I come from a long line of home cooks. My Nanna ran a private girl’s school canteen and then a regional Cole’s cafeteria. Her daughter (my Mum) was a Home Economics teacher in a special needs school for almost thirty years. I thought this week, I’d share some of their favourite recipes with you. We’ll start with Mum’s seriously simple scones.

What you need:

2 ½ cups of Self-raising flour

1tsp of baking powder

2 tbs of butter

1 egg (whipped slightly with a fork)

Milk

Jam and whipped cream to serve

How it’s done:

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C.

Mum would tell you to add the butter, flour and baking powder to a large bowl and rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until it resembled breadcrumbs. I’m lazier than her (and have this icky thing about food under my fingernails…) so I just throw it in the food processor and blitz for a few seconds. Same result. Then add the egg  to the mixture, still blitzing for a few seconds at a time, then add just enough milk to form a dough – usually around half a cup.

On a floured surface, roll your dough out until it’s about 1cm thick, and using a round cutter (an upturned glass works well, too) cut your scones out. Place them fairly close together on a greased or lined baking tray. Placing them closely helps them to rise apparently, but that could be an old wive’s tale!

Brush the tops with a little milk, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes – until the tops have turned a light golden brown.

Serve warm with whipped cream and raspberry or strawberry jam.

I received this audio book for review, from Simon and Schuster. Thank you! Just like What Really Happened in Peru, The Runaway Queen is a short story in the Bane Chronicles, following Magnus on an adventure.

While I did enjoy listening to What Really Happened in Peru, and learning so much more about Magnus, the actual adventure was a little bit boring. But even with that, I had high hopes for this second instalment in the chronicles, again to learn about Magnus and for a quick and fun adventure.

I am a little sad to say, that the Magnus in The Runaway Queen isn’t the same Magnus we are introduced to in the Mortal Instrument series or in What Really Happened in Peru. He just doesn’t say or do things that I would expect Magnus to do.

However, the concept of him actually helping Marie Antoinette escape during the French Revolution was a nifty idea, and I still found it very fun and enjoyable! I do plan on continuing and finishing the Bane Chronicles, I’m still very excited to see what else is in store!

 Susannah is interviewed by Monica Hamilton

1. In your EJ12 series, did you deliberately give Emma’s friends names that happen to be Palindromes to let us know they are just a little bit special?

Yes, great spotting! I think family and friends are people who reliable, who you can count on: they stay the same, forwards and backwards – just like a palindrome! So, of course, there is MUM and DAD and her brother BOB (who also has a friend OTTO) as well as Emma’s close friends, HANNAH, ISI, ELLE AND EVE. There are lots of other little codes hidden in people’s names in the stories: SHADOW agents often have names that mean ‘black’ (for example, Alicia Noir in Fashion Fraud) and there are lots of anagrams (Nema Rigl’s name can be rearranged to spell out MEAN GIRL). I’m not going to tell them all though!

 2. Where did you come up with the idea of the special secret tunnel Emma has to go through to get to the Shine Agency? 

I think I might have been a little inspired by the Slippery Slip in the The Faraway Tree, which was one of my favourite books when I was young. It was important that Emma could get to SHINE from school and who would ever suspect a secret agent would start a mission from the girls’ toilets?!

3. Will EJ12 (Emma’s code name) have to change when she turns 13?

Yes, actually when she turns 12, she will move into the Under 14 Division and become EJ14.

 4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

It has to be Emma/EJ. After writing 17 books, she is almost real to me and I love thinking up new challenges for her to overcome! 

BIO: 

Susannah McFarlane is the creator and writer of the awarding-winning EJ12 Girl Hero series, the creator and co-author of the hugely popular series for boys, Boy vs Beast, and the author of the Little Mates series of alphabet books for under fives. She was also the original concept creator of two of Australia’s leading popular tween fiction series Go Girl! and Zac Power.

Susannah is also the founding director of Lemonfizz Media, a boutique children’s publisher that focuses on developing a small number of publishing projects across all content platforms, and a speaker on children’s publishing for the RMIT Editing and Publishing course. For more information visit www.susannahmcfarlane.com.au

We eat loads of Japanese food at our place. It’s healthy, clean and doesn’t make you feel like you need a nine hour nap when you’re done feasting. But best of all, one meal can cater for everyone’s tastes – especially when we do these sushi rolls.

What you need:

*Sushi rice. Don’t try and swap it for another type of rice – it just doesn’t work. You can find all these Japanese ingredients in the Asian section of your local supermarket.

*Nori – aka flat sheets of seaweed.

*Sushi vinegar.

*Japanese mayonnaise – optional.

*Wasabi – green Japanese horseradish. Optional, and packs a punch so use it sparingly.

*Japanese ginger to serve – optional.

*Japanese soy sauce to serve.

*Fillings – now this is where you get to customise your sushi rolls. At our place, favourite ingredients include: carrot, cucumber, capsicum, tofu, salmon (raw from the fish shop – make sure you ask for sushi grade) as well as smoked salmon, caviar, egg, avocado and prawns. You could also use crab meat, lettuce, shredded chicken or tuna.

How it’s done:

Rice: First up, you need to cook your rice. Add equal amounts of water and rice to the pot – eg: if you use two cups of rice, add two cups of water (this is the amount used to make the sushi rolls pictured). Bring rice to the boil for about 3 minutes, then reduce heat to medium. Once the water is just about absorbed, turn to low for a further 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and let rice stand 15 minutes with the lid on. Stir through 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar. We usually cook our rice a couple of hours before it’s needed and refrigerate until needed.

Filling: Slice all ingredients into strips. Carrot, cucumber, capsicum, tofu (my favourite!), avocado etc. With the egg, make a plain egg omelette and then slice into fine strips. Prawns and other seafood can also be sliced. The key here is to be organised, with everything ready for rolling on the bench.

Roll ‘em up! This can be tricky the first time, but it gets easier with practice. Lay your sheet of nori on a sushi mat (also available in the Asian food section at the supermarket). Spread your cooled rice evenly over the top, leaving gaps at the top and bottom. Then, add your fillings, including mayonnaise or wasabi. It’s much easier to roll if you don’t add too much, especially for beginners.

Once you’re loaded up, start at the end closest to your body, use the mat to guide your nori, and roll up and away from yourself. Be firm, take it slowly and remember to tuck the end closest to you. Once your sushi roll is rolled, it should resemble a long cylinder.

Pop it aside, and start on the next one. Repeat. Refrigerate for 10 or 15 minutes to make the rolls easier to slice, using a VERY sharp knife. Again, take it slowly and try to slice your rolls evenly. We usually discard the end pieces.

Serve with soy, mayonnaise, ginger and more wasabi (if you’re game!)

*With thanks to Simon, my very special hand model!

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer.

She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.

With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.

Hardcover, 346 pages Published February 12th 2013 by Philomel Books ISBN  039925692X (ISBN13: 9780399256929)

Josie is the daughter of a prostitute in 1950 New Orleans. At a young age she began sleeping in a small apartment above a local bookstore to get away from the abusive ways of her mother. The bookstore owner Charles, and his son Patrick, have been the closest thing she’s had to a family. Madam Willie has taken on the role of mother and always kept an eye out for Josie and her troubles. But now those problems are stacking up higher than she can manage.

After Josie’s mother leaves for Hollywood, Josie finds the watch of a dead man in her mother’s room, entangling her in a mysterious death. 

Out of the Easy contains several layers of story line that weave into a suspenseful thriller. Josie’s troubles begin piling up and she makes some bad decisions in hope of making a better future for herself. When Charles falls ill, she has the added stress of running the bookstore.  This book contains a little bit of everything from romance to life threatening danger.

Historical novels often contain too much information about the time and setting, slowing them down but the pacing in Out of the Easy was impressive. It is a character driven story and Josie gets herself into more trouble than she can handle as she’ll do anything to achieve her dream.