This recipe came from one of my local library forays. I modified a recipe from Carole Walters book - Great Cookies.  In a moment of desperation with hardly anything in the cupboard I was looking for a cookie recipe that used the ingredients that I had on hand. In the winter I find myself prone to hibernating and not wanting to take trips to the supermarket unless I have to. Staying in my slippers and turning on the heater and hardly wanting to poke my nose outside the door. But we all do that, don’t we?

I think I see it as a kind of challenge, looking in the cupboards and seeing what I can come up with without buying anything. I often think of women who had to cook in the depression at times like this, and I imagine them with only the absolute basics and still having to come up with something to feed their families. I have a number of depression years cookbooks including a very special one that I was sent recently by a friend. I’m going to be cooking and sharing some of the recipes from it with you all soon. There are all sorts of exciting chapters like “Father carves the fowl” and “Coffee at the bridge table”, it’s a real treat! Sorry I seem to have wandered away from my topic - but I just had to share that with you.

I really only had the most basic of ingredients and no white sugar. So brown sugar cookies with a handful of walnuts seemed like the obvious choice. That was pretty much all I could make with the selection in the pantry. I also had no eggs, so the ones you see pictured here are made with egg replacer. These are a nice little bite with a hot cuppa, and Isaac seemed to enjoy them tucked into his lunch box. Walnuts are more prolific here than pecans, but if you prefer you could add pecans to these. You can chocolate dip them as I have (I did this the following day with half the batch when I was forced to go outside and take a trip to the supermarket) or just roll the edges in some chopped nuts or demerara sugar.

I gave some of the cookie dough to my mother to bake when she was ready. Cookie dough can make a nice little “I’m thinking about you” gift for someone and lets face it, there is nothing quite like cookies fresh and warm right from the oven. Just bundle up the dough with the cooking instructions written down and you have an instant and tasty gift.

Brown Sugar Cookies with Walnuts

• 3 1/4 cups of flour
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1 cup of walnuts finely chopped
• 200g/8oz butter (softened)
• 2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tspns vanilla extract

For decorating: (optional)

• 1 egg lightly beaten with a tbspn of water
• 1/2 cup of coarsely chopped nuts
• 200g chocolate for dipping

Blend butter and brown sugar together until light in colour, then add in eggs one at a time, finally adding in the vanilla extract stirring until combined. I use vanilla paste - if you can get this, it’s fantastic, look at all those little seeds in that glorious amber syrup.

Sift in your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda) and add in the finely chopped walnuts. Mix until well combined.

Shape into three 20cm/8 inch logs roughly 4cm /1 1/2 inches in diameter, wrap in plastic and chill until firm. This dough will keep in the fridge for up to three days or 1 month in the freezer.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Using a sharp knife slice the logs into cookies roughly 1/8th of an inch/1cm thick. Obviously you can make these slightly thicker or thinner depending on your personal taste, but cook time will need to be adjusted.

Decorate with nuts before baking, using the egg wash to help the nuts adhere to the cookie. If you wish to chocolate dip them you will need to do this once the cookie is cooked and cooled.

Bake for 7-8 minutes or until golden brown. These cookies may be frozen.

Apples - lovely sweet windfalls and small tart apples from trees that grace backyards and are rarely pruned, mostly forgotten until their fruit drops to the ground. Boxes and crates of rosy eating apples, piled in mountains at the farmers market on saturdays. It’s the perfect time to be buying and eating apples, now when they are at their crisp and juicy best. I never tire of eating apples in all their shapes and sizes.

I’ve had a couple of large boxes of apples given to me so I’ve been keeping my eyes open for things that use apples. Apples pair well with so many things, cinnamon, brown sugar, quince, pears, ginger, blackberries and plums.

I took a stack of cook books out of the library and was thumbing through the copy of Every Day by Bill Granger when I saw this loaf. It looked like just the thing to make over an autumn weekend. I had to adapt it somewhat for the ingredients I had on hand, but I was more than happy with the result. He suggests it toasted, and I can see how this would toast well. Today we had it still slightly warm from the oven as part of a lunch to meet Ryan’s gorgeous new girlfriend.

A simple loaf to make with homey flavours of cinnamon and honey as a background to the fruit, there is oatmeal in the loaf - which honestly you would never know was there, except that it adds a moistness to it. I love oatmeal in baked goods. This is fast to make and smells amazing when it cooks.

Walnut, Cherry & Apple Quickbread

• 1/2 cup of rolled oats
• 300 mls/10 1/2 fl oz milk
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1/4 cup of dried or glace cherries chopped
• 1 large apple peeled and finely diced
• 1/2 cup of sultanas
• 1/3 cup of soft brown sugar (plus extra for the top)
• 1 tspn cinnamon (plus extra for the top)
• 3 Tbspns honey
• 1 egg
• 3 Tblspns of roughly chopped walnuts plus extra 2 Tblspns for the top.

Place the oats in a bowl with the milk, leave to soak while you prepare the other ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and line a 1 kg (2 lbs) loaf tin with baking paper

Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl and whisk together to mix.

Add into the bowl with the oats - the cherries, walnuts, honey, brown sugar, apple, sultanas and egg whisk together to mix well and then add to the dry ingredients.

Stir together well to form quite a wet mix and pour into the loaf tin.

Sprinkle the remaining walnuts over the top and a little brown sugar and cinnamon.

Bake the loaf for 45-50 minutes until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin before removing carefully to finish cooling on a wire rack.

This loaf can be toasted and served with ricotta or yoghurt and honey, or sliced and spread with butter.

When you slice into the loaf you are greeted with the warm scent of cinnamon, the top of the loaf is slightly crunchy and caramelised.

Although it’s autumn here I can imagine this loaf being tucked into a basket for a picnic, it would transport well I think.

While those of you in the northern hemisphere are watching blossoms on trees and daffodils poke their heads out of the ground, here in the southern hemisphere the earth is entering it’s sleep.

Leaves are falling from trees

Flowers changing from vibrant shades to greens and browns.

The view out my window in the morning shrouded in mist.

Kererū coming close to the house, close enough to touch - they’re looking for the berries on the native trees close to our house.

Slippers, knitting, pinecones, hot chocolate, fruit toast, vanilla oatmeal, rustling leaves and frosty mornings - I love this time of year. There are so many people that love summer, the colder seasons - autumn and winter are the ones I wait for.

Time to knit, time to bake and fill the house with delicious kitchen scents.