On the third weekend in May the Moggill Markets grounds are taken over by dodgem cars, laughing clowns and other far wilder rides. It becomes side show alley at the Brookfield Show. A long running event, the Brookfield Show draws not only the locals but those from further afield. From early Friday morning the road [...]

Kohlrabi is a vegetable from my childhood. I don’t really recall how we ate it but I remember how it looked in its raw state – turnip like with the leaves growing from the round swollen stem and it being a light green colour with purple highlights (it looks like a tuber but it doesn’t [...]

Diana Henry’s book Salt Sugar Smoke has been one of my best recipe book purchases of recent times. Not only does the book look fabulous with eye catching photography but the recipes are inspiring. This isn’t because they are complicated and full of different techniques pushing you to achieve greater culinary milestones, rather the recipes [...]

Sometimes you want your sweet treat to be simple and uncomplicated. Lovely texture, good flavours and that’s it. No fancy additions, cream or icing toppings, fruit, sauces or drizzles. Madeleines fit the bill perfectly. These distinctive shell shaped cakes don’t require a slice to be cut or a fork to eat. Their size is ideal for [...]

We have had our veggie garden for a few years now. It’s size is limited somewhat by the extend of the sun in our garden. Much of it is fairly heavily treed – natural bushland that is home to an array of animal and bird life. Non the less we have managed to find a [...]

I have been in Hobart unexpectedly for the last few days keeping house while Daughter No. 1 recovered from tonsillitis in hospital. Hobart is looking lovely at the moment with the trees full of Autumn colours, although the Salamanca Markets were cancelled for the first time on Saturday due to the high winds (it didn’t [...]

When I’m on holiday I like to take food tours. Walking around a neighbourhood experiencing its culinary history, its food specialties and talking to its food identities gives you a real insight into a location. You meet new people, taste some interesting things and learn something that’s not usually in the guide books, not just [...]

Potato chips are not something that I generally crave. Put a bowl in front of me and I might eat a couple but that’s about it. I was reading somewhere recently about the research that goes into making such things so that they become addictive to the consumer. The crunch factor, the salt and the [...]

This Saturday of course the Anzac Biscuit competition is being held at the Moggill Markets. Sent to soldiers during World War I because of their excellent keeping properties, the Anzac biscuit has become a firm favourite in Australian households. So this weekend pull out your favourite Anzac biscuit recipe and bake a batch of biscuits, bring [...]

The first time I made ricotta was some years ago. A friend and I were attending a three day cheese making workshop. After the three days we came home armed with a range of cheeses at various stages of maturation. Some of the fresh cheese could be consumed immediately, others needed to be put away [...]

It would be a rare day when I don’t eat a piece of cake or slice or biscuits and there is usually dessert on top of that. I know this flies in the face of all current recommendations regarding eating certain foods and that these sweet indulgences fall into the official ‘occasional treats’ category. My [...]

At 4am it was raining and I thought we were in for yet another wet market. The weather hasn’t been kind to the markets this year, with rain being the norm. And it keeps all but the most dedicated customers away. Queenslanders don’t seem to function well in the rain – they tend to stay [...]

Everyone needs a couple of  ’go to’ dinners in their repertoire. Those dinners where you can’t think of what else to cook, time is short, you’re tired or there isn’t much in the house. The thing is that these standbys still need to taste good, have some nutritional value and fill you up. I have [...]

After being away over the Easter break it’s good to come home and eat some vegetables! Not that we ate badly or really over indulged in chocolate but I always find that eating every meal out means that you eat no where near enough vegetables. They are there on the plate and they are invariably [...]

I remember eating pashka once at a cafe. I have memories of it being a popular cafe ‘cake’ and I’m sure it was a mass produced version that was featured in many a cafe cake window. It was served in a huge slab as you would a piece of cake and I recall that it [...]

When I was younger hot cross buns were something that you ate at Easter. This might sound obvious but now they seem to appear in the shops on Boxing Day, so by the time Easter comes around everyone is a bit tired of hot cross buns and they are no longer special. It’s not like [...]

My patience for making sweets and chocolates is almost non existent. All that brushing the pan sides down to stop the sugar crystallising, exact temperatures, not to mention the weather – too hot and it all melts, too wet and it all goes sticky. I’m just too much of a throw a few ingredients in, [...]

Friday nights at our place invariably used to mean some sort of Mexican food. Not real Mexican brimming with fresh flavours and interesting textures, but the very Tex Mex variety found in handy meal packs in the supermarket. A packet of seasoning, a jar of salsa, a bit of mince and voila! dinner was on [...]

I have long held a desire to make my own small goods. I have visions of a room laden with hanging salami and legs of pork curing. But I’m not sure that without a temperature controlled room, the humid, sub-tropical temperatures of Brisbane would be all that kind to hanging meat. Rather than carefully drying, [...]

The last markets were what you could call a little wet, perhaps one of the wettest in a long time. And while I wouldn’t like it to be that way every market there is a certain appeal in a very wet market. The kids love the mud (much to the horror of parents when it [...]

A little while ago I was talking to one of the older ladies who had been a member of the Queensland Country Women’s Association for eons. She had lived on the land her entire life and was adept at making do and improvising. I think we must have been talking about scones (not surprising for [...]

Butter, I believe is one of the greatest culinary delights. You will never ever see margarine or any other butter substitute spread in our house. Probably discovered in the early days of dairying, butter is important across the world in a number of different cultures from Scandinavia to India. In Europe it didn’t become popular [...]

The United Nations decided that 2013 was to be the International Year of Quinoa. For many of us quinoa has been a recent addition to our diets but for many South Americans it has been a staple for centuries. The recent popularity of quinoa in the western diet has created somewhat of an ethical dilemma [...]

It’s raining again and while everywhere is damp and the mould seems to be growing on everything, it is enticing kitchen and cooking weather. I’ve been trying to do my bit to help farmers, many of whom are having a difficult time as a result of the very wet summer. I’ve bottled, roasted and stewed [...]

To say there is an abundance of jam in our house at the moment would be an under exaggeration of the truth. There is jam of all varieties and combinations lurking on every spare bit of shelf space. If you limited your jam use to toast the sight of these jars could be a bit [...]

One of the joys of late summer is the abundance of fresh figs. Until only a couple of years ago it seems that figs weren’t that easy to buy. You rarely saw them in the shops and only those people who knew someone who grew them were able to enjoy fresh figs. Then they started [...]

Mustard is one of those pantry items that you take for granted. Not much thought is given to how it’s made or even to perhaps making your own. The thing is that it really isn’t difficult and it requires next to no ingredients, but like all homemade things it just takes a little longer than [...]

I’m slowly working my way through about 10 kilograms of limes that I picked up for a very reasonable price last weekend. Some of them have been made into lime curd and others into lime and rum marmalade while still others are sitting in a large jar in the sun with salt and spices. In [...]

Having a container of homemade biscuits in the house is almost a necessity. A cup of tea is always enhanced by the addition of a biscuit, a couple added to the lunchbox provides a sweet treat, there is always something to offer if people drop by and the evening munchies can be offset by a [...]

The thing that I love about this very simple recipe is not just that it tastes great or is really versatile, but that it is so thrifty. It uses discarded apple peels, the part of the apple that is mostly thrown away if you are making apple pie or crumble. If you have chickens or [...]

My family arrived in Brisbane from England late in 1974. It was hot and humid, the timber houses appeared very strange coming from a place where brick and stone dominated and the remnants of the floods earlier in the year were a reminder that the weather in this part of the world was very different. [...]

Now that school and work are back along comes the challenge of providing an interesting lunch on a daily basis. Work lunches aren’t quite so difficult as many places have a microwave, so leftovers are a really good option. School lunches are not so easy and it doesn’t take long before all of those prepackaged [...]

I recently added a few more books to my Eat Your Books list. Apparently I now have 171 cookery books which contain a total of 9,750 recipes. It might sound like a lot but some people have 1000s of cookbooks which makes my list look positively short and obviously I need to work on getting [...]

It seems somewhat cliched to be making anything to do with lamingtons for Australia Day. But really in a land without a recognised national dish, lamingtons come as close as anything else. Food scholar, Barbara Santich in an essay titled Scones, Sponges, Anzacs and Lamingtons* said that: …scones and sponges, anzacs and lamingtons are as much part [...]

I got a bit carried away at the markets on Saturday. All that produce and so many possibilities. Among other things, I arrived home with 5 kilograms of tomatoes (admittedly that’s not too many), a tray of figs, about a kilo of raspberries, 14 limes, five pineapples and a tub of paradise pears. These tiny [...]

Summer is alway’s an exciting time of year for fresh produce, in particular all of the fabulous fruit that abounds. While it is great to eat as is, there is so much that can be done with stone fruit and tropical fruit. In the few days that I have been home I’ve been making jam [...]

  One of the first things I notice when I get home after being away for a little while is the noise. Not the noise of a city – cars, sirens and people but the insects and the birds. At this time of year in particular, the cicadas and the crickets are constant. Their shrill [...]

We have visited our fourth city on our US trip and I’m beginning to wonder if there are any Australians left in Australia. The lifts in our New York apartment are full of them. One slightly disgruntled local said after hearing us speak, “Are you Australian as well, everyone is Australian.” On the subway you [...]

There has been plenty written about taking your time to savour food, to eat more slowly and to allow your stomach to realise that you might have eaten enough. It has even been suggested that this philosophy might assist in beating the ‘obesity epidemic’. Generally Europeans are acknowledged as eating this way, where meals are [...]

In New York you can take a tour for just about everything – photography, films, history, and of course food. These small group tours are a great way to see the city and to acquire a bit more background information about New York. Surprisingly as well as being patronised by visitors, plenty of locals also [...]

If I lived in New York my clothes would have to last a long time, so infrequent would my forays into the shops be. There is a reason I avoid the shops at sale time at home but in New York that seems to be the usual way of things. Shopping isn’t one of my [...]

The contrast between Washington and LA is fairly stark. From the sprawling city of celebrity obsession to one of presidential cavalcades and blacked out security cars, sweeping avenues and monuments galore, and while it is a grand city it is still very approachable. If you’re only in a location for a short time it does [...]

LA was the first stop on our American trip. Big and brash, and as everyone says sprawling and dominated by cars. Smoggy and at this time of year foggy as well, the sun sometimes didn’t break through the clouds until after midday. Star obsessed it seems that every location or building is identified by what [...]

I find the thought of mock foods quite fascinating. Take for example this recipe for mock fish which requires a large potato to be grated, mixed with salt, pepper, an egg and a bit of flour. Dessertspoonsful are then fried and served with grilled tomatoes or perhaps bacon. In my book these sound very much [...]

I had grand plans for my box of cherries.* I thought I would eat a few, bottle a few, perhaps make a bit of jam or pickle some. Pickled cherries might sound a bit odd but they are seriously good. Sally Wise has a magnificent recipe for Spiced Cherries and they are incredibly versatile – good [...]

Fresh apricots I think are generally a disappointing fruit. Their looks are deceptive with that gorgeous apricot colour and that pink blush, but even freshly picked and buying them from the from the markets a day later, they tend to be floury and tasteless. It is, I think one of the few fruits that are [...]

Come the 1st of December and you can really no longer pretend that Christmas is still ages away. The Christmas decorations have been in the shops for months, the pannetone and mince pies have been gracing the aisles of the supermarket since probably Father’s Day but there does become a point when you can no [...]

  Fruit butters or curds are really versatile. As well as spreading them liberally on toast for breakfast they are also very useful as tart fillings, toppings for pavlovas or meringues, swirled through ice cream or for sandwiching cakes together. Most of us are familiar with citrus curds – lemon or lime and passionfruit curd [...]

Until I made gem scones the other day I had never seen one, baked one or eaten one. When I was involved earlier in the year in rewriting the QCWA Cookery Book I was fascinated by the recipes for gem scones. Gem scones require a gem iron – a heavy pan of interconnected semi circles [...]

  Mangos really are synonymous with summer. Once those first mangoes hit the shops you know that summer is on it’s way, even if they have come from the Northern Territory and it’s not quite warm enough yet in Southern Queensland. Mangoes to me always seem quite exotic even though they are very everyday and [...]

I have spent several hours cutting and pasting, not the computer version but the scissors and glue version. It’s amazing how quickly the torn out bits of newspaper, the scribbled down lists of ingredients and the magazine pages accumulate. Faced with trying to organise these recipe cuttings and musings into a useable form seems at [...]

It seems as though the weeks heading towards Christmas are passing at a galloping pace. Here we are almost at the third Saturday in November, with December looming large. This market it will be your last opportunity to order Christmas cakes, mince pies and panforte for delivery at the market on 1 December. I know [...]

I know I’m busy when I don’t have time to make bread. Not bread where you throw the ingredients in the bread maker and flick the switch, but bread where you knead and then wait until it rises and then knead again and wait some more. It requires some planning and a certain amount of [...]

  It always amazes me how many tins of tomatoes we use over a year (apparently each Australian eats 25kg of processed tomatoes per year). They are of course the perfect ‘go to food’ providing the base for all manner of dishes. If there is nothing in the pantry but tinned tomatoes you can make [...]

The kitchen is currently dotted with containers of all shapes and sizes filled with various combinations of dried fruit and alcohol. It is of course Christmas cake time and the oven is on almost constantly. In amongst all of the Christmas baking I think that perhaps I’m being a little ambitious in my list of [...]

Sometimes searching the internet can be an exercise in tedium and dead ends. Occasionally though it becomes a journey through connected links that lead you to a destination you have never considered (or in fact even knew existed) and yields some surprising and edifying results. It was through one of these seemingly directionless rambles that [...]

It rained last weekend. This in itself is not necessarily an extraordinary thing but as we haven’t had rain for two and a half months (I don’t think we can count the 2mm that we had a few weeks ago) it is very welcome. The ground was looking very parched and the rainwater tanks were [...]

It’s a bit of a hectic week this week (actually there aren’t too many at the moment that are any different). Aside from cooking I’m also preparing for the QCWA Annual Conference which is on next week in Toowoomba. The finals of the State Cookery Competition will be held so we are expecting entries from [...]

Taking up space on my kitchen bench top is a growing pile of books, bits of paper and magazines. This is my ‘working pile’ – a list of things to make for the markets coming up, recently cut out recipes and food articles sourced from newspapers and magazines and the latest edition of food magazines [...]

The short mulberry season is upon us and I have been busy picking mulberries this week (with very stained hands and nails to prove it). The tree is absolutely laden so there is plenty to share with the birds and the possums. This week you will be able to choose from some delicious mulberry cakes [...]

There is a glut of strawberries at the moment. Some farmers are choosing not to pick as the return just doesn’t over the cost of getting the fruit to market. As a result strawberries have been very plentiful and cheap in the shops with prices as low as 99 cents a punnet. However, if you [...]

According to Albert Jack, author of the very interesting book What Caesar Did for my Salad, Kedgeree is a traditional dish of rice and lentils or rice and beans that can be traced back to the fourteenth century. Kitachari was a staple of the Indian diet and was brought back to England by returning British [...]

I try to buy as little preprepared food as possible. Some years ago when we were both working long hours and the girls were younger we used to eat quite differently. With school lunches it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying the little prepacked snacks and then to sit down to a frozen [...]

This week is another busy one including a flying visit to Monto to run a cookery judges course for the QCWA. There are very few younger people getting involved in  judging cakes and preserves and it is increasingly more difficult for local shows  to find judges, which is a shame as the popularity of cooking [...]

September is a good time to be making fruit mince. Not only will you feel really good because you have started planning for Christmas (!) but you will be rewarded with a much better product when you come to use it in a few months time. Growing up we always called fruit mince mincemeat, but [...]

This time last year Michael and I were in Italy. We landed in Milan and spent the next ten days meandering our way to Orvietto in Umbria via Bolongna and Siena. It was from Orvietto that we were starting our 12 day walk to the coast and the island of Giglio. The weather was warm [...]

The calendar hasn’t even flipped over to September yet, but already you can feel the warmth in the air. I’m certainly not complaining – I’m more than ready for a bit of hot weather. As well as purchasing some of the usual fare this Saturday, it is also the perfect opportunity to get something special [...]

Apparently the Greeks were to first to think of boiling grain in water and drinking it. But really it was the British who bought barley water to the world. Robinsons Barley Water is perhaps the best known brand, possibly as it has had a long association with Wimbeldon. Barley water was also thought to be [...]

You know that spring is knocking on the door when the new season asparagus hits the markets. All through winter you see asparagus on the supermarket and green grocers shelves from Peru and the Philippines, but despite the fact that I love asparagus I refuse to be tempted. One of the joys of eating locally [...]

This is the last winter market for the year – it won’t be long before we’re not complaining about the cold weather when we’re setting up but rather looking for inventive ways to keep the sun off the produce. Already it’s lighter earlier and the first wave of shoppers are hitting the markets well and [...]

I really like dessert. I’m one of those people who always looks at the dessert menu first before deciding what to order. At home we have abandoned modern dietary thinking that dessert should be a sometimes treat and more often than not we eat dessert. And I’m not talking about a bowl of ice cream [...]

Many people are surprised when I tell them that I belong to the Queensland Country Women’s Association. There are lots of perceptions about the QCWA that don’t always match the reality. Most people you speak with think that the association is for old ladies, who live in the country and cook and knit. There are [...]

      The time between markets seems to go very quickly – one market has barely finished and planning for the next one is well underway. The days have been beautiful in the last week – cold mornings to start with (not all that pleasant for the early morning market starts) but have then [...]

  Something that has appeared at the markets during Winter over the past couple of years is Kale. I make the most of it while it is around and this year and it has become one of my new favourite winter vegetables. I have even had some success in growing the Tuscan Kale. At the [...]

 The pantry had been a little bare of late so it was great to get to the markets on Saturday and stock up. It was a glorious day. After the recent rain it was nice to see some sun and the crowds were certainly out enjoying it. So what did I buy?

Although I have only missed one market it seems like an age since I have been at the Moggill Markets. I have been making good use of the short break and my stall has had a bit of a mini makeover. Not only that but it will be looking slightly Christmassy this market as of [...]

It is of course Bastille Day and what better way to celebrate than devouring a batch of eclairs. I need to confess straight up that choux pastry isn’t one of my regular things and the first pancake like batch was enjoyed by the chickens. The second batch however was a vast improvement and while my [...]

When we first moved to our current residence almost seven years ago, one of the first things that we did was to get some chickens. We started with a fairly modest arrangement – 4 chickens in a metal semi-circular cage that could be wheeled around the yard to find a fresh spot for them. It [...]

We’re off to Hobart in a couple of days time and there are a few bits and pieces in the fridge that need using up before we leave. The veggies can all go into a soup and there are a few sticks of rhubarb that are looking a little worse for wear. There’s not really [...]

Around 1991 I bought a book called ‘Foodcraft – gift food for gourmets’ by Nerys Purchon. It’s the type of book that probably wouldn’t sell very well today. It’s not written by anyone famous, it’s got very few pictures and even fewer coloured ones and it is seriously dated. I’m fairly sure that it is [...]

Avocados also came home in the crate from the markets. They were slightly battered and bruised and very ripe. Avocados aren’t very popular in our household. They are just tolerated as guacamole, but in salads they are pushed to the sides of the plate and no one would dream of having avocado on toast. The [...]

I arrived home from the markets on Saturday with a crate of less than perfect fruit and vegetables. It is one of the things that I love about the markets – the producers and farmers hate waste and so even the unsaleable items find a home. Greg grows mostly bananas on his farm at Kyogle, [...]