Day 6 - Baked eggs with chorizo, and Lumberjack cake

Now we don't have the luxury of taking photos of our dinner anymore, so I'm afraid my Monday Menu posts have faded away. We count ourselves lucky if we get a moment to eat our dinner at a slower pace before having to clean up one of the girls sitting next to us in their high chairs.

But the other day when the girls finally went to sleep I had a moment to start cooking something for dinner (it was just going to be scrambled eggs) and I quickly grabbed the Blue Ducks cookbook off the shelf.



An Instagram friend Charlotte a publicist at Pan MacMillan has sent us a few generous boxes of books. Cooking, gardening and children's books for the girls. I haven't had the time to cook many things but I have poured over the pages, tucking away recipes to try.

The baked eggs are really a breakfast dish, but I love eggs at any time of day. We had some free-range eggs from a friend so I was set.

So easy, quickly fry a chopped onion and some garlic cloves in a pan. Add 250g of sliced chorizo sausage (I used a can of Manolete chorizo which locals can pick up at Bottega Rotolo), and fry until the onion is translucent. Then add a sliced red capsicum (I had some pre-roasted in a jar), a sliced chilli (I omitted this!), a 400g can of well rinsed and drained cannellini beans, a 400g can of diced tomatoes (or whole baby romas like me), a tablespoon of paprika, stir and simmer for 10 minutes. The mixture should be thick but still saucy, season and add a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley. At this stage I paused to wait until dinner, but you can press on if you are hungry.


Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Our fry pan is oven proof, so I just cracked 8 eggs in dents I made amongst the tomato/bean mix. Alternatively you could spoon the mix into the middle of individual terracotta bowls and crack an egg either side of the beans.

Place the eggs in the oven and bake for 6-8 minutes, depending on how well cooked you like your eggs (we like them runny). I served it with Pigeonwhole sourdough, and we all enjoyed it immensely.



I even got a moment to bake on the weekend, quickly making a Lumberjack cake. I used the Woman's Weekly recipe, but made it in a 20cm square tin and doubled the topping mix.


What's been on the menu at your place recently?

Monday's Menu

It’s granola season at the hut. I struggle with eating breakfast during the week, I get bored easily, and I was so over porridge. I’d eat a mouthful and then not so subtly put the bowl down for Claudia to finish off (she loved me!) So last weekend I baked up a batch of Nigella’s granola (from Feast). What’s not to love about roasted Almonds, seeds, honey, and raisins? I made another batch yesterday but added some flaked coconut, pumpkin seeds and golden raisins as well. During the week we served it with strawberries, mango and rhubarb. Now I can't wait for breakfast.

As mentioned on Friday we took delivery of a box of goodies from Mount Gnomon farm. So pork dominated the menu all weekend. We’re not complaining though. Rob slow roasted the shoulder for three hours in the Weber on Saturday. Then yesterday we blasted it in our oven under the maxi-grill, that thing is wicked, I could see the skin blister! That crackling, I have to say, was perfectly cooked, shattering as you bit into it. It was then warmed up again in the Weber sitting on some sliced fennel, baby carrots and bay leaves, and served it with roast potatoes, the pork was deliciously juicy. Oh dear I’d better stop otherwise I might start drooling on the keyboard.

Finally, as it rained most of Saturday we were happily stuck inside, after lunch I fell asleep on the window seat with Claudia as a foot warmer, for several hours!

I thought I’d better do something worthwhile, so I measured out and chopped the dried fruit for two Christmas cakes (sultanas, currants, raisins, dried apricots and prunes).


Maybe the menu might have to be a little healthier this week (looking at what you eat all week is a bit of an eye opener) maybe even some salads and green vegetables! 

Top row: Scrambled eggs on Pigeon Hole sourdough toast, Granola with Greek yoghurt and strawberries, Italian sausages on mash with peas (an excuse to eat relish), creamy mushroom, bacon and pea fettuccine, spring vegetable risotto.

Middle row: Mount Gnomon bacon and egg roll, Sweet Envy jam doughnut and pecan sticky bun, Mount Gnomon chorizo, tomato and lentil risotto, dried fruit soaking in brandy for Christmas cakes, the roast pork shoulder (from guess who).

Bottom row: The pork served with roasted fennel and carrots, a pear poached in red wine, cinnamon, vanilla and thyme, our granola fresh out of the oven, this morning with rhubarb, gin and tonic season has started.

May I have a weekend now?

Rob and I are in a rush, obviously. Although we'd been organised enough to do our shopping on Friday night so we didn't waste time through the weekend, our weekend disappeared in a flash.
We'd picked up some Comte, Brillat Savarin and a third French cheese with some Pigeon Hole bread from Bottega Rottolo. We scurried home to savour our cheeses with some wine and just sat and chatted. Very civilised, we decided it might have to become our Friday ritual.
Saturday dawned, with the promise of sun once the frost melted and the fog lifted. An early morning delivery of fine crushed rock got Rob excited.
I took a moment to take a picture of our new arm chairs. We're qutie happy with these little beauties, 1961 Fler Narvik chairs in blackwood, with new upholstery, webbing and cushions? A bargain even with the freight from Adelaide SA!

Sadly my photo shoot was cut short by an impatient puppy.

I kepy myself busy inside with baking bread following this recipe, cleaning our hut, making some vegetable soup for lunch, baking a tea cake, and making spanokopita for our dinner.
By the end of the first day after extensive excavations most of the gravel was laid out.

On Sunday I oiled all the kitchen joinery with Chinawood oil. A job that had been on the to do list since we moved in 3 weeks ago. It doesn't actually smell so bad, and is very forgiving of my painting technique.


With the gravel done and the oiling we did drive off to pick up our fruit trees from Woodbridge Fruit Tree farm, with the hoped for bounty of quinces and cider apples.
Rob moved onto letterbox building while I did a little baking which is quite a delight in our new kitchen.

At the end of the day we sat exhausted over a dinner of baked potatoes with Cygnet bacon and cheese. We crawled off to bed early as we could barely keep our eyes open. I hope we learn to slow down a little at the hut!

Can you have too much pink?

Well sorry I should qualify that statement- can you have too much pink at a baby shower for a much anticipated baby girl?

My little sister will have her baby daughter Maisy in about 4 weeks time. She will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family so there is much excitement about it all, so it was great fun to plan a baby shower for my little sis with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

I, of course, volunteered to organise the sweet food. So Rob and I spent most of Saturday and Sunday morning baking and icing: coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting and a matching princess cake, heart shaped turkish delight, pink and white iced baby pram and bottle shaped gingerbread and raspberry macarons.



The venue overlooked a beach (which was spectacular enough) but we couldn't help but embellish with some pink tissue paper pom poms (Rob's daughter and I made them the night before), tulips and balloons.


A very girly afternoon followed that included sandwiches, bubbles and fruit punch, games and watching my sister open everyone's thoughtful gifts, which included some incredibly cute baby clothes and toys.
Can't wait to meet Maisy soon.

A cracker day

When I was little I for some reason had a day dream about getting married at home. I’m not sure why? But I thought that it would be nicer for some reason.
Fast forward 20 years or so.

We had a short working week last week, as we had to prepare for Rob’s birthday party. On Wednesday evening we went to meet the lovely Emily Snadden for a drink. I nervously looked around for anyone we knew in the bar, but luckily I saw nobody. Perfect. We purchased a bottle of bubbly and toasted each other and Emily pulled out two little boxes from a white paper bag. Inside each was a silver ring with tiny bunnies and foxes chasing each other around endlessly. We were lucky to have them, as our design had proved more difficult to execute than planned, only days earlier we thought we might have to lose the animals, but Emily persevered (she may never want to see a bunny or fox ever again) and created exactly the rings we hoped for. It was a lovely relaxing start to a slightly crazy couple of days.

The pace changed quite rapidly from there, I rushed out to the airport to pick up my friend who was one of five people who knew what was about to happen. Thursday dawned a grey and uninspiring day, after the torrential rain earlier in the week, the constant drizzle wasn’t letting up. I imagined the block to be a quagmire of mud. We got baking, two Maggie Beer orange pound cakes with a layer of dried cumquats that had been soaked in dessert wine, and a gluten free almond pear cake. We headed into Hobart to start the food shopping (but first we ate a quick burger from Devil’s Kitchen overlooking the Derwent), first stop was Vermey’s. Marcus had been ageing two beef rib roasts for a couple of months for us, and we also picked up two fresh ducks and some mince for stuffing them. Next stop was some fresh vegetables. Then home, Rob was feeling nervous about the moat that had developed behind the hut, so headed down to the block to dig some trenches with the dogs. My friend and I decided to stay inside, and began icing the little hut gingerbread biscuits that I had made earlier. She painstakingly iced each one to make it look like vertical cladding, and added a fondant roof, which she later painted silver. I meanwhile started stockpiling platters. Rob came back after dark, with two very muddy dogs, and an even muddier car (Claudia had decided to shake off inside). But he pushed on and removed the bones from the two ducks, then stuffed them with pork and veal mince, onions, sage, pistachios, dried cumquats, apricots and chicken thighs.

Friday was still grey but at least the rain had stopped. Rob headed off to work to give a lecture. I cooked the ducks. My parents let me know that my grandmother had another dizzy spell (she’d had one a couple of weeks ago that caused her to faint, hitting her head and giving her concussion), so I was more than a little concerned. Especially as I knew that they were booked on a flight to head over the next day. They were another two of the special five that knew something was up. But I pushed on, baking olives and tidying up. Rob returned to start cooking the roast beef. I got the call from the courier bringing the three pork bellies from Mt Gnomon. I was looking forward to them I can tell you. Three extremely large pink bellies with lovely layers of fat. We pushed on and made the buttercream icing for our cakes, not entirely successfully I admit, the sugar syrup turned into toffee in both batches instead of being incorporated into the egg yolks, but we improvised and finished both cakes. My aunt called to let us know that their doctor thought my grandmother fit enough to travel. Which was a big relief. We headed to the block to tidy up after the builders. After some sweeping and rearrangement (and a thorough disinfecting of the builders porta loo) we left in the twilight to head home to continue cooking. Jo and Michelle had suggested that we pre-cook the pork bellies and reheat them in the barbeque. We cooked them in our favourite way, ala Movida, blasted for 40 minutes on a high heat, before removing the meat and adding carrots and leeks, bay leaves, white wine and sherry vinegar, returning the meat and covering them with foil to cook slowly until tender.

I woke up early on Saturday and looked outside to see a clear blue sky. It was going to be a ‘cracker’ day, as Rob and I like to say. Buoyed by this we enthusiastically headed off early to pick up 10 loaves of bread from Jackman and McRoss, a 2 kg French cheese from Wursthaus, several bunches of red tulips and a few of chrysanthemums from Salamanca, and 10 dozen oyster from Mures. Then we seemed to unrail slightly timing wise. It seemed to take an age to slice the ocean trout gravlax (that had been curing since Tuesday), duck and beef. Whilst Rob did that I packed all the crockery, cutlery, glasswear, serving platters, wine and food into the cars. Off to the hut, I realised we were running a little late! There was only 40 minutes til when people turned up. Rob and I threw ice into galvanised buckets and added Jansz NV sparkling, home brew in Grolsch magnum bottles, and mineral water. We got inundated by what seemed like hundreds of wasps. It was hot and I manically threw table clothes onto trestle tables, put tulips in vases and set out the platters of meat. Luckily some of our guests arrived early so we were able to delegate some of the set up. I snuck away eventually to get changed into my dress. A blue silk dupion halter neck (that I’d had especially made) this was trickier than it sounds as our master bedroom has no door, and guests were already taking themselves on tours of the hut! Much to my sisters disgust, I wore a pair of silver Birkenstock thongs! (she knew too, as she had returned to the UK).






Our guests all arrived and started nibbling on the oysters and gravlax, whilst the pork warmed in the bbq. Time disappeared again and it was suddenly 1.45pm, this may not normally have mattered but I knew something had to take place at 2.30. I rustled Rob along, and soon our guests were sitting at tables, or the pop up bar (the builders work station), or inside the hut. I tried to nibble on some food, but found that I was a little nervous. I insisted Rob change from his shorts, t-shirt and explorers into some trousers and a linen shirt, which he did do, the celebrant arrived, I found Rob nibbling on a beef rib bone! We prepared to do the “announcement”. Lynn had a few funny moments where she had to pretend to know us from work (one of my aunts decided to be friendly to the poor lady on her own!). We gave her the signal and she tapped a glass to get their attention. At that precise moment Rob’s mother headed straight for the porta loo! Oh no! I thought they’d guess what was about to happen. But once everyone was gathered (which seemed a long time but probably wasn’t) Lynn announced that although they were here to celebrate Rob’s birthday, there was also going to be a little ceremony, that we were getting married. The collective gasp was priceless (and I think I’ll remember it always). But Rob’s parents immediately started to cry! I’m a terrible sympathetic crier so started too! But they were happy tears, I should say there were a lot of smiles too!



The ceremony was quick, Rob and I standing at the end of the living room, with a very church like ceiling above us, with wet muddy dogs wandering amongst us as we said our vows! Rob’s daughter (who was also in on the secret) was the ring bearer. It was quite surreal, in no time at all we had our rings on and were announced as Dr and Dr Wiltshire! It was a great way to have a wedding. Corks popped whilst we signed the certificate and there were many hugs, tears and laughs.






We cut our orange & cumquat wedding cake, and the beautiful cheese.





Rob opened his gifts which included a mirror made for dogs to admire themselves in, and a personalised hut apron! Our family and friends relaxed now, wandering around the block, the dogs romped through the grass. The bride may have been seen running after them in her silk dress and blundstones. Then the sun started to fall, and the golden sunshine that had been with us all day started to fade, our guests left with huge smiles and little hut biscuits with heart shaped windows, and Rob and I packed up and smiled to ourselves- we had surprised them all!



It was indeed a ‘cracker’ day.

Our baker’s dozen

I have to admit that with my slight autistic leanings I love writing lists. I do it all the time, for work, for home, for grocery shopping, for what I’d like to buy, plants, spices, cookie cutters. Oh dear! But one I’ve recently started is a baking recipe list to keep track of ones we do cook and how we rate them. There are over 200 cakes I’d like to try from our cook books, and we’ve barely cooked any of them. I admit we had a large bias towards one particular cook, and although we are moving on from our love affair with the domestic goddess in most cases, there are a few of her cakes that we do cook over and over. Last week it was my turn to bake a cake for the work morning tea roster. I tried to pick some new cakes to try. I ended up baking David Herbert’s lemon syrup cake (wasn’t on our list as it was in his book I’m borrowing from the library) and Nigella’s store cupboard chocolate orange cake. So my list writing wasn’t entirely successful: I didn’t pick a new recipe! What are our favourites, the ones we cook again and again? In no particular order here is our baker’s dozen of cakes:

1. Christmas cake- combination of Stephanie Alexander’s, Maggie Beer’s and Nigella’s recipes. We bake on average 5 Christmas cakes a year as we give most of them away. I love the spicy, fruity smell of the cake mixture pervading the house as they bake. They’re not difficult to prepare but do take some patience, as they take several hours to cook. If you rush the cake will be dry and overly browned. Whilst I mix up the batter, Rob carefully lines the tins with baking paper and wraps them in brown paper to help insulate them; also Maggie’s tip is to put a tray full of water in the oven to create a nice moist environment. As neither of us is overly fond of mixed peel we add a few tablespoons of our cumquat marmalade to the mix. We usually decorate them with plain white fondant icing- they look pretty but I actually peel it off to eat. Come to think of it, there’s a nicely maturing cake at home, only 6 months old, might have to try it soon!

2. Chocolate Guinness Cake – Nigella. A recent addition but a great textured chocolate cake, and any cake with cream cheese frosting has got to be a winner.

3. Upside down pear and almond cake- Ian Parmenter's recipe, we made a few of these recently with the Comice pear season.

4. Banana Bread- Nigella. A quick mix cake for those bananas that are looking a bit sad in the fruit bowl. Bananas walk a fine line in our house- I like them slightly under ripe, once they taste too much like a banana I can’t eat them (silly I know). Can also add choc chunks or brandy soaked sultanas.
5. Orange and almond cake- Claudia Roden. A classic - Rob’s trick is to pierce the oranges a few times with a skewer and then microwave them for a few minutes instead of boiling them for 2 hours. Perfect with Greek yoghurt.

6. Chocolate Cloud Cake-Nigella. A cake lightened by whipped egg whites. Rises impressively in the oven but sadly sinks once out. But then that’s what cream is for. A lovely combination of textures, crisp outer shell and mousse like interior.

7. Lemon syrup cake- David Herbert’s recipe is straight to the list. This cake has a serious lemon kick. Not only does it have lemon juice & rind in the mix, it is soaked once cooked with lemon syrup then topped with a covering of lemon icing. Sounds simple: it is.

8. Nutella cake-Nigella. One of those cakes moist with ground nuts- hazels in this case. With the chocolate and Nutella, this cake is for when you need chocolate.

9. Date and chocolate cake- Stephanie Alexander’s short recipe hides in her comprehensive tome, The Cook’s Companion. As she says- simple and very easy to make. With only 4 ingredients, it’s one to keep in mind as a dessert.

10. Store cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake-Nigella. A cake where the first step is melting chocolate and butter. Then mix in a jar of marmalade (cumquat of course), or raspberry, cherry (below) or apricot jam, or Armagnac soaked prunes. Topped with ganache another special chocolate cake.

11. Persian Love Cake- A cake featured in Gourmet Traveller – a reader request for a recipe from Qöm. After combining almond meal, raw and brown sugar and butter, half of the mix is pressed into the base of the pan. To the remaining mix add a few eggs, Greek yoghurt and a serious amount of freshly ground nutmeg. Pour this over the base top with some chopped pistachios and bake. Heaven.

12. Gingerbread-Nigella, I know yet another Nigella recipe. Her gingerbread is a favourite topped with lemon icing. Fudgy and dark, very addictive. It doesn’t last long in our house.

13. Apple and almond cake-Nigella. You may have realised by now, we quite like almond meal cakes. Another moist cake, and as it has fruit in it, Rob considers it a health food!

What is your favourite cake recipe?

Photos from: http://www.nigella.com, http://www.styleathome.com/