Food, Finds & Forays
Hey there....
Hope you're having a great week. Mine’s been lovely, warm mornings drawing me outside to water the garden fortifying it for sun bathed days. I’ve been pottering alongside my neighbour’s bee swarm who happily feast on the pollen served in the last of my Flander’s Poppies. We tend to our botanical morning chores companionably, them buzzing industriously, harvesting the lovely yellow dust from the gently swaying red blooms and me with head on a swivel watching for the odd angry bee who didn’t get the memo and goes rogue looking to defend the hive and poke his pointy butt in me. I love watching them at work and listening to their busy hum but I suspect I’m not quite as interesting to them and am ever watchful of their movements.
Though everything feels suddenly busy as December begins and lockdowns end I’ve nonetheless been contemplating the season and hunting for inspiration to add to my Christmas arsenal. I have some lovely finds for you this week, a delicious salad for easy entertaining on balmy nights to come, a feel good/does good gift for socially conscious art and food lovers and some inspiration for delicious home made offerings.
On the subject of food I’ve been in a reflective mood recalling the first time I bit into a soft chewy cookie as a little girl. Different from the crunchy biscuits we all grew up with here, American style cookies, almost fudgy in texture, were a revelation to my young palate many years ago and have remained a firm favourite. I’ve shared my take on the classic this week creating a soft centred cookie enclosing maple soaked raisins, pecans and oozy chocolate. I hope you love them and they make you smile too.
And finally a mums treat to celebrate the end of the year with a dear friend and a new to me restaurant along with a few others you might like to look at yourselves to visit or store away for your next trip to Vic.
As always, enjoy the rest of your week. I hope you're enjoying lots of happy times with the people you love and doing the things you've missed while still finding time to relax. Because lets face it if there's one thing we have learnt these last two years is to embrace a slower pace sometimes.
Sal xx
Food
I have no idea how old I was when I first discovered Mrs Fields Cookies but I do remember being a little girl who until then had no idea a cookie could taste like that. Soft, chewy, oozy and all those flavours. All I’d ever eaten was crisp and crunchy cookies, or biscuits as we call them here (I know, so confusing for American readers). Following British culture at the time, the traditional American cookie style treat was a revelation to my little tastebuds. Now, of course they’re the norm here and available all over as are recipes for them.
My kids love a traditional chocolate chip cookie, nice and simple with milk chocolate chips. I on the other hand and not surprisingly like something a bit more interesting, a loaded cookie if you will. Adding a little bit of dark chocolate with raisins steeped in warmed maple syrup seems to make each flavour a little richer and dance around together amidst a little crunch of fresh pecans. Ever so slightly undercooked to preserve that soft chewy middle something yummy bursts forth in each bite.
Ingredients:
2/3 c raisins
2 tb maple syrup
250 gm unsalted butter at room temp
¾ c brown sugar
¼ c white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract/paste
2 ½ c plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking powder
2 eggs beaten at room temp
2/3 c chocolate chips (I use dark but a mix of dark and milk or just mild is fine)
2/3 c roughly chopped pecans
1 tsp salt flakes
Method:
Preheat oven 180 c. In a small saucepan, over a low heat, warm the maple syrup until small bubbles form on the edge of the pan. Immediately pour over the raisins and allow to stand in a small bowl to cool.
In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment start the butter on low speed until smooth (1-2 mins) then increase to high speed for 2 mins scraping down once during that time. Add sugars and vanilla and cream on high speed until lighter in colour. Add the beaten eggs in two batches until smooth.
Add the remaining ingredients and set the mixer to low speed until combined completely.
Pop the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes while you prepare your trays and tidy up. This allows, what is a wettish mixture to firm up slightly in order to roll them.
Roll the mixture into golf ball size balls and place a few cms apart as they will spread. Gently press down with your hand or the back of a spoon to half the height and bake for 8-10. They’ll be light brown on the edges. Allow to cool five mins on the tray then transfer to a rack to cool. You might like to finish with a light flourish of sea salt flakes to make them extra yummy.
Finds
How’s your Christmas preparations going? I’ve done a lot of my shopping so far. If there’s one thing this last two years has taught me is the honed skill of online shopping so I’ve got quite a bit sorted.
Two things I always do is make a donation to charity and treat myself to something little. This year I’ve managed to tick off two birds with one stone with this gorgeous piece, the result of a collaboration with uber talented Emiko Davies. The philosophy of this unique social enterprise really resonated with me, they had me at “…coming together over a meal is universally binding – a common language we all share.” You can read more about their story here but this one poster will contribute 90 meals to those in need. Pretty amazing I think.
Every year without fail I vow that this will be the year I bake and make special treats and gifts for friends, family and special folk and every year without fail the weeks pass until Christmas is literally knocking on the door. Madly I run around like a proverbial headless chook baking in the last couple of days before the big day and after we’ve caught up with everyone in the usual Christmas whirl. Christmas treat surplus anyone? This year though I’m taking a leaf out of this beautiful collection of ideas by the doyenne of food to share and gift, Sophie Hansen. And I’m going to start this week! There! I’ve said it! Now I have to do it. Keep me honest folks, I need the push. I think I'll start with the chutney though those little biscuits have got my attention.
One of my favourite new Instagram discoveries is this fab account and blog featuring cook book reviews. I know, lethal, but stay with me. The joy and beauty of Kris’s account is the world of books I’ve discovered that I may not have otherwise heard about here in Australia. My bank balance might argue otherwise but we can ignore that. My latest acquisition, courtesy of one of Kris’s reccs, is this beautiful book. I have so many pages bookmarked but this is my favourite dish so far and thought you might like to check it out for your xmas tables. It screams Christmas dotted with tasty little jewels of dried cranberries and crunchy roasted cashews and the left over dressing was delicious on a pasta salad the next day.
**Salad image credit The Splendid Table Blog
**Biscuit image credit Local Lovely - Sophie Hansen
Forays
When my youngest started school all those years ago he hit off with a young fella with whom he remains friends today. Thankfully his mum and I hit it off too and we also remain friends all these years later. In fact we discovered during a spring clean of old photos that, in another lifetime, we went to kindergarten together ourselves!! During the primary school years when life was always a blur, we used to treat ourselves to a fancy lunch to celebrate surviving each term of school. Twelve years on and we still maintain the tradition. The boys have finished school so we don’t have the four terms to celebrate the end of anymore but we still treat ourselves each Christmas. This year after the two years we’ve had and so many catch ups missed we’re treating ourselves to something a little extra. We're frocking up and heading into the city to dine at the gorgeous Farmer’s Daughter. A beautiful restaurant not only featuring regional produce but exclusively showcasing that of the greater Gippsland region. It’s one of the restaurants I’ve been eager to try these last two long years. I did consider going here or even heading to the Yarra Valley to re-visit this one but am glad we’ve chosen FD and trying something new. I’ll report back with photos and full de-brief in the new year. Now that we’re all getting out and about is there anywhere you’re anxious to try? Any spots I need to put on my list you can suggest to me? I’d love to hear your recommendations.
