Autumn Skirlie

This is an adaptation of an old Scottish dish. We've eaten it a lot lately in the cooler evenings, rushing into the house after 6pm five nights a week and juggling homework, vision therapy, showers and sibling rivalry... somewhere there I try to feed us more than vegemite toast and this fits the bill pretty well.

The boys love it, and reheated with scrambled eggs in front of the fire the next morning, it's pretty close to wonderful.

~Autumn Skirlie~
(serves 3 as a main with a bit leftover)

4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped (or spring onions, leeks etc)
2 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
1.5 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
about 1/3 cup boiling water?
1 cup tinned red salmon, drained and flaked
1 large lemon, zested and juiced (2 if they're small)
2 large handfuls spinach, washed and roughly shredded
(or any other greens - kale, par-cooked broccoli, red lettuce are all good)
freshly ground black pepper


Heat the oil on low in a non-stick frying pan. Add the onion and cook until transparent.

Add the thyme leaves and oats and stir well. Cook on a lowish heat, tossing every few minutes, until the oats are beginning to colour -  about 5-10 minutes.

Add the lemon zest to the boiling water and pour over, stirring well and cook a couple more minutes - the oats will soften slightly but keep their shape. Add more boiling water if needed.

Stir in the salmon, lemon juice and black pepper, then pile the spinach on top and put the lid on to steam the spinach. When the spinach has cooked down, stir it through and serve - preferrably in front of a fire!

Chicken (& Lamb Shanks) with 39 Garlics

We ate this a few nights ago, on a cool rainy evening, in an effort to use the beautiful purple striped garlic from early summer; this Italian hardneck variety doesn't seem to store for long, whereas the Australian white keeps well.

It's an adaption of an Ian Parmenter recipe from the mid 90's. He used red wine rather than oil for the base, and I prefer stock. Unsuprisingly he didn't use lamb shanks, but we had a few on hand and they were delicious; sticky, rich and sweet with garlic. I think it would be fine to substitute beef, lamb or pork for the meat.

~Chicken & Lamb Shanks with 39 Garlics~
1 medium onion, chopped roughly
slurp olive oil
2 lamb shanks
6 chicken legs
500ml chicken stock
39 unskinned cloves garlic
500ml chicken stock
rosemary and thyme sprigs
(6 juniper berries crushed - I left these out)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
100ml milk
2 tab cornflour

Heat the oil on low and cook the onion until golden and sweet. Remove from the pan and turn up the heat. Brown the lamb shanks and chicken legs all over and remove.

Use some stock to deglaze the pan and pour this into a crockpot or casserole dish. Place all of the ingredients (except the milk and flour) in the crockpot/casserole and cover.

Cook for 6-8 hours in the crockpot, or 1-2 hours at 140 degrees C in the oven (casserole) - or until the meat is tender and falls away from the bone.

Remove the meat and bones, and garlic, to a large serving bowl and keep warm. Strain the liquid and simmer this in a pan until it is reduced to half its volume. Squeeze the pulp from the garlic cloves into the reduced liquid. Mix the cornflour and milk until smooth, then thicken the reduction with this, and simmer for several minutes to cook the flour.

Pour the thickened reduced stock over the meat and serve with jacket potatoes and lots of crunchy steamed veges.

Chilli Apple Jelly

This is only a mild heat, so add more chilli if you wish. I like it with avacado on thick toast, or with cheese. It would make a good glaze on roast meat or veg too.


~Chilli Apple Jelly~

3.2kg cooking apples
2 cups lemon juice, plus pips
lemon rind in strips
2.5L cold water
about 2.8 kg sugar
5 teaspoons chilli flakes

Roughly cut up the apples - skin, core and all. Add water, lemon juice, rind and pips. Bring to the boil in a heavy based pan, reduce the heat and simmer until the fruit is pulpy.

Pour the fruit and liquid into a "bag" made from tying up the corners of a clean cheesecloth or old linen teatowel, and hang to drain over a bowl until it stops dripping, about 3-4 hours or overnight. Do not squeeze the bag to force juice out, or the jelly will be cloudy.

Measure the juice and allow 250g sugar and 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes for every 250ml of juice. Place the juice, sugar and chilli flakes in a clean heavy based pan. Bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to a slow boil and skim any scum off the surface - a lot of the chilli flakes will come out with the scum but the flavour will remain and there will still be enough to look pretty. Allow to boil for 15-20 minutes or until it jells on a cold plate, skimming regularly. If you let it boil too long it will begin to caramelise and you'll have toffee flavoured chilli apple jelly.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave to settle for a few minutes. Bottle hot in sterilised jars and store in the dark. Refrigerate after opening.

Jules' Chicken Soup

Jules' version of chicken soup, for me to remember :

Fry off minced garlic and ginger and onions in olive oil.

Add chicken stock** with some herbs - parsley, lemon thyme etc - and bring to a simmer.

Add pearl barley and puy lentils or French green lentils.

Add finecut carrot, celery, other root veg, potato. Simmer a while.

Add corn, beans, squash etc. Simmer a little more.

Add shredded spinach or silverbeet, and shredded roast chicken meat. Simmer another 10 min or until the barley and lentils are soft.

Serve. Great with a little sesame oil drizzled across the top. Or shredded hot salami crisped in the frypan.

** homemade chicken stock - cover roasted chicken bones, or bones from a home-roasted chook, with water and bring to a simmer. Simmer gently until any shreds of meat are falling off. Remove the bones and pick off any meat. Discard the bones & strain the stock. Finely shred the meat and return to the strained stock.

Classic Mint Jelly

This is a late winter-early spring preserve for us; Granny Smith apples grown in the next shire are still plentiful and cheap, our friends and neighbours are swapping lemons for broccoli, and we have lots of fresh mint.

The recipe is from this book which I bought at a clearance sale a while ago. It's a clearly written book, with a good collection of basic preserves and detailed advice about how to troubleshoot.

~Classic Mint Jelly~
1.6kg green apples
5 cups water
1 cup chopped fresh mint
1 cup lemon juice
about 1kg sugar
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint, extra

Cut the apples into chunks (do not remove skin or seeds) and place in a heavy based stock pan with the mint, lemon juice (I left pulp and seeds in this), and water. Slowly bring to the boil, then simmer until the apple is very soft. Stir to squash lumps. When it is mushy, allow to cool a little.

To make a "jelly bag", place a large clean piece of muslin or thin cotton (I used old sheeting) in a bowl and pour boiling water over it. Line a large seive with the wet fabric and place over another large bowl. Gently pour in the apple mixture and allow it to drain into the bowl.

When the pulp has drained most of the liquid, tie the corners of the fabric together, poke a long wooden spoon under the tied corners, and lift the "bag" out of the seive. Place a bowl inside a clean bucket and position the spoon so that it is across the top of the bucket - allowing the bag to hang freely from the spoon and drip into the bowl below.

Or if you own a jelly bag, simply use this to drain the liquid from the pulp.
Allow the bag to drain overnight and do not squeeze or force liquid out. If you do, the jelly will be cloudy. Our liquid looked cloudy, but it cleared on boiling. Store the drained liquid in the fridge overnight.

When you are ready to boil up, place 2 small plates in the freezer. Sterilise your jam jars. I wash them in hot soapy water then place in a 110 C oven for around 20 min. I pour boiling water over the clean lids just before sealing.

Discard the pulp from the bag. Measure the final amount of liquid. We had 1.75L. Pour the liquid into a large heavy based pan, and add 1 cup sugar to every cup of liquid. Heat gently, stirring to dissolve sugar. Bring to the boil and boil steadily for around 15 minutes, stirring often and skimming any scum from the surface.

Test for the setting point by pouring a spoonful onto one of the chilled plates. A skin will form on the surface - setting point is reached when the jelly wrinkles as you push your finger through it. When it is setting as you want, remove from heat and stir through the extra mint. Allow it to continue cooling a little and keep stirring every few minutes - when the mint leaves stay suspended in the jelly, instead of floating to the top, it is ready to pour into jars.

Pour boiling water over any of the equipment you use to transfer the jelly from the saucepan to the sterilised jars. Fill the jars to leave 1/2cm space at the top. Seal the jars immediately and turn upside down for 2 minutes. Invert and allow to cool.

Store in a cool dry place for 6-12 months. Refridgerate after opening.

Apple & Olive Oil Cake

This came via Nourish Me - a wonderful spot to read at cup of tea time :
http://nourish-me.blogspot.com/2008/08/thirty-seven.html

And happy thirty seven Lucy! Almost 40 is a great age :)

I've tweaked things a bit, but we all loved this, so here is the amended recipe :

~Apple & Olive Oil Cake~
120g sultanas
freshly brewed tea
750g granny smith apples – about 6 med apples
150ml olive oil
200g rapadura
2 eggs
350g wholemeal spelt flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Cover the sultanas with warm tea and leave to soak for 20min - several hours. Drain and reserve liquid.

Peel and core the apples and dice small-med.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 20cm square cake tin.

Beat the oil and sugar together until the sugar begins to dissolve (check by rubbing a little between your fingers). Whisk the eggs with a fork and add them slowly while beating all the time. Depending on the temperature of your eggs and the grade of oil you have used, this mixture will thicken quickly to a creamy consistency.

Sieve the flour, cinnamon, bi-carb soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and add the apple pieces. Mix to coat them in flour.

Add the drained sultanas with the sugar/oil/egg mix and fold to combine. This batter will be quite stiff; add a little of the reserved soaking tea to bring it together if you need.

Turn into the cake tin, cover loosely with alfoil with a slit for steam escape, and bake for 1 hour. Check with a clean skewer and turn tin around and bake for another 15-25 minutes, as required. Cool in the tin, uncovered, then allow to cool completely before storing.

This cake is very moist and filling - fantastic for school lunches, picnics and cup of tea time, and a wonderful way to appreciate the seasonal apple glut.

Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart

This is several evolutions from the original recipe, which involved ricotta and far less veges. Mint works so well with both spinach and roast pumpkin.

T scored this recipe a 9.5 but D said it was minus 1000. I liked it, so poor old D will have to suffer again.


~Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart~
6 sheets filo or 2 sheets puff pastry, or some alternate base, like coca flatbread
800g butternut pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut in 1.5cm dice
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
about 10 baby leeks (1cm diameter, 10cm length), cut into 2cm pieces
salt and pepper
200g fetta, crumbled
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups firmly packed, chopped spinach or silverbeet
2 tab finely chopped mint
2 tab grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Combine pumpkin, garlic, leeks, olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake for about 20 min or until pumpkin is browned. In the last 5 min of cooking, make space for the spinach on the tray; pile it on and loosely cover with alfoil to allow it to steam and wilt slightly. Remove veges from oven and cool slightly.

Lay the base on a flat tray and curl the edges up to hold the filling. If using filo, spray with olive oil between layers. Bake for a few minutes to help cook the base.

Combine the eggs with 2/3 of the fetta and spread over the base.

Layer the spinach over the egg mixture. Sprinkle over the mint. Arrange pumpkin and leeks on top, then crumble over the remaining fetta and sprinkle with parmesan.

Reduce heat to 170 degrees and bake for about 20 minutes or until egg mixture is set and all is golden brown.

This would work well as a cocas/pizza topping.