Lamb shoulder, crepes and winter beach-going

Thursday was Bastille Day.  Tabitha and I met my best friend Amy at the Prahran Market to eat some crepes and pick up some French pastries.

Nutella crepes are the perfect breakfast on a freezing cold day:

Tabitha wore a little blue-and-white stripe top in honour of the French national day, and carried her little French mousie (a present from her Francophile 'Great Aunt' Penelope).

In the evening, I made another slow-cooked lamb shoulder.  The full recipe is HERE, but a couple of people have asked questions about the preparation, so here are a couple more photographs...

This is what it looks like before it goes in.  2kg of lamb shoulder, skin side slashed deeply a few times, rubbed with olive oil, and generous amounts of salt and pepper.  The rosemary and whole garlic cloves are simply placed on top, with more of them sitting underneath the joint:

When it's ready to go, you just wrap the whole tray in foil - the tray, not the joint - and tuck the edges underneath, to seal the whole thing quite well.  I use special extra-wide foil, because I keep it in the house, but you can use a couple of pieces of regular foil instead, just make sure that they overlap to keep the moisture sealed in:

When it comes out, it will be falling apart, like braised shanks, and shrunk well off the bone.  Instead of trying to carve the meat off the bone - near impossible, just pull the bone out (it will slip easily out) and shred the meat:

This morning, we went to the Boroondara Farmers' Market.  It was incredibly cold and frosty.  Look at this adorable dog - she had little trousers made of polarfleece to keep her skinny legs warm!

Tabitha was warm and cosy in her woolen coat and the footmuff on her pram (like a fleece-lined sleeping bag!).  She sat and watched all of the goings-on, eating hot spinach and feta Golzeme.

At noon today, we are leaving to go down to the beach, Blairgowrie, for a couple of days.  It will, of course, be too cold for swimming, but nice walks on the beach, all rugged up, and plenty of fish and chip eating is in order.

It is shocking, though, just how much you need to pack for a weekend away with a baby.  Over 60 items on the family packing list!

Apples, Mouse Shoes and Crispy Roast Potatoes

This morning, Tabitha and I went to visit my parents and sister (it is school holidays at the moment).  Tabitha has a high chair over there, and loves sitting in it watching all the activity, eating a snack.  I made her a toasted cheese sandwich and some apple, and she happily sat there for 45 minutes, watching my sister dance around, and my sister's tiny dog hop around on her back legs, hoping for a dropped morsel of sandwich.

Tabby and my sister eating their toast together:

My sister asked if she could give Tabitha a whole apple to try - I suggested she take a few small bites first, so there was somewhere for Tabby to start, to get her teeth in, and then we were all blown away by how well she managed with a whole apple!

She really enjoyed it, turning it around, peering at it, scratching at the skin with her nails, and nibbling away.  She ate maybe half the apple!

Remember all the balloons from Tabitha's birthday party?  They are still there, sitting out the back decking of my parents' house!  Someone needs to take the time to snip each one - perhaps I will get around to it next week...  In the meantime, they look quite funny.

This afternoon (after a nice nap for Tabby, 12 - 2:30pm), we went and met my friend Gen at Milkwood cafe in East Brunswick.  Such a cute little place - and the cinnamon toast was incredible, so buttery, on nice rye bread, which added a great sour note to the sweetness.

Isn't Gen divine?  She is a very talented creative type, who is moving to Sydney soon and will be greatly missed:

Tabitha picked up a serviette and started wiping her own face (and hair) which was very sweet of her.  Then she tried to eat the napkin.  Hmm.

I am in love with her little shoes - they are Marc Jacobs, and are sort of silvery in real life.  They are from New York:

In fact, they are the sort of shoes you see on a baby and think, "wow, I wish they made those shoes in MY size!"  That's what I thought, anyway.  Scroll down...

So I did, in fact, find them in my size and buy a pair!  Okay, they are not identical, but they are still MJ mouse shoes.  Mine have gold noses and furry animal print.  So in some ways, I consider them to be even better!  Both pairs have little spiky whiskers.

Tabby enjoyed crawling around the cafe, peering out the front window

This photo makes me smile.  It is so Inner Melbourne - in the background, you can see a tram, a taxi and a bicycle:

See the picture of the clouds behind us?  It is actually a tapestry!  It was really pretty and unusual.

Tabitha reaching out to touch fingers with Gen...

Gen took this photo with her phone and just sent it to me.  You can see my pretty scarf.  It is my current favourite of all my scarves, an Hermes from the recent NY trip, bought for me for my birthday by my best friend Amy - so generous!

For dinner tonight, I just made a whole lot of crispy roast veggies (potatoes and sweet potato, with olive oil, salt, rosemary and lots of lemon juice), with some pea and ham soup, which comes from our excellent local butcher, and is the best I've ever tried.

Learning new skills...

After dinner tonight (lentil soup), The Daddy got up and made waffles.  Shocking!  He does not cook.  He sat and went through half a dozen recipe books, settling on a recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly, dug out the old waffle iron, and set about it - the batter even included whipping eggwhites and folding them in!

They were delicious.  I like waffles or pancakes with syrup and fruit (blueberries or banana) which is strange, because I'm not normally a big fruit eater.  We had them with the Canadian maple syrup that our friend Sarah brought us back from Canada last month.  The Daddy made plenty, so we can keep them in the fridge and heat them in the toaster (I almost prefer them like this - extra crispy).

A couple of people have asked for the recipe, so I'll put it down the bottom of this post...

Speaking of learning new skills, I have decided that I would like to try and improve my handwriting.  I have really, really abysmal writing - I am always embarrassed by it, and I feel so disappointed every time I write Christmas cards, thank you notes, invitations and the like.  After choosing beautiful cards, nice envelopes, making sure the stamps are straight etc., my writing lets it all down shamefully.

My writing is, in fact, so bad that it was deemed 'illegible at standard writing speed' in high school and university.  I was allowed to use a computer to type my VCE and university exams (with adapted time limits to reflect this).  I had to sit in a room on my own for all the exams, just myself and an exam supervisor.  Things like this have seriously damaged my self esteem when it comes to handwriting!

I have researched a little, and apparently, it is possible to improve your writing as an adult, but requires a fair amount of commitment, time and repetition.  10 - 20 minutes practice a day, with templates and copying.  Below, you can see my practice from tonight (writing out the indemnity clause from Gymbaroo, haha!).  This is some of the best writing I've ever done.  One day I might post my ordinary writing...!

Finally, Tabitha is also doing well with learning new skills - her spooning and bowl/spoon coordination is going really well.  She loves holding the bowl and dipping the spoon in, getting the odd bit of soup / cereal / porridge / yoghurt to reach its target.  It is messy, for sure, but the more practice she has, the sooner she will master it.

Once she's done with her spooning, she normally attempts to lick the contents out of her little bowl or ramekin.  Now that is messy!

For less mess, I stick to lunches like this - tiny juicy organic mandarin segments, and some sushi (duck and cucumber, and tuna avocado):

Here is the waffle recipe, as promised.  It is taken from Sweet Old Fashioned Favourites, a (sadly) out of print cookbook from the Australian Women's Weekly, 1991.

Sift 1 3/4 cups plain flour and 1/4 cup self raising flour into a bowl and mix with 1/4 cup caster sugar.  Make a well in the centre, and gradually stir in 2 egg yolks and 1 1/2 cups of milk, then 60g melted butter and 2 tablespoons of water.  Stir until smooth.

Beat 2 egg whites until soft peaks form, and then fold through the batter in two batches.  Drop about 1/3 cup of mixture onto a prepared, heated waffle iron.  Close iron, and cook for about two minutes or until waffle is golden brown.  Repeat with the remaining mixture.  Serve immediately with caramel sauce, or maple syrup, fruit and ice cream.

Note - leftover waffles can be stored, well-wrapped, in the fridge and reheated in the toaster the next day.

Note - for caramel sauce, melt 125g butter in a medium saucepan, add 200g brown sugar and stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar is dissolved.  Bring to the boil and simmer, without stirring, for two minutes.  Remove from heat, allow bubbles to subside, stir in cream.

Pumpkin Scones

Sunday brunch, pumpkin scones.  It's still cold out, so on the menu are steaming hot scones with melting butter and plenty of tea .

Pumpkin Scones

400g pumpkin puree

600g self raising flour

50g butter

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of sugar

2 or more tablespoons of milk

Extra flour

Rub the butter into the flour.  Add the eggs, pumpkin and sugar, stir gently but thoroughly to combine into a rough, craggy dough, adding as much milk as you need - the dough should be quite moist, rough, not at all smooth.  It's not an exact science - add more pumpkin, flour or milk as you need, but don't overmix.

Turn onto a well floured board, and knead a few times, gently, with floured hands to bring it all together.  The dough will be too moist and rough to roll out, so just pat it out on a floured surface to around an inch thick.

Using a circular cutter dipped in flour, cut out rounds of dough.  It's better to use a metal cutter rather than a glass, because a sharp, clean cut will allow your scones to rise higher, instead of pressing down the edges.

Bake at 220 - 230 degrees (if your oven struggles at high temps, you might need to err on the side of hotter) for 10 - 20 minutes.  The scones should be beautifully risen, and lightly golden brown on top.  Split one open to check if you want - should be moist, but not wet.

Serve with plenty of salted butter and some golden syrup, if you'd like.

These freeze really well for a month or so - just defrost them in the microwave for a couple of minutes, or in a moderate oven.

I find scones to be messy work.  I think it's because the dough is so sticky, and you tend to also fling flour around everywhere.  Pumpkin scones always seem even more messy, as the dough is more vibrant.  My work area always looks like this after scone baking - does yours?  Admittedly, I am quite a messy cook:

While the scones bake, you have just enough time to eat some breakfast.  One of my most regular breakfasts is avocado - lots of it - on rye sourdough toast, with plenty of salt and lemon juice:

When the scones come out of the oven, you can cool them a little on a tray - like below - or put them into a basket and wrap the top with a tea towel, letting the steam soften them a little.  I do either, depending on my mood.

Pumpkin scones are so yellow - they always look like they have saffron or turmeric added, in my opinion:

I like to dust the tops of my scones with flour.  Some people prefer to brush them with milk.  I find the milk darkens the tops too much, so I generally go with flour for pumpkin and date scones, and I use milk or flour for plain scones, which require a little less time in the oven.

I personally believe that really excellent scones are never visually perfect.  To get a perfectly smooth, even, round-topped scone, you need to work the dough until it is quite smooth.  This will result in a tougher scone, one lacking the ethereal, flaky melting quality of a really excellent scone.  The best scones are hastily thrown together with an incredibly light hand - not too much kneading or mixing.  The edges will be rough and damp as you cut them out.

It made me quite cross to watch Masterchef one day, and see some of the contestants told that their less-than-perfect looking scones would 'never sell' in a cafe.  Well, that's nonsense, because after I did a quick survey amongst people I know (who know good scones), we all agreed that we would, in fact, never buy a perfect-looking scone in a cafe, because it would inevitably be tough.

The insides of the scones will be incredibly moist, flaky and delicate, almost melting away as you eat them.  They will split easily in half, without requiring a knife, if they are still hot.

The only secret to scone making is practice.  Several years ago, I decided that I wanted to learn to make really brilliant scones - the sort people remember and request time and time again.  So, every single week (sometimes twice a week) for many months, I made scones.  Plain, date, pumpkin, cheese and herb.  But mainly plain.  No one complained - every time we had guests, they would be given hot scones - and my scone technique and recipes improved immensely.  I can now have a batch of fresh, hot scones on the table in less than 20 minutes including baking.  And doing a half batch of a regular scone recipe, giving you just 6 scones, is perfect for unexpected visitors.

But for Sunday brunch, I think that pumpkin scones are a good choice.

Pork chops, cream and other good things

I've mentioned the dismal weather in Melbourne right now.  I am currently wearing pyjama pants, a cashmere jumper and pink ugg boots, the heater is on, and I'm still cold.

This weather calls for pork, creamy sauces and buttery potatoes.  It's beyond simple to cook, hardly a recipe, but in case you are looking for some easy dinner inspiration, here is what I do...

A pork loin chop is my favourite cut to cook like this - pan fried.  The trick to keeping it moist, tender and juicy is to cook in a very hot pan, for not too long.  Don't overcook it - it needs to be slightly pink inside - and it helps to give it a good bashing, first, with a textured meat mallet.

I heat olive oil in a fry pan (NOT non-stick.  I kind of hate non-stick cookware) over a fairly high heat.  I place the chops in the pan, and keep the heat high.  After a few minutes, the chops will brown nicely, getting dark brown and crispy in parts.  Turn, and cook to the same colour on the other side.  Cut into the meat to check the colour - a hint of pink is fine.

Remove to a heated plate, cover in foil and a tea towel, and turn your attention back to the pan.  

Take the pan off the heat, add a good glug of white wine (or mirin, verjuice or stock, whatever you have to hand really), return to the heat, and scrape with a wooden spoon to deglaze.  Add a good amount of honey (a tablespoon or so), about a tablespoon of seeded mustard, some salt and pepper, and stir over the heat for a minute.  Add a good pour of cream (thickened, double, single, sour cream, whatever) and stir.  You want a golden caramel coloured sauce, rich, creamy, thick.  Boil over the heat for a couple of minutes, then return the cooked chops to the pan (tip in any juices).  Dredge them through the sauce, then serve them with the sauce poured over.

Serve with polenta, mashed potatoes, rice, or simple boiled chats with butter, salt and parsley (my current favourite way to serve potatoes).

Tabitha enjoys this dish - her favourite part is gnawing on the bones from the chops.  The Daddy says that you also need some nice bread, to mop up the juices.  Who am I to disagree?

Food delivery and pumpkin spice muffins

I have two people in my life recovering from surgery at the moment!  So some cooking and food delivery was in order.  I made a giant tuna and vegetable pasta bake, and two large dishes of rice pudding.  These were dispatched to their deserving recipients today:

Now, Tabitha only wants to feed herself, even when the food requires a spoon, such as yogurt or porridge.  At first I was nervous about relinquishing control - she has done her own spooning for a long time, but now she wants to dip and scoop herself, controlling the spoon AND the bowl!  The results are a little messy - see below - but I am very impressed at how well she can manage to eat, dipping the spoon and getting some food into her mouth.

Has anyone else noticed that pumpkin is always on sale lately?  I bought a whole pumpkin, and roasted half of it, then cooked and mashed the other half into a rough puree.

I recently read Mrs Jerry Seinfeld's wife's cook book, Deceptively Delicious.  The book revolves around sneaking fruit and vegetable purees into all sorts of dishes - spinach into brownies, cauliflower into hot chocolate, and some more straightforward ones like pumpkin into mac and cheese, broccoli into meatballs etc.  I've seen Mrs S criticised quite a bit - and I disagree with her use of margarine instead of butter, but that's a rant for another day - but I actually quite like the book. Importantly, she stresses that you must still serve proper veggies with the meals (e.g. sneaky meatballs but with a side of carrots and some beans), so that children still learn to eat veggies, but at least you can relax and not stress (a major principal of Baby Led Weaning), knowing that your kiddo is still eating some fibre, veggies, fruits, and is actually getting used to the tastes of these foods, even if they aren't keen on eating them.

Inspired by the book, I made a batch of pumpkin spice muffins - I made up the recipe in my head, which is always a little risky when baking, but these are just lovely.  Moist and spicy and healthy.  Here is the recipe - very easy:

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

1genorous cup of pumpkin puree (about 300g or so cooked, then mashed with a fork or masher.  You might need to add a smidge of liquid to get the right consistency, depending on the pumpkin.  You want a loose-ish puree rather than a mash)

60g butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup treacle (90g)

2 eggs

375g self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (preferably freshly ground)

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon bicarb soda

Cream the butter with the sugar and treacle.  Beat in the eggs and pumpkin.

Fold in the flour, bicarb and spices, mixing very gently but thoroughly.  Don't overmix - you will get touch muffins!

Bake in 12 - 16 muffin tins (greased or lined with paper liners) at 200 degrees for around 15 or so minutes - until just cooked inside (really, it's easiest to break one open and check.  Then you get to eat it!).  You want to keep them moist.

Note - you could happily add some chopped dates or sultanas to these, or some nuts (finely chopped if they are for young 'uns).  You could also sprinkle some demerera sugar on the top before baking if they're not for babies.

Like most muffins, these will freeze really well.  Muffins' enemy in freezing is air, so I cram them into a snap-lock bag, then use a straw to suck the air out, essentially shrink-wrapping them!

Someone asked me the other day, 'how do you manage to cook so much with Tabitha?'  Well, I generally let her 'help organise' the tupperware draw.  My tupperware draw is 1.2 metres long, and very deep.  There is a whole lot of stuff in there to play with!  It now looks like a permanent shamozzle, but it keeps her happy: