Fresh Fig Pie

Continuing on my journey of ways with figs, courtesy of our work fruit man, I decided to make a fig pie.  On the Internet, I was spoiled for choice with fig pie recipes, but had to carefully side-step the dried fig pies to get to the fresh fig pie recipes.

I eventually settled on what seemed the simplest fresh fig pie recipe that I could find, courtesy of Nancie McDermott of Piedmont, North Carolina.  Her recipe is here. You need a lot of figs (4 cupfuls) to make this pie, which can be hideously expensive if you have to buy the figs at the market, but I had a plentiful supply of lovely free figs, and this pie was perfect to ensure I could use them up.

Nancie doesn't supply a pie crust recipe, so I used Dorie Greenspan's Good for Almost Anything pie dough made with all butter and no shortening.  The butter makes the pastry more crumbly hence more difficult to work with, but I don't ever buy shortening, so I used what I had to hand.

I also forgot the lemon juice and butter in the pie filling, as I received a phone call as I was rolling out the top crust, which put me off my game.  It didn't seem to make any difference to the final flavour, and saved on some calories from even more butter.

And the verdict?  My colleague Lee said the pie was "sublime" and "superb", and she liked the cinnamon in the filling.  For me, that says it all - go make one!

FFwD - Cheese souffle

Thank God it's Friday!  Today I have to give an external seminar presentation, which fills me with minor dread.  These things always seem like a good idea at the time - then when it's crunch time, I wonder what on earth I was thinking.  Paper done - check.  Slides done - check.  But the scariest part is turning up and having to present the paper in front of a room full of strangers of differing backgrounds, who may in fact know more than you about the topic you are presenting on.  It's a little like the nightmare where you dream you have left the house without your pants on.  There is also audience evaluation where you have to face the reality of what others thought of your presentation.  So, it's just a little stressful for me today.

Compared with that, this week's cheese souffle for French Fridays with Dorie was a breeze.  I have only made souffle once before, but I didn't really put much thought into the process, and it turned out fine.  The roux for the bechamel, normally a nemesis of mine, went off without a hitch.  It turned out so well that I did not even feel the need to strain the bechamel, as it seemed pretty smooth.  Even when my last egg yolk broke and sneakily leaked a bit into my whites, I managed to fish it out and still get big fluffy whites.  And as you can see from my photos, I got a souffle with a very fine quiff on top.

Now for some process photos.   Here is the base bechamel:

This is the bechamel after being spiced, egged and cheesed (I used Swiss Gruyere):

This is the uncooked souffle in its dish ready for baking (yes, I was a little optimistic in hoping that it fitted in properly, and I did get some overflow):

And here is a peek at the yellow, billowy, soft centre underneath the golden brown crust:

It is always a little disappointing that the lovely high top is but a fleeting vision - but that's souffle for you.   However, I captured the moment on film to dream about forever.

To see what all the other Doristas thought of this cheese souffle, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.  Have a great weekend!

Beef with Olives and Tomatoes; Fresh Almond, Green Bean and Peach Salad

Despite my best intentions, I can't give up my cookbook addiction, especially when there are bargains to be had!  I recently acquired Angela Hartnett's Cucina on sale, and am glad I did - it is a gorgeous book with practical recipes, with an Italian slant.  The salads in the book are particularly gorgeous - and this from me, a former salad hater and now just a salad "meh" girl!

For a weekend meal, I made Angela's  Rib Eye with Tomatoes and Olives, featured in the photo at the top of this post.  It was a simple but delicious way to cook steak - I just used porterhouse steak.  You have to like olives though for this to work, as the olives are a dominant flavour in this dish. 

To accompany the steak, I made Angela's fresh almond, green bean and peach salad, on p170 of Cucina:

Doesn't this look scrumptious, and so summery? It is so simple to make - just boil up 150g of trimmed green beans, drain and cool them, and cut them into pieces ~ 1 inch long (or save yourself some hassle and cut them before boiling them).  Put the beans into a large bowl.  Cut 4 peaches into 4-6 wedges (I used 2 large peaches, which was plenty), and add the peach wedges to the beans with 75g blanched almonds.  Chop up 6 basil leaves and 6 mint leaves and add to the salad just before serving.  Toss the salad with a vinaigrette made from 20ml cider vinegar and 100ml olive oil.  I had this salad for a couple of days, and it stayed delicious for the entire time.

Enjoy!

Wednesdays with Donna Hay - Beef Burgers

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe is my lunch/brunch choice - Beef Burgers!  I adore a good burger, and this one has all the trimmings that I like - namely, onion rings and beetroot.  So many burgers come sans beetroot, which in my books is a crime.  The juicy beetroot goes a treat with the beef, and is a must for me.

As you can see from the photos, Donna's recipe makes a very tall burger - you almost need a flip-top head to take a bite of it all in one go.  That's not a complaint though!  I did find the patties a little crumbly, but that could just have been me.  I used rocket instead of iceberg lettuce on my burger, and spruced it up by spreading the bun with Emilia's onion jam, and a  splash of barbecue sauce on the beef patty.

I made a second burger using Donna's patties, this time with cheese in lieu of onion rings, but using Emilia's onion jam on the bun again, with fries on the side: 

This one was pretty good too.

To see what Kayte, Chaya and Margaret thought of these burgers, you can go visit them tomorrow. 

Next week: Red Wine Osso Bucco

And happy birthday to Canadian actress, Megan Follows, who turns 44 today.  You can watch a fan video wishing Megan a happy birthday here.

Jazz High Tea at The Spiegeltent

Happy Sunday to everyone.  Hope you are having a great weekend.  It is a long weekend for Labour  Day in Melbourne, so from my end, it is an especially good  one.

Exactly one week ago, I attended Jazz High Tea at The Famous Spiegeltent.  The Spiegeltent is the curious looking structure at the top of this post.  Spiegeltents were created at the start of last century as travelling entertainment venues, and the name literally means "tent of mirrors".  Indeed, the inside of the tent, which is not quite in the round, features many mirrors held up by ornate posts.  Apparently, Marlene Dietrich once sang "Falling in Love Again" in a spiegeltent.

The Famous Spiegeltent travels around Australia, and arrives in Melbourne every March to host a whole array of different entertainment.  As well as the Jazz   High Tea in this post, I am later attending a concert by fellow Queenslander, Kate Miller-Heidke, later in the month in the Spiegeltent.  As a tip to the diversity of the entertainment in The Famous Spiegeltent, I earlier this week was mistakenly sent someone else's tickets to Dixie's Tupperware Party - which I was quite happy to return to sender.

Here is a peek inside the Spiegeltent:

The Jazz High Tea started with a glass of bubbly at the door:

followed, naturally, by High Tea:

The top tier featured a passionfruit cupcake, a raspberry cheesecake, a lemon curd tart and a chocolate crackle.  Next tier down was scones with jam and cream (of course).  And the bottom tier featured two each of salmon, vege mezze and ham sandwiches.  There are no surprises in telling you that my favourite tier was the top tier.  And my favourite of the favourite was the cheesecake, followed closely by the chocolate crackle.  It will comfort you to know that I was sharing this spread with a friend - I didn't eat it all myself.

The tea followed very lately only after we gave a waiter a tap on the shoulder - but it is of little consequence, as it was an anti-climax to the bubbly and food. 

We were entertained by The Syncopaters:

who kept us amused with jazz standards, heavily weighted with Louis Armstrong numbers.

It was a fun way to pass a couple of hours, and I enjoyed my first glimpse inside the Spiegeltent.

Have a good  one!

FFwD - Saint-Germain-Des-Pres Onion Biscuits

This week's French Friday with Dorie had me a little confused by the word "biscuits".  You see, in Australia, a biscuit is a cookie, and a scone is an American biscuit.  Accordingly, I was anticipating savoury cookies, not savoury scones.

That said, these were quick and easy to make.  Dorie suggested a 1 1/2 inch cutter for the scones, so I used the top off my cinnamon bottle to make tiny 1 1/2 inch biscuits. They rose quite well, although that is not evident from the photo.

These are pleasant little treats which would probably go down well at a cocktail party on their own, or if made bigger in diameter, spread while hot with a smear of butter or margarine. 

You can find the recipe in Around My French Table, or online here.  I made the recipe as stated, except that I used my trusty pastry cutter to rub the flour into the butter - so much easier and less messy.

Check out what the other Dorie cooks though of these biscuits at the LYL section of the FFwD website when it is Friday in the US.

Fig Bread

What do you do with a bag of squashed figs?  This was the dilemma that faced me last week when Sandra gave me the figs from the fruit man, but they ended up a little the worse for wear on the journey home.  Thankfully, Google had the answer - I found this recipe for fig bread on About.com. 

With 2 cups of mashed figs, this bread is incredibly moist, so I recommend keeping it in the fridge.  If you only want one loaf, halve the recipe - it makes a lot of batter.  I forgot the nuts, but believe these would have made a nice textural change to the pudding-like texture of the loaf.

I gave one of the loaves (the better looking one photographed for this post) to Sandra to share with whomever she chose.  I laughed when I heard that she put candles on it as a birthday cake for our colleague Jeff, whose birthday was incidentally on the same day as when I brought the loaf in.

Verdict - if you like figs and moist, fruity cakes, then this is for you.