December
Contents
Latest Books
Awards
Schedule for the next year or so
Last minute Christmas gifts, suitable for kids or adults to make and give!
(including the world's best fudge)
Gifts for Gardeners
What to Plant in December
Foiling Possums
How to have a Happy Christmas Tree
Some Christmas Recipes, including a no cholesterol Christmas pud, Christmas biscuits, Watermelon Daiquiri, and raspberry cordial (Much loved by Santa and the reindeer).
Two stories I wrote many years ago, about two different Christmases...
Introduction
It's dry. Not desperate dry- there's still grass from spring showers, the leaves are limp, not brown, and there were raindrops on them this morning from the mist over night. I felt like licking them, as I did when I was a kid and Grandma told me dew tastes sweet.
She was right.
There are still too many flowers for it to feel desperate. Bright orange pomegranate flowers- come the next wet year I'm going to plant at least six more pomegranates just for the flowers, though the fruit is good too, great fat red and yellow things when ripe, and sweet and crunchy in salads when green. The autumn leaves are butter coloured too- there's may six weeks a year when the tree isn't stunning.
The salvias are blooming now too, so many that the eastern spinebills out my study window don't know which to stick their bills into first, short blue, rich purple, brick red, flagrant pink, all glowing and drought hardy, so the poor birds are just fluttering around confused.
And the beans are still flowering- mostly because I've mulched right up to their leaves- and the kiwi fruit shedding thick waxy petals which will turn into ooze on the paving, and the scent of the Chinese jasmine is so strong this year that you can smell it half a kilometre away as I walk up the track in the morning. There's a clan of red browed finches living in one of the bushes now, and silver eyes nesting in another.
I know it's supposed to be a bad summer- and it's our sixth drought year in a row. But so far almost everything has survived- including me. And it seems silly to mourn crackling leaves in the future when the present- even if a bit dusty- is so good.
This is going to be a quiet Christmas. The young people who are usually here are overseas, and for the first time, perhaps, I'll be looking back wistfully at other Christmases. Or maybe not...perhaps there'll be too much laughter with friends (and wombats) to be wistful at all.
Wombat News
Mothball is fat, stroppy and sleepy. She should be starting to show signs of wombat middle age now. But she doesn't change much. And she still bites any other animal who might eat her grass around the house, so there's still plenty to keep her fat. (I have tried to explain that human visitors rarely if ever eat grass. But she isn't convinced.)
Ps I tried to shoo House Mouse the wallaby off my roses yesterday. He jumped all of a metre -just far enough to get to another nice branch of rose leaves- then looked at me in disgust. I think the animals around here have forgotten I'm supposed to be the dominant species. If they ever knew it.
Latest Books
For everyone: Josephine Wants to Dance, a picture book about a kangaroo with tutu, dancing feet and attitude
For Boys (though girls will like them too): My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken; Secret World of Wombats; MacBeth and Son; The Goat Who Sailed the World- the true story of the stroppy goat who sailed with Captain Cook
For Girls: Phredde and the Haunted Underpants, My Gran the Gorilla, They Came On Viking ships
Awards
Too Many Pears was number three picture book in the kid's choice Koala Awards... and very many thanks to everyone who voted for it! And Hitler's Daughter was placed on the honour roll of the kid's choice Yabba Awards as it had been on the shortlist for the past five years. Again, many many thankyous!
Schedule for the Next Few Months
January, Saturday 27
Talks at the Jindabyne Visitors Centre as part of their tenth anniversary celebrations
February 2007
Perth Literary Festival and talks at Port Hedland and Mount Newman in the Pilbara.
March 24, 25
Norman Lindsay Festival, Springwood, Blue Mountains NSW
April 2007
Open Garden Workshops at our place. The Fruitful Garden...how to grow 270 sorts of fruit in drought, heat and frost as well as providing a haven for wildlife. Limited places, bookings necessary. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for details. (Please don't contact us. We can't take the bookings -they must go through the Open Garden Scheme).
Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 May 2007
Allwrite Festival, Adelaide
August 2007
Book Week talks in Sydney and Melbourne (just a few) Contact Lateral Learning for details (bookings@laterallearning.com.au)
13-16 September
Albany Writer's Festival, W.A.
Email Contact Address
I've just been hooked up to a new email address, jackief@dragnet.com.au
I've never given out my email address before -we have such poor phone lines out this way (curse Telstra forever) that our system just collapses if we get too many emails, or emails with lots of data, like big attachments, or, even worse, photos attached.
But this one is separate from my home and work system, so I'll see how it goes. But please, please don't send attachments or photos! And please, please don't send me lots of questions where the answers are in my gardening books, or ask for material for school projects that's already on jackiefrench.com. I'm not sure I can answer more queries than I do already! In fact I'm pretty sure I can't.
And if you just want to say 'hi' or it isn't urgent, please write the message in the guest book at jackiefrench.com, and I'll answer when I check the messages once a month.
The address above is just if there's something that's urgent or that I really need to hear. If there are too many emails for our phone lines to cope with I'll have to stop using it.
Last minute Christmas gifts, suitable for kids or adults to make and give!
Ps To any kid who is reading this:
You may not believe this in your cash strapped younger years, but most adults would REALLY rather have a homemade card plus something made with your grubby but loving fingers. THIS IS TRUE I AM NOT JUST SAYING THIS.
Just have a poke around the house. Which gets kept longest...that lopsided dinosaur fridge magnet you made in kinder or the golf club paperweight bought from the gift shop?
Also you can probably get the adults to cough up for the ingredients
Red Christmas Cordial
Red Cordial
If you want a really bright red cordial, get yourself about 250 - 350 gms of blueberries - frozen if absolutely necessary or cranberries or raspberries or home grown mulberries, or even lillypillies if you were sensible enough to plant a lillypilly tree about five years ago. Lillypillies make the best jam or cordial I've ever tried.
Taste the fruit first - if it tastes like old cardboard you need more fruit to get a decent flavour.
You also need:
4 cups sugar
1 cup lime or lemon juice
2 cups water
2 teaspoons tartaric acid
Boil the sugar and water for 10 minutes. Add the fruit and juice , simmer five minutes. Take off the heat, squish well with a spoon, strain, add the tartaric acid, bottle and store in the fridge for up to two weeks. Actually I keep home made cordial for a lot longer than two weeks this way but if your family friends and neighbours all drop dead from drinking it you can't blame me. Do remember that if it starts to bubble change colour or grow interesting fungi, it's really only useful as a kid's zoology project.
Makes about 2 bottles cordial.
Fruit hamper
Sometimes I think we are the only family to regard Christmas fruit as the best part of the seasonal tucker. Fat Ron's Seedling cherries, squishy mangoes, peaches, apricots, plums...
A case of cherries, peaches et al unadorned by anything except their box is a most excellent present for anyone (especially me). Or you can buy a selection of them all, place in one of those cheap baskets that flowers, nuts etc come in nowadays or just wrap them in cellophane.
A Succulent (or cactus) garden
Succulents (or cacti) are easy-care plants -ignore them for weeks and they'll still survive!
You need:
A wide tray-shaped pot, with drainage holes
potting mix
pebbles or gravel
a selection of small leafed succulents like echeverias ('Black Prince' is striking), crassulas, sedums or sempervivums. Most garden centres will have a good selection and all strike readily if you have them in the garden but want to pot some up.
Method: Place pots on tray, half fill tray with potting mix then fill to the top with pebbles.
Long-term care: Keep in a well-lighted spot on the windowsill. Water once a week. Add slow-release fertiliser once a year at only half the strength recommended on the packet, otherwise the succulents may become too soft and straggly.
A Water Garden
Who needs soil? Or even a garden?
You need:
a glass vase
distilled water or rainwater
bright but indirect light
any plants that will grow in water -the best place to find these may be your local pet shop that sells tropical fish. But mints will grow in water, as will ornamental or 'lucky' bamboo, (really a Dracaena), corkscrew rush, Chinese taro or cuttings from tortured willow (Salix matsudana 'Tortuosa'). There is no need to 'plant' any of these -let the stems float in the water.
Method: Fill a glass container with water; add plants. If you are taking the mint from your garden wash it well so no soil discolours the water.
Long-term care: Change the water once a week or whenever it looks cloudy. Keep in bright but indirect light.
A hanging basket of herbs
You need:
1 large hanging basket
moisture retaining crystals
slow-release fertiliser
small pots of thyme, basil, winter savoury, tarragon and sage
potting mix
Method: Half fill basket with potting mix. Take plants out of their pots and arrange; fill in with more potting mix, mixing in the fertiliser and crystals according to instructions on the packet. Water well to settle them in.
Long-term care: Keep in a sunny spot; water every two days. Feed with slow release fertiliser in spring. Pick often. Repot in fresh potting mix when it all becomes a bit congested and the leaf size starts dwindling.
A Fairy Garden
For girls who love pink and fairies... impatiens are one of the few flowers that will bloom without stopping for years.
You need:
1 pink pot
potting mix
slow release fertiliser granules
2-3 pink impatiens (depending on size of pot)
3-6 small fairy dolls, depending on size. (A large one can sit under the fairy 'tree'. Smaller ones can hide among the flowers and leaves). If you can't find fairy dolls make your own fairy wings from pink cellophane glued onto fuse wire and add to appropriate-sized dolls. Plant. Arrange fairies in the little landscape.
Long-term care: Water your fairy garden twice a week, give it slow release fertiliser every spring and keep it on a window-sill or by a well-lit window.)
The World's Best Fudge
Sometime last century (which actually wasn't very long ago) an American uni student overcooked her caramel, and fudge was born...
Well, that's one story, anyway, but it probably isn't true. The oldest 'fudge' recipe I've been able to find is for Scottish 'tablet', which could either be a sugary toffee flavoured with cinnamon or ginger, or a genuine fudge made with milk or cream. 'Tablet' is at least three hundred years old, and may even be much older.
Some of the old Indian and Persian sweets were pretty fudge like too, and many European medieval sweets used fruit or sweet vegetables, plus a bit of expensive sugar, to give a pretty fudgy result as well.
But it was great fun trying all those ancient recipes to see if I could find fudge. Our place smelled of hot sugar for months and every visitor was begged to try at least six kinds of fudge and give their honest opinion...
So what is the very best fudge in the world? Don't faint, but I think it might be apple fudge, though chocolate beetroot fudge is pretty wonderful. But then I'm biased, as I like a chewy fudge.
You'll just have to try out the different recipes for yourself.
Ps Fresh home made fudge is far better than commercial fudge, which may be quite old by the time you eat it! Fudge makes the best gift, either for birthdays, as a present to your hostess or just to say 'hi'. Also great for school fetes!
Plain Caramel Fudge
For the fudge traditionalist...
3 heaped tb butter
2 cups sugar
1 400 gm can condensed milk
Heat butter and sugar gently and stir till the sugar dissolves. This is important!!!! If the sugar doesn't dissolve the fudge becomes gritty!!!
Now add the condensed milk. Stir all the time -if the mixture boils before the sugar is dissolved the fudge will be gritty and unpleasant. Keep the heat as low as you can. Do not ignore at any stage or the bottom may burn! (I turned the heat off when the phone rang but the mix burned anyway- it really has to be stirred and stirred.)
Keep stirring for 20 minutes. By now it will be bubbling all through, not just on top- you'll see what I mean- and as you stir will come away from the base of the pan. As soon as you can see the base of the pan for three seconds before it glops back take the pan off the stove, beat for another 10 seconds or so then pour into onto a greased tray, or onto a tray lined with baking paper.
Leave to cool and go solid- it doesn't take long- and cut in squares. Store in a sealed container for up to two weeks, but the fresher fudge is the better it tastes.
Chocolate fudge
Follow the recipe above, but as soon as you take the fudge off the stove beat in 6 squares of dark chocolate and 1 tsp vanilla essence, then pour out as before.
Chilli Chocolate fudge
This isn't too hot- it just has a bit of bite.
Chop 1 seeded chilli very finely- or more if you like a touch of fire. Place it in the pan with the 3 heaped tb of butter and sugar, and heat gently, stirring all the time, for about 3 minutes or until the chilli is soft. Then proceed as you would for chocolate fudge.
Choc mint fudge
Add a quarter of a teaspoon of peppermint essence with the chocolate to the chocolate fudge recipe.
Macadamia fudge
Stir in 1 cup finely chopped macadamia nuts when you take the pan off the stove. This is also good with chocolate fudge.
Apple fudge
Apple makes the fudge sweeter, slightly tarter, with an almost coconut texture. It's my favourite of all the fudges.
Grate one large, peeled apple or two or three small ones. Place in a pan with 3 heaped tb butter, and cook as slowly as you can till the apple is soft and cooked, stirring all the time. Much of the juice will have evaporated by now too. Then proceed with the basic recipe.
Chocolate Beetroot fudge
This was Bryan's favourite. He gobbled six squares of it till I told him it had beetroot in it, then he looked at it suspiciously and asked 'it's not healthy is it?'
I assured him it was a genuine, unhealthy lolly and he relented, and ate the rest of the batch. Chocolate beetroot fudge really is very good, even for beetroot haters.
Take 1 large beetroot. Peel, grate finely. Place in a pan with 3 heaped tb of butter and stir on a very low heat till the beetroot is soft. Then proceed as for chocolate fudge
Dried Apricot Fudge
This is wonderful.
Take one cup of dried apricots. Cover with boiling water and leave overnight. Drain away all the liquid you can.
Add the drained apricots to the basic fudge mixture with the condensed milk. The apricot will sort of dissolve into the fudge, making it very rich and very good. You can add a cup of chopped macadamias when you take the fudge off the stove, too.
Chocolate layer fudge
Grate about half a cup of chocolate. Make your apricot, plain or fruit fudge. Pour out half the hot fudge onto the greased tray or baking paper, scatter on a thin layer of chocolate, then pour on the rest of the fudge. Leave to cool and slice. You can also add a layer of ground almonds, chopped macadamias or chopped pistachios. Make sure the layer isn't too thick, though, or the two layers of fudge won't stick together.
Cheat's Chocolate Marshmallow Fudge
200gm packet of marshmallows
60 gm butter
1 tb water
125 gm dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup chopped walnuts, macadamias or almonds
Stir marshmallows, water, and butter of a very low heat till the marshmallows dissolve. You can also microwave on high for two minutes. Take off the heat, add essence and chocolate and stir for about five minutes till it thickens. Add nuts. Spread mixture onto a greased tray or a tray lined with baking paper. Put in the fridge for at least 2 hours to set. Cut into squares. Keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to two weeks.
ps make sure you scrape all fudge leftovers from the pan - the cook's reward.
Presents for gardeners
Beware: Most avid gardeners know exactly what they want - and don't want - in the garden. Aunt Bertha's ceramic whale peanut holder can be put away in a cupboard and only brought out again when Aunt Bertha visits again next year, but a gift plant has to be planted - and it may well be the wrong colour, shape, species, gives little Jennifer eczema and makes her Mum sneeze. The poor thing also has to be planted, watered, mulched all in mid-summer heat...
Gift plants should be something the receiver really wants, or something easy care and unusual, that isn't going to eventually dominate the garden. (To those kind friends who over the years have given us a pepper tree, an Illawarra flame tree, a Sydney blue gum and a pot of jasmine just itching to invade the next 300 kms of bush - we are very grateful for the thought, but)
So what do you give a gardener? Gardening gloves - you can never have enough of them; a good rich hand cream; anything really unusual in the nursery - last year there were pineapple plants, complete with fruit, and there's sure to be some specials this year too. Go for the less common herbs, like French tarragon, or liquorice or a hop vine for a beer lover, a dwarf fruit tree in a tub...
And non-gardeners? Something unkillable. Small boys love cactus or Venus flytraps (I have yet to actually see a Venus fly trap actually catch a fly, but kids have fun hoping). Look for almost unkillable houseplants like ivy (indoors only!), begonias (great stately plants - so elegant you don't realise how unkillable they are), weeping and other indoor figs, rubber plants; most palms, umbrella trees. Kentia, Rhapsis or Parlour palms (Neanthe bella) are other great choices. When in doubt, just ask at the nursery for something pretty indestructible!
PS A comfy garden chair is great gift for anyone
This is the time to write a nice note to Father Christmas for:
. a garden light, so you can enjoy the evening scents and coolness
. mozzie netting to sit under... drape it over the clothes line if there's no where else to net, or ask Father Christmas for a cabana
. at least six basil plants -go wild with lemon and opal and lettuce-leaf and some of the other basils too. They make even an ordinary salad sandwich exotic and do wonders for kebabs or stir-fries
. one of those hoses that won't kink, split or get tangled around your ankles
. a wheelbarrow with a good BIG wheel for easier barrowing!
. 10 bags of lucerne mulch to save on weeding, watering, digging and backache!
And PLEASE dear Santa DON'T give me outdoor candles or flaming lanterns that might burn the house down or start a bushfire; a bird house with a silly little door that no self-respecting bird wants to nest in, but large nasty rats do; a box of commercial shortbread because it tastes horrible, and any plant that might escape and become a weed i.e. no jasmine or potato vine!
What to plant in December
Food garden
Plants: strawberry, sweet potato, choko, herbs.
Seeds: artichoke, asparagus, basil, beans, beetroot, burdock, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, celery, celtuce, chicory, corn salad, cress, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale, kohl rabi, leeks, lettuces (may not germinate if the temperature is over 26º C), melons, okra, parsley, pumpkin, radish, salsify, scorzonera, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba, and zucchini.
Flower garden: Achillea, ageratum, alstromeria, alyssum, amaranthus, aster, balsam, Bellis perennis, brachycome, calendula, candytuft, Canterbury bells, carnation, celosia, clarkia, cleome, coleus, coreopsis, columbine, cosmos, delphinium, dichondra, echinacea, echinops, erigeron, euphorbia, foxglove, gaillardia, gazania, globe amaranth, gloxinia, godetia, gypsophila, helichrysum, heliotrope, hellebore, honesty, lavender, marigold, nasturtium, petunia, phlox, Flanders poppy, portulaca, rudbeckia, salpiglossis, salvia, scabious, sweet William, viola, zinnia and snapdragon.
Foiling Possums
If possums are climbing up your trees cut the tops and bottoms off a few soft drink bottles; cut down one side to open them up, then slip them over the trunk. The possums won't be able to get a grip.
How to have a Happy Christmas Tree!
. don't choose a wilted tree- it won't perk up!
. as soon as you bring it home cut off the first few inches of the trunk. This helps the tree to take up water more efficiently.
. Christmas trees last best in the coolest, darkest corner you have.
. Place the tree in the empty bucket , pack the stones around it to keep it upright, then fill the bucket with water.
. Give your tree a drink of cool water once a day, or even more often if it's very hot. Christmas trees drink a surprising amount of water - ours gets through about half a bucket a day!
A Christmas Tree For the Birds
Even if you don't want to decorate your front yard with Rudolph and all the other reindeer, plus a large sleigh and even larger Santa, you can offer the outdoors just a little Christmas spirit.
Every year we decorate a Christmas tree for the birds. They love it and we love watching them
Home Made 'Christmas' bird balls
You need:
'cookie cutters' in Christmas tree or star shapes
string
mixed bird seed (larger bags are much cheaper than small ones)
non toxic glue from the newsagent (It will tell you if it is non-toxic on the label)
Place cookie cutters on a board, or cover the bench with alfoil so you don't make a gluey mess. Mix two cups of seed with one cup glue, press into the cookie cutter till it's half full and insert a length of string - it needs to extend down to the middle of the 'cookie' and there must be enough poking out the end so you can easily tie it to a branch. Fill the rest of the mould. Press firmly.
Leave overnight to dry. Gently press out of the mould. Leave to dry fully for about a week. Hang up in a tree you can see from the kitchen or living room window.
Note: it's not a good idea to let birds become dependent on handouts from humans, but a few weeks of extra tucker at Christmas will do no harm.
Some Christmas Recipes
Parson Woodforde's Very Traditional Christmas Mince Pies
(not bad for snacking before the main meal, or afterwards if you're too stuffed for another guzzle in the evening)
On the 25th of December, about 100 years ago, the Reverend James Woodforde ate a boiled rabbit and onion sauce, a sirloin of beef roasted, plum puddings ... and mince pies. A few years before, his Christmas dinner was two fine cods with fried soles around them and oyster sauce, a fine sirloin of beef roasted, some peas soup and an orange pudding, wild ducks roasted, a salad and mince pies.
Until pretty recently Christmas dinner was basically just the richest most celebratory dinner you could afford. Plum puddings usually featured, but then they were eaten at any winter feast, as were roast goose, duck, hen, beef and the occasional swan if you happened to be royalty.
Mince pies however were definitely Christmas only fare - as a matter of fact, mince pies are probably the only bit of Christmas food that is really Christian in origin.
Mince pies were originally made in the shape of a cradle, with a pastry image of the Christ child placed in the hollow and a blanket of minced mutton and lamb's tongues covering Him and then more pastry tucked over that.
After the Crusades the pies became more and more highly spiced, with dried fruit added too in the Middle Eastern tradition - till nowadays there's no meat in mince pies at all and they're round instead of oval.
If you want to make traditional mince pies - I mean a really traditional one - you first of all need to get oval moulds to put them in for which you will definitely need to go to a specialty kitchen shop.
You then take your shortcrust or puff pastry - either home made or bought - line the mould, reserve some for the top covering then make your small image of the Christ Child - an oblong and a round head are all you really need - after al, most of Him is tucked up in his blanket.
Now make the filling. A typical modern mix would be:
100 gms chopped apples
300 gms dried fruit
100 gms chopped or packaged suet
100 gms brown sugar
half a teaspoon mixed spice, cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon nutmeg,
1 tbsp marmalade
2 tbsp rum or brandy.
Just mix and put it over the pastry child, then tuck the pastry blanket up to His chin, and bake for about 25 minutes in a hot oven.
To be honest, I find modern mince pies too sweet and heavy. The traditional one, with a mix of meat and fruit, is much nicer - very pleasant indeed for lunch or dinner on a hot day.
Traditional recipes pack the raw ingredients into the pie shell, and cook them slowly for a long time. I prefer to precook mine. This recipe is based on one from 1560.
Fry 500 gms of beef or mutton... well, it should be in lard, but I prefer a good splash of olive oil, let's not be too traditional here. In fact I even go so far as to sometimes add garlic and an onion. When the meat is brown take off the heat and add half a teaspoon of ground black pepper, ground cloves, ground mace, one tbsp chopped seeded raisins, 2 tbsps currants, 2 tbsps chopped stoned prunes.
Mix well. The original recipe also had saffron in it, but with all that spice you can't taste the saffron and, anyway, the genuine stuff is expensive.
Once more, place a layer of meat mixture over the child in the cradle, tuck in the pastry blanket, glaze with melted butter, sugar and rosewater if you like or just beaten egg, bake 25 minutes in a medium oven, or till browned. Serve hot or cold, but definitely NOT with tomato sauce.
And forget about the shortbread, the Christmas cake, Chrissie pudding, roast turkey and the rest of it. The one really traditional bit of feasting this year will be your mince pies.
Christmas Relish
I love the word relish. It gets the taste buds going almost as much as the word 'chocolate'.
A relish is what you add to make boring things taste good i.e. cold spuds, cold meat and most aren't bad on cheese on toast, especially if you liven it up with half way decent bread and good cheese and call it foccacia instead.
Most relishes will last for months if not years in the back of the cupboard waiting to be hauled out in case the meteor falls and life on earth - or at least the supermarket part of it - is extinguished.
This relish needs to be kept in the fridge and eaten within a few weeks, as it contains less vinegar, less sugar and more fruit than the ordinary variety. This is also means that this one tastes better.
Ingredients
3 cups fresh mango, paw paw, or pineapple, chopped
half a cup raw sugar
half a cup good white wine vinegar
2 large red onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsps olive oil
1 red chilli, chopped, optional
2 whole cloves
Sauté onion and garlic in the oil till the onion is soft and totally transparent. (If it isn't the acid in the relish will make it go hard a d rubbery).
Add the rest of the ingredients; simmer till thick (about 10 -15 minutes).
Place in a sealed container in the fridge. Keep for three days to mature before using. Good with turkey, ham, or fish.
Limes in Salt
This is very good indeed - wonderful in summer.
Take a dozen limes, prick at least ten times each. Place in a dish and cover with salt. Leave alone for a month. The juice will seep out and form brine. When needed take out the limes and slice thinly. A thin slice of salted lime is excellent with cold water or soda water; it can be added to curries; mixed with natural yoghurt as a side dish; added to honeyed chicken.
Tabouli
Combine:
3 cups roughly chopped parsley
1 cup soaked burghul or cracked wheat
a little chopped onion
2 cloves of crushed garlic
Dress with:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt to taste.
This salad should be served within an hour, or the burghul becomes soggy.
Pasta with parsley, tomatoes and lime
Ingredients:
500 gms spaghetti, boiled till al dente
three quarters of a cup olive oil
6 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
rind of 1 lime, finely grated (no white)
3 dessertspoons sun dried tomatoes, chopped
1 chilli, chopped
Pour the oil into a pan, add all the ingredients except the spaghetti and the lime rind. Heat gently for five minutes. Mix with the spaghetti and scatter the lime rind on top.
Frozen Watermelon Daiquiri
This looks stunning, cool, Christmassy and very very red. The vodka is tasteless, so you can make an alcohol free version for the kids. Just do make sure you don't mix them up!!!!!
Ingredients
half cup caster sugar
half cup water
half cup lime juice (about 3 limes)
1 medium size watermelon (about 5 cups full of red flesh)
2 cups vodka...or more...or less...or for kids none at all!
Simmer sugar and water for 10 minutes. add the lime juice. Bring to the boil. Take off the heat. Cool. Add the vodka, if you're making the alcoholic version.
Put the watermelon flesh through the blender till it's liquid. Mix with syrup. Pour into a cake tin- it should be fairly shallow; freeze until almost set- about half an hour. Break up the crystals with a fork, and beat well. Refreeze for another two hours, whipping well with the fork every half an hour. Serve in chilled glasses at once.
Note: this loses it's flavour after a few days. If you want to make it the day before, pour it into an empty plastic container; put the lid on; then an hour before you want to serve it take it out of the freezer and soften for 10-20 minutes, then freeze again.
Christmas Biscuits
(Crisp and very good)
125 margarine or butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsps rum, rum essence or vanilla
1 large egg
1 and three quarters of a cup of SR flour
half a cup chopped macadamias or pecans
half a cup chopped crystallised cherries
half a cup choc chips
I also add half a cup chopped crystallised pineapple, but that's because I'm stuck on preserved pineapple at the moment - it's good but you can leave it out!
Cream butter and sugar, mix in the egg and essence and fold in other ingredients. Bake at 200 C for about 10 minutes or till pale gold.
Ps just made 9 trays of these!
Dark and Fruity Christmas Pudding
A Christmas pud is a lovely thing - dark and fragrant so you can smell it all over the house, and you only need a small bit because it's so rich.
I can never understand those who sling off at a pud as being unsuitable for Australian summers. You don't HAVE to have it hot and flaming do you? Actually we have ours cold and flaming, and I do all the boiling at night after the house has cooled down - and when the kitchen will cool down again by morning.
Christmas pud is also easily prepared several days before Christmas Day, so if you're having it cold there's no last minute hassle. Added to which a good pud is a great big gorgeous thing, in other words, there'll be plenty of leftovers to see you to New Year. Like a turkey, Christmas pud is destined for one day's feast and many days nibbling at the crumbs.
Added to which, Christmas pud -a good fruity dark one - is one of the best accompaniments to ice-cream that I know. (As you may have guessed, I do like my pud.)
Most families have pud recipes passed own from Grandma, though usually they're changed a bit with each generation. This is my Grandma's, changed by Mum and changed by me.
Mix:
250 gms butter or marg, melted, OR olive oil
2 cups bread crumbs
quarter cup plain flour
3 eggs, beaten (or just egg whites)
2 cups sultanas
1 cup currants
half cup glacé cherries
half cup mixed peel
half cup glacé pineapple or ginger
1 large apple or carrot (carrot makes an even darker pudding) peeled and grated
half a cup apricot or pineapple or cherry jam
quarter cup brown sugar
2 tsps mixed spice
half a cup rum, brandy, Grand Marnier whisky, sherry or orange juice; add more if it seems dry.
Don't forget that every member of the family should have a stir for luck!
Place in a greased ovenproof bowl or divide mixture into smaller bowls. In any case the pudding mixture should only half fill the bowl. Cover basin with alfoil, tied on securely with string or wool. Place pud in a saucepan large enough for water to come half way up the bowl.
Boil a kettle full of water, pour into the saucepan, light the stove and boil for four hours, adding more hot water as necessary.
To cook pud in a cloth: This does make a moister, thicker textured pud.
Dip clean cloth in boiling water for two minutes; you can use the traditional calico or even a new tea towel - not an old one, as odours may linger!
Hoik cloth out of the boiling water, let cool for a couple of minutes then wring it reasonably dry and spread it out and brush over about a cup of plain flour.
Place mixture in centre of cloth, tie up with string and lower into RAPIDLY boiling water. With a steamed pud in a basin it doesn't matter dramatically if the water goes off the boil; it does with a boiled pud.
Put the lid on to keep the water boiling well and minimise evaporation (DON'T do this with the steamed pud). Top up as needed with boiling water from a kettle.
Boil for four hours
Note: You can make lots of small puddings with this mix. They make good presents. For small puds place some of the mixture in small Tupperware basins, put the lid on securely and boil.
To keep: In cold climates puds were kept in the cool larder for months or even years. Here they tends to grow interesting moulds after a week or two, so cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge.
To serve: Both steamed and boiled puds need a second boiling. This darkens the pud and gives it its rich caramelised flavour. You can either boil them for two hours on the day and serve hot, or do it a day or two before and serve cold.
To serve: Wriggle a knife down the edge of the basin, or unwrap pud gently. Don't bother if a bit is slightly damp - puds are so rich that this will hardly be noticed!
Fill a large dessertspoon with some high alcohol substance - I use rum or whisky. Hold it over the heat of the stove till it sends up an almost invisible cloud of alcohol. It's now warm enough to light, so hold a match to it (do beware of singing eyebrows and hands at this point: I should advise wearing leather gloves, goggles, protective clothing and a flame-proof mat, but of course no one will, so let me just repeat, this can be exceedingly dangerous and if the house catches alight (especially if you've been imbibing) or you receive second degree burns don't bother complaining, BECAUSE I WARNED YOU.
When it catches alight (and hopefully nothing else), pour over pud and carry in triumph.
We eat pud with ice-cream and cream; custard is traditional but after a heavy meal this is just one more burden. And remember - you don't need much pud!
Cold pud is even better than hot pud. Keep covered in the fridge and it'll last for weeks.
Ps if the flaming alcohol spills onto the bench don't try throwing water on it ... we did that two years ago and the water just spread the burning whisky all over the kitchen. Don't flap it with a tea towel either or the tea towel will catch alight. This is first hand experience here. Luckily our kitchen is mostly hardwood and stone so the alcohol soon burnt away and the f ire went out without anything else catching alight...or for that matter the men yakking at the dining table even noticing.
Buying your pud
I've eaten just about every commonly available commercial pud, and they are all pretty bad. Forget about any that are made in a factory. Many restaurants, cafés et al sell 'home made' puds the month before Christmas now, and they are much better bets; craft fairs and the like are also good places to go pud hunting - or hire a good pud maker to make you one too! A good pud is such a treat it's worth paying a decent price for one.
(Ditto Christmas cakes!)
Frozen Plum Pudding
This could be said to be a cheat's plum pudding - no cooking, no steam and it takes about ten minutes to make. 'Cheat's' however implies it doesn't taste as good as the real thing - well, it does. But don't try it with cheap ice-cream made with artificial vanilla though - it's just a waste of the other decent ingredients.
1 litre good vanilla ice-cream
6 tbsps rum
2 tbsps sultanas
2 tbsps glacé pineapple, chopped
2 tbsps glacé ginger, chopped (optional)
2 tbsps glacé cherries, chopped
4 tbsps macadamias, chopped
quarter tsp mixed spice
To decorate: fresh cherries, halved and stoned, or chopped glacé pineapple and chopped macadamias with a little grated dark chocolate.
Marinate the fruit, nuts and spice in the grog overnight; keep the bowl covered so the rum doesn't evaporate. A few hours before serving scoop out the centre of the ice-cream, insert the fruit mix in the hole and plug the hole with the removed ice-cream
To Serve: Turn it out pudding like on a chilled plate, quickly scatter on the decoration. Serve in slices, so the filling oozes out at the end of each slice. Have a bowl extra whipped cream for those who haven't yet been overstuffed. .
Christmas fruit jelly (looks stunning; wonderfully wobbly)
A light alternative to Christmas Pudding
1 packet frozen blueberries or raspberries, or 2 cups of each fresh
1 cup fresh strawberries, sliced
1 cup fresh peaches, sliced
1 cup white wine
1 cup caster sugar
juice of two lemons
half cup water
2 sachets gelatine
Use a no stick cake tin or line a cake tin with plastic wrap. Place sliced strawberries in the bottom and empty in the blueberries.
Heat all other ingredients except the gelatine till nearly boiling, take off the heat and add gelatine. (Mix a little with some of the liquid first so you don't get lumps.) Pour liquid into the cake tin. Leave till set - it will take several hours.
Turn it out onto a plate. If it won't come out easily dip the base of the tin in hot water in the sink for about 30 seconds - make sure no liquid gets into the tin though! This will loosen the jelly enough for it to slide out.
Serve slices with cream or ice-cream.
Note: if that amount of gelatine doesn't form a well-set jelly, the whole thing can be slightly warmed and more gelatine (mixed with a little of the warmed liquid first) can be added. For some reason sometimes more is needed - possibly this depends on the ripeness and juiciness of the berries.
Totally Secret Frozen Fruit Salad
This was possibly the first recipe I ever invented on my own; I was about seven, I think, and I'd been bunging mulberries and strawberries and bananas in the freezer for years.
In those days ice-cream was a definite treat. The local shop didn't sell it, except in small cups. But the ice-cream man used to drive round in his ute on Sunday afternoons, with great canvas bags of dry ice and in the centre were either Have-a-hearts - ice-cream with a choc coating, or rectangular cardboard wrapped 'family blocks' - and that's what Mum bought. Towards the end of their life, before plastic tubs were introduced and suddenly supermarkets had swallowed corner shops and had great freezers full of them, the cardboard rectangles had zippers down the side; you pulled the zipper and, behold, your cardboard container was open. (The ice-cream used to cling in a particularly delicious way to the cardboard and Mum used to rip it into four pieces so each kid could get one to lick. I think Fred used to chew his too, but then he liked odd things like handfuls of butter and the suds off the washing up.)
Anyway, back to the ice-cream...to begin with it was vanilla or Neapolitan - stripes of white, pink (I suppose it was supposed to be strawberry) and chocolate (which didn't much taste like chocolate either). But then came fruit salad ice-cream, with little bits of fruit in it and it was this I tried to imitate.
Well, I didn't make it then - I did manage about twenty years later. But I got this instead. I still love it.
2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped
2 cups fresh rockmelon, chopped
2 fresh mangoes, chopped (optional)
1 cup fresh paw paw, chopped (also optional)
1 banana, peeled and chopped (def not optional)
1 cup sugar
half a cup water
juice of 1 lemon
cream
You'll also need:
plastic cups or iceblock moulds
iceblock sticks (from newsagents - you don't need to hog a dozen paddle pops to make these)
Boil the sugar water and lemon juice for ten minutes, Cool.
Add to the fruit. Pour a little cream into the top of plastic cups or iceblock moulds -anything freezable. Top up with the fruit mixture. Poke in an iceblock stick. Freeze.
And two Christmas stories I wrote more than two decades ago....
Drought Christmas
Santa rides round the corner on a horse that's fed on dust and blackberries for four years. It was white once. Now it's the colour of the paddocks. It noses the roses on the fence. Dorothy Perkins roses, a hundred years of rambling, small pink bunches that've stood half a dozen droughts.
Santa slides down and adjusts his stomach. The grey stubble behind his beard glistens like the dead leaves on the hill above, trees that die overnight, killed by heat as well as loss of water.
The kids've seen him coming. They run from the shade under the willows. They cluster round the sack like flies around on sweaty shirt, talking to themselves as much as him. None of them try to recognise him, even the older ones, not publicly at any rate. Kids have a law that if you recognise Santa you might miss the loot.
These are drought kids. Those under five have never swum in a creek; had measured baths; have never played on a green lawn. (I remember one saying, after ten minutes of her first rainstorm:' That's enough now. We want to go out an play.' Then realising, in amazement: You mean this can go for DAYS!')
Santa hefts his sack and shuffles over to the willows. (He's been dagging sheep all yesterday; been in the pub long after closing last night. His back's giving out but he won't give up the shearing; he drinks whisky after shearing days.) He plonks the sack near the trestles, filled with 'bring a plate'; brown rice salads next to vinaigrette macaroni a la Women's Weekly best, wholemeal apricot slice next to date scones, pikelets and silver beet salads- the lettuces have browned in the heat. A sheep chars on a spit a few trees away, keeping its flies mostly to itself, a guzzle of men with tinnies around it intent on the spit as the only bit of technology available this afternoon. There are fewer flies than last year; no stock around; fewer animals left to die. Behind us the heat flickers off the tin roof as Annie cajoles Santa's horse out of the garden, daisies nursed on dishwater and herbs with a crease of fat around their base. The water comes from the well behind the house. It was filled in last century, but Annie cleaned it out two years ago when the creek ran dry: old fencing wire and hub caps and corrugated iron; pumped it clear for two days till it ran pure. The water's cold and absurdly fresh, seeping out of the hard bare ground.
The kids are clustered round Santa now like sheep round a dam. Annie comes over
'I got the sack full from Saint Vinnies. $20 the lot' she whispers. Pre loved dolls are handed out and leggo sets minus parts but the kids don't mind; everyone's is in the same state; none of them watch television or wander through the tempting shelves of shopping centres; their expectations are different.
Someone hands Santa a beer. He drinks with one hand, offers presents with the other. Flies sip on his nose. His beard has a dusting like brown snow.
Later, Santa discusses stock prices over the dismembered sheep- wethers are selling for less than the cost of a kilo of chops at the butchers. Fruit prices are up- not that there's much fruit. I look at the sky through the window as we wash up and ask an older woman about the last drought, in the sixties. 'I mean it did rain sometimes, didn't it?'
She dries a plate and puts it on the bench. She shakes her head 'Not really.' she says 'Not much. It wasn't as bad as this.'
She's been picking beans for the last three weeks with her husband. They grew the beans because the fruit crop failed. The hole they pump from dried up last week. There won't be another vegetable crop before winter. She says: 'I remember Mum talking about the last real drought. That was end of last century, beginning of this. She said it didn't rain for nine months, one stretch. Five years of it and you could count the storms on your fingers. There wasn't grass for a hundred miles. They grew corn instead from the rain storms. That kept the horses going.'
She finishes the plates, dries her hands, leaves the water in the washing bowl for Annie to use as she thinks fit later. 'Cheer up.' she says 'It always rains at Christmas. Just a bit.'
The trouble with droughts is that you don't recognise them till you're well in them; they end gradually as the rain creeps back; till one day you realise you have both grass and water and the water table's full again. Looking out thorough the kitchen window, at the paddocks like grey beard stubble, the shine of rocks glaring through, I wonder if I'd have come if I'd known it would be like this, so far from the dreams of neat rows of tomatoes, silver sprinklers, neat bush kitchen. As a Annie says, if you've got dreams of growing veg and and bottling them in rustic kitchens, stay in the city where there's water, no neighbour's goats, or bushfire.
Annie brings out cups of tea. Santa drinks his black, in three swallows. He's taken off the wig and beard and top now, in his red pants and boots. The kids don't notice; they're down in the dry creek building dams with the hot rocks for the water that might come, some day. The men linger round the sheep carcass arguing pump maintenance; the women sit round the teapot inside discussing washing nappies without water. Drought throws you back into sexism; there isn't time to change your roles, or notice when you do.
Much later. Santa snores on the veranda, his stomach slipped across his knees. The cars gleam in the moonlight under the drooping casuarinas, utes with bales of hay in the back, Holdens that smell of goat or dog, the soft shine of an old Volvo. The moon is full, sailing like a yellow chook through the darkness. A wind buffets from the tableland, smelling of heat and sheep. Under the willows the last coals from the spit wink at us.
We sip orange wine, made before the drought, on the front verandah. The lounge room's quiet. The kids are bedded down there, under sheets on assorted cushions, some to be bundled into cars or utes later; others'll stay for this night or the next. Santa wakes up, gropes for his beer beneath his seat, looks at us. He wants to argue, or complain. Santa has lived here all his life. 'But I'd bloody leave tomorrow if I could.'
(No one mentions that his brother wants him to come to Sydney, he's selling cars on Parramatta road, slung off all last Easter in the pub about the fool of a brother who won't take things easy when he could.)
He looks at us belligerently. 'Why do you bloody stay then?' No one answers. Some one laughs: 'It's too hot to move.' Santa subsides: 'We'll all have to bloody go if this keeps up. The world'll be a desert'. Then he falls asleep again, the beer cradled on his stomach.
We stay on the veranda. The wind is cooler now. There is a scarf of grey on the horizon. It might be cloud. It might be mist. It's too hard to tell in the moonlight. It smells like rain. That might just be the coolness, or wishful thinking.
Someone is singing out the back: not the dancing music when the kids were up, loud as the cicadas. A kid calls from the inner room. The music floats like the moon across the veranda. The road glows white in the moonlight through the tunnel of trees; angophoras, heavy with blossom like honey. The hot smell of peaches rises from the flat, sweeter than the orange wine. We don't talk. These are reasons why we stay.
Christmas 2
I believe in Santa Claus. Literally. None of this symbol of Christmas stuff.
I believe in Santa Claus like I believe in the bunyip who lives in the dark Casuarina haunted corner of the creek. The pools are dark and deep and the edges murky and you hold your breath when you walk past at night. If you mind your own business the bunyip will mind his.
I never took to the Easter bunny. He was something you accepted to get the goodies, but the biological details were hazy and he never had much personality anyway, just this bit of fur who pranced about at Easter, dropped his bundle and bounced off.
Santa Claus is too emphatic to be unreal. Ask anyone. We probably have a clearer idea of Santa's character than of our own grandparents. He's kind; he's deeply understanding; he loves children and animals and obviously has a deep love of the environment or he wouldn't live at the North Pole, he'd move to Manhattan or Tokyo instead and really be at the heart of the Christmas industry. there is no question where Santa stands on the arms race or whaling or destruction of rainforests. You can't condemn someone like that to non existence.
Edward, at five, is steadfastly ignoring the inconsistencies in the lore of Santa. It's not just cupboard love. It's an instinctive knowledge that Santa is real, even if most of the games we play with him in department stores and Christmas parties are not. A thousand imitations doesn't mean he's not real.
Around here Santa comes in a white ute, a bit dusty, with a strong smell of sheep (Santa doesn't shear that afternoon). He's already been to the Araluen Christmas party. On Christmas eve he'll be hovering with the sea mist above the valley. Christmas will be a good day. It always has been, no matter what disasters have danced on either side of it.
There's a smell to Christmas. Here its hot grass and algae threads in the creek and the scent of the sea mist lifting. The sea mist always rolls in after hot summer days, and drifts back up the gullies with sunrise till by the time the shrike thrush is pecking at the window in the first flash of sunlight it's evaporated and the heat is closing its fingers over the valley again.
Christmas smells of pudding boiling, of course, and Pimms with cucumber, and chocolate and muscatels. When I was a child it smelt of roast potatoes in the dripping that my mother reused from roast to roast till it had a vintage mother's cooking smell. The dripping was finally discarded after perhaps twenty years when my mother moved into her flat, and no other scent has matched it. There was the smell of brown paper too, still over the Christmas wrapping- most of our relatives lived elsewhere and gifts were posted, bundled round the tree still in string and stamps and cut and torn and wrestled with on Christmas morning. Do organised homes exist where someone gets the scissors BEFORE they start opening presents?
There was the smell of tea and Sao biscuits and cheese too, with parents slowly nibbling trying to keep awake. There were other rituals - the beer left out for the garbos tied up with Christmas ribbon, calling out Christmas greetings to neighbours as they hobbled down to the dunny in the backyard in their dressing gowns- the one day of the year you acknowledged each other's existence on the way to the unmentionable. Phone calls to grandparents while each kid said merry Christmas (and Dad fretted over the long distance phone bill) and thank you for the whatever it was, a present invariably too young or too old- those were still relatively untravelled days, and we mightn't see our grandparents for several years at a time.
Breakfast was an anticlimax at Christmas., a nothing in particular between one excitement and the next. Then potato peeling and wrestling with the pumpkin and surreptitiously watching the lemonade bottles in the fridge till Mum had to yell at us not to keep letting the cold air out.
When I was very young Christmas dinner was a chook decapitated by my father. One year I tried to be helpful and drowned it first in a bucket on the front lawn, but my father refused to be grateful and sent me to my room. I discovered I remembered the taste of those chooks when I started to kill my own, and rediscovered what chook tasted like- chook without the slightly spongy frozen texture, chook that has been fed on a wide and happy diet- most of all a chook that has been bred for eating, not the multi purpose sad white denizens of bright lighted sheds, bred for eggs as well as meat and neither with much flavour.
Christmas also meant the wonderful shock of shop's air conditioning, billowing out of their doors into the baked Christmas streets. Few shops had air conditioning then. And the Christmas displays in the window, all northern hemisphere snow padding onto Charles Dickens lanes and kids with overcoats and lanterns.
A friend used to decorate Christmas windows in those days. He remembers his first major department store with pride. It was Snow White and the Seven dwarfs, Snow White laid out on her bier with the dwarfs sobbing in the background and Prince Charming bending gently over to kiss her. Snow white's bier travelled round and round so the kids outside the window could get a good look at her and the prince's pedestal went up and own as he bent to kiss and rose again.
He got a phone call from the police on Boxing Day. A crowd had gathered outside the store. They were becoming unruly. Could he please come do something about it?
Mystified, he abandoned the Christmas leftovers and wandered down. The prince's pedestal had broken. The prince was now lying face down on Snow White, but the mechanism was still working - up and down.... And up and down......
There was a similar incident a few years later when Baby Bear fell on top of Goldilocks, but he says smugly that wasn't his fault. The exploding good fairy was though. She was mostly made of light bulb. He was called into the managers office to explain- and to comfort the small boy, still howling, who had been watching this vision of loveliness when it blew up in front of him.. My friend is afraid it ruined the kid's expectations of women for ever- just as you find The Perfect Woman she explodes.
There've been dry Christmases here, when the ground was too hot to walk on in bare feet and the wombats huddled in the damp sand of the creek. There was the Christmas after Edward's birth when we debated earnestly whether his life would be warped if Santa didn't come to him at six weeks old, and a new year flood spread a metre high wall of wombat droppings and other debris through the house. (Well, it broke the drought.) There was the Christmas when an elderly relative had a heart attack (mild), but even that was held to be good news, openly by us kids and secretly by the adults: Christmas could proceed without her disapproval.
Christmas has always been perfect. Just perfect.