Too Cold to Dig, Too Cool to Plan

Well, an afternoon gardening really lends itself to an early evening of muffin baking, doesn't it what? (Cripes, the susie homemaker sensation is taking over! I'm speaking like an englishwoman from 1892. And wearing an apron).  

Being a somewhat mediocre planner, it was only 40 minutes prior to cooking that I had decided to bake muffins. Consequently,  half way through the haphazard snowfall of flour across our kitchen bench, it occurred to me that in order to make "strawberry muffins" one would actually need -  strawberries. It logically followed, as I diced the butter and wiped my sticky hands on my jumper, that one may also need -  a muffin tray. 

So, I bounced. To Coles that is. And all the way there I wondered how on earth I would possibly cope living in the country without 24 hour access to muffin trays and punnets of strawberries. 

This all led me to wonder how the country folk do it. The world's best muffins and cakes are usually made in the country where the local supermarket is at least 5 km away and closes at 5pm or midday on Saturdays. How do they do it? Of course! That eternal do-gooder - Planning. 

My mum's kitchen was permanently equipped to cook, bake, roast, ice, mix, stew, blend, sift, heat, cool, combine, whisk just about any recipe anyone might fancy making on a whim. So whenever Dad turned up from the vegie patch, beaming, with an armload of rhubarb stalks or buckets of plums, Mum would turn them into something we all hung around the kitchen for.

 In that kitchen she rightly commandeered the biggest kitchen cupboard for "cooking". It was a cupboard frequented very little by anyone else (except the last born, who, upon sneaking around looking for lollies one Saturday morning, gleefully discovered her mother's cooking chocolate stash, and proceeded to nibble undetectable amounts on a regular basis). Needless to say, I have a visual imprint in my brain of most things kept in that cupboard.

 If I am to continue to pursue my love of last-minute inclinations (planning be damned!) all I really need to do is  pack the kitchen for Armageddon. And stock it with the stuff my mum always had in hers. 

 So, if, like me, you often find yourself itching to cook but don't think much of that pesky thing they call -  forethought, here's  a list of things to fill a cupboard shelf with:

1.  Plain and Self -Raising Flour. In large and equal amounts. (Enormous lidded jars optional for those with a fetish for containers or a fear of weevils. Otherwise, paper packets are the usual).

2.  Baking powder. Is it true then, that this little fella is all there is between plain and self-raising flour?

 3. Bi-carb soda. It may also live in your laundry or bathroom cupboard. You'll usually find it behaving romantically with white vinegar to make your toilet bowl sparkly. Best to keep 2 then.

4.  Vanilla Essence. When times are tough, some poor sods also resort to drinking this. Apparently it gets you high (along with smoked banana skins and nutmeg). If you're considering this as a viable option, perhaps just stick to the cooking wine.

5. Cornflour. Which helpfully tells you it comes without gluten (which is obviously soooo passe').

6.  Castor sugar. I don't know why this is so special. But everything I have ever made has this stuff in it. Keep it in a tupperware container - make yer mother proud.

7.  Eggs and Cooking Butter. Free range eggs are the only option. Cooking butter is not as tasty as normal butter which prevents the peasants eating it on you before you get a chance to cook. It also comes with its own weight measuring scale on the wrapper so you can slice with mathematical ease.

Which brings me to -

8. Measuring Scales and Sifter. Once you have these two things you will bare your teeth and hiss at anyone's attempt to ever separate you from them.

9.  Whisker and Big Bowl. As above.

10. Wooden Spoon. My Mum had one with the words (written in what looked suspiciously like her own handwriting) 'Child Psychology' down the handle in capital letters. In between smacking her kids' bums, she did make a great apple tart though.

 11. Muffin Tray. This is the perfect tool for that last minute afternoon tea you've decided to throw. Upon seeing twelve warm brown muffins laid out before them, friends will be so impressed thinking you've been slaving all day in the kitchen. Fools! All it took was 25 minutes in the oven!

With these eleven things within reach, the sporadic and spontaneous among us may continue to flourish in the kitchen when it's too cold to dig. So go forth on wintery days, friends, and cook!

May your plain flour be abundant and your big bowl always clean. And may a lack of planning always lead you to a good cook up and a fine night's sleep. 

First Timer

One of the things that happens to me in on long warm days  is the overwhelming urge to get cooking in the kitchen. When I say cooking, I mean specifically - cooking something with flour. For a Three-Signature Dish girl like myself (stir fry, curry, vegie pasta) deciding to cook with flour is akin to becoming an Expert In The Field. It raises you up to Senior Lecturer of Cooking, (rather than Bachelor of Arts student mashing together your old vegies and spaghetti for dinner). Here is a long-winded recipe for First Timers' Quiche:

1. On this particular occasion, the flour fetish led me first to the shops (organic food shop - expensive, delicious food, with paragraphs of earnest words on the labels  describing the bursting goodness in the growing/buying/eating of the food that'd probably wash me clean of all my sins to humanity, were I a practising Christian). I'm sorry for that long sentence.  The staff in this particular organic food shop were also crisp, pure and with a hint of wanker about them. Perfect for such an establishment. And for a fellow wanker like me.

2. So, spelt flour (s, p, e, l, t ) under arm, I attended to the next task: vegie picking in the backyard. This must be, without doubt, the closest thing to acheiving enlightenment without religion for me. In my flip flops, peering between the umbrella leaves of the zuchinni, and pumpkins,  treasure hunting a huge bowl of food allsorts; all of them there because of dirty hands and blessedly hard work. (There is actually a silent spot, if you perch yourself in the middle of the vegie beds where no other sounds penetrate and all you can see is green leaves and bees). This is my favourite part of cooking. Neo's too.

3. It's only then that I flicked through a recipe book, ingredients ready but no idea what to do with them. I'm pretty sure this is a usually disastrous method of successfully cooking something - by starting with the food and only then deciding what to make. But it makes for great training for the week where you've been too lazy to go shopping and need to make something out of whatever you've got (for iphone users - the app Recipe Search is a great assistant). And there I found quiche!

4. Making pastry REQUIRES a phonecall to your mother. Especially when patience is not a virtue and you're not completely prepared before you start. So I started with something that looked nothing like my mum ever made and called to seek guidance. Guidance patiently handed out, I bid farewell and carried on.

5. The chopping and grating of other ingredients came almost as a relief once the mess of flour and butter started resembling mum's rhubarb tarts' pastry. Zuchinni, tomatoes, chives, cheese, purple onion: 50% of these from the garden - not too bad. These were all chucked in with the beaten eggs then poured into the First Timer's pastry base. Some salt, pepper and the ceremonious sliding into a hot oven.

6. The eating of the quiche was also fairly ceremonious. After an afternoon of foody smells wafting through our little house and a hungry boy slinking around the edges of the kitchen, the First Timer's Quiche was pulled out. A salad, tossed together with pretend sloppiness, a couple of tall glasses of water and it was ready.  We sat and ate together, abundant praise peppering each of the boy's mouthful and gratefully received by this First Timer.

 I slept sound and easy that night.