Ingredients

500g macaroni
60g butter
60g flour
1 cup cheese (we used a mix of grated cheddar and granulated Parmesan)
2-3 cups of milk
3 teaspoons vegetable stock powder
1 tablespoon mustard
1 teaspoon dried chives
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon mild curry powder

Method

1. Fill saucepan with water, adding a pinch or two of salt. Bring water to the boil, then add your macaroni. Cook for as long as is recommended on the packet.
2. While the pasta is cooking, prepare your sauce (though remember to stir your pasta from time to time to prevent it from sticking and burning to the bottom of the pan, and also just to check its progress in cooking).
3. In another saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and cook, stirring for a few minutes.
4. Add the cold milk, bit by bit, stirring well with each addition to avoid lumps.
5. Add the paprika, pepper, stock power, chives, and curry powder, and cook until the sauce thickens.
6. Add the cheese and mustard, and stir until cheese has melted, and to avoid burning on the bottom of pan.
7. When your pasta is aldente, drain in a colander, and then return it to its saucepan (now off the heat). Pour in your sauce, and fold through well.

Ingredients

10-12kg quince fruit – scrubbed in two washes of water and chopped into rough chunks
water to cover
juice of 8-10 lemons
sugar

Method

1. Before you do anything, put a small plate in your fridge to cool. You will need this later on in order to test your jelly to see whether it has been cooked sufficiently and will set.
2. Put all the chopped quinces in to a large pot and cover with water.
3. Bring to the boil and, on a medium-high simmer, leave to cook for around 2 hours, stirring from time to time.
4. Remove pot from heat, place the lid on, and leave to cool to room temperature (ideally overnight).
5. Strain all the liquid through a fine seive into another container.
6. In a clean pot, add liquid, lemon juice and sugar and bring to the boil. (After straining I had about 5 litres of liquid. You will need as much sugar as you have liquid – meaning, if you find you have 5 litres of liquid like i did, you will need 5kg of sugar).
7. Cook the jelly for about one hour on a rolling boil, stirring constantly to ensure that it does not stick and burn on the bottom.
8. About 30 minutes into cooking, you can begin to check how close your jelly is to reaching the ’set’ stage. The best way to check this is to put a few drips of it on a cold plate. Wait a moment for the drips to cool to the plate temperature and then push your finger along the plate into the drips of jelly. If you see any wrinkles form, the jam has reached the ’set’ stage. If not, continue cooking, and keep testing every 10 minutes to see if any wrinkles form (remember to put your plate back in the fridge after every test!!) Another way you can check if your jelly has reached the set stage is to look at how it coats the back of the wooden spoon you are using. If you see a good thick coating on the back of the spoon after you have pulled it out of the pot, you are probably close. Keep an eye on the colour of the jelly, too, as it will generally get darker as it gets closer to the set stage.
9. Decant while hot into sterilized jars.
10. Allow to cool and then cap and label.

Tip: have you ever tried to extend the quantity of a pot of soup by adding more water, and it ended up thin and watery? Try adding a cup of cooked rice along with the water, and blend until smooth. Then have a taste and add more seasoning (salt & pepper) if needed.

Ingredients

500g diced pumpkin (we used butternut)
6 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
a few grindings of black pepper
water

Method

1. In a pot, fry the garlic and cubes of pumpkin in oil for around 10 minutes, or until slightly browned.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and top up with enough water to barely cover the pumpkin.
3. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft.
4. Blend with your favourite kitchen contraption (we used a hand-held stab blender) until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

We served ours for lunch. So, as well as serving it with bread, we decided to have our soup with some leftover falafel patties, which we dipped in hummus and ketchup (pictured). Delish!

Here is our modern interpretation of that recipe. This utilises the same technique of pouring a cheese sauce over bread and grilling it, but this version adds the more mature flavours of blue cheese and anchovies for some extra ‘Wow’ factor. If you think ‘Oh god not those vile ingredients’ we promise you that it won’t be what you expect, it’s delicious!

Blue Cheese and Anchovy Rarebit by Canaan Perry
Makes 8-10 slices.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic crushed
2 cups of beer (perhaps a malty German lager or a light English fruity ale)
60 grams of cheddar cheese roughly cubed
3 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
80 – 100 grams of Danish style blue cheese roughly broken up
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
4 anchovy fillets finely mashed
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons of chicken stock powder (or 1 stock cube crumbled)
½ teaspoon of paprika (smoked paprika is best but not essential)
½ teaspoon of finely milled black pepper
1 egg
10 Slices of decent bread like German rye or white Italian loaf are best

Method

1. Heat oil over medium heat in a saucepan, add garlic, and sauté until it is fragrant and starts to take on some brown colour. Be very careful not to burn it.
2. Add flour and stir into oil to make a roux. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon to ensure even cooking. Cook for 2 minutes to a light golden colour: this helps to remove any raw cereal taste in the flour.
3. Begin to add the beer a little at a time, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
4. The sauce should be quite thick at this stage but not a solid mass that comes away from the side of the pot. If it is too dry add a little more beer – you’re looking for a very thick gravy-like consistency.
5. Begin adding the cheeses, stirring to incorporate them well in to the sauce.
6. Add the mustard and mashed anchovies and stir vigorously until a smooth result is achieved.
7. Add stock powder, pepper, paprika and Worcestershire sauce and mix in until well incorporated.
8. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5–10 minutes while you slice up your bread and turn on your grill. This mix should make about 8–10 large toasted rarebits.
9. When the mix is cooler add the egg and beat in very well. The mix will take on a glossy appearance. The egg also helps the cheese sauce to brown when it is grilled.
10. After heating your grill, toast the bread on one side, then take a very generously heaped tablespoon of sauce and spread it over the untoasted side of the bread, taking it all the way to the edges.
11. Toast cheese side up until a nice brown colour is achieved. A good rarebit always has a few dark brown spots here and there on the cheese coating, however make sure they don’t burn.

Great with a beer!

This recipe was found in the July 2006 edition of Country Homes & Interiors magazine.

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter
175g sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
175g plain flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
6 fresh English lavender buds (or equivalent in leaves), finely chopped, plus a little extra to sprinkle over as garnish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C, 400F or Gas Mark 6.
2. Lighly grease a baking tray with butter.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale in colour.
4. Add the egg, mixing in well.
5. Gradually add the flour, little by little, stirring each time.
6. Add the chopped lavender, and mix in well.
7. Spoon a teaspoon of the mixture on the tray for each biscuit. I used two thin pizza trays for this and they did a good job, though any thin oven tray will do. Just bear in mind that this recipe makes a minimum of 16 biscuits, so you might find you need to use a second tray.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
9. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a moment.
10. Lift cookies with a palette knife or spatula, and put on rack to cool.
11. Serve with a nice pot of tea!

If you want to find a hobby that is fun, useful and saves money, try out Homebrewing! This was one of our early batches of Munich Lager. It’s a little cloudy here as we were new to pouring homebrew, but the taste was magnificent. Here are 5 great reasons to brew your own:

1. You can drink it and save loads of cash!
2. You can cook with it, making great tasting stews, sauces and bread.
3. A few bottles of homebrew are always a handy bargaining chip when you don’t have cash to pay someone for a favour!
4. It lasts for years and only improves with age, so you have nothing to lose!
5. You can pick up a kit from most department stores and homebrew shops here in Australia for quite cheap. There are tonnes of online forums to help you on your way, as well as comprehensive videos by folks like Paul Mercurio and Coopers Beer.

• So have a go!

Ingredients

1 teaspoon white peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 a head of garlic, unpeeled (8-10 cloves)
2 stalks of lemongrass, thinly sliced (optional)
6 tablespoons oyster sauce
6 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 small 1kg chickens, 1 large 2kg chicken, or 2kg of chicken pieces

Method

1. Take a mortar and pestle, and begin pounding the coriander seeds and peppercorns. When they are coarsely ground, add the lemongrass, and pound again for a minute or two. Add the garlic, and continue to pound (don’t worry about it not being peeled, the pounding process breaks the skins up, making them unnoticeable in the final product).
2. When the paste is well pounded, put it into a large mixing bowl, and add the soy sauces, oyster sauce, sugar, and oil. Mix to incorporate the paste and sauces completely.
3. If you’re using whole chickens, cut them up into pieces now. If you decide to use small chickens like we did, simply cut out the backbone and butterfly them open for grilling, making them quite flat.
4. Add the chicken to the marinade, coat well, and leave to marinate for at least an hour. For an even more developed flavour, leave overnight, or for up to two days.
5. Preheat oven to 220C.
6. Place a roasting rack inside a roasting tray. Fill the tray with a little water. Place the chicken, skin-side down, on the rack.
7. Put tray into the oven. Roast at 220C for 15 minutes, to seal in the juices. Then reduce the temperature to 180C.
8. We then cooked our two small, flat chickens for 1 hour on 180C. This time may vary depending on what size and cut of chicken you are using. For chicken pieces, it may take less time (perhaps around 45 minutes at 180C). For a larger chicken, halved, it may take longer (perhaps around 1.5hours at 180C).
9. While cooking, make sure to turn the chicken skin-side up half way through the cooking time, and continually baste with the remaining marinade. For a final touch, you could also put the chicken under a hot grill for a minute or two, to really crisp up the skin.

Serve immediately with steamed white rice, and a salad of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. We also served ours with a chilli dipping sauce, which added some extra zing to the dish.

Sauce

1. Put 4-6 large mild chillies into a food processor. Add a clove of peeled garlic, 2 tablespoons of honey, 2 tablespoons of light soy, and 2 tablespoons of lime or lemon juice, and blend until well pureed.
2. Serve in a small dish alongside your meal.

Ingredients

1 to 1&1/2 kg chicken pieces (wings, thighs, drumsticks… any mixture of these will do)
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tablespoons chinese rice wine OR dry sherry
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Method

1. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well, preferably with your hands so you can really rub the flavours into the chicken.
2. You could cook immediately, but if possible leave to marinate overnight for a more developed flavour.
3. Before cooking, preheat oven to 220°C.
4. Place chicken peices on an oven tray.
5. Place tray in oven, reducing temperature to 180°C.
6. Brush the chicken occasionally using the remaining marinade throughout the cooking period.
7. The chicken will be cooked after around 40-50 minutes. Serve immediately, moistened with juices from the tray.

Ingredients

3 cups wholemeal or wholewheat flour
1 cup rye flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons dried compressed yeast
2 tablespoons of molasses (golden syrup, malt extract or treacle also acceptable)
2-3 tablespoons oil or butter
1&3/4 cups warm water or beer
2 teaspoons caraway seeds (optional)

Method

1. Place wholewheat flour, rye flour, salt and caraway seeds (if used) in a bowl.
2. Make a well in center. Add all the remaining ingredients to the well.
3. Mix all ingredients initially with a wooden spoon, until roughly mixed. If mixture seems too dry, add a little more water/beer.
4. Kneed the mixture for 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic, adding a little more flour from time to time if the mixture is too sticky.
5. Form dough into a ball, and cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea-towel.
6. Leave to prove for 2 hours.
7. Lightly oil a baking tray or loaf tin and dust with flour.
8. Put proved dough on bench and punch down in the center.
9. Shape into desired form (e.g. free-form oblong shape, or in square loaf tin, etc).
10. Leave alone until nearly doubled in size.
11. While this is happening, preheat oven to 200°C. 3.
12. Place in hot oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how crusty you like your bread. The loaf should be cooked when it gives a hollow sound when tapped.
13. Allow to cool before serving – it is usually better the day after baking.

Ingredients

Pudding batter

100g dark cooking chocolate
120g butter
capful of brandy essence (the recipe recommends using 30ml of Kirsch, but I had none)
185g sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
60g plain flour

Chocolate Sauce

50g dark chocolate
30ml cream

Method

Puddings

1. Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease one six-cup muffin mould, or four individual pudding moulds, and dust with sugar.
2. Put the chocolate, butter, brandy essence and sugar into a microwave-safe bowl.
3. Put bowl in the microwave, on a medium-to-low heat. Let it run for 30 second bursts, stopping and stirring the mixture each time, until all of the chocolate and butter has dissolved. You want the chocolate to be sufficiently dissolved, but you don’t want a piping-hot mixture (it might scramble the eggs!). So when the last of the chocolate begins to melt away, don’t microwave any further.
4. Stir in the lightly beaten eggs, and, finally, whisk in the flour, a little at a time. To ensure the flour is fully incorporated, briskly whisk the mixture for a minute or so. You’re looking for a smooth, silky consistency.
5. Pour mixture into your moulds. If you have used a six-cup muffin tray, you will find that the mixture fills each cup to the brim. Don’t worry – we found that although they were very full, there was no spillage while baking. If you are still concerned, however, just put a thin metal baking tray underneath your muffin tray before you put it into the oven to catch any overflow.
6. Bake for approximately 20 minutes (12 to 15 if you used individual moulds).
7. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool, while you make the chocolate sauce.

Chocolate sauce

1. Put chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl.
2. In a similar way to how we melted the chocolate for the muffin batter, microwave the sauce ingredients in short 10-20 second bursts, stirring in between.
3. When the chocolate seems to have begun melting, remove bowl from the microwave. Use a fork or small whisk to stir briskly, until the chocolate and cream are well combined. The sauce will be quite thin initially, but as it cools it will thicken a little.

To serve, put a muffin on to a plate and drizzle a couple of spoons of sauce over it. Vanilla icecream and/or fresh cream are fantastic accompaniments to this dish. Preserved kumquats or morello cherries are great as a garnish.