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Archive for April, 2012

Blitzing

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on April 27, 2012| 52 Comments »

I’m still having a blast with  my new food processor!

Here’s our lime and almond cake, which Pete has now declared to be the best non-chocolate cake I’ve ever made, baked in a Wilton Queen of Hearts bundt pan.  The icing was decorated with lime zest…

We were off to the markets and needed something quick and easy to feed the stall holders, so I tried baking a very basic chocolate pound cake in a roasting tray to see if we could turn it into a slab cake.  It worked a treat!  We took some to the markets and our sons demolished the rest while we were out…

This simple and unpretentious chocolate cake is made special by its icing. I love that the pound cake recipe is so easy that I can make them from memory – even when I mess about with the ingredients!  The instructions are here…

  • 250g (8oz) unsalted butter
  • 185g (6oz) self-raising flour
  • 65g (2oz) sifted Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 250g (8oz) castor (superfine) sugar
  • 4 large (59g) free range eggs

The batter was baked in a 23cm x 33cm (9″ x 13″) parchment lined pan in a preheated 160C (320F) fan-forced oven for 30 minutes, then topped with icing while still warm and popped into the fridge to set.  Allow the cake to come back to room temperature before serving.  To make the icing, stir and melt the following ingredients together in a double boiler..

  • 100g (33/4oz) dark chocolate callets, or finely chopped chocolate
  • 100g (33/4oz) unsalted butter
  • 100g (33/4oz) icing sugar, sifted (it’s important to sift, or you’ll get lumpy icing)
  • 60ml (¼ cup) milk

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Making hot chocolate mix in the old food processor used to be hard work, but our new Magimix blitzed it up in record time.  I made two kilos (a double batch) using our favourite recipe…

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A dollar’s worth of dried chick peas was turned into a large vat of Syrian hommus.  We ate a little of it for lunch, with pita bread and grilled eggplant…

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And finally, using the small bowl and blade of the Magimix, I turned the last of our cayenne chillies…

…and a few of the bishops’ crown chillies…

…plus a handful of spearmint…

…into a small jar of harissa. I’ve been smearing it on toast for breakfast!

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Ninja Chickens

Posted in Frugal Living on April 25, 2012| 62 Comments »

Chicken Phantom Agents...

Our ninja chickens in action!

They were on the hunt for worms and grubs.  Bertie’s feet were a blur of speed and determination…

Stalking their prey…

When chickens dig for food, they scratch the ground with one foot, followed by the other, then leap backwards in a dramatic, ninja-like manner and peer intensely at the uncovered dirt, looking for anything edible…

Joanna once told me that this movement was known as “spuddling”.  We could watch them doing it for hours! (Click on the HD button if your broadband can handle it.)

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Doughnuts

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on April 23, 2012| 89 Comments »

“I’ve got an idea”, said Pete, “let’s go buy junk food!”

I know it’s a strange thing to say, but we were headed to Leichhardt Market Town and we thought it might be fun. Something different – an “end of school holidays” treat, as it were.

But…we just couldn’t do it. We really tried. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy anything from the takeaway food court, or lollies or biscuits from the supermarket. I did manage to pick up a packet of Kettle Chips, but only because I have a shocking weakness for crisps.

On the way back to the car, we passed the Wendy’s Donuts stand.

“What about doughnuts?”, I asked.

“Oh, I love those.  Will you make some for me when we get home?”

Sigh.  How could I refuse?

I wrote a tutorial on making these several years ago (the recipe and instructions are here). This is the first time we’ve made them with our homegrown eggs, and the centres were a gorgeous golden yellow.  Half the balls were filled with Pete’s jams, the others were left plain and simply tossed in castor sugar.

Pete ate TWELVE, and then told me he felt a bit sick.

Homemade junk food, indeed.

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Garden Update, April 2012

Posted in Frugal Living on April 22, 2012| 62 Comments »

It’s not just the asparagus – this mad Sydney weather has confused quite a few of our garden plants!

This kohlrabi refuses to swell at the root and is desperately trying to form a head – it thinks it’s a cabbage…

It was so mild last winter that the nasturtiums didn’t die back at all…

…and because of the ridiculously warm autumn weather, this self-sown cherry tomato has grown into a tree and is now madly setting fruit…

Robbie’s chilli plant produces multi-coloured fruit without a hint of heat. They make a very reasonable capsicum substitute…

And Joanna’s broccoli, which has grown into a giant plant in a crack in the bricks, can’t make up its mind whether it’s a broccoli or a cauliflower. It’s quite green – the overcast sky washed the colour in the photos out. It has cauli-like florets…

…with broccoli flowers growing in amongst them…

Thankfully, our young lemon tree isn’t confused – we’re close to picking our very first lemon ever…

The cos lettuce continue to be a big success, with very few pests.  This may well be the most perfect one we’ll ever grow…

Here is today’s harvest, much of which went into tonight’s stirfry…

…and a close up of Joanna’s broccoflower (as Big Boy named it – I wanted to call it a caulicoli), alongside a head of broccoli and a tiny self-sown cauliflower.  As you can see, it really is halfway between the two!

What’s growing in your garden this month?

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The Asparagus Diaries

Posted in Frugal Living, tagged on April 20, 2012| 84 Comments »

Remember our asparagus patch?

Actually, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a “patch”, as it’s only a tiny rectangle of dirt the size of a large planter box.

When we first started the garden, our friend the Spice Girl gave us a small asparagus plant. Pete somehow managed to divide it into seven pots, which we planted out the following year in the little garden bed next to the driveway.  Last year, they grew into the mass of ferny leaves that you see in the photo above.

We were supposed to let them die back before cutting them down, but they never did. We’ve had the weirdest weather in Sydney – a mild winter, followed by a wet, cool summer, followed by a very warm autumn.  All the plants are completely confused.  So on Easter Sunday, after looking at the foliage for over a year, we cut it down to the ground.

Exactly one week later, I took these photos:

I couldn’t believe asparagus could grow that fast!  The shoot at the bottom of the photo below was as thick as my pinky finger…

It gets better…this is what the bed looked like the next day…

More thick spears were starting to emerge at the other end of the bed…

Asparagus is supposed to grow in spring, so I have no idea why it’s shooting now in the middle of autumn.  Pete wants to give the plants a chance to get really well established, so we’re only harvesting the thicker stalks this year.

Day three…I cut the spear in the middle just after this photo was taken…

The ones at the top of the bed had grown a couple of inches overnight…

And here it is – our very first, homegrown asparagus! We washed it, took a photo, and then ate it raw – all within minutes of cutting it…

I have to admit, as asparagus growers, we’ve been flying by the seat of our pants.  We really have no idea of what we’re supposed to be doing, or when, but almost magically, the plants seem to be growing brilliantly. Given all the things that won’t grow in our garden (tomatoes, apples, strawberries, just to name a few), we’re overjoyed that these are doing so well!

Edit: Just raced out to take a photo to show you – here’s the patch this morning, three days after the last photo was taken. We’ve eaten half a dozen spears in the interim!

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