Author Archives: sister T

Fresh and juicy art

On air on bayfm 99.9 community radio Byron Bay on May 7, 2012

"February" - from "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan

So one day the artist went to the market… The far North of NSW has attracted artists for many years, and now we have a lovely fresh produce market pretty much every day, so maybe it was inevitable that they would come together and create beautiful things.

Bayfm’s Arts Canvass presenter, Karena Wynn-Moylan, was inspired by the beautiful produce of her local Bangalow farmers market. She photographed a year of fruit and veg, and documented it in watercolours and oils. She also asked the farmers for their favourite simple recipes, and has done a lovely artist’s cookbook. See below for some recipes.

We also have potters and fabric artists and cooks and ikebana magicians, and people on a mission to bring colour to our tables. I was lucky enough to go to an exhibition in Ballina that is on all month and brings many of these people together. I would really encourage you to go, the gallery itself is a lovely place, with a cafe and big old trees to sit under.

Here are some details :

Three Exhibitions are on, all on and around food and the table, until Sunday 27 May 2012

At : the Northern Rivers Community Gallery, 44 Cherry street Ballina
ph 6681 6167 free entry

All details click here

But I would be going along to this weekend’s Table Manners Makers’ Market, which has demos of ceramic hand-building and wheel-throwing by potters Suvira McDonald and Malcolm Greenwood. You can also learn how to paint or draw your food. Thank you very much to Karena for giving a place in her watercolour workshop on May 20 to one of our lovely subscribers. If you’d like to go, ring the gallery. (It is $65pp inc. materials, 9.30 to 2pm).

If you can’t get to the exhibition, Karena’s number 1 bit of advice for anyone starting on painting or drawing still lives (aka food around here) is to think of the light.

And the lovely Miss May, Alison Drover of Fork in the Field, as well as lots of in season deliciousness for May, also had a crop of sustainable produce inspired, and very easy on the wallet, ideas for making your table and your food look beautiful.

Miss May's mandarins

Miss May Alison Drover

Preserve and conserve – yes it is the time for citrus much needed in winter.

Make marmalade, preserve lemons make compote and candied peel.

Find out more about my classes at the Byron Community Centre coming up next weekend

http://issuu.com/echopublications/docs/byroncollege-april-june-2012

Planting in May

Miss May says time is running out so get out in the garden and start planting so that you will have the abundance of vegetables through to winter.

Now is the time to plant broccoli, broad beans, beetroot, coriander, cabbages and Asian greens. Visit the Sustain website for a local regional planting guide. http://sustainfood.com.au/index.php?page=grow-what-s-in-season-vegetables.

This is also the time to save seeds from your summer crops so that you have them for the next year. Saving seeds helps safeguard the food security of the plant and is also a great way to ensure that the seeds you sow grow.

MANDARIN COMPOTE RECIPE – enough for breakfast for the week

· 20 mandarins

· 1 cinnamon quill

· 3 tablespoons raw honey

· 1 sprig thyme

15 ripe and sweet peeled mandarin. Separate them mandarin segments. I did not remove the transparent skin of the mandarin pieces, but I did open them to remove any seeds and to allow for the juice to come out while marinating them. Put the mandarins in a medium saucepan and cover with water marinate for 1 hour. Add honey and thyme, bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes, adding water when necessary to keep the mandarins covered at all times.

Remove and serve with yogurt for breakfast cold or warm slightly. The compote can be used as a side serve to a winter pudding or plain cake. You can also vary it by adding apples!

A big thank you to Karena for the permission to reproduce some pages from her artist’s cookbook, “Produce-d”. The originals are double page spreads with the basket of produce paintings by Karena on the left, and the recipe on the right.

from "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan - leeks and mandarins are definitely in season - and following the rose petals on the footpath is usually the easy way to find the Bangalow Farmers Market

From "July" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan

From "May" in "Produce-d" By Karena Wynn Moylan

From "May" in "Produce-d" by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Heather and her family sell tomatoes at the Bangalow and Byron Farmers Markets. They often have seconds which need to be used pretty quickly. This is a great recipe to use whenever the rain gods are a bit rough on the tomato patch.

Check out more of Karena’s art on her website (I particularly love the Woodstock turnip from Produce-d). There is also a recipe by Karena herself in the book. I haven’t managed to get the pecan pikelets one from her yet – maybe ring her up while Arts Canvass is on (Thursdays 9 to 11 am) and beg her and the rest of the pecan fiends on her street in Bangalow to share with the rest of us – apparently they get together and cook and eat at the drop of a hat, under a big pecan tree in Bangalow. If your street or neighbourhood does something like that, us bellysisters would love to hear about it. Meantime, here’s Karena’s lovely sweet potato recipe.

KARENA’S SWEET POTATO AND FETA BAKE

A good mix of white, purple and orange sweet potatoes

I large onion ( Spanish or purple)

6 cloves of unpeeled garlic

Fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs

Sea salt, ground pepper and Paprika

Feta Cheese

Parsley

Peel the potatoes if you wish or just scrub, then chop into bite sized pieces and place in a

large baking dish sprinkled with olive oil.

Add cloves of whole garlic and fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs.

Season with salt and pepper and ground paprika.

Toss together to coat pieces well.

Bake at 200c for about 30 mins or until pieces are slightly crispy.

5 mins before serving add cubed fetta cheese, return to the oven to soften.

To serve squeeze baked garlic over veges and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley

Planning a kitchen

On air on bayfm 99.9 community radio, Byron Bay, on 23 April 2012

Today on belly we talked about designing the most important room in your house, the kitchen, with Don Hansen. We spoke about materials and budgets and environmentally friendly options, but also a lot about one of Don’s big passions, good communication.

FRESH REPORT

A couple of ideas about this week’s best in season fruit and veg.

A budget choice, CHOKOS are everywhere. One stallholder had a sign at the markets, “choko apppreciation society meeting in the Bangalow phone box” . I will be there, yes they can be a bit tasteless if just boiled into submission but chokos can be a really good ingredient. . Try online searches for chayote recipes, their Central American name. Just like the avocado, which is also beginning its season, it was a favourite of the aztecs. Or look for mirliton recipes from Luisiana, or christophine from Trinidad. I tried choko Italiano this week, testing the idea that it takes on other flavours. It was really good in an onion,capsicum and tomato pasta sauce. The taste team approved, saying choko chunks did take on the flavours, but made the sauce lighter and juicier.
For an exotic choice try JIKAMA (Don says this should be pronounced ‘hikama’), it looks like a giant white water chestnut or a fat beige turnip. Just peel it and eat raw, or quickly cooked. It has crunchy juicy and sweet white flesh. Great raw in salads and keeps its crunch in stir fries, so can substitute for water chestnuts. Could be interesting in a sushi roll. Also from Central America, in Mexico it is used to dip in salsas, much healthier than corn chips.
Plentiful choice – lemons, limes, mandarins – citrus time, yum

CHOKO ITALIANO – Belly Lab recipe by sister Tess

For 4 people

1 pack penne or spaghetti

1 can tomatoes and/or very ripe tasty tomatoes (I prefer a mix of both)

1 red onion, chopped or sliced

1 large red capsicum, sliced

garlic, good olive oil, salt, pepper

capers, anchovies, chilli, freshly grated Parmesan to taste

fresh or dry oregano

1 beautiful large choko, peeled seeded and cut into smallish chunks

Fry onions in oil until soft, add capers, chilli and chopped garlic, fry a couple more minutes. Add capsicum and choko, salt, pepper, cook on fairly high heat. Add tomatoes, oregano, anchovies, cook gently until the sauce is quite dense and tomatoes are cooked. Skip or change any of these ingredients that you aren’t really into.

Serve on al dente pasta with grated parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

BELLY BULLETIN

There is an egg fight going on in Australia. Consumers love free range eggs, they are nearly 40% of eggs sold in Australia and were the biggest growth category in eggs last year. The Egg Corporation, the main egg producers association, announced its plans to change the allowable outdoor stocking density for free range chickens from 1500 to 20,000 per hectare. The consumers association Choice says that the RSPCA and Humane Choice set a limit of 1500, while the Free Range Farmers association sets 750 chooks per hectare as a limit. Choice says consumers will stop buying free range if they are not confident they are getting what they pay for. the egg corp is concerned about overseas competition, and says stocking density is not as important as appropriate farm management, and that this density allows chickens to display all their natural behaviours, like scratching in the dirt. Check the links below to make up your own mind.

http://www.choice.com.au/media-and-news/media-releases/2012-media-releases/free-range-eggs-not-all-they-are-cracked-up-to-be.aspx

http://www.aecl.org/

You may remember a lot of discussion about the proposed new markets policy in byron shire, including a big meeting here in the community centre. The council has now revised the policy, it is open for viewing and comment until May 18, 2012 in various public places and online. Council would like anyone who has already commented to submit any comments on the new policy, as well as the rest of us of course. For a direct link to the policy on the council’s website click here.

From Federal to Cape Town

On air on Byron Bay’s bayfm 99.9 community radio on 16 April 2012

Today two wonderful cooks are coming on belly, Belinda Jeffery and Cecile Yazbek. Belinda and Sue Kelly will talk about the campaign to save the Federal Hall, a lovely village in the Byron hinterland. Belinda has kindly offered to help in the campaign to raise money for the Federal Community to buy the old Anglican Church and land see www.federalhall.org.au. She will be teaching pastry making, a subject close to the bellysisters’ heart, especially at the moment, on May 2. Here’s the basic info:

Morning Tea & Cooking Demonstration with Cookbook Author & Delicious Magazine writer Belinda Jeffery.

Belinda shows you how to make perfect pastry every time, and turn it into fabulous tarts

Wednesday 2nd May 9.30am

@ Federal Hall, Federal

$20 includes tea or coffee and selection of yummy homemade cakes

Come along on the day, you can also reserve your spot

or book a table with friends call – Sue 66884465

email suekelly50@gmail.com

For more information go to www.federalhall.org.au

My next guest today is Cecile Yazbek, who grew up in South Africa in a Lebanese household, in the days of apartheid. She has just published her latest book, “From mezze to milk tart”. It has hundreds of wonderful vegetarian recipes, many very simple, but inspiring enough to turn anyone vegetarian, at least until every recipe in the book has been made and tried. Many are Lebanese, others from the varied cuisines that inspired Cecile to start cooking from a very early age in South Africa.

Here is a couple of seasonal suggestions from the book, inspired by Cecile’s love of local markets.

BANANA SAMBAL

The Indian lady at the banana farm on the highway near Bangalow

sometimes presents me with a whole box of ripe bananas, ‘for cakey’.

One day I gave her one of my banana cakes, but she wrinkled her nose

and said, ‘Is good for you; Indian people no like.’ Anytime one shops

there, she always piles extras into one’s bag!

4 ripe bananas, sliced

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon fruit chutney

1 level teaspoon curry powder

Mix together well and serve immediately.

POTATO AND MACADAMIA CURRY PIES

Sweet potatoes, cooked and roughly mashed, may be used instead.

2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry

4 large potatoes, boiled, cooled, peeled

and coarsely grated

1 cup macadamia pieces

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons fragrant curry powder

1 vegetable stock cube, dissolved in

100 mL hot water

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

Heat oil and fry onion until shiny. Add seeds and curry powder and

stir about. Add the stock, mix well and add potato and nuts. Fork

through until all coloured. Set aside to cool. Fill

puff pastry – either as one large pie with top and bottom crust or 8

small pastie shapes, and bake at 220 °C until browned. Serve with

Banana Sambal.

CECILE’S TASTING AND BOOK SIGNING

Fundraising tasting and book signing with food writer and author of ‘Amore and Amoretti’, Victoria Cosford and Cecile Yazbek, cook and author or ‘Mezze to Milk Tart’ at the Liberation Larder Kitchen, Byron Bay Community Centre, 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay. Inquiries call Helen: 0439409655

Tue, 17 April, 17:30 – 18:30

the Liberation Larder Kitchen, Byron Bay Community Centre, 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay. Inquiries call Helen: 0439409655

Canadian cabbages? Choux pastry and a taste of Canada

I wish I could reach into the computer and snaffle one of these

CHOCOLATE PROFITEROLES – by Deanna

Choux
20g butter
¼ cup water
¼ cup plain flour
1 egg

Pastry Cream (Crème Patissiere)
I cup milk
½ vanilla bean, split
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour

Topping
150 grams dark or milk chocolate, roughly chopped
Preheat oven to 220 degrees (200 fan forced)
Line baking tray with baking paper
Combine water and butter in a saucepan, bring to the boil. Add flour, and beat with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes away from the base and side of the saucepan, and forms a smooth ball.
Transfer mixture to a small bowl and beat in egg with electric mixer until smooth and glossy.
Spoon mix into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm plain tube (or can fill a ziplock baggie and cut the corner off). Pipe small dollops of pastry 5 cm apart from eachother on tray. Bake 7 minutes and then reduce oven to 180 degrees/160 fan forced. Bake a further 10 minutes until profiteroles browned lightly and crisp. Cut small slit in side of each profiterole with sharp knife. Bake a further 5 minutes or until profiteroles dried out. Cool.
Make pastry cream:
Bring milk and vanilla bean to the boil in small saucepan. Discard vanilla bean. Mix egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in small bowl with electric mixer until thick. With motor still running add hot milk mixture gradually. Return custard mixture to saucepan and stir over heat until boils and thickens. Cool.
Spoon pastry cream into piping bag fitted with 1 cm plain tube (or use ziplock as mentioned before). Pipe pastry cream through cuts in profiteroles. Place on tray and cover with melted chocolate.
Melt chocolate in heat proof bowl or double boiler over pan of simmering water. When melted, drizzle profiteroles with melted chocolate
Note: can also drizzle with toffee instead of chocolate, and may fill profiteroles with whipped cream instead of making pastry cream.

Apple pie - made by Deanna to her mum's recipe. Did it taste as good as it looks? Will they share the recipe? Listen to belly today and find out

Easter belly

On air on Byron Bay’s community radio station Bayfm 99.9 on April 2, 2012

Sister T and Miss April, Alison Drover from Fork in the Field, had fun today talking about Easter food. We had eggs hidden around the studio, lambs and Easter bunnies running around, hot cross buns in the oven, smelling great… In the Byron area for many of us this time of year is also all about the Bluesfest, so most of the tracks today are from this year’s Bluesfest artists.

HOT CROSS BUNS

This year for Easter I thought I would focus on these delicious cross topped raisin and spice buns. There is a really good recipe here, from the very reliable Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine. They are pretty simple to make, a bit like muffins in that you mix all the dry and all the wet ingredients separately first, but yeast risen. This makes them very easy to change, glam up, complicate or simplify. Heston Blumenthal makes earl gray tea flavoured buns, a chocolate chip variation is apparently particularly Australian, you can get coffee, sour cherry, gluten free, in Newtown, Sydney, you can find them with frankincense glaze so you feel like you are in church – which is a bit odd becuase you shouldn’t eat in church. Or even filled with flavoured mousse or bread & butter pudding.
Every year in Australia someone complains that shops are selling them in January, in the UK you can get them all year round.
For a sweet little bun, they were always controversial – in England at one stage forbidden by Protestants as too Catholic, then limited to Good Friday (maybe it was easier to get people to obey then – an eye for an eye, a head for a bun…)
Now there is also controversy among historians about whether they used to be made in honour of the goddess of light or of the moon, the cross originally the horns of a sacred ox.
Certainly there were many superstitions about them – if you bake them on good Friday they will never go off, you can hang one in your kitchen to bring luck, they were even used ground up as medicine.

Have a look at the recipe link,I love the mix of orange zest and candied orange in it, or try your own favourite hot cross bun recipe with one of these belly lab variations:

Tuscan bun – skip sugar glaze and sugar in dough, add rosemary

Pagan bun – The cross is normally made with a simple paste of flour and water (see recipe link). Make a sunburst instead of a cross by adding 2 more lines, or try other designs, moon, starts, happy face, flowers …, colour the flour – or just leave the cross off, call them buns, eat them all year round

Ultra traditional bun – make cross shape with a wooden ‘bun docker’ – see here for how to make your very own docker – probably useful to give yourself stigmata too…be careful

MISS APRIL’S BEST IN SEASON

Out with the nectarines in with apples it’ April!

Celebrate the new life with eggs and a roast lamb or if you are not a meat eater perhaps a fish pie for Good Friday.

Crack a real egg over a chocolate one and make a baked egg custard and serve with a roasted stuffed apple or simply the custard paying homage to the egg.

Give your garden a new life by getting in there and weeding and treating it to some worm juice make your own or look at the farmers’ market or community garden for some and see everything spring to life.

Miss April Alison Drover Fork in the Field X

What’s in season NSW

Almonds

Miss April in milkmaid mode

Apple

Avocado

Banana

Beetroot

Broccoli

Brussels Sprouts

Cabbage

Capsicum

Carrot

Celery

Chestnuts

Chilli

Coriander

Cucumber

Eggplant

Fennel

Fig

Garlic

Ginger

Grapes

Green Beans

Hazelnut

Lemon

Lime

Lobster

Mushrooms

Okra Olive Onion Oregano

Papaya Parsnip Pear Persimmon Pistachio Plums Pomegranate Potato Pumpkin

Quince

Sage Shallots Silverbeet Spinach Squash

Thyme Tomato Turnip

Walnut

Northern Rivers Locally best is … silverbeet, basil, avocado, and tomatoes.

MISS APRIL’S EASTER RECIPES

EASTER POMEGRANATE AND YOGURT LAMB

Serve with crunchy rosemary potatoes

Shoulder of lamb – deboned approximately 1.6 kg or more

• 1 tsp. cumin

• 1tsp coriander

• juice of lemon

• 3 cloves of garlic (not imported) minced

• 1 tsp. fennel seeds

• 1 tsp. chopped thyme

• 4 tablespoons of olive oil

• 4 sprigs thyme

• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 tsp. salt

• 3 cinnamon sticks

• 4 tablespoons yogurt

• 1 pomegranate – seeded

• 2 onions

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3.

Take each onion cut top and bottom off (don’t cut off the skin).

Place onions in the bottom of baking tray. This will be used to rest the lamb on.

Place all the pomegranate seeds in a saucepan and 2 tablespoons of water and heat gently on a low heat on the stove for about 5 minutes or until the seeds have softened. This is a simply way of making a syrup to rub over the lamb.

Mix all the spices except the thyme and the cinnamon quills add the yogurt.

Take a paring knife and cut across the lamb. Ensure you have clean hands and then rub the spice and yogurt mix into the lamb. Take the pomegranate syrup/seeds and rub this all over the lamb.

Push the cinnamon quills into the lamb and then the thyme sprigs into the cinnamon.

Place the lamb in the oven and then cover the dish with a lid or the tin with a large piece of foil. Roast the lamb, undisturbed, for 3 hrs, then remove the lid or foil and continue to roast for 30 mins to give the lamb colour. When the lamb has had its time, pour off the juices, remove as much fat as possible, then pour the juices back over the lamb.

BAKED EGG CUSTARD

• 425ml organic full-cream milk

• 300ml organic double cream

• the zest of 1 orange

• 140g natural caster sugar

• 5 large, free-range eggs

• 4 large egg yolks

• a few drops of real vanilla extract

• a few gratings of nutmeg

• a 25cm deep ovenproof dish

Preheat the oven to 120 C/gas mark . Put the milk, cream and orange zest into a largish saucepan over a low to medium heat, and slowly bring the contents to a simmer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour in the rum and leave the milk to infuse for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, whisk the sugar, whole eggs and yolks until thoroughly combined. Strain the milk on to the egg mixture (discarding the zest), stir well and add the vanilla extract.

Pour the custard mixture into the dish, grate on nutmeg, and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 1 hour, or until the custard has set (gently push the top with a finger to test). Serve at room temperature.

MUSIC

Love You More, Bobby Alu

Trouble Somehow, The Audreys

Rocksteady Woman, Nicky Bomba

Magdalena, Watussi

In the ghetto, Candi Staton and Elvis Presley

love and chocolate hot star buns, Sister T

ps – if this is all too much Easter sweetness for you, check out the Easter bunny and Ghengis Khan going head to head in a rap battle on Youtube here

Hot March, cool lychees, seeds & lemon tarts

On air on bayfm 99.9 in Byron Bay on March 5, 2012

Today two of our regular guests visited the belly kitchen, Alison Drover of Fork in the Field, a.k.a. Miss March, and our baking bellysister Deanna. Miss March gave us lots of ideas on using luscious lychees, and talked about the importance of seeds. More from her soon.

In Part 2 of our “Easy as Pie” series with Deanna Sudmals, shortcrust pastry and some variations you may like to try.

You will find Part 1 and the basic shortcrust pastry recipe here. If you would like to try the vodka variation, just substitute water in basic recipe with vodka. Deanna warns that she got a lot of shrinkage with the vodka shortcrust (maybe too much raw dough tasting?). The alcohol evaporates during the cooking process.

Maggie Beer’s Sour Cream Shortcrust pastry – recipe here

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry with Egg

250g plain flour

2 tbsp icing sugar

125g cold butter, chopped coarsely

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp ice water or milk

Process flour, sugar and butter until crumbly. Add egg yolks and enough of the water to process until ingredients come together. Knead on a floured surface until smooth. Enclose in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Note: for savoury version omit icing sugar, add a pinch of salt, and use water not milk.

Deanna's Lemon Tart

LEMON TART – by Deanna Sudmals

1/12 cups (185g) plain flour

1/3 cup icing sugar

¼ cup almond meal

125g cold butter, chopped coarsely

1 egg yolk

Filling:

1 tbsp finely grated lemon rind

½ cup (125ml) lemon juice

5 eggs

¾ cup (165g) caster sugar

1 cup cream

Blend or process flour, icing sugar, almond meal and butter until crumbly. Add egg yolk; process until ingredients come together. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Enclose in plastic wrap; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Roll pastry between sheets of baking paper until large enough to line 24 cm round loose-based flan tin. Lift pastry into tin, ease into base and side; trim edge. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 C/180 fan forced.

Place flan tin on oven tray. Line pastry case with baking paper. Fill with dried beans or rice. Bake 15 minutes. Remove paper and beans; bake further 10 minutes or until browned lightly.

Meanwhile, whisk ingredients for lemon filling in a medium bowl; stand 5 minutes.

Reduce oven to 180 C/160 fan forced.

Strain lemon filling into pastry case; bake about 30 minutes or until filling has set slightly. Refrigerate until cold.

Optional: Dust with icing sugar and/or decorate with fresh berries. If you are really feeling fancy, you can coat with icing or caster sugar and using a crème brulee torch, create a brulee crust topping.

bread,milk,butter,gnomes and ukeleles

On belly today Sister T chatted with Don Maughan, who grew up in Byron Bay in the 50s as the son of one of the two bakers. A radical baker who liked yoga and made brown bread as well as white. Then one day he needed money for something and his mum sent him off to Norco to get a job. Forty years later, he finally left, after a range of interesting jobs since his early apprentice days. He now has more time to carve interesting walking sticks and character filled gnomes. And learn the ukelele, although we were so busy talking that I forgot to beg for a tune. He’s promised to come back, after a little more practice, to talk cheese and play ukelele – a great combination! Check out the Norco website http://www.norco.com.au/about-norco-history.php for some related history. And we had lots of great plucking music from Leon Redbone & the Rusty Datsuns.

At the end of the show, Roger Gamble came on to quickly tell us about a new food care service on the Byron Arts and Industry Estate.

Details for Food care program:

Where – C3 church, 40 Banksia Drv. Arts and industry estate, Byron. ( 3 blocks back behind Maddog surf shop)

When – Every Thursday, 9am to 12pm and 5pm to 6pm…

Need – your pension, concession, or health care card with you to register.

MAN COMFORT FOOD FORMULA – by Donald Maughan

6 Pork Spare Ribs

6 chicken legs

Big cup of red wine (1 for the pot and one for you to drink as you work)

Olives – pitted

sun-dried tomatoes

6 big Mushrooms

1 celery stick

1 chilli (seeds out)

1 Tin tomato

375 g3 Potatoes cut into 1/6 chunks

.2 Carrots cut into 1/6 chunks

2 Bay leaves

Cardamon Seeds( fresh ground)Some spice like Chinese five spice or Moroccan Spice

ground pepper

Pre heat oven to 180oC.

Sear the pork on a very hot plate. Add everything (with the exception of the Potato and Carrots) into an oven proof container with a lid. Put in the oven cook, for1.5 hrs then add carrots and potato for the last 1 hour. Total cook time 2.5 hrs approximately.

Meat will be very tender.

Serve in a bowl with crusty bread and red wine. If you let the pot stand for approx. 30 minutes you can scrape excess fat of the top but I like the fat. Serves 3 people because when your lady is away you get your mates over to watch the footy and you always have at least two mates over.

Enjoy, Donald

love and chocolate covered gnomes,

Sister T

Lovely waste free February and easy as pie shortcrust pastry

Our lovely seasonal bellysister, Alison Drover, is wearing her very loving and very waste free Miss February apron with matching bikini today, and we welcome episode one of Mullumbimby baking legend Deanna Sudmal’s pastry making series to the belly kitchen. We are starting super easy with shortcrust, and even playing with store-bought pastry. Is it enough to tempt you to try making your first ever pie for someone you love?

Deanna's Cherry Pie

Recipes and tips below by Deanna Sudmals

CHERRY PIE

1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry for double crust pie (see related recipe)
4 cups fresh pitted cherries
¾ cup white sugar
2 ½ tbsp arrowroot (tapioca) flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
Juice of half a lemon
One egg, beaten

Place a baking tray in the oven, and pre-heat to 200 degrees.
Mix cherries, sugar, arrowroot, vanilla and lemon juice in a large bowl and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Roll out bottom crust of pie and place in pie dish.
Baste inside of pie with beaten egg. Fill pie with cherry filling.
Now get creative: for Valentines day, I cut out small heart shapes in the rolled out top crust with a small cookie cutter to allow the pie to vent. You can also vent the pie using a knife or fork, can cut a hole in the centre of the pie, or if you are feeling really creative, you can make a lattice top to your pie by covering it with strips of pastry in a criss cross pattern. Crimp the edges of the pie using either your fingers, or making indentations with a fork around the outside of the pie.
Brush the entire top crust with beaten egg.

Place the pie in the oven on top of the hot baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 160 degrees and cook for a further 25 to 30 minutes or until the pie is golden and the cherry filling is bubbling. Allow to cool completely before serving. Really nice with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

SHORTCRUST PASTRY TIPS

•Don’t overwork the dough. Mix until just together.
•Place on a preheated tray in oven to firm up the crust.
•Make sure to keep butter cold and mix with ice cold water.
•If making pastry by hand, remember that your hands are warm (the finger tips are the coolest part of the hand) so mix quickly with fingertips to avoid butter getting warm
•Chill for at least half hour and then take out of fridge to relax a bit before rolling.
•Make sure your surface is clean and well floured.
•When blind baking make sure you prick the base with fork so it doesn’t rise up.
•Roll in one direction only and then flip.
•Bring up pastry on rolling pin and lay on tray, leaving a bit extra to allow for shrinkage
•If you want to change the amount of pastry (more or less) remember the ratio is half butter to flour
•For a fruit pie that contains moisture (eg. Apple pie) baste the inside of the bottom crust to ensure the finished pie does not become soggy
•Glazing the finished pastry with a beaten egg gives a nice shiny golden appearance

BASIC SHORTCRUST PASTRY

300g flour

150g cold butter cubed

4-6 tbsp ice water

For a savoury pastry: add a pinch of salt

For a sweet shortcrust pastry, add 2 tbsp icing sugar

Blend flour, salt or icing sugar and butter in food processor until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Slowly add ice water and pulse until just combined. Using hands, gently knead together until pastry comes together in a ball. Separate into two portions, flatten into disks, cover in cling film and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes before rolling out.

NOTE: be careful not to over work the pastry or it will become tough.

If you do not have a food processor you can make the pastry by hand by using your finger tips to squash the butter in with the flour, working quickly to ensure the butter stays cold. This process can also be done by “cutting in” the butter using two butter knives. Note: the pastry will not be as smooth done by hand as the food processor method, as with the food processor the butter has been cut through the flour more evenly.

Make sure you tune in to Bayfm on the first Monday in March for more delicious Easy as Pie – shortcrust.

Miss February’s Seasonal Bounty

words by Alison Drover

www.forkinthefield.com

www.alisondrover.com

Passionate Miss February! Loving not wasting….

VALENTINES DAY

We love food that is why we listen to Belly but we are all guilty of wasting food as well. Be inspired by being thrifty – help save the planet with every mouthful visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com to see how you can help. Also http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/.

Email us with your recipes for using left overs. (belly(at)belly(dot)net(dot)au)

Passionfruits on the vines hanging glory to be used. I can see my Mum whisking wildly on the floor surrounded by dishes at one of the many dinner parties making passionfruit flummery with real cream drizzled over it.

The bowl was a air spun glass bowl which I still have and is reserved for my flummeries.

SEASONAL IN NSW

Avocado

Banana

Blackberry

Blueberry

Chilli

Cucumber

Eggplant

Fennel

Fig

Grapes

Green Beans

Guava

Kiwifruit

Leek

Lemon

Lemongrass

Lettuce

Lychee

Mango

Mangosteen

Okra

Onion

Orange

Peach

Pear

Peas

Plums

Radish

Rambutan

Raspberry

Rockmelon

Squash

Tamarillo

Tomato

Watermelon

Zucchini

Zucchini Flower

On our doorsteps…..

• Tomatoes – use them any way you can bottle, sauce, soup and salad – be forgiving for the farmers and the rain a few bruises are okay

• Passionfruits

• Cucumbers

• Herbs – nourishing

• Chillies

• Eggplants bountiful

PASSIONFRUIT FLUMMERY

You can use gelatin leaves or powder for the recipe.

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tbs plain flour try and use organic

115g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

2 tbs plain flour

1 tbs powdered gelatine

250ml (1 cup) water

2 oranges, juiced, strained

1 lemon, juiced, strained

125ml (1/2 cup) passionfruit pulp

Whipped cream, to serve

2 tbs passionfruit pulp, extra, to serve

1.Place the sugar, flour, gelatine, water, orange juice and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Whisk well. Bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Simmer for 2 minutes.

2.Pour the mixture into a heatproof bowl and place in the fridge for 1 hour or until the mixture begins to set around the edges. Stir in the passionfruit and transfer to a large bowl. Use an electric beater to beat for 15 minutes or until the mixture is thick and pale.

3.Pour the mixture evenly into four 310ml (1 1/4-cup) serving glasses. Cover the glass tightly with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours or until the mixture is set.

4.Serve topped with whipped cream and with extra passionfruit pulp.

MUSIC

Oh Well, That’s What You Get Falling In Love With A Cowboy – Lanie Lane

Love Letter – Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes

If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake – Bob Hope and Bing Crosby

Love Is Blind – Annie Lennox

Hooray for Love – Ella Fitzgerald

Nakutamani (I Am Longing For You) – Paul Mbenna feat Nicky Bomba

love and triple chocolate shortcrust pie, Sister T

Plan B

On air on Bay Fm 99.9 community radio on 16 January 2012

Plan A was to talk to the lovely Andrew Habner, a teacher at Wollongbar Tafe, about their hospitality and commercial cookery courses. However, one of his family members had a minor road accident the day of the show, one of the many victims of crazy, or just very absent minded, road use at this time of year in Byron shire. Hopefully Andrew will be able to come on belly sometime soon. If you have recently studied or are studying commercial cooking at Tafe get in touch, maybe we can get you on the show too.

So plan B was a trawl through the belly archives – payoff for getting them slightly organised recently!. I hope you enjoyed it. Unfortunately all my early stuff has music edited into the interviews and for copyright reasons I can’t post the audio here. But let me know if you enjoyed it, maybe we will play a little more of our old stuff.

A big slice of chocolate cake for all the careful drivers and pedestrians and bike riders is on its way,

Sister T

A little seasonal foraging

On air on Bay Fm 99.9, Byron Bay community radio, on January 9 2012

We have had so much rain and heat lately that everything is growing like mad. My veggie patch is terribly neglected and yet stuff is turning by itself , lovely self seeded volunteers for the salad bowl. Miss January even has a little lichen growing around her neck, in a little glass container. We don’t have a recipe for that yet, but we had a big chat on the show about foraging, picking and eating things that are growing around us. After the recent mushroom poisoning, we also stress that you should be very careful and make sure what you put in your mouth is safe. Or at least as safe as the industrially produced ingredients in your average supermarket!

MISS JANUARY’S BEST IN SEASON

•    Apricot
•    Asparagus
•    Avocado
•    Banana
•    Blackberry
•    Blueberry
•    Capsicum

•    Celery
•    Cherry
•    Cucumber
•    Currants
•    Eggplant
•    Honeydew Melons
•    Lettuce
•    Lychee
•    Mango
•    Mangosteen
•    Okra
•    Onion
•    Peach
•    Peas
•    Pineapple
•    Plums
•    Radish
•    Rambutan
•    Raspberry
•    Rockmelon
•    Squash
•    Strawberry
•    Tamarillo
•    Tomato
•    Watermelon
•    Zucchini
•    Zucchini Flower

Forage and friends with Alison Drover “Miss January” from Fork in the Field www.forkinthefield.com

I love January time to read books from Christmas day that blur and impromptu dinners with friends with left overs from Christmas.

Start the need year foraging around your community and see what you can source growing naturally. Take time with friends to share your food skills whether they are bread making, jam making or fish smoking. Share your harvest and respect the planet and plants you pick.

TZATZIKI WITH DILL, MINT AND BORAGE FLOWERS

Ingredients
•    cucumbers
•    olive oil – Australian of course
•    goat or sheep’s yogurt
•    garlic
•    dill
•    Mint
•    lemon juice
•    salt
•    borage flowers

A Greek dish so simple yet such a star especially in summer. Surrounded by toasted pita bread it is an economical way of accompanying pre dinner drinks or as a side for lamb bbqs or to accompany a warm potato salads it is equally as delicious.
Instruction
Peel a cucumber, cut it in half and remove the seeds. Take a grater and grate the cucumber (keep a bowl underneath it to collect the water) I drink this high in silica cucumbers are great for skin.
Leave it in a colander with a little salt until it has given up some of its juice. Take a handful of the cucumber with gloves and squeeze the water from the it. Continue to do this a few times in order to remove as much water as possible.
Pat the cucumber dry with kitchen towels then fold into a little olive oil and 250g strained yogurt. Season with a crushed clove of garlic and a little dill or chopped mint leaves and a squeeze of lemon juice.

DAVIDSON PLUM

This tree is rare in the wild, usually found in NE QLD and NE NSW. It is cultivated in certain areas of northern NSW and far north QLD. The fruit is about the size of a blood plum with a double flat seed. It is tangy and delicious but extremely sour. Davidson plums can be used in place of blood plum in any recipe but as with most of the bush fruits, the flavour is very intense. If compared to a standard plum you would use only 1 Davidson to 3 other plums.

This means they should be mixed with other fruit so that they do not overpower the dish. Half and half may be a good ratio. They will not lose their colour or break down and become mushy. Davidson plum is very well suited to sauce making, both sweet and savoury.

JAM MAKING – DAVIDSON PLUMS

Davidson plums make great jam.

I have been up early collecting Davidson plums. You have to pick them when they are ripe so in my case it was dropping everything and picking and gathering. The low hanging ones can be shook off and the higher ones will need a stick. They are delicious!

RECIPE

Wash the Davidson plums. Place them in a saucepan and then boil them up with equal parts sugar and add a cup of sugar. The plums are low in sugar so it is important to add pectin to the jam and add more sugar than usual. Jam making is very much about feeling your way around.

Tip for making jam, which is low in pectin. Take muslin like cheesecloth about the size of a handkerchief. Fill it with pips from 2-3 lemons and all the pith, which are the white insides of the lemon. You can remove this by scraping it out with a spoon.

The pith contains the pectin, which is required to set the jam. Tie a knot around the contents and then
add a piece of string about 30 cm long around the knot and then hang it over the saucepan so it sits in the saucepan and boils with the fruit.

Continue to boil with the bag. The pectin inside the bag is released and helps the jam to set. Take a wooden spoon and squeeze the bag against the saucepan to squeeze out more pectin. Turn the heat up and boil rapidly until the jam reaches setting point – a sugar thermometer will be helpful here (start checking when it reaches 104C). but to confirm this, put a teaspoonful of the jam on to a cold saucer and put in the fridge for a minute or so. If it crinkles when you run a finger through it, and your finger leaves a clear line in the preserve, it’s ready. If not, check it every five minutes or so.
6. Allow to sit for 15 minutes then spoon into clean jars and seal immediately.

Enjoy on toast, on cereal or over a cake or just on a spoon
x Alison Drover

A FEW FORAGING LINKS

There is plenty of information available on the net about foraging, even though nothing beats a wise local for safe and tasty roadside snacking. Check out this video to get inspired – it looks like Brissie is a little piece of paradise for foragers.

http://permaculture.com.au/online/campus-blogs/urban-food-foraging-%E2%80%93-coming-to-a-city-near-you – this is a great article about foraging, with lots of links to more info and tools, and guidelines for ethical – or simply polite – foraging. In our area, make sure you think about food plants’ potential for becoming invasive weeds in bushland.

http://www.thegourmetforager.com/2010/11/diary-of-an-amateur-mushroom-forager/ – this blog is mostly about foraging in restaurants, but it describes 2 very thorough sessions of mushroom searching

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/not-just-a-weed21-the-rise-of-foraging/3783248 – I think someone at the ABC listens to belly – this is a podcast of a program they did – about 2 weeks after us – on foraging. But we did talk about it because it is growing greatly in popularity, from chefs to us curious, or just poor, or environmentally aware home cooks. And it gives you an excuse for being slack at weeding!

BELLY BULLETIN

First – good news about garlic. About 10 year ago our garlic industry was almost crushed by cheap Chinese imports. 90% of garlic in Australia came from China. According to the SMH, consumers have gone back to Australian garlic. Producers say the local product is not bleached with clorine or fumigated and is juicier. You may remember a series of letters in the Echo a few years ago, about how hard it was to find flavourful garlic in shops. Now luckily there is plenty of properly stinky local stuff in our shops and markets at most times of year. Around Australia, many individual consumers and restaurants are getting their garlic by post from the internet. It means more small producers can survive. One producer, Patrice Newell, estimates garlic production has quadrupled in Australia in the last 5 years, and we grow more than 300 varieties. But you’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Australia Post employees. Only a few weeks ago a Sydney mail centre was evacuated because a packet of extra strong curry powder caused an outbreak of sore throats, coughing and wheezing and fears of a chemical attack. I wonder what other food travels through the mail these days.

January is the time many of us try to start a new diet. The Dietitians of Australia association has found that about 60% of young women tried to lose weight last year, and one quarter of those dieters used what the dietitians consider ineffective fad diets. More than 50 nutrition experts took part in an online survey, which asked them to list their three worst diets. Most thought the lemon juice detox diet, based on drinking lots of lemon juice with cayenne pepper, was the worst, followed by the blood-type diet, and the acid and alkaline diet. DAA spokesman Trent Watson said in a statement.”Women often think they are failures when they can’t sustain such strict and unrealistic diets, The truth is, it is the diets that are failing young women.” Dr Watson said people should ditch the fad diets and focus on regular exercise and healthy eating. His diet advice is simple : eat breakfast every day, limit take-away meals to once a week, choose water as a drink and exercise most days.

If you have small kids you may have the opposite problem, how to get them to eat up. An interesting study has just come out that may help, although it seems based on a very small group of people, but maybe you could experiment on your own kids. Researchers at London Metropolitan University showed 23 preteen children and 46 adults full-size photos of 48 different combinations of food on plates. They found that there are definite differences between adults and kids when it comes to plate appeal. The kids in the study liked more colourful food, more elements on the plate, and the main item towards them on the plate rather than in the centre. Food plates with seven different items and six different colours are particularly appealing to children, while adults tend to prefer only three items and three colours. Kids also like food that makes a picture or a pattern on the plate.

If you are thinking of publishing your own recipes you may want to keep this story in mind. A Chilean newspaper has been ordered to compensate 13 readers who suffered burns while trying out a published recipe for churros, a popular Spanish and Latin American snack of fried sugared dough. People who followed the recipe published by La Tercera newspaper were splattered with hot oil as the frying batter exploded. Most of the victims suffered burns to the arms or face. Chile’s supreme court has found that injury was almost unavoidable for anyone who tried to follow the recipe as printed. The court ordered La Tercera to pay more than $160,000 in damages to the 13 victims.

MUSIC

Oka, Gorilla Villa

Dirtgirl, Chicken Jam

Skipping Girl Vinegar, You Can

Iluka, Eyes Closed

Cumbia Cosmonauts, Our journey to the moon

Love and chocolate coated weeds, Sister T (mmm, if only cocoa would go feral…)