You daft 'nana

No, not nanna, like someone's delightful elderly relative. 'Nana, the bent ones, smoothie sweeteners, tropical pre-packaged baby food. My mother swears calling someone a daft 'nana is a legitimate insult. I rather think that anyone that uses it as an insult deserves to be called it themselves. In honour of Nanna like 'nana insults, here is a lovely little banana cake recipe. It is moist and not overly sweet, the lemon icing gives it a citrus tang that reminds me of lemonade icypoles. I like to let a few little lemon pips escape into the icing... there is something delightfully rustic and homemade about a lemon pip plopped in the middle of a perfectly smooth lake of glistening icing. I like to wonder how the  lemon seed feels about it's fate,  is it naive to its situation as a social pariah, fit only for the company of vagrant olive pips and choking fish bones? Is it proud of it's role as proof that the icing contains nothing but natural ingredients, 'I'm an organic lemon pip and I'm here to tell you that no artificial colourings or flavourings were used in the making of this frosting!' I wonder why the lemon seed has such a deep voice when it's really such a little pip-squeak?

Banana cake with lemon icing, carrot cake with cream cheese, lumberjack with golden coconut; these were the cakes of my childhood. Mum would make huge slabs of them to sell at the bush-market, neatly sliced and packaged into perfect rectangles of cellophane wrapped country love. Whizzing up mountains of butter and sugar into creamy peaks in the biggest bowl in the house. This cake has a little less sugar, a little less wheat, a little more protein in the form of almond meal. I'm not sure that that qualifies it as healthy but it's good enough justification for me. Plus it's fruit, surely that can't be bad.

Banana cake

125g softened and cubed salted butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2-3 very ripe bananas, mashed

I vanilla pod, split and scraped

150g spelt flour

100g almond meal

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/2 cup milk mixed with 1tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup icing mix

1 lemon, juiced

Preheat oven to 180°C. Butter a loaf tin and line the base with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs, banana and seeds from the vanilla pod.

Add dry ingredients to mixture a little at a time, alternating with milk.

Pour batter into the lined tin and bake for 50mins-1hr or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Cool for 5mins in tin and then turn out onto a wire rack. Ice once completely cool.

To make icing, sift sugar into a bowl and add enough lemon juice to bring icing to desired consistency. Spoon onto cake and smooth with a palate knife.

A little on the nose

To be perfectly honest, I'm not too sure about truffles. I think that I was scarred by working in a restaurant that doused everything in an obscene amount of truffle oil. I would go home at the end of the night with my nostrils indelibly imprinted with the unmistakable aroma of truffle. To me, over time, the smell became indistinguishable from that of dirty socks and bad b.o. I thought I had been ruined for truffles forever.

So when my mother presented me with a fresh Australian black truffle I approached it with some trepidation. Luckily this little nugget smelt very little like the abomination that is truffle oil. In fact, most truffle oil does not contain any actual truffle but is a combination of an ether, which is one of numerous organic aromas found in actual truffles, and a base oil such as olive oil. Which explains why the oil lacks the complexity and subtlety of a fresh truffle.

The best risotto I ever ate was at a Paul Bocuse restaurant in Lyon (yes, very la-di-da). It was a ridiculously simple risotto bianco topped with a perfectly fried egg. In such a simple risotto the quality of the ingredients and adequate seasoning is absolutely paramount. The stock must be home made, the rice must be the best risotto rice you can afford and the butter must be salted and organic. Embrace the food snob within, you're cooking with truffle goddammit. My mother opens a bottle of Moët to use as her dry white but I have a sneaking suspicion that this may just serve as a rather good excuse to drink the other 690ml.

Truffle Risotto with Fried Egg

based on a recipe from 'French' by Damien Pignolet

serves 4

1.2L home-made chicken stock

50g butter

1 small brown onion, fine dice

500g risotto rice (Carnaroli or Vialone Nano)

60ml dry white wine

30-50g black truffle

60g cold butter, diced

60g parmesan, finely grated

salt & white pepper, to taste

4 eggs

Place truffle, rice and eggs in an airtight container and refrigerate for around 5 days.

Bring stock to the boil. Shave truffle.

Melt 50g butter in heavy based saucepan and sauté onion over medium heat until soft. Add rice and stir until translucent. Add wine to deglaze and stir until evaporated.

Reduce heat to low and add stock to rice a ladleful at a time. Stir constantly, add more stock once previous ladleful is absorbed. 

Begin to check rice after 15 mins, rice is done when just al dente. Use a little water if you run out of stock.

Once desired consistency is reached remove from heat and stir in remaining butter, half the truffle and the parmesan. Stir vigorously to make risotto creamy and oozy. Once butter is well combined, cover pot and rest for 5 mins. Check seasoning and add salt and white pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a non stick frypan and fry eggs over low heat until whites are just set.

Serve risotto in warmed bowls, topped with a fried egg and reserved truffle slices.

Jelly Wrestling

About a year ago I spent an extended period of time in a hospital bed. A combination of bad hospital food and high doses of morphine severely curbed my appetite and I could stomach nothing but fruit juice, chicken schnitzels and black tea. My fruit juice cravings transported me into the land of jelly, pretty much the only edible thing that arrived on my hospital tray. So reliant was I on jelly as my primary source of nutrition I burst into inconsolable sobs one evening when the tea ladies failed to deliver the sacred jelly. A year later and with a wisdom tooth extraction or three on the cards I am resurrecting my jelly obsession. But no Aeroplane Jelly for me, I'm going for good old-fashioned fruit juice set with leaf gelatine.

There is a lot to love in jelly land.  There is a certain quality to the wobble of a perfectly set jelly that is undeniably sexual, perfectly mimicking the wobble of a well endowed woman. A wobble that makes the most sensible of us giggle, the most inured of us snicker. A good jelly is smooth and slippery, manna from heaven for the toothless and sore-gummed amongst us. But you don't have to be sick or a child to enjoy a good jelly - although a soupçon of infantilism is indispensable for most adult pursuits. This ridiculously easy jelly is simple Valencia Orange, a good dash of Cointreau would make it a little more grown up but I might leave that 'till I'm off the painkillers.

Orange Jelly

From 'Jelly with Bombas & Parr'

Makes 500ml

Juice from about 4 oranges (to make 300ml)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

100ml sugar syrup

100ml water

5 leaves gold-strength gelatine

Choose a mould that will hold 500ml.

Squeeze oranges, pips and all, into a measuring jug until you have 300ml. Squeeze in the lemon juice.

Add equal quantities of sugar syrup and water to make juice up to 500ml.

Cut leaves of gelatine into a few pieces and place into a heat proof bowl, cover with a few tablespoons juice and leave to soften for 10mins.

Bring a small pot of water to the boil, place bowl of gelatine over simmering water and stir occasionally until completely melted

Pour the remainder of the juice over the gelatine and stir to combine. Pour through a sieve into measuring jug and then carefully fill the mould. Refrigerate until set.

To unmould jelly, dip mould briefly in hot water before turning jelly out.

You little tart

Everyone has their signature dish, their masterpiece, their pièce de résistance. Everyone has an auntie that brings that wombok noodle salad to the BBQ and claims it as her own marvellous invention. We all know that the recipe is on the back of the Chang's fried noodle packet but she insists that if she fails to bring it there'll be a veritable riot clambering for her 'secret' recipe. 

I certainly can not claim this old classic as my own and while I am not saying that this is my signature dish, it has certainly been my 'go to' little number for years. The dish I bring to a pot luck, the fail-safe dessert I serve when I've someone I want to impress. I cooked it the night I first cooked for my boyfriend, the fact that we never got to eat it just goes to show how effective it was. It's so good because it's so familiar,  nothing to challenge, nothing to upset. Perfection in it's simplicity.

Although I am lazy I do make my own pastry because otherwise what would I possibly do with my rather excessive collection of rolling pins? That was a rhetorical question, I am more than capable of using my imagination.

This recipe comes straight from Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion, the only modification I make is to use spelt flour rather than wheat for a nice nut-brown pastry that's a little gentler on the tummy. Like Stephanie I prefer a savoury pastry for this sweet tart, where we differ is in her insistence that the pastry must be made by hand. As far as I am concerned life is far too short not to use a food processor.

Shortcrust pastry

180g butter, cubed, at room temperature

240g white spelt flour

1/4 cup cold water

Whiz butter and flour in a food processor until it resembles bread crumbs.

Add enough water to just bring it together, try not to over process.

Form into a rough disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate at least 30mins.

Stephanie's Lemon Tart

1 quantity of shortcrust pastry

6 eggs

250g (1cup) caster sugar

zest & juice of 3 large lemons

200ml cream

icing sugar & thick cream to serve

 Line a greased and floured 24cm loose-bottomed deep flan tin with pastry. If you have time you can pop the tart case in the freezer to rest, I like to leave it in there overnight to minimise shrinkage.

Preheat oven to 200°C and bake blind for 20 mins or until pastry is golden brown and firm. Reset oven to 160°C.

Meanwhile, whisk together eggs and sugar, add zest and juice and then cream.

Pour mixture into just-baked pastry case and bake for 35-45 mins until just set, still almost wobbly in the centre.

Cool in tin for at least 30mins, dust with icing sugar and serve in wedges with thick cream.

Quince Charming

I find a quince so imbued with it's own heady fragrance it really needs little embellishment. A little sweet, be it sugar or honey, brings out the floral notes so redolent of Arabian evenings, cardamom and rose water sweet. A quince is nothing if not an introvert, hiding her perfumed beauty beneath a downy fur and presenting a hard exterior to the judging world. She certainly requires perseverance, a slow and tender touch. But our patience is rewarded with soft and yielding rosey hued flesh. 

Every year I witnessed the ritualistic production of quince jelly by my mother and father. Like Süskind's Grenouille they worked on a mountain of the yellow fruit. Chopped, boiled, strained, separated and variously adulterated into the pure essence of quince. The alchemy of cloudy juice transformed into liquid gold is a magic of which I will never grow tired. However, in the absence of a muslin bag, a hook to hang it on or a spare weekend I prefer to bake them simply and slowly. Halved and cored, knobs of butter and spoonfuls of honey, nestled in a baking dish with a little water to keep them moist, covered for 3 hours in a low oven, they are perfectly tender and blushingly pink. Served warm with a splodge of sweetened and cardamon flecked yoghurt, drizzled with the syrupy honey juices, nothing could be simpler or more luscious.

A borrowed heritage

I am oft lamenting, to my oft lamented to boyfriend, the incongruence of our respective cultural heritages. And when I say culture I of course am talking about food.

He grew up in an extended Italian family where every occasion centred around food. The tomato harvest meant the entire clan gathering for the making of passata, liquid summer captured in brown beer bottles that were all boiled up in a 44 gallon drum. Pigs were slaughtered, grapes were pressed and olives were cured as social events where every family member had a job and a place in the hierarchy. These people did self-sufficiency before it was cool. He speaks of a large rambling orchard and of grandmothers that rolled pasta by hand. If they had a family motto it would surely be 'Mangia, mangia' at every opportunity. And what impression has this upbringing had on said boyfriend? Nothing but an increased appreciation and capacity for good food and better company. His grasp of the Italian language and food culture is rudimentary at best.

I would kill to have such a food culture running through my veins. Not to say my mother is not the best cook I know. But if we had any food culture in our blood it would be so working class Australiana it would surely clog an artery. Nothin' but mutton and white sauce running through these veins. Any cooking prowess that Mum possesses she gained through reading, travel and, above all, eating. I love having access to the cultural melting pot that is Australia. That I can happily eat and cook countless different cuisines in the one day without a second thought or a glance at a recipe is testament to the gifts that my mother has given me and the gifts that this city gives me every day. But what I wouldn't give to have been born with an Italian accent, a little European chic and have spaghetti do for me what it's done for Sophia Loren.

So, they say you fake it till you make it and until I'm told otherwise my boyfriend's family is as good as mine. What could be more Italian that using the very last of the season's produce, the green tomatoes that would otherwise go to waste to make delicious Pomodori Verdi Sott' Olio? That's Green Tomatoes in Olive Oil for those of you without my rich cultural heritage!

Turn turn turn....

A new house means a new garden and a farewell to hardy established plants and growing cycles. It is exciting to begin a new garden, to learn from past mistakes and triumphs. While winter may be the time to build these new constructions, I see little to do once the soil, straw and compost are layered neatly in their little beds. A pea planted here or there will be nothing to the frenzied planting of a few months time.
I cannot decide if I prefer spring or summer in the garden. Spring is exciting as soil unveils it's tender little offerings into the air, everything shooting and budding and full of promise. All is lime-green potential, crisp mornings and rosy hued sunsets. Summer is, by comparison, showy, obvious, a corner hussy advertising her wares. All is forbidden fruit and broken promises. The ripeness of fruit ready for the picking is somehow tinged with the regret of death, of rotted flesh, of seasons ebb. A flower only blooms for so long. A fruit ripens but a short while before descending into decay. As the parsley bolts to seed I try to prune and prune and prune, somehow delaying the inevitable parsley-free period of the year. Yet at summer's end, who can deny the beauty of Autumn, the last sweet tomatoes off the vine, the figs and quinces asking for a syrupy baking and a  generous splodge of cream. Aahh, comfort food, hello my old friend. Winter is the quiet achiever of the bunch, a severe schoolmarm who forces us to eat our greens. The much maligned brassica is, luck would have it, the friend of bacon and anchovies and there's always dessert if we manage to get through our veg.

So, like the book and the song say, to every thing there is a season, a time to plant, a time to reap. There is beauty and anticipation in every season. But for me, this year, spring has got my name written all over it.

To zucchini or not to zucchini?

I am faced with a conundrum. A query, a question an insurmountable mountain of doubt and indecision. Because I love love LOVE zucchini flowers, predictably stuffed with goat curd and fried in a crispy coating, a classic combination that will never grow naff or tired in my eyes. But if I eat them now I won't experience the satisfaction of a full-grown, adult-sized zucchini. No prize winning, beribboned behemoths to show at the fair. No green-tinged frittata or ratatouille at the height of summer. Nothing with which to assuage my latent penis-envy. And besides, it feels a little bit like eating a baby, especially when you've witnessed the tender little shoots first poke their soft little heads through the soil. You feel like a cannibal midwife, your hideous gaping maw salivating over succulent flesh. Nightmarish stuff! 

So I daily count my intended victims, waiting for the day they number enough for a meal. And they sleep innocent of my plotting, beneath their shady leaves, on their cosy beds of mulch. 

Happily, should I hesitate long enough, the decision will be taken out of my hands as my vulnerable little pups enter adulthood. Like Humbert Humbert losing his lust for a grown up Lolita, suddenly a delectable flower will be nothing more than soggy green veg.

An oven full of naughty

Call me crazy, but at the moment I am experimenting with a diet free of sugar, wheat and dairy. So what should I choose to make but cheesecake? It could have been worse, I was contemplating tiramisu and I'm off coffee as well. Why exactly I should choose to restrict my diet so aggressively is anyone's guess. Perhaps a need for order and control in a seemingly chaotic and violently random universe. Anyone else feel an overwhelming need to organise their underwear draw? OCD aside, an occasional descent into loss of control is healthy and normal, that's why nothing could stop me from licking the bowl to my heart's content.

This cheesecake is of the baked variety and the ricotta gives it an unexpected lightness. It is not too sweet and the salted butter in the crumbly biscuit base adds to the slightly savoury quality. I am serving it with sliced strawberries macerated for about an hour in balsamic vinegar and a little sugar. Stopping at just once slice is sure to be a challenge, that's why I'm getting the damn thing out of the house as quickly as possible. 

Baked Ricotta Cheesecake

Recipe adapted from Breakfast Lunch Tea, Rose Bakery

butter, for greasing

800g ricotta

200g cream cheese

2/3 cup caster sugar

grated zest and juice 2 lemons

pinch ground cinnamon

5 eggs

1 egg yolk

200ml pouring cream

180g digestive biscuits

60g melted butter

pinch ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180°C

Butter a 25cm springform tin and line with baking paper on bottom and sides.

To make the base process biscuits, butter and cinnamon in a food processor until crumbs. Press onto base of tin.

Mix ingredients for filling together in the following order, mixing well after each addition: cheeses, sugar, lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, eggs and yolk, cream and flour. 

Pour into tin over biscuit base. Bake about 45mins or until just set, not browned but just beginning to puff up. Remove from oven and cool in tin before taking out.

Nourishing Sunday

There is nothing I want more at the close of a weekend, whether I have been working or relaxing, than a soothing, nourishing meal. Something I can cook in a jiffy with little to no thought or effort. That makes me feel like I am a good girl regardless of where my weekend has taken me. A Sunday night clean slate. It used to be pho or chicken and corn soup - made with a box of stock and a can of creamed corn! Lately however, I can't get enough of this recipe adapted from the Gourmet Traveller Slow Food Cookbook. There is something so comforting about the flavour of miso and the little chewy grains of barley, contrasting beautifully with the silky tofu. If you can't be bothered or can't seem to remember to soak the barley overnight, just give it a 10min boil before starting the braise, to par cook it.

Pumpkin, pearl barley and miso braise

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2  small Jap pumpkin, cut into 2cm wedges

1 cup pearl barley, soaked overnight in cold water, drained

1L chicken stock

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 heaped tbsp shiro miso

300g silken tofu, cut into 2cm cubes

4 spring onions, cut into 4cm lengths

1 sheet nori

Combine stock, mirin, soy, vinegar and miso in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer, whisking to dissolve miso.

Heat oil in a large heavy based casserole and brown pumpkin in batches. Return to pan and add barley and stock mixture. Simmer for 25-30 mins or until pumpkin is tender.

Add onion and tofu and simmer until tofu is warm.

Serve hot, garnish with crumbled, toasted nori.

Golden Granola

This is the granola that has cured my breakfast aversion. Not that I ever had anything against the 11 o'clock weekend brunch kind of affair. It was more specifically a cereal aversion, the midweek 'must eat something before running out the door' kind of breakfast that was not my cup of tea. In that case, a cup of tea was more my cup of tea. As a child I would sneakily rinse a clean bowl and spoon to fool (not very successfully) my parents into thinking I'd broken my fast. For someone so into food it seems strange that I was so willing to forgo any chance to dine. Various health kicks as an adult failed to convince me of the merits of muesli, some of the blame at least must go to sultanas, which I find, I cannot quite say why, utterly revolting. Truth be told, I cannot think of anything worse than munching on a mouthful of dry, raw oats; I am not a cow and do not like the feeling of chewing my cud.

So I began making this muesli not for myself but for my boyfriend. The muesli I was buying for him was, apparently, delicious, and at about $8.00 a breakfast it would want to be! I thought I could do much better at a fraction of the cost. Once I had made it, filling the house with a delectable biscuity fug,  I found myself munching on handfuls of the stuff at random moments throughout the day. Giving in to the inevitable, I soon made it a integral part of my morning routine.

The quick oats may seem a strange addition. I discovered by accident, one day when I ran out of the regular, that the quick oats clump up with all the seeds and honey, forming crunchy little biscuity nuggets that improve the granola tenfold. You can really put any grains, seeds or nuts you like, granola is after all a very personal thing, we are all much too fragile and childlike in the morning to be challenged. I like to sometimes swap the macadamias for hazelnuts and when we go camping I add dried cranberries and peaches.

Granola

400g rolled oats

400g quick porridge oats

200g macadamia nuts

300g raw almonds

50g linseed

80g coconut flakes

60g pepitas

60g sunflower seeds

60g sesame seeds

60g poppy seeds

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup apple juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup honey

zest of one orange

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. 

Place juice, oil, honey and zest in a saucepan and heat gently until honey is melted. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well.

Spread evenly over 2 deep roasting trays and bake for 30-45mins or until evenly golden brown and crunchy. Stir  and rotate trays every 5 mins or so to prevent edges burning and to brown evenly. 

Cool and store in airtight jars for up to 2 weeks. Serve with natural yoghurt, milk and fresh fruit.

Cauliflower cheese

Oh Cauliflower, you prince of vegetables! Embraced tenderly with green tendrilly love by your gently   encircling leaves. How is it possible for a vegetable to taste so much like cheese? How is it possible for a vegetable that tastes like cheese to taste so good with cheese? Cauliflower cheese, cauliflower soup with cheese, cauliflower risotto....with cheese. Here I have paired this classic match with another likely couple, caulflower and almond. The almond meal crust recipe was borrowed from one of my favourite blogs of the moment, Roost - a simple life. It's super fragile but so worth it for the nutty crunch, and great if you are gluten intolerant. I served it with a simple herb salad dressed with a zesty red wine vinegar.

Roast cauliflower, goats cheese and sage tarts with an almond crust

1 1/2 cups almond meal

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp chopped sage

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1 tbsp water

1 cauliflower, finely chopped

2 whole garlic cloves

olive oil

salt and pepper

10 sage leaves

3 eggs

1/4 cup goat yoghurt

1/4 cup grated parmesan

salt and pepper

40 g Meredith dairy goat cheese

In a bowl, combine first six ingredients and mix thoroughly. Press into 5 well-oiled mini tartlet pans. Place on an oven tray and bake at 180°C for about 20 mins or until lightly browned. Cool in the fridge for 20 mins then gently remove from cases, placing on a baking paper lined oven tray. 

Meanwhile, place cauliflower, sage and garlic in an oven tray. Drizzle over enough olive oil to coat lightly and season with salt and pepper. Mix well, spread out evenly and bake for about 30 mins or until  soft and beginning to colour. Remove from oven and cool slightly.

In a bowl, whisk together eggs, yoghurt, parmesan and salt and pepper to taste. Squeeze roasted garlic from skins and mash with the back of a fork. Add to egg mix with cooled cauliflower and mix well. Spoon into tart cases, mounding cauliflower up. Break feta into small pieces and scatter over tops of tarts. Return tarts to oven and bake at 160°C for about 15 mins or until egg is just set. Cool for about 15 mins to allow almond crust to firm-up. Serve at room temperature.

Bogan Nostalgia....

Lately I have been having a certain feeling about Apricot Chicken. This feeling is tinged somewhat with shame as a love of Apricot Chicken is undeniably bogan. But mostly the feeling is of nostalgia. Just as certain songs become associated with certain periods in your life, like the song you listened to on repeat for 3 days after that messy break-up, so do certain flavours. In my first year of uni I lived with a Mrs Fegan, an older lady who provided room and board for a ridiculously small fee but mostly for the company. Her cooking repertoire was straight from working class 1970s Australia, she was the kind of cook who thought Spag Bol was 'a little bit fancy'. Not that I was complaining, I am the last person who would ever refuse a good, crispy pork chop and creamy butter-rich mash. But my favourite meal was without a doubt her Apricot Chicken. It was always served with boiled rice in a classic brown pyrex casserole and I don't think it had many more ingredients than chicken and canned apricots. Yet somehow that taste will always be linked with that momentous time in my life.

I recently inherited my mother's old brown Le Creuset casserol that she has had for over 30 years, it has been crying out for a good Apricot Chicken cook-up. This version, adapted from my new favourite cookbook, Feasting by Karen Martini, is a world away from the plain old version of Mrs Fegan's.

2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp ground turmeric

2 tsp dried chilli flakes

1 free-range chicken, cut into 10 pieces

100ml olive oil

1 red onion, sliced

10cm knob ginger, cut into matchsticks

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2 green chilli, split

4 roma tomato, chopped

1 pinch saffron threads, soaked in a little hot water

2 sprigs marjoram, leaves picked

1/2 cup white wine

200g dried apricots

zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsp honey

500ml chicken stock

1 handful pistachio kernels, plus extra to garnish

mint and coriander to garnish

steamed basmati rice and natural yoghurt to serve

Place salt, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, pepper, turmeric and chilli flakes in a large plastic bag with the chicken. Shake to coat.

Heat olive oil in heavy based pot and brown chicken on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside. Add onion, ginger, garlic and green chillies and cook until soft. Stir in the chopped tomato, soaked saffron and marjoram and cook until tomatoes are pulpy.

Add the wine and apricots and bring to simmer. Add stock, honey, lemon zest and juice and return chicken to pan. Add water to just cover if needed. Bring to simmer then cook, covered for about 10 mins. Uncover and cook another 15mins or so, until chicken is tender and sauce has thickened. Stir in pistachios, garnish with herbs and serve with steamed basmati rice and yoghurt.

To market, to market....

If you are anything like me, God forbid, you know that the only thing worth doing on a sunny Saturday morning is to take a trip down to the local farmers' market. The only thing more wonderful than the artisan produce is the chance to chat with the people who make it. There is no one as passionate about a cheese as the cheese-maker who stirred the curds, inspiring stuff for a cheese enthusiast such as myself. So, my morning's loot included a dense and nutty 100% rye loaf, half a smoked eel, a lump of ridiculously naughty triple cream brie (that according to said cheese-maker must be eaten with Champagne), a punnet of strawberries that tasted like REAL strawberries and these glorious baby carrots. 

I have been having quite the love affair with baby carrots lately, especially those of the purple variety. I've been eating them with braised rabbit, (because a creature that likes carrots so much must taste good with them), and as a very pretty addition to crudité. But my favourite is roasted whole, with good quality olive oil, flake salt, pepper and fennel seeds, until just starting to caramelise. Today I served them with braised Puy lentils and some of the smoked eel that I brought home from the market. 

A country style Christmas...

I know it's only October but already my heart hears the merry jingle of Christmas bells, bringing reminiscence of Christmas' past. Last Christmas we had a quiet family lunch under the trees. I love the contrast of the rustic and sophisticated; cool green grass between our bare toes, crystal flutes and silver cutlery clinking musically in our hands. Champagne on the lawn. As for our hungry tummies, a veritable seafood extravaganza of lobster, freshly shucked oysters, scallops seared on the BBQ and beautifully hued beetroot-cured ocean trout. And that just the first course! I can hardly wait 'till December.....

 

Java Jive

Oh glorious coffee, how I miss thee! 79 days, 7 hours and 33 minutes since last your creamy crema kissed my trembling lips. Not that I'm counting or anything. But seriously, how long can I go without coffee? It certainly is an exercise in self-control if nothing else. 

Apples for Jam

As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as too much of a good thing. Last time I was faced with a glut of apples I did what any sensible person would do and got my jelly legs a dancin'. Beautiful golden apple jelly, glittering with flecks of fresh picked herbs. Some went to friends and family and the remainder went wonderfully, melted in the pan, with a juicy pork chop. It also makes a lovely substitute for mint sauce with lamb.

Apple & Garden Herb Jelly

makes about 9 x 300ml jars

6kg apples, chopped

3.5L water

zest of 2 lemons

large handful of herbs such as mint, parsley, tarragon, lemon balm, lemon verbena

Combine above ingredients and boil until pulpy. Strain overnight in a jelly bag or old pillowcase suspended over a large container. Discard solids and keep liquid.

juice of 2 lemons

strained apple juice

3.725 kg white sugar

Combine in a large saucepan and bring gently to boil. Stir to dissolve sugar and skim.

Bring to rolling boil and cook until it reaches setting point*. Stir frequently to prevent a skin forming and skim any solids that rise to the surface.

Cool about 20 mins then add two large handfuls of chopped herbs that include parsley, mint, tarragon and lemon verbena.

Decant into warm sterilised jars and seal.

* You can test for setting point by dropping some of the jelly mixture onto a plate that has been chilled in the freezer.  If the jelly holds the line when a finger is drawn through it it has reached setting point.

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

William Shakespeare  

High tea in the afternoon

These sunny spring afternoons make me feel nostalgic for simpler times. Jane Austen's world of tea and crumpets beneath the trees, a gentle breeze rustling through the leaves, the muted tinkle of a teaspoon gently stirring a porcelain cup. Dreamy pastels and lacy crinolines? Yes please! 

These are some photos of an afternoon tea I did for an 80th birthday. I wouldn't mind a high tea right now...

Radishes!

It's that time of year again, time to get the seeds in the ground as the earth warms gently in the spring sun. I never get over the excitement of that first tender little seedling pushing it's fragile tendrils through the dirt. And it's always the radishes that first courageously venture into the sunlight, blazing the trail for some of the slower veg. Good on you brave little radishes, welcome to the world baby girls!