In my kitchen…
…are cheat’s crostolis, made by deep-frying a packet of dumpling wrappers and tossing them in icing sugar mixture…
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In my kitchen…
…were old friends who joined me for a marathon hot cross bun baking session on Easter Saturday. Carol and I have been friends for over 30 years but Anita, Helen and I go back even further – we were in school together in 1975!
We made 96 buns in total that day!
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In my kitchen…
…were dark chocolate salted caramel popcorn Easter eggs, inspired by my friend Choclette’s post…
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In my kitchen…
…are silk scarves made from vintage kimono scrap, found in the backroom at Cash Palace. Some of the pieces date from before the Second World War…
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In my kitchen…
…was a mountain of spent vanilla pods, which I’d saved over the past decade from bottles of homemade vanilla extract. I couldn’t bring myself to throw away such a valuable resource, even after most of the goodness had been used up, so I’d carefully saved them in an empty bottle at the back of the linen closet.
Last week, I scraped out all the remaining seeds…
…and rubbed them into three kilos of white sugar. The boys are pretty happy to have vanilla sugar again for their tea…
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In my kitchen…
…were four free-range chicken carcasses, purchased from Haverick Meats for $1 each. As most butchers only take off the breasts, thighs, drumsticks and wings, there’s always a heap of meat left on the backbone. I pressure cooked two of the carcasses for stock, then carefully picked the meat for soup.
The remaining two were roasted to create a darker stock. They too went into the pressure cooker, but not before I ate the bishop’s noses – my favourite part…
Before cooking, I removed all the fat and skin from the bones – this was gently rendered into schmaltz and stored in the fridge. We ended up with six boxes of stock, two jars of schmaltz and chicken noodle soup for five adults. That’s a pretty good result for $4!
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In my kitchen…
…after our marathon hot cross bun baking session, were four fledgling chefs, cooking up a Korean BBQ storm…
They made seafood pancakes and pork wrapped enoki mushrooms…
…then they lit up a griddle plate on the hob. They’d found it at the Korean supermarket and it didn’t quite sit flat on the cast iron trivets, so Pete the engineer devised a solution.
Me: “What are you doing with the kids’ dominoes? They have sentimental value!”
Pete: “I’m making blocks to hold up the Korean BBQ hot plate the kids bought..”
Me: “But you’ll break up the set!”
Pete: “Oh, most of them have been gone for years. They make excellent plywood spacers. There’s a stack of them built into the wall over there…”
Sigh. So much for keeping the old toys intact…
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Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen?
If you’d like to write an In My Kitchen post, please do so by the 10th May and send your link to our new host, Sherry at Sherry’s Pickings. Thanks for hosting Sherry! x
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Always one of my favourite posts to read. I love the look of your crostolis. I will have to try that. Don’t think our kitchen is big enough for 96 hot cross buns although I would love to work my way through eating them all. :-D
Have a glorious May Celia.
Love from Nairobi, Kenya.
:-) Mandy xoxo
Thanks lovely Mandy! Hope all is well on your side of the globe! xxx
Just back from a glorious 10 days with my Pete in Kenya. Looking forward to booking my next trip back in a few weeks. Have a super day. :-) xoxo
Wow! Can’t believe you managed to get all that from a few chicken carcasses. I was wondering what you use the dark stock for as opposed to the ‘white’?
Nothing specific really, it’s just nice to have a mix in the freezer! :)
These last few weeks I have made 2 jars of pasta sauce, 2 of tomato base sauce including star anise and cloves and allspice berries, 4 pineapple jam, 3 raspberry and lime jam and gluten/dairy/sugar free banana bread. All organic ingredients from the local farmers market. I am going to try your chicken ideas…how wonderful for $4! Thanks Celia.
Marilyn, we always say that if times get REALLY hard, we could live on bones because they’re always so cheap and there’s usually heaps of meat left on them! :)
Awesome activities! Your chicken rescue is really impressive.
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Thank you! :)
I love these posts…and especially the idea of your cooking with your girlfriends! Love what you did with the chicken carcasses…frugal food is generally the tastiest 😀
T, you KNOW I’m not big on girly get-togethers, but cooking is something different! :D
That would be my choice of get together too!
That food is making my mouth water! The dominos story made me laugh, I guess if you stay in that house you will always have them in the wall.
I’m going to have to have words with Uncle Steve (Pete’s brother), as I’m pretty sure he built that wall…hahaha
I love the clever engineer’s solution to the crookedy plate. What you can do with $4 of food is amazing. Just one litre of stock would have been great but you got soup and the pope’s nose too!
He’s a genius, but did he have to use the kids’ old toys? ;-) Thank you for being so kind about my tight-arsedness…hahaha
Wonderful post, as usual, Celia!
I won’t be participating this month, but maybe next? ;-)
Hello lovely, sorry I haven’t been online much, but I have been thinking of you! Hope all is well with you and the Handsome Stud.. xxx
It’s been ages since I stopped by. My loss, really it is: Your blog is beautiful and inspirational as ever. I, by the way, had to “start over” when I lost the domain. Restarted as lifeinthefoodlane, just not .com anymore. In case you went looking for me ;-).
Hi Fran, how nice to hear from you! I’m sorry to hear you lost your domain! x
It’s ok though, good exercise in cleaning up and refocusing. Life in the food lane as my food & travel blog continues, just see it as moving: it’s a new address LOL. Rebuilding everything, including readership. But that is kinda fun too! And it takes me on the “blog road” again, finally paying some attention to those beautiful blogs out there, definitely such as yours!
thanks for joining in celia. once again i am gobsmacked by your cleverness, creativity and thriftiness. sooo clever to get all of that from some carcasses. those gorgeous easter eggs of yours! oh my such beauty…
Hello my fellow fossil collector, thanks for taking over the role of hostess! The Easter eggs were a big hit, although they had to be eaten quickly as the popcorn went stale once the chocolate was broken! :)
Love your inspirational posts, wish you were my next door neighbour!
I have just made pots of quince paste from early quinces found them very hard to make jell even after hours in the low oven. Think it may be that early fruit not the best for jamming. Have you had this problem?
Robyn
I haven’t made any jams at all this year, but our friend Emma made quince paste for us, and she founds hers quite runny as well. She makes it in a pot, though?
As usual the month in your kitchen seems SO productive; full of fun, family, friends and interesting foods.
Thanks Dee! Loved peeking into your kitchen this month as well!
Just so you know….I made the Hot Cross Buns and they were Great! Thank you.
That’s wonderful news! Thanks for letting me know!
Always wonderful to see your kitchen activities, so much life, love and laughter ♡
Ditto! I’m so glad everything’s moving in the direction as planned for you and the G.O.! xxx
It’s very busy at your homestead isn’t it. I saw your post on Cash Palace – sorry to see that treasure closing but at least there were some bargains in it for you. The carcasses were a bargain. I used up the last of our home made stock on our first night back in Brisbane to make a chicken vegetable soup. The perfect panacea to American food and jetlag. I’ve got one carcass in the freezer but need to stockpile some more.
I’m back from a break from blogging and reading blogs so enjoyed reading your post.
Nice to have you back in the country, but oh how I enjoyed your travels! :)
Everything looks fantastic. Always fun to see the monthly chocolate selection.
Hi Greg! Hope you’re both well and ready for summer over there!
Things are looking lovely in your kitchen. So nice to see those young men of yours, along with their friends, cooking. Tell them I think they are the most handsome blokes on the internet and perhaps IRL too. Vanilla sugar, that’s what I need to make too. xx
Ooh, it’ll go to their heads if I tell them that, Fra! :) The vanilla sugar has been a huge hit! xxx
Your deep fried dumpling wrappers remind me so much of my mothers samosa scraps deep fried and also coated in icing sugar and a drizzle of honey. Yum. I missed out on the hotcross buns this year, maybe next time. so many happy faces in your kitchen – the place to be.
Yum, thanks for sharing. The vanilla sugar is a great idea!
Dear Celia, as always, innovation (yay, Pete!) and inspiration are in your kitchen. Just printed off your link to Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Easter Eggs (thanks, Choclette), and I’m lovin’ your Hot Cross Bun marathon. Your seafood & pork-filled wrappers look sensational, too .. but I’ve never heard of “Bishops’ Noses”… is that the “tail”? Maybe I need to reserve ’em for my eating pleasure instead of re-purposing them into stock!
What a lovely way to spend Easter Saturday, the hot cross buns look wonderful.
The bishop’s nose, or pupik as it is called in a Jewish home, is my favourite as well. That was a serious bargain. So glad the note booklet reminds you of me – I feel the same way about my sourdough starter :)
So inspiring …… as always, Celia! x
The bishop’s nose is my favorite part as well, what a treasure trove you found with those carcasses. And I love the pictures of your friends and the kids cooking together. What a joy to have a kitchen full of happy people.
How wonderful to have so many gorgeous people in your kitchen! So much love and laughter! It really is the heart of your home! The food looks delicious Celia!
I intended to make hot cross buns this year and just didn’t get to it, somehow there is never enough time. I would love to have those chocolate eggs as well! I’ve been a little slow on the blogging lately as real life is just too busy for us too, I guess that’s a good thing. Maybe I’ll find a new routine once school is out. Vanilla sugar is popular in our house too. I started blitzing the whole bean with sugar in the food processor after seeing it in a German cookbook. It makes a fantastic vanilla sugar and wastes nothing.
Love your chicken stock – I’ll be keeping my eyes open for some free range chicken carcasses soon. Need to replenish my chicken stock :) What an Easter feast with all those lovely hot cross buns! Love your hubby’s idea to fix the hot plate – make do with what you have I say, love it! And you definitely can’t go wrong with vanilla sugar. I may have to try some in my tea or coffee one day. See you next month for #IMK xx
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