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Here Be Chickens

June 6, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

The chickens have landed!

Six young ISA Brown hens have taken up residence in our backyard, and I am completely besotted.  I had a long list of tasks planned for this morning, and instead I’ve been sitting outside watching them scratch and forage.

ISA Browns are a hybrid cross of Rhode Island Reds and Rhode Island Whites, and particularly suited to suburban backyards.  They’re reputed to be excellent layers – which may well be true, as we found our first egg within half an hour of the chickens arriving…

The chickens are here to garden for us – the supply of eggs is an ancillary bonus.  If the permagarden gurus are correct, they’ll weed and de-bug our vegetable beds, then fertilise them, ready for planting.

One day in, and I’m no longer concerned with any of that – I’m just so happy to have them in the backyard, with their gentle clucking sounds and funny little ninja moves.  They scratch the ground with one foot, then the other, then leap back quickly like a Phantom Agent and gaze intently at the ground to see if any worms have been uncovered.  They’ll repeat this over and over as they work from one side of the enclosure to the other.  I could watch them all day long!  In fact, I think I’ll go see what they’re doing right now…

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living | Tagged , | 38 Comments »

Shades of Green

June 4, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Curly parsley, which is often so elusive at the markets, was out in force last week and I picked up an enormous bunch for just $3.   I was inspired to make this parsley soup – a recipe from Rick Stein’s Food Heroes programme.  It helped satisfy my current craving for green, brought on by all the tales of nettle soup I’ve been reading recently!

The recipe is easy – boil leeks, potatoes and a bunch of parsley in chicken stock until tender, then add a large amount of chopped parsley leaves at the end (to keep the colour).  Warm through and puree until smooth.  You can finish this soup with a little cream, although I found it didn’t need it – it’s rich and thick from the potatoes.

. . . . .

I absolutely adore Brussels sprouts (which I’ve recently learnt are correctly spelt Brussels rather than Brussel).  None of my three men will go near them, although I keep trying.  I love them cut in half and stir-fried in oyster sauce.

. . . . .

And lastly, these gorgeous garlic chives were at the markets as well – their aroma was so potent that I couldn’t resist them.  They were too strongly flavoured for pesto, but perfect in fried rice.

It’s lovely to have some green in the kitchen during these cold winter months!

Posted in In My Kitchen | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments »

Gingernuts

June 2, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

If you’re a ginger fiend, these are very addictive.  I finagled the ingredients slightly to increase the amount of crystallised ginger and decrease the molasses, as the original recipe was just a bit too sweet for my tastes.

Adapted from Mrs Fields Best Ever Cookie Book!

  • 375g plain (AP) flour
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 15g finely diced crystallised ginger (about 4 – 5 pieces) Edit July 2017: I now use twice as much.
  • ½ teaspoon mixed spice or allspice
  • few grinds of black pepper
  • 270g dark brown sugar
  • 190g unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 large (59g) egg
  • 60g (45ml or 3 US tablespoons) molasses or treacle*

*I used date molasses, a wonderful new discovery from Harkola.

1. Preheat oven to 150C with fan.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sifted bicarbonate of soda, salt, ground and crystallised ginger, mixed spice and pepper.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer.  Add the egg and molasses or treacle and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

4. Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour (I left mine in the fridge for 4 hours).

5. Roll the chilled dough into 2cm/1″ balls and place them on a parchment lined baking tray, leaving room to spread.  Bake for about 24 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through the baking time. Transfer the finished gingernuts to a wire rack to cool.  Store in an airtight container – the cookies harden up a bit overnight, making them perfect for dunking in morning coffee!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments »

Panetela de Guayaba & Tortilha com Chourico

June 1, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

With the incredible wealth of recipes available on foodblogs these days, it’s a wonder anybody still buys cookbooks!

I made Aleida’s Panetela de Guayaba (Guava torte) on Sunday and was delighted by both its simplicity and  its short, tender crumb.  I baked it in a lined biscotti tin rather than the pyrex dish recommended, and gave it 35 minutes in my fan-forced oven at 165C.  The guava paste was a chance find at Paesanella and gives the dish a distinctive sweet centre, although you could probably substitute quince paste if necessary.  Aleida’s recipe is here.

. . . . .

For dinner that same night, Pete made Dorie Greenspan’s Tortilha com Chourico; an easy, cream and cheese-free frittata filled with sausage and potatoes.   We only had one chorizo, so Pete added four regular sausages as well, which had been boiled gently and sliced. A simple, yet delicious, evening meal and only one pan to wash up at the end of the night!

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments »

Cosmopolitan Campsie

May 30, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

If you’d like a glimpse of how truly multicultural Sydney can be, take a drive to the inner west suburb of Campsie.

A few days ago, Pete and I had a delicious lunch at Manmaruya.  A hot tip for Sydney lovers of Japanese food – you’ll find delicious, authentic cuisine there for about half what you’ll pay at other Japanese restaurants.  An average dinner for four (including our two starving offspring) will usually cost less than $20 a head.  Manmaruya specialises in noodles, and have a selection of more than twenty different ramen and udon dishes to choose from.  If you go on a Friday or Saturday night, be prepared to wait!

After lunch, Pete and I took a stroll up Beamish Street.  It’s an interesting place, and not without its dodgy elements (like last week’s shootout in the middle of the street).  It’s by no means the high end of town, but it more than makes up for that with its rich ethnic diversity.

I was astonished by the number of different cultures represented in a single block, and stopped to take these photos while Pete wandered around the corner to purchase a bag of kishk from the Lebanese bakery.

From the left, we have an Egyptian coffee and nut shop, an Indian, Pakistani, Fijian and Bangladeshi grocery store, Wally’s Ossie pizzeria…

…an Indian spice house, an Indian dress shop, Albee’s Malaysian restaurant, a Chinese tax accountant and an Italian barber shop.

If you’re a fan of Malaysian food, Albee’s Kitchen is definitely worth a visit.  They serve handmade noodles on Monday, assam laksa on Wednesdays, bakuteh every day and a very good nasi lemak (from just $6.80).  The food is very tasty, and the ambience reminiscent of  little eateries in Singapore and Malaysia, right down to the free soup and cutlery in a container on each table. I went there with the Spice Girl once, and we ate ourselves into a stupor. (SG, we have to go back to try the fish head curry soon…)

Below is the bag of kishk that Pete bought.   It’s a traditional Lebanese cereal made by fermenting cracked wheat with yoghurt.  The mixture is then dried and ground into a fine powder.  The proprietor of the shop told us that it was often cooked into a form of porridge for breakfast.

We combined it with tomato passata, chopped onion and olive oil and used it as a pizza topping, as suggested in this recipe. The yoghurt gave the pie a delicious tanginess…

Cosmopolitan Campsie – we counted twelve different countries represented in the two blocks that we walked!

. . . . .

Manmaruya
193 Beamish St
Campsie  NSW  2194
(02) 9789 5759

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Albee’s Kitchen
282 Beamish St
Campsie  NSW  2194
(02)9178 8302

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Posted in Food & Friends | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments »

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