Autumn lunch at the farm

Last Saturday we hosted a full house at the Farm Kitchen. And as always seems to happen - thank goodness - all of our guests came with enthusiasm, a spirit of adventure (which was needed on the rather ‘safari-like’ farm tour Tim took them all on) and an easy-going attitude which meant that the whole group got along beautifully.

We are not a restaurant, but we do offer a farm experience and a simple meal of local produce cooked and served by myself and Tim. And when the mounting pile of dishes allows, one of us sits down to share the meal at our the big table. Luckily, pretty much every guest we’ve ever had here understands and appreciates this.

Here are a few photos and recipes from the day that was. I wanted to snap the main course too but we were so busy plating up and serving out that the camera didn’t stand a chance of coming out.

We started the day with NV (Non-Vintage) Sparkling by Charles Sturt University winery here in Orange. This was served with a few boards of homemade fennel lavosh (recipe below), our venison salami, plum chutney and cheddar.

Then Tim took everyone out, right out the back of the farm to visit the deer, watch the stags roar (we are in the middle of the rut or mating season) and slip and slide their way back up the hills. The group came back hungry, muddy and gladly, in high spirits.

Our meal began with an entree of venison carpaccio with fresh figs (white Adriatic and Genoa black from Beau and Katie Baddock's Nashdale orchard - available now at the Agrestic Grocer), hazlenuts and verjus served with old school garlic bread. And for mains we had char-grilled venison backstrap with a crunchy coleslaw of red cabbage, fennel, pomegranate, walnuts and tarragon and gratin potatoes. Desert was a white chocolate and amaretti flan (recipe in the book) served with warm peaches, biscotti (recipe below) and shots of iced white port from Mudgee.

Thank you so much to all the lovely lovely people who keep coming to have lunch with us at the farm. Next date on the calendar is a collaborative event with our friends at the Agrestic Grocer, a Moveable Feast held on Saturday, April 5th, the first weekend of F.O.O.D Week and bookings are now open! And thereafter we are on again on Saturday June 14 and the second saturday of each following month. Please email me for more information on any of these events.

Fennel and linseed lavosh

This recipe is a real favourite of mine and has been adapted from one given by Annabel Langbein in her fantastic book The Free Range Cook.

3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup wholemeal flour
4 tbsp linseeds
1 tbsp fennel seeds (toasted)
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup water

Preheat the oven to 165C and line a tray with baking paper. Mix the flours, seeds and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water and oils. Mix well until you have a nice soft dough. Divide this into five balls. Lightly flour a work surface and roll out each ball as thinly as you can. Cut into uneven squares and bake, in batches for 10 minutes each (or until just beginning to turn golden).

Hazlenut and cranberry biscotti

This is always my go-to biscuit recipe for the Farm Kitchen. The biscuits are fantastic with most desserts and of course, perfect for dunking into sweet wine or coffee.

2 cups plain flour

1tsp baking powder

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla paste
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 cup hazlenuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar together in a large bowl and add remaining ingredients. Bring together into a ball and tip this onto a lightly floured work bench. Divide the dough into two pieces and form into logs. Place these on a lined baking tray and bake for half an hour or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let cool a little. Reduce oven temperature to 160C, then slice each log across the diagonal into pieces about 1 1/2cm thick. Lay these on the baking tray and return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

Meet the farmers - Jacqui and Jim Steele, Egganic

Jacqui and Jim Steele believe that happy chooks lay the best eggs, and the Isa Browns behind their business Egganic are living, laying proof of this.

From their 16-hectare farm at Forest Reefs in Central Western NSW, the Steele's run about 2500 truly free-range chooks. They lay and roost in custom-made mobile chook sheds and roam and scratch freely, just like chooks should. And all of this takes place under the watchful eyes of the Steele's Maremma guard dogs.




At the moment, team Egganic is laying about an egg a day each, so the Steele's are kept  busy collecting, grading and packing thousands of eggs every week. Then on thursdays they load the truck, leave the farm under the care of a regular helper and head off to fill orders around the Central West and Sydney before setting up for a weekend farmers markets in the city.



Jacqui and Jim were one of the first stallholders at Eveleigh markets in 2009. Because it's a weekly market, they were able to build a loyal and supportive network of customers who would come back every week for these beautiful eggs. And if you've ever had the good fortune to try one of Alex Herbert's Bird Cow Fish Croque Madame's at Eveleigh, you'll know that a big part of their goodness comes from those beautiful yellow-yoked Egganic eggs!

Egganic eggs can be found at restaurants and markets across Sydney and a number of outlets in Orange, here's a full list.

Recipes

Being way too fond of custards, curds and the like - I can always find plenty of good uses for egg yolks in this house. But it's the whites that sometimes find themselves loitering in the fridge.

And while I'm sure they are very good for you, the idea of an egg white omelette doesn't really float my boat, so instead I turn to more indulgent options such as these dense, chewy, delicious macaroons (not to be confused with their slightly more trendy counterparts macarons).

Of course meringues and pavlovas are also obvious and good ways to use up extra egg whites and there are plenty more ideas in this vein over here on David Lebovitz' s excellent blog and you could also try these Italian almond biscuits.

But back to my macaroons...This is a great recipe to make with kids as all that's needed is a little stirring and scooping. Plus, they keep nicely for up to a week.

Coconut and apricot jam macaroons

This recipe is very closely based on one found in the excellent book Leon, Baking & Puddings. It makes about 24 biscuits.

6 egg whites
1 cup caster sugar
a pinch of salt
4 tbsp honey
2 cups dessicated coconut
1 tsp vanilla paste
Apricot jam

Heat oven to 150C and line two baking trays with paper. Combine egg whites, sugar, salt, honey and coconut in a large pan on medium. Cook, stirring constantly until the mixture has dissolved into itself, dries out a bit and just begins to turn brown on the bottom.

Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and let mixture cool completely. Scoop out into golf-ball sized balls on the baking trays. Press down in the middle of each one to make a little indent, fill this with apricot jam then bake for 15 minutes or until the macaroons are golden.

Jacqui's frittata

The morning I visited Egganic, Jacqui, she'd just pulled this number (pictured above) out of the oven for her and Jim to enjoy for lunch. It looked and smelled just amazing. Serves 6.

8 free range eggs
2 tbsp cream
2 cups vegetables (in this case, cooked sweet potato cubes, sliced zucchini and fresh cherry tomatoes)
1/4 cup dill leaves, finely chopped
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, finely grated

Preheat oven to 180C and lightly grease an oven-proof dish. Whisk together the eggs and cream and season to taste. Pour into the prepared dish, add the vegetables and herbs and scatter with the parmesan. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked to your liking. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

 

Baked bacon, egg and pesto 

Bacon and egg rolls must be one of the most popular breakfast items ever. At every farmers market we do, the queue for said rolls is always far longer than any other and for good reason; there's nothing quite like the combination of soft eggs with quivering golden yolks and crunchy salty bacon. But there's also nothing quite like the mess that can arise in your kitchen when making them in any quantity at home.

Enter the baked bacon and egg roll. And while I know this is no new creation, it's so good and so easy, I thought it wouldn't hurt to share again here. Just whack the oven on, line a muffin tin with bacon or pancetta, break an egg into each, season and add any other flavourings you like then bake until done. Stuff in a roll, on toast or eat plain with a roasted tomato or two. My kids also like these in their school lunchboxes. Perfect, mess free and delicious.

For 12

12 slices bacon or pancetta
12 beautiful free range eggs
Salt and pepper
12 tbsp pesto

Preheat oven to 180C and line a 12-hole, one cup capacity muffin tin with the bacon or pancetta. Crack an egg into each, season well and spoon in the pesto.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the egg is cooked to your liking then serve with a soft roll, toasted sourdough or a breakfast-y salad of rocket and roast tomato.

An artist in the house - Amelia Herbertson

For almost two years now I have been writing here about all the amazing producers and cooks we have here in the Orange region. Today we are taking a little foray into the artistic realm of my town.

Inspired by the gorgeous Beetleshack blog, whose clever founder Emily invites artists to design headers for her in a series that changes every few months, I thought I might start a something similar, drawing from the big pool of local talent in (and around) Orange. To kick things off, I asked the very lovely and local Amelia Herbertson to do an illustration for me (see above) and I love the result so much that I can’t imagine ever changing it again!

Amelia creates beautiful illustrations and lino prints and sells them (via her Etsy shop and markets) as cards, tags and numbered prints. Her work is intricate, happy, beautiful and I suppose as with all artists, a clear reflection of the person behind the brush.

I visited Amelia’s little studio in Orange this week to chat about our header collaboration and was pretty happy to find her partner Harley there too, and a batch of freshly baked monte carlo biscuits (recipe below) on the kitchen bench. And while I've been following her blog for some time now (it's gorgeous), I actually first met Amelia and Harley about seven years ago when we were all working at the Union Bank Wine Bar, she and I on the floor and Harley in the kitchen. He is a talented chef and works now with Scott Want at Orange’s Bistro Ceello restaurant.

The couple are currently living at Amelia’s parents’ place while they save a little money and it seems to be the perfect place for Amelia’s burgeoning creativity. While they work in the mental health/disability field, both her mother and father are artistic and this much is obvious the second you step through their front door; from the art on the walls, to the way they have renovated and decorated the former butcher shop that is now this colourful, funky family home and to the long garden full of carefully tended bonsai plants and vegetable plots.

Amelia studied graphic design after school; starting out at the University of Canberra (my old university!) and finishing by distance through Charles Sturt in Wagga Wagga. She graduated last year.

And while she studied art at school, Amelia has never had any formal training in that field, “I just learn as I go and teach myself most things!” she says, “I taught myself lino printing from books and am still picking up little tips and tricks along the way.” She is also a fairly nostalgic kind of girl, as she says, “when painting I am very influenced by my collection of vintage childrens’ books, some of which were Mum’s when she was little".

Amelia’s work can be found and purchased via her own website and she also attends markets in the Orange region on a regular basis. Next up will be the Blayney Festival on Sunday 17th  November then the Millthorpe Markets on December 1. Check her website for more Christmas markets and her range of Christmas cards that she’s just finishing up now.

Thank you Amelia for your beautiful Local is Lovely illustration!

Blackberry and Vanilla Monte Carlos

200g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
150g brown sugar
2 eggs
155g self raising flour
110g plain flour
120g almond meal
50g desiccated coconut
150g blackberry jam (we used Huntley Berry Farm jam)

Cream Filling
60g unsalted butter, softened
120g icing sugar mixture
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 tsp milk

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two trays with baking paper

Beat butter, extract and sugar in electric mixer with paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add eggs beat until combined. Stir in sifted flours, almond meal and coconut. Using two dessert spoons, form quinelles of dough and place onto baking paper. Place about 5 cm apart. Gently flatten dough with a lightly floured fork. Bake biscuits for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned, leave biscuits on tray to cool.

Meanwhile, make cream filling. Beat butter and sugar in electric mixture until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla bean paste and milk. Pair up matching sized biscuits, spread one with jam and one with cream filling and gently press two halves together.

Makes 18 large filled biscuits. Store filled biscuits in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Baskets, biscuits and goodness at today's Farm Kitchen workshop

Today was one of the best days we've had at the Farm Kitchen this year - artist Harriet Goodall came over from NSW's Southern Highlands to teach a random weaving workshop and all I had to do was make a simple lunch, pour lots of tea and keep the biscuit jars full.

I often work up at the Farm Kitchen, not only for our monthly lunches but also during the week, cooking and writing recipes on my own. And while I love the quiet hours up there, it was SO great to spend a day there with 13 creative women doing good things with natural fibres and foraged finds.

Harriet and I went to school together and she taught a workshop here at the farm last year too - so it's always great to see this clever, creative lady but especially when she is in workshop mode.

While she and the others worked, I sat at the kitchen bench with my laptop and occasionally got up to roast some veggies, boil the kettle or wash the lunch dishes. It was a good day. Tomorrow Hat returns to teach a kids' weaving workshop and my Alice, along with six other six and seven-year-olds will be joining in. It's fair to say that the peace and creative quiet of today will be long gone by tomorrow.

The biscuit jars

We had a selection of biccies to chose from today; including an easy biscotti (recipe here), Anneka Manning's incredible chocolate fudge cookies and malted muesli bars (recipe coming on Monday!).

For lunch we had apple and mint iced tea (recipe below) with venison pies baked this morning by Racine Bakery and served with this beetroot relish plus a couple of easy and very yummy salads.

Chickpea, sumac and roast vegetable salad with quark (above right)

Serves 10

2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
Zest of two lemons
2 tbsp sumac
5 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch each yellow, purple and orange heirloom carrots, peeled (if in Orange, The Agrarians is the place to go for these!)
1 bunch baby beetroot, peeled and halved
1/2 butternut pumpkin, peeled and diced
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
2 bulbs new season garlic, trimmed and finely sliced

Preheat oven to 180C. Drain soaked chickpeas and place in a saucepan, cover with salted water and bring to the boil. Cook until tender then drain and toss with lemon zest, sumac and half of the olive oil. Toss the carrots, beetroot and pumpkin with the sugar, fennel and remaining olive oil and roast for 30 minutes.

When ready to serve, place the chickpeas in a large bowl, top with warm roast vegetables, the coriander and new garlic. Serve with a bowl of quark sprinkled with a little extra sumac.

Baby spinach, pesto and snow pea salad

Serves 10

4 cups baby spinach
2 cups snow peas, trimmed and blanched
1/2 cup fresh pesto
Juice of one lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

Combine all ingredients and toss well. Serve immediately. 

Apple and mint iced tea

Makes enough for 13 thirsty weavers

4 green tea bags
1 handful fresh mint leaves
3 cups cloudy apple juice (preferably from The Nashdale Fruit Co!)
2 tsp raw caster sugar or to taste

Pour three cups boiling water into a bowl with the green tea bags. Let cool completely then discard the tea bags and mix the tea in a large jug with loads of ice, the mint leaves and cloudy apple juice. Sweeten to taste and serve.

Griffith Part 1 - The Dinicola family's almond orchard

We have just returned from a weekend in Griffith and a morning with Denis, Annette and Dean Dinicola of Mandole Almond Orchard.

The family's orchard was alive with bees and covered in cloudy white blossoms, their petals falling like snow. Right now; this orchard really is a vision in white.

The Dinicola family had been farming rice and wheat in the Griffith area for three generations but only began planting almonds in 2004. Since then they have covered 600 acres with almond trees and have become the largest privately owned almond property in the Riverina.

The lovely Annette also made us a batch of light, fragrant Pasta de Mandorla biscuits and some deeply sweet, chewy almond torrone (recipes for both below). She is a wonderful cook and though she says most of her almonds find their way into sweets, also uses almond meal for thickening curries, or in salads with quinoa or freekah.

The family sell their crop to Almondco Australia Limited and Dennis also represents the Riverina as a board member for the Almond Board Australia.

Pasta di Mandorla

These are the most delicious little biscuits. Annette made us a batch the morning we visited and they were a huge hit.

6 egg whites, at room temperature

350g sugar

500g ground almonds

160g icing sugar
1/2 cup toasted almonds, halved

Preheat the oven to 170C and line two baking trays with baking paper. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until combined. Fold in the almond meal, mixing well.

Place the icing sugar on a flat plate. Coat your hands in icing sugar to prevent the dough from sticking and form tea-spoons of the almond mixture in small 3cm balls by rolling them in the palms of your hands. Coat the balls in icing sugar, then place on the prepared trays and press half an almond onto each one. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes until light golden. Cool on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.

Torrone di Mandorla

Another recipe inspired by Mangia Mangia, this is substantial praline made chewy and extra delicious with the liberal use of runny honey.

Light olive oil

200g honey

1 cup sugar

500g roasted almonds

Lightly grease a 25x20cm baking tray with a little olive oil. Heat the honey in a saucepan over low heat for 10 minutes until light brown. Add the sugar and continue to cook, stirring, until you have a thick toffee consistency. It will take about 10 minutes.

Add the almonds and stir for another 2 minutes until well combined. Remove from heat. Pour the mixture into your baking tray and spread until even. Leave to cool for 5 minutes then cut into small pieces (while the mixture is still warm). Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 months. 

Crunch time - baking with our local walnuts

Sally and Ross Smith's walnut orchard is on an island. Sort of. The 200-acre property, near Oberon, NSW, sits on a jutting headland carved out by Stoney Creek, a snaking waterway that almost encircles the orchard and gives the property its name. The kids and I visited last Friday, on our way to visit my parents who live about half an hour away. I've been a big fan of their walnuts for some months now but was just was bowled over by the beauty of their property, (called The Island), its orchard, creek and geography.

Sally, a retired medical scientist and Ross, a cancer surgeon, bought the orchard in 2009 and sell their nuts through the Bathurst and Orange farmers markets. While they are finalising their website, Sally also takes email orders.

Ross still runs a research laboratory in Sydney and among other projects, his work has involved studying omega-3 fatty acids and how they can help reduce pain and symptoms of pancreatic cancer. “So through work I've always been interested in walnuts and their health properties. Plus, we were looking to make a move to the country, so when this place came up for sale we jumped”.

Ross and Sally are in the process of developing a range of value-added products for the farmers markets, so during a brief break in their winter pruning, the kids and I helped ‘taste test’ a few options. They include the above Armenian walnut cake, deep and golden with creamy nuts and nutmeg, and some beautifully short walnut and chocolate biscuits (recipes for both below).

These walnuts are a world away from the soggy, floury imported ones we mostly find on supermarket shelves. As Sally says, “some say they don’t like walnuts because their experience is of a bitter taste, this is because most of the walnuts sold in Australia have come from overseas and may have been stored as kernels for many months, or even years, in poor conditions. Once the nuts are shelled, they don’t keep for long as the skin oxidises and this makes the nuts bitter, especially if they are packed loosely.  Also, if the nuts have not been kept cool and dry, the oils can go rancid. And the cracking process chips off the corners of the kernels, producing that unattractive battered look.”

Sally and Ross’s nuts are, on the other hand, harvested by hand and dried with care. The kernels are vacuum packed to remove oxygen which could damage the flavour, and they only sell nuts within a year of harvest. This means they keep that warm, creamy taste for a year in the shell, or three months in the vacuum pack.

“We think that in the future, people will eat more quality walnuts not just because of their taste but also their amazing health benefits too,” Sally says. She explains that while we have known they are good for us for over 20 years, new research shows that a handful a day (30g) as part of a healthy diet can help protect people against Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake

This recipe was given to Sally’s mother 40 years ago and produces a warm, spiced cake that was such a treat, especially with the green tea Sally poured, steaming and lightly perfumed with rose petals.

1 ½ cups brown sugar
1 ½ cups self raising flour
112g butter
1 egg
¾ cup milk
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 level teaspoon soda bicarbonate
20 new season walnut halves, preferably from our walnut grove!

Butter a 20cm deep cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 170C. Mix the sugar, flour and nutmeg in a large bowl or a food processor.  Add the butter and cut in with a knife or whiz in the processor till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Place half in the cake tin.

Beat the egg in a small bowl, add milk and soda bicarb, then blend into the remaining flour mixture. Pour over the dry crumbly mixture in the cake tin. Place walnut halves on top and bake for about 45 minutes.  Cake will be cooked when it springs back if pressed gently.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before carefully turning out.

Walnut and chocolate biscuits

Alice and I were a bit rude about these biscuits and helped ourselves to far more than was polite. But they were so crunchy and delicious it was hard to stop at one. Thank you so much Sally for sharing the recipe.

125g butter, softened
110g caster sugar
90g brown sugar
1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence (or you could try orange rind)
1 large egg
100g self raising flour
150g plain flour
150g dark chocolate chips
150 chopped new season walnuts, preferably from our walnut grove!

Preheat oven to 180C.  Line 2 large or 3 medium baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Beat butter, caster sugar, brown sugar and vanilla or rind together till pale and creamy.  Add egg and beat till combined. Stir plain flour and SR flour together in a small bowl. Add flour, chocolate chips and walnuts to the butter mixture, stir till well combined. Shape heaped teaspoons of dough into balls and place about 6cm apart on baking tray, flattening them slightly. Bake 13-15 minutes or till they are slightly golden. They’ll be soft but will firm as they cool. Remove from oven, let cool on a baking tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.