old favorites

Here are some well-loved real food recipes I recently enjoyed making, eating and sharing with our neighbors.

As far as I’m concerned the words ‘muffin’ and ‘cake’ can be used interchangeably. A bounty of blueberries from Drum Drum blueberry farm inspired these muffin/cakes…

Blueberry, coconut and lemon muffins

Makes 6 large or 12 small

1 cup wholemeal spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg, lightly beaten

½ cup almond oil

½ cup raw sugar

½ cup dessicated coconut

juice of 1 lemon

¾ cup blueberries

2 tablespoons natural yoghurt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and lightly grease muffin tray. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and coconut into a mixing bowl and stir. Add egg, almond oil, lemon juice, yoghurt and blueberries and stir gently so as not to squash blueberries. When all mixed together spoon into muffin tray and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Anzacs

River starting school prompted me to make a batch of these. For any newcomers to Anzacs the origins of this recipe date back to World War 1 when wives and mothers of soldiers in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps would bake biscuits made mainly from rolled oats, flour and desiccated coconut and send them to their husbands and sons.

I don’t use the traditional recipe because it has too much sugar in it as well as golden syrup so I’ve included the original recipe and my less sweet but equally delicious version.

Traditional recipe

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup flour (you can use any type including gluten free)

1 cup brown sugar

¾ cup desiccated coconut

125g butter

1 heaped tablespoon golden syrup

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Preheat oven to 170 degrees and line two trays with baking paper.

Place oats, flour, coconut and sugar in a mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Melt butter over a low heat and stir in golden syrup. In a small bowl add the boiling water to the baking soda to dissolve, then stir into the melted butter mixture. Combine butter mixture with dry ingredients and spoon onto trays allowing space for biscuits to spread. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool on the trays.

My Anzac recipe

 1 cup rolled oats

1 cup wholemeal spelt flour

½ cup raw sugar

¾ cup desiccated coconut

125g butter

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Method is the same as above omitting the golden syrup and reducing the sugar.

Silverbeet and potato pie

Once upon a time long, long ago I had a little foray into the world of working as a television presenter on a little known program on pay tv. It was there that I watched Stephanie Alexander put this recipe together and have made it very regularly ever since, always with silverbeet but adding other vegetables and different cheeses depending on what’s in our garden and fridge.

You can read Stephanie’s recipe here . Below is my very loose interpretation.

For the pastry

2 cups wholemeal spelt flour

3 tablespoons olive oil

approx. ¾ cup cold water

pinch salt

In a mixing bowl combine the flour and salt, stir in the oil and then stir in enough water to form a dough. Turn dough out on to floured bench and knead for a few minutes refrigerate until needed.

For the filling

8-10 silverbeet leaves with the stems (you want to have two big handfuls of silverbeet once it is finely chopped)

2 medium potatoes

1 finely chopped onion

2 tablespoons fresh chopped herbs of your choice

200g cheese, I use a mix of fetta and parmesan

1 large egg

1 tablespoon olive oil

Wash the silverbeet well. Chop off stems then finely slice them. Roll leaves and finely slice. Place silverbeet and stems in a colander and toss with 1 tablespoon salt, leave for 20 minutes.

Boil potatoes until tender then roughly chop.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and oil a pizza tray.

Rinse silverbeet and squeeze out excess liquid in a teatowel.

In a large mixing bowl combine silverbeet, stems, potato, onion, herbs and cheese. Whisk the egg with the olive oil and mix into the silverbeet mixture.

On a floured surface roll out 2/3rds of the pastry round enough to easily cover the pizza tray. Place the silverbeet mixture into the centre of the dough allowing a 3 cm border around the edge. Begin at one side of the dough lift the edge up towards the centre and work your way around the circle crimping the pastry folds together with your fingers as you go. Roll out remaining dough into a circle and drape over the centre of the torte squeeze the edges of the smaller circle into the torte. Using a fork pierce some holes into the top of the torte, drizzle with olive oil and scatter some sea salt. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until golden. Allow to rest for 10 minutes out of the oven before cutting.

The pie half eaten!