Only the Beginning

When we were perusing the Moruya Farmer's Market during our trip to Australia we found this delightful little gem of a cookbook:

I'm pretty sure that this kid is around 20
now, since this was published in 1992.
 Crazy huh!?

I was thrilled to find a cookbook that explicitly said "Australian" because I wanted come away with some appreciation of Australian cuisine. And since, well... I do love pumpkin, it seemed a perfect choice! As it turns out, Australian cuisine is really quite similar to our own, with the exception of a few quirky combinations and specific items (i.e., Vegemite). Nonetheless, this treasury of pumpkin recipes will be put to good use this Fall. Starting with: Pumpkin Ice Cream (in honor of the cute little kid at the Moruya Market that was dripping with ice cream and asking everyone in sight, in the most adorable way, if we like ice cream).

Pumpkin Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup fresh pumpkin puree or canned
   unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cloves (optional)
1/4 tsp. salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg


DIRECTIONS:
In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate during the remaining steps.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 1/2 cups of the cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Cook until bubbles form around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the egg yolks, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and the remaining 1/2 cup cream and the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Whisk until smooth and the sugar begins to dissolve.

Remove the cream mixture from the heat. Gradually whisk about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour the egg mixture back into the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and keeping the custard at a low simmer, until it is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and leaves a clear trail when a finger is drawn through it, 4 to 6 minutes. Do not allow the custard to boil.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.

Place the bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice water, stirring occasionally until cool (optional). Whisk the pumpkin mixture into the custard.

Strain again through a fine-mesh sieve into another bowl (also optional, but will result in smoother and creamier ice cream later.

At this point, your fingers are sticky and your arms
are sore from holding and stirring.. but it's worth it.

Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, can take up to 8 hours.


Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days, before serving. Makes about 1 quart (I doubled this recipe).

At this stage, it's like soft serve.

After some time in the freezer, it'll look more like
ice cream and less like custard.

That's it! Keep it frozen and enjoy! This tastes like pumpkin pie filling and would probably be great as a pumpkin ice cream pie. One word about custard ice cream and flavors. It gets more mellow in flavor the colder it gets. So if you taste the custard, it's sweet and has somewhat strong pumpkin flavor, At the soft-serve stage, it'll be a little less sweet and not so strong of pumpkin flavor. When it's frozen hard, it will be perfect, not too sweet, not too overwhelming pumpkin (I know, who knew there was such a thing). So if you are making homemade ice cream, don't question yoruself or the recipe until you've tasted it in the final, hard frozen stage.

It's the Great Australian Pumpkin Recipe Book [Charlie Brown], and we're just getting started!!

The Lamington

A famous Aussie treat. A favorite dessert of most Australian children and full of nostalgic goodness for most Australian adults.

Remember my first Aussie Lamington experience in the Sydney airport.... mmm... I sure do!

Well it was time to relive it, again. I made Lammies for our Bible study/small group a few weeks after we returned, but I had also promised my co-workers in Pendleton that I'd make them something delicious from Australia. One of those co-workers' husband is from Australia, so she's really excited to take one home to him. She said he's always talking about Lamington... yep, he's an Aussie.

. : : : .

Step One: line your cake pans. Normally you'd use a square or rectangular pan, but my rectangular pan isn't very deep, and Lammies should be cubes. So I used these deeper round cake pans and plan to waste a little. To line, I just use parchment paper cut to fit the bottom and use no-stick spray lightly around the pan before putting the paper in (helps keep the paper in place).

Step Two: Mix your cake ingredients. This recipe is so simple that after looking at a handful of variations, discovering they're all about the same and then making it twice, I pretty much have it memorized. I tried two different recipes and determined that this combination made the best cake.

• 2 C Flour
• 3/4 C Sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (one stick) of room temp butter (plus 1 TBSP for extra moist cake)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tsp vanilla

Now, I don't care how you do this. I just throw it all in a bowl and mix it up by hand. However, a professional baker would say to cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time and stir until each is incorporated and then add the vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, soda, powder and salt. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until just incorporated and most of the lumps are out.

Step Three: Pour your batter into the prepared cake pans. *This recipe only filled one cake pan, beware that you may end up making a double batch like I did. In that case, repeat step two.

Step Four: Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check to see if it is done with a toothpick and keep checking every 2 minutes until the toothpick comes out clean (please excuse my dirty baking stone).

Step Five: Cool cakes. Again, a professional baker would say to cool the cakes in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack. I, however, don't have a cooling rack, so I just leave them in the pan until they're cool.

Step Six: Cover with plastic once they're cool and let the cake sit overnight to get a little stale. This helps it hold it's shape when you are dipping it in the icing. Easiest step ever! You can refrigerate the cake.. but if your refrigerator is full of lunch food, then they can sit on the counter.

. : The Next Day : .

Step Seven: Make the frosting. Measure out the following ingredients and sift into a bowl (sifting is actually recommended here, as cocoa powder and powdered sugar tend to have lumps):

• 450 grams of icing sugar, confectioner's sugar, or powdered sugar.
• 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp of instant espresso powder (optional) **I always add this with chocolate, it makes the chocolate pop. 

Measure these ingredients into a saucepan or microwave safe bowl and heat until just bubbling around the rim, but not boiling. 

• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 TBSP of butter

Mix the warm milk/butter with the sugar/cocoa/espresso until it is smooth. This may take awhile. If it is a bit too thick, add some more milk, one TBSP at a time, until it is between a nectar and a honey consistency. You want it to be thick enough to stick, but not so thick that it gums up on the cake. 

Step Eight: While you are waiting for the milk/butter to get hot, or after if you just read this step - pour 2-3 cups of dessicated coconut into a shallow bowl. You'll need to refill it as you go.

I'm not going to lie. This ingredient was hard to find. I couldn't find it in our town(s) and ended up trying two solutions. One: order it online, often called unsweetened coconut powder and fine flaked macaroon coconut. Two: use easy to find, regular sweetened coconut in one of the following stages: straight out of the bag, toasted in the oven, toasted and blended/food processed to be fine flakes. Toasting and processing will get you the closest to the original. Either way, it'll taste good, just not be as authentic. I will say, that the unsweetened fine flaked coconut made a difference because of the contrast to the sweet chocolate and cake. It's also a lot drier than the sweetened coconut, which is why toasting that type helps.

Step Nine: Cut up your cake into squares. If you made a square or rectangle cake, then this should be easy. One of the main characteristics of a Lamington is that they are square cubes. Trim as needed to make them square-ish and to cut off any dry edges. 

Step Ten: Dip the cake cubes into the icing. Make sure they get covered on all sides. Lift them out with a fork and scrape the drips with a knife or your fingers. If you are a 'use your fingers' type of cook, I found that if you keep two fingers iced on one hand and two fingers coconutty on the other hand, you can get the job done efficiently. I tried a few different methods and found the fork/knife method to work best for me.

Step Eleven: Drop the iced cake square into the coconut bowl. Toss coconut up onto the sides to coat and gently roll to get all sides. 

Step Twelve: Place coconut covered iced cake cubes on a cooling rack or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. 

Repeat steps 10-12 until all cake cubes are done. Before you know it, you'll be running out of coconut and frosting and soon after your cake cubes will disappear too. All you'll be left with is a tray of Lamingtons!

These are reportedly good for up to five days at room temp, covered with plastic. I have yet to see them last five days though. 

Enjoy!

Day Ten: Sunday

Day Ten: The Long Day

We got up early on Sunday morning, packed up the last few things in the hotel room and headed out to the airport. We had gotten some insider tips from our Aussie family and there were a few more items I had to try before we left the country.

This happened at the airport, since we had plenty of time to browse. Our flight was almost an hour late leaving Sydney. We had some Gloria Jean's Coffee, which is like their Starbucks (according to Voula, who is a teacher and ought to know). I also picked up some Tim Tams, which are apparently close to the heart of many Australians (according to Theo). Tim Tams are a type of chocolate biscuit, otherwise known as a cookie. Last but not least, I had to try an Aussie Lamington, which is a type of cake that Aussies love very much (according to little Nicola - "it's her favourite!"). They also informed us that Vegemite is not to be eaten by itself, it is best when mixed with butter (what isn't better with butter) in a ratio of more butter to less Vegemite, and even better when cheese is added. I'm not sure if we'll try this... it's pretty bad by itself, so I don't know how much butter it would take to make it tolerable or palatable. Maybe. The Lamington and Tim Tams, however, delicious!

Our flight was as any 15 hour flight can be expected - long, cramped and sleepless. I wish we'd slept, but we just weren't tired enough and couldn't force it. We watched at least five or more movies, together with a headphone splitter and me half looking at Blake's monitor because mine would die every time I tried to watch a movie. It didn't really matter though because I was knitting like crazy trying to finish my first sock. Seriously, it was like ten straight hours of knitting - awesome! I can't believe I still didn't finish it though. I might have, but I needed to see how long to make it, but Blake didn't want to take his shoes off (for stinky feet reasons, although he'd probably hate that I said that). So I still need to measure how long to make it and I hope that the project doesn't get stuck at the end of my knitting queue like SO many other projects. I will finish it! I'll post a picture if when I do. Then when we go on our next vacation I can make the other sock ;) (Oh, how I wish that weren't so likely).

So a tidbit about the Lamington - A coworker asked me to find something delicious and Australian to make for the office (I made chocolate tarts after Italy and Baklava after Greece). It was a challenge I gladly accepted, but was afraid I wouldn't be able to complete until I discovered the Lamington. I mean, I can't exactly make Tim Tams, and most of the other food items they're 'known for' are not delicious or sweet. So when I make my Lamington attempt, I'll let you know how it goes.

Yeah! We made our train!

Sad, we're leaving :(

Our last view of the bridge and opera house
from the Circular Quay stop.

Chocolatey deliciousness

Bring on the Lamington! I was so glad that I
could find it at the airport (we checked five
cafes before finding this one).

The Aussie Lamington

Sponge cake, dipped in chocolate icing,
dusted with coconut.

My breakfast of Aussie champions.

When we arrived in Vancouver, BC, for our connecting flight to Portland, Oregon, we had missed our connection due to the plane leaving Sydney late. We were rescheduled on a flight five hours later and given meal vouchers from the airline. Even better, the agent that was helping to reschedule us, felt so bad that we had just gotten off of a 15 hour flight and had to wait five more hours, that he gave us guest passes to the Maple Leaf Lounge (it's a VIP lounge), out of what I'm pretty sure was his personal stash. It was so nice of him and definitely the best layover we'd ever had. They gave you free food and drinks and had the most comfortable chairs.. although what isn't more comfortable than an airplane seat after 15 hours. Without that lounge I'd have gotten no sleep at all that 36 hour day.

All said and done, we were awake and calling it 'Sunday' for over 36 hours. It was a ridiculously long day and such a weird phenomena. It was worth it though. What a trip! I feel like I got to know this little part of Australia pretty well, and best of all we had a great time together.

OH, I almost forgot. I found out that kangaroos travel in... Mobs!

Sorry for all the random details for the digital journal. I promise I'll start blogging about something else soon!

Day Nine: Saturday

Day Nine: All Around Sydney and the Opera.

Today we did some Sydney sightseeing. We were so happy to be able to walk around instead of drive and super thankful for the improved weather. It was absolutely gorgeous, just a little windy, okay, really windy.

First, we got coffee (of course) and waked our way down to the harbor to start at the hub: the Circular Quay [ki]. From there you can get anywhere. We took some pictures of the Opera House, and took in the hubbub. We listened to a man performing with a didgeridoo, which was pretty cool.

From there we went to The Rocks and perused through their Weekend Market. We decided to buy a boomerang as our souvenir and are still debating about whether we'll actually try to use it. There were many cool things there, different than the usual market kinds of things, more Australian-ish things and not as kitsch as I had expected.

After shopping we were ready for the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It provided as many breathtaking views as was promised and also about took our unattached items with the wind. It was spectacular and a really easy fenced-in walk along the sidewalk. Another option was to do the BridgeClimb, which takes you up and over the bridge via the arch. Blake and I both agree that this would be cool to do, but it required booking ahead and was a bit expensive.

After our exhilarating walk over the bridge and back we did a few self guided walking tours to see some of the historical buildings and places around town and squeezed in a little shopping. We didn't buy anything though, because their prices -even on sale- were way higher than ours. They have great shopping there, everything you could get in the US and more.

After we'd seen everything we wanted to see, we walked back to the hotel and got ready for the opera. It was fun to get a little dressed up and have a night in the city, which we don't get to do often in Kennewick ;).

We saw La bohème, which was on our list of Italian operas that we want to see. It was a great opera, easy to follow and a simple but not too predictable story line. It was also fun to listen to it after having been to Italy and learning a little Italian. It was fun to be able to follow along and recognize what they were saying a little better, not that I could have gone without the English subtitles ;), I definitely still needed them!

It was a really fun day and evening and we're not sure what we would have done differently, even if we had more time. Probably the only thing would be to tour the Zoo in Sydney (Taronga Zoo- which is on it's own island in the harbor- cool). It definitely has koalas, which we didn't get to see. Oh, and there's the BridgeClimb.

A little better than our french press coffee.
We'd finally gotten used to ordering too.
Long Black for Blake, Flat White for me.

The man playing the didgeridoo.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the Circular Quay.

Because of this picture, I spilled coffee on my shirt.

Sydney's pride and joy

The Market at The Rocks

The boomerang booth.

It was pretty large market.
The sculpture description: "The sandstone relief is a 
memorial to the convicts, soldiers and settlers who made
up the original settlement at The Rocks."

On the other side of the bridge - North Sydney.

On our way back across.

Our hotel

St Mary's Cathedral from Hyde Park.

Hyde Park was great. Look at all that was going on.
Wedding pictures being taken, musicians playing,
And this bubble guy. He was brilliant, he made all
kinds of bubble shapes and sizes and the kids loved it.

Hyde Park

Ready for the Opera

The bridge at night.

Dinner before the opera

A perfect ending to a great trip!