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Archive for August, 2010

Garden Photos

Posted in Food & Friends, Frugal Living, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2010| 47 Comments »

Joanna’s beautiful garden photos inspired me to take some of my own.  Here’s a glimpse of our winter garden…

The dwarf nectarine and peach trees are flowering…

The first vegetable bed is growing well. We’ve planted kale, spinach, cabbage, beetroot, celery, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, and broadbeans.

Broccoli…

Lettuces…

The second bed has just been planted out.  In addition to more of the above, it also includes peas, carrots and shallots…

The peas are thriving!

The garlic are growing steadily in their laundry tub home – in total we have about forty plants…

The three rhubarb crowns are thoroughly enjoying their semi-shady spot…

The asparagus are still in pots, but growing well.  Spice Girl gave us a single pot, which we divided into seven smaller plants.  We still need to find a permanent home for them…

Our incredibly robust chilli bush has continued to fruit all winter, albeit sparsely…

Bed three is now ready for planting – tomato and capsicum seedlings are ready to go, along with the chitted seed potatoes…

Edit: Our large prunus tree has never fruited, so we have no idea what type it is, but it flowers prolifically every year.  Here are a couple of photos for Heidi..

What’s growing in your garden at the moment?

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Smithsonian Zoo’s Lion in the Snow

Posted in Cool Things on August 21, 2010| 17 Comments »

……

Courage does not always roar.

Sometimes courage is the quiet voice

at the end of the day saying,

“I will try again tomorrow”

……

Mary Anne Radmacher

……

……

I’ve used these photos before, but was delighted to find high resolution copies on Wikipedia recently.  They’re public domain material and I believe these Mehgan Murphy photos of Luke the lion first appeared in advertising material for the Smithsonian Zoo in 2008.  Clicking on the photos will bring up larger images.

I thought sharing them with you might be a nice way to start the weekend…

…..

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Wholemeal Spelt

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , , , , on August 20, 2010| 32 Comments »

Spelt is one of the so called “ancient grains”, grown in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. It’s related to modern day wheat, but with a noticeably different flavour and some purported health benefits.  These include a broader nutritional profile, and a more easily digestible protein structure, which makes spelt accessible to some people with wheat intolerances.  However, it does contain gluten, which means it’s not suitable for coeliacs.

Spelt flour is very expensive – a kilo costs six times as much as regular bakers’ flour, and twice as much as organic bakers’ flour.  Having said that, it makes little difference when you compare the cost of using it at home to the price of purchasing ready made – an organic spelt loaf might cost $2.50 in raw materials, but a loaf of sourdough (made with regular bakers flour) from a reputable bakery could set you back $8 or more.

As we were delighted with the results of our 100% white spelt loaves, I thought it might be fun to experiment with organic wholemeal spelt.

The 100% spelt sourdough loaves I made were slow to prove, and despite a surprising amount of oven spring, the wholemeal crumb didn’t display the huge holes of the white spelt.  That didn’t detract from the bread though, which was deliciously nutty and, as Pete put it, wholesome.  The rising dough and  baking loaves exuded the most gorgeous aromas and our sons, who don’t usually like anything other than white bread, ate an entire loaf between them for lunch, smothered in peanut butter and jam.  The spelt baguettes formed the backbone of a vegetarian dinner we had on the weekend, and went perfectly with Pete’s beetroot dip and guacamole.

Emboldened by this success, I tried using the wholemeal spelt in Dan Lepard’s Guardian cookie recipe.  I substituted cranberries for the dried blueberries (which are prohibitively expensive here) and omitted the almond essence.  Dan’s recipe was written for regular wholemeal flour, and the essence was included in part to mask any bitterness in the flour.  As the spelt has a nutty, sweet flavour, I didn’t think it was necessary here.

The end result were these chewy, moreish treats, reminiscent of old-fashioned oatmeal cookies. I’ve already eaten two this morning!

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Guacamole

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on August 18, 2010| 40 Comments »

Thank you all for your advice on our avocados!

For the past week or so, we’ve had avocado on toast for breakfast every morning, and eaten copious amounts of guacamole.

In the course of all this, we’ve made some interesting discoveries.  Firstly, adding a little vitamin C (ascorbic acid) to guacamole keeps it beautifully green, even after an extended time in the fridge.  We crushed up a couple of tablets (you probably only need one, but we were making a big batch), removed the casing, and dissolved the powder in a little warm water.  This was then sprinkled sparingly onto the avocados as they were being mashed.

Here’s a photo of the guacamole after it had been in the fridge overnight (we did press a sheet of Gladwrap onto the surface)…

. . . . .

Secondly, we’ve found that guacamole freezes very well. We portioned small amounts into ziplock bags and stashed them in the freezer…

To see how they were traveling, we defrosted one after three days.  It had kept its colour beautifully and wasn’t watery at all, perhaps because the bag had excluded most of the air.  If we were planning to do this again, we’d probably leave out the tomato, as I’m not sure how it will hold up over an extended period in the freezer.

We took a photo to show you the defrosted guacamole – Pete suggested using a bowl, so that it looked less like “astronaut food”…

. . . . .

The recipe we used was very simple, and based on one given to us by our friend Barbara…

  • 3 ripe avocados
  • 1 large tomato, chopped
  • juice of half a lime
  • chopped coriander (cilantro) to taste
  • salt to taste
  • 1 vitamin C tablet, pounded, sieved and dissolved in a little water

Using a fork, mash the avocados, sprinkling sparingly with a little vitamin C water as you go – you don’t need very much at all.  Add the tomato, coriander and lime juice and continue to mash with a fork.  Taste and season with a little salt if necessary.  Now invite the neighbours around for a party!

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In My Kitchen, August 2010

Posted in In My Kitchen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2010| 43 Comments »

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?

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