Peachy Hot Bed

21/11 HOT BED

We all want to dive under a blanket at the best of times, a hot warm blanket to melt under while the winter sets in. These are the times when energy is at an all time low, and you really want to cover yourself and forget about the rest of the world. 

Indeed this recipe is found hiding under its own crumbly blanket. A soft bed of fleshy, sweet and hot fruit robed in a dusting of glorious crumbs. The only thing this bed needs is a good spoon. And you have two choices - big spoon or little spoon. Also both benefit from cream.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

3 Old Peaches
75g Butter
75g Sugar
75g Flour


What I did - 

Arrange the slightly old soggy peaches around a small baking dish (this is a small recipe for three to four at most). They should all be standing on their backs, the thin gill of the meat upwards.

In another bowl rub the butter into the flour and sugar until you get a thick gloopy crumb. Sprinkle over the peaches as evenly as possible - don't press it down, the lighter it falls the more the preaches melt and the crumb stay loose in the oven.

Bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes or so - just before the crumbs start to catch. The more heat this is exposed to the more the fruit melts and crumb crisps.

Eat directly out of the dish if there's only two of you, or glooped in cream with friends. The best way to be.

JG

Overcast Light

26/09 OVERCAST LIGHT

Food for thought? Food for fuel? Food for fun. Because to be honest, when the going gets tough, the tough get seriously hungry. This is always the case when it comes to uprooting your life, and this meal is an all in one pre- and post-adventure comfort. It really is just a way to plate up nearly all my favourite ingredients at once (as is the case here, often ready in the fridge).

This particular one holds particularly fond memory in my mind. The blissful last week in Australia, where everything was perfect because it was coming to an end (for now). There was one day where I should have been preparing, but instead shared this and a bottle of grigio in the overcast warmth - my kind of heaven. This is always going to be a plate of overcast happiness.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Salmon Fillet
3 Eggs
100ml Milk
1 Broccoli
1 Avocado
200g String Beans
70g Goats cheese
Lemon
Salt + Pepper


What I did - 

Really not a stressful cook, just one to do when you have some time at home to juggle the different ingredients. Start by throwing the salmon fillet under a hot grill for about 15 minutes with some lemon, salt and pepper. It doesn't need to cook through, just catch enough to colour on one side.

Whisk the eggs together until pale, add the milk and a chunk of the goats cheese and beat again. In a small baking dish, flake the salmon in the bottom. Pour over the eggs, sprinkle with salt and pepper again and throw into the oven for about 20 minutes at 200degrees. The heat needs to be high so that the eggs inflate around the fish.

While the bake is on, steam the broccoli and beans, or blanche them for 5 minutes. Really don't cook these through, keep them crunchy and hot. Drain/take them off the heat and add to a large salad bowl. Crumble the remaining goats cheese over, gouge out the avocado and squeeze the life out of the lemon. Quickly tumble through the bowl, the heat from the vegetables will melt the cheese with the soft avocado and lemon. It should end up a white-flecked bowl of sharp greenness.

Once the eggs have inflated appropriately, like a blimp, take the dish out of the oven. Serve direct from the dish at the table. Have your guest deal with the wine. Immediate perfection.

JG

Pie Face

05/07 PIE FACE

Spending a weekend in a witches coven, summoning demons and brewing mischief conjured some unusual spirits. In all truth I was just in the country with very old friends - demonic friends, special people to be sure. After venturing through forests and clambering over muddy tracks there was an inordinate amount of food eaten, mind altering wine downed and roaring wood burnt to fire our souls. 

One of these nights beckoned this monstrosity, only in appearance - not taste, to our cabin. A vegetable pie, without any of the fuss but all of the flavour. The vegetables have been tainted and woody by the tomato and mushrooms, forming the flavour base for the red pie. It is simple, warming, and devilishly good. You can take pastry more seriously but why? Especially when a grinning ghoul radiates warmth from the oven.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/4 Pumpkin
1 Sweet Potato
2 Potato
250g Mushrooms
3 Carrots
100g Artichoke (marinated)
250g Tomato Puree
1 Cup Red Wine
Salt + Pepper
3 Sheets Puff Pastry (Supermarche quality)


What I did - Oven preheated to 180degrees

This is a slow comfortable recipe. Nothing to stress over, just potter round for a couple of hours with a comfort movie in the background - preferably with Meryl Streep. Start by using a wide baking dish, either cast iron or thick ceramic. Heat up the mushrooms with the artichokes and butter, letting the marinade and butter draw out all the flavour from the fungi.

Next braise the carrots, adding the potato, pumpkin and sweet potato until the liquid has been absorbed. Add the red wine in a hot splutter. Once it settles and is simmering fast add the tomato puree. Clamp a lid on and bake for an hour - until all the vegetables have softened, but not yet a mush. Take out of the oven and let cool for half an hour.

Once its cooled enough you can dover with the pastry lid, any hotter and the pastry would melt into an unpleasant gloop. Its easiest to make a lid out of strips, they cook faster with ridges that crisp deliciously. Add a face should you feel a ghoulish spirit.

Bake again for another 30 minutes until golden - verging on burnished. Take out of the oven and serve messily onto plates, devour near a wood fire and with deep red wine. No responsibility will be taken for over-eating or drinking because this pie is demonic.

JG

American Dream Cookie

29/04 AMERICAN DREAM COOKIE

It's a mythical thing, the perfect American cookie. Recipes like enduring myths tend to change and take on the life of those making them. This recipe is no different, it is in part inspired by a close friends prefect cookie recipe, but has been altered to accommodate my raisin obsession. The raisins were implanted in my head during a long day in San Francisco Bay, where I had the cookie I had always imagined. A big oat filled country cookie flecked with dark raisin beads.

Here it is in all its Dolly Parton hometown glory, I'm not sure if that sentence makes sense even to me. American life. American Dream. Things are not always as they seem... Try some, buy some. 

Ingredients (not-so-approximate) - 

2 1/3 Cup Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 Cups Castor Sugar
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar (Muscavado/Dark)
175g Butter
2 Large eggs
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Oats
1 Cup Raisins

What I did - 

Its best to start with everything you need at hand, strewed across the kitchen counter like its posing for a Home & Garden centrefold. Just makes the wholesome cookie cooking experience more straightforward and as rhythmically calming as it should be. Also this recipe wont work without the right ingredients, and there is nothing more frustrating than some molten lumps in the oven.

With a good stand mixer (preferably red and named after Nigella) or a strong beating arm combine the butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. There will be flecks from the dark sugar, but it is an essential part of the nutty sweetness. Add the vanilla and eggs (one at a time if doing by hand to make your work easier) until completely beaten through and slightly aerated - at the very least not a thick gloop. Now its time to stir in all the dry ingredients, flour, baking soda & salt. Stir gently first so there isn't a flour atom bomb suddenly enveloping the kitchen. Once its less airborne beat firmly until it becomes a dark golden cohered dough.

Here its time to add the 'bits' which for these rustic biscuits takes the form of a dense cup of rolled oats and another of plump raisins. You can substitute and add anything at this stage, other fruits, nuts, spices, chocolate. Just be mindful of not making the dough too dry. Use an ice-cream scoop to make perfect half spheres and arrange them on a lined baking tray*. Make sure they have enough space to grow in the oven, about 5cm between each one.

Bake for 15 minutes in a well heated oven (180degrees). They should be golden with a slightly darker bottom, give them a few more minutes to tan if they look too pale. Rest them on a cooling rack. Don't put them in a tin until they're completely cooled or they will perspire and no one likes a sweaty cookie.

Be proud of your home-grown (baked) family recipe (handed over at gunpoint) country (suburban) cookies.

*These can be frozen for about two weeks, just add an extra 5 minutes baking time for defrosting.

JG

Bake for Bed

10/10 BAKED EGGS FOR BED

"spooning in a spoon"

Lazy. Only way to describe Sundays. No matter what else is going on in your world, Sundays always seem to slow down. Even when you have to go to work - I know right - there is always a moment to just be still. For me that usually involves snacking on a whole lot of random things like an excited thief raiding the pantry. But today time is going by so slowly, and I'm hung up on the thought of eggs.

Baked eggs, the ultimate slow breakfast (and by that I mean at 10:30, anything earlier is ungodly. Praise Madonna). Designed out of ease over aesthetic, to be eaten from the bowl with a fork and company - or a good movie...

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

2 Eggs (whisked with a splash of milk)
1/2 Onion (reduced)
1 Tomato (griddled)
Rosemary
Balsamic
Butter
Salt + Pepper


What I did - Oven preheated @ 200 degrees

Start by chopping the tomato into small pieces and the onion in to thin slices, then scald in a blisteringly hot fry pan. When they are softened and brown take them off the heat. Splash the balsamic vinegar over and throw in the salt and pepper, turn through the pan. Scissor a sprig of rosemary over the top. Then put the pan under a hot grill, the salt should help the onions and tomatoes reduce further as they cook through.

While the pan is grilling whisk the eggs and milk together until thoroughly combined, the egg mix should become pale and slightly thinner. Now all elements are ready to come together. Spread the grilled ingredients into the bottom of a small baking dish. Scatter a few nibs of butter around and pour the frothy eggs on. Being a little addicted to the heat parmesan gives, peel a few curls using an apple peeler and strew on top.

Blast in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the eggs have puffed up. East straight out of the dish with a fork, preferably outdoors or in bed with company ;)

JG