Happy Easter | how to make marbled eggs

There is something so special about passing your own childhood traditions on to your own children don't you think? Especially when you have only recently remembered them!

A couple of weeks ago an old memory popped into my head of beautiful coloured marbled eggs that my mum used to make. A bit retro 1970s you think? Absolutely, yes...and super easy to make. 

Boil yourself up some eggs, and then whilst they are still hot tap them all over to create cracks in the shell. Immerse them in a bowl of coloured water, and when cool peel them to reveal beautiful marbled eggs. 

I used good old Queen's Food colours, a pink one for the princess and blue for my boy. Perfect to enjoy for an Easter breakfast or lunch. 

But do you know what? The surprise for me was the crazy designs on the shells, next year I'm going to have to think of a way to use these too.

Here's wishing you and your family a Happy Easter,

suzy xoxo

Scandilicious Baking

Scandilicious baking by Signe Johansen arrived last Monday when I was not feeling my best, to say the least. My friend Kuka and I had pre-ordered it months ago, so to have it show up and brighten my sick day was absolutely perfect. I had to satisfy myself with pouring over the recipes until Friday when I finally felt well enough to give one a try...but where to start?

The book is packed full of breads, cakes, buns, tarts, biscuits and even some savoury treats, such as Crayfish filo bites. But I couldn't go past a good old dose of Scandinavian spice and decided on the Cinnamon bun-cake.

   

OMG! I haven't been so excited about baking in a long time. This was a taste-sensation...and really easy and quick. The house smelled amazing, and I swear it made my cough better.

I'm pretty certain I will end up making everything in this book...and I've never done that before! This book is a breath of fresh baking air to me. Spicy, fruity, intoxicating baking air.

Next on my to-bake list are:

• Toscakaka - caramel almond-topped sponge
• Chocolate and orange marmalade loaf cake
• Musli bread (packed full of Scandi fruit and nut goodness)
• Santa Lucia sour cherry and saffron buns

...and the ultimate Australian test Pistachio pavlova with boozy cherries, which is cooling in the oven right now as a birthday desert for Mr Hausfrau.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

Signe is gracious enough to acknowledge Australia as the home of pavlova in the book - so I love her even more now...and by the way she has no idea I'm writing about her book.

If you're interested she has another book Scandilicious, Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking.

I'm off to order it tonight! 

suzy xoxo

Comfort food

What a week it has been?  Busy, crazy, still buzzing from last Sunday's markets and cold, cold, oh so cold!  This morning I felt like a bit of comfort food for my brekky.  This is comfort food to me because it was how my mum made me scrambled eggs at home - eggs (of course!), chopped tomato and chopped raw onion. YUM!  Not so comforting to Mr Hausfrau who thinks that the raw onion is kinda strange.  I think sometimes you need to grow up with something to appreciate it...and not see its strangeness!  

Have a great weekend,

suzy xoxo

Persimmon dreaming

I'm up to my armpits in persimmons. Our little tree has gone from a measly two persimmons in 2011 to gluttenous bounty this year.  We have over 100 persimmons to bake, preserve, eat, share and enjoy.  It's a race against the birds though so I can't leave any on the tree for much longer.

Aren't they just gorgeous?  Look at them here styled up on the crusty old hessian bag on top of our worm farm...we're classy photographers around here. ;)

There are so many persimmons that I've been dreaming about them...seriously!  A few of my most-favourite food bloggers know just how to inspire me, so I'm off to the kitchen to do:

• Poached Persimmon, Mascarpone and Marsala Sabayon and Pistachio Crumble Verrines by Canelle et Vanille
• Crepes with honey lavender roasted persimmons by Tartlette
• Persimmon & Pear Chutney by Food in Jars

Have you got any persimmon favourites to share? Remember that I've got 100 persimmons so I'd love to hear about them...suzy xoxo

Chestnut jam FAIL!

I have written before about smattering this blog with the odd-bit of bloghonesty, so that people who don't know me IRL can see that I have just as many project/recipe fails (or not) as they do (or not!).  My friends and family would never be surprised...I'm game to try just about anything in the kitchen and recipe failure is part and parcel of that I'm afraid.  "Learning experience" my mother would say.

So last week I tweeted about peeling 1kg of chestnuts, by hand - yes by hand, people.  It wasn't pretty. I kid you not, I had and still have dried up blood under each of my thumbnails.  I was keen to try my hand at making some chestnut jam, ala Christine Ferber style - but after the obligatory 24hr of fruit and syrup soaking that she so prefers all I got was sticky toffee goop. I therefore declare the Chestnut jam a FAIL!

Opening the paper today imagine then my delight, or horror discovering this SMH article stating that 'chestnuts reward the determined' and 'that once upon a time they were prized open by hand using thick leather gloves.'  So I'll get back in the saddle this weekend, armed with the machine, hell even leather gloves would be an improvement...and try, try again and put the whole said fail down to a great learning experience, or an excuse for more food styling fun .

Have a great day,
suzy xoxo

my creative space | cumquat marmalade

My creative space is in the kitchen this morning. Remember those cumquats that I got a week or so ago. Well this morning I finally finished my batch of cumquat marmalade. I let the mixture soak for 24 hours so that the peel was nice and soft.

More creative spaces can be found here

A foodie confession...broad beans!

I must admit I always felt a bit confounded by ye ol' broad bean. I mean I love the look of them all shiny and green sitting above a toasted piece of sourdough or pasta dura....just like the guy does from River Cottage. But, I had never tasted, cooked or grown them ever, ever before.

That is before last weekend when my first batch were ripe for the picking. Assisted by my able undergardener I began to change my food existence. I consulted a cookbook by Raymond Blanc, known round here as Ray White. My mate Ray had me peel the pods, extract the beans, blanch said beans for 5 seconds then refresh under cool water. Then a tiny incision in the skin and out popped the glorious bean. A bit of a fuss, but well worth it.

So what did I do with the beans? Cooked them in a mixture of cream, garlic and parsley of course! And it was yummy. Since then I've just steamed them with our normal greens and we've enjoyed them so much I think I will be growing them from now on. Plus it's nice to have a crop that grows over winter and enjoys the cold as much as we do!

Saturday night boongfest (@#*&^@)???

Boonge in our house can mean various things, but most often it is - fatty, but usually yummy and always a bit sneaky food. Ergo boongefest for our Saturday night desert (recipe below).

The fruit topping was made on Saturday afternoon and I let it infuse away in all it's glory - doesn't it look delicious?

Bay Scented Creams with macerated berries (Delicious Magazine Sep 2007)

Place 1/2 a vanilla pod seeds scraped with 300 ml of thickened cream and 600ml of pouring cream, 60g caster sugar and 3 fresh bay leaves in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from heat and allow to infuse for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle 2.5 teaspoon of gelatine on some cold water and allow to set, then dissolve over low heat. Stir the gelatine mixture into the reheated cream and strain through a sieve. Pour into serving bowls.

Heat 1 cup of caster sugar,with 1 cup of water and 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped. Stir until sugar dissolves then heat for 5 minutes without stirring, remove from heat. Add 1 punnet of strawberries and 1 punnet of blueberries and two fresh bay leaves. Set aside in a covered container and allow flavours to infuse.

To serve top the set cream with the berries.........yummo!

Pop quiz - what's a polpettone?

Seriously I had no idea until I cooked dinner last night.....Italian meatloaf thingo...mine are wrapped in pancetta and cooked in a tomato sauce and the result - yummo!
And always, I say always use a 50/50 mixture of veal and pork mince whenever you make meatballs or anything like it...the flavour beats plain old beef mince any day.

Happy Saturday - Crepe de Froment

Ever since the man of the house and I became an item, some 14 years ago we have devoted one morning each weekend for the preparation of a special breakfast. At the moment it's Saturday, for on Sunday mornings I am a cycling widow.

Now for those of you that know him, Mr Hausfrau is a mean cook and in a lot of ways better than me, but he can't bake for crap....and that's fine - I don't like to share my Kitchenaid with anyone.

But I digress, recently a postcard showed up from Mr Hausfrau's aunt, with a recipe for Crepes De Froment. Always on the lookout for new crepe recipes, Mr Hausfrau was up for the challenge....and the result....yummo....recipe details below.

Crepes de Froment (translated for you)

250 g flour
125 g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
500 ml milk

Mix it all together in the usual manner, and voila crepes.

We find that having a special crepe/pancake pan is the trick - NEVER EVER use it for anything else.

Mr Hausfrau makes an apple and sultana concoction for the top...Fry up some apple slices (2-3 apples) in butter until soft, add 30 g brown sugar and cook until dissolved, stir in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 25 g sultanas and 1/2 teaspoon of mixed spice. Cook for one minute until bubbling.

Place this on top of your crepes and dust with icing sugar. Drizzle with maple syrup (make sure it's the real deal too).

Yes for those that are guessing with the cycling and the crepes, Mr Hausfrau is NOT of German descent!

Bake off

Well it's been a long time between food posts I know. Today is a perfect day to end the drought. Suzy was in full hausfrau mode this morning. Bread made, yoghourt fermenting, slow cooked beef on and scones out of the oven all before 9.

There was a reason, Suzy and the girl-child were receiving visitors and there isn't anything much easier for such an occasion than Suzy's scones.....there are a bit of a cheats version, but never fail.

Ingredients - 3 cups SR flour, 1 cup cream and 1 cup of lemonade. I KNOW - crazy! Mix together, but not too much as scones need to be a bit crumbly. Roll out to about 1 inch think and cut out. This makes about 12-14, depending on the size of your cutter. Bake in a 230 or so degree oven. This is important, make sure it is that hot before you put them in. Bake for 10-12 minutes, basting with milk 5 or so minutes into it.......

I have just recently come back to making scones this way, after a period of time where I felt that I was cheating and should make them properlike. The traditional recipe I used, from the good ol' gals at the CWA was a cracker too and will post about it another time. The only down side to my lemonade scones is that they don't keep and need to be eaten on the day.........what a shame!

A family favourite

You know when you have one of those family favourite dinners, the one that you got out of a book or magazine ages ago and have made it so many times that you don't need to look anymore, or better still you've adapted it to your own tastes. Yep, well one of ours is this Spinach and Cheese Risotto. Ok so it's not an absolute true risotto, and you'll see why soon, but I'd go far for a better one and besides nothing beats a great risotto and a crisp white for a lunch somewhere with a view........

Well tonight, there was no view, just our dusty back paddock, but the risotto and wine were there........and the spinach (well silver beet really) was from our very own patch, here it is on death row waiting to be plucked.
The recipe is super simple.

1 onion
1 cup arborio rice
1 bunch or whatever of spinach
vegie/chicken stock
blue cheese

Saute onion in some olive oil then add the rice and cook for a minute or two. Then add the stock one ladle at a time** stirring risotto constantly keep adding stock until all liquid used, you know the usual risotto thing, then towards the end add the spinach until its cooked. When finished cooking turn heat off, add the cheese. I use the Castello brand, either blue or white, and use a half circle block for the above quantity.

Now here's the secret to good risotto, put the lid on and let it sit for 10 minutes before serving.

**Risotto is not something that I made a lot during my pregnancies, cos' you see it's almost compulsory to stand in the kitchen stirring away with a glass of white in hand - well in fact it is in this house......and then you have another with the meal -enjoy!

Suzy makin' yoghourt

Well today isn't nearly as hot as yesterday - it was just hideous! I actually got a couple of naps in yesterday though, despite the heat, as the boy-child went off to school for the day. I had all these intentions of sewing and cooking, but the urge for a sleep catch up day was too great. "Sleep when the baby sleeps" is my mantra - stuff the house.

Today, with boy-child in tow, I am back to being a bit more productive. We have "put clothes on" our gingerbread men, and eaten most of them already, mopped the floor together (that's just so much fun for mummy), he's currently munching on little pizzas and mummy has just put on the yoghourt.

So, as requested here is my yoghourt making master class. Like the bread I've been making our yoghourt for a couple of years now. It is super simple, the most common yoghourt machine out there is the Easi-Yo, but I have the Moulinex which unfortunately isn't being imported to Australia anymore. This isn't that much of a drama though, as during the last couple of years I've found out that you can make it in the oven on a very low temperature. The Moulinex is just a glorified hot-plate with a sealed lid to trap the moisture so those little bacteria suckers grow.

All you need is 1litre of milk, boiled or I just use UHT milk;
1/2 cup of milk powder and some yoghourt to start.
Just buy a plain yoghourt with no added sugar etc for your first batch, and then use some of the previous batch for the next and so on.
You will need to replace the "starter" every now and then. Whisk it all together and pour into jar. Easi-Yo make a powder that you just add water to, but it's quite gelatinous and didn't really appeal to us. My machine allows me to set a time, I usually set it for 9 hours.

Here they are just growin' away.....
And the result.......a European style tub set, thick creamy yoghourt.......yum



How does it taste you ask? Well like yoghourt use to in the 70s when I was a kid. I hated yoghourt then, because I have a sweet palate and then all the different varieties came about with lots of added sugars and stuff and I began to eat yoghourt again, but was it really yoghourt? Next time you're at the supermarket check out the length of the yoghourt section, it's nuts.

I use our yoghourt in cooking, baking etc and we buy the Easi-Yo fruit squeeze, add fruit or whatever to eat it straight. And to appeal to the TA in me, I make 1 litre for $1.20!

Suzy bakin' bread

Well a couple of posts ago I did allude to the fact that we make our own bread. We've been doing it for nearly 3 years I suppose and only have to resort to buying bread very very rarely, usually when guests are here and we just can't keep up the supply!

I use to think bread makers were a bit wanky, but after the birth of the boy-child I think the urge to make bread was the beginning sign of my suzy hausfrau metamorphosis. At first we made it and baked it in the machine, but apart from the odd specialty loaf which doesn't need to rise too much we found the shape of the machine baked bread hard to manage. So we now use the bread machine to mix, knead and rise (who has time to knead it and wait etc- not me, not every day at least) and then bake in specialty tins in the oven.

I thought I might write down a few hints I've picked up over the last 3 years.
1. Very important - make sure your yeast is FRESH. I keep mine in the fridge in a very airtight container.
2. The order that you place ingredients in the machine is critical. In my machine it goes water, oil, sugar/salt, flour, improver and yeast.
3. Use warm water so that as soon as the yeast hits it the process can begin. Extra important in winter and colder climates.
4. When you place the yeast in the machine, don't let it touch the water until you're ready for mixing to officially begin.5. Don't preheat the oven for white loaves. Grain/wholemeal/rye loaves DO need the oven to be preheated.
6. Don't wash your bread tins (this annoys my father no end), just a quick spray with some oil before you put the dough in is all you need.
7. Make sure your bread flour is high in proten, >10% is the rule.

In ever increasing attempts to decrease the cost of bread (my TA tendencies again) I buy my ingredients from a place called "Simply no Knead", you can buy it retail or online. I also get unbleached baker's flour from the health food store at my local markets. The other day we bought some "plastic bread" from Woollies to feed the birds at the lake with the boy-child and the man of the house nearly passed out at paying 4 bucks! We can bake a loaf of yummy bread for about $1-1.50 dependant on the ingredients.

We also use the bread maker to mix dough for pizza, takes 50 mins and freezes really well unbaked for a quick dinner; pasta dough and for hot cross buns at the right time of year.

I do sometimes use pre-mixes, but mostly make bread the old-fashioned way - flour, yeast, water etc...the bread improver is usually ascorbic acid (or plain old Vitamin C), here are the ingredients for today's loaf...

It is a loaf of pasta dura which is now kneading away so I will post later on with a picture of the result...cripes pressures on now!

Christmas Cake

I've managed to make the Christmas Cake/s for this year, I say I've managed because I'm starting to slow down a wee bit. I have bursts of energy which I make the most of and then spend the rest of the time feeling desperate for a kip which with boy-child at home is impossible. We took his day sleep off him over 6 months ago in exchange for a 12 hour go-to-bed on time sleep at night.

We did put the Christmas tree up on Monday night and the boy was so excited that bedtime was somewhat delayed by his insistence on "dancing to the Chrimast", which his father is sure is some arc back to an inbred pagan ritual. Then the first words he uttered on Tuesday morning were "mummy do you think the Chrimast is still here?"

Well to the cakes...this is the second year that I have made this recipe. It is from a cookbook of my mother-in-laws although she has never made it herself. It uses a phenomenal amount of fruit and I sometimes think that I just enjoy buying all the ingredients more than the baking and eating. No Sunbeam Mixed Fruit pack in this house!



The love of my life for the last 8 years (recently superseded by the overlocker), the Kitchenaid, was so full of cake mixture, but she chugged through it like a real trooper. Last year I made this cake at my Dad's place in Bundaberg, carted all the ingredients on the plane and mixed the damn thing by hand. This year the Kitchenaid showed me why she should still be number one on my list.So the mixture yielded three cakes, a 20 cm, 18 cm and a loaf, which we are eating now. Yummo, Christmas is early in this house!

December already

Well here we are on the 1st of December already, 24 days till you know what and 18 days till the baby is due! I've been yakking on about my 30 November deadline and NO I didn't make it, one project to finish tonight. But tonight is an important night, it is putting up the Christmas tree time. I think this year the boy child will be right into it, so I am hoping that he won't get too excited by the whole tree business to go to bed on time and allow me to finish the last project.

Yesterday I made the last Amy Butler Bag, using the stiffer interfacing for the contrast at the top and much lighter one for the body as mentioned in a previous post. I think it looks gorgeous, which isn't always a feeling I get after sewing as I fret over any flaw, however small. Here is the present complete...And a close up of the two little extras.














This morning I managed to get the fruit started for the Fruit Mince Tarts that I am making as presents for the teachers and assistants at boy child's school. I've never been a fan of these, but last year managed to try some home-made ones somewhere and they were delicious. I found a recipe here http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/18432/fruit+mince+pies (sorry need to work out the linky thing - krafty kuka help!). I chose this recipe because I can make it nearly to the end, then freeze the pies whilst I'm off having said baby. So to the nitty gritty, I've added all the fruit, sugar, marmalade, brandy etc.
Which when mixed looks so yummy like this, and I'm to stir it every now and then and let it macerate away for 2 days, before the pastry stage.

Not having made this before, it seemed odd to be adding breakfast marmalade, I guess it is instead of peel etc. Does anyone out there in blog land have any good recipes fruit mince that can be bottled and stored? It seems like something that you could make months ahead if the more it sits the better it becomes.