Oatcakes

I had always loved oatcakes but I had never thought to make them myself until my friend Emily, an American writer then living in the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney, met a Scottish novelist visiting Australia and began a long distance love affair not only with him, but this one particular specialty of his homeland.  She’d return from Glasgow bemoaning the high cost of this Scottish standard in Australian supermarkets.  I turned, as you do, to Nigella Lawson.  Of course she had the solution.  It’s amazing just how easy they are to make and how few ingredients you need, all of which are probably already in your pantry.    

Oatcakes aren’t cakes per se, but dense, chewy, savoury crackers on which to pile all manner of good things.  I favour cheese, whether a wedge of soft brie or camembert, a sharp cheddar or a stinky blue, ideally embellished with a smear of quince paste.  There’s something pleasantly austere about these very plain biscuits.  Something straight-forward, no-nonsense.  They’re not so much moreish, as satisfyingly substantial, like a bowl of porridge.  My grandmother was Scottish and though she never made these for me, they remind me of her in some small way.  And now Emily too, since she married the Scot and lived happily ever after on a loch, far, far away.  

Lemon polenta cakes

Though there’s nothing more satisfying than a slice of cake, it’s often excess to need to make a whole one to entertain just one friend, or two.  To counter the temptation to eat leftovers for breakfast, lunch and tea - not that there’s anything wrong with that - I (sometimes) scale down the size.  Lemon is a favourite flavour of mine in cooking, whether it’s the kick of the zest in pasta, the combination of the juice with olive oil in salad dressing or the simplicity of a wedge squeezed onto a slice of grilled haloumi.  And then there’s the magic that happens when you combine it with sugar.  Sweet and sharp is the order of the day.  Here, the yellow of the polenta goes nicely with the colour scheme, and cuts the smooth density of the almond meal with unexpected texture.  Similarly, the addition of the sugar syrup on top provides a satisfying crunch.  The other obvious advantage of making smaller cakes is the reduction in cooking time.  These can be whipped up without breaking a sweat in the hour before guests arrive. They’re as good warm as they are at room temperature or even refrigerated… just in case you do happen to have one left over to eat the next day.

Meatballs

Hands up who likes meatballs?  Hands up who never makes them because they’re too labour intensive or they’re still nursing the scars from frying off multiple batches in spattering hot oil?  Vegetarians stop looking smug.  Obviously, I'm not talking to you.  Maybe I’m just talking to me and you all love long prep times and third degree burns but I doubt it.  This game-changing recipe came to me via my friend Elizabeth (check out her wonderful blog The Back Yard Lemon Tree) who’d spied it on The Wednesday Chef.  Elizabeth (a vegetarian, incidentally) has a nine year old son, is routinely required to feed gangs of little boys after school on short notice and extolled the virtues of this super easy standby.  There’s no getting away from the fact you have to roll each meatball by hand, but here’s the revolutionary part – instead of frying each individually, they cook in one big batch in the sauce you serve them with.   

Bypassing the frying stage altogether means not just no more scars, but less fat too, and a whole lot less washing up.  What's more, cooking them this way allows the meat to take on more of the flavour of the garlicky tomato, which is no bad thing either.  If anyone still has their hands in the air, get them down.  You need to make these.  Now.

Chocolate puddle cookies

So I had some egg whites to use up.  The last few weeks I've been running down my supplies, eating my way through the contents of my freezer, the bulk of which is surplus stock of whatever meals I've made in the last week, or month or (more likely I suspect) months, plural.  In theory I should enjoy - not to mention find convenient - retrieving something delicious that's available to me instantaneously (or at least, in the time it takes to resurrect it in the microwave) but the truth is, I miss cooking.  Food somehow doesn't taste the same when it's prepared with a bing rather than a hiss or a chop or a bubble.  So imagine my excitement when I found, tucked away behind the catering company quantities of chicken soup (prepared for a monster cold that never eventuated) and solid blocks of Bolognese, a little ziplock bag labelled EGGWHITES X 2.  As it happened, just that week, in a bout of serious food blog procrastination to fill the cooking void, I'd come across a recipe for chocolate puddle cookies.  

The name alone was enough to make me look, the accompanying image further encouragement.  Having made them, I now know it was no false advertising.  These cookies are seriously good, their crisp, cracked exterior giving way to a moist, chewy centre.  Miraculously, they manage to have an intense chocolate flavour without the usual heaviness that accompanies such an indulgence because they're made without butter or flour.  Not that I'm averse to either but some people are, so it's good to have a recipe up my sleeve that satisfies their needs without compromising my own sense of identity (as an eater of all good things).    

My freezer is empty now, my little kitchen a hemisphere away.  I won't be cooking for a while but I've got lots of recipes stored up to share in the weeks ahead.  Hopefully it'll be as therapeutic as finding those eggwhites. 
 

Pear and ginger upside-down cake

We all have favourite places.  Places we return to again and again because they make us feel inspired, or comforted, or even just plain old happy.  Macrina Bakery in Seattle is one of these places for me.  Though there are three stores now, the original, down on 1st Ave is the one I head for like a homing pigeon whenever I find myself in town. I've clocked countless hours there having breakfast, coffee (well, never just coffee) or lunch with people I love, or by myself either staring out the window or writing postcards at their chrysanthemum adorned tables. 

A couple of years ago, Macrina published a cookbook, generously sharing their recipes, and making it possible for those of us who live far, far away and can't just pop in as much as they might like to, to have a little piece of our favourite place right here in our kitchen.

You can make this with whatever seasonal fruit is to hand - apples, nectarines, plums - but I particularly like the silkiness of the pear against the chewy crumb of the cake.  With its caramel crown and dark, brooding beauty, it looks far more high maintenance than it actually is.  It comes together quickly and is eaten just as fast.

Pumpkin chowder with rice and thyme

Sometimes, life is hard.  And for those times, there's soup.  It's kind of like the edible equivalent of a hug - warm, comforting, generous.  Here, outside my window in Sydney, the leaves flutter pale green and new on the trees.  Spring is definitely in the air but there are still just enough cool days left to wear jumpers, work indoors without resentment and... make soup.  Once you have a pot on the stove, bubbling away, you can relax, knowing that for all the other things that might be swirling around your head, at least you're fed.  And fed well.

There's something about pumpkin soup in particular, that defies difficulty.  I think partly just because of its relentlessly cheerful colour.  While I find a lot of blended vegetable soups bear an unfortunate resemblance to baby or else retirement home food, this one is neither bland or fusty.  The cinnamon imparts a lovely, warm flavour to the pureed pumpkin, the red onion a subtle sweetness, the chilli a nice kick, and the rice an unexpected texture, and a satisfying starchiness. 

For those who'll have a spare pumpkin or three lying around next week, this one's for you.

Sardinian ricotta cake

Like a lot of white middle-class people of my generation, I have a few too many university degrees. My first tertiary study was an Arts degree with a double major in French which I undertook perhaps partly to legitimise my avid reading of Paris Match (and its extensive coverage of ageing French pop stars and minor European royalty). The main things I got out of those three years were two friends called Joanna and this recipe, given to us by a boy in our class. I'm not sure where he got it from - it's way more sophisticated than any 18 year old has any right to be.  But he was French, so perhaps that explains it. The three of us quickly incorporated it into our baking repertoire and all these years later, it's still being made with regularity. For good reason. It's simple, elegant and utterly delicious. Somehow it manages to be both densely squidgy and light, its lemon flavour is subtle yet striking and it works equally well as a showstopping dessert or as an everyday cake, one which tastes especially fine with a cup of the inkiest black coffee. Voilà.