Anni's walnut, apple & spice biscuits

This time last year my husband was preparing to travel to Turkey to support the Dept of Veterans Affairs in their preparations leading up to and including the ANZAC Day commemoration at Gallipoli. 

My dear foodie friend Anni had just gifted me with a cookie jar filled with her favourite recipes including this recipe for ANZAC biscuits. (http://missmayblossom.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/anzac-biscuits.html)

In the jar Anni also included this delicious recipe for apple, cinnamon and walnut biscuits. The spices, soft apple and crunchy walnuts make for a lethal combination and when you give them enough time (if you can resist!) to cool, they are chewy on the inside.  

I made these on Friday and my house smelled like spices and apple for hours. Bliss!

1/2 cup butter, softened 

1/2 cup caster (or preferred) sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tspn vanilla extract

1 cup plain flour

1 1/4 cup oats

1/2 tspn baking powder

1/2 tspn bicarb soda

1/2 tspn salt

1 tspn ground cinnamon 

Generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

1 medium apple, peeled (optional), finely diced 

1 tspn lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180°c. Line 3 baking trays with greaseproof baking paper. Toss the diced apple in the lemon juice. 

Beat sugar and butter for 3-4 minutes. Add egg. Beat for 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. 

In a separate bowl, mix together oats, flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, spices and salt. Add to butter mixture and beat slowly until combined. 

Stir in apples and walnuts. 

Drop tblspn sized balls of dough on to the baking trays (spaced apart to allow for rising) and bake for about 20 minutes. 

Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing them from the tray.... straight on to a plate with a cup of tea!

Thermomix recipe

90g butter, softened

80g caster sugar

70g brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tspn vanilla extract 

130g plain flour

115g oats

1/2 tspn baking powder

1/2 tspn bicarb soda

1/2 tspn salt

1 tspn ground cinnamon 

Generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

135g chopped walnuts

1 medium apple, peeled (optional), finely diced 

1 tspn lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180°c. Line 3 baking trays with greaseproof baking paper.

Dice the apple into 5mm cubes. Toss the diced apple in the lemon juice and set aside. 

Place the oats, flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, spices and salt in the TM bowl. Mix on reverse/speed 4/6 seconds or until combined. Set aside.

Place the walnuts in the TM bowl and chop speed 4/4 seconds. Set aside.

Beat sugars and butter speed 4/6 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and repeat speed 4/6 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg and vanilla. Beat speed 4/4 seconds.

Tip the mixture in to a bowl. I find stirring the apple and walnuts easier by hand at this point.  

Drop tblspn sized balls of dough on to the baking trays (spaced apart to allow for rising) and bake for about 20 minutes. 

Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing them from the tray.... straight on to a plate with a cup of tea!

Notes

* You can peel the apples before you dice them. I prefer to leave the skin on because the apples I use are organic.

* Adjust the sugar quantities according to taste 

* You can do grate the nutmeg by hand with a spice grater or grate a whole nutmeg in the TM speed 9/ 12 seconds. A pinch of fresh nutmeg goes a long way! You could use ground nutmeg from a packet.

poached peaches

On a trip down to the far south coast after Christmas J noticed some golden gifts hanging from a peach tree which would have been planted by his parents some thirty years ago. They were as hard as rocks so we waited until the morning we were leaving to gather the stash, in the hope they might have had more time to ripen.

Still very firm when we brought them back to Sydney I nestled the peaches in beside a huge hand of bananas and a week and a half later they had a 'bit of give' to them.

I decided than rather than make jam or chutney from them I'd like to celebrate their integrity of flavour and preserve them so we could appreciate the love that went in to planting and nurturing the tree that grew them all those years ago. I love that preserving was used to store in-season foods for the months of lesser abundance (but I don't think these babies will last in to winter!) They are cling peaches too, which makes it difficult to remove all the flesh without wastage. I didn't bother removing blemishes and despite the burrows came across no little critters - but they are clearly organic!

It was a shame that the figs still hanging from the tree (just down from the pit toilet - so, well composted from 30 years of organic matter) were a few weeks from being salvageable. I just hope the birds enjoyed their feast!

Deciding on a recipe wasn't difficult. There are so many out there so I went with a hybrid recipe (thanks to a trickle of the Internet, a touch of Stephanie Alexander and a splash of intuition) and whacked them in a cast iron pot with water, a reduced amount of raw sugar and vanilla extract (I was out of vanilla beans).

These have come up a real treat and the peachiness will continue to flavour the 'brine' in the months to come. If they last that long! They are best served with some deliciously creamy vanilla ice cream. What a treat!!

stories from the cellar

We had a 'the grass is greener' moment at Elizabeth Bay House a few weeks ago. No - it wasn't the expansive harbour views. It wasn't the majestic historic home in all its glory. It wasn't the proximity to the lively and refined Potts Point. 

It was, in fact, in response to the demonstration of the filleting of a rabbit - fur on to ready-to-cook - in a few short minutes.

J and I booked a babysitter for the afternoon and headed in to the city for a event put on by Sydney Living Museums, Stories from the Cellar. Featured on the program was colonial gastronomer Jacqui Newling, cheese maker Kristin Allan, fish smokers Steve and Adam De Launay (Fish Place), pickling extraordinaire O Tama Carey from Berta, and wild game and sustainability warrior Rohan Anderson (aka Whole Larder Love blogger). 

We took our place below the grand home, built in 1835 which once housed the family of Alexander Macleay, the colonial secretary (and second only to the governor). The cellar held stores grown and harvested from nearby plots, hunted from the grounds and extracted from the estate's dairy and on Sunday was filled with eager foodies. 

Rohan's presentation involved the skinning and filleting of a rabbit and it was during his musings that my husband and I made eye contact with each other. This moment hasn't exactly been creeping up on us. We've felt it 'in our bones' for a long time. Considering our parents fled the cities in an attempt at the self-sustainable lifestyle in the 1980s and raised us with this in mind it's hardly surprising that we'd like to adopt this approach to living in a more consistent and committed way. 

Rohan's presentation reminded us of the small things we manage to do in our busy city life to support locally produced food, buy organic and minimise waste but we admit that we do have a long way to go. In one week J brought home three fish (2 Australian salmon and 1 bonito tuna) from the line he trolls from his kayak on his commute to work. He has no by-catch, he doesn't use the car and the fish has a good life. As Rohan says "there's only one bad day in the life of an animal that is hunted." The fish J caught aren't being produced for meat - pumped full of pellets. They live a life in the wild, free and their death is quick. We don't waste any edible meat but the little we have left over is buried in our garden. 

I was reminded of my childhood when Rohan showed us that to store root vegetables you cover them completely in dry white sand in timber boxes and place them in a dry, airy, dark room, a cellar would be preferable. I remember boxes of apples stored beneath our house, wrapped in paper and bottles home brew too.

In addition to the presentations there was a spread of food to die for, designed by Dan the Man Cooking -

Appetisers

Olives & roasted nuts

Lonza, speck, crackers, washed rind cheese (cellared at Elizabeth Bay House), fig jam, crackers potted salmon, pickled cucumber, sliced baguette

 Potted salmon, pickled cucumber, olives, toasted baguette

Dinner

Rooscuitto (Kangaroo Prosciutto), labne, peach, crushed macadamias, rocket

Smoked ocean trout kedgeree

Shaved zucchini, mint, basil, ricotta

Slow-roasted pork belly, relish

Cheeses hand-made by Kristen Allan, cheese maker.

Lonza, Speck and Roosciutto provided by Salumi Australia.

Smoked trout provided by Fish Place.

Cocktails

Yellow peach Rickey: fresh puréed yellow peach, Pamper, rum, shaken with fresh citrus, crowned with sod

Cucumber Gimlet: pressed cucumber juice shaken with Tanqueray London dry gin and fresh lime, served straight up.

Wine, Beer and more

Freshly pressed Granny Smiths Apple served tall with J&B blended Scotch Whisky

A selection of Murray’s craft beers : Whale Ale, Rude Boy Pilsner, Angry Boy Pale Ale

A selection of white wines

Non-alcoholic selection by Capi

Sparking Pink Grapefruit

Ginger Beer

Lemonade

Mineral Water

Is your mouth watering yet?

If this sounds like your kind of 'thing' recommend attending an event put on by Sydney Living Museums and following them on Facebook to keep up to date with events. 

(Excuse the iphone pics. I was too busy enjoying myself!)

in the kitchen

It's been a really busy few weeks lately and I managed to get myself back in to my happy place - my kitchen. 

Yesterday between school drop off, a visit to my husbands work, a quick trip to the supermarket & school pick-up I was able to dedicate time to dinner & a little tastebud luxury.  

A few weeks ago in Byron Bay my best friend from high school and I ate some really yummy food. I realised that the food trend in Byron is definitely raw food with every second cafe selling some trendy healthy treat. Our favourite became a small juice bar on the Main Street a stones throw from the beach. One evening for dessert we shared a gluten free brownie and a slice of raw carrot cake because we just couldn't have just one, could we? 

Moments before we drove back to Ballina airport to fly home I made the hasty decision to grab a piece of raw chocolate & pistachio cake to eat on the plane. It was rich and delicious! 

Here are a couple of sneaky pics I took of the display cabinet (with the hope of replicating the recipes at home). 

I thought I'd ask my trusty foodie FB followers of they knew of raw carrot cake recipes and they came up with these four. 

http://rachaelsrawfood.com/carrot-cupcakes-with-orange-vanilla-frosting/

http://www.thehealthychef.com/2013/07/raw-carrot-cake/

http://rawgasm-melbourne.blogspot.com.au/?m=1

http://www.movenourishbelieve.com/recipes/recipe-of-the-week-raw-carrot-cake/

Don't they sound divine? I decided I wanted to go with the layered effect and so chose the rawgasm recipe to make first. Of course this could be made in a food processor but the Thermomix meant it was ready in minutes. 

The few changes I made were not soaking the raisins, using 6 medium carrots, using one tablespoon of agave and lime juice. I also pressed it into a rectangular tin so I could easily slice it into snack-sized squares. I'll freeze some for later too. 

The end result is a moist and tasty dessert. 

Since our stay at a friend's sheep station on the Monaro just after Xmas my husband has developed an interest in hunting and preparing meat for family meals and while it's impossible to do in suburban Sydney we'd like to think that maybe we can make our dream lifestyle happen. To celebrate J's birthday I took him to the majestic Elizabeth Bay house for this afternoon of gastronomy put on by Sydney Living Museums.

We were lucky to chat with Rohan from Whole Larder Love and bought ourselves a copy of his book. Rohan's passion for sustainable, ethically killed and prepared (i.e. no waste) food is infectious.

Our new organic produce delivery company, Lettuce Deliver has bags of 'seconds' tomatoes. Beauty is on the inside, right? And for these tomatoes the saying couldn't ring truer. They were shaped oddly and had a few 'riper' spots but they looked and smelled delicious. I took Rohan's advice and made a batch of roasted tomato passata. Obviously the passata has a richer flavour and depth to it (than raw tomatoes whizzed up) and was the perfect base for a bolognaise this week.

Lastly, in my hectic moments in the kitchen I made a marinade for these organic chicken pieces which included an organic reduced salt Tamari, a few organic garlic cloves, the juice of two limes, a tablespoon of honey, a knob of finely sliced ginger and a splash of sesame oil with a generous sprinkling of black sesame seeds. These were marinated for four hours then cooked for 20 minutes at 200ºc and were well received by the young and older members of the house!