It’s time for another freaky deaky Dutch delight. Sunday, our friend Vincent (another Dutchie) came over to cook some hearty Dutch food (Zuurkool met worst). Let’s just say, it’s nothing fancy, but it is great winter food.

After we had feasted on lots of mash, sauerkraut and rookworst, then naturally, one’s mind shifts to something light for dessert…..not. Here’s what Tom and Vincent made – boterkoek (translates to butter cookie). It sounds like the main ingredient is going to be butter, and we all know that indulging in this is probably akin to a cardinal sin, and is a heart attack waiting to happen. When cooked, they plied this cake from the pan (as baking paper was an afterthought) and there were bits and pieces stuck to the tray and all over the bench. I personally didn’t think it looks like anything exciting. But when I ate some off the bottom of the baking tray, I lost all control and had to eat an alarming amount of this amazing biscuit. I am embarrassed, but it is true.

It’s crunchy, chewy, dense, almondy, buttery and so simple, yet so delicious. I had to make it again last night.  Me bad! My son (who doesn’t eat cake normally, and would rather have a cheese platter) loves this cake. So if such a fussy cake connoisseur likes it, it must be good!

Ingredients

• 250g butter (real butter, unsalted is best, organic is even better)
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sugar (raw, organic)
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (sea salt)
• 2 1/2 cups flour (organic, you can even use a heavier flour for this recipe).
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

What you will need

• Mixer
• Mixing bowl
• 2x 20cm round cake pans – lined

What to do

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
2. Beat the butter and sugar until combined
3. Lightly whisk the eggs, and retain some for the glaze (a tablespoon)
4. Add the remainder of the eggs to the mix and beat well
5. Add remaining ingredients and mix until combined. The dough will be fairly stiff
6. Pat flat into the cake pans and bake for 15 minutes
7. Brush remaining beaten egg on tops and return to oven, baking 15 more minutes.
8. Allow to cool. Normally I love to eat things off the tray, but in this instance, it’s best cold.
9. Cut into wedges to serve.

Here are my favourite pizza toppings. I have mostly looked at what my favourite pizza places do and copy them. Why not.

I don’t have photo’s for all of them, because sadly, they usually don’t sit around long enough to have a photo shoot (especially if Dad’s around – you have to be in quick or you go hungry). Some people might think I am a tad hard on my Dad, but I tell no lie. He usually takes half of the pizza, and if there are 15 people at the party, it’s warfare.

We have tried heaps of different things, and on some occasions, let our friends loose in the kitchen. Some pizzas are amazing, and some are so-so. Here are the ones I think are the biggest success.

Sauce

With sauce, I go for the easy option of buying a organic pasta sauce base. Equally, you can make your own here. Occasionally I will use a puree, add some finely chopped herbs from the garden, some onion, garlic etc.

Bresaola/Pancetta & tomato

This pizza is the simplest, and is simply delicious. Thanks to La Casalinga (in Camberwell) for having it on their menu. Their finesse in picking flavours that work is much appreciated. Whenever we make this pizza, it goes. The uncooked tomato gives this pizza a different and refreshing twist, and really makes you appreciate the flavour of a beautiful tomato.

• Tomato sauce
• Bresaola is air-dried beef (scotch fillet) that is very thinly sliced. Equally thinly sliced pancetta works well here
• Mozzarella

After the pizza is cooked top it with:

• Finely chopped Roma tomatoes
• Drizzle of olive oil
• Season with cracked sea salt/pepper

Ragin’ cajin

This pizza is just a new topping to our favourites, and it is a real winner. A little more spicy, and very flavorsome. Thanks to Gerringong Pizza (NSW) for the great idea.

• Tomato sauce with some cajun spice mix added (spice mix of chilli, salt, celery, mustard, thyme, pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, tarragon, parsley)
• Marinade some chicken in cajun spices, and then pre-cook the chicken (you can use mushrooms if you want a vegetarian alternative)
• Pepperoni (optional)
• Freshly chopped Coriander all over the pizza (essential)
• Mozzarella

Tandoori chicken pizza

This pizza is also highly popular, and topped with yoghurt and rocket, it makes for a refreshing change. When my vego sister comes over I just add tandoori marinaded mushrooms and a gluten-free base and she is all over this stuff like a rash.

• Tomato sauce with some tandoori spice mix added (paprika, tumeric, garam masala, garlic, ginger, cardamon, salt, pepper, chilli)
• Marinade some chicken (or mushrooms) in tandoori spices, mixed with yoghurt, olive oil, and tomato paste, and then pre-cook the chicken
• Red onion – pre-cooked
• Mozzarella
• Freshly chopped Coriander (everywhere)

After the pizza is cooked top it with:

• Yoghurt
• Rocket

I will add to this list of pizza toppings over time. Of course you can throw anything on a pizza and it tastes great, but I have only published the recipes I truly think are outstanding.

One can’t be the owner of a woodfired oven and not have attempted pizza! Once you go woodfired, I am afraid it firmly cements you into the mold of official pizza snob. No more Domino’s or Pizza Hut for you ever again!

We used to frequent a pizza/pasta place near our house, but no more. Alas, it just never rises to the occasion and you walk away feeling all critical and bloated, and need to drink a few litres of water overnight to rehydrate from the ‘pretend ham’ and ‘pretend cheese’ gastronomic meltdown.

Since owning our woodfired oven, we have tried many different types of pizza bases, and have finally settled on one recipe. I like my pizza bases thin and crisp – let’s face it, I don’t want to feel like I have just devoured a soft pillow, and I want to try as many different slices as possible. But it does all come down to personal preference.

The dough recipe we use comes from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Making Classic Breads with the Cutting-edge Techniques of a Bread Master. This is a fabulous book if you are after authentic, crusty, artisan bread recipes.

For pizza, we diverge from our normal use of stone ground bio dynamic flour (from Powlett Hill, near Clunes, VIC) to a finer grade Organic plain flour (it has more of that evil stuff starting with a ‘G’ aka Gluten – and for pizza dough, it’s just not the same without it).

With the toppings I have learnt one very important rule – don’t over crowd your pizzas with too many flavours. Keep it to a rule of 4, and more sparse you are with the toppings, the more you will appreciate the dough, toppings, crust and ingredients.

As we have become true pizza snobs, the whole notion of takeaway pizza has become a bit of a farce – or fast food for that matter. Good things take time. Great things take a whole day (or even longer). These days, if I feel like pizza it is a day long labour of love making dough, lighting fires, getting the oven to the right temperature and a whole lot of running around with dough on boards. If friends come over, Tom is lucky to get a slice, and is run off his feet. But it is totally worth it (says me sitting down with a nice glass of Sav blanc in my hand…).

Here’s our favourite dough recipe. It makes 6 dinner plate-sized pizza crusts. This dough can be made and kept in the fridge or even freezer until you are ready to use it. We make double the recipe if we are having 12 or so people around for dinner.

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 cups of unbleached, high gluten, organic flour – chilled (yes, chilled)
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 3/4 cups ice cold water (yes…chilled)
• Cornmeal or semolina

What you will need

• Large mixing bowl
• Spare flour
• Bench space (for kneading), or a mixer with a dough hook
• Pizza baking stone or wood fired oven
• Pizza paddle/board (optional)
• Pizza cutter

What to do

Make the dough

1. Mix the flour, salt and yeast together
2. Stir in the oil, and keep stirring in water until all of the flour is absorbed
3. If mixing by hand, use a metal spoon, and mix the flour vigorously, rotating the bowl at the same time, or, if using a mixer, knead for 5-7 minutes (this develops the gluten)
4. When it’s right, you will have a sticky dough, that clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom
5. Prepare a tray with baking paper, and spay some oil onto this
6. Sprinkle some flour on the counter, and place the dough on top, and cut the dough into 6 equal portions
7. Sprinkle flour over the dough and then lift each piece gently into a ball
8. Transfer the dough onto the tray, and then mist gently with oil spray
9. Cover the dough with a food grade plastic bag

Rest the dough

1. Put the dough into the refrigerator overnight (you can keep this up to 3 days). If you want to keep the dough even longer, put them at this stage into a freezer bag (and they can store in the freezer for up to 3 months). Transfer them to the fridge the day before you plan to use them

On pizza day

1. On the day you wish to use the dough, remove them from the refrigerator only 2 hours before you need them
2. Dust the counter, and then place a dough ball on the counter
3. Sprinkle the dough with flour, then gently press it into 2cm thick, 10 cm in diameter rounds
4. Sprinkle again with flour and a light mist of oil, and rest again for 2 hours

45 mins before making pizza (if using a pizza stone/conventional oven)

1. Place a baking stone at mid level in the oven. Crank up the heat as high as it will go (that is about 250 degrees C in most conventional ovens)
2. Generously dust a pizza paddle or pan with cornmeal or semolina so the dough will slide off when you put it in the oven
3. Flour your hands, and then lift the dough onto the paddle/pan
4. Carefully stretch the dough as much as you can (it is very springy) – continually shaping it until it’s expanded out
5. If you are game, you can toss it like they do in the pizza shops (but I have only ever ended up looking silly at this point)
6. The final sized pizza should be about 20cms wide

Toppings

Use the less-is-more principle. In the past I used to throw everything onto a pizza, but I have learnt to really appreciate a few toppings. Plus, it’s too hard to handle a pizza that is heavy with toppings, and the base doesn’t always cook so well.

I will devote a page to pizza toppings, as there is a whole wonderful world of experimentation for you here.

Cooking the pizza

1. Slide the pizza onto the stone, or into the wood-fired oven (test with some dough first to ensure it doesn’t burn – best temp is between 300-400 degrees C)
2. Wait for 2 mins, and if necessary, turn the pizza around
3. Cook for another 3 mins
4. If the base is too brown, let the oven cool slightly before continuing
5. When using a woodfired oven, if the cheese hasn’t gone golden, I slide the paddle under the pizza, and then old the pizza closer to the roof of the oven (like using a grill function)
6. Remove the pizza and place on a wooden board
7. Cut and devour!

Please don’t read this blog if you don’t really want to know where meat comes from.

Shock horror….did you realise that meat actually comes from an animal that used to be alive? I never realised this. I thought it came from Woolworths, and actually just grew in the plastic packet with the little absorbent pad underneath it! Of course I am being totally facetious, but I noticed a very interesting reaction to an email I sent with regarding the topic of eating guinea pigs.

Tom found a youtube video about eating guinea pigs. The video doesn’t actually show a guinea pig being eaten, or being killed, but it is very frank about them being used as a source of meat. The owners of the guinea pigs in the movie obviously love their pigs, and also obviously eat them too.

I sent to my permaculture email group thinking it was an interesting concept (and slightly amusing too), and got an interesting reaction. Some people thought I should have put a warning in the email as they found the content to be too shocking. I have been thinking about what that warning might be:

Warning: The following video may be shocking to some viewers. It toys with the concept that some people grow, kill and eat meat from animals. It doesn’t actually show the killing or eating of the animal. Even more shocking is that these animals happen to be cute.

Youtube: Eating guinea pigs

This video is very interesting, and a tad amusing too. What is more interesting is how the concept of killing a ‘cute’ animal, or an animal we associate with pets arouses such emotions. I am amused also by the comments in youtube below the video, such as ‘these people are monsters’ and the like. If these people are monsters, then isn’t anyone who has ever eaten meat a monster? All meat comes from animals, even fish. Perhaps a tad hypocritical and a little bit squeamish.

I am a meat eater, and comfortable with this. I have tried being a vegetarian, even a vegan in the past. I admire the discipline that it takes to be a vegan and to eat properly, but I lack the know how to do this properly, and the time it takes to source all of the right things, cook everything and so on. What does disturb me is a number of documentaries I have seen recently that show food production these days as a major ‘conveyer-belt’ like production, but involving live animals. These shows include:

• Food Inc – a movie
• Jamie Oliver’s series on where our food comes from
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series.

But I do believe in taking a pragmatic approach – I like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s (from the River Cottage series). If you are going to eat meat, then you need to be responsible about how it is grown, cared for, and respectful in how you slaughter and use it. Playing a part in growing and slaughtering your own food brings this message home beautifully, meat comes from a real animal, let’s make sure it’s life wasn’t a waste, let’s use it respectfully. But most of us can’t do this, we might work office jobs or live in a small apartment etc. So, where does your food come from? How is it grown? Do you have any idea?

Since becoming more aware about where my food comes and how it is grown, I have started to ask the questions of my local producers, or change where I source my food from.

I sit here gazing outside at my guinea pigs as I write. Don’t worry, there are still 4 pigs outside. Maybe I should try one?

What have I become?

I don’t normally like coffee flavoured desserts, but this is the one and only exception.

Of course, you will find a million and one recipes for Tiramisu, but this one I like because it isn’t very sweet.

The best thing about Tiramisu – you can make it the day before. It actually tastes better if you do. Also, you don’t need to cook or heat anything.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of coffee – I use the real thing, from a real coffee machine. If you have to, use instant, but really, shame on you for not having a coffee machine!
• 1 cup of marsala – a sherry-like Liquour now labelled as Crema, but it’s the same thing
• 500g sponge finger biscuits
• 500g thickened cream
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 500g marscarpone cheese
• Grated dark chocolate

What you will need

• Medium sized bowl for coffee
• Medium sized bowl for cream mixture
• Beaters
• Medium sized dish for serving – I use a rectangular pyrex dish

What to do

1. Mix and coffee and 2/3 of the cup of marsala together
2. Dip one sponge finger biscuit at a time into the coffee mix, only half submerging it. Don’t hold the biscuit under, and only hold it in the mix for a few seconds (this ensure the biscuit isn’t soaked, and gives a nice look when the cake is cut later)
3. Place one layer of sponge finger biscuits on the bottom of the serving dish
4. Beat the cream and sugar until soft peaks form
5. Add 1/3 cup marsala and marscapone cheese and lightly mix together
6. Place 1/3 of the cream mix on top of the first layer of biscuits
7. Then add another layer of coffee soaked biscuits, another layer of cream
8. Repeat with the final layer
9. Sprinkle with grated dark chocolate

Makes enough for 9 generous serves at least.