Rhubarb and Apple Spice Cake

This recipe was given to me by my friend Fiona.

She has made it many times and had success with several variations, such as using pears poached in red wine – drained and cut into chunks – instead of the apples. When she made it for our French group lunch she used poached quinces instead of apples and it was delicious. So as I had some poached quinces in the freezer which needed using up that’s what I did. Feel free to try other combinations.

1 tea bag (English breakfast or similar)
3 Tbs boiling water
A generous half cup of raisins or sultanas
2 cups caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla essence
300g plain flour (2 and 2/3 cups)
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp each cloves, nutmeg and mace
4-5 stalks of fresh rhubarb, cut into 2cm lengths
2 large apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped
To serve:
Rhubarb compote (optional)
Whipped cream, thick pouring cream or sour cream (shown in photo)

In a small bowl, pour boiling water over tea bag, press to release the flavour, then remove the tea bag. Add the raisins, mix to cover, then leave for half an hour. Drain raisins, discarding the liquid.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 160°C. Grease a 25cm springform pan and line with baking paper. Place eggs and sugar in an electric mixer and whisk until thick and pale. Add the oil and vanilla essence and mix well for a minute or two. Place a sieve over the bowl then measure the flour, salt and spices and add them to the mixture through the sieve. Fold in the rhubarb, apple and nuts. Make sure there are no pockets of flour. The mixture will be quite stiff.

Bake for an hour and 3/4 or until golden brown and firm on top. Ovens vary so start checking after an hour and a half. Cool in the tin for half an hour then remove. Store in an airtight tin when cold.

The cake should have a crunchy top and a chewy centre and improves after a day or two of storage.

Serve with rhubarb compote and cream as a dessert.

Serves 12

Variations: I didn’t have any mace so I added more cinnamon. Use poached pears or quinces in red wine instead of the apples.

Pasta with Tomato & Vodka Sauce

I decided to make a meatless tomato sauce to serve with pasta. Spag bol with lots of vegetables but no meat. I had a kilo of peeled tomatoes in the freezer which grew in our garden last summer and I wanted them to be the star of this sauce.

There are lots of recipes online for tomato sauce to serve with pasta and quite a few are enriched with a splash of vodka and some cream, so I thought I would give it a try. The first photo is the sauce without the cream and the second photo is with the addition of cream. I preferred without, Matthew preferred with.

2-3 Tbs vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
2-3 carrots, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 stock cubes (chicken or vegetable)
Water as required
½ cup vodka
½ cup cream (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
To serve:
Cooked pasta of your choice (I used fettuccine)
Grated Parmesan cheese
Chopped parsley
Olive oil

Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook the onion, celery, carrot, red capsicum and garlic for 10-15 minutes over medium heat, stirring often, until softened but not browned. Add the tomatoes and stock cubes, then simmer for 1-2 hours stirring often and adding more water as required.

About half an hour before serving, add the vodka and continue to cook until the sauce is thick like a bolognese sauce. Add cream (if using) and adjust seasoning as required.

Serve sauce on cooked pasta, topped with the grated cheese, chopped herbs and a drizzle of your best Extra Virgin olive oil.

Serves 6

Variations: use sherry or wine instead of the vodka

 

 

No-Knead Bread

My son in law makes this “no-knead bread” and says it’s so easy, so I thought it was time I had a go. The time involved in making it is less than five minutes, plus baking time. Minimum mess, quick and easy and tastes fantastic – just like a shop-bought ciabatta. If you look on Google you will find that there are heaps of variations of this recipe, though I believe it was first published in the New York Times. Here’s my version.

3 cups plain flour
¼ tsp dry yeast
1 heaped tsp salt
1 Tbs olive oil (optional)
1½ cups very hot water from the tap

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until you’re ready to bake the bread. In summer anywhere will do, but in the middle of winter it’s probably a good idea to put it somewhere cosy like the microwave or the oven, making sure you tell people not to switch it on! Recipes on Google vary on how long the dough needs to rise, so I reckon it’s fairly flexible. Anywhere between 4 and 24 hours you can go to the next stage.

At this stage, i.e. after the 24 hour rising period, the dough can be refrigerated for up to 3-4 days and this time in the fridge actually improves the flavour of the bread.

Place an iron pot with a lid in the oven – a le Creuset-type pot holding 6-8 litres – and turn the oven on to 250C or as high as it will go if it doesn’t go that high. Meanwhile tip the bread dough out onto a floured surface. Fold and flip it over on itself a few times, then form into a ball with the seams underneath and place on a piece of baking paper. Turn on the oven and let the bread rise a bit while it comes up to temperature. This could take around half an hour. If the dough has been in the fridge for a couple of days then give it 2 hours to come to room temperature and rise before baking.

When the oven is up to temperature use the paper to put the bread into the pot on the paper and make two slashes in the top with a pair of scissors. Cover with the lid and bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove lid and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until nicely browned. It depends on your oven how fast it browns, so keep an eye on it. In such a hot oven it browns fast. Remove and cool on a rack.

Tortilla French Toasts with Garlicky Mushrooms

Topped with a delicious mix of mushrooms, garlic and cream, this makes a quick and tasty lunch or supper. If preferred serve it on toasted sourdough or Turkish bread, instead of the Tortilla French Toasts.

Tortilla French Toasts:
1 egg
2 Tbs cream
2 tortillas from a packet
1 Tbs olive oil
Mushrooms:
2 Tbs butter (or 1 Tbs butter and 1 Tbs olive oil)
250g mushrooms, quartered or sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 Tbs dry sherry (optional)
1 Tbs Dijon mustard
½ cup cream or sour cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 Tbs finely chopped parsley

Beat egg and cream in a wide shallow dish. Submerge the tortillas in this mixture and turn to coat thoroughly. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and cook the tortillas, one at a time, on both sides until golden, then place on two serving plates.

Meanwhile in another frying pan, heat the butter (or butter and oil) and cook the mushrooms for 5-10 minutes or until cooked and starting to brown, stirring often. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for a minute or so. Add sherry, mustard, cream and seasoning to taste. Cook, stirring, until sauce has thickened. Spoon onto the tortillas and garnish with parsley. If liked, drizzle with a little extra cream as shown in the photo.

To make a more substantial meal, serve with a rocket, parmesan and pine nut salad, lightly dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Serves 2

Korean Beef in an Air Fryer

Korean Beef, or Bulgogi, is a tasty, quick and easy alternative to your usual Chinese stir fry. Serve it with steamed rice for a delicious mid-week dinner.

Making this recipe in an air fryer results in crispy meat without the need for deep frying.

300g lean beef (flank, rump, topside, sirloin)
2 tsp oil
2 Tbs cornflour
2 Tbs soy sauce
1-2 Tbs brown sugar, to taste
2 Tbs hoisin sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ cup water
To serve:
Steamed rice
2 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
Sesame seeds

Cut meat into thin strips as you would for a stir fry. Add the oil and mix well, then mix in the cornflour. Spray the tray of an air fryer with oil, then arrange the meat strips over it, in one layer. If doubling the recipe, you will probably need to cook the beef in two lots. If you don’t have an air fryer, deep fry the beef in oil.

Cook beef on high for 5-8 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking time. Meanwhile place soy sauce, brown sugar, hoisin sauce, garlic and water in a frying pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer for a minute or two or until thickened a bit. Add the cooked beef and stir to coat well with the sauce.

Serve with steamed rice and garnish with spring onions and sesame seeds.

Serves 2

Chia Puddings

You may have seen chia seeds in the supermarket and wondered what to do with them. When mixed with liquid and left for a few hours or overnight, they set into a sort of pudding or chunky jelly.

Our son James says that for him chia puddings are in the same category as tapioca pudding and bubble tea, a popular drink filled with chewy tapioca balls. He is not a fan, whereas I love them.

Chia puddings are very easy to make and involve no cooking. To make one serving you just need half a cup of any kind of milk and 2 tablespoons of chia seeds. Mix thoroughly and leave in the fridge overnight, then top with fresh or frozen berries, sliced banana, muesli, yoghurt, or a combination and you’ve got a healthy breakfast or dessert, loaded with fibre and protein. A hundred grams of chia seeds contains 17g of protein.

2 Tbs chia seeds
½ cup any kind of milk (cow’s, oat, soya, almond, coconut)
To serve:
Berries or sliced banana, mango, peaches etc
Toasted muesli
Plain yoghurt
Maple syrup or honey

Thoroughly mix the chia seeds with milk and place in an individual bowl or glass, leaving space for toppings. After an hour or so, stir the mixture again to avoid any big lumps forming. Refrigerate overnight.

Serve topped with fruit, muesli and yoghurt.  Drizzle with a little maple syrup or honey. If you’re feeling decadent, drizzle with a little cream.

You can always mix up a larger quantity, allowing 4 Tbs chia seeds for every cup of milk. Tip the mixture into a plastic storage container with a lid. It will keep for a several days in the fridge.

Makes one serving

Tortilla Crêpes

This recipe is just French toast made with wheat tortillas instead of bread.

But it’s a brilliant idea. So if you’re looking for a quick and tasty idea for Sunday breakfast or brunch, or a quick snack to feed the grandkids when they call in, look no further.

The time-saving idea of turning a packaged tortilla into a light and fluffy pancake was invented by the late Kenny Shopsin, a self-taught cook who ran a grocery store and restaurant in New York, with his wife Eve. Kenny was a colourful character who had certain rules, for example anyone using a mobile device rather than engaging in conversation risked being kicked out. Since his death in 2018, the business has been run by his daughter Tamara and her two siblings.

I’m going to try making a savoury version, so watch this space.

1 punnet strawberries
2 tsp runny honey
2 Tbs cream
2 eggs
2 tsp maple syrup
1 packet thin wheat tortillas or soft tacos
Butter for frying
Extra maple syrup or honey to serve (optional)

Wash the strawberries, then halve or slice into a bowl. Drizzle with a little honey.

In a bowl wider than the tortillas, beat cream with eggs and maple syrup using a fork. Add one tortilla and turn to coat. Leave it submerged while you heat a little butter in a small non-stick frying pan. When the tortilla is well soaked, drain off excess egg mixture and place the tortilla in the pan. Cook until golden and puffed one one side, then turn and cook on the other side. Cook remaining tortillas. The egg mixture will be enough for 4 tortillas – maybe more – depending on their size.

Serve two tortillas per person, garnished with the strawberries. Drizzle with extra maple syrup or honey, if liked.

Serves 2

Lithuanian Pink Soup

The proper name for this delicious cold beetroot soup is Šaltibarščiai which means cold beets in Lithuanian. My Lithuanian friend Jurate who gave me the recipe says most people call it Pink Soup. It’s a creamier version of the well-known beetroot soup called Borscht.

If you have time, cook your own beetroots, but ready-cooked beetroots from the supermarket work well and save time.

This soup is perfect for a hot summer’s day. Serve it as a starter or, with the addition of boiled new potatoes, as a main course. Jurate serves hardboiled eggs separately in a bowl, for guests to peel and chop onto their soup, if they like. My husband is not a big fan of hardboiled eggs and prefers the soup without the egg, so you choose.

Delicious and very refreshing on a warm summer’s evening.
500g cooked, peeled beetroots
600 ml buttermilk or kefir (see note below)
2 stock cubes dissolved in a little hot water (chicken, vegetable)
Cider vinegar and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 small Lebanese cucumbers, thickly sliced and halved or quartered
Optional extras for serving:
Fresh crusty bread such as sourdough and butter
Hardboiled eggs, one per person
Boiled new potatoes, served hot

 

Grate beetroots coarsely and mix them with the buttermilk or kefir and the stock cubes. Add a splash of cider vinegar and some black pepper, to taste. If you’re in a hurry, with no time to grate the beetroots, just whiz them in a blender or food processor. If necessary adjust the thickness of the soup by adding more buttermilk, kefir, yoghurt or water. I didn’t find it needed any additional salt, but taste and see what you think. Add a tablespoon or two of cider vinegar, to taste.

Chill for several hours. Serve in bowls garnished with the cucumber chunks, the dill and the hardboiled eggs, halved or chopped. Or serve the eggs in a separate bowl for people to help themselves and peel themselves. Serve with crusty bread and, if you want to make a more substantial meal, buttered steamed new potatoes.

Serves 6

Note: instead of buttermilk or kefir, you can use 400ml of thick plain yoghurt thinned down with about 200ml water.

The Tomato Chutney Dowry

My father left the Royal Air Force after the War, to help his father run the family nursery, which he eventually took over. As a kid I worked on Saturday mornings in the shop where we sold all the produce, to earn a bit of pocket money. Grandpa sat in the corner and appeared to be dozing. In fact he was watching me like a hawk. The tomatoes were weighed to order and the adding up was done in your head – quite a challenge for an 11 year old. “You put one too many in that last pound of tomatoes. If you do that every time, you’ll put us out of business,” Grandpa would say.

Dad’s mother Jessie was from Falkirk just outside Edinburgh and an excellent cook. Grandpa met her when he was in charge of the gardens at Battle Abbey in Sussex and she was running the dairy. I often wonder how a young Scottish lass ended up working nearly 500 miles away from home, but by the time I wanted to ask she had been dead for many years.

My mother grew up in Malta where her father was stationed during the War with the Royal Engineers. Strict rationing meant she was never allowed to cook, in case she ruined precious ingredients. Before they married Dad asked his future bride if she could cook. When she said no he thought she was being modest. She couldn’t boil an egg.

From working in the dairy of Battle Abbey my maternal grandmother had learned many skills, including how to make butter into swans for afternoon tea. In the early years of marriage, my mother grew sick of hearing my father waxing lyrical about his mother’s swans. “If you want your butter shaped into swans you’d better go back,” she would say, teasingly. Fortunately, Nana took Mum under her wing and taught her a few basic recipes, so we wouldn’t starve. Not the swans, but more practical things.

Once a year Dad would bring in a couple of boxes of  ripe tomatoes from the nursery and the whole family helped turn them into tomato chutney, using Jessie’s mother’s recipe.

Matthew and I met in Geneva when he was working for the Australian Mission to the UN and I was working for the British FCO. He had recently broken up with a long time girlfriend and I was also footloose and fancy free when a mutual friend invited us to a tramps and tarts party. The rest, as they say, is history.

Not long afterwards we rented a ski chalet in La Clusaz for a week with a group of friends. It was self-catering so everyone brought some food. Unpacking my box of contributions, Matthew came across a jar of tomato chutney. Despite living in a tiny bed-sit with only two hotplates I still made a few jars each year as it’s considered a staple in my family. “What’s this?” he asked, so I told him. Before you could say Jack Robinson he had unscrewed the lid, eaten a spoonful and hidden the jar in one of the top cupboards. “Too good for that lot,” he said “they’ll polish it off in one go.”

Matthew and I met in October and married the following May. He always says he married me for my tomato chutney. Needless to say, running out is grounds for divorce in our house.

Over the years I’ve only made two slight adjustments to this very old recipe. I use cider vinegar instead of dark malt vinegar and have cut down a bit on the sugar and salt. It’s crucial to use vine-ripened, very red, tasty tomatoes. The hard, orange, tasteless ones you buy in supermarkets in winter will produce a very mediocre chutney. I make several batches in late summer to last a whole year.

Tomato chutney goes well with cheese, ham and other cold meats.

The Pickling Spices recipe makes enough for several batches. I usually make up four times the recipe – you can see the quantities for doing that in brackets – which means I have enough to last for a couple of years or more. I use it in other chutneys. Don’t do as one of my followers did and use the whole pickling spice recipe in one batch of chutney!

Tomato chutney with cheddar cheese on crusty sourdough bread

Tomato Chutney

3 kg ripe tomatoes
1 kg peeled green apples 
500g peeled onions
500g seedless raisins or sultanas
500g dark brown sugar
4 tsp salt
600 ml cider vinegar
2 rounded Tbs pickling spices (see recipe below)
4 Tbs whole yellow mustard seeds

You will need a large preserving pan with a heavy base for this recipe. Mine is stainless steel and has a diameter of 33cm and a height of 15cm. It holds about 7 litres. Alternatively make half the recipe in a large heavy-based saucepan.

Pour boiling water over tomatoes and leave for a couple of minutes, then remove skins and chop. Core and chop the apples and chop the onions. Place pickling spices in a muslin bag or tie them in an old cotton handkerchief. Place all ingredients except mustard seeds in preserving pan.

Cook for about an hour at a steady boil, until thick. Stir regularly to prevent sticking, especially towards the end. Meanwhile place sufficient clean jars (without their lids) in the oven set to 120°C. Or you can zap them in the microwave on High for 2 minutes. How many jars you use will depend on the size of the jars.

When chutney is cooked remove pickling spices, squeezing the bag so any juices go back into the chutney, then discard the spices. Stir in mustard seeds and pour into the hot sterilised jars using a small jug. Poke a knife down right to the bottom of each jar, all the way around the edge, to remove any air bubbles. Seal jars with the lids and store in a dark cupboard. Keeps for at least 12 months.

Makes about 8 standard jars

Pickling Spices

1 tsp whole cloves (1 Tbs)
2 Tbs broken up cinnamon sticks (8 Tbs)
2 Tbs dried bay leaves, broken up (8 Tbs)
1 Tbs whole black peppercorns (4 Tbs)
2 tsp crushed dried birds-eye chillies (2 Tbs)
2 Tbs whole pimento (allspice) (8 Tbs)
2 tsp fennel seeds (2 Tbs)

Mix and keep in a jar. If the cinnamon sticks are very hard you may need to hit them with a meat mallet to break them up. I usually make 4 times the recipe at a time, for which quantities are in brackets. Pimento (also known as Allspice) look like very large black peppercorns.

 

Carrot Cake

This is Matthew’s favourite cake and he complained that I didn’t make it very often. The reason is that it’s rather a big cake so I only made it when we had guests, then he would finish it off over the following week.

To keep him happy I now make half the recipe in a large loaf tin which takes about 45 minutes to cook rather than an hour. The quantities for half the recipe are in brackets.

The carrots and cream cheese make this a moist cake which will keep in a tin with a lid for up to a week, refrigerated in warm weather.

Carrot Cake4 eggs (2)
1¾ cups sugar (just over ¾)
1½ cups vegetable oil (¾)
2 cups self-raising flour (1)
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (1)
2 tsp cinnamon (1)
1 tsp salt (½)
½ tsp ground cloves (optional) (¼)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or ½ cup walnuts and ½ cup raisins) (½ total)
400g coarsely grated carrots (about 4-5 big carrots) (200g)
Icing:
250g cream cheese at room temperature (not the spreadable kind) (125g)
1-2 cups icing sugar, sifted (¾ to 1 cup)
1 tsp vanilla essence (½)
25 walnut or pecan nut halves

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Peel carrots then grate in food processor if you have a grating attachment or by hand. With electric beaters, beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy and tripled in volume. Gradually beat in oil, fold in sifted dry ingredients, then walnuts (raisins) and carrots. Pour into a 25 cm (9”) square tin, greased and bottom-lined with greaseproof paper, and smooth the top. You can use a round tin if preferred, but I like the way a square cake can be cut into lots of small servings.

Bake for an hour in the middle of the oven, or till a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes in the tin then turn out, cool thoroughly and remove paper. Ice the top only and decorate with 25 walnut halves, 5 down one side and 5 down the other, then fill in the gaps like a chess board. Cut cake into 25 squares. Keeps for several days in a tin.

Icing: Place cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla in food processor and mix until light and fluffy, stopping once to scrape down the sides. Don’t over-mix or it will go thin and runny. If preferred mix the icing by hand. If using a softer, spreadable cream cheese definitely mix by hand.

Cuts into 25 squares