I adored my nana’s Christmas cake and pudding. A few days before Christmas her cake sat upon our sideboard wrapped in a fancy red tinsel cuff, my brother and I just busting to eat a piece. Her pudding was not on display but we knew it was coming … With custard and thick cream after our Christmas lunch, it was almost an otherworld experience. I remember my brother and I had three helpings once – and nana’s pudding didn’t even have money in it! Continue reading Christmas pudding
Parsnip and orange pudding
One of my most cherished cookbooks is a small beige hardback called German Cooking. I love its browned pages with marks and fingerprints, the lack of photos, and the not very inventive recipe titles that hail from an era of plain speaking. I even love the not very helpful index, which means that to find anything you have to go through recipe by recipe, scanning the ingredients like hunting for treasure. Continue reading Parsnip and orange pudding
Stuffed flatbreads
Sometimes life goes so fast you completely forget to take photographs. Or you feel too giddy with the experience to stop to write anything down.
Pulling the back off our house two years ago and embarking on our renovation was like this. My husband worked his butt off through winter rebuilding as fast as he could, while our then-1-year-old daughter and I got on as best we could in our draughty half-house with its bathroom in a tin shed in the backyard. Continue reading Stuffed flatbreads
Tomato sambal
The last month of autumn might seem the wrong month for thinking about tomatoes. Happy days of tomato and chive sandwiches with different coloured cherry tomatoes from our garden are well and truly finished, and there are no more meals accompanied by our favourite zucchini, tomato and basil stew. Continue reading Tomato sambal
Chocolate walnut biscuits
It’s been an interesting week this week. Is it that I’ve had less appointments and urgent things to do, or are things getting slightly easier at home? Some telling things have happened. While my husband was at work and the kids and I were hanging out, I had a day where I managed to fit in craft plus baking with my three year old daughter. The two of us finished decorating some origami tigers, then made a batch of chocolate walnut biscuits. She was delighted. It might not sound like much, but since having a son 9 months ago, craft and baking (and blog writing, and other things …) have been on my list of things that are just about impossible to get around to, for the moment. Continue reading Chocolate walnut biscuits
Growing garlic
When we harvested our patch of garlic at the end of November, memories came rushing back. In early June in the same patch of earth, we dug up what felt like a million jerusalem artichokes. Our eyes bulged as tuber after tuber stacked up in a pile, the progeny of just two plants. I was deliriously happy, not just because of such a surprising gardening success, but to share some lovely moments in the garden, in the sun, with my husband and daughter. I was close to nine months pregnant and I knew everything would change soon. Continue reading Growing garlic
Sticky pork ribs
Ten weeks ago I had my second baby. The days are flashing by so fast; the only thing that seems to differentiate one week from the next is that we notice our boy has grown a little bit bigger. During the late-night feeds I can’t tuck his feet into my cardigan any more – he’s too long. And his squinty newborn eyes have become round, clear and full of adoration for his big sister, dad and mum. He gives us gorgeous open-mouthed grins, and I love holding his face next to mine, all soft cheeks and milky breath. Continue reading Sticky pork ribs
Eggplant, tomato and basil pasta
The veggie garden is looking decidedly bare and wintery now that I’ve finally pulled out the tomato bushes and collected the very last ripening tomatoes. It’s the end of a process of watching the garden build up and up in a frenzy over summer – the plants growing taller as the weather gets hotter – then watching things come down again piece by piece as the sun slips back in the sky and it starts getting chilly. Continue reading Eggplant, tomato and basil pasta
Sweet potato, green bean and smoked paprika salad
In April 2012 the Hungry Girls were invited to do a guest blog for American website Design Sponge, and we settled on this favourite salad. It’s a jumble of soft-roasted chunks of sweet potato and regular potato, caramelised onion, crunchy green beans and juicy tomatoes – plus lashings of parsley and just enough Spanish smoked paprika for an element of spice. Continue reading Sweet potato, green bean and smoked paprika salad
Baby plum friands
There’s a plum tree in our backyard, down on the fence next to the chicken coop. It’s a scraggly thing – nondescript with lots of thin branches and small leaves sticking up chaotically into the air. We were going to cut it down before we realised it was a fruit tree, and eventually decided that with its position right on the fence, the tree wasn’t taking up much space or doing any harm. It’s one of our only established fruit trees so we had to love it a little. Continue reading Baby plum friands