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Weekend Baking

September 10, 2012 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Something unusual happened last week.

Pete was getting some meat out of the freezer, and he mentioned that there were just two sourdough rosetta rolls left in there.  That’s probably the lowest our bread supplies have been in years – no doubt a product of my recent photo-snapping hypomania. It was time for some serious weekend baking.

I baked eight wonky sourdough ciabatta loaves and a batch of supernatural brownies on Friday. Only four of the loaves made it to the freezer – the rest were eaten or given away.

These were followed by a batch of Dan Lepard’s potato stotties, which were gone before they had a chance to cool…

Inspired by lovely Joanna’s recent post, I baked another batch of semolina bbq buns. I’d forgotten how much I adore these!  And it was fun to bake a couple of quick yeast breads for weekend eating – it made a nice change from sourdough.

As usual, I over-scored these, so some of them broke apart into teeny tiny mini buns.  We had visitors on Sunday, and their small children were absolutely delighted…

I uncovered an old tub of ricotta in the fridge nearing its expiry date, so I drained it and tipped it into a small pie dish.  The top was drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil and topped with a scattering of citrus salt, rosemary and thyme, then baked in a hot oven until firm and golden. It made a great accompaniment to the buns and stotties…

And finally, I baked four large (1.3kg) white sourdough loaves in my Römertopf clay loaf pans.  These have become a house standard – the boys enjoy having “toast” bread, and I love not having to preheat the oven.  I now cut the loaves in half before freezing them, as the wolves have been known to defrost and eat a whole one at a single sitting!

I baked two regular loaves, and two with the Billington’s Molasses Sugar that I bought last week.  The small change resulted in a deeper coloured crumb and crust…

I slashed the tops with two sweeping arcs that crossed at either end, which produced a nice, even oven spring. Pete made a comment about loaves and fishes…

So…the bread drawer in the freezer is fully restocked. But given that school holidays are imminent, I’ll probably be baking again next weekend!

Posted in Frugal Living, Recipes | Tagged , , | 84 Comments »

iPhone Photography

September 8, 2012 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Since posting about the Hipstamatic iPhone app a couple of months ago, I’ve quite literally taken thousands of photos.  Here are just four, all as originally photographed with the Hipstamatic…

This photo of Small Man practicing his card tricks before school is my desktop screensaver…

A wallhanging at the acupuncturist’s…

A lights out, one-handed shot of Small Man’s plasma ball, which he made us lug home from Questacon nearly a decade ago…

. . . . .

In recent weeks, I’ve discovered the world of photo-editing apps, which allows an image to be manipulated after it’s been taken.  I’ve had enormous fun for less than the price of a couple of cappuccinos…

My current favourite is the PhotoToaster App, which turned a fairly average shop window photo into this…

Perhaps the best photo editing app at the moment, particularly for fine tuning an image, is Snapseed.  I used it to turn this photo of Alana the dog groomer into black and white, and then used Phototoaster to tweak it just a little bit further. And no, it’s not my dog, but he was certainly very cute…

My friend Peter Bryenton put me onto the Outcolor App…

Most filter apps these days seem to focus on old-time effects, but yesterday I came across three that were definitely modern and quirky!

The Percolator App turned one of my plasma ball photos into funky wall art (Pete thought we should do a series and frame them)…

Popsicolor, by the same developers, created this picture from my photo of two soda bottles…

And finally, I bought the Decim8 App for just $0.99, and have found it incredibly addictive. It creates the wildest images!  Here are the ones I made yesterday based on my grevillea photo (top left).  They’re been formatted using the Diptic App…

…and here’s a Warhol-esque self portrait…

. . . . .

Isn’t technology amazing?  Most of these apps are just a dollar or two (with the exception of Snapseed, which is $4.99).  My iPhone is light, has a reasonable lens, and is always with me. Best of all, I can take a squillion photos, at absolutely no cost.  Happy days!

It’s Saturday morning here in Sydney, the sun is shining, and I’m heading out to take photos.  Wishing you all a glorious, peaceful weekend. xx

Posted in My Photos | 58 Comments »

Spring Garden Update

September 6, 2012 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Is this possibly the best time of year in our garden?

I think it might be – it’s the start of Spring, and we’re getting sunny days with cool nights.  Everything is growing lush and green, but it’s not yet warm enough for the bugs to be a problem.

The sweetheart cabbages and early season greens are all thriving…

As I mentioned previously, we’ve figured out how to cook with rainbow chard, which is a good thing, as the garden is full of it, in red, pink, yellow and white…

Remember that “purple sprouting kale” I was so excited about a couple of months ago?  Well, turns out it’s just kohlrabi.  And whilst I’m a little disappointed, Julie at Eveleigh who sold me the pot is devastated – she bought expensive “purple sprouting kale” seed from the wholesalers!  Still, we like kohlrabi, so it’s hardly a disaster…

Our red beetroots are forming bulbs – last year it was so wet that they just rotted away…

I paid $6 for a celeriac at the fruit shop yesterday, and now that I know how long each of them take to grow, I don’t begrudge the dollars at all.  Ours are finally starting to form bulbous bases…

Pete thought we should try growing broccoli rabé – not sure if anyone will eat it yet, as it’s quite bitter.  I’ll have to try out Chicago John’s recipe…

Potatoes are going gangbusters this year…

Our potted Tasty Bite chilli, which is not hot at all, is forming new fruit.  They look like small candies…

Julie was so upset that the sprouting kale turned out to be kohlrabi that she gave me this lovely basket of French marigolds as a replacement.  They’re quite magnificent, and apparently a very good companion plant…

Our pond is in bloom.  We never seen a frog, but something must be in the there, because we have an unchlorinated body of water in the garden, yet no mosquitoes.  We think the dragonflies probably lay their larvae in there…

The pond flowers are petite, pink and just so pretty.  I had to lie on my stomach to take this photo..

So tell me, how’s your garden going this month?

Posted in Frugal Living | 85 Comments »

Gumboot Garden

September 3, 2012 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

The nicest thing about the internet is that it lets folks with common interests connect with one another.

That’s the case with fellow Aussie blogger Jason at Zucchini Island – like us, he and his partner Melanie are following Linda Woodrow’s Permaculture Home Garden plan, complete with chook dome, round beds and intensive planting schedule.

Jason and Melanie are following the script far closer than we are – we’ve had to modify it somewhat to suit our time constraints – but it is such a joy to have someone who understands the thrills and occasional hiccups in the course of this gardening journey.

Recently, Jason set up a small business selling gardening supplies.  His primary product is a seasonal seed subscription, but in addition to this, he also has cards (like the gorgeous one above), and has just introduced these very clever Season Stickers.

Here’s how Jason described them to me in a recent email:

I found that when I wanted to sow some seedlings, I first needed to get out my gardening guide to workout which seeds to plant – that, in itself, was time consuming. Then I would search through my seedling containers looking for the plant name. Sometimes I would have to flick through the whole collection only to discover that I didn’t have that particular seed, and then have to start all over again looking for next one in the list. I also have some varieties that are not listed in my guides, so I would end up doing a packet by packet check anyway. All this took time and reduced the time I could have spent sowing.
 
My solution was to develop Season Stickers – sheets of little round stickers with the seasons on them. When you purchase a new packet of seeds, based on the packet information or some planting guide, you stick one of these onto the front of the packet. Then when it’s time to sow, you simply grab all seed packets with the appropriate sticker on them, and off you go.

I think they’re a great idea! We have a large cherry box stuffed full with seed packets, and I know it will often take Pete and I an hour just to go through them looking for what to plant in each bed…

Jason is selling the stickers on Gumboot Gardens website.  There are three sheets (108 Season Stickers in total) and a temperate planting guide in each set…

I was sent a set to play with (cheers Jason!) and a couple more to give away.  If you’re a gardener with lots of packets of seeds to manage, you’ll probably find them really useful…

Please visit Jason’s blog Zucchini Island, and his Gumboot Garden website!  And if you’re interested in winning a packet of Season Stickers, please just leave a comment below and we’ll pull a couple of names out of a hat in a few days’ time.  Everyone is welcome to enter!

Winners: I asked Jason to pick a couple of winners, and he chose Rose and AfricanAussie.  I’ll be emailing you both soon!

Posted in Frugal Living | 34 Comments »

In My Kitchen, September 2012

September 1, 2012 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

In my kitchen…

…are two jars of flavoured honey, a gift from my neighbour Jane. They have a delicious, savoury taste – I never considered using honey as a dip or spread before…

In my kitchen…

…is a new discovery from Norton Street Grocers – dark molasses sugar by Billington’s…

It is very dark and sticky – I had to crumble it with my fingers for the photo.  I can see its slightly bitter, almost salty flavours working well with Asian coconut milk based desserts. I usually buy their Muscovado sugars, but this is quite different…

In my kitchen…

…are a squillion dried curry leaves, from my mum’s tree.  She cut three large branches for me, and they dried crispy within days.  Neighbours, if you’re reading this and could use some curry leaves, please come over…

In my kitchen…

…is a bag of blue cornmeal…

It’s more a dark mauve than blue…

…and it makes the best tortillas!  We had a simple dinner of blue corn tortillas with chipotle sauce, coleslaw and tomatoes from the garden, and slow roasted belly pork.  Out of the seventeen tortillas we made, I managed to get two (note to self: learn to take photos faster!)…

In my kitchen…

…are two amazing bars of Amedei chocolate, a gift  from the lovely Tania.  The 9 is particularly delicious, and the Porcelana a rare and much appreciated treat…

Only limited quantities of the Porcelana are made each year.  The white Criollo beans which give the chocolate its name also give it a surprising sweetness, given its 70% cacao content.  Each bar is individually numbered!

In my kitchen…

…is rainbow chard – which is actually silverbeet in disguise. I’ve discovered a secret – if I take the stems off and feed them to the chooks, my family will happily eat the remaining part of the leaves.  That’s a good thing too, as it grows like a weed in our garden…

  . . . . .

Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?

If you’d like to do an In My Kitchen post on your own blog, please feel free  to do so. We’d love to see what’s happening in your kitchen this month!  Please link back to this blog, and let us know when your post is up, and we’ll add it to our monthly listing.

Here are this month’s posts…

Sue @ Sous Chef

Pam @ Grow Bake Run

Christine @ Food Wine Travel

Shirley @ The Making of Paradise

Tandy @ Lavender and Lime

Sally @ My Custard Pie

Mandy @ The Complete Cookbook

Claire @ Claire K Creations

Mrs Mulberry @ Mulberry and Pomegranate

Heidi @ Steps on the Journey

Johanna @ Green Gourmet Giraffe

Mel @ The Adventures of Miss Piggy

My Experiments & Food (first time contributor!)

Pamela @ Spoon Feast

Emilie @ The Clever Carrot

Anne @ Life in Mud Spattered Boots

Lizzy @ Bizzy Lizzy’s Good Things

Jane @ The Shady Baker

Tania @ My Kitchen Stories

Glenda @ Passion Fruit Garden

Posted in In My Kitchen | 84 Comments »

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