A camping master list

The perfect formula for camping is one part Enid Blyton, one part Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom)  and one part reality.   That's what I'm thinking as I pack the car....lashings of ginger beer, plaid blankets and practical things like a sleeping bags if there's room.

It's that crazy thinking that means I usually forget something critical...like the camp oven, or the children's flip flops, sunblock or rain coats.  And we always need rain coats, because if we're going camping, in Tasmania it's highly likely that it will rain.  It's how we roll.

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27 comments camping, cooking, forage, holidays, nature, organize, tasmania

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How to make strawberry shortcakes and a book too

Hello!  Here are some strawberry shortcakes.   And I am writing a book.  Yes me!  I am!

I can't believe I just wrote that but it's true.

Let me tell you how it happened....


Back in March this year I signed up for Holly Becker's from Decor8 Blogging Your Way e-course.  It was wonderful and I learnt a lot.  If you want some direction with your blog then I highly recommend you sign up right now. 

One of the things Holly said that has stuck with me is "you never know who is reading your blog" and boy is that true.


Anyhoo, one of the final homework assignments was to write what you wanted to get out of your blog.   So thinking big I wrote, that one day, in my wildest dreams, I would like to write a book.   To be honest, that is a quiet dream I've had for many years, but one I chalked up with other crazy dreams such as living in Provence for a year or buying an island.  You know, I never seriously thought it would ever happen.  Crazy or not, I shared that dream about wanting to write a book in my homework and it felt good to get that dream out there, if only to my fellow e-class mates.


I swear, it only took two weeks before I received an email from the publisher at Random House asking me to call for a chat.  Whoah Nelly that was fast!


Over the next months, after quite a bit of work writing sample chapters, nutting out concepts and ideas, along with lots of championing from many people at Random House, that book dream became a reality.  


And now I am writing a book.  And I feel truly astonished and incredibly humbled by this opportunity.  


The book will be part memoir, part recipes, with lots of photos, telling the story of our life in Tasmania.  An expanded version of my blog really, with more details and more trials and tribulations on what it was like to pack up your city life and move to the countryside of a small southern island.
 Plus plenty of good things to eat.

It will be due for release early 2015, which seems miles away but it's not really in the book publishing world. 


I am so very excited about this project, actually thrilled beyond measure, that a dream so out there has actually come true.  Now I just have to write it.  

So I would like to thank you dear readers, for visiting my blog and for your kind comments and emails. Believe me when I say without you, this wouldn’t be happening.


My only regret is..... that I didn't include spend a year in Provence and buy an island on my blog homework back in March.  Who knows where I might have ended up.   


And Holly was right, you never do know who is reading your blog.

To celebrate the season, and the signing of the book deal, which I celebrate at any opportunity, yesterday the first of the strawberries appeared, so we made strawberry shortcakes.   Just like this.....

Strawberry Shortcakes 

makes 12 shortcakes 

for the shortcakes

325 grams plain flour

half a teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 tablespoons caster sugar

125 grams unsalted butter

1 large egg (beaten)
1/2 cup of Greek style yoghurt

1/4 cup of milk

for the filling

250 grams strawberries, sliced

1 tablespoon caster sugar

250 ml double cream, whipped

Method

Preheat the oven to 220ºC

In a medium bowl, toss strawberries with sugar and let sit for 30 minutes to bring out their juices.

Whisk the flour, salt, baking powder the sugar together in a bowl.

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients using your fingertips to crumble the butter into the flour, until the butter is the texture of course breadcrumbs with some pea size bits too.

Whisk the egg, yogurt and milk together in a small jug or bowl, then pour into the flour mixture a little at a time, using a fork to mix until it comes together.  (go easy, you may not need all of the liquid)

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and roll gently to a thickness of about 2cm.

Dip a 5cm round cutter in flour and cut out as many rounds as you can, then work the scraps back into a dough and re-roll to finish cutting out 

Place the shortcakes about 2 cm apart on a lined baking tray

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden-brown, and let them cool slightly on a wire rack.

Slice biscuits in half horizontally. Spoon strawberries and their liquid over bottom halves. Spoon whipped cream onto strawberries, and replace top halves of biscuits.  (I actually didn't whip the cream, as you can see by the photos, so it's a bit messy, but I really think you should!) 

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38 comments cooking, dreams, good things, magic, oh my giddy aunt, recipes

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Restoration :: part 2 :: the food

The night before we left for camp, I googled "camp food" for some inspiration on what to take with us. I was a bit taken aback at the results :: suggestions of cup noodles, dried soup, instant coffee sachets and weetbix with UHT milk capsules left me shuddering.  I'd rather stay at home than eat that stuff thanks.  

The best part of camping for me is the food.   Sure, cook simple food, but I think you can still eat well without resorting to such extreme measures.  It still has to be real food.  And a little stove top coffee maker doesn't take up much room.  If I was short on space I'd ditch the tent before I ditch mine.

On this trip I also fancied a spot of fishing, but my vegetarian daughter put a stop to that idea.  So we stuck to foraging for some greens instead.   After getting advice from local friends (and borrowing a frypan, because I, ahem, left ours at home) we were given some tips on where to find samphire, a native coastal succulent. 

We picked a couple of handfuls, happy to have a chance to use my lovely new knife, a Christmas present from my love.  Back at camp kitchen, I simply soaked it in fresh water, then fried up some home grown potatoes and tossed through the samphire until it started to colour.  

It was totally delicious, and the crunchy salty samphire was a perfect contrast to the soft starchy potatoes.  I loved it and so did the peeps.  Real food that's easy to carry, easy to make and easy to eat.  Perfect camp food.

The next morning, with bacon and eggs for breakfast, there was one sneaky camp food trick that a friend told me about that I did indulge in with my coffee, I know it's not strictly real food, but it was only because the fresh milk had run out...

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12 comments cooking, holiday, nature, real food, tasmania

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Holiday snaps

:: making wedding cakes to help out an amazing friend

:: swimming lessons, every day for two weeks at the local pool

:: drinking peach agua fresca when it's too hot to eat - you can find the recipe on justb

:: exploring mofo - so much fun, such as....

:: watching under water drumming...tina havelock stevens was incredible!

Wish you were here!
x

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6 comments cooking, elsa, family, growing up, holiday, hugo

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Taking over the kitchen

I love it when guests take over the kitchen.  I really do.  I love the sharing and talking, the tasting and the excitement of eating something new when people come in the kitchen and cook.

On the weekend there was plenty of that.  Foraged mussels steamed with garlic from the garden, just-caught fish, steamed and stirred through just-picked garlic scape soup.  Slow roasted juicy pork ribs from a friend's pig and fresh new pink eyes fried crispy in a pan, washed down with cider from down the road and gin from across the peninsula. Food we had grown, caught, foraged ourselves, or knew who did, was prepared, shared and eaten.  It doesn't get any better than that. I love that.  

There was also a dog named Henry, I think I loved him the most.

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9 comments cooking, friends, good things, holidays, Kitchen, markets, real food, tasmania

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Eating like kings

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but in our house, it could be that mother has the necessity of invention, or something like that.  

These past few months as I haven’t had a regular income, I’ve had to be really inventive to make those proverbial ends meet.  We’ve had to be more resourceful about how we shop and what we eat. 

Funny enough, despite a restricted food budget, we’ve never eaten better.  I've really enjoyed the challenge of trying to come up with meals using what’s on hand, what’s in the garden and if we don't have an ingredient, substituting or simply doing without. 

Last night we made pizza for dinner but we had none of the traditional toppings in the pantry.  No mozzarella, no tomato, no mushroom or ham.  Normally I would make a dash to the shops to buy the missing ingredients but instead, I used what we had on hand.  Plenty of milk, ingredients for dough and a garden full of herbs and garlic.   

First I made cheese with the milk.   A soft farm house cheese like a bit like this.  We made the pizza bases and topped them with garlic, olive oil, herbs, smeared some with nettle pesto, dolloped the fresh cheese and finished them all with a generous grating of parmesean.  The children loved them. Best ever pizza they said.  Win. 

Today I stirred finely chopped chives, thyme and parsley through the rest of the cheese and served it with a loaf of Irish soda bread - baked using the whey leftover from making the cheese.   Add radishes and lettuce from the garden, some pickled olives from a friend's tree and lunch was complete.

So simple and so delicious.  Peasant food it may be, but I couldn’t help but think that we eat like kings.  

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18 comments cooking, garden, handmade, real food, slow, thrifty

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In which five roosters had a bad day

It was a lucky escape for the three roosters who chose to sleep high in the wattle tree.  For the other five, asleep on the roost, it was not so lucky.

It was a job we were dreading, but eight roosters in the coop is just too many. Just ask the hens.  Or ask me for that matter, that pre-dawn chorus was getting too much. It was time for them to go.  So once the boys were asleep on Saturday night, we caught five of them and gently put them in a small pen 'til morning.

Early Sunday morning the preparations began.  We made a little camp fire and set a large pot of water to boil, grabbed a trestle table and sharpened some knives.  Then I made a batch of brownies.  Because I think it is necessary to have something sweet to counter the unpleasant task of the day.

Good friends arrived with more experience in these matters, to lend a hand and share their knowledge. And the job of the day got underway. Chopping, dunking, plucking and cleaning.

Once all five roosters were dispatched, cleaned and dressed, it was time for lunch.  We took the hearts, marinated them for a while in olive oil and garlic before cooking them over the last of the fire's coals.   They made such tasty morsels.  The livers were pan fried to make something like this pasta recipe, washed down with a very fine riesling from France. It made a fitting accompaniment to those five young roosters.

Did you know that supermarket chickens are around six to nine weeks old when they're killed?  Our roosters had a much happier and longer life of five months filled with sunshine, pasture and plenty of worms.   And one bad day.

Today is a good day.   We have a freezer full of meat that we reared and processed ourselves.  The hens look happier and can rest easy without being hassled by too many roosters.

What's left of the soft rooster feathers flutter around the garden in the gentle spring winds.  They collect in the corners of the porch, where they're promptly collected by small birds who take them away to build their nests.

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11 comments chooks, cooking, friends, garden, real food, slow

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Justb!

I'm very excited to announce that I'll be writing and photographing regular recipes over the awesome website Justb.  Yesterday the first recipe was published for Welsh cakes. Have you made them?  You should try them, they're super easy! 

As you can imagine, I am over the moon to be asked to join Pip's wonderful team involved with Justb.  I couldn't quite believe it was true until this was published yesterday and had to pinch myself quite often.  I really love the site and read the Newsy Snacks everyday. You should go and check out Justb too, off you go! 

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11 comments cooking, good things, justb

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A gift in the dark

The knock on the back door gave us a fright. We don't generally get visitors in the country, you know, especially at dinner time, in the dark, on a week night.

But it was only B our neighbour, delivering several kilos of freshly caught tuna that a work colleague had given him.  Living in household of non fish eaters, B knew we'd love it.  What a generous gift!

My first instinct was to chuck it in the deep freeze, to be lost in the midst of time, forgotten along with the pig heads and pet mince that lurk in the bottom of the chest freezer (that has been mistakenly used in bolognese by the way. Not good).

Luckily B delivered it during the rush hour so I had a few hours to think about what to do with it before entombing it to an icy grave. Preserving it!  Brilliant!   Did you see that episode of Gourmet Farmer when they caught that tuna and preserved it on the beach?  How awesome was that?  I had a plan!

I must tell you that I love canned tuna, but I don't eat it anymore. Sigh. I used to love Sirena, not only for the taste but for that little lovely mermaid on the lid.  For a couple of years now I've realised that sadly it's not sustainable, so it's been off the menu.  There are other more sustainable brands available, I know, but to me they have the texture of cat food and not those lovely chunks like Sirena, so I don't eat them.  I was excited at the prospect of making my own.

It's dead easy.  I had a peak at Matthew's recipe on the SBS site, and I also found a recipe, on a blog called Calabria From Scratch *, which I liked because you cut the tuna into thick slices and seemed slightly more manageable.  I kind of crossed the two together, Matthew's extra care with preserving and avoiding botulism using the aesthetic of the Calabrian recipe.

Simply boil the tuna in salted water for two hours, drain, then pack into jars, cover with olive oil and boil the sealed jars for two hours.   Et voila! The Calabrians leave theirs in the pantry for one month before tucking in, and some say to leave it for six months. I'm not sure I can wait one week.

Now we have guilt free tuna to last for a while, and enough jars for gifts and plenty to share with B.  I may deliver them next door at night, and return the favour of a gift in the dark.

PS Sarah Wilson has this great post about what tuna you can eat.

* The link doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but hopefully it's temporary and will be back.

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17 comments community, cooking, good things

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Speckled bread

The last two weeks have whizzed by in a blur of cold wet weather, school holidays and peeps laid low with a nasty chest cold.  That said, highlights of the past fortnight include dinner with Kylie Kwong, two days styling a photo shoot for Feast magazine, and my kitchen featured on one of my favourite blogs Bleubird Vintage. All good!

This enforced time indoors was meant there's been a lot of cooking on the still to be named cooker.  Some results triumphant, and a couple of less than successful efforts.  The later a result of spending too long at the local pub with a friend for some much needed mama time out - oops!

Funny enough, this weather has seen an awful lot of Welsh cookery appearing on the menu. Mainly because these recipes are so fast and easy...they must be a busy lot those Welsh folk.  Think Welsh rarebit, because I'm always running late for dinner and it sounds much posher than grilled cheese on toast. Welsh cakes because they're quick and cooked in a frypan on the stove, rather than having to wait for the oven to heat up. And my favourite, bara brith, meaning speckled bread in Welsh.   This has to be the easiest cakie/bread type recipe you can make.

I use a recipe from Matthew Evans' book The Real Food Companion.   Not only is it a doddle to make, but Matthew's inspired addition of marmalade gives the bread a bitter edge that I find irresistible.  Matthew is happy for me to share his recipe.

Bara Brith

Ingredients
500g mixed dried fruit such as sultanas, golden raisins and currants
100g sugar
300ml hot black tea, strained
500g self raising flour, sifted
2 tablespoons marmalade
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 egg, beaten
1-2 tablespoons honey, warmed to glaze

Method
Mix the dried fruit and sugar together in a bowl and pour the still hot tea over the fruit. Stand until the fruit is swolllen. Leave overnight if you can ( I'm never that organised!) or warm it in a saucepan to help speed up the process. There should be still be some liquid when you go to make the bread.

Preheat the oven to 170C.  Grease a 20 x 12 x 11 cm loaf tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Put the tea soaked fruit in a big bowl, stir in the flour, marmalade and mixed spice and then the egg until well combined (I sometimes add a little milk here if it's too dry or stiff).  Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, pressing to avoid air bubbles and to even out the top.  Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Brush the top with the warmed honey just as it comes from the oven.

Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Bara brith keeps well, stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Cut into slices, spread thickly with soft butter and served with tea, bara brith hits the spot after an afternoon spent in the cold wet garden. Which is where you can usually find this mama pottering until it's too late for anything but grilled cheese on toast for dinner. Again.

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18 comments cooking, tea, yum

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