Fruit leather (apple and rhubarb to be exact).

So, I have become addicted to Instagram.  Yes, completely addicted.

I am constantly snapping pics of the local 'hood (ones that make me appear interested in arty, cool stuff only), and uploading them to my account.  I have a small following, attracting a few comments, and almost feel like I have 'made friends' with a couple of them.  Oh this weird, weird online world we live in.

Yesterday I was flicking through other people's recent photos when I stumbled across 'Oocha' making apple fruit leather in her dehydrator.  It looked DELICIOUS, and like something my children would eat.  Basically like a Roll-up but without all the rubbish in it.  One of her followers commented that she made hers in the oven.  I thought, I have an oven, I have fruit puree, I can do this!

Eight hours later I was rolling up my very own Apple and Rhubarb fruit leather, and chopping it into small rounds, perfect for kinder lunch boxes.  Here's how it goes:

FRUIT LEATHER

Cook and puree any fruit you like.  I used apple and rhubarb, but I read an interesting combo of cherry, pear and blueberry, yum!

Place baking paper on a flat tray

Spread fruit puree evenly over the baking paper to about 2 mm thick.  Do not spread too thinly or the leather becomes brittle and breaks

I sprinkled my puree with a tiny amount of Cinnamon and brown sugar (the rhubarb was pretty tart).  This step would be optional, or you might think of a different spice to use!

Place in an oven on the lowest setting you have.  In my oven this was about 60-70 degrees Celsius.

Leave overnight, or for about 8 hours.  I put mine in at 12pm, and was rolling it up at 8pm.

Peel the leather off the baking paper carefully so as not to tear it.  Roll up while still warm and cut into any sized piece you like.

DELICIOUS!

 P.S.  I know my fruit leather looks suspiciously like salami, but trust me, it is tasty!

 

Cookbooks

I have lots of cookbooks.

I really enjoy reading, and have quiet a collection of novels in my home.  We had book shelves especially built along two walls to house them.  One of these walls is dedicated entirely to children's books which means that some of our books are still boxed up in the shed.  I fear that one day we will be those people you see on TV with piles of books all around them and no room to sleep.  Or even worse, those people who die when a pile of books fall on them and they can't get out from under the weight of all those words.

My collection is varied.  There are trashy novels ( I have written a Mills and Boon style romance - sadly it has not been published, yet), poetry, classics, a collections of early Famous Five novels, some non-fiction, Australian works, contemporary stuff and COOKBOOKS.

I used to read a great deal.  My partner and I are both teachers and it was our love of books that was one of the attracting factors when our romance was young and tender.  We have always had piles of books on our bedside tables and could spend a whole day on holidays lost in a good read.   Now we have children.  The desire to read, and the interest in books (both new and classic) has not wained, we still read the paper on the weekends and are aware of the latest novels that we should be reading.  But what the old saying 'The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak'?  Usually by the time the children are tucked up in bed and we have finally fed ourselves and done the chores that we didn't manage to cover during the day we are just too tired to open a book, let alone try and make sense of the words swimming on the pages.  Don't get me wrong, we still read when we can.  Holidays, or long weekends, or when travelling.  But the luxury of hopping into bed at 7.30pm with a good book just because, is not a possibility at the moment.  Maybe in 10 years or so.

Kids should be surrounded by books.  The should be able to pull them from a shelf and read them whenever they like!

Cookbooks are a different kettle of fish entirely.  I have several shelves dedicated to cookbooks.  Flimsy paper ones, magazine style classics and heavy hardcover epic works.  I do not discriminate as long as the recipes are good, and they are written well.  I rather like books that explain where the recipe is from; "I first tasted this sponge at my cousin Flo's wedding...etc".  Cookbooks to me are perfect reading material for the time poor.  Each recipe is like a mini chapter.  You could spend a minute skimming over it, quickly looking at ingredients or the pictures, or you could spend hours reading up on various dishes, imagining how well they would go together, what variations you could impose on the recipe, and who you might cook it for.

One of my favourite cookbooks is Maggie Beer's 'Maggie's Harvest'.  Not only are the recipes delicious and manageable (in most cases), the book is a joy to read in a tactile sense.  The cover is padded fabric with a quince tree and pheasants embroidered on it.  The paper is heavy and creamy.  It is lovely to flick through these pages reading about Maggie's food adventures, her family food loves, and of course the recipes!  Maggie has recipes for fabulous terrines and all kinds of wonderful seafood and gamey kinds of things.  Mmmmmm.

Mrs Beeton!  The original guide to cookery and household maintenance.  This is an edition from some time in the 40s or 50s.  There was no way I could afford one of the earliest editions, which if complete sell for thousands and thousands!

A few years ago I bought my partner a copy of Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book for a birthday present.  It is gold!  The recipes are rather dated, or outright weird, but the book is magnificent.  Apparently lots of it is Mrs Beeton stealing recipes and ideas from other writers at the time, but we can forgive her the plagiarism as it seems that her book is the only one to really have stood the test of time.  The copy I bought has some amazing coloured plates inside, as well as a rather fetching image of a dead rabbit on the spine.



I've included a couple of shots of the plates.  I love the one which shows all the different cuts of pork.  And who doesn't love a good picture of CHEESE!







One of my greatest food pleasures is not in the eating, but in the thinking about!  I enjoy putting together imaginary dinner parties in my head.  I usually go with a theme (Persian for example) and think of the dishes I would cook, the wine to accompany, who to invite and how to serve it up.  I have had a wonderful Persian inspired dinner party in the past.

The Persian Dinner Party Menu (Ideas inspired by Greg and Lucy Malouf's series of books about Middle Eastern food - a whole other post will be devoted to these books alone)

Entree: gorgeous bourdon blanc sausages with a Persian 'twist' (pistachios in the chicken mousse), served with a capsicum and onion jam and a rocket salad with home made dukkah on top.

Main:  Quail  deboned and stuffed with vine leaves, marinated in olive oil, verjuice, chopped vine leaves and garlic.  Panfry the little sucker, and once golden wrap in katafi pastry and finished off in the oven.  I served it on a buttery rice with yoghurt dressing and saffron oil.

Dessert:  Rhubarb and rosewater topped with vanilla yoghurt, chopped pistachios (love the vibrant green colour) and Persian fairy floss.

DELICIOUS! 

Cooking with kids.

Cooking with the kids is always an exciting event (for them anyway).  My little girl LOVES cooking.  Baking in particular is her favourite activity, I suspect it has something to do with licking the bowl.  She can also stretch to cooking pizza and pasta dishes.  She likes picking the vegetables and herbs from our own garden, chopping them with her own knife and watching them change as they are heated or whizzed up in the blender.  There are plenty of cooking with kids cookbooks out there.  We have Stephanie Alexander's.  She is such an advocate for children growing their own produce and then cooking it.  Her Kitchen Garden program  is a huge hit and is implemented in many schools around where I live.  I have been to a couple of the conferences when we were setting up a kitchen garden at the school where I work.  Stephanie is a quiet woman, but spoke so passionately about this project.  I am happy to support her by buying her books and using them with my class and my own children.

Well, cookbooks.  There are magnificent things and I love them.  Even for the non-cooks there is a cookbook you could surely appreciate.  Even if it was purely for its kitsch value!

A great op shop find.  Terrible recipes though.