Sweet as a nut
This year’s nut harvest is ready to eat. Nicola Galloway has some cracking ways to include them in baking.
Although most tree nuts are gathered in autumn, they need time to dry and cure. So early winter is a good time to get cracking. We have a walnut, almond and two hazelnut trees on our suburban property. The trees are now six years old and each year the nut harvest doubles.
This year we gathered a small box full, but, if that continues on the same trajectory, in a few years we’ll be quite flush in nuts. The almonds in particular are a true labour of love as they need a strong cracker to open the shells and the resulting nut quantity is always a little disheartening after the effort.
After a recent nut-cracking session I had just enough almonds to make a small batch of almond butter: 1 cup of almonds was lightly roasted at 150C for 15 minutes until golden. Once they cooled to being warm, the nuts were blended in a food processor with a pinch of salt until smooth. A few drop of olive oil helps with the momentum if needed.
Parsnip & carrot cake with walnuts & ginger
Carrot is a well known addition to cake but parsnip also works well due to its mellow sweetness. In this cake, I combine parsnip and carrot with crunchy walnuts and warming ginger.
Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 35 minutes Serves 12
cup (185ml) olive oil cup (65g) brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup or honey
3 eggs
1 cup grated parsnip (120g), packed 1 cup grated carrot (120g), packed 1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
root
1 cup (150g) standard white flour
cup (50g) wholemeal flour or more white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground ginger
cup (50g) chopped walnuts
Spiced cream cheese icing 250g cream cheese (or use the
thick creamed part of a can of coconut cream to make the icing dairy-free)
2 tbsp maple syrup or honey
1⁄2 tsp ground ginger Chopped walnuts, to decorate
Preheat oven to 170C. Line and grease a 20cm round cake tin.
In a mixing bowl, combine the oil, sugar, syrup and eggs and whisk until smooth. Mix in the grated parsnip, carrot and ginger.
In a separate bowl combine the flours, baking powder, spices and walnuts. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mix and fold together until just combined.
Scoop into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out cake on a cooling rack.
Make the icing: Use a spoon to beat together the cream cheese, maple syrup and ground ginger until smooth.
Use a butter knife to neatly spread onto the cooled cake. Decorate with walnuts and serve. Store in a cake tin and consume within 3 days.
Sweet little nut butter cookies
Any nut butter can be used in this recipe, or use sunflower seed butter to make them nut-free.
Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 12 minutes Makes 12
1⁄2 cup (100g) almond butter or
peanut butter
4 tbsp maple syrup or honey 1 small egg
3⁄4 cup (120g) standard flour
(or gluten-free flour)
1⁄2 tsp baking powder
50g dark chocolate, chopped Generous pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Place the nut butter, sweetener and egg in a bowl and mix well to combine. Add the remaining ingredients and mix into a stiff dough. Roll into 12 walnut-sized balls and arrange evenly on the tray. Press the balls down gently with fingers to shape (the cookies won’t spread much). Bake for 12 minutes until lightly golden, then cool on a rack. Store in a cookie tin and consume within 4 days.
Nicola Galloway is an awardwinning food writer, cookbook author and culinary tutor. homegrown-kitchen.co.nz
Make your bird-friendly garden count
Landcare Research is running its annual Garden Bird Survey from today until July 5. To participate, you just need to spend 60 minutes in your garden, local park or reserve, recording the birds you see. Count the native and nonnative bird species and record the highest number of each species seen at any one time. To take part go to landcareresearch.co.nz. There are numerous resources including helpful pictures of the birds you are most likely to see and printable tally sheets. Once you have done the count, you submit your results online and the surveys are analysed by Manaaki Whenua scientists.
This nationwide citizen science project monitors changes in the population and distribution of garden birds. Year on year, the data collected has revealed interesting and important trends in bird species’ abundance, but the more people who take part, the clearer and more detailed the national picture becomes. The hope this year is to see participation increase – partially because the recent lockdown seems to be driving a surge of interest in birds.
There’s a lot to love about frosts
A frost can wipe out pests and diseases and help break up heavy soil. Deciduous fruit trees like a winter chill, and a cold snap turns the starches to sugar in crops such as parsnips and swedes.
But not every plant in your garden likes a frost and it will damage the likes of citrus and tamarillos. Keep the frost cloth handy for them; but, if you forget and they get frosted, don’t cut off any frost-damaged stems or foliage. Doing so will encourage a rush of soft new growth which will suffer the next cold night.
Frames should be big enough to hold frost cloth above foliage without touching it so a layer of air acts as insulation. For young citrus trees it’s worth building a frame to cover the whole tree if you are in a frost pocket.
If it rains, stay out of your garden
Great soil is described as friable, or nice and crumbly if you rub it between your fingers. Friable soil contains air (enough to allow water to pass through but not so much that organic matter is washed away). But walking on, or digging over, wet soil squeezes the air out and causes soil compaction that can take years to recover from. If you need to walk across your vege beds in order to harvest, lay down planks to walk along, to minimise the potential compaction.
In the flower beds, strategically placed stepping stones are easier to manage than long boards and they can be easily moved if your planting layout changes. Individual pavers are available from hardware outlets or make your own from recycled materials such as bricks or slices of tree trunks.
– compiled by Barbara Smith