Missing in Action (again); Vegetarianism and A Plethora of Pink

Yet again, I have long been missing in action.  I sit in front of a computer all day for work, in my first ever 100% screen based job (which I make no secret of the fact that I hate) and I find, as do others I talk to, when I am not working, I just can’t bare sitting in front of a computer as well.  And when I do, it’s generally to do things I have to do, like pay bills and sadly, addressing selection criteria ad infinitum (another thing I hate doing).  I am not permanent in my job and so I have to address selection criteria in order to ensure I have a job to go to when this one finishes, as I am totally dependent on my fortnightly pay, being single and all.  I only apply for positions I am serious about and believe I would find meaningful and be in the running for, but still, it is a very time consuming and unenjoyable process.  So, these are the reasons why I have not been much in food blog land.  I read all my favourite bloggers posts every day, I just haven’t been commenting of late and I haven’t been posting myself.

So, besides work and selection criteria, I became a committed vegetarian (for the third time in my life) early this year.  I rarely ate animal, but I have decided to change that to NEVER eating animal, ever.  The previous times I occasionally ate fish, but now it is all animals, or sentient beings.  I will never ever again eat a sentient being.  Sadly, I still have to buy animal products as my cat, who is a fussy cow anyway, has no intention of eating lentils and vegetables!  As my Mum wisely said, she is worth it though, and, she is.  I guess the difference is, I could never ever kill an animal, even if my life depended on it, whereas Poppy would if she had to.  Thankfully she has no interest in birds or reptiles, but she has eaten up the occasional mouse (for the record, she won’t eat the liver, but otherwise she is of the ‘nose to tail’ school of mouse eating!).

I am completely loving being vegetarian.  As I said, I rarely ate animal anyway, maybe chicken twice a month, red meat twice a year, fish maybe once a month and pork products maybe once a year.  I had such a strong internal ethical debate about it, that it feels like a heavy weight was lifted from my shoulders when I decided what would be the way forward.  I love it because it makes my conscience feel better and I especially love it for two foodie reasons.  One, because there are so many options with food, you feel like in your one life you will never scratch the surface of making all the amazing dishes you read about online, on food shows, in cookbooks and in food magazines, especially when you are single and can only make so many dishes in a week without being wasteful.  I now feel like the iceberg of choice has been so greatly reduced, that I have much more chance to work through all the things I would love to make and eat.  The second reason I love it is because I feel like I get to try so many more amazing dishes when I eat out.  So many of us tend towards the same sorts of ‘favourite’ dishes when eating out, but now, I have no option but to choose from the vegetarian dishes on menus (even though I often did anyway) and I am finding that the dishes are usually so very interesting. So, its been ‘win, win, win’ so far.  I love it.  I am also being very careful this time (as opposed to last time) to eat carefully and properly and to plan what I will eat, and I am finding that another win as it even more indulges my love of all things creative to do with food.

What pushed me finally over the edge?  Well, I am a huge supporter of Sea Shepherd and Captain Paul Watson.  I despise the brutal killing of whales and even more brutal killing of dolphins at Taiji Cove in Japan.  I find this so devastating to my soul, that I realised I cannot strongly decry the brutal killing of one creature yet condone the brutal killing of another – not for my stomach anyway.  When I did a degree after leaving school, one of my geography lecturers back in Adelaide was the president of the Conservation Council in SA (to the best of my memory anyhow).  He wisely said, that if you haven’t the courage to kill a creature yourself to eat it, you should be a vegetarian.  I never forgot that statement and it led me twice before now to vegetarianism.  Secondly, the reporting of ‘grotesque abuse’ of animals IN AUSTRALIAN SLAUGHTERHOUSES disgusts me beyond almost my capacity to live.  Does any creature deserve this?  Would we welcome that treatment for our pets?  No is the answer.  As Paul McCartney has famously said, if more slaughterhouses had glass walls, there would be more vegetarians.  I for one, will never eat another animal as long as I live.  I will never buy another leather product and I have always tried to only by household products that have never been tested on animals.  We all should.  I have never believed that I am superior to any other creature on the planet.  I never will.  I am certainly not superior to my fellow mammals.  All of this makes me very sad and I know most people try to ignore it as it’s too hard to change.  Well, I have made the big step and commitment to change.  This time it will be lifelong and I am loving it.  It feels like an emancipation.

This morning I made a batch of Hannah’s ‘Coconut Date Treats of Raw Vegan Sweetness‘.  Fantabulous.  As I now have a kilo of coconut flour, I will be making LOTS of these little treats.

On an entirely different note, what else have I been up to? Something that was a massive amount of fun (and work, but you only ever remember the fun aspect).  I was privileged to be asked to make the cakes for the 21st birthday of a lovely young colleague.  Brooke is a lover of all things pink and all things leopard print.  I figured leopard print (pink leopard print?!) was beyond me, but pink was definitely within my skill set.  Brooke did all the creative direction and I just transferred her vision into reality.  She really really wanted caramel mud cake with white chocolate ganache and quilted pink fondant icing, and that my dears is exactly what she got!

After a test cake which I took to work for Brooke to try (minus the fondant), Brooke decided on the cake itself, a fab caramel mud cake recipe which I found here.  You honestly cannot go wrong with Women’s Weekly cake recipes, which believe me when I say you can with those published by ‘celebrity cooks / chefs’.

This is two caramel mud cakes joined together with Lindt white couverture chocolate ganache.

A work in progress…

As I have said before about why I love baking (and decorating), as I am self-taught, I learn something every single attempt.  I had never done this ‘burst open’ top before, and I stuffed it up in one minor way, which next time I would do better as I was able to work out what would have made it better.  I love this process of analysis and improvement.

still going, getting there…

I made I don’t know how many cupcakes, in cupcake wrappers which Brooke chose and purchased. I think I made maybe around 70 or so.  I made dark chocolate mocha mudcake cupcakes from a Women’s Weekly cupcakes book and I made one batch of hummingbird bakery vanilla cupcakes as well.  Despite having never used these little cardboard wrappers before, which were much smaller and straighter than what I am used to using, I think they turned out fab.  I then made three separate batches of buttercream as I needed a) lots and b) different colours.  I also made all sorts of fondant decorations (stars and 21′s) in different colours.

Brooke made a fabulous table full of pinkness as a centre piece for her special celebration.  She hired a cake stand and all in all, I think it looked absolutely fabulous.  I delivered the cakes and set them up and took a few photos, which wasn’t super easy as the setting sun was shining straight through the window behind the table.

the top of the cake

 I got to briefly meet Brooke’s parents and her gran and a number of family and friends.  She has a really lovely family and beautiful family home.  It was such a pleasure to meet everyone and to be involved.  As I said, a privilege, to play a part in one of life’s landmark occasions for a really special person. I was channeling Buddy Valastro (Cake Boss) while making the cakes and I felt I got to experience how he feels when he delivers his cakes to his appreciative customers at the end of each episode.  It’s such a wonderful feeling to experience when someone loves what you have done.  Brooke and her family seemed so happy with cakes and I really enjoyed their happiness with Brooke’s design and my creation.  It made the work definitely worthwhile.  I guess appreciation is something we all want in our work, but don’t always get.  Some jobs are just thankless by nature.  Baking and decorating is not one of those jobs!

I think Brooke’s table looked fab.  I am trying to convince her we should go into the party planning business!

 The difficult part of being a self-taught novice is, you can’t exactly cut the completed cake open to make sure it is cooked through or turned out alright or whatever.  I was thrilled when Brooke brought some left over cupcakes to work on the Monday and a big chunk of the big cake on the Tuesday.  It was still moist and absolutely delicious (sweet though, with all that ganache and fondant).

 Sadly I only have iPhone 3GS, not iPhone 4, which takes way better photos!

And last but not least, one more shot of the cakes.  As I said, it was a lot of work but a lot of fun.  I absolutely loved doing it, especially for someone I am so fond of.  I learned that pink is such a happy colour and when you spend two entire days completely surrounded by pink, you can’t help but smile  Thank you Brooke.  Can you have another 21st please?

And now, a favour if I may:  Can everyone who reads this who also loves and cares for animals, please go to this page http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dream/view/to-help-free-the-bears-to-save-bears and hit the ‘Vote’ button and then click on the link in the email you will be sent (a mechanism to prevent cheating).  It will only take you seconds, but the $5,000 will mean so much to assist in the repatriation of bears who have suffered SO MUCH.  Free the Bears is an extremely worthwhile charity, started by a lady in WA after she saw the suffering of bears on tv some years ago.  It is a charity that really really makes a change.  Please help them win the $5,000 and please please share this link with your online friends (facebook, blogs and so on).  I have spent hundreds of hours making cakes for people, I am only asking you to take seconds to vote to help the bears.  Please help.  If you have ever eaten one of my cakes, please vote, it’s all I ask.  http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dream/view/to-help-free-the-bears-to-save-bears

As I continue on the self-taught baking and decorating journey, I try new recipes and find new favourites.  Do you have a favourite cake recipe that you can share a link to?

Thank you for reading, AND VOTING xx

Update re The Midnight Baker’s Bestest Banana Cake Ever

Three things:

One – because I forgot to add in the original post, I wanted to let you know that I actually chucked in some ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg to the banana cake recipe.  Why?  Because it is Christmas, and more realistically, because I simply can’t help myself finagling with recipes.  God I hope ‘finagling’, a word I love, in the written form means the same as it does in my spoken version of English.  I seriously hope it has nothing to do with small furry animals!  You never can be too sure these days…

Second, also because I cannot help myself ‘improving upon’ recipes, I sprinkled demerara sugar on top of my cake(s) before banging them in the oven.  Trust me, it’s a bloody good idea!

And finally, I hope anyone who is brill enough to read this has a happy and safe New Year’s Eve and that 2012 brings only the bestest things (including, and besides, banana cakes) to you and yours in 2012.  Thank you for reading.  Much love.  xx

The Midnight Baker’s Bestest Banana Cake Ever

Don’t you just love recipes given to you on scraps of paper?  I do.  A lot.  I treasure them.

I used to work with a chap who was one of those lovable rogues.  He happened to be one of the most laid back and nicest fellows you could ever meet; he was (and probably still is) a bit of a wheeler and dealer and was one of those fellows that is always helping someone out, especially in his rural neighbourhood.  He was (is) just a great bloke.

This fellow’s wife is a nurse and hence is a shift worker, working at least 12 hour shifts.   Despite her long hours at work, he was always bringing in amazing baked treats to work that she had made that morning, so I dubbed her ‘The Midnight Baker’.  Since he was always at work by 8am and had quite a drive to get to the office, I used to be amazed at how she could bake the goods that morning.  I think it was her baking that got me to take up teaching myself to bake fairly seriously.

Anyhoo, that’s the back story to the Bestest Banana Cake Ever.  Not only the bestest, but the easiest cake ever.  Since I like to bake things with some degree of difficulty, I haven’t baked too much really straightforward quick and easy stuff.  But, having some bananas I hadn’t eaten and not liking them very ripe, I decided to pull out the banana cake recipe this fellow brought in to work about 18 months ago, which his wife had written out for us.  It’s the first time I made it and it was so good, I made it twice within a week.  I cannot recommend this cake strongly enough, it’s so good.  And so easy.

I am going to write the recipe exactly as it was given to me, and as you can see, it seems to have been written assuming that the person following it knows what they are doing (that is, it’s a bit light on directions!).  If you need more directions, feel free to email me or leave a comment.

3 bananas (ck’s note: I used two reasonably large quite ripe narnies)

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

90 gm butter

3/4 cup SR flour

1/4 cup plain flour

1 tspn bi-carb

3/4 cup coconut (ck’s note: I use McKenzie’s moist flakes, which I am currently a bit in love with)

1/4 cup milk

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs.

Sift flours and bi-carb, stir into mixture.

Add coconut, bananas and milk, stir until combined.

Cook 30 to 40 mins at 180C (large loaf tin).

Icing:

60gm cream cheese

30gm butter

1 1/4 cups icing sugar

1/2 tspn vanilla essence

1 Tbspn lemon juice

Mix altogether.

As I said, no mucking about with the directions!  But man this is a cracking cake, it’s soft and light and moist and fluffy and tasty and stays that way for days.  I’ve chucked the ones I made into the freezer, one with icing and all (I have a strongly held belief that cakes and icing are yummier having been frozen), so I shall let you know if they are good once thawed.  I’m pretty sure they will be.  It’s something to do with the flavour intensifying with thawing.  Whatever, I like having a little snack at work to brighten up my day, it cheers me up no end

As I said, if you happen not to be an experienced home baker and want detailed directions, let me know.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays so far and are looking forward to a new year.  I for one am thinking of all the people in jobs such as nursing and many many others, who don’t get time off over the Christmas season (I was one of those people for most of my working life).

Thanks for reading.  And make this cake.  Or else.  xx

#xmasathome

I hope everyone who reads this has had a happy Christmas day, lead up to and festive season, no matter how you spent it.  For me, I was not able to go home to my family this year, for a number of reasons, not least of which being I take my responsibility as a pet owner very seriously.  When my girl Poppy adopted me some 8 1/2 years ago, I took it as a serious commitment and that she (being a very timid little cat) was not something to suffer upheaval just to fit in with me.  Now, this is not a judgmental comment where most others are concerned (but it is for some, who think pets are disposable – they are not in my opinion).  So, being the Christmas season, I can’t impede on someone else’s enjoyment by asking them to leave their own family celebrations to come and feed The Pops.  Last year I flew home for the one day – an expensive exercise in anyone’s book, never mind a single person trying to pay the high cost of living and Canberra rent and so on, on one income.  As I have to go home for an important celebration in a few weeks’ time, I decided to stay home this Christmas.  Alone.

Christmas is not the best time of year to be alone.  I am a pretty solitary person, happy in my own company, so it didn’t bother me so much.  In fact, for many many years, I worked in jobs where I had to work at Christmas anyhow, so the number of years I have been home with family for Christmas are far fewer than those where I have not.  I was lucky though to catch up with each of my closest friends in the lead up to the big day and even share a special Christmas dinner on the Tuesday night before at my place with two very close friends.  I actually had a happy and relaxed day yesterday but it was still helped along by really lovely expressions of kindness on Twitter from serious Canberra foodie Lizzy of http://www.bizzylizzysgoodthings.com/ and Mardi from http://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com/.  Extra loveliness came from my much loved facebook friend Dolly in Melbourne.  The funny thing is, I have never met any of these women, which makes their kindness all the more wonderful.  Add to that a call home in the afternoon and chat with my parents and various facebook updates from friends, and I did not feel as though I was missing out too much after all.  I was also happy to find the Twitter #xmasathome hashtag which was so people alone on Christmas, like myself, had others to reach out to.  The web can be a scary place with so many negatives, but it can also be a wonderful and kind place uniting people of common interests.  I think most of us, especially bloggers, are touched by the warm friendships we have made with others of a like mind all around the world.  Happy days!

So, even though I was quite happy in my own space and in my own company at Christmas, I spared many many thoughts for all those not so happy to be alone at Christmas and the sadness this can bring.  I wish I could have had all such people to my home and showered them with food, care and compassion.  Especially when, as I said to Mardi on twitter, some people have other very difficult things thrown into the mix – loss of loved ones, relationship breakdowns, split families, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, war,  illness (including mental illness) and so on.  I am so very lucky that I was just alone and really that was a choice, as I could have gone to Adelaide had I really really wanted to (and booked flights months ago!).  But it was so lovely for Poppy as it was a beautiful day and she got to sit outside out the back in the sun (she is a naughty sun bunny, being mostly white) and I sat out on the front on the deck and enjoyed beautiful food and drink and communicating with wonderful people via twitter, facey, text and telephone.  I remember many years away from my family where the only communication methods were snail mail (yes, writing letters – does anyone do that anymore?!) and prohibitively expensive ‘STD’ phone calls.  And no, STD did not stand for sexually transmitted disease in those days, but it definitely translated into some sort of financial disease given the cost of the calls!

My hat is, as always, seriously off to the wonderful and talented bloggers who manage to update regularly, and even daily in some cases.  I find, that as I sit in front of two computer screens all day of every working day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is turn on my computer – so, while I check things on iPhone, I almost never turn a computer on at night during the week.  This is why I so rarely do a blog update.  I also find it takes me about half a day to process my images and do an update, so again, I don’t know how all you wonderful people do it regularly.  I have been at this for several hours already this morning.  During weekends, I find I have so many other things to do with my time.  So, while I haven’t been posting on my blog, I have most definitely been cooking up a storm.  I decided this year to make the time (and it does take time) to make many of my Christmas gifts and I did this with a combination of my two loves – cooking and photography.  For the people close to me who I thought would appreciate it, I gave a combination of bought things, baked goods and calendars made with my own photos that I printed at 5in x 7in, one photo for each month.  Mostly they were my bird and wildlife photos, for one friend it was his photos from his Kokoda trek this year and for another, shots from her wedding, also this year.  So, it was a bit of fun.

Anyway, as I said, I am in awe of those wonderful women who manage to blog regularly and share their wonderful food, stories, recipes, adventures and photos with us, and here is a list of a few that I love and am so thoroughly entertained by.  I look forward very much to the emails that tell me they have a new post.  They are all wonderful and talented women:

- Lorraine at http://www.notquitenigella.com/

- Mardi at http://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com/

- Lizzy at http://www.bizzylizzysgoodthings.com/

- Hannah at http://wayfaringchocolate.com/

- Charli at http://hotlyspiced.com/

- Paula (whose patience for her beautiful cookie decorating I will never be able to emulate!) at http://vanillabeanbaker.wordpress.com/

I cooked all throughout my spare time in the lead up to Christmas, I made gifts, took things into work to share, had my version of Christmas dinner on Tuesday night last week and I made myself a lovely Christmas lunch yesterday.  I cooked from a combination of magazines, cookbooks, beautiful blogs and my own brain.  I am not going to bore you with recipes here as you all know how to cook and most of you have made your own versions of the same things in recent days and weeks.  If something stands out and you would like the recipe, please feel free to email me and I will be very happy to share the recipe with you.  I am however going to bore you with some photos I have taken of the things I have made and I will tell you where the inspiration, if not the recipe also, came from…

So, for the first time ever, this year, I made Christmas fruit cakes. These were incredibly rich, full of fruit and nuts and an absolute tonne of booze!  I have learned though, even a cake that is booze-laden, is not much appreciated these days, particularly by the younger generations – I could barely give little pieces of one these away at work last week.  I made six cakes of varying sizes and they were however happily received as part of presents by my Mum and Dad and two close friends  Even though it was my first ever Christmas cake attempt, I get bored following recipes, so I actually added two different recipes together and pretty much didn’t measure or weigh anything except the flour and sugar, which is my normal way!

I made the most yummy chocolate truffles.  They were rum and raisin, which sounds awful to me, when you think of rum and raisin chocolate, but I have to say that these were divine.  Nice and rich, but not sickly sweet or boozy, having said that, two was the limit that you could eat at a time…I am planning next to make some with Pedro Ximenez, one of my many favourite things!

I made these cherry shortbread tartlettes, which are from the most beautiful blog ‘raspberri cupcakes’ who I think has some of the most beautifully styled food photography on the web and is an insanely creative baker.  I am gobsmacked by every new post from stephcookie.  I hope nobody minds when I show I have made their creations – I figure this is why people post, as they want to share and hope that others will make their creations.  I personally think it is the highest honour of food-blogdom, if you can influence someone to make one of your dishes, especially since there are so many millions of posts and dishes to choose from…

I thought these were so beautiful that I have to share more than one photo!  They are divine to eat also

One more…

I made gingerbread from a Donna Hay magazine last Christmas (the magazine, not the gingerbread!) – I also made a jar of dry ingredients with a little gingerbread cookie cutter and little felt gingerbread man Christmas decoration along with a recipe (also from Donna Hay magazine) as a gift for BabaLouie

More gingerbread…

In amongst all the sweet treats, you can see at the back of this photo, that I also made some ‘Calissons D’Aix’ or Almond Paste Sweets from Issue 4 (December) of SBS Feast magazine.  I like them, but frankly they were a bit of a fail!  If you like almond type sweets, you will like them, but otherwise maybe not so much…

And then, for my Christmas Day lunch, I made a beautiful little entree I made for the first time on the Tuesday before, when I had my little Christmas get together with two of my closest friends.  Chris had happened to mention she loves sweet potato, which is something I have not had much of in my life to date, so I wanted to use sweet potato in the meal. I found this recipe in the Australian Women’s Weekly ‘The Christmas Collection’, a beautiful new book full of beautiful Christmas dishes.  Really you don’t need a recipe for these, you can work them out for yourself, but it is the most divine finger food and I loved them so much I made some for myself for my Christmas lunch…

These little rascals are not only easy to make and delicious, they are photogenic little buggers too, so I took quite a few portraits of them!  They are little fillo pastry shells filled with mashed sweet potato, topped with goat’s cheese and a sprig of fresh mint.  Very nice.

I accompanied them with an inspired drink I made up on the day – pomegranate seeds and Limoncello (straight from the freezer) shots, very nice I must say… rather potent too.  But they have fresh fruit in them, so they must be good, right?!

Getting the hang of making pretty ones now…

My Christmas lunch consisted of roast turkey breast roll (fresh, not frozen), mashed sweet potato (with a burnt butter, sage and walnut dressing), roasted beetroot (with balsamic) and roasted broccolini with red onion.  Why had I not discovered sweet potato years ago?  It is my new favourite thing and something I am going to become much better acquainted with – is ‘addiction’ too strong a word?!  All served with a nice cold crisp Riesling and listening to my all-time favourite version of my all-time favourite song – Little Drummer Boy by David Hobson and Teddy Tahu Rhodes.

Dessert consisted of little sweet treats and a slice of a beautiful banana cake I whipped up on Christmas Eve to use up some ripe bananas I had.  I think you know you are now a baker when whipping up a banana cake to use up some ripe bananas is like nothing at all!   All of this was followed by a call to my Mum and Dad, sitting outside waiting for the storm to hit, tweeting Christmas tweets to kind and caring people, watching Deck the Halls and crashing into bed early as it was a long day, especially for someone who only occasionally drinks – the limoncello shots and wine made their mark!  Plus I haven’t had a break from work since the last short Christmas shut-down period and not the year before either apart from the Christmas days then too, so it has been a long couple of years.  Actually, I have rarely had a break from work.  What an idiot?  Consequently, I do really enjoy a little break when I get it, especially as I have an ‘old-fashioned’ work ethic and only call in sick when I literally cannot get out of bed, no more than two days a year generally (once I had four days in a year but that was because I almost died!).

I made for Tuesday night some beautiful Pecorino and Nigella seed shortbread (savoury) stars, also from the Women’s Weekly ‘The Christmas Collection’ cookbook and this morning I made my third batch of Hannah’s bestest ever granola  - which I muck about with the contents of each time, but it is SO GOOD.

So, that was my photographic round up of my solo Christmas journey.  And the reason I stayed home – so that this little one was not alone on Christmas Day  She skipped the vegies and had turkey for her Christmas lunch / dinner and seemed to be pretty happy about it too.  I think we are both looking forward to an afternoon meal of leftovers today.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, and that unlike me, none of you were alone.  Thank you again to the kindness of Dolly, Lizzy and Mardi for making me feel less alone on the day, to me that was very special xx

And the best part of the day?  Learning that Sea Shepherd had located the Japanese Whaling Fleet.  Yeah baby!  May the Sea Shepherd crews be safe and I for one am very grateful for everything they do to protect the magnificent whales from a cruel and barbaric practice.  Capt Paul Watson is the greatest human on the planet.

Thanks for reading.  Be safe, happy and enjoy whatever time you are lucky enough to have off over the rest of the season.  And enjoy your loved ones a lot.  Carolyn and Pops xx