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Harkola

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , on September 24, 2009| 18 Comments »

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We discovered Harkola Foods a couple of years ago, when we first started buying flour in bulk, and have been regular customers ever since.  This wonderful food wholesaler is based in the western Sydney suburb of Auburn and we’ll visit several times a year to stock up on supplies.

They offer an enormous range of nuts, flours, dried fruits, spices and Middle Eastern specialities.  You can also buy packaging materials, baking supplies, rice and oils there, all at amazing prices.

To give you an idea of their range, here are some of our purchases from today:

  • Parchment paper – as the standard width is too narrow for our 90cm oven,  we purchased a 120m roll of 40cm wide paper for $30.  The narrower size is also available, as are foil and clingfilm in huge rolls.
  • The gorgeous mint tea glasses above were a tiny 82c each!
  • We picked up two bags of Manildra bakers flour for friends.  These were $11.50 per 12kg sack and, because Harkola sell a  pallet load of this flour every week, the stock is always fresh.
  • Dried yeast, which I stock up on about once a year, is available vacuumed packed at $3.50 per 500g.
  • They have a huge range of nuts available – we bought almond meal at $12/kg and whole roasted macadamias for $20/kg.  There was also a wide variety of dried and glace fruits on display.
  • Legumes galore – red lentils and white beans were $2.80/kg and popcorn was just $1.80/kg.
  • Spices are plentiful, and I bought some ground cumin ($10.25/kg) and ground coriander ($7/kg).  Again, the rapid turnover of these  items ensures their freshness.

In addition to the staples, we picked up some more unusual food items.

These Lebanese sweets are made from pistaccio nuts, apricot paste, nougat and date paste.  This entire box of individually wrapped treats was on sale at $6.50.

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There is, of course, lots of couscous on offer, including the medium sized Israeli couscous as well as this larger variety from Lebanon, known as Moghrabieh.  These small balls of semolina swell up to the size of miniature peas when cooked!

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A new find for me – fig marmalade from Lebanon.  This has a deliciously interesting flavour, as the jam includes both sesame and anise, as well as the usual sugar and acid.  Imagine sweet figs with a hint of tahini.  I suspect this was the secret ingredient in an Egyptian chicken and harissa dish we tried recently.

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Given how expensive fresh figs are here, it’s hard to believe this 800g jar stuffed with delicious fig paste was just $4.99!

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. . . . .

Harkola Food Worldwide
3 – 7 Highgate Street
Auburn   NSW  2144
02 9737 5888
http://www.harkola.com

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Beeswax Candles

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , on September 23, 2009| 6 Comments »

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Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify, simplify! … Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.
Henry David Thoreau

Back when Small Man was a Very Small Man, he and I made beeswax candles  for his preschool teachers.  They were almost no effort at all, but they were the product of precious little hands, and therefore dearly cherished by the recipients.

Beeswax is such a lovely material to work with – the sheets are easy to use, the wax moisturizers your hands as you roll, and the finished candle burns very cleanly.  Wrapped in cellophane and tied with a tartan ribbon, it’s the perfect gift for someone special.

It’s been years since we last made candles, and I haven’t given them much thought over that time.  Then I met beekeeper Richard at Flemington Markets, who sold me these gorgeous golden sheets of beeswax.  Today, with the house quiet and the wind chimes tinkling in the background, I spent a peaceful, contemplative half hour rolling candles.  It was very therapeutic!

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Tip: roll tightly and freeze the finished candle before lighting –  doing both will extend the burning time of the wax.

If you can’t get to the markets, beeswax sheets are widely available via mail order.  They’re very reasonably priced – my sheets were just $1.10 each.  The sheets are placed in hives for the bees to lay their honey on, so if you can’t get them from a candlemaking supplier, try your local beekeepers.

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Edit: If you’re planning to pick these up from Richard at Flemington Markets, do make sure you email him first at  admin@thebeewhisperer.tv and ask him to bring sheets and wick for you – he doesn’t usually have the stock on hand. You might also want to double-check what days he’s at the markets before you go!

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Cooking for Camp

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , , on September 22, 2009| 7 Comments »

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Small Man has some severe nut allergies, so whenever he goes on school camp, we’re required to send all his food.  It can be tricky coming up with a menu that will last well over a week, but we just about have it down pat now. I thought I’d write about it in case it’s useful to other parents in a similar situation.

Some suggestions:

1. Buy a big esky (cooler, ice box) with wheels.  There’s quite a lot of food to pack for a teenager and if you have an incredibly heavy esky that needs to be carried, you’ll either piss the camp staff off straight away, or give your kid a hernia.  Neither of those outcomes is ideal.

2. Don’t kill yourself trying to make balanced meals.  Remember that anything you send is probably going to be better than camp food anyway, so don’t get too distressed about the fact he won’t be eating fresh vegetables by day five.

3.  Involve your child in the meal planning process.  And the week before, do a test run to make sure he’ll eat the meals you send.  Most camps will provide a fridge and freezer to store the food in, and a microwave to reheat, but they won’t actually cook anything for you, so you’ll need to have everything precooked and frozen.

4. Write a daily menu, so the teacher in charge doesn’t have to decide what food to serve.  Print out or write a label for each meal and stick it onto a brown paper bag, then put all the food for that meal in the bag.  Remember that the less work the staff have to do, the more time they’ll have to focus on your child.

5. If the allergies allow it, go heavy on the breads and baked goods.  Not only are they easier to eat, they’re less likely to go off if they’re accidentally left unrefrigerated.

6. Over-cater slightly and send more food than your son or daughter actually needs.  It’s better to waste a little than have a hungry bear on camp.

Here is a list of the food we sent, in case it provides some ideas.  Most of it was homemade, but we bought some packaged bits and pieces to pad out the menu:

  • Olive and cheese sourdough rolls, frozen
  • Spelt sourdough rolls, buttered and vegemited, frozen
  • Mini apple pies, baked in muffin tins, refrigerated, first two days only
  • Homemade thick crust pizza, refrigerated, dinner first night
  • Penne bolognaise, frozen, dinners for remaining three nights
  • Tinned baked beans and sliced bread for toasting, for breakfasts
  • Apples for morning and afternoon tea
  • Chocolate chip cookies, for the cabin
  • Tetrapak juice, single serves
  • Tetrapak chocolate milk, single serves
  • Cherry tomatoes and cucumbers
  • Packaged crackers and cheese dip, for supper and snacks

I realise it’s not a huge variety of food, and in Small Man’s case, it will mean eating pretty much the same food each day (though not at every meal).  But they’re all things he loves, so he’s more than happy to do that.  More importantly, we’re confident that the food will keep well for five days, which is always the biggest challenge in this kind of exercise.  This is definitely not the time to be sending sushi or lightly cooked chicken dishes!

It’s a lot of effort, but definitely worth it.  Small Man set off with a big grin on his face, happy to have familiar food for the next five days!

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Young Garlic and Convergent Evolution

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged , , , on September 14, 2009| 10 Comments »

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Pete and I hit the markets recently the Spice Girl. We had a great time, despite the fact that I’d lost my voice (though Pete might say he had a great time because of that).

SG recently wrote about how she and I are “food twins”, which amused Pete enormously.  He commented that the Spice Girl and I were products of convergent evolution – two people from completely unrelated backgrounds who had serendipitously developed similar tastes and interests.  This was brought home when we passed a vegetable stand selling young Australian garlic.  It’s so rare to find local garlic at the markets that I immediately picked up four of the seven bunches on the table, then wandered off to look at other produce.  When I came back five minutes later, SG was buying the remaining three bunches…

Once home, I broke up most of the garlic into cloves and froze them for later use.  Did you know that garlic freezes brilliantly?  Separate the bulbs into cloves but don’t peel them, and freeze them in an airtight bag.   The defrosted garlic lacks the crisp texture of fresh, but the skins slip off easily, there is minimal loss of flavour and aroma, and it’s a breeze to mince them for cooking.  Since we’ve started doing this, we haven’t thrown away a single clove of mouldy garlic.

The green stems on the garlic were still quite tender and I was keen to try Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for garlic scape pesto.  I started by removing the outer layer of the stems and washing them to remove any residual dirt.

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Then I simply popped them into my mini food processor with some flaked almonds, grated parmesan, olive oil and a little salt, and whizzed them until combined.  Because mine were the stems rather than the young scapes (flower shoots) Dorie used, the mix was drier and I needed to add a little hot water to loosen it up.

The pesto has a delicious garlic bite and will make a wonderful addition to soups and pasta.  I froze half in a ziplock bag and stashed the rest in the fridge with a piece of cling film pressed on the surface, to prevent oxidization.

As always, I’m happiest when I get to use something that would normally be discarded. Waste not, want not!

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Birthday Yoghurt Cake

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes, tagged , on September 9, 2009| 2 Comments »

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I made this for Dot’s birthday,  using Dorie Greenspan’s wonderful yoghurt cake recipe.

Instead of a loaf tin, the cake was baked in an 8″/20cm round cake tin at 160C (with fan) for 40 minutes.  Once cool, it was split in half and sandwiched with a generous serve of Pete’s strawberry jam and some  fresh cream, whipped with a little vanilla syrup.

This is such an easy, versatile recipe to have up your sleeve, particularly when you need a cake in a hurry!

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