Edible christmas gifts

For the past few Christmases I have cooked a batch of something to give to friends, neighbours and anyone who I'd like to know that I appreciate them. I enjoy the planning, cooking and making cute little packages, finishing them with hand printed tags. All very satisfying!

Last year I made jars of caramelised red onion chutney and packaged them with a box of crackers and some brie. The year before was peppermint bark in cellophane bags with pretty ribbons. This year I wanted to try cordials to mix with soda water or iced water (or possibly vodka for the grown-ups ;-) So I tested  out lime this time.



I tried this recipe, which I liked, though it was a bit sweet (the kids love it, obviously!) and I'll adjust it next time. I also love the look of this rhubarb cordial and will try that one too. And in preparation for the gifts I bought some empty bottles from Ikea.



I made a little citrus stamp and used it on a hand written tag with some jute ribbon. I packed up a bottle to give to a lovely friend as thanks for a favour, along with a fresh lime to slice and add to her drinks.



While at Ikea (and will food gifts in mind) I spied the lovely fabric above, which previously had not appealed at all to me, and thought it would make lovely shopping tote bags. See, the sewing sneaks in yet again ;-)

I'll also probably make some more celery salt, one of my favourite little condiments which we use a lot and is quick and easy to prepare, plus there's the opportunity to do some more stamping. And the colour fits well with the Christmas theme too. Important details in the scheme of things!



... and another option would be Apple Jam, a pretty safe bet that most people will like it.



I think I'm starting to get into the spirit of Christmas now. A little craft will do that! How about you - planning any edible gifts?

Rhubarb icecream addiction

My latest food fad is rhubarb, and in particular homemade rhubarb ice cream. It's so tangy, creamy, sweet and prettily pink. I am seriously tempted to make batch after batch of it and fill our freezer for when rhubarb season is finished ;-)



Recently I found myself in possession of lots of rhubarb when I bought a huge bunch at the markets and then went to visit my mum who had heaps of it growing and also gave me some. I vaguely remembered having a rhubarb ice cream cone in an independent cinema once and being blown away by the taste, so thought I'd try to recreate it. My first, quite lame, attempt involved just stewing the fruit with sugar and a little water  and then stirring it into softened vanilla ice cream. But it was too hard, not creamy enough and just not right :-(



Then I stumbled upon this extremely simple recipe and it's a winner! If you're even a mild rhubarb fan, try it, I think you'll like it.



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Rhubarb ice cream (recipe based on this one)

500 grams rhubarb
250 grams caster sugar
150 ml double cream  

Wash and chop the rhubarb into smallish pieces, put into a large pan along with the sugar and put the lid on. Leave to simmer until the fruit is soft. Allow to cool and then refrigerate until cold.
Mix the rhubarb and cream together then pour into an ice-cream maker* and churn until thick. Eat straight away or store in the freezer. When serving from the freezer allow to thaw slightly before serving.

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*I'm not sure if I'd try to make it without an ice cream maker (I just have a small cheap model that does the churning for you) as you do want the texture to be light and I'm not sure this would be possible by hand?

A weekend away

Last weekend we had a few days away with some old friends, one of which had just celebrated her birthday.

 

We enjoyed staying at a great house again. I wish I lived here for all the great photo backdrops!

And we enjoyed cooking and eating some great food, including this naan made by birthday girl. Note the many uses for a wine bottle :-)

We also enjoyed some of our favourite beverages, including champagne (birthday girl's favourite), great wines (wisely chosen by birthday girl's guitar playing other half) and great coffee - our friends are as obsessed by good coffee as we are so we always take the coffee machine, grinder and fresh beans with us ;-) And last but not least we had this amazing ginger beer that I've been dreaming of ever since, made with birthday girl's favourite cooking gadget.

Of course there was also time for some crafting by the kids and us big girls.

 

Including a new addition to my ever expanding array of polymer clay necklaces, this one using a metallic grey clay.

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Has anyone else been having troubles with the new Blogger interface? The formatting is doing my head in... arghh!

Chocolate pomegranate gift biscuits

My big girl has 2 teachers this year and they're both great. So I didn't want to miss the opportunity to show a little appreciation when I found out that one of them was celebrating their birthday. I wanted to cook something... considered making a jar a homemade harissa, but suddenly had a vague memory of him saying once that he loved chocolate. Perfect! I can do something chocolatey...



While searching for inspiration I saw this blog post about Chocolate Pomegranate Biscuits. I put this on the mental shortlist, along with chocolate biscotti and truffles.



When, just a few hours later, totally unprompted, the Mr bought home not one but three pomegranates, I knew I had to try it!



Instead of using Dana's recipe though, or the original one, I used this egg-free recipe (out of habit/so my big girl could try them). The pomegranate seeds were added last along with the choc chips.



And I used this technique for de-seeding the pomegranates - it's effective and fun!



Of course making a pretty parcel is half the fun of giving home baked gifts. I stamped my kitchen stamp onto a piece of metallic card and wrote our message.

Hopefully the teacher will like them, it's always hard to guess other people's tastes. But for me, crunchy biscuit, gooey chocolate and little bursts of fresh pomegranate juice are a pretty good combo ;-)

My creative space: pop tarts

Creativity of the cooking kind today....



Whilst trying to think of a filler for lunch boxes last night I remembered this great post from Smitten Kitchen on pop tarts. I don't actually know if we have pop tarts in Australia, and I've never tried one. But the kids have been getting quite addicted to some store bought pastry-ish fruity snack bars, so I thought I would try to make a homemade version. Not that I'm against store bought snacks (I'm currently addicted to salt & vinegar flavoured rice cakes - much like eating a salty piece of styrofoam), but I don't want us to get too reliant on them. And it's nice to know what's in your food.



So I took tips from Smitten Kitchen, including her jam filling suggestion (thicken with cornflour) but used a standard sweet shortcrust pastry recipe (as hers had egg in and that would have excluded my allergic girl from the fun).

As a snack I liked these and will probably make them again, maybe trying the brown sugar & cinnamon filling next time. Do you have a current favourite snack?

More creative spaces over here.

Easter long weekend

Hi, how was your Easter weekend? Ours was spent having a bit of a break from technology (for me at least) and enjoying some family time (when we weren't having tantrums that is - hey, that's a 3 year-old's job, isn't it?!).

We did some of our favourite things:
Went for walks...


built sand castles...


spent ages throwing pebbles into the water...


looked for crabs and other creatures...


and made and ate hot cross buns... (I used the trusty no-knead method and added sugar, spices, sultanas and some choc chips - thank goodness for something edible after my recent pumpkin failure ;-)


Not to mention celebrating my mum's birthday (Happy Birthday mum!), hunting for Easter eggs then negotiating the eating (or not) of those eggs, lazing around in the new pyjamas and plenty of wrestling with uncles and cousins - the kids that is, not me ;-)

I hope you had time to relax and recharge the batteries! What did you get up to?

My creative space

I'm playing along with Kootoyou's Thursday 'My Creative Space' this week. Lots more creativity over there to check out.



Squeezing in a little sewing when I could today, I started making another Shearwater kaftan. I find the design perfect for this weather - the sun is often very strong and it's the hottest part of the day when the littlies and I walk to pick up the big girl from school. Sleeves are needed as protection but I can't stand anything thick. So this style of shirt, a skirt and a wide brimmed hat (more on that later) provide pretty good protection. I think this will be the fourth one I've made (one here and another here), each with some little details that make them different to the others (apart from the fabric).

I got this printed soft voile at the sale of this shop. Damn the sale, I'm meant to be stash busting, not re-stocking! But at $9 per metre I thought it was a steal, and $9 for a new shirt is great, right?!



Also I guess on the creative front I made a dinner tonight that I was actually a bit enthusiastic about. Normally I love cooking, and even when the daily grind gets me down a bit I can still muster up a bit of enthusiasm, but not lately. Maybe it's the heat? It's hard to have an appetite with this weather. But I had a packet of soba noodles in the cupboard and inspired by a few things I've seen lately, like this salad over at ecoMILF, I thought I'd build the meal around it. I added some tofu and also cooked some fresh salmon for the kids and the Mr. It turned out well so I'll make sure I always have a packet in the cupboard from now on.

Double-up baking

My thoughts have turned to baking today as I start to get into the festive baking mood, finally. Top of my list is going to be some crispy thin biscotti to have with coffee on Christmas morning, but for today, this first day of holidays for the kids, we have made:

Two loaves of cinnamon bread, one for my lovely friend who recently gave me a huge bag of flour. Recipe the same as this one but instead of the individual rolls, lately I've been making it into one big snail shape and baking til very brown. That's the butter and sugar caramelising on the outside - it's worth a little scorching slightly to make sure the inside is cooked all the way through to avoid the dreaded doughy-stodge syndrome! The base is all crispy with sugar and butter and the inside squidgy and soft.



Also two loaves of banana bread with the addition of a handful of raspberries. One loaf for us and one the freezer, as it freezes really well.

Hope you're feeling cooking inspired too as we hurtle towards the holiday season.

Homemade sushi (and 'vegetarian snails')

I'm enjoying these school holidays much much more than the last one. Which is possibly because we'd just had a holiday recently and so are not burnt out, or because the weather is warmer and not so rainy, or a mixture of both. I'd also like to think, though, that I'm getting a bit better at working out how much activity they need to keep them happy without overdoing it and making myself stressed and tired along the way. Do you identify with that?

One organised activity we did have on last week was a kids cooking class run by our local council, which was great fun. They made 3 dishes, including sushi. I'd never made this before but after watching them I thought surely if kids can do it then I can! I thought we'd give it a go as a little holiday activity of our own.

So off we went to the fantastic local asian grocery store I've posted about before for some supplies, including this lot:



It's always an interesting excursion with the kids, who love seeing all the different things including the fresh chicken feet in the butchery section - which I walk past rather quickly! The thing that caught my eye this time was the 'vegetarian' section of the freezer. As a vegetarian, I don't want my food to smell, look or taste like meat, but obviously not everyone shares my view, as the following packs show. I've always found the 'mock' foods fascinating but I thought this took it to another level. I couldn't resist whipping out my iphone "dum-de-dum... I'm just checking my phone, click click click" to show you:









and my personal favourite - vegetarian snails!



Anyway... the sushi making was lots of fun. It was also very, very messy - imagine extremely sticky rice, small pieces of vegetables, bowls of water (for wetting the seaweed sheets) and extremely excited 5 and 2 year olds! The Mr, who is known here for his love and tending of clean floors (an interesting pursuit with 3 kids under 6 - hmm!), would have had heart failure if he'd seen it! But go girls! You did a great job x

Bread of the week - cinnamon scrolls

Following on from last week's bread post, here's the first 'bread of the week', cinnamon scrolls.

I like to make my big girl a snack to have after her early morning class at school on Wednesdays. I try to cook enough to send one to work with the Mr and keep some at home to take to the park with the littlies.

The basic bread recipe works well as scrolls and we've tried a few fillings, sweet and savoury, but I think this is one of the big girl's favourites. She requested it last night - well, she requested chocolate filling, but this was her second choice, we'll leave the chocolate ones for the weekend (a girl after my own heart :-)

OK, start off by pulling out a lump of dough from the fridge. I used about a third of the full container. Pull and stretch it (or you can use a rolling pin if you prefer) into a rough rectangle (I did about 30 x 20cm) and let it rest til it comes to room temperature or at least for a while. Set the oven to 220c with oven shelf at the top and pizza stone in if you have one. Spread on a mixture of softened butter (I used about 2 tablespoons), sugar (about 1 tablespoon) and cinnamon (however much you like).

Then sprinkle on some sultanas and some more cinnamon.

Start rolling it up from the long side, lifting as you roll so you don't squish all the filling out. When you get to the end pinch the long side shut and pinch the ends shut.

With the seam underneath, cut your roll into equal lengths (I did pieces of around 3 cm and ended up with 10). I like to use one of my trusty Victorinox serrated knives. My brother gave me a set a while ago and they are great - very sharp! Dip your knife into flour each time you cut and use a light sawing motion.

Now lay them cut side up onto a piece of baking paper, close together but with a bit of room to spread. That way you'll get some with nice crisp outer edges and some soft squidgey ones from the centre.

Then slide them into the oven. This can be a little tricky. I take them to the oven on a flat surface like a plate, chopping board or placemat, pull out the oven shelf a bit, then slide the paper over onto the pizza stone.

I didn't have a free hand to take a pic of me sliding it onto the stone (didn't want to bother him indoors to help me on a school morning!) but here it is on the pizza stone. Alternatively you could just put them on a baking tray, but if you have one I think the pizza stone works well and is worth the effort of the sliding.

Cook for about 10 minutes. You'll know they're ready when they are puffy and starting to brown around the edges. Don't worry if some are paler in colour than others. Admittedly they don't have the uniformity of store-bought scrolls but I like to think of these as having a kind of rustic beauty! Leave til cool enough to handle then pull apart and enjoy.


It's so nice to be photographing food in the daylight! That morning light is lovely, as opposed to the kitchen halogens that never give a great light.

Bagel therapy

As far as I'm aware Australians are not big on bagels, not that we don't like them, just that we haven't had the exposure to them that others have. Personally I haven't eaten a lot of them but there was a time a couple of years ago that I look back on fondly which involved bagels...

My little girl was about 6 months old and was sleeping terribly - up every hour and a half through the night and very whingy. This had been going on a while and left me feeling exhausted, often upset and quite down. A bright spot in my week was taking the girls (my big girl was 3 at the time) to a lovely dance class in a nearby suburb every Thursday morning. The girls loved the fun relaxed atmosphere and I loved the break in routine, seeing them having fun, the chance to catch up with my very supportive friends, and visiting the nearby cafe afterwards. The cafe is the type I really enjoy, interesting and vibrant. They had great coffee and these fantastic blueberry bagels served with ricotta and jam. It was just the pick-me-up I needed.

So when I started seeing posts on blogs about this simple recipe I thought I must try it. On the weekend I made a batch, half of them savoury with sesame seeds and salt flakes on top and served them with cream cheese and capers. The other half I sprinkled liberally with sugar and put some blueberries on top, trying to replicate the cafe ones*. I also got out a tin of blackberries I'd had in the back of the pantry for a while and put them in a saucepan with some sugar and a little lemon juice and just cooked it down for ages until it was syrupy*, to have with the bagels and cream cheese (in the absence of ricotta, which would have been better). They worked really well and I'll definitely make them again.

* apologies to any serious bagel or jam cooks out there!