passionfruit coconut pudding

One of those days for you, too?

The light in your kitchen is dismal, you take one photo and you get a 'memory stick full!' message (must remove all those Floriade pics). So you plug in to download some of your photos and the camera battery goes kaput. Give up on technology, throw a tizz, eat some chocolate.

You haven't quite got the amount of passionfruit you need for this recipe, but how would you know that until you've cut open and scooped out the wrinkly little fellows?

Anyway, you're committed - the batter is ready; you haven't got enough butter or eggs to start another recipe. No backing out now.

I love a batter shot.

Passionfruit and coconut pudding
Adapted from a supermarket magazine. This has a lovely tropical flavor (and colour!), just right as we're heading into winter. The original recipe specified six 3/4 cup ramekins at 25 minutes. Oh, and it turned out I did have enough passionfruit pulp - it truly was one of those days.

• Preheat your oven to 180 and butter a baking dish (about 4.5 cups capacity).
• Cream 200 gms soft butter with 3/4 cups sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
• Add 3 eggs.
• Add 1/2 cup passionfruit.
• Fold thru 1 cup SR flour, 1/2 cup plain flour and 1/2 cup dessicated coconut.
• Spoon into your baking dish, smooth the surface and sprinkle with a little raw sugar.
• Bake for about 45 minutes or until done, covering with foil if browning too much.
• Serve warm with ice cream or cream.

 

 

 

quinoa + cauli fritters

I usually resist the supposed charms of inspirational quotes, but one I do have stuck to my screen at work reminds me that ‘it’s called yoga practice, not yoga perfect’. These words kick me to roll out my mat when I get home, not just at my weekly class (so perhaps I should have the quote taped to the TV screen or on the growing pile of magazines near the couch or on the fridge door). Because it’s also yoga practice, not yoga procrastination.

 

Because it’s doing something again and again, to feel and catch the rhythm of it and realise that each time you do ‘it’, it may be better – you may be better - or it may be just different.

 

It’s a lot like that in life, too, and a lot like that in the kitchen lately. Cooking and baking - the chopping, measuring, building flavours - is always a learning experience. Sometimes it’s routine and sometimes it’s a surprise.

 

I’ve been making a lot of old faithfuls for dinner lately – in particular the tuna pasta bake and the pasta dish I’ve nicknamed ‘mojo spaghetti’. Each time they are different – the bake, for example, has seen the tuna come and go, peas pop up, chilli flakes or lots of parsley enter the equation, but the lemon zest and garlic remain unquestionable foundations (as of course does the pasta).

 

I’ve found too that practice gives confidence and freedom. Just as standing with your feet about a metre apart, left foot turned in and right foot turned well out, left hand on your hip and right arm extended out as you bend and tip your balance to the right as if you’re a teapot, right hand touching the floor as you assume a kind of starfish-on-one-leg look – just as doing all those things at once and over and over again means you can perform half-moon pose without labouring or floundering thru the myriad instructions – well, so too it is with repeating a recipe until you barely glance at the page and you have multiple pots and pans dancing effortlessly in your kitchen, not a panic on the horizon. You do it - and enjoy it.

 

Cooking quinoa is one of those things I do pretty regularly. If we’re talking practice, cooking legumes and grains is one of those kitchen skills I need to do more often, because I’m not yet relaxed about it. Will the quinoa boil dry? Will it be gluggy? Stick to the pan? Turn to mush? Be fluffy?

 

Well yes it will be, I discovered, if I try a different approach. Instead of boiling it on the stovetop, I took a chance and put it in my rice cooker.

 

Maybe practice does make perfect – perfectly fluffy quinoa, anyway! To labour the yoga metaphor, just as having a crack at a new pose and thinking ‘woo hoo!’ (hello, pigeon!), so too it was for me with rice cooker-cooked quinoa. The world will never be the same again.

 

Quinoa and cauli fritters

Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe published in the Sunday papers. The recipe said to steam the cauli, but I thought that might make it soggy, so I roasted it. This also gave the cauli extra colour and flavour. It’s not as quick as steaming though, so do steam if you’re time-pressed. Also, at first I thought all this prep was a bit of a palaver, and I wouldn't bother with these again. But I've enjoyed them so much, I would! Maybe if I had some leftover quinoa and cooked vegies...This made 10 fritters for me.

 

Do ahead stuff

• Cook 1 cup of quinoa with two cups of water — in your rice cooker if you have one, for perfectly fluffy quinoa, or on the stovetop as you would rice.
• Preheat your oven to 180. Take about 250 gms cauliflower and chop into smallish pieces, lay on a baking tray, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with S&P and some fresh sage leaves. Pop into oven and roast until soft and cooked and a little browned. Remove from oven and chop into further small pieces.

The fritters

• Into a bowl, add your cooked quinoa, roasted cauli, 250 gms ricotta (drained if necessary), ½ cup grated parmesan, as much chopped green herbs as you like (I used chives and parsley; the recipe specified dill). Whisk three eggs and add this to the bowl, with a little S&P, mashing thru until combined.
• Because this next stage is incredibly mucky, do some prep work: clear space in your fridge, line some plates with paper towel or greaseproof paper, and have some paper towels on hand.
• Using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, scoop out the mixture, then shape into patties. Place on your prepped plates, then refrigerate for at least half an hour.
• When ready to cook, heat a little oil in a large frypan and cook the fritters, in batches, for about 4 minutes each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and serve with further vegies or a salad, as you wish.

brown sugar plain cake

Spotty cloth from Frangipani Fabrics.

 

Every now and then I need a plain cake. A plain cake is a very good thing: a palate cleanser after rich chocolate cake or panettone pudding, for example. A good plain cake is never boring: buttery and simple, it can be enjoyed with a cup of green tea for a quiet moment at the end of a long day, or served up with fruit — zingy stewed rhubarb, soft summer berries, spicy roasted plums — and a good blob of thickened cream.

My go-to plain cake is a Women’s Weekly one made with greek yoghurt; sometimes I make it as a batch of cupcakes and freeze them immediately so I have a ready stash for when I’m craving simplicity.

I’d been itching to make a plain cake anyway and was about to add greek yoghurt to my grocery list when I remembered Paula’s brown sugar version at Vintage Kitchen Notes. It delivered just what I was after, a calming cake with barely a trace of sweetness – while some may say that’s a flaw, a lack, I love this kind of subtlety every now and then. Making it in a loaf tin also reinforced the notion that you could easily cut off slice after slice – elegantly thin for that contemplative cup of tea; a more substantial chunk to support any accompanying fruit or ice cream, perhaps. It may be plain but it’s very versatile.

Brown sugar plain cake
Adapted from Vintage Kitchen Notes. Please visit Paula – her pictures are so much prettier than mine, and her temptations are many.

• Preheat oven to 180 and prep a medium sized loaf tin.
• Cream 75 gms soft butter with ½ cup light brown sugar and ¼ cup white sugar.
• Add 2 eggs and ½ tspn vanilla (I used the paste, but there actually wasn’t enough to make the specks really noticeable).
• Then sift and stir in 1 and ¾ cups plain flour, 2 tspns baking powder (this is less than Paula specified but worked for me) and a scant ¼ tspn of salt, then 2/3 cups of sour cream. My batter was quite stiff.
• Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes or until done.

of blow torches and brulee

My friend F (hola!) has loaned me her culinary blow torch, for making creme brulees, as well as these lovely traditional Spanish earthenware pots.

Besides creme brulee, what other culinary uses can I put the blow torch to?

I've never used one before - do you have any tips or techniques? You know, how not to set the kitchen bench alight...

And can you recommend a brilliant brulee recipe?

marble cake

When I was a little girl, my favourite birthday cake was a marble cake. Cutting the cake to reveal the magical, random swirls of bright colour was a special moment, one that never failed to make me happy. And how could I not be happy? It was my birthday, there would have been candles and singing, and then this pretty, colourful, yummy cake - made just for me!

Mum must have made this for our birthdays regularly (and only on our birthdays) because to me, 'marble cake' is synonymous with 'birthday cake'. So much so that even now I'm a big girl, I like to have marble cake to celebrate another passing year (perhaps 'celebrate' is too optomistic a word now. I acknowledge my birthday).

A couple of years ago, mum found this poshed-up version of marble cake. Same pucci-esque pattterns that still delight me, but studded with grown-up extras: moist raspberries in the pink batter, gooey chocolate chunks in the brown, and almond slivers for a contrasting chew in the plain.

So happy birthday to me and to Dig In. My blog is now one year old! Me? Many more than that. Enjoy!

Marble cake
A Women's Weekly recipe, March 2006. Mum made this, and she pretty much followed the recipe (instead of tweaking wildly).

• Preheat oven to 160 and prep a deep 20cm round tin.
• Combine 125 gms soft butter, 1 tspn vanilla, 1 and 1/4 cups sugar, 3 eggs, 3/4 cups plain flour, 3/4 cups SR flour and 1/2 cup milk in a medium bowl. Using your electric whisk, beat slowly at first to combine ingredients, then increase speed to medium and beat for a couple of minutes until smooth and a paler colour.
• Divide the mix between three bowls.
• In the first bowl, add some pink food colouring then gently stir thru 50 gms frozen raspberries.
• In the second bowl, sift in 1 tbspn cocoa and 50 gms dark chocolate that you've chopped into chunks.
• In the third bowl, fold thru 25 gms slivered almonds.
• Now drop heaped spoonfuls of each mixture into the pan. Once all in, tap cake tin gently on the bench to release any large air bubbles that might be trapped between your dollops.
• Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes or until done. Happy birthday!

on toast

I was about to write that toast is not something I think too deeply about, but I realised that while I might not think deeply I am fussy about my toast. But then, aren’t we all? For something so basic, don’t we all have rigid preferences?

For me, the bread must be substantial. If I’ve been to a fancy bakery on the weekend I may have a solid sourdough or a chewy ciabatti, cut as thick as will fit in the toaster slots. But usually I enjoy a pre-sliced loaf from the supermarket, dense with grains and pumpkin seeds that I love to nibble on once toasted. With all its tasty bits and pieces, each nubbly slice holds its ‘architecture’ under any topping – it doesn’t collapse into a thin shadow of itself.

There is nothing worse, in my book, than cold toast. As soon as it pops up it must be slathered with butter – well, a half canola–half butter spread thingy; margarine has never darkened my (fridge) door but butter is too hard to spread without tearing the toast (and I would never have the foresight to leave it out to soften; not that it would this morning when there was snow on the mountain). It requires quick work so the butter melts immediately and pleasingly — is there not a more comforting sight than the pale yellow stuff softening and disappearing into the toast’s surface?

Not according to my dad, who toasts his white bread then goes for his morning walk or potters in the greenhouse for a bit before coming back to butter a cold and dry slice. The butter just sits there. I will never get used to that, even though I have seen him do it for years.

The great issue then is what to put on the toast. How fancy do you go? I can be happy with the dairy spread, or a thin scrape of salty vegemite; I find vegemite especially comforting if you’re a bit under the weather or miserable — something about its robust saltiness bolsters the spirit. I have a strict regime of peanut butter and banana slices on toast as my pre-yoga energy boost; the protein and carb combo fuels me through a couple of hours of trikonasana and downward dog. And Sunday night suppers are eggs on toast; something of a family tradition (though actually, I can have egg on toast any night of the week). Oh, and let's not forget the summer joy of a thick slice of a juicy black krim tomato (homegrown, of course).

But there has to be sweet stuff with toast: honey (and maybe some banana) or homemade berry jam (and maybe a blob of natural yoghurt; I fear I am addicted to the stuff). Currently I have mum’s zingy lemon marmalade and lemon butter, as yellow as sunshine. I must admit though, the toast is merely to stop me from feeling guilty if I just ate the marmalade straight from the jar.

I have not even covered the degree of toastiness that is acceptable. Barely golden or darkly scorched? Where do you sit on the spectrum, and what are your (deep) thoughts on toast?

autumn is here, but blowing away

Isn't this beautiful? My cut-leaf birch trees, aglow, in the early morning sun:

This weekend's ferocious winds are blowing too many of the leaves off the young slender branches - my yard is scattered with the golden confetti of the leaves. Autumn leaves are such a fleeting wonder.

orange ricotta cakes

Zesty orange cakes are, I think, made for the cooler months of the year. They are a burst of golden summer sunshine in your mouth - and your nostrils, it has to be said, because they should smell just divine. These ones do, and they also have a rich, moist, fluffy crumb, thanks to the generous bucketload of ricotta and three fat eggs (thanks, chookies). They're spot-on for morning tea; enjoy one ... or two ... with a robust mug of earl grey tea for perfect pick-me-up.

Orange ricotta cakes
My recipe says 'adapted from Cake keeper cakes' - say that ten times fast - which would have been a library book. This made 14 cupcakes.

• Preheat your oven to 180 and prep a muffin tin with papers.
• Cream 160 gms softened butter with 1 and 1/2 cups sugar.
• Add 350 gms ricotta and beat til combined (I would say 'til smooth' but mine looked rather like cottage cheese at this point).
• Add 3 eggs, 1 and 1/2 tspn vanilla, the zest of 2 oranges and 1/4 cup orange juice (including all the pulpy bits - there's flavour and colour there!).
• Now fold thru 2 cups plus 1 tbspn plain flour, 1 and 1/2 tspn baking powder, and 1/2 tspn baking/bicarb soda.
• Spoon into your muffin tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until done.
• I would say these are nicest eaten warm, so re-heat gently if necessary.