Month: January 2008

One of those posts

where the glass feels very half full so Joke, best you look away.

So we’re never going to own our own home.
Jasper is on his fourth one hundreth major meltdown of the day.
I’m really hot.
And tired.
The floor needs vacuuming.
I can’t clean up from dinner until someone else anyone I empty the dishwasher.

So go visit my friend Killer.
She’s going on the best big adventure I can possible imagine.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Here’s two recipes for you – one is Bill Granger’s

Timing

So four nights ago Jasper woke at about 10pm full of a cold.
Two nights later it brought Grover down.
Then yesterday Felix was all croaky.
And this morning Oscar is coughing.

Just in time for the start of the school year on Wednesday.

Nice.
*****
A very good friend of ours – an expat American – quit his job last week after his boss, seemingly intent on his removal for some time, finally made his position untenable in the form of a new contract that saw substantial pay cuts as well as all of the expat-American-in-Australia-kickbacks.
We saw them last night and it was a remarkable transformation – the old B was back – fun, witty, confident, comfortable, relaxed and most importantly that grim holding of the jaw and shoulders was gone.
But it’s not without immense stress and a very real sense of free-falling.
For they are not Australian residents, so he needs to find another job and find it fast and get them to sponsor him.
Otherwise they have to get rid of their car lease by the end of this week
Give notice to the real estate agent (as they rent their house)
and leave the country within 28 days.

I struggle to even fathom how I’d handle being faced with such a scenario.
I’m struggling to imagine how I’m going to be without them in the country.

I’m working on his CV today.
*****
I’ve been having one of my regular pity parties about how we’re never going to own our own home when a friend called to tell us they’d bought a weekender – two suburbs from us. They live half an hour away from us.
I am absolutely thrilled for them – and it has the added bonus of providing another person for me to lob in on over the weekends or school holidays when this house starts to feel – ah – crowded.
But as Chef said, “we don’t even own one house in Sydney…”
Indeed.
*****
When I was in my mid-20s and having a pretty significant identity crisis, Chef and I made the decision to start our family early.
One of the things we knew about each other very early on was that our life together was all about the creation of a family not the accumulation of wealth.
But I still smart a little as those around me stride forward in leaps and bounds financially while we flounder around like a fish dying slowly in the sun. On the pier.
For I am one of those people who always says we make our own story. That we all make our own future and choices.
I’m just in one of those zones where I can’t help feeling perhaps we have made the wrong ones.
*****

Jammy Shortbread biscuits

So the first time I made these, which granted has been the only time but I’m so making them again because oh my they are good, the recipe is all wrong. Well, by ‘all wrong’ I mean not enough. But then maybe it was just me, however it’s the second recipe I’ve made from Apples for Jam and I’ve found both recipes need a bit of tweaking in terms of process or quantity rather than the outcome, which has always been delicious.

Anyway, I saw this prior to Christmas and it stayed in the forefront of my cooking (and eating) desires right through that festive season.

As you can see from the picture below, there was simply not enough shortbread dough to cover the entire tray – so in the recipe below I’ve doubled the original as this should do it.

In the original recipe Tessa Kiros says any jam can be used but a fig jam is particularly special. I happened to have a jar of Fig and Ginger Jam in the fridge (a gift to mum that she regifted to me) and indeed, it was special. But somehow I think it needs a red jam, just to look pretty against the buttery shortbread goodness that encases it.

Jam Shortbread
Adapted from Apples for Jam

  • 200g butter, softened
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 400g plain flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • a few drops vanilla
  • about 200g of your favourite jam
  1. Preheat the oven to 170C and line a 30x40cm baking tray so there is a decent overhang (you’ll need this once it’s cooked to lift it out)
  2. Cream the butter and sugar by hand
  3. Add the flour and baking powder
  4. Add the eggs and vanilla and knead them until it is all compact and smooth
  5. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour or until the dough is firm enough to roll out
  6. Divide the dough in half and roll each half to about 2-3mm thickness on a lightly floured surface (I do this between two sheets of greaseproof paper because I can never get any form of pastry or dough off the surface in one neat piece otherwise. I then simply lift the piece up on the paper and invert it over the dish or tray it’s going into.)
  7. Spread over the jam then roll out the other half of the dough and place over the top
  8. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the shortbread is turning golden
  9. Remove from the oven and let rest for five minutes, then lift out using the baking paper as a lever
  10. Cut into shapes with a cookie cutter or simple squares or diamonds, or indeed, just cut chunks off as you walk by.

It makes about 12-15 pieces and it will (apparently) keep for five to six days

Choc Chip Smartie Biccies

So for the better part of the last 20 years I’ve been faithful to the Womens’ Weekly recipe for choc chip biscuits and they have done me proud. But an American friend of mine made some that just seemed better and she gave me the recipe. From what I can tell it is essentially the same recipe but in bigger quantities.

I made them and dotted a few Smarties on the top. And people, I might as well have invented choc chip biccies.

Sensational.

Choc Chip Biccies

  • 1 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 large eggs
  • 21/2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 cups choc chips
  • Smarties to decorate
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line baking trays with greaseproof paper
  2. Cream the butter and sugar
  3. Add the vanilla and the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition
  4. Add flour and baking powder
  5. Stir through choc chips
  6. Take heaped teaspoons of dough and place on baking trays, leaving a little distance between them as they’ll spread
  7. Press four Smarties into the dough
  8. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned then cool for a few minutes on the tray before moving to a wire rack.


This makes a LOT of biscuits. The friend the recipe came from used to roll the dough into two logs and freeze one for a later date. She’d also then refrigerate the other one before cutting rounds and baking. But when you feel like biccies, who has time for refrigeration.