By Tania Phillips
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – well not quite yet but according to author Kim McCosker now is the time to start preparing so that by the time 25 December comes around there is time to actually enjoy the day.
Stanthorpe-born Kim has made her name helping people prepare good, tasty food without a lot of cost, time or ingredients with her series of Four Ingredient Cookbooks.
And no time is more expensive or prone to being overwhelming than Christmas but according to Kim it really doesn’t have to be, if you plan ahead and do some of the shopping and even cooking early.
One food, synonymous with Christmas, which has traditionally been prepared and cooked early is the good old Christmas cakes and puddings.
“I have clear memories of my nana – she’d start in November, and she would everything but the kitchen sink in it and then it would be ready halfway through December,” Kim reminisced.
“She’d bring it out every night, the little cap full of sherry over the top of it. She’d have her rosary beads nearby blessing it. I just thought, I’m never ever ever going to make one of those, way too complicated, way too difficult.
“And then about 15 years ago when I started writing the Four Ingredients Cookbook someone gave me a recipe for a fruit cake that emulates Nana’s Christmas cake with just three ingredients. It’s unbelievable, it’s so, so good.
“Often, I will have this in my freezer all year round to be honest. When my aunts and uncles come to visit, when my mum and dad come over – you know that generation just love fruit cake and funnily enough my 14-year-old really loves it too. He’ll often just cut off a piece and take it to school in his lunchbox.
“The wonderful thing a fruit cake is that it freezes and defrosts beautifully so it’s the gift that keeps on giving – it’s not like a sponge cake that is a) tricky to make, b) you’ve got to have room temperature eggs preferably not a wet damp day to get the perfect sponge. The fruit cake, you can kick it around, put it in the oven, freeze it defrost it and it’s still fantastic.”
Kim’s Fruit cake takes a kilo packet of mixed dried fruit, three cups tea and three cups of self-raising flour.
“It can be any tea you want – I have a diabetic brother so I’m always looking out and there is enough sugar in the mixed dried fruit as well. You could really make it with three cups of water, all you need is liquid to reconstitute the dried fruit and it releases all that natural sweetener,” she explained.
“So that’s tip number one – soak it overnight, tip number two is once you’ve added three cups of self-raising flour, bake it low and slow. So, a good moist, rich, delicious rich fruit cake I bake at 125 degrees for two and a half hours and honestly that everyone asks you for the recipe of and then you’ve got to kind of make it sound a bit more complicated than what it is.
“But that’s the gift of four ingredients especially leading into Christmas when we tend to spend more than we have, incur greater credit card debt then we want to – keeping your menu simple – still creating a champagne finish on a beer budget. It’s possible with some clever ingredients and some clever recipes.”
So, what are Kim’s other tips for November?
“Well, your Christmas cakes and puddings can be made ahead of time in November and frozen no problem whatsoever,” she said.
“Early December I’m looking for a beautiful double-triple smoked ham at around $6.99 a kilo. The longer you leave it to Christmas it’s going to head towards $20 so I’d be looking at what ham you want. Me personally I never buy anything that isn’t double, or triple smoked for the beautiful flavour. I would look for my ham early, I would always buy a little tin of cloves early as well, I left it to Christmas eve one year and there was not a clove to be had anywhere. If you can prepare in advance, know what you’re going to serve in advance on the day, you can do quite a bit of earlier. So that if you are the hostess, like I am every year, you need to prepare so you can participate I the day and you’re not just running around like a crazy woman or man.”
Tips
Prepare ahead of time.
Keep it seasonal – watermelons bought at Christmas is at its best because that is our season.
Are you making your pavlova or buying it? If you are buying it, add something to the cream to jazz it up deflect the fact that it’s a store-bought pavlova and create the wow with the cream and the way you dress it – maybe go tropical with some mango, passionfruit, banana and garnish with some pineapple leaves.
I don’t make everything from scratch but if I use something that is store bought you can bet your bottom dollar people don’t know because I go above and beyond with the way I present or garnish it so it still looks very much homemade.
Put your Stanthorpe tomatoes with some buffalo mozzarella and some basil and a drizzle of olive oil. The Caprese salad has been around for ever and a day but its another thing we have the wonderful Italians from the Stanthorpe area. It’s the perfect colour combination on Christmas – red, white and green.
