Rhubarb Crumble

With the rhubarb plants going crazy at the moment, I thought it was time to find some motivation and make a crumble. I've loved crumble since I was a little girl, and was often in charge of rubbing butter into flour with my fingertips. As an adult I've played around with the recipe to make it just how I like it.

This afternoon I picked three massive rhubarb stalks. We have two plants that only produce green stalks and one that produces smaller, red ones. They all taste like rhubarb. Here is the crumble that we had for dessert tonight.

3 large stalks rhubarb
approx. 1 cup frozen raspberries
1 tbsp raw sugar
45g chopped butter
1/3 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
1/4 cup soft brown sugar
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup almonds
1/3 cup rolled oats

1. Chop rhubarb into 1-2cm chunks and place in a medium saucepan. Sprinkle with raw sugar and stir over medium heat until sugar starts to dissolve. Reduce heat, cover, and stew until rhubarb is soft.
2. Add raspberries and keep over heat until heated through. Remove from heat but keep covered.
3. In the meantime combine butter, brown sugar, flour, coconut, cinnamon and almonds in a food processor. Whiz until combined and almonds are chopped. Stir through rolled oats. (You can rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, chop the almonds with a knife and stir through the other ingredients if you don't have a food processor.)
4. Preheat oven to 180C. Place rhubarb mixture into an ovenproof bowl and sprinkle crumble over the top. Bake for 30 mins or until lightly browned and crunchy.

 

 

 

Any combination of rhubarb, apple and berries work well. Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly lazy I use a large tin of pie apples, but when you have rhubarb in abundance, rhubarb it is. I served the crumble with custard tonight, but it's really good piping hot with a good quality vanilla ice-cream.

In My Kitchen - January 2013

Happy New Year! The first In My Kitchen post for 2013 is a little bit exciting. My family and friends were incredibly kind this festive season and I am proud to showcase a few new trinkets, as well as a few indulgent summer treats.

In my kitchen is a Map Bella pod coffee machine and an accompanying milk frother. This was courtesy of my mum for Christmas. We debated earlier in the year whether easily accessible, good tasting coffee in my kitchen was a good idea and remained largely undecided. When my mum generously offered to buy us (and my brother and sister) one of these babies for Christmas, my sleep deprivation answered for me. So far I have maintained self control and limit myself to one coffee per day. This morning I even gave an iced coffee a go, and think I have found my new best friend. The unit itself is small and quiet and has nestled into my kitchen quite comfortably. You can see by the lack of sheen on the milk frother that it is getting used, or maybe that's just a reflection of my cleanliness.

The girls saw the coffee machine and immediately thought of babycinos, so in my kitchen is a packet of marshmallows ready to go. Pascall is the only brand of marshmallow that I allow through the door.

 

In my kitchen is a copy of Superfoods, courtesy of a Secret Santa that we did with Hubby's family. This book provides all the justification I need that consumption of 70%+ cocoa chocolate will improve my life. It's ideals of acceptable quantities differ a little to my own, but let's not focus on the fine print. The book also provides some lovely recipe suggestions for each of the Superfoods. Thanks Secret Santa!

 

 

A not so secret Christmas hamper from my sister-in-law included some cool kitchen trinkets. She is a shameless Ikea junkie, so most of them were courtesy of the Scandinavian mega-store. The most interesting was this cheese grater, complete with "catch bowl".

 

 

 

Another favourite from the hamper was this silicone ice-cube tray, which will inevitably get used for making chocolates in my kitchen.

 

 

In my kitchen is a copy of Vegetables: grow them, cook them, eat them, which I bought from the Book Depository a few months ago when getting some Christmas presents for the kids, and completely forgot about. It was a kind of Christmas present to myself when I found it. The book provides useful information about how and when to grow different vegetables as well as what to do with them.

 

 

In my kitchen (well not anymore as I polished off the packet yesterday) is this shameless indulgence. I used to be a massive fan of licorice bullets. Home brand was fine, wrap some dodgy chocolate around a piece of hard/chewy licorice and I was happy. That was before I discovered Macro Organic Milk Chocolate Coated Licorice. This is the stuff dreams are made of. The chocolate is divine, the licorice is soft, and the pieces are large balls, not dissimilar in shape to a chocolate-coated almonds. I vow never to buy the cheaper counterpart again, but I must also promise myself I will only rarely purchase the Macro variety as I will eat all 180g in one sitting, stopping only to vomit.

 



 

In my kitchen is a jar of Beerenberg Tomato Chutney. Hubby has had time off work over Christmas and New Year, and so we have had lots of sandwiches/wraps as easy lunches and dinners that don't require leftovers to take to work. What they do require though, is a good chutney. Beerenberg (apart from being awesome because is has the word "beer" in the title) make some pretty tasty chutneys. Our favourite is probably the Taka Tala, but our supermarket was out and this is a good substitute.

 

In my kitchen is a new lunch box and drink bottle. This is bitter sweet for me, as they are Chicky's. At 4.5, she will start WA kindergarten in a few weeks. While she is more than ready, and super excited about starting school (she picked the lunchbox and drink bottle when we went shopping this week), there will be two and a half days a week that my baby won't be with me. For a full time mum, that's hard to take. If I'm not in labour on her first day of school (which is entirely possible), there will be tears, and they won't be Chicky's.

 



 

Finally in my kitchen this month, is light! We have 4 down lights in our kitchen, but we haven't had all 4 working at the same time for as long as I can remember. For the longest time I got by with just one above the main kitchen bench, but then the week before Christmas that one gave up too. Last week hubby replaced all 4. I'm finding all that light a little overwhelming, and it makes my often filthy kitchen floor so much more obvious. It does make food preparation safer though!

 

That's what's happening in my kitchen as we begin 2013, and in the month that our 3rd child will be born (unless she decides to be fashionably late). To see how some other people are beginning 2013, visit Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

Green bean salad

It's an exciting time of year. The veges are flourishing, the garden is luscious and the weather is finally behaving like Perth in Summer.

While basking in the glory the other afternoon, I didn't realise Chicky and Poppet were harvesting. Before I could turn around they had hands full of dwarf beans and peas and Chicky was asking how we could use them for dinner. I have to admit I hadn't any plans for dinner, so they had me thinking on my toes. We had eggs in abundance, freshly picked greens and a couple of capsicums I rescued from the birds a couple of days prior. The verdict: poached eggs and green bean salad.

To make the salad I blanched the beans for a couple of minutes then transferred them to iced water. I chopped a handful of fresh basil (also from the garden), mixed it with the peas, beans, chopped capsicum, a finely chopped spring onion I found in the fridge and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, then drizzled the lot with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The result: a cold, crispy, very fresh green bean salad. While I can't take any claim over the parmesan or olive oil, this was a surprisingly self-sufficient meal. Having the extra vege plot in the front yard is really reducing our dependence on supermarkets. This is only one meal, and we are a long way from "self-sufficient", but it is encouraging to say the least. Here's to a summer of cool, fresh food!

In My Kitchen - December 2012

Oh my, I cannot believe we are in December already, with only 2.5 weeks until Christmas! I thought I'd better get into the spirit of the pending festivities and fill my kitchen with a few Christmassy things.

I'm a bit of a sucker for Better Homes and Gardens, and while I rarely buy their magazine, I did splurge on the Christmas edition. In it I found some gorgeous gingerbread Christmas trees made out of star cookie cutters. The originals specified 7 or 8 cutters per tree, but I found these cute concentric star and Christmas tree cutter sets at my local Matchbox store and thought they'd be perfect.

I tested the stars out last weekend and created a few gingerbread trees. I had some pink egg-white icing in the freezer from an excessive batch a few weeks ago. I know green would be more appropriate but it was a trial run, and a successful one at that. I think these will feature as edible centre-pieces at Christmas lunch.

I also found some festive mini cupcake liners which I plan to use for mini mince pies...

...and some cute "candy" (or chocolate) moulds.

I also tested these out, using the lemon-flavoured Callebaut callets from the sample pack I bought a little while ago. Strangely the lemon-flavoured callets are green, but that works well for Christmas! The tree chocolates are milk (34%) base and lemon-flavoured trees. The father Christmas shapes are made from a 70% cocoa base, with father Christmas' hat made of left over lemon. Hubby put my first set of moulds in the dishwasher and melted them. Luckily for him they were less than $5 so I bought another set to make more for the big day.

 

There are also a few non-Christmassy things in my kitchen at the moment. The lovely Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial sent me some mahlep spice so I could test out Barbara's Kaak Cookies. I made a third of a batch of these tonight (sorry, I didn't take a photo), as the original recipe specifies 1kg of flour and that would just mean way too many biscuits. The result is a bit like a shortbread but with a lovely spicy hint. I just adore the smell of the mahlep and get a pleasant surprise every time I open my pantry at the moment

 

Celia also included in my surprise parcel, this beautiful mould. I pressed the Kaak cookies into it before baking, but unfortunately most of the design is lost in the oven. If anyone has any ideas what else I could try this mould out on, I'd love to hear them.

My rhubarb plants are earning their keep at the moment, and while the fruit (is it fruit?) is plentiful, rhubarb crumble is making its way onto our dessert menu. I'll post the recipe one day soon.

 

My mum has an over-excited lemon tree (as opposed to my lemon tree that has taken 8 years to produce 4 lemons). Last week she gave me a few and so last Sunday I made a lemon meringue pie. I'll post the recipe to this one too, one day soon. I have to admit I am lazy and never make my own pastry, but those frozen flan cases are cheap and taste so good! Plus, a lemon meringue pie is never about the pastry, so why stress over something I'm not good at? I should also admit that there isn't actually any of this left in my kitchen anymore. While the girls weren't particularly taken by it, hubby and I managed to polish it off over a few days.

That's what's going on in my kitchen at the moment. If you'd like to see what's happening in a few other kitchens around the globe, particularly as silly-season approaches, head over to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for some links. Happy Christmas baking!

In the Garden - November 2012

I've been holding out until the end of the month to do a garden update because I thought I'd already done one for November. Clearly I haven't so my waiting has been in vain. Talk about baby brain! The weeks, months, years really are flying by. I was quite excited by my dimness however, as my garden is a little bit exciting at the moment.

We FINALLY got some soil for the new front vege patch. We knew this was going to cost a bit to fill, hence the delay, but I'm so glad it's full now as I have renewed enthusiasm for the vege patch.

The six watermelon seedlings I grew in pots from seed were big enough to transplant into the ground.

The front bed is also home to some new cucumber and zucchini seedlings which I also grew in pots to inhibit their consumption by slaters. This picture gives a good view of part of the front plot, which bends around to the left in a kind of "L" shape. Our whipper snipper is in pieces in the shed at the moment, so the buffalo is getting particularly friendly with the railway sleeper border.

The front is also home to some corn (which I've never had the room to grow before) ...

... dwarf beans (also grown last month in pots then recently transplanted) ...

... and some peas.

Remember the tree that we lost in a storm while we were away? Well the stump, which we never got around to pulling out, is now a bush!

Things are going great guns out the back too. With summer approaching, the basil is finally getting a bit more sun and looking quite healthy.

 

The small capsicum plants, of which there are six, are all bearing little capsicums. I'm a bit worried that the plants themselves are too small to hold the fruit, but time will tell. 

 

 

 Some oregano seeds that I planted several months ago, and had given up for lost, have sprouted! The last oregano plant I grew in this pot in the same place in the garden, lasted about 3 years, so I'm quietly confident.

 

The biggest of the rhubarb plants has stalks large enough to harvest. I think a crumble might be on the menu one night this week.

The grapes are getting bigger. We're all looking forward to this season's fruit. I had Chicky in tears in the supermarket the other day because I refused to pay $25.99/kg for grapes. I assured her that in a few more weeks we would have more grapes than we know what to do with.

The flat leaf parsley is just as unkempt as ever, and seems to be multiplying. I use more parsley in cooking now than I ever have, because I can.

 

The potato tubers that I planted last month have all sprouted and are getting quite leafy. I never did get around to adding more soil so I hope they are not too restricted by space. These are in an unprotected part of the garden, so my current task is keeping the chickens away.

The tomato seedlings are growing. A few more self-sewn plants have popped up in between from last year's crop so I am sure the tomato garden will be just as crazy this year as it was last. I'm looking forward to lots of salads and a freezer stocked with pasta sauce.

 

I'm pretty happy with my garden at the moment. The back is filled with weeds, and the grass is overgrown but the useful stuff is doing well. I'm sure we'll have a bumper summer crop if the sun isn't too harsh. What's happening in your garden this month?

In the Garden - October 2012

Last month I planted some seeds and seedlings, ready for a summer crop. Regardless of the beer traps, the slaters dessimated most of the seedlings as they emerged. They seemed to be helping themselves to the beer, but not before feasting on the zucchini, cucumber and pea seedlings. Determined not to let this happen again, I did away with the beer traps (which smell really bad if you don't empty them regularly) and planted some new seeds in pots. The physical barrier seems to have done the trick, and seedlings mk II are now hopefully big enough to hold their own and be transplanted into the vege patch.

I didn't have anymore zucchini or cucumber seeds, but I did have a lot of other options so planted dwarf beans....

 

...peas and watermelon in the background.

Something I thought the slaters would leave alone due to their lack of real leaves, are perennial carrots.

I thought I'd try my luck with spinach straight into the ground, because the thought of transplanting spinach plants wasn't particularly appealing. Similarly, I'm lazy and never thin my carrots, but it makes for some interesting shapes and sizes.

I think there may be one saving grace for the spinach. At the end of each row, a rhubarb plant has re-emerged. When we returned from our Gypsy Getaway, my rhubarb plants (of which I had 3 established) had vanished without a trace. I was a bit disappointed as they were doing well, but they have come back! The slaters love the leaves but don't affect the stalks so this may just be my new slater solution.

The chickens did a great job preparing the tomato garden plot, and this week I transplanted the cherry tomato seedlings I grew in pots from seeds (or rather I dug holes and Chicky did the planting). We planted 7 plants, which will inevitably be too many, but I will attempt to tame them with tomato mesh so we can keep some sort of control on the area.

Here are the girls, looking puzzled about why they're no longer allowed to forage in the tomato plot. Or maybe it has something to do with their tiny brains. :)

Veges aren't the only things blooming in the garden at the moment. The grape vines have gone from dormant to prolific in a matter of weeks. The 5 vines we currently have are in their second fruiting year and teeny tiny grapes can be seen everywhere. I can't wait!

The mandarin tree has some very small fruit emerging. Fingers crossed the birds save us some.

The orange tree, although struggling with some kind of leaf curl, is also managing to fruit this year. Citrus need a lot of TLC in our sandy soils, and really benefit from regular fertilising. This is hubby's job. My slap-dash approach to the garden doesn't involve such luxuries for the fruit trees.

The passionfruit vines seem to take it in turns fruiting, and I was a little surprised to see one of them flowering given we had a winter crop. Providing we get enough bees, I think these will be the purple-skinned fruit. I love the flowers, they are just a little bit Little Shop of Horrors-esque.

Finally, here is what I hope will be a potato patch. I had a few sprouting spuds in the larder so scattered the tubers and covered them with soil. I'll add some more soil when the sprouts emerge and try to get a mound happening, to maximise yield.

For now this is all that's happening in my garden, but with spring in full swing things are moving swiftly.  It's great, and I don't need to play much of a role. Now I sit back and watch things flourish. I'd love to hear what's happening in your garden this spring (or otherwise, wherever you are).