Anzacs



My ideal Anzac biscuit is thin and crisp. They look healthy and do contain oats, but really there is too much butter and sugar in these for them to be good for you. I've tried making them with less butter and sugar but then they're not Anzacs. A slow oven and careful cooking is the key to success with these. It's difficult to get a uniform result in our oven. Luckily G likes them a bit soft and I like them super crisp.

You will need

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup dessicated coconut
125g butter
3 tablespoons of golden syrup
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon hot water

To make

  • Preheat oven to 150C.
  • Combine oats, flour, sugar and coconut in a mixing bowl. 
  • Combine butter and golden syrup in a medium sized saucepan and melt on a gentle heat, taking care not to burn. 
  • Mix soda with water and add to butter/golden syrup mixture. It will foam up. 
  • Add the foam to the dry ingredients and mix well. The mix should be just wet enough to hold together.
  • Drop soup spoon fulls onto biscuit trays lined with baking paper or lightly greased.
  • Bake in a slow oven until they puff up and fall down again, about 15 minutes. Rotate to avoid burning.
  • Allow to cool on trays before moving.



Rice paper salad rolls



This is a favourite spring lunch of ours. Most of the ingredients are from the garden and it's really just a fancy way of eating salad. I haven't given exact quanties, I basically make a big bowl of salad, make it into rolls and what we don't eat at lunch is a pre dinner nibble.  I serve this with lots of bottled sauces; soy sauce, ponzu, hoisin, chilli sauce.. whatever you have. Everyone mixes up their own combination of sauces.

You will need

Rice paper (Banh trang)
Cos or iceberg lettuce
Carrot
Big handful of unsalted cashews or peanuts
Coriander
Mint
Hot mint (if you have it)
Onion

To make

Firstly prepare the filling. Grate the carrot, chop several slices of onion finely. Destalk and chop the herbs. Wash and deslug the lettuce. Dry and cut into shreds. Finely chop the nuts. Mix all the salad ingredients together and set aside.

Lay a clean tea towell on your work area. Fill a bowl or tray with warm water. Slip several rice paper sheets into the water until they are softish. Pull one out and lay on teatowell. Place a roll sized amount of salad at the end nearest you. Roll away from you once. Fold in the sides. Continue rolling until you have a rice paper roll. If you wish to impress, a single leaf such as hot mint or coriander looks very nice rolled into the last layer. You can see it through the rice paper. Very flash. Continue until you run out of salad or rice paper. Serve with sauces.

Herb pesto

This pesto uses easily grown herbs from the garden and nuts such as almond and/or walnuts. We think it is just as nice as basil pesto with pinenuts. And you don't have to wait until summer. I use a bamix hand held blender in a two litre honey bucket to make this and usually have a lot left over for lunches. It keeps better than basil pesto too. Proportion is the key. The bulk of the herbage should be a mild herb such as parsley with accents of stronger herbs such as sage and rosemary. If you don't eat cheese, leave it out, it will still be nice.

I serve it on pasta with sauted mushroom and diced fresh tomato or capsicum. It is quite rich so a little goes a long way.

You will need

three cups of parsley
some or all of these herbs; thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram, oregano
two small cloves of garlic
about 60g grated parmesan
about quarter of a cup olive oil
about half a cup of almonds and/or walnuts
salt

To make

Wash and de-stalk herbs. Place in bucket with chopped garlic and other ingredients. Process with bamix or food processor until it is a coarse paste. Taste and adjust salt.

Serve about a tablespoon per person over pasta. Add other bits like diced tomato or sauted mushrooms, if you like. Also nice with gnocci or on toast