Category Archives: Food Glorious Food

Creamy Mint and Broad Beans- Frugal Friday

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broad bean and mint-cityhippyfarmgirlbroad beans- cityhippyfarmgirlzucchini

I had broad beans and zucchini. Outside, a pot full of mint that was threatening to take over the entire courtyard if I was to let it. Cream that had been sitting on it’s lonesome for far too long and a little fetta that really, really needed sorting out.

What to make, what to make?

Creamy Mint and Broad Beans

A couple of good slugs of olive oil

pop some some new season diced garlic in

some grated zucchini

as many double peeled broad beans as you could be bothered

cook it down until soft

add a few good slurps of cream

salt and pepper to taste

then add some roughly chopped mint

crumbled fetta

and serve with brown rice or spaghetti

Eat with gusto

frugal friday- cityhippyfarmgirl

top 12 eco friendly christmas gift ideas

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a little succulent gift- cityhippyfarmgirl

Nearly the end of the year again, which means there could be a little gift giving to be had. I love this time of year, but I don’t like the ridiculous amount of spending that usually goes along with it. You don’t have to spend oodles of money, you really don’t. Here are a few ideas to help with a greener tinged Christmas at your place this year.

1/ Tiny presents of tiny succulents in tiny tea cups, (or espresso cups as this little fella is.) You can easily do this with a little cup that may have a chip or a crack in it- stalk op shops, church fetes, roadside discards for succulent holding inspiration. The options are limitless, (have a peek at google images.) Think green, think succulents.

2/ Something for the inspired reader in your life- Changing Gears: by Greg Foyster

3/ Assistent Original– now this is a pricey gift for Christmas, but if you are serious about a kitchen investment that is going to cater for every kitchen whim you have- it’s a worthy investment, as cooking from scratch is a commitment and you want to make it as easy as possible. For bread baking nerds, look no further.

4/ Digital Subscription to a ‘green’ magazine- inspire someone with some idea thumping pages- There are oodles to pick from, and then even more.

5/ Subscription to your locally based farmer friendly fruit and veg box. Foodconnect– Whole Larder Love– Local Harvest etc.

6/ Sign a bloggy friend up to do Blog with Pip– they will love you to the moon and back, (and probably back some more; this course is AWESOME.)

12 eco friendly gift ideas- cityhippyfarmgirl

7/ If you don’t have a crafty hand yourself, have wander over to etsy– Buy direct from someone who does and support a small time crafter with a passion for handmade goodness.

8/ Sign a loved one up for a Milkwood Permaculture course, (or a locally grown Permaculture course in your area.) They will be brimming with inspiration afterwards, and that…is always a good thing.

gift cityhippyfarmgirl

9/ For the tea drinker- love chai, love tea, enamel cup and a little ginger bread bites for dunking in. A simple present that is 542 times better than buying something bland in a generic department store.

ginger bread gift ideas- cityhippyfarmgirl

10/ Or using the same gingerbread recipe, kid version style.

11/ Put together a little handmade food hamper. Jam’s, biscuits, brownie, cake, pesto, bread- the options are endless. If you team that up with a little second hand store basket (50c church sale thank you very much!) and you’re in Christmassy business, (always nicer than a gifted pair of synthetic, made in China, novelty boxer shorts…promise.)

12/ And if you still aren’t sure of what Uncle Roo and Aunt Bilby would like, make a donation on their part. There are so many charities to choose from in our collective corners of the world- choose one and your recipients will be so very thankful.

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For previous years eco Christmas gift ideas and wrapping see

eight eco friendly Christmas gift ideas

twelve eco friendly Christmas gift ideas

 

little soft sweet white peaks of cloud

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lemon meringue

lemon meringue

My grandmother once told me she used to make a sponge cake each year for her own birthday cake when her kids were young. That’s what they all loved to eat, so that’s what she would make, she said over a pot of tea one day. Kind and generous yes, and certainly in keeping with a birthday spirit. But… my 83 year old grandmother doesn’t like sponge cake. She never has.

It was probably never going to be a problem that I would have. Committed to my kids taste buds, of course. I frequently catered to their often under ripe taste buds. But committed enough to make them (me) a sponge cake? Oh hell no, (I don’t like them either.)

Several people offered to make me a birthday cake this year. I said that was so very kind, and then politely declined though. You see, I love making my own cake (or tart as the case may be.) It’s the one time of the year, I can make something exactly to my own taste buds. No chocolate, no lollies, no cream… no sponge cake.

For this years birthday I had lemon meringue pie on my mind, and I’d been planning it ever since the last time I had made it, (with added blueberries for good measure.)

“…but it’s not a proper birthday if there isn’t cake,” declared an unsure little voice.

 “Piffle,” I said confidently, “How exciting will the little soft sweet white peaks of cloud like meringue look in amongst a few candles.” Birthday’s can be anything you want it to be, that’s the wonderful thing about birthdays.” 

I kept that close in mind when I decided I would like wholemeal spelt pancakes, blueberries, mangoes, crackers and cheese for dinner as well…anything I want it to be, right?

lemon meringue

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And as my still fairly recent tradition of making something meringue-y for my birthday continues, so does my recipe list.

Lemon Meringue Pie 2013

Blue Cherry Meringue Tart 2012

Berry Meringue Tart 2011

A Rather Tall Birthday Cake 2010

a heaving black mass and sour cream chive scones

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 cityhippyfarmgirl

cityhippyfarmgirl

I watched the heaving black mass for a minute. Shuddered a little and averted my eyes, hoping I’d imagined it as I slowly turned back.

Alas, no. There they still were, running the chive gauntlet, acting all busy like. Busy with what you say? Sucking the life out of my chives it seems.

My tiny potted permaculture garden had been doing reasonably well, condsidering all the growing conditions. At a distance everything looked pretty healthy and well tended. Up close, it was a little different though. The mint was munched, the lemon balm looked a touch fried and the chives well…were a black heaving mass. A black heaving mass of which I wanted no part of.

I noticed them, I observed them, I squished them between my fingers, I thinned the chive cluster out a little, I squirted high powered water on them. They seemed to love every second of their well tended honeymoon and bred like bloody aphids. I watched a little more, the ants below ‘farmed’ them, making sure they were ok, feeling loved and nurtured. No more, I muttered, it’s you or me… and quite frankly, well it really has to be you.

I pulled them all out, bar a few sad loners that the aphids weren’t partying on yet. My perfectly balanced permaculture pot was now looking a little unbalanced. But at least the black heaving mass was disrupted and I could once again think about eating chives without wrinkling my nose and furrowing my brow.

sour cream and chive scones

Sour cream and Chive Scones

250g sour cream

250mls water

one large handful of finely chopped chives, (optional black aphids)

1 tsp salt

whisk these ingredients together in a large bowl and then add

2.5-3 cups self raising flour (375-450g)*

mix through with a butter knife

tip out on to a lightly floured bench top and knead quickly with finger tips, pulling it together to a light dough.

Cut shapes, onto a tray and bake at 220 for approximately 20 minutes (depends on their thickness.)

kebab antidote salad- Frugal Friday

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cityhippyfarmgirl

Mr Chocolate ate a very large dripping meaty kebab for lunch and wasn’t feeling so fit and wholesome afterwards.

This salad for dinner was the antidote…

and all was aligned in the world once more.

cityhippyfarmgirl

Kebab Antidote Salad

steamed potato

steamed sweet potato

peas

one bunch of finely chopped flat leaf parsley

dressing

handful of finely chopped mint

1/2 cup natural yogurt

1/4 cup olive oil

finely chopped chilli

salt to taste

handful of raw sunflower kernels

my petite kitchen

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 Bonjour mon cher, bonjour…

Now not knowing more than a smattering of french words, I should probably leave it at that, but due to the fact that in recent times it seems I’ve come over all ‘frenchy‘, I will probably see if I can slip just a little more french words into this post.

And what caused all this ‘frenchness‘ I hear you ask? Actually, I’m not sure. I still have a deep love for all things Italian. I still have an imagined Scandinavian heritage, and now, well it seems there is a heady French call, (at least in my petite kitchen there is.)

cityhippyfarmgirlWhat to do with this little lovely? Chestnut spread, in a tube and brought to me from Paris. It could be absolute garbage, but not to me. (Look at all those cute little french words on there!)

cityhippyfarmgirl

 Petite fleurs, teeny tiny ones that didn’t last long on my usually quite unexciting kitchen bench cactus.

cityhippyfarmgirlGateau a la banane with passionfruit icing. Always a simple bake when there are squishy bananas to be had. I make this cake up in a mixer these days.

cityhippyfarmgirl

 Parisian flea market finds, bought and brought back for me. I was particularly excited by this one. How many kitchens has this round beauty seen… What had it been used for?

cityhippyfarmgirl

Old milk bottle finds that were sitting unloved in someones garage. I’m preparing the bottles to be loved again…or should I say amour.
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Linking in with the lovely Madame Celia and her kitchen frolics
Kisses on both cheeks to anyone who leaves comments in French this week.

lessons in chocolate cake

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chocolate cakechocolate cake

When the lovely Mariana posted her family recipe for chocolate cake recently I decided I needed to give it a crack. Me and chocolate cake still aren’t particularly firm friends. I had fiddled about last year with my sourdough starter chocolate cake (Number Five Chocolate Cake.) I had also mentioned in this post my head start into baking a dry old chocolate cake recipe as a teen.

Being more of a Lemon Meringue Pie kinda gal, it’s hard to get good perspective in such very important matters such as chocolate cake. However, for the sake of my chocolate cake inhaling young family I would do it. I would make the cake, (as everyone needs to have a chocolate cake recipe up there sleeves right?)

Lessons learnt in Chocolate Cake

1. Chocolate cake baked in a square tin sounded like a good idea at the time but when it came time to present it on a plate I slowly realised- out of all my missed matched plates, not one of them were square. Round tin it is next time.

2. Fold that flour into the mixture, don’t over beat it. I know this, and yet I still have moments of forgetting. This was one of those moments.

3. Chocolate cake doesn’t need to have 250g of dark chocolate in it to be a chocolate cake, (hooray for that actually!)

4. When making a stove top icing, ensure the tea towel being used in order not to burn yourself doesn’t catch fire as it rests casually in the flames. (For the record, burnt tea towel smells a bit funny.)

5. When the recipe says “move fairly quickly” when pouring on the icing, do so. It’s said for a reason. If you don’t, it leads to an unsatisfying ‘scratchy’ looking top. Followed by a little high pitched squeal, tiny foot stomp and mutterings of…oh please be smoooooth again.

6. Plopping small squares of chocolate in the middle doesn’t really hide the unsatisfying scratchy looking icing.

7. And finally, really… Not a single other person really cares whether- a) the icing was smooth, b) the cake mixture slightly over beaten, and c) that there wasn’t an appropriate square plate to go with the square cake*. It was gobbled up and declared the best chocolate cake ever. So dear Mariana, I think it’s a hit.

* There was however a slight voiced concerned and furrowed brow with the burnt tea towel incident, (for safety reasons of course.) But I say, who doesn’t like a little excitement in the kitchen now and then.

Mariana’s Forever Chocolate Cake Recipe 

chocolate cake

Corn and Ricotta Fritters- Frugal Friday

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corn ricotta fritters

Warmer days and salads are calling. Although I didn’t want just a plate of salad…a little something of the side perhaps? I asked if anyone would like to help me cook. When six hands shoot to the sky, (yes, they are so enthusiastic to get in there they shoot both hands up) and there is a stampede of shoving and nudging to get to the “standing chair” in the kitchen chair. Well I know they are enthusiastic.

School holiday cooking that’s simple, and speaks quietly of warm weather and lazy days.

For the baked and not fried versions see here.

corn ricotta fritters

Corn and Ricotta Fritters

1 can corn (420g)

2 beaten eggs

300g ricotta

a couple of shallots finely sliced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

75g s/r flour (1/2 cup)

salt to taste

Cook up small amounts in a frying pan, (I cook these in a ceramic frying pan without the use of oil.)

 

Passionfruit Cake

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passionfruit cake

Chocolate cake with coffee icing.

It’s the cake I would make for mum each and every birthday when I was a teenager. The chocolate cake recipe was an ever reliable one from a Women’s Weekly Cookbook and the instant coffee icing would more often than not be dotted with a few stale old walnut halves to decorate. For years I never strayed from that recipe, (dry old thing it was.)

One year it was extra special, I forgot the eggs (or I think that’s what happened.) I gently tipped the cake out and splat. The whole thing landed on the cake rack in a thousand chocolatey bread crumbs. No one else was home, it was supposed to be a surprise. What on earth was I going to do?

In tears I tried to salvage the crumbs and somehow press them into a cake shape, (you see cake pops hadn’t been invented yet.) I pressed and pressed and then covered the whole thing with a thick coffee icing, trying to ignore the big wet salty tears that still occasionally landed on top. Mum got home and I offered up the lumpy shaped dome with the tear smudged icing…Happy Birthday Mum, I whispered with a slightly quivered bottom lip.

A crumbly chocolate cake with coffee icing this isn’t. If my mum wasn’t currently kicking up her heals at the moment in Europe I think I would have made this Passionfruit Cake for her instead. There is nothing fancy about it, just a simple cake that’s moist, not crazy sweet, really easy to make and not remotely like that dry old chocolate cake I used to make.

passionfruit cake

Passionfruit Cake

150g softened butter

150g caster sugar

3 beaten eggs

pulp of five passionfruit

225g self raising flour

Cream butter and sugar together until pale, then add eggs. Next add passionfruit pulp and flour. Bake in a greased and lined spring form tin at 180C for approximately 40 minutes.

Passionfruit Icing

25g softened butter

icing sugar

pulp from 1 passionfruit

juice from 1/2 a lemon

popping at the end of the week

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popcorn DSC_1187 copy It’s our end of the week tradition.

Friday afternoon means popcorn.

No maths, no spelling, no fighting (please).

No place to be but here,

with a bowl full of still warm popcorn.

A tiny end of the week celebration in the form of some golden dried corn kernels that miraculously turn light and white when heated. (Am I the only one that finds that rather amazing?)


polite little children can turn into popcorn savages if unsupervised


guarded remains

full bellies and kitchen light

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DSC_0127 copy

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It’s that time of year where there is far too much light in my kitchen. Far too much. The kind of light that come afternoon time illuminates every fallen crumb, every slopped drop and probably a little too much sticky dust to feel entirely comfortable with. Yes I could clean it, but who has two whole days to designate to kitchen cleaning? (Which is how long it would take.) Better if I just keep cooking and await day light saving to kick in, the light will be much more friendly then.

Dishes creating those fallen crumbs and sloppy drops have been a plenty. It’s always the busiest room of the household, and it’s unlikely to be slowing down any time soon.

Fetta flat breads to be baked for afternoon picnics in parks.

Little pastry parcels that have names like empanadas, pasties, pocket pies, short eats and tasty goodness. (Ok I might have made the last one up.)

There have been mung beans to be sprouted.

Chocolate Vanilla layer biscuits were inhaled.

Stripey sourdough loaves baked with a shake of cocoa on top for a visual effect.

and simple vegetarian dinners were gobbled up on a Saturday night.

The cauliflower quinoa dish was entirely forgetable (definitely not worthy of a photo) and the two batches of chocolate biscuits consumed and given away within a blink of an eye didn’t quite make it to a photo.

My kitchen corners might not be super clean but at least our bellies have been full.

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linking in with the lovely Celia this month.

Strawberry Season

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strawberries

strawberry crumble

strawberries

I had plans of pie. Strawberry pie. It sounded good and I had it laid out in my head. I certainly had the strawberries, but on finding myself in the kitchen…well just quietly, I couldn’t be bothered.

Crumble sounded like a simpler option, and that it was. It took ten minutes to pull together and about 20 minutes in the oven. Easy? You betcha, and at two minutes thirty five to be eaten? Well that was also an easy one.

Strawberry Crumble

100g melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

zest of a lemon

75g raw sugar

75g almond meal

150g self raising flour

hulled, washed and roughly chopped strawberries

Strawberries into an oven proof dish. Mix all of your remaining ingredients together and spoon mixture on top. Into an oven at 180C for about 20 or so minutes or until golden.