In my kitchen…
…is a tray of our ever reliable chocolate slab cake. Big Boy asked me to bake it to “help” him study for his exams…
In my kitchen…
…is a tub of organic honeycomb, a gift from our lovely friend Moo, who tracked it down at one of his local Adelaide markets. He told me that, short of getting on a plane to Kangaroo Island, this was the closest thing he could find to completely natural, unprocessed honey…
In my kitchen…
…is our “lucky” Elvis mug. We don’t actually believe in luck, but I often make Big Boy a cup of tea in this before his exams. It always makes him laugh, and I think that’s a good frame of mind to be in before a test!
In my kitchen…
…are interesting treasures from far away. Lovacores, avert your eyes now, because on my bench I have a jar of Sardinian Bottarga (grated mullet roe), pickled baby onions in balsamic vinegar, and a treasured jar of Piment d’Espelette. The Piment was a gift from gorgeous Anna of Five in Paris, who was in Sydney on holidays recently…
In my kitchen…
…is a messy, yummy apple pie – Small Man’s favourite dessert. I tried to be artistic and decorated the top with a pastry apple – hopefully you can make it out in the photo below (it’s a bit tragic, I know). Interestingly, the pastry, which is usually quite wet, was much firmer when made with our homegrown eggs – possibly because they’re fresher and the proteins are stronger…
In my kitchen…
…are bags of certified virus-free seed potatoes, recently arrived from Tasmania. The plan is to grow four varieties over the coming year – Bintjes, Spuntas, Red Norlands and King Edwards. The first two batches have been set out to chit (sprout), and the rest are carefully stashed away in a lightproof box. We’ve never grown potatoes before, and are quite excited by the prospect of having them fresh from the garden!
Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Made your parmesan cracker recipe last night to have with soup. The mencats’ potato chicken seemed to have turned out fine but my cream of veg carrot bell pepper was lacking. (Needed more time/onion/garlic)
I have a baskets of blueberries and some cream and am hoping to try a blueberry ripple ice cream.
It’s been a wonderfully cool summer. ONly downside is none of the tomatoes are ripening.
The Big Boy’s cake looks amazing!
Hugs from California,
Marilyn
Potato chicken soup? Hehe…now that sounds hearty! Blueberries are so expensive fresh here – I love hearing from faraway friends who have access to them by the basketful! :)
I love your “in my kitchen” posts, you’ve always got so many interesting things going on. Now chocolate cake and apple pie at the same time is going some, but helping with exams has got to be a good cause. I can see your apple and it looks a lovely pie – I do think your boys are very well catered for.
Potatoes are always so exciting to grow and even more exciting to harvest – I’m sure you’ll be delighted – at least I hope you will be. Ours mostly got destroyed by blight this year, but we did get a few and they are so delicious. CT has done a post on a taste test we did on the 6 varieties we grew. If you are interested, here is the link – http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/2010/08/potatoes-weve-ingested-infested.html
Choc, apple pie was made because we had some apples that were getting on, but Small Man really does love it so much…
CT’s blog is fascinating – interesting how different the varieties are from country to country!
We didn’t get blight on our tubs of potatoes at all but we didn’t plant tomatoes so maybe that’s why. We had lovely fresh potatoes, sister in laws garden beans, corn and garlicy steak for tea and wild plum crumble for afters. I’ve made a few jars of rowan and apple jelly this evening, not sure what that will taste like. What else? dried onion flakes, a new bag of caraway seeds, hazelnuts from Scopaway, greengages and opal plums, a tub of sloes…Just been reading the Observer special supplement all about Cook books. It had some I knew very well and loads I had never heard of. And it reprinted some famous and classic recipes, like Marcellla Hazan’s ragu and the brown bread ice cream, which one day I will get round to trying. For now it’s feet up on the sofa. x
Jo, now that IS interesting – I didn’t realise the tomato and potato blight was related? I love the idea of wild plum crumble – hope we get to see pics! :)
In my kitchen are heirloom tomatoes from yesterday’s farmers’ market. I have decided. Tomato. Day will keep the dr. Away at the end of this summer…
In my kitchen is the last bit of batch 6 or 7 of the fresh mozzarella I make.
In my kitchen is the firstbatch of chicken salad my husband has ever made.
In my kitchen are abt five bottles of different possibilities to use fir pad see yew(sp?), which calls for dark soy sauce, which is NOT regular soy sauce.
A pound each of local grass fe gd beef and a pound of grd pork from farmers I know. Making another batch of Bolognese for.. oh, I dunno, another lasagne??? If not that, at least another homemade pasta.
Tomatoes..sigh..still months off for us. Only planting romas and cherry toms – first year garden for us! Dark soy is quite different – we use the Pun Chun brand..
All looks lovely but that jar of piment really caught my eye. You will have to let me know what it tastes like.
In my kitchen are….
brownies (made from your recipe);
one last almond florentine (also made from your recipe); and
bread and bread sticks made by my kids last night with great excitement and much loud slapping of the dough on the bench (not to mention clouds of flour floating around).
SG, the piment d’espelette is just gorgeous – quite hot and sweet. We’ve been sprinkling it on guacamole (no surprises there :)). Glad you liked the florentines – isn’t it good that they’re dairy and gluten free? And hope to see photos of the kids in action.. :)
in my kitchen I have pomegrante, date, rose and apple syrups all boiled down to molassas like consistancy. I’m trying to decide what to make with them…. any suggestions?
Chef, I’ve been using date and pomegranate molasses in my fruit bars (recipe here ) and also using date molasses in my gingerbread men – love the stuff!
Pomegranate syrup = grenadine. Make some drinks!
I say thats a wonderful excuse to make that chocolate cake- it would help me study too!
I can’t go past an apple pie, always hits the spot.
In my kitchen this weekend, one Vanilla strawberry birthday cake, olive oil flat breads with roast tomatoes, raisin and cinnamon sourdough, and lots of coffee…ahh coffee.
Ooh, sounds like you’ve had great fun this weekend, Brydie! Look forward to seeing the photos! Hmm…I could eat a little olive oil flat bread and roasted tomato right now.. :)
treasure indeed, the piment d’esplette. i have found a very good pimenton de la vera recently, and i want to put it in everything. i’ve turned into a complete junky – sometimes i walk past the pantry and i open the jar to get a whiff. it just smells so delicious.
i’ve strained my sour cherry liquer. now to figure out what to do with all the drunken fruit. some kind of truffles, i suppose. best ice cream i’ve made to date: lemon verbena with berry swirl. not proud of it, but hubs and i ate the entire quart in the course of one evening. we don’t even have exams looming, we just couldn’t stop. i think i’ll have enough tomatoes for pasatta tomorrow. finally found italian plums, the dough is rising for the peasant tart. i’ve picked the second batch of slender green beans from the garden, they are just delicious.
In my kitchen were eggs from the Marrickville markets in a plain unlabelled carton laid by chooks which I suspect were fed with Chia seed to increase the eggs Omega 3-6 content. They are so gone. I got some Chia seed to eat myself from the same stall. soaked chia with yoghourt is yum, like sago pudding.
Dana, lemon verbena and berry icecream! Wow!
Frances, aren’t fresh eggs just so wonderful? I’ve never tried soaked chia and yoghurt, thank you for the suggestion…
Wow! That apple pie completely got me!! And how exciting about the spuds! Ours didn’t do well last year… we only got a few in the pot so hopefully it’ll be more successful this year.
hehe no more avocadoes Celia? :P That honeycomb looks divine! And I have a new jar of Piment d’Espelette too! :D
Lorraine, you mustn’t joke, avocados are a very serious thing here.. ;-)
Honey, hopefully both of our crops will do well this year! :)
I’m liking the lucky Elvis mug, but I think its actually the chocolate cake that has all the magical powers :)
Hooray, someone mentioned the Elvis mug! :D Thanks Anna!
In my kitchen I have nothing so exotic as imported condiments, but I do have….
Sourdough starters and soakers to mix multigrain, spelt and an experimental rye bread before I go to bed
Some absolutely delicious Armenian spice cake with walnuts that I made this morning
and three different flavoured syrups left over from making candied peel–any suggestions for their use?
Liz, the breads sound good! I’ve been experimenting with wholemeal spelt recently. Afraid I don’t know what you can do with the candied peel syrup – I’ve never made it before, but it does sound too good to waste! :)
Celia, I love these posts. Best of luck to the studying boy!
In my kitchen are:
A large batch of banana gingerbread muffins
Enough chicken and leek pie filling for four pies
A couple of bars of the new Lindt 50% cocoa for ‘testing’
2 vacuum packs of Shulz (Barossa Valley) bacon
And in my kitchen tonight are 5 contented tummies from homemade burgers and chips :) (and 5 more burger patties in the freezer – JO Botham Burger recipe)
In my kitchen … nearly empty. I hate coming back after a weekend away to an empty fridge :-(
Sarah, thank you, I’ll let him know. Love those Botham Burgers! I didn’t know Lindt had a new 50% bar – presume it’s dark?
Gill, I’m sorry to hear that! Hopefully you had a good time away though?
In my kitchen- peaches.
-and bacon- attempting bacon toffee/brittle.
– and left-overs from a very happy picnic.
I love your mug- my husband would feel so honored to have such a mug!
Liz- candied peel syrup is delicious in drink mixes- punch or alcoholic. It is also good to use as a simple syrup in icings and cookies.
Celia-
I love the look of y our apple pie.
I WANT some apple pie.
I’m going to make some this week.
Blogs are not good for my faltering self control.
Heidi, I’m fascinated by all your experiments on sweets with bacon! And the Elvis mug was part of a set of four – Pete would only let me buy one.. :)
I especially love your “in my kitchen” posts — such fun to peek into a pantry half a world away!
Yankee, thank you! :) I’ve got photos of our nasturtium capers for you – just need to write up the post.
Yay — thank you!
My kitchen is none too exciting at the moment. It’s been too hot to cook much, and I hope to start painting the ceiling and the walls in another week. The paint job in this kitchen goes back to the 50’s so it’s time for a bit of a face lift.
Your pie and cake look great…top marks in my books!
In my kitchen is a pan of brownies that I made at an obnoxious hour and containing both flour and dairy, which I am supposed to be eliminating from my life. And in my kitchen I will stand in the morning eating a brownie for breakfast. Just being honest!
I didn’t think I’d get past the slab cake, but then the honeycomb appeared!! It looks amazing, Celia!! Lucky you!
Not much happening in my kitchen this week – lots of fresh pasta as the chooks are laying 3-4 eggs a day and this is a good way to use them up. And of course ricotta. Tonight I think the kitchen might also boast a big glass of red wine!
Lovely post, good luck with your spuds. :)
Cindy, might be too hot to cook, but that hasn’t stopped you making some amazing stuff – I’ve just been on your blog this morning! Loved the chicken curry cooked under the stars.. :)
KK, I so understand. I’ve been up at 5am some mornings wondering if it’s too early for chocolate..
Chris, pasta! Thank you…we’re getting 3 – 4 a day as well, and the house is already full of cake, so I’m needing another thing to do with the eggs. Hope the spuds work, they’re still chitting – not quite ready for planting yet…
I think i said this before, i wish i were your neighbor. You have so many interesting things going on in your kitchen. But this time i have fun stuff too. A batch of caramel chip biscotti, chocolate chip biscotti, dark brown sugar cookies, granola, and granola bars- all homemade and delicious, a jar of Dolma leaves and a box of pita chips from our local middle eastern store. Beat that! :)
Hehe…can’t, you win! :) Caramel chip biscotti sound divine! And I’ve never made anything with dolma leaves, although I adore dolmades…
Bintje is a famous and well love Dutch potato….yay for us! Love the french chilli!
Oz, Bintje are the house favourite, so we’re grateful to the Dutch as well! :)
I’ve bookmarked your site probably a year ago now, when I was researching fig jam recipes… Fig jam & lime cordial…. Both sound fascinating, can you repost them?
Also love your lucky Elvis mug…. Saw him when I was five, will never be the same ( thankfully)
Greetings from the Sonoran Desert
Debra
Hi Debra, the links to the recipes are here:
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/02/23/fig-jam-and-lime-cordial/
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/02/25/fig-and-rhubarb-jam/
Cheers, Celia