This weekend and a recipe for soup and milk rolls

This Easter, I’d really like to go on picnics, rest and hang out on the farm with Tim and the kids. Instead we are launching our Mandagery Creek Venison Farm Kitchen (whoowhoo) with a lunch on Sunday so most of it will be spent getting ready for that. Tim is away in Sydney for the Pyrmont Growers Market tomorrow and just to spice things up, the kids are sick. Tom is particularly miserable. All he wants is to sit and be cuddled which is lovely, but tricky when there’s so much to do. 


To cheer him up, I made these milk rolls with carrot, ginger and honey soup for our dinner tonight. It’s not the traditional Good Friday fish supper I know, but comforting, easy to eat and yummy. Most of the soup came from my vegetable box provided earlier in the week by Katie from the Nasdhale Fruit Company. And while the rolls may look like lots of work, really they’re not, and kids love playing with the dough and rolling it up into little balls. Of course, after making this particular supper just so Tom might eat something, he didn’t, not one mouthful. Alice and I did though, she had her rolls with butter and I spread Jannei Goat’s Curd on mine. It was good, comforting and mood lifting. Which is I suppose, the most you can hope from your food. Happy Easter everybody.


Carrot,  ginger and honey soup
2 tbsp olive oil
150g onion, sliced
20g root ginger, peeled
300g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
300g pumpkin, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp honey
juice of one lemon
900ml boiling water
40g butter


Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the onions and cook gently until soft and translucent. Add the carrot, pumpkin and ginger and cook for a couple more minutes. Now pour in the boiling water, add the honey and lemon juice and cook on a low heat for about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and puree in a food processor until nice and smooth. Throw in the butter and whizz again. 


Milk rolls
500g plain flour 
3 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
400ml milk
20g butter


For egg wash
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp poppy seeds


Combine the flour with yeast, salt and sugar. Heat the milk and stir though the butter until it melts. Add the wet ingredients to dry and bring together until you have a wet dough. Knead using the dough hook of an electric mixer or by hand if you don’t mind a bit of mess. Knead until you have a smooth dough. 


Leave the dough to rest in a large, oiled bowl (covered with a damp tea towel) for about an hour or until doubled in size. Now’s when you can get the kids really involved. Have them pull small pieces of dough off the whole and roll into nuggets about the size of a golf ball. Place these about 2cm apart on a baking tray. Cover these and leave for another half an hour. 


Preheat the oven to 200c. Beat together the egg and milk and grab yourself a pastry brush. Brush the rolls gently with this wash and sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until golden. Serve while still warm. This recipe was inspired by one by Nigella Lawson in her beautiful book Feast.