Kia ora koutou, have a great time over Christmas and New Year. Make your New Year Resolutions – and don’t worry if you can’t keep them exactly. My resolutions are to learn to read music (about time) and to write a crime novel. I have to get my memoir up to scratch by January 31 but I like that sort of job. So happily (or otherwise) occupied. Whenever I use the word otherwise I think of Jane Kenyon and her poem, Otherwise. Look it up.
In the meantime, here’s my recipe for Anzac Biscuits – among all the cream and chocolate of Christmas these are a great down to earth bite. This particular recipe was given to me by Ella McLeod who was in the same ward in Hutt Hospital when I came to from that first breast cancer op 18 years ago. We became friends and she discovered I taught Your Life, Your Story workshops. She wanted to write her memoir for family and frtiends and she did and it’s on my shelf.
I discovered she made absolutely delicious Anzac biscuits. I had never quite got them right and now I never (or hardly ever) have a failure. It’s the splash of boiling water that does it. When I look through the pages of my stained and untidy recipe book there are so many recipes which have been given to me by friends and family members – a few I’ve copied from magazines but in the main this is a record of cooks and bakers who happened to be friends or a family member. Stained, marked, looking just a little bit the worse for wear, filled with names of people I know, or knew, or never knew because they were dead when I was given their recipe, this book is the one I turn to at this time of the year.
Anzac Biscuits (Ella’s recipe)
Set oven to 180C
Prepare trays
Recipe
115 grams butter melted with 2T Golden Syrup
Add
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup coconut
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
½ teaspoon Baking Soda
When mixed add a splash of boiling water to make the mixture tacky.
Put teaspoonfuls on tray. Groove with fork if you like. Bake around 25-30 minutes until nicely browned. Put on rack until cool then store in airtight container.
Occasionally I add a cup of raisins to the mix which makes a slightly more chewier texture.
Have a great Christmas time and whether you’re in the company of friends and/or whanau, or sitting alone in a room or garden, may 2017 bring you everything your heart desires. Or maybe three-quarters of it?
Ma te wa,
Renée
