Month: December 2015

Corn fritters

What’s your favourite brekkie if you go out? For me it’s corn fritters, ideally with avocado, maybe sour cream and a chilli jam or roasted tomato to round it out. I also prefer the fritter to be more corn than batter and some diced capsicum is a welcome addition, as you can see from the recipe below. You can easily use tinned corn but I prefer fresh because it has that satisfying crunch.

Enjoy.

My #everyfuckingnight - corn fritters with avocado, sour cream and today's chilli jam.
My #everyfuckingnight – corn fritters with avocado, sour cream and today’s chilli jam.

Corn fritters
 
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Ingredients
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ tsp smoked paprika
  • 4 cups fresh corn kernels (I used 6 smallish cobs for this)
  • ½ cup red capsicum, diced (about ½ a large capsicum)
  • ½ cup sliced spring onions (about 4-5)
  • ½ bunch coriander, chopped
Instructions
  1. Mix the eggs with the milk
  2. While whisking scatter in the flour in a steady stream - this stops it getting lumpy
  3. Then gently fold in the baking powder, salt and paprika
  4. Add the corn, capsicum and coriander
  5. Heat a frypan over medium heat and add a little oil
  6. Dollop in heaped tablespoons of the batter and cook for a couple of minutes on either side
  7. Serve with guacamole, sour cream, roasted tomatoes, bacon, chilli jam... you get the idea.

 

It looks like a bucket of sick but it's really tasty (corn fritter batter)
It looks like a bucket of sick but it’s really tasty (corn fritter batter)

Onward!

New favourite

Saw it today.

GO.AND.SEE.IT.

 

Chestnut, bacon and sage stuffing

This is basically the best stuffing you will ever make.

No question.

Seriously.

Chestnut, bacon and sage stuffing rolls
Chestnut, bacon and sage stuffing rolls

It just doesn’t get any better.

Chestnut, bacon and sage stuffing
 
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A richly decadent stuffing for any fancy occasion but let's just say Christmas to fill this space.
Author:
Ingredients
  • 50g butter
  • 1 large brown onion, finely chopped (the original says 2 small, which is just silly)
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 100 g rindless bacon, finely chopped
  • ⅓ cup dry sherry
  • ½ cup pitted dates, chopped
  • 1 x 240g can cooked chestnuts, chopped
  • ¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted and chopped
  • 3 cups fresh breadcrumbs
  • ¼ cup sage leaves, finely chopped (so much finely chopping!)
  • ¼ cup parsley leaves, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1tsp sea salt flakes
  • 1 tsp cracked pepper
  • 24 thin slices streaky bacon
  • 1tbsp sherry
  • 2tbsp honey
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 180C
  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan and then saute the onion, garlic and bacon for around 5 minutes or until soft
  3. Add the sherry and dates and cook for a further minute or so
  4. In a big bowl toss everything - EXCEPT the bacon, extra sherry and honey - together
  5. On a bench, pull out a long piece of foil - enough to lay the HALF the streaky bacon, slightly overlapping, on
  6. Then do the same with a piece of baking paper and lay that on top of the foil
  7. Place 12 slices of bacon on the baking paper, slightly overlapping each other
  8. You still with me?
  9. Place half the stuffing at one end of the bacon and then, using the baking paper/foil to help you, roll up into a log
  10. Tip for new players, don't roll the paper foil inside the log as you go, use it as you would a sushi mat rolling up... sushi
  11. Then wrap the foil/baking paper around the log and place on a baking tray
  12. Do the second one
  13. Bake for 20 minutes
  14. Take out of the oven and carefully remove the wrapping
  15. Keep on the tray
  16. Brush over the sherry and honey, which you have mixed together
  17. Bake for a further 20 minutes or until the bacon is nice and crisp
  18. * you can prepare this two days ahead and keep in the fridge until ready to cook on Christmas day
  19. * you can add it to the oven at the final 40 mins of cooking time of your ham/pork/chicken/turkey

 

School of Awesome update

Facebook just threw-up a memory at me of Oscar from five years ago on the last day of his first year of high school at the School of Awesome and it made me catch my breath.

Oscar, end of Year 7
Oscar, end of Year 7

For much of this year – his penultimate year at the school – I have been boldly telling all that I thought I would be feeling far more fraught at the impending conclusion of his time at The Greatest School In The World, but instead felt the school had done such an incredible job at getting these kids ready for life outside school we’d be ready to say goodbye.

Yeah, I’m not ready.

I know I’ve got – we’ve got – another whole year to go, but I’m not ready.

At presentation day on Friday they announced the new school and vice captains and prefects. Kids in Oscar’s year. Oscar’s Year 12 year. They’re almost there and I’m not ready.

Oscar, prefect for 2016
Oscar, prefect for 2016

It was when Oscar’s classmates bounded up on stage with smiles spanning an ocean and all the students cheering so loudly that it all caught in my throat. On the one hand my heart was going to burst through my chest at this moment – these beautiful beautiful fine young adults having such a moment – just.like.any.other.student. – but on the other… Oh my GOD, we’re “those” families now. The ones at the end. The ones who have done the journey and I’m NOT READY TO BE DONE WITH THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY.

I went through my diary for next year, adding in dates from his school, including the Year 12 formal. I’m not ready.

These kids have been together for six years and going off that Facebook photo, the entirety of puberty.

They have been nurtured, challenged, stimulated and their world has been exponentially expanded. There have been annual camps, amazing excursions to plays, performances and exhibitions. They’ve been taught how to swim, how to cook, how to make things, how to read, how to write, and even how to talk and communicate.

Oscar has achieved more than I ever ever could of imagined and I’M NOT READY.

Everything feels so precarious and then I have to remind myself, it always works out. Oscar is a golden orb in this world who is a magnet to good people.

At presentation day last week the School of Awesome’s principal said: disability should never define who you are and friendships must be based on respect.

You know, everyone in Oscar’s world fits that bill.

It will all work out.

*whispers* I’m not ready.

ONWARD!

New favourite

It’s out the same day as Star Wars. If I didn’t have four boys I know what I’d be seeing first.

Out the same day as Star Wars. If I didn’t have four boys I know which one I’d be seeing first.