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Priscilla’s Family Tree

February 22, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

A few weeks ago, excited by Michelle and Rachel’s successful attempts at sourdough baking, I wrote a basic sourdough tutorial.

At the same time, I was trying to figure out a viable way to send starter to friends. Posting liquid starter, as I’d done on a few occasions in the past, was expensive and bulky – and I always had the niggling concern that it might leak in transit and cause a bio-hazard scare at the post office.

I mentioned this to my neighbour Maude, who told me that she’d recently dehydrated some of her starter to send overseas.  It seemed like a sensible option, and one that should work, given that the original starter I bought had arrived in a dried form.

I fed a bowl of my starter (Priscilla) until she was bubbly and frothy, and then ladled her out onto a couple of silicone mats.  Spread the starter out as thinly as possible and then leave in a warm spot to dry – we used to sit it on top of the fish tank, but these days we just leave it on the dining room table for a few days…

The dried starter was crumbled into small flakes. Because it was quite thick and chunky (as can be seen in the photo below), I gave it a quick blitz in the food processor to break it down a little more. I tested it (twice!) and then packaged it up, crossed my fingers, and mailed it out to friends.

I whizzed this up in the food processor (briefly) to make it a little finer…

I can’t tell you how happy I was when the photos starting coming back!

Priscilla’s offspring have spread far and wide!  Allow me to introduce you to part of her family tree (hopefully there will be more to come)…

. . . . .

Son: Navarone (Linda Woodrow)

–> Grandsons: Elvis (x2), Boy George, Bruce
–> Granddaughters: Bubbles and Julie.

I sent starter to Linda in liquid form nearly two years ago, and she’s been baking up a storm ever since.  She has also passed the starter on to her family and friends, and most of the offspring have thrived!

Linda’s loaves are baked in a completely different way to mine (I love that!) – her everyday sourdough recipe is here, and this photo is of her gorgeous oat and linseed bread…

. . . . .

Daughter: Stella (Rachel @ The Food Sage)

Rachel has truly hit the ground running – the diary of her first attempt at sourdough sparked our latest baking frenzy, and her second loaf (using this recipe) was a great success. You can read all about her grain bread here…

. . . . .

Daughter: Marion (Ali and Nick @ This Blooming Life)

I’ve had so much fun chatting to Ali and Nick in the past couple of weeks about everything from baking bread to growing leeks to rowing. Marion is only a couple of weeks old, but they’ve had some fabulous adventures with her already – their very first loaf (below) involved an emergency drive to pick up a new oven door…

. . . . .

Daughter: Princess Patsy (so named by Jan in Brisbane because she’s absolutely fabulous, daaarling..)

Darling Jan rehydrated her starter and whipped up a loaf as soon as she got her envelope in the mail.  We were both squealing with excitement when she sent this photo of her first attempt at sourdough – a pair of kissing loaves…

. . . . .

Son: Kevin, aka “Big Kev” (Claire and Will @ Claire K Creations)

Big Kev is pulling out all stops! Claire has a deft hand with all things baked, and not surprisingly, her first loaf was a stunner – read all about it from start to finish here…

. . . . .

Son: Sydney (who now lives in Bristol with my beloved friend Joanna @ Zeb Bakes)

Joanna didn’t need my sourdough starter as she has several of her own, but when she mentioned that she’d be happy to give Priscilla a go, I eagerly popped an envelope in the mail to her.  I was so thrilled that she’d be baking with my starter, because I knew she’d create amazing bread with it. And she has…

. . . . .

Son: MO (named by Moo’s son, an acronym of Michael and Oliver)

Our old friend Moo is a perfectionist.  When he pulled his first sourdough rolls out of the oven, he said to me, “Hmmm. It’s a bit dense, and I’d like a bit more of a blistered crust next time”.  I thought they looked fantastic, as did his young son Oliver, who helped to shape them…

. . . . .

Sharing Priscilla’s clones has been like giving away a litter of puppies from a treasured pet – they’ve all gone to friends who will look after them and hopefully get years of baking pleasure from them. There are still a few envelopes in transit – I’ll let you know of any future additions to Priscilla’s family tree!

Posted in Recipes | 97 Comments »

Grilled Vegetable Salad

February 20, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Uncle Steve (Pete’s brother) was over for a birthday lunch last week.

As his partner Ali doesn’t eat meat, we created this grilled vegetable salad to serve as a main meal.  We’ve been cooking a lot of vegetarian dishes in the past couple of years, and our current thinking is this: vegetable only main courses need to be more complex than meat based ones in order to achieve the same “oomph”.

That’s not to say a dish of steamed young vegetables with a light dressing isn’t the perfect starter, but it just doesn’t offer the mix of flavours that we seek in a main meal.

We began by slicing peeled potatoes, carrots, zucchini and eggplant (the latter two from our garden), tossing them in a little olive oil and salt, and roasting them in a 200C fan-forced oven…

A tray of peeled and sliced sweet potato was roasted in the same way.

Once the grilled vegetables had cooled to warm, they were combined with cos lettuce, sliced jalapeño chillies, and lightly blanched beans.

We toasted a handful of macadamia nuts, flaked almonds and sunflower seeds, and mixed them in a small bowl with a handful of our marinated feta and Pete’s dressing of:

  • 2 parts pumpkin seed oil (thanks Karen!)
  • 2 parts extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 part hazelnut oil

The vegetables were seasoned with sea salt and a little ground black pepper, then the nuts, feta and dressing were tossed through.  We served the salad with a homemade basil and macadamia nut pesto…

The second time we made this dish (for our vegetarian friend Craig), it included potatoes, tromboncinos, eggplant, sweet potatoes, raw purple beans, fried snake beans, mixed lettuce and Bella Rosa tomatoes. We increased the quantity of seeds, nuts and feta, adding sunflower seeds as well. It was even better than our first attempt!

Posted in Recipes | 75 Comments »

Bread #101: Sourdough Grain Bread

February 18, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I’ve been playing with some variations on the Basic Sourdough Tutorial I wrote last week…

Grain bread isn’t popular at our house, but I was inspired by Michelle’s recent loaves to give it another go. I picked up a bag of mixed grains at Harkola for just $1.30. It contained kibbled wheat, kibbled corn, kibbled rye, malted wheat and linseed.  The night prior to baking, I soaked 100g of the grains in a large quantity of water…

The next morning, I made a double batch of sourdough, reducing the water just a little to take into account the extra liquid from the grains. Here’s the formula I used, and I constructed the loaves following the basic instructions, although I did (optionally) prove them in my bannetons.  The soaked grains were drained really well and then added to the wet ingredients…

  • 300g ripe sourdough starter
  • 480g water
  • 50g olive oil
  • 1kg bakers flour
  • 20g fine sea salt
  • soaked grains

These quantities made one large and two small loaves with a tasty, elastic crumb. The presoaking softened most of the grains to a chewy consistency, although the linseed was still quite hard.

I delivered the two small loaves to neighbours, and have been enjoying the large one sliced and toasted. I still can’t sell it to the family though!

Posted in Recipes | 54 Comments »

Empowerment

February 16, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Over the past few years, we’ve learned a lot of new skills.

We grow vegetables, bake bread, and make Greek yoghurt.  All our cakes and cookies are baked at home, we temper chocolate, and there is a healthy supply of homemade vanilla extract brewing in the linen cupboard.

Our friends will occasionally ask us why we bother. They point out that in Sydney’s Inner West (where we live), there are excellent artisan bakers and fabulous organic markets.  And over the years, I’ve given a variety of answers – our lifestyle saves us money, we eat less processed foods, it sets a good example for our sons. But lately I’ve been giving the question more serious thought.

Four years ago (almost to this day) when we started Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, Pete and I were struggling.  Not in our relationship, which thankfully has always been solid, but with a conflux of life circumstances that had left us badly shaken and unsure of the future.

At that time we were already baking bread. Gradually, we tried new things – there were so many aspects of life that we didn’t have control over at the time, but we could still figure out how to churn butter from old cream or turn a box of apricots into jam. Recording our adventures on this blog meant that they weren’t lost in the ether, and gave us an opportunity to share them with all of you.

And I suddenly realised the other day what the past four years have really been about. Our psyche – our sense of self-worth – had been battered. We had lost confidence in our ability to deal with what life was throwing at us. And gradually, over the past few years, we’ve worked at restoring it.  By trying new things, and eventually mastering them, we have incrementally rebuilt our self-confidence.

Every time we learn a new skill, regardless of how minor it is, it empowers us.

That empowerment is double-sided – firstly, we gain knowledge which can often be used to the benefit of our family and friends. Perhaps more importantly though, with each addition to our skill set, we grow more confident in our ability to tackle the new and unknown.  The future is less daunting when we can look back on our past achievements.

And it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s a skill that we’ll continue to use – each and every time we accomplish something, we’re able to say to ourselves, “Look at what we can do! Who would have thought that was possible?”

In short, it makes us feel good about ourselves.

Dearhearts, life can be brutal. Sometimes we are weighed down by what feels like unbearable worries, other times the rug can be whipped out from under our feet. If that happens, the advice we offer from our limited experience is this – take baby steps to restore your self-confidence.  Seek a sense of achievement in small, manageable tasks, and gradually build upon it.

It doesn’t matter what you undertake – I have friends who have found incredible joy and satisfaction in everything from sewing to basket weaving to astronomy – just don’t start with anything too big.  Knit a scarf before you attempt a sweater.  And accept that skills worth having sometimes take time to learn – don’t be disillusioned if your results aren’t perfect straight away.

The older we get, the more we realise how little control we actually have over what the world throws at us. All we can do is shore up our own self-esteem, build its foundations as best we can, and hope that it will fortify us against the vagaries of life.

Posted in Musings | 120 Comments »

Ginger and Almond Chocolate Thins

February 15, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Late last year, my friend Nic bought me some new chocolate to try.

It was quite tasty, but the appearance was what fascinated me – it looked like it had been poured onto bubblewrap. I thought it might be fun to see what chocolate set on textured surfaces would look like, and went on a trawl through the pantry to see what I could use.

I found a silicone baking mat, a potholder, and my kaak cookie moulds…

Thinking a flavoured chocolate would be more interesting than a plain one, I finely chopped some Buderim Naked Ginger and a handful of sweet roasted almonds leftover from a previous project, and stirred them into a bowl of tempered dark chocolate (about 62% cacao)…

I then spread a generous portion onto my textured silicone mat, and flattened it out with an offset spatula.  This was actually the easy part – balancing the darn thing in the fridge to set was tricky…

These are the cookie moulds I picked up from Harkola – they’re reversible, and I used the other side of both of these..

…and ended up with these exquisite wheels of chocolate, studded with ginger and nuts…

I’m really chuffed with how well these turned out! I’ll be rummaging through the cupboards looking for more textured surfaces to play with tomorrow!

Posted in Recipes | 59 Comments »

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