Hawkes General Store & orange cakes

On moving to Orange seven years ago, nearly everyone I met asked me the same question, have you been to Hawkes yet? Isn’t it gorgeous? I went on my first day and yes it was/is. For the past 37 years, Hawkes General Store has been one of the nicest places in town to pick up coffee, gifts, clothes, homewares, books and accessories. So it’s a real pleasure to write my first ‘sponsored’ post for owner, Coco Pogonoski (nee Hawke).

You might notice Coco’s advertisement over here to the right, please click through to take a look at her website and stay informed of Hawkes' news and new arrivals.

Originally established by Coco’s mother Fem Hawke, the store is a bit of an institution here in Orange and remains very much a family enterprise with Fem helping out on a regular basis. Coco's sister Simonn is also the chef and owner of award-winning restaurant Lolli Redini just next door.

Coco fills her store with an ever-changing rotation of beautiful things, so the one draw-back is that every time you pop in for a coffee you leave coveting something new. Nearly every birthday present or treat for our family seems to be purchased here and the store's entire team all seem to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what to suggest for every customer. I love that level of service and that it comes in such a gorgeous package!

With Coco recently taking delivery of a great new load of winter stock (I've just been there and trust me - it's dangerous), now is a great time to pop in, grab a coffee and say hello. But if you can't make it there just yet, maybe just bide your time, make yourself a nice coffee and a batch of these orange cakes and jump on to the website for a virtual visit.

Orange cakes with citrus icing

The cakes and biscuits at Hawkes are all made by clever local baker Emily Tweedie. Here she generously shares the recipe for her ever-popular orange cakes. Makes 24 small cakes or one large cake

3 navel oranges
7 free range or organic eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2 tsps baking powder
300g almond meal

Preheat oven to 160C and line a 12-hole, one cup capacity muffin tin with baking paper. Place oranges in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 1/2 hours (topping up the water as you go if necessary). Transfer to a food processor and blitzh to a puree. 
Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Add the baking powder and beat again for 30 seconds. Stir in the orange puree and almond meal to make a smooth batter. Fill the muffin holes to just under the edge of the tin and bake for 30 minutes (60 minutes if making one large cake). Remove from the tin and let cool on a wire rack.

Icing
Zest of a lemon
Juice of half a lemon
500g icing sugar
125g unsalted softened butter

Beat all of the above to a smooth paste. Pipe across the cakes in a swirl patten using a piping bag or a small plastic bag with the end snipped off.

* These cakes are gluten free, keeping in mind the choice of icing sugar used.
* Stewed rhubarb can replace the orange puree for a lovely variation

This post was sponsored by Hawkes General Store. Thanks Coco!

She was apples

For the past few days we have been baking, eating and stewing apples like its going out of fashion (it isn't). And it's all because of the Orange Apple Festival. Of all the recipes we've been trying, my most successful offering so far, among Tim and the kids at least, has been the above strudel. It's a really nice, simple recipe and perfect for pudding on a cool Autumn evening. 

Our region has spent the past few days celebrating the Orange Apple Festival and our farmers market on Saturday morning had a distinctly apple-y crunch to it. Every school contributed apple-themed art work to the agricultural pavillion's walls, and Alice was chuffed to see her picture displayed with the rest of her class (below). There were free apples for everyone, apple bobbing and yes, lots of beautiful fresh apples for sale.

We were there with our venison and it was a nice, busy market. Actually I was hoping to have a chance to potter around and take more photos but it never really happened, though on the way out (rushing to make it to Alice’s soccer match in time) we tried some gelato from Molong and stocked up on pears and apples from our friends Katie and Beau of the Nashdale Fruit Co.

Thank you so much to our farmers market Manager Cath Thompson and all the volunteers, teachers and growers who made the fantastic Orange Apple Festival happen. It was a great few days and a good reminder to us all of the big part that apples play in Orange!

Then yesterday (Sunday) we hosted a sold-out Mothers’ Day lunch at the Farm Kitchen. Again, we were a bit flat out so I didn’t even have a chance to stop and photograph anything other than the below. Hope everyone had a great weekend and an apple or two as well.

Voices of 2013 and Mothers' Day

Oh my goodness there are some talented people out there.

I spent most of today reading some of Australia's top 25 food and wellness blogs. It's been inspiring, humbling and part of my role as one of the judges in the food and wellness category for Kidspot's Voices of 2013 blogging awards. Winners will be announced in November, which leaves us all plenty of time to really get to know every one of the finalists. This is a good thing as they are all incredible and worth spending time with.

And speaking of spending time with incredible people...Mothers' Day is on its way! Please excuse the tenuous segway, I just wanted to mention a few things related to this upcoming occasion;

Firstly, Mum - if you are reading this, THANK YOU for all you do for us. xxx

Secondly, if you live in or around Orange, maybe consider bringing Mum to our Farm Kitchen for lunch on Sunday (May 12)? We have a few spots left for this event (three courses, $75/pp, BYO and includes a little farm tour). If keen, maybe just drop me a line in the comments below and we can take it from there.

And lastly, if you can't make it to our lunch but still fancy doing something a bit special, maybe you'll make your Mum this fruity French toast with rhubarb and honey compote (below)? We just posted the recipe over on Village Voices.

The May list and Local is Lovely 'the book' (!!!)

 

A couple of months ago I received a lovely email from publishers Hachette Australia, wondering if I might be interested in writing a book based on Local is Lovely. The answer of course was a big fat yes. So after many discussions about how it might look/feel/come together, I've just driven back from Sydney with a contract and a (terrifying) deadline. And am beyond excited.

Local is Lovely 'the book' will be a seasonal collection of stories and recipes, including some favourites from the blog and lots of new content too. It's due for release in April 2014 (holy moly!).



In other news...we are expecting the season's first frost tomorrow morning, brrr. And Tim has just informed me that we are tracking at 50% less rainfall this year on last so it's looking like a fairly dry winter ahead. But as that wise man said last Friday, if it's not going to rain, we may as well enjoy the stunning Autumn weather and so are trying to have a few bonfires and picnics, and of course, cooking LOTS of our beautiful venison snags over open fires.

And because it's a new month, here's a new collection of links and blogs to discover. Have a wonderful May everyone. Sophiex

• Brown sugar baked fries from A Beautiful Mess 
• The Vanilla Bean Blog is bursting with great recipes and beautiful images
• Spend 10 days in Ireland with Oh Lady Cakes
• Looking forward to making this sweet berry lime cake from Joy the Baker
• Sydney-based Louisa Brimble's blog is just stunning. Loved this post from the recent Kinfolk magazine flower potluck and her photo story on making pasta. Thanks Lousia! Very inspiring. 
• The Shady Baker's recent posts have all been so gorgeous, particularly this one - what an amazing looking event
• The photography and food writing in Tasmania's Island Menu blog seems to get better and better with every post. These guys are so very clever
• Lots of incredible food blogs to discover via Saveur's 2013 Food Blog Awards
• Professional forager Evan Strusinski's story 
• A simple pot of beans via Poor Man's Feast. Beautiful
• Lemon thyme and fennel risotto via What's for Lunch Honey
• Cereal Magazine's tumblr offers a rolling gallery of peaceful food porn
• Roasted hazlenut butter biscuits from Poires et Chocolat
• I LOVE the idea of starting a cookbook club...anyone keen?
• Sweet Paul has just released its first kids edition. Gorgeous
• This ginger coconut milk soup would do wonders on a cold Orange evening.

Forage, and a tagine recipe worth walking for

Forage takes place every year during Orange's F.O.O.D Week, and, having participated in the last three events - the first two as a volunteer and this year as a 'real' paying person - I really think that this one of the best, most unique and well organised food events anywhere. In the world.

A truly progressive lunch, Forage asks just under 800 lucky ticket holders to walk four kilometres through Orange's Nashdale Valley, stopping along the way to eat and drink six courses of the region's best.

Our venison was prepared by Michael Manners and served as a canape with a delicious quince relish (recipe on its way). Next we had an amazing chicken and mushroom pie by Tony Worland of Tonic Restaurant, then the below tagine followed by a palate cleansing sorbet from Gina Allen. Dessert was a pear Tiramisu from Lolli Redini and then we had cheese via the Old Convent. Each course was matched with beautiful local wines and between each one we strolled through vines, past orchards and over rolling hills. 

These sorts of events rely on the hard work of many volunteers, including my husband, Tim, above, and our mate James Sweetapple of Cargo Road Wines. James was in charge of 'team Forage' and put hundreds of (unpaid) hours work into making it such an amazing day. Thank you so much to all of you.

Edwena Mitchell's Lamb tagine and cous cous

Edwena Mitchell is a local caterer and the President of F.O.O.D Week 2013. Along with F.O.O.D week's many volunteers,  worked incredibly hard to make Forage happen, and happen so perfectly.

She was also responsible for the lamb tagine we all enjoyed so much on the fourth stop. This is a fantastic recipe for wintery dinner or lunch parties; it can be made entirely in advance, it reheats wonderfully and is just delicious. I’m going to give it a whirl this weekend with some diced venison shoulder and am expecting great things!

Edwena's notes: For Forage and the 750 serves I was making, we used 70kg diced lamb and about 900 young onions (Greg Kocanda from Canowindra's Gaskill Greens pulled up almost a whole paddock for me!). This is one of the easiest dishes I know, and even though the method is probably not exactly how tagine's are traditionally made, it's how I do it and always gets good reviews!

We served this with some parsley, lemon and garlic gremolata but a sprinkle of parsley and lemon zest will nearly do!

1.5kg diced leg lamb
1 tbsp Herbies Tagine spice
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 sticks celery, diced
4 carrots, diced
3 young onions, diced or 3 bunches of spring onions, finely sliced
1 kg tomatoes, roughly chopped
300ml chicken stock
300mls red wine
300mls V8 juice
125gm butter
1/2 cup plain flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Rub the meat with tagine spice, salt and pepper and mix well. Place meat in a large casserole pan with a lid, add all remaining ingredients (except the butter and flour), stir well and cook for about two hours. Once the meat is tender, remove from heat. Melt butter and stir in the flour. Add this paste to the hot tagine, stir to combine and serve with the below cous cous.

Israeli cous cous with currants and hazlenuts

250g Israeli (pearl) cous cous
2 cups water
1 heaped tsp Herbies Ras el Hanout spice
1tsp salt
60g butter
1 tbsp currants
1 tbsp roasted hazlenuts, roughly chopped (or pine nuts)

Bring the water to a rolling boil. Add the salt, spices and cous cous, stirring constantly. When the mixture has come back to the boil, add currants and nuts and continue to stir until cous cous is cooked through.

Note - Israeli cous cous does absorb more water than the regular variety so don't worry if you need to add more during cooking.

Finally, thank you to my walking partners, from left to right, Bel, Jocie and Pip (looking the wrong way!). Last month the four of us walked the 50kms from Palm Beach to Balmoral as part of Coastrek 2013 and because the conditions that day were so awful and the walk itself such a challenge, we thought we'd reward ourselves with Forage. And yep. It was awesome.

Tickets for this year's event sold out almost the day they were released so if keen to join us all for Forage 2014, please keep a close eye on the website or better yet, become a social member of F.O.O.D Week. This means, among other good things, you will be entitled to priority booking status. Bingo.

For the greater pud

It's a cool Sunday afternoon here in Orange, it's been a busy weekend and we are all exhausted. Time for some comfort food.

I posted this pear, hazlenut and caramel self-saucing pudding recipe over on my regular Village Voices Cooking with Kids page last Friday and had been planning on making it again tonight but since losing the top of my right thumb to a mandolin slicer and temporarily losing the use of that hand; will be handing over most of the prep to my assistant Alice. She has vetoed the nuts but otherwise approves of the recipe! Happy Sunday, Sophie.

Keep calm and cook on

As I may have mentioned one or ten times recently, our beautiful region is currently celebrating its annual F.O.O.D festival. Last weekend we kicked off our own little program of events with Farm Kitchen lunches on both Saturday and Sunday.

The past week or so have seemed a little like an endurance test with the kids on school holidays, lunches and dinners to cook for our Farm Kitchen and a stream of visitors popping out for farm tours.

But with only a few more kilos of quinces to peel and poach, and roughly the same quantity of potatoes to mash and peel; we are almost there. So thank you to all the lovely guests who have visited us this week, to our family for helping us look after said guests and Alice and Tom too. And thanks Tim for (kindly) advising me to take a deep breath and 'suck it up' whenever the anxiety levels creep a little too far in the wrong direction.

Just before I head back to the sink, here below are a few recipes and photos from the weekend. For starters we had little bowls of the pumpkin, pear and sage soup. Then, after a farm tour, sat down the below carpaccio of venison with a honey and verjus dressing (recipe can be found over here on my regular Village Voices spot).

And for the main course, what else but a beautiful venison backstrap. We served it barbecued, with a simple potato Dauphinoise and porcini sauce. Dessert was a dense almond cake with poached quinces and gingerbread ice cream, but by that point on both days, we were so busy serving, washing up and chatting that I missed a 'plated' photo opportunity so will recreate the dish for our own pudding next week and post then. 

And finally, if you are at all keen on coming to any of our lunches, we host them on the second Saturday of every month, please email me for more information.

Seared venison backstrap with porcini sauce

1 x Mandagery Creek Venison backstrap (about 1kg)
Sea salt and pink peppercorns
Olive oil

For the sauce
1 cup dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in one cup of warm water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2 tbsp thyme leaves
1 cup beef stock
1 tbsp cornflour

Preheat oven to 200C or light a barbecue with a cover and heat well.  Crush the pink peppercorns and rub these, with the sea salt, all over the venison. Set aside to reach room temperature.

If cooking on the barbecue - ensure it is hot as possible.

Heat a little more olive oil in an oven-proof saucepan and place over high heat. Or ensure the barbecue is on high. Cook the backstrap for one minute on each side, until well seared and then either place in the oven or covered barbecue for 10 minutes. While the meat is cooking, start on the sauce. Heat the olive oil over medium and cook the garlic for one minute, add the mushrooms, the thyme, soaking liquid, beef stock and cook for a few minutes. Add the cornflour and stir to thicken.

Remove from heat and let rest under a tent of foil. Slice across the grain and serve with porcini sauce or warmed chutney. Serves 8.

Potato Dauphinoise

This recipe comes from Karen Martini's brilliant book Feasting

8 Dutch cream potatoes

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

5 sprigs thyme

220ml cream

2 tbsp sour cream

300ml chicken stock

100g butter


Preheat oven to 200C. Place the garlic, thyme, cream, stock, sour cream and butter in a large saucepan and gently heat so the butter melts and the cream just reaches boiling point. Remove from heat. Meanwhile, peel and slice the potatoes as finely as possible (we use a mandolin). Place the potatoes in a lightly oiled baking dish, pour over the hot cream and cover with a layer of baking paper then a tight lid of foil. Bake for one hour, then remove paper and bake for a further 15 minutes. Serves 6

Baby Spinach, pear and walnut salad

Toast the walnuts for about 10 minutes in a moderate oven. Toss with finely sliced pear, baby spinach and then dress with two parts extra virgin olive oil and one part apple cider vinegar.

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