Eat. . . Anzac biscuits

Anzac Day commemorates the landing of the Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) troops at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. Anzac biscuits were baked across Australia and New Zealand and sent to the troops overseas during World War 1. They keep very well in an airtight tin or box, and use golden syrup to bind them rather than egg, as eggs were so scarce during the war years. See this webpage for more information (and an almost identical recipe!)

Nearly every year, as well as attending the local Anzac Parade I make a batch of Anzac biscuits to celebrate Anzac Day. I always use the recipe I was given on my first trip to Australia back in 1993, when I got my first taste of Anzac biscuits. There are lots of different versions, but these ones have worked well for me for years, and I hope you find the same.

Anzac Biscuits

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
125 g butter (substitute margarine at your peril!)
2 tblsps golden syrup
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tblsp boiling water

Combine oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut in a big bowl. Melt butter and syrup in saucepan. Mix bicarb of soda with boiling water, add to melted butter mixture and stir this into dry ingredients. Mix well.  Add a tiny bit more water if the mixture is too dry to stick together. Place a little more than teaspoon amounts on a greased tray. Allow room for spreading. Bake in slow oven (150C) for 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

PS It is important to use actual butter rather than margarine for these biscuits, as butter will give a good firm crunchy biscuit when cooled. Margarine gives a rather soft result, but I suppose some people like it that way?!

Pipe band lead Mapua Anzac Parade 2012

Some of the crowd at the Mapua Anzac service 2012

Two old soldiers lay a wreath on behalf of the Moutere Hills RSA

Eat. . . Welsh Cakes

Welsh cakes are a fond memory from my childhood, growing up in South Wales. In recent years I have begun making them a few times a year, and I always make some on St David's Day (he's the Patron Saint of Wales.) I guess you could call it a "new tradition" of mine, but don't tell Sonny Jim, as when we were discussing this concept recently he witheringly told me that "New traditions are axiomatically atypical!" on the basis that a tradition has to be old, in order to have become a tradition. . . but as I reminded him, all traditions had to start somewhere! Anyway, I digress. . .

This year I made Welsh cakes on the 1st March as usual, and took them for a shared lunch at the Wifie's workplace in Motueka. No-one there had tried Welsh cakes before, but everyone liked them and they were intrigued as to how they are baked on a bakestone or griddle rather than in the oven. I am not lucky enough to own a traditional bakestone, so have to make do with a heavy based frying pan, but that does an adequate job. . . A Welsh friend told me that in many old houses in Wales, the bakestone belongs with the house, so that when the house is sold the bakestone stays behind for the new owners. . . what a wonderful concept.

The following recipe is from the little "Welsh Teatime Recipes" book I was given a couple of years ago by a dear friend in Wales. No author is listed but the publisher is Salmon Publishing. You can tell all the recipes in the book are traditional as there are no metric measurements used throughout, but hopefully that won't cause you too much consternation! Any substitutions/changes that I usually make are in brackets.

Welsh Cakes or "Pice ar y maen"/"Tiesen Gri."


1 lb plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch allspice (or ground mixed spice)
(1-2  tsps cinnamon in addition, I like my Welsh cakes spicy!)
A pinch of salt
3 oz butter
3 oz lard (I just use 6 oz butter and no lard)
(6 or) 7 oz caster sugar
4 oz seedless raisins (or currants)
2 eggs, beaten
Milk to mix
Caster sugar to sprinkle on top

Stir together flour, baking powder, spices and salt in a large bowl. Rub in the fat. Add sugar and dried fruit. Add beaten eggs to the mixture with a little milk to make a stiff dough.

Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4" and cut into 2" rounds with a cutter.

Cook on a greased griddle or heavy based frying pan over a low heat for about 3 minutes each side until golden brown.

Lay cooked Welsh cakes on a clean tea towel and sprinkle with sugar, then fold tea towel over the top to keep them warm. Serve with butter if desired.

(These freeze very well and make great lunchbox treats!)

Eat. . . Homemade halloumi and ricotta cheese

Knitapotamus' Adventures in Cheeseland - Part 3!!

Fried, sliced halloumi with ratatouille

So, having gained some confidence from successfully making feta and mozzarella cheese in the last few weeks, I turned my attention to Halloumi (or "squeaky cheese!) This is one of my all-time favourite cheeses, and a pretty expensive one, so I was really keen to try making it. The recipe I was following called for 10 litres of milk, but I don't yet have a pan big enough for that, so settled for 5 litres Wangapeka Dairy milk instead. One of the great things about halloumi, is that while the halloumi is pressing you can make ricotta cheese from the whey, so two cheeses for the price of one! Here's what happened. . .

Heat milk up to 32C, add veggie rennet and once curds have formed, cut them up then cook them at 38C

I think it's the cooking at 38C for half an hour that gets the firm but elastic (& squeaky!) texture.

Pile the cooked curds into a large feta/halloumi frame 

The feta/halloumi frame above was from Mapua Country Trading.

Press the halloumi for half an hour whilst making ricotta from the whey

Heat up the whey to around 90C, add salt and vinegar and gradually strain off ricotta

About 200g of ricotta cheese, after draining in a muslin-lined sieve

Meanwhile, back to the halloumi. As you can see, this is quite a process - the most involved cheese-making episode so far!

Unwrap the pressed halloumi and cut it into 8 or 10 pieces

Lower the blocks of halloumi into 85-90C whey, to cook for 30 mins.

All the blocks of halloumi are added to the whey to be cooked together. Now, I don't think this is necessarily supposed to happen, but I found that while the halloumi cooked, little bits of ricotta curds kept coming to the surface for me to strain off and add to the rest in the sieve. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see the tiny bits of ricotta curd floating in the whey. . . and you can also see some little bits of ricotta stuck to the halloumi blocks in the next photo.

Cooked halloumi blocks

Sliced halloumi fried in a tiny bit of olive oil

Sonny Jim's favourite way to eat halloumi is fried and drizzled with sweet chilli sauce

I have to say that for $10 worth of milk (5 litres) we got a big result! 900 grammes of halloumi cheese, and 200g of ricotta. I checked the prices in the supermarket yesterday and the halloumi was $8.95 for a 100g block, ricotta $5.50 for an equivalent amount. In other words, it would have cost us around $86 to have bought that much cheese from the supermarket!! Not that we even buy halloumi more than once a year usually, I have to admit. Of course we can't (and arguably "shouldn't"!) eat 900g of halloumi in one sitting, but luckily it keeps well in the fridge in a whey/water/salt brine, and we are sharing it around a bit too. The (low fat) ricotta keeps well in an airtight box in the fridge for several days. But who would have thought that my cheese-making endeavours could actually save us that much money?!! At least that is my spin on it, my ploy to keep on making cheese - I'm enjoying the cheese-making so much, and somehow no matter how much I make we seem to manage to eat it all up :) 

Eat. . . Homemade mozzarella cheese

Mozzarella with its best mate, Tomato!  Drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and ground pepper. . . mmmmmm!

It seems to me that these recent "Eat" posts could reasonably be subtitled "Knitapotamus' Adventures in Cheeseland!" And so the adventures continue!

Last week I made mozzarella cheese. Not for the first time, but certainly the first time I got a result that looked anything like mozzarella! Did you see that photo up above? Looks like mozzarella, doesn't it?! Even tastes (um, I mean "tasted") like mozzarella! Not like the first lot, which put me off cheese-making for a whole year. That looked something like this:

Gahhhhhhhh!!

But this. . . this was mozzarella to make my heart sing, and to believe that I am actually making progress with my goal to become proficient at making at least one cheese this year!

Here are a few photos to show you what happened to turn a load of incredibly creamy Wangapeka Downs milk into some delicious stretchy mozzarella cheese in around half an hour. . . But be warned, it is not the complete recipe, just enough to give you an idea of the process.

2 litres milk @ 31 C, plus 1/2 tsp veg rennet

40C, forming curds into a ball

60-70C, stretching 1/3 of hot curd ball to get mozzarella texture

Plunge stretched balls of mozzarella into icy water for cooling and storage

Slice up, add tomato, season with olive oil, salt & pepper and devour!

Cheese-making equipment from Mapua Country Trading, and mozzarella recipe from "Cutting the Curd - Cheese-making at home" book by Katherine Mowbray.

And guess what? Just when you thought you couldn't take any more cheesy adventures, tomorrow I plan to make halloumi for the first time ever. More on that soon ;-)

Eat. . . Homemade feta cheese

My first attempt at feta cheese

Having recently discovered the delights of Wangapeka Downs Dairy, I was excited to try making my first cheese. Well, at least my first successful cheese! There had been one ill-fated attempt in January 2011 when I tried to make mozzarella but failed dismally, but the less said about that the better!

So I ordered some full cream raw milk from Wangapeka, and with some trepidation started to make my first ever feta cheese. I used the recipe in my cheese-making kit from Mapua Country Store, and it was surprisingly easy to produce perfectly edible results first time! I will show you what happened. . .

Milk heated to 31C, then culture and vegetarian rennet added, and left to form curds and whey.

Cutting the curds

Breaking the curds into "pea-sized" pieces

Preparing the feta mold

Packing the curds into the feta mold

Pressing the block of feta with a jar full of water - 8 hours each side

Unwrapping the block of pressed feta from the muslin

Sprinkling with salt to "cure" the cheese (I slightly over-did the salt quantities this time)

The finished feta cheese - firm, crumbly and salty, just like it should be!

For a first attempt, I think this feta cheese turned out remarkably well - I could hardly believe that it looked and tasted "just like the real thing!" However, it was just a little too salty for my tastes, so for the following week's batch I used a different technique for curing (rubbing in rather than sprinkling) and less salt in total, and was even happier with the results.

This is just the beginning of my adventures with cheese-making. I have my sights set on halloumi and ricotta next, then possibly another try at mozzarella, or a dalliance with mascarpone, hopefully building up to brie and Cheddar. Watch this space!! 

Eat. . . Cream tea

Many of you will know that I was born in Somerset, and some of you might even know that I absolutely LOVE clotted cream, which is a traditional ingredient of my beloved West Country "cream teas". But clotted cream is something I have never seen on sale in New Zealand, and I have been looking for almost 10 years now! Imagine my delight when I discovered that local dairying business Wangapeka Downs Ltd sells clotted cream, and this culinary delight has been on sale for the last two months just 20 mins drive from home, without me even knowing about it!

The reason I came by this knowledge is because one of my "New Year's plans" for this year is to learn to make at least one kind of cheese reasonably consistently well (not counting paneer which I have been making for years). In order to develop my fledgling cheese-making skills I need a source of raw cow's milk, and those in the know directed me to Wangapeka Downs. This dairy really ticks all the boxes - it has nothing to do with New Zealand's "dairy giant" Fonterra, their goal is to produce "quality products that are completely as nature intended them to be", they have a holistic approach to animal health and welfare, and they are very definitely local. For more details, try reading this article: "A life beyond dairying", from the Nelson Mail newspaper, July 2011.

I arranged to buy an initial 5 litres of Wangapeka raw milk for cheese-making purposes (more on that another time!) and to pick it up from the shop in Appleby, at "The Abbey" on the Appleby Highway. What an array of dairy goodness greeted us when we went to the little shop! Not only the creamiest milk I have ever seen (these cows are Jersey x Shorthorn) but a selection of cheeses, ghee, butter, kefir, quark, Greek yogurt, double cream, clotted cream, and ice-cream all made using their wonderful milk! Sonny Jim literally did a happy dance when he discovered that we could  buy some clotted cream there, as he is as much a fan of it as I am! In the end, we bought clotted cream, natural Greek yogurt and a scoop of blueberry and plum ice cream to share, and all of them are of extraordinary quality! The clotted cream is just the same as the stuff which I have loved since childhood in Somerset. . . deliciously thick, laden with fat and with a wonderful thick crust formed on top (the best bit in my opinion!) Obviously not an "everyday food" as far as health maintenance goes, but a wonderful and decadent treat :)

When we got home with our clotted cream, there was nothing for it - I had to whip up a batch of scones! Luckily a few days earlier I had made some red plum jam, so we were able to have a traditional West Country cream tea in our own little corner of Aotearoa NZ -
homemade scones + homemade jam + best quality clotted cream = Heaven on a Plate!!

Eat. . . Peanut butter cookies

This has to be the easiest biscuit recipe ever!! It would even be easy for a 3 year old, and I wonder why it has taken me all these years to get around to trying it?! I think probably because it looks so utterly simple that I didn't trust that it would work. . . and yet it does! I made these last week and they are some of the most delicious biscuits I have ever tasted. . . an instant hit with all the family, and even my work colleagues :) As an added bonus, they are dairy and wheat-free, so it's good to bear that in mind if you have someone with special dietary requirements coming round for coffee! Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies (12 - 15)


1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 large egg

Mix these three ingredients together. Spoon the mixture onto a well greased/lined baking tray. Leave room for them to spread. Press down each blob of dough with a fork. Bake for about 15 mins at 170C.

That's it! I still can't believe that something so incredibly simple can taste so good! Of course, you could include choc chips, raisins or other enhancements if you felt moved to do so, but they are perfectly delicious as they are. Enjoy!!

Eat. . . Bean curry

Bean curry with yogurt. . .

. . . or without!

This is another curry taught to me and a group of workmates several years ago by a former colleague, "R". She was so generous to have us in her home week after week and patiently teach us how to cook some of her delicious curries and accompaniments. The aloo gobhi recipe in this blog post is one of her recipes too. This bean curry recipe is one of my favourites though, because if you use tinned beans it is super-quick, and in any case it uses only store cupboard ingredients and is always fragrantly delicious. I was struggling to think what to cook on Monday evening after work, when I looked in the pantry and saw several tins of beans and chickpeas. Instantly I knew that a bean curry was just what we needed, and it's pictured above! The curry's proper name is "Lobia," which is mildly amusing in our household, but you could just call it "Bean Curry"! Here's the recipe:

Lobia/ Bean Curry

Either 2.5 cups dried black-eyed beans, soaked overnight and then boiled

Or 3 tins various beans, chickpeas etc. The curry above was made with 1 tin each of chickpeas, 4 bean mix and cannelini beans

Generous splash of oil

9 garlic cloves, minced

2 inches grated ginger root or 2 generous spoonfuls minced ginger

2 tsps cumin seeds, crushed

2 cans chopped tomatoes

2 - 3 tsps salt

1/2 tsp chilli (or more to taste)

3-4 tsps ground coriander

1-2 tsps garam masala

Fry garlic and ginger in oil till really brown. Stir in beans and remaining ingredients. Bring to boil then simmer for approx 30 mins. Serve with basmati rice cooked with some cardamom pods, and an optional dollop of natural yogurt. 

Yum!

Love. . . Baking

A well-worn page from my first ever recipe book, in my own handwriting

If you've had much of a browse through this blog then you have probably already realised that I love baking! I very much like cooking in general, but I absolutely LOVE baking!! This all began as a very small child, "helping" my mum bake cakes and scones, biscuits and pastries, with a finger stuck in the batter here and a stir of the mixture there, followed by the pleading request:"Can I lick the bowl, mum?!" At eight years old, in 1979, I realised I wanted a recipe book of my very own. By this time, I didn't live with my mum any more, but with my dad who was (and still is!) an excellent and inventive home cook. But my mum was more of a baker, and I wanted to be too! So one day when we were staying with her on holiday, she bought me a small notebook and I set about decorating the cover and then writing in some of my mum's tried and tested recipes: Nanna Parker's potato cakes, Ginger snaps, Idiot biscuits, Chocolate brownies, Daphnes sticky bread and Nanna Parker's fruit scones were the first entries in the book. 

Ginger snaps made to the recipe above

Back home again in Wales with my dad and brother, it became my self-appointed duty to bake something every Sunday afternoon. In those days we always had a big Sunday lunch, not necessarily a Sunday roast, but always a big substantial meal with main course and pudding, that dad would cook for us and have on the table about 1 pm. Once the meal was finished, it was his chance to sit down and put his feet up while my brother and I took charge of clearing the table and washing up the dishes. Finally it was my favourite part of the day and I could bake something for "Sweet Tea". This tradition came from my dad's parents and meant that each Sunday teatime we just had bread and butter, and a selection of cake, scones, crumpets, toasted teacakes etc. No "proper meal" on Sunday evenings, as the theory was that we had had such a big meal at lunchtime we wouldn't need it! Needless to say, that was my favourite meal of the week, and I loved baking something different each Sunday afternoon for Sweet Tea, a tradition that carried on well into my teenage years, even once my dad had re-married and we became a much larger "blended" family.

One of our recipe book shelves in the kitchen

These days, my absolute go-to baking books are both by Alexa Johnston. "Ladies, a plate" and "A Second Helping" are the most well-used recipe books on our kitchen bookshelf, and if you check out this link you will find a wealth of free recipes from those two books! Of course, we do far more savoury cooking than sweet baking at home, but in most cases the main meals are made without recipes, whereas the alchemical mysteries of baking require a more precise approach. Two years ago I went to the "Writers and Readers Festival" at Founders' Park in Nelson and heard Alexa speak. She was so thoroughly entertaining and engaging, that when I heard she was coming to Nelson on 2nd September to promote her latest book "What's for Pudding?" I knew I must be there!

As ever, she was a delight to listen to, and as part of our ticket price we were offered two puddings from her new book: Lemon sago (pictured below) and Semolina halva. I have never had sago before, and lets just say it was "interesting" - I can certainly see why it is often referred to as "frogspawn"! 

Lemon sago (Alexa in background)

But there are plenty of very appealing recipes in this cookbook, and as in both her other books, Alexa has meticulously researched the genealogy of these old classics and trawled through countless old community cookbooks and other vintage recipe books to bring us these recipes, sometimes with a modern twist. I love how each recipe is preceded by some social history notes about its origin and development over the years. If you like the sound of apricot ice cream (1940), pistachio and cardamom kulfi (1959), melon and pineapple salad (1950s), cup custards (1861), sticky date pudding (1980s) or flaming baked Alaska (1967) this could be the cookbook for you! If you would like to read a review of the book (including a couple of recipes for Simple Orange Jelly and Chocolate Fudge Pudding, click "Why Pudding Still Matters." Thanks to KathyR from ravelry for the link.

As Alexa said on Friday, "Nobody NEEDS pudding. But by making a pudding you are showing love to those you make it for, and if anyone makes a pudding for you, you can be pretty sure they love you!"

Eat. . . Baked cheesecake

Baked cheesecake with a generous topping of homemade lemon curd

By popular demand from my work colleagues, today I am sharing a recipe for baked cheesecake, which I made over the weekend. The recipe was demonstrated as a "masterclass" with chef Donna Hay, on an episode of Australian Masterchef and I wrote the recipe down by hand. I took some cheesecake into work today to share, and was inundated with requests for the recipe so here we are:

Whilst I was on Donna Hay's website just now, I discovered that she has the recipe available there too, so here's the link for that - much easier to read and print out or email than my handwritten scrawl! As you can see from the photo at the top, our favourite way to eat this cheesecake is with a big dollop of homemade lemon curd on top. This recipe is definitely going to be kept for a rare treat though, as the ingredients were pretty pricey and it's hardly healthy eating. But it's sooooooooo delicious :)