stained glass biscuits

Pretty, simple and delicious. And they make great decorations.

It’s a short post today because I had a PARTY on last night(yay! party!) so I’m just going to say that Christmas is about friends and family and celebration. It’s about food and presents and love and joy and hope. Peace and determination and perseverance, too. (even when you feel like a failure because you’ve already missed two posts in your month of posting).

Christmas is about being human. As human as human is. All the pains and sorrows and joys and delights of being human, the entirety of the journey that man takes in discovering God and Creation and fellow human. Christmas is about the gift of giving and the gift of recieving. Christmas is about love.

Merry Christmas.

kerstkrantjes (christmas shortbreads)

Hey! So today on YouTube is the Project for Awesome. The Project for Awesome began in 2007 when the vlogbrothers decided to take over YouTube so that for one day, instead of it being about cats and memes and random music videos and people making fools of themselves in front of their cameras alone in their bedrooms, it was all about charity.

chocoate chocolate cupcakes

I’m writing a novel.

I have always loved to write. I started this blog to write, and I made it a food blog because I love food. I love to make it and I love to share it. And National Novel Writing Month has given me that same opportunity in a completely different way.

 

father’s day breakfast buns

What do you love?

I love breakfast. I love coffee. I love family. I love eating, I love food.

I love sunsets, especially ones shared with friends. Especially ones from my own porch. (They’re beautiful!)

I love winter. I love socks. I love loving stuff, getting so uncontrollably, jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair LOVING stuff. Being so excited by something you literally cannot control yourself. I love uncontrollable laughter with friends.

I love reading. I love writing.

I love baking and cooking. I love sharing, especially something I’ve made, with other people. I love giving.

This week, I got uncontrollably excited about the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. I started reading a book I bought there (I currently have four books I’m juggling, five if you count the Bible. Not that you wouldn’t – it’s just that it’s always being read in some capacity:). I finished writing my essays and drank surprising amounts of coffee (surprising considering the amount of stress I put myself through with those essays). I watched several sunsets from my porch, one from my lecture hall and one in my rearview mirror. I celebrated socks by wearing two pairs at once at the start of spring, the end of winter but still a pretty good season.

I gotta say, I pretty much love all seasons. For different reasons.

This week, I heard about some things that other people love. What other people do in their everyday lives that expresses their love for something bigger than themselves. I gave a piece of myself in the form of a poem. I got a stir in my belly that warned me of getting stuck in a rut.

And I baked breakfast buns for my family for Father’s Day. I didn’t get to be at home for as long as I’d have liked to, but I was there for long enough to make and enjoy these immensely. I’m hoping the next time I try, they’ll rise a little better, though.

What do you love?

Lemon Raspberry Breakfast Buns

Adapted from Joy the Baker

 

So, my yeast wasn’t exactly alive. Not quite dead, but I couldn’t make it into the scrolls that the original recipe requested, so I rolled it out as best as I could and cut it into rounds and we ate it that way. It was still delicious, and I’ll put in instructions for both ways.

1 cup milk

2/3 cup sugar

1 pkt active dry yeast (1 1/2 tbsp)

1/2 cup (110g) butter, room temperature)

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp lemon zest

1/2 tsp salt

4 1/4 cups plus 1/2 cup plain flour, plus more for sprinkling

For the filling:

1 heaping cup fresh raspberries (or frozen, not thawed, unless you’re making buns not scrolls) (I used a mixed berry mix because that’s what we had)

1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp cornflour

1/4 cup butter

 

Warm the milk to just under body temperature (in a saucepan or in the microwave). Pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir the sugar and yeast into the warm milk and leave it to froth if you like, but you should probably know if your yeast is alive. (HINT, HINT).

Add the butter, eggs, lemon zest, salt and 4 1/4 cups flour. Beat on low speed for a few minutes, then scrape down the bowl and mix again for a few seconds. Now you can use a dough hook, if you have one, and mix on medium speed for ten minutes, or take out the dough and knead it for the same amount of time. Use the 1/2 cup of flour, plus more if needed, to sprinkle on your kneading surface. It should be soft and slightly sticky.

Place in a large, oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place either in a warm place for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or in the refrigerator overnight.

If you left it in the refrigerator, take it out for half an hour while you do this next bit.

Grease a 9×13″ pan or line two baking trays with baking paper and set aside.

Combine raspberries, 1/3 cup sugar, lemon zest and cornflour and set aside. If you’re making the scrolls, brown the butter in a saucepan and set aside.

Roll out the dough. If you’re making buns, preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius, and roll the dough out to about an inch or so thick and cut out 2″ rounds. Place on the baking trays and bake about 20 minutes. Serve with the butter and raspberry mix scattered over.

If you’re making scrolls, roll it out to about a centimetre. Brush with the browned butter and scatter the raspberry mix all over. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar over and carefully roll the dough and filling lengthways into a log.

Slice it into inch thick rounds and nestle into the baking dish. Cover with a tea towel and let rise another hour in a warm place.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius and bake 20-25 minutes, until the filling is bubbling at the edges and the tops are golden brown. Let cool about half an hour and then gobble them down with your family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

simplicity pears

In a time when I’m inundated with stuff to do (my to do lists are numerous and scarily interconnected, like one to do list spawns another and another. For example, Uni stuff. Then, Study and Work On Assignments. Then, I work unit by unit, prioritising by when I’m going to have that class or when that particular assessment is due, counterbalanced by what’s easiest or more fun. And we move on to my other to do stuff, long term and short term – I make lists when I’m stressed. And some of those lists may have to do with 1) why I’m stressed and 2) what I can do [will do, should do] to become destressed.) I can’t believe I digressed so easily already, so when I have so much stuff to do, I want to bake and I want to cook and I want to write for you (and for me, it’s more about me than you at this moment in time, sorry) SO MANY PARENTHESES, I’M SORRY! when I do cook it kinda has to be simple.

Enter vanilla baked pears. Not bears, I’m vegetarian, I’ve had this space for seven months and I still get asked if I’d like some baked bears, no thank you unless they’re tiny teddies.

Wow, I am so distracted. So, the lowdown is, make these. Pears are in abundance because it’s still winter (and aggressively so, it’s freezing!) so you can buy them and they won’t be too expensive. You don’t have to do much – peel, cut, and place the pears in a roasting dish.

Rub vanilla extract or the insides of half a vanilla bean in sugar. Sprinkle it over with lemon juice and water. Dot with butter.

Put in the oven for longer than I did. Eat with whipped cream, ice cream and lots and lots of pan juices. Feel better about everything.

Best Wishes!

Vanilla Baked Pears

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen 

I did not follow this recipe exactly, my pears were ripe rather than underripe, I should have left them in for longer, I had no vanilla beans. This was amazing anyway. So just do it.

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

About 600g which is probably about 6 slightly underripe pears, whatever kind, peeled, halved, cored

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp water

2 tbsp (approx) butter

Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius.

If you have the vanilla bean, scrape the insides out and rub them into the sugar, and use the sugar to scrub the vanilla bean itself and also the vanilla off your fingers. Mmm, vanilla sugar.

If not, just rub the vanilla extract into the sugar.

Place the pears, cut side up, into a baking dish. Sprinkle with the sugar, dot with the butter, sprinkle with the lemon juice and water. Put the vanilla bean in the dish also, to make pear vanilla caramel juices (yum).

Bake about half an hour, basting every few minutes. Turn the pears over so the cut side is down and bake another about half hour, basting every now and then. Serve with whipped cream and/or ice cream.

Try not to burn your mouth when you wolf it down because it’s so delicious.

day five – LBTL

It’s the last day! Whoohoo!

In other good news, I reached my fundraising goal (although if you’re still interested in fundraising, you are most welcome, and the link is here. Otherwise, you can donate to one or two of my friends who are also living below the line this week: Roberta or Miranda. Miranda’s going for two weeks on less than $2 a day AND no furniture. You go girl!)

Plus, Live Below the Line Australia raised over one million dollars in total for anti-poverty initiatives in East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and in our very own country (since when were we the ones who needed help? More on that one later.)

Okay, so I think a recap of my week is in order. Here we go:

What I had to start out with:

750g pumpkin @ $1.98/kg = $1.48

Approx. 1.4kg potatoes = $1 at the fruit and veg market on the discounted table

Approx. 1.2kg tomatoes, approx 1/4 of which was mouldy by the time I got to it = $1, see potatoes

Approx. 1.4 kg of assorted nashis and I think they were royal gala apples = $1, see tomatoes

200 homebrand teabags = $1.99

500g large spiral pasta = $0.59

1 small head garlic = $0.49

1kg homebrand plain flour = $0.95

250g homebrand salted butter = $1.41

Total = $9.91

Day 1

Stewed apples and pears = $0.20

2 cups tea $0.02

Pumpkin and potato soup with flatbread, x2 = $1.70

Total = $1.92

Woke up late-ish, made soup and flatbread to take to work. Worked five hours, then took my soup to a TEAR group meeting, where two other people were also living below the line. We had much discussion on war and poverty, and didn’t really get anywhere with the hard stuff, just that it’s hard and we have to keep thinking about it and working out better ways to live and work for a better world.

Day 2

Stewed apples and pears = $0.20

2 cups tea = $0.02

Pumpkin and potato soup with flatbread = $0.85

Pasta with potato and pumpkin = $0.38

Total = $1.45

Woke up at 5.30 in the am to go to uni. Not recommended when you aren’t eating as much as you usually do, because I felt like crap pretty much the entire day. Not so much hungry as my stomach was getting used to having different things, and less than usual. Drank lots of water, because it helped wash the bile down that kept coming up. Not a great day overall.

Day 3

Stewed apples and pears = $0.20

2 cups tea = $0.02

Pasta with potato and pumpkin = $0.38

Potato and pumpkin soup with flatbread = $.85

Flatbread, munched on during the day = $0.14

Total = $1.59

Went to uni again today. I actually felt much better today, got some fresh air on my walks to and from the train station. My friends kept offering to let me cheat, but I held my ground. Ah, hot chocolate. We meet again soon! Also had some really interesting conversations with my classmates. One of my friends was arguing that we should be grateful for our position in life and be thankful for what God’s given us. I said that it doesn’ t count as God’s gift if we took it from other people. God made us all to be equal and we’re not living that way.

Day 4

Stewed apples and pears = $0.20

2 cups tea = $0.02

Tomato soup with flatbread, x2 = $1.28

Total = $1.50

Worked again today. Noticed much more than Monday my proximity to food. So glad that in two days, I get to drink coffee again. Also noticed I was more crotchety than usual. Either the lack of food/sugar or the constant reminders of my privilege were getting to me. gah! One day to go. Huge uplifting feeling when I saw that I’d reached my fundraising goal. Again, you guys are awesome!

Day 5

Stewed apples and pears = $0.20

2 cups black tea = $0.02

Pasta with pumpkin and potato, x2 = $0.76

Total = $0.98

Woke up at 5.30am again. And again, not a good idea. I almost puked on the train, and I don’t even have that much to puke! I’m really, really glad that as of tomorrow I get to put sugar and milk back in my tea. Sorry, Mum, black tea just doesn’t do it for me. I’m studying now and kinda wanting a snack but you can do this erin, pull through, one more day. It’ll be interesting to see how I go tonight; I have a birthday party! It’ll be fun regardless of the food situation, though.

I have to say, I’m already thinking about next year, how I can go better, fundraise more, change my lifestyle so that it’s not just geared around one time a year where I remember the 1.4 billion people living below the extreme poverty line but that it’s  a part of the direction of my life and my vision.

I want to thank each and every one of you, my readers, for sticking with me through this. I know a lot of you personally; I don’t know all of you but I really appreciate it. A special shout-out to everyone who donated. You guys are incredible!

living below the line

For the next five days, I will be living below the extreme poverty line for my food. This means I will be living on $2 a day.

I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned this before, but now that it’s imminent, I’m freaking out just a little bit. I’ve got all my food together, my meal plan done up, my total figure totalled. I’m freaking out a little, to tell you the truth.

I will be eating a LOT of potatoes. They were on special at the fruit and veg market, so I have over three kilos of them.  I have lentils. I have tomatoes and I have some apples and pears that I’ll be stewing up for my breakfast, as well as the flat bread I’ll be making with my kilo of flour and butter.

I have teabags, so at least I won’t be without my caffeine. So no, my house mates won’t kill me. Yay! On the other hand, I couldn’t afford milk, or sugar, so that’ll be an experience. Mum, I know you like black tea, but I’ve never really gotten into it. Maybe this week I’ll develop a taste for it! Could do worse I suppose.

Freaking out a little… or, a lot… I don’t know how I’ll go on this food this week. I don’t know whether I’ll get super run down from lack of protein or lack of calcium. I’m hoping it’s ok if I forage, though. We have a veggie garden. At least I got given some mint a little while ago, so I can have peppermint tea.

SO my list of ingredients this week is:

Potatoes

Tomatoes

Apples

Pears

Lentils

Flour

Butter

Pumpkin

Garlic

Teabags

I’m kinda scared. But I’m also pumped. Pumped to raise awareness of poverty issues, pumped to raise money for people in real need, not in fake I-wish-I-had-a-pair-of-designer-jeans (or shoes, or socks, or whatever else… yes, I’m talking about myself here.) Pumped to do something, even this small thing.

So again: here is the link to donate to my live below the line campaign; it also includes some info about where the money will be going.

Please donate, and if you don’t, please at least read about it. And maybe when you’re done, check out how high you are on the global rich list. You might be surprised.

quince paste

Pretty much every time I go home, I come back to Melbourne with more than I left with. My mum insists on giving me food to bring home: something she found on special at the supermarket, vegetarian pasta, jam, preserved plums, fruit. Or something that will be useful to me, like the Breville Kitchen Wizz, a sewing machine, an extra towel. Or just something she saw and thought of me.

My mum’s pretty awesome, to put it another way. Even though I’ve left the nest, flown the coop, moved out of home, whatever you want to call it, she’s always looking out for me.

In honour of Mother’s Day, which I’m spending with my mum at the moment, I’m therefore posting this recipe.

My mum got these from a friend of our family’s at church, who they’ve gotten to know better through Family Group. Their family has an orchard and we got apples, pears and quinces, a whole bunch of which I brought back to Melbourne after Easter at home. I made apple sauce with the apples, I roasted the pears in vanilla, and I made quince paste with the quinces.

When I got them home, I had not much idea as to what to use them for. I’d had quince paste before but I always assumed that, like jam, only cool people and hippies (my mum being one of the cool people, who makes jam and preserves plums) could make it. But after looking around and deciding that I probably wouldn’t eat them all if I poached them and a tarte tatin would be too much work (hey, it’s been hectic around here lately), I figured maybe I could try the quince paste thing. After all, one thing my family in general and my mum in particular love to do is eat, and something we all love to eat is cheese. A cheese platter is always a part of a celebratory occasion, complete with some sort of washed rind cheese like Brie, (popular with the kids) a cheddar and a blue cheese, my mum’s (and her mum’s) favourite.

Quince paste goes very well with a cheese platter. Stella pontificates on cheese platters here, if you really want the low down on a great cheese plate, but we always just go with what we like. Which means crackers, cheese and wine to complement.

And quince paste, if we can get it.

Quince Paste

From Taste.com.au

4 quinces (which is apparently about 1.4 kg. I didn’t weigh mine) peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 cup water (125ml)

700g sugar

Bring the quinces and water to boil in a large saucepan, then lower the heat, cover and simmer for about half an hour or until tender, stirring occasionally.

Place the quinces in the bowl of a food processor and whizz until smooth. Place back in a clean heavy based large saucepan with the sugar, and stir frequently over low heat until it is ruby red and comes away from the sides of the pan*.

Divide the paste among six ramekins lined with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator until set, then serve with cheese, dry biscuits and wine.

*mine didn’t really come away from the pan, it just turned ruby red and delicious looking, so I figured that it’d set in the fridge. Which it did.

sunday best

I never really dressed up for mass. (For all you Protestants out there, that’s what we call church. Mass is the gathering; church is the people. Or the building, depending on who you talk to. I always thought it was the building, but then I found out different when I got older. Excuse me, we don’t tell people what we believe, we try and make them guess by how we act. Unfortunately, this way you can get a little confused, especially if you’re only five.)

But hey. I digress. (Often. Clearly.)

Today is Sunday and I am in my Sunday Best. I went out for breakfast and you know what I was saying about the best way to break in new shoes is to dance in them? It’s true but the second best way may be to walk down a sun-dappled street on a summer morning after a beautiful breakfast. It was so good and I was so disappointed that I couldn’t finish it. I clearly need to make my stomach bigger. The walk was almost necessary just to get that over-full feeling from my stomach. I will never be able to stick to a portion-control diet. I think it’s ridiculous.

Sunday best for me today was my new shoes, a red dress pinned up to be bubble like (which, incidentally is great to dance in) and flowers in my hair.

I love driving slowly down sun-dappled streets with the windows down and the wind in my hair. It’s a beautiful way to get to know someplace and when I move I’m totally going to go on many new drives, particularly to orchards and pick your owns and particularly with my housemates and my friends. I’ll put on beautiful music and revel in life.

I love the idea of taking a day off from the rest of your life and remembering your roots, where you come from, where you’re going, what your purpose is. That, I believe, is the true meaning (or one of them) of Sunday services, although I think it’s either been lost or it just doesn’t get talked about enough. We are scared to tell our stories for fear of being told we are trying to convert people but what’s the matter with telling people the beauty and the mystery of life as we know it?

So I didn’t go to mass today (yet… there’s still time:) but I did remember what I’m trying to do in life – put the world back together. And part of that is loving myself and sending out happy energy into the world. Because to love others like you love yourself, you first have to love yourself, right? Well, maybe not first, but it’s definitely a part and parcel of loving the world. And remember 1 John 4:20 – Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. You have to love others to love God. Everything is connected.

So go and connect yourself. Happy Sunday. Happy January 16.