Author: Fabi

Solstice festival on Scotland Island

Solstice Festical

This weekend, the local kindy organised their annual solstice festival.  This year it was really quite large and started at 10 am with breakfast food till night fall at 5 pm with a lantern parade made by children during the day.   There were many local bands playing all day and  a number of stalls to browse through by local creative people and other community members.

Scotland Island

My first stall

I had a stall where I intended to sell a number of the ceramics pots I have in boxes (I have more than we need at home).  Thinking that ceramics was not on its own representative of who I am, I completed the stall with a good baking of bread, biscuits, croissants and cakes.

In the end, I sold a few ceramic pieces (plenty left if you are local and want to go through for a gift or for yourself) and all breads and cakes!

Cakes , biscuits and recipes

Chocolate chip cookies

This chocolate chip cookies are a family favourite, can’t go wrong. This time, Ambrine made them and opted for milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate.

solstice

Madeleines

At home, this is another classic. Madeleines are quick to make, simple and small in size.  A little zest of lemon adds a little zing!

solstice

I called it the “chocolate brownie cake”, this is the Gateau de Suzy

The Gateau de Suzy is another simple recipe. The only step that must be done carefully is beating the eggs and sugar until very fluffy, with a food processor this is simple, by hand this is just a little more tiring !

brownie cake

brownie cake
Almost gone!

The hazelnut chocolate torte

This is a new one in my collection. I have now uploaded the recipe. Yummy! It is a more technical, no denying it but not so hard that you should not try. Follow the recipe to the letter!  By the way, it is gluten free.

gluten free chocolate hazelnut

The croissants

Only a photo, no recipe at this stage, I am still in the learning stage.

croissants

croissantsThe sourdough baguettes

They found a new home reasonably quick. One was bought by a child who ate most of it straight away!  Their recipe is HERE.

And what else?

Moss balls! With local plants. Bringing the rainforest to your house.

Cooking for sharing

Cooking for sharing

One of the reason I like cooking is to place the dish in the middle of the table for everyone to share.  Of course when you go to a restaurant, you get the dish you selected from the menu.  At home, at friends, I love when the dish is put on the table.  This may sound obvious to some of you if you haven’t been in countries where plates are plated in the kitchen and brough to the guests.

Our family lives on a small island in the northern part of Sydney. As our children and their friends from next door were all day coming back and forth between the two house, we decided to have a common dinner. Each family brought their dish and, …wahoo, what a feast we had: soup, salmon, flat bread, curry, dal and chocolate cake for dessert!

table to share
Dishes to share served with flat bread (fresh from the pan!)

The soup of the day

The soup of the day was a vegetable soup, a French classic: the potato leek soup.  Here you go: one big potato (or 2 small), 1 small leek, 2 carrots, rock salt and water just covering the vegetables. Simmer until cooked then blend.

You can use other vegetables and add a little complexity, this is a base recipe.

The soup can be served on its own or with a teaspoon of creme fraiche.  Add an egg or a little fried Haloumi and here is a meal!

Baked Salmon with capers, red onion and chestnuts

I have already posted about that simple method of preparing fish. I enjoy it because it is simple, full of flavours, looks good and results in a very light dish.  You will find the recipe HERE.

pot de saumon

And for breakfast we had fresh croissants

And for breakfast we had fresh croissants, so did two other families nearby. I hadn’t made croissants for a long long time. It had something to do with not being satisfied of how the flakiness had been.  The idea of baking viennoiseries had been in my mind for a few weeks, I had a good ides what I had to improve.  I had been making sure to have the right butter available at home just in case I felt like taking the dive. Somehow, my youngest daughter asked for some Saturday morning. Here was  the excuse I needed.

When making croissants, it is difficult to make a small quantity because you need a minimum volume of dough for the lamination process (the process that makes those flaky buttery layers).  I used a recipe based on dry yeast, this at least was not to be left to good luck.  I had been quite unlucky with fresh yeast recently, and anyway, I did not have any.

From 500 g of flour, I got 15 pieces, mostly croissants , a few pains au chocolat and a few  torsades (think braids) I made using long strips cut from the sides of the dough when first rolled.   I am quite pleased with the result.

The recipe needs a fair documenting with photos which I do not yet have, it is not on my blog for now.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Baked salmon fillet

Find a nice piece of salmon fillet for the number of people you want to feed (ask your fishmonger) for this baked salmon fillet dish and prepare it in a gratin ceramic dish. This recipe is very easy.

Serve this with a green salad or blanched french beans. If you would like a meal a little more consistent add couscous semolina or rice.

Ingredients:

For 4 people.

  • 1 large piece of salmon fillet (bones out if possible)
  • 1 tbsp of capers
  • 1/2 red onion
  • fresh thyme,  fresh rosemary or fresh sage (your choice, if you don’t know choose what you have at home or some thyme – my favourite)
  • 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (10-15 cherry tomatoes, if you only have normal size tomato, go for two of them but in eight pieces each.
  • Olive oil
  • Rock salt (1 tsp)
  • Cracked pepper
  • in the photo above I had some chestnuts to use.  If you want to use some, incise each of them, place them one minute in boiling water, then peel and put in the bake.
Method:
  1. Heat Up the oven to 180ºC.
  2. Place a dash of oil at the bottom of your gratin ceramic dish.
  3. Place your piece of salon in the middle, the tomatoes on the side, the apers and oinion scatred all over.
  4. Put a fillet of olive oil over the dish, add the salt and cracked pepper, then herbs.
  5. Cook for about 20 minutes. The time will vary depending on the thickness of your piece and your oven. To check for doneness, use a small pointy knife and pull apart the flesh of the fish. If it pulls apart, it is ready. Salmon is beautiful when just done, that is when there is still a little pinkness in the flesh (just cooked).
  6. Remove from the oven and serve with blanches greens or a salad. Add some couscous or jasmine rice if you want something a bit more nutricious.

salmon fish cappers red onion

Autumn cooking. Today lets speak about pears

Autumn or early winter cooking, what does this means for you? I heard yesterday someone saying this was the return of roasts in their households. For some others it is chestnuts in the fire-place or a glass of red wine by the fire.  For me at home it is the return of pears, lemons, chestnuts, apples, wild mushrooms and in terms of dishes this is the return of soups and more slow cooked meat dishes or casseroles.

Pears variety in Australia

The main stream pear varieties are  the beurre bosc pear,  the packham pear and the corella pear.   Those varieties are also referred as “european pears”.  The William pear comes from the beurre bosc and is a northern America pear where it is known as the barlett. It is classified as a european pear.

There is a good fact sheet on the varieties and their availability through the Apple and Pear Australia Limited (APAL) website.

The beurre bosc is elongated golden to  pear varietylight brown skin pear.  The skin is quite thick, the flesh is compact , yet very tasty.

 

 

 

pearThe william pear arrives earlier in the season, late summer to early autumn.  It is of medium size, not so elongated as the beurre bosc with quite a round belly.  The william is green when unripe and becomes yellow with or without red parts when ripe. It is a good pear to eat raw, it can also be cooked.

 

The packham pear is a parent of thepear variety william pear and looks quite like it. It is a medium so large size pear, green when unripe and a beautiful yellow when ripe.  When ripe it is juicy and very tasty.  The pear is consumed raw or cooked.

 

 

 

pear varietyCorella pears are quite small, yellow to red in colour.  Their flesh is juicy and milder in flavour than the william, beurre bosc or packham pear.  This pear variety is also good both for cooking and raw.

 

There is also the nashi pear also called “asian pear” variety  which is currently found on markets. The nashi pear is small, quite round, of light colour. It is very juicy with quite a bland taste.

Pear & Nutmeg Cake with Chocolate Sauce

I loved for a while those cake with the pears standing upright directly inside the cake. So last week, apparently it was my “mother’s day cake” made by me for me ….and family.

The cake recipe is based on a “quatre quarts” recipe, a French classic cake where flour, sugar, eggs and butter are at equal weight.  I decreased the quantity of sugar, swapped a little flour for hazelnut meal (which I don’t think made much of a difference), added cocoa and a little nutmeg. The pears can be pre-cooked in a sugar syrup if not ripe, else, it is not necessary to cook them.

The cake is cooked until just set, which will leave the middle soft and gooey.  The cake is served with a warm chocolate sauce.

pear chocolate dessert pear chocolate dessert pear chocolate dessert

The recipe is HERE.

 

 

Lemon curd addiction!

Lemon curd addiction

Lemons seem to be in full season again at the moment. I must have ten of them laying around either the fruit bowl and the fridge.  The season for lemonade has passed somehow and I have yet to learn to preserve lemons. So for now, one use of the lemons is in lemon curd desserts.

Lemon curd is not hard to make, you need to go slowly but you don’t necessarily need a bain marie to make it, that means it takes 10 minutes maximum!  Also once made, it keep for a few weeks in the fridge!

Lemon curd addiction is easy to catch, except if you do not have much of a sweet tooth. Since lemon curd can be quite overpowering, best is to counter balance the sugar and acidity or have it in small quantities only.

Our biggest family lemon curd addiction: the lemon curd pudding

I have finally shared this one with you. Looking back in my photos, I have many versions of it: family size, individual in ramequin and steamed and turn over versions! Yum.

This has been one of Ambrine’s favourite dessert for a few years now. Lemon curd at the bottom nd cake top over it.  It is rapid to make and is always beautiful.

Check out the recipe and its versions HERE.

ramequin lemon curd pudding

Lemon curd tiramisu

I posted this one some time ago, but it is well worth a reminder. Again use as family size of build in individual dishes!  Recipe HERE.

lemon curd tiramisu

Lemon curd tartlets

What an endless classic. They key here is to have them not too large.   The dough is a short pastry.  Other versions that the one proposed here can be used. You will need to precook them. As my Bonne Maman (the name we gave to my grandma) used to say, we are making “tartes aux cailloux” or pebble pie.

lemon curd tartlets

Lemon and lime tart

This is a little bit more involved and the pastry is a little delicate to make. That said it is well worth it.  The lemon curd cooks in the oven, a  little bit as a sweet quiche. Recipe HERE.

lemon curd

Another breakfast option: pain perdu

The origin of Pain Perdu

Before we speak about pain perdu for breakfast, lets look at its origin.

Pain perdu means “lost bread” in French.  In France, most families buy fresh bread everyday because fresh bread is so much better than left over bread when it is time for lunch or diner, plus bread is a key staple of the French diet and relatively cheap (a third of the price paid in Australia for good bread).  In France, left over bread is often used for toast at the next breakfast. There are times there is just too much bread.  This is where pain perdu comes in handy.   Pain perdu in France is often served as a dessert. The transition onto the breakfast menu is an american input.

I did a post some time ago on breakfast options, have a look HERE for direct access to those recipes.

Many ways with pain perdu

Pain perdu is very versatile.  You can make it with any bread or brioche. You can have it thin or thick. Finally, you can serve it with yoghurt and berries, or with brown sugar, or with jam, etc. Some serve it surrounded by milk.  As a dessert, it could be served with creme anglaise.   There are many options to explore!

The way at home

When I grew up, pain perdu was a dessert that my mother prepared from time to time. She made with older bread, which she cut quite thick. I remember eating it with jam or soft brown sugar.

Here at home, I serve it for breakfast and I make it with sliced brioche.  The children like it plain with a few pieces of fruits, I like to add yogurt.

The recipe is really simple (and you can adapt it to your taste), so give it a go, it is HERE.

brioche pain perdu breakfast brioche pain perdu breakfast brioche pain perdu breakfast

Another birthday cake: the swim party birthday cake

Another birthday, another cake.  This time for a six years old who wanted a swimming pool party. Since we live on an island in a protected bay (no waves), why not do it close to home, rather than drive 1/2 hour to the closest proper swimming pool.  It  was  to be a swim party in the little bay down from the house: shallow water (easy supervision) , lilos, shade, grass and fun kids who can spend their time in the water.  And that comes with a swim party birthday cake!

swim birthday party

The challenge

Resisting to heat and sun

It was a hot day, the party was at a little beach a few minutes walk. Bringing  the party home for the cake was out of question of course and bringing the cake to the party meant it had to be able to suffer heat for some time: no cream based filling, no custard filling, no butter cream icing.

Swim party without the whole mermaids story taking over

The next part of the challenge was the decoration  First I had only a limited amount of time available to complete the task.  Then I still wanted a cake that did not hint oo much around the mermaids world but had more water features in it, think Moana if you want!

The cake itself

Here, I went for a sure value, a cake I know super well, the Reine de Saba (Sheba’s Queen), used a tall edge baking tin and this was it. Generally I would make that cake “flatter” , as a result it is lighter and more fluffy than when piled high.

Result: really good cake. Did I add a filling.  No! I opted for the idea the children like simple things. The fact it was already a good chocolate cake was plenty.

The decoration

I opted for a layer of dark chocolate ganache surrounding the sides and top.  This help for the next stage and add a lovely soft chocolate kick (yum). Nothing thick, that layer was maybe two millimetres thick, maybe three in places.

On top of the ganache, I used fondant icing. You know, the one you buy in packs at the supermarket and roll flat with the rolling-pin. Using different food colourants we got a pretty cool outcome. I say “we” because Ben joined me when I was starting the sides and completed the waves on the side.

On top, there were only few components: a mermaid which we had to find in the toy box late at night (it was getting late) and a clam.  The pearl clam did take a little work.  I am not the biggest fan of macarons (or macaroons), I find them so sweet! As a result, I never did them before. I did one trial a few weeks before and this set of macarons.  Well, in the end, it is not that hard to make but you can’t really mak one or two, so make sure you have guests to help you go through the batch to avoid a sugar overdose!  The coral reef was also made with the macaron mix, I just piped it in that shape which became quite handy.

The recipe of the swim party birthday cake

It can be found HERE. The recipe for macaron is not included, I will get around to do it.  I did not find one that I liked in English , so used a French one. The recipe is the one used by the biggest French pastry chefs.

Two simple fish dishes for a light meal

Here are two simple fish dishes for light meals you can make at home very easily. And here the story goes…

Ben came home with some fish a couple of days ago, hooray!! I have been pushing off driving to the fish market to replenish our home stocks.  We do trips to the Sydney fish market every few weeks, but the idea of driving two hours (one each way, I reassure you) and missing out on a quiet day at home and a nice swim in the bay has deterred me to do the trip recently…

In the fish basket, I got some deep seabream fillets and some salmon fillets.  If you want to know more about the fish from our waters, the Sydney Fish Market has a published book which is quite good and a lot of information on species online.

The seabream is a very soft fillet and has a very delicate flesh.  The fillets are single serve most of the time.  The salmon is rather well-known, its cooking is more versatile.

Simple fish dish # 1 – Poached deep seabream with carrots

The idea of this dish is “keep it simple”! As I do not plan my meals, I had a look at what was in the fridge and those carrots were really tempting.  We had dutch baby carrots and your normal carrots.  The carrots are cooked slowly in a frypan with a little butter, a drop of water and a bit of salt (to taste) while the fish is poached separately in two centimetres of water with a little olive oil, rock salt and fennel seeds. We served it with a side salad (just lettuce and tomatoes with a balsamic vinaigrette.  The whole is ready is less than half an hour (including setting the table).

The details of the recipe can be found HERE.

fish meal

fish meal

 

Simple fish dish # 2 – Salmon with hot and cold  mix vegetables salad

This one was tonight’s dinner.  There were just three of us, so one piece of salmon was enough.  Again, here I am thinking of something light. To be honest I had no idea when opening the fridge door.  I look into the vegetables drawer and – as we all do – rediscover its content. I then pull out a little piece of red cabbage, one Brussel sprout, a sweet potato and a few more things like herbs and a piece of a pomegranate requesting to be finished soon.

There were two cooking stages, but this time all in the same roasting dish. First, the cauliflower and sweet potato first, then the fish and a little chickpeas. And finally herbs, a few crumbs of feta and some cherry tomatoes.  Over that, a dash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a splash of lemon and dinner is ready. A table! To my surprise the children finished it all off.

The details of the recipe can be found HERE.

fish meal fish meal

Replenishing the jam cupboard

placard a confiture
This cupboard is a street find, it was covered in brown paint. Ben sanded it back to timber or almost. We love it! It had a child drawing on the inside of the doors, we kept the drawing.

It is the year for replenishing the jam cupboard. There aren’t too many pots left. I did not do any jam last year, would you believe it?

I reassure you I did not cook any jam today. It has been awfully hot today. The breeze has just arrived and hopefully we will lose a few degrees overnight.

I usually make jams when fruits are in full season and their price has gone down sufficiently.  I make:

  • strawberry jam
  • apricot jam
  • red current jam
  • raspberry jam
  • apple jelly

There are some odd batches as well, such as rhubarb or banana mango. The latest one is delicious but doesn’t keep very long.  The mother of a close friend introduced me and my girlfriends to it years ago, during a trip to French Guyana.  We must have significantly helped emptying her freezer of it over a couple of weeks!

Replenishing the jam cupboard

As I was looking through the jam cupboard for this post, I realised there are a few unlabeled jars, some I am not sure what it may be. One of the  unlabeled jar looks like milk jam (homemade dulce de leche).

placard a confiture

Apricot and rosemary jam

This week I made apricot and rosemary jam.  The idea of adding a couple of sprigs of rosemary came a bit from nowhere. Maybe having a few sprigs of rosemary extra lying around inspired me (they use rosemary as ornamental bushes in the nearby township! 🙂 ).

I made a first small batch, loved it, specially on fresh bread with cream cheese. By now, I have made a bigger batch, enough for a while.  Check out the apricot and rosemary jam recipe HERE.

apricot and rosemary jam apricot jam

The journey to making sourdough baguettes

I hope you had a great Christmas. Christmas here – when it comes to the food- has been all about green lush salads, light seafood, glazed ham and the traditional queugneux of North and North Eastern France (ou cougnoux in Belgium) with think hot chocolate on Christmas morning (recipes to come ahead of next Christmas)!

This post is about the journey of trials and errors in getting to make sourdough baguettes.  Now, they are all you expect from a baguette: crusty, tasty, bubbly. They keep well if not eaten on day one or two and can then be toasted for breakfast.  I even got an order of baguettes for Christmas!

If you want to see the recipe directly, go HERE.

baguettes

 

 

A sticky dough, but how wet?

My first trials was to try making sourdough baguettes out of the same  dough as bread dough. While the baguette taste all right, it does not have any of the quality of the real baguette and its biggest failure is the lack of those big bubbles that make for a lighter bread.  Having played a few times with very wet dough (when you put the same weight of flour and water), I knew that those dough were lighter and allowed for much bigger bubbles.  The drawback, those breads cannot held their weight and tend to be rather flat.

So, in a game of trials and error, I did end up finding the suitable proportions.  Looking at a few recipes after that, it is similar to those.  I could have saved myself a fair bit of trialing.

In need of flexibility in the dough

Next, I was not getting a very flexible dough (yes, we – and some neighbours- ate a number of trial breads!). As a consequence, the shaping was a little difficult.  In a book that I bought nine years ago called “The bread bible” by  Rose Levy Beranbaum, the author has a recipe for baguettes, but for the classic french baguette.  That recipe has a number of prefermented doughs. Prefermented dough have the benefits to add flavour to the bread and as I found by trialing make the dough a lot more flexible.

The two technics that I now use:

  • I mix the water and flour from the main part of the recipe at the same time I feed the starter, that is 24 hours before actually making the bread. I cover it and place it in the fridge. It takes 3 minutes max.
  • When I make the dough, I use my mixer.  I am sure to obtain the right consistency and it is rather quick (7 minutes and voila!).

The last rising is critical

The above practices have not prevented me ending up with some pretty poor breads because I sped up the last rising, or rather did not let it happen properly. Lesson learnt, the last rising is critical for the baguette.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A camping holidays experience

And I could not let you go without speaking of my bread test trials while camping…

At the end of the school break, we joined a few families for a week camping  along the NSW coastline.   I had taken a little of my sourdough starter to experiment cooking bread while camping.   Our family does the camping thing very lightly, we have none of the camping bulky equipment, so our camp remains basic. The camp ground was walk access only, which is great!! In other words, I had no camp oven (even so, it was total fire ban!).

I realised I had nothing to measure proportions to make the bread.  In the end,  I made a big batch of bread dough and got the children to make little bread rolls, I kept enough for a large bread.  Until then, all went as it should.  The only option for the baking was the large cooking pots with lids. I placed the rolls on baking baker, some water at the bottom bellow the baking paper. The rolls were basically cooked by steaming.  Cooking time is really quick that way.   The result was a little strange: there was no crust!  The taste was fine, the inside as well, it was just missing its natural aesthetic. Next morning I had avo on toast and it was delicious!

 

Simple recipes for outdoors afternoons

Going to the beach or to a park? Going for a little bush wonder?  These  pages point you out to simple recipes for outdoors afternoons.  Add this to fruits and/or crudity and you are ready to go!  Great little snack for kids always on the move!

To go straight to the new recipe of the week, go to “le cake” or simply HERE.  I did it today for the local children music performance and manage to get a good photo before going (the cake was still hot when e arrived there).  Use those at other time for lunch box or get-together, garanteed to go!

The madeleines

This one if probably my favourite for  excursion: no cutting required, easy to handle, small size and quite popular.  The recipe for the basic version is HERE, you can vary and incorporate variations, one of them is with strawberries and rosemary (recipe HERE).

 

The log cake called “le cake”

I promised this recipe a while ago.  For me, it is childhood memories of delicious afternoon snacks. Le cake (sic in French) is a log cake , a simple butter cake flavoured with lemon or sultanas or candied fruits.  This is the new recipe of the week! Check the recipe HERE.

easy log cake

The palets bretons

Palets bretons are a type of french biscuits.  You need to start the recipe the day before,  even better, as they keep for a couple weeks, make them in batch dring the holidays season and use as required!  Again, pretty simple to make! Recipe HERE.

palet breton

Chocolate chip cookies

Another favourite in our family, no need to look at another recipe.  I have posted on them recently.  Look HERE.

cookies au chocolat gourmants
Chocolate chip cookies, here in giant version

 

 

 

 

 

 

No cooking today!

No cooking today. A bit of play with Mother Nature!

Hanging plants or kokedama

boule suspendue

These hanging plants or moss balls are also known as kokedama in Japan.  I do not pretend here to know the best way of making them.  We more of less made it up.  We also watched a few video on you tube, that said, everybody seem to have their own method. The moss balls are relatively easy to do.  You need some sphagnum moss, some good dirt (we mixed some recent compost with some ashes here), some sisal string and a few plants.  The choice of the plant needs to match the area you propose to place them in as for heat, exposure to light and humidity level.

Dream catcher

dream catcher
Our dreamcatcher using local found vines

We used local vines to make the round structure, a few shells found on the beach and some feathers of cockatoos found at the top of the island below some tall white gums!

Try and have fun!