Sliding out of daylight savings meant an extra hour to play with on Sunday…
Maude popped over for tea, and we attempted (with very limited success) the Sun-Herald crossword…
I finished off my bak kwa, a caramelised Chinese pork jerky, which I’d made following this recipe…
Cool early mornings are an ideal time for tempering chocolate – a straight Callebaut origin chocolate from Peru (64%) and a batch of our “house blend” – 50/50 Callebaut 811 (54%) combined with Callebaut Tanzanie (75%). The Peru was used to dip ginger and candied orange rind…
…and the blend was set into blocks, for a taste-off we have planned for one night this week…
And since we were feeling so mellow, we spent a little time spoiling the chooks…
Whenever I buy salmon at the markets, I ask the fishmonger to fillet it for me, and to give me all the bones and offcuts. I portion out the fillets for the freezer – buying salmon in this way means that dinner for the four of us only costs $10 per meal. The heads are frozen separately for a Malaysian-style fish head curry.
I roast the bones and offcuts in the oven briefly, and then strip all the meat off them. Below is the surplus meat from two salmons – all from bits that would normally be discarded!
I keep this in a container in the fridge, and feed it to the chooks over the course of a week or so. It’s their favourite food in the whole world…
After a generous serve of fish, the girls enjoyed a bowl of leftover rice, which they also adore. The fish is good for them, but we’re careful not to give them too many carbs – they still have to be able to fly up to the roost!
Here’s a video of our feasting girls!
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I hope you all had a lovely weekend too! What did you get up to?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Oh wow … I thought we were the only dummies in the world to still have daylight savings! It must be a virus.
I quite like it, actually, although I am up this morning at 4.30am… ;-)
Have you gone back now? We went forward about a week ago? There’s a huge campaign here called Lighter Later which wants us to abandon Greenwich Mean Time completely and go lighter later. I would love it !
I find it absolutely amazing what chickens will/can eat. I always thought that they just ate bugs, worms, and grain. I’ve learned quite a bit about chickens from you. :)
Cat, I’ve learnt quite a lot about chickens from our chickens! Apparently they’ll kill and eat mice as well, although thankfully I’ve never seen it happen! :)
That’s crossword looks like a monster. My husband is the good one at those. I stink at it. Did you like your bak kwa? Looks interesting. Haven’t tried tempering chocolate yet. Wish I could come to your tasting! Lucky chooks!! Looks like one of them was kind of excluded from getting the good stuff by the others. I baked 4 dozen gingersnaps yesterday and am currently working on a Vermont Sourdough. Nice lazy weekend, w/ plenty of time for baking. Hope your week is a good one, Celia!
Melanie, I’m pretty rubbish at crosswords too. The bak kwa is the food of my childhood, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! The chooks are actually quite good at sharing – Frannie was just a little slow off the mark, so she had to jostle for a spot, but there was no pecking like there used to be in the old days…
Gingersnaps and Vermont sourdough! Sounds wonderful! :)
Oh I’ll book by ticket now and be there for the taste-off ;-)
Will you post the results … I’d be very very interested. Am addicted to Madagascar flavours at the mo.
Gill, I’ll email you about the taste-off. :)
I hadn’t realised that the clocks changed in different countries on different weekends. We put our clocks forward last weekend – we lost an hours sleep but on the upside it means that the better weather is on its way. It seems strange that your clocks went in the opposite direction but then you are in the southern hemisphere.
That candied orange rind looks fantastic, by the way. If it’s not too fiddly I’d like to have a go at making some.
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’
Hope, it’s a bit more confusing than that – last year different parts of Australia changed their clocks on different weekends! The candied orange was bought – I found a really nice quality French product at Harkola – I’ve never tried making my own, but a lot of my friends have, with great success.
Awwww bless listen to how happy they are!!
You are such a good chooky mum :)
I love all the food youve talked about. Here I am thinking of dinner and it’s only dawn :)
Thanks Mrs Bok! They are happy girls, and we love them dearly! :)
Hi Celia!
Those blocks of chocolate look very inviting! They look just like the store bought ones. Do you use a special mold? I would be interested in the results of the taste-off as well. Sounds like a lot of fun.
You’re moving into Autumn, I take it, and it looks like Spring is finally coming here. There’s mud and water everywhere, as the snow is gradually melting. Will start heating the greenhouse this week, so that the tomatoes and peppers can soon be planted.
Manuela, thank you! A heated greenhouse..don’t say it too loudly, or Pete might hear you… ;-)
Ok so now I’m totally confused, which is becoming the norm around here lately! I live in New York state and have a daughter studying abroad for a semester at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. Initially, there was a 16 hour time difference and then we turned our clocks ahead an hour a few weeks ago so that there was only (haha only) a 15 hour difference. Now you’re saying there was a time change in Australia?? Did you go ahead an hour or behind? I getting too old and feeble to keep up with this lol. :) By the way, I love your blog <3
Susie, we all turned out clocks back an hour on Sunday, so instead of being 8.30am, it’s now 7.30am.
Having said that, my best tip for sorting time differences is this: before you call your daughter, go on to Google, and type in “time Tasmania” and it will instantly tell you what time it is in Tassie. I do that every time I have to call friends in the US, and it gives me an instant update on the time in all the various states. I’m too old to do the plus/minus math.. ;-)
Thanks for reading the blog! :)
What a nice relaxing morning. I love daylight savings, and it’s always a bit sad when it ends.
Our chooks always went crazy for prawn heads and shells. And if you have ever seen a chookie hunt down a mouse…. you won’t turn your back on them again! They race after them, grab the tail with their beaks, then bash the mouse repeatedly until mushy-not a pretty sight!
LOL! Becca, stop! I don’t need the visual image this early on a Monday morning! :)
Sunday was grey outside.
(Hah- still is!)
Inside we had great talks and time spent together.
My son and I decided we DON’T like grapeskin harvest bread because it tastes like grapes.
We do like the cookies- but are not craving any more.
It has been a quiet sort of day-
good for contemplation and the like.
Heidi, that’s good to know about the grapeskin flour, thank you! A day of contemplation is always a gift. :)
Your chickens must be the envy of all the chickens in the neighbourhood. Such lucky girls you have.
Claire, thank you – they bring us lots of joy..and eggs…so it’s nice to be able to reward them now and again!
Sunday morning and a crossword puzzle with a friend, a little chocolate to nibble, chickens to treat – all sounded like a perfect way to spend a few hours my friend – though I know that you are dashing around in the early hours of Monday as I write this. Have a good week dear Celia
Thank you darling, hope you have a wonderful week too!
My hens just love a feed of anything high-protein, too. I guess when you look at how much energy goes into an egg, it’s no surprise that they need to eat a lot.
We are losing most of our eggs at the moment to a mystery thief. It could be rats so we have embarked on a very heavy baiting program, which has had no effect. The latest suspect is Australian Ravens who, we are told, will steal the eggs as soon as they are laid! Whoever it is, I am not loving them at all.
One of the advantages of our large coop is that we don’t get any other birds in there, pinching their food! The other advantage is that because the coop moves all the time, we haven’t had a problem with rats to date! The ravens are clever, aren’t they?
Hi Amanda, ravens will steal eggs. I have had one that waited, perched on a convenient gate, for the egg to be laid! Celia, your chooks are so lucky – what chooks get fed salmon! I bet the eggs have really high omega oil levels though, probably really good for you as well as gloriously coloured. And I agree with InTolerant Chef – chooks with a mouse is not pretty.
Linda, I know it sounds extravagant, but after filleting there was just so much meat left on the bones and I didn’t want them to just be thrown away! The girls got three good days feed from it and today they’ve already given us six large eggs.. :)
I first tried that pork at the airport in Singapore and my husband absolutely loves it. I will def be making it :)
Erin, the photo of the bak kwa is actually a bit darker than it actually was. It’s quite delish – and surprisingly easy too! I wish I’d known years ago how easy it was! :)
Bak kwa!!!!Yum, thanks Celia! My friend once attempted to bring in 1 kg of bah kwa from Singapore to Melbourne. Only to find that it had to be confiscated and thrown away….she ate close to 1kg at customs….
Soooy, you have to make this! It was so easy, and it even impressed my mum..hahaha!
I reckon I could eat a kilo of bak kwa if I had to… :)
Living in the sunshine state means we don’t have to change the clock. I think I prefer it that way.
A drizzly weekend saw me indoors making beef curry, pumpkin and sultana scones and apple cake.
I feel like I need to get into the fresh air; but with a house full of people it seems lately I’m always stationed in the kitchen. And when I’m not, I’m on the computer. Or doing housework. Stagnant weekend for me. Content and happy full bellies for others.
Sounds like a very productive weekend in the kitchen, Mariana! It can be a lot of work to keep them all fed though – I sometimes feel like I’m feeding wolves, so I do empathise..
What a fabulous day you enjoyed. Your chooks definitely have THE life – fabulous.
:-) Mandy
Thanks Mandy! They were pretty happy girls.. :)
I think I’d eat that salmon leftover!
My son chose Sunday to actually get up early and wake me up – 6am in the new time. Once we remembered daylight saving had ended, I cooked Boxty – inspired by the Hairy Bikers – and bacon with maple syrup. A lovely treat.
Wish I still had time for crosswords.
Gotta love the Hairy Bikers, Vix! I just got their dvd, it was ridiculously cheap, just a couple of pounds from amazon, from memory! I wish you still had time for crosswords too, so you could come and help me with mine, it’s too hard for me! :)
Celia you must have the best fed chooks in the land!
And a chocolate taste off?…Shh, don’t tell Mr C, he’ll think he’s hard done by.
B, I sent Mr Chocolate some to taste! :) It was actually the Tanzanie that I was blending…
If I come back in another life, I want to come back as your neighbour.
Your chickens are all so pretty :) It seems like you had a really wonderful weekend…it’s so sweet :)
I love your homemade jerky pics, they look so perfect :)
We drove from Italy through France and into Spain – a pretty good weekend. Thanks for the chooks.
Aaah Cosmo, you’re sweet, thank you! :)
Tes, it really was a lovely weekend. Hope yours was too!
Deb, very exciting! Have fun in Spain! :)
Hehe so you didn’t sleep in at all? You are a hardcore early riser! :P
Oh how those chooks of yours get spoiled – it’s wonderful. Your chocolate looks wonderful as always. Interestingly, from everything I made at Christmas it was the orange sticks that I got the most comments about. I had a chocolate course all lined up for this weekend, but it was cancelled at the last moment – I am determined I will get this tempering business sorted this year though. Still had a lovely weekend though. Spring has truly sprung here and it’s just so beautiful everywhere.
Lorraine, I was up at 4.30am the next morning!!! Slept in today though, so felt better..
Choc..hehehe…we should have named them all Veruca Salt. :) I’m so glad Spring has sprung for you – looking forward to the pics, they keep me going as we head into the cold..
Here’s something I tried recently which you might like to try for wheat free Sunday morning pancakes. One cup of whole oat grains (NOT rolled oats) run through the seed/coffee grinder in two or three goes so as not to break it. This makes a surprisingly fine flour. I have an ancient Moulinex. Half a cup of sesame seed run through the grinder the same way. One or two eggs depending on size. Half a packet of dried yeast OR half a teaspoon of bicarb soda and a teaspoon of honey. Soy milk or milk till it’s nice and runny for pancakes. I like thin lacy pancakes, maybe you would call them crepes. Faster if you use the bicarb and the honey but nice and crumpety (in a very thin way) if you use the yeast.
Sounds very nice, Frances! I’ve used my old coffee grinder for so many spices now that I can’t really use it for coffee now.. ;-)
Celia, you need a manual coffee grinder then, the old fashioned one with a hand crank. The reason is so you can use your seed grinder for grains and herbs exclusively. I find a handful of rolled oats or rice cleans the grinder of any herb residue so you can start with something else but you could have two electric mills, one for herbs and one for grain.
The hand coffee grinder is better as it does not heat the coffee and release the aromatics as the electric coffee grinder does. The electric herb grinder does heat the herbs and grains somewhat over optimimum however in a toss up bretween being too lazy and time poor to hand thump herbs in the mortar or use and clean a mechanical grain grinder the electric mill ala Moulinex wins every time. Once a day I use the hand Coffee grinder and never clean it. Specks of yesterdays ground coffe are not eh same as rancid remains of grain grinding which affect a hand grain grinder in my opinion.
Frances, thank you, but I rarely drink coffee any more, so it’s not a big deal. I do have a manual spice grinder, but rarely use it now, except for poppy seeds when I’m making beigli! :)