oaty crumble

This was exactly the crumble topping I had been craving: crisp, loose and light in texture. Crumbly! Warm with brown sugar and cinnamon that filled the kitchen with a heady sweetness, but essentially not much more than toasty, crunchy rolled oats. Oats with little nuggets of macadamia and sweet ribbons of shredded coconut. And no flour; barely a skerrick of almond meal.

This crumble is probably a close cousin to toasted muesli or granola — and I’m half tempted to bake it on a cookie tray next time, without the fruit underneath. Because I find myself having a warmed bowl of dessert, with a dollop of thick cream, then going back to the fridge and stealing another spoonful of the oaty mix, cold. Perfect.

Oaty crumble
Adapted from an Anneka Manning recipe for the GI news website. Use your favourite seasonal fruit for this dessert — I’m leaving that up to you; this recipe is about the crumble!

• Preheat your oven to 180 and prepare enough fruit to almost fill a lightly buttered 6-cup capacity baking dish.
• Combine ½ cup rolled oats, ½ cup shredded coconut, 1/3 cup of chopped macadamia nuts, ¼ cup light brown sugar, 2 tbsp almond meal, 1 tspn cinnamon and ½ tspn mixed spice.
• In a separate bowl or jug, combine ¼ cup sunflower or very light olive oil with a generous ½ tspn of vanilla.
• Dribble the oil mix evenly over the dry ingredients and combine using a fork.
• Layer this over your fruit. Bake for 35–40 minutes until fruit is cooked and crumble topping nicely crisped. Serve with your favourite dairy product.

the big burn off

 

Almost 18 months on, and one of the final reminders of the January 2013 bushfires is gone. Fittingy, it has been burnt.

The large pile of fire-damaged trees, shrubs and other vegetation from mum and dad’s garden and orchard stretched across the bottom of my parents’ block. And by large, I mean roughly 45 metres long, 5 high and wide (and 900 cubic metres, dad calculated; the equivalent of 90 big blue tip trucks). The pile was a shape-shifter: it grew longer over those 18 months as progressively more trees were cut down and bushes pulled out by dad, mum, professional tree cutters, me, and even the occasional volunteer group, then ferried down the back in dad’s truck or ride-on mower pulling a trailer; even wheelbarrows. But it also shrank, as branches settled, or large limbs weighted down lighter, leafier masses. But it was always impressive, and became a familiar part of mum and dad’s landscape.

Over time, the pile also accepted non-bushfire stuff: rose prunings, agapanthus that survived the fire but became dominant weeds in the barren aftermath; and even my unwanted bay and apple trees.

 

Finally the local firies came to take care of the pile — it was always going to be too large for dad to be responsible for; we didn’t want to take any risks. I told my parents I wanted to be there to witness this strange milestone; after all, I had helped them in the months immediately after the fire, clearing their garden. I had warned my manager that if the firies said ‘now!’, I’d be leaving work. You may not be able to understand that, and there is no logic in it beyond wishing to watch this, the end of one of life’s chapters.

 

So one crisp, clear and fairly still Saturday afternoon, it began. Three firies from the local volunteer brigade and a couple of trucks trundled down the driveway. There is something about fire trucks that brings out the kid in us all (or maybe just me). Look mum, a fire engine — in our driveway! Mum, dad and I, and a couple of neighbours — some hovering near the fenceline, others closer, brandishing a bag of celebratory marshmallows. The joke of course being that you’d need a 20 foot stick for toasting them, so big would the fire be.

 

What I remember: the intense heat in the cool autumn air, drying my skin. The hypnotic, sparkling orange flames licking the blue sky; the falling ash. The crackle, the roaring whoosh as the flames created their own energy. Mum saying solemnly, I don’t like that sound. The men adopting that wide-legged stance, appraising what was happening; sharing a laugh but also tending the flames with their metal rakes and eagle eyes. One of the firies murmuring approvingly of their controlled work, that’s a beautiful burn. Four little field mice running helter-skelter from the flames, and us all giving a cheer. Boomer Bay is experiencing something of mini-mice plague at the moment, so the only good rodent it would seem is a burnt one. These were the ones that got away.

 

The embers glowed in the dark, safely, for hours. We have bagged up some of the ash (unfortunately damp from rain and rather like quicksand) and it is sitting in small mounds in my vegie garden, ready to dig in, because I’d read potash is good for the soil.

 

And dad has begun the pile again, because trees and roses and shrubs continue to be pruned; no longer fire-ravaged, just the normal cycle of a garden’s life. But I don’t think we’ll be letting the pile get quite that big again before the next burn.

 

blog hop: why i write

Recently I’ve been flapping about, floundering as the winter dark closes in, wondering where my energy and passion and commitment lies. Where’s my creative outlet? My intellectual challenge? Somehow, flopping on the couch after work with the latest Vogue doesn’t quite count. Should I take up drawing, or knitting, or learning Spanish, or learning about — what? Or who?

While I was half-heartedly trying to pin something down, Bec at Think Big Live Wisely invited me to take part in a blog hop on writing, and everything I’d been tossing around crystallised into this:

Where was my commitment to my writing?

(In detail: Wow, I’ve been invited to write about my writing! Someone likes my writing — someone thinks of me as a writer! But — what am I actually writing? How can I write about my writing when I’m not writing? I need to commit to my writing.)

So I took Bec’s invitation as a big nudge to reinvigorate the one way I creatively express and intellectually challenge myself: not through paint or wool or spoken works, but thru pen and paper. I used the blog hop’s questions to return my focus to my writing, on why I write — and then, to start writing again, regularly.

So here goes. Perhaps you’ll find out a little more about me, and not think this too narcissistic.

What am I working on?

Right. Um. This is the question that hit the nail on the head for me. I think by now you get the idea I am not working on … enough. There is Dig In, but there should be more ‘behind the scenes’ writing, every day, that never even appears beneath my spoon-and-trowel header. Practice, as they say, makes perfect, and I’m not practising enough if I want to consider myself a writer.

How does my writing differ from others in its genre?

Perhaps a certain ‘signature’ is that I share my failures. I will never be offered a paid writing gig when I write so often about the cake that burnt, the crumble that didn’t cook, and the cupcakes that exploded. Or the capsicum the snails ate!

But I like doing that, because I think there’s a myth that if you write/blog about food, you must be good at it, all the time. 

I am not a subject expert; I’m a subject explorer. I’m waving the flag for anyone who has a dud day in the kitchen. I’m the honest one admitting it.

Why do I write what I do?

I started to write about sowing kale seeds, sweeping autumn leaves, or simmering pasta sauce to get away from my day job, which is writing and editing for a government department. That work is ‘translating’ — converting legalistic or bureaucratic stuff into plain English stuff that hopefully anyone can understand and follow. Some days I get enormous satisfaction deciphering complex information for people, hoping it may help them.

But as challenging as it is, I can’t play with alliteration or adjectives or patterns in structure or other colourful parts of the English language. I can’t play. So with Dig In, I take off my editor’s hat for a bit, maybe even break the rules, and see where the words take me.

The kind of food I like to cook and eat is ‘from scratch’, made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. And I’m not a fancy cook (I like to bake quite old-fashioned cakes) and as much as possible I want to celebrate wonderful homegrown fruit and vegies in my kitchen — and in my writing. I am lucky to have attracted readers and other bloggers who share my love of real food.

I also like exploring ideas related to this domestic sphere — doing the dishes was a fun one — just to test what I can write about that.

Oh, and I should also add, I write because I can't take photos. As regular Dig In visitors may have noticed, this is a word-focussed blog, not a photo-driven one.

How does my writing process work?

Before I pick up pen and paper, writing starts in my head. While I’m pouring a cake batter into a tin, or weeding the parsley from around the silverbeet, or just going for a walk, I’m working out an angle, composing sentences, playing with words, rearranging phrases. It’s talking to myself, I guess!  (Hey, I do live alone.) In her book ‘Writing down the bones’, Natalie Goldberg said this was an important part of the writing process. She calls it ‘composting’: turning events and words over and over before writing about them. I cannot write immediately about anything, be it a successful pudding or a failed bean crop. I need to compost it first.

But when I pick up my pen and paper, after a few false starts (where my internal editor is stronger than my writer), I can astound myself where the words will go. Even if I have mentally rehearsed it a dozen times over! Sometimes I know how to start a piece but that’s all; soon my hand flies across the page, possessed, faster than my thoughts, which tumble out, the words and phrases surprising me. Where did that come from? When writing is like that, it is magical. Even if I am just writing about toast.

I hope you don't think this was too self-indulgent! Because writing can be a selfish thrill — and writing about one’s writing, even more so. But putting my words out into the blogosphere - it' s taking the internal and making it public, and I’m always touched and happily amazed when someone tells me they’ve enjoyed a post I’ve written (the sense of community from blogging was something I never expected, but I enjoy immensely). So thank you.

Part of this blog hop was to tap other writers on the shoulder to participate. If Bec hadn’t invited me, she would gave been on my list, as she has written some thought-provoking stuff, so please do go to her blog. And someone else beat me to Carla, who at My Yellow Heart has written about her experiences being transplanted from one extreme part of the country to another.

 

Let me introduce you to:

Sarah at The Garden Deli: Sarah writes thoughtfully about the vegies and flowers in her garden and kitchen. I always come away with something to think about or to try out. And as she is on the other side of the world to me (UK), we often compare the contrast between our seasons!

Rachel at The Food Sage: Rachel is a proper-really-truly food writer — it’s what she does as a living! I’m always interested in the topics Rachel explores in her clear writing style, be it a book review or an insight into the food industry.

Jo at All the BlueDay: Jo is a fellow Tasmanian (actually, I’m a ring-in) writing truthfully and humourously about her family life. I love Jo’s voice; it’s so vivid and sharp. She often makes me laugh — and wish I’d written that.

country style apple cakes

Let’s talk apples, because it is apple season. Or more precisely, let’s bake with apples and then eat the tender, sweet goodness. Because I would much rather eat an apple cake than eat a fresh apple.

I have a small stash of granny smiths in my laundry cupboard at the moment, from dad’s trees. You may think that is a strange place to store apples, until I tell you that it is the coolest part of the house right now; now that it is winter in Hobart and on some days the temperature doesn’t even reach double figures, so the heating is on to stay. Besides, it is nice opening the cupboard door for the peg basket or a new roll of toilet paper and seeing the bright green orbs of appleness, and inhaling their tangy sharpness.

I haven’t yet made a pie, or its rustic, more forgiving cousin, a free-form galette. But I have made an apple bread and butter pudding. Would you ever think to tuck tart slices of granny smith apples into your B&B pudding? I hadn’t either until I tried it at mum’s. I came home and made it myself, with fragrant, sultana-studded slices of panettone (squirreled away into the freezer at Christmas time) and a smear or two of apricot jam. The contrast between rich, squidgy custard and the apple, still a little firm to the bite, and still a little tart, was morish. Good thing I had made a generous dish–full. And while I’ve certainly been creative with B&B puddings in the past, adding lots of jam or liqueur or roasted fruit, I’d never thought to use fresh apples. It’s good to learn a new trick.

But it’s also good to make an old favourite, and this country-style apple cake appears at least once every apple season. I usually make one single round cake, which can be fairly impressive to behold, but this time I wanted to share some with my friend C, so cupcakes it was (plus, wasn’t one of my culinary resolutions this year to use up my stash of cupcake papers?)

Apart from the apple slices on top, the cake itself is fairly plain, just a smidgeon of spice to round out the flavour; barely there. I especially like these when they are warm, with a little curve of vanilla ice cream adorning the partially-submerged apple slices; or perhaps a pillowy spoonful of thick cream. Gosh, why would I want to eat an apple au naturale when it is so enticing in a cake?

Country-style apple cake

Adapted from an undated ‘Successful Baking’ recipe card. The recipe specified a 20 cm round tin; for that option, halve the apple slices instead of quartering them, and bake for about an hour.

• Preheat your oven to 180 and prep some muffin tins; I made 16.
• Quarter and core a couple of granny smith apples (leave the skin on).
• Cream 185 gms soft butter with ½ cup white sugar and ¼ cup light brown sugar for a few minutes.
• Beat in 1 tspn vanilla, then 2 large eggs.
• Sift and fold in a heaped ½ tspn mixed spice with 2 cups of SR flour (my recipe scribbles indicate I’ve also made this with 1 ¾ cups white SR and ¼ cup wholemeal SR flour).
• Stir thru 150 mls milk. While this a fairly firm batter, add a dribble more milk if the batter is too stiff to manoeuvre.
• Transfer the batter to your muffin or cake tins. Arrange the apple slices so they are standing up, and press in gently.
• Bake for about 25 minutes for cupcakes or until done.