That’s What Your Mum Said

A very close friend gave me this book a couple of years ago for my birthday. Needless to say, she knows me quite well!

The recipes are old-school and delicious. My absolute favourite is the Simplicity Chocolate Cake because it is just that – simple. I make it into little tiny fairy cakes with a yummy butter frosting on top; I imagine it is just as good with a little icing sugar dusted over it and served alone.

125g butter, melted

2 eggs, lightly whisked

1 cup self-raising flour

1/3 cup cocoa (I always add a teensy bit more because I am greedy)

1 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence (I use extract because I like the smoothness)

(Note: I always get the cold ingredients out to come to room temperature beforehand)

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius (356 degrees Fahrenheit). Grease and line the bottom of a cake tin (or put patty cake cases in a tin)

2. Melt the butter (they say over a saucepan – I use the microwave). Sift the flour and cocoa together into a mixing bowl

3. Add the sugar, the eggs, milk, vanilla and the melted butter.

4. Stir to combine with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer; beat hard for 3 minutes, or until the mix lightens in colour

5. Pour mixture into the tin. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean (when I bake my tiny cakes, I cook for around 8-10 minutes. Obviously, just adjust for the size you are creating).

6. Enjoy the heck out of it!

Six seed soda bread by Heidi at 101Cookbooks.com

I think I will make it this weekend! Perfect weather for some bread baking here (quite chilly and very rainy, so putting the oven on will warm the house AND help dry our clothes)!

What are you making this weekend?

My Mum used to get up quite early in the morning and often she would spend her time making pikelets. I would wake to the smell of them cooking in the warm house and it piqued my hunger – enough to want to get out of bed!

I would stumble into the kitchen anticipating the deliciousness coming my way.

Then Mum would say ‘DON’T TOUCH THEM! THEY ARE FOR MY WORKMATES! DON’T_TOUCH_THE_FOOD!

I think I get my nasty streak from her.

Her recipe makes about 10 small yet very fulfilling pikelets. I have them with lemon and sugar on top, but they are just as nice with any topping you can think of – honey, butter or jam are usually the best (add some cream with the jam version for hella goodness)! Apparently some people can afford fresh berries and are just a little bit fancy. If this is you, you might like to make something that looks like this:

If you are like me, you will produce something that looks like this:

You know what – they still taste DAMN good!

1 cup self raising flour

1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

1/2 cup of milk with 1 teaspoon of vinegar in it

2 tablespoons of caster sugar

1 egg

1 dessert spoon of melted butter

1. Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat and add a little butter

2. Mix dry ingredients together. Add the milk, egg and butter. Mix until smooth.

3. Spoon small amounts into pan – you want the pikelets to be about 10cm wide. Cook until small bubbles rise in the batter and the face-down side is brown. Flip, and cook until brown.

4. Eat as many as your heart desires

I have just finished the book ‘the ethics of what we eat’ by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. This is my second Peter Singer book on the topic of animals as food (after his classic ‘Animal Liberation’)  and it has been the paddle that has finally whacked me over the edge.

My partner and I have made the leap to vegetarianism.

He has always been very close to being a vegetarian but he would eat meat if I cooked it. Honestly, we only eat meat about once a week now anyway so it won’t make a huge difference. What will be noticeable is that we are also cutting out fish and skipping the pescatarianism. There is some heavy evidence that fish farming is one of the worst with relation to pollution but even just catching wild fish is not something I want to be involved in any more.

We won’t be going vegan just yet. I have been having some fairly serious health issues that mean no matter what I eat my body isn’t dealing with the nutrients properly, so we are keeping the cheese and the eggs. I will start looking into ethical cheese though, and will probably attempt to use soy milk form now on (I drink all of my coffee with soy, but the partner will be harder to convince).

I have been getting some amazing recipes from the gluttonous vegan (seriously, she is a genius) an it is amazingly easy tor replace any meat with tofu or my absolute favourites, kidney and cannellini beans. We use a LOT of beans.

I am happy about this decision. It feels good to be making a little bit of a difference just in our household. Don’t get me wrong – I will miss the odd steak or chicken in my favourite Balinese dishes. However I just don’t think it is worth the cruelty they went through to get to my plate.

Before I started the degree that shall hereby be known as “Bachelor of buttloads of reading” I made a few things for presents. I have also bought a few things recently. Here they are.

I knitted this hot water bottle cover for my dear friend Peta’s birthday gift. She comes from the same small village as I did and we have both moved into big cities (albeit quite a distance from each other). We have had to grow up and be responsible, however people from our little village have slightly different values to those of the people we went to high school with and then subsequently met in the big wide world. We like track pants and climbing trees and making cakes out of the ingredients we have in the pantry (hello marshmallow, milo cake). She is a public servant in a job that requires her to be dressed up and coiffed during the day, but I know she loves being a sloth at night. This will help her through the long winter ahead (she lives in one of the few parts of Australia that actually get painfully cold).

If any of you are interested in this pattern is is a super-quick project and very rewarding. I have given them to many people as gifts now!

These were delicious. The partner loved them, and my parents actually stole the rest of them from my house when they visited. Yes, STOLE. Sneaky bastards. Joy the Baker is the genius behind these Honey Roasted Peanut Thumbprint cookies and I applaud her.

Another dear friend Mitch turns 30 this week and he had a killer party on the weekend themed ‘Rockers v Mods’. I will have another post with the delightful pictures but this is the notebook case we bought him. It is from byrd & belle and I would highly recommend their craftsmanship. He loved it by the way.

This week the lovely Naomi Rose has kept my belly full and a smile on my face with these recipes:

Mexican Wedding Cakes = frackin yum

Coconut, Chickpea & Coriander Curry = genius.

Thank you Naomi, mine and the partners tummies very much appreciate you

Around these parts (my townhouse) we celebrate Gravmas. December 25th was the day that Isaac Newton was born (in the old style dating system) and as you are probably aware, he was led to discover gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree.

I celebrate something that is real to me and that I can see and understand. I have full respect for other beliefs, but being a staunch Atheist, I will celebrate the next few days with nothing in mind but my awesome family, far too much fantabulous food, my lovely partner, my new red polka-dot dress, and an apple atop my Gravmas tree! Oh, and gravity (probably when I fall over after a few too many ciders).

I hope that you all have a safe and amazingly fun-filled holiday season. Get too drunk, eat too much and pass out in a heap, I say (just make sure that if you are in the North it is a warm place; in the South, make sure you are near to an air-conditioner)!

To blow the cuteness factor of this through the roof, here is my nephew at his first Gravmas last year.

The last post was slightly ranty, so here is something fluffy.

Last week I had two days off of work sick. My current stomach issues leave me drained and slightly sullen so I couldn’t face the current retail work and instead took some bed rest and walked a lot. This is the harbour near my house. It was lovely and serene and grounding.

Two of my sisters and my brother in law stayed over on the weekend. My oldest sister and her husband had a wedding vow-renewal to go to at a local beach so we dropped them off and they caught a taxi home later that night. My sister was deeeerrrrruuuunk. She had a few too many champagnes and provided us with many a laugh. She discovered I had made banoffee pie and nearly wet her pants with excitement. Here she is harassing the partner just before she fell off the couch and got stuck between the coffee table and the seat. Gold.

I spent tonight making some scones. They are quite ugly and a bit too big and a tad too floury. I say fuck it, I’m eating them anyway! Ooooooh yeeaaah, floury scones.

You know what makes them better though? Damn good microwave strawberry jam I made a few weeks ago. I need to make some more now, as you can see.

Happy days.

A cold snap has brought out a bit more domesticity in me than spring usually warrants (I should be outside riding my bike or swimming). Here is an idea of my past week (or so):

I bought cushion covers and pulled potatoes from the garden. Granted, the cushion covers are kick-ass and modern, but they are such a domestic item. Potatoes are the mumsiest vegetable I can think of. Oh, as well as brussels sprouts. Fucking brussels sprouts.

Obi decided to take a bath. In dishwater. Dishwater that was very deep and very sudsy. I think he totally misjudged how deep it was and when I found him (after becoming a little suspicious of the splash followed by silence) he was swimming, trying to keep his head above water. Damn cute and but distressing for the poor little guy. He sat in the sun for about an hour and a half with his eyes closed drying out and calming down. I was doing the dishes after making these cookies. The dough was darned delicious. I didn’t have enough white chocolate chips so added dark chocolate as well. Epic win.

I know that knitting is a winter past time and that I will undoubtedly curse the wool when the temperature is 45 degrees Celsius (it happens here people) but I can’t help it. The wool is such a lovely colour teal and the pattern not only looks awesome but is quite easy to knit. I got the information from this page.

What have you all been doing to channel/pay tribute to your Mummies?

Yeah, it is already Friday and I am only just posting about last weekend, but let’s be honest – I have spent the entire week attempting to shake off the effects of last weekend and hence lost the ability to type in an acceptable manner. I am choosing today because I can still reminisce about the awesomeness that was last weekend, whilst enjoying the pure relaxation that is right now. Just so you can be reassured that I am already making the most of my current weekend, be aware of three facts:

1. I just ate salt and pepper squid salad, a piece of toast covered in melted cheese and pepper, and then half of a small tub of ice cream from Cold Rock (coconut with Mini M&M’s and caramel chunks, and coffee with Caramello Koalas).

2. I am wearing a knitted hair band and it feels damn sweet.

3. I will most likely finish the ice cream when I am finished with this post.

Last weekend was pretty much all taken up with the Bimbadgen Blues Festival. Bimbadgen Estate is a winery in the Hunter Valley and it is located approximately an hour away from where I live. It is a wonderful venue for a small scale music festival and is particularly suited to blues and roots music with its rolling hills, wonderful wine and relaxed vibe. I went with the partner, my sister, my best friend and three other close mates. We also all ran into MANY people we knew throughout the day – it was a regular school/university/life reunion.

We started the day with a killer brunch (even if I do say so myself)

I made mini quiches, blueberry and ricotta hotcakes with maple syrup, cinnamon and mascarpone cheese, and a large fruit platter. Of course, it was washed down with champagne and orange juice.

We caught a bus to the venue which meant that we were able to drink without remorse! We had some cider on the way, which although formally forbidden on the coach, was conveniently ignored by the driver. Cheers to him!

It was a sunny, beautiful day, and luckily by the time we got there at 3pm the harshness of the midday sun was almost gone – a bonus as the partner has quite the ginga skin which generally reacts to sun by melting, and also because the rest of us didn’t have to deal with the effects of the sun and drinking wine at the same time. The atmosphere was lovely and fresh and the crowd was joyful which is something I really appreciate when attending festivals. It really helps to get in the mood when everyone else is having a kick ass time and generally being a decent member of society. Every now and then the organisers would send flames shooting into the sky from the main winery building which was also really cool.

The line-up was quite a mixture and to be honest, I actually only really watched two bands. The rest managed to provide background music for wonderful conversations with friends (old and new, drunken chatty ones) and eating the amazing picnic my group managed to scrounge together. Without consulting each other prior to the day we all brought different foods that complemented each other wonderfully. I took leftover quiches and chocolate coated strawberries (fracking yum), my sister brought about five cheeses and many different crackers, my best friend brought her patented egg dip (ditto on the fracking yum) and my other friends brought homemade chocolate tarts, sourdough, chive and cheese spread and a container of balsamic and olive oil mixed together. Very, very fantabulous.

The first band I went to dance to (after lining up for a ridiculous 40 minutes to get a bottle of wine which next time I will sneak into the grounds in my bags that were barely checked by the security guards) was Philadelphia Grand Jury. Man, they are FUN, not to mention uber cute. My best friend loves the bejesus out of them and it was cool to dance along with her like uncoordinated gits. They have a touch of Vampire Weekend about them but are far more down to earth and rough around the edges. The only downer was my friend getting red wine spilt down the entire side of her white dress by bogan feral wanker whores. She handled it like the awesome pro that she is and started dancing all over them and suggestively winking in their direction. Being that homophobia goes hand in hand with being a bogan feral wanker whore, they backed off quick smart. She managed to look great the entire day and totally ignore the fact that she had the biggest red wine stain known to man on her pretty dress. She is my hero and partner in crime. Here she is hoola-hooping like a champion. We both discovered that we have a hidden talent and have vowed to further this skill with drunken competitions in the future. Thanks to the hippies that provided us with the means to discover this gift!

The other band that got us dancing (and never fails to do so) was Bluejuice. They are just happiness, pure and simple. They have a great time on stage and that translates into the audience having a blast as well. I have seen them live 5 or so times now and they just keep getting better. Man, did we pull some moves. Observe!

Notice the delightful Forever 21 skirt I am wearing. It has pockets and was one of the most comfortable outfits I have worn to a festival yet. I think that the awkward dance move/poor posture/flip flops really set it off.

It was a hella fun day out regardless of the fact that I ate way too much cheese which resulted in me being the sickest I have been in a long time for two days after, and then very off colour for the rest of the week. That’s the price you pay for a day of sin I am afraid. God really showed me (douche that he is). A few more photos below to punctuate the fun. Take notice of the photo with the amazing graphically designed smiley face (thanks MSPaint) and go get involved in the awesome pieces made by Kim at Cupcakes and Mace. You won’t be disappointed