Some of my baked goods

Today, it’s raining outside, there is thunder, there is lightning, but inside it is warm, the oven is on and I am baking!  The smells and scents coming from my kitchen are very inviting and they really are making me hungry.  Gee, I picked a good day for it.

Thank you cookbooks!

I’ve had my cookbooks out this week working out what new recipes I wanted to try.  I can’t help myself as I love trying new recipes but I also love my tried and true recipes as they are the ones which get passed down and across to family and friends.  I just love recipes…  So with the shopping done and the ingredients all over the counter I got stuck in  and  as I was preparing for all my baked delights it got me thinking about my Mum.  She loves cooking and recipes too so that must be where I get it from.

A quote by Elsa Schiaparelli describes my mum to a ‘T’.

“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.”

I think all of us who love cooking and sharing feel like we are dispensing happiness to those around us with our food.  If our friends and family are happy, smiling and enjoying our wares then we are happy too.

So as I said, I was thinking about food and Mum and how I learned to cook.  I have read many stories and memoirs about cooks, chefs and food lovers who remember being in the kitchen with their mothers, standing on a box and mixing cakes or cookie batter.  My memories are so different to this.  Mum was the queen of the kitchen in our household and she loved it.  She would cook meals to suit everyone’s tastes, she loved the smiles and the full bellies when we were all finished.  This was what life was all about for her.

But we didn’t help her in the kitchen much when we were young.  She would make the cake or cookie batter and we would lick the beaters, the bowl and the spoon, we would steal bits of the raw cookie dough and couldn’t wait until those fresh baked goods came out of the oven.  And we were never disappointed.

Mum and I, Cooking and sharing the love

We did help out with little tasks usually around the holidays like breaking up bread for the stuffing at Thanksgiving or Christmas, we topped and tailed the green beans, shucked the corn or podded the peas.  It wasn’t until we were teenagers that we really started getting involved in the cooking and the food.  We sat around the kitchen table chopping, cutting and grating but better still we got to cook real food at school.  I loved Home Economics and loved bringing home my homemade creations.  I believe this is when Mum realised that some of her children really could cook and bake and really loved food like she did.

As we got older Mum went off to work and left us recipes and instructions on what to cook for dinner.  I was so proud of myself and loved that Mum gave me and my sister the responsibility and let us loose in her kitchen.  I learned a lot over the years from my Mum without even realising it.  We have shared many recipes, hints, tips and ideas.  Even now we ring each other to ask how we should do something, if we can use this instead of that or I’ve lost that recipe for…….

So I digressed.  Back to my backing day!  I made biscuits, muffins and scones so we now have goodies to get us through the next week and some for the freezer for days down the road.  Wayne loves it when I cook as he knows he will be able to enjoy lots of goodies in his lunch box.

Baking ready for the freezer

Just in case you want to try the biscuits or scones I made you can find the recipe here:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/23526/orange+and+almond+anzac+biscuits

http://www.foodtolove.com.au/recipes/blueberry-ginger-scones-with-custard-cream-19685