Occasionally, life gets in the way of blogging.
Which is a good thing, because it means I’m out and about rather than sitting on the computer all day. Here’s a catch up on the week’s adventures!
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I often play around with chocolate on the weekends – my latest batch included these Drambuie-soaked Persian figs, dipped in dark Belgian chocolate. They’re quite potent…

On Saturday, I baked three giant focaccias to share with friends and neighbours (there was one more in addition to those shown in the photo below). We ran out of racks to cool them on! One slab went to stock Christina’s freezer, another half went to Dredgey, and the rest was divided up and shared around.
It sounds like generosity on my part, but it really isn’t – as all my breadbaking friends know, there is something so joyous and so rewarding about producing bread in large quantities, that we’re always delighted when anyone gives us the slightest excuse to bake…

We cut up a large piece for our Saturday night dinner with Will and Bethany. Their little poppet stood up on her tiptoes and peered longingly at the bread – we laughed ourselves silly and then dubbed our cocktails the Baby Grace in her honour…

With the two egg whites I had leftover from making Greek pasticcio for dinner, I baked a huge tray of meringues…

Waste not, want not – just two egg whites and half a cup of caster sugar produced a mountain of crunchy sweet treats…

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On Sunday, a giant tromboncino and our final eggplant of the season went into the wok with a Spanish onion, jalapeño chillis and a tin of tomato pulp..

…and came out as two large boxes of garden ratatouille. We eat it cold as a sandwich filler…

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A day trip out to Castle Hill to visit our friends at the Youeni Foodstore is always a treat. This time we were meeting up with Rick, who had not only made the epic trek on public transport from the other side of Sydney, but had also grown a beard for the occasion (as one does).
The food was fabulous and interesting, as always. I had a vegetarian pearl barley risotto…

…and Pete had chorizos and white beans on Damien’s delicious new sourdough bread…

Lovely Chris who owns the store brought us his latest Brussels sprouts creation to taste. I liked it so much that I asked to take the leftovers home. Neither Rick nor Pete are fans of the dreaded green vegetable, but both tried it, with Rick declaring it to be “the best Brussels sprout he didn’t like”…

And…ta-dah…the beard-off! Chris (on the left) is a seasoned beardsman, but Rick grew his just for the occasion. He shaved it off that night!

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On the way home, Pete and I stopped at the Sydney Fish Markets. The produce at De Costi Seafoods is always amazingly fresh…


I came home with a kilo of green Hawkesbury River school prawns, which had been “jumping” that morning. Green prawns are usually frozen and then defrosted for sale, which makes me reluctant to stock my freezer with them. That certainly wasn’t the case with these, and I added half my “catch” to Hokkien noodles for dinner that night (and yes, Chicago John, that is tromboncino you can see at the bottom of the plate!)…

What have you been up to this week?














