While there are many fancy versions of trifle around, for me, there is no going past the traditional trifle that my mum, and my Nana, used to make! It takes time, so was really only prepared for special occasions, and you know what, I think that’s what makes it even more of a treat! The anticipation makes your mouth water as you wait for it to appear on the table during festive celebrations.
A few years ago, for my birthday, I asked Gary to find me a little desk, I initially wanted to have it on the front porch, where I liked to sit on warm mornings. He went in search of, and found, a cute, old, school desk, it was a little tall and painted mission brown, but I still loved it. He immediately cut a wee portion off the legs to make it the correct height, it was put in place, still brown, but it fitted and really didn’t look out of place, but I never really used it.
My little brown desk on the front porch…
A few months ago I decided that I wanted to move it into the kitchen, a place where I could make notes as I worked on recipes, or other kitchen jobs. We found some paint in the shed, and Gary got to work sanding it back and giving it a paint of antique white. It looks fabulous! It has a little bottle that sits snugly in the ink well hole, where I can place a single flower from the garden. It makes me smile.
There’s a recipe book that graces the shelves of many in Australia, The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits, and like, mine, I’m sure they are well used.
The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits – Ever reliable recipes
When I was a child, my nana, Elvie McDonald, would bake up a storm, filling biscuit (cookie) tins with a variety of biscuits, to be gifted to each of her adult children’s families. We all had favourites, for me it was her melting moments, others loved her gingernuts, others, Anzacs, and so on, and it was a sad day when the last of your favourites had vanished from the tin. When the tin was empty, it would be returned to nana, and she would use it to store her baked goods in throughout the year, before beginning the cycle again. While I don’t have one of her large biscuit tins, I do have a smaller tin, and use it to, fittingly, store my biscuit cutters in.
I work with kids, now that’s something I thought I would NEVER say! Me working with kids – nup, my sister, Jan, was the teacher, not me!
Well, somehow that has changed a little, and, every now and then I work with kids in the kitchen. This Halloween morning we cooked together again – I’m pretty sure that you can guess what the theme was for that day… Yes, Halloween….
It’s all about Halloween…
Yes, it rained yesterday, not earth shattering news I know, but the gauge was full, and it’s been raining again today. It’s been so dry, and there are many among us who are excited, happy, relieved, to see the wet stuff falling from the sky. So with it cold and wet outside, it was a great reason to stay indoors, actually in the kitchen, and cook and keep warm, and that’s exactly what I did!
The evening before, I’d been working in the veggie patch and the parsley needed a good tidy up so had brought in a basket full and popped it in the fridge. That was the first job, it was washed, picked over and loaded into the dehydrator, with a little bunch set aside in a vase on the hob of the stove.
