Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box week 2

Another post about the produce. This was the second week of our Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box adventure (see Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box for more info on what a CSA is).

I eagerly picked up our box and rushed home to find out what was in it. We had

• a Leek
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Pomegranates
• Cucumbers
• Apples
• Grapes
• Pears
• Sweet corn
• Spinach
• Kale
• Bananas

What did we do or will we do with the produce?

The leek, well I’m thinking a leek, pea & fetta frittata, although in the back of my mind a chicken, bacon and leek pie is sounding delicious.

The potatoes, they were made into mashed potatoes and served with lamb cutlets for perfect Sunday evening dinner

The carrots, well again they were so full of flavour and have/will be snacked on as well as used in a minestrone soup

The broccoli, well there was heaps of it and it was so green and fresh. I want to let the flavour shine not cover it up so simple treatment of steaming it and maybe dressing it with a bit of lemon juice as I find they work well together. I’ve also seen some recipes for roasting broccoli which I’ve never done but am curious to do just to see how the flavour comes out

The pomegranates, well they aren’t something I come across too often and I’ll probably use them in a salad or perhaps make a syrup with them to use in a cocktail 🙂

The cucumbers well my children just love them so they’ll eat them in a salad or as they come

The apples well they are just beautiful and the only way to use them is simply to eat them as they are, crunchy, slightly tart, slightly sweet and delicious

The grapes were sweet and seedless perfect of our children to eat (if I share them)

The pears like the apples are beautiful and could be used in a cake or in a salad but really probably will just be eaten fresh and will be perfect

There was only one cob of sweet corn so it’s been served as a side dish boiled and dressed with a bit of butter (just a bit)

The spinach, well my husband hates it so I’m not going to cook a meal based around it, but tis great sautéed and will of course work well in a stir-fry. I’ve also been having green smoothies for breakfast so will probably use it there too/

The kale I find a bit stronger in flavour than spinach and it’s just come into season so I haven’t used it for a while, but is packed full of goodness. But it’s been used in minestrone, a bit in green smoothies/ Also I’ve seen recipes for kale chips and I’m really intrigued by this so think these will definitely be made.

The Bananas well they could be used in a multitude of ways, but I suspect we will eat them just as they are in all their bananary goodness

For more information on Jupiter Creek Farm see here

Part of the In Her Chucks CSA link party

Anzac Biscuits

On Anzac day I attend our local dawn service. I’ve been to the one in the city and its moving, but I prefer the local one. It closer and obviously easier to get to and has a community feel. But mainly I prefer it because it’s on the beach front and is hauntingly beautiful with the waves breaking and the seagull’s cries as dawn’s first light casts its glow over the service.

I go to the dawn service to pay special respects to my grandfather who fought at Gallipoli, my father who fought in WW2 , My uncles Dan and Dermot who also fought in WW2 and my Uncle William (Bill) who made the ultimate sacrifice at Kokoda.

My children are still young so when I talk to them about Anzac day I talk about how it’s a day for us to commemorate those soldiers who have served our country when asked. I am also pleased to see the kids also learn about it in school.

I also make Anzac biscuits. These are one of the easiest biscuits to make and of course they are delicious in an oaty golden syrupy kind of way. Some people put fruit or nuts in them but I think they are pretty good plain.

At the moment I’m tweaking my recipe as I want it to be perfect as I intend to enter my Anzac biscuits in the Royal Adelaide show (the blue ribbon shall be mine). I’ve used brown sugar here but have successfully used normal sugar as well (same quantities). I also used plain flour but have successfully used self raising flour (again same quantities).

Let’s make Anzac Biscuits

We’ve got sugar action

oats

flour

desiccated coconut

butter and golden syrup

bi carb foamy action

Anzac Biscuits

1 cup brown sugar (or white sugar)

1 cup plain flour (or SR flour)

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

125 butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (bi carb)

2 tablespoons boiling water

Preheat oven to 160 C

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.

Combine butter and golden syrup in small saucepan, stir low heat until melted. Add boiling water, then add bi carb, stir. it will foam up at this stage which is good

Stir the foamy mixture into the dry ingredients. Take teaspoonful’s of mixture and place on lightly greased oven trays and press down slightly.

Pop in oven for about 20 minutes (or lightly brown). Cool on tray for a few minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Jupiter Creek Farm CSA box

There’s no recipe involved in this post, this one’s about thing produce behind the cooking.

This week I got my first CSA box from Jupiter Creek Farm. What’s CSA you ask? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially it’s a box for fruit and veg that comes direct form the farmers, no middle man (or 20) involved. In this case it comes from a farm called Jupiter Creek Farm. They grow a large chunk of what’s in the box and source the rest from other farmers. It’s all organic and local, and soo fresh. I like it for these reasons.

Yeah its more expensive than popping down to the supermarket and you don’t get to choose its contents but I like spend my shopping dollar in supporting local farmers and giving them a fair price for their produce as well as buying seasonally. It doesn’t provide all our fruit and veg needs but a least a fair chunk of them.

Back to the actual box. You pick it up from a local pick up point (PUP) and take it home to find out what’s inside. In this case there were

• Oranges
• Apples
• Permissions
• Plums
• Spring onions
• Spinach
• Potatoes
• Pumpkin
• Onions
• Carrots
• Celery
• Sweet Corn

What did we do or will we do with the produce?

The Apples, Oranges and plums well these are eaten as they are, super fresh and delicious. The plums tasted like the ones we pick from our own tree, so full of flavour which you just don’t get from supermarket/shop bought ones. The permissions well I haven’t encountered them before so after a bit of research I’ve left them in the fruit bowl to ripen up where by I should be able to cut the tops off and eat them with a spoon.

The spring onions I’ll use them in place of onions where I can swap them around and probably make my favourite carb cheese combination – baked potatoes halved with the filling scooped out and mixed up with some grated cheese and sliced spring onions then this mixtures is popped back into the potato halves and some more grated cheese is sprinkled on top and browned in the oven – YUM

The spinach – well my husband doesn’t like it (read hates it) so it’s a bit hard to make a meal based around it but I generally treat it with love and respect and don’t over cook it. This morning it was lightly sautéed in butter with garlic and served with bacon and eggs.

The potatoes well they could be used above in the spring onion cheese carb fest or they will accompany a roast I’ll do later in the week.

The pumpkin is gorgeous, it was a variety I hadn’t seen before and after a bit of hunting around I was informed it was a heirloom French variety potimarron, best served baked. This will be roasted up to either accompany the roast or even just by itself or with olive oil and may some cumin seeds as cumin and pumpkin go so well together. I might even make some haloumi cheese as that also goes well with roasted pumpkin.

The onions well they could be used any number of ways and won’t go to waste.

The carrots were real proper carrots, funny shaped and all. They reminded me of the carrot s my grandfather used to grow where they weren’t all shaped perfectly and tasted so carroty (for lack of a better word). The carrots will in honestly probably just be eaten raw as a snack or otherwise included in the above mentioned roast, a stir fry or salad.

The celery well like the carrots will probably be snacked on and included in a stir fry or casserole or pasta sauce. That’s one of the things I love about celery you can just use it so many ways.

The sweet corn well I love sweet corn and could happily eat it just boiled and plain or another really good way is to remove the leaves and silk and rub some olive oil on it season with salt and pepper or rub some butter with lime zest grated into it and chilli and bbq it. However I think we will use these in corn fritters as it fits in well with the menu for this week.

For more info on Jupiter Creek Farm see here

Part of the In Her Chucks CSA link party

Spiced Lemon Cake

I went to a wedding last Saturday. There was the bride looking beautiful, the groom suitably smitten with his lovely lady and everyone had much fun. I also came home with lemons. The reception was at the brides parents’ house and was very beautiful but I spied a lemon tree and just couldn’t help myself and had to pick some lemons.

You see I have an obsession with lemons, well more to the point growing lemons. You see lemon trees pepping out from back yards loaded with lemons, but despite trying 3 times to grow a lemon tree I’ve never succeeded. My next door neighbours lemon tree taunts me with its heavily laden branches not more than 4 meters where one of our failed attempts was planted. I think I’m just not destined to grow lemons. So when I saw this beautiful tree I just couldn’t help myself.

I love this spiced lemon cake, its lemony without being over powering and it has cardamom in it which just adds a hint of spice and compliments the lemon so well. I actually made this cake after I stumbled upon it on Shutterbean.com I loved Tracy’s description of why you should make this cake where she outlined the domestic chaos in her life and states “THIS is the cake that you must turn to to quiet the shit storm you’ve just encountered”

And she is right its the prefect cake to have with a cup of tea whilst hiding in your children’s cubby house pretending your children are not trashing the house/trying to kill each other/covering themselves in mud/ generally making enough noise to be heard in the next city.

Let’s make Spiced Lemon Cake

There is zesting of lemons

creaming of sugar, butter lemon zest and cardamon

    

eggs and sour cream

lemon juice

sifitng action

plus baking action

Spiced lemon cake – recipe adapted from the awesome Shutterbean.com

125 grams butter softened

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon bi carb

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 tlb finely grated lemon zest plus 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice(you’ll need 2 lemons)

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (yeah it seems like a lot so use less if you want but I reckon any less and it might be too subtle but that’s just me)

2 eggs (make sure they are at room temp)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups icing mixture

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. grease round cake pan ( I used 20 cm pan).

Sift together flour, baking powder, bi carb, and salt.

Cream butter, granulated sugar, zest, and cardamom with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition (if they are straight form the fridge they might give the butter a split look but it all should come good).

Beat in 3 tablespoons lemon juice. Reduce speed, beat in 1/3 flour mixture then half sour cream, next 1/3 flour mixture rest of sout cream then rest of flour mixture. Pour batter into cake pan.

Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean, about 30 minutes. (or more like 1 hour if you have an oven like mine). Turn out onto a wire rack. Let cool.

Whisk icing mixture with remaining 3 tablespoons lemon juice until smooth; pour over cooled cake, sprinkle so extra lemon zest over the top.

Eat with a cup of tea whilst hiding from children

This post is part of the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop  – Lemons

Passionfruit shortbread

I love passionfruits, there is something intoxicating about thier scent, its all tropcially and summery or maybe its just I always remember my grandmother serving sponge cake with passionfruit icing.

I also love shortbread so when I read this recipe which combined beautiful shortbread with passionfruit cream I knew it had to be made.  Plus at the moment passionfruits are in season and you pick up bags of them fairly cheap, perfect for making all things passionfruity

Lets make passionfruit shortbread

Of course we’ll be needing passionfruits

and food processing butter sugar, egg and flour

bake it till its beautiful

and sandwiching it together with amazing passionfruit cream

Passionfruit Shortbread

Recipe adapted from Julie Goodwin’s Our Family Table

125g unsalted butter

1 2/3 cups plain flour

125g sugar

pinch salt

1 egg

extra sugar to sprinkle

Passionfruit cream

2 tbs room temp unsalted butter

1 cup icing mixture

1 1/2 tbs passionfruit pulp

Preheat oven to 180 c. Grease spring form pan, I also like to line the base with baking paper.

In food processor process butter and flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add sugar, salt and then pulse to combine, add egg, pulse until combines and formed a dough.

Turnout onto floured surface and gather together with your hands

Press dough into prepared tin, rough up top with fork and sprinkle over extra sugar (about 1 tsp)

Bake for 30 mins or until lightly golden (which in my oven takes way longer than 30 mins). Cool in tin about 15 mins then release and slide off base onto cooling rack.

Make passion fruit cream by beating butter and icing sugar together in mixer until combined and add in passionfruit pulp a bit at a time. Mix it until its light and fluffy

Cut now cool shortbread into wedges and sandwich together with lashings of passionfruit cream.

Eat several pieces as it’s just so damn good

A Burgess Easter

This Easter like nearly every other Easter since 2004 we went camping. This year we went to the beautiful Lake Albert here in South Australia. There was fishing, Kayaking, wine, sunshine (and wind) and much fun and frivolity.

I was going to write about cooking while camping . But our Easter camping adventures are perhaps a bit different from the standard camping trip. We go with my Husbands extended family. My husband comes from a massive family and this year there were 31 of us camping as one big group. It’s all lovely and communal and the children roam free with each other for company.

One of the things that makes the Burgess family Easter camp a bit special is Roast night. This is where each family cooks a roast meal. These roast meals are prepared using webers or in our case a fancy webber type thing called a cob.

They are also prepared in tiny prep areas, in fact I had to serve with our plates on the ground as I had run out of room

The best wines are brought out for the meal, all of our tables are pushed together to form on long table, the tables get table cloths and candles and people go all out. But the best bit is this family all sits together and chats and laughs and enjoys themselves.

The next morning there is a big fry up – mmm bacon.

and of course chocolate, including an Easter egg hunt for the kids.

Sometimes life’s so busy that little things like catching up with family just fall by the wayside, so it’s nice to be part of a family (even if only by marriage) who make the time every Easter to camp together and really catch up.

Hot Cross Buns No. 3- Aunty Jenny’s recipe

When I told people about my quest to make the perfect soft hot cross bun (see hot cross bun no.1 & hot cross bun no.2), I got given a few recipes to try. One of them was from my husband’s Aunty Jenny. She gave me the recipe at a family birthday party. I had a quick look at it and it seemed similar to the other recipes I had baked. But decided to bake it as she was adamant it produced soft and fluffy hot cross buns, that I feared her wrath if I didn’t bake them.

It wasn’t till I re read it after the party that I noticed the proving times of this recipe were a lot shorter than others. and it had a lot of yeast for the quantity of flour. Also it had gluten and bread improver in the ingredients which of course I totally didn’t notice till I went to make it (details details) and don’t really have them in the cupboard, as such I made it without gluten and bread improve and used bread flour and hoped for the best.

And……………..They were prefect, soft and fluffy (so soft that when I went to glaze them I thought they weren’t cooked properly as they were soft).

Let’s make hot cross buns (again)

Fancy bread flour plus of course spices

mixed up with butter and water by my lovely mixer

sultanas were the fruit of choice

I even piped on crosses

baked and glazed them

Aunty Jenny’s Hot Cross Buns (recipe adapted by me) – makes 6 buns

1 3/4 cups bread flour

1 tsp salt

3 tsp sugar

3 tsp yeast

1 tsp all spice

1 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp butter

3/4 cup warm water

2/3 cup sultanas

for the crosses

1/2 cup cornflour

2 tbl sugar

1 tbl flour

2-3 tbl water

Mix dry ingredients (except sultanas) together

Add butter and water

Mix to form dough, mix in mixer with dough hook for about 1 min (or by hand 3-5 mins)

Place in lightly oiled /bowl, rest for 15 mins

Punch down and kneed in fruit – his took about 1 min in mixer with dough hook (maybe 3 mins by hand)

Rest for 10mins
divide into 6 even pieces and shape into ball. Place on greased or baking paper lined tray allowing room for them to rise. Prove for 30-45mins (or doubled in size)

once risen preheat oven to 190 degrees

Mix together cross ingredients to stiff paste, pipe on buns

Bake in oven for 20 mins

I glazed them using the same glaze as in hot cross buns no.2

Enjoy fresh from oven with real proper butter