kitchen gadgets

I purchased this on the edge of the river at the markets in Hoi An, Vietnam for the equivalent of 50 cents. It is made from sturdy plastic and can make carrots crinkly, peel and julienne veggies. 

teapot strainer. This gadget fits in the spout of my teapot so I don't need to use a strainer when pouring tea. Genius! 

Not technically a gadget but this is my new favourite biscuit jar thanks to my dear Foodie Friend.

There is always something in the kitchen you simply can't live without! A cook friend says that if she was stranded on a desert island and could take one thing it would be greaseproof baking paper. I'm with her there but there are a few others I'd have to stow away too! Some gadgets I just love for their ingenuity and some jobs couldn't be done by anything else.

What is the gadget that you simply can't live without?

I have more and I will 'collect' them as I use them to share with you.

child's play

We had four little people running around our place this past week. They all played so well together but there were the usual issues that arise from a group of multi-aged children playing - turn taking, sharing, feeling 'left out,' not being able to keep up with the big kids.

All-in-all these 'issues' create the perfect ground for learning how to socialise - building resilience, helping each other, inclusion of others, physical challenges, knowing when to play alone.

The kids were carrying this treasure chest around when I asked "What are you doing with the treasure chest?"

Their response, "collecting memories."

he's resting peacefully among many, many friends

I wonder what my great, great uncle would have done with his life had he not died after he volunteered to join the AIF (Australian Imperial Force) when World War I broken out. He never married or had children and I wonder what went through his mind (if he had time to think at all) as he lay dying on the sand of the shores of ANZAC Cove on 25th April, 1915 at the age of 22.

Cyril is the uncle of my dear maternal grandmother.

Alongside so many Australian, New Zealand, British and Turkish soldiers, Cyril Bolle's remains were never identified. All that signifies his sacrifice is his name in stone at Shrapnel Valley Cemetery and at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

My husband has been by Cyril's memorial in Turkey twice in the last few days. As a military doctor he is accompanying the Master of Ceremonies, cartoonist Graham Brown, Commissioner for Veterans Affairs, Major General Mark Kelly AO, and the two hundred Veterans Affairs delegates coordinating the services to be held on ANZAC Day at ANZAC Cove and Lone Pine.

Here is an excerpt from the email J wrote home:

"I visited Cyril today. He's resting peacefully among many, many friends in such a beautiful landscape. There are vari-coloured thick coastal heath valleys and right now the hills are full of bright blooms of colour, the Gallipoli desert rose and the vibrant pink flowers of the Judas tree that shades part of the Shrapnel Valley cemetery. The cemetery is only a stones throw away from the beach and the beach cemetery where Simpson also rests among Australian, British, NZ and Turkish friends. 

Lone Pine is high up on Second Ridge and the memorial site, which is located at the site of the battle and serves as a mass grave, is tragically and impossibly small.  In an area the size of a football field over 2000 Australians and 6000 Turks lost their lives in a four day battle.  It is here that Cyril Bolle's name is carved in stone amongst his friends of the 11th Battalion.  His name faces the west and, like the land within which he now lies, looks out over the beach and the sparkling turquoise shallows and waters of the Aegean Sea.
 
The site is so beautiful and the sounds of the ocean and birdsong so comforting (I'm sure I heard a whip bird today!), that it's difficult to imagine the horror that occurred there.
 
I said hello to Cyril from all the family and explained that I'd visit again tomorrow when I'll have some more time to sit and be with him.  To tell him what the family is up to.

I'll be sure to pass on all your love and will be thinking of you all as I sit with him.

Lots of love,
J."

We have a few photographs and snippets of information pertaining to Cyril's life and death. This is correspondence between the Major of the AIF and Cyril's father. In the letter, the Major requests for any information or letters that may contain clues to help locate Cyril's remains. 

His father's response:

"Dear Sir, 

Cannot get any definite news of where our son was killed. The only letter bearing on the matter was from a soldier in Hospital, in England, sending sympathy but he had no definite news only had been told Cyril was killed 25th April.

One returned soldier told me he saw Cyril well forward in the rush at 4(?)PM Sunday April 25th. He (the soldier) had just been wounded then was sent back.

Thanking you for what you have done to find where our son rests.

Yours Faithfully

M. M. Bolle"

ANZAC biscuits

A couple of days ago a foodie friend called to see if I was home as she had something to drop off. When I opened the front door she had a biscuit jar and in that biscuit jar were a stack of her favourite biscuit recipes! I can't wait to share them with you as I make them...

What a thoughtful pressie!

There was a recipe for ANZAC biscuits. Rumoured to have been made by Australian women at home during World War I and shipped to the front line, ANZAC biscuits were made using ingredients that could withstand transport without spoiling. ANZAC Day is commemorated annually on 25 April.

Margaret Fulton has a similar recipe to the one in my new favourite biscuit jar. This is my favourite recipe.

ingredients
1 cup rolled oats (I used instant oats)
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup (150g plain flour)
1 cup (220g) caster sugar*
125g butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 tablespoons boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

method
Preheat the oven to 150ºc. Grease baking trays or line them with baking paper.

Combine the oats, coconut, flour and sugar in a bowl. Melt the butter and golden syrup over a low heat. Mix the boiling water with the bicarbonate soda and add to the butter and golden syrup mixture. Pour the liquid into the mixed dry ingredients and mix well.

Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto greased baking trays, leaving room for spreading. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Cool on trays for a few minutes, then transfer to wire racks.

note
If you prefer your ANZACs slightly chewy rather than crunchy, cook them fro about 15 minutes. 

*As usual I used unrefined caster sugar.

Are you making ANZACs this year?

black magic cherry cake

This cake is a magic cake. I love the way you transform one half of the mixture from the same basic ingredients. The cake is crumbly and delicious, best eaten warm with cream.

ingredients
2 cups SR Flour
2 cups brown sugar (loose)
125g unsalted butter (cold)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tspn baking powder
1 egg
300ml fresh cream
finely grated rind 1/2 lemon
1 tbls lemon juice
410g can pitted black cherries, drained well
icing sugar, to serve

method
Preheat the oven to 180ºc. 

Place sugar and flour in a large bowl. Grate the butter coarsely on top and stir through. Stir in cinnamon and mix well. Place half the mixture in a greased and lined 22cm round cake tin. Shake, level and pat down lightly. Arrange the cherries over the mixture.

Add baking powder to the remaining mixture and mix in well. In a separate bowl beat the egg, cream, lemon rind and lemon juice together. Add to the remaining mixture and combine well. Gently pour the cream mixture over the cherries.

Bake for one hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 15 minutes before turning out. Sift icing sugar over the top.

Look at those juicy cherries!

cheat's dinner

Have you got a trusty cheat's dinner? A recipe you can whip up 'in a jiffy'? One that everyone loves? Fridays are J's long days at work and I try to have something easy to prepare and assemble that can feed the kids at 6pm and remains fresh for when J eats at about 8:30pm.

A foodie friend put me on to a local Chinese grocer who sells peking duck. You can go in and buy (a half or) whole duck and they'll debone it for you for about $28 which leaves a bit for lunch the following day.

My cheat's meal for peking duck is duck pancakes. The preparation should take less than 5 minutes and can be assembled as needed.

ingredients serves 4

hoisin sauce - about $3 a jar. Lasts months
pancake - if not fresh may be found in the freezer section, dozen = $3.50

cucumber x 4, cut in half, deseeded. Each half cut in to 6 lengths
mint leaves

method
Using the back of a teaspoon smear the pancake with half teaspoon of hoisin sauce. Place pieces of duck an cucumber on the hoisin. Top with a few fresh mint leaves. Roll up like a wrap and eat!

herb box

How do you like my herb patch?

Our neighbours were discarding their corrugated iron raised garden bed so I asked if I could adopt it as my own.

I bought the most basic dirt soil from the nursery and filled it with freshly laid chook manure, worm wee, a worm farm layer from our Can O' Worms and the stinking contents of our Bokashi. I let it rest for a couple of weeks and turned it occasionally. J bought a couple of bendy (the official name for them) lengths of irrigation pipe and secured them in the corners. Possums and rodents (if you don't think they live in Sydney then you have your head in the clouds) love a good herb patch so we covered the pipe in bird netting and secured and weighted down around the edges with (portable) rocks so we can still access the garden.

And in my garden went the seedlings ... mint, Vietnamese mint, parsley and some basil (that I transplanted from another part of our garden) and an avocado from our worm farm. There's a fruiting avocado growing a couple of streets away so I'm hopeful (but doubtful) it will thrive. In went the seeds - snowpeas and coriander.

The Vietnamese mint is so different to any other mint I've tasted. It's pungent and rich in flavour and take me back to eating phở at Phở Hòa Pasteur in Saigon city!

We have half a dozen tomato plants coming up from the Bokashi and worm farm contents too.

Already I've harvested plenty of the herbs and I'm louring the snowpeas to grow against a trellis. Watch this space. 

conversations

Some people 'come and go' from our lives and some are closer at certain times like when you live nearby to each other or you share a common life event. My connections with people play a really important part of my life. In fact, my relationships are the most important part of my life. They have sustained me through some incredibly challenging times. They have also given me so much joy. My relationships have expanded my mind. Talking with people, about what matters to them, about what makes them 'tick,' what they've been through - their struggles and triumphs - is something I find fascinating. We have a lot to learn from others.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I do like an in depth conversation - and don't shy away from controversial issues. A good conversation, to me, is like a drug. I am always left wanting more!

I was listening to a podcast as I travelled home from the south coast yesterday (one of Richard Fidler's "Conversations") and the observation was made that when we 'listen' to someone, we filter through information based on our own experiences/knowledge/beliefs and often reflect it back to the person through this filter.

When I was studying teaching at uni my major was Counselling Studies which was advertised as a diluted Psychology major. Much of the unit was spent practicing active listening. I learned very quickly that counselling isn't about offering a person advice or solutions and this is how the role of the counsellor differs so much from the role of a friend. The conversation between counsellor and patient is a very deliberate, guided one. If a friend used counselling techniques during a conversation it would feel really unnatural and pretty frustrating. I guess I've always been really interested in the interactions between people and people's struggles and this lead me to choose the counselling major. 

When I was four, at playgroup, I met a family. Who knows what was said between us little-uns but we remain friends, twenty-six years later. Over the weekend I stayed with the eldest of the family's four children and his wife (who I went to high school with) and their two beautiful children. There's a lot to be said for sustaining long-term friendships and kicking off a conversation where you left it a month ago... or months ago. There's comfort in knowing you don't have to start again with old friends. They know who you are and what you believe.

So, over the weekend, while our children played, there were cups of tea. There was discussion about gardening, life's everyday challenges, raising children, our families, cooking, preserving foods - all the usual 'stuff.' We cooked. We talked. We drank and we ate. And it was great.

  

In between conversations we managed to devour this pav (recipe here) I whipped up - laiden with 

sweet local passionfruit, local strawberries & cream.

soccer moms

And so it begins....

A dear friend of mine and I are officially SOCCER MOMS!

In the pouring rain we cheered on our Under 6's team who managed to stay on the field - drenched and smiling - for the entire 30 minute game.

My son's response to a 2/5 loss: "I almost won didn't I Mummy?"

Yes, Darling, you came second.

labour of love

After my children were born I was lucky enough to have deliveries of food - even in those early days when we were still in hospital with our first born. Those meals made a huge difference to us and were such a gesture of love at a time when we had to resort to hospital food.

My sister-in-law makes a mean moussaka and the other evening, as I unpacked my Harvest Hub of eggplants, I dreamed of the moussaka she brought us in hospital. I hadn't attempted moussaka before but the seasonal change and cooler autumnal weather lends itself perfectly to the dish which is said to originate in Greece. I found this recipe on the SBS food website. 

The time had come to sacrifice poor dear George William Henry McDonald III Junior Senior. 

notes

On J's last trip away he brought me back some dried 'moussaka mix' which is a blend of herbs and spices so I decided to add this to the dish (at the time I added the other herbs and spices.) I also added a good handful of fresh mint.

I bought the already-diced lamb from award winning Millin's Fine Food Butcher. The boys had trimmed the fat and taken it off the bone - saving me a good half hour. 

I decided to complete the cooking of lamb in the oven on a low heat (100ºc).

This dish takes a lot of preparation. I recommend attempting it on a weekend. The lamb mixture could be completed in a slow cooker the day before you intend to assemble and eat it.

When I came to making the béchamel sauce I thought that perhaps I should have just used the cheat's method for white sauce in a lasagne - ricotta. I was also dubious when I added the (1/2 cup) flour. It didn't seem enough then by some glorious fusion of science and magic adding the milk just bulked up the sauce. It was a delight to watch! I then considered omitting the egg yolks (surely it would be too rich) but against my judgement I added them and this deliciously thick, yellow sauce emerged. 

I didn't have kefalograviera so I had to use the measly chunk of parmigiana I found lurking in the cheese shelf of the fridge. I only had 50g but it seems to do the job of adding a salty and stringy cheesiness to the sauce.

Moussaka is labour intensive (pardon the pun) but well worth it. After all - nothing is as painful (or rewarding) as childbirth. 

________________________________________________________________________________

Moussaka recipe care of SBS Food.

Serves 8

You will need a 22 cm square baking dish for this recipe. 

ingredients

185 ml (3/4 cup) olive oil
1.5 kg lamb shoulder, cut into 4cm pieces
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 rosemary sprig
1 cinnamon quill
1 tsp ground allspice
125 ml (1/2 cup) dry red wine
800 g can chopped tomatoes
1.5 kg eggplant, cut into 5mm slices
 

béchamel sauce
80 g butter, chopped
75 g (1/2 cup) plain flour
500 ml (2 cups) warmed milk
100 g kefalograviera*, grated
2 egg yolks
¼ tsp grated nutmeg

method

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over high heat. Cook lamb, in 3 batches, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until browned. Transfer to a bowl. 

Heat 1 tbsp oil in the same pan. Add onion, carrot and celery, and cook for 5 minutes or until softened. Add garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir in tomato paste and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until combined. Add herbs, spices, wine and tomatoes, and bring to the boil. Return lamb to the pan and cover with a tight-fitting lid. 


 
Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 1½ hours. Uncover and cook for a further hour or until lamb is tender.  

Meanwhile, soak eggplant in water for 1 hour. Drain. Pat dry with paper towel.  

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Cook one-third of the eggplant for 3 minutes each side or until golden. Drain on paper towel. Repeat twice more with remaining oil and eggplant. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 200°C. To make béchamel, melt butter in a pan over high heat. Add flour and stir for 2 minutes or until mixture begins to bubble. Add milk, whisking continuously, for 3 minutes or until mixture comes to the boil. Remove from heat, add cheese and stir until melted. Stir in egg yolks and nutmeg. Season sauce and lamb with salt and pepper.

Using 2 forks, roughly shred lamb in pan and remove cinnamon. 

Place one-third of the eggplant in the base of a 22 cm square baking dish. Top with half the lamb. Add half the remaining eggplant, then the remaining lamb. 

Top with remaining eggplant and spread over béchamel. 

 
Bake moussaka for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Serve.

* A hard Greek sheep’s-milk cheese from selected delis and specialist food shops.

aubergenious!

Yes - he's real!

Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann's books are favourites of mine.

This guy appeared in our Harvest Hub bag this week! (J added eyes). He was just the thing I needed to accompany me to work as I was to teach Year Five for a whole day. It was the first time I'd taught Year Five since I was a casual teacher ten years ago (although I do teach this class weekly in the library.)

I think that it is difficult to teach a person to possess the traits of a teacher. I believe that teachers have a natural bossy instructive nature. There are tricks-of-the-trade that you can't learn at uni and that you only pick up by being in schools, around other teachers and with children. It helps to have a bit of a creative brain and a think-outside-the-box brain too!

So - my day with Year Five began with the usual house-keeping: notes, roll call, run-down of the day.

And then the class needed to choose a name for the guy and these were the suggestions: Bob, Ovo (as in egg), Stumpy, Pinnocio, Bobo, Huggo, Obo and Pope. Then out of left-field came the name voted most popular: George William, Henry, McDonald III Junior Senior. How very English! (Ironic for a school with a population of predominantly backgrounds other than English and 60% of students with English as a Second Language).

George (for short) did spelling, writing, listened to an ANZAC story and completed a writing task. He completed a Mathematics pretest and had a session of PE. In the afternoon he was cuddled while watching the My Place series and doing the accompanying exercises.

All-in-all it was a really enjoyable day and I doubt the kids realised my hesitation which soon wore off. It's important, when teaching, to be pushed out of your comfort zone and, in reality, I don't think you're doing your job properly if you're not because teaching requires constant learning and evaluation of the job you're doing and how your students are progressing.

The inevitable is awaiting poor George, though, now, as he faces the saucepan.....

another dinner party...

... another strawberry hazelnut torte

long weekend bliss

... and rested he by the tum-tum tree

 

 How's the serenity?

How was your Easter?

Our kids (and us) relax so much when we get to the farm. It takes a good week to prepare for the journey as we have to take food, bedding, clothes for all seasons, entertainment for the kids. There is a tv there but we've told the kids it doesn't get reception and we don't miss it! How could we when we're sitting by the fire, wine in hand, talking? It is SO worth the preparation.

We had dear friends visit at the farm and it was a really special time for the six kids (all under 5 yo). They roamed and ate and played for hours at the farm then at the beach and then into the night over dinner. There wasn't one altercation the whole day. I am not kidding! The six parents (me included) were so pleased to talk and finish conversations! We had much to catch up on after 3 years of not being together in the same place at the same time. What a treat!!

How did you celebrate Easter? Were you one of the lucky ones who was able to have time off from work to be with family/friends?

We saw so many police on the roads. Many of them miss out on a break over Easter to get people to 'slow down' and reduce drink driving. I'd like to acknowledge and thank those personnel who did so as their public service over Easter.

goop...

Goop = corn flour + water + food colouring