Miracles in my kitchen...

I think I need to call the Vatican, because I'm pretty sure I just witnessed a miracle in my kitchen.

Of course I can't be sure, I'm no expert in these things.  A couple of years of Catholic pre-school and the odd Easter service hardly qualifies me for this sort of decision.  But considering the unlikeliness of this happening, I'm going to go with divine intervention.

Yep, not just one but TWO double yolkers! 

It's an abundance of riches!  I'm actually embarrassed by the generosity of the chicken that laid them.  It almost seems a shame to eat them.

But maybe I should hold off before having it declared a miracle.  If I'm not careful, I could end up a Saint or something! I don't have any objections to it per se, but I'm not sure if I'd be a good choice for it.  I really don't have the cheek bones to carry off a stained glass portrait.

And I have to be honest, I think I'd get sick of the pilgrims after a while.  I'm sure I'd try to be hospitable, but there's only so many glasses of savings brand cola you can offer before you start to get a little testy about having your kitchen overrun by religious travellers.  What with all the genuflecting and the asking for blessings and the stealing kitchen implements to take home as religious souvenirs. 

As for the responsibility involved, I don't think I'm up to it.  Aren't Saints supposed to be models of moral decorum and religious peace?  Aren't they supposed to smile calmly and give vague, non-committal answers to questions?  I'm pretty sure I'd have a hard time keeping a straight face, and I don't think the Vatican wants a Saint that is continually saying "Oh, I'm a Pagan.  I don't believe in all that Bible stuff.  It's an interesting read, but it totally sucks as a primary historical source".

Perhaps it's best if we just keep this between us, hmm?  But I promise, if I find myself walking on water or raising the dead or anything like that, I'll make sure to let you all know. 

If it was good enough for Grandma...

I know I've told you all about my fondness for cooking shows.  Not cooking reality shows mind, but proper cooking shows where you get to watch Cheffy McBakesalot swan around in what you just know is a studio set made to look like an old fashion kitchen and whip up a seven course meal in half an hour.  But I have a confession to make.

Just because I like watching someone make all those ridiculously complicated recipes, doesn't mean I like eating them.

It's true.  When it comes to food, I like mine simple.  I can enjoy a nice gourmet meal once in a while, but for an every day thing I prefer my meals to only have three or four ingredients.  Seriously, if there are so many herbs in a recipe that you can't remember them all, then there are too many herbs.

I guess my preferred style of dining could be best described as "Depression Era Cuisine".  I like those simple, easy to remember recipes that you got from your grandmother.  You've got to give it to them, those women who lived through the Great Depression certainly learned how to make the most from the least!  I suppose when you have next to nothing, you work out how to make it appetising pretty quickly.

So, in honour of those wonderful women, I've decided to share with you two of my favourite "Depression Era Cuisine" recipes!  They're simple to make, easy to remember, and delicious to eat!  So by all means give them a whirl and let me know what you think!  Even better, share some of your own "quick and dirty" recipes!

Rice Pudding

-  Half a litre of milk

-  Half a cup of rice

-  Quarter cup of sugar

This one is so easy, and it comes out rich and creamy!  Just mix the three ingredients together in a greased loaf tin and then bake in a low oven (160 celsius) until the rice has gone soft.  It'll take around 45 minutes to an hour.

Unsweetened Pancakes

-  One cup of self raising flour

-  One cup of milk

-  One egg

Another easy one.  Just mix all the ingredients together, then spoon onto a frying pan and flip when bubbles appear.  It's a recipe that works perfectly every time.  The pancakes are unsweetened so you can eat them with syrup or jam, or if you're like my dad you can eat them with pickles.  Excuse him, he's German.

So there you go, two oh so simple recipes just like Grandma used to make!  What are some of your favourites?

Happy little vegemite...

For those of you who haven't realised it yet, I should probably tell you that I'm Australian.  That's right, I'm a proud, dinky di Aussie.  I've played a didgeridoo (badly), sat on the steps of the Opera House, and I can understand Crocodile Dundee without the subtitles.

By the way, do you have any idea how hilarious we found it that they needed to put subtitles on the movie Crocodile Dundee?  His accent wasn't THAT thick!  Did you guys really need it?

But the truth is there really isn't that much of a difference between an Aussie and any other Western culture.  In fact, we're pretty much a mixture of American and British.  The one thing we have, though, that is uniquely ours is our food.

Not all of it of course, but there are a few things that define us.  Lamingtons, Tim Tams, Chiko Roll, Pavlova, they're all uniquely Australian.  But the one thing that's always defined us is, of course, Vegemite.

In case you don't know, Vegemite is a sandwich spread that's made from a yeast extract.  It's black, tar like, and incredibly salty.  I remember watching a video once where an American fellow described it as tasting like salt and pain.  A little melodramatic, certainly, but I can see where he was coming from.  It really is very salty.

We're usually given our first taste of Vegemite as soon as we're old enough to eat a piece of toast.  It's a bit of a rite of passage.  Because of this, we usually can't remember a time when we DIDN'T eat Vegemite, so there's no memory of the first time or of learning to love it.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever tried Vegemite, but let me just say ... it's an acquired taste.  I acknowledge that.  I've seen enough youtube videos of people from overseas trying it to realise that unless you were raised on it, you're probably not going to like it.  But personally, I have a hard time understanding how someone COULDN'T like it!

All through my childhood I had Vegemite sandwiches packed in my lunch.  Even now, as an adult, I eat Vegemite toast for breakfast more often than not.  I know a lot of things people overseas believe Australians do are just stereotypes, but take my word for it, eating Vegemite is something that we definitely do.  In fact, given its salt content, some might say we eat it too much.

But the reason I'm bringing it up is that I've decided to try a little experiment.  I'd like to see if Vegemite is really as offensive to people from overseas as I've always been led to believe.  In order to find out, I've decided to send some to three lucky readers (to be selected randomly from the comments to this post) so that they can try it for themselves and report back to us all on how they found it.

So if you'd like to join me in this highly scientific endeavour, leave a comment saying so.  I'll randomly select three lucky individuals and, after contacting you to get your postal address, I'll send you some Vegemite.  I'll be taking the names two days after posting and leave messages for those who  are chosen.

Then we'll see whether Vegemite is something only an Australian can love.

Cupcake chaos...

I'm not someone who cooks.  Generally, I prefer to leave food preparation to the professionals, thus explaining my rather impressive collection of take away menus, but lately I've found myself wanting to bake for some strange reason.

And not just bake any old thing, bake cupcakes.

I have no idea why.  It's not like me at all!  Usually if I wanted a cupcake, I'd go the bakery and buy a damned cupcake!  None of this faffing around in the kitchen, creaming butter and sugar.  And who, exactly, came up with the idea of creaming butter and sugar together?  Whoever they were, they must have been sadists!  As someone who doesn't own a food processor, that's one of the hardest things to do with a hand held electric mixer.

Whether it makes me a masochist I have no idea, but I ended up pulling out my old recipe book and finding the pages for butter cake, johnny cake, chocolate mud cake.  Pulling out all the baking "extras" like chocolate chips and chopped nuts from the back of the pantry.  Digging the icing pipe out from the cutlery drawer.

My first attempt was with the traditional vanilla butter cake recipe.  Yeah ... that one didn't turn out so good.  I'm not sure how, but what came out of the oven was more like little doughy rocks than cakes.  I didn't even bother with icing them, it would have been a waste of good sugar.

Then I tried a "Four Minute Chocolate Cake" recipe.  It wasn't strictly a cupcake recipe, but I figured that didn't matter.  Surely cake is cake, no matter what shape it's in.  It's selling point was the fact that you were supposed to just dump all the ingredients in together, no blending, creaming or folding required.  Sounded right up my alley!

But when they were done the results were strange to say the least.  They hadn't risen very much, at least not as much as the vanilla butter ones, and they were almost crystallised.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and just assume that just because the recipe says it's a one step process, doesn't necessarily mean it SHOULD be.


My third attempt, red velvet cupcakes, was much better though.  They rose beautifully, looked exactly the way they were supposed to, and tasted great.  I waited until they cooled and then iced them with a cream cheese icing and teensy little candy hearts.  They were perfect, just what I wanted.

Shame that, strictly speaking, White Wings made them and not me.

Yeah, I caved and bought a cake mix.  What can I say, I got sick of failure!  Sure it'd be nice to be able to present a tray of immaculately iced cupcakes and say "Made 'em with my own two hands", but I think I'm going to have to just accept the fact that no matter how hard I try, a $2.99 cake mix is going to still yield better results.

I guess my dreams of escaping the office life and opening a cupcake cafe were a bit premature.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Why I don't hold dinner parties...

I love cooking shows.  I love watching them as they create little pieces of art out of four potatoes, an eggplant, and a crawfish.  I love how excited they get about it, waxing romantical about the joys of food.  What I don't like?  Cooking.

But I do love watching those shows.  I remember I used to love Jamie Oliver (before he became famous and a bit of a prat), and watched his earlier shows religiously.  He was just so enthusiastic!  He'd stumble over his words and be all sorts of adorable while the person behind the camera had to egg him on by asking questions about what he was doing.  I'm also a big fan of Nigella Lawson, the woman who can make de-boning a chicken look X-rated.  Seriously, anyone who can act that sensual about food while not actually doing anything sexual has my stamp of approval!

Like a lot of things I have an interest in, though, I'd much prefer to watch someone else do it than attempt it myself.  My philosophy is I'm not a professional.  If my toilet broke, I'd call a plumber, not stick my hand down the s bend.  So if I want a chicken kiev I'm going to go to the person most qualified to give it to me.

And most of the time that person is a chef at a restaurant or a cafe (and occasionally my mother).

So why am I bringing it up?  Well, today I found myself in the position of having to roast half a kilo of almonds.  I've never roasted an almond before, let alone half a kilo of them, and I wouldn't have had to today if my supermarket wasn't so plebeian that they only sold them raw instead of the barbeque roast flavour that I prefer! How very dare they!

But how exactly does one roast an almond?  After a quick sacrifice to the Google gods, I discovered that you just whack them in a low oven for about ten minutes, or until the smell of roasting almonds comes wafting out.  I don't know, Google!  It's not a good idea to give me options when it comes to something I'm not very good at.  I always pick the wrong one.  Always!

My oven, artist's interpretation.

And what does a roasting almond smell like, anyway?  They've always already been roasted by the time I get them!  So I went with the timed option.  Might not have been the best option, especially when paired with the unpredictable nature of my 473 year old gas oven (age estimated based on an excavation of grease layers).

So now I have two trays of roasted almonds, all of them slightly funny looking and ... for some strange reason ... more than a little chewy.  I'm relatively sure that none of the almonds I've bought from the shops ever looked like this.

Crap, maybe I should have just got the cashews...