Jam Drops

Jam drops, sweet old fashioned jam drops have been in my biscuit making rotation for what seems like a long long time.  I know I’ve been making them since having children as page in the recipe book the recipe comes from has been drawn on (several times) by small children wielding pens.  

They’re a particular favourite in our house and everyone even our autistic son who’s super fussy about the food he eats, loves them.

They are so simple to make and have never let me down. This is my my tired and true recipe which I add coconut too, but that optional and you can leave it out if coconut isn’t your thing.

 

Jam drops – recipe adapted from The Country Women’s Association of Australia Country Classics

125g softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups self raising flour

2/3 cup desiccated coconut

Strawberry jam (or whatever other jam you fancy)

 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar together.  Add eggs one at time and beat them in well.  Mix in sifted flour, then coconut.

Roll into balls about the size of a walnut and flatten slightly.  Using  end of a wooden spoon dipped in flour make a hole in each biscuit (its best if you kind of move the end of the wooden spoon around to make the hole a bit bigger then the size of the wooden spoon handle).

Fill holes with jam

Bake for 10 to 15 mins, then cool for a bit on trays before moving to cooling rack.

Enjoy

My Granny’s vegetable soup

Hi, its a been a while.  Life and lack of time and inspiration have conspired against me blogging, but I’m back and hopefully can blog more regularly.

This post is my Granny’s vegetable soup.  My beautiful Granny passed away a few years ago just a few months short of her 90th Birthday.  To my knowledge she didn’t leave behind a folder full of her recipes, in fact I suspect she preferred reading and gardening to cooking, but like fact the teapot at my grandparents house was never allowed to be empty, in winter you couldn’t visit my grandparents without leaving with a container of Granny’s vegetable soup. I’m lucky and she shared her recipe with me, its yummy, filling, cheap and healthy and dead easy, Whenever I make it I’m transported back to my grandparents kitchen drinking endless cups of tea with them (or lemonade when I was younger)

 

All the quantities are approx and you can add more of 1 or 2 veggies if you like or omit others if you don’t have them (put don’t  skip the parsnip, turnips or swedes)

Granny’s vegetable soup

1/3-1/2 packet of yellow (not green) split peas (quantity depends on how much soup you are making and how thick you want it)

1 parsnip

1 turnips

1 swede

2 sticks celery

2 carrots

1 onion

2 potatoes

chunk of pumpkin

1 cup of frozen peas

Soak split peas overnight in water. Drain put in saucepan cover with lots of water, bring to boil, then simmer for about an hour.  You wan the peas to be quite soft.  Skim of any foam that rises to the top

While the peas are simmering, chop all the vegetables except the frozen peas.  You don’t wan’t them chopped too finely nor do you wan’t them particularly chunky, just make sure they are all about the same size.

Once the split peas are cooked, drain them then pop in soup pot and cover by a  few centimeters with water. You can either grab a potato masher and kind of mash them up or take about 1/2 the water peas mix and blend it up, then pop back with rest of the peas.  If you had a stab mixer you could probably use that ( I don’t so I use the blender).  What you want is a lumpy thick yellow split pea mixture.  Then put your all your veggies but the frozen peas in.  Bring to boil, simmer until veggies are nearly done, then put in frozen peas. Simmer until all veggies are cooked.

Serve with parsley.

This soup makes a large amount and keeps for a few days. It also freezes really well.