June's Chicken Soup

4 chicken thigh fillets
1 large onion chopped
1 grated carrot
2 sticks celery chopped
4 cups water
1 packet continental chicken noodle soup

Combine all ingredients in saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes. Add pkt soup mix to flavour.

June's Peanut Biscuits

June’s Peanut Biscuits

125g butter
1cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 cup SR Flour
1 cup unsalted peanuts

1. Melt butter, beat in sugar and a well beaten egg.
2. Add flour gradually.
3. Add peanuts.
4. Place heaped teaspoons of mixture onto a greased biscuit tray. Press lightly with a fork to make a pattern.
5. Bake in moderate oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown


We rode pushbikes to school in Maryborough (1974-1982). My friends used to love coming home with me in the afternoon after school because mum always had home cooked biscuits in the pantry. These were my favourites.
Paula

June's Christmas Cake (Boiled Fruitcake)

Mum’s Boiled Fruit Cake

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius

Lining the cake tin: Line bottom and side of round cake tin with alfoil. Repeat with a layer of greased brown paper. Repeat again with baking paper. This is to avoid uneven darkening & burning of cake during cooking process.

1 pkt mixed fruit
½ cup sultanas extra
¼ cup rum (for soaking fruit)
½ cup rum
1tsp parisienne essence
1 tsp allspice
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
130g butter
2 tbs golden syrup
¾ tsp bicarbonate of Soda
1cup SR Flour
1cup Plain Flour
2 eggs

1. Soak fruit overnight in approx ¼ cup rum.
2. In a saucepan, bring to the boil mixed fruit, sugar, butter, water, syrup, parisienne essence and spice.
3. Take off heat after 3 minutes of boiling. Add rum and bicarbonate soda. Let sit until cool.
4. In a separate bowl, beat 2 eggs. Add to the fruit mixture and fold.
5. Add sifted flour to mixture and fold until smooth. Let mixture sit to allow air bubble to rise to the surface.
6. Pour cake mixture into lined cake tin. Slice with a knife as if cutting a cooked cake (to allow extra air bubble to escape). Bang tin on bench 6 times to finally allow air bubbles to burst.
7. Bake in moderate oven (160 degrees) for 1 – 1¼ hours. Check with wooden skewer after 1 hour.

Allow cake to cool. Ice with passionfruit icing (below). Decorate with fork squiggles.

Passionfruit Icing

1½ cups Icing sugar
Teaspoon butter
Passionfruit juice
Milk

Combine all ingredients to a smooth spreading consistency.

June's Rum Balls

MUM'S RUM BALLS

1 Pkt Arnott’s Milk Arrowroot Biscuits
1 tin condensed milk
3/4 cup mixed fruit
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup rum
2 Dessertspoons cocoa


Method:

1. Crush biscuits in food processor until fine
2. Add coconut & cocoa to biscuits and mix
3. In a separate bowl combine condensed milk, rum and mixed fruit
4. Add condensed milk mixture to dry ingredients and mix. Refrigerate for about 1 hour. Roll into balls and coat with extra coconut.

THE SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL RUM BALLS (TASTY!!!)

Soak the fruit in about ¼ cup rum for a week or more before making the rumballs…the rum flavour soaks into the fruit, making them more tasty.

THE HISTORY OF THE RUM BALLS

This recipe was given to mum by Mabs Betts…Mabs and Billy Betts owned the butcher shop at Boonah. Mabs and Billy had a real ‘soft spot’ for Glen…they used to make him treats and they called him ‘little Bill’. Mum has made rum balls every Christmas since I can remember. When we lived in Maryborough at the Shamrock Hotel, she used to store them in big glass Nescafe coffee bottles and hide them in the back of the Cold room. Mum was a ‘wake up’ to Wayne McGrath and Glen who used to find the bottle and sneakily eat them on their shifts…little did they know, the real bottle of rumballs was hidden in Cold room number 2 in her special hiding place!!!