Australia Day.

Not many chances to post over the last couple of weeks. Went away up country for a bit of a break before going back to work last week.So most of the cooking was barbecue at a rest stop in a country town. We had a delicious pizza our first evening from a new Italian restaurant in Gympie. Made from fresh ingredients and wood fired! Yum!

We also picked up some country butchery smoked bacon in Kilkivan. Delicious.We brought a couple of slices home with us and it found its' way into a homemade pizza during the week. The smoked bacon, seems to dry out a little bit more than that you would buy in the local supermarket delicatessen and so keeps quite well.

I imagine their hams would also. I remember when ham was a delicacy and mostly eaten at Christmas time.My Nanna would prepare her ham by cooking it and then coating it in breadcrumbs. Homemade mustard was served and the ham cut into thin pink slices with a border of white fat and that was topped off with the toasted breadcrumbs.

 We had an electric copper for boiling the washing and at Christmas time it was cleaned out and then used to cook hams and Christmas puddings, before being cleaned again and then used once more for clothes. I'm sure quite a few families used to do this.

I had intended to make pumpkin scones today, or perhaps little lamingtons, but pushed for time as we had unexpected visitors. I decided to make cheese muffins. Hot from the oven these are delicious served with butter  or golden syrup. (That great Aussie staple that most likely would be gracing a few dampers today.)

Here is my recipe.

Cheese Muffins


INGREDIENTS:
2 - 3 cups Self Raising Flour
1 cup grated cheese (Tasty is best)
1/3 cup melted butter/margarine
2/3 cup milk
1 egg
pinch salt

1.  Mix the cheese into the flour and add the salt.
2. Mix some of the milk into the melted butter to make about 3/4 cup
3. Beat the egg and add the milk butter mixture to the egg.
4. Gradually add the liquid to the flour and cheese.
5. Stir until all the dry ingredients are just combined. The mixture should NOT be wet and sloppy.
6. If it is too dry add a little more of the liquid to the mix is of the right consistency.
7. Spray muffin tins with baking spray 
8. Drop dessertspoons of mixture into each pan (makes about 12 medium sized muffins)
9. Bake in a hot oven for about 15 to 20 mins.
10. Remove from oven and allow to stand for a few minutes before turning out of pans
11. Serve hot.

You can also add chopped herbs, like parsley or chives or shredded ham and sundried tomatoes finely chopped for extra savoury flavour.

Baker's Intuition!

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to try and blog one recipe a week. Well, Sunday was my chosen day for trying out the recipe, and photographing it.

I was a bit apprehensive about the recipe I was trying - Mum reminded me that the recipe came from Grandma, after a search I found it in  Mum's recipe book. So I set about making a sultana loaf. This is a pretty heavy "loaf", and I had visions of cutting it and having to pop it back into the oven, just to cook the inside, as when I have made it in the past I have sometimes had a 'gooey centre' (Not my favourite texture)
One of my sisters used to make this quite a bit when her family was younger, and it always seemed to be a success, so I thought I'd give it another try.

The recipe is one of those that really relies on the intuition of the baker...This is the original recipe as written in Mum's book.

SULTANA LOAF
2 large cups S.R. Flour, 1/2 cup sugar, pinch salt, 1 cup sultanas, 1 cup milk. Grease tin and bake about 1/2 hour or more. See what I mean??

All went according to plan with the ingredients and I used baking paper to line the tin, set the oven to about moderate (I have to guess as the temperatures have all worn off) and popped it into the oven for half an hour...or so...

Next thing I know I am waking to the smell of Sultana Loaf wafting through the house on a very warm snoozy Sunday! Yep you guessed -  I had laid down for a bit of a read and woken intuitively an hour later. Result? Perfectly baked Sultana loaf! With picture to prove it.

Sultana Loaf - just as it should be.

I wouldn't recommend this method of timing your baking so I have included a more updated version for you to try.

Sultana Loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups Self Raising Flour

1/2 cup sugar

pinch salt

1 cup sultanas

1 cup of milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Grease a loaf tin or line with baking paper.
3. Put all dry ingredients including sultanas into a bowl.
4. Mix them thoroughly and make a well in the centre.
5. Pour in about half the milk and mix, adding remainder of milk gradually.
6. Place mixture into tin.
7. Place in oven and bake for approx 30 - 40 minutes. 
8. Use a skewer to test - if cooked skewer will come out clean.
9. Turn onto a rack to cool. This will allow the crust to harden, if you prefer a softer crust, leave in tin to cool.
10. Slice and serve buttered. Also nice hot. Can be sliced and frozen too.

CLEVER MARY'S

I have been looking through the old recipe books and have decided to try and make something at least once a week. I have over 200 recipes at my disposal and no doubt I will find other interesting things tucked away as well. Mind you I am not sure if the recipes were all used, but it is no matter, I shall enjoy the cooking just as much and perhaps find a few new favourites.

I have found this shopping list that probably dates at least from the 1950's or maybe earlier. Comparing it with my list today one has to marvel at some of the items. I wonder if in 50 or 60 years time, my list scribbled out today will have as many obsolete items as Nanna's does for me?

I have no idea what Clever Mary's or Monkey Brand was, but it seems essential to the smooth running of Nanna's household. I noticed that many of the ingredients came in tins. Some of which I am sure are still haunting the cupboards at Mum's as well.

My son has suggested that I also include some of the older utensils that were used in the past as well, and include some family stories about them too. Well, you never know what will come to light from the depths of the dresser!

After a little online research I did find that Clever Mary's was an all purpose cleaner - Oh for that today! One tin instead of the 6 or so bottles that reside in the cupboard.

Follow the link to the Advertisment  Clever Mary's

The Recipe Books

Being retired farmers, my Nanna and Poppa still grew fruits and vegetables for their own consumption and a large patch in the backyard always had something growing. Pie melons, Choko, Pawpaws, Cape Gooseberries and even a few Macadamia trees are some of the things I remember.

Nanna's and Grandma's cookbooks both reflect the fact that they had produce to spare and there are a quite a few recipes using pumpkin, choko, mangoes, tomatoes and other vegetables that were grown either on the farm or in the home garden.

It is interesting to browse through these cookbooks and see that most of the recipes are for baked goods and desserts. Biscuits, pies, tarts, puddings and cakes are what they mostly wrote in their cookbooks, Mum's book too is mostly composed of these.

You can also see the sharing and networking that went on then too. Many of the recipes have the names of people who shared their favourites written beside them. One thing though, I have noticed my Grandmothers both referred to their "Friends and acquaintances" using their Title and Surname in many cases, and when it was a relative or very close friend then they would use the more familiar First Name and/or Surname.

To follow the tradition, I like to do a bit of cooking with my grand-daughter when she comes to stay and many of the things we make are not written down. Muesli, fruit kebabs, scrambled eggs (her other Grandma taught her to cook scrambled eggs) toasted sandwiches, fancy drinks, pancakes and all manner of biscuits are some of the things we have managed, and only two weeks ago she was making fried rice under instruction from her Grandfather. I could hear them in the kitchen, with him teaching her how to crack eggs so you don't get the shells in the bowl. (Most difficult to get out and who can't stand the crunch as you find a piece of missed shell in your food! )

Here are the instructions for Fruit kebabs. This recipe is for my GD's Cookbook (probably it will take the form of an interactive DVD - who knows?)

Fruit Kebabs

These are easy to make with children. I used the long bamboo skewers and cut off the sharp point and then cut them in half. These were for a Teddy Bears' picnic and were extremely popular.

Ingredients:

Seasonal fruit - make sure it is all sweet and ripe

• pineapple (half a large ripe one)
• kiwi fruit (Chinese gooseberry) 4-6
• strawberries 250 g punnet of fairly large fruit 12 - 15
• rockmelon (Cantaloupe) (half a large one)

Other firm fruits can be used if desired.

Method:

1. Wash and cut strawberries into halves lengthways
2. Peel kiwi fruit, cut into eight pieces
3. Peel pineapple and cut length ways into pieces about 2-3 cms thick. Then cut into chunks
4. Peel and de-seed the rockmelon and cut into chunks about the same as the pineapple.
5. Place all prepared fruit into separate bowls
6. Thread each skewer with one of each fruit. Or devise your own patterns.
7. Continue till all the fruits are used up.
8. Store in refrigerator until needed.

If desired you can roll them in coconut or chopped nuts and serve them with a vanilla yoghurt BUT they are just nice on their own!

Enjoy!

It begins!

I wonder these days, how many people have in their possession, a piece of furniture or any other functional item that has served their family through various generations?

I have often thought of starting a blog - but what to write about? I dabble in a few things but put them down and pick them up at sometimes very irregular intervals.

I like to cook, quilt, sew and embroider, reading is a great escape and pottering about in the garden can be fun too, but genealogy has once again become a focus interest. As families we have so much to share about our life and experiences that we don't realise until it is too late to gather those stories from an earlier generation.

So, where does the "Dresser" come into it, you ask? The dresser belonged to my Nanna. I remember it in her kitchen when I was a child. Then, it was 3 shelves high, painted in white milk paint and had been hers since her marriage some 40 years earlier. White china plates adorned its shelves and plain serviceable cutlery filled one drawer while the other drawer held white damask tablecloths for daily use. Behind its doors were concealed all manner of homemade condiments...and so we come to the crunch.

I have inherited not only the dresser, but both my Nanna's and Grandma's handwritten cookbooks. In addition I also have my mother's book and my own. I would like to share these books with my sisters - we all cook for our families, and also pass on to the next generations, our family food heritage - a family collection of recipes that we have proven to be firm favourites, and have stood the test of time, with adaptions to today's tastes and lifestyles.

So here is the first of our family favourites.

Grandma's Chocolate Slice

 

The most recent batch of Grandma's Chocolate Slice

Ingredients:

• ¼ lb butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 teaspoons cocoa
• pinch salt
• 1 cup mixed fruit or dates
• 1 cup SR Flour

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar till sugar well dissolved
2. Beat in the egg and add vanilla if desired.
3. Sift together cocoa, salt, and SR Flour
4. Fold into the butter sugar and egg mixture.
5. Lastly fold in the fruit.
6. Spread into a paper lined slice tin. I don't spread it too thin as this quantity will only make about half a tray.
7. Bake in a moderate oven till cooked. Test with a skewer.
8. Allow to cool and ice with your favourite chocolate icing.
9. Cut into 5cm squares to serve.

If you are lucky it will keep about a week. (I put it into the fridge if the weather is hot.)