender for this step if that’s what you have.

You might also like to stir in something a little cream to make it even richer, sour cream is particularly good.

Three Cheese Scones

Seven years ago we renovated our kitchen. My original plan was to refurbish the existing, serviceable footprint with a few tweaks. A recurring oven fault and tight squeeze around the dinner table were the tipping points, a third thermostat in 8 years on a supposedly high-quality oven will do that. While waving my arms around sharing my vision with my co-chair of Frawley Inc I noticed his distraction and, as you can probably imagine, asked if he was listening. Then he shared his vision. A far bigger project. One involving the deletion of a wall and moving of the whole kitchen to the room behind the wall.

The room in question was an under used home theatre style room we’d inherited on purchasing the home. It all seemed a bit fabulous and exciting when we bought the house, the notion of a fancy home theatre room, but in reality in the space it inhabited with young kids it just never worked. Consequently, it sat largely unused taking up space, a great source of frustration but a puzzle I didn’t know what to do with. Relinquishing the space he imagined as a haven, my husband made his own suggestion expanding the existing kitchen to be an enlarged dining and relaxation space and pushing the kitchen into the ‘home theatre’ area. In doing this we were able to deal with a pesky aspect of a staircase encroaching into the room and hide it in a butler’s pantry and most importantly take advantage of the natural light from a floor to ceiling window. With stars in my eyes imagining my new food and cooking temple I was laser focussed on appliances, benches, storage and design. It felt like my own taj mahal story, boy builds temple of love for girl, minus the tomb factor of course… a stretch? Not for this starry-eyed cook, I was on board and so the ‘project’ began.

It was a largely hurdle free project, presenting few hiccups and coming together as we imagined. My beautiful Falcon oven, engineered stone bench, stone sink and walk in pantry. She was a thing of beauty. I felt inspired and on completion stood at my bench like a queen presiding over my kingdom. After unpacking and restoring the space to a liveable workable hub for the family, my cooking life returned to normal. The flow of the day beginning and ending in our sparkling new white kitchen my routine and life revolved around the new room. I’d gained room to move and create, store my ever-growing collection of cooking paraphernalia and host friends and family. What I didn’t anticipate amidst our winter build was the warmth and light. Facing the optimal southern hemisphere northern aspect our kitchen became an area flooded with gorgeous all-encompassing sunshine fuelled light. Shadows danced across the floor and bench gamboling like an aurora, starburst patterns peaked through the trees adorning the corners of the windows and warmth flooded the room. We embarked on our renovation in winter. Obsessed with all that would come in my new kitchen dreaming only of the food and joy it would bring I never thought of the architectural aspect in any great detail apart from the obvious internal aspects. But on that first morning alone in my glorious light filled hearth of home, coffee in hand, cookbooks spread before me I was struck by my warm back. Bathed in winter sunshine, gorgeous crystal light and birdsong I was filled with joy. He was right (don’t tell him I said that), it was the perfect idea.

Born of a wonderful idea my kitchen has become home to many of my ideas. The birthplace of inspiration for all manner of creations some triumphs, some mainstays and some unmentionable ‘lessons’ committed to the ranks of ‘lessons learned.’ Thankfully the renovation was not a lesson learned but rather a triumph and has created a place for all to gather.

As a family we’ve gathered at the end of our days to debrief while I cook dinner, or on weekends to enjoy breakfast and catch up in a more relaxed fashion. With our friends we’ve kicked off many evenings in our kitchen enjoying a welcoming drink while we indulge in a pre-dinner nibble and of course we’ve gathered for a coffee and catch up with a morning or arvo tea snack. Three Cheese Scones seem to fit many of these occasions. Made small to enjoy with a glass of bubbly, perhaps hot with lashings of butter for a weekend breaky with eggs, after school to fill hungry bellies and soothe a day away or to split with a pal bathed in beautiful winter sunshine warming hearts, minds and bellies.

Ingredients:

450 gm (2 ½ C) self raising flour

½ tsp dry mustard

¾ tsp salt flakes

1 ½ tbs chopped fresh chives (dried is fine if that’s all you have, use 1 Tb)

90 gm cubed cold butter

75 gm grated cheddar cheese

20 gm finely grated fresh parmesan cheese

40 gm crumbled Greek feta cheese

350 ml buttermilk plus a spoonful extra to brush/glaze the scones before baking

Method:

Preheat oven to 200c and line a large baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients and chives and mix using a whisk. Scatter in butter cubes and rub in until butter is well combined, some butter lumps are fine. Sprinkle in cheese and lightly toss together with your fingers tossing from the bottom to the top to evenly distribute.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk. Using a butter knife or palette knife mix through to a shaggy dough. Tip onto bench and using your hands, gently bring any remaining dry bits together. Once combined gently press (don’t use a rolling pin just gently press with your hands) out to a rectangle roughly 24cm x 14cm cut in half forming two pieces 12x14 and place one on top of the other. Press out gently again to form a 20cm x 15cm rectangle. Now cut into 12 pieces cutting three by four pieces. Place your square scones on the tray, brush tops with remaining buttermilk and pop in the oven. Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown on the tops.

Allow to cool five minutes while you boil the kettle, serve broken apart not cut and spread with lashings of butter.

You could make these in smaller sized scones and serves with a charcuterie platter and drinks. They’ll also be delicious with salmon and pikcles.

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.

Pumpkin, Marmalade and Hazelnut Muffins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Streusel:

1/3 c plain flour

1/3 c brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp salt flakes

40 gm butter

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

Ingredients:

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

2 c plain flour

¼ c plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cardamon

¾ tsp salt flakes

½ c brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarb soda

¼ c hazelnuts lightly chopped in large pieces

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

2 eggs beaten

1 tsp vanilla

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

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

Method:

Line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases.

Preheat oven to 190c.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mortadella, Ricotta and Marinated Veg Sandwich

Throughout history, as far back as the Middle Ages, perhaps even further, sandwiches have appeared at tables in some form or another. Certainly not in the form that comes to mind in 2024, but the idea of a food item inserted between some kind of bread like flour and water concoction is one of food’s most prolific constants across time.

Most of us vaguely know the origin of the name of one of humanity’s favourite meals. John Montagu, the head of the house of Montagu and its fourth earl was somewhat of a self-indulgent reprobate and gambler. Like the timelessness of sandwiches he was confronted by an equally enduring problem…to gamblers at least, how to stave hunger without leaving your place at the table and the game. He ordered his servants to bring him bread and meat from which he assembled a concoction that allowed him to eat with his hands and protect his fingers and his cards from the grease of the meat and indeed satisfy his hunger whilst to continuing his punting. We of course know him as Earl Sandwich, a seat in the British Peerage that prevails even to this very day. Perhaps our first influencer, having had such a significant dish named after him. Indeed ‘sandwiches’ began to appear amongst the aristocracy as supper like snacks to be enjoyed with drinks, an earlier more relaxed style of entertaining and reserved for men.

History suggests similar servings appeared previous to this in the middle ages when the wealthy used stale bread as plates of a sort, the remainder of which used to feed dogs and beggars, a somewhat jarring tale. African and east Asian cultures have created their own versions of flat breads to use in a similar fashion to the earl to hold and scoop up their delicious stews and curries in the manner western cultures would use cutlery. In Jewish history bread holds a significant and sacred place evoloving into all manner of sandwich like creations such as bagels and open sandwiches on pumpernickel, perhaps a reflection of the nationalities from which Jewish populations hailed.

As economies and populations evolved so to did the classes and the proliferation of the working class. Made of such affordable readily available staples bread became a staple and it’s use as a housing or conduit for other more substantial ingredients such as meat, cheese and other accoutrements grew in popularity and accessibility. Workers, farmers and the like would head off for the day’s work with the earliest form of packed lunch in the shape of sandwiches in whatever way their locality and nationality informed. Perhaps nutrition increased and the ability to work away from the home and for someone else and improve one’s own economic circumstances improved. Have Sandwiches been a pillar of humanity? Maybe a long’ish bow to draw but stay with me.

In the 20th century sandwiches in a plethora of forms have appeared in popular culture across the decades. Like delicate delicious ribbons on fluffy white clouds of soft thinly sliced bread they’ve punctuated the tiered towers of high tea on white linen clad tables of salubrious British dining rooms. The tummies of hungry American children have been satisfied by PB&J, spread on slices of sweet white sandwich loaf bread, the sticky dregs of the fruity jam (jelly) and salty oily peanut butter enthusiastically licked off after the last bite was devoured. Generations of Aussie kids have opened school lunchboxes with famished anticipation to enthusiastically find a vegemite sandwich nestled with fruit and perhaps a little treat, maybe even sandwiched with a slice of cheese for lovers of our classic cheese and vegemite sandwich. Made with real butter of course.

As much as they’re markers of time sandwiches are also little vessels of memories for many of us. For me there was Saturday Morning’s chicken sandwiches or my Nana’s grilled cheese sandwiches bubbling hot, cheese stretching in great long strands when pulled apart for dipping into tomato soup. I also was introduced to lemon pepper seasoning at my bestie’s house as a teen, sprinkled on ham and mayo in crusty white rolls. I know it doesn’t sound like it should work but it really does. My Mum used to speak of bread and dripping sandwiches or my Dad and his favoured bubble and squeak in grilled bread to use up leftovers. Sandwiches also often serve as a threshold to new flavour discoveries like my discovery in childhood at a highway roadhouse in the early hours of the morning biting into a bacon and egg roll dressed with old school tomato sauce (ketchup). Ozzy egg yolk mingled with tomato sauce dripping down my fingers hungrily licked up, I discovered how utterly delicious a combo that was. I know not an earth-shattering discovery but one I remember after turning my nose up when I noticed that red puddle of sauce peeking out of the edge of my sandwich. Something I’d not previously tasted proved to be a revelation on my young palette.

You could almost write a history of the world, economics and sociology using the humble sandwich as a centrepoint. Certainly I know I could probably use sandwiches as the chapters of parts of my own life, indeed this most recent period can be characterised by a few bready concoctions. The one I’m sharing with you today is one such delicious tower. With a wodge of ricotta in the fridge, mortadella from a delicious country butcher, handmade pesto from a small producer in the King Valley, a few half empty jars of marinated vegetables and artisan bread my curiosity led me to perfectly matched flavours that now appears regularly at my own lunch table.

The recipe is for one, so easily scaled up as required. It also makes a wonderful picnic sandwich, you know the ones, where one whole baguette or ciabatta is sliced lengthwise and filled and sliced into chunks to serve. Measure your loaf or baguette by hand widths per person along its length then scale your fillings accordingly.

Ingredients:

2 Slices of your favourite bread, or bread roll. I’ve used sourdough sandwich loaf here

6-8 sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped into small pieces.

2 slices of your favourite style of mortadella. I’ve used chilli mortadella

2 slices of roasted and marinated eggplant, store bought is fine as used here. Usually available in delis or the jarred variety from the supermarket

50 gm of ricotta crumbled

1 Tb pesto, I’ve used this delicious one.

Small handful of Baby spinach leaves trimmed of stems

Method:

Build you sandwich in layers, so with each bite you’ll enjoy a burst of flavour from each ingredient. Scatter the spinach leaves in a single layer. Halve the eggplant slices and layer evenly on top of the spinach. Evenly sprinkle the chopped sundried tomatoes. Place the mortadella slices on next, allowing them to fall in folds. On the other slice spread the pesto then crumble over the ricotta. Place that slice on top of the other. Enjoy!!!

The flavours are so rich and interesting it can even be enjoyed with a glass of wine, sunshine and great company. Definitely picnic worthy.

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.

Savoury Pizza Muffins

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

100 gm butter melted

300 gr self-raising flour

1 tsp salt flakes

1 ½ tsp dried oregano leaves

100 gm fresh ham roughly chopped

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

4 spring onions/scallions chopped

2 eggs beaten

¼ c/60ml extra virgin olive oil

200 ml milk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Autumn Drop Scones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredents:

¼ c currants

Rind and juice of 1 mandarin

25 gm unsalted butter

1tbs honey

1 c self-raising flour

¼ c caster sugar

¼ tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp ground cardamon

50 gm Greek yoghurt

1 egg

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

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

Method:

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

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

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

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

Anzac Bicuits

**For the purposes of this story I’ll be using the Australian word “biscuit” for the baked treat I’ll discuss otherwise known outside Australia as cookies**

As autumn descended on the battle-scarred fields of the western front and cold winds began to blow through the trenches signalling an impending third winter in the elements, my grandfather’s war came to an end. Enlisting early in the four years of the great war he served the bulk of his nearly four years of service in France Via Cairo. The failure of the Gallipoli offensive, that he thankfully was spared from deployment in, saw his battalion broken up, reformed and moved to the emerging theatre of the French western front. By the time his service concluded, he’d spent 22 months in the often muddied, overcrowded and stench ridden trenches of the Somme with only three days of R&R. He’d served in other theatres of war in Franco offensives with a couple of periods of convalescence from injury and ill health spent in Britain, his birthplace, but the greatest period of his time away was served in the relentless conflict of area famously referred to as The Somme.

He was a gentle man, loyal to a fault, softly spoken, kind and endlessly patient. He was never boastful and rarely spoke of his time in the army. Signing up was a rite of passage at the time, service in the great war seen as a young man’s adventure. Something hard for us to imagine through a modern lens of instant information and 24 hour news cycles where live images of war are streamed globally, but an adventure it was to the young men of the early 20th century. It was the first war of modern times to traverse years, not months or weeks. It was a relentless conflict who’s breadth seems unimaginable by today’s standards and one that changed the lives of many.

Papa’s time at war came to an end three weeks before the signing of the armistice that brought the fighting to an ultimate end. Three weeks before quiet descended on the devastated landscape of the French countryside, when young men looked to each other in shock and awe that what had probably felt never ending was suddenly over. When adrenaline ebbed away in floods and exhaustion took it’s place. Perhaps shock and quiet descended on their souls too before the joy of a return home bloomed, a sense of doubt that it could possibly have come to an end.

As children we saw our Papa as a hero and somewhat of ‘celebrity’ of sorts having fought in the First World War. But his personal reflection of his time away was anything but that, indeed he never spoke of it, deflecting anyone’s interest with comments like war is nothing to celebrate or look back on. This was the way he lived his life for all 66 years of the life he lived after the war. Except for two days each year in which he allowed himself some reflection. One of those days, his annual battalion reunion, when together, servicemen gathered at the tree planted in their honour at the Avenue of Honour in the forecourt or our Shrine of remembrance. And the other day, our national day of remembrance and honour ANZAC Day, when ex-servicemen from the joint Australia and New Zealand forces reflect on the many conflicts they’ve contributed to, a day born out of that first modern conflict. It’s a day deeply ingrained into my soul and the DNA of Australians. It’s written on our culture and history and is the one way we hold dear, in perpetuity the service of those who went before us to build the freedom we enjoy today.

One of the many ways our military history has instructed our culture is, as always, through food. The ANZAC biscuit was one sent by those left behind in care packages to the troops as small acts of love and nurturing from home. The first love language perhaps. The original recipe is a little different from the one we’ve come to know and love. Oats and coconut were not in the iteration of the Anzac, perhaps a reflection of the lack of provisions and a nod to the innovation of home cooks. In the years after the war as prosperity returned oats were introduced to the recipe followed by coconut. The bones of the recipe though remained, butter and golden syrup, golden caramel flavours of comfort. A formula that survived the long journey across the oceans to the battle fronts and the tyranny of time to today, still forming the foundation of the iconic bake we know and love.

My Grandfather never shared his very personal story of the conclusion of his service, ironically only weeks before the end of the war itself. It’s one that emerged through research since his passing. It’s a deeply personal story that would resonate with servicemen through the ages and one I wish I’d known when he was still with us. I wish he’d been alive to see what we know today of the effects of war on our service people and know that his service is as respected and honoured as every comrade he served with. It’s his story and not mine to tell, one that always brings a tear to my eye.

But next Tuesday on ANZAC Day after watching the march on TV I’ll have a cuppa and a couple of ANZAC bickies and reflect with pride on his treasured legacy.

My version of the iconic Anzac Biscuit is inspired by a well-thumbed Australian Women’s Cookbook purchased for me when I was a child. It’s the seed of the one I baked for him growing up and have baked for my own children as they grew up and enjoyed the many storied our my wonderful Papa.

Ingredients:

1 C (100 gm) rolled oats

1 C (150 gm) plain flour

1 C brown sugar (200 gm)

½ C (50 gm) desiccated coconut

½ tsp salt flakes

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

150 gm butter

2 Tb golden syrup

1 Tb water

½ tsp Bicarb soda

Method:

Preheat oven to 150c. Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

In a large bowl combine oats, flour, sugar, coconut and salt, whisking well to combine thoroughly and break up any lumps. Set aside.

In a small pan, over med-high heat, melt butter pushing it to just browned (you can pop over here to see a short link on how to do that if browned butter is new to you). Remove from heat and quickly whisk through syrup and water. Return to a low heat and sprinkle soda into butter mixture. It will foam quickly, remove from heat immediately and pour over dry ingredients. With a light but efficient hand mix ingredients until thoroughly combined. Roll into small bowls the size of walnuts. Space out on the two trays and cook 20 minutes.

Allow to cool five minutes on the trays before moving to a rack to cool completely.

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.

White Chocolate and Vanilla Cookies

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

150 gm of soft butter

½ C sweetened condensed milk

¼ C brown sugar firmly packed

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

2 tsp miso paste

300 gm SR flour

150 gm white chocolate chopped

Method:

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

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

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

Makes 40 small cookies

Notes:

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

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

Cauliflower, Carrot and Chickpea Fritters

I’ve come across a new phrase recently “February, the Mother’s New Years.” I loved it and had a rye chuckle to myself accompanied by a knowing nod. No doubt a revelation and saying arrived at by some clever clogs Mum somewhere who’s exhalation and sigh of relief waving kids off to a new school year registered with the weather authorities as a brief gale of wind. One, women, Australia wide, also identified with also nodding along as they surveyed their lives on those first few days of the school year as routine resumed and we all hopped aboard life’s treadmill for another lap around the sun.

I recalled this time vividly reading this. Both excited for the return of some routine and quiet during the day as much as I was also sad to have to resume the early mornings, the rushing around and those lunchboxes. I always quite enjoyed the languid slow pace of those 6-8 week summer holidays kicking off with the festivities of Christmas and followed by sunny summer days spent by the sea or in the bush. The bored kids and all that results from that were always a small price to pay for all that Aussie summers gift us. Camping trips, time in nature, sleep ins and family time were always the weeks that rejuvenated and refreshed me ready for the year that awaited.

January was the time for plotting and planning and all those resolutions and best intentions for the months to come. Amongst all the normal plans and promises to self I always used to want to up my lunchbox game for my kids. I’d collect all the ‘special lunchbox edition’ magazines that would populate the shelves at the dawn of each year, flicking through their pages folding the corners of ones I planned to try while relaxing in a deck chair under summer skies supervising skylarking kids on holidays. February was always the annual golden age of lunchbox fodder with all the savoury muffins, frittatas, pasta salads and wraps. March saw the return of sandwiches some days and on the year would go until term four arrived and as with every other Mum I’d limp over the finish line with whatever I could muster.

My kids are adults now and make their own lunches, but I still love a tasty lunch, more interesting than the basics. I like taking a few moments from all the other elements of busy days to assemble something delicious and healthy to break up the day. As with most busy people, though, I also don’t have a lot of time in my day to pull anything too extravagant together so if I can make something that lasts a few days, all the better.

And so I give you Cauliflower, Carrot and Chickpea fritters. Suitable for all manner of lunches, picnics, stand up ones while you empty the dishwasher, desk lunches while you plough through the work day or maybe even lunchboxes if you keep ‘mum’ about all those veggies.

Enjoy!!

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas drained, half fork mashed half kept whole.

2 cups of small cauliflower florets, either from leftovers or blanched.

1 large carrot peeled and grated

1 spring onion/scallion finely chopped

1 tsp thyme leaves chopped or ½ tsp dried

1 garlic clove crushed

½ C milk

½ plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg lightly whisked

1 tsp salt flakes

Freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Oil to fry. I prefer extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Combine vegetables, chickpeas, thyme and garlic in a large bowl.

In a second bowl combine milk and egg and whisk together. Add flour, salt and pepper and combine until almost smooth.

Tip over veg and chickpeas, fold together until thoroughly combined.

Heat a large fry pan over medium heat with enough oil to cover the base. Drop heaped ¼ c full dollops of mixture into the warmed pan cooking 2-3 minutes each side flipping after the edges are cooked as pictured. They’re done when firm in the middle and golden brown on both sides. I cook 3 at a time to give you an idea of how big to make them.

Serve warm or cold with your favourite condiment.

Muesli Bars

The cheers of my friends 7 year old screaming “ he’s walking” erupted from the lounge while we adults chatted in the kitchen. We rushed to the see what all the commotion was about to find my friends young son teaching my 11 month old to walk. It was our second wedding anniversary and not only had she brought us flowers to celebrate but her gorgeous boy had helped our son reach one of those much anticipated milestones. He’d rolled early, ten weeks, he’d babbled and chatted on schedule, gobbled up all that was offered and now was on the move. We all cheered and sat on the floor with him reaching our arms out to him encouraging him forward happily rejoicing with every step.

Parenthood is like that isn’t it? Anticipating all those milestones and all the rejoicing when they arrive. Some arriving on time, each one ticked off the list, others arriving on their own schedule sometimes causing anxiety and efforts rallied to help your young ones forward. Each rung of the ladder is exciting and each one marks the passage of time. No matter what others tell us in the midst of these exciting and busy years we do watch and wait with a mix of emotions.

As each one arrives so too does our own days and routines. Running around after mobile toddlers, taking them to preschool, starting the school days and all that brings including all the educational goalposts and extra curriculars. These milestones all act as building blocks to their lives and in turn our own.

As the early years of our children’s lives unfolded all the parenting moments and milestones of my emerged. Some challenging me others working to my strengths. As my eldest edged towards starting school I imaged myself creating all the gourmet lunches you could possibly think of. My young fella had a good palette and loved a wide range of foods. I couldn’t understand what other mothers bemoaned. To me I thought it was going to be a creative boon for this food lover. I soon learnt yet another lesson from parenthood. Coming up with variety and emptying picked through lunchboxes at the end of busy days soon became old. Each year would begin with purchases of the latest ‘lunchbox’ cook books and magazine special editions determined to do better and find new ideas. In turn each year would end with vegemite sandwiches and apples as we dragged ourselves to the finish line.

Then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, the school years were coming to an end and the lunch box ‘grind’ was too. I rolled through that first summer without a return to school and two adult men inhabiting the space formerly consumed by little boys with all the fervour of and excitement of a woman released from self-imposed shackles. Until I started to crazily miss it. Was it a metaphor for the loss of the little boys no longer running around? Probably. I’m immensely proud of the strong, self-sufficient and hard working men they’ve become but finding your place in the lives of your adult off spring can be a milestone of it’s own and a tricky path to navigate. But here’s the thing even adults still need parenting, it just looks and feels different and has a different scale.

At night as the boys prepare for the workday to follow and lunches are compiled, by htem now, I still often hear “mum what can I make for lunch?” you’ve read before about this one which has become one of Boy 1’s go to’s. But he also loves a hand held version, as it were, to munch on in the car on the way to work, as the sun rises over the suburbs and he sips his takeaway coffee in traffic. No longer taking shaky steps in the lounge room to outstretched arms but leaping through life away from the arms that now cheer him and his brother on in awe.

Ingredients:

120gm unsalted butter chopped

2tb honey

¼ c brown sugar

1tb olive oil

1 c rolled oats

1/3 c sunflower seeds

1/3 c pumpkin seeds

1/3 c chopped raw almonds or sliveded almonds

80 gm dark chocolate chopped

½ c dried fruite of your choice (I’ve used currants and chopped medjool dates)

1/3 c shredded coconut

¼ tsp salt flakes

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c (140c fan forced) and grease and line a 19.5cm x30cm slice tin.

Over a med-low heat, gently melt butter honey and sugar together until sugar is just dissolved without letting the mixture bubble. It will need your undivided attention as you may need to hold the pan off the flame a few times and swirl a little to keep it off the bubble. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature. If you don’t mind an extra dish to clean pouring the mixture into a wide bowl like a pasta bowl will speed this up.

While you’re waiting for that to cool, combine all remaining ingredients ensuring any sticky ingredients like dried fruit are broken up and covered in the dry ingredients.

Once wet ingredients are suitably cooled pour over the dry and stir to mix thoroughly until there’s no sign of dry ingredients. Some of the chocolate may soften and even melt a little. This will depend on how cool your butter was and how warm/soft your chocolate was. So long as the chocolate is still mostly whole it’s fine. In fact it will even help flavour the bars. Press into prepared tin pushing down to flatten. Pop in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Allow to cool almost completely in the tin. Gently lift out of the tin onto a rack and slide paper out from underneath.

When completely cool cut into the shape and size you desire. The outer pieces will be crispy and the inner ones chewy. The perfect mix for families of various tastes

Cornish Pastie

There’s a belief that we all experience our childhoods differently. All members of the one family reflect differently on all the events, traditions and milestones in their own way and colour in the images in their minds and hearts with their own ‘paint palette.’ Maybe this is driven by the age each individual member is at each moment in a family’s history or maybe their own character steers these memories. Our own journey through the years we traverse fills in gaps lost to time and the emotions we hold around these moments adding light and shade. Many of these recollections will hold food at their centre, it’s place at the heart of such chapters the jewel in the memory itself.

Marjorie Constance was our unassuming matriarch. A quiet country heart ensconced in the city after decades of battling milking eczema on dairy farms in the days of hand milking. Their pursuit of farming coinciding with running the town post office and whatever else her and Alfred could turn their hands to in order to make a living in their humble way. Papa a Cornish born gentleman and WWI Veteran and her an equally unpretentious country girl from rural Victoria. Salt of the earth types, as the saying goes, for whom family and home were everything and enough. They built their tribe, a son and nephew raised as brothers, as country families in Australia often did back then. Then their offspring gathering as cousins and sharing all the shenanigans and recollections of extended families. In her quiet gentle manner Nana cleverly gathered us all together twice a year taking full advantage of our Papa’s June birthday at the halfway point of the year and our love for him and of course an obligatory xmas celebration, unwaveringly, the second Sunday of December. She never pushed or imposed, it was just inked into the family calendar, bringing everyone together.

As a child I relished these gatherings, literally skipping through their beautiful garden carefully manicured borders, lining my path shaded by towering pine trees and abundant fruit trees. The kitchen table would be heaving with multiple desserts a collection carefully curated ensuring everyone’s favourites were catered to. The meal, never anything modern or fancy, rather it was always the best roast you’ve ever eaten and all those delicious sweets.

My cousins, the loganberry pie lovers, most probably see that as their highlight, always sat at the street end of the dressed-up trestle tables. I remember the apple pie and slices and the bench I sat on at the kitchen end of the table. We most likely recall the feelings and enjoyment of those meals differently too. What doesn’t differ is our love of a dish that never appeared at these evenings but is unerringly one of our favourite dishes from our Nana’s kitchen, Cornish Pastie.

Sharon, my cousin, says each vegetable was layered I don’t recall that. How the pastry was made has mystified us too. I suspect lard Sharon is certain it was butter. She’s also several years older than me so her role, working at Nana’s side, differs from the tasks a much younger me was set and again those experiences leaving a different story on the narratives of our lives. And that’s the thing, our memories are our stories coloured with our ‘paint box.’ Recipes will take their own shape and colours in your own hands. What matters the most is the feeling that first mouthful evokes. If, to you, it tastes like your memories and you recreate that feeling, you’ve recreated that recipe…enough.

Swede, as it’s known here, is the predominant flavour in pastie, it’s sweet earthiness the first flavour layer you taste. Other root vegetables follow with a savoury bite of beef and tingly white pepper foils the salty umami. I haven’t unlocked the pastry mystery but have let go of the pursuit of it’s secrets and wrapped the story in my rough puff pastry and that first flaky bite is immensely satisfying. You can use store bought if pastry making isn’t your jam but as always try and get the best you can obtain and afford, it really does make a difference. I’ve explained my pastry method below if you want to give it a go. Traditionally Pasties are made like individual parcels crimped on top almost football shaped. Nana always made hers as a slab, perhaps to make it stretch further and perhaps making a little less work for herself. We still prefer it that way.

Ingredients:

1 swede peeled and finely diced

1 potato peeled and finely diced

1 carrot peeled and finely diced

1 parsnip peeled and finely diced

1 eschalot or small brown onion peeled and finely diced

½ tsp heaped salt flakes

¼ tsp ground white pepper

2 tsp finely chopped parsley

250 gm minced/ground beef

2 sheets puff pastry measuring 30cm X 40cm

1 egg beaten and mixed with a drop of milk (as Nana would have said) for an egg wash.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Combine all the vegetables in a bowl with seasonings stir to combine and leave to sit for a few minutes while you prepare everything else.

On a greased and lined baking sheet/tray lay one of your sheets of pastry. Leaving a 2cm border around the edge, pile your vegetable mix in the middle smoothing out the surface to be flat. Now here’s the part that was my job when I was little, scatter all across the top little blobs of the minced beef. This will almost cover the top in a thin layer. Paint the edge of your pastry around the filling with the egg wash. Lay the second sheet of pastry on top and roll the edges over folding and crimping all the way round. Brush the egg wash over the top. Poke small holes with either a fork or point of a sharp knife in several spots across the top to allow it to vent. Pop in the oven for 60 minutes. For ten minutes more, bump the temperature up to 200c to burnish the top and cook off any remaining moisture from inside. I like to turn the tray half way round after 30 minutes. Every oven I’ve ever owned is hot at the back and doing this allows it to cook evenly.

Rough Puff Pastry:

400 gm cold butter cubed

400 gm plain flour

1tsp fine salt

150-180 ml cold water

Method:

Combine flour and salt in a bowl and tip onto the bench in a mound. Sprinkle over the butter cubes, it will look like a lot don’t panic it will all come together. Using the sharp edge of a pastry scraper chop through the mound as if youre cutting something up, changing the angles of the scraper. If you don’t have one you can use a large knife to do this. Once it looks well chopped up and mixed through make a well in the centre and tip half the water in. Using your hands bring the mess together. You’ll need to add more water but it’s easier to add it little by little until you have a rough shaggy dough than add more flour to correct it. Resist the urge to knead it just massage it to the mound until it will hold into a big lump. Shape into a disc, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge and on a lightly floured surface roll out to a large rectangle. Nudge the edges into shape to achieve this, it’s a soft dough with such a high butter content so will be pliable. Fold each end into the middle then fold at the middle again like a book dust cover. Fold that bundle in half on itself, cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Repeat this process 3 more times then rest again for 30minutes to an hour. It’s a good one for a slow day each roll and fold only takes a few minutes.

When ready the dough will be very smooth and ready for rolling as required. Cut in half and roll to required size. This recipe is the perfect amount for the sheet of pastie.

Crustless Potato Quiche

Sun streams through the window warming my face. Gumtree shaped shadows dance across the pages of my book distracting me while I read, inspiring idle daydreams, a choir of warbling magpies my serenade and soundtrack. I’m snuggled under a fluffly red mohair blanket contemplating a nap or a walk or perhaps concentrating on the words in my book. The words win out, they usually do. It’s a lazy Sunday, the day after the federal election and change is emerging. Everyone’s tired, maybe it’s another chapter of pandemic recovery closing and the next era dawning, maybe it’s fatigue from the constant news cycle we’ve just endured.

As the afternoon slowly meanders by marked by the fall of the sun through the trees and towards the west horizon the reality of life ambles towards me. Early evening draws closer and I contemplate the collection of leftovers from last night’s gathering of friends awaiting us in the fridge.

We gathered around a long table, enjoying each other’s company, all the more aware of the joy of breaking bread together, multiple conversations dancing across the table in rapid fire banter. Plates of colourful vegetable offerings brought by our guests pass back and forth, scoops of slow roasted boneless chicken on a bed of unctuous cherry tomatoes and tender spiced lamb shank nestle alongside. Wine is shared, sloshed into glasses, it’s readiness dissected while others enjoy a variety of frothy lagers. The remains packed away we retire to the fireplace outside in the dewy night air, more laughter, more food, bowls of bubbling apple and rhubarb crumble and custard warming our hands. Satisfied sighs and bellies surround my contented happy soul, having spent a contented afternoon cooking for dear friends and family one of the greatest acts of love and appreciation I can offer.

Whilst dinner was gratefully devoured there’s always a surplus when you’re notorious for serving a heaving table. Returning to the present I reluctantly put my book down and haul myself from the couch, open the fridge, ponder the contents of the tubs stacked inside….hmm not quite enough for tonight’s dinner. Another corner of my mind is settling around memories of elections past and my parents. What they’d think of this most recent period and the weekend’s result. The fridge alarm pings….day dreaming again…back to reality. Thoughts of my mum, a tenacious hard working social worker, come to the front of my mind and inspiration strikes. Her signature dish of her later years, a recipe brought home from work scribbled on a torn envelope by one of her clients and later passed around through her own family and friends. A simple easy to construct comfort food recipe perfect for the end of week bits and pieces in the fridge and to pad out a small buffet of last night’s surplus. A contented smile breaks across my face and I get to work. Never underestimate the value of daydreaming, the power of food memories and the simple dishes that fill our recollections.

Crustless potato quiche, as Mum would call it, is super versatile being one of those meals suitable for all three mealtimes. It will work as a picnic dish, with a salad for a light lunch or dinner or even a prepared brekky or lunch box item. You can use leftover potato or cook potato especially for your quiche. Any of the ham/bacon family will work as will other smallgood like salami and chorizo. You can also experiment with the vegetables you add again leaning on leftovers from the fridge or using bits and bobs from the crisper. I’ve tweaked Mum’s recipe making it a little lighter but bulking it up for a hungry family.

Ingredients:

1 onion diced

2 garlic cloves crushed or finely chopped

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tb unsalted butter

4 large eggs lightly whisked

1 cup whole milk

1 cup grated cheddar cheese (any flavoursome hard cheese will work, even a mix if needed)

1 tsp salt flakes

½ cup self-raising flour

2 potatoes diced cooked to just tender. (This equals roughly 2 cups of diced leftover potatoes if you’re using leftover potato)

1 cup of vegetables of your choice (see note)

100 gm prosciutto, ham, bacon or other similar meat.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c. Grease a 20 cm square ceramic dish or round pie plate.

Melt butter with olive in a small pan over med-low heat. Gently cook the onion and garlic until translucent. If using bacon and you prefer it cooked you can also add it here and cook it off. Allow to cool while you gather and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Whisk together eggs and milk. Stir through cheese and sprinkle over flour folding through until just combined. Add, onion and garlic mixture including the melted butter and oil, potato and any vegetable and meat your using. Gently stir through additions and pour into the prepared dish. Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown on top, set in the middle and gently pulling away from the sides. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Notes:

If using spinach for your veg addition use chopped fresh baby spinach leaves. No need to cook first indeed doing so will add moistrure.

Other lovely veg additions that work well include corn, peas, capsicum, zucchini and even cubed roasted pumpkin.

Cubed cooked sweet potato is a delicious alternative to regular white potato.

A mixture of grated cheese adds flavour and is a handy use of all the small leftover bits of cheese in the dairy drawer.

Brown Sugar and Streusel Muffins

Earlier this week, as I moved through the early morning, I heard the sweet sounds of excited little voices returning to school. Our house borders a popular walking track that leads to a much loved local primary school who welcomed back hundreds of excited little students returning to what will hopefully be a more settled and familiar school year. Listening to the giggles, rollicking chatter and eager feet running down the path I was transported back to those days of the first morning wake up and school run of the year. The day where it felt like long languorous summer days ending and the new year had really began. I used to love summer holidays, waking up with no plans and letting the weather and day take you where it would. It always felt indecent having to resume the normal routine and grind in weather that would induce a hot shimmer on the road and leave little bodies hot sweaty and tired. Coupled with this sense of sadness at the end of summer fun was always the annual motivation of renewed vigour to improve my lunchbox game. I think at one point I owned every single lunchbox cookbook, magazine and newspaper liftout ever printed. With that recipe collection was a million attempts at muffins, the lunchbox stalwart. I’m ‘blessed’ with one fruit lover and one fruit avoider so finding the muffin sweet spot was always tricky. So as my kids, both now adults, return to work and study my mind has wandered back to baked treats for packed lunches and after work/uni gobbles.

In creating this muffin recipe I was driven to reproduce the first ever American style muffin I ever tasted. Growing up in Australia the only muffins I knew were the English style ones. Bread like, with a large open crumb they were served toasted and topped with lashings of melting butter and vegemite or jam or a Sunday fry up of eggs and all the trimmings. So in the southern summer of 1989 my family jetted north to the USA to fulfill a dream of a white Christmas. Ensconced in a cottage at historic Gurneys Resort in Montauk, Long Island (which at the time more resembled a scene from the movie dirty dancing than the luxury high end resort it is today) we awoke the first morning to snow outside our windows and a breakfast basket delivered to our door. I will never forget that first buttery crumbly taste of cinnamon spiced streusel atop a warm cakey breakfast treat.

I think I’ve come pretty close with my Brown Sugar Streusel muffins. Eaten warm from the oven with a spread of butter or packed in a lunch box, either way they’ll suit all the happy little feet trouping off to school, and bring back memories of warm breakfast baskets.

Ingredients:

Steusel topping:

1/3 cup plain flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

½ tsp of cinnamon

¼ tsp of salt flakes crumbled

40 gm of butter

Muffin Mix:

2 cup plain flour

½ tsp of cinnamon

¾ tsp of salt flakes

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp of bicarb (baking) soda

100 gm butter

1/2 cup buttermilk at room temperature

2 eggs also at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 200c and line a 12 whole muffin tin with muffin wraps.

Combine all streusel ingredients in bowl rubbing together with your fingertips as if rubbing butter and flour together to make scones or pastry. Once the mixture resembles clumped wet sand pop the bowl in the fridge while we mix everything else.

Melt butter to just melted, we don’t want to hear up too much, and allow to cool to room temp.

Combine all dry ingredients and mix well. I always use a whisk to do this (thanks for that tip @_michellecrawford), which breaks everything up and adds air like sifting would.

Once butter is lukewarm, in a second bowl, add to room temp buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. It’s best to try and do this with all ingredients close in temp to prevent the butter resetting and forming lumps.

Pour wet mixture over dry and gently fold together until just folded. It can be tempting to keep mixing until it looks more like a cake batter. But please don’t, back away from the bowl once combine.

Divide mixture amongst the muffin cases, about 2/3 full. Top each with 1 tb each of streusel topping and bake immediately 15-18 minutes. Remove from oven and lift each muffin from tray and cool on rack.