Before baking–moons in the night sky. How romantic!
I had to bake on the equinox. Something to celebrate the season, and the coming long nights.
I had some marzipan left over from recent birthday cakes, so I made chocolate cupcakes, each with a little ball of marzipan dropped into the batter–you know, a moon in the night sky.
After baking–bellybuttons. How…um…something.
But the marzipan moons sank, leaving the cupcakes looking a bit like bellybuttons.
Delicious bellybuttons, I might add…
Today.
Thirty degrees C.
120 kph wind.
Dust clouds so thick I couldn’t see the back fence 20 metres away.
So I knew there would be carnage by day’s end.
Picking yellow summer squash for dinner, I was having trouble finding them, because they were completely coated in dust.
I studiously avoided looking at the fruit trees—I couldn’t face what I knew I’d find while the wind still howled.
Later in the evening, my husband and kids went out and surveyed the damage. Remember back in November when I posted the picture of all those apple blossoms? I knew it was too good to be true.
Every fruit was stripped off of every tree. They collected them all, tossed the bad ones on the compost, and brought the rest inside.
None are quite ripe, but we’ll make the best of them—applesauce and pie this weekend, for sure!
Eight pm, and I feel like I’ve hardly stepped outdoors today.
I remember the air was still and warm early this morning. I milked by the light of the stars and a sliver of a crescent moon.
I remember the cool drips of water in the freshly watered vegetable garden just after breakfast.
But, aside from a hurried trip to the goat paddock with an armload of corn husks or carrot tops, I haven’t been outside since eight am.
Just after breakfast, the whole family got to work making the year’s Summer Soup (which I’ve blogged about before). We spent the morning chopping vegetables and making up the soup together, then I settled in alone for the long slog at the pressure canner.
It was a hot day to be in the kitchen canning soup. I thought it was just that I had four burners and the oven going much of the afternoon, but when my daughter walked through the kitchen looking wilted, I realised it was just a hot day.
That was the closest I got to knowing what it was like out there.
But I’ll appreciate this lovely summer day spent indoors—over and over again all winter. The final tally for the day was nineteen quarts of soup and six quarts of vegetable stock. That’s a lot of summer, stored up to cheer us on a cold winter evening.
Nothing beats a good salsa. And there are limitless variations on the theme—tomato or tomatillo, cooked or raw, spicy or mild, cilantro or none…
If I’m using tomato, I prefer a raw salsa, but if I’m making salsa verde—based on tomatillos—I like it cooked.
I have a love/hate relationship with tomatillos. On the one hand, I quite enjoy them in salsa verde. On the other hand, we don’t tend to like them in any other form, so we’ve never been able to eat all the tomatillos produced by even one plant, and the rotting fruits in the garden are truly disgusting.
But salsa verde is a lovely alternative to ketchup on burgers and fries, is fantastic in burritos, and makes a great chip dip. I’ve seen many variations on salsa verde, but this is what I do.
500 g (1 lb) tomatillos, husked and rinsed
½ cup water
1 fresh chilli pepper or a pinch of cayenne
2 red sweet peppers, charred
1 onion
1 clove garlic
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbsp cream or half and half (optional)
salt to taste
To char the sweet peppers, spear a whole pepper on a fork and hold it over the flame of a gas burner, turning regularly, until the skin blackens. Drop the charred pepper into a bowl and cover with a plate for a few minutes to let the skin steam and loosen Peel off the blackened skin before using. Roughly chop tomatillos, chilli, sweet peppers, onion, and garlic. Place all ingredients except the cilantro and cream in a saucepan and cook 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are soft and the liquid is reduced by about a third.
Blend until smooth (I use my immersion blender). Stir in the cilantro and optional cream, and adjust the salt. Serve hot or chilled.
This sauce freezes well—I freeze it in small quantities and pull it out as we want it.
As I wandered through the pond garden yesterday evening, watching the fish and the damselflies, I noticed that the apricots had blushed. I tested one. It was soft and ripe—so ripe, the juice dripped down my arm when I bit into it.
This was the first year the apricot tree has given us anything, and the wind stripped many of the fruits a month ago, but there were still about two dozen on the tree, and they were all ready to pick.
So this afternoon, I made apricot upside down cake—for the second time in a month. This time, I’ll give you the recipe…
This is adapted from a recipe in the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking.
Melt 3 Tbsp butter in a 9-inch (20cm) cast iron skillet or round cake pan. Tilt the pan to coat all sides with butter.
When the butter is melted, sprinkle ½ cup brown sugar evenly over the bottom.
Arrange apricot halves, cut side down in the bottom of the skillet, completely covering the bottom.
Whisk together in a medium bowl:
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp buttermilk
½ tsp vanilla
Combine in a large bowl:
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup brown sugar
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
Add to the flour mixture:
6 Tbsp softened butter
6 Tbsp buttermilk
Beat on low speed just until the flour is moistened, then increase the speed to high and beat for 1 ½ minutes. Add one-third of the egg mixture at a time and beat 20 seconds after each addition. Pour batter over fruit.
Bake at 180C (350F) for 35-40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes before unmolding. To turn the cake out, run a knife around the edge to ensure the cake has separated from the pan. Place a plate on top of the pan and quickly flip pan and plate together. Carefully lift off the pan.
It’s that time of year again. A little rain last week, and we’ve got porcini mushrooms (aka Cepes, Boletus edulis), collected from a location that will remain undisclosed, lest others beat us to them.
The wonderful, earthy flavour of these wild mushrooms makes any dish special. Bored with the “usual” meals, I decided to make Friday’s dinner a Fun Friday sort of meal.
Inspired by the mushroom packets in Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Plenty, I put together these divine little parcels that turned dinner into Christmas morning.
The following quantities made nine packets.
600 g small boiling potatoes, cooked
500 g fresh green beans,
125 g fresh oyster mushrooms
1 medium fresh porcini mushroom
½ cup chopped cutting celery
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup chopped fresh oregano
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
½ cup olive oil
1/3 cup half and half
Salt and black pepper to taste
Chop the vegetables and mushrooms into small cubes. Gently mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Place portions of the mix in the centre of large squares of baking parchment. Scrunch up the edges of the parchment and tie with cotton string. Place parcels on a baking sheet.
Bake at 200˚C (400˚F) for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for a minute before serving.
It’s the start of cake season at our house–birthdays come fast and furious in the first quarter of the year. First up is my daughter, who asked for a hedgehog cake this year. I was happy to oblige, and even added some marzipan grass grubs for it to eat.
There are dozens of variations on this tart available on the Internet. Here’s my version. This is best served at room temperature, outdoors on a hot day with a glass of white wine.
2 medium to large red onions
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
500 g chevre or other soft goat cheese
3 eggs
¼ – ½ c chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
pastry for a single crust 10-inch tart (I use my favourite pie dough recipe for this)
Line the tart pan with pastry and allow to chill in the refrigerator as you prepare the filling.
Cut the onions into strips, and sauté on medium-low heat until they are well cooked and beginning to turn golden. Add the vinegar and brown sugar and continue to cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Set aside to cool.
Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the cheese, parsley, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
Spread onions in the bottom of the tart and top with the cheese mixture.
Bake at 200˚C (400˚F) for about 40 minutes until firm and browning on top.
Cool on a rack and serve at room temperature.
It’s apricot season, and though our tree isn’t giving yet, we’ve been buying lots of them. They began to mould today. There was only one thing to do–make apricot upside down cake!
The original upside down cake was made with canned pineapple rings, and was developed as a way to get people to buy canned pineapple. But I think it’s better made with fresh apricot slices.
Now, if only I had some whipped cream to go with this…
I wrote about my husband and daughter starting sauerkraut on 28 December last year. I thought I should post the results of the fermentation that has been going on (rather odiferously) in the weeks since.
They had filled a 3-gallon crock with shredded cabbage—packed tight. Today I canned (bottled) 26 pints of well-fermented sauerkraut!
Robinne Weiss 