BLOG: White Enamel Pie Dish

Fuelling creativity

Mornings start slowly at Local is Lovely's Winter Pracshop - creative story telling. I am keen for a walk and venture out into the atmospheric morning fog. I hear laughter through the mist and recognise the distinctive voices of photographers Luisa and Pip long before I can make them out on the gravel driveway. We are after moody morning pics before breakfast.

This is the fourth of Sophie Hansen's Pracshops, where people sign up for a weekend of creative learning, be it photography, styling, painting or writing. The Pracshops are held at Sophie's parents' Rydal property Kimbri, near Lithgow. They have renovated and extended the house over three decades, to accommodate Annie Herron's residential art classes and students. Now that concept is being stretched further in Sophie's hands.

Our favourite chocolate cake

It is our eldest son’s birthday at the end of this month, so the start of August heralds a month of birthday party planning; when, where, who, and, of course, which cake. With an older 22-year-old daughter I have been making children’s birthday cakes for two decades.  We’ve run the gamut of themed birthday cakes – mermaid, Pokemon, volcano, pirate’s treasure chest, rocket ship, castle, even Harry Potter’s broomstick (the pastry broom head was surprisingly popular). Old faithful The Australian Women’s Weekly Fantastic Cakes and a library of Donna Hay Kid’s Issues are the usual inspiration for our children’s birthday cake selections. Turning 10 is a significant milestone. I wonder if double figures will mark the choice of a more adult cake? With Father’s Day around the same time as our birthday boy’s party you might be looking to make a celebration cake of your own. Here’s our go-to celebration cake, Matthew Evans’ A very good, very chocolaty chocolate cake from Winter on the Farm. Making it, and licking the bowl and chocolate ganache icing pot, is a delight of its own. This cake is so deliciously rich it needs little adornment. Perhaps the best strawberries you can find and some wonderfully tall candles or sparklers to complete the sense of occasion.

Needing pastry

"Why are we so scared of pastry?," our friend Rebecca asks after hearing my spot on ABC Radio New England North West Food Journeys segment with Kelly Fuller and Anna Moulder. I used the opportunity to share two recipes for shortcrust pastry that have never failed me, Sour Cream Pastry (shared previously in a recipe for Greens and Ricotta Torte), and Boiled Water Pastry (below). I felt confident recommending the recipes to pastry novices in the hope they could overcome their fear and soon be serving homemade pastry to friends and family. It turned out that Kelly and Anna both suffered pastry angst and I challenged them to try the recipes. Our conversation about pie fillings, in particular chicken, leek and cashew pie, had me whipping up some Boiled Water Pastry as soon as I returned home.

Carrot cakes on a snowy day

It started snowing a week ago. Our ears prick up when there is talk on the radio about snow down to 600 metres elevation. That's Nundle. Snow at nearby Hanging Rock is not unusual. At 1200m there are snow falls at Hanging Rock several times a year. But snow like we've had the past week - 10cm deep, widespread, on the ground for consecutive days, and visible on the hill tops from our house - is rare. The snow on the hills and rain in the valley make for freezing temperatures, below zero every night this week. It feels like the cold has leeched into the ground and is refrigerating the soil. As we make breakfast and look out the kitchen window Duncan and I notice there is snow on the hill across the road...and it is actually snowing at our house. The distinctive white flakes gently drift to the ground, bringing with them a quiet stillness, but it is not cold enough for them to linger and they quickly turn to water.

Cardamom coffee for a crowd

Just the words ‘cardamom coffee’ on Sophie Hansen’s Local is Lovely blog here intrigue me enough to ask Sophie for the recipe. She warmly obliges and now it is my go-to solution for making coffee for a crowd. Who wants to wait for half a dozen stove top espressos or one stovetop espresso working overtime? And plunger coffee just doesn’t cut it for me. I am making coffee now on my conventional electric stove, and remembering mornings of the weekend just passed with Annabelle Hickson of The Dailys, photographer Luisa Brimble and new friends The Slow Diaries, Lean and Meadow, Caitlin Melling, Liveability, Hunting_and_gathering,Hannahmacmedia, Rae Fallon and Julia Harpham. We warm espresso coffee infused with cardamom, vanilla bean and brown sugar in a saucepan on a campfire or the wood fuelled stove of the shearers’ quarters kitchen of Moorabinda Station at Mingoola in the Dumaresq Valley of northern inland NSW. We serve the cardamom coffee in 125ml Falcon enamelware mini mugs to make the coffee go further and it feels like an exquisite gift.

Pumpkin soup for one

Our friend Peter Wheeler gives us the gift of two pumpkins from his garden at Hangng Rock, just 10km from us, but at 1200m elevation, 600m higher than Nundle. Pumpkins are a contentious issue for our eldest son. If there is a hint of pumpkin on his plate, even a smudge of pumpkin flesh on a fork or knife, dinner can start with tears. Consequently while we used to grow about 50 pumpkins a year, now the only pumpkins we grow are self seeded and the frequency that we eat pumpkin has dropped off. You can understand. I miss it. How good is roast pumpkin?

Hankering for nutmeg

Comfort food with zing

Our boys like a piece of cake in their lunch box for afternoon tea and, considering how much running around they do and that they have fruit and a wrap packed as well, I figure it's a little bit of comfort from home. So with lemons in abundance it is time to use them in as many dishes as possible. I have a real thing for citrus at the moment. It is a nice zingy contrast to some of the heavier slow cooked tomato based stews and roasts we are drawn to in the cooler months. Adding lemon peel to a stew is a good move too. Here's a lovely recipe for Lemon Yoghurt Syrup Cake, torn from The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Living (October 19, 2010). And it reminds me to plant a lemon and orange tree. What cheer and colour their foliage and fruit bring to winter gardens, and what zing they bring to our cooking.

Taste the love

It is an unexpected request when Derek and Kirrily Blomfield of The Conscious Farmer Grassfed Beef, at Caroona on the Liverpool Plains, propose I cook and photograph their beef. I am keen to improve my photography and with a couple of courses and an entry level DSLR under my belt, I am up for the challenge. Derek personally delivers our boxes of beef, an eigth of a beast. The cuts are portioned and labelled so it is easy to reach into the freezer and plan the evening meal.

Discovering Turkish coffee

How is it that you can go through life not knowing something exists and then, wham, it pops up in your life consecutively and becomes a permanent presence in your day. Such is my experience with discovering Turkish coffee. Stylist Stephanie Stematis (aka Stephanie Somebody) introduced me to Turkish coffee while demonstrating making Turkish coffee at Sophie Hansen's Local is Lovely Photography Workshop in November last year. As part of a photography exercise Stephanie lit the cast iron enamelled gas cooker and brewed Turkish coffee in a copper cezve (Turkish coffee pot). She described how as a child she would make Turkish coffee for her grandfather, patiently waiting for the ring of bubbles to form crema around the surface of the brew before removing it from the heat and allowing the grounds to settle and pouring the coffee into espresso glasses.