Sign up to receive newsletters from Jackie French by email every month! The newsletters will keep you informed of updates to the website, the latest news on Jackie and her books, and lots of other fun stuff!

FEBRUARY 2010 JACKIE FRENCH NEWS

In this month's news:

• Working from Home
• Things I have Learned This Month
• Wombat News
• What happened in January
• New books
• Schedule for 2010
• The February garden (or not)
  • What to Plant in February
  • Great Summer Spectaculars – the best and brightest trees, bushes, fruit, veges and flowers for your garden
• Vegetable recipes (delicious ones, not boring ones)
  • Entrees, Nibbles etc.
  • Main Courses
  • Noodles and Potatoes
  • Vegetarian Barbecues
  • Sweet things

Working From Home

8.50 Finish breakfast, walk ten paces into study. Turn on computer. Ready to begin work. Read headlines instead.

9.10 Take last gulp of coffee, finish reading online headlines, ready to start work. Answer Emails from Peg, Elaine, Noel instead.

9.35 Ready to start work.  First replies in from Elaine, and Peg.

9.45 Ready to start work. Reply email from Noel.

10.05 Ready to start work. Dad rings to say hello.

10.27 Ready to start work. Answer another email from Elaine. Decide I need another coffee.

10. 38 Ready to start work. Email arrives with picture of Hank (dog) wearing glasses. Cute.

10.40 Finish coffee. Ready to start work.  Knock on door. Electricity linemen wanting to cut trees under power line. (Not our power lines- we have solar- the power lines that run through a corner of our place.

11.10 Ready to start work.  Bryan asks if I have an envelope. Also the phone book.

11.15 Find envelopes. Ready to start work.

11.20 Bryan asks if I’m making a fresh cake or will he finish the old one.

11.55 Put new cake in oven. Pick lemons for syrup - it’ll be a lemon syrup cake.  May as well pick greens for lunch, a few avocados. Three ripe peaches on tree.

12.00 Eat peaches. Ready to start work.

12. 05 Bryan says ‘What’s for lunch?’ May as well put lunch out before I really start to work.

12.40 Ready to start work. Check weather forecast in case it says ‘rain’. It does!  Check radar to see where rain is.

12.45 Answer fifteen emails asking me to a) speak; b) donate books; c) judge a writing competition; d) explain how to keep fruit bats out of mangoes. (Answer to d): plant a nearby forest. Wait thirty years.  Meanwhile bag up the mangoes so neither the fruit bats nor the fruit fly can get them.)

1.35 Put dinner on to simmer in solar oven. Ready to start work … Sometimes ... just sometimes … I wonder what it would be like to vanish to an ‘away’ office every day. Then I remember the traffic fumes; the lack of wombats out the window; not being able to put on dinner at lunch time, so it simmers quietly in the solar oven; and having to wear shoes all day. And if I really want to I can start work at 5 am - or dream I’m going to - or zap out 1,000 words if inspired before bed.

2.37 Ready to start work.

Things I Have Learned this Month

• Mothball Wombat does not want a second helping when she bashes the garden chair against the wall. She’s just scratching her back.
• Green mangos become sweeter if you accidentally leave them in the larder for a week. Most green fruit just gets squishier after it’s picked, but mangoes lose that mouth pucker taste and become luscious.
• The ants were right when they built tall chimney stacks along the path - it really was going to rain. And rain. And rain.

Wombat News

The wombats are lining up again.

Mostly the wombats ignore us here, except for Mothball, who’ll nip your ankle if you wander past. But it’s never been as dry as it is now – what was once a river in the 70s shrank to a creek in the 80s. Now even the waterholes are dry. Maybe a third of the trees up on the ridges are leafless; all have dropped most of their leaves, so you can see orange ground between them. Once we called this ‘wet forest’. Now even the ‘forest’ bit is just hanging on from shower to shower.

The wombats are hungry and it’s our fault. Of course.

Mothball began demanding food again at Christmas. Despite her starring role in Diary of a Wombat, she really prefers grass to oats and carrots. But when times are bad she remembers being reared by humans. It’s our fault she’s hot and hungry – and if we don’t feed her NOW she head butts my gumboots, and when that doesn’t work, rears up and gnaws the front door till dinner emerges.

She eats slowly, as befits a mature wombat – she’s about fifteen years old now. By the time she’s finished there are at least three other wombats peering through the salvias waiting for the leftovers … and because I can see their ribs there are a lot of leftovers. (For the first time I’m putting water out for the wild animals too.)

Perhaps it’s wrong to encourage more animals than this plot of land can support in bad times. But humans have taken so much of the water and land around here, and there is almost none left for wild animals. One day, maybe, this will become part of the world just for humans and their pets and domestic animals. But not now, not yet.

Late news: It’s wet. The wombats are not impressed.  But you can see the grass growing. In another day or two their droppings will be green and sloppy, and they won’t even remember we are here.

What happened in January

I like January. It’s a nice slow beginning to a year. I gave a workshop at the Civic Library in Canberra – a wonderful new library with wide spaces that welcome you, unlike the box-like libraries of my childhood. Then two workshops at Marymead, for foster children and those who care for them, and the rest of the time writing and mooching and slowly getting into the rhythm of work again after Christmas.

This should be a quiet month too, which is good because there’s a book I need to finish writing, just the PR for the Tomorrow book, which I can do from home and in my thongs and hair still in a bird’s nest if I feel like it. I’ve become addicted to thongs – never wore them till I was given a pair last year, and discovered exactly why 99% of Australians wear thongs – you really can feel the breeze tickling your toes.

Book News

The Tomorrow Book is out … and sold out two weeks before it was released on February 1, but luckily more copies are being printed as I write this. Illustrated by Sue deGennaro – a look at the paradise we could create, maybe just tomorrow.
This is a special book. It’s closer to my heart than anything I’ve written, and Sue’s work is inspired: funny, whimsical and extraordinarily beautiful. It’s what happens when the King and Queen retire and go off in the campervan, and leave the kids in charge, finding the solution to each of the world’s major problems in their library and creating… tomorrow.
Every one of the solutions really does exist – and the possible tomorrows are very, very good indeed.
PS. Sue created the extraordinary artwork in collage, using materials she found in her kitchen, from tea bags to labels. It is too magic to even have words to describe it.

School for Heroes Book 1: ‘Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior’ (Book 2, Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs will be out next month)
By now you’ll have read this first in the hilarious new series, A School for Heroes, (and if not, you’re in for a treat!). It’s funny, made even more so by Andrea Potter’s fabulous drawings of the Ghastly Greedle and Gloria the Gorgeous and all the wonderful characters who attend the School for Heroes.

And now, here’s a taste of Book 2: Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs…

Boo’s back … in another crazy adventure of Heroes, dinosaurs and the most fearsome weapon in the universes … the zombie sausage. Our werewolf puppy and would-be-Hero, is about to do what no other Hero has done before - go into the scariest universe of them all, the Ghastly Otherwhen, rescue his mum and come back alive.
And he’ll need help from his friends: mysterious Yesterday, gorgeous Princess Princess Sunbeam Caresse of Pewké, Mug the down-to-earth zombie, and Squeak the warrior mouse.
But the Ghastly Otherwhen isn’t what Boo expects! And his friends
start acting strangely, too …
The bogeys are scarier - and the food is grosser than ever – what more could you want?

The Night They Stormed Eureka
A fresh look at the history we thought we knew.
Are the history books wrong? Could the rebels have succeeded? Could we have seceded from Britain, like the USA, and become a republic 150 years ago? Find out as you journey with Sam, a modern teenager, back in time to the Ballarat goldfields. She finds out that when you stand together, you really can change the world – and your own life, too.

Schedule for the next few months

If you see I’m going to be in your area, do contact the address below if you’d like more information, or if there is a chance I could speak at another function while I’m there.
I’m sorry I can’t accept every invitation – there are always many more than I could fit into a year. But as I have family in Brisbane and Perth I always love an excuse to travel there ... or anywhere that might involve a stop-over in Perth, too. New South Wales bookings are done by Lateral Learning. Queensland bookings by Helen Bain at Speaker’s Inc, and for other bookings contact me at jackief@dragnet.com.au.

The February Garden

This is a confession – I’m forgetting about gardening until March. It’s hot, it’s dry, the perennials like chilacayote melons and perennial chillies, bell peppers, asparagus, artichokes etc will (hopefully) survive till wet stuff remembers to fall from the sky again, and anyway we don’t have any water to give them, except for the three buckets from our morning showers, which I keep for a few very young trees and some potted herbs. I suspect in most of Australia it’s either too dry to plant or so wet that everything would get brown rot, black spot or mildew.
This isn’t even a month to dream of gardening – I’ve got enough planting withdrawal symptoms without daydreaming about seedlings of crunchy lettuce, tiny slips of broccoli, apple trees …
Blast … it’s easy to fall back into garden mode. Anyhow, for those who can’t resist doing a bit of planting now, may just be able to plant now, here are a few things you can bung in … and a few garden projects if by any chance it’s not too hot, too dry, too wet, too busy or there’s not a cyclone or hail storm waiting across the hills …

What to plant in February
* denotes not in cold climates
# denotes not in hot humid areas

Food garden:
Strawberries, passionfruit*, Cape gooseberries*, sweet potatoes*, choko*, artichokes, asparagus, basil, beans, beetroot, burdock, cabbage, capsicum*, carrots, celery, celtuce, chicory, corn salad, cress, cucumbers#*, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale, kohl rabi, leeks, lettuce (may not germinate over 26ºC), melons#*, okra, parsley, parsnip#*, pumpkin#*, radish, salsify, scorzonera, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba, and zucchini#.

Flower garden:
Order and plant spring bulbs now, plant LOTS of pansies,  primulas and poppies for winter, plus seeds or seedlings of achillea, ageratum, alyssum, amaranthus, calendula, calceolaria, coleus*, cleome, cornflower*, dianthus, English daisy, lobelia, lunaria, lupins, nasturtiums*, petunia*, salvia, sunflowers*, sweet pea# and zinnias.
 
What to do in February

• Sow more parsley now so you have plenty through winter – chopped parsley in food is a great way to get kids to eat their greens without noticing!
• Soak hanging baskets in a bucket of water once a week to give them a really good soaking – they'll really respond with lush leaves and new flowers.
• Hang up fruit fly lures to keep the grubs from your fruit and tomatoes.
• Ignore your lawn if it's hot and dry – it won't need much mowing in the heat, and if it browns off now it will green up again when it rains.
• Trim lavender back by about a third now, but don't trim back to old, hard wood – you may kill the plant.
• Trim hedges, roses, wisteria, pelargoniums, geraniums, poinsettias and fruit trees.
• Start watering last year's dormant cyclamen now for winter flowers.
• Plant herbs in full sun. They may survive in a light shade, but won't have nearly as much flavour!

PS: Flowers will last longer if you pick them in the cool of the morning, still with the dew on their leaves. Well-fed blooms last longer too.

Great Summer Garden Spectaculars

Most Spectacular Vegetables
Jerusalem artichokes: These look like small sunflowers – they are closely related. Delicious scrubbed and baked, they grow from tubers: buy a few at the fruit shop, plant in full sun in spring and dig the crop up when the flowers die down in winter. A few tiny tubers will remain in the soil to grow again next season. All climates.
Bronze fennel: Rusty red, ferny leaves, liquorice tasting and incredibly hardy, these will reseed readily so your veg garden will look productive even if you never look after it! All climates.
Scarlet runner beans: These incredibly easy-to-grow climbing beans die down in winter and grow again in spring. They don't set fruit in hot weather, but the bright scarlet flowers are a delight all summer. Pick the beans young, small and tender. All climates.

Most Spectacular Fruits
Pomegranates: These stunners have rich yellow and red fruit, bright orange spring flowers and brilliant yellow autumn leaves. Use the red juice for cooking or cordial – or just pile the fruit in a bowl to admire it.  Cold to subtropical climates.
Persimmons: This is possibly the neatest fruit tree in existence, with breathtaking orange/red autumn leaves and glowing fruit that hangs from the bare tree in winter. New varieties are much less astringent than old ones. Cool to subtropical areas, but avoid extreme frost. 
Shaddock: A shaddock is one of the biggest fruits around, like a massive grapefruit. They suit hot dry climates as well as temperate to tropics.
Lychee: The brilliant red fruit glow, and the glossy leaves look good too.  Subtropical to tropical climates, or temperate with a bit of care. 

Most Spectacular Flowers
Strelitzia reginae, Bird of Paradise or Bird's Tongue Flower: These are stunning. They need full sun, no care and a temperate to tropical climate.
Ornamental ginger: Ginger lilies tolerate all but extreme frosts; others are strictly subtropical or tropical. They are all magnificent. Their one need is moist soil, though they'll survive droughts once established ­ just not bloom till they're happy.
Roses ... well, of course!  But try a rambling rose like Mermaid or Albertine along a fence... no weeding, pruning or spraying, just massed blooms to stun passers-by. Cold to temperate climates.

Most Spectacular Bushes
Protea: For the biggest flowers in the street, you can't go past proteas. They tolerate drought and all but extreme frost or tropical climates. Avoid high phosphorous fertilisers.
Rhododendrons: Dull most of the year, but when they bloom, wow! Proteas need a cool to temperate climate, and moist, acid soil. If you're hot and dry, forget it.
Echium candicans, Pride of Madeira: This fast growing short- lived shrub is a stunner from spring to early summer, with giant conical blooms. Needs full sun, dry soil, cut back hard after flowering. Survives everything except tropical heat and extreme frost.
        
Most Spectacular Trees
Magnolia grandiflora: For flowers the size of dinner plates, grow this evergreen darling. They are wonderfully hardy, suit cold to subtropical climates, light shade or full sun and, once established, laugh at droughts!
Michelia doltsopa: Grow these for a host of shaggy white blooms all winter. Michelia need cold to temperate climates and moist soil, but they tolerate drought once established.

Some Vegetable Recipes

Last month I gave a swag of the recipes I make for young, energetic meat lovers – few of which I actually eat.
So for the next few months I’ll give the recipes I love, most of which are vege based – whatever is good in the garden or from Conrad’s truck up in town, or brought in a basket by friends who’ve come to visit.

Entrees, Nibbles and Extras
Tomatoes and good bread
Take a thick slice of fresh French or Italian bread.  Brush olive oil on both sides. Toast lightly on both sides, top with fresh tomato, with or without bocconcino cheese and lots of torn basil leaves or a thick spread of pesto and thinly sliced very ripe tomato or eggplant in olive oil with a thin slice of fresh tomato - the possibilities are endless...

Grilled Mushroom Sandwich
Note: This is superb

Ingredients
4 large field mushrooms – not tasteless champignons
4 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
2 tbsps chives, chopped

Heat frying pan for 3 minutes on high; turn down to low and add oil, then the other ingredients. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, till the mushroom are soft and the onion transparent ­which should take about three-five minutes. Turn off heat.

Take
8 slices of incredibly good bread
8 tbsps butter or olive oil

Butter each slice of bread on both sides or brush with olive oil.
Place a quarter of the mushroom mix on four of the slices of bread. Place another slice of bread on top.
You now have four sandwiches.
Place them under the griller and grill each side till deep golden brown.
Serve at once, hot.

Piperade
There are many versions of this dish, which is a sort of Basque omelette or scrambled eggs. Don’t bother to make this dish unless you have really good tomatoes.

Ingredients
6 eggs, beaten
olive oil
3 large onions, chopped
4 red capsicums, sliced
6 large, very red, ripe tomatoes

Add the olive oil to the pan. Sauté the onion until transparent. Add the capsicum, cook for another 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring so the mixture doesn’t stick. Pour in the beaten eggs. Don’t stir once the eggs are mixed with the vegetable purée. Just shake the pan as vigorously as you can. Take it off the heat when the eggs are nearly set. Don’t overcook.

White Bean Purée
This makes a good sauce for fried zucchini or steamed asparagus or boiled new potatoes or you can eat it as a dip.

Ingredients
1 cup or can cooked white beans
juice of 2 lemons
3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
Optional:  a dash of curry paste, chopped red chilli to taste, a few leaves of tarragon or fresh thyme (leaves).

Mash. Serve.

Cold or Hot Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Stock
The tough bits of 12 bunches asparagus
2 red or brown onions, with skin, sliced
3 tomatoes, with skin, chopped
12 cups water
Simmer till reduced by half. Strain out liquid. Keep sealed in the fridge or freeze. Give the veg to the chooks.

Soup
The tender halves of 12 bunches asparagus
6 cups stock
6 tbsps chives, chopped
1 extra tbsp chopped chives
Optional: 6 tbsps light sour cream
Optional: 1 tbsp winter or summer savoury leaves. 

Cook asparagus in stock for 10 minutes. Scoop out above half the asparagus. Cool under cold water to stop further cooking.
Purée the remaining soup with a hand blender.
Chop remaining cooked asparagus. Add to the soup with the chives and optional summer savoury. Reheat, or chill if serving cold.
Serve with a dollop of light sour cream, and a further sprinkling of chopped chives.
Note: Stock can be frozen, but not the soup – the asparagus turns watery.  

Carrot and Chervil Soup
Simmer six grated carrots, six cups stock (chicken or good veg stock), one chopped onion and four chopped shallots for ten minutes.  Whiz it all through the blender, or don't bother.  Add three tablespoons of chopped chervil, reheat, then add a dash of cream and a little fresh chopped chervil on top.

Carrot and Coriander Salad
Peel carrots (carrot peel can be bitter), grate them, add an equal amount of well-chopped coriander and dress with vinaigrette.

Tomatoes in cream
Pour a cup of cream into a pan with four cloves of chopped garlic.  Simmer for ten minutes.  Cut four very ripe peeled tomatoes in half and lay them in the cream. Cook gently till they are heated through.  Take off the heat before they turn soggy and top with finely chopped parsley, basil or fresh coriander.

Main Courses

Corn Cakes with Balsamic Vinegar Salsa

Salsa Ingredients
1 large red onion, chopped
3 large sweet fragrant tomatoes also chopped and the juice and seeds poured off (if you can't find a fragrant tomato substitute mango)
a very small dash of balsamic vinegar – don't overdo it.  It should just be a hint; the whole affair should be solidish, not liquid.

Corn Cake Ingredients
4 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
2 cans corn kernels if you must; otherwise scrape the kernels of twelve ears of freshly boiled corn
1 tbsp finely chopped capsicum (sort of optional)
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley (ditto)
1 tbsp chopped chives (ditto too... but do try to add them )
milk

Mix everything except the milk; then add milk slowly till it's still thick but will drip rather than glop from a spoon.
Heat a frying pan, add a dab of butter, slide in spoonfuls and fry till brown on one side then flip over and brown on the other.
Serve hot with the salsa on the side.
You can make these all in advance and keep them warm under a teatowel so they don't dry out in a very low oven ... or just fry them up as people eat, reserving the slightly charred ones for yourself to nibble on as you cook.  These are also very good with sweet chili sauce or chilli jam.

Stuffed Whole Pumpkin
Take one giant pumpkin – a giant Queensland Blue is ideal.  Cut off the top – henceforth referred to as the lid.  Hollow out the seeds.

Stuffing
NB There may be too much stuffing for one pumpkin in which case keep the leftovers for later in the week and stuff more.

Ingredients
3 tbsps olive oil
1 large onion – finely chopped
Six cloves garlic – chopped
1 cup basmati rice
4 cups Chikcen stock
3 dsps pine nuts
3 dsps currants.

Pour olive oil in a pan, add onion and garlic, stir until transparent. Add rice, stir over low heat until transparent. Add stock (water if vegetarian), pine nuts and currants. Simmer, uncovered, till all the moisture has evaporated. Don't stir. As long as the temperature is VERY low below the pan it won't burn on the bottom.
Stuff the cooked mixture into the pumpkin. Put the lid back on.  Bake in a moderate oven for at least two hours, or till the pumpkin feels softish when you prod it with your finger (don't burn yourself – be fast) or has coloured – JUST turned colour I mean, not blackened or even bronzed.
Take it CAREFULLY out of the oven (with oven mitts - or you can cook the whole thing on a baking tray – safer both for you and also for the floor of the oven).  By now the lid will have resealed itself, so cut it off again at the table.  Serve everyone with a hunk of pumpkin flesh and the adhering stuffing.

Onions with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Marjoram

Ingredients
8 medium sized white onions, peeled
3 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp marjoram, chopped
2 tbsps sun-dried tomatoes
black pepper

Combine all ingredients except the marjoram in an oven-proof dish.  Bake at 200ºC for 45 minutes, stirring once or twice as the dish cooks.  Stir in the marjoram and cook for another 15 minutes.  Season with black pepper (don't add this earlier or it will turn the dish slightly bitter) and serve hot.

Hot zucchini salad

Fry thinly sliced zucchini FAST in very hot olive oil till lightly browned.  Dress at once with 1 part lemon juice, 3 parts olive oil, salt and pepper with a little chopped garlic and chopped mint added. Serve at once before the zucchini softens or leave to marinate (and soften) and serve cold.

Zucchini Slice
I love this hot or cold.

Ingredients
6 cups grated zucchini (the number of zucchini needed will vary according to their size)
1 carrot, grated
1 large red onion, peeled and grated
1 cup strong cheddar cheese, grated
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
6 large eggs
Optional:  6 tbsps chopped parsley or chopped coriander leaves
Optional: 1 tsp finely chopped chilli
Optional: 1 red capsicum, finely grated
Optional: salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients. Pour into a greased baking dish and bake in a moderate oven for 30-40 minutes till firm and brown on top.

Potato Cakes or Latkes

Ingredients
4 large potatoes, grated
1 large red onion, grated
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 heaped tbsps plain flour
4 eggs
black pepper
olive oil to fry
Optional: 1 tbsp chopped parsley, or grated carrot or celeriac to replace some of the potato

Mix all ingredients except the oil. Heat oil in a fry pan. When the air above is just beginning to waver add tablespoons of the mix; fry on one side till brown, then fry on the other side. Serve hot with tomato salsa, chilli jam or a good tomato sauce.

Small Frittatas with Light Sour Cream and Semi-Dried Tomato

Ingredients
8 eggs
1 cup cream
2 tbsps chopped chives
½ cup grated sharp cheese or parmesan
Topping
 ½ cup light sour cream
 16 semi-dried tomato halves
extra chopped chives

Mix all the top ingredients. Grease 16 muffin holders or use 16 coffee cups. Pour the mix into them.  Bake 15 minutes at 200ºC; leave to cool slightly – they’ll shrink away from the container and be easier to remove.
Top with a dab of light sour cream, then the bit of semi-dried tomato, then a dusting of chopped chives. Serve luke-warm or room temperature, or keep in the fridge for a few hours till needed, then leave out for 20 minutes to lose the chill. Cold frittata just tastes of cold.

Egg Curry

Ingredients
8 hard-boiled eggs, shelled
2 large onions, chopped
6 tbsps oil
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps turmeric
6 tsps coriander
1 tsp chopped fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups natural yoghurt

Sauté the onion in the oil until transparent. Add the spices, ginger and garlic and cook at a low heat for 10 minutes, stirring so it doesn’t stick. Add the yoghurt and eggs and heat gently. Don’t boil or the yoghurt will separate or become too runny. Take off the heat as soon as the yoghurt is hot.
Leave for 30 minutes for the flavours to amalgamate (overnight, if preferred). Reheat gently and serve hot.

Egg Salad with Peanut Sauce
(Delicious)

Ingredients
6 hard-boiled eggs, halved
4 cups torn lettuce, any variety
2 chopped and seeded tomatoes, or 12 halved cherry tomatoes
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, then chopped
Optional: 4 cold potatoes, peeled or not, chopped into chunks
Optional: 2 spring onions, chopped

Peanut sauce
½ cup crunchy peanut butter OR 1 cup roasted peanuts, blended with 2 tbsps oil and salt to taste – much better
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 chilli, chopped and seeded, or ½ tsp bottled chilli
1-2 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar at a pinch
juice of two limes or 1 large lemon
Optional:  3 tbsps tomato purée or 3 tbsps peanut or olive oil, to thin the sauce if it’s too thick.

Arrange the salad neatly, with the eggs on the top. Mix all the dressing ingredients together till well blended, then pour over the salad just before serving.

Eggs and Rice
One of my favourites.

Ingredients
 4 tbsps olive oil or ghee
1 cup Basmati or other long grain rice
4 cups chicken stock or miso stock
½ cup parsley, chopped
6 tomatoes, peeled by covering with boiling water, then seeded then chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 eggs

Put a pan on low heat. Add oil or ghee. Sauté the onion and garlic till the onion is soft. Add the rice. Stir well on the low heat till the rice is well-coated and slightly transparent – about three minutes. Turn the heat onto high. Add a little stock at once, then the rest gradually, a bit at a time, so it never stops boiling. When all the stock is added, put in the tomatoes and parsley.
When the liquid is nearly absorbed break the eggs onto the top of the rice. They will poach on top, with the whites firm in about two minutes. I prefer to eat mine with the yolks still liquid and the whites set, taking the pan off AS SOON as the whites are almost firm, as the eggs will keep cooking for several minutes in the heat of the rice.
Eat at once.

Stir Fried Veg Soup and Eggs
This is one of my favourite breakfasts. It can be as liquid as you like, a thin soup with eggs and veg or a slightly liquid mix of veg and poached egg. It can be as spicy as you like, too. On cold days the chilli and ginger is a great addition.

Ingredients
1 Chinese cabbage, wok bok etc. or
1 bunch English spinach, shredded
1 carrot or one seeded capsicum, grated
1-2 cups miso broth (made from water and a packet of miso concentrate. Miso is made from soy beans, but if you are vegan check that no bonito, a fish, has been added)
Optional: ½ tsp grated ginger, and/or 2 chopped cloves of garlic; 1-2 chopped and seeded red chillies
3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
2 eggs

Place the oil in a frying pan. Heat till the air above it shimmers. Add the veg and seasoning; fry quickly till the greens turn dark; add the liquid. As soon as it boils add the eggs. Don’t stir now – leave till the eggs set, either three minutes for firm whites and soft yolks, or five minutes for firm yolks too. Serve and eat at once, as the eggs will keep cooking in the hot liquid.

Vegetable custards
These are simple and delicious.

Ingredients
1 cup of any of the following, or a mixture: carrots, fresh peas, asparagus, spinach, celeriac, celery, white part of leeks
1 tbsp butter
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup cream or crème fraiche
black pepper to taste, and if it won’t leave ugly black specks (don’t add it to a leek custard)

Chop the veg as finely as you can; sauté them in butter till soft. Add a little water if necessary to soften them – but not too much. Mash well, and add the other ingredients. Beat well.
Pour into 4 small pots, or one large one, and place in a baking dish of hot water in the oven. Cook at 200°C for half an hour, or until the custards are just firm when you press the middle. Don’t overcook as they get tough.
Serve hot.

Noodles and Potatoes

Soba Noddles with spicy coriander pesto

Ingredients
4 cups soba noodles, or other noodles
1 bunch fresh coriander leaves
½  bunch of basil
1 cup roasted salted peanuts – or salted pistachios or salted roast cashews if allergies are a problem
6 fresh chillies, seeded
3 tbsps fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
juice of two lemons
3 tbsps brown or palm sugar
1/3 cup peanut or extra virgin olive oil… the fire of the other ingredients will cover any olive flavour
2 onions, peeled and chopped
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped.

Cook noodles according to directions on the packet.
Meanwhile, place oil in a fry pan, turn on to low. Add the oil, the onions and the garlic, cook on low for about 10-15 minutes till the onions are quite soft. Add the chillies, cook another two minutes, then the other ingredients. Stir on high for two minutes, till the herbs are wilted.
Turn off the heat. Scrape into a bowl and blend all together. Don’t blend too much – the peanuts should still be slightly chunky.
Place a large scoop on top of the hot noodles. Also good cold.
Excellent with roast potatoes instead of noodles, or on fresh white bread.

A Good Feasting Dish – Twenty Layer Pie
The idea of this is to have something spectacular on the table, tall, imposing and with plenty of leftovers.

Ingredients
1 - 2 packets of filo pastry
Various stuffings: Examples include, but no means restricted to:

• ricotta cheese with chopped walnuts
• sautéed mushrooms with garlic and butter
• sautéed leeks in butter
• spinach in cheese sauce
• hardboiled eggs mashed into sour cream
• sautéed grated beetroot (in butter with just a touch or sour cream)
• parsnip mashed with butter
• grated carrot, onion and garlic sautéed in butter then thickened with a little mashed hard boiled egg
• sun-dried capsicum in olive oil topped with toasted breadcrumbs
• basmati rice with currants and pinenuts and red onion
• thin slices of eggplant, sweet potato or Jerusalem artichoke, brushed with olive oil and grilled till soft.  

Leave out the ones you don't like, but have at least several of them.  Make sure none of the fillings are too watery or the pie will turn soggy.
If you’re short of time buy the fillings – various deli grilled vegetables, semi-dried tomatoes (avoid if you are elderly, pregnant or not quite well, just in case they have a high bacteria count) and ricotta cheese mixed with a bit of curry paste.
Now brush two sheets of filo with melted butter or olive oil; place on greased tray.  Place a layer of filling on them, leaving at least two inches free at the sides. Repeat with more layers of stuffing and filo, but don't get the stuffing too close to the edge.  At the end of piling up the pie you should be able to brush the edges down so the pie is enclosed in layers of pastry.
Bake for 40 minutes in a moderate oven, or until brown and flaky on top. Serve hot, but the leftovers are good cold.
Cut into slices at the table so everyone can admire the whole thing. You need considerable dexterity to transfer slices to each plate - don't worry if they collapse a bit.  They'll still look – and taste – good.

Vegetarian barbecues

Lemon and Garlic Butter Corn Cobs

Ingredients

½ cup butter
4 cloves garlic, crushed
Black pepper to taste
Juice of a lemon
8 corn cobs

Melt butter with garlic.  Take off the heat.  Add a good grating of black pepper.
Add the lemon juice.
Soak eight cobs of corn, papery wrapping and all, in water for twenty minutes. Then unwrap them carefully – don't tear the wrapping.
Pour a little of the slightly cooled and thickened melted butter mix onto each cob.  Rub in well with your fingers or a pastry brush.
Grill until cooked through – at least twenty minutes or half an hour, turning several times.
You can also try this with alfoil instead of the natural corn packaging; but it's not nearly as good.
NB Don't buy corn wrapped in plastic.  It tastes like plastic.

Eggplant and Onion Kebabs

Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
2 red onions
25 button mushrooms
1 red capsicum
½ a cup of olive oil
3 cloves garlic
a dash of Tabasco sauce (optional)
thyme
juice of 1 lemon.

Cut the eggplant, red capsicum and the onions (peeled) into chunks about the size of the button mushrooms. Mix the other ingredients.  Marinate for at least an hour or overnight.
Thread all the veg onto skewers.  Grill till softish and slightly charred.

Grilled Mushrooms
Choose great big flattish ones, as dark and fragrant as possible.
Mix lots of garlic and black pepper and chopped parsley into melted butter or margarine (or even olive oil). Pour a generous amount into the cap of each mushroom. Grill the mushrooms top downwards until the stems look cooked or until the mushrooms look like they might soon collapse or burn.  Eat hot.

Stuffed potatoes or tomatoes or capsicum
Hollow out the veg. In the case of tomatoes and capsicum this is easy; use a sharp teaspoon for the spuds.

Filling for Potatoes
Any mixture of: sour cream, light sour cream, chives, grated cheese, chopped mushrooms, chopped parsley, very finely chopped capsicum, plus the grated potato residue.

Tomato stuffing: ricotta cheese with chopped chives, crushed garlic and pine nuts.
Capsicum stuffing: cooked rice mixed with curry spices and onion browned and softened in olive oil.

Wrap veg in alfoil; bake in the coals for at least 40 minutes. Unwrap carefully so you can wrap again if they're not cooked.
           
Fruit Kebabs
Thread fresh pineapple, firm yellow peaches, banana, apples, nectarines and/or apricots on skewers. Grill them as they are (fast before they turn brown, sprinkle with lemon juice if they are to be left more than twenty minutes) or brush with a mixture of half a cup of brown sugar melted with a quarter of a cup of butter; add a tablespoon of rum at the end. (This amount is for about ten people – for smaller numbers of people or smaller appetites reduce proportions accordingly, or keep it in the fridge for another time.)

Sweet Things

Pumpkin Scones

Ingredients
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp grated orange zest
2 tbsps butter
1 cup mashed pumpkin – as orange and sweet as you can get it
1 well-beaten egg
½ cup of milk
2 cups self-raising flour.

Mix the orange zest with the flour, work the butter and honey in with your fingers.  Add the milk and egg and pumpkin – work as little as you can at this stage.  Now cut into thin rounds – about as thick as the width of your thumb.  Brush with milk or beaten egg, bake in a hot oven for 10 - 15 minutes.
These scones should be eaten fresh. If there are any left over, toast them for breakfast (toasted breakfast scones were a feature of staying with my Grandmother) or cut them into slices and bake in the oven till crisp and crush for very superior 'breadcrumbs'.

Carrot Ginger Bread

Ingredients:
125 g butter
100 g brown sugar
125 g self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 dsp treacle
2 tsps ground ginger
2 dsps crystallised ginger, finely chopped
125 g carrots, grated
2 tbsps ground almonds

Melt the butter, add the treacle and sugar, stir well.  Take off the heat, stir in the eggs, then add the other ingredients.  Moisten with a little milk if necessary.
Bake in a slow oven for an hour, or till a skewer comes out clean (this will depend on the size of the cake tin.)
Leave un-iced, or spread thinly with lemon icing when cold.

Lemon icing
Add a dash of lemon juice to icing sugar, with one tablespoon of butter for every cup of icing sugar.  Don't add too much juice at once in case it gets too runny – just add more as necessary.

Zucchini Fruit Slice

Ingredients
185g butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¾ cups plain flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
1 cup chopped dates
½ cup chopped sultanas
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup coconut
2 cups grated raw zucchini

Cream butter and sugar; add eggs; mix in other ingredients. Spread into greased and floured tray; bake at 200ºC for 30-40 minutes. Test with a skewer. Cool a little before turning out of the tray. Cut into slices with a sharp knife while still warm, but out of the container, to help prevent crumbling.

Carrot Marmalade
Do not shudder. This is good – not best jam in the world good (that is sour cherry jam), but delicious and better than anything bought in a supermarket and cheap and foolproof (well, almost foolproof) to make.

Ingredients
4 large, peeled red and sweet carrots – taste them first. Many commercial carrots are too anaemic to make good quality jam. Late winter carrots after a few frosts are sweetest.
3 sliced lemons, unpeeled
1 ½ litres water
2 kg sugar

Cover the lemons and carrots with water and leave overnight. Boil till soft, add the sugar and stir till it dissolves. Boil till a little sets in cold water. Pour into hot jars and seal.

For more information from Jackie, please go to her website: www.jackiefrench.com

Read last month's newsletter

Sign up to receive monthly email newsletters from Jackie French. The newsletter will keep you informed of updates to the website, the latest news on Jackie and her books, and lots of fun stuff! And it's free!

Please note: The privacy of your information is very important to us. It is our policy not to share the information collected with other organisations, nor will the information be used for any other purpose apart from sending you these newsletters.

You can unsubscribe to the newsletter at any time by sending an email to melanie.peake@harpercollins.com.au