Mortadella, Ricotta and Marinated Veg Sandwich
Throughout history, as far back as the Middle Ages, perhaps even further, sandwiches have appeared at tables in some form or another. Certainly not in the form that comes to mind in 2024, but the idea of a food item inserted between some kind of bread like flour and water concoction is one of food’s most prolific constants across time.
Most of us vaguely know the origin of the name of one of humanity’s favourite meals. John Montagu, the head of the house of Montagu and its fourth earl was somewhat of a self-indulgent reprobate and gambler. Like the timelessness of sandwiches he was confronted by an equally enduring problem…to gamblers at least, how to stave hunger without leaving your place at the table and the game. He ordered his servants to bring him bread and meat from which he assembled a concoction that allowed him to eat with his hands and protect his fingers and his cards from the grease of the meat and indeed satisfy his hunger whilst to continuing his punting. We of course know him as Earl Sandwich, a seat in the British Peerage that prevails even to this very day. Perhaps our first influencer, having had such a significant dish named after him. Indeed ‘sandwiches’ began to appear amongst the aristocracy as supper like snacks to be enjoyed with drinks, an earlier more relaxed style of entertaining and reserved for men.
History suggests similar servings appeared previous to this in the middle ages when the wealthy used stale bread as plates of a sort, the remainder of which used to feed dogs and beggars, a somewhat jarring tale. African and east Asian cultures have created their own versions of flat breads to use in a similar fashion to the earl to hold and scoop up their delicious stews and curries in the manner western cultures would use cutlery. In Jewish history bread holds a significant and sacred place evoloving into all manner of sandwich like creations such as bagels and open sandwiches on pumpernickel, perhaps a reflection of the nationalities from which Jewish populations hailed.
As economies and populations evolved so to did the classes and the proliferation of the working class. Made of such affordable readily available staples bread became a staple and it’s use as a housing or conduit for other more substantial ingredients such as meat, cheese and other accoutrements grew in popularity and accessibility. Workers, farmers and the like would head off for the day’s work with the earliest form of packed lunch in the shape of sandwiches in whatever way their locality and nationality informed. Perhaps nutrition increased and the ability to work away from the home and for someone else and improve one’s own economic circumstances improved. Have Sandwiches been a pillar of humanity? Maybe a long’ish bow to draw but stay with me.
In the 20th century sandwiches in a plethora of forms have appeared in popular culture across the decades. Like delicate delicious ribbons on fluffy white clouds of soft thinly sliced bread they’ve punctuated the tiered towers of high tea on white linen clad tables of salubrious British dining rooms. The tummies of hungry American children have been satisfied by PB&J, spread on slices of sweet white sandwich loaf bread, the sticky dregs of the fruity jam (jelly) and salty oily peanut butter enthusiastically licked off after the last bite was devoured. Generations of Aussie kids have opened school lunchboxes with famished anticipation to enthusiastically find a vegemite sandwich nestled with fruit and perhaps a little treat, maybe even sandwiched with a slice of cheese for lovers of our classic cheese and vegemite sandwich. Made with real butter of course.
As much as they’re markers of time sandwiches are also little vessels of memories for many of us. For me there was Saturday Morning’s chicken sandwiches or my Nana’s grilled cheese sandwiches bubbling hot, cheese stretching in great long strands when pulled apart for dipping into tomato soup. I also was introduced to lemon pepper seasoning at my bestie’s house as a teen, sprinkled on ham and mayo in crusty white rolls. I know it doesn’t sound like it should work but it really does. My Mum used to speak of bread and dripping sandwiches or my Dad and his favoured bubble and squeak in grilled bread to use up leftovers. Sandwiches also often serve as a threshold to new flavour discoveries like my discovery in childhood at a highway roadhouse in the early hours of the morning biting into a bacon and egg roll dressed with old school tomato sauce (ketchup). Ozzy egg yolk mingled with tomato sauce dripping down my fingers hungrily licked up, I discovered how utterly delicious a combo that was. I know not an earth-shattering discovery but one I remember after turning my nose up when I noticed that red puddle of sauce peeking out of the edge of my sandwich. Something I’d not previously tasted proved to be a revelation on my young palette.
You could almost write a history of the world, economics and sociology using the humble sandwich as a centrepoint. Certainly I know I could probably use sandwiches as the chapters of parts of my own life, indeed this most recent period can be characterised by a few bready concoctions. The one I’m sharing with you today is one such delicious tower. With a wodge of ricotta in the fridge, mortadella from a delicious country butcher, handmade pesto from a small producer in the King Valley, a few half empty jars of marinated vegetables and artisan bread my curiosity led me to perfectly matched flavours that now appears regularly at my own lunch table.
The recipe is for one, so easily scaled up as required. It also makes a wonderful picnic sandwich, you know the ones, where one whole baguette or ciabatta is sliced lengthwise and filled and sliced into chunks to serve. Measure your loaf or baguette by hand widths per person along its length then scale your fillings accordingly.
Ingredients:
2 Slices of your favourite bread, or bread roll. I’ve used sourdough sandwich loaf here
6-8 sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped into small pieces.
2 slices of your favourite style of mortadella. I’ve used chilli mortadella
2 slices of roasted and marinated eggplant, store bought is fine as used here. Usually available in delis or the jarred variety from the supermarket
50 gm of ricotta crumbled
1 Tb pesto, I’ve used this delicious one.
Small handful of Baby spinach leaves trimmed of stems
Method:
Build you sandwich in layers, so with each bite you’ll enjoy a burst of flavour from each ingredient. Scatter the spinach leaves in a single layer. Halve the eggplant slices and layer evenly on top of the spinach. Evenly sprinkle the chopped sundried tomatoes. Place the mortadella slices on next, allowing them to fall in folds. On the other slice spread the pesto then crumble over the ricotta. Place that slice on top of the other. Enjoy!!!
The flavours are so rich and interesting it can even be enjoyed with a glass of wine, sunshine and great company. Definitely picnic worthy.
Peach and Tomato Salad
January has felt long. Not bad long as in ‘dragging on’ but good long. Languorous, restful, and leisurely, the good kind of long. The kind of month where we’ve not risen with the sun but rather slept until her warmth reaches the window and its glow dances across your eyes rousing you. When chores wait, books are read from start to finish, perhaps work is on the shelf for a bit and the year feels full of possibility.
I’ve felt suspended this January however. Maybe stuck, maybe just in denial, the latter being a fairly regular visitor for me at this time of year. I always start the year full of ideas, hope and determination and like most of us, irrespective of how challenging or otherwise the months become, generally limp across the finish line come December. That fresh new diary or calendar however always inspires me to dream big.
The pace of January allows the mind to wander doesn’t it, mine certainly does. You start wondering what you could achieve in the year without the pressures of time marching by. Time feels somewhat suspended, our minds are less cluttered without deadlines and routines weighing us down. I buy myself a new diary every year and excitedly open it to the first page, fresh and smooth with that gorgeous new book smell. This year will be the year I stick to routine, to task, to the steps towards the dreams inspiring my resolutions….or so I tell myself each year when I start filling the pages.
I’m always led by good intentions, certain that’s all it takes…isn’t it? Maybe it’s a sign of a positive attitude, never say die, always having hope. Maybe I’m delusional. Let’s face it me and my best intentions don’t always end in the intended outcome. Remember that two-month road trip I was going to take you on? A little jaunt around New South Wales and southern Queensland where we were going to discover all manner of secret treasures and country gems, well it started well, got a bit lost or forgotten and then ended in a limp to the finish. I had the best of intentions and imagined a lovely collection of posts like a travel blog I could look back on you could enjoy as a vicarious holiday with me. It’s the perfect example of best laid plans falling over or perhaps my lack of follow through and the perfect example of why no matter the sense of wonder and hope a new year offers me I’m not well suited to new year’s resolutions and the consequent let down that befalls me.
Our social media feeds and perhaps even our conversations are full of chatter about our resolutions or goals for the coming year at the moment, but have you noticed in recent times this waning? The resolution seems to have made way for ‘the word,’ the one people look to for guidance through the course of the year or perhaps to inform intentions as they come up rather than one big profound promise they make themselves. In following the posts of others on the ‘word’ of the year it seems to me these words can act as an umbrella for those promises that may have previously looked and sounded like resolutions but feel less pressured and gentler. Anyway a few years ago I tried a word, again with all the best of intentions imagining the things that word might drive me towards. Trouble was, life took over and I kind of forgot what my word was. I know, who forgets their word. Clearly I’m not well suited to grand and profound gestures such as resolutions and words.
Fast forward to 2024 and the posts were coming think and fast. “Geez do I need a word?” I ask myself again because heck it must work for all those other folks dreaming big if they keep doing it or why would they repeat the exercise each year. Anyway, whilst pondering this a post popped up in my Instagram feed on this very topic. Eloquently presented by Em, her word felt more like a philosophy than a grandiose dream of lofty heights from whence one could fall in a dithering mess again by the end of the year’s first quarter. “A philosophy,” I thought, now that’s something I could do and live by and draw on continually.
So, drawing on a conversation I’d had recently with my son in which I’d suggested the key to a good life and urged him to pursue it I arrived at a word. It’s not one to overwhelm me but rather to excite me. This year, for me the word is ‘Curiosity!’ I have no idea where it will take me because I have no mountainous dreams, ok maybe I do but if I keep them filed under ‘Mountainous Dreams’ and they remain on that peak with me only half way up towards the summit I won’t feel like a failure, but I do know that a year in which I’m fuelled by curiosity can only be a good one…ultimately. Let’s see how it goes and maybe you could check back on me in December. I may or may not be the one crawling one handed towards the finish line with my other hand gripping a glass of bubbles ready to cheers the end of another lap.
On the subject of bubbles, during that wonderful lap of New South Wales, we visited with friends who took us to a gloriously indulgent restaurant, perhaps a loose segway but stay with me. In a gorgeous boutique hotel set in stunning rambling gardens we enjoyed a sumptuous meal of the freshest, loveliest ingredients creatively curated into superb dishes. One of which has stuck in my mind…and phone camera roll. Tonight, we’re enjoying a Bill Granger Miso Roast Beef recipe (gosh wasn’t that sad news over the Christmas break) and, led by that curiosity I’m nurturing this year, I’m recreating that dish,with my take on a fresh summery salad. Served at Bell’s with a wonderful plump ball of oozy burrata perched atop, I’ve changed it up a bit to suit the two of us tonight but if you want to impress a crowd you could definitely replace the bocconcini with a globe of creamy goodness.
Ingredients:
2 tomatoes cut into large chunks. If you have access to them grab the interesting varieties that are well ripened, they have so much more flavour.
2 yellow peaches, ripe so they come away from the seed easily, cut into chunks of similar size to the tomato chunks
2 Tb extra virgin olive, one with good flavour
3 tsp red wine vinegar
Pinch of salt flakes
Good grind of black pepper
100 gm baby bocconcini drained
2 heaped Tb whole roasted hazelnuts (skinless) halved
20 small basil leaves
½ tsp ground sumac
Method:
In a medium sized shallow bowl large enough to hold everything combine the oil vinegar and salt and pepper and whisk until combined. Swirl bowl so the puddle of dressing coats the base of the bowl. Place the peach and tomato chunks in a single layer over the dressing puddle. Dot the hazelnuts here and there across the top along with the bocconcini pieces. Sprinkle over the basil leaves finishing with a sprinkle of the sumac across the top. Don’t stir the salad before serving rather present in that lovely layer. The salad will have macerated in a fashion while it floats on the dressing puddle.
Serve immediately, if needing to transport you could drizzle over the dressing and sprinkle over the sumac just as you serve.
Fresh Tomato and Zucchini Salad
Today began with the loud rumbling noise of machines out front of our house. The kind of noise that vibrates through the floor and walls with a not so gentle rumble reaching into your chest and bones. The kind of noise you hear in the suburbs. We’re home.
Home from the long languid days spent by the sea where our biggest decision was whether to go for another walk on the beach, salty sea water lapping at our ankles, or to read another chapter of a book. Pondering our next stop on the journey or to stay another day where we were. Home from ‘the road,’ from the escapist days at large and home to reality.
I’ve learnt a few things about myself and life on the road, even at 52. But one of these lessons it appears is an aversion to reality. I’d planned on writing here more often. I was loose in my plan but was certain I could create at least four newsletters, maybe even more. I was also certain I could read more professional development books and work on plans for the year ahead. I was ambitious, as I often am. Perhaps not the good kind of ambition though. I leaned more into the procrastination, avoided reality and lived a seaside utopian kind of life. Perhaps this isn’t so much a lesson as a reminder. I’m pretty sure I was already painfully aware of my simmering laissez faire undercurrent masked by genuine ambition but equally aware of my conviction I ‘could do it.’
I wrote that over a week ago. Perhaps more fortuitous and insightful than, even then, I acknowledged. Again trying to return to our regular catch ups, here I am. December, however is piling on me. Returning from our ‘come what may’ life to suburban pre-Christmas is startling in its ferocity, I’ve felt like a deer in the head lights. It’s taken some time to acknowledge the inevitable and get in the swing of things, bringing out all the Christmas cookbooks, stocking up on all the spices, dried fruits and the like and pondering a menu that inevitably never changes. That said I still don’t have the Christmas tree adorning my living room, that’s for the weekend. Our boys come home for the festive season next week, I’m super excited to see them. My husband could easily fall into the trap of not bothering with decorations with the lack of little people in our lives. I, on the other hand couldn’t do it, it simply wouldn’t feel Christmassy. So we’ll bring everything out, hang the tinsel garlands, festoon the tree with years of decorations both handmade and gifted, light the tree and crown it all with the inevitable star. Come what may we’re hopping aboard that metaphorical Christmas train.
Aside from the ‘big day’ of Christmas tables heaving with a festive cornucopia of all our traditional favourites, this period is usually a time spent dining outdoors for us. Trying to capture that leisurely holiday spirit found in long sunny days with warm breezes sweeping across our deck always characterises January. Usually a holiday time for us we return some way during the month and I remain caught up in that camping holiday spirit, cooking outdoors with something simple to accompany our meal that didn’t require much preparation, much like a holiday. This year, that summer spirit has returned home with us. Dinners served later than usual, though not always outside with summer’s later than usual arrival. Simple fare with fresh new season flavours dictating the menu. We travelled like this, sourcing what was available locally that looked the most flavourful and interesting, following our noses and palates if you will. Tomatoes plump, shiny and fragrant from a young woman who’s passion in sharing the flavoursome summer globes oozed from her every pore as generously as the fruit’s juice. Zucchinis, from another farmer who lives and breathes his market garden, who threw a few of his prized avocados in my bag as a gesture of thanks for visiting his stall and the lemons fresh and zingy like sunshine in my hand their perfume fluttering up as I cut them and squeeze their juice liberally across a salad. All that summery goodness after a visit to a farmer’s market on the shores of the sea where the clarence river meets the Pacific Ocean.
This is summer, this is what Christmas heralds for me. I’m not a religious person, but I love the spirit of the season, regardless of how you observe this time of year no matter where you are in the world, irrespective of who you break bread with and no matter how fraught the lead up can be, it’s a wonderful time of year. For me it’s a time that draws us all together, to pause and reflect on the year and one to smile at memories, perhaps even with a tear or two at those not at the table. And here in the southern hemisphere a time of slower languorous days ended in warm breezes with a plate of freshness dictated by the season.
Like the recipes I shared with you from the road this one is also one created with instinct. You could add your own flair or follow along as I suggest below. It’s full of all the cheery colours of Christmas and is super quick and easy to assemble, perhaps one for you menu or even one to stash away for the coming warm nights and barbecues.
Indredients:
2 eggs
½ cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste/extract
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
50 gms melted butter cooled
1 Tb honey
1 cup and 1 Tb of plain flour (I’m traveling without scales)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (I used Gewurzhaus Apple Pie Spice mix. Use what you have.)
1/3 cup of milk ( I used almond milk, you do you)
2 very ripe bananas mashed
Method:
Preheat oven to 180c, grease and line a loaf pan. Either sift or dry whisk dry ingredients, set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil until emulsified and frothy. The sugar will be partly dissolved. Add butter and honey and again whisk to combine well.
Gently fold in half the combined dry ingredients followed by the milk then finally the remaining dry ingredients. Finally fold in the mased banana, this step with distribute any remaining clumps of dry flour. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake. Now here’s the instinct part. I imagined a 45 minute bake and checked at 30 minutes to check progress. My little gas oven had blown out and needed to be reignited. So I’d suggest you check your cake at 40 minutes. If it has a wobble in the middle don’t bother poking it with a skewer rather return to the oven for ten minutes. Check again after that using a skewer, if it comes out clean as we always say, it’s done. If not try 5-10 minutes bursts to finish it depended on how much more it needs.
Serve warm or cooled with lashings of butter and a view.
Feel free to comment below if you have questions.
Confit Fennel with Chardonnay and Honey Mustard
Confit Fennel with Chardonnay and Honey Mustard
I’m sitting in our caravan, a relatively small one by today’s standards. We’re in a western NSW town for our fourth day, a day longer than planned. My keyboard is dappled with pretty dancing light and shadows tip toeing across my hands back and forth as I type. They float through the window in the shape of old-fashioned bottle brushes and finger shaped leaves created by sun peeping through waving branches of blooming Callistemon trees that surround our little patch of earth on which we’re parked. Waving branches perhaps a polite description 30 knot gusts. Not only do the shadows move back and forth, but our small home on wheels jolts side to side too. We’re being buffeted by gusts of winds strong enough to remind us our salubrious little abode is indeed on wheels and not permanent. The weather front passing our locale has halted our travels, grounding us, keeping us in place another day as it passes. The thought of hauling a large square ‘box’ not really designed for cross winds behind a car of equally square arrangement, enough to force us to make do and stay put for just one more day.
The phrase ‘making do’ is often preceded with the word just… “just make do,” suggesting making do is a compromise. That to live with what’s at hand, what’s around you, what’s available is somehow not as great an existence as what could be, or what’s missing. However a holiday touring and traveling is one requiring the utmost compromise and making do, but in the best possible way.
Compacting your normally busy and plentiful life into a 5 metre long caravan and car with barely a plan but a vague direction into which you head, following the sun, a midway point as a guide and the coast your road home, requires some thought and a lot of concession. It requires thought and planning. Enough clothes but not too many, ingredients to make meals but the right ones for maximum flavour taking up minimum space while still maintaining enough nutrition and interest (maybe that’s just me), spare parts and tools for any mishaps or glitches, medicines to last, toiletries, water etc ad nauseum. It can be enough to make your brain spin and consider a well-planned all-inclusive tour on which someone else does all the planning and you just turn up and enjoy. But that wouldn’t really be the point or the same holiday. We’re fairly well versed at this exercise, we’ve traversed the highways of Australia zig zagging across the wide-open planes many times. We’ve travelled with tiny babies, toddlers and kids in the most basic of camping set ups through various iterations to what now feels like a floating hotel room. Our family has gazed at billions of stars while our toes burrowed in the red dirt of the outback, breathed in eucalyptus fragranced mist at dawn on mountain tops in the high country (ok I may have done that from the comfort of a sleeping bag with one eye half open #notamorningperson) and walked isolated beaches as sapphire blue waters lapped our feet. What we’ve not done before is travel with nary a plan. Our journeys are normally planned to the day with itineraries dictating the day’s location, travel or plans, their length instructed by school holidays or annual leave from work. This time is different and while planning what’s required to stow for enjoyment, comfort and safety remains a necessity a plan as loose as that with which we’ve set off requires a willingness to travel with fluidity and adaptability.
Our first week saw an overnight stop in a tiny town with the only availability for our new car’s first check-up service for hundreds of miles and consequently a birthday dinner for my husband at the local returned serviceman’s club.
A misstep by a very confused google maps taking us down a narrow road leading to a laneway style carriageway between paddocks of grain crops not really suited to a touring rig and the discovery that whatever grain was growing and I are not friends. Hello hives on legs after squatting amongst roadside stray crops to take photos. Maybe I should suggest an upgrade to google maps in which you can set a preference for roads worthy of a four-wheel drive trailing a caravan.
Also this week, the beautiful kindred spirit of small town communities found in a riverside precinct, a beautiful multicultural celebration and a spring festival marking the harvest of Griffith’s food crops and a promenade of sculptures created with a surplus of oranges from the region, one of only two places in the world in which this happens.
All inspiring and all examples of towns making the most of their communities and what their regions offer. Making do perhaps or making something special. Maybe that’s what ‘making do’ is. Maybe making do creates the space for a serendipity of its own leading to an unexpected ‘special.’ Maybe traveling with a mostly open-ended vague plan, without the limitation of a strict timetable and with a shrunken down life that fits into what amounts to a trailing box is the path to learning the joy in making do and appreciating the results.
With the ‘limitations’ this adventure presents my pantry is a modicum of what I’m used to reaching for. My dinner time yearnings however are not. With limited ingredients and a hankering for something delicious to accompany the lamb backstrap that Hubby was planning on barbecuing I started plotting. I’m now lucky enough to travel with an, albeit small, but normal fridge freezer arrangement. As you’d imagine its filled with a strategically selected collection of meat and vegetables, a perfect canvas for the equally tactical collection of flavourings and accoutrements in the cupboard. With the outback sun settling into the horizon the air had cooled and my desire for something warm and hearty to sit next to our lamb had also settled on me. With the bulb of fennel in the crisper, my favourite mustard found at a small local supermarket and the remains of a delicious chardonnay sourced in Wagga on our first night and some patience at the stove I made do, and the result created confit fennel with chardonnay and mustard.
I offer you this recipe with a warning of sorts. In the true spirit of making do I am travelling without scales, measuring spoons and, at best, a vague notion of time. Whist I’ve made my best effort to make this as precise as I normally would offer it does come with a small disclaimer that, like I have, you should trust your cooking gut and use your senses while following my instructions. Make do my friends.
Instructions:
1 bulb of fennel trimmed of tops, cored and thickly sliced into 1 cm slices
1 french shallot peeled and sliced
2 tbs salted capers washed and drained
1 garlic clove peeled and finely sliced
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp butter
Good glug of white wine, I used chardonnay and would say a good glug is something akin to 2 tb
1 heaped tsp of Dijon honey mustard. If you don’t have this used 1 of regular Dijon and half of tsp of runny honey
¼ tsp dried oregano flakes
Method:
Preheat olive oil in a medium to large fry pan (mine is 28cm at the base) over medium-low heat until oil is just starting to be runny and looser when you lift and roll the pan, 3-4 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add fennel and shallot. Stir to coat thoroughly in the oil and allow to simmer stirring often for 5-7 minutes until the edges are translucent one third of the way to centre of the slices As pictured below, the middle of the slices will still be white. Ensure when stirring the shallot is not browning.
At this stage add the garlic and capers and stir well again cooking another five minutes stirring often to make sure the garlic softens and melts not browns.
Once fennel is soft and completely translucent stir in the butter and increase heat to medium high, watch closely so the vegetable doesn’t catch and butter burn, it’s fine if it caramelises at the edges. After 1-2 minutes when it’s increased in heat splash in the wine, it should immediately bubble up and start to reduce. After the wine has reduced by perhaps half’ish after a couple minutes stir in the mustard and sprinkle over the oregano. Allow to simmer a minute more then serve immediately.
We enjoyed it next to barbecue lamb backstap topped with beetroot relish stirred through Greek yoghurt, bbq’ed corn and green salad. It would also be delicious with roast pork and greens or chicken. This served the two of us, both fennel lovers.
Moroccan Spiced Chicken and Prunes
Moroccan Chicken and Prunes
Forty years is long time. A lot can change in that period of time both in our own lives and the world around us. Four decades spans nearly half a decade, many markers in history and on average nearly half a lifetime. It’s a chunk of time that can pass in what feels like a blink of an eye on reflection and in which we’ll experience a huge number of life’s miletsones, good, bad or otherwise. It’s also the part of life in which many people’s career span. My husband has worked in his career for forty years and this week that’s all come to an end and he’s taking a well-deserved rest.
Over four decades, on average, two generations turn over. In that time one generation will ‘rise up’ moving thorough childhood, adolescence, education and selection and training of a working life. They will perhaps meet a life partner and start a family and forge a home for themselves. They’ll use their education and training to work towards goals big and small, perhaps build towards legacies or collaborate towards ones in communities and economies of meaning to them. In the second half of those forty years some will choose to reproduce and enjoy parenthood and nurture a new generation. Those first forty years often pass in a blur but hold a period in life in which grow and expand.
All the while we’re moving through all these life milestones in our own lives the world shifts and changes. The last forty years globally we’ve stood witness to many shifts and changes. We’ve flexed and groaned against the confines of development bursting out from a world that to many probably already felt extraordinary but has seen changes unimaginable previously. From black and white free to air television received through roof top antenna we now stream whatever programs and movies we desire to screens as small as our hands. We don’t need to rue missing an episode or the disappointment of choosing between more the one airing we wanted to view. Music too is available at a whim. We neither wait for the release of vinyl, CD or cassette nor buy furniture to store collections of such. We don’t make mix tapes for pals or need to listen through a whole record for favourite songs. Our entertainment whims both beckon and await our every desire at the end of our finger tips.
In the last forty years there’s been more than a fair share of unrest too. More than a dozen wars of significance have erupted, and many more incursions, disputes and battles fought. Turbulence has redrawn borders and relationships reshaping geography and diplomacy both locally and globally leaving in its wake changed relationships big and small between countries, populations and even friendships and families.
Since the early eighties we’ve gone from taking a traditional camera everywhere with us to taking photos of our-‘selfies’ on a telephone that goes everywhere with us. We can answer any question we have on that small device and update ourselves on any event happening anywhere in the world in real time immersed in a 24 hour news cycle. The internet became the predominant platform for communication for everyday domestic and business users creating a 24/7 world. We began communicating through social media and text messages relegating the handwritten word to almost redundancy and left behind encyclopaedia, letters, newspapers and thank you notes.
In 1983 we enjoyed a golden age of music. Remember tines like Thriller, Girls Just Wann Have Fun, Flashdance, All Night Long and Uptown Girl? Oh and Ghetto Blasters? Movies had a special moment in time too, Risky Business, The Big Chill, Monty Python all big releases in a time of now seems like one of innocence. I had my last year of Primary school that year and my husband his first year of employment. Beginning trade training, he then progressed to further education. He enjoyed all the adventures of his twenties, travels, friendships and everything in between until he met a girl (that would be me) and we built a family and life, from Melbourne to Darwin and back. He’s travelled the world, worked on off shore rigs, down underground mines, on dusty plains home to large scale rural operations as far as the eye can see and small remote pump stations in the middle of nowhere. His work has seen him begin at the first rung on the ladder and mentored by those senior to him until he climbed the ladder leading the next generation. But now that’s all come to an end and now it’s time for him to have a rest.
Before he begins his next professional adventure we’re heading off on an adventure of our own. We’re packing up our new caravan and heading north. Heading north we’ll start in Wagga Wagga and track north towards lightning ridge before heading east. I’m excited head to the Galah Magazine Photography Prize events and exhibition as our half way point before we meander south along the coast….he’s excited to not have to answer phone calls and emails.
I will however still work. I’ll continue writing and creating here for you. I’m not entirely sure what it will look like but I will keep popping into your inbox. I suspect it will be a mix of travelogue, simple recipes from our time on the road and maybe some reflections and stories from our travels. It won’t be a series of dishes created from cans or dehydrated camping packets nor will it be endless bush bbqs and riversides campfires constantly. When we travel and go camping we don’t make sacrifices with our food so hopefully you’ll enjoy what I come up with. I can’t promise it will always appear at the same time as that will largely depend on internet access but I’ll still as closely to that schedule as that allows. I’ll be spending this weekend cooking and vac packing meals to give us nights off from cooking but ensure delicious dinners still await at the end of days exploring, much like the delicious chicken dish below.
Ingredients:
4 Chicken thighs roughly 150gm each cut into 6 chunks each
1 ½ tsp salt flakes
½ tsp ground white pepper
2 tb olive oil
3 eschallots peeled and halved lengthwise
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
1//4 tsp smoked paprika
15 gm fresh ginger chopped into fine matchsticks
½ long red chilli finely sliced
3 garlic cloves peeled and finely sliced
75 gm prunes whole pitted
Whole peel of a lemon in long strips, keep the fruit for the juice later.
Pinch of saffron threads
2 tb currants
2 cup chicken stock
1 Tb honey
Method:
Preheat oven 160c fan forced.
Sprinkle salt and pepper all over chicken pieces and toss to distribute. Over medium heat warm 1 tb of the oil in a pan that can go in the oven later, that has a lid that fits snugly. Cook chicken pieces in two batches until browned on the outside but not cooked through, set aside and keep warm.
Add second tb of oil to the pan and reduce heat to low. Add eschallots cut side down and caramelise 3 minutes. Turn over and cook on the other side for two minutes. Sprinkle in the spices and cook off briefly until fragrant. Add ginger, garlic and chilli and cook while stirring constantly, again until fragrant. Toss the fruit in and scatter over saffron threads, and pieces of lemon peel and cook while stirring again for a minute. Splash in a good glug of the stock to deglaze the pan scraping up any stick bits off the base of the pan, pour in the remaining stock stir and bring to the boil. Return the chicken and any juices to the pan and stir in the honey and a squeeze of juice from half of the lemon used for peel, mixing thoroughly. Place lid on securely and place in the oven for 50 minutes, stirring half away through cooking.
Serve with steamed rice sliced fresh chilli from the remaining half chilli and a sprinkle of fresh herbs such as parsley, mint, basil or coriander.
You may also like to grill a halved lemon cut side down to give the dish a fresh light zing.
Easy Aussie Beef Party Pies
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
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.
Apricot and Cardamon Sweet Buns
Apricot and Cardamon Sweet Buns
Earlier this week I was coaxed out early in the morning for my walk by the sudden burst of warm spring weather. My usual listening wasn’t available at the earlier hour so I searched for a podcast to keep me distracted. I was up to date on all my usual favourites so thought I’d search for something new and landed on this one. Listening to Ruth and Julia chat all things food was obviously right up my alley but the premise of the podcast and where that went was of greater interest. Julia invites older women (she’s 61) on Wiser Than Me, to chat about life and what it’s taught them. I was taken with the conversation enjoying listening to Ruth’s recollections on her career in food writing, but one statement jumped out at me, “the only thing that really keeps you young, is constantly doing things you don’t know how to do.” Somewhere in my subconscious I knew this to be so. We’re advised to do puzzles, learn a language or even a musical instrument to stay young, but hearing an older woman (she’s 75) who I admire, state it as her greatest piece of life advice brought it to the surface.
Also this week this substack dropped. I love reading Kate’s words, always beautiful describing her world and observations in a captivating and artful way. She described her experience of being stopped in her tracks, quite literally while driving from home through country Victoria, by the captivating site of a landscape jewelled by shades of gold and emerald. This moment in time that drew her to the roadside to inhale the ‘wonder’ of its beauty was the theme for her ponderings this week. Wonder and it’s importance in life, in moments and in the everyday. It felt both fitting and in keeping with the thoughts of Ruth. Wonder and knowledge and a fulfilling life.
A month or so ago I enrolled in and began an online course to improve my baking skills called The Science of Baking. I have a reasonable knowledge base for baking but lots of gaps and no real understanding of the chemistry of the ingredients I use and how everything interacts. Working my way through this course has been both enlightening and exciting. I know, very geeky of me but we all have our thing right? Anyway what’s been most exciting is the learning, joining the dots, filling the gaps and gasping at all the ‘lightbulb’ moments. Whilst educational it’s been enlightening and invigorating.
With a lifelong innate sense of curiosity flavour ideas often come to mind. Some work, some don’t. Sometimes my curiosity is driven by an unusual recipe with an ingredient combination I may not have previously tried or one I can’t even imagine tasting. Like the ‘Secret Ingredient Spaghetti” recipe, spoiler alert, dark chocolate in Spaghetti Bolognese doesn’t work. Other times classic combinations reimagined into something new is a delight and revelation all its own.
My newly acquired skills have inspired many flavour ponderings recently. Often popping in my head in the middle of the night, hi there hot flushes and insomnia, remembering these can be a challenge, “sit down brain fog.” Sometimes though I do manage to retain the idea and see it through to fruition.
Golden tangy apricots came to mind when my face was warmed by all this premature balmy weather. Juice dripping from glowing orbs one of summer’s great joys. But alas not yet. Still weeks to go until they, with their orchard fruit family, appear in stores, but the dried variety are ever present and available. Richer in flavour I remembered enjoying them in a sweet, yeasted bun as a child, encased in fluffy sweet dough and drizzled with white chocolate, they were a favourite bakery treat. As is my wont however, and armed with my burgeoning knowledge of yeast and wheat I pondered a reimaging of sorts of my much-loved childhood favourite. Imagining a more mature flavour pairing than the one of my youth I mixed and measured, waited and shaped and waited again. Like that child with anticipation, I perched near my oven, its light on, peering through the glass watching the ‘show’ of yeast, sugar and all their comrades at play growing into plump, fluffy yeasted buns of my own.
And there it was…wonder!
The union of learning and wonder colliding to create delight and awe. The invigorating realisation that at any step in our day and journey there’s always something round every corner to learn and take our breath away.
Seeing an idea evolve to a successful completion is a wonder all its own and one urge you to try. Don’t be shy of trying to cook with yeast. It’s an ingredient that can intimidate even the most skilled and experienced cook but one that is the root of some the most delicious foods in life and that has endured throughout centuries.
Ingredients:
Buns:
120 gm Dried apricots, roughly chopped
500 gm bread flour
3 tsps dried yeast
½ tsp all spice
2 tsp ground cardamon
80 gm golden caster sugar (white is fine if that’s all you have)
100 gm of very soft butter
200ml of room temp milk (you can microwave this for 30 seconds if you’re in a rush or baking spontaneously)
2 eggs, room temp again please
50 gm candied citrus peel
Finely grated zest of one orange
1 heaped tsp salt flakes
Icing:
2/3 c icing sugar
2 Tb sour cream
2 tsp orange juice from the zested orange.
Method:
In a small bowl cover apricots in boiling water, set aside to soak while you prepare your other ingredients.
In the bowl of a stand mixer combine all other ingredients. Drain, apricots and press you’re your hand to squeeze out remaining liquid and add to the bowl with other ingredients.
Set stand mixer to med low until all dry ingredients are amalgamated, 1-2 minutes, then increase speed to med and knead for 8 minutes. It’s quite a sticky dough, don’t be tempted to add flour, just let it do its thing. I like to stop a couple times during this part and scrape the sides down to help things along.
While the dough is mixing, grease a large glass bowl with butter (see notes), set aside.
When kneading is complete, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Again, don’t be tempted to add more flour, just a light sprinkling if it needs help to not stick to the bench and your hands. Give the dough a light knead by hand just to make sure the fruit is evenly distributed. Place smooth side up in the greased bowl loosely covered with cling wrap and set aside in a warm draft free spot to prove until double in size.. see notes.
If proving in the oven, remove. Preheat oven to 180c and line a baking tray with baking paper.
When doubled in size (about two hours) turn out onto a lightly floured surface again. The greasing in the bowl should help this along. Gently divide the dough into 12 equal sized pieces shaping into ball shapes. Line up on the tray and leave in a warm spot again with a tea towel over the top. This will let them puff up slightly and relax after being handled. Rest them for 30 minutes.
Brush with an egg wash and bake for 30 minutes.
Allow to cool completely and ice with combined icing ingredients. You may like to sprinkle with roasted almond flakes or toasted coconut flakes.
Or you could rip one open hot and slather in butter and enjoy with the oozy butter running between your fingers, your choice.
Notes:
If it’s cooler where you are or you lack a warm spot for your dough try this tip. Turn the light on in your oven when it first occurs to you to cook buns. The ambient warmth from the light will be just right for a consistent temperature to help your yeast along and of course an oven is guaranteed draft free.
While your dough is in the mixer fill the glass bowl with hot tap water to warm it up. The dough will be a nice temp from mixing to kick off the proving process, warming the bowl first ensures the dough isn’t ‘shocked’ by being transferred to a cold bowl.
Orange Scented Pork Cotoletta with Apple and Fennel Slaw
Pork Cotoletta with Apple and Fennel Slaw
I was chatting with a pal recently and the ‘what’s for dinner’ question came up. Like us her and hubby have an empty nest. She lamented her waning interest in cooking. She’d previously enjoyed feeding the family, relishing them all gathering around the table. It was a thought I could identify with recalling the rotation of afternoon ponderings of the past, listing the family’s favourites, their preferences and needs as I formed the answer to what’s for dinner on daily rotation. She shared with me the lack of enthusiasm she felt with the daily question, pondering what they might sit down to, and it got me thinking. Had my own menu choices changed and was that a reflection of how it felt to be cooking for two after more than two decades of catering for a family?
Late last year, when our boys plans for their travels firmed up, the impending emptying of our nest began emerging as a looming reality. I’d been cooking for a family for just over 20 years forming a type of muscle memory hard to unravel. I started experimenting with meals and ideas around that time with the opportunity afforded us by their social lives on weekends but of course experimenting is somewhat like that early period of courting when doing things as a twosome is exciting and new.
Those heady first days of a relationship are always full of flutters in the stomach and the yearning to impress each other with kindness and gestures of love. It’s often those first forays into the kitchen for many of us and when we build foundations of our cooking skills and perhaps in doing so our relationships. Cooking for another can be both an act of love and one of trying to impress a new love. Likewise for the recipient of such gestures sharing a meal cooked for you can afford the chance to show gratitude or perhaps grit one’s teeth depending on how those first attempts go. Our relationship began with a first date of roast lamb cooked for me by my now husband. Returning the favour in kind back and forth over the months that followed our repertoires grew until we progressed to setting up home together. In those first years living together we continued taking it in turns to cook alternating nights and menus continuing that small gesture of caring for one another and anchoring our days over these simple meals.
In the years that followed our kids came along and the menus evolved with their tastes. Not only did the dishes evolve but so too did the quantities. Beginning with those early tastes of food as babies and fulfilling the needs of little tummies was almost like their efforts of learning to walk, changing menus, growing needs and growing skills. Vegetable purees became family meals before we knew it which then became adult feasts lead by their maturing tastes and curiosity. The list of favourites grew and my skills to fill our family’s tummies, quickly and affordably, also grew.
In turn with the maturity of our boys wants so too did their desires for their lives inevitably grow and change. In pursuit of those ambitions, they’ve flown the nest moving out into the world and are establishing their own lives, beginning the lifelong routine of anchoring their days in the kitchen preparing their own dinners. The phone calls from their kitchens or supermarket trips come on occasion seeking advice or suggestions in answering the daily question of what to cook or indeed how to cook old favourites. Questions of “do you think this would work?” and “what can I make for work lunches this week, Mum?” still fill our conversations and text messages with photos of reimagined family favourites making me smile.
And so, my own afternoon ponderings feel like coming full circle, back to where we started, cooking for two. A shift in preparation that’s required a breakdown of two decades of muscle memory, built cooking for the four of us, or more accurately cooking like I was catering for an army. Not only did I cook for four I’d fallen into a habit of almost cooking double creating leftover lunches or an extra place for visiting mouths to feed, not to mention my overwhelming need to make sure no one leaves my table hungry. Supermarket packaging of meat leans more towards quantities suitable for family cooking as does most recipes, all things that offer up excuses to dampen any enthusiasm to cook for two. My love of good food though counteracts this. The lifting of the shackles of needing a meal for everyone on the table at a time that suits all is actually liberating. Some of the preferences I’d previously catered to no longer dictates the menu nor does the time and energy requirements of four different people. One 500 gram tray of meat from the store actually creates two meals and halving recipes is good brain training…and finding the positives a salve to the empty seats at the table.
It occurs to me that meals for two don’t need to be fancy and in fact offer the same opportunities as they did all those early years ago. A chance to try new things, look after one another and anchor the day. Cooking for two is almost like the book ends of a long relationship and all the meals you share through all the phases of a family’s life the many varied volumes that tell the story of your journey.
Whilst halving many of our normal favourites has become a new norm and freezing leftovers for nights when I can’t be bothered, I have also been making lots of meals for just the two of us. Things we love and things that feel a bit special and tasty. Whilst Pork Cotoletta is by no means revolutionary, my twist on the Italian classic tastes a little bit special. The warming scent of orange rind accented by the ground fennel is the small shift that makes a seemingly regular dish to something else altogether appetising. A little salad of slaw with all the complimentary flavours that marry nicely makes a perfect complement and still not too onerous whilst still looking a little bit fancy and clever.
Cotoletta:
2 Pork Cutlets, bone still on.
2 cups panko crumbs
A few heaped spoons full of plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper for dusting
1 egg beaten with a splash of milk
1 tsp fennel seeds ground. I like to grind the seeds myself. The flavour will the fresher and more pungent and some texture will remain. If you prefer ready ground use ½ tsp of ground fennel
Finely grated rind on one orange. Hand your partner the orange and send them off to make you a cocktail using the juice, like a mimosa or fancy G&T.
Oil for frying
Slaw:
1 c grated Apple or using a mandolin fine matchsticks
1 c shredded cabbage. A mandolin is also useful for this
1 c finely chopped fennel also better done with a mandolin if you have one
2 Tb fresh fine herbs finely chopped. I use dill and parsley but you do you. Basil and mint are also lovely
¼ c sour cream
1 ½ tb apple cider vinegar. White wine vinegar or even plain white is fine if that’s what you have
¾ tsp caster sugar
Generous pinch of salt flakes
Method:
If you own a mandolin slicer it will make this salad, and many others very easy to pull together. If you don’t grate the apple, finely knife shred the cabbage and finely slice the fennel and slice those slices into rough matchsticks. This makes them easier to eat all being a similar size and helps the salad absorb the dressing and gently pickle.
Combine prepared salad greens in a bowl. In a second bowl or jug, combine sour cream, vinegar, sugar and salt and whisk to combine. Pour this over the salad and stir to thoroughly coat all the greens. Set aside in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 200 c.
For the cotoletta, use three appropriately sized bowls. One with the seasoned flour, one with the egg and milk and one with the combine crumbs, orange rind and fennel.
Lightly dust a cutlet in flour, dip in egg the coat in the crumb mixture. Repeat for second cutlet. Set aside on a plate for a few minutes.
Heat a large pan over medium heat with the whole base cover in half a centimetre of oil. Once the oil surface is shimmering and ready, place both cutlets in the pan and cook until golden brown, flip and repeat. Once both sides are golden brown and crispy place both on a small oven tray and pop in the warmed oven for a few minutes while you set out your plates and set the table, a few minutes only. I do this step to ensure the middle is cooked through but one 2-3 minutes.
Serve with the salad and your favourite condiments or a simple squeeze of lemon.
Strawberry Yoghurt Mousse
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
Savoury Pizza Muffins
A few kilometres from my home the urban sprawl recedes, the land and fields opens up and rolling country hills emerge. As you crest the hill from which this view unfolds, you feel your shoulders fall, your lungs exhale and the rat race fall away. A belt of bushland and hobby farms scaped with eucalypts borders the divide between greater Melbourne and rural and agricultural valleys. As you emerge from that winding bush road at the top of the hills t that ring your first glimpse of the valley a the grid like pattern of vineyards and orchards unfolds, like a mosaic of jade and emerald toned tiles enriched by red volcanic soil. It’s the route we take most often when we head out exploring both for camping trips and weekend getaways. The one that draws me out rain hail or shine.
The divide between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Australia is just over five kilometres from our front door. Whilst it’s a well-worn and loved path for us drawing us out like a magnet it’s one that was, for a while, beyond our reach in recent years. That ‘while,’ the one Victorians endured during those most recent unmentionable years, the ones where we were asked to protect ourselves by remaining within a perimeter of a 5km radius of our homes. It was a period that the world over changed things for us all, some good, some not so good, some temporary some enduring. It’s a subject we could talk and write about infinitely. For us though one of the biggest ones that’s lasted for us has been my husband’s work from home routine. In my own work this is a mostly normal thing but for him it’s been a big change. His work life has taken him around the world, to oil rigs, mines and major infrastructure sites, so shrinking his professional life to a 10 square metre home office with a view of hour letter box has been a radical shift. During the period in which this was mandated and necessary it was acceptable and one we could all swallow. In the post lockdown world in which hybrid work arrangements are the new norm, living and working within the same four walls interminable can be a little harder to justify to yourself and therefore tolerate. The benefits do indeed outweigh the negatives like commuting and the like but sometimes those benefits still need balance.
The restlessness created, by a life lived in one location, sometimes needs attention at the end of the work week. If you’ve been reading my thoughts for a while, you may remember we’re now empty nesters which makes the weekends quiet. Perhaps the hubbub of living with young adults made our hours outside work fuller, they were certainly busier, nonetheless they’re quieter and makes the hours spent at home feel endless. Harking back to our pre-kids life where weekends were always busy in other ways, we’ve been trying to venture out a bit more. The lack of commuting fatigue we used to feel makes the prospect of a Sunday drive far more inviting than it used to be. Living as close as we do to beautiful countryside is a privilege that affords a huge range of beautiful places to explore. We’ve been taking advantage of that and exploring more, tourists in our backyard if you will. We’ve taken a few misty drives in nearby rainforest lined hills some where we’ve ultimately found some sunshine and some shrouded in gorgeous fog. As much as I love the hills in winter and all that gorgeous mist you really can’t beat a day trip in spring. One where you can head out somewhere new and undiscovered and find a spot to park the car and take a walk, find a new spot for lunch or set up somewhere scenic for a picnic.
All that talk last week of salads and sunshine made me think about a picnic or two in the coming months. I quite like the idea of whipping something up quickly on a Sunday morning after waking to sunshine and a good weather report. Nothing to tricky, just something that ticks all the boxes and can be packed in a basket quickly with a few extra bits like fruit and a thermos of coffee (for me, I’ve still not converted him) and a cosy blanket to spread out and relax on. Something like Savoury Pizza Muffins, a fluffy, oozy combo wrapping all the traditional flavours of a classic ham pizza. They’re pretty handy too for little fingers, hungry during school holidays and easy for said little fingers to make too…winning!
Ingredients:
100 gm butter melted
300 gr self-raising flour
1 tsp salt flakes
1 ½ tsp dried oregano leaves
100 gm fresh ham roughly chopped
200 gm grated hard cheese. I use a combo of sharp cheddar and parmigiano, but you can use anything you like that’s flavourful. It’s a good way to use up ends in the fridge.
4 spring onions/scallions chopped
2 eggs beaten
¼ c/60ml extra virgin olive oil
200 ml milk
¼ c pizza sauce. I just use a bought one usually and freeze the remaining if I don’t expect to use it quickly. Any remaining homemade sauce you have in the fridge to be used up is also fine.
Preheat oven 180c. Line a muffin tray with 12 liners and spray them with cooking spray. I don’t use spray very often but the cheese makes these a little sticky even with the liners.
Melt better in the microwave and set aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, oregano, cheese, ham and spring onion. In a smaller bowl or jug combine the cooled butter, milk and eggs. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture into the centre. Gently, with purposeful strokes, fold the two together until almost combine. Drop spoonfuls of pizza sauce on the mixture dotted around the top then complete the folding process with only a few more folds. The pizza sauce should be like marble threads through the mixture not completely mixed through. This will give you pops of tomatoey richness in random bites as you eat. You don’t want to over mix like with regular muffin methods or they’ll be chewy and tough.
Spoon into prepared muffin cases and bake 20 minutes, until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool to at least warm. As tempting as it is, eating them fresh out of the oven when the cheese is oozy and the sauce steaming is a sure fire ride to burned mouth hell.
Store in the fridge if there’s any left over and warm briefly in the microwave if you want them that way or leave to return to room temp for ten minutes before eating. They’ll also freeze well.
Antipasto and Quinoa Salad
Antipasto and Quinoa Salad
My eyes have felt irritated this week. An almost gritty feeling, not itchy, not burning, nor like there was something in my eye, just like I’ve been constantly caught in a dust storm. I suspected a mascara needing replacement but it’s not that old.
Shivering through the days still, my mind was still entrenched in winter. Soups, casseroles, hearty fortifying fare fill our tummies while ensconced in woolly jumpers and the like trying to stay warm. With still a few weeks to go of winter and biting morning frosts I’m definitely still in winter mode. Maybe my eyes are just cold…is that even a thing?
Our bedroom window perched at tree top level looks skyward. We don’t sleep with window dressings closed, rather we like to be woken by growing light in the morning. Cloud cover, fog and grey, still greets us most mornings as we move through August and the last weeks of winter. As daytime rises so too does the sun. Cloud cover melted away by warming sun, broken up and burnt off reveals warming bright glowing sunshine, the kind that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. The sunshine has had a particularly golden glow recently, one that catches your attention and creates its own sense of warmth, ‘warm light’ my photographer brain would say. Skinks and geckos are burrowing out of the mulch in the front garden rising to the warmth, a morning sunbake to great an enticement to ignore. Kookaburras basking, perched on low eucalypt branches, thawing from overnight frosts take advantage of the small reptiles succumbing to temptation, swooping down feasting on their prey. The daphne and hellebore are nearing the end of their bloom while the hydrangeas and fig show the first sign of bud. And that golden glow. Lasting all day not just in the day’s bookends of golden hours but enduring during the day. The sun’s arc is shifting, poking higher through the canopy. That light, it’s richness, the product of the wattle bloom. Soft, small, fluffy pom poms in huge tight clusters weigh heavily from the soft wooded ends of the various species of acacia surrounding us. My car and windows are covered in fine yellow dust, at the right time of day in the right breezes clouds of pollen blow through like tiny yellow fairies catching the light almost sparkling. My eyes, I realise, are trying to tell me something I’ve not quite noticed yet, the seasons are turning. Spring is on the way.
As if the only sign of a visceral shift in seasons noticed by my eyes wasn’t enough I should have noticed things changing by my own shift in the kitchen. While the odd slow cook dots the menu here and there the hearty fare that would normally appear nightly is waning and my cravings lean more towards liter dinners. The move to the next season also signals the the move towards the emergence from our self-imposed hibernations when we seek out the company of pals, begin entertaining more, pondering dinners outdoors and picnics. While the temperatures don’t quite lean themselves towards balmy evenings and dinners outdoors yet I do start yearning for the meals we’ll enjoy in the months to come on such evenings. Like the weather, the produce available doesn’t quite lend itself to a variety of fresh salads but with a little inventiveness and a few things form the store cupboard I can create something akin to a summer salad that’s still satisfying enough to fuel my internal thermostat and help me stay warm once that gorgeous shoulder season sunshine sets each night in anticipation of the coming warmer months.
Antipasto and Quinoa Salad served in a savoury yoghurt puddle feels like a culinary bridge between the seasons to me. Quinoa for protein and satiety, and a variety of veg, a mix between preserved summer veg and some fresh all cooked to marry together with the traditional flavours of the Mediterranean. Served in a puddle of Greek yoghurt laced with the basil, lemon and garlic vinaigrette dressing from the salad. It’s enough to be a meal on its own or a delicious and fancy salad to accompany all the delicious BBQ’s meats we’re looking forward to enjoying in the coming months.
Ingredients:
100gm/ ½ c of quinoa
2 capsicums/bell peppers of different colours if available, cored and cut into quarters/cheeks or 1 260 gm jar of grilled capsicum in oil drained
3 french shallots, peeled and quartered lengthways
1 zucchini, ends trimmed, sliced in 1cm discs
½ c sundried tomatoes in oil drained and chopped if necessary. If you have the cherry tomato variety they’ll probably be a nice size left as they are.
1 cup of finely shredded and chopped tuscan kale or similar such as spinach, silverbeet or regular kale
Dressing:
2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove crushed
1 Tb finely chopped fresh basil
1 Tb fresh lemon juice
½ - 1 tsp salt flakes to taste
1 cup Greek yoghurt
Method:
Preheat oven to 210c. Cook quinoa according to packet instructions, drain and cool.
Whisk together dressing ingredients mixing vigorously to emulsify and thicken, set aside. In another small bowl whisk yoghurt with 2 tsps of the dressing and set aside.
On a lined tray place fresh capsicum cheeks skin side up and in the oven for 30 minutes until skin is blackened. Remove from oven and place the capsicum in a sealed plastic bag to cool. On the same tray place the cut shallots inner cut side up, drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven at 190c. After ten minutes when the cut edges have almost blackened turn the onions over and return to the oven for a further ten minutes. Remove and cool.
If you have a grill pan heat over a med-high heat or the same with a medium sized heavy based frypan until just smoking, it needs to be very hot. Brush the pan with olive oil and cook zucchini immediately 3 minutes each side until nice grill marks form or each side is caramelised, cool on paper towel to drain. Once cool, slice the discs in half to make them more bite sized. While they’re cooling remove capsicum from bag and peel away the singed skin, it should come away easily. Slice into 1 cm wide strips.
In a large bowl combine quinoa and all vegetables gently folding to keep the veg whole.
On a serving platter plop the yoghurt in the centre and using the back of a large spoon gently make circles gradually increasing in size until it’s all spread out to the edges of the plate in a ring forming a mote of sorts. Much in the way of adding sauce to a pizza. Gently pile the salad in the middle of the yoghurt puddle in a pile mounding to a peak in the middle. When ready to serve drizzle the dressing all around, it will drizzle down through the pile and mix more as your guests serve themselves.
Notes:
To make things easier for yourself you can use premade antipasto in the flavours you prefer just be sure and buy the veg preserved in oil not vinegar as obviously there’ll be a significant flavour difference. You might enjoy eggplant in place of the zucc for example.
A 260gm jar of chargilled capsicum can be used in place of the two fresh caps.
If quinoa isn’t your jam replace with one you do prefer such as farro, rice or barley. Any small similar grain will work. If you wish to use pasta instead of quinoa use a small shaped one like macaroni and use 200 gm.
Pecan, Date and White Chocolate Blondies
Chewy caramel flavoured pecan and date 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
Deep Fried Zucchini with Creamy Ranch Dressing
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.
Vanilla and Apple Cake with Mascarpone Frosting
Classic Vanilla Cake with apple compote and fluffy mascarpone frosting.
The grunts of exasperation could be heard from the kitchen over the television in the loungeroom. My brother looked at me, rolled his eyes and reluctantly hauled himself from his armchair, I leapt from the couch trailing after him curious, like him, to find out what was frustrating mum so much. The kitchen came off the loungeroom separated only by a sliding door that was rarely closed. When the door was rarely closed we knew not to go snooping, but this one night with only the three of us home my older brother, the only ‘man’ home, felt compelled to investigate. Mum had decided that after dinner would be a good time to make my 6th birthday cake. Perhaps not a time of day when one would be at their most agile in the kitchen, she had multiple ingredients spread across the round white laminate kitchen table. I climbed up onto the orange vinyl upholstered kitchen chair at her left my, then, 19-year-old brother on her right asking if he could help. Nodding, she gazed down to the famed Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book, our eyes following hers. I delightedly admired a beautiful Barbie cake standing proudly in a dress of pure white fluffy buttercream coated butter cake, jewelled with 100’s and 1000’s, multi-coloured smarties and sugar coated spearmint leaf lollies, her golden locks flowing in giant curls to her waistline of silver sugar pearl. My mum saw a baking nightmare and my brother saw an excited small birthday girl and a stressed Mum trying to create some birthday magic.
Taking charge, he tidied up what we didn’t need, ordered what we did and made a start on adorning Barbie in her dolly varden butter cake gown. Together they worked as a team sculpting the cake, whipping air through the butter cream and designing a colourful pattern of sweets for her skirts. I watched, chin perched on both hands, elbows resting on the table my knees folded under me, completely entranced by the evolution of my birthday cake. My brother’s tradesman hands worked with slow precision, his eyes darting back and forth from the book’s pictures to the slowing evolving sugary masterpiece. Mum’s shoulders slowly relaxed. She made herself a coffee and worked at his side warming to the task and enjoying the team effort. As he placed the final adornment on the cake with the ceremony of the placement of a Christmas star on a tree, we all oooed and ahhhed at her beauty. I clapped with delight, mum exhaled with relief and my brother cautiously looked at us both, a slow, satisfied and relieved smile creeping across his face. She was done! My Barbie birthday cake was complete, and she was glorious!
I learnt a few things that night. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, be prepared. I say ‘I learned’ but am not necessarily entrenched in this lesson still falling prey to a craving or whim to create something in the kitchen without all the ingredients, at an absurd time of day when I already have too much to do and not in an orderly fashion. I learnt about teamwork and the need to call on help when you’ve reached your end and to call on anyone who’d happily help even if they don’t seem like the one with the expertise you may require. Again, I learnt this one but don’t necessarily act on this one as much as I should. And I learnt about family. Pulling together to meet a common goal. Leaning on each other to alleviate stress, fill gaps and most importantly the ceremony of honouring a member’s bitrthday…and of course to create cake!
You see in our family cake was a centrepoint of family birthdays. It wasn’t a birthday without it, favourite flavours and themes. As a child drawing on the eponymous children’s birthday cake book which resided in most Australian homes I remember choosing Barbie, a teddy bear and a lolly train amongst others. And as time went on, I grew and our family became busier, and perhaps my tastes changed, cakes from specialist stores were ordered including my favourite to this day a croquembouche. I’ve tried to maintain this tradition in my own family, though we’ve veered from tradition and often enjoyed a birthday dessert including, pudding, pavlova and the like.
As much as I’ve tried to continue the cake tradition, as the family’s baker, it’s not one I’ve enjoyed myself, until this year. With my boys not here and feeling in need of a little festive cheer I pondered what I would want for my own birthday should a genie appear from a bottle to make me one and as I often do, I landed back in apple cake world…though Barbie would have been on trend. I dreamt of one I loved when I first visited the now closed Beatirix Bakes cake store with my blogging pal Kath. It was called Apple Pie Cake and was a multi-layered tower of a butter vanilla icing with a hint of salt, a thin layer of slightly sweetened apple and coated, in more, deeply, buttery, smooth buttercream. Like my mother all those decades ago it was somewhat of a spur of the moment decision requiring a bit of pivoting and still not too much effort, after all it was still my birthday.
With a few tweaks, I reimagined my Chai Cake into a fluffy moist vanilla cake. From there I pulled my copy of the Beatrix Bakes cookbook from the shelves knowing within it’s pages was a recipe to inspire a version of apple compote to be sandwiched in folds of sweet Chantilly cream between two layers of the cake and finally I whipped together a fluffy frosting of mascarpone and cinnamon.
Obviously if you just want cake without the extra work stop at the cake part and adorn in any way you prefer. Simple icing of any flavour you love, a dusting of icing sugar, chocolate icing or indeed absolutely nothing. Whatever floats you boat.
A few tips:
~If no one else in the family can make you a cake, buy yourself one or make one. It’s important!
~Like a moody teenager ensconced in her bedroom insisting on privacy, this cake also prefers the door closed. Don’t peek, leave her alone and allow her to rise to the challenge in peace. When you do remove her from the oven, like that teen, give her some space and leave her alone for ten minutes before coaxing her from her tin. She’ll reward you well I promise.
~As always, the best ingredients you can afford will always give you the best results but, in this instance particularly, grab the best vanilla you can. It is vanilla cake after all.
~When you first think “hmmm cake,” take the eggs from the fridge to lose their chill and melt the butter so it can cool before you use it. A paradox but important.
~Sift the flour if you’re not lazy like me. Otherwise simply use a whisk to incorporate the salt with a few assertive turns to aerate and loosen the flour.
Ingredients:
Cake:
2 eggs at room temperature, trust me this matters
200 gm caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
150 gm butter melted and cooled. 40-50 seconds in the microwave should just melt it without overheating it leaving you waiting for it to cool too long.
120 ml buttermilk
250 gm SR Flour
¼ tsp salt flakes
Chantilly Cream:
1 cup thickened cream or whipping cream
1 heaped tb icing/powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla exract
Cinnamon Mascarpone Frosting:
250 gm mascarpone
¼ thickened cream or whipping cream
50 gm very soft butter
1/3 cup icing/powdered sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Apple Compote:
500 gm granny smith apples
30gm caster sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch fresh grated nutmeg
Pinch salt flakes
2 tb water
½ tsp cornflour
1 tb lemon juice
1 tsp honey
Method:
Cake:
Preheat oven to 180c. Line and grease a 20cm springform cake tin.
In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl for handheld electric beaters combine eggs, sugar and vanilla. Using whisk attachment mix on medium speed until combined, 30 seconds, then increase speed to med-high for 3-4 minutes. It should be fluffy, pale and double in volume. Decrease speed back down to medium and in a thin slow stream pour in melted cooled butter. Turn speed back up to high and whisk for 1-2 minutes until again increased in volume to an almost foamy consistency like a zabaglione. Stop mixing and add half the flour and mix on low speed until almost combined, pour in half the buttermilk while the mixer is still stirring on low. Once combined, no more than a minute for each of these steps, add the remaining flour and again followed by the remaining buttermilk. Mix until just combined. There will be a thin mote of buttermilk around the edge. Remove bowl finish mixing with only a couple of confident folds with a spatula and pour into the prepared pan. Smooth over top very gently, preserving all the lovely air and lightness you’ve created with all that whisking and pop in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. No peeking until the 45 minute mark. Test with a skewer and on the off chance the skewer doesn’t come out clean return to the oven for 5 more minutes.
Allow to cool in the tin sitting on a wire rack for ten minutes before removing spring form ring and sliding from the base. Slip paper out gently from underneath and allow to cool.
Apple Compote:
This is inspired by and my take on the recipe in the beautiful Beatrix Bakes Book.
Peel, core and cube the apples. Combine all sugar, water, spices, salt, cornflour and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat until small bubble appear on the sides, add apples stir to combine then cover and cook on medium for 5 minutes. Remove lid, stir through honey and remove from heat and cool completely before using.
Keep a close eye on the mixture while it cooks, you may need to stir once or twice to prevent it sticking.
Chantilly Cream:
Combine all ingredients in a stand mixer. Whip on medium high until soft peaks form. Pop in a bowl and store in the fridge until you’re ready to use.
Mascarpone Frosting:
Combine very soft butter, icing sugar and cinnamon in a stand mixer. Mix with whisk attachment until combined then increase speed to med-high to combine well and lighten in colour and form. Just like you would for butter cream frosting. You’ll need to scrape this down a couple times to reach the lite fluffy texture you need. Add mascarpone and cream and again slowly to start to combine then increase to med-high to whip up to a fluffy texture. It will be lighter and fluffier than a traditional butter cream frosting almost like a thick whipped cream.
Assemble:
Slice the cake across the middle using a serrated knife (I use a bread knife) making two discs as close to an even thickness as possible. Set your bottom layer on the plate you’d like to serve on and top with whipped Chantilly cream. Using your spoon make a little indentation in the middle and pile the cooled apple mixture in the middle gentle distributing to a circle 2/3 the diameter of the cake leaving a 2cm border of cream all the way around. Gently place the remaining disc of cake on top and with a soft touch pile and spread the mascarpone frosting on top in soft, uneven peaks like clouds. You can leave it like that or dust with additional cinnamon.
Creamy Pork Pasta
Standing in front of the noticeboard, rifling around in my handbag for a pen and my diary my eyes scanned the roster. A groan of exasperation escaped. I had a split shift, not especially unusual on weekends where I’d wander to the gym or a walk around the city, I was loving working in but this one was 3 ½ hours. Too long to spend at the gym, at least for me it was and too short to go home and return, it was an awkward break that I was dreading.
A time before phones, social media and endless scrolling. A time when rosters were posted on noticeboards, when noticeboards were still a thing and schedules were maintained in diaries, it was the early 90’s and I worked in hospitality. I loved it, the pace, the variety and the joy of ensuring guests enjoyed a good time. I was a waitress by day, and on weekends, a ‘hostess’ on the door of the Hotel nightclub, all 5’3” of me. City hotels, their restaurants and bars held an air of glamour as did a night out enjoying the experience. The venue I worked in was extremely popular and a reservation in the themed restaurant or admission to the nightclub highly sought after and weekend staff very busy.
After a busy lunch shift caring for happy revellers dining before weekend theatre matinees or taking shelter from winter weather after morning city shopping sprees (also a thing of the past) I changed out of my uniform contemplating what on earth I was going to do with myself. A quick peruse through the entertainment section of the Saturday newspaper and I decided to take myself to the movies. It really was the time of the dinosaurs having to use a newspaper to choose a movie, where we’d see our favourite actor featured and blindly decide to see the feature without prior knowledge of the film’s story. Patrick Swayze was taking the leap into a serious role starring in a film, set in poverty stricken, Calcutta. I was 21, probably more naive than I’d have admitted at the time and it was the first time I’d taken myself to the cinema alone. Whilst the film does finish on a hopeful note it was, for very young me, somewhat traumatic. With no one to de-brief with and still 1 ½ hours to kill before my shift I decided I needed a lift and that in my newly asserting air of maturity (tongue firmly in cheek with the benefit of hindsight) I’d take myself out for an early dinner. Also a first time experience I walked down the road from the hotel in which I worked to a small Italian trattoria I’d been eyeing off keenly. Feeling very sophisticated I walked the tree lined entrance lit with gently waving festoon lights asking the host in his crisp white shirt and apron for a table for one. Taking my seat, I ordered a chardonnay (did I mention it was the 90’s?...Still love a Chardy too) and started people watching. Now to set the scene, remember no phones to scroll through and look occupied with, five pm and very few fellow diners, in fact none and a restaurant full of highly professional hospitality staff poised and ready to serve. There wasn’t a lot of people to watch, I’d sat myself with my back to the front window therefore couldn’t watch the passing parade and well I really had no idea what to do with myself. Reading the menu for perhaps longer than was strictly necessary, something that doesn’t happen now having thoroughly studied the menu online before venturing out, the waiter took his time greeting me and chatting with me possibly sensing my discomfort. Confused by the elevated nature of the Italian fare on offer the waiter directed my attention to a dish he thought I’d enjoy. An odd sounding dish whilst still quite simple in the way of Italian food that adventurous me was happy to try and agree to in my discomfit and be left to sip my wine taking in preservice preparations in the restaurant. From what was probably a quiet kitchen, my meal was presented to me quite soon after ordering. The aroma rose to greet me first, making my increasingly hungry stomach rumble. Steam mingled with the freshly grated parmesan cheese sprinkled over my meal by my attentive server adding another layer to the interesting bouquet enticing me. Left alone to enjoy my dinner I plunged my fork into the pasta tubes nestled in the pale coloured sauce threaded with small pieces of pork and dainty jewel like dice of carrot. Nutmeg tickled my tastebuds as I took my first mouthful and the cream swirled around my mouth. A layer of white wine revealed itself and a faint hint of freshness from flecks of parsley unfolded. I was suddenly very occupied of mind and distracted by the superb plate of handmade pasta before me. Deciding dinner for one wasn’t so awful after all, my full attention given to my carefully crafted meal completly undistracted by conversation just an internal discussion between my tastebuds and me to keep me occupied.
I’ve never forgotten that afternoon for all its lessons both in being adventurous and that wonderful combination of flavours.
Ingredients:
300 gm minced pork (not lean)
1 Tb extra virgin olive oil
1 eschallot finely minced
1 garlic cloved finely minced
½ cup carrot finely diced (I know this is an odd instruction but our ideas of what it’s a small carrot varies and actual measures works)
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg and extra to finish
1 tsp salt flakes
125 ml white wine
250 ml cream
1 tb finley chopped flat leaf parsley
Your favourite pasta. I like to use a rigatoni or penne. We eat around 75gm of dried pasta person for the four of us. This quantity will coat that amount of pasta nicely.
Parmesan cheese to serve.
Method:
Warm a medium sized heavy based pan over a medium heat. Add oil, turn heat down to low and add eschalot and carrot. Cook gently five minutes. Add garlic and nutmeg and cook gently for one minute. Push everything to the edge increase heat to medium and add pork. Brown five minutes until just cooked through breaking up lumps with your spoon as it cooks. Stir everything together, adding salt and increase heat to med-high. After a few minutes cooking at the higher heat, it should be starting to sizzle. Pour wine in, letting it bubble for a minute then reduce heat simmering until decreased by half. Pour in cream and simmer for a until slightly thickened, stir through parsley. Tip cooked pasta in and stir through until pasta is well amalgamated. Grate over additional nutmeg so the heat of the of the dish releases the lovely aroma. Serve with parmesan cheese sand black pepper sprinkled to taste.
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.
Curry Chicken NoodleSoup
Reluctantly, I throw off the covers yawning. My feet hit the ground the cold under foot curling my toes registering with my brain and alerting me to what awaits. Blearily I pull on clothes and shoes, grab ear pods and head out. As I open the door a cold wind blasts my face, making me pull my head down in to my jacket collar like a turtle retreating into my shell hiding from the cold. Nonetheless I step forward and keep going. Even the morning chorus of birds is subdued still reluctantly unfurling from their slumber with a burgeoning winter song calling the dawn. Light is peaking through the trees emerging from the horizon as I hit my stride, one foot in front of the other my brain and body awakening….
Suddenly I’m startled.. The alarm on my watch is buzzing, trilling it’s pleasant tune, most probably composed after hours of research into notes that both awaken and don’t startle, the fine balance between alerting the wearer to the hour without setting their heart racing like the abrupt clanging of the old fashioned alarm clock. Yes awaken. The cold bracing morning walk of my dreams was exactly that, a dream. I’ve dreamed, both literally and metaphorically of being a morning person most of my adult life. That rumbling you feel right now as you read this is the earth jittering as those who know me personally read this and are currently throwing their heads back in hysterical laughter reminiscing, of moments with morning me, speechless until a morning caffeine hit and time to ease into the day. I’m just not a morning person, dream though I may of early starts beginning with a brisk stride under my belt followed by zen me sipping my morning brew fondly gazing at the scene through my window as birds flutter about joining me in my morning reverie before I launch into the day proper. Days finishing with an almost smug satisfaction as I reflect on the long list of ticks held in my head representing the day’s achievements. Alas I am not she and at nearly 52 I fear I may never be.
On the weekend, as I scrolled through emails, I happily noticed one of my favourites had arrived titled ‘I Need a Carrot.” Intrigued, I opened it expectantly hoping for a carrot recipe, I’m quite partial to a carrot…but I digress. She, similarly, spoke of mornings and went on to speak of her carrots. Little promises she makes to herself during the week to entice herself to complete otherwise challenging tasks. Promises of reward if you will, to keep putting one front in front of the other. Her and I spoke once in DM’s of mornings. She prompted me to focus on the feeling afterwards rather than the steps between where I lay and that feeling. It’s great advice though searching through my addled and foggy morning brain for that nugget Lindsay had offered me to throw back the covers is often a fruitless hunt, clearly. Like her earlier advice I also love the idea of a carrot, an attempt to fool myself into a prize at the end of completions to tempt me forwards to the finish line. But unlike Lindsay I’m yet to find the discipline to take the steps to win myself offered prizes and therefore the achievement of those goals, like rising early and meeting the day with a brisk walk (read: dreaded exercise) and a whimsical gaze out the window sipping coffee like some dreamy tv commercial.
One thing I do imagine and daydream about when I finally take my walk after brekky and coffee is what I’ll eat for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s my carrot, a delicious dinner that awaits me at the end of the day and the time to bring that together. Weirdly to some, that end of day kitchen time is like a meditation to me. Time where I stop and retreat to my happy place to respond to the day by creating something tasty. On days like the cold winter ones we’re experiencing at the moment I get through the days on the wings of the promise I make to myself to create a bowl of something warming to end my day with. Something laced with warming spice served with plumes of steam rising from it’s surface to lick the cold tip of my nose with it’s aromas and warmth.
I’ve spoken before of my deep abide love of soup both here and here. Like then, it endures as does my love of spice. Soup should be an experience of it’s own, hands warmed by the bowl, spoon plunging into its broth, swirling on the hunt for individual favourite ‘pearls’ of ingredients floating through its wake, and in this case, slurpy noodles coated in all its flavours. As I type this, having made Curry Chicken and Noodle Soup to photograph for you, I’m a little distracted. It’s cold, the scene outside my window is bleak, black clouds shrouding the day in a dusk like filter, but there’s soup in a pot on the stove for dinner. I’ll keep typing, no soup for me until the work is done.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
700 gm chicken maryland or similar pieces with skin and bone still attached.
2 large garlic cloves finely chopped
1 litre chicken stock
20 gm finely grated ginger
1 lemongrass stalk bruised, white part only
1 red chilli sliced, seeds in or out. The spice choice is yours.
1 makrut lime leaf crinkled with a squeeze in your hand
1 brown onion peeled and sliced
3 cardamon pods bruised with the back of a knife to crack the pod
1 tsp ground turmeric
3 tsp curry powder, the run of the mill kind
1 large carrot peeled and sliced in thickish slices, say nearly 1cm thick
¾ cup of sliced green beans
2 cups of water
200-300 pkt fresh egg noodles
Fresh herbs to serve such as basil, parsley, mint and dare I say….coriander (just not in my bowl)
Coconut cream to serve.
Method:
Preheat oven to 220c, stay with me here I know this sounds odd. In a medium baking dish drizzle olive then place chicken pieces in the dish, drizzle more olive oil over the top and sprinkle flakes over the chicken. Place in the hot oven and bake 25 minutes or until the skin and edges are just starting to brown and blister but the meat is not completely cooked through.
While the chicken is starting in the oven. Prepare the onion and spices. In a large heavy pot, over medium heat, warm a good glug of olive. Reduce the heat to low and add the onion cooking gently for five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and cook briefly until fragrant. Add the curry powder and cardamon pods and again cook for a minute to draw out the fragrance. Remove the chicken from the oven and add to the pot including any oil and drippings and the lime leaf. Stir to combine and coat the chicken in the spiced juices, pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 30-40 minutes or until the chicken comes away from the easily but not falling off.
Remove the chicken from the pot. Tip the vegies into the broth and increase heat slightly, cook ten minutes while preparing meat. With two forks gently pull the meat from the bones. Discard the skin but return the bones to the pot to eke out every last morsel of flavour while you finish the soup. Shred the meat before returning to the soup and if needed chop to bite size pieces of necessary. Return meat to pot and cook a further 5 minutes.
When you’re nearly ready to serve, cook noodles following instructions on the packet. Distribute noodles evenly amongst four bowls. Gently ladle soup over the noodles. Like you would add cream to pumpkin or tomato soup, swirl a spoonful of coconut milk over the soup and top with fresh fragrant herbs.
Mandarin, Raspberry and Olive Oil Loaf
It’s been a funny week. A, strangely for me, reflective one.
After posting last week’s missives, ironically also reflective, I lunched on those spinach rolls before setting off for my exercise class (who even am I). They’re a friendly mob at my gym and always greet me with wide open smiles and warm salutations. Last week was a little more sombre when the receptionist, a pal and subscriber here, greeted me quietly stating she ‘wasn’t talking to me.’ She’d read my post about my boy before work and it’d hit a nerve leaving her also reflective and sombre. We shared the hugs of mums and middle aged women who’ve lived and the stories and feelings evoked by my words of last week’s post. Tear ducts cleaned out and loads shared our keels sailed a little more evenly…or as evenly as life’s experiences allow. I little bit of a cross wind in our sails and a gentle swell under our boughs the waves not as overwhelming.
Later that day in the local hardware megastore, galloping up the aisle looking for a wonder cleaning product that keeps finding its way into my newsfeed tempting me to clean my oven door, I noticed an old school mum friend staring at the shelves. She was a gem back in the day, helping me with the load of running my kids hither and thither whilst supporting ailing parents and a husband who travelled for work, what felt like, all the time. Every community has diamonds like her, ‘salt of the earth’ women who see the need to help before those who need it even do and don’t see any bother doing so. Always ready with a warm friendly smile and good humour. I hadn’t seen her for a long time nor caught up on her family’s happenings so a ‘quick’ chat in Aisle 30 was a no brainer. We updated each other on kid’s lives, husbands’ careers and our own lives. It’s funny how updating ourselves in such conversations always comes last isn’t it and indeed I’ve noticed recently, or maybe it’s just me, is downplayed. We talked about work and the mother load, mine much lighter. She talked about her sandwich generation situation supporting an ailing older parent as well as the trenches of parenthood and her business all while riding the waves of middle age hormones and that womanly habit of raising the spinnaker one handed while steering at the helm against the prevailing gusts of wind tacking this way and that against the unpredictable weather. And then she too was in my arms clearing out those tear ducts, that middle aged load buffeting from both sides.
That night two messages from friends also came through also sharing stories and offloading a little followed by lunch the next day with a couple more girlfriends, stories of all the extras we’re carrying tabled and washed away in the hum of a busy restaurant and a couple hours of escape with comrades in similar trenches.
A few things occurred to me. The cliches of middle age I’d heard as a child and young woman spoken about by my mum and her friends in hushed tones over afternoon tea weren’t actually cliches. Womanhood while wonderful and full and unique to the life led by our male counterparts is largely ruled by hormones which present mountainous waves to surf at the most inopportune periods in life and most especially that opportunities for bemoaning and debriefing in those hushed frustrated tones with coffee and cake aren’t as available as they once were.
It's one of nature’s greatest flaws that at a time when a woman is enduring what feels like a second round of puberty with a quarter of the energy to do so is often also a time of other major life changes for those she’s supporting. Ailing parents, teens in their own sea of hormones, older offspring launching their own adulthoods, empty nests and partners in the throes of their middle age woes all seem to circle like conflicting weather fronts at this most inconvenient period of our lives. Likewise, our parents or older relatives will increasingly need our support or even their hands held as the pages of their last chapters slowly turn. All the while we’re tired, perhaps not sleeping well, we’re hot, so hot! We just want a moment to ourselves, our patience is stretched and the winds of middle ages are blowing our hair all over the place but we don’t have a free hand to grab a hair tie and pull it out of our faces…metaphorically speaking.
So all this leads me to my point. What happened to afternoon tea? Taking an hour out of the week to have a cuppa and slice of cake with a pal? To off load, debrief, catchup? A photographer pal who also happens to be a psychologist was telling me about a lecture she’d been to recently sharing research into middle age. They found that, universally, across all cultures the one commonality was a sense of sadness. This could be a whole discussion and essay of it’s own but the big take away was the need to shake things up and disrupt! Now afternoon tea may not seem like a big revelation but perhaps it could be a start and perhaps it’s a seed to hatch a plan from your shake up or help a pal shake her world up. One slice of cake at a time.
My Mandarin and Raspberry Loaf is the perfect bake for anyone wanting to catch up with a friend. It’s super easy and requires no fancy equipment, ingredients or skills. Maybe baking could be your disruption or maybe you could have a friend for coffee and cake and a not so hushed tones debrief, hug and tear duct clean out.
Ingredients:
1 1/3 C (220 gm) Plain Flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb soda
½ tsp salt flakes
¾ C (180 gm) caster sugar
200 gm Greek yoghurt (full fat)
2 eggs at room temperature beaten
100 ml olive oil, mild flavoured
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste
1 tb mandarin juice (one mandarin)
2 tsp mandarin rind finely grate (2 mandarins)
200 gm whole raspberries
Icing:
1 ½ C icing sugar
50 gm butter melted
¼ tsp vanilla extract or paste
¼ tsp salt flakes
Juice of the remaining mandarin from the cake batter
Method:
Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line a loaf tin, set aside.
In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt, set aside.
In a second large bowl combine remaining cake ingredients except raspberries. Using a balloon whisk, stir them together gently initially then when combined exert some energy and whisk all those frustrations into your batter combining to a smooth mix with no lumps, sugar almost dissolved and the yoghurt completely mixed in. Now that you’ve got that off your chest with a gentle hand fold in the raspberries and flour until completely incorporated and all the flour lumps are smoothed out, much like all those life humps you’ve been smoothing out.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for ten minutes before using the baking paper overhang to lift it out and cool completely on a wire rack, gently slipping the paper out from underneath so the bottom doesn’t get soggy.
To make icing, combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix until thickened and completely amalgamated. Spread in swirls across the top and serve with that cuppa, a hug a box of tissues and maybe even a cheeky glass of dessert wine or bubbles if the weather prevails.
Spinach and Cheese Rolls
My mum used to say that you’re a mum forever. She was talking about the mothering instinct. Though always reassured we were fine and knew what we were doing with all the usual bravado of the young, she worried. I think, still, too much or maybe in our relationship I’m still the young. Still the one who thinks she should have relaxed, she did worry more than most and at times that felt a little stifling. I could feel myself wriggling and shifting against it's chastening clinch, rebelling even just a little. I was not a particularly rebellious kid but did stand by decisions and wants probably challenging her anxiety unfairly.
More and more now I’m starting to understand. I do worry about them obviously, driven by my overwhelming desire for all their hopes and dreams to come true. That’s the thing I want for them. The usual want for them to find happiness, success (however that looks for them) and love is behind all the fulfillment of all those ambitions they hold, perhaps that fulfillment is life’s pinnacle.
Our youngest was home to celebrate his 21st birthday this last week. Our eldest is in remote Western Australia adventuring with his friends. Both far from home, both far from what traditionally would be ‘safe.’ Both reaching for the stars and reaching for their dreams.
One of things I asked boy two before his return was what he’d like me to cook for him, wanting to have the larder stocked. Amongst all the usual things like a roast we had Spaghetti and planned for his birthday celebrations. We love a charcuterie platter, lovely cheeses, mini cheeseburgers and surprisingly he requested spinach rolls.
I say surprisingly because it’s not something I remember him enjoying and surprised that they were something he’d request. His absence and his return have presented many surprises. When I reflect some don’t surprise me or indeed shouldn’t have. His wisdom falls way beyond his years, something in part I knew but which shone more brightly after six months apart. His maturity and capability, characteristics we felt evolving in our many phone calls in the months apart more evident in our midst. Witt, charm and warmth bubbling forth though always there but now held in a self-assured yet humble man.
I made the spinach rolls for him amongst the list of other culinary requests. Amongst other morsels, I served them during a Sunday afternoon gathering to celebrate his milestone birthday. Moving around the terrace to the sound of laughter, kookaburras and the crackle of an open fire warming us in crisply cool winter sunshine offering platters and drinks I could hear his laughter and chatter with our friends, that of a happy confident man. Happily nibbling on a spinach roll raising one to me in praise and smiling across the gathering, a nod of recognition, of thanks, of mutual admiration perhaps.
It hit me then, we notice their changes in the small things and we notice them acutely after an absence. We farewelled young men chafing at the constraints of their youth and our parenting and welcome home independent happy self-sufficient adults. Though missed his explorations of the world and establishment of his adult life far afield allowed him to flourish on his terms in his own space without the shadow of our worry. It also allowed us to evolve into parents of adult offspring who enjoy their company as adult companions and trust their adult decisions without needing to worry.
As we walked the long, crowded hallways of the airport towards another goodbye, the hum and bustle of passengers coming and going, announcements interrupting my thoughts I felt the lump in my throat grow, my eyes fill with tears and my chest swell. We’ll miss him terribly as he returns to this chapter but pride bloomed as all my emotions mingled and swirled.
I think as my mum said you’re always a mum and no doubt in some ways always worry about them but perhaps that worry is tied more to hope for them and all their aspirations and perhaps just little of grief missing their glorious presence.
Now I can wait for the next time we see Boy One and all the excitement to see his evolution….I wonder what he’ll request for dinner….
Ingredients:
1 bunch of English spinach yielding around 220 – 250 gm of leaf once trimmed of stalks.
3 spring onions (scallions) sliced and chopped
2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
500 gm firm ricotta. Not the creamy stuff in the tub, it’s lovely spread on toast but no good for this.
200 gm feta. I prefer a mild smooth one like Danish for this recipe.
20 gm finely grated romano or parmesan cheese
1 egg beaten
½ tsp each dried oregano and dill
½ tsp salt flakes
Finely grated rind of a lemon
2-3 sheets of puff pastry. I’m not going to be too pedantic about how many as a) it depends how big yours are and b) how thickly you pipe or spread your mixture. I use this one but ran out after making nine lunch size rolls and used the rest of the mixture in filo pastry I had in the fridge.
1 egg extra for an egg wash
Method:
Preheat oven to 180c and line 1-2 baking sheets/trays.
Heat olive oil in a medium sized pan over medium heat. Saute spring onion 1 minute until fragrant. Add spinach and stir frequently for a few minutes until just wilted. Pour off and discard any excess liquid then tip spinach mixture into a strainer. Spread spinach around the strainer into a layer then place a compatible sized bowl on the mixture weighted with a can or some other item from your pantry. This will help push out any extra moisture while it cools.
While the spinach mixture cools, take a large bowl and combine cheeses, egg, herbs, salt and lemon rind and mix thoroughly with a fork. I like to do this with a fork almost mashing it together, this combines things better without turning into a cream like a mechanical mix would. Once spinach is cooled squeeze out any remaining liquid then stir through cheese with a wooden spoon mix completely.
Prepare your pastry cutting your sheets to strips the size of roll you’d like to make, either ones for a meal of small party size ones.
I use a disposable piping bag available from the baking aisle in the supermarket for this next step. Pipe or spread a sausage of mixture down the middle of the pastry strips you’ve cut. Spread the egg wash down the edge and roll towards this edge to seal the roll up with the roll resting on top of the seal. Slice each roll to the size you desire. Line up, on a baking sheet, with a little room between each so the pastry will cook properly all the way round as it puffs and expands. Brush the outside with egg wash and pop in the oven for 40 minutes.
They’re delicious hot or cold but if you’re planning on enjoying them hot give them a few minutes to cool a little.