Chewy School-friendly Muesli Bars

My beloved husband believes, not without reason, that for both health and convenience reasons we need to bake snacks for our kids to take to school for recess. I'm obviously all in favour of health and convenience but I'm not entirely convinced that the chocolate banana bread or berry muffins that are our staple are really that healthy. Both are home made and therefore avoid the perils of transfats, palm oil, and oddly numbered preserving and stabilising agents, both are cheaper than buying that kind of snack food but to me they don't really seem particularly healthy. Plenty of sugar (or 'energy' as the candy bar ads so gloriously euphemise) which actually doesn't bother me that much but not high in fibre or protein, which as Megan knows, I'm a bit obsessed about

So I've been dwelling on what I can make easily, cheaply, lasts reasonably well (muffins, being lower in fat, don't last as well). It needs to have protein, fibre and be nut-free (school policy). And, obviously it needs to be whatever my fickle children consider tasty. Muesli bars (I think our North American friends call them Granola Bars) are a lunchbox staple, and I love chewy, oaty, fruity things, so that's what I decided to try.

I looked at about a hundred recipes and they tend to be variations on a theme. I asked various friends for their recommendations What I really wanted was something that gave me a ratio of wet to dry ingredients, an idea of crunchy to smooth ratios and how much fat and sugar was going to be needed to glue it all together. Oh, and I want to make sure I didn't end up with headache-inducing, rock-like crunchiness.

Based mostly on these recipes by SmittenKitchen, BakePlaySmile nd TheHealthyChef and the stuff I had kicking around in my pantry, I have constructed my own recipe and it's exactly what I was hoping for!

Dry Ingredients

• 1 cup quick oats
• 1 cup regular oats
• 1 cup corn flakes (I wanted some crunchy bits and I'm not allowed to use nuts. You could use any kind of prepared cereal, puffed grains, nuts, whatever)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used 1 cup of diced dried apricots and 1/3 cup of diced dates)
• 1/2 cup raw sugar (I will use brown sugar for extra chewiness next time)
• 1 cup other dry ingredients. I used one third of a cup each flour, pepitas and quinoa flakes
• 2 tbsp chia seeds

Wet Ingredients

• 120g/half a cup melted butter
• 1/4 cup honey (roughly - I hate measuring honey!)
• 1 beaten egg 
• half a cup stewed apple/apple sauce (I make this myself - just cooking up a heap of peeled, cored tart green apples with a little bit of sugar, water, and lemon and a heap of delicious sweet mixed spices). Those who want to make a nutty version of this could use a nut butter here, maybe loosened with a bit of oil and people who are really serious about being healthy might prefer to use tahini.
• 2 tbsp golden syrup (because I was worried it wouldn't stick together enough)

Method

• preheat the oven to around 160C (fan-forced) and line a brownie tin with baking paper (spring for the fancy baking paper - it's worth it!) and give the lined pan a spray with cooking oil.
• Mix the dry ingredients in a largish bowl.
• Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl (I use a Pyrex measuring jug for this kind of thing - I melt the butter in the microwave with the honey and syrup then add the beaten egg, making sure it's not too hot because I don't want the egg to cook til it all goes in the oven).
• Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix it all up well and press it into the prepared tin, flattening it down neatly.
• Cook it for about 25-35 minutes and let it cool completely before you cut it.

Store it in an airtight container - in the humid Sydney summer I'd suggest the fridge, if it isn't going to be eaten within a day or two. Although I could probably convince myself that this is an appropriate breakfast, morning tea and lunch, so that seems unlikely at this point.

Variations I'm looking forward to trying:

Tropical: with dried coconut, dried pineapple and pawpaw with golden syrup instead of honey. Maybe even mashed banana.

Thanksgiving/Autumn: Pecans, cranberries and maple syrup. Mashed cooked pumpkin with lots of spices instead of apple.

Summer: Dates and figs, dried coconut, some orange juice or even a drop or two of orange flower water.

And

Playdough!

Well, it's been a while since I did any real cooking, or even adapted any recipes so I'll post something closer to what I have been doing: Playdough! Home made playdough is really easy to make, it's cheap, but it doesn't last quite as long as the stuff you buy from shops. Make some for your next kids party and consider it disposable.

Ingredients
2 cups of plain flour (don't use self-raising - I did it once by accident and it makes weirdly fluffy, gloopy playdough)
1 cup salt
4 tablespoons of cream of tartar (no idea what this does to the playdough, but it's available in supermarkets)
2 tablespoons cooking oil
~ 2 cups of water

Method
Traditional recipes say to mix all the ingredients over medium heat, stirring, for 3-5 minutes but I now tend to add boiling water to the other ingredients and nuke them for half a minute before stirring like crazy for about a minute. Either way seems to work fine.

Have fun.

Almond and Cranberry biscuits (cookies)

This is almost my own recipe, it's adapted from a recipe for macadamia cookies from book called 500 Cookies by Philippa Vanstone. I keep meaning to try a variation with macadamia, orange and chocolate (or pecan and maple syrup!) but the almond and cranberry one is so good that there is just no motivation to try any others.I'm making these biscuits today to take to my inlaws for our Diwali celebration tomorrow. The biscuits come out chewy and nutty, not unlike some Indian sweets, so my father-in-law really appreciates them.

I do this recipe in two parts - I make the dough and roll it into biscuit sized balls first and put them in the fridge (or freezer!) and cook them later, usually when the oven is on for something else.

Ingredients

• 150g almonds (blanched, and they can be slivered or whatever, because they are going to be blitzed)
• 2-3 tablespoons milk
• 100g raw sugar
• 50g brown sugar (coz I like mine chewy rather than crunchy)
• 1 egg
• 75g dried cranberries
• 150g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarb of soda
• 75g granulated sugar (for rolling the biscuits in)
• 1tsp vanilla essence (I sometimes use almond instead)

Method

Blitz the nuts and milk together till they form a type of paste. You can do this with the food processor attachment of the stick blender but if I'm doing double quantities (like today) I use the food processor itself.

Add the sugar, egg and essence and beat well (I just tip these ingredients into the food processor), then I add the cranberries and give a few pulses to cut them a bit and mix them through the dough.

Sifted flour and bicarb come next. Ideally you will transfer the mixture to a bowl and gently fold the sifted ingredients in but if you are lazy or short of time you can tip them down the funnel as well, just make sure to only pulse the machine until the ingredients are combined.

Roll the mixture into balls (mine are usually about the size of a superball, slightly smaller then a walnut) and give them a little roll in the granulated sugar.

When you are ready to cook them preheat the oven to around 175C and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Tim Martin’s Classic Roast Tomato Soup

I had this lying around, I thought I better put it up here. I used to make a lot of this soup at The Rattlesnake Grill.

1 large white onion

6 large cloves of garlic

2 ribs of celery (peeled)

2 rashers of bacon (optional… almost)

Olive oil

1.2-1.5kg Ripe Large Tomatoes*

¼ bunch each thyme and oregano

150 ml cream

Salt and pepper

Bay leaf/s

200 ml white wine

Method

1. Pre heat oven to hot, about 240-260C
   
2. Take the core out of the tomatoes, give them a toss in olive oil, sprinkle with a little S&P and put into an oven in the heaviest roasting pan you have. But do not pack them in really tightly so they have a little room to wiggle around.
   
3. After about 15 minutes they should have begun to brown on the tops, if not, leave them till they do. When they have got a little colour and the skin has split open in several places, remove from the oven.
   
4. While the tomatoes roast, finely slice the first four ingredients, and put into a large saucepan with a generous pour of olive oil and a pinch of S&P.
   
5. Once they are quite soft, and the bacon has rendered out, pour in the wine and bring to the boil. Add the roughly chopped herbs around this time.
   
6. Once the wine has come to the boil, add the roasted tomatoes and turn the heat right down. Add the bay leaf/s add let it tick over for at least 40 mins to 1 hr. Till the tomatoes are soft enough to mash with a spoon.
   
7. Add the cream and bring to the boil. Then remove from the stove. REMOVE THE BAY LEAF. Now while it is still hot enough to burn you, transfer it in batches to a blender and blend the Christ out of it, making sure to hold the lid of the blender on with a cloth so it doesn't spray out everywhere and burn your face off.
   
8. As one batch has blended, push it through a sieve using a ladle into a clean container/soup tureen. Taste soup for S&P, and add a tiny squeeze of lemon if it tastes a little 'flat'.
   
9. Serve with a couple of baby basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil on top.
   

* As tomatoes are really what this soup is about, how good it is will really depend on how good they are. At this time of year you should be able to still pick up some good, ripe late season ones. Feel free to let them sit on a bench or windowsill till they are fully ripe and have that beautiful 'tomato' smell. If you're feeling posh, wander down to Fratelli Fresh and get some Ox Hearts if they have them.

Apple Pie!

There's something very comfort-food about apple pie, and none more so than this one. I think it's the little bit of custard powder and cornflour in the crust which gives it that bakery texture.

Australian Woman’s Weekly Cookbook Apple Pie Recipe

PASTRY
1.5 cups plain flour
.75 cups SR flour
.33 cup cornflour
.33 cup Custard powder
1 tablespoon sugar
185g butter
1egg yolk
.33 cup water
1 egg


FILLING
7 large ‘Granny Smith’ apples (really sharp green apples)
.5 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
.5 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon lemon zest
I add a few cloves as well for a really exotic taste

2 tablespoons apricot jam

PASTRY: sift flour and custard powder into bowl and rub in butter and add sugar make well in centre and add egg yolk and enough water to mix to a firm dough and knead lightly cover and refrigerate for 1 hour (you can freeze it if you prefer, for pretty much as long as you need)roll out half pastry put in pie dish (28cm) and spread with apricot jam then fill with apple fillingroll out remaining pastry and brush edges with lightly beaten egg white and cover pie press edges together, trim, brush top with eggwhite and sprinkle with sugar and cut steam vents Bake in mod hot oven for 20 - 30 minutes.

FILLING filling peel quater and core apples cut up and put in a pan with water sugar cinnamon and zest cook for 5 mins or until just tender drain cool to room temp (take out the cloves and the peel before you fill the pie!).

Never Fail Chocolate Cake

Ok Keda, here it is!

I have been making this cake since I was about 6yrs old and as the name suggests, it never fails. It originally came from the 1980 St Gerards Primary school cookbook (the school next to my primary school) and was contributed by a Mrs Gwen Ilic, bless her. The page is covered in chocolate cake, which is further proof of what a favourite it is. It is incredibly easy and makes a beautifully moist rich chocolate cake without being too heavy or sickly, allowing you to go back for that second or third cupcake hehehe. The mix makes enough for two cakes to be sandwiched or a deep round or probably 18 cupcakes. Next tasting will be at the kids 3rd birthday party, unless Keda whips one up first ;) .

2 1/4 cups S.R Flour
1 tsp bi carb
2/3 cups cocoa
1 3/4 cups castor sugar
5oz butter (141g) that's how old the recipe is
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs

Sift dry ingredients into mixer bowl. Add softened butter, water and vanilla. Beat on med for 3mins. Add eggs, increase speed for further 3 mins. Pour into well greased tin/s and bake in mod oven. Enjoy!

When to much cheese just ins't enough

I had always made my cheesy bechemal fairly randomly and although it always tasted good, it was always a bit of a hassle because of the constant stirring and anxiety about getting it right. Tim must have witnessed this and finally gave me a recipe for Bechemal sauce. Although he gave me the recipe several YEARS ago, it has taken me until last week to actually try it, however, I'm completely sold! It's quick, easy, reliable, makes a huge quantity and you can freeze it. Yep, that right, make a massive amount, freeze it in plastic containers and anytime you want a hit of cheesy goodness, it's yours for the defrosting! Let me let you in on the secret (and let me write the recipe somewhere less likely to be lost than my 2006 diary!).

Bechemal
~120g butter
~120g plain flour
1 litre milk
150 g grated tasty cheese
Salt
Pepper
An onion - optional

Make a roux - in a large heavy based saucepan melt the butter, add the flour and cook it on medium heat, stirring it frequently, until it resembles wet sand.

While you are poking your roux, put the litre of milk in a saucepan with plenty of pepper (and the onion if you want. Personally, I'm not a fan of the onion, I think it gives the whole thing an odd taste) let it come to the boil.

Pour the milk, through a strainer to catch the peppercorns/onion, into the roux and, whisking it enthusiastically, turn up the heat until it boils.

Season with plenty of salt and more pepper (white pepper, finely ground, at this point is preferred so you don't have black specks of pepper in the final product). I like to add a dash of nice vinegar at this point.

If you have lumps use your stick blender to eradicate them, otherwise just add the cheese.

Taste it - you may need to add more salt. I ended up adding a lot more cheese - probably because I had cheated and was attempting to use pre-grated cheese which actually has starches in it to stop it glomping together and therefore has less flavour. On the other hand, maybe it's just because I like a very cheesy sauce rather than a traditional bechemal.

Pour it onto your dinner and/or into plastic take-away containers to put in your freezer for a wet Sunday.

Donna Hay - Chickpea patties

Ok, so a donna hay magazine miraculously landed on my desk recently (I don't buy it!) and it's full of table fashion, and food styling and recipes for sweet things and thing that we already make (presented fancily of course). Sorry to sound so disparaging, but it really feels to be almost content-free, although I don't read magazines much these days, so perhaps I'm just re-sensitized to the style-over-substance thing. Anyhow The Wine Dept saw a little recipe on the 'cheats and nibbles' page and thought it would be fun to make with the little guy, and after they had made them and we had enjoyed them I thought I might post the recipe here, so you can get the recipe without looking at any trendy white-on-white table layouts. I have, of course, incorporated our small changes.

Chickpea Patties

Put half a 400g tin of chickpeas in the bowl of a blender or food processor (the little bowl on our Braun stick blender was big enough) with:
1 egg
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/3 cup flat leaf parsley
a little bit of chilli
salt and pepper

Process that together, then add the rest of the chickpeas and give a few more pulses so the rest of the chickpeas are chopped up but not quite as mushy as the rest. Shape the mixture into patties (Our 2-year-old reckons small patties are best, I concur!) and fry the patties in a little olive oil. 'Donna' suggests serving the patties with shop-bought tzatziki and flatbread but we just mixed some plain greek yoghurt with salt and lemon juice and it was delicious.



The patties were literally childs-play to make and they were tasty. As they are, they would be a good source of vegetarian protein and would travel well for picnics and/or lunchboxes, if you could manage to have any left over (double the recipe if you have more than two people or if you want lunch the next day!).

I personally would also like to experiment with the addition of either a handful of cooked brown rice or some chicken mince (obviously *not* vegetarian) but they really are just fine as they are!

Love at first sight!

While we wait for our guest blogger to get his act together (!) I'd like to introduce you to my new love interest: Mealopedia. I only found it today so I haven't really explored it fully, but anything that is going to let me choose what type of food I want to eat (options like 'pasta' 'budget' 'vergetarian' 'meat' 'kid friendly') then give me a weekly meal planner that I can change around and then make a shopping list for me to print has to be good! Right? It's also got a recipe finder that lets you choose an ingedient and it will spit out a bunch of recipe options. I'm off to look at the recipes and check out the articles - no idea yet if the recipes are any good...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After looking at the site a bit more I still really like it. It's not too fancy, more 'Good Taste' than 'Gourmet Traveller' and it really only offers main courses, no entrees or desserts so although it's excellent for weekly family meal plans it doesn't take into account that you might want something a bit fancier occasionally. The other truly excellent feature in the recipes is that although the default measurement is metric it will convert to UK Imperial or US Imperial at the touch of a button. I suspect that it is a relatively new site, from the slow conversation in the forums and the fact that no one has corrected their fairly dodgy article on making bread - hopefully the site will, like a good wine, mature nicely.

Fresh for Spring

Our friend Sean from Cafe Sopra got a really good review today, (to add to his growing list of reviews), and in celebration I'd like to introduce a new guest blogger. Cafe Sopra is becoming known for hearty portions of super-fresh, exceptional quality ingredients so I've asked Thetimbo2000 to inspire us this week with something Sopra-esque and appropriate for the lovely spring weather we've been having. TheTimbo2000 has been working in kitchens all of his adult life until recently when left the heat of the kitchen to work for one of Australia's premier meat wholesaler. Once we've got a recipe I might even talk the Wine Department out of his blogging hiatus to give us a few wine match suggestions...

(I'm also playing around with some new looks for spring - sorry if things look a bit ratty while I settle on something!)

Chocolate Brownies

I think this recipe came from a magazine many years ago. It was probably Cleo or Cosmopolitan something (does Cleo still exist?) but it has been my 'go to' Brownie recipe for so long I consider it mine. I will write it out here the way I do it, which I believe is superior!

When Sanj and I make this together it takes us less than 10 minutes to put together and around 20 minutes in the oven and because the ingredients are all usually kicking around our kitchen we make this recipe pretty quickly.

INGREDIENTS

• 100g good quality chocolate - this *must* be 40% cocoa or more, but I find the 80% Lindt slightly too bitter so we usually use a mix of whatever we have lying around.
• 2 large eggs
• 150g caster sugar - I either use vanilla sugar or put half a teaspoon of vanilla in
• 100g plain flour
• 125g butter
• 100g shelled walnuts - feel free to use any nuts you like here. I'm not particularly fond of walnuts, though they do make a nice grown-up flavoured brownie. I usually use hazelnuts for a kind of Nuttella richness or macadamias because the texture goes so well. The recipe doesn't specify using toasted nuts, but the flavour and texture are both superior if you do. If I have no nuts at home or there are going to be kids eating the finished product I use chunks of chocolate or even, on one memorable occasion, Smarties!

METHOD

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C
• Melt the chocolate and butter carefully in a glass or ceramic bowl in the microwave. You can of course use the traditional stovetop method if you don't have a microwave, but it isn't as easy.
• Carefully grease and flour the 25cm square tin. If I'm having the kind of day where everything is going wrong I might partially line the tin with paper so I can be a bit more confident it won't stick.
• Whisk the eggs, either by hand or preferably with an electric mixer. Add the sugar (and vanilla if you're using it) and if you are using a powerful stand mixer remember you aren't trying to make meringue.
• Stir in the flour.
• Stir in the nuts (or chocolate!)
• Pour all the mixture into your prepared tin and pop it in the oven.
• It should be done in around 20 minutes, coming away from the sides, looking cooked, not wobbling when you shake it and smelling delicious (and the skewer should come out relatively clean).
• Let it cool in the tin

Nigella Lawson's Easy Almond Cake

I'm going to cook this cake up the coast at my mums place over the Easter weekend. I decided on this cake because it's easy, I've made it before (and have marzipan in the fridge) and it's a counterpoint to Easter chocolate. It's also a cake that lasts a few days very nicely. Since my mother claims not to like sweet almond dishes, but loves friands and various other sweet things with almond in them I'm going to have to make the cake with Michael, keeping the recipe a secret til they are eating it. I'm also going to replace the vanilla essence with the zest of an orange as per Nigella's suggestion, and I might even replace the almond essence with some orange flower water, but I'll decide on the day.

INGREDIENTS
250g softened unsalted butter
250g marzipan
150g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon almond essence
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large eggs
150g SR flour

25cm springform tube pan or patterned ring mould, buttered and floured

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 170C
Chop the butter and marzipan and put them into the bowl of the food processor with the sugar. Nigella asks for the double bladed knife attachment to be fitted to the food processor.
Process til pretty smooth and add the essences and extracts
process again and add the eggs, one at a time, down the funnel of the processor, processing between each addition.
Add the flour and process and then scrape into the prepared tin
Bake for 50 minutes, checking after 40 - the tester doesn't need to be completely clean - and cool in the tin.

I have a sneaking suspicion we don't have a food processor up there, but I know we have and industrial sized stick blender, and with a little ingenuity I think we can make it work. I'll try to post pictures if it all works, because it could be amusing!

Pate?

I know I said I wasn't going to use this blog anymore, but we made pate last week and I wanted to record how we did it and how we'd do it next time so that next time the urge strikes me I have a recipe of sorts.



We started with:

200g fresh duck livers - Tim said to pick them over carefully for gallbladders
(!) but we didn't find any. Next time I would try half duck half chicken livers.

Half a bottle or so of red wine and a cup or so of Brandy reduced with aromatics (I used peppercorns, juniper berries, some thyme) to 4-6 tablespoons of syrupy liquid

Butter - 150g plus more to cook the livers in. This needs to be at room temperature otherwise, apparently, you get flecks of butter in your pate.

plenty of salt and pepper

Then we:
Firstly we got the butter out and chopped it up a bit and did the same to the livers.
Then we arranged the things the finished pate would go into. We weren't planning on turning it out, so we just gave the pots/ramekins we used a light spray of cooking oil. If we had been going to turn them out I could have given them a good spray with oil, then lined them with glad wrap before getting fancy with the gelatin.
We then fried the livers, a few at a time in plentiful butter. The livers need to be seared but not cooked through.
As the livers were cooked they were tossed into the food processor, once they were all done I threw in the rest of the butter, the strained reduction and plenty of salt and pepper.
It got a decent blitzing before I tasted it for seasoning. Since at this stage it's warm pureed semi-cooked liver it'll need more salt because you won't taste the salt as much when it's chilled.
Blitz to mix in the added salt and then pour it onto the waiting containers.

Before popping it in the fridge we covered each little pot with clarified butter to ensure it keeps it's colour nicely (success!).







The verdict:
Well, it was definitely pate, which is a start, but it was a bit dark and intense, for our personal taste. Since it was made with duck livers (rather gamey) and red wine (dark red) that's not surprising. If I was doing it again I would add a splash of cream, some tinned green peppercorns and I'd probably play around with the booze that went into the reduction. I'd also consider using half or all chicken livers to scale back the intensity. I think I want to make it again....

Dinner with a Grandfather

Keda's father came over last Saturday and we had a couple of lovely wines. A 2005 vintage Annie's Lane Coppertrail Riesling was excellent, one of the best young drinking rieslings I've had. It did seem more advanced than I expected but was all the better for it as a young wine - lime, mineral, butter, cleansing and refreshing. The advanced nature exposing itself by the rounder/broader palate (buttery character) and a softer acid finish compared to other 2005s (eg Leo Buring). This bottle was emptied pretty much as a palate cleanser as we hadn't managed to buy or make anything for hors d'oeuvres/entrée, so just some raw cashews and almonds had to suffice. The main was worth waiting for, a duck and shitake pie with a puff pastry lid. Unfortunately no photos of this one but it was a goody, took some time but relatively easy. Roast the bird, discard the skin, pick off the meat and mix with some fresh shitake mushrooms and a master stock style sauce (water, soy, slices of ginger, dried shitake mushrooms, dried chilli, start anise - all simmered for a while, strained and added to the meat). For sides there was a simple green salad with shaved pecorino and roasted carbs (nicola potatoes + parsnips). The carbs were roasted in a combination of olive oil and some of the duck fat that was saved from roasting the duck. A 2000 vintage Pfeiffer pinot noir was provided by our dinner guest. Quite possibly Rutherglen's finest pinot (maybe its only pinot?), this was more a light dry red than pinot, pretty good with the meal but died in the glass after 20 minutes or so. As Keda and her father prefer a cheese course over sweet desserts, that's what we had to finish. All supermarket purchased cheeses but pretty good ones - King Island Roaring Forties (a mild blue), a decently matured Jindi Brie and Yea's Cheddar (Yarra Valley). Since we had no dried fruit to put on the platter I substituted some Arnott's fruit biscuits ('fruit pillows')! To help wash it down a bottle of Penfolds Grandfather Tawny (no longer called Port) was opened and it went down a treat - well, about a third to half of a bottle did, the rest will probably last a month or two! Lovely smooth rancio characters, sweet but not cloying. A couple of glasses and some cheese later, Keda's father was falling asleep at the table - mainly due to jetlag and booze rather than any lack of fascinating conversation! - so we called that the end of the night.

Friday night drinks

We recently had a meal at a place in Willoughby called Maitre Karl. It was a bit of a celebration because my brother is (briefly) back in the country and it was my dad's birthday ealier in the week. Although we only drank two wines that night but both were excellent. The 2004 Petaluma chardonnay which was a rich, full bodied style of chardonnay but built on a core of lemon/grapefruit acid that resulted in a clean finish. This is the third time I've had this wine in the last 6 months (it is my father's current favourite) and this was the best bottle I've had. The cleansing acid allowed it to go well with everyone's entrees (flammekueche or "Alsation pizza"). The main course was with the main wine, a 1997 Grange. Feeling like a bit of a wine tosser I double decanted this about 30 minutes before leaving home which was about 1.5 hours before we started on the wine with our mains. There is a theory that some hold that wines from average vintages drunk relatively young/not at full maturity are better food wine matched than wines from "better" years. The reason is that "better" years, especially for Australian shiraz, usually equate to riper more fruit forward wines. Because the wine has more fruit, in theory it can handle more new oak and a wine with lots of fruit and oak will either clash with most foods or will require extended aging before it will be suitable with food. Anyway, this wine proved the "off vintage" theory beautifully. By the time we started drinking it the wine was open for business - a lovely floral lift followed by darker fruits and chocolate characters. The palate was super smooth, rich and velvety. I could have drunk a lot more of this, a real pleasure to have. One of the better wines I've enjoyed recently and Keda said that it was fantastic with her veal dish (pretty good with my duck as well!).

Blueberry Muffins

I've never been a big fan of muffins they always seem like a mouthful of air and dry soapy crumbs - but that's because they aren't home made fresh and have too much raising agent in them. I found these in Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' when I was looking for a quick treat to impress the other mothers at playgroup - something that doesn't have much sugar and that is quick and easy to make and easy for little hands to eat, but will also go down nicely with a coffee for the adults. These fit the bill perfectly because they aren't too full of sugar (there is a standard 5g teaspoon of sugar in each standard size muffin) but they still fall squarely within the realm of 'treat' for the little kids. The first time I made them I used mixed berries from some high antioxidant frozen berry mix that I found in the supermarket and I think they were better than this time, when I just used (thawed) frozen blueberries. When the berries thaw they ooze brightly coloured juice and some of that goes into the muffins (I try and keep most of it out) which makes the finished muffins kind of marbled with bright blue and purple, which I think is cool (and blue muffins will appeal pretty strongly to toddlers and little kids too). I'm going to continue to experiment with this recipe using different fuits.

Ingredients
75g unsalted butter, melted
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
75g caster sugar
pinch salt
200ml buttermilk (or 100g yoghurt and 100ml semi-skimmed milk)
1 large egg
200g blueberries

Method- Melt the butter and set it aside to cool
- Preheat to 200C
- Prepare your muffin tin with little patty cases. The recipe makes 12 normal muffins but I have been making 24 little tiny muffins (without patty cases, just with very well buttered trays) and 6 normal sized muffins. This is a pretty ideal amount for having a group of little kids and their carers around.
- Sift the flour and mix with the other dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Beat together the egg, buttermilk and melted butter
- Add the wet ingredients to dry, incorporating very gently, not worrying about lumps because you want to avoid overworking the mixture.
- Gently fold in the berries then pop them in the oven. I have been putting my large muffins on the middle shelf and the small ones on a shelf underneath and they have both been perfectly ready at the same time.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Eat and enjoy. Nigella suggest eating them hot with butter and blueberry jam but I think that negates the virtuous 'not too much sugar' feeling.

Apple and Honey Cake

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in the the SMH, but it is on a little bit of paper without a date so I can't reference it properly. I made it in two loaf tins so that Sanjay can take one to work tomorrow and I can take the other to show off to Mothers' Group. I like this cake because it uses things that I often have hanging around the house so although this is the first time I've made it I can see it becoming a staple.

Apple and Honey Cake
Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 20cm cake tin (or two loaf tins).

Ingredients
3 eggs
100g caster sugar
70g honey
80g softened unsalted butter
300g sifted self-raising flour
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
3 apples, peeled and cored and cut into 1cm pieces (I used 300g of apple, after it was all prepared, which was 3.5 very small granny smith apples)

Method
Beat together the eggs, caster sugar and honey until the mixture is pale and fluffy. a Beat in the butter (it looked fabulous until I added the butter, but seemed to flatten and reduce dramatically in volume) then stir in the sifted flour, cinnamon and apple pieces.

Spoon the mixture, and it's a bit hard to deal with, being almost all apple, into the cake tin (I think it'll look better if I sprinkle a bit of demerera sugar on the top) bake for 40-45 minutes (test til a skewer comes out clean). Cool on a cake rack.

(Posted the day after baking, after I had a chance to sample and get feedback about it - my verdict is it was a little dry and a tiny bit more honey in the mix or some cream to serve it with might be nice)

Hot Cross Buns

This is recepe for Hot Cross Buns with Lemon Glaze is from the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Living supplement from Tuesday the 3rd of April.

Bun dough

75g (1/³ cup) caster sugar
2 x 8g sachets dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm milk
600g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
60g butter, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp chopped mixed peel
²/³ cup currants

Paste for crosses
1/2 cup plain flour
4 tbsp water
2 tsp caster sugar

Lemon glaze
1 tbsp water
1 tsp gelatine powder (or equivelent leaf gelatine)
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp lemon extract (some marmalade might work here - I used lemon infused caster sugar because I didn't have and lemon extract)

Combine caster sugar, yeast and milk in a bowl, stir until smooth and rest covered in a warm place for about 10 minutes or until frothy.

Sift flour, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and mixed spice into a large bowl

and rub butter into mixture with fingertips. Stir in yeast mixture, egg, mixed peel and currants until well combined.

Cover and rest in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until mixture has doubled in size.

Pre-heat oven to 220C. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic (I did it in the kitchenaid for almost 5 mins, then finished it off by hand. It needed just a little more flour incorporated, and I wouldn't have known without hand kneading it a bit).

Divide dough into 16 even pieces and roll into balls. Place balls into a 23cm square cake pan that has been lightly greased and lined with baking paper. Rest covered for 10-15 minutes or until balls have risen to the top of the pan.

Combine paste ingredients in a small bowl and, using a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle, pipe crosses on buns.

Bake buns for 20 minutes or until well browned and cooked. Combine lemon glaze ingredients in a small pan and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Brush buns with warm glaze and cool on rack.

Makes 16