Winter - what a great time to indulge in comfort food, using the best cool-weather produce from local growers!  Follow up Alison’s parsnip soup with a classic winter dessert like pecan pie or apple and rhubarb crumble, or just tuck into a freshly-cut navel orange… perhaps with a little dark chocolate on the side?

Apples
Grapefruit
Lemons
Limes
Mandarins
Nashi
Oranges (navel)
Pecans
Persimmons
Passionfruit
Pears
Pomelo
Quince
Rhubarb (ok, we know it’s not a fruit.  perhaps we should call this list ‘things you might like to make dessert from’)

Beetroot
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celeriac
Celery
Fennel
Jerusalem artichokes
Kale
Kohlrabi
Leeks
Olives
Onions
Parsnips
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Silverbeet
Spinach
Swede
Sweet potato
Turnips

by Alison Drover

Winter has arrived and I always feel better when it’s really cold as it’s more of a reason to stay home and cook up a storm.

Parsnips are delicious and very affordable, reminding us that good food is about simplicity - taking time to do something well, using a few special ingredients. Parsnips go well with roasted apples and potatoes, drizzled with olive oil and lemon zest - a meal by itself!

Cooking in season, with unprocessed ingredients, reduces our environmental footprint, and provides the foundation for more energy-intensive ingredients such as cheese.  That way, we can have a little of everything, and appreciate the quality of each ingredient.

I’ve borrowed this recipe from www.fratellifresh.com.au. Also check out this great information on parsnips.

Parsnip soup with walnuts, pear & gorgonzola

Ingredients

500g parsnips, chopped and washed
2 onions, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
300mls water
200mls milk
100g gorgonzola
100g shelled walnuts, roughly chopped
2 pears, quartered and diced
1 bunch continental parsley, chopped
300g butter
salt and pepper
250ml cream

Method

1. Sweat onion and garlic in butter

2. Add parsnips and sweat down.

3. Add the water and cook until the water has evaporated.

4. Add the 250ml of cream and bring to the boil.

5. Blend in a food processor.

6. Put back in pan, add the milk and bring back to the boil.

7. Serve into bowls and top with gorgonzola , pear and walnuts

Krinklewood vineyard is a family-owned, biodynamic vineyard, in which every member of the family contributes to the daily operations of the business. Rod and Suzanne Windrim first planted wine grapes in 1981 in the Hunter Valley. In 1997 they increased the vineyard to 48 acres in the Broke-Fordwich region, where they grow Semillon, Chardonnay, Verdelho and Shiraz, with younger plantings including Viognier, Mourvédre and Tempranillo.

I decided to grow and make biodynamic wine because… I wanted to make the best possible wine from Krinklewood. I was inspired by vineyards in Burgundy that were using biodynamic principles to grow grapes; in France they have a higher disease pressure than in the Hunter, which gave me even more confidence. In 2001 I discovered ‘Wine From the Sky’, a book by Nicholas Joly which sparked me to do a Steiner Agricultural course that same year. From that moment, I was absolutely hooked on Biodynamics, and in 2002 I began operating within the biodynamic cycle and using the biodynamic preparations.

Biodynamic practice is better for the environment, better for the people who live on and work on the property, and can give us better quality wine that truly reflects the terroir of the vineyard. It didn’t really take much convincing…

“Biodynamic practice is better for the environment, better for the people who live on and work on the property, and can give us better quality wine that truly reflects the terroir of the vineyard”

Krinklewood wine is different from the mass-produced wine you might find in a bottle shop because… no chemicals are used in the vineyard to grow the grapes. Biodynamics also allows the wines to express the uniqueness of the vineyard site, known as terroir.

Demand for Krinklewood wine in the current economic climate is… very strong. In the past few years some of our wines have been selling out before the next vintage is available for sale which we feel good and bad about - good that the wines are in demand, bad that we are unable to produce enough.

The most satisfying thing about producing wine is… working biodynamically. It is extremely motivating and addictive. It has allowed us to be almost totally self-sustaining and as a result our farm has healthy soil, plants and animals - which is without doubt reflected in the quality of our wines.  Viticulture is an ongoing learning process, as is winemaking. The more you know the more you want to know!

The biggest frustration in producing wine is… not being in control of the weather!

The best meal I’ve eaten this year was… with a bunch of like-minded winos, hell-bent on having a laugh and enjoying some great wines. We were at Lolli Redini Restaurant in Orange, and I had the roasted Dutton Park duck with Sicilian vegetable caponata, crisped truffle Parmesan polenta and glazed quince. It was fantastic !

My most treasured food/wine memory is… enjoying a roast chicken dish for a Sunday lunch in Chez Blanc in Borg-en- Bresse in France. It was a wonderful restaurant and after reading about their free range chicken for so long, it was great to finally experience it.

“Bresse chickens are treated like fine wine. They have an appellation, a particular place where they come from, and they are a particular breed. Plus, they get to eat real food and walk around the countryside, all regulated by law.”

“Bresse chickens are treated like fine wine. They have an appellation, a particular place where they come from, and they are a particular breed. Plus, they get to eat real food and walk around the countryside, all regulated by law.”

Slow Foodies should check out… Wine from the Sky by Nicholas Joly, and the following websites:

www.krinklewood.com

www.biodynamics.net.au

www.biodynamics2024.com.au

The most important thing about the sustainable food movement is… not only sustainable food that is important, but that food must also be nutritionally enriching, i.e., to be sustainable is not enough if the food is not nutritionally beneficial.

To make food and wine in Sydney better, cleaner and fairer, Slow Food members should… support certified growers at farmers’ markets and genuine certified food and wines. Restaurants could also give better support to certified organic and biodynamic food and wines.

“Support certified growers at farmers’ markets and genuine certified food and wines.”

Last year Sydney Slow Food Members attended to a presentation of the work of SIMS, explaining how the marine biologists and scientists work to identify and eradicate imported alien species, restore overfished species and many other studies.
Thanks to the 19.5m grant, SIMS scientists will now have access to state-of -the-art equipment and facilities at its Chowder Bay site to combat threats to marine ecosystems arising from climate change, urbanisation, changing coastlines and marine microbes. The new funds will be used to set up a unique protected marine aquarium and associated research laboratories, along with pumps, research vessels, mobile radar equipment and sophisticated communications equipment.
To read the full story, click here.

by Alison Drover

I bought some venison osso bucco from Eveleigh Market and had it with some preserved lemons, to give it some bite.  It’s a great autumn dish and keeps well in the fridge over a couple of days - I had it with some left-over green lentils one night and another night with some turnip and potato mashed with oregano.  Terrific!

Osso Bucco

90g Butter

2 medium carrots, chopped finely

2 large brown onions, chopped finely

3 trimmed celery sticks, chopped finely3 trimmed fennel sticks chopped finely

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2kg Venison Osso Bucco

1/3 cup flour, for dusting

2 tblsp olive oil

2×400g chopped tomatoes

½ cup dry red wine

1 ¾ cups beef stock

1 tblsp finely chopped fresh basil

1 tsp finely shopped fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

2.5cm strip lemon rind
Heat a third of the butter in a large saucepan; Cook carrot, onion, celery and half of the garlic until onion is golden brown. Remove from heat; transfer vegetables to a large ovenproof dish.

Coat venison with flour; shake away excess. Heat the remaining butter and oil in same pan. Add venison; brown well on all sides. Carefully pack venison on top of vegetables.

Preheat oven to 180C

Drain fat from pan. Add undrained tomatoes, wine, stock, basil, thyme, bay leaf and strip of lemon rind; bring sauce to the boil

Pour sauce over venison. Cover dish; bake in oven about 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally.

Preserved Lemons

Preserving is a great way of using an abundance of lemons so they do not go to waste

Lemons
Salt, 1 dessert spoon of salt per lemon, plus one for the jar
Freshly squeezed lemon juice - 2-3 if you have them
Juniper berries
Preserving jars

Cut lemons into quarters. Place the lemons, flesh side down, in the jar, sprinkling each quarter with salt as you add it to the jar.

For every lemon use a good dessert spoon of salt, and one for the jar.

When the jar is full, press right down on the lemons to squeeze as much juice out, filling the jar with more slices, again squeezing right down. Cut out a disc of plastic to hold the lemon quarters under the lemon juice. Put a lid on the jar and 6-8 weeks later they will be ready to use.