Chrunchy Chai Cookies

A hasty farewell with my boy in the carpark of an outback airport and many things left unsaid. Gosh I miss him, maybe I’ll send him something from home.

A friend/neighbour making the sad trek home to the UK to farewell a treasured uncle. Gosh between her travels and ours I haven’t seen her for weeks. Must try and get her over for a coffee before she leaves.

A dear friend interstate with worrying health news. She feels so far away, I wish I could do something to support her. Maybe I’ll send her a care package.

Maybe I’ll make cookies. Sturdy, homely ones that stand up to travel and last in a cookie jar that I can make in a big batch and share out.

I was first introduced to the idea of sending a gift of cookies by Amy Minichello. Unexpectedly, in the mail, I received a package. Opening it curiously not knowing what was inside a smile crept across my face as the contents emerged. Chewy, chocolaty, delicious cookies were nestled inside with a sweet note of thanks for some work we’d done together. I was so touched by the gift and thrilled to tear open the package and tuck in. She published the recipe in beautiful book Recipes in the Mail if you’re looking for a reliable recipe to gift to someone special.

There’s something special about the gift of cookies or biscuits as we more commonly call them. Sturdier than a cake, they’re small treats that can take many different guises. I’m reminded of the famed story of the Anzac biscuits baked by women on home shores missing their men off at a war and desperate to reach across the ocean with a small treat from home. A small plate of cookies shared with a pal over a cuppa while highs and lows are shared or a snack grabbed by a loved one from a stocked up cookie jar, they’re often something that can be the start of a conversation or something to hold and nibble on while the ‘problems of the world’ are unpacked and re-packaged. They take little effort for big punch. Little nuggets of love and comfort as it were, butter sugar and a few little extras welded together.

When I first started this blog I kicked off with a cake. With a tender golden crumb, it was gently spiced and easily thrown together using a melt and mix technique. It remains a reader favourite with some of the highest downloads of all my recipes. When I was considering what biscuit I could create to share I was reminded of the qualities of that cake. Its simple collection of ingredients with the Chai doing the heavy lifting for character and keeping the method simple has made it a classic toolbox cake you can think of as a reliable stand by. I wanted a bicky with the same qualities, one that is impossible to walk past when it fills the cookie jar and one that elicits joy when opened in a surprise package.

So after some trial and error I have a bicky good for sending love, sharing and dunking in a cuppa while you share stories and company with a pal.

**I use this Chai mix. It’s one of an instant warm drink style where you combine it with hot milk like you would a hot chocolate mix rather than a more traditional chai for steeping. If Grounded Pleasures brand isn’t available to you one of a similar nature is available in supermarkets in the coffee and tea aisle.

Ingredients:

180 gm butter softened and cut into cubes

110 gm caster sugar

120 gm brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste

1 Tb honey

1 egg beaten and at room temperature

40 gm chai powder

310 gm plain flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt flakes

Method:

In a large bowl combine chai, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix with a whisk and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the soft butter, sugars, vanilla and honey. Beginning on low-med speed mix until combined then increase to med-high until creamed and lighter in colour. You’ll need to stop a couple time to scrape down to ensure it’s thoroughly combined. No need to rush this stage, keep yourself busy tidying up while you wait, a watched mixer never mixes. Scrape down again tip in the egg. Starting on medium until combined then increase to high until completely creamed and not curdled. This is why you want the egg at room temp. If you add a cold egg at this point it won’t amalgamate completely and appear curdled.

Now add in half the combined dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just mixed, there’ll still be flour at the bottom. Add in the remaining dry ingredients and continue mixing another minute or two until mostly combine. Remove bowl from stand and finish mixing with a wooden spoon or your hands. Now the agonising part if you have a cookie craving, wrap the whole lot in cling wrap and pop in the fridge for at least two hours but preferably overnight if you can. I know, I’m sorry but it really helps the dry ingredients completely absorb the moisture and cook evenly.

When you’re ready to cook preheat oven to 180c and line two cookie sheet trays with baking paper. If you have scales measure small balls of dough to 25gm each otherwise aim for small balls sized between walnut and golf balls. Place them on the tray with a little space between them and press them down using a fork twice making a cross pattern. Pop in the oven and cook 12-15 minutes, they’re done when browned evenly and hold firmly together when nudged gently. Allow to cool briefly on the tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air tight container or wrap well and send to a mate.

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.

Pumpkin, Marmalade and Hazelnut Muffins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Streusel:

1/3 c plain flour

1/3 c brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp salt flakes

40 gm butter

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

Ingredients:

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

2 c plain flour

¼ c plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cardamon

¾ tsp salt flakes

½ c brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarb soda

¼ c hazelnuts lightly chopped in large pieces

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

2 eggs beaten

1 tsp vanilla

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

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

Method:

Line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases.

Preheat oven to 190c.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chilli and Sesame Spiced Pecans

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

1 Tb maple syrup

2 tsp gochugaru paste (Korean chilli bean paste)

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 pinches of salt flakes

¼ tsp sesame oil

1 Tb sesame seeds

3 Tb extra virgin olive oil

3 C raw whole pecan halves

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

Method:

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

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

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

Easy Aussie Beef Party Pies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

1 small onion finely diced

1 bacon rasher finely chopped

1 tsp each of finely chopped thyme and rosemery

2 tsps of extra virgin olive oil

500 gm beef mince

1 Tb plain flour

1 Tb worcestshire sauce

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

2 tsp tomato paste

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

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method:

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

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

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

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

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

Lemon Shortcake

Some weeks, Thursdays are a bit like the start of the weekend for me. I’ve usually sent this out early and generally don’t schedule any deadlines. Sometimes I may have a shoot booked but generally it’s an admin day or exploratory one in either the kitchen or studio. When the calendar allows though, it’s also a good day for catch ups. More often than not, if I am catching up with someone I’m heading out and fitting it in around other commitments. Or maybe that’s just an excuse to try new restaurants and venues.

Recently however I enjoyed a Thursday catch up with my Aunt and Uncle. Though not much older than me they’re both retired and very social so I knew it would be a fun and lovely morning tea.

The day dawned with all the promise of the sort of spring morning that puts a pep in your step and leaves you lite of mood. I had several errands and admin tasks in the morning to get through but as is my wont was convinced, I could complete my list and pop something in the oven to take along with me. A hostess gift if you will, ‘never arrive empty handed’ the mantra that plays in my head whenever I’m visiting someone. To my great embarrassment I neither completed my list nor arrived at their door with a ‘plate’ in hand. I’ve also just outed myself, both my aunt and cousin read this. The great aussie tradition of ‘bring a plate’ and never arriving empty handed crashed into each other in my head.

I’m not sure where the idea of a hostess gift originated, though perhaps it goes back as far as ancient times when travellers and explorers would make offerings when entering new lands and territories. It’s something that can be traced through the ages in various forms and cultures and in many ways persists today. In some cultures, the traditions are quite definitive and act as a guideline of their own in both budget and content. Whilst perhaps not inviting creativity countries where the expectations are established simplifies the process and sounds pretty attractive in a busy world. The Australian tradition of ‘bringing a plate’ seems to be ours. It’s one that’s tripped up many a newcomer to our shores in the act of establishing new lives and networks. The stories of many a new pal originating from overseas, obediently, though confusedly, arriving empty plate in hand, perhaps even sympathetically so empathising with the dilemma of a hostess not having sufficient dinnerware for guests are almost folklore. We’re an odd bunch really but of course we know that plate should actually carry a contribution to the meal. Perhaps a salad or side, a small cheese or charcuterie platter or even a dessert all common requests. I’m always confounded though whether I should also bring a small gesture of gratitude for the invitation and effort entertaining brings to busy lives. Some little homemade treat to be enjoyed in private after an event or a bunch of flowers maybe. The act of inviting someone to your home and cooking for them is such an act of affection for but likewise arriving with a gesture of gratitude in hand “is an investment in the relationship,” (I’d like to claim responsibility for that pearler but it’s from one of the plethora of websites I trawled researching the concept).

I’d considered flowers on that recent Thursday morning but was unsure about their movements in the days following in their busy retired life or perhaps even something to be enjoyed later but the morning slipped through my grasp. Greeted at the door by their enthusiastic and warm welcome my embarrassment slipped away as we immediately leapt into our long awaited catch up. A grandbaby on the way cousins careers progressing and all the other ups and downs and adventures of my 30 something year old cousins all updated. All the while over coffee and a Lemon Shortcake, proudly showed off by my aunt who declares herself “not a baker.” A dish she mastered many years ago from a treasured recipe book created by the mothers of preschoolers she taught early in her career, it’s one she makes frequently and she promised was easy. I whipped out my phone to capture Lemon Shortcake by Anne Tempest from long ago. I’ve made a few tiny tweaks to dear Anne’s recipe though her sweet bake remains just as delectable.

I think it will go on my list of ‘bring a plate’ dishes when I’m assigned a dessert next time I’m lucky enough to be welcomed into the home of a pal and maybe, if time has escaped me again it will be so delicious it will be thank you enough.

Ingredients:

115 gm butter softened

115 gm caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg, room temp if you can be organised

Pinch of salt

115 gm plain flour

115 gm self-raising flour

½ cup lemon curd. I always use this one, it’s fool proof and perfect as you’d expect. You could also use store bought for a quick bake.

https://www.smh.com.au/goodfood/recipes/lemon-curd-20111018-29wiz.html

1 tsp whit sugar

1 tbs almond flakes

1 egg and a splash of milk extra for glazing.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c. Grease and line a 20cm spring form cake tin.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine soft butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat on medium high until light and fluffy, scraping down sides as you go as necessary. Add in beaten room temp egg and beat again until amalgamate. Watch it carefully as you want it to be emulsified but not split. At this point remove bowl from mixer and tip in combined flours and salt. With purposeful movement fold together using a spatula until completely combined. Tip onto a lightly floured bench and work with your hands in a light kneading fashion similarly to how you would for scones. Divide dough in half. Refrigerate one half for ten minutes during the next step. Take the remaining half and push it into the base of prepared tin working it evenly with your hands covering the whole base creating a bottom layer disc, neaten the edges. Pour the lemon curd into the centre of your disc and spread evenly leaving a 1.5 cm border free of curd. Brush edges with egg wash. Remove your remaining dough from the fridge and, on a floured surface, roll out to a matching sized disc. Gently work the edges with your fingers to neaten. Lift carefully and gently place over base and lemon curd, softly pressing edges to seal. Brush over the top with your egg wash, sprinkle with sugar and almond flakes. Place in the oven and immediately turn heat down to 200. Cook 15-20.

Allow to cool in tin and transfer to a serving plate when completely cooled.

Serve with lashings of cream, sour cream or yoghurt. You may also like to serve warm with ice cream as a dessert but not hot, that curd will burn your tongue if you let anticipation take over.

Strawberry Yoghurt Mousse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

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

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

130 gm strawberries trimmed, hulled and roughly chopped pureed

¼ c honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

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

Method:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Savoury Pizza Muffins

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

100 gm butter melted

300 gr self-raising flour

1 tsp salt flakes

1 ½ tsp dried oregano leaves

100 gm fresh ham roughly chopped

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

4 spring onions/scallions chopped

2 eggs beaten

¼ c/60ml extra virgin olive oil

200 ml milk

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pecan, Date and White Chocolate Blondies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

220 gm white chocolate chopped

225 gm butter chopped

220 gm brown sugar

120 gm white sugar

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

4 eggs beaten

220 gm plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt flakes

125 gm pecans chopped

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

70 gm white chocolate chopped extra

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method:

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

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

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

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

Deep Fried Zucchini

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

1 large zucchini cut in to 1 cm slices

1/3 c plain flour

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

¼ tsp ground white pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1 egg beaten with a tsp of milk

1 c panko breadcrumbs

10 g finely grated parmesan cheese

2 Tb sesame seeds

Neutral flavoured oil for deep frying

Dressing ingredients:

½ c sour cream

1 tb garlic ailoi

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

½ tsp salt flakes

Method:

Combine all dressing ingredients cover and store in fridge.

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

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

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

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

Ginger Passionfruit Slice

She sat in the armchair to your right as you entered the lounge room. Close to the front door and her own bedroom door, formerly that of my parents, sacrificed for her stay with us. Morning sun glinted through the curls of her fine grey hair, often times lulling her to sleep, it’s glow wrapping her in a blanket of warmth. She’d spend her days there mostly, sometimes receiving visits from her friends accompanied by their family members or of course from her own extended family. She came to live with us for what was to be the last weeks of her life. Decades of a life lived punctuated by disease, diabetes, asthma and emphysema in consort tolling the bell of time ever more loudly.

She was a quiet matriarch in her time, not one who ruled with the proverbial iron fist but rather the carer, nurturer and rule maker. The love for her family and care she provided ran deep her love a restorative salve. She raised my mother for the most part and like the shelter and love her home proved when my mum needed, our home too was the restorative convalescence my great-grandmother needed. On her arrival we imagined ourselves offering palliative support and love to my Nan as she was known. Her frailty signalled her life drawing to a close. My parents opened their home to her as much out of love as gratitude for all shed done for mum and with great care Mum nursed her in those early weeks. As time went on glimmers of hope emerged. More and more she’d slowly emerge from her room shuffling tentatively out to share time with the family and take her meals in her special chair lap warmed by her crocheted knee rug made when her fingers were more nimble. With regular meals and human interaction her condition improved and her days in our family grew longer.

The initial period of convalescence freezing time to support her faded as it became clear our efforts had succeeded and Nan had found her second wind so to speak. We needed a new plan and routine so Mum could return to work and resume her normal life. I was a teenager at the time so absent from home for at least six hours a day and Dad still a shift worker. Mum’s job was not far from home but still this left a frail lady home alone for great swathes of time. As family’s often do the relatives rallied. Everyone taking a day to visit where possible offer company for Nan and reassurance for mum. One such visitor was my Nana, Dad’s mum. She was of a similar ilk herself, the quiet no nonsense nurturer. Every Wednesday, after leaving a cut lunch in the fridge for my Papa, she’d walk the 4 kms to our house, a baked treat stashed in her roomy handbag slung in the crook of her elbow. Having survived polio as a child her gait was slow but strong the site of our home after that last bend in the road a welcome site. Her visits were as much an act of love for Nan as it was to Mum and Dad. Her cheery voice would ‘sing out’ a greeting as she arrived, her bag carried through to the kitchen where she’d ‘pop the kettle on’ and prepare morning tea. They’d natter away catching up on their weeks and news of the day while they sipped steaming amber coloured tea, two cups frugally made from one tea bag, while they nibbled on whatever sweet treat was on offer. After lunch, also often an offering of love and nurture from Nana, Nan would nod off in the last of the eastern sunshine before the sun arced over our roof. To fill time during this restorative nap, Nana took to the duster and broom helping mum with some housework to ease her load and perhaps make a start on dinner too. Sometimes they’d take to their needles, one knitting the other crocheting comparing their progress and differing skills each wishing they could do what the other could. They’d reflect on times gone, laughing and shedding a tear here and there at shared recollections and memories. Marjorie and May forged a firm friendship during their Wednesdays spent together, Marj finding purpose in supporting mum, May looking forward to the company of a woman her own age, the two together finding previously untapped common ground and friendship in each other’s company. Opposites in many ways, from each side of our family, Dad’s mum and Mum’s Nan, found friendship in later life.

One thing they had always had in common was a love of baking. Nan loved a ginger laced bake Nana a more classic airy sponge often topped with passionfruit icing. Nan, no longer being fleet of foot, was unable to cook and so would ask Mum to purchase Gingernut Biscuits as an offering during these visits. Nana, still reigning at her oven, would still whip up a light airy sponge cake sandwiching fluffy whipped Chantilly cream, crowned with passionfruit icing.

The notion of opposites attracting was one often on our minds watching two women who’d known each other for decades in late life finding a deep nourishing friendship in each other’s companionship. Likewise, opposites attract in flavours sometimes too. Marriages in ingredients you may not always think of initially but when experimented with inspire equally revelatory relationships as that enjoyed by two women thrown together and sipping tea with ginger and passionfruit in all its guises.

Ingredients:

½ c sweetened condensed milk

50 gm butter

1 Tb golden syrup

40 gm chopped naked preserved or glace ginger

320 gm Gingernut biscuits or similar ginger flavoured cookies/biscuits with a crisp dry texture

Icing:

1 ¾ C icing sugar

Pulp of 2 passionfruit 1 tsp of seeds reserved

2 tsp boiling water

2 tsp lemon juice

20 gm butter melted

Method:

Line a 16cm x 25cm slice tin and set aside.

In a small saucepan combine condensed milk, butter, ginger and golden syrup over a medium low heat. Warm until just combined thoroughly and remove from heat.

Crush biscuits/cookies in a food processor or blender using the pulse setting crushing until a mixture of course and fine crumbs. It’s nice to maintain some texture in the crushing so there’s a variation when eating and for the mixture to absorb the wet mixture.

In a large bowl combine crumbs and warm melted liquids until thoroughly combine like thick wet sand. It should be quite thick and stiff. Spread evenly in the prepared tray and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and firm. The longer it’s refrigerated the better allowing for the most moisture absorption.

When ready combine all icing ingredients until smooth. Spread evenly over slice with an offset spatula or similar if you have one. A little tip: heat the blade briefly over a stove flame so it spreads smoothly over the icing leaving an even finish. Allow to set and cut into suitable sized pieces.

Nana’s Chocolate Fudge Cake

I’ve lost my son’s birth certificate. There! I’ve said it. It’s been missing for a while but being a positive person who genuinely believes everything works out in the end, I honestly thought it would turn up with a more concerted effort on my part to hunt it down. He called from the outback on his adventure around our big island recently asking if I’d found it, plotting adventures further afield. “No problem,” I assured him, “it’ll be here somewhere.” Spontaneously, one morning recently, I set about pulling my room and closet apart convinced I’d be imminently victorious. As the morning dragged on and the mess of my efforts grew it became painfully obvious that my positive attitude may well have been misplaced on this occasion. A birth certificate is perhaps the most important document we carry through life, A document denoting the moment in time of our entry into the world. Whilst I’m not the first mother in the world to lose one and certainly won’t be the last after, what was stretchin out to a full day of hunting, I was becoming deflated and frustrated and frankly very disappointed.

Always one to look for silver linings however, I was spring cleaning (in Autumn) as I went through things. The piles of donate, keep, dispose of were growing and if nothing else that alone would make the search worthwhile. As the hours ticked by and I moved from one shelf to the next box my focus was waning and the effort to keep searching methodically leaving me rapidly, until I opened a camphor chest that sits in a corner. One of those big, in interior decorating in the late 80’s early 90’s, that I’ve hung onto for its practicality if nothing else. It’s filled with my Nana’s recipe collection amongst other curio. It’s one of those piles carefully stored though, if I’m honest, in desperate need of curating. Easily distracted particularly at this point of the search, I sat down to have a little peruse through the collection. Small snippets from magazines and newspapers fell from books heavy with text but scant with imagery. Retro recipes featuring ingredients and concoctions not enjoyed readily today brought a smile to my face. I scooped up all the little cuttings as they fell from the well thumbed pages replacing them from where they tumbled except for one small frail piece of blue notepaper. As I reached for the faded scrap of paper the old fashioned handwriting caught my eye enveloping me in nostalgia. I could imagine her in her humble kitchen sitting at her table, back warmed by sun through the kitchen window as she jotted down the recipe on a small piece of paper possibly cut into note paper size from an old envelope or other packaging, a habit from her frugal ways. She could never have imagined, at the time, the jou this quicky penned list would bring me so many years hence. Though acutely unwell she left us quickly and unexpectedly. I wrote about her here and the legacy of memories she left us and indeed reflected on the lost recipes and regret I carry not having spent more time in the kitchen with her as an adult. I wish we’d cooked together as women, my young sons at our feet, her instructing me and imbuing me with her wisdom both food and life. I wish I hadn’t been consumed with misplaced confidence that we had time and that I truly appreciated the hands of time taking moments from us. Seeing this little slip of paper fluttering from between the collected pages of other clippings she’d accumulated was like pennies from heaven, life a feather fluttering down gifting me this sweet creation of hers and a gentle hand guiding me, one I miss immensely.

The irony of this find is not lost on me, while looking for the birth certificate of my first son, born 14 months before my Nana’s premature departure a handwritten note of hers finds it’s way into my hands serendipitously. As excited as I was to find her little note from the past, I couldn’t remember having enjoyed chocolate cake at that white laminate table. None the less, following her instructions to the letter that first time I cooked her cake making sense of some measurements and instructions translating them to modern quantities and techniques. After a not so patient wait for the completed cake to cool I took my first bite of the buttercream topped cake and was flooded with memories of a flavour and texture as familiar to me as the handwriting that had guided me to this point. It’s a strange thing the memories our senses carry and the visceral feelings and emotions they evoke, almost like the familiarity long seen handwriting carries, the knowing and identity ever present.

I’ve followed and shared Nana’s recipe to the letter, though I’ve doubled the cocoa and increased the butter a little. Unlike her suggestion I’ve cooked it in a loaf tin rather than a lamington pan, doubling the cooking time. She’s a sturdy loaf with a rich fudgy centre and sweet crisp crust. I have taken nana’s suggestion of a butter cream adornment though have added some melted dark chocolate for a smooth luscious frosting. It’s a meeting of the minds if you will, across the decades, her delicious creation with my embellishments.

Now to make a cuppa and have a slice of cake while I contemplate what to do about that missing birth certificate.

**If you’re lucky enough to still have a treasured elder in your life maybe you could make them a chocolate fudge loaf, take it with you to visit and ask them all the questions you’ve wondered about. Trust me It’ll be an afternoon well spent xx**

Ingredients:

80 gm butter softened

1 c caster sugar

½ c milk

1 egg beaten

1 ½ c self raising flour

2 Tb coco ( dutch process, unsweetened)

¼ tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp bicarb soda

¼ tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

¼ c boing water (I leave the kettle to cool slightly while I’m mixing. Adding that boiling water to a mixture containing an egg still scares me)

Method:

Preheat oven 180c. Grease and line a loaf tin with a few cms overhang each side to lift cooked cake from pan later.

In stand mixer with paddle attachment beat butter until colour is beginning to lighten and it’s starting to turn fluffy. Add sugar mixing on low until just combined, increase speed to med-high and cream until light in colour and fluffy. Pour in milk, vanilla and egg mixing on low until combined to prevent splashing, increase to medium for a minute once it looks like it wont splash out of the bowl. Stop mixer, tip in dry ingredients and again mix on low until everything’s mostly wet then increase to med-high and pour in boiling water. Whip for a minute until it reminds you of the smooth creamy consistency of a packet cake mixture. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes.

Do not open the oven door before the 40 mins. If left alone this cake with rise to a pleasing even rounded top with a fine crack down the centre when ready. Open the door too early and she’ll collapse slightly in the middle. Still delicious but lacking that smooth satisfying top.

I’ve topped mine with a butter cream recipe adapted from Emelia Jackson’s most excellent book Frist Cream the Butter and Sugar. You might like to try it with a Ganache or even a simple chocolate glaze

Buttercream:

40 gm dark chocolate melted and cooled. Do this first an allow to cool while completing the other steps. It needs to be properly cooled with setting as it may set into fine grain like pieces of chocolate when combine with cool butter.

80 gm icing sugar

1 scant Tb cocoa

60 gm soft butter

2 tsp of full cream milk.

Pinch of salt flakes

Like the cake whip the butter to lite and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients, melted chocolate and milk, mixing on low until combined then increase heat to high for one minute or until increased in volume, fluffy and spreadable.

Autumn Drop Scones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ingredents:

¼ c currants

Rind and juice of 1 mandarin

25 gm unsalted butter

1tbs honey

1 c self-raising flour

¼ c caster sugar

¼ tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp ground cardamon

50 gm Greek yoghurt

1 egg

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

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

Method:

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

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

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

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

White Chocolate and Vanilla Cookies

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

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

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

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

Ingredients:

150 gm of soft butter

½ C sweetened condensed milk

¼ C brown sugar firmly packed

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

2 tsp miso paste

300 gm SR flour

150 gm white chocolate chopped

Method:

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

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

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

Makes 40 small cookies

Notes:

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

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

Afternoon Tea Loaf

I’m 51. I dwell in the middle, the space between the seasons, between two phases of life. The one where summer’s glow shrinks away awaiting a new dawning in spring, towards summers of the future and the next phase.

I wake nightly, eyes springing open, alert. I toss and turn searching for a return to slumber, desperately trying to keep my mind in the inert state of the wee hours and rest. Though I fight earnestly my brain springs into action, alert awake. The hours pass, thoughts trawl, the ‘problems of the world’ turned over tenfold solved and rehashed. Oudtside my window in waving eucalypts the birds start to stir, their song rising from a murmur, the rousing call of a kookaburra calling the chorus to a crescendo. Then the choir recedes and the dawn emerges as my eyes heavily fall into the nothingness of sleep. I wake soon after, the the day slowly gathering it’s usual cadence. Reluctantly flinging the doona off I arise and start the day expecting fatigue and exhaustion to sweep over me. Though in need of coffee the wave of fatigue hasn’t quite found me. I’m tired but awake, not as tired as I expect my mind is alert though foggy the night’s strange mix of wakeful sleepiness hanging from my shoulders like a cape I’m not keen to wear. Ideas sparked through excite me though I need to reach through holes in the fog to grasp them and bring them to life. Joints ache and waves of ‘summer’ sweep over me making my hand flap like a fan to relive the sudden flush of heat. While my mind and heart remain in a youthful place my body gently reminds me I’m entering an autumn of sorts. One where deep restful sleep eludes me and bright sparkling sunshine begins to wain to make room for the waxing of a new type of sunshine and life’s second summer.

It's no surprise then that I reflect on life in such a metaphorically manner this week. The warm balmy summer days drawing to a close here making room for the shift in seasons. Nature begins her pack down in preparation for hibernation and rebirth this week. Autumn started here yesterday. It’s a topsy turvy season, a space in the middle. Where some days dawn cool and brisk, the world moving a little slower and things a little less bright. Then as if to remind us nature hasn’t quite shifted yet our weeks are punctuated with days illuminated with warm sunshine and vigour until eventually the hibernation arrives and the earth settles down for a rest preparing for spring’s bud and summers bloom.

It's in the space in the middle, in the wee hours when my mind decides rest is for the young and the old and not the ones in the middle, that if I allow it, ideas are born. Where I imagine the next chapter and my next bloom that I also imagine what that will look, feel and taste like. Renewed energy and vigour, fresh ideas and ambitions and days filled with different flavours.

I imagined this Afternoon Tea Loaf during one such interlude in sleep. Where a mixture of summer’s fruits dried in dry parched sunshine were plumpled with dark malty sweetness and salty melted butter folded together with spices and a combination of flours, eggs and yoghurt to form a rustic loaf to compliment a moment of down time in the afternoon, perhaps with a pal or on a picnic adventuring in the wild. She’s dark flavourful, rustic, nutty and just a little spicy, sturdy and resilient she’ll last and brighten your day and make you smile.

Ingredients:

210 gm mixed dried fruit chopped.

200gm butter

¾ c (180gm) dark brown sugar (regular brown is fine if that’s all you have)

2 Tb treacle

2 tsps cocoa (unsweetened, dutch style)

1 c flour

½ c spelt flour (the wholemeal type is tastier)

½ c almond flour/ground almond

1 tsp ground cardamon

½ tsp allspice

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarb soda

2 eggs

½ c Greek style yoghurt

1 tbs oil (neutral flavour, I’ve used grape seed)

1 tsp vanilla extract.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c (fan forced) grease and line a loaf tin, 9.5cm x 20cm.

Combine butter, fruit, sugar treacle and cocoa in a medium saucepan over low heat until butter is melted and sugar mostly dissolved. Pour into a bowl to cool.

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients and whisk together with a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine and aerate.

I another small bowl combine eggs, yoghurt, oil and vanilla and whisk together to completely combine.

Pour all the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and fold through to mix together until just combined. Tip into the loaf tin and pop in the oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer in the middle comes out clean. You’ll need to check the cake at the 30 minute mark and perhaps cover with foil. There’s a lot of sugars in the mixture which burnish and form a lovely crust quite quickly but will burn if left uncovered.

Allow to cool in the tin for ten minutes before using baking paper to gently lift from the tin and cooling on a rack. Serve with or without butter…but it’s much nicer with butter…or even a thick spread of ricotta.

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.

Rocky Road

It was always the sweet smell sugar and chocolate that alerted me first. Small hand ensconced in my mother’s, eyes darting around for the entrance. The sweet heady aroma of chocolate and assorted sweets would waft from the shop door always drawing hungry shoppers in. My mum had a penchant for liquorice all sorts and straps. A bit of a monthly indulgence on our Saturday shopping trips she’d stock up ensuring there was always a jar of soft squishy liquorice black straps in the cupboard and a smaller one of cubes of all sorts. Not a liquorice girl myself I was always more taken with the mountains of chocolate. Jars and jars of it, all available by individual piece and more, wrapped in brightly coloured crinkly packaging invitingly displayed just within a child’s reach. I would always delight in the small offerings of the sales assistants keeping me occupied while mum stocked up…or quite possibly enticing me to pester mum for something yummy for me as well. They wore long full skirts that would swish with each step around the store they took and billow sleeved blouses, adorned with equally long bib and skirt aprons and full bonnets that reminded me of shower caps all as a nod to the heritage of the brand. They were the type of local brand who’s wares were coveted, indeed my mother in law always cherished a gift of a box of assorted chocolates.

Alongside her love of liquorice mum also loved rocky road bars. Come xmas she’d stock up on these some cut into bars in individual clear bags their squishy shiny marshmallow and jewels of Turkish delight shining out from the rich chocolate coating and others cut into cubes piled abundantly in bags with small fragments of nuts piled at the bottom like prized debris. She loved having a basket of goodies at hand that she could gift people. Generous to a fault she hated the thought of not showing her fondness for those around her at Christmas time. From the postman, to work colleagues, school teachers and friends everyone was thought of and many the recipients of treats from our favourite chocolate shop.

To be honest I’m a bit the same. I love small offerings of love at Christmas and do indeed include as many of those in my life as I can. Spiced cookies, shortbread, mince pies and fruit cake all feature prominently but his year I wanted to include something a little different. I was reminded of Mum’s rocky road love and as always my fondness for putting my spin on a recipe. I recall my small fingers as a child picking the individual jewels from the chunks and licking my fingers of the melted chocolate as my mind darted around with ideas for my version of Rocky Road. I’m particularly enamoured with these marshmallows, large cubes like small sugary pillows and fragrance that bursts from the packet. Tumbled with floral Turkish delight jellies, golden caramel popcorn and crunchy cashew nuts I like to encase them in dark chocolate to balance out the sweetness with a few pops of tart craisins for little bursts of sour. I’ve also kept the big, lovely pieces of marshmallow and Turkish delight jellies whole because it’s one less thing to do and then when I’m eating it and then enjoy chunks with each delicious ingredient. You could chop marshmallow and Turkish delight into smaller chunks if you prefer to have candy cocktail with each bite, it’s entirely up to you. You may also prefer milk chocolate or even white, it will all be delicious and loved by all those in your life to whom you make a small offering of chocolate love this Christmas.

Ingredients:

250gm turkish delight (rose flavoured, the pink one)

140 gm marshmallows

1 C dry roasted whole cashews

2 C caramel popcorn (remember Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs?)

½ C craisins

725 gm of dark chocolate (I use this one.) roughly cut into small pieces

2 Tb grape seed oil or other neutral flavoured oil.

Method:

Line a 30cm x 19cm straight sided slice tin with baking paper leaving a few centimetres overhang on each side so you can easily lift the slice out for cutting when set.

In a large bowl combine all ingredients except chocolate and oil. You can cut up the marshmallow and Turkish delight if you wish. I like to leave it whole, saves time and the gives you pieces with big chunks of favourite ingredients.

Bring some water to a simmer in a small to medium sized saucepan suitable for a glass bowl to sit on top ensuring there isn’t too much water that it will lick the bottom of the bowl when placed on top.

Put chocolate pieces in a second large bowl big enough to fit over the saucepan you have simmering on the stove. Place the bowl on the saucepan keeping the water at a gentle simmer. Melt the chocolate until just smooth remove immediately. Stir through oil until well combined. This should help the chocolate cool a little so we can add it to the other bowl with melting the marshmallow and Turkish delight. Once cooled to room temperature, pour over first bowl and stir through until well combined and all the ingredients are coated. Tip into prepared tin, smooth out until mostly well distributed and pop in the fridge uncovered to set for at least one hour or until firm.

Cut into chunks of your own size preference and gobble up!

Scones, Jam and Cream

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a NY Times food article written by Krysten Chambrot on scones. I reached out to her on Instagram having a chat about the difference between the anglo version and north American one. Only a week later Lindsay Cameron Wilson‘s always wonderful newsletter told the story of a swirly delicsous bundt cake which used a cup of 7Up in the ingredients. Another online conversation ensued where I shared with Lindsay my favourite recipe for scones. A food nerd like myself, and perhaps intrigued by using the 7 Up in a different context, she suggested she’d try the recipe for post ski race snacks for her son.

Food is often a bridge between cultures, one that spans sometimes great divides. Something as seemingly simple as a scone sparked conversations between oceans and highlighted the evolution of a simple recipe to something quite different and enjoyed differently. Little conversations like this really are like small exercises in anthropology and a study in different interpretations of the same thing, interestingly in this case, in two English speaking countries both with British ancestry. Perhaps as I’ve alluded to before food really is the common ‘currency’ of humanity.

This scone is made with what Australians call lemonade. In north America this drink is called 7Up or Sprite using its commercial name. I’m not sure why we use the generic term of lemonade but when you hear an Aussie use that term they’re most likely not referring to the drink traditional made with lemon, sugar and water and no fizz. This recipe is used by Australia’s famed Country Women’s Association for their large-scale catering in times of crisis and country shows (a fair for international readers). They’re fast and easy and always reliable. Just like the jam recipe I’m sharing with you. You don’t need to be an export to make this jam just remember it’s a little like chemistry and require a little loyalty to the recipe, don’t go rogue and experiment if you’ve never made jam before. Also fast it does however require your full attention and is a lovely opportunity to switch off from the world for a little while and just concentrate on the sweet alchemy of deeply coloured, fragrant fruit bubbling away on the stove.

***Note: As mentioned above when I refer to lemonade I’m referring to the clear canned fizzy soft drink commercially known with such popular brands as 7Up and Sprite.

Ingredients:

Scones:

3 c self raising flour

¼ salt flakes

1 c lemonade/7Up/Sprite

1 c cream (thickened or thick pouring cream for whipping)

Jam:

200 gm blueberries

200 gm raspberries

100 gm blackberries halved crossways if they’re large

100 gm rhubarb sliced

1 vanilla bean halved and scraped seed pod reserved

Peel of an orange peeled using a veg peeler or pairing knife(preferably blood orange if available)

2 tb fresh orange juice from the orange

1 tb lemon juice

200 gm white sugar

Cream to serve whipped with vanilla and icing/powdered sugar.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c without a fan if possible 200 c if using fan forced.

Measure flour and salt in a large bowl mixing lightly with a balloon whisk to lighten and break up any clumping. Make a well in the centre and pour in the cream then the ‘lemonade’ over the top. Gently fold together until all the moisture is only just absorbed. Using floured hands gently bring together until starting to look resemble a dough and turn out onto a floured surface. With a light touch softly knead with a few turn to smoot out the surface. Pat down rather than roll to flatten to no less than 2 cms thick. Using a 6 cm cutter cut rounds placing on a baking tray/sheet. I like to place them ½ cm apart so they kudge up against each other as they expand and rise. This makes a bakers dozen. Brush with full cream/whole milk and bake for 12-15 minutes. They should have doubled in height and have a lovely burnished golden brown top.

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.