Cinnamon Bun Day

Posted on October 5, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

This year I was organised. This year I had planned to bake, and bake oh yes I would. I would bake these delicious cinnamon bready bundles of goodness and I would know I did it on the right day. Cinnamon Bun Day, which was yesterday, the 4th of October. Not quite with me? Let me explain for those that are new to my scandi obsession. I’m a lover of anything Scandinavian. Viking history, Vikings to watch (this awesome bloody show), this beautiful book, given to me from my favourite Norwegian friend and blogger. I eat knekkebrod with gusto, mix bread with an Assistent, wear Danish boots with pride, think Figgjo retro kitchenware is the bees knees and come the 4th of October, well I’m baking buns… Cinnamon Buns. For these little bundles of Scandinavian dough goodness I used my recipe from last year. Untweaked and left alone surprisingly. Common sense told me I shouldn’t be bothering messing about with a recipe that worked. For once I listened to myself. For more posts on all things Nordic, see here and here, where you’ll find all things knekkebrod, last years buns (which were twisted), and other Scandinavian obsessions that I may have had in recent times.

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Do you have any particular country obsessions?

Cinnamon Buns

250g sourdough starter

1 tsp commercial yeast

675g strong bread flour

250mls milk

200mls water

100g sugar

100g softened butter

1 tsp cardamon

1 tsp salt

Cinnamon mixture

100g softened butter

100g raw sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Add all dough ingredients together, mix well and then knead until dough is elastic on a lightly floured surface (I use my mixer.) Dough should be well incorporated and feeling smooth. Pop the dough back into the mixing bowl and leave to prove for a couple of hours, with a fold or two in between, (or covered and over night.) On a lightly floured bench, roll the dough out to a rough rectangle, add cinnamon mixture and cut into portions. Line on a tray and bake at 200C for approximately 15-20 minutes (depending on the sizes.)

at night in the city

Posted on October 2, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Today a bit more city,

than the hippy and the farm.

Big city

Sydney city

at night city

and Luna Park in a puddle

(a city puddle.)

loving… seasonal changes

Posted on September 28, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving….

my first ever artichoke to cook…it felt very adult like.

strawberry season || cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving…

strawberry season, it’s fast and furious round here and that’s just the consumption of them. Another strawberry crumble was inhaled. (The key to it is the lemon zest, I’m sure of it.)

earth garden || cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving…

reading the spring edition of Earth Garden.

Loving…

light, and so much more of it. It’s there early in the morning and it’s there in the early evening.

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While this week certainly hasn’t been all sunshiney soft light, rainbows, and unicorns. I am really thankful for those small moments captured in these pictures. I’m also loving the fact that we have a functioning healthcare system in this country, (that while it isn’t without it’s problems, is pretty damn good as well.) And I’m loving that.

What have you been loving lately?

[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]

Leek and Potato Soup- ELC #8

Posted on September 25, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I’m not going to fancy this one up. There’s no verjuice, cream of, foam, quinoa or chia in there. It hasn’t been slow roasted, caramelised or reduced. It also waves a sugar, gluten, dairy free flag and that’s because it uses super fresh grown with love farmer fresh produce.

It’s Leek and Potato Soup.

Like I said, no fancy pants here. Leeks, potato, a half head of cauliflower for added good measure and water. Cook that all up until soft, blitz it with a hand held blender and delicately drop a little thyme from the kitchen window sill on the top. Add some of my favourite salt and dinner… is done.

Where did it all come from?

Potatoes- Naturally Grown Naturally Better, Crookwell, 240km

Leeks- Rita’s Farm, Kemps Creek, 50km

Cauliflower- Rita’s Farm, Kemps Creek, 50km

Thyme- my windowsill

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Have you checked out Give a Fork yet, run by Sustainable Table? You should, you definitely should. They are running a compaign during the month of October on #wastefree meals.

“Share a #wastefree meal with mates during the month of October and raise awareness and funds to help build a food system that is good for the environment, fair on Aussie farmers, ethical and healthy.”

Interested in taking the Eat Local Challenge?

Just how local is local? Well this depends entirely on you. Only you know how you and your family eat. Raise the bar just a little from what you already do. If making sure the majority of your meal includes solely food produced in your country, than make that your challenge. If you want to make it a little trickier, go for produced in the same state…trickier still within 160km.

My aim is to really know where my food is coming from for at least one meal a month, (where I will be posting here in the last week of the month).

Eat Local Challenge #7

Eat Local Challenge #6

Eat Local Challenge #5

Eat Local Challenge #4

Eat Local Challenge #3

Eat Local Challenge #2

Eat Local Challenge #1

Inspiration from the sea

Posted on September 21, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I wrote a little while ago on how I could easily start another blog on all things of the sea. All those salty thoughts? Yes, they are still piling up and for this post, I have nothing but inspiration come from it.

Utterly inspired.

(I’ve written before of two of these links before, but indulge me, it’s so very worth it.)

Emily Richmond, solo sailor, making her way around the world in a tiny yacht since 2010. C grade media celebrities be damned, this is a woman worthy of looking up to… Bobbie Rounds the World.

Mother Tongue Knowledge: Sri Lanka- A beautiful truly inspiring adventure of a life time, oh yes indeed. He’s just finished (and reached!) a crowd funding project.

Great Ocean Quarterly– where adventures can be taken in your favourite seat, looking out at your favourite view. Bliss.

Tell me about some of your salty thoughts or wanders lately.

Simple Living, Weekday Markets, Calendars, and Questions!… The Green Noticeboard

Posted on September 18, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Simple Living- a selfish joy. Loved reading this post from Tricia at Little Eco Footprints. It prompted a wonderful dinner time discussion at our place on what was important to us all. Weekday Farmers Markets, with Milkwood- the benefits of running a shorter shopping window during the week and why we should be utilising it. (I’d love to know whether you have a weekday market in your area and whether you use it.) Have you thought about next years calendar? Permaculture Principles has a wonderful one they put out each year. I’ve just bought some, (they have big squares to write in, oh yes they do.) And for something different, I’m over at the delightfully lovely, super duper green-Ecolosophy and answering some very important questions. Questions that involve- community, food, kitchens and what on earth I did to get on Death Row!?

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I quite often come across links that I find interesting, full of things I should know about and sometimes just down right fascinating.

Feel free to link any of your own green links in the comments. Let’s build this community green noticeboard board.

the green noticeboard || cityhippyfarmgirl

Raspberry Bakewell Tart

Posted on September 14, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I’ll admit, there was a small evil mother moment pause in the kitchen that particular morning. It was brief, and the thought process went pretty much like this.

I love bitter almond aroma, it would go perfectly in this tart…

…they all hate bitter almond aroma*

Oh!… And there you have it.

The rather large option of an entire tart to yourself because you put something in there (which is delicious and wonderful and makes your mouth sing) or…you could omit it because you are a considerate mother and probably shouldn’t be eating a whole family sized tart to yourself anyway.

Ahh, the dilemmas…

How about you? Do ever have these kitchen conversations with yourself? What would you have done?

* bitter almond aroma is this stuff here if you aren’t sure

Raspberry Bakewell Tart

Pastry

150g cold butter

50g sugar

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla

300g plain flour

1 tbls cold water

In a blender, pulse flour, sugar and butter until resembles bread crumbs. Tip out to a bowl and add vanilla, egg yolk and cold water. Knead lightly until it comes together to form a dough. Roll dough between two pieces of baking paper, to about .5cm and rest in the fridge for about half an hour. Shape into your greased tart tray.

Bake blind at 180C for about 15 minutes.

Filling

150g softened butter

150g raw sugar

150g almond meal

3 beaten eggs

zest of a lemon

optional bitter almond aroma

approximately 125g fresh raspberries

handful of almond flakes

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, except the raspberries and almond flakes. Gently fold through the raspberries and spoon mixture into pastry lined pie dish. Scatter the almond flakes on top and bake for about 45 minutes at 180C or until golden.

Easy As Biscuits and doing what you can

Posted on September 10, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I recently hosted a particularly nasty guest, called virus.

For weeks.

Yes, (too many) weeks.

It seems half the city is currently hosting under similar circumstances and I can tell you, it hasn’t been pretty.

Walking (dragging) our feet to school and it’s like a conga line of Village of the Doomed. Cough, cough, cough, sneeze, and cough from every street corner. It’s not just any cough either. It’s a lung squeezing, lift your feet off the ground kind of cough that leaves you gasping for air and clinging on to the closest adequately secured devise around, (telegraph poles excellent, small rickety fences- not so much.)

We walk, and bleary eyes meet. A slow blink of understanding, and brief head tilt towards each other. We are understood. The healthy ones file past. Determined in their stride, they look joyously towards a hopeful horizon, they have their health, and anything is a possibility. Not us though, eyes are dark, sunken and averted in an effort not to talk to anyone that isn’t absolutely necessary.

Now once all the fluid had partially drained from my head, ears, eyes, lungs. I was left with a small urge to bake. Not a big one mind. It certainly wasn’t going to be a three course dinner extravaganza, with a conveyor belt of baked goods throughout the day in a lead up to dinner.

No. All I set out to do was bake some biscuits. Lunch box stuffing, hollow legs, hunger nags and after dinner top ups kind a biscuits, (cookies if you are in the land of stars and stripes.) They worked out, filled up bellies and I’m now counting on two hands how many times they’ve been made since.

Now during this time of compulsory hosting, it became terrifically clear that…

1/ I was really going to have to take some time out of the kitchen while getting better.

2/ Life would continue on. It seems I need these kind of health shake ups occasionally to remember these things. Those moments of not pushing yourself, instead just doing what I can and when I can.

Yep, pretty simple really.

Easy As Biscuits

200g melted butter

100g brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

50g sunflower seeds

200g rolled oats

handful of sultanas

handful of chocolate buttons

150g wholemeal spelt flour

1 beaten egg

Add all ingredients together, mix it up and roll into balls with slightly dampened hands, (stops it sticking.) Bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes.

Store in airtight container and eat with enthusiasm, (and try not to cough.)

Spring, she’s sneaking in

Posted on September 7, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Spring, there is a touch of it in the air. A blossom here, a scent there and a change in the seasonal food.

Hello spring, I can feel you sneaking in just a little.

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And to all the, pocket knife owning, big hole digging, fried egg loving, mountain climbing, suit wearing, hanging upside down, dreadlocked growing, office dwelling, garden tending, lick the mixing bowl, tree climbing, tea party drinking, curiosity seeking, dads out there…

Happy Father’s Day.

5 things my kitchen would be completely lost without

Posted on September 3, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Five things my kitchen would be completely lost without. Not necessarily the top five, but five none the less.

Tea– completely and utterly lost without tea. I’ve got different types of tea stashed all over the place. Each one for a completely different reason for drinking. Calming, immunity, morning booster, to be drunk slowly. And different teas, different cups. I had no idea I had a ‘thing’ about this until I sat down and thought about it. Standard black every day tea bags? Not a chance. Loose leaf if you please, and rather a lot of Love Chai Love Tea. (I’m up to buying the 500g amounts of chai- told you I was serious about my tea.)

Something baked– With school age kiddos and one pint sized one. Snacks are a given round these parts. Hunger wails seem never ending, and little containers seem to be constantly refilled.

Vegetables– I can not imagine my world without vegetables in some shape or form. This booty was from late summer, but winter goodies are just as wonderful.

Bread knife– never under estimate the virtues of a good bread knife. Never. Especially when you make rather a lot of sourdough.

Sourdough- Nothing more, nothing less. It’s always there in some form or another. What about you, have you thought about making a starter before? It’s dead easy, give it a crack if you are interested here.

What are five things your kitchen would be completely lost with out?

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Linking in with the lovely Celia of Fig Jam Lime Cordial fame this month.

Mrs Longbottom and her Apple Sanga’s

Posted on August 31, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

It was in a small sun soaked dusty country school, thirty years before, that Mrs Longbottom* had taught. She probably should have retired ten years prior, but she hadn’t though and her young class of country folk kids were paying the price for that.

Instead she was committed to the little darlings, well at least until the end of the school year anyway.

The highlight of her long and tiring day was lunch time. Not because the pint sized ones were off running outside on the red sun baked dirt. Or because their muffled childish shouts were a little more muted when they hid within the pepper tree’s branches.

But because she really enjoyed eating her lunch.

Each day, it would be exactly the same thing, no matter what. Fresh white bread, thinly sliced crispy apple, thickly sliced cheddar cheese and walnut halves.

With an enthusiasm unmatched in the rest of her day, she would eat that sandwich. With walnut crumbs gently retrieved and her last mouthfuls slowly savoured.

Lunch time indeed was the best part of the day.

Reinvented Apple and Cheese Sanga

(one to make a teacher look forward to lunch, and *not her real name.)

the best sourdough bread you can find

the best crispiest seasonal apple in all the lands

caramelised onions

and your favourite tasty cheese

Tipple Time- Eat Local Challenge #7

Posted on August 28, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I’m not much of a drinker. Half a glass of wine, a full glass if I’m feeling particularly robust and that’s about it. That’s not to say I don’t like it, I do, I love wine lots and lots. Anything more than a glass though and it just gets me sleepy and quite frankly, there is always something else to do. I don’t need to feel extra sleepy on top of my usual sleepy. I can do that perfectly well on my own accord.

Now if I am going to have a glass of wine, it’s got to be a good one. I want organic and or as local as possible pretty please. On our recent trip to St Albans, I hit the local winery jackpot at the farmers markets of Glenorie, just near Dural, (aided by the enthusiastic French accented fellow who got me wine tasting and buying at 9.30am.)

Jubilee Vineyard Estate– I’m not sure there is anything closer if you are looking for a Sydney locavore drop, what’s more it was delicious, (which is why the photos are shown as one down and one to go.)

The White Chambourcin is described as, “clean fresh fruity aromas of strawberry, raspberry & lemon with a palate of raspberries and lingering citrus.” While my wine palate descriptions are restricted to good or not so good. It was definitely on the good side, delicious even.

How about you, do you enjoy a tipple? What’s your favourite local drop?