Guava paste

I love quince paste. Love it. Make it every year. Hunted all over town and stood in front of my stove for 8 hours while 39 weeks pregnant and in the grip of some bizarre hormonal quince madness making the damn stuff. You know what? I’d give it all away for guava paste. This sweet, crazy goodness came in a satisfactorily large tin from Casa Iberica in Fitzroy. Oh and it brought friends – a truly gorgeous hard goats cheese that completely lacked that sometimes confronting goatiness, some lovely ham and (bliss!) chorizo. Wrap it small goods, smear it on bread, cuddle it up with cheese, feed slabs of it to your kids. Think of it constantly and try to resist its sweet, sweet siren song. Dare you.

Prawns stuffed with pork

The tastiest wee creatures of the sea stuffed with the tastiest wee creatures of the land.These delights were stuffed with a very simple paste of pork mince, coriander, black pepper and fish sauce, dredged in a mixture of rice flour and plain flour,dipped in egg and deep fried. Smear them in a commercial sweet chili sauce – good, good,good. I served these up with a zinging and blisteringly chili-hot green mango salad and an incredibly simple sweet and sour pineapple curry. One of the best all round spreads I’ve plated up in a while -we sweated and giggled for a solid half hour.

Campari and orange

My drink of the season. Not much to say- it’s the taste of summer. The Campari is dusty and bitter and strange and the orange is refreshing and easy and it won’t get you too tanked. My husband doesn’t like it. I try not to be judgemental about this.

Sage and onion stuffing, Christmas cake and flaming puddings

As my northern English grandparents start to age and I evidently start to mature (!!), certain secrets are being passed down. I witnessed the making of the Christmas cakes and now know the sage and onion stuffing that for me is the only thing worth putting up a turkey’s bum. Grandad’s piece de resistance is always the Christmas pudding, however. It is dense with fruit but somehow maintains that spongey soft steamed pudding texture. Drenched with brandy and ceremoniously set on fire before being bathed in custard and hard lumps of mum’s brandy butter, I’ve never had better.

Tim and Jane’s leftovers

My brother and his family arrived at our folks house from Singapore on boxing day and stayed a week – great to see them.  They are GOOD at food. I rocked up at mum and dad’s on new years eve, hungry and with a lot of  cooking to do. And,  joy, they had heaps of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. All very middle eastern – lovely strips of polenta crumbed calamari, tartare sauce made with yoghurt and tahini instead of mayonnaise (therefore kind of healthy and easy to eat lots of) and a yummy salad. There is little more delightful than a fridge full oflittle bowls of fantastic leftovers that need to be eaten.

I haven’t even got to the balinese seafood satays, the lentil salad or the five spice roast chicken but I’m spent and the guava paste is calling…

Chinese New Year soon – better get my skates on!

I find this a joy to make (vegetarians read no further). It’s very physical to prepare, rubbing the stuffing mix into the flesh, trussing the wee beastie up and rubbing salt into the skin. You need to blast the roast in a hot oven to get really crispy crackling, so you get to listen to that glorious bubbling and splattering for a while which always reminds me of the sound of suet in the pan that accompanied my grandparents’ roast dinners.  Then you drop the temperature back to moderate for a few hours – so you get a whole afternoon or morning of porchetta aromas in the kitchen. You need to have no fear-you will not overcook it. The meat is best left to cool to room temperature or eaten out of the fridge the following day. This way the meat and stuffing mix sort of settle in together and get real friendly with each other.  This is a test of endurance. Pete and I always lurk with intent around the meat and it’s a relief when its wrapped in the fridge and safely out of temptation’s way.

Porchetta

• Pork loin,boned, fat and skin still on (this recipe will do fora 1 -2 kg piece of meat)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• Generous amount freshly ground black pepper
• Sea salt
• Olive oil
• Cooking string

Heat oven to around 220 degrees Celsius. Score the skin of your pork. This can be a tricky job but try and get the score lines as close together as you can as once the skin gets really crispy the meat will be hard to carve except along the score lines. Mix the garlic,rosemary, sage and fennel seeds with a small amount of olive oil to make a paste. Open out your loin and lay it skin side down. Grind a VERY generous amount of black pepper on the meat and then rub the herb and garlic mix all over the meat. Take a short end of the loin and roll it up tight like a jam roly poly. Tie it securely with cooking twine so that it makes a tight roll.Rub some oil into the skin and then a good whack of salt, making sure you get salt into the grooves of the score lines.

Place the meat in a roasting pan and cook in hot oven for 20 mins to half an hour to get the skin going. Take the temperature down to 160 degrees Celsius and cook for a further 3 hours. Baste occasionally with pan juices. Remove loin and let sit for at least half an hour before serving. Can most happily be made a day ahead and served cold.

I got the idea of cooking with rose geranium while working for a friend who ran a business making exquisite ice-creams and sorbets. It really is gorgeous, like turkish delight without the sugar. This is an absurdly simple dish and the only difficulty lies in finding some rose geranium. You can’t buy it from a regular grocer so I have some of my own growing happily on my deck. Make sure the peaches are almost ripe and poach them until just tender. This ensures the best chance of the skin staying in good condition. The skin isn’t good to eat but I like to keep it on for presentation because they blush the colour of sunset when cooked and look very beautiful served with a dollop of the pink syrup in a white bowl. I like white peaches more to eat but the ordinary yellow peaches look prettier.

Rose geranium peaches

• Firm, almost ripe white or yellow peaches, skin in good condition (1 per person)
• Quantity of light sugar syrup (1 part sugar to 2 parts water) – enough to cover your peaches.
• 1 large or 2 small sprigs of rose geranium leaves or flowers, washed

To make your sugar syrup stir together the sugar and cold water in a heavy based pan until the sugar is dissolved. Bring it to the boil and then drop it back to a gentle simmer.  Add the rose geranium leaves and simmer very gently for 5 – 10 minutes. Do not boil the syrup too hard or the rose geranium will turn a bit bitter. Gently add your peaches and simmer gently, covered, until peaches are just tender. You can stir them once or twice but be careful not to break the skin. When tender, remove the peaches from the syrup and allow the peaches and syrup to cool separately. Remove the rose geranium from the syrup and gently return the peaches to the cooled syrup. The peaches will keep quite well in a sealed, sterilised jar.