Oma’s cabbage

I grew up with this recipe but never learnt to like it until recently.  Passed down from my flemish heritage its great on premature winter days like this one. Served by my Oma and mother the traditional way with sausages and potatoes makes a warming dinner. A more recent discovery of mine is having the leftovers on toast with a poached egg and chutney.

Recipe for Red Cabbage with Apples

1/4 cup water
1/2 red cabbage sliced
1 Tbsp brown sugar (optional)
Salt to taste
A handful of pitted prunes
2 apples sliced and cored
A good few splashes of apple cider vinegar (about 1/6 cup)

Place the water, cabbage, sugar and salt in heavy-based (and if you have it oven proof) saucepan. Cook very gently using a simmer mat for about 1 hour. Add the prunes, apple and vinegar. Either place in a pre-heated oven or continue on the stove top until the apples are soft but not completely mush.

Stay warm

living in the outer inner suburbs

 

I have always loved cardamom biscuits the most

I don’t think I have ever made these biscuits the same way twice. They seem to evolve from feeling and what is in the cupboard at the time. Here is a version that is close to what I always start out wanting to make  but am usually too stingy or don’t have all the ingredients at hand to pull it off. You can choose to add less almond meal and more flour if you like – the nuttiness makes them very rich.

Recipe for cardamom biscuits
100g butter
3/4 cup rapadura or brown sugar if you want
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
zest of ½ orange
1 egg lightly beaten
1 cup almond meal
¾ cup wholemeal spelt flour sifted

Pre heat oven to 180°C. Cream together butter, rapadura and spices. Add and combine the egg and vanilla. Then stir in the flour, almond meal and baking powder until just combined. You don’t want to over stir once the flour  has been added because it will stimulate the gluten and make your biscuits tough

Place spoonfuls on a greased baking tray making sure you allow room for them to spread. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

morning

 

 

It was such a quiet morning this one. Everyone was still in bed. The mist hung around till late. The grass was wet and cold under my feet. I thought about the brown snake we had seen yesterday and I thought about my shoes but I did not want to break the morning by going back inside. There is a sameness to all the mornings here, this place that grew me up. The light follows the same cycles year in year out. I know this landscape like I know the lines on the palm of my hands. Painted behind my eyes.

pumpkins and pomegranate

I love it how the shadows get longer at this time of year, creeping into far off corners, exploring unknown territories. A certain stillness. If I listened hard enough I feel like I could hear the pumpkins growing ever so slowly in the vegie patch and a pomegranate breaking open in the dappled sunlight that falls behind the house.

strawberries and basil

This recipe is really very special, so much so that I was almost tempted not to share it. I used to make it when I worked at Friendly Beaches Lodge – indeed I even served it to the Prime Minister of Australia, but thats another story.

Recipe for strawberries and grapes with macerated basil sauce (serves around 6)

500g fresh strawberries
300 – 500g green grapes
3 tsp raw sugar
I cup fresh basil leaves loosely packed
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves loosely packed
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup raw sugar

Cut strawberries into quarters and grapes into halves. Place in a bowl and sprinkle 3 teaspoons sugar over the top (for an extra tangy end result drizzle 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar over the fruit as well). Cover with a plate and leave to marinate for a couple of hours.

In the meantime combine the basil, mint and additional sugar in a mortar and pestle. Grind and pumice into a paste. Alternatively, use a food processor or coffee grinder.

Add the lemon juice to make a moist smooth mixture. Allow to sit until sugar dissolves.

Divide the marinated fruit into serving bowls and top with basil mixture.

Serve with pouring cream and be glad I shared it. xx

a photo a day

On returning from India, I vowed to keep my pace slow, to let that country that had saturated my thoughts and body linger into my Melbourne life. But I knew it was stolen time when a week had passed and I still felt no hairs turn grey. I needed a strategy. I decided to make sure I do the things that make me happy. I would take a photo a day, I would draw more pictures, I would write more often in a book with thick cream paper – pages that allowed my thoughts to spill out and look comfortable there, all in a row. It didn’t matter for the words meanings, just the black on cream, the repetition making the messy letters look organised, thoughtful.

My photo a day has ended up being more like 3 photos every 3 days, often at night, just before bed, when I remember. But it doesn’t seem to matter, its a small piece of time out, like that quiet moment smokers have on the veranda. I haven’t noticed any more hairs turn grey.  Here are some of them.

harissa

Im a little tired of late, and pulling my thoughts into words seems to get stuck somewhere far back in my brain, unable to reach the nerve endings of my fingers to type anything audable  or useful. So I am keeping this simple… just the recipe and a few photos. I know it has been a bit of a trend of late – perhaps some quite moments when life slows down will solve this problem and my thoughts will be inspired to carry themselves to my limbs. Until then, here is a recipe for Harissa. I was dreaming of this all winter, waiting for capsicums to come into season, it is a delicious spicy sauce great on curries, fried tofu, burgers, lamb cutlets….

Recipe for Harissa

2 red capsicums
2 tsp cumin seeds roasted
2 tsp coriander seeds roasted
5 small bullet chillies de seeded and finely chopped
3 cloves garlic crushed
1 tsp salt
100 ml oil

Roast the red capsicum in a hot oven until black. Place in a bowl with a plate on top in the fridge until it cools. Once cool, peel off the skin, remove seeds and finely dice.

In a hot saucepan toast the cumin and coriander seeds until fragrant. Roughly crush the seeds in a mortar and pestle before adding roasted capsicum, chillies, garlic and salt. Grind and pumice until smooth. Stir in the oil.

This will keep under a thin layer of oil in the fridge for up to a week.

Pal Market

 

 

 

 

reflections from India

Through the haze of my jet lagged mind, just fresh back to Australia, there is no theme or order to these next few photos, they are simply some of my favourites that I took over the past 6 weeks in India.