If you’d like to do an In My Kitchen post on your own blog, please feel free to do so! You’re most welcome to use the same format as I do, and to leave a comment on my monthly IMK post linking back to your blog. I’d love to see what’s happening in your kitchen every month!
. . . . .
In my kitchen…
…is a copy of Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens, a gift from my lovely friend Becca, the InTolerant Chef…
In my kitchen…
…is a bag of dark malt flour, a recent discovery from Harkola. I used a teaspoon in yesterday’s sourdough – it gave the white bakers’ flour a creamy grey tone and added a delicious nuttiness to the finished loaf…
In my kitchen…
…are cornmeal English muffins, made to a modified Dan Lepard recipe. On Joanna’s advice, I reduced the water in the recipe from 425ml to 300ml. The slightly drier dough cut well and held its shape in the frying pan…
We ate them with Joy’s delicious plum jam…
…which she made with plums harvested from her dad’s farm…
In my kitchen…
…are treasures from Chefs’ Warehouse. These 10cm/4″ crumpet rings were calling to me…
…as were these absolutely gorgeous terracotta dishes. I already had the larger version, and wanted a couple of smaller ones to complete the set. The little one measures 15cm/6″ in diameter and cost just $5.95. The dishes are oven safe and clean up perfectly in the dishwasher…
In my kitchen…
…are pots of green apples, being turned into pectin for this year’s jam making. The apples are from Christina’s dad Lloyd, who was kind enough to give us enough for dozens of jars of pectin, along with several kilos of gorgeous crabapples for jelly!
In my kitchen…
…is a tin of Turkish apple tea. I’ve been drinking this sweet tangy tea at Turkish restaurants over the past few months, and couldn’t resist buying some for home…
In my kitchen…
…is a basket of green figs from our new neighbour Marco, whose trees are laden and groaning with fruit!
Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Oh that book looks great! Must look it up! I’ve got the Spanish terracotta bowls too in all sizes – I really love them.
And what do you do with your beautiful figs? I face the same decision each year, and I’m always looking for new ideas. Our fav choices are: fresh on salads; jams and chutney; some dried, which is probably our most productive use, as they are then available whenever for whatever!
BTW, what variety are yours – I’ve tried sev but our best acclimated is a green skinned type named Desert King.
Oh, how I love figs! There is practically nothing in my kitchen here in Italy. There is just me here and it is not much fun cooking for yourself. I went with friends for lunch to a nearby village called Vico Pancellorum and is up in the mountains. It reminds me why I love it here so much. There will be a post on it soon.
It is raining and misty here today – perfect.
So many lovely things Celia. Those muffins are the ones I’m most coveting from your kitchen this month – they look so deliciously muffin like. I currently have a kitchen that smells beautifully of cardamom having just baked a chocolate, ginger and cardamom tea loaf.
Delightful!
Mrs Bok, it’s a great read – lots of fun! :)
Doc, I have no idea what variety they are – Marco has both green ones and a tree of black ones. Pete likes to eat them straight, but I love them squished onto a slice of sourdough toast, then topped with a little honey and a slice of really good prosciutto. We also make this amazing salad!
Deb, who needs to cook when you’re surrounded by so much amazing food in Italy! :)
Choc, thank you – the muffins were very nice, although I think I prefer Peter Reinhart’s version, which I blogged about here. I looove the scent of cardamom! :)
Barbara, thank you! :)
I’ve been thinking about getting some malt for the bread. It looks so dark!
Those terracotta dishes are screaming tapas I’d say Celia :-)
Kitchen happenings for us…heart shaped shortbread. 3 awesome new cookbooks… so spoiled, and dabbling in an apple sourdough.
…and love that turkish apple tea.
Brydie, the malt is a very nice addition – not expensive either. It’s the first time I’ve seen it for sale though, I used to buy malt grains and grind them. Apple sourdough sounds wonderful! :)
Your English muffins look just like the ones you buy. How fantastic! I must have a go at them myself.
I look forward to your ‘In my kitchen posts.’ I only wish my kitchen was as interesting.
Today in my kitchen there are piles of vegetables fresh from the markets ready for a big cook up. There is a bunch of bananas (a scarce commodity!) ripening on the bench.
There are my new Kitchenaid attachments – mincer, sausage maker and grater – eagerly awaiting their first use and this afternoon there will be some heart-shaped brownies for a special Valentine’s Day dessert.
Claire, how exciting about your KitchenAid bits and pieces! Can’t wait to see what you do with the sausage maker!
Mostly in my kitchen today there is a mess. The Husband and I were away for the weekend at a polocrosse tournament with our youngest, leaving a 17 and a 20 year old alone in the house. Last time we did this, my bottle of vodka filled with Madagascan vanilla beans vanished – I wonder what is missing this time round.
Hahaha…Amanda, you’ll have to inventory and barcode things before you leave next time! :)
I, too, love these segments on your blog, Celia.
You always make everything look exotic and desirable- and I think if I were to have the same thing in MY kitchen I would say-“so what?”
I DO have some tollhouse chocolate chip cookies that my sister made for us! There is nothing as nice as a cookie delivery!
I also have some fresh baked sourdough rye and a loaf of Italian with sesame seeds- but I WANT some of those English muffins with the plum jelly! ( The plums and figs are gorgeous!!)
And I just got back from shopping- so I have to go put away the miscellaneous veg and meats.
:)
Heidi, that’s a nice thing to say, thank you! I try to get excited about everything – that’s my rule for personal happiness. Never allow yourself to be bored or take anything for granted! :)
Delivered cookies are always wonderful, as were the plums and figs!
Hello there. I came upon your blog yesterday and have come back for another squizzy. I love your blog name and the pics of your lovely jam jars attracted me to come back and explore you a little further. Jams, jellies, marmalades are a passion of mine and it is wonderful to stumble upon a fellow Aussie with similar interests.
Your pot of green apples has really caught my eye. I would love to know how you make your pectin. I am going to visit my in-laws in Armidale in a month. I’m told there shall be lots of crab apples waiting for me. I look forward to giving your crab apple jelly a go.
Mariana
Hi Mariana, thanks for stopping by! We make all our own pectin from apples – I wrote a post on it here: https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/03/09/homemade-pectin/
The crabapple jelly is particularly nice this year – we’ve been eating it on lemonade scones! :)
I’m glad you like the book Celia, it just spoke to me of you! Those muffins look great and I love the rings too.
In my kitchen I have bags of tapioca, millet, chestnut and brown rice flour to turn into yummy Gluten Free bread! My first attempt ever at gf bread too. On my bench are- basil, thyme, celariac, mini pears, chilli oil, absynthe, blood oranges and glucose. Don’t worry, they’re not all for the same recipe!
Thanks again, Becca! You always have such interesting things on your kitchen bench!
I know I say this every time, but I so enjoy your In My Kitchen series! =) (And all of your fresh produce makes me so eager for our mountains of snow to be gone………)
I am definitely making those cornmeal muffins – perhaps next weekend!
they look awesome, Celia!
Abby, thank you!
Sally, they’re a nice recipe, just watch the amount of water in it! :)
This is always such a fun read Celia, thank you.
:-) Mandy
Wow. In my kitchen there are empty paracetamol packets, unlabelled jars of cashmere chutney and lots of washing up. Wish this cold would go away!
Yum..I’ve always wanted to make English muffins but have never gotten around to them! A very delightful kitchen post, Celia.
Our kitchen has herbs hanging to dry. I cut back the sage bush and hung up the cuttings along with some oregano. It’s nice to have there when the weather cools down and one doesn’t want to be foraging for herbs in the cold rain!
Those muffins look fab Celia. And I wish you hadn’t shown me your bounty from chefs warehouse – I am due for a visit there soon and i am sure to add those things to my list!
No idea what is in my kitchen as I am sitting in an airport lounge in Melbourne. Sure to be clean benches since Andrew is in charge.
Mandy, thank you!
MamaVix, I’m sorry to hear you’re not well! Get better soon!
Chris, do you have the Pam Corbin Preserves book? Our sage still hasn’t grown back – it all died off last year – but when it does, I’m going to try the sage liqueur recipe, it looks very tempting!
SG, I think you’d love the terracotta dishes! I’ve been serving all sorts of things out of the big one – they’re great for curries etc. Lucky you to have Andrew cleaning up, although I know that also means throwing out! :)
Oh I think I could use a Zen moment for my chooks–too many foxes, eagles and goannas at the moment. They seem to spend a lot of time on alert!
Love your kitchen posts, the muffins look absolutely perfect.
My kitchen has heaps of dirty dishes after a very yummy Valentine’s Day dinner. After a bottle of bubbly it’s very easy to ignore dishes!
Oh Celia – I think you are my new best friend in Blogland! I’m so excited about the apple pectin. Shall give that a go for sure. I made Lemonade Scones after reading a recipe for it in “The Country Show Book for NSW”. I was extremely happy with them – I did use thickened cream though. I found it interesting to read that pure cream is a better alternative. I thought they were pretty light with the thickened. Oh, a ton of information you have here. I shall be flicking back and forth for a while I suspect. So many things on your blog that I love. And a cumquat jelly – I never thought of that. Always make the marmalade, which is so much work as the cumquats are tiny. The colour of yours is spectacular. Oooh I do feel excited. Thank you.
Mariana, thank you, I hope you have fun with the pectin. We find it so much easier to get a soft set jam with our homemade pectin rather than the powdered stuff. The cumquat jelly is sublime – we’re not big marmalade fans, and the jelly was perfect for everything from glazing the tops of cakes to adding to fruit cakes!
LOVE the muffins! they look awesome with the beautiful jam!
There’s an email in my drafts folder waiting to be sent to you ! In my kitchen is the exact same jar of tangy apple tea……….purchased over the weekend in a fit of ‘Celia said…! Stay well and I’m off to send that email to you..love your round up
Liz, sounds like a very romantic Valentine’s Day! :) Foxes and eagles – wow – the worst our chooks have to cope with is the heat!
Anne, thank you! Joy’s jam was to die for!
Oz, thank you, hope you enjoy the apple tea! :)
Lovely post, Celia. Your muffins look very appetizing, especially with the jelly! The plums and apples look lovely. What type of crabapples do you use for jelly? I am looking for a crabapple that is red and the inside is red as well. I know they are sour, but I made beautiful pectin and jelly from them last year. (Thanks to your detailed instructions.)The tree where we picked the crabapples was cut down, and I would like to get my own tree, but I don’t know the variety, can anyone help me?
In my kitchen is a half-eaten loaf of pumpkin bread and a loaf of rye bread. Almost all the fixings for a meat spaghetti sauce that I plan on making in the near future to can. It is very handy to have on hand, and the children’s favorite.
Some seed catalogs and the first seeds I’ve ordered occupy a corner. After a few days of warm weather we’re back to snow, wind and cold. That’s about all that’s new in my kitchen!
Manuela, I’m not sure what sort of crabapples Lloyd gives us, but they are absolutely beautiful! They’re very small, almost the size of a cherry and like yours, they were red inside and out! Here’s a photo:
I never thought to can spaghetti sauce – we always freeze it! :)
OK I really need to get to chef’s warehouse! No more excuses now that I can drive :P But those figs, well they look so divinely tempting!
Thought I had left a comment? Maybe not.. thanks for the mention dear Celia! It looks as if it’s all go over there. How does the Zen chicken book begin.. I always like the opening of Zen and the art of MM. that bit about ‘to assemble a motorbike requires great peace of mind” Oh how I loved that book back in my ‘hippy’ days. My kitchen has a bunch of flowers and a vase of red hazelnut catkins today. We are going to dig up our fig tree and resite it, as it is too close to our neighbour’s house and she is worried about its roots….
Lovely. That reminds me to start making some apple pectin, I took down your recipe months ago with a reminder to buy up apples when they were back in season. Isn’t Bec (The Intolerant Chef) wonderful, now that’s a book for chicken luvers such as you 2 :)
Hi Celia,
Those english muffins look amazing ar they hard or particularly fiddley to make?……where do you get fast action yeast?
Lorraine, take money! You’re going to love Chefs’! :)
Jo, hope your fig copes well with the move! They’re a big tree!
Anna, yes Becca is gorgeous – even the front cover of the book is so appealing! New season apples are nearly upon us, perfect time for pectin making!
Tracey, thank you, the muffins weren’t too hard to make, but do watch the water quantity. I just use ordinary dried yeast that you can buy at the supermarket. :)
Oh Celia – I’m lusting over your fresh figs! My husband and boys gave me a brown turkey fig tree for Mother’s Day three years ago and it produces the most prolific batch of figs every year and not a single one ever ripens. Finally this last year I picked every single un-ripe fig (100 and then I stopped counting) before the snow arrived and made a giant batch of “unripe fig preserves.” I’m still hoping that some year I will have a real crop. In the meantime, my dad sends me his overflow crop and I enjoy them especially with bleu cheese and prosciutto on the grill.
Back to your post – in my kitchen is a bag of chickpea flour that I hope to use to make socca.
[…] of water instead of the 425ml called for in the original recipe, after the advice of two friends (Celia and Joanna) who recently made these muffins and felt they did not hold their shape well if the full […]
Made those muffins yesterday…. WOW, they are delicious!
but, you and Joanna are absolutely right, I don’t see how 425ml water could go into that dough without turning it into a disaster
there must be something wrong, or else Dan used a completely unusual polenta for his muffins