Cheap thrills: Eton mess...

Eton mess or mashed up pavlova with extra cream, take your pick. It's tasty and simple, but it does need to be made in advance - at least 3 hours (!!) before you expect to eat it. 

Coming straight out of River Cottage Every Day, although altered somewhat because of Jimmy and taste testing, the Eton mess has been staring at me every time I flip through the fruit section, tempting me with visions of cream and raspberries and summer garden parties or high tea. So, with raspberries dropping to $1 a punnet (and strawberries $3/punnet), I figured it was time to act before berry season ended.

What you need to serve 6, and roughly what I ended up making:

• 2 egg whites worth of meringue, dolloped onto clean baking trays lined with baking paper and cooked at a low temperature (say, 120 C or a little less) for about 2 hours (although mine only needed an hour and a half.
• 1.5 punnets of raspberries and about 1 punnet of strawberries, washed, with the strawberries trimmed and halved - but you'll need a swift hand if you have the sort of kitchen helper I had. Combine the fruit in a bowl, add a tablespoon (or two) of sugar, mix by hand so that you can mash the fruit a little as you go. Place in the fridge for about 2 hours or until needed.
• Cream. The heavy, made for whipping kind, lightly whipped with nothing added. I used the suggested 350 ml, but it was a bit much because I forgot to allow for Jimmy's fruit consumption and all the meringues we just had to taste...

Other fruit combinations to try are:

• kiwifruit and strawberry
• peaches and nectarines (raw or baked so that they are a little caramelised)
• mango (possibly with banana, or peach).

About an hour before serving, break up the meringues and mix with the cream. Mix in the fruit, so that it is covered with the cream but stop before the cream is completely drenched in fruit juices. Cover and set aside (in the fridge if it is summer) until ready to serve. Eat that night.

Definitely toddler approved: simple enough for them to help in the prep; easy and tasty enough for them to gobble down. That said, Jimmy was more interested in the raspberries and strawberries than the cream or his prune (which was an afterthought), and he was more interested in finishing and having a bath than the meringue.

Michael and I may have had two helpings... which seemed a good idea, because the fruit and meringue are really light, but the cream makes it a little heavier and I was feeling very full. Oh I will be making this again, especially as it is really similar to pavlova in taste but so much quicker (and forgiving) in the preparation. Eton mess for the win.

Jimmy's turning one...

And I'm starting to get excited!

I was trying to play it cool, because, well, you know, it's not like he's going to remember it... We just need a cake and photos of Jimmy with said cake, a book or small toy as a gift to mark the occasion, something to take back to Australia, a few Skype dates with family and friends, and just generally make it a nice day, and later, once Jimmy is in bed, Michael and I can get all nostalgic about the little man's birth and those hazy, but intense, newborn days.

But then a package arrived from Jimmy's Grandma...

And then another, from a close friend, who we call Auntie K...

And then the jumper I've been working on started to look like I might finish it in time (not that it's cold enough, but you know)...

And this is after buying things to make a carry-on-friendly growth chart...

I've even done a trial run on the birthday cake, because our oven and the recipe needed testing...

Granny and Pop are sending something too...

And now there is a pool party organised for our Swimmy Jimmy - oh I hope the weather is nice next Saturday!

Cheap thrills: don't get much cheaper than this...

One of Michael's coworkers went fishing, and promised Michael some fish. Michael brought home 4 fish. Fish!

Actually it was a surprise for me, but as they were frozen I had some time to think about what to do with them...

The first two fish were eaten the next evening, cooked with ingredients we already had in the house. There was an hour or so pouring over my much loved, and well used, copy of River Cottage Every Day, in the search for inspiration and I wasn't disappointed. Decisions weren't made until that afternoon when the lure of fluffy-but-crunchy potatoes became too much...

But I was in a hurry, so this is the method I used:

Fluffy potatoes

• 2 potatoes, cut and peeled (or peeled and cut, or just wash and cut)
• 3 tablespoons oxtail fat (or oil)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, put 3 tablespoons of fat (or oil) into an ovenproof pan (I used our new skillet and the reserved fat from the oxtail stew) and set aside. Boil the potatoes in salty water for 10 minutes, drain and allow to steam in their pot. While the potatoes steam, put the pan and fat in the oven. When the fat is melted, and starting to smoke, remove the pan, put the lid back on the potatoes and toss them (lightly!), then quickly put them into the pan and coat them in the fat. Quickly return the pan (and potatoes) to the oven and bake for at least 30 minutes.

While the potatoes were backing I made up some mustard aioli, although I initially wanted to use chilli, mustard seemed safer (Jimmy has a habit of rubbing food in his eyes... especially at dinner)...

Mustard aioli

• 1 large clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon mustard (any sort will do, I used a German style)
• 1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise

Peel and chop the garlic, roughly/finely - it's up to you. Put it into a small bowl with the mustard and mayonnaise and mix well. A day or 2 in the fridge allows the garlic to permeate the mix and mellow, a little.

After making the aioli, about 15 minutes after putting the potatoes into the oven, I added the fish. As they were already gutted and scaled, prep  was going to be easy. I gave 2 fish a good rinse, pulled the skillet out of the oven and made room in the middle for them. I quickly coated one side of each fish with the fat in the skillet and turned them over. Then I cracked some pepper over them, stuffed a few bay leaves and a clove of garlic in the cavities, threw a few more bay leaves and garlic cloves around, and added a generous drizzle of olive oil on the fish. The olive oil may not have been necessary... Put it all back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

We had our fish with peas and broccoli, and a little mustard aioli, not that we needed the extra fat...

Cheap thrills: Oxtail stew

This rich, delicious, definitely not low fat, dish was worth all the time it took to cook, the hours smelling the spices, the rich meat and bone marrow, and... oh let's just say it was yummy and hearty and very, very satisfying. Here's the link to original recipe, because it's not mine.

One lazy Sunday afternoon, a week after this, after waking up from a nap (I like naps, had you noticed?), I started cooking about 0.66 kg of oxtail with probably 0.3 kg beef mince as per the recipe, with a few chances... As I had half amount of meat, I used half of everything else, but without the wine, using vegetarian stock cubes and a few carrots, powdered cinnamon, and fennel seeds instead of star anise. It took a long time to cook, so we didn't have it for dinner that night. But the house smelt great.

Instead, after straining the stock, mashing the onion through the sieve and retaining the carrot, and removing the meat from the bones, the stock, onion, carrots, and meat was combined and stored overnight in the fridge. The sight that greeted me the next morning was lovely: the fat had risen to the top of the container, creating a lovely thick layer over everything else, just like I remember my Mum getting, when she did similar things. Oh the fat was easy to remove! (And save...) Oh and the marrowbone jelly that was under it... wibble-wobble...

But all that jelly had to be reduced... but I didn't do it all at once, oh no. Just about 1/4 of what I'd made when into the first real tasting, another 1/4 went into the freezer for much later, 1/4 went with Michael for lunch the next day (no extra attention), and the final 1/4 went into the fridge for later in the week. It took a while for that jelly to reduce. I can't remember how long for that first night, but the second time it seemed to take forever...

Once the sauce was reduced I sifted a generous teaspoon of cocoa over the stew, instead of the chocolate, and mixed well. When it looked right, and my stomach couldn't handle it any longer, I served it with... I honestly can't remember. I'm sure peas were involved. Perhaps some other greens too... But it was sprinkled with parsley and devoured by all three of us.

Oh it was good... So good in fact, that later that week when I used what was in the fridge, I also used the 1/4 of stew that was in the freezer... Admittedly, as I was a little unwell, my eyes may have been bigger than our stomachs... And I may not have let it reduce long enough, but I did remember to take photos of the stew as it was served, this time with mashed potato, with onion, fennel root, and broccoli stems. We still ate it. All of it. And yes, Jimmy approved.

Jimmy's serve...

... mostly made it into his belly.

Cheap thrills...

In a bid to save money and to stave off boredom, Michael suggested that each weekend we cook something we haven't cooked before from one of the cook books I brought with us. Genius! We both like cooking and all three of us enjoy eating, and with two adults around for the whole weekend it's easier to take the time to cook something unfamiliar. As an added bonus we might even get some leftovers for lunches or the freezer for emergencies...

So we started last Saturday night, looking at recipes in River Cottage Everyday Cook Book. With our selection made and shopping list written, we made an evening run to our local supermarket. Yes. You read that correctly. And it's open 24/7, probably with a few exceptions, but still. Saturday night food shopping, with a baby! I digress...

It was a good thing we went when we did because we wouldn't have been able to walk to the shops until Sunday afternoon because it rained, and rained, and rained. There was thunder and lightning too and a National Weather Service warning for flash flooding in the area. So, it was good weather for soup...

A thrifty fish soup! Follow the link - it's worth it!

Now, I had to change it a little... We don't live near a proper fish monger, so instead of whole fish, I used about 1.5 kg catfish fillets, with one fillet going into the stock along with two chicken drumstick bones. Dry thyme was used instead of fresh thyme (about 3 pinches). There was also no wine in the stock. I also retained the carrot from the stock and put it in the soup, along with the well cooked fillet of fish. The leeks were kinda huge, so I needed to add water to cover everything. Instead of cleaned squid I used 200 g of frozen mixed seafood. And because I'm a mum, I added a bit of chilli and garlic to store bought whole egg mayonnaise.

The apartment smelled delicious, making stock was fun and a little therapeutic, having lunch simmering away during the rain was a little romantic, and Jimmy's enthusiasm for it was just wonderful. Ok, so I drained his so that he could eat it with his hands, that way it was a baby friendly meal too! And the store bought mayo? With the chilli and garlic, it made the meal, although home-made mayo might be better.

I'm looking forward to eating the last of the thrifty fish soup that's in the freezer and when I remember to take photos, I'll share the results of my variation on oxtail stew (also from River Cottage Everyday Cookbook). In the meantime, here's our resident food critics' response to the thrifty fish soup:

(The bowl of drained soup was eaten by the handful and there was hardly any mess.)