The smells of childhood

It is Sunday afternoon and my kitchen smells like childhood. Specifically, like chicken soup and rice pudding. I only realised as an adult how spoilt we were food-wise (and in plenty of other ways) growing up - both my Mum and Grandma and excellent cooks and Mum always went to considerable effort to make sure we had fresh, healthy, delicious food available to us.

Growing up, chicken soup was a regular feature on our winter dinner table, and it reliably featured whenever anyone was sick with a cold or upset tummy. When I was newly home from the hospital with baby C, it was a big pot of chicken soup that Mum brought over. I was pleased to be able to make it recently for my FIL during his recovery from surgery. It's good convalescent food but can definitely be enjoyed by those in good health too! E still refuses to eat soup of any kind, but now when I make this I use at least some chicken legs, and then extract a plain one for her to have with salad whilst D and I have soup. I am looking forward to baby C being big enough soon to eat some of it blended. And despite having cooked this recipe a number of times I have only just nailed the dumplings. It's good on its own but it's even better with dumplings!

Rice pudding was another of my favourites growing up. I have never liked milk on its own, but I do like sweet, creamy rice with a brown volcanic crust. You can make it with very little sugar and call it a healthy dessert and if you like, eat it with fruit, fresh or tinned. I like it with fresh or stewed strawberries, or frozen raspberries, or tinned cherries or tinned pineapple. Or it's good on its own. It's also good for breakfast the next day! E is already a convert. C is still not old enough for anything containing sugar and is still stubbornly gagging on the slightest lump but soon I shall make a sugar free version for her.

Anyway, here are the recipes for rice pudding and chicken soup with dumplings. They make a good two course dinner because the soup is not so substantial you're too full for dessert, and it's light enough to justify a carb-heavy second course. I think the rice pudding was originally courtesy of the AWW cookbook and the chicken soup is courtesy of my Grandma.

Chicken soup with semolina dumplings

1. Put 1kg skin-on chicken pieces (either wings or legs or a combination are best although you can also use a whole chicken chopped into pieces) in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and turn on heat. If using wings then chop each wing into three pieces first.
2. Meanwhile, in a separate frypan, heat a little olive oil and add a large diced brown onion, two chopped carrots, two sticks of celery (and optional – a handful of mushrooms thinly sliced) – mix until combined, then cover and gently sweat for a few minutes until the vegetables brighten and soften a little.
3. Then mix two dessert spoons of plain flour with half a teaspoon of sweet Hungarian (not smoky) paprika and stir it into the vegetables. Sweat for another 30 seconds then turn off the heat.
4. Keep an eye on the chicken pot and using a slotted spoon remove any scummy stuff that comes to the surface.
5. Take a large tomato, score a cross in the skin, and put it in a bowl covered with boiling water for a few minutes. Then peel away the skin and finely dice the flesh.
6. When the chicken comes to the boil, add the vegetables from the frypan, the diced tomato and a few more inches of water.
7. Cook for at least 45 minutes, until the vegetables are soft and the chicken is cooked through. The cooking time will depend on the size of the chicken pieces you are using.
8. In the last 10 minutes you can add other soft vegetables if you want – Mum sometimes puts in a drained jar of asparagus spears, or a cup of frozen peas, or diced capsicum, or diced green beans.
9. If you have used chicken wings you can leave the meat on the bone if you want. If you used bigger pieces then take them out, shred the meat from the bones and replace the meat in the pot.
10. Optional semolina dumplings – per 75gm of egg add 4 tablespoons of semolina, 1/2 tspn salt, a 1/2 a dessert spoon of softened (but not melted) butter and some very finely chopped parsley. Stir hard to blend the butter into the egg and semolina. Put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes so the batter thickens.
11. Once the soup is cooked, drop small dobs of batter (about half a teaspoon - they will puff up as they cook) into it and simmer for about another 10-15 minutes. You can take one out to test and chop it in half to see if it is done, they need to be soft and cooked all the way through. The dumplings absorb the broth so you might need to add a little extra water if using dumplings.  Alternatively you can cook the dumplings in a separate pot of boiling water and then add them to the soup once cooked.
12. Serve the soup sprinkled with more chopped parsley, good bread and a dose of nostalgia.

Baked rice pudding

1. Preheat the oven to about 200C.
2. Get an oven proof casserole dish and into it stir together:
   a) 1/2 cup of rice - aborio is good but long grain also works
   b) 2.5 cups of milk - if you're feeling particularly indulgent you can substitute some of the milk with cream but we rarely have cream so I almost always use all milk and it works out fine
   c) 1/4 cup of brown sugar (less if you are trying to be healthy)
   d) 1 tspn of vanilla essence or some grated vanilla bean
   e) the finely grated rind of half a lemon
3. Over the top of the liquid scatter a dessert spoon of butter, broken into little knobs and about 1/2 teaspoon of grated nutmeg.
4. Cook for about an hour depending on how solid you want it. It's helpful to use a glass dish as you can see how cooked it is. The top should have a brown, puffy crust which will collapse when stabbed with a spoon.
5. Serve with fresh or tinned fruit.

Tasty little banana mountains

These are the tastiest funny-looking food I have ever made! I have no idea why they rose in such strange shapes. But they wound up fluffy and sweet, even though I reduced the sugar content, and were extremely pleasant still hot from the oven together with a lazy cup of tea after dinner! (They are also a nicer shade of brown than the photo suggests).

As a footnote, I can’t believe I used banana for cooking when the little blighters are so expensive, but I was lured in by the temptation of false economy. They were $9.99/kg at Coles earlier this week (and today were $11.99/kg!) except if you bought them by the over-ripe bag, whereupon they were $1.99/kg. So I put back the two not-over-ripe ones I had chosen and we got eight bananas for something like $3.50. I actually think we wound up ahead; although I did have to cut out bits of most of them, and froze chunks of a few others with popsticks in them as icy poles for Little E, we definitely wound up with more than two bananas in total. And that is a good thing, as I think Little E might stage a revolution if I tried to restrict her consumption of her beloved nana! After all that, we ended the week with only one black-and-sorry-beyond-redemption piece of fruit in the fridge. So I reduced the recipe by half, and voila! 12 tasty little banana mountains.

If anyone wants the recipe it came from http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Banana-Muffins-L787.html

Party preparations

Not-so-little E turns one in a few weeks and I confess to being a little excited. Conveniently, 3 April is a Sunday so we are able to have a little party on her actual birthday.

I have a shelf in the big white cupboard full of party preparations.

 

Invitations: immediate family, plus one little friend who we see at least once per week and his parents, but still, somehow, 16 people. I am glad we decided against inviting playgroup friends as that would have tripled the size in one go.

 

Sugar birds for decorating cup cakes. We thoughts about attempting to do a tree shaped cake with the birds on it, but decided cup cakes with birds are more fool-proof.

 

 

Cutters for bird/other popular animal shaped biscuits. Probably gingerbread ones as I doubt E will eat biscuits (I'm thinking a cup cake will be enough of a sugar shock for one day) and gingerbread is D's favourite.

 

Food colouring made from vegetable extracts and without chemicals, purchased whilst we were thinking about the tree cake, but we'll probably use this to make cup cake/biscuit icing more interesting.

Bird-shaped chocolate/icing moulds, purchased impulsively when I was feeling ambitious about the cake. I'm not actually sure that we'll use these but I figure they'll be good for Easters to come if not for this party.

As I said, just a little excited!

A little domestic moment

Our current favourite packet curry sauce, Passage to India's Tikka Masala. About 750 gm of casserole beef, an onion, a bit of carrot and celery, all chopped and thrown in the pressure cooker whilst Little E unloaded the contents of three drawers, tried to strew a packet of Shredded Wheat all over the floor and renewed her ongoing efforts to climb the pantry shelves whilst I am not looking.

Rice, reheated from the fridge.

Chapatis, from this recipe. Cooked in the half hour after Little E went to bed. Apparently only chumps have two naps a day, even if this means that when they have their dinner at 4.30 they are so tired their head has to have little rests on the high chair tray, so the half hour after E went to bed was 5.30 to 6.00! (It also means that she is tired enough to sleep for 13 hours at night, so she doesn't wake up too horrendously early).

Salad, off the standard variety.

Ooh la la!