ANZAC biscuit recipe

This morning Scout and I whipped up a couple of batches of ANZAC biscuits. We made the monster-sized ones you see here for us to eat on the weekend (and one for me at morning tea), then another batch of slightly more reasonably-sized biscuits to take to her friends at daycare. She was bursting with pride.

Growing up, we always had two great recipes for ANZAC biscuits, and I made these using the one of them I still have. I don't actually know if this is Nanna's family recipe, or the one Mum got from the Wideview School Fete in the 1980s, but either way it is quick, easy, and the biscuits always taste delicious.

Ingredients: 

* 1 cup rolled oats * 1 cup flour * 1 cup sugar * 3/4 cup coconut (I prefer shredded though the biscuits you see in these photos used desiccated) * 1/2 cup butter, melted * 2 tablespoons Golden Syrup * 1 tablespoon boiling water * 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 160 decrees Celsius 2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, flour, sugar and coconut 3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over the stove, then stir in the Golden Syrup 4. Add the bicarb. soda to the boiling water, then pour it into the melted butter mixture (if you are cooking with kids, they will love this part because it goes all frothy like a science experiment) 5. Pour the butter mixture over the dry ingredients and mix well 6. Shape the mixture roughly into balls and place on a greased baking tray (allow room for the balls to flatten and spread as they cook) 7. Bake for up to 20 minutes, checking regularly for colour and turning if necessary

Make sure you don't overcook the biscuits. Base your estimation of their "doneness" on the golden colour. When you pull them out they'll still be smooshy but don't worry, they'll firm up as they cool down. I like my ANZAC biscuits soft in the centre but if you want them to be crunchy, give them a couple of minutes longer.

ps. Have you ever wondered how ANZAC biscuits came about? They used to be called Soldiers' Biscuits, and were created by mothers and wives and girlfriends to help give their loved-ones the nutritional benefits of oats during the long sea voyage to the front. You can read the story here.

How to make iced tea

On the weekend, a small group of bloggers and one two-and-a-half-year-old girl relaxed in the leafy and floral courtyard of the Travelling Samovar Tea House to chat, giggle, taste tea, and learn about how to brew and blend and make the best of all the (non-alcoholic) summer drinks: iced tea.

Scout had begged to come with me and I was proud as punch to bring her along, but she did make it somewhat more difficult to listen and concentrate on everything we were learning. In between supervising toilet stops and watching her twirl around a garden umbrella and having half-an-ear on the shutter-click of 555(!) photographs (of the ground) being taken on my phone, here is what I learned about how to make a delicious iced tea.

Step 1: Choose your "base" (for example, black tea, green, yellow, or something herbal)

Step 2: You might want to blend some fresh or dried herbs in at the brew stage for flavour. For example, perhaps you'd like to add rose buds or peppermint

Step 3: Brew up the tea. Make it a fair bit stronger than you otherwise would because if you're going to pour it over ice, that will dilute it

Step 4: A good tip the Travelling Samovar gave us was to pour strong, HOT, freshly-brewed tea over ice, which will immediately cool and dilute it. Alternatively, you can store brewed tea in the 'fridge for several days, as long as it's properly sealed and you haven't yet added anything else like fruit or sugar

Step 5: Does your tea need sweetening? Experiment with fruit, sugar, honey, fruit cordial… To the yellow iced tea you see Scout making in these photographs, we added a strawberry coulis and some squares of mango for sweetness. It looked extravagant and tasted delicious

Step 6: Try to make your tea pretty. Apparently, we drink with our eyes as much as we eat with our eyes. The ladies at the Travelling Samovar suggest serving the cold tea with frozen fruits instead of ice: not only will it look beautiful, the tea won't become diluted as it warms up

Are you an iced-tea drinker? I confess that before the Travelling Samovar opened its doors in our neighbourhood, I wasn't a big fan.

I mean, there was THAT TEA I'd had in New Orleans that was pretty close to perfection, but other than that, the pre-bottled stuff you can buy at service stations really didn't float my boat. But the subtle, sweet, refreshing and gorgeous-looking teas these ladies serve up (there's easily half a dozen iced teas on the menu on any given day in summer) have completely won me over.

A big thanks to the Travelling Samovar for hosting such a fabulous event, and to all the ladies who came along and made it so much fun. I loved learning more about the history of this drink, and how to make it at home. And at 36 degrees by later that afternoon, you couldn't get a day better suited to the drinking of iced beverages. Just ask Scout, who got home and announced to her father "I DID MAKE THE ICED TEA" along the lines of "I JUST INVENTED PERPETUAL MOTION."

ps. This was not a sponsored event - we all paid our own ways

Food nostalgia: Mum’s devilled eggs & 80s salad

Talk about food nostalgia! Devilled eggs are one of those dishes that take me RIGHT BACK to my childhood, with the first bite. Do you have a dish that does that for you?

Devilled eggs were a classic that my Mum would pull out whenever guests came over. We had devilled eggs with almost every barbecue (and we had a lot of barbecues). They were right up there on her “tried and true” list, with prawn cocktails.

It was 30 degrees outside when I made these devilled eggs, so I paired them with a simple salad for dinner. I call it “80s salad” because I swear we ate a salad like this at least once a week for the entire decade of the 80s. It was the least sophisticated, least pretentious salad you can imagine. The percentage of ancient grains, buffalo mozzarella or kale was exactly zilch. This salad had iceberg lettuce, friends. Remember iceberg lettuce? And whatever other veggies we happened to have to hand which, in my childhood, meant staples from the veggie patch: tomatoes, cucumber, celery. I added fresh pineapple to my salad, because I found some in the back of the ‘fridge and it was still good.

Mum’s devilled eggs recipe

6 hard boiled eggs 2 tablespoons of chutney (or in this case, 2 tablespoons of Jayne’s homemade tomato relish, which did the job admirably well) 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce Salt and pepper, to season

Peel the hard-boiled eggs*, then cut them in half, lengthwise. Put the yolks in a bowl with all the other ingredients, then mush and mix them all together.

Spoon the mixture into the empty halves of the egg whites.

In Mum’s recipe, it says to garnish the eggs with slices of cucumbers, and I am a rule-follower (most of the time), so that’s what I did.

Wash it all down with chilled, cheap plonk. This bottle cost me $10, because I am all class.

* Is it just me, or does anybody else think hard boiled eggs are a LOT more difficult to peel these days? The egg shell comes away in tiny little shards that cut your fingers, and half the time manages to take away giant chunks of egg-white with it.

That didn’t used to happen when I was a kid. Are they feeding something different to the hens? Or did they feed something different to the hens back when we were kids? Every time I make hard-boiled eggs for the kids, these days, I wonder at how difficult they are to peel.

Naomi Bulger, bringing you the hard-hitting news of the nation.

ps. Want more food nostalgia? This is how the Great Custard Controversy panned out.

Roast beetroot, pumpkin & goat's cheese salad

On the weekend I was SO EXCITED to finally harvest the rainbow baby beets I'd been nurturing in my little vegetable box, and to turn them into a roast vegetable salad. I made a bit of a big deal about it, taking Little Miss out with me to talk about plants and food. We both put on our hats and gardening gloves, and her Daddy took a photo…

After all that, my big harvest yielded two baby beets. Two. And they were lovely, perfect little beets, but two baby beets does not a salad make.

So off to Paddy the greengrocer we went, and the lesson on "paddock to plate" was not quite as powerful as I had hoped.

This minor horticultural setback aside, I still think my salad was delicious. The sweetness of the roast vegetables with the creaminess of the cheese was divine. It was also easy to make, and would be simple to adapt with slightly different ingredients. I added chicken to the salad this time because we were quite hungry, but I think it would be just as tasty (probably better) without meat.

Here's how to make this salad for two people.

INGREDIENTS (SALAD)

* Beetroot (a medium-sized beetroot or a handful of baby beets) * Pumpkin (a smallish wedge, I used about two thirds of what you see in the photo) * Baby spinach leaves, as many as you like * Chèvre goat's cheese * Pepitas (sunflower seeds would also be great) * Balsamic vinegar * Olive oil * Salt and pepper

INGREDIENTS (CHICKEN)

* Half a chicken breast * Plain flour * Chinese five-spice * Ground black pepper * Ground sea salt

DRESSING

(OK confession: I used a honey and Dijon mustard dressing that was already made by the good people at Praise. It was delicious, and paired perfectly with the flavours in this salad. If you wanted to make your own, I'd do something similar, because the sweetness of the honey and the sharp taste of the mustard were perfect with the roast veges).

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 Celcius

2. Peel the beetroots, then chop them into small squares or wedges. In the case of baby beets, peel and halve them.

3. Chop the pumpkin into similar sized pieces, trimming way the skin.

4. Put the beetroot into a baking dish. Splash with olive oil and one or two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper*, then toss until all the beetroot is coated.

5. In a separate baking dish, toss the pumpkin in olive oil, salt and pepper*, just enough to coat it.

6. Put both dishes into the oven and bake until cooked through and the pumpkin is just starting to brown, anywhere from half an hour to an hour (best you just keep checking). I took the pumpkin out and let the beets cook for a bit longer, which would have been fine except then one of the children needed me and the beetroot ended up being in there for just a touch too long, and was a bit overcooked. Ces't la vie. Or more appropriately, ces't la parenthood!

(IF YOU'RE ADDING CHICKEN...)

a) Cut the chicken breast into nugget-sized chunks

b) To about 1/4 cup flour, add a good sprinkling of Chinese five-spice (about one and a half teaspoons but don't worry too much), and several generous grinds of black pepper and sea salt. Mix it all in.

c) Toss the chicken chunks into the flour-and-spice mix and make sure they are well coated.

d) Pan fry in a splash of olive oil until the chicken is cooked through, and golden and slightly crispy on the outside.

7. Put your salad together! Into a salad bowl drop your beetroot, pumpkin and spinach leaves, then pour over the dressing. Not too much, you only want to lightly coat it. Toss the dressing through. If you're serving the salad in individual bowls, now's the time to transfer them. Break apart the chèvre and place it around the salad, then sprinkle the whole thing with pepitas. If you're using chicken, place it on top (but don't toss through), before the pepitas.

Voila!

* Don't use too much pepper or it will overpower the flavour of the roast vegetables.

The great custard controversy

Don't say I never bring you the important issues. While we were chatting the other night, Mr B started to tell me about the custard his Nan used to make. To hear him tell it, "Nan's custard" was rich, creamy and perfect. She would whip it up for dessert after a Sunday roast, and make it at Christmas to pour over pudding. Mr B's Nan was one of those truly hospitable women that you mostly only read about in old books. She'd be up at 4am on Christmas Day to roast the turkey, preparing a veritable banquet for the family.

I've got to be honest, I've never really thought of custard as a dish in itself. It seems more of... I don't know... a condiment. But he was so passionate about Nan's custard and how good it was and all those memories, that I asked him to get the recipe so I could try to create his happy culinary experience. Here's how the conversation went next.

Mr B: I don't think she had a recipe. She just mixed it up on the stove.

Me: Would she have given your Mum the recipe?

Mr B (ignoring my question and looking all misty-eyed): It was delicious, and fluorescent yellow.

Me (growing suspicious): And she definitely made it from scratch? What ingredients did she use?

Mr B (with a withering look): What all custard is made from. Custard powder!

And just like that, the Great Custard Challenge was born.

To the best of my knowledge, there are three types of custard: the type you buy ready-made and refrigerated, the type you make up with custard powder, and the type you mix up with eggs and milk. I decided I would make all three, then challenge Mr B to a blind tasting to see which one lived up to his memory.

It took me two goes to make the powder version, because I tackled it first and while I think I got the consistency the way Mr B described it (quite thick), by the time I had subsequently cooked up the 'real deal' version, the powder version had become congealed and gluggy, and I had to throw it out and start again. We will be eating custard in our house for a long time because Mr B bought a two kilogram jug of the refrigerated stuff because it was only a dollar more than the small carton. Sometimes he forgets it's just us and two very small children, and shops like he's back in his childhood home with three adults, five children, and umpteen aunties, uncles, cousins and neighbours visiting at any given time.

If you've never made custard from scratch (actual scratch, rather than with powder), it's incredibly easy. Here's my recipe, a bit of an amalgam of a few I found on the Internet. These are small quantities, and it makes about a cup and a half. I'm going to try it without the sugar next time and see if the kids still like it for a healthy snack.

Ingredients: 


1 egg 1.5 tablespoons cornflour 1.5 cups milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract* 1.5 tablespoons sugar

*We only had vanilla essence in the house for this experiment because I bought it by accident, and it still tasted ok, but I definitely think extract or the scrapings of an actual vanilla pod would be the better way to go

Method:


1. In a small saucepan with the heat off, whisk the egg, cornflour and a couple of tablespoons of the milk together 2. When you have created a smooth paste with no lumps, turn the heat on low, and gradually add the rest of the milk, stirring continually 3. As soon as the custard becomes thick and creamy (which will happen the second you start to think "this is taking too long it won't work"), remove the saucepan from the heat 4. Stir in the sugar and vanilla

Can you guess which is which by looking at these? L-R = the powdered stuff, the refrigerated stuff, the homemade stuff

The outcome of this challenge? Much to my surprise, Mr B chose my homemade custard in his blind tasting! I can't claim that it was up to Nan's Magic Custard Powder dessert standard because a) I never got to taste it and b) possibly I just didn't do the powder justice. But it was nice to get the stamp of approval on my very own creation. The best part was that the Custard Challenge led to a longer conversation about Mr B's Nan and their Christmases in Bendigo and about the kind of woman she was. Which was quite lovely, and exactly what food memories are all about, I think.

This is part of a new regular series exploring food memories from our childhoods. The good, the bad and the bizarre. I explain the whole thing in this post if you're interested. Do you want to join in? Recreate or reinvent some of your best or worst food memories and use the hashtag #naomilovesfoodmemories so I can promote what you're doing. Or ask me to have a go at one of your food memories and I'll see what I can do!

Homemade childhood food memories

This is a new thing. It's something quite fun and I hope you want to play along. Mr B and I have decided to revisit some of the meals and dishes of our childhoods, and the memories that go with the meals. We are going to cook them up and photograph them and blog about them and share our recipes. The meals we hated and the meals we loved, and the meals our families seemed to eat over and over and over again.

We had a little brainstorm the other night and the list above contains some of our most potent food memories. There's nothing sophisticated in there, it's just childhood. Chilli con carne? Oh, how I hated it, served up with sides of coconut and banana and sultanas (why? WHY?). Chocolate eclairs? You should hear Mr B go on about his grandmother's "famous" eclairs.

Taste is an extraordinarily powerful sense, wouldn’t you agree? Even more so as it is combined with smell. Just one little taste of something can instantly transport you in time and space. There is a cake shop on Rathdowne Street that, until recently, sold cupcakes that tasted a lot – a LOT – like the vanilla cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery in the West Village in New York. I would go there and get a coffee and cake to go, pushing then-baby Madeleine in her pram while she slept. And as I took that first bite Rathdowne Street would melt away and I’d be crossing the road with my dog into a little park just over the way from Magnolia and checking the bench seats for pigeon poo and fishing my notebook out of my bag and writing poetry in the last little pockets of autumn sun before the evening closed in.

What about you? Tell me your most powerful food memories. I'd love you to join in with me, if you want to. There are two ways we can do this:

1. Cook up your own food memories, and use the hashtag #naomilovesfoodmemories around the social media traps so we can all see what you've been cooking and what you remember, and share the love

2. Another way you can join in, if you prefer, is to tell ME about a dish that brings back special memories for you. Mr B and I will add your dish to our list and cook it up on your behalf. Now THAT could be fun

Let's do this!

Madeleine's diary: lemon preserves

Sunday, 3:30pm: We are picking lemons. I LOVE picking lemons! Mummy says I'm very busy. I think I will shout. ME BUSY! ME BUSY! The lemons are up very high in the tree. This is so exciting, how can I contain myself? I know, I'll yell. UP HIGH! UP HIGH! Now I think I will run around in circles. Oh there's my dog Oliver! Catch Oliver! Catch Oliver! Why is he hiding under the table?

3:40pm: Mummy is picking lemons without me! Nooooo Mummy! How could you? I am devastated. Waaaaaaah! Me! Me! Where is Oliver? No, wait, I'm picking lemons. Me busy Mummy! Me busy!

3:41pm: I am very good at picking lemons. The neighbours should all know about this. YEMONS! ME BUSY! ME BUSY!

3:50pm: We filled the whole basket. I can carry it Mummy. Me!

3:51pm: Oh no! The basket tipped over and all the lemons fell out! Waaaaaaah.

3:52pm: We are picking up all the lemons and putting them back in the basket. Me busy Mummy! Me busy! Oh look there's Oliver...

4:15pm: Mummy is washing the lemons, ready to make preserves. I help! I help! I know all about baking. I'll just get my little stool. Here Mummy, I'll bring you all the things you need from out of the cupboard and put them on the kitchen bench. Flour. Cocoa. Vanilla essence. Golden syrup. Hundreds and Thousands. Cornflour. Now I'll bring your baking things. Big mixing bowl. Rolling pin. My pink mixing spoon with the pig on the end. A whisk. These lemons will make excellent chocolate cake!

4:16pm: No Mummy! Don't put those things away! We're baking! Waaaaaah!

4:17pm: Why is she putting lemons into little bags? The freezer Mummy? I open de door! I OPEN! I opened the freezer door for Mummy. I am very good at that. I closed it too. Oh look! Oliver is inside the house. Catch me Oliver...

Monday, 4pm: Mummy is stuffing rock salt into partially-defrosted lemons. It is probably chocolate cake. I will lick the bowl. I'll quickly grab it before asking, in case Mummy says no. YUCKY! Waaaaaah! Lemon juice and salt do not taste like chocolate cake AT ALL.

So, lemon preserves. I followed this recipe. Two big jars are now resting quietly on a dark shelf at the top of our pantry, ready for the eating in about a month or so. Unlike Madeleine, I am doubtful that they will taste like chocolate cake. On the other hand, I am hopeful that they will be delicious. Do you have any recipes using preserved lemons that you'd recommend?

ps. more from Madeleine's diary here and here

Lemon madeleines with beurre noisette

"one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell... No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses..."

~ Marcel Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past"

It has taken me more than two years to finally make an attempt at baking the lovely little French tea-cakes that bear Madeleine's name. But now that I've done it once, I'll be making these again and again! The recipe I used was super easy, and quite forgiving. (For example I had to estimate the amount of butter to include because I'd rewrapped the cooking butter without lining it up with the measurements on the paper, you know what I mean? And I don't have any kitchen scales. But I digress. My point is the madeleines worked out fine anyway.)

This particular version was made a bit decadent and fancy-sounding with the browned butter (beurre noisette) and vanilla beans.

Do you want to try it? Here's what you'll need:

You mix the dry ingredients together, then add everything else gradually, one by one. The full recipe is here. The batter needs to rest for an hour or two but that's ok, because madeleines are best eaten warm, straight from the oven.

I made my mixture during my lunch break on Friday (oh hello, benefits-of-working-from-home), then popped them in the oven on Saturday afternoon after brewing up a strong cup of tea. They only take about 10 minutes to bake.

If reading this has not sent your cholesterol through the roof already, make a note that you're supposed to eat them dipped in melted butter and liberally dusted with sugar. Just do it. The diet starts tomorrow.

A surfeit of lemons (and 16 mostly-savoury things to do with them)

Outside as I write this the wind is howling - true Brontë-sisters-story-style howling - around the house. Rain is whipping sideways into the windows, the dog inside is shifting on his chair and can't seem to relax.

Yesterday the beautiful old rose vine that had been clambouring over our front verandah for more decades than I could guess fell down, tumbling loosely over the little front garden and spilling over onto the pavement outside. I tried to pick it up and tie it back but all the tendrils have latched on to our front fence and it is impossible to shift that heavy, thorny mass. So I guess I know what we will be doing on the weekend. Also yesterday the little green patch of synthetic grass I put down out the back for Madeleine to play on lifted right up off the ground and flew onto my little veggie box.

And so it goes. While I sit and type in ugg boots and an old jumper and heating and sip a warm cup of tea, outside, you will find Winter. Deserving of the capital W.

But in one small spot in our back yard, no matter what the weather throws at it, you will also find a joyful patch of sunshine. Our lemon tree, once intended to be espaliered along the courtyard wall but long since left to branch out and flop over and do any darned thing it wants, is positively dripping with fruit. There is so much fruit we can't pick it fast enough, and it is starting to rot on the tree. Does anyone want any lemons? Hit me up! And I'm not trying to boast or anything (ok I am a bit) but these are the BEST lemons you'll ever taste. I'm not even kidding. They are sweet and juicy and not at all pithy. The skin is an almost luminous yellow, it doesn't quite look real. Except it is.

But what am I going to do with them all? Mr B has put a spanner into the works by not liking lemon-flavoured sweets. Crazy right? I know! So no lemon meringue pie or lemon butter or lemon slice... because I can't make it all for me, can I. (Can I?) Last night I cooked this recipe for our dinner, mainly because it used the zest of a lemon. I thought it was delicious but Mr B gave it a "Meh," so it won't stay on rotation. What would you do? Here are some (mostly savoury) lemon ideas I've gathered so far:

* Home-made lemonade (we love this recipe), although it's more of a summer drink

* Have you ever tried this handy tip for freezing lemons?

* Charred broccoli & tofu stuffed avocados with sweet lemon curry sauce

* Roasted lemon potatoes sound pretty delicious

* 5 natural beauty remedies using lemons

* Lots of great ideas in this Lemon Love  post, not all of them sweet

* Grilled lemon chicken

* Preserved lemons, to be used in dishes like these

* This one pan spicy lemon chicken pasta looks tasty and easy

* How about a lemon garlic vinaigrette?

* I think this lemon flatbread looks interesting

* Spaghetti with lemon, ricotta and spinach

* One of these days (!) I might try this detoxing lemon water, to be taken with whole foods

* Cheese ravioli with lemon basil butter sauce

* This creamy lemon poppyseed salad dressing looks tasty

* The next time I cook a roast, I may try this oven-roasted lemon parmesan broccoli

How about you? Do you know any tried and true non-dessert uses for lemon you think I should try?

Food legacy

This is the sort of thing you see in overly-sentimental movies, like The Notebook, or read about in books like Anne of Green Gables. And it is beautiful. Sarah of The Yellow House, a foodie blogger living in rural Virginia, recently became the recipient of a rather emotional bounty from the women of her fiance's family.

A bundle of yellowed, dog-eared, food-splattered recipes, stretching through the generations, hand in hand, across more than a hundred years.

There were several recipes for nut bread and other popular dishes from the 50s and 60s. Thrift-inspired preserves and pickles from the Depression and War eras. And turn-of-the-century recipes, made immensely and timelessly personal for being embedded in letters written from a mother to a daughter.

When I cook my mother and my grandmother's salmon rissole recipe, I think about them, and the times they taught me to cook these rissoles, and our many, many family meals together. I can still picture the oil spitting in the pan in Nanna's tiny kitchen. It was not much bigger than my pantry is today.

What an extraordinary gift these pages must be to Sarah. A chance to absorb, through food and words, something beautiful of her new family.