Seasonal Regional and Fresh

I've always had an interest in cooking in the way that is now called Slow Food. The movement to local is again gaining popularity. It never lost momentum with me. Flavour marriages are at a premium when you take the local produce from the same region and season; you can't go wrong! Classical food combinations are historically based on these regional and seasonal marriages. Although my reasons for cooking seasonal regional and fresh were always based on taste, there are lots of other reasons to use this base in understanding food, produce, cooking. For a start in our industrialised, and then technology based societies, (global) transport is easier and quicker so we've come to enjoy produce from other regions at any time of year. Long distance hauls have an impact, on not only flavour, but also have a huge cost to the environment. What is the impact to our world on transporting water in a bottle up to 15,000 kilometres (or sending pears to China from Australia?) Long storage from farm to shelf for a supermarket takes on a whole new meaning past the family at home bottling of surplus home produce. All of this is without the other considerations that go into long haul or long storage, such as irradiation, using only hybridised varieties that support transport or GM GE foods for more rescilient farm to shelf time and distance. So many questions, so much impact, when the answer (local supply chain) can be so simple! During the week I also got to thinking about food in another way. It makes sense that nature has looked after us with seasons, and that nature also supports us with appropriate seasonal nutrition in our food that is available at different times of the year. Think for example winter at its best in citrus: lemons, oranges, mandarins (then think winter colds and flu and the vitamin C that supports us in the best of that season's produce). Let's get back to basics. Best flavour, lowest cost, lowest impact on our world, best effect to our health is available from a simple choice: regional seasonal and fresh.

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Boeuf Bourguignon (Inspired by Julia Child)

This week was an exciting moment in the food blogging world as the movie Julie & Julia opened. (here in Australia we've still got a couple of months to wait though ... and my fingers are tapping the kitchen table impatiently). The movie features two stories: the memoirs of Julia Child and the story of food blogger Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia's recipes. One of the things I'm delighted about with the movie is that it features some of my French (classic) favourites. They've never gone out of style with me. They are the dishes I taught myself as a teenager and have been cooking ever since. Every winter since I first cooked this recipe, I've warmed family and friends with Boeuf Bourguignon. Here's my adaptation using mustard, not flour, for thickening. Where possible, for added depth of flavour, I prepare a day ahead of eating, and start preparations with the marinade the day before that. Boeuf Bourguignon 1.5 kg (3 1/2 lbs) casserole beef ...

St Lucia Saffron Cake

I adore saffron. Sometime back I decided to play around and add saffron to a cake and came up with this recipe . As it turns out, just today I read that saffron is used to make a traditional Christmas cake in Sweden for St Lucia Day, which is celebrated on 13th December. Legend has it that Lucia as a young girl, about to be a bride, gave her entire dowry to the poor of her village and admitted that she had become a Christian. She was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake on December 13th, 304 A.D. (She is also the patron saint for Italian fisherman, and is said to guide them through a storm). I've read that in all the Scandanavian countries, on St Lucia Day, breakfast is served at dawn, and is celebrated with saffron buns and gingerbread. My homage to St Lucia is this cake. Why not try serving it dusted with icing sugar to represent the white gown usually associated with the Italian medieval saint. And, in Australian summer of December 13th, seasonal fr...

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble with Mum's Crumble Topping Crumble is one of my favourite comfort foods. It's warming to the heart as well as the tummy in winter. In summer, I still serve crumble (with a change of seasonal fruit) and serve it at room temperature or cold. There's a couple of ways I make the fruit filling for the crumble, but I always use mum's crumble topping; this is the one we ate at home as kids. For the Topping In all honesty, while I don't remember ever measuring the ingredients, here's my attempt to recreate with measurements. There are four ingredients butter (125g or 4oz), brown sugar (1/2 cup), plain flour (1 cup), rolled oats (1 cup). - Mix the dry ingredients. Add the melted butter. Stir, and loosely sprinkle on top of the fruit mixture. - After a hint from Chef Luke Mangan , I've recently created a 'friends to dinner' variation by adding little chocolate nuggets (I used dark chocolate roughly chopped) to the crumble topping mix...

Thoughts From Becca

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