Wishing you all a joyous, sunshine-filled Sunday!
Here are the lemons we’ve just picked off our tree! Happy days!
Dark chocolate is very good for you.
That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it. Here are my recent adventures with this wondrous health food.
I’ve made a very dark blend of Callebaut 811, Callebaut 70% and Cacao Barry Tanzanie 75%, and stuffed it with cacao nibs. A dairy-free antioxidant boost…
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This slightly sweeter blend (about 63% dark, from memory) was filled with almond slivers that had been tossed in Kirsch and sugar, and then roasted in the oven. Instead of bars, I spread the chocolate onto lined trays to create a flat bark. Nuts are good for you too, right?
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Finally, my lovely friend Tania gave me a broken block of Amedei ‘9’ to play with. This dark 75% cacao chocolate – a mix of beans from nine different plantations – has a delicious, complex flavour that is quite unique. In an effort to exercise portion control, I tempered it into bite-sized pieces.
I find chocolate this dark and flavoursome to be extremely satiating, and a single square of the ‘9’ is usually enough to satisfy my chocolate cravings…
Are you a dark chocolate fan? It’s very good for you, you know.
(That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it.)
Posted in Recipes | 62 Comments »
I haven’t spent a lot of time in the kitchen this past month – with both boys on holidays, we’ve been out and about quite a bit. Here are eight photos, all taken on my iPhone 4S in recent weeks. They didn’t really fit into any other posts, so I thought I’d give them one of their own.
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I snapped this shot as we were landing at Sydney airport. As we passed through the thick cloud bank the brilliant blue disappeared, to be replaced with rain and dark overcast skies…
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As I’ve mentioned before, we have a terrible time growing tomatoes in our backyard in summer. But for some reason, we always seem to have self-sown winter tomatoes to harvest. We think these are a roma-cherry cross…
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Contemporary artists start young in our neighbourhood.
While we were away, four year old Pinkabelle (as she now insists on being called) installed her newest creation on our garden steps. She’s been doing it for years (photos here and here), always keeping to the same materials, but routinely altering their layout. Like all good artists, she likes to keep things fresh…
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On our day out in Sydney, we stopped at King Comics on Pitt Street. I was quite chuffed with my slightly psychedelic photo of Ringo and George…
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Our lovely friend Linda gave me a jar of her (very addictive) tamarillo chilli sauce, and when I asked what a tamarillo was, she sent me a couple in the mail to try. They’re deliciously tart and quite tomato like…
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Thankfully, these hand-tooled Italian boots didn’t fit Pete, as we really couldn’t afford the $399 they were marked down to. They were absolutely stunning…
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By lunchtime each day, the early morning dew in our garden is nearly gone. These last droplets on a nasturtium leaf formed perfectly round magical fairy globes. Like tiny magnifying glasses, each focused a beam of sunlight onto the leaf’s surface…
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Finally, a little running water is considered good feng shui to the Chinese, and I was captivated by this small fountain near St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. I liked the photo so much that it’s now my desktop wallpaper!
How’s life in your part of the world?
I hope things are calm and happy! x
Posted in My Photos | 58 Comments »
After the happy success I had with my experimental Guinness and treacle sourdough, I’ve been busy playing around with the recipe!
My first variation was a Guinness and treacle ciabatta, made with a very wet (80%) hydration dough. It was difficult to handle, but the elastic, holey crumb made it worth the effort. Based on our ciabatta recipe, I tweaked the quantities and ingredients as follows:
- 300g Guinness starter
- 650g fridge cold water
- 1kg Buratto flour (or bakers flour, but you might need to reduce water quantity)
- 60g treacle
- 19g fine sea salt
The dough was left to prove on the bench overnight, then shaped and baked the following day without a second rise, following the method we use for our regular ciabattas.
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Aren’t these rolls adorable? They’re shaped into Essex huffers, as taught to me by my friend Anne at Life in Mud Spattered Boots.
The dough is the same as the original Guinness loaf, but formed instead into a flat circle, cut into wedges and baked in a round cake tin. Anne has detailed instructions on how to shape the huffers here. Small Man was particularly taken with these rolls – he ate three of them before dinner.
As always, the versatility of sourdough never ceases to amaze me!
Posted in Recipes | 43 Comments »
Federation Square sits right in the middle of Melbourne.
It’s a glorious spot, filled with funky buildings, restaurants, an enormous screen for public viewing, and open performance spaces. And glass, oodles and oodles of glass, creating the most enchanting and captivating reflections…
We caught the train from Prahran into the city to visit ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, to see their Hollywood Costume exhibition…
It wasn’t until after we’d paid for the tickets that I was told photos weren’t allowed…
It was a great exhibition nonetheless, albeit an incredibly crowded one, and they did allow us to take photos of the Gatsby costumes at the entrance…
On our way there, we inadvertently alighted at Southern Cross station instead of Flinders Street. A happy mistake, as Southern Cross is, in Pete’s words, “architecturally notable” for its remarkable wavy roofline…
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After spending most of Sunday immersed in popular culture, we paid a short visit to the Melbourne Museum.
In the foyer was a blue whale skeleton – the largest animal to ever live – although after some discussion and pacing out the length, Big Boy and Small Man decided that this specimen was just a small one. They estimated it to be 18m in length (they were close, it’s actually 18.7m), only about half the size of the largest blue whale ever recorded (34m). How they know all this stuff off the top of their heads is beyond me…
There were the preserved remains of a giant squid, found in the stomach of a whale…
A room full of stuffed animals from all over the world…
Interestingly, Melbourne Museum offers a Forest Gallery, with over 8000 individual plants, including huge gum trees. The gallery is open air and includes a variety of live animals…
A giant slice of Kauri pine from Northern Queensland shows 600 years growth in its rings…
This art piece, titled Sky Raising Magpies, was created as part of the “Bute Ute” project for the 2002 Melbourne Festival. It tells the indigenous legend of how the magpies created the dawn…
Our primary reason for visiting was to see Phar Lap, one of Australia and New Zealand’s most famous racehorses. His mounted hide is displayed at the Melbourne Museum, his skeleton in the Museum of New Zealand, and his heart in the National Museum in Canberra.
One thing that struck me about Phar Lap was how thin he was. I wasn’t sure if that was how the horse actually was in real life, or simply a result of the taxidermy process…
The museum shop offers some seriously cool science toys, including this MOVA globe. Its movement is powered by the room lights via very specialised solar cells and maintained by the earth’s magnetic field..
Big Boy bought his girlfriend the ultimate geeky gift – a lab grown bismuth crystal. “It’s one of the rarest heavy elements produced in a star during a supernova”, he insisted…
A brief, but highly enjoyable visit. Small Man has already asked if we can go back the next time we’re in Melbourne!
Posted in Food & Friends | 45 Comments »
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