Category Archives: Food Glorious Food

Dancing Lemon Vanilla Stars

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There he was in front of me, eyes intensely locked to mine.

His body convulsed like he was touching an electric fence down in the back paddock. Convulsing in time with the deep thumping bass. The twisting colourful lights bounced off his eyes. When he widened them it gave him a slightly manic look. I awkwardly looked away, thinking he must have been doing this for quite some time for everyone dancing here, but no. He only had eyes for me. He had followed my shift of focus and was again in my line of sight, seemingly getting closer.

His body convulsing from one side to another, his eyes locked again, and he grinned from ear to ear this time. Using his hands in some odd dance like feature that made me think of a baby dinosaur. He was trying to impress me that was for sure. I stifled a giggle. I didn’t want to offend him, but it really was hard not to laugh at his intensity of moves.

The thumping music, darkened corners, squeals of happiness, flashing colourful lights and this odd little red head who was trying his very best to impress me with his dance moves. Except this wasn’t a night club, those club days were but a foggy memory, and that red head was pint sized, lucky to be 3 foot tall. I was at Monkey Boy’s school disco, and currently surrounded by about 200 squealing five, six, and seven year olds and their siblings.

I had Little Monkey perched on my hip clinging to me as only a little monkey could. Too dark and too noisy for him.

Monkey Boy looked on with big wide eyes. Uninterested, when a pretty little class mate tried to gently take him by the hand and coerce him to dance in the centre with her. He clung on to his mama’s leg, (not sure how long that will last.) She looked hurt on the second attempt to try and convince him to dance with her. Flicking her long hair, as she moved off into the heaving dance floor.

Some boys were break dancing. Girls were jumping and giggling in circles. One girl did her very best robot to two unimpressed older boys, and all the shy kids stood by and watched from the side shadows.

Swap the venue, add another metre in height to everyone and not really much had changed since back in my nightclub days. Except here, no stink of spilt beer and vodka mixers.

(I did however, suspect a little too much diluted apple juice… and clearly that little convulsing pint-sized red head may have had a drop too much.)

 lemon vanilla stars

200g softened butter

150g sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp lemon rind

225g (1 3/4 cup) plain flour

Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla and lemon. Then mix through the flour. Chill in fridge for a little while wrapped in plastic (if weather is warm) and then roll out (I find rolling between two sheets of baking paper easiest, as it’s a sticky dough), cut out stars and bake at 170C for 20 minutes.

This dough also freezes easily into a log, then just cut off rounds to bake as you need them.

the weight of the steak

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When I was researching what piggy options a city girl had, I discovered Feather and Bone, in Rozelle. A supplier of sustainably raised meat. I started getting their weekly emails filled with interesting meaty information and what’s on offer at the moment. From there, I went to one of their open days and got to see for myself at how it was all done, coming home with a weighty little number that had cook me up just right, written all over it.

I’ve written before about knowing where your meat is from and asking whether you would be prepared to do the killing yourself. Reading back on that post I realised that even in the last not quite 6 months our meat buying habits have changed since then. I’m fine with that, I like evolving. I now very rarely buy any meat from a super market or butcher. Instead, the meat intake has dropped even less, and the majority of it is now coming from farmers markets. If those markets are few and far between because I can’t get there or the meat isn’t available, then so is the meat eating. Why? Because I really want to know where it’s from. I want to know more of how it was raised before slaughter, who reared it and if possible, what their farming philosophies are like. I simply can’t get this if I’m buying from the supermarket.

Meat has been the topic of choice in this fair country of ours for the last few weeks. Ever since the ABC’s Four Corners program was shown about the live cattle export business to Indonesia, people have had things to say. A lot of things to say. The footage was graphic, confronting and got people into action to get things changed.

It might have changed Indonesia’s meat eating habits for a bit as the supply from Australia has almost stopped, but would it be enough for people to question their own meat eating habits here within Australia? Could that daily/weekly slab of meat become less? Could it become just a special occasion meal?

Back to the weighty number in my possession, and I had a little treat in store for Mr Chocolate. Special occasion, yes it was. After visiting the warehouse of Feather and Bone, I came home with a steak. Not just any steak but a Chianina steak, aged for 6 weeks, rib eye cut, weighing 673g and costing $45. There was, a small intake of breath, (you can’t fight history right) at the cost of it, but overall I was more than happy to hand over the cash for the hefty piece of meat. I knew where the beef was coming from, I knew how long and where it was aged and butchered, (Feather and Bone.) I also knew that this steak was going home to my loved one as part of a twice a year meal of steak, (the last one being at Aria.) It was also going to be enjoyed by him, (I hoped.)

Now on getting that steak home, I started to sweat a little. Not from the weight of the thing, but the pressure to cook it the right way. (To clarify, I don’t eat steak, which means I don’t cook steak.) This however, was a treat. It had to be cooked just right. I had quizzed Grant, (at Feather and Bone) when I purchased it and then also made a frantic phone call to my friend who proudly has Meat on her bookshelf. Plan put into action and I’m off.

Plates at the ready, the steak was brought back to room temperature, salted, seared, into the oven, and then rested for the same amount of time it had cooked for. The pressure was high, the weight of the steak was sitting firmly on my shoulders, and geez, it was a hefty one.

No cooked pictures, as that was the last thing I needed was to try and get a ‘good’ picture in the fading light and building anticipation of Mr Chocolate about to cut into his rib eye.

But how did it taste?

Let’s just say… if Mr Chocolate was about to leave the earth tomorrow and he could choose any meal to end it, this steak cooked by me (*nervous giggle*) is now top of the list.

I think that just might be a success.

Isola (producer)

Chianina Beef

6 week aged

Rib eye

673g

one vanilla slice and a small serving of copyright please…

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 The humble vanilla slice is one of those bakery treats that I’ve always found hard to walk past. I’ve written before of my love for all things custard, with the peak of the custard love sitting right in wedged between two lots of pastry.

This recipe had sat for four years in my ‘folder’, awaiting the day when I would finally give it a crack. I know the day I ripped it out of the magazine, as the date is on the bottom. Torn out from The Good Weekend, a magazine insert from the weekend paper The Sydney Morning Herald. Also, it’s a recipe from Matthew Evans. It seems I’ve been unknowingly drawn to his cooking long before I pushed him up on to my gourmet farmer pedestal.

So there the recipe sat. Waiting for the right moment. I had posted about custard biscuits and a reader commented on snot blocks. Snotblocks were otherwise known as the  vanilla slice in certain parts of 70’s Australia. With the mere mention of the snot block, I was drawn back to the torn out folded recipe, wedged between the caramel mudcake and profiterole recipe.

What exactly was holding me back from giving it a go? Right, get cracking girl. So I did. I even followed the recipe to the letter, every little step of it. I didn’t stray, not even a tiny tweak, (well almost). Which was very unlike me.

So did it turn out? Ohhh, yes. Yes it did. It actually exceeded my expectations as the recipe didn’t have an accompanying picture. I just crossed my fingers that it was going to work out, and kept visualising my snot block, I mean vanilla slice.

So I made it, it was delicious, now where’s the recipe?

This was where I came a little undone. I had followed the recipe to the T. No adaptations, no deviations, no tweaking and definitely no hack. There was no evidence of the recipe online, the magazine isn’t even on line, so I couldn’t really give credit where it was due. I didn’t want rip off the magazine I’d been reading for the past 20+ years and I didn’t want to rip off Matthew Evans.

I ended up asking a Good Weekend editor what to do, and some emails were sent back and forth without any conclusion being made. Maybe I was too small of a blog to be bothered with and maybe they just weren’t sure either of what to do? I read David Lebovitz’s post on recipe attribution, then I read it again.

Just when I had decided to let it all go, approval came through. The recipe was given the nod as long as it had all the appropriate acknowledgements.

Vanilla Slice 

from Matthew Evans- Good Weekend December 1st, 2007

2x 25cm square pieces butter puff pastry

80g 2/3 cup cornflour

1 litre milk

40g butter

6 eggs

200g (1 cup) sugar

3 tsp vanilla essence

130g (1 cup) icing sugar

1 tbls extra milk

Oven on to 220C. Pop the pastry on to baking trays and prick all over with a fork. Use something with some weight and it can go on top of the pastry to stop it from rising, just use some baking paper to prevent sticking between it, (I just used a spatula to flatten it half way through cooking). Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.  Cool and trim pastry to fit 22cm square cake tin (or something similar). Line the tin with a strip of baking paper to lift the slice out once it is set. Pop one piece of the pastry in the bottom.

For the custard, add a little of the milk with the cornflour to dissolve. In a pot, heat the remainder of the litre of milk with the butter. While it come to the boil, crack the eggs into the cornflour paste, tip in the sugar and whisk until smoooth. Whisk in the milk, and then return to the heat in a clean pan.

Whisk continuously until the mixture comes to the boil and simmer for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, add the vanilla, then tip the custard into cake tin. Top with the other piece of pastry, turning it over- smooth side up. Press down and allow to cool.

Next either make a barely runny icing with the icing sugar and extra milk or simply dust with icing sugar. Pop in to the fridge until cold. Remove from tin and cut into squares, wiping blade between cuts.

Should make about 16 squares, (unless you do monster sized ones.)

*******

One other little thing I did do differently, was the pastry. Mathew Evans reccommends the Careme butter puff pastry or as second choice Pampas, (likening all others to ear wax). I did get the Careme, but didn’t pay attention to how many grams there were in there, so fell short of the amount of pastry I needed. I baked it as per instructions but then really carefully halved it. Because the pastry was lovely and obliging, it was pretty easy to do, and it was still enough pastry to withhold all the custard.

So what did I learn from all this?

Waiting, and making sure I felt comfortable with the whole re-publishing process definitely paid off. Getting approval to use the recipe on my blog without all the lip biting and frowning that was going on before, felt right.

And I still love vanilla slice.

It’s delicious.

*******

Good Weekend is a weekly magazine insert within the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Matthew Evans is Gourmet Farmer, author of The Real Food Companion and sells via Rare Food.

If you are not sure about posting a recipe, this is a really good place to start.

Vanilla slice sounds much nicer than snot block.

lime and orange marmalade

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If I could choose one thing to successfully grow I would have a lime tree.

A happy one that just insisted on giving and giving with lime after lime.

Yes, that’s what I’d have. No lime tree here, but I do have the occasional access to a short stumpy happy lime tree that gives up plump juicy limes just begging to be picked. Actually the limes didn’t have a choice, plucked from their leafy foliage, and slung into a box rather unceremoniously. I had marmalade on my mind as my stocks were low after last years batch of Cumquat and Lime Marmalade and I needed my citrus fix.

Lime and Orange Marmalade

limes thinly sliced

oranges peeled (I only used the flesh, not the skin)

chopped fruit in a bowl, (I used half orange, half lime) water just over the top, and soaked over night

weigh it all, and equal amount in sugar

cooked up, until marmalade passes the saucer test.

gai lum potatoes- Frugal Friday

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Thanks to the lovely BM@ Living a Little Greener, a little book now sits by my table. Food Rules by Michael Pollan. A handy little book that is full of wise advise like,

41# Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks– People who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than those of us eating a modern Western diet of processed foods. 

With that in mind, I’m not quite sure which food culture this Frugal Friday dish is trying to harness. Olive oil in a wok with gai lum? Chinese or Italian? Would both cultures be quietly drawing in their breath and shaking their heads?

Possibly. Either way though, I still say it’s easy, it’s healthy and I was making good use of that fantastic mixed bag of potatoes and soul filling local olive oil I had got on the weekend. I didn’t want to cook the potatoes in any old fashion as I didn’t want to lose any of the flavours. So I cut them into long quarters, and dinner was quickly made up.

Gai lum Potatoes

In my trusty flat bottomed wok, (or pot)

a generous couple of slurps olive oil

added 2 stems of spring garlic

an assortment of rocking potatoes cut length ways

Cook until lightly golden on one side. Whack a lid on to steam a little.

Add chopped gai lum (chinese broccoli) or other seasonal greenery,

add lid again for a little steaming

season and drizzle with olive oil.

*****

This dish might seem too simple, but it worked because everything was super fresh, cooked fairly quickly, and the flavours of what was in there easily held their own. An easy, healthy Frugal Friday dish that had Mr Chocolate  fast becoming Mr GaiLumPotatoes.

Food Rules 14# Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature.

What’s in season Sydney?

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Wandering through the Eveleigh farmers markets at Carriageworks last weekend, I was tickled pink by all the gorgeous produce that’s in season at the moment. (Speaking of pink, the pink lady apples have been delicious lately.) I was here wandering with a foodie friend, a friend who understands the subtle delight of an amazing mushroom and some locally produced olive oil. The morning was ours and wander we did.

I’d been meaning to come here for quite a while. I’d been impressed by the artisan markets on a Sunday but had yet to open my reusable shopping bag at these ones. So with a skip in my feet and coins in my pockets, we set forth.

I was also on the hunt for the Slow Food Sydney Seasonal Food Guide. Only a few people were selling them around Sydney, and I wanted one. I felt like I had been doing better with knowing what was in season, but I could still do with knowing more.

I was happy to see the smiling faces of the girls from The Little General with a stall. I had met them at the Masterchef Live foodie festival last year and had taken home some of their gorgeous extra virgin olive oil. I’m a big fan of olive oil. It’s such a simple thing that can really make any dish. Along with the prices, the differences in extra virgin olive oil tastes are huge. If you haven’t had any locally produced fresh extra virgin oil, dunked with a little crusty sourdough and perhaps a little taste of chevre… I’d suggest hopping to it. Skip the big brand imported stuff that’s on sale, (it’s probably on sale for a good reason.)

The swiss mushrooms have also been delicious. Not a week has gone by that I haven’t found a bag of good mushrooms skipping their way home. Don’t waste your time with the tasteless supermarket ones. There is no taste comparison…none.

Potatoes. Why, oh why did it take me so long to discover the wonderful world of potatoes? I’d dismissed them as a nothing vegetable long ago. Then last year I started getting Foodconnect boxes and in it were different types of potatoes. Truly a revelation. These weren’t tasteless boring, chunks of bland. Instead, little wonderous dirt covered beings and here before me was the stall that showed all those potatoes in their true glory. Toss me a potato, and get me to tell you the name and I wouldn’t have a clue, not a tooting clue though. So with that in mind, I asked for a mixed bag, (as I couldn’t decide which ones were more alluring.) Round ones, long ones, purple ones, yellow ones…

Knowing that the potatoes were grown just a hop skip and a jump away made them even more appealing. Highland Gourmet Potatoes is a family run business located in Robertson, Southern Highlands.  Sydney has two potato seasons a year, (I now know this, as I found the seasonal guide!)

saphire potato

Broccoli is one of the seasonal goodies that I can’t get enough of at the moment. Along with gai lum (chinese broccoli), kale, swiss mushrooms and pink ladies (although they are coming to an end) they have all been making regular encore presentations to the family table. Give me a plate full of broccoli cooked up with a little garlic and olive oil (The Little General), and I’m a happy woman.

and the best thing about going to somewhere like this with a foodie friend, is that you get to sample twice as much.

*****

Eveleigh Farmers Markets

every Saturday

8-1pm

smells like pink cupcakes

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I couldn’t get them out of my head.

Pink cupcakes.

Everywhere I turned. There they were in my thoughts. In all their pinkness… and cupcakey-ness.

Little Monkey was even beginning to smell like pink cupcakes.

…actually I always think he smells like a pink cupcake.

Monkey Boy doesn’t smell like a pink cupcake. But he likes to eat them. Both of them like to eat them.

Now I’ve made them I can turn my attention to more pressing matters at hand, (like reading.)

*****

Pink Cupcakes

150g softened butter

150g caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

3tbls natural yogurt

80mls milk (1/3 cup)

225g s/r flour (1 1/2 cups)

Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla, eggs, yogurt, milk. Fold through flour.

Bake at 180C for approximately 25 minutes.

Icing

2 dessert spoons natural yogurt

red colouring (I used a little beetroot juice)

icing sugar

Taunting newspapers and Banana Oat Bars

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I’m always curious to see what other people are reading.

Passing by a young man with a very long bushman beard at 7am on a Saturday morning recently. I had to stop myself from sticking my head upside down, and asking, “what ya readin’ there buddy?” He seemed so engrossed in his book, sitting reading at the bus stop.  What was that young man with a long bushman’s beard reading at 7am while waiting for his bus?

I love reading, but too often there isn’t enough time in my day. Certainly not enough time to do all the reading that I would like to be doing anyway. I love reading the Saturday paper, but sometimes I simply have to just not buy it. The pressure to read the thing is too much. Who needs that kind of added pressure? A pile of papers slowly mounting up on the table, taunting me in its silence. If the paper could talk I’m sure it would be whispering.

You haven’t read me yet, have you…

I’m still here…you’ve walked by again and I’m still neatly folded.

Come on now, it’s nearly Friday, and I’m still very much unread…

You know what tomorrow is don’t you…paper day, again.

See how the paper taunts me? How a bundle of paper pages does that, I just don’t know.

Along with the newspaper building up, my pile of books to read is also silently gathering momentum. The beginning of the year, I had set out with a reasonable reading list that I thought was manageable given the slow rate I was reading at the time. That one book turned into two, two turned into three, three turned into ten. I can’t keep up. Have I finished any of them? Maybe one or two… But generally they are all half read. I’m simultaneously reading six books.

Now this, probably isn’t the most clever way to read a book but it’s how I’m slowly creeping through them all. There is the book that doesn’t read particularly well, but I really want to get though it as I think it’s important. There is the light reading book for when I’m so tired just before bed that I can still read a little with an eye stuck shut for want of sleep. There is the informative book that needs to be read with a clear mind, while taking down the odd note here and there. There is the escapism fiction that has essentially only been opened and closed without a proper word been consumed. There are the numerous cookbooks that need to be poured over before I can satisfactorily say that yes, I’m utilising them properly. There is the green building magazine that I adore every page of, so don’t want to flick through unmindfully as by doing that it would almost seem an insult and not do the pages proper justice. Then there is the ever growing list of books that I really want to read next.

My books are pressuring me just as that taunting pile of newspapers.  Thankfully these Banana Oat Bars don’t give out that kind of pressure.

Do you ever feel pressure from paper goods?

 

Banana Oat Bars

2 mashed up bananas

100g melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

3 tbls honey

2 cups whole oats

Mix all the ingredients up in order. Press mixture into a greased pan (I used 23cmx 23cm) and bake at 180C for approximately 45 minutes.

Super easy and perfect to nibble on… while you are reading.

travels and tomato chutney

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Maybe wait until I get home and we can book it together.

His words trailed behind him as he ran out the door. I stopped, frowned, and wondered why he wouldn’t have wanted me to go ahead and book the flights.  Hmm, I’m a big girl. Surely I could do this?

It didn’t take long for me to stop frowning.

Maybe it was because the last flights I had booked for his parents, had needed a little tweaking of their itinerary. It had been the parents-in-law once every 5 years break and they had asked me to sort out a weeks holiday for them. Sure. No problem, I’d love to. Three days in and I had it well and truly covered. Itinerary researched, places of interest taken down, accommodation scrutinized and everything just needing to be booked. I started with the flights, the logical first choice. With mother- in- law’s trusty credit card in hand, I paid. Confirmation email confirmed everything, along with the fact that I had just made a huge mistake. I had just flown them into the wrong city.

Excellent. Well there’s a good start. I swore, bit my nails, ranted to a friend, and then made a crazed phone call to Mr Chocolate to tell him what I had done. He laughed and said he couldn’t talk at the moment (he was at work).

So, I had two choices. One to try to change all the flights, or two change their holiday… rather a lot. I chose two, (and just between you and me, I think I actually gave them a better itinerary the second time around.) When we met up and I gave them their holiday details. I did toy with the idea of telling them some extraordinary story of how it was all booked out due to an alien space craft having just crashed into the area and all the local spok watchers were coming in from near and far to try and take a look at the big shiny aircraft. I wasn’t sure they would buy that one, so I… a little nervously, told them the truth. I had oops-ed the flight details, BUT had a lovely replacement holiday all booked for them now. They laughed, and said it didn’t matter. I laughed too, while carefully scrutinising their faces to see if it really DID matter… (I don’t think it really did.)

So it could have been for that reason that Mr Chocolate had asked for me to wait for him to book the flights…. OR it could have been referring to the time I booked some accommodation into the wrong town for ourselves and my mum coming back from a holiday. An innocent mistake that I had luckily picked up on just a few hours before we were supposed to arrive. How we all laughed and made funny jokes at my little mistake, (right after I had sworn, bit my nails and ranted to anyone that would stand still.) Thanks to a well organised international booking system, this little problem too was again righted.

As neither (minor) incidents had happened a long time ago, Mr Chocolate was clearly thinking of one or both of them and obviously thought the booking process should be monitored by someone other than myself.

Fair call I say. So I waited.

Flicking through my CWA Preserves book I did think vaguely about waiting until I had all the ingredients to one of these recipes. However, seeing as though there wasn’t a lot riding on the chutney. No flights needed to be caught, no accommodation needed to be checked in to and the chutney wouldn’t be going anywhere except the table. I didn’t. I had a bag of tomatoes waiting to be used and I had chutney on my mind. I just couldn’t decide what flavours to play with. Which recipe would I like? Actually none of them were grabbing me. They all sounded good, but they weren’t quite the flavours I had in mind. They weren’t my flavours. So with a close of the book, a little pause and a think, I got cracking.

Tomato Chutney

5 cloves garlic

2 onions quartered

2 apples quartered

1 inch peeled fresh ginger

all in the blender and give a quick wizz. Then all into a pot, also adding

3 tps cumin

3 tps coriander

and cook off for a few minutes. Back to the blender add

1 kilo of firm ripe tomatoes

pop that in the pot as well, and bring to a simmer, then add

2 1/2 cups brown sugar (loose, not firmly packed)

2 cups white vinegar

zest of 1 lime*

Cook at a simmer for about 35 minutes or until darker in colour and thicker. Then bottle.

* Don’t forget that lime. It was definitely the clincher.

Blueberry Frangipane

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3am and I’m sitting in an armchair next to Little Monkey’s hospital bed when he broke his leg. The armchair was my bed for the duration, swamped by blankets I’d made a nest for myself so I could keep one eye closed for sleep and one eye watching carefully over the little fella as he slept.

In my hand however was a the most delicious thing I had encountered for quite a while. Not hospital food, but a frangipane fruit tart. Brought in earlier, by my very thoughtful sister from Brasserie Bread.

I’m not sure whether it was the fact that I was eating it at 3am that made it delicious, or it really was the best darn tasting tart I had ever tasted. Either way, it was superb and I couldn’t get enough of it. Fast forward 2 months, and that hopsital stay is happily a distant crappy foggy memory, but that tart….

That tart, was the kind of tart that makes you sit back, and let those taste buds reminisce. I put the tart in my, will have to give that a crack one day… thought pile and then went about my business. Until Amy at Tiny Tea Room posted on a pastry-less almond Pear Tart. Now with Amy’s stunning photography I’m sure she could make a white bread cheese sandwich appealing, but non-the less that sweet almondy goodness was brought back to my mind, front and centre…. and no pastry? Even quicker!

I wanted not crazy sweet, vanilla-y tones, and a gritty type texture….oh and easy. Let’s play…

Blueberry Frangipane

150gms softened butter

1/2 cup raw sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

150gms almond meal* (1 1/2 cups)

100gms course semolina (1/2 cup)

125gms blueberries

Cream butter and sugar together, Add the vanilla and eggs. Stir through almond meal and semolina. Blueberries on top. Bake in a greased, floured tin (approx 23cm square) at 180C for about 30minutes or until light golden.

* I lightly toasted whole almonds, skin on, and then blitzed them in the blender to make the almond meal.

Verdict? It didn’t quite match that 3am frangipane fruit tart but I was happy with it. Super easy, and really quick. I think this one might become a regular favourite. You can easily up the sugar if you want it sweeter, and swap the blueberries for other seasonal fruit.

Cardamom Semolina Diamonds

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Indian Semolina Balls.

That’s what I’ve got these little cardamom treats written down as. A recipe that is well entwined into my childhood memories with cardamom flavours, plump sultanas and nutty cashews. Given half the chance I would have eaten my weight in these little things. One, two…oops, ten.

I’d re-written the recipe from my mum’s recipe folder a long time ago, although had only vaguely written down the quantities and even more vaguely written down the method. I knew how they were supposed to taste, but wasn’t so sure how to get there. Then I realised I didn’t have cashews…. and I didn’t think I really wanted to roll them anyway… So that changes a few things doesn’t it.

Indian Semolina Balls turned into squares? That’s not so exciting.

Diamonds?….much more enticing.

Cashews? I never have them about…

I’ve got flaked almonds though…would that work?

Cardamom Semolina Diamonds

(Inspired from my mum, and before that a 70’s Indian Vegetarian Recipe Book)

4 tbls ghee

1 cup semolina

1 cup loose brown sugar

1 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp cardamom

toasted flaked almonds

Melt ghee in a pot, add semolina and fry until golden. Add brown sugar and cardamom, mix through. Add milk and handful of sultanas. Stir until thickens. Pour into square tin, press down and add flaked almonds. Into fridge until hardens up a bit. (or wait until mixture cools and roll into balls, replacing almonds with toasted cashews.)

10 minutes tops to make, if you’ve already got the toasted almond flakes.