Author: Judith

my blog is plainandsimpleblog.com
book reviews · recipes

Fika

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Fika Ikea Baking Book

As formalities continue to be shed in an effort to live in a more simplified fashion, so too our food has begun to follow suit. More frequently we are encouraged to eat our meals in a ‘deconstructed’ form. Jamie now scatters his communal dinners across a chopping board, cheesecakes are commonly served up in drinking vessels and salads regularly layered in kilner jars (maybe this is my cue to toss a scoop of Vegemite, a few cheese shavings and some bread in the lunch box for some deconstructed school sandwiches). But I digress. The Scandinavians, or more specifically, Ikea, have had the jump on this mode for years. Their latest contribution to our pared-down existence is their new baking book, Fika, illustrating each recipe as a collection of deconstructed ingredients. Intrigued? So was I.

Fika is the Swedish term for a coffee break, generally shared with others. This book offers a host of recipes perfect for such events. Based on your level of experience and time affordable, you can dip in and out of this baking collection and come up with some delicious treats. The Rustic Biscuits caught my eye, basically because in my ‘deconstructed pantry’ all the elements were present and equally because the bakes could be made in two stages (dough needs to be chilled a while) allowing me to fit swimming lessons in between. And what lovely, crispy little gems they turned out to be:

Rustic Biscuits

Even on a day when baking is not within your reach, this book is a lovely browse, as rarely have I seen a collection of recipes photographed in such a simplistic form. For novice cooks to be able to see baked items broken down this way, leaves very little hiding space for uncertainty or self-doubt to settle. Dismantling kitchen fear and apprehension my friends, can only be a good thing.

100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
1 tbsp. golden syrup
35g blanched almonds, chopped
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 tbsp milk (optional)

  1. Cream butter, sugar and syrup.
  2. Combine almonds, flour and bicarb of soda and then add this mix to the creamed mix.
  3. Work into a dough (at this point, you may or may not need to add the milk, depending on how dry your dough is).
  4. Roll the dough into a long sausage, about 3 cm thick and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for up to an hour or freeze.
  5. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Remove cling film and cut slices of dough about 1 cm thick. Lay these out on trays lined with baking paper.
  6. Bake for 6-8 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

You will need to be forgiving with some of the text in Fika, as we are crossing a fairly challenging language barrier here. The odd ingredient may be foreign, and occasionally ml is used in place of gram, but remember, we are working on our flexibility.

Rustic biscuits and coffee

Postscript: By the way, Fika is a marvellous word to have in your vocabulary when you burn your hand on the oven tray whilst young family members are present.

gardening

Pink

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Pink Blossom

As Winter free-wheels down to its closing stages, a delightful spring teaser surreptitiously unveils. The prunus trees, having been all skeletally grey and bare for many months, miraculously bloom into fluffy marshmallow-esque wonderments. The blossom is about – and spring is drawing closer.

Today my first glimpses are caught through the window of an ever-ferrying suburban car, but as a child quite differently. On crisp mornings casually sauntering along the school route, I would gaze in admiration, as these neighbourhood trees would transform into naturestrip and front-garden showpieces. Should the temperature elevate slightly, making a particular morning unseasonally mild, the bees took an interest equal to mine.

But let me tell you, not all prunus trees are created equally. My backyard hosted a couple of species, one from which my childhood swing was attached. The blossom they produced, while pink and delicate, did not have the voluptuous density of those pictured above. Their display was usually short-lived as they shed quickly. My classmate Anna however, who descended from avid gardening stock, was keeper of prunus that was simply majestic. Anna would arrive in the classroom clutching a spectacular arrangement, ends expertly bound in foil, to present to our teacher. How I coveted her offering.

One morning, when the urge to present a bouquet of my own became too great, I paused on school route and diligently snapped a number of branches off a local tree. Hats off to the teacher, who must have been aware of their origin by the clumsy arrangement and without hesitation, showed equal enthusiasm for my contribution to her desk.

Prunus Blossom

Postscript: and still, not having a sumptuous prunus to call my own, I am once again coveting the beauty of others’ by gazing at and photographing my neighbourhood gems.

recipes

Flexible

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Nutty Lemon Slice

Flexibility is the key. To what you may ask. To everything, actually. To peace, contentment and dare I utter the most platitudinous word of recent times, happiness.

In case you’ve not yet realised, things don’t always go the way we desire, and the botheration of this is not the situation itself but usually, the internal fuss we are making of it. If only we replaced the mental energy exerted on resisting the issue with a more solutions focused outlook, then equilibrium could be restored without delay. Some incredibly gifted individuals I know are masters of this process and I hold them in great esteem, as this is not a skill that comes easily in my camp. I continually marvel at these sages who can turn interruptions into social opportunities, disasters into adventures and failed cakes into puddings. All the while with a smile. I keep them near and watch with awe in the hope that some of their creative thinking will cross the airwaves and seep into my soul.

So as I  wait for this esoteric process to take place, what better way to while away time than to prepare a slice. And this slice is flexibility personified. The biscuits can be anything: gingernuts, shortbreads or butternut snaps. The lemon will interchange with an orange and providing you chop them, the nuts can be any unsalted variety you have packaged away. So in fact this Nutty Lemon Slice, could be reworked by you to become the Ginger Orange Pistachio slice, the Shortbread Lemon Walnut slice or the Chocolate Orange Pecan slice. It’s your call, examine the contents of you pantry and be flexible.

250g pkt Scotch Finger biscuits
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup chopped pistachios
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
125g butter
1 3/4 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup chopped almonds

  1. Line a slice tray with baking paper.
  2. Crush biscuits in a food processor and combine in a bowl with zest, coconut and pistachios.
  3. Stir milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat until melted and combined then pour over dry mix.
  4. Mix well and press into the base of the slice tray. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
  5. To make icing, beat icing sugar, lemon juice and butter together and spread over slice base (add a small amount of hot water if icing is too stiff to spread).
  6. Sprinkle with almonds. Wait until icing has set before cutting into squares.

Get your coffee happening.

Nutty Lemon Slice afternoon tea

Postscript: still waiting….

gardening · homemaking

Float

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camelia bowl

Bursting onto the scene in their usual prolific manner are our winter camellias. Green glossy leaves and copious flowering heads, they brighten our chilly gardens and offer a bounty of cut specimens.

The trick is to outwit the rain. Sudden downpours bruise delicate petals, so cut before the clouds gather overhead. Should you miss the opportunity, do not despair, as camellias bud abundantly so new blooms unfold almost daily. The insect community loves them as we do, so before bringing them indoors, gently brush off to release any outdoor residents. Don’t be hesitant to harvest, as like all shrubs, camellias love a good cutting.

Once indoors, arrange them as you please in vases and jars alike. Way back in the 1930s and 1940s, homemakers loved to display their cut specimens by floating them in round shallow bowl/vases made for the purpose. This 2013 homemaker likes this method as well.

Floating camelias

For your floating centrepiece of beauty, hunt out your widest bowl and fill with water. No wide bowls? I can tell you that thrift shops are bursting at the seams with them, your only dilemma will be whether to go with glass, porcelain or three of each. Trim the stems close to the bloom and save a few leaves to balance the display. If you have access to a number of varieties a mixed bowl looks lavish.

Collect them now, as before long the display season will have come and gone and your dense green leafy shrub will take its place in the general garden scene once again.

cut camelias

Postscript: and hopefully the comments you will receive from your fellow occupants will be less like “How come we always have flowers all over the house!”…..

family · recipes

Blurred Line

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Chocolate Yoghurt Birthday Cake

Whoever drew the dividing line between girlhood and womanhood must have brushed across the ink before it had time to dry, making this transitional time of life is so indistinct. Nothing could illustrate this more clearly for me than when a significant teen-age (17) was celebrated at our home this week.

The media darkly cautions us of the increasing ‘sophistication’ of our young girls. Accordingly, contemporary parents hold their breath when the question of a ‘party’ is raised, fearing the worst. Before I had the opportunity to exhale, our impending event was carefully mapped out before me – a sleepover for eleven, pyjamas, DVDs, pizzas and a pancake breakfast. Could it be that simple?

As I mentally prepared for sly grog, inappropriate footage and complex sleeping arrangements, the party-goers minds’ were elsewhere. They instead were busily packing onesies, sleeping mats and wait for it – The Lion King.

Upon arrival, as I stood superfluously to one side, mats were unfurled and arranged tetris-like in our living area so one and all could reach for the lolly snakes, take a swig of orange-fizz and most importantly, not miss a frame of Simba’s struggle against the hyenas to restore peace in the Pride Lands…

So, as I had been relieved of my duties of bag searching, door security or police dialling, there was nothing else left to do other than tie the bow around the cake, position the lawn daisies into the slowly setting icing, and dip a leftover party pie into an abandoned bowl of tomato sauce.

1 1/2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup raspberry jam
1/2 cup natural yoghurt
3 eggs
200g melted butter
50g dark chocolate
40g butter

  1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake pan.
  2. Combine self-raising flour, cocoa and brown sugar.
  3. Stir in raspberry jam, yoghurt, eggs and melted butter.
  4. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth the surface. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.
  5. Melt dark chocolate and 40g butter in a bowl over hot water until smooth. Set aside to thicken slightly. Pour the icing over the cake and leave to set.
  6. Raid your sewing box and garden for decorative pieces.

Fairy Bread

Postscript: and of all provisions supplied, guess which two plates were the first to vanish?

gardening · recipes

Golden

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Golden Wattle

Nothing speaks of mid-Winter in Melbourne quite like the golden wattle. With a choice of bare deciduous or lush green rain-fed under-growth, our early winter neighbourhood landscape generally lacks imagination. Suddenly as the season gets into its stride, strollers, joggers, cyclists and commuters are met with glorious bursts of vivid yellow, and the collective relief can be heard in communal expression, ‘the wattle is out!’

The distance travelled is relatively small for my first glimpse of the golden beauty. Not far short of my mail-box, a neighbour has a majestic specimen lighting up our grove. Throughout the year it blends chameleon-like in an ash-green shade amongst other leafy companions putting on their summer display. As the season pulls out its crispest of days, the summer pretties are leafless and forgotten – but now the wattle takes centre stage.

And fortunate we are, as short drive through our district reveals an incredible variety. The early flowerers are now fading, the golden is in her prime and others are poised to burst. A spectrum of gold has painted our neighbourhood, it surely is Winter.

Wattle, though magnificent an outdoor display, does not fare well indoors. It’s pungent aroma tickles the allergies and the tiny florets sprinkle the surfaces. So for us, indoor winter gold must come in this form:

Lemon Deliciious Pudding

Lemon Delicious pudding. All things golden: butter, egg yolks, lemon and crust. Gold.

100g softened butter
grated rind and juice of 1 large lemon
2/3 cup caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sifted SR Flour
1 1/4 cups milk
icing sugar to dust

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius and grease a casserole dish.
  2. Cream the butter with the lemon rind and sugar.
  3. Beat in the egg yolks.
  4. Stir in the flour alternately with the milk.
  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture with the lemon juice, lightly and gently.
  6. Pour into casserole dish and bake for 45-50 minutes.
  7. Dust with icing sugar and serve hot with cream or ice-cream.

Hot lemon delicious pudding

Postscript: So as the neighbourly tree lit up our street, this lemony pudding did its part shining in the kitchen.

recipes

Meatloaf

Judith2 Comments

sticky glazed meatloaf

It may be sacrilegious to say this, but this meatloaf performed in true loaves and fishes style recently. Spanning a number of meals (ie intended dinner to lunchtime rolls with relish) and across the suburb – to my mother and her temporarily housebound neighbour, it just kept on giving. All were sated and many enquired about seconds. Not customary for the humble weeknight meatloaf – but this one was holding a couple of illicit secrets close to its glazed chest. Bourbon and coffee.

I’m not sure how many meatloaves I’ve shaped and baked over the years, but most have been met with reasonable appreciation – although never requested for birthday meals. Hearty, hale and hot, they do their winter mealtime job well. However, as with all things in life, there is always room for improvement. So when Masterchef’s hale and hearty Matt P coated his meatloaf in homemade barbeque sauce, it occurred to me how just how naked our meatloaves had been.

Once this sauce was whipped up, there was plenty to dress the meatloaf in and ample over to freeze for rissole and burger nights to come.

250ml tomato sauce
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp English mustard powder
120g treacle
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp paprika
2 tbspn Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup  maple syrup
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 tbspn brown sugar
3 tbspn bourbon
1 espresso shot

  1. Combine all ingredients except for bourbon and espresso in a saucepan set over medium heat.
  2. Cook for 20 minutes or until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally.
  3. Add bourbon and espresso, stir to combine.

If you need a simple meatloaf recipe to play with this one makes a good starting point. If there are herbs or condiments that you prefer, simply add them and take out those that don’t appeal. Shape the loaf and bake it for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and brush liberally with the barbeque sauce and bake for a further 30-40 minutes or until well cooked through. Slice and serve with mash and steamed greens. Now you’re ready to feed the masses.

Meatloaf glazed in BBQ sauce

Postscript: If a strong shot of coffee and good swig of bourbon has a kid eating meatloaf and a neighbour feeling better, then I say bring it.

craft · homemaking

Jars

Judith2 Comments

Painted jar vases

The prospect of painting a kitchen is a daunting one.

With seemingly endless cupboard doors, handles, nooks and crannies to sand, coat and recoat, the mother lode of mental discipline is required to remain on task without flinging the brush in the air and dialling a tradesman.

Fortunately, mammoth tasks have inbuilt motivators. As small sections take shape, like giant jigsaws, the puzzler is gradually fed clues to the total picture. That urge to see the completed vista mobilizes a further sift through the box – and another lick of paint. While my current internal mantra is to ‘eat this mammoth one bite at a time’, some instant gratification is required. Spying empty glass jars near the drooling paint can, meant today, some new vases were born.

painted passata jar vase

And being that it is daffodil season here right now, there is no better time to create something simple and understated for them to sing in.

The beauty of jars is that they come in all shapes, so choose yours with its resident in mind. A short squat vessel is perfect for herbs, while a tall slim bottle will display your single bloom with elegance. Don’t buy paint, I’m sure you have an old tin lurking from a long distant refurbishment. Give it a shake and prize off the lid. Away you go and coat as many little receptacles as you wish. Mine needed two good coats with plenty of drying time in between.

So scrape out that last bit of marmalade and retrieve that passata bottle from the recycling box, and before the day is through you may not have consumed your entire elephant, but you sure will have something pretty to look at while you contemplate the next bite.

cosy space

Postscript: and at the end of a paint splattered day, how lovely it was to retire to a cosy corner and be cheered by daffodils and hellebores in their new homes.

recipes

Thrift

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Chicken cacciatore

The appearance of smoked oysters, Red Tulip After Dinner Mints or a roasted chicken signalled only one thing in my early years – a special occasion. An odd combination you may observe, but the common denominator was price tag. By economic necessity, these expensive  indulgences had to be restricted to events involving guests or calendar holidays. Today, the oyster packets are tossed into the trolley without hesitation and sadly, the individually enveloped mints are no longer. The chicken, however, once a precious commodity, due to modern farming techniques is now regarded as one of our affordable protein options and a regular inclusion in the weekly shop.

In my mother’s rural growing years, my grandfather would ‘harvest’ one of his birds for the celebration table. By the time I was growing up in the suburbs, backyard chook houses had become redundant, so to secure a bird, there was financial outlay to be considered. Today, my children witness me unwrapping white paper deli parcels of select chicken joints with neither an axe nor king’s ransom to be had.

While on the subject of economy, chicken performs beautifully in our kitchens. As practised cooks we come to learn, it is the bone centred cuts of the bird that give biggest flavour –  and require smallest outlay. Some slow gentle cooking is all that is required to produce succulent tender meat playing an excellent host to all of the vegetables in its surrounding sauce. Every culture and region has its method for ‘hot-potting’ its chicken and vegetables, but it is the Italians I turn to in these circumstances. Chicken cacciatore has been served from my kitchen on occasions too numerous to contemplate, but the result is always delicious and cost effective.

olive oil
8 chicken drumsticks
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 green capsicum, sliced
1 red capsicum, sliced
200g button mushrooms, thickly sliced
a small handful of black olives, pitted
440g can whole peeled tomatoes
250ml chicken stock
salt and pepper
fresh or dried oregano
2 bay leaves

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Heat the oil in a heavy-based, oven proof pan and brown chicken well. Remove chicken and set aside. Add some extra oil to the pan and sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add the capsicums, and mushrooms and cook for 3 to 5 minutes.  Add the olives and pour over the tomatoes and stock. Mix well and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and season well with salt and pepper. Add the oregano and bay leaves and cover pan. Place pan in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes. Serve over steamed rice.

If you don’t have an oven-proof frying pan, simply transfer into a casserole dish for baking.

Italian Chicken Casserole

Postscript: Some may consider that today’s cook has the advantage with access and affordability. I think otherwise. With limits on supply comes resourcefulness, prudence and conservation – not to mention, my grandfather’s completely natural product.

health and wellbeing

Lucky

JudithLeave a comment

Lolly, black cat

Fortuna, the Roman goddess of good fortune has made her presence felt here of late. Albeit subtlety, she has none the less left a significant impression in her wake. Evidence of her being has manifested itself in a scattering of pleasantries serving as incidental reminders that life has does have its peaks as well as valleys.

The celestial lady brushed past the garden bed and our Winter morning was greeted by a burst of butter yellow – the daffodils had bloomed. As if by magic, there were twice as many again after a  summer of concealed underground division and multiplication. The kitchen table will be receiving extra jugfuls this season.

On a weekend predicted by weather forecasters to be bitter and wet, Fortuna hovered overhead, and so it was a long trained for and highly anticipated distance run was enjoyed under a sunny, dry sky. She dusted away any trace of overnight cloud cover, so as participant runners, we could witness our city gradually materialise at daybreak as we took our early steps.

In her wisdom, Fortuna knew of the tawny owl rustling amongst our fenceline trees, and also of our delight upon discovering it as it flew from its leafy cover to a telephone pole in full view. I wonder was it her doing that a foreign noise alarmed us enough to venture outside, only to happen on this exquisite bird?

And finally, planets aligned this week affording both parents the opportunity to be present at the youngest child’s school ceremony – absolute kismet when work schedules and school timetables intersect. Thanks Mam.

Horseshoe

Postscript: and then I glanced around at the family, the cosy warm home and the meal we were about to eat and I realised that Fortuna had not just paid us a recent visit, but has been with us always.

Acknowledgement must also be given to Lolly, a friend’s lucky black feline who posed in a suitably mysterious fashion to illustrate this post. How fortunate was that?