It is getting awfully cold here, it will snow on the weekend, but by that time I will be home to a sweltering Melbourne. While I’ve been here Sarah has been home, drinking iced eggnog and working hard. Lauren and her put together all the calendars, an extensive endeavor, helped with a little icy, nutmeg, boozy eggnog.

Today is my last day in Kyoto. Yesterday evening when I was heading black to my apartment, along the river, the sky had turned quickly from sunset to night and I watched all the white cranes fly in to roost. They came from all parts of the river, but they flew to the tree together and alighted as a flock. Tomorrow I fly home.

Ps.

It’s been a big year, I finished writing my book! You can see the book cover here and I’m super excited to launch it in April. (Published by Text, distro by Penguin)

There are still a couple of calendars left if you want to give yourself a new years present.

Sarah and I will be having a small hiatus over the holidays, we will be back late January, hopefully covered in sand and salt from beach adventures. See you next year and thanks for everything. Love from Sarah, Romy and Lauren.

Iced EggNog

4 cups of milk (we have been known to use the organic reduced fat milk so it isn’t too rich!)
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 cinnamon quill
12 free-range egg yolks
1 ½ cups of raw caster sugar
brandy (amount as desired, a glug, a cup, or even two)
250ml pure cream
ice cubes
nutmeg, freshly grated

In a saucepan, combine the cinnamon, milk, vanilla and heat on a very low temperature until almost at boiling point (but don’t boil!).

In a separate bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Transfer the hot milk into a jug you can pour easily from and steadying the bowl with one hand, sometimes it helps to sit the bowl on a teatowel, slowly pour the milk into the yolk mixture whisking continually.

Wash your saucepan and pour the mixture back into it, place back on the heat, and cook over a low to moderate heat until thickened. Again, don’t let the mixture boil.

Remove the cinnamon quill and let cool.

Stir in Brandy (or rum if you prefer) and cream.

Refrigerate overnight before serving and serve on ice (if you are in the hot summer like we are) with a generous grating of fresh nutmeg.

My mum slit the mangos down each side of the pip and then criss-crossed the cheek, opening them out so that they looked like the spiny back of an echidna. My brother and I spat cherry pips and our faces would be covered with sticky fruit juice.

For both Sarah and I, summer and Christmas always meant abundant fruit, especially mangos, lychees, cherries and perfectly ripe white flesh peaches. This rich chocolate tart is more sophisticated than a mango cut into the shape of an echidna, or cherries bursting in your mouth, but it is a beautiful way to celebrate the height of the cherry season. The chocolate pastry works so well, it’s velvety. The cherries should be piled indecently over the tart. And indecently, we’ve made them a little boozy with cherry liquor, but leave it out if you want. The cherry red is festive and would look grand as part of a Christmas feast. It could also work beautifully with stone fruit piled atop as well. If you’re making it with the cherries, the best bit is pitting them. I assure you you’ll end up eating as many as are supposed to cover the tart, your face sticky as a little kid’s.

Chocolate Tart with Cherries
(Adapted from the July 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller) Our version of the recipe first appeared on Apartment Therapy – Kitcn Blog Post December 2010)

for the chocolate pastry
200g plain flour
60g pure icing sugar, sieved
70g Dutch-process cocoa powder
110g cold butter, coarsely chopped
3 free-range egg yolks

for the filling
3 free-range eggs
4 free-range egg yolks
175g caster sugar
375g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), finely chopped
250g butter, coarsely chopped

for the cherries
500g cherries, pitted and halved
50ml cherry liquor

For the chocolate pastry, process flour, icing sugar and cocoa in a food processor until combined. Add butter, process until mixture resembles fine crumbs, then add egg yolks, process to combine. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and bring pastry together with the heel of your hand. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate to rest for one hour. Meanwhile, have the pitted, and halved cherries steeping in the cherry liquor.

Preheat oven to 180C. Roll pastry into a 32cm round on a lightly floured surface and line a 24cm-diameter, 4cm-deep buttered and floured tart tin. Refrigerate to rest for one hour. Blind bake until pastry is almost cooked (8-10 minutes), then remove weights and paper and bake until cooked through (8-10 minutes). Meanwhile, whisk eggs, yolks and sugar in an electric mixer until pale (4-5 minutes). Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (4-6 minutes). Fold through egg mixture, then pour into hot tart base and bake until set (15-20 minutes). Set aside to cool to room temperature.

When tart is cool, pile with cherries and serve.

We first ate this ice cream in the Californian desert, at La Quinta, in a beautiful restaurant in the original La Quinta resort, which was built in the twenties and still has the essence of that old school Hollywood glamour. Then, it was quiet hacienda that drew the likes of Greta Garbo up the winding roads from the Californian coast. Now, there is a freeway that cuts right through the mountains, after passing through a valley of wind turbines, the arms lazily turning giant circles in the prevailing winds. La Quinta is surrounded by golf courses, the green green grass and palm trees of Palm Springs resplendent against the red hills that surround it.

We loved it, the desert and canyons are only moments away, the Mexican influence, the margaritas in Mason jars, the modernist houses set up against the craggy rock faces and the green suburbia, surreal as a dream. This ice cream is as strange and compelling as the landscape. I really didn’t expect to love it, or Palm Springs as much as I did.

Buttered Popcorn Ice Cream
(Adapted from a recipe that Jimmy Schmidt, head chef at Morgan’s, was kind enough to share with us at La Quinta Resort, California.)

1/4 cup popping corn
4 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp butter
1 cup of full cream milk
1 cup of pure cream
5 free-range egg yolks
1/2 cup of caster sugar

In a heavy based saucepan heat the canola oil. It should be hot enough that when you place a popping corn in the oil it sizzles and spins. When the oil is hot pour the popping corn in and place a lid on the pan tightly. Lower the heat to medium. The popcorn should start popping. When the popping slows, turn the heat off. Stir the tablespoon of butter in with the popped corn. Set aside to cool.

Place the milk and cream in a heavy based saucepan, add the cooked popcorn. Warm on a low heat until it reaches 70 degrees (or warm but not boiling - this is important). Meanwhile, whisk the sugar and egg yolks until combined and foamy in a separate bowl.

When the mixture reaches the correct temperature strain the liquid into a bowl, discarding the popcorn. Add the egg yolks to the milk mixture. Wash your saucepan and place the mixture back on a low heat. Stir the mixture constantly and when the custard is thickening and covering the back of your wooden spoon, remove from heat and place in a container suitable for the freezer. Place the mixture in the freezer and stir every hour or so, making sure to scrape the icy bits from the side of the bowl, until it reaches an ice cream consistency. This should take a few hours depending on your freezer. Alternatively, churn in an ice cream maker until it reaches the desired consistency.

As for the granita, it’s incredibly easy to make, it’s a frosted musk colour and it’s perfect for summer. Make it, it tastes as pretty as it looks.

Strawberry Champagne Granita

a punnet of strawberries, green tops removed, washed and chopped in halves
1 cup sugar
1 cup of water
1/2 a bottle of champagne

In a little saucepan simmer the strawberries, water and sugar for about 20 minutes. The strawberries should be very soft. Set aside to cool.

Drain the strawberries through some muslin, into a bowl. Squeeze the strawberries so that all the flavour makes it through. You should then have a hot pink syrup. Add the champagne to this and pour into a flat freezer-sized-tray. Put the tray in the freezer and every 20 minutes or so give the granita a stir until the mix is icy, hard and frosted pink. Serve in a pretty glass.

(Recipe originally published in Yen #47)

Sarah is selling little jars of granola as part of the CHRISTMAS DESIGN MINI MARKET that is running out of the Kuwaii shop on Glenlyon Road in Brunswick, Melbourne (this Saturday 26th of November). Apart from granola – I am hankering for one of Imogen’s Pullar’s beautiful leather bags. Sarah is making other giftable edibles as well as things to nibble on the day, maybe some lamingtons with rosewater jam and toasted coconut?

The granola is so wholesome and crunchy with that yum sesame flavour. We use rice syrup and not too much sugar (I use even less than what’s in the recipe, hell leave it out even). Eating granola makes me feel like a 70s idealists – living in a commune, weaving macramé and eating granola for breakfast with thinly sliced banana. And I’m a child of 70s idealists – so no sugar for me, for breakfast anyway.

Granola
(This had its beginnings in a Nigella Lawson recipe.)

dry ingredients:
5 cups rolled oats
2 to 3 cups raw almonds
3/4 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp. salt

wet ingredients:
3/4 cup unsweetened puree apple
1/3 cup rice syrup
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp pomegranate syrup (from a good middle eastern grocer)
2 tbsp vegetable oil, such as canola

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Mix well with a wooden spoon. In a small bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients. Mix well. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, and stir together.

Spread the mixture evenly on two rimmed baking sheets. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until evenly golden brown. Stir the granola every ten minutes, and rotate the pans. This helps it cook evenly. When it’s golden brown, remove from the oven and stir well again, to prevent it cooling into a solid sheet. Set aside. The granola will still feel slightly soft when it comes out of the oven, but it crisps as it cools.

Store in an airtight container indefinitely. Makes about 10 cups, quite a large batch!

This recipe for blueberry and ricotta pancakes is a good one – especially with some Wisconsin ma and pa maple syrup. Colin Trechter can you get Sarah and I each a pint when you go home for Christmas? I have serious cravings for that maple syrup. The pancakes are rich and fluffy with bursts of blueberries throughout. Frozen blueberries are fine, but you should be able to find fresh this time of year.

A friend of Colin’s, Amory, from his rural hometown of River Falls came and visited us this year. Amory’s family has an organic farm and at the end of the blueberry season they freeze kilos and kilos of blueberries. (In the kind of freezer that in my experience has always been filled with butchered cow that at one point would have had a name and been fed bananas over the fence.) But Amory’s dad made blueberry pancakes all year with these frozen berries, and he has a secret recipe that even Amory doesn’t know. Amory made us his version, and we used up the last of the Wisconsin maple syrup.

In other news our 2012 calendar is ready. Sarah, Lauren and I are so excited. It’s lovely to have something tangible in our hands after a year of hard work and dedicated eating (maybe it wasn’t such hard work …) You can purchase them here.

Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes

1 cup fresh ricotta
3/4 cup organic milk
4 free-range eggs separated into yolks and whites
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
knob of butter
1 cup of blueberries

Place the egg yolks, ricotta and milk in a bowl and fold til just combined. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.

Combine the ricotta mixture and the flour mixture and stir gently til just combined. Add the blueberries. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture with a light hand.

Place the batter by the tablespoonful into a buttered pan and cook for about 2mins or golden and then turn over and cook for another couple of mins til cooked through.

Serve with cream and maple syrup!

Trotski & Ash are selling their beautiful 2012 wall calendar.

Each month has a full-page colour photograph, seasonal information (Southern Hemisphere only). Tied with Butchers twine, the calendar has a seasonal specific recipe card for every month. The cards can be torn out and pasted into your cooking journal or kept in your recipe archive.

An adorable A5 size. The calendar is printed on FSC 100% recycled paper.
Limited edition. The 2011 calendar sold out within the week.

For an extra $3 will gift-wrap the calendar in recycled brown paper, tied with Butchers twine, with gift tag and stamped with a T&A stamp.

To receive in time for Christmas, order must be placed and payment finalised by 18th December (Australia only).

Order now by clicking Paypal button below.

Postage & Gift Wrap Options

+ Postage Australia $23.00 AUD + Postage International $25.00 AUD + Postage/Gift Wrapping Australia $26.00 AUD + Postage/Gift Wrapping International $28.00 AUD

Last Wednesday we were talking menu ideas for Christmas parties and finalising the calendars, but we pushed the cookbooks and laptops aside to bite into soft tortillas. The queso melting into rich black beans, the tacos were so messy at the table. I think now that the hot days are here (on and off in this springtime Melbourne, today is cold!) it feels right to be messy and ridiculous at the table.

Frijoles Negros (black beans)
recipe from chef Sean Anderson

500g black beans, soaked overnight
2 onions, diced finely
1 leek, chopped finely
2 celery stalks, diced finely
7 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 tbsp cumin seeds, toasted
1 tbsp coriander seeds, toasted
3 chipotle chilies, diced and 1 tbsp of adobo sauce (from the can is perfect)
2 cans whole peeled tomatoes

to finish:
1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp salt (or more to taste)
2 limes, (or lemons) juiced
1 onion, chopped super-fine
3 roasted capsicum (from a jar is fine), chopped finely
1 red capsicum, chopped finely
4 sprigs spring onion, chopped finely

Rinse soaked black beans, and discard water. Fill a large pot with fresh cold water and the beans. Bring to the boil then simmer for an hour, or until the beans are soft. Turn off the heat and leave beans in the cooking liquid. Do this a day ahead.

In a heavy bottomed pot, fry the onions, leeks, celery and garlic until golden and translucent. Add the cumin and coriander and fry a little more. Add the chipotle chili and adobo – the chili fumes should get all up in your face here. Cook this until a paste forms, it’s okay if it gets a bit stuck to the bottom of the pot. Add tomatoes and cook until they break down. Add black beans and half the reserved cooking liquid and cook over low heat until the desired consistency, about an hour and a half. Add a little more liquid over time if it gets too dry.

When ready, add the sugar, paprika, salt, and stir. Add the lime juice and the finely chopped fresh ingredients. This makes a huge pot of beans, but they freeze well, and keep in the fridge for over a week.

(This recipe first published in Yen Magazine issue #52)

Our friends at Mud Australia are hosting a fantastic competition! Get your cameras out and bake something in your favourite Mud Australia piece and you could win $500 of Mud. We might try a Mud Cake next…

Sarah and I have submitted this photograph for a Mud Australia competition. You can bake with their beautiful crockery – we have used one of their fine green bowls to bake our prawns. So much prettier than any baking dish. I love taking things straight from oven to table, to be spooned still steaming and fragrant and then the dish wiped clean with a crunchy loaf of bread as everyone at the table yearns for that little bit extra.

Roasted Broccoli and Prawns
Adapted from a recipe by Melissa Clarke
Serves 4

1 kg broccoli, cut into bite-size florets
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp chilli flakes
½ kg green Australian prawns, shelled and deveined
lemon zest from 1 large lemon
lemon wedges, for serving

Preheat oven to 180C. In a large bowl, toss broccoli with 2 tablespoons olive oil, coriander, cumin, chilli flakes, and a little of the salt and pepper. In a separate bowl combine the prawns, remaining 2 tablespoons oil, lemon zest, and salt and pepper.
Spread broccoli in a single layer on a baking tray. Roast for 10 minutes. Add prawns and toss with broccoli. Roast, tossing again once halfway through, until prawns are just opaque and broccoli is tender and with a little golden crunch around edges, about 10 minutes more.
Serve with lemon wedges and perfectly steamed longest grain Basmati rice.

(Image first published in Yen magazine #53)