Pesto & plums

My dear daughter (DD) has been very interested in cooking lately. She especially enjoys improvising a 'salad of the imagination'!

Tonight we made pesto pasta together. For salads, DD chose a simple bowl of chopped fresh vegies and a side of mashed avocado, tomatoes, lemon juice and yogurt.

Dessert was my department. I made a cake using old-fashioned tart plums from our neighbour's tree. The recipe was adapted from Donna Hay's Off the Shelf, one of my favourite cookbooks. Beat 125 g butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until light and creamy. Add 2 eggs and beat well, then stir in 1-1/2 cups self-raising flour. Spoon into an oiled and baking-paper-lined 24 cm round cake tin. Top with halved plums. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 160 °C (or 1 hour for a 22 cm cake tin).

Majura Primary School Kitchen Garden

At the end of 2008 I was thrilled to learn that my kids' school won funding to become the demonstration school in the ACT for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.

Majura Primary School will build a teaching kitchen and will expand the existing environment courtyard into an even larger kitchen garden. Each fortnight all children in years 3 to 6 will spend 1 hour gardening and 1-1/2 hours cooking and sharing a meal using ingredients from the garden, guided by a kitchen specialist and a garden specialist. The aim of this program is expressed on the foundation's website:

The creation and care of a Kitchen Garden teaches children about the natural world, about its beauty and how to care for it, how best to use the resources we have, and an appreciation for how easy it is to bring joy and wellbeing into one’s life through growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing fresh, seasonal produce.

I'm looking forward to volunteering my time to help kids cook (and eat!) in the kitchen. What a positive and joyful experience to share with children.

If you live in Canberra you can get involved as well -- even if you don't have children at Majura! Check out the website for more information or call the school, 6205 5711.

Happy 80th birthday to Auntie Jo!

On Sunday it was my Auntie Jo's 80th birthday. We had a lunch with the extended family. Jo is a kind and generous woman and it is a pleasure to spoil her on her birthday. She told me that it was the best day of her life -- except for when her children were born, she quickly added.

Cousin Sue and I were in charge of salads. She made a delicious lettuce salad with roast pumpkin and mushrooms, and a Greek salad with a macadamia nut dressing.

I made three salads:

• Red capsicum, eggplant and zucchinis roasted on the Weber BBQ then marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette (5 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, garlic) and served atop baby rocket.

• A bean salad in a mustardy lemon vinaigrette (90 mL fresh lemon juice, 180 mL olive oil, a good spoonful of French mustard). To three cans of beans, I added corn, celery, red capsicum and red onions for crunch.

• Pasta tossed with pesto and topped with cherry tomatoes, served at room temperature.

Cousin Margaret brought cold cuts: chicken, ham, lamb. Others made boiled potatoes and sliced sourdough bread. Check out the spread!

DD cooks

Tonight, dear daughter (DD) cooked potato omelette from leftover roast potatoes, broccoli, eggs and basil (with some guidance from me). Cooked on low heat on the stovetop, then finished off under the griller with cheese sprinkled on top in the last moments. She insisted that all the ingredients should be in little bowls before starting to cook, 'just like Jamie Oliver and Nigella'. I think I've found my new food stylist... didn't she arrange those vegies beautifully?

Butterflied leg of lamb

I've always wanted to try the recipe for butterflied leg of lamb from the cookbook which came with my Weber gas BBQ. We had 12 for dinner tonight, so why not experiment?! It turned out well, even with the gas running out halfway through cooking and dear husband (DH) making a quick trip to get another gas bottle.

I bought a leg of lamb from the butcher, who seemed crestfallen when I didn't want to try one of his own marinades. Overcoming his disappointment he chose a leg of lamb, cut out the bone and flattened it so that the meat was a 5 cm thick rectangle, about 40 cm by 20 cm. At home I marinated the meat in 1/2 c red wine, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

The meat was then cooked using the 'indirect' method. The BBQ is preheated on high for 10 minutes, and the lamb is seared (skin side up) for 3 minutes. Then the burner under the lamb is turned off, and the side burners are turned down to medium, and then the lamb cooks (without turning) for 35 to 45 minutes with the lid down.

The result is simply delicious, sliced thinly and served with roast potatoes. I also made my current favourite salad: grilled eggplant and capsicum, tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette and topped with bocconcini and basil. To cut the richness I often serve this salad on top of greens -- tonight, baby beet greens.

Smoothie after school

After-school smoothie with thumbs-up from DS (dear son), DD (dear daughter), and DSF (dear son's friend). Yogurt, bananas, frozen raspberries, ice cream and a titch of milk whizzed in the MagiMix.

My new Dutch scraper-outer-thingie (een flessenlikker! no, really!) is handy for scraping out the last precious bits of yogurt... or pesto... or jam. Thank you, Linda!

One year later

One year later, and my resolutions remain on my blog and on my file cabinet... but without any blog entries in between!
New motivation has appeared: my childrens' school has been funded to be the demonstration school for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. I return with a renewed zest for food, for blogging, for community.
And let's hope motivation magically appears to start exercising again as well.

New Year's Resolutions

What I did this weekend

It was DH's birthday this weekend. We went away to the South coast (2-1/2 hours from home) for a weekend with friends in my favourite holiday house we have ever rented. Wow. How much do you love the slide off the verandah? The colour of the ocean slid from olive green to turquoise to deep midnight blue. Bee-you-ta-full.

Peter and Linda's birthday cake

250 g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
50 g cocoa
70 g ground almonds
150 g self-raising flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Line 23 cm pan with baking paper. Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs/milk/vanilla. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients (cocoa/almonds/flour) and then stir into wet to combine. Bake 35-45 minutes.

Decadent icing: melt 150 ml cream and 200g dark chocolate in a saucepan over very low heat. Allow to cool until thick (I usually put in the freezer and stir every couple of minutes to check) then ice the cake.

Oh man oh man oh man. The icing hardens into pure essence of chocolate. So delicious as to be unphotographable.

Beautiful borscht

Sigh, the borscht didn't live up to its name. I've been cooking a lot out of the CSIRO Well-Being Diet Cookbook, and this is the first recipe which isn't drop-dead gorgeously delicious. It called for 1/2 cup lemon juice. Even as I squeezed, I thought 'no way'. I dutifully added it nonetheless - due to my deep need for order in the universe and in recipes - but regretted it upon tasting. Too tart. Only barely fixed by adding yogurt and extra virgin olive oil.

Mmmm pancakes

For breakfast: buttermilk pancakes topped with yogurt and canned peaches in mango juice. And a titch of maple syrup.

Lamb chops.

Boiled kipfler potatoes*.

Spinach and mushrooms**.

*I've always wanted to try these long skinny German potatoes, typically described as yellow and waxy. They were OK (but hey I'm not a potato person). Glad they weren't as expensive as they usually are.

**The star of the show. 500 g sliced mushrooms fried in olive oil with 2 thinly sliced garlic cloves. Right before serving, I added about 300 g English spinach and cooked briefly. Served with black pepper and extra virgin olive oil.

Bronte beach in Sydney

A couple of weekends ago we stayed at Bronte beach in Sydney. Very beautiful. And a fantastic choice of 6 or 7 non-touristy cafes for breakfast.

After slow cooking....

This is what the beans looked like after slow cooking. I added some sauteed fennel and red capsicum at the end.