staying at home and baking

The rational part of me says it's a common sense way of making food when we are short of it and we don't want to or can't get to the shops.
The romantic side says it's one of the cool things about being at home with my young kids while I can. Baking. Cooking. Making...

We make these biscuits together. Hugo crushes the weet bix and adds the other ingredients. He's also a great little sous-chef when I make the bread mixture. Usually these days Georgia is at Kindy and misses out on the making. She still loves the eating though!

pasta pasta machine

These can be made in advance and stored in the freezer for up to two (2) weeks.
Ravioli.

Filling up to you.
We use whatever's fresh. Tomatoes, spinach, fetta, capsicum, onions etc. the trick with spinach is it must be wilted first or air pockets form.

Homemade pasta: enjoy fresh or frozen, any day. Make it in advance for a party, go on, it will be so special.

little boy baking

He's been in the kitchen most mornings, either of his own volition or because I'm coaxing him out of a mid morning lull without his big sister to entertain him. However, why ever, he loves the baking!

He gets his little apron on, takes a bowl from the cupboard. Gets the eggs, cracks two in the bowl, peels the bananas, starts mashing them and then just helps generally with all the pouring and mixing. Last of all he licks the bowl with great delight.

We've just finished making a batch of banana muffins, his favourite.

The other day, we made these fruit buns, the old fashioned, long way. Proving bread actually provides a whole morning's worth of baking. He gets to do the mixing first, then take a break while it proves. Then pounding and kneading and poking, forming into balls. Then another break.

Then the eating!

The recipe is from Laurie Black's book, New Home Cooking.
I have adapted it by mixing all the milk with the yeast at the beginning and adding whatever fruit I have available. It works well with wholemeal flour too.

harvest day

We have been digging in the garden.
How cool has it been to find fat vegetables almost overgrown and begging to be picked. The few days of rain we've had have meant beans and zucchinis have gone nuts. But the gherkins... I thought I had been keeping an eye on them.?
Tonight's tea is scalloped potatoes - here's why.

I have a lot of pickling and preserving to do.

Fat gherkin cucumbers.

Yellow zucchinis (courgettes) - which name to you prefer?

One is ripening into a huge marrow, I think we'll just see what happens to it so the kids can enjoy watching it grow.

Beans galore (Stringless scarlett).
Another round of strawberries.
Tiger lilies and dahlias.

I will share some recipes soon. Does anyone have something good for zucchini? Last year I did something with brown sugar and vinegar, a relish I think. But I can't find the recipe anymore.

What's coming out of your garden at the moment?

Blackberry jelly making

It is blackberry season here. We are lucky to have an enormous supply of these growing in our 'back yard' at the foot of the forest behind the park we live next to. We have collected a few containers so far. They taste delicious on breakfast cereal just as they are, but many have quite hard seeds in them so I thought I would try jelly-making.

One fresh lot, one frozen, and a frozen juice collected from a tin of black doris plums - 

into the pot, a boil to soften the fruit and extract the juice...

strain away the pulp and seeds in a seive, add the sugar, dissolve it, then back on the stove for a quick boil to 'setting stage'.

I used my instinct to find the setting stage as I don't have a thermometer (but if you do it is 105 C) and I tried small amounts on a cold plate for sticking and wrinkling...

but the best guide I found was listening to it. The mixture quite suddenly takes on a change in sound in the way the bubbles become sticky rather than runny and that's when you know to take it off the heat.

It didn't quite fill two jars like I had hoped.

It set on cooling.

The good old Edmonds cook book had some great hints and following this page are some recipes with varying amounts and types of fruit and sugar.

For my blackberry and plum jelly I used:

• 3 cups blackberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup plum juice
• 1 cup sugar (added only once strained through seive)
• a wooden spoon (don't ask me why but it has to be wooden)
• a stainless steel soup pot (the old aluminium ones apparently leech toxins)

all in all it took less than an hour to make, perhaps only 30 minutes.

So we're eating it on toast, in yoghurt, and on breakfast cereal. Yum! 

food glorious food

I made so much food yesterday, and the day before, for a friend's party. I didn't photograph any of it because the camera was flat, so you will just have to believe me that I made gingerbread cookies, pink lamingtons (and the sponge!), pork balls wrapped in prosciutto, gluten free chocolate cake (just eggs, chocolate, butter, sugar), and raspberry meringues. Phew. Did anybody say domestic goddess? Ah, but I sent the kids away while I baked. They started off 'helping' but it didn't last long that way... 


So I didn't feel like cooking today. Tired of pasta, rice, potatoes and bread, I made a last minute dinner with some QUINOA. I know it is supposed to be said 'keen-wa' but I can't help myself saying quin-oa. This is such a strange, but oh so good grain. An ancient grain. Doesn't that sound intriquing? It's gluten free and this is something playing on my mind at the moment while Hugo and I undergo a series of allergy tests. I am already supposed to be on a wheat reduced diet for endometriosis, but haven't been very good with that since pregnancy and breast-feeding have removed the symptoms for now. 


Here's something I made earlier with wonderful quinoa. These are free from gluten, meat, saturated fat and preservatives and are high in energy, protein and vitamins. And they taste great. Yay!

Quinoa and vegetable balls
Adapted from this recipe, where you can find variations and serving suggestions

Ingredients:

1 Cup Quinoa; uncooked

1/2 Cup Almonds; ground or other ground nuts

2 Tablespoon Arrowroot powder (a good binding agent);

2 Tablespoon Oil, olive or rice-bran

1 Cup Onions; chopped

1 Cup Brocolli; chopped small 

1 Cup Carrots; chopped small

1 Cup Mushrooms

1 Cup Celery; chopped small

1/2 Cup Olives, chopped

2 Garlic cloves; minced

2 Vegetable stock cubes (BUT these can contain gluten and MSG so I prefer to cook the quinoa in real stock at step 1)

2 Tablespoon Parsley, chopped

1 Teaspoon Dill

1/2 to 1 Teaspoon Pepper 

1/2 Teaspoon Thyme

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup chopped roasted Hazelnuts

Directions: 

Cook quinoa in stock (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups stock/water). 

Mix cooked quinoa, ground nuts and arrowroot powder (or substitute flours) together.

Heat the oil and saute the onions, brocolli and carrots until semi-tender. Add the other vegetables and saute another 1-2 minutes. 

If you are using stock cubes, mix these in now. Remove the stir-fry from heat and mix it well with the quinoa mixture. 

Roll it into balls, using 1/8 - 1/4 cup for each ball. 

Bake the balls at 200C for 20 minutes or until hot and toasted.

Serve with your favourite sauce.

Note: The 1/8 cup balls may be stir fried in a lightly oiled frying pan and served as "meat balls" with spaghetti and tomato sauce or they may be eaten plain or serve as suggested above. Cold leftover balls keep 4-6 days refrigerated. They are terrific for lunches and snacks.

Makes 2-4 dozen 

Christmas sago pudding

My aunty has made this pudding for years (though not in recent years, I guess that's why I'm craving it) so at long last I have made my own. Usually called 'Sago Plum Pudding' for reasons unknown to me, as there are no plums or prunes in it - I included cranberries and almonds to make it a little more festive.

Sago Pudding
2 TBL sago (found in the jelly crystal aisle of the supermarket; it is just tapioca starch)
1 cup milk
(Wash the sago then stand it in the milk overnight so it absorbs)
20g butter (1 1/2 TBL)
3/4 cup sugar
1 scant tsp baking soda
1 cup day-old bread, broken into small bits
1 1/2 cups mixed dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, currants - and I guess you can use prunes!)
a handful of sliced almonds
1/4 cup brandy
pinch salt

Cream butter and sugar. Dissolve baking soda in the sago mixture then add to the butter mixture.
Fold into bread, fruit, salt and brandy (alternatively you can soak the fruit in the brandy overnight).
Grease a pudding basin and pour in the mixture. Any size will do - the cooking time is important.

Wrap the pudding basin:
Here's the interesting part - get a piece of cloth long enough to wrap under the bowl then back around to twist the end to make a handle. Tie the top with string then tie the handle to the top at both sides.
This is a good tutorial for tying up a pudding. I guessed at it and it turned out fine. The handle is just to get the pudding out of the pot once cooked.

Steam the pudding:
In a large soup pot (big enough to fit the basin with a little room) place a saucer in the bottom and fill about one third of the way. Bring to the boil and place the pudding in so the water comes halfway up the side of the basin (roughly level with the pudding mixture). Cover.
Steam for 2 1/2 hours. You should be able to hear the saucer jiggling in the pot the whole time, but not so vigorous that the lid jiggles as well.

Serve with ice-cream, fresh cream, or brandy cream or sauce.

It really is delicious. You can eat it right away or it will keep in the fridge for about 2 weeks, if well wrapped. Not sure about freezing.

to celebrate not having a party

So the weather has turned bad here. The forecast for Sunday is rain and wind. So I cancelled my birthday party. I couldn't be happier!
It's such a relief, now I can focus on Christmas and getting the house ready for the holidays, even though we did paint the dining room and trim the hedges in preparation for the party.
I did have big plans to cook up a storm in the kitchen in the days leading up to the party. I've been reading books and magazines and storing up recipes for the big day.
A few days ago I made some of this homemade lemonade (or Mead, as it is called in Sweden). Lotta Jansdotter's new book, Handmade Living, has a set of excellent Nordic recipes in the back.

These are close to my heart, as my Dutch grandfather has often made this sort of food for celebrations (such as cured salmon, potato and anchovy bake, and basically a sort of cooking that doesn't use garlic (I love it but not in everything) but does use lots of salt and sugar!).
I tried this Mead two weeks ago. We drank the last bottle at the weekend so I made a fresh batch for the party. For the first lot I used Muscovado sugar and the result was a darker brew. It wasn't very alcoholic, maybe enough to give a slight muzz after a couple of glasses. I took Lotta's advice and gave some to the kids. It's certainly fizzy and quite syrupy in flavour, better than other homemade lemonade I've made. We saved 750ml bottles from Barker's fruit drink concentrates (made in a South Island town called Geraldine and it's by far the best of its kind) and also used our wine decanters, but lids didn't fit in the fridge so were replaced with glad wrap.

Then today, we were so hungry and the shopping hadn't arrived, so I made a batch of cinnamon buns. I was going to make these on the day of the party so they've been on my mind for a while now. We only needed a half batch, makes 12 buns.

They are so delicate and smooth, completely different to store bought buns. Don't they look like a bunch of roses?
So we drank mead and ate buns on this damp afternoon to celebrate NOT having a party!

PS Lotta has made the recipes available on the preview of her book on Amazon.

Cake

Here is the final product. I started making the cake weeks ago (it improves with keeping) and a couple of days out from Mum's birthday it was time to ice it.

This time I decided to make it a long, thin cake. Cut in half and put ends together, it ends up like this.
The almond icing was hard to do, as the cake has two extra sides to make (that's right, remembering maths class, the surface area can increase when you change the shape of an object). It was a bit of a patch job, but I made it.
Then the butter icing - added a drop or two of red food colouring and about 1/2 teaspoon of lemon essence and I got this peachy colour.
It has a messy finish because, frankly, I'm a messy person and it seemed to suit it. So there you go.
The russian dolls were part of the 'theme' (though mum insists they were Irish gypsies, as were some of our ancestors) and the photos from the invitations I made here. The flowers are false, couldn't come up with a way to keep fresh flowers fresh, so...
Yes, Mum loved the cake. And it was delicious. And my brothers and co ate it all up within days. Just as it should be! Did I mention the party was an amazing big family do like the old days, everyone, everyone loved it, and we all NEEDED it.
Another two cakes now waiting to be iced for my birthday and for Christmas presents.

Breadmaking

I've been making this bread for a few months since seeing it on a few blogs, firstly at Tiny Happy (thank you so much for posting about this!) then at Angry Chicken. The master recipe is available here (the authors have two great looking books, one is for gluten free recipes!) and it makes a good amount - 3 or 4 small loaves and, here's the trick, it needs no kneading (love that phrase) and it keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks!
It rises once then it's ready to use. I generally make two small loaves then use the last of it up in a batch of fruit buns by rolling in some raw sugar and some currants, sultanas, raisins and peel.
I have found that it keeps rising in between uses though. I'd like to use a smaller container to keep it in the fridge to take less space, but it's burst out of ice-cream containers on several occasions with only half the dough remaining. I reduce the salt to one tablespoon too.
I've also tried keeping a little dough to incorporate into the next batch to give it more of a sourdough flavour - it got a little too sour, or bitter in fact, so have gone back to clean starts.
Using wholemeal flour has been ok. I started with that, then have gradually used more and more plain (high grade) flour as it makes a softer and more raised bread.

And sometimes I like to make traditional bread. Using Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef basic bread recipe (and look, there it is online) I made Foccacia the other day. I even used his strange topping suggestions - potato and rosemary, and fried onion. Both were exceptional. Here are two with the potato topping, one with kalamata olives added and parmesan. Better than pizza? Depends how hungry you are. Why did I not photograph the onion Foccacia? We were too busy eating...

A fresh start

Most mornings lately I've been starting the day with one of these smoothies.

Made from banana, gold kiwifruit, frozen blueberries and cranberry juice (all in varying amounts, depending on what I have and what I happen to slosh in). Whizzed up for a minute or so it turns this beautiful shade of pink. We all love it. The kids have theirs with straws.  I really want one of these old fashioned milkshake straw holders.

Healthy, wealthy and wise. At least I'm making inroads to getting the first one covered...

a kiwi tradition - pavlova

I made my first pavlova. Finally! 

Our 1970s oven is substandard (the swing door is broken so it doesn't stay closed, the temperature gauge is off so I don't know what it's set at, the gauge is in old gas marks too to make it harder, the oven cavity is small so standard trays don't fit and I have to use roasting trays for baking...) but if it can cook a pavlova then it can cook anything I think.

This was nice with whipped cream and fruit on top.
The recipe, from this book, tells you to put all ingredients in a bowl at once and set them mixing in the machine for 10-12 minutes. Could it get any easier (except the part where you have to separate the eggs, groan).
With three egg yolks left over it had to be poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce.

beurre de Paris

This handy butter creates a French flavour in an instant. I make it up as a batch and keep it rolled in waxed paper in the fridge and just slice a bit off when I need it.
Use it to serve with steak and potatoes, use it to season vegetables as you cook them (especially good with mushrooms), use it to bake fish in the oven wrapped in tin foil (aluminum foil).
So, so good. Every time. In an instant!

Here's how to make it:
Sauté a sliced shallot or two in some butter, add a clove or two of sliced garlic. Throw in a handful of chopped parsley (Italian flat leaf or the curly variety), a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard, then cook this until the shallots are turning transparent, about 3-5 minutes.

Add the mixture to about 150g of softened butter. Stir it together, form into a log, wrap in waxed paper and keep in the fridge. I don't know how long it keeps, probably best to use it up within the month...
Your family and friends will think you are an amazing chef. ;)

a special cake

 I'm making this cake for my mother's 50th birthday, which is coming up in a few weeks. The cake improves with keeping so I thought a good 6 weeks would do nicely. This is the third time I've used a Christmas cake recipe from this book and it's a good one! (Just discovered the author has provided FREE recipes online). It makes a huge cake (fits a 10 inch tin well) as it uses a pound each of flour, sugar, butter, raisins, sultanas, currants and a whole lot of extras.

I adjusted the ingredients slightly, substituting fresh NZ walnuts and some pistachios in place of the almonds. I also used some glorious huge golden raisins, some raz cherries, goji berries, cranberries and various other types of raisins. Yep, the ingredients for this cake cost a lot, including the 9 eggs (yes, 9!) but I think my Mum's worth it.

You can see some of the brands I used here:

I especially love the Angas Park brand, the figs I used here, but all their range is fantastic, juicy, yum.

Did I mention it makes a big cake? I had to borrow my aunty's baking bowl again. It's so tough to stir at the end they recommend using your hand, and that was truly the only way to get through it.

Cooked for 4 hours.

 My handy helper, he actually cracked every one of the 9 eggs himself, without spilling.

Smells amazing. The odours emanated from the cake the next day, then I wrapped it up in waxed paper.
I'll post again when I ice it - the usual almond paste icing topped with white butter-cream. I need to get creative with the decoration, perhaps fresh flowers for once, or some pearlised icing balls around the base...