February Tuesday night cook book club with Hetty McKinnon

February is usually the hottest month of the year in Australia so a perfect time to being out the salads and what better way than to comb through Hetty McKinnon’ s three recipe books to find inspiration.

I first heard about Hetty when I was following one of my favourite bloggers  Lorraine Elliott with her notquitenigella daily blog about food related stories.  Lorraine mentioned meeting a woman in the centre of Sydney who started delivering freshly made and healthy salads by bicycle.  Professionals who worked from home who wanted a delicious meal with having to spend time and effort leaving their office. years or so on and we find Hetty, her husband and three children relocated to Brooklyn in New York city and the author of three wonderful cookbooks ‘Family’ ‘Neighbourghood’ and ‘ Community ‘.  Though I am not sure in which order they were released though I do know ‘ Community’  has just been rereleased with stories and interviews with some of her long term followers.

These vegetarian salad recipes are stand alone meals and not something to accompany a barbeque or lamb roast.  So what did we have?

I made a salad with frozen peas, roasted baby potatoes and boiled eggs all bought together with a fabulous chimichirri and because I love roasted cauliflower made one with lemon, pine nuts, parsley all bought together with a whipped feta and  lemon dressing.

Roasted eggplant with sofrito, chickpeas and almonds was a favourite and my friend who travels from out of town with her delicious roast pumpkin with chick peas and pepitas.  I know the dessert wasn’t in any of Hetty’s books but everyone made salads so I quickly made a buttermilk panacotta with a fresh fig compote.

I was interested to read that Hetty has a formula in which to make your own salad which covers the necessary components to make it  substantial that I thought I would share with you. To start choose one or two vegetables and team with a hearty legume or grain (and not be afraid to use a can of lentils, chickpeas or butter beans).  Add some leaves for greenery (I notice she used spinach and kale often)  then herbs for freshness and nuts and seeds for freshness.  The crucial elements is the salad dressing and Hetty uses yoghourt, lemon, ricotta,  olive oil, garlic, capers, & feta plus salt and pepper of course.  And always a fried egg on top of a leftover salad is a fabulous idea (and one I use often!)  Don’t be afraid to roast vegetables to bring out flavour.  I personally love roasting pumpkin, carrots, beetroot, fennel, eggplant…..enjoy!

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Rosa’s Farm….Tuesdaynightcookbookclub for March with Rosa Mitchell

At The Books at the Brewery before Christmas a year or so ago we had the pleasure of meeting local residents who were involved in the food industry.  One of these guests was Rosa Mitchell.  Rosa has a farm near Yandoit in which she and her husband produce much of her vegetables at her Melbourne based restaurant ‘Rosa’s Canteen’

Although Rosa was born in Sicily she has spent most of her life in Australia but her roots are firmly from her homeland and each year she takes a group of foodie types for a tour to get a sense of her early life.  In fact when I visited her restaurant with a friend I was disappointed that Rosa was leading one such tour.  However her staff did not disappoint with her food.  Generous portions of freshly made pasta was followed by a sublime lemon tart.  Wine was served by the glass and the service professional but helpful.

So it was no surprise that I chose one of the two cookbooks that Rosa has written for our Tuesday night cook book club. One of my friends has her other cook book so we were spoilt for choice.  And it was a difficult choice as you wanted to cook so many of her recipes with ingredients unfamiliar to me.  Things like wild fennel and nettles and farro and hare.  But I ended up choosing for a barley salad.  I like barley but had never cooked it and it made a simple salad with fresh tomatoes,  red onion and a dressing.  Not happy with just a salad of course I could not help myself and a made a chocolate, pear and pistachio cake.  Then I saw the fig and fennel biscuits.  Whoever thought of such a combination.  Very popular!  Other favourites were fennel fritters and a ricotta and fig tart.  Another successful evening with great company and delicious.  A glass of masala went well with those desserts too.

Next month….will we even be getting together at all.  We all hope so and I have suggested recipes from Diana Henry ‘Plenty and ‘ Simple’ which are two of her books though a friend has several others.  Maybe we won’t have a book club after all or if we will it make with what you can make with a can of chickpeas or lentils, or a packetof frozen peas or from your late summer garden.  Challenges regardless are in store.

Wild about ‘Wild’!

 

When I heard about another eatery opening in my adopted home town I thought…’oh no!’  We don’t need another cafe in town with places opening and closing regularly.  Not to mention eateries looking deserted.  I actually find it hard to enter a place which is open but empty!  Do you?

But then I heard about ‘Wild’!  It was to open in what was once a one hatted venue which was the former fire station!  It opened not long before Christmas with no fanfare or advertising and yet it was drawing crowds and even better for them repeat customers.

With family visiting for Christmas it was a lovely introduction.  Shared plates, great local wines and professional service.  My son announced his margarita was the best ever and the rest of us were happy with our local Harcourt rose.  We shared eggplant croquettes, a roasted cauliflower dish, a bean and fish dish and the roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic were perfect.  Dessert was a buttermilk pudding and a liquorice sauce and poached peach.  I had to try the liquorice sauce which was sensational.  I just wanted more.  Some crispy ricotta donuts with a lemon curd went down well.

Next visit was on New Year’s Eve which is a night I usually prefer to be in bed after the early fireworks but friends were keen to try this new place in town and a perfect venue for some celebratory drinks and food.  I always do worry slightly when I talk up a place to friends and find they are disappointed so it was a relief they were happy with my recommendation.

A charity dinner with matching wines with funds going to CFA and Wildlife after the recent bushfires in Victoria was another example of dining as I like it.  Wines donated for a silent auction added to the funds and a wonderful menu was exciting.  Some new dishes I hadn’t tried before were equally delicious.

An excuse to celebrate a friends birthday and I was back.  Her first visit and my fourth. She was happy to let me order though we both wanted to share an exquisite chocolate and fig tart.  Please keep this on the menu!

I am actually one of the nerdy sweet tooth people who checks out the dessert menu before I order anything else and sometimes wonder if customers order dessert and follow it with something savoury!   No …always savoury and then sweet!  Like at a High Tea!

Recent favourable media reviews have only made Wild another popular food establishment in Castlemaine and we are very delighted! And on that note will leave younwith this slice of the action.

 

 

Welcome 2020

Many of us are pleased to be seeing the last of 2019 but I have to admit that there have been some wonderful memories and highlights during the year.

Apart from starting my Tuesdaynightcookbookclub I managed some exciting food trips in May to Greece, Turkey and Portugal and later in the year a trip to Russia, Georgia and Armenia.  What did I enjoy the most?  Friends  and family quizzed me.   I can say I loved visiting Greece after too long an absence and before the summer crowds was ideal.   It looked just like the photos you see in a travel brochure.  Having a guide on a food trip who is a chef is a bonus and especially when you have to opportunity to share food at their family restaurant.

The food in St Petersburg wasn’t a highlight but the architecture was.  It finally was real and almost takes your breath away…such opulence and grandeur and history was a standout of our Russian trip.  The food …well the food!  It was not all bortch and dark bread and vodka!  The honey cake was outstanding (I am yet to replicate it at home for fear I will eat all of it) and some wonderful savoury pies, delicious mushroom soup and potato pancakes, crepes with condensed milk.  But it was in St Petersburg I discovered some Georgian restaurants.  Words like kaphapuri and pellini now slip off the tongue like vegemite does.  Some deliciousness!

But what of the New Year!  Resolutions?  I always make them and always break them so this year no more diets or being tidier or more exercise.   This year I have challenged myself to read fifty books!  Almost one a week which is a tall ask but may get me off social media more.  Then for every cook book I buy I donate one to our Farmers Market library. And I plan to try a new recipe every week and a new restaurant every month or maybe a new market!  That is a start as I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

Travelling back to Russia will do that with two long (23 hour)  rail journeys from Moscow east.  Arriving in Kazakhstan and flying onto Uzbekistan for a tour there will help that push to find myself out there in less comfort and more challenges. A food trip to Turkey will complete the journey.

But before that a family wedding in the South of France with my eldest son marrying his long time girlfriend.  They have opted for a small family wedding and we are excited to be spending a week in a gorgeous villa close to food markets, galleries and wineries.  I am following this with a food trip from Venice to Naples. Tough I know but I promise to post pictures and blog about the food.

But January is over…how did that happen?  Reading a few of the fifty books I promised myself (cook books not included here….I only browse them and google recipes), watch a lot of tennis from my air conditioned living room.  I tried new recipes and ingredients….lavender, pink peppercorns and my love affair with polenta continues…..And mostly vegetarian.  An accidental vegetarisn!  But not a vegan with my love of cheese and eggs!

It is important to make the most of every day, surround yourself with positive, supportive people who make you laugh, get rid of negativeness  in your life .Life is too short to put up with that crap!   Smile and get a dog!  Walking my gorgeous rescue and retired greyhound is the best part of my day.  SusieQ or her racing name Stealthy Blonde!  My best friend!

 

Happy New Year….even though it is now February! Just!

A Silent Auction and welcome to 2020 Tuesdaynightcookbook club.

The bush fires seemed  to be burning out of control across the  length and breadth of a hot dry windy summer in our country.   I found I could not watch the heartbreaking daily news updates with further news of families losing their homes, pets and animals. Donations from all over the world came in millions of dollars for wildlife rescue and firefighters.  One felt one had to do something to help.  Donate to a charity!  Which one?  Will the money actually get to where it is meant to go and not be gobbled up in administration charges or something more sinister.  Donating clean but well used towels to animal welfare didn’t cut it.  That was when I came up with the idea of a silent auction with our first Tuesdaynightcookbookclub of the year.

Make a donation or something with a food orientation product I suggested.  We had wine, cookbooks, a sour dough starter, home made limencello, art products, chocolates and mixing bowls.  Invitations were issued to friends of the group and we had a lovely evening raising $500 as well as enjoying our finger food and dessert.  This will go towards the CWA however and to drought affected areas.

First up some of the finger food.  A tart with gruyera, silverbeet and onion tart with the best pastry ever (read butter and sour cream), san choy bau with marinated tofu, zucchini bread with pickles and marinated feta, avocado with crabmeat and lime, polenta with a eggplant, basil and tomato and of couse sausage rolls.

Dessert included a fig, pistachio and yoghourt cake, some old style individual pavlova with lemon curd, cream and fresh rasberries.  A ginger biscuit.  And again some home school rum balls and a marshmallow slice…both with the secret ingredient of wheatbix.

If you are wanting a gift to friends overseas about Australian ‘ real ‘ food or even a gift to yourself I really recommend this book (Farmer Recipes and Stories from the Land) please consider this.  The recipes are wonderful and homely and the articles about people on the land and the photographs are stunning.  And proceeds go towards the CWA (Country Women’s Association)  and sent towards the farming families suffering from drought.

Another recipe from this book were the Corn and Zucchini fritters which I didn’t make for our dinner but made for a family birthday a week later.  Since I have posted it on Instagram friends from everywhere have requested the recipe.  So good!  I  added some tomato, cucumber, pickled red onion and avocado with feta (not shown)

Next month February and perhaps out hottest month with no foreseeable rain, our attention will  be vegetarian salads and of course dessert from any of the three Hetty McKinnon recipe books ‘ Neighbourhood, ‘ ‘Family,’ and a recently revised ‘Community.’  Formerly from Surry Hills in Sydney (my home town) she delivered salads from her bicycle locally.  She now lives in Brooklyn NYC with her husband and three children and still making great salads.