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  • Raisin and Banana Bread

    This recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Jacked-Up Banana Bread, with the addition of some rum-soaked raisins. I had a heap of bananas that were going nice and speckledly (perfect for banana bread), and I wanted to try something different to my usual Nigella Lawson recipe. But I love the addition of dried fruit cooked with rum to my usual recipe, so decided to include it here. It’s such an easy recipe to whip up, and makes a beautifully moist banana bread. It’s a little intense with the rum soaked raisins – I think the amount of sugar and the rum as well is a bit much, and I will probably reduce the sugar next time.

    ingredients:
    4 ripe bananas, mashed
    90 grams melted butter
    3/4 to 1 cup brown sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
    1 egg
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    Pinch of salt
    1 teaspoon cinnamon
    1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
    Pinch of ground cloves
    1 1/2 cup of flour
    1 cup raisins
    Slosh of rum or bourbon

    Preheat the oven to 175C. Put the raisins in a small saucepan, and slosh in a bit of rum. Heat up until the rum is bubbling and mostly absorbed by the raisins. Set aside.

    Mix together the melted butter and mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar, egg and vanilla, and then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt and stir into the mixture. Finally, stir in the flour, and then the raisin and rum mixture, until well blended.

    Pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin, and bake for about 50 – 60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool and serve in generous slices.

  • Chockablock Cookies

    This recipe is originally by Dorie Greenspan, from Baking From My Home to Yours. I found it on Popsicles and Sandy Feet and made some slight variations due to the ingredients I could get hold of (and to leave out the dried coconut, because I’m not a fan). It’s a lovely chunky biscuit that’s so variable – the recipe calls for a cup of dried fruit and a cup of nuts, and there are so many different flavour combinations you could try. Over at Popsicles and Sandy Feet, Mary has detailed six different combinations she tried.

    I ended up using dried cranberries, pecans and 70% dark chocolate. The original recipe calls for two cups of chocolate chips, but I think (astonishingly, given my love of chocolate) that it’s too much, with all the other additions to the mixture. I cut it down to one, and I think the results are marvellous. Chewy, oaty, fabulous cookies.

    ingredients:
    1 ½ cups plain flour
    ¾ teaspoon baking powder
    ½ teaspoon baking soda
    ¼ teaspoon salt
    90 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
    ½ cup sugar
    ½ cup treacle (the original recipe calls for molasses, I thought this was probably the closest substitute)
    2 large eggs
    1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
    1 cup coarsely chopped nuts
    1 cup coarsely chopped dried fruit
    1 cup of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

    Preheat the oven to 165 C. Line your baking trays with baking paper (or, if you’re me, roughly tear off two sheets of baking paper and lie them on top of your trays, not bothering to stick them down with anything).

    If you’re a more focussed cook than me, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a hand mixer (or a stand mixer if you’re fancy), cream the butter and sugar together for a couple of minutes. Pour in the treacle and beat for another minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

    Mixing on low, pour in the oats, and then add the dry ingredients you’ve whisked together (or, if you’re me, pour them all separately into the mix at this stage), mixing only until combined. Toss in the nuts, fruit, and chocolate and stir together with a spoon until they’re mixed through.

    Apparently you can wrap the dough and chill it for up to two days at this stage, however I baked it right away. Spoon the mixture onto baking trays – the original recipe calls for an icecream scoop with a two tablespoon capacity – I used a heaped dessert spoon. Plonk your spoonfuls of mixture onto the trays (apparently about 1.5 inches apart – I never pay any attention to strictures like that and generally place things where it looks right. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t) and bake for about 15 – 18 minutes, until the cookies are golden and just set. Leave them to cool on a baking rack.

    I’m looking forward to trying another variation on this – with raisins and salted peanuts, which sounds intriguing.

  • Ice


    (Photograph taken by my father in Antarctica, where he worked for a year when he was about 23.)

    My father and I were watching the first half of Shackleton last night, the miniseries with Kenneth Branagh as Shackleton. I have always enjoyed stories of Antarctic expeditions, probably because of hearing my own father’s stories, but sometimes they do strike me as a little pointless – this struggle to be first, to be the fastest, to take the longest route.

    And of course, with Shackleton’s story, you know how it ends, a failed expedition.

    “The man went towards the manager’s house and we followed him. I learned afterwards that he said to Mr Sorlle: ‘There are three funny-looking men outside, who say they have come over the island and they know you. I have left them outside.’ A vey necessary precaution from his point of view.
    Mr Sorlle came to the door and said, ‘Well?’
    ‘Don’t you know me?’ I said.
    ‘I know your voice,’ he said doubtfully, ‘You’re the mate of the Daisy.’
    ‘My name is Shackleton,’ I said.
    Immediately he put out his hand and said, ‘Come in. Come in.’
    ‘Tell me, when was the war over?’ I asked.
    ‘The war is not over,’ he answered. ‘Millions are being killed. Europe is mad. The world is mad.’”
    (from “South” by Ernest Shackleton)

    I have always rather liked the story of Lawrence Oates (probably because of the noble self-sacrifice idea), and particularly after I read Geraldine McCaughrean’s book The White Darkness, which features the ghost of Lawrence Oates as one of the characters. I know that sounds odd, but it’s the most wonderful book – a little traumatic, but wonderful.

    “Tragedy all along the line. At lunch, the day before yesterday, poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping-bag. That we could not do, and induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse and we knew the end had come.

    Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates’ last thoughts were of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking that his regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met his death. We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not–would not–give up hope to the very end. He was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning–yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.”
    (Robert Falcon Scott)

  • Heading south

    We have been relatively unaffected here by the flooding in Brisbane – we live on a different river system, and while it did experience flooding (and we had to take rather convoluted routes home at times due to roads being closed), it did not approach the severity of the flooding in the Brisbane river system. My CBD workplace has been shut for the past few days due to the power being shut off (and potentially the building being flooded, I suppose – I’m not sure how high the river got there). My brother and sister-in-law were stuck for several days in their apartment without power, although they have a kayak and were able to venture out that way.

    Me, driving somewhat randomly through the Gold Coast, peering at road signs: “Hmm, I wonder if that suburb is north or south. Do you think we’re heading north?”
    Dad: “No, I don’t.”
    Me: “Oh, how do you know?”
    Dad, sarcastically: “Because we’re on the east coast of Australia, and that’s the sea there on our left. If we keep going this way, we’ll end up in Melbourne.”
    Me: “I guess I’d better turn around then.”

    It’s raining on and off again today, which I’m sure is adding an extra element of unpleasantness to the flood clean up process. It also means further delay to the construction of Chickendome, my chicken pen. Unless I feel like sitting out in the rain cutting chicken wire, which strangely is not an activity that particularly appeals.

    My Lonely Planet book for our planned trip to New Zealand’s south island arrived in the mail yesterday, and I have been happily browsing through it, occasionally coming out with outbursts like, “Glaciers!” and “Seals!”. I enjoy the planning process for holidays. Although I think with this trip it will be a difficult narrowing down what we’re going to do during our 10 days. Maybe we need a little longer.

  • End of the line

    We have had so much rain recently that the dams are perpetually full, and the driveway is beginning to get soft and muddy underfoot (which it has never done before, it generally drains fairly well). Mud and thongs – generally the only footwear we wear when perambulating around the garden – are not a nice combination.

    (Just to demonstrate my psychic powers – I know my mother is looking at that photo, focussed not on the level of the dam but on the car hulk, and grinding her teeth. Don’t do that Mum, it’s not good for your blood pressure.)

    We had a technician come out today to inspect the phone line, as for the last week we have had NO INTERNET. It has been most distressing. It was so distressing, in fact, that I was forced to go and buy a wireless modem so I could have a little bit of access to tide me over until it was fixed.

    We were a little concerned about a technician inspecting our phone line, as we have done some slightly unorthodox things to it. This, combined with our general laziness, means that the phone socket in the house is not actually in the wall, but is hanging out by some wires, residing on a stool. I was standing behind the technician trying to come up with a good story (“It was like that when we moved in… the cats pulled it out of the wall and we can’t figure out how to put it back in…”) but he didn’t comment, not even when one of the cats strolled over and vomited a hairball next to his feet. Welcome to our house, Mr Technician. He did look slightly puzzled while tromping around under the house looking at our “improvements” to the phone line and getting his boots covered in mud, but he clearly didn’t feel the need to ask any questions.

    However he established, much to my relief, that the fault with the line was not on our property, but up on the road, and therefore Telstra’s problem and not ours. And then he fixed it, restoring sweet sweet internet access. I have been glued to my computer ever since.

    I was hoping that the water and wasp nest that he removed from part of the telephone pole would improve our somewhat slow and erratic internet access. It has already ground to a halt once since its restoration, but behaved again once the modem was rebooted, so perhaps there will be a slight improvement. And if there’s not, there’s very little we can do about it – that’s what comes of living at the end of a street a considerable distance away from the exchange.

  • Lady pigs

    Me: “Those little horses look like they’re dead when they lie down like that. But I don’t think they can be, because there’s always a couple of them lying down whenever we go past.”
    Husband: “Would you like a little horse?”
    Me: “No – I would like a pig.”
    H: “We could get a pig.”
    Me: “What would we do with it? Would we eat it? I like bacon.”
    H: “No.”
    Me: “Well, I don’t know what the point is. You can’t really cuddle a pig, or take it for walks.”
    H: “You can cuddle a pig.”
    Me: “I’ll leave the pig cuddling to you. I guess you could get a stud pig. And hire it out to people with lady pigs.”
    H: “Lady pigs? I don’t think they’re called lady pigs.”1
    Me (ignoring the interruption): “And you could advertise – ‘Stud pig – handsome, non-smoker, likes walks on the beach – for impregnating lady pigs. Please call.’ Do you think a stud pig would get frustrated with no lady pigs around?”
    H: “I think I would like to end this conversation now.”

    1. Sow! Not lady pig. But I think I prefer lady pig.

  • Book Round-Up for 2010

    I only read 71 books in 2010, which is heaps less than previous years (135 books in 2009, 183 in 2008 and 173 in 2007). I think part of the reason for this is I downloaded more things to watch on my iPod, so that commuting time was spent watching things rather than reading. Shocking! Something to rectify this year.

    Best Short Story Collection

    Well, to be honest I don’t read all that many collections of short stories; I did read a number of short stories prior to Aussie Con 4 so that I could vote for the Hugos, but not that many collections of stories. However, my favourite was definitely Peter Carey’s War Crimes– it was a nice surprise. I hadn’t realised that Peter Carey wrote speculative fiction, and the battered volume of War Stories I borrowed contained so many fantastic and disturbing stories.

    Best Newly Discovered Classic

    The classics I discover are always as audio books – I find older books much easier to read that way, as I’m not tempted to skim over lengthy descriptive passages. And this year it was Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier’s fabulously chilling gothic tale, with its abrupt and disturbing ending.

    Best Non-Fiction

    The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which is hardly a unique choice – but a wonderfully written, confronting and inspirational read all the same. I particularly liked the chapters that discussed Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, and saw that he spoke in Brisbane last year – there’s a couple of blog posts with summaries about his Australian trip.

    Best Dystopia & Best Kick in the Guts Ending

    No contest – Feed by Mira Grant. Fast paced political thriller with zombies, it kept me up at nights. And god, that ending.

    Best New Author

    I bought Karen Healey’s Guardian of the Dead at Aussie Con 4 because I saw her speak and thought she was great, and had previously read her very funny blog. I find that book purchases like that generally turn out very well, and this one did – an urban fantasy steeped in Maori mythology, it was marvellous.

    And to look out for in 2011?

    Well, I have some presents to read – A S Byatt’s The Children’s Book among them – and I’m looking forward to the publication of Mira Grant’s Deadline, Tansy Rayner Robert’s Shattered City, Karen Healey’s The Shattering, Holly Black’s Red Glove, and Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue. Among many others I’m sure to discover in the coming months.

  • Too cool for words

    Me: “Listen! A Doctor Who theme ringtone to go with my Tardis message tone. How cool is that?”
    The husband, cautiously: “Do you mean ‘cool’ in the sense of ‘really unbelievably nerdy’?”
    Me: “Sure.”
    The husband: “Then yes – very cool.”

  • To the other side

    We were driving home the other night, puttering along watching out for water over the road, and we stopped for a koala – the first I have seen in the wild that hasn’t been an unmoving lump in a high tree. It was pacing across the road and paused as we slowed and stopped, staring at the car’s headlights before speedily moving on, faster than I thought a koala would move across the ground.

    When we first moved onto this property, about three years ago, we would hear the grunting noise of koalas in the night – I haven’t heard them since that first month we were here. It’s nice to know there’s still koalas around, even if I don’t happen to hear them. I imagine our neighbours’ dogs have something to do with that.

    On this last day of the year, I have been thinking about some of my plans for 2011:

  • Getting chooks – I have been researching the construction of a chook pen. I have a hankering for eggs laid at home.
  • Growing some of my own food, even if it’s limited to some herbs and greens in pots.  I know from experience that any plans for a veggie patch are doomed to failure.
  • Travelling to New Zealand in the winter.
  • Giving more.
  • Getting back into running.