Two simple recipes

I didn't watch the news last night but Hanno told me there are over 160 lives lost in the fires now. Of course, there are many animals dead too, heavy stock losses and wild life carers are either nursing burnt or injured animals back to health or are euthanasing them. And the houses! An entire town lost with almost every home burnt to the ground, and many homes in other towns burnt, leaving only chimney stacks behind as silent reminders of what used to be. It is the worst tragedy we have ever had here. Our government is giving money to each family affected and paying for the funerals. Thanks for your prayers and kind thoughts. Australia is a sad place today.

I have two simple recipes for you today. It's food we've eaten in the past few days, easy to make and very tasty. They're both old-fashioned recipes and as my heritage is Irish, they come from the old country. If you're teaching yourself to bake from scratch, this cake is a good one to try. It's mixed by hand and apart from cutting up the dates, is merely a matter of adding and mixing.

DATE AND WALNUT LOAF - you can use any nuts you have on hand
The cake makes two small loaves or one large one.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups chopped dates
1 ½ cups walnuts
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarb (this is the rising agent for this cake)
3 tablespoons soft butter (vegans use the same amount of olive oil)
1 ¼ cups boiling water - add more if needed
2 ½ cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 beaten egg (vegans use ½ mashed banana)

Method
Boil some water.
Add the dates, nuts, sugar, bicarb and butter to a mixing bowl and mix together. Add the boiling water and mix again.
Add the egg, half the flour and mix, add the remaining flour and mix it in. If the mix is dry, add a little more water, enough to make a loose, but not runny, batter.
You do not have to beat this cake mixture. It's not a light cake and doesn't require the incorporation of air.
Add to a loaf tin (or two) and bake in a slowish oven (170C / 340 F) until cooked - about 40 minutes.

To check if the cake is cooked, poke a toothpick into the middle of the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean, it's cooked, if it comes out sticky and with moist cake mix on it, (see photo below) cook for another ten minutes.

If, when you do that, you're worried the top of the cake will burn, cover the top with a piece of alfoil.

When I cook this cake I always make a large one and cut it in two. We are enjoying the cake this week and I have another one in the freezer for later in the month.

It's a very good cake for packing into lunch boxes, but if it's to go in a school lunch box, you might have to leave out the nuts. I believe nuts are banned in some schools now.

My other recipe is colcannon.

Ingredients are mashed potato, cabbage and green onions or chives.

Method
Cook your potatoes as you normally do. About ten minutes before the potatoes finish cooking, cook a portion of finely sliced cabbage. You will need about one third cabbage to two thirds potato. I use a steamer on top of the potatoes to cook the cabbage. This saves money as I'm using the same heat that's cooking the potatoes to cook the cabbage as well. I use this method when I cook all our vegetables. The hard vegetables, like potatoes or pumpkin, go in the saucepan and the soft vegetables, beans, carrots, peas, zucchini, are cooked in the steamer on top.

Make up your mashed potato as you normally do, then add the cooked cabbage and green onions. Don't forget to season it with salt and pepper to your taste. This is delicious with any meat, chicken or fish meal and uses three vegetables in one dish.