Instead in a time of social distancing and isolation, it will be people standing in their driveways at the crack of dawn starting dawn service at 4.30 am or a more reasonable start time of 6 am playing the last post, candles lit in hand, baking and sharing of Anzac biscuits and making poppies. ( I was up at my normal wake up time of between 5 am and 6 am each morning this morning). At this time we observe a minutes silence.
I wish A Happy Anzac Day to everyone.
"Lest We Forget"
Thank you!
and
Stay Safe.
This is how most Australians will be commemorating Anzac Day today via tv broadcast. Above is a screenshot of live telecast of dawn service in Canberra with glimpses of dawn services around Australia of other dawn services.
As I was watching night turn to day I spot 3 Ibis wondering along the highway across the road- an unusual sight as they are usually found up trees or around the grounds of parks, zoos and gardens where they can dig up dirt scronge bins or just forage amongst the greenery and water features not along busy highways - that's why they are called "bin chickens" . Maybe they are a sign - a sign of hope.
By 10 am I had baked my marinated Asian chicken wings as well as roasted potato and carrots. The chicken wings were great as I couldn't wait and ate them for breakfast.
After breakfast I attempted to make some Anzac biscuits. What is an Anzac Day without Anzac biscuits? Anzac biscuits were a sent by wives and womens groups to soldiers abroad as the ingredients used to make them did not spoil or deteriorate easily during naval transportation and is associated with ANZAC established during WW1.
I found a recipe online and followed it however as with many families during isolation, you don't always have on hand all the ingredients in your pantry so I had to substitute some. The reason why Anzac biscuits do not spoil easily is because they don't contain any eggs, vanilla, cream or milk. They do contain butter sugar and golden syrup all purpose or plain flour bi carb and oats with a dash of water though. The addition of desiccated coconut to the original recipe is optional as this may not have been readily available during war times. Anzac biscuits can be hard or slightly chewy. Leaving them to bake a little longer in the oven will change the texture of them. I like this type of biscuit crunchy rather then chewy myself.
So I had to substitute the following ingredients:
1. Brown sugar with a combination of pure icing sugar and maple sugar as I don't use any white or brown sugar.
2. Golden syrup with dark molasses as I don't use golden syrup and have run out of maple syrup manuka honey and rice malt syrup
3. Desiccated coconut with coconut milk powder as I hate desiccated coconut but always have coconut milk power around for use in curry dishes.
4. This is a no no in Anzac biscuits but because I used a smaller amount of combination of sugars in the recipe I added some dark chocolate dots to my biscuit mixture just to boost the sweetness - hey in times of hardship everyone did it ie used whatever they could find to make a dish they were cooking work or be more palatable. Usually I would add a lot more maple syrup instead as a brown sugar substitute in most of my baked desserts I make however I am still trying to conserve any non perishable pantry items I have and I love molasses for it's long shelf life and bitterness - it makes cakes fudgier and is a great maple syrup substitute if you run out of it.
5. Rolled oats I substituted with instant oats which is all I had in my pantry. It worked however I noticed these absorbed the butter water and molasses quicker in the raw biscuit mixture.
I Could not stop myself from lasting a little of the raw biscuit ( do not call it a cookie mixture it is very unAustralian and you will get a fine for doing so) a mixture as itself so good - I think I could have used a little less butter in my mixture which was my own mistake as I estimated the amount of butter by eye from 1 standard stick of butter according to the recipe amount required.
Photo below of the biscuits in the oven baking - oops too close together and therefore not quite round (they grew 5 times their original size within a few minutes - I am watching them so they don't burn!)
They didn't taste too good straight out of the oven and I didn't quite cook them long enough so I flipped them and put them back into the oven for a few more minutes so the bottom wasn't so soggy and then took them out to cool them completely. They are now delicious and I have placed them in the fridge to let them firm up even more. When they were hot they were too soft and cake like. Like a lot of things you cook you need to rest things or cool them down before they are ready to eat!
The rest of the day I watched the SBS Food Channel, Tiktok, checked Facebook and watched Youtube videos. I also put stuff away which I had avoided doing the last few days such as my laundry which was nicely folded ironed and sorted but not put away.
Shower dishes and bed. End of another Saturday. I did not go out again today. Maybe a walk tomorrow? Maybe not!
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