Blackberry (and apple) jam recipe

*sigh*  Yet more blackberry stuff.  *sigh*  I HATE blackberries.  But I whipped up some jam at the request of the big man and the household is going through it at a rate of knots, so I thought I'd share.  All jams are dead easy, this one is no exception.

Ingredients
1.5kgs blackberries, preferably fresh-picked
1 kilo granny smith (green) apples
2.5 kilos white sugar
1 cup water.

Throw the blackberries into a saucepans with the sugar and water.  Peel, core and then finely dice the green apples (and I mean FINELY dice).  Throw that in too* and give it all a good stir.

Bring it all up to the boil and boil the life out of it until you get the thick jammy bubbles happening.  In my opinion there's nothing at all wrong with runny blackberry jam but if you're worried about it, test it out on a small dish pre-chilled in the fridge.  Your final bit of work before sterilising bottles and sealing depends on whether you like your jam chunky or smooth.  If you want it smooth, you're going to want to stick a bar mix/stick blender in there and give it a wizz.  In our house we go chunky because I'm lazy.

As previously mentioned, I am not a blackberry fan (mainly because I'm the idiot that has to go pick them) but the reception this stuff received indicates everyone else thinks it's the bomb.  There's always a small amount of jam left over after bottling and I tend to pop it in a bowl in the fridge for the household to consume over the next couple of days.  This time half of it was gone within an hour as Lis imbibed it still-warm, straight from the bowl with a spoon.  The rest went the next morning.  It's not even a week on and they've almost finished the first 500ml jar of the stuff and Charles is getting defensive and lashing out when I suggest giving jars of the stuff away.  Definitely a winner.

*  It's worth noting here that for some reason granny smith apples pad berry jams out beautifully.  Quite aside from the pectin in them helping the jam to reach the setting point, which can be a bit tricky with berries alone, something about the apples changes the flavour in a good way.  I've noticed previously when making strawberry jam that if I make it with strawberries alone it can be a bit cloying and sweet and not necessarily taste strongly of strawberries.  Make it with a 50-50 strawberry to apple ratio and the resultant jam has an amazing strawberry taste more true to the original berry and you'd never know there were apples in there.  The blackberry jam was the same.  The resultant jam is far more blackberry-like in flavour, it set better and you can't tell it has apples in it.  Plus it means I had to pick less blackberries!

Plum paste recipe

Plum paste is one of the quickest, easiest products to make come harvest season.  You may have seen it near the cheeses at the super market with the cabernet paste, fig paste, etc.  It's a very thick, sweet concoction in a small tub that goes on your cheese board and costs about $5 a pot.  Ludicrous.  You can make enough of the stuff to last a year and many, many cheese boards for just a little bit more than that.

Plum paste is the perfect accompaniment to the bitiest of blues and washed rinds.  This is my own recipe that I put together after checking out what was out there and then having a go myself.  It makes about 2.5 litres of the stuff and I recommend you bottle it in the smallest jars you can find - a couple of tablespoons is the most any cheese board needs.

Ingredients
2kg of plums
2kgs white sugar
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (bottled in a pinch)
1/2 Cup malt vinegar.

Dump your plums in the sink, wash thoroughly and de-stalk.  Cut the seeds out and throw the rest in the food processor along with the vinegar and lemon juice. Do it in two batches - and just blend the life out of it until it's liquid.  Dump it into a saucepan and bring it up to the boil.  Be aware that the mix is quite thick in this state - so keep stirring to avoid burning.  It may also be quite a neon colour;

Once the bubbles start, dump in the sugar.  This will make it lots more liquid and, much darker, thank goodness;

Keep stirring until it boils.  The mixture here is quite thick and needs to be stirred frequently.  But apart from that, just keep boiling until it gets super thick (maybe thirty minutes?) and then start bottling it up into your sterilised jars.  Seal immediately.  The following day when you turn the jar, the paste should not move.  If it does, you're in for a reboil and seal session.  That's all folks.  The paste will last weeks in the fridge once opened but if you don't use a 200ml jar in a month, you're just not eating enough cheese.

When I grow up...

I found this quote on the Internet today and uploaded it for a day as my Facebook profile pic because I'm going through a month of quotes that strike a chord with me (just for something different to do).  This image resonated with me because of something that happened to me when Charlotte was a baby.  When my baby girl was born I landed in a mother's group in a wealthier part of town and they were almost all career women in their forties who had given up their jobs to have their IVF baby before it was "too late" and they were treating motherhood just like they'd treated their job - something to succeed at, something to win at, something to devote themselves to, to the exclusion of everything else*.

I had a number of issues with these women and we clashed on almost all fronts - mainly because I tend to wing motherhood like I wing everything else, making it up as I go along and generally just trying to fit my parenting into the space created by my lifestyle, beliefs, values and philosophies.  I am ashamed to admit that I've only ever read a parenting book once and that was only because Charlotte had a weird rash.

Anyway, the upshot is that mother's group was not a happy place for me because Charlotte excelled at everything and hit all the milestones before everyone else's kid, despite the fact** that I was a dead loss who ignored the experts and this made these women furious.

Why this particular image was such an awesome discovery for me is because one day we had a guided discussion in the group about what we wanted our children to be when they grew up.  As they took their turns it gradually dawned on me that my time in mother's group was coming to a close.  Because my daughter was three months old, and had only just discovered her toes which were now her biggest obsession, I had never so much as wondered what she might be interested in career-wise.  But these women weren't held back by the fact that most of their kids hadn't even mastered holding their heads up for longer than nine seconds. They had plans.

What really tore it for me was the mother holding her dribble poo bomb who announced that they had already enrolled their son at King's College in Sydney because they wanted him to have the very best opportunity he could have to become Prime Minister.  "The way I see it," she said airily, "You should aim as high as you can and then it's up to them.  And let's face it, you can't really do much better than running the country."

I was really, genuinely appalled.  I didn't even know mother's like this existed.  All I could see for this poor kid was a future full of structured play in educational environments and stern warnings about picking his socks up and living up to his potential.  It sounded like the childhood equivalent of a salt mine.  And then it was my turn.

"Tell us," the queen bee mother sneered, "What would you like Charlotte to be when she grows up?"
I flirted with saying something like "stripper" but in the end I went with the only thing I could think of.
"Um... Healthy and happy.  What she does for a living will obviously be up to her..."

Which is why I love this quote so much.  Because I don't think it matters how smart you are or what you do for a living, what matters is whether you wake up every day and love the life you're living.  You only get one.  Make the most of it.  That's what I want for my kids.

The footnote to this little anecdote is that when she was three Charlotte was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up and she fixed this particular person with a stare that conveyed that she was unimpressed with having to answer such a stupid question and said very slowly and clearly, "I'm going to be Charlotte."  Solid.  Gold.

*  Anyone who knows me is probably already giggling.
** Or, dare I say it, because of...

Licorice Parfaits with Lime Syrup

This one is, wholly and solely, ripped from the Chef's Pencil and you can find it here.  I am willing to concede I'm a good cook, but only a GREAT cook could come up with this recipe and only a fool would mess with it.  I have elaborated a little on the method, basically dumbing it down for those who aren't au fait with what a sabayon is and how to cook it.

I chose this recipe for my man because he loves Army and Navy boiled lollies - a citrus aniseed combination that's like heaven on the tongue, even for those of us who don't normally like licorice.  Oddly he didn't make the connection until he actually tasted the dessert.  They're a wicked combination and this recipe WORKS.

So without further ado, let's start with the lime syrup.  You'll need;

250g sugar
1 Cup water
1 lime

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan with the zest of the lime (it's important to get this as absolutely fine as you can get it - use a grater that turns it to powder).

Bring to the boil and then decant into a bowl or jug.  Stir into the syrup the juice from the lime and then refrigerate.  That's it folks.  Now to the parfait(s);

Ingredients;
300ml pure cream
50g soft eating licorice finely chopped
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tspns glucose
2 Tablespoons Sambucca (I used white but black will add more colour to your parfait)
60g castor (fine white) sugar

In a small saucepan heat the cream with the licorice in it until the licorice is very soft.  Do not boil.  Then place in the food processor and blend.  Run it through a sieve to get the lumps out and set aside to cool down to room temperature.

Now to make your sabayon!  Sabayon, as I've discovered, is like a cross between meringue, cream and custard.  The Italians call it zabaglione and it can be served as a stand-alone dessert or poured over fruit, whatever you like really!  In a large saucepan bring some water up to a simmer.  The Chef's Pencil recommends a stainless steel bowl, but I only own pyrex and I like that it takes longer - less chance that I'll wind up making sweet scrambled eggs.  Good for your arm muscles too.

A little tip with the glucose - put your bowl on some scales and weigh it instead of trying to use a measuring spoon.  Go for about 10g of glucose.  Place all the remaining ingredients into your bowl, give them a whisk to combine and then pop it over the saucepan.  Just combined your sabayon will look like this;

Careful that your bowl doesn't touch the water.  Now start whisking.  The trick with sabayon is to make sure it doesn't get too hot.  Stick your finger in periodically and if it feels warmer than room temperature, take it off the heat.  Keep whisking and it should become lighter and airier, turning from yellow to a pale cream colour and increasing in size;

The colour and texture change is obvious, no?  Keep whisking while it cools down and then fold about half of it into the licorice cream.  Once that's combined, tip it back into the remaining sabayon and fold through until well combined.

Pour into your moulds.  I used individual serve-sized moulds but in future I will probably use one large mould lined with cling wrap or baking paper to get the thing out easier.  To remove from the moulds dip into hot water for a few seconds and turn out onto plates.  Top with some strips of lime zest and allow your guests to top with the syrup.

The flavours of this dish just can't be accurately described.  The licorice flavour is very subtle and almost totally obscured by the lime syrup.  The two together are just something else entirely.  Enjoy!

Polenta chips recipe

Many a time when we've dined at Rubicon I've marveled at their most excellent polenta chips.  Crisp on the outside, creamy on the inside...divine.   Like the pomegranate jus, no one website gets the credit for this one - a bit of research and then I came up with my own recipe.  I would like to bang on just one more time about using fresh rosemary.  There is no excuse for not growing it.  The stuff is incredibly hardy and grows everywhere.  It smells amazing, it tastes divine, you should have as many rosemary bushes as it takes to have fresh young sprigs always at hand.  We personally own five shrubs.  If you can't grow it, steal it.  Using the dried stuff is a crime and somehow the "fresh" rosemary in the herbs section at the supermarket just never has quite the same punch.

So either grow your own or take a walk around the neighbourhood - someone's sure to have a massive bush somewhere and won't miss a few sprigs. Always take the top spires where it's soft and fresh or pull the leaves off if the stem is thicker and woody.  Now to the polenta chips - this recipe makes six incredibly generous serves with a few spare for the inevitable few that will break up while you try and flip them.

Ingredients;
3 Cups chicken stock
300ml pure cream
60g finely grated parmesan
Cracked pepper to taste
Fresh rosemary to taste
2 Cups polenta

Bring the stock and the cream to the boil in a large saucepan.  Throw in very finely chopped fresh rosemary (about a tablespoon) and some cracked pepper.  Once it boils, remove from the heat and quickly whisk in the polenta and the parmesan.  Keep stirring until the polenta becomes thick and pulls away from the edge of the saucepan.  This will happens pretty quickly.

Transfer the polenta into an inch-thick slice tin lined with baking paper and smooth out the mixture.  Fold the baking paper over the top and place in the fridge, preferably overnight.

The following day (or at least a few hours later), preheat your oven to 100C and then lift the slab from the tin onto a chopping block.  Slice into chips. In a skillet heat some butter and olive oil until hot.  Place the chips in the oil and cook until crisp.  Lift each batch and place on a tray in the oven until you've cooked them all and you're ready to serve.

The final step in the process of these amazing chips is to serve them with rosemary salt.  For this you'll need a mortar and pestle.  Simply throw in your finely chopped rosemary and a bunch of sea salt flakes (or in my case Murray River Salt Flakes) and grind to powder.  Serve for your guests to sprinkle over their chippies.  And that, as they say, is that!

Beef eye fillets with pomegrante jus

No one website can get the credit for this one - I looked at several different pomegranate jus recipes and then devised my own which wound up being sweet with a deep, heavy flavour.  It may just be one of the easiest things in the world to make.  The ingredients are as follows;

1 cup pomegranate juice (and you can either juice your own or buy it in a bottle from the veg area in Coles)
1 cup port (go for something reasonably good.  I went for Orlando's liqueur port mixed with an De Bortoli's Old Boys Tawny)
1 cup chicken stock

Throw it in a saucepan and boil the hell out of it until it reduces down to maybe half a cup or a little more.  Set it aside and then gear up to cook your steaks.  In my opinion, eye fillet is absolutely the best cut of steak.  Fat, gristle and bone free, succulent and delicious.  When I buy from the butcher I ask him to cut 1-inch thick steaks for me and 1.5 inch thick steaks for Charles.  It's not just that my man likes more meat than I do, but that with the added thickness they will take the same time to cook but his will be rare and mine will be a nicely pink medium.

Some tips on awesome steak - bring them out of the fridge and put them on the bench an hour before you're ready to cook so they'll be at room temperature.  If you forget, throw them in a 100C oven for five minutes, no more, to warm them.  Also, pat them with a paper towel to make them dry before they go into the pan.  This will help seal them quickly and keep them moist.  And finally, make sure your pan is hot and don't turn them more than once.  I personally like to cook in a cast iron skillet because it retains the heat really well as you cook.

Once your steaks have cooked , place them on a warm plate to the side, clean the pan quickly with a paper towel and throw the jus in.  Bring it up until it's bubbling thickly and then throw the steaks back in.  No more than five seconds either side, but get them nicely coated in the jus.  Plate them up and voila!  Beef eye fillet with pomegarante jus.

Welcome home dinner for the big man

To celebrate Charles' return home this week I promised a welcome home dinner of epicurean proportions.  I selected a few likely candidates and let Charles choose what I would actually make.  He went for eye fillets in pomegranate jus (thank's for the idea Lamberts) with polenta chips (a favourite of ours from Rubicon) followed by a dessert of licorice parfait with lime syrup.  The licorice parfait I got from one of my favourite sites, the Chef's Pencil.  This website caters to my epicurious side but does not stoop to step-by-step instructions which, while flattering (and empowering if you succeed) can also be kind of tricky.  Case in point, the licorice parfait recipe which simply instructs you to use the ingredients to make a sabayon...until it's pale and fluffy.

Which is how I found myself researching what the hell a sabayon is and how to make one.  More on that in the actual recipe.  I've decided to pop all three recipes into different posts just to help people find them later if they come looking for them.  Despite my apprehension the only disaster came at the start of making the parfaits when the food processor vibrated itself off the bench while I was blending my licorice cream, splattering it everywhere and sending me back to the shop for emergency supplies to start all over again.  Not my finest moment.

But despite that minor hiccup, the welcome home dinner was an unqualified, raging success.  To me the biggest test was not my man and his reaction but the reaction from my fickle kids.  Abandoning every sense of propriety and all manners ever taught, they both took turns licking their bowls when they thought I wasn't looking.

Kids like consistency

It will have been obvious from my posts that my man recently went through surgery.  For those not close to me personally, you might be interested to know that he was having two discs removed and three vertebrae fused.  A nasty business that I'm still kind of traumatised over and not really willing to discuss in any great depth.  What I will talk about is my poor little babies and their reaction to their Daddy being not well and in hospital.

James is two-and-a-half.  He clearly didn't really get the concept of Daddy going into hospital until it actually happened.  Charlotte is six and was crystal clear on the hospital thing - although thanks to her grandfather dying when she was two, she was pretty sure Daddy was going to go in and not come out.  Lots of tears and trauma in the lead up.

In order to distance them from the events taking place and my own totally frazzled response to them, I sent them to stay with my Aunt over the days of and around the surgery. My aunt has never had children of her own but she's a bizarre sort of baby whisperer who can get even the most defiant of children to love her and do her bidding.  My kids adore her, spend a lot of time calling her "my Gaylee" and when they're with her they almost forget that they even have parents - ideal for keeping them calm until Daddy was in a fit state to see them because honestly, when he came out of surgery, it wasn't pretty by anyone's definition.

Scary.  When the kiddies did lob Charlotte was geared up and ready to nurse Daddy to death.  She had to be forcibly restrained because her enthusiasm translated to some less-than-tender treatment of the patient.  James was completely thrown by this new, weaker Daddy who couldn't even stand to have him up on the bed.  The little guy stood to the side looking completely distrustful as though we'd clothed a very old person in a Daddy skin and the man on the bed was actually someone he didn't know at all.

He was not even going to touch the strange man in case whatever was going on was catching and he kept cuddling me and telling me he wanted to leave.  As Daddy got better things improved for the kiddies but then we realised that Charles' legs were getting worse, not better, and the day he was due to go home they did a CT scan and that night they told us that he was going to need even more surgery and therefore couldn't come home.

My poor little girl bounced out of bed the following morning, madly excited that today was the day we get to bring Daddy home!  Breaking the news to her broke my heart.  As she sobbed in my arms my considerate toddler son, who had been mucking around taking pictures with my camera, thoughtfully took a picture of the exact moment her heart broke.

Round two was a lot less intense than round one and Charles bounced back admirably.  The kids were allowed to climb into the bed for cuddles, providing they were careful, and as the days went past they got more and more confident.

Unfortunately there was further trouble brewing.  I had been making full use of the generosity of my mother-in-law and aunt, letting the kids have sleepovers, arranging play-dates with friends, and generally being flexible with their daytime activities. But kids don't want flexibility, they want routine, schedules, rules, boundaries and above all, consistency.  So as the days have worn on the poor little mites have started to unravel.  For Charlotte it's been a subtle thing - the cheeky defiance creeping into her normally polite, helpful demeanor and then the biting sarcasm.

The real barometer has been poor little James who has become increasingly stubborn and willful, upping the rate of tantrums to three an hour minimum.  He has also been bursting into tears and clinging to me when I take him to daycare, sobbing, "No Mama, my stay with you!" into my neck while the carers peel him off, and stamping his feet when I pick him up declaring, "My go to the hospital to see Daddy!"  No amount of cuddles and reassurance, no measure of visits to see Daddy, seems to be able to compensate for being able to rely on Mama and Daddy both being there when he goes to bed and when he wakes.  My son is nothing if not a creature of strict habits and routine.  This up in-the-airedness is not to be tolerated.

Last night it took me forty minutes to get him to sleep while he clung to me, crying hysterically and begging me not to leave him.  Fifteen minutes into the ordeal I looked up to find Miss Six watching all of it with her hands on her hips.

"You know what this is, don't you?" she asked.
"A tantrum?" I frowned in confusion.
Her eyes narrowed at my flippancy and she glared at me.
"No, this is too much Nanny and not enough Mama."
"But you like going to Nanny's," I said reasonably, gritting my teeth.
"Yes," she rolled her eyes, "It's fun but only if we do it sometimes.  We need consistency and routine.  We need to be at home with you and Daddy."
I stared at her in total disbelief before telling her to get her little rat fink Oprah-spouting bottom off to bed. As she huffed off in disgust James echoed her sentiment wailing, "home with you and Daaadddddyyyyyyyy."
"Told you," she said smugly, snapping the door closed on her way out.

We're almost there now.  The second round of surgery was a total success and tomorrow the big man does come home.  The kids are bursting with fizzy fruit-flavoured anticipation.  James is delighted that strong, confident Daddy seems to be returning and, as we had dinner together as a family in the hospital cafeteria tonight both kids remained plastered to him, stroking, cuddling and seeking reassurance.  But the very telling part came right before we left when poor little James turned his sternest voice to Daddy and instructed him thus, "Daddy, you promise, don't do it again your back.  No more hospital."

Please, please, please, no more hospital.

Kicking off harvest season with...homemade blackberry liqueur!

In amongst all of the misery and angst in the TC household at the moment it almost escaped my notice that harvest season has commenced.  We're short on everything but most especially the plum paste we dish up on cheese boards and the plum sauce almost everyone in the family is addicted to.  Good thing I noticed or we'd be paying $5 for a tiny pot of Maggie Beer for our cheeseboards for the next 12 months.  Before I even thought about plums though, I noticed that the blackberries are out and bursting.

Blackberries and I have a love hate relationship.  Once upon a time when I got to pick them just for myself I loved those sweet little flavour bombs.  Then I spent a few seasons picking them with my family because we needed the money - the best for sale in organic grocers and the worst for use in jams.  Blackberries morning noon and night.  Thorns, scratches, snakes galore.  Consequently blackberries are not something I'm hugely wedded to.  But blackberry liqueur?  Bring it.

Much to my chagrin my dad started making this stuff after I'd fled the nest.  In hindsight I should be more pleased about that because it might have made me a raging alcoholic if I'd had greater access to it in my formative years.  Believe me, this stuff is worth killing for.  Dad used to make it for us but he also sold it to some of the finer restaurants in Canberra where it would go with dessert for $10-15 a glass.  A much better use of the cast-offs than jam in my opinion.  I've been raving about this stuff for years and promising to make some for Charles ever since we first met.  But I've never, ever made good mainly because I like to delude myself every season until, aw shucks, the season's over and I don't have to go blackberry picking.  What a shame.

This year, the big man is recovering from surgery in hospital.  And not only is there the issue of my unfulfilled promise, but blackberries are one of his favourite fruits and there are thickets of these things between where we live and the hospital.  I was out of excuses.  So I waited until dusk*, ponied up and went picking the same day that he had his second lot of surgery.  Beat the hell out of sitting around the hospital waiting and I thought it would be nice to have something sweet and light to eat after he came out.  Not to mention the celebratory drinks once he gets home.  What can I say?  That's just the sort of wife I am. ;-)

30 seconds into picking these things I remembered why they are my most hated of all harvests.  First of all, managing brambles is like trying to stuff a defiant octopus into a string bag half its size.  You think you're standing on it, you're not and suddenly you're wearing it.  You are standing on it, but it has smaller off-shoots that are up your jeans leg.  And then there's the business of just how tenacious they can be once their hooks are into you and how they have a tendency to leave the thorn behind in your skin when you manage to rip the bloody thing off.  Finally they have a tendency to spring back up behind you as you wade into the thicket and when you turn to leave you suddenly remember all about Brer Rabbit.  Yup, blackberry brambles are right up there on my list of hates and this time was no exception.  Three days later and I'm still pulling the thorns out of my hands, arms and legs.

The other reason blackberry picking sucks?  Snakes.  My dad used to take a pair of secateurs and a machete on our jaunts.  The machete was not for the blackberries** - that was the last ditch snake defence system.  I don't really own a machete any more but believe me the very next Bunnings gift card I get is committed to getting one.  So I didn't pack the whacker but I did wear my long, baggy jeans (which snakes have trouble piercing but blackberry brambles seem to manage just fine) and really stupid shoes.  I had not thought I would need to go so deeply into the field but naturally that's where the blackberries were at their most abundant and of course I was wearing thin-soled canvas shoes instead of steel-capped Redbacks.  Rookie mistake.

Here's a tip for wading through long grass around blackberry thickets.  Sticks are round and hard.  Snakes are round and hard but kinda squishy too.  They also move when you tread on them.  Which I did only five minutes into the whole caper.  The grass was so thick I couldn't actually get my feet down to dirt and this probably saved me because the wretched thing couldn't rear up through the thick tangle of grass to nail me.  I trod, it moved, I looked down and saw the familiar dry scales through the tangle of grass on a body as thick as my wrist.  I don't even remember feeling fear, I just swore like a trooper and leapt clear.  It didn't deter me - it just made me furious and determined to get my little black sugar bombs.

Anyway, I was only there for about half an hour and I scored enough blackberries for my man and for making liqueur.  Winning!

There are many pages on the interwebs telling you how to make blackberry liqueur by steeping and fermenting the berries in sugar syrup over a matter of weeks followed by straining and blending with your fortifiers.  Here's how to do it the quick, I-want-to-drink-it-tomorrow way;

First of all you will need bottles to put your liqueur into.  Screw top or cork, the choice is yours.  I personally save up the big man's empty muscat bottles (usually a 500ml size) and I use them.  Go for smaller bottles rather than bigger ones and make sure you wash and dry them (I recommend using very hot water and no detergent.  There's also no need to sterilise, it's fire water after all).  Secondly you'll need a suitable cloth to strain your syrup.  I elected to not go with my Clog Wog father's preferred method - a threadbare T-shirt that he's willing to part with.  Instead I used one square metre of plain muslin which costs about $3 a metre from the fabric store.

Finally you need your blackberries and white sugar (and alcohol to fortify your syrup, but more on that shortly).  You can buy these fresh or frozen at the supermarket but I guarantee they will not taste anywhere near as good as wild, fresh-picked.  So pony up, get a machete and some secateurs and go get 'em.  Then pick through your yield and toss anything that's not blackberry. Weigh whatever's left.  In my case I got roughly 1.3 kilos.

Toss it into a saucepan and add roughly the same amount in sugar, to the nearest cup.  One cup of sugar weighs 250g.  So in my case I added five cups of sugar.  Now add approximately half a cup of water for every two cups of sugar you used.  Round down, not up.  So here's what I started with;

1.3 kilos blackberries
5 Cups white sugar
1.5 cups of water

Stir it all together and pop it on the stove to come to the boil.

As the blackberry mix heats up, use a wooden spoon to crush the berries against the side of the saucepan.  In a separate pot heat a couple of litres of water until it boils.  When the water boils, pop the muslin in and boil it for a couple of minutes.  Then switch it off.  Keep stirring your blackberries until they've become quite liquid and then simmer down until the mix becomes thick.

Now it's time to strain your liquid.  Lift the muslin out of the water with some tongs, give it a squeeze to get rid of the excess water, empty the water out of the saucepan and then stretch the cloth across the top (secure the muslin so it doesn't fall into the pot.  Get someone to hold it for you, tie it to the handles, use clothes line pegs around the rim or put a colander over the top of the saucepan and put the muslin in that.  Whatever works peeps.)  Tip the blackberry mix into the muslin. 

I like to tie my muslin into a knot and hang it up over the saucepan for a couple of hours, but not overnight because sometimes the syrup will set into a jelly if it gets cool enough.  Do not be tempted to squeeze the bag to force the syrup out and make it all go faster as you'll get a very cloudy syrup and, consequently, liqueur, if you do.

After a couple of hours your syrup should be slightly warm but not set.  It will have the consistency and colour of the fake blood they used to use on Buffy.  Don't worry it's much tastier.  Go on.  Try it.  There are many ways to use this syrup in its current form.  Over ice-cream, to make a jus for steak... try it and consider setting some aside for other culinary endeavours***.

Anyways, now it's time to blend it.  Here's where you get to play Master Mixer.  I can't remember the way Dad used to make this and neither can he.  We're clear on the fact that you can use either vodka or a combination of vodka and brandy, but neither of us can remember the ratios.  I seem to remember a mix of vodka and brandy in a 1:1 ratio was our preferred blend but when it comes to the alcohol to syrup ratio I have not a clue.  So I bought both and decided to conduct a bit of an experiment.

A word on alcohol selection.  Since the blackberry syrup will be the dominant flavour, it is not necessary to buy top-shelf fortifiers.  But neither do you want to buy the bottle with the label in Russian that you can't read which happens to only cost half what the other vodkas seem to cost.  Battery acid is battery acid and blackberry syrup or no it will burn a hole through your tongue and then your stomach.  Pick something decent, most especially when it comes to the brandy.  And for God's sake use a funnel when filling the bottles.

My original ingredients made enough syrup to fill three 500ml and one 700ml bottle.  My mixes went like this;

1st 500ml Bottle;

250ml vodka

250ml syrup

2nd and 3rd 500ml Bottle;

125ml Vodka

125ml Brandy

250ml Syrup

700ml Bottle;

125ml Vodka

125ml Brandy

450ml Syrup

My verdict when tasting them today is that the 700ml bottle is the unsurprisingly clear winner - no doubt due to the higher syrup ratio.  But honestly?  They are all crazy good.  The pure vodka mix was a little thin for me but probably perfect for cocktails.  The brandy/vodka combination gave a much headier liqueur with a stronger taste and the 700ml bottle with the 2:1 syrup to alcohol ratio was almost a syrup you could pour on ice-cream and eat.  

The flavours may change a little over the first three to four weeks after bottling, but the mix should be pretty stable after that.  I will write an initial follow-up once my big man has had a taste to deliver his verdict and I'll write a second follow-up a few weeks from now to let you know whether they changed much and how.  But that, in a nutshell, is how to make blackberry liqueur. Happy harvesting!

*  Less snakes and preservation of the crazy Celtic skin.

** Blackberry brambles rarely sever when whacked with a machete.  They simply spring down and then slap you back.

*** Chicken breast stuffed with brie and flaked almonds, wrapped in prosciutto and baked with this drizzled over the top before you serve.  Oh my GOD.

Coping by the skin of my teeth

Okay so most people have noticed the absence of new blog posts.  Some of you even wrote to me in Spanish to ask what the hell was going on.  At first I thought you were trying to sell me Viagra or penis enlargement pills but Google translate revealed that no, TC actually has fans that speak Spanish.  I don't know why you're writing to me in Spanish when I clearly speak English, but I loved that you tried and it gave me a good opportunity to try and increase my knowledge of other languages.  I failed in that endeavour, in case you were curious but my buddy Google was there to help me out.  Anyway, I digress.

The reasons for the absence of the blog is two-fold.

1.)  My husband has just had major back surgery; and
2.) the lead up to the back surgery has been ugly and I'm officially wrecked.

Hence the absence of the blog posts.  I cannot write when I'm miserable.  Well, that's not strictly true.  I can write when miserable and it's beautiful writing if I do say so myself.  Vivid, emotive and almost 100% likely to trigger a call to the Mental Health Crisis Team followed by a short stay in a room with no sharp anything.  So, no happy blog posts and not even enough energy to write an explanation for their absence.

The lead-up to the surgery was nothing short of a living nightmare.  Without going into details, let me just say that pain can make people insane and drive them to do and say things they wouldn't normally do and say.  And that even if you know that, the things those people do and say to you can still hurt like a bitch and make you question your worth.  It was surreal - like being in a bad movie made for day time television.

I had, naively as it turns out, thought that I would get a break once the big man was actually in the hospital.  I figured that even if he didn't feel better and drop the Mr Hyde persona, he would be out of the house and my mood would improve and I'd get back into the swing of things.  I did not count on just how much I rely on the presence of that man, angry or otherwise, to sleep.  It's true, I never get as much sleep as I need when he's on business trips but those business trips have never really been for longer than a week and they've never been accompanied by so much stress and worry.  I had no idea how dependent I was until now.

So when he did go into hospital I was quite upset to discover that when I'm alone in the ridiculously phallic bed the best I can get is six hours tops, all of it light and broken.  The back surgery was largely successful, but there's still some more to do so instead of eight nights in hospital, it's now looking like closer to three weeks or more.  And slowly the effects of my insomnia are gathering speed and power.  I am now barely functioning and it's starting to show.  So far this week I have;

*  Forgotten where my children are and what time I'm meant to pick them up on at least three occasions.
*  Forgotten that I was supposed to be visiting my aunt until she called me to ask where I was.
*  Fallen asleep on the dining table at my mother-in-law's this morning when collecting my children.
*  Done the shopping on three separate days and each time completely forgotten all of the essentials that were on my list and, on one occasion, I returned home from the "big shop" to discover that I had enough food to make precisely one dinner.  The rest were ingredients that got me halfway to a couple of tasty dishes, but not enough to achieve any of them even by fudging it with stuff from the pantry and freezer.  Cases in point; pizza bases but nothing to go on them.  Noodles and broccoli for stir fry but nothing else to go in it.  No meat whatsoever.
*  Forgotten what day it is repeatedly, going so far as to dress my small son for daycare and drive him there before I remembered that it was a Saturday.
*  Completely failed to realise that the person introducing themselves to me is actually the sister of a good friend and not just a random.
*  On three days, forgotten to eat until I was at the point where I was feeling like I was going to pass out and my peripheral vision was closing in (about five in the afternoon).
*  Left my poor ancient dog out in the rain on the coldest night so far this Summer without even feeding her dinner.

My poor little babies are already stressed about Daddy not being here.  Having a mother go over the edge is out of the question.  So I spend most of my energy trying to fake it until I can make it again.  When I discovered I had nothing in the way of breakfast for them because I'd spent four days by myself mostly at the hospital, I stayed up baking banana bread which I proceeded to pass off as "breakfast cake".  It has taken me a solid week of preparation but everything I need for Charlotte's first day of school is waiting on the dining room table.  Hat, dress, freshly shined shoes, socks, undies, drink bottle, Foogo, school bag...  I will be the mother they need and deserve if it kills me.

And every night after they go to bed I spend all my time manically cleaning everything so in the morning they will wake to clean clothes to wear, clean dishes to eat off and a house that appears to be functioning, as long as you don't scratch the surface too hard.  Charles has told me that while I feel like my life has all of the stability of a space station on re-entry and that I'm falling apart, this is the most "together" I've ever looked in my life.  House clean, diet under control, exercising, acting like Mary Poppins in the presence of the children, the whole shebang.

But secretly I wonder what the cost of all this is going to be at the end.  I am beginning to feel so thin and stretched that I feel like I'm going to tear into a million tiny pieces or crumble into dust.  I don't know that I will ever have enough sleep to feel whole again.  I don't know that I can cry enough tears to vent all of my anger, frustration and fear.  I don't know how to put myself back together again and I've got no idea what I'll be like if I ever do manage that.  I have begun to feel somewhat detached and separate from my life and the people in it.  It's almost as though everything is happening to someone else and I'm watching it down a telescope.  It feels surreal.  I'm sure it's something my brain has helpfully done in order to help me cope but how does one turn that off and go back to being "normal"?

This is not living.  It's not even really coping.  It's just existing...trying to anchor yourself and be stable in a state of flux as best you can.  I don't really know what you're supposed to do in these situations but for now I'm going with "fake it until you make it".  No matter how weird it feels to keep going through the motions, I plan to keep right on going until I either break or I snap back into focus and life gets back on track.  And a big part of that will be trying to resume writing this blog...for all of you, including my Spanish friends.

Back in the swing of things...

About a year ago my husband and I started swing dancing - an effortlessly graceful style of dancing that looks like it should take a lifetime to learn.  At the end of the six week beginner course, we discovered that actually, it doesn't take much to learn and even the most uncoordinated of individuals (*ahem* CHARLES) can learn how to do it....yes in only six weeks.

Since we started learning I've been dying to get back into it and I managed to talk my brother-in-law Scotty into coming along.  Swing dancing for women is dead easy.  Move your feet to the beat and do what your partner says.  Go where he pushes or pulls you, limit your demonstration of skill to the moments when you're not under his control and JUST DO WHAT HE WANTS YOU TO DO.  It's not a hard concept.  The blokes on the other hand have not only got to come up with the moves, they've got to make sure they give you enough cues that you can follow them.  The fact remains that if you're female and you can disconnect the part of your brain that likes to be fiercely independent you will look effortlessly graceful in the hands of a man who knows what he's doing and best of all, it WILL BE effortless.

This time, having been before, I was able to observe and pay attention to my partners more than I did the first time when I was concentrating on getting the rhythm right.  Here's what I noticed;

1.)  People have lost the art of social grace.  It seems normal to me to introduce yourself to your new partner when you swap and then to thank them when you move on to the next partner.  Most of the guys there stared at me like I was from another planet or as though I'd just asked them if it was all right for me to have their children. Social grace people, that's how it's done.  Polite, friendly, courteous.

2.)  It sounds horribly racist but most Australian men are not comfortable putting their hands on a woman they just met - certainly not on the body and not with anything approaching actual pressure.  Latin, Asian and Middle Eastern men are all for it.  My favourite partner was a beautiful Latin man called Eduardo who was warm and friendly (SOCIAL GRACE PEOPLE) when I switched to him and then he dropped his voice and said, "Let's dance."  Before I knew what was happening his hand was not just in the small of my back but on my opposite hip, and he had me pressed firmly to his side.  It was easy to move in tandem when I was hip-to-hip with the fast-moving Eduardo...it's so much harder when the guy is holding you as lightly as he can and wearing his carefully crafted "please don't sue me for sexual harassment" blank face.  It's dancing, contact is necessary.  I'm here to dance.  So relax.

3.)  No one gives compliments any more.  At least, not to men.  Consequently they have no idea what to do with one.  I danced with one man who was horribly nervous, cripplingly so.  So as we waited for the cue I decided a compliment to boost his confidence was in order* - I told him I could tell he was going to be a great dancer.  He froze and stared at me.
"How can you know that?" he swallowed.
"Because your body is moving to the beat before we even start moving," I said as we started to dance, "Some people find that really hard to do and you're already doing it.  You're going to be really good at this."
And he really was.  Except that he was looking at me like he wanted to propose marriage.  And his wife three partners down was glaring at him and his obvious interest in a woman who wasn't her.

*  For the record I do not believe in giving fake compliments - if you want to pay someone a compliment, make it an honest one.

Everything you need to know about me in an anecdote...

Months ago we went to visit my Dad who lives near Bega, which is famous for cheese.  I love to visit the cheese factory not just for Bega cheese, which is mass produced and available at every supermarket in the country, but for the one-off cheeses they make with excess milk in the Spring that you can only get at the factory, and also for the boutique cheeses they source from smaller cheese factories elsewhere and sell on site.  These cheeses rarely make it back to Canberra - they're almost always on the cheese board at my Dad's house the very night we buy them.

Anyway, sometimes you get lucky and there's something totally obscure and different.  This time it was canned cheese.  Made for the Middle East where it gets really hot and things go sour quickly, canned cheese is Halal and proudly marked as "The Great Australian Cheese", "MADE IN AUSTRALIA" and "Bega - PROCESSED CHEESE".  Yum!

I'll admit I was mildly curious but in all honesty, I harbour a deep belief that cheese should never come in anything metallic be it foil* or, for the love of all that's holy, a CAN.  But it was 50c a can and I have a best friend I like to torture, so I bought two tins of the stuff for her.  Needless to say, it did not make it onto the cheese board.  It did, however, get left on my Dad's bench when we packed up and went home.  I know this not because I was missing the Satanic little hockey pucks of gastronomic doom, but because I got a phone call that started with, "Rebecca** there is CHEESE in a CAN on my bench.  Since I don't buy things like that, I assume it's yours?"

Being Dutch and a true cheese afficionado, he refused to touch the stuff and a month later he placed it on my bench, carefully wrapped in its plastic baggy so it didn't make contact with his skin. "This," he said, raising his eyebrows and dropping his voice to the "Disappointed Daddy" range, "is yours, I believe?"  I assured him it was for Kat and he brightened visibly.

It was only a week later that curiosity got the better of me and late one night I cracked one of the cans just to see what it tasted like. Unsurprisingly, it tasted like awful KRAFT cheddar and not even the addition of plum paste could save it.  The other can went into the fridge where it's been for six months, waiting to be delivered to the unsuspecting Kat von Z with just the right dose of unholy glee.  And then this morning I woke up, realised I had nothing to feed my children on their sandwiches and had to use the wretched stuff.  The little blighters acted like I was trying to feed them nuclear waste byproducts.  James point blank refused to eat it, going so far as to spit the first mouthful out and feed it, along with the rest of the sandwich, to the dog who was under the table, announcing, "I NOT LIKE IT and I NOT EAT IT."

Charlotte chewed it thoughtfully, winced as she swallowed as though it had been salted with crushed glass and informed me that, "it's not really cheese unless it has mould Mama" in her very reasonable "I like that you tried" voice of condescension.   Little epicurean rat fink.

Anyway, the more I thought about this cheese in a can episode, the more I thought that it really does tell you an awful lot about me.

*  Sorry KRAFT, your cheddar = FAIL.
**  My Dad never, ever calls me Rebecca unless I have majorly fucked up.  Usually I'm just Rebow.