Keeeenn WAHH

HI Friend!

At the Farmies Market the other day James came across some Yellow Baby Beetroots. They have the most gorgeous colour and flavour and are rather easy to cook indeed. With all the hot weather we've been on a salad crusade and these seemed like the perfect salad addition. Even though I know we are all sick to fucking death of seeing Beetroot, Quinoa and Goat's Cheese Salad (along with spring risottos, bruschetta and pesto linguini) we happened to have Meredith goat's cheese and quinoa in the house, so we thought we'd give old Donna Hay a run for her money.

Skin the beetroots after boiling them for the beautiful orange colour

   James boiled the beets until soft (around 45mins to an hour) then cut them into quarters and braised them in a combination of water, white and red wine vinegar with honey, mustard, salt and pepper until they had begun to take on the flavours, this is rather personal- some people like it less acidic and more earthy (James) and others (Ruby) visa versa so keep trying them until you get the combination you like/   flip a coin. After they were cooked we tossed them through some chopped mint and parsley. I'm a big herb fan and I cannot encourage this step enough,  the salad is suddenly fresh and full of spring.

  Quinoa (or keenwaah as I like to say in my Prruudee and Truudde voice) can be quite the tricky devil, I have found the solution to the sometimes bitter flavour is to soak and then rinse it before you cook it for at least an hour. Then use the same technique and measurements as you would for rice (around 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water) and let it steam out until it's absorbed all the water. For salads we put the cooked quinoa in the oven to crisp up at 180 degrees celsius for 10 minutes or so. This gets rid of the waterlogged texture that can make your salad all soggy.

Beautiful Meredith goat's cheese- never mind the price it is cheese textured gold

  Because we had them lying around we also chucked in some broad beans. Broad beans are James' favourite, I am still not sure what all the fuss is about (especially with all the peeling that has to be done- take the shells off, peel them once, then peel them again!). But they were rather tasty in the salad I had to admit. We also threw in a few toasted walnuts for good measure and crunch. We used our normal run of the mill dressing- 4 parts olive oil to 1 part lemon juice, 1 part vinegar, 1/2 part honey (or to taste), 1/4 part mustard, salt, pepper and a clove of garlic smashed and left to macerate in the dressing bottle.

Salad, Potatoes and some refreshing lemony water in our NEW JUG!

I was going to try and pretend that we were having a healthy 'Salad only' dinner, but to be truthful I also demanded CHIPS which really means roasted potatoes (this time we used Kipflers, good choice indeed) cut into chippy shape with copious amounts of salt and rosemary. Because even though the salad was deeelicious there isn't much that can't be improved by some scrumptious potatoes.  Wouldn't you agree?

Urban Foraging

Hi Friends!

We have been watching old Hugh in the River Cottage series for a while now. Quite enjoyable indeed, although his puns are atrocious. What has been most inspiring though is his Urban Foraging.  Because we have no garden it is of particular interest, fresh herbs and vegetables can never be a bad thing. We have since been on a quest of our own. Romping around Newcastle having a sneaky peek here and there. We have been quite successful so far, mind you we have found the Sandhills community gardens that have a most marvellous collection of herbs, fruit, greenary and vegetables. They do not go by a plot system which is also handy because the whole community is then welcome to take a little as they need. Working Bees are held the first Sunday of every month so we can give back and keep the garden going. 

Here are some Urban Foraging super spots

The Secret Tomaty Vine:

While Sandhills tomatoes are still green this beautiful cherry tomato tree is red as a Ruby. Situated in the park across from Nobby's (maybe a stray seed flown over from the community gardens) it is calling to you and singing songs of a Sunday brunch with pan-fried cherry tomatoes in mint and parsley.

  More sneaky spots for you to scour include a roadside rosemary bush on Nobby's Road on the town side of Fort Scratchly. It's a huge sprawling bush with fragrant rosemary that sure beats the the dried old sticks at Woolies. On the way back from the beach James pulls over and I leap out like a bandit and pick enough for some Potato Salad made with the rosemary, caramelised onions, spring onions, mint, parsley, capers, salt and pepper covered with a dressing of an egg yolk emulsified with olive oil then finished with a dash of lemon juice, white wine vinegar, honey and whole grain mustard.

A crunchy, spicy radish salvaged from SandHills Community Gardens

The Zucchini bush at SandHills is at its spring best, with beautiful flowers that we've been stuffing with ricotta and herbs or simply deep frying with a basic batter and adding to salads. 

  Another spot (in case you can't be bothered to head down to what seems to be the windiest place in Newcastle (Sandhills)) is a cluster of herb bushes- basil, parsley, mint- right above the Gardens on Shepherd's Place right next to the Coen's Building.

More from Sandhills with these gorgeous 'Baby Thai Eggplants' soon ready for a curry or a stir fry.

  Also head down to the 'Bogey Hole' and along the coast to find Samphire seaweed, an excellent addition to salads.
 For things like herbs, kaffir lime leaves, edible flowers, nasturtiums, lettuce, spinach, occasional mulberries and strawberries the sandhill is a great place to start and the working bees also teach you quite a lot.

Let us know of any other great spots (and if you happen to see a lemon myrtle tree) and we shall have another update soon.

A good, old fashion Pud

Hi Friend!

Speaking of bread and butter pudding in my last post made me have a real yearning for this comforting, wintery dessert (even if it was in a rant about my bread intake). It was a stinking hot day yesterday, and I seem become rather irritable in the heat, so I moped around complaining for most of it BUT then in the evening a storm struck! The weather cooled and I regained conciousness and made this scrumpy, old fashioned Pud.
 I've always been a bread and butter pudding fan, the memories of some food stays with you for your whole life and this is one of those. When I was about 4 my crazy, hippy parents decided it would be a good idea to live in a comby van and travel around Australia. Turned out it was a good idea, my sister and I had the most marvellous time camping around. For a while we abandoned our van and lived in a revamped bus in Alice Springs, it would get so very cold at night and my Dad would make the most beautiful, belly warming bread and butter pudding for us to eat around the fire.

 For this one I used a fruit loaf from the Sourdough Bakery on Dennison Street in town. It's dense and spicey and even has figs so it was quite perfect. I free handed a custard with four eggs, about 300mls of cream, a vanilla bean, a quarter of a cup of brown sugar (ajust to taste) and a fine slurp of Liquor 43 (Pedro Ximenez or Brandy will also do the trick). I poured this over about 8 buttered slices of the fruit bread that I had layered with cinnamon, nutmeg, chopped dates (dried or fresh will both do nicely) and frozen raspberries in between. Cook for around 45mins to an Hour (or until you can press on the top quite firmly and the custard will not spill out) at 180 degrees celcius. Eat with great gusto with ice-cream and save a little for the fridge becasue it even better for breakfast the next day.

The Scrumpy Crumps

Hi Friend!

 We have delicious news indeed. Making Sourdough through a trial and error process has resulted in a large stock of bread. Should the apocalypse come our freezer should be able to sustain the majority of Newcastle for at least a month, we just have so much bread. It is delicious, nothing is tastier than bread and butter, but I am sick to death of it! I'm sorry James, but I am. Toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, garlic bread for dinner, bread and butter pudding for dessert. Our clothes were becoming tighter and our bathroom visits longer. The problem with bread is that you can eat so much of it.
 I began searching for a new carbohydrate. Something sustaining yet exciting, that I wouldn't just eat all the time. A breakfast treat! Pancakes were boring, my muffins were old hat, muesli takes too long to chew-my jaw gets sore (joking but a little bit serious). After trawling through a myriad of books and magazines I found Crumpets! In all their soft and holy glory.

Alright these aren't going to solve the clothes problem, they are filled with milk and delicious, delicious butter but they did solve my restlessness.  They are also very rewarding to make and surprisingly simple. They remind me of being little, my mother used to buy them if we were extra good (or she was too exhausted with us four to make dinner) and smother them with butter and honey.
 I can't deprive you of the recipe any longer, if you are even there, are you? I spect not, but here it is anyway:

                                                               Crumpets
Makes 20 Crumpets

Ingredients
-750ml Milk
-7gms Dry Yeast
-1 Tsp Caster Sugar
-30gms Butter (finely diced) and extra for frying
-500gms (3 1/2 Cups) Plain Flour

Equipment
A large bowl, a pouring jug, A decent eggflip, A heavy based frypan, crumpet rings although egg rings or even scone cutters do the job if you are desperate.

How to:

Warm the Milk over a low heat until it reaches blood temperature and in a separate bowl dissolve the Yeast in two Tbs of it. If the milk is too hot you will kill the yeast, but if the milk is too cold the yeast won't activate so it requires some delicacy, I find it better to go under than over temperature. 

  Dissolve Sugar in remaining the Milk and stir in the Butter until melted and combined. Make sure the butter is softened or you might have a bit of hard time with this.

  Whisk Flour and Salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and stir the milk mixture  followed by the yeast. Mix until combined then cover and leave for an hour in a warm place. Your mixture should now be bubbly and thick but still able to be poured. Transfer to a jug.

  Grease your Crumpet Rings and a heavy bottomed Fry Pan with Butter. Heat over a medium flame, place the crumpet rings in the pan and fill then 3/4 full. Don't be tempted to go the whole hog because they rise quite alarmingly. 

  Cook for 6mins or until you begin to see holes atop the crumpet. Remove the rings and turn the crumpet over with an eggflip or something of the sort. Cook for another 2mins  or until the base has browned. Serve immediately with butter and honey or other delicious jams.

Notes:

  Thanks 'Feast' magazine and Matthew Evans for this gorgeous recipe. If you get sick of your wife in Tasmania I will always let you cook me crumpets.

•   If you have made too many for your little self, then wait until they have cooled and store them in your  fridge or freezer as they come up marvellously well toasted. 
•   If you are more Savory inclined omit the sugar and serve with Poached eggs or even just Vegemite and butter. 
•   If your crumpets are browning too fast on the bottom and not forming holes in time turn the heat down (although not too far as too low a heat with also affect hole formation).

  

The Green Helping Hand

Hi Friend!

It has been rather dry these past weeks in Newcastle and although we are starting to get a bit more rain the state of our garden has been rather pitiful. This could be put down to a number of things a) it is a very good day when we remember to water it b) our 'garden' consists of a couple of pots on a balcony so small that to have a barbecue you would have to stand inside the house to turn your sausages and c) the soil in these pots is so hard and dry I often think it is cruel to keep worms in there. So things were looking bad for us indeed. Instead of stealing soil from our nearby park, my cat-woman stealth suit isn't quite ready and James strongly objects, we decided to get some fertiliser from the 'Green Helping Hand'!

Sunflower sprouts, so easy even we managed

The 'Green Helping Hand' is a locally based company that is reducing Newcastle's food wastage by  taking degradable food scraps from Cafe's and Restaurants and composting them. Anyway, we used some of the liquid fertiliser that Nick delivered to our very door on our sick little plants. They are making a full recovery, thank goodness, because I HATE buying herbs. So here are our herby babies:

Our Beautiful Dill!

Balcony Radishes on the way

 More dill for us! Yippity!

Our sad, sad mint on its way back, go strong friend

Thanks Nick and Nick, for our Garden revival!!

Summery Goods

Hi Friend!
Summer is nearly here and all the fruits that remind me of Christmas and family and celebrations are just starting to poke their little heads out. Mangos, Lychees, Cherries and Blueberries all make me so happy. Quite often I dream of being a fruitarian during the Summer, when it is so hot all I want to do is eat watermelon and dive into swimming pools of berries and ice cubes. Of course what really happens is I eat lots of Christmas pudding and trifle and seriously contemplate buying those coat hangers that stretch your jeans for you. Anyway, James and I have fallen in love with this All-fruit Ice-Cream recipe, that probably can't even be classified as a recipe because all it really entails is freezing all your old and over ripe bananas and mangos, buying some frozen raspberries and blending it into Ice-creamy submission (even if your food processor sounds like it's about to die). Add a dash of cream or milk, or even Soy Milk to loosen it if you must and eat it straight away, preferably in a hammock, in the South of France.

Here are our results!
Strawberries, Blueberries, Guava, a scraping of a Vanilla Bean, Custard Apple, Chocolate Pudding Fruit, Yellow Sopote, Cherries ect. are all wonderful fruity ice-cream ideas as well. Just freeze them until they on the brink, a little soft, and zuzzzz them up.

The Creature in the Fridge

About six months ago, due to the lack of reasonably priced, good quality sourdough I decided to bake my own.  I started with yeasted breads but with the lack of flavour and keeping properties I pursued the quest for the perfect Sourdough loaf. Ruby's father gave me an offshoot of a 20year old starter, as he is an artisan baker, and some vague instructions telling me to go with my instincts. It turned out to be good advice and with lots of trial and error loaves eventually started to become edible.

Rye Starter

Every week I bake around 4-5 loaves and sometimes barter with Ruby's work friends.  The process of turning salt, flour and water into bread still manages to amaze me. The seasonal changes effecting the sourdough process is another aspect I enjoy. After reading a lot of contradicting recipes and tips I have managed to nut out one of my own.

The ratios are:
Flour- 100%
Water- 60-70%
Starter - 25-35%
Salt- 2%

The process briefly:
Mix flour, water, starter => Knead untill well combined then wait 20mins => Add salt and knead until you achieve a window pane effect => Prove in airtight + humid space till doubled, best time is around 10 hours (the longer the better flavour) in summer this means chuck in the fridge => Shape the dough into loaves then rest in airtight place untill it rises about 50% (untill you poke the bread and it doesn't spring back) this is 2-3 hours in summer and around 5-8 in winter. => By the time the bread is ready have your oven + tray/pizza stone preheated to highest temp (mine is 260 Degrees Celsius) => Score the dough with a sharp knife or razor and chuck bread into the oven. => Spray water into the oven (10 mists or so) then drop temp to 220 Degrees Celsius and close the oven door => The bread is done when a hollow sound is created when you tap the bottom, for a kilo loaf it generally takes around 40mins though check it after 20 or so.

I shall into this in more detail later. I have found over the six months I have been making bread you learn to see and feel the changes and when things should be done, purely with the senses.

I love taking the time to create things from little as well as save money. Below are the results

Spiced fruit bread with some easy labna!

Nothing beats fresh bread and cheese

- James

Old Timers

Hi Friend!

Sorry about the false promises. We were  flat out yesterday cooking stuff,  lounging around in the spa (my parents are staying in a holiday house) , and eating treats. Because we plan to do the same today, although we promise to take a few photos,  here are some back dated goods. 

Crackers!

Asparagus at the Sandhills Community Gardens

Above are some beautiful sea salt crackers that we made with our pasta machine using a simple bread dough.

 500g Flour, 250mls Filtered Water, 40mls Olive Oil, 12g Fine Sea Salt, 7g Dried Yeast, 2 tsp Honey.

  Mix the flour and salt together, make a well and stir in the honey and oil. Dissolve the yeast in the water and add gradually to the mixture, you may not need all of it. Bring together with your hand, the dough should be firm but not dry. 

  Kneed until you achieve a window pane effect 

(break a little piece off and stretch it, if it doesn't break

 and you can see light through it- you're going well). Prove until doubled in size in an air-tight container (about 90mins).

 Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Once proven, roll out the dough to around 2mm or as thin as possible on a floured surface. We cheated and used a pasta machine, it seemed to work quite well. Although you can probably avoid a trip to the gym if you do it by hand. 

  Line a tray with nonstick baking paper. Using a shape knife cut the crackers to your desired shape (triangles, rectangles, whatever is easy for you), place them on the trays and mist with water and garnish with whatever you have at hand- Sea Salt, Rosemary, Chilli Flakes, Oregano ect.

 Bake until lightly golden- about 10-12 minutes and don't worry if they are a little soft when you first pull then out. They will become crunchy and delicious upon cooling. Serve with Dips and store for up to a week in an airtight container.

Weekly Haul from the Newcastle Farmers Market

We try and get to the Farmies every Sunday for some fresh and local goodies. A lot of people say it's much to expensive but I find it one of the loveliest parts of my week and we manage to find many a bargain. We also seem to eat twice the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables than if we miss it because if it's in your fridge, you can't resist using it. 

Starting Out

Hi Friend!
How do you do?
We (James and I) are quite well. We are youngens living in Newcastle N.S.W starting up a blog in hope of finding some others to read.
 We are having a dinner for James' 21st- his family and mine are down from the Byron Shire. This is quite nerve racking as they have not all met before. Anyway, we will be blogging our adventures or misadventures. As you do, we have a lot of grand plans for the week-end's dinner and although they will probably not all come to light we are starting tomorrow with homemade dolmades. There is the most marvellous difference between homemade and shop made dolmades and eating them warm is one of the loveliest experiences! I shall post the recipe tomorrow