The Apple Shed ( Willie Smith And Sons)

Posted on June 4, 2016 by rosalindentree

A story from a while ago but such great photos.

I had to celebrate the apple isle Tasmania yet again, especially as we are flush with our northern NSW apples now.

It’s all about baked apples (recipe below) and apple crumble at our house right now.

Just out of Huonville lies the recently renovated Apple Shed and museum

Surrounded by the extensive organic Willie Smith apple orchards.

It’s a great old shed converted into cafe, bar, museum and brewery.

I am very fond of industrial building conversions.

In the wood grain is the echoes of clashing machines and chatter and shouts, dust, busy-ness, productivity and apple perfume.

The great Apple wall had us captivated with such a quantity of names! Quite poetic really.

The old sorting and packing relics are beautifully preserved, I particularly liked the sorting bench with the different sized holes for apples to drop through and land in soft hessian baskets.

It’s fabulous getting around with someone who knows so much!



When we got home, Keith’s home made apple pie was yummier than theirs….

Baked Apples x 8

8 large apples cored and with a belt line scored around their tummy

Almonds up to 16 of them

1/4 cup each of

Desiccated coconut

And

Almond meal
Mixed with

2 tablespoons rapadura sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix dry things with about

1/4 cup of melted butter

To get a stiff pasty mix

Plug the bottom of each cored apple with an almond or two

and line them up in a baking dish

Stuff with your yummy mixture and bake for about 1/2 an hour at 180’c

Or Until You can’t wait any longer! You could always make more as they are delicious cold the next day, put in the lunch boxes.

Enjoy x

Roselinde

Makings in Advent/Cinnamon star recipe

Posted on December 25, 2015 by rosalindentree

Makings in advent.

Air dried clay ornaments,( in between arguing over who had more clay)the children had a great time making me guess what implements had made what impressions. We used cookie cutters to cut them out and they took 2 days to dry thoroughly.

  So many stars…

Sweet Swiss wood cut decorations from our time in the Interlaken region this year.

lily made her own cosy house transparency one morning.
As we love our Swiss Christmas biscuit tradition so much, I will share

I have a new favourite Zimpt Sterne Rezept / cinnamon star recipe this year

This one is gluten free also.

(sorry S for giving you the sticky old one…)

I can’t remember if it’s a copy from somewhere or if I adapted something else. It’s written on a scrap of torn paper with a swimming lesson note on the back….

Zimpt Sterne/Cinnamon Stars

250g almond meal for the biscuits

150g almond meal Extra for sticky dough or dusting while you roll out

1 cup rapadura sugar

2tsp ground cinnamon or more to taste

A small pinch of clove powder

2 egg whites beaten stiff

Mix 250g almond meal, sugar, spices and egg white to a pliable dough. Add more almond meal if it’s too sticky. You will know! It really shouldn’t be a painful messy experience! I knead the dough quite vigorously in the bowl.

Dust with almond meal and roll out on/or between baking paper to about 5 mm thick.

Refrigerate overnight or at least three hours.

Cut out your stars, rinse your cutters if they’re getting too sticky, dust everything with almond meal as you go if needed.

Bake at 180’c for about 8 minutes. Pull them out of the oven when the bottoms are going slightly brown as I like them when they’re more chewy than dry and crisp! Oops many a black star has come outta my kitchen.

Cool them on a rack and invite me around for a cuppa and a biscuit.

I mean share them with your friends and family….

As an option you can mix beaten egg white with icing sugar and decorate them pre baking. More sticky messy fun! I bought a piping bag especially. Then you have snow capped biscuits. So appropriate for Advent in summer Australia, don’t you agree?

Inspired by The Children Of Noisy Village(Astrid Lindgren) Cedar suggested we have a bean guessing game and make a prize cookie from all the scraps of dough. They got a jar of chickpeas and a notebook to record all the guesses from our home and neighbours. The children ran around giving biscuit samples and collecting guesses, displaying the prize cookie!
Well done J for guessing 1004, hard to believe this little jar held 1163 chickpeas! mm enjoy that cookie! I was sure there where only 381…..

Peace

X Roselinde

Broad bean harvest

Posted on October 21, 2015 by rosalindentree

Alongside Parsley, spring onions, silver beet and kale, broad beans are the staple harvest right now. I planted a healthy patch before leaving for Europe in late April and my neighbour planted a whole bunch more, since we returned in September it’s been a steady crop of beans. Such a wonderful self sustaining plant. They are surviving in a dry hot season very well. They all fall over in the wind but shoot up again. I never did get around to tying them up like last year.

Mostly I pod and steam them with a pile of silverbeet or enjoy them in soups. Also delicious is to quickly sauté the beans with garlic olive oil salt and lemon juice. The young pods can be cut into little slivers for this dish.

I did try the cream of broad bean soup from The Silver Spoon Italian cookbook last week when a girlfriend visited. Wonderful with a smattering of fresh herbs.

I am so heartily satisfied to eat from my own garden and be nourished by this green freshness!

What are you harvesting?

Xx Roselinde

A moment in time. Or balaclavas.

Posted on October 16, 2015 by rosalindentree

Baklava in process. Lily can do it all! For the school stall tomorrow (with some for home of course)!

Please remind her of this when she complains about never being allowed to have sweet stuff… Ever….

I have evidence of at least one time!
balaclava / baklava

For the sauce

Dissolve over low heat

1/2 c honey

1/2 c sugar

In 1 cup of water

With

1 stick of cinnamon

Peel of an orange or lemon

Squeeze of citrus juice

Let it simmer for the time you make the rolls then let it cool while you bake them
For the filling

1 1/2 cups of walnuts (I reckon you can mix up the nut blend. Sssh.)

1/2 cup almonds

Pulse in the blender until in small pieces

Add

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp of ground clove
Prepare the wrappers

1 box of filo pastry, carefully cut the stack of sheets into thirds, about 12 or so cm wide, keep covered with a slightly damp towel

And the bit that makes it all so crispy and good

Melt 150g unsalted butter
Oven on at 180c and butter an oven tray
Now get ready to brush and roll

Take three sheets aside, brush all over with your butter

Put a couple of tablespoons of filling at one end of the papers

Fold in the sides, butter the sides

Carefully roll the filling up in the filo and then pop on your tray with gaps in between them

Repeat repeat repeat until you have a tray full.

Bake until crispy brown all over

Pour over syrup while still warm

Let cool and enjoy

Lily says they are even better after a day or two as they soak up so much yummy syrup.

Did I say strain the syrup when you pour it over the baklava rolls?

Ps I did not artistically put the cumquats, guitar or ukulele there. This was a real cute kitchen counter odd bod moment for all you blog skeptics who think it’s all a setup. Just occasionally it is real life…

I guess you want to see the end result huh? Well if there’s any left by morning…..

Right now

Posted on December 20, 2013 by rosalindentree

Right now. Play dough fun with cedar. Playing an imprint memory game. Taking turns to make prints or guess what made the print.
I make play dough by the recipe on the cream of tartar jar but just found this no cook recipe for the future. I usually add some essential oils. This time it’s lavender.

Also making Swedish saffron buns for st lucia dec 13th and birthday cakes. The gnomes sing along for Cedar. Lily and I made them for him last year. A really fun craft. Supplies from winterwood crafts. Wool felt and wooden finger puppets.
Four candles, four crystals. Practicing for July!

A favoured birthday song

Now on this day we celebrate your day of birth and we wish you a good and happy life on earth.

Our other birthday song we love is

Four years ago today today
Cedar came down from the heavens to stay
He came to bring gladness and joy to the earth
Kind people and angels attended his birth
So let us all join in the singing
Four birthday bells they are ringing
Happy birthday dear cedar
Happy birthday dear cedar

Interchange age and names. I’m not sure of the original authors sorry.
Xx

Swiss Advent Biscuit Recipe

Posted on December 9, 2013 by rosalindentree

Each year for as long as I remember, my mama has made her traditional Swiss Christmas biscuits. a number of biscuit parcels have followed me across Australia! Lucky me! when I was seventeen and heading off into the sunset in my new yellow kombi, my mama tucked a parcel in my van to open for Christmas a month later. they store very well… Thankyou mama for these parcels of love and cinnamon. I inevitably cry and miss your hugs, and then i share them out to those lucky ones nearby xx

now i have taken up my own ritual Advent baking of biscuits. We bake on Advent Sundays these cinnamon stars and hearts. It’s the only time of the year i use this recipe and one other {after lots of experimenting}. the house smells of spices and sweets and we nibble them for morning tea through the week. We parcel them up in little paper bags we make, and leave them on our friends and neighbors door steps. this year we are using teeny tiny cutters and i cleverly saved a batch of rolled out dough and froze it last week so today i simply cut and baked…

last week i took some to my knitting class. one of my students said they looked like dog biscuits but tasted like the real thing!! ha ha!!

My Adapted Traditional Swiss Advent biscuit recipe

Basler brunsli/Zimpt Sterne

{gluten free}

500 gm almond meal {450 gm for recipe and 50 gm for sprinkling paper when rolling out}

2 c rapadura sugar or less

31/2 tspn cinnamon powder

1 tspn clove powder

4 egg whites beaten stiff

baking paper

rolling pin

baking sheets

blend almond meal and sugar
add spices and beaten egg whites
sprinkle a 1m stretch of baking paper with almond meal and squish your dough out in the middle length of it, press quite flat then sprinkle with almond meal and another sheet of paper
roll out to about 5mm thickness
let dry for 3 hours
cut into stars and hearts
bake at 150’c for 10-15 minutes til slightly puffed {mine took less than ten as very small, and i burnt the second batch! waahhh} really, bake them lightly. don’t get distracted vacumning…

share with friends and neighbours. leave goodwill packets on doorsteps… happy advent! i love all this memory making family activity amidst the deeper pathway of living through my own personal darkness and seeking the renewal of my inner light.

Buckwheat pancakes

Posted on December 3, 2013 by rosalindentree

We {read I} have been making regular batches of buckwheat pancakes. mm mmm

i’ve written about the origin of my recipe from lovely gluten free blog what baby{and boy} ate; here…

and other pancakey berry adventures here…

for my non measure recipe; I use about 1 and a 1/2 cups of raw organic buckwheat and soak it in the blender overnight

in the morning add 2 eggs and some extra water and whizz it up smooth

cook in coconut oil

I have better success if I heat the cast iron pan very well first and keep it well oiled. they take a little longer than wheat flour pancakes to cook. be patient, it’s worth it!!

Buckwheat is one of my favorite gluten free seeds for porridge {soak overnight with almonds, currants, quinoa and nuts, simmer about 15 minutes in the morning} and pancakes. I have done some sprouting of them but find the slimy tendency in this humid climate off putting!

a good protein source apparently and easily digestible for most tummies.

a nice buckwheat quote…

“The properties of buckwheat are: Neutral thermal nature; sweet flavor; cleans and strengthens the intestines and improves appetite..” According to Paul Pitchford in Healing with Whole Foods (1993)

notice the jar of rapadura sugar? this has lately replaced the maple syrup bottle while stocks are out. it’s been a good experiment to see that Lily can now self moderate a teaspoon sprinkle of sugar on her pancakes. Yay! it has paid off, all that strict mama monitoring of sugar … now i can relax abit about it and know she knows i know she knows; how to self regulate sugar intake and feel good in her body! luckily Cedar copies her…

what do you do with buckwheat?

oh my!! berries are sooo delightful! i sure am looking forward to another summer in Tasmania….

Home made Mayonnaise ~ easier than you think

Posted on September 2, 2013 by rosalindentree

i have attempted mayonnaisse once before, it was a terrible gloppety glop which seperated in the first hour and no-one would eat. boo. condiment disaster.

and then one day recently, like a home cooking queen, my dear friend Dalee {Owl and Snail blog} casually offers to whip up some mayo to accompany lunch as the rice is not cooked yet. WHAT? squawks I

what can’t this woman do?

whip up mayonnaisse? i thought it was a half hour hand whisking ordeal for secondary results?

not anymore ladies and gentleman.

mayonnaisse, fresh, lemony, creamy mayo is within your grasp {if you have a power source/sauce and a blender}

no more sad sandwiches gasping for some moisture, no more shop tainted slaw,

read on and then

quick get your apron on and blender out…

Dalee’s deelicious home made whip it up casually MAYONNAISE

disclaimer~recipe is just a guideline, adjust ingredients as you see fit…

pop into your blender jug

2 good and fresh eggs and another egg yolk
juice of half a lemon or more
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon of honey or similar

whizz til smooth then with motor running slOWly pour in oil in a steady drizzle until mixture thickens to your liking… ta da!!

approximately more than 1 cup of good oil but possibly less than 2 {depends on the weather}

Dalee recommended a blend of olive and a lighter oil like sunflower, i agree after tonights recipe trial. i also added a sprig of parsley to dye it an appealing shade of rolling meadows green

then good people, dollop, slather, spread, dip, splat, lick, enjoy!
Keep it in the fridge. I can’t legally recommend an exact UBD but perhaps up to 7 days?? do not leave out of the fridge for extended periods as it contains raw eggs, food poisoning is a concern.

try with roast potatoes, fish and salad {my dinner above. mm not bad… in another life i am a food shooter for culinary prints}

try it with….

vegie sticks

in coleslaw

in nori rolls

in chicken salad

egg sandwitches

in salad dressings

on frittata

on pancakes…?

well go on, make some soon and tell me what you enjoyed it with {as long as it’s food now}

looks good, tastes great and has raw eggs in it!

and what about Miss Dalee, artist, mama, musician, crafter, pioneer, yurt dwelling, homeschooling, mayonnaise queen. did you go look at her blog? or her skilled husband Jesse, who handcrafts beautiful Shakahachi flutes.
some more moments from my visit

Lily plays for The Ridge children

view from community house/kitchen to the sea

the kitchen of mayonnaise heaven…

Dalee also makes KimChi {fermented spicy vegetable condiment from Korean origin}

Lily disappears into the schoolroom within arms length of the bookshelf

playful artworks by Dalee and children

The Yurt~temporary home while they build/wait for approval to build from council

so cosy and light. furnished with many handmade pieces from the hands of mama and papa

a wedding gift from Jesse’s dad

circus fun

jesse dalee and eltham

remember this great toy? another child loves it too…

my cute wee home for the night.

rainbows

peace

and mayonnaise

there is another good mayo recipe and scientific examination of the sauce here

thankyou Ridge friends, you where the last stop on the way to Bellingen. i enjoyed my three fun days of inspiration with different friends and i left you feeling full and motivated and, well, inspired!

Thyme to soothe a cough {another belated post}

Posted on July 25, 2013 by rosalindentree

Thyme to soothe a cough

The beauty and the challenge of this gorgeous valley in NSW is the moisture. It creates lush environs and gurgling creeks and verdant grass and abundant gardens and also encourages mould and in some folks damp lungs and digestive systems.

With a recent bout of coughing which set into the children I was quickly onto the herbal cough and cold tincture (which they are happy to take as it contains a little licorice root so tastes pretty good)

The vitamin C, the herbal chest and foot rubs, the breathe easy essential oils, the onion in the bowl beside the bed ( settled Lily’s cough within 10 minutes and it was gone completely in the morning!)

Seeing this list I see an enthusiastic bombardment of support to the body, my theory at the time was to explore til I found the thing that soothed each individual.

Anyway get to the tea Rosi

I put a pot to brew on the stove containing about

1 litre good water

1 cinnamon stick

1 handful of fresh thyme

a few slices of lemon peel

juice of ½ lemon

after it had simmered with the lid on for at least five minutes I let it rest for another 10

then stirred in a big tablespoon of raw honey before serving in those lovely mugs of our friends.

I simply kept topping the pot up with water and lemon juice over the next three days and the brew became so flavourful and delightful to sip on these frosty mornings and evenings. The scent in the house was divine when I lifted the lid and the soothing properties of the ingredients helped the inner wellness levels. Mmm

I just long for good scents when I’m ill, and the comfort of warm lemony drinks

So happy to add this recipe to my collection

I hope you enjoy it too!

don’t wait for illness..

You could serve it with cinnamon cookies or honey popcorn or French toast or a good book for afternoon tea on a blustery day…

Whats your household wellness tricks?

Be well

Roselinde

ps i just love these posts where the photographs are so naturally beautiful, we just happened to be in a house{shed} with the cutest gingham table and lovely pottery and just happened to have a pot of weed flowers on the table to brighten it all up:)

i have to do this disclaimer, i recommend you go see an experienced practitioner if you have a persistent cough to deal with xx

Good Airplane food

Posted on June 6, 2013 by rosalindentree

Good morning me, you’re up about 12 km above earth today! Fathom that… Is the highest mountains on earth about this high? I heard on Mars there’s a volcano about 28km high! I believe it’s the lack of gravity which enables it to keep growing unlike on earth. (Note to self, research stuff like this so I can score at Trivial pursuit. I mean get the facts straight before you publish it on your reputable blog Rosi!)

Transitioning mentally and emotionally began last night as I repacked my bag…
Do you know that moment when you become aware you are no longer fully here but not yet there…
I had pre travel tension through the night so blearily arose at 5.30 wondering why I chose the early flight…
Anyway the point of this post is the food. The inspiration I had because I’d rather not eat plane food. Plain food good. Plane food bad.
So I put together this morning

Yep iPhone photo not up to scratch…
Recipe as below, adapt to your taste and ingredients

A cup of full fat creamy Barambah honey yoghurt
A crisp apple washed cored and diced
A handful of Buckini (soaked and dehydrated buckwheat, crunchy yum)
A handful of black Chia seeds (excellent for digestion)
A dozen chopped almonds

Variations
Add sunflower seeds or pepitas
LSA
Cinnamon
Vanilla
Natural yoghurt (personal preference. Honey yoghurt too sweet)
Fresh berries or other fruits
Rolled oats
…….
I’ve also a great yoghurt recipe with beautiful photographs here…

Pack Into a leak proof container, maybe in a ziplock bag, pack a spoon
When you get peckish halfway from here to there you have a light but sustaining, healthy snack. Mmmm
Great for lunch boxes or car trips also. Make sure it’s with an ice pack if its a hot day.
Ps open your container away from you in the air as I’ve learnt the pressure build up inside the pot can make your yoghurt explode all over your nice charcoal grey city clothes:)

How would you do it?
Any plane survival tips anyone??

RosaLindenTree

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