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In My Kitchen, May 2011

May 18, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

In my kitchen…

…is a dark chocolate owl, made using these moulds from Candyland Crafts.

The owl is hollow and made with our 74% Tanzanie chocolate blend.  The detailing in the plastic moulds was exquisite…

In my kitchen…

…are four loaves of homemade sourdough ciabatta, our new pane de casa, or house bread.  Small Man is eating like a horse at the moment, and will demolish a loaf a day, before and after dinner.  Thankfully, it’s the simplest bread I make…

In my kitchen…

…are four rainbow trout, stuffed with baby leek, young ginger and parsley.  They were drizzled with thick soy, olive oil and a little flaky salt before roasting in a 200C oven.  We covered them with foil for the first 10 minutes, and then finished them off uncovered.  Nothing makes my starving younger son happier than having an entire fish to himself…

In my kitchen…

…are tinned Italian tomatoes.  Australian tomatoes have suffered so badly from the rain that it’s been uneconomical for us to make our homemade passata.  Additionally, the couple of batches we did make recently were watery and flavourless.

Thankfully, my mate Johnny at the cheese shop has started stocking the  fabulous Mutti range of Italian tomatoes and sauces.  Ignoring all my BPA concerns, I’ve stocked up on two types – the baby romas, and the San Marzano.  The latter are quite expensive ($3/tin), but ever since we’ve bought them, Pete has refused to use anything else.  Sigh…

The San Marzanos are grown in volcanic soil, and are the sweetest, thickest tinned tomatoes we’ve ever tasted.  So thick, in fact, that they often need to be diluted down with wine or water in a sauce!

The baby romas are fantastic – the small tomatoes keep their shape in the tin and often the finished dish will still have whole tomatoes in the sauce.  They’re far more affordable, at $20 per dozen tins.  And they’re much better than the tinned cherry toms we’ve bought in the past…

In my kitchen…

…is a new Emile Henry baking dish, in the most gorgeous aubergine/fig colour.  I found it at Peters of Kensington, reduced from $79 to $23.

I’m currently in the process of retiring all my heavy Le Creuset and La Chasseur cast iron pieces, and replacing them with Emile Henry cookware. I know the cast iron is magnificent, but honestly, the cookware was getting too heavy for me to manoeuvre and they were always such a bugger to wash!  The Emile Henry is lightweight, the Flame range goes onto the gas hob, and the dirty cookware goes straight into the dishwasher.

In my kitchen…

…is a little winter rhubarb from our garden.  We never knew that the stems would grow quite red in the colder weather…

We stewed the rhubarb with a little sugar and some of the frozen blackberries that we bought in Marrickville, and served it topped with Pete’s homemade Greek yoghurt and a little maple syrup…

. . . . .

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 use this format, and to leave a comment here linking back to your post.  We’d all love to see what’s happening in your kitchen every month too!

Posted in In My Kitchen | Tagged , , , , , , , | 61 Comments »

Red Wattlebird

May 16, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

A Red Wattlebird has taken up residence in our backyard.

This assertive Australian native is particularly fond of our camellia trees, feeding on the nectar in the flowers…

We always know when it’s in the yard, by its very distinctive call – a harsh, sharp chok-chok call, which it makes by sticking out its chest and pointing its beak towards the sky.  I was really happy to see that I’d managed to snap a pic of the bird mid-call…

Here’s a shot of its yellow underbelly…

Our noisy visitor tends to hide in the branches of our jacaranda tree most of the time, so it was a real treat to get to play paparazzi when it finally came out to pose for photos!

Posted in Food & Friends | Tagged , | 36 Comments »

Big Boy and Small Man

May 14, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

This touching post by Clare made me reflect on how much I enjoy being a mother.

I was blessed to have seven years at home with Big Boy and Small Man when they were little, and it was without doubt the best time of my life. Our days were filled with adventures – exploring, crafting, learning.

From the time Small Man was born, he and Big Boy have been close. There are a few years between them, and Small Man was very sick as a baby with stage 4 cancer, but that hasn’t stopped the two of them forging an incredibly tight bond.  Big Boy is patient and protective; loving but tough – and Small Man looks up to his brother above everyone else.

I know this is hard to believe, but our sons have never had a fight. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times they’ve conversed in raised voices.

The photo above was taken on Small Man’s 7th birthday – he was unwell and feverish on the day of his party (as you can see by the flushed cheeks), and the only person who could make him smile on the day was his big brother.

Not surprisingly, both our sons are very like their father; Big Boy particularly so. And having spent nearly thirty years with the greatest man I’ve ever known, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that his sons would love and admire him so much. He has provided both boys with an amazing role model – one that they’ve sought to emulate as closely as possible.

Once, when Big Boy was only a toddler, he and I enjoyed the most glorious day – snuggled up and sleeping in late, followed by a day out playing in the park, shopping and drinking babychinos at a cafe by the water. Pete had left for work before either of us had crawled out of bed, and didn’t come home until nearly 7pm. That night, he said to me, “Babe, I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you do for our family. You keep our little man so happy. We couldn’t manage without you.”

I’d spent the most fabulous day playing with our son, while my husband had been at work for nearly 12 hours, and instead of resenting the inequality of it all, he was thanking me for being a stay-at-home mum. Is it any wonder that a man of such grace and generosity is so deeply loved by his family?

Our sons are both big now – Big Boy is an adult and currently at university, and Small Man is in the latter part of high school. They both tower over Pete and I, and have their own range of diverse interests and friends. Yet our oldest son will still make me a cup of tea and sit for a while to chat about life and the universe, and Small Man will happily try to help me with crossword clues that require a more scientific mind than mine.

To all my friends with young children – cherish these special years.

They’re a gift from God.

Posted in Food & Friends | 89 Comments »

Marvellous Marrickville

May 13, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner-west, is a suburb known and loved by local foodies for both its interesting restaurants and fabulous food wholesalers.

A quest for Ben Furney Mills’ flour, which I mentioned in a previous post, led me there again this week.

For Sydney bakers, Southern Cross Supplies offers a huge range of wholesale food and grocery items at reasonable prices.  There is a small showroom you can wander through, but most of the items are stored in a large warehouse which is off-limits to the general public.  You can, however, walk in and purchase single items over the counter.

The bakers (bread) flour was very reasonably priced – $22.50 per 25kg bag, and the 5kg bag of dark rye flour below was $11.  They also had chocolate, grains, an assortment of packaging, dried fruit, some great muffin pan liners and a large range of condiments.  If you ring them, they’ll happily email you their product list (it’s also available on their website), although pricing of items is only given out on enquiry.

. . . . .

While we were in Marrickville, we made a stop at Chef Express to pick up frozen berries – the mixed berries were $9/kg, the blackberries $10/kg, and the raspberries are currently on special for a tiny $6/kg.  Ever since Lorraine put us onto this supplier, we’ve bought all our frozen berries from them.

. . . . .

The highlight of the trip was a visit to Faros Brothers!

Whenever I’m in Marrickville, I try to stop at this fabulous fishmonger – the produce is always fresh, and the prices are ludicrously cheap compared to seafood at the Sydney Fish Market.

On Tuesday, $60 bought us:

  • Two small Atlantic salmon (about two kilos in total)

  • 300g local calamari rings

  • 6 large Australian green prawns

  • a half kilo red snapper fillet

  • a kilo of Portuguese sardine fillets, and

  • an Australian smoked trout.

We made sardine alla beccafico  following this recipe…

…and the snapper, calamari and prawns went into a tomato-based paella (we’re still infatuated with our new pan).

It was a great finale to a fabulous day’s shopping!

. . . . .

Southern Cross Supplies
6B Rich Street
Marrickville NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9572 7888

. . . . .

Chef Express
17-19 Buckley St
Marrickville  NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9519 3488

 . . . . .

Faros Brothers
34 Buckley Street
Marrickville  NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9519 3785

. . . . .

Posted in Food & Friends | Tagged , , , , , , , | 44 Comments »

Verdure

May 11, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Sydney has been drenched for weeks, so when the sun peaked through for a couple of days last week, we raced outside to see how the garden had fared.

Leeks are the garden success story of the moment – the large annual ones in the top photo were transplanted from a previous bed and have continued to fatten up.  They’re just about ready to be eaten.

The true marvels though have been these perennial leeks.  Bless you Christine for putting us onto these – I know I keep saying that, but they’re such a wonderful plant!  All the ones in the photo above are self-seeded – we planted a single leek in that spot last year, and this year dozens have appeared from nowhere.

If you’re in Australia, you can usually buy them from Cornucopia Seeds – and if anyone knows where to find them in the UK, please let us know, as my friends over there have had trouble tracking them down.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, Ian gave me a small sample of his wild rocket seed.  Here’s my happy little patch growing…

All these broccoli plants are self-sown.  We’re overjoyed at how well our “let them go to seed” approach has worked…

Some hardy potatoes are pushing their way through – both the ones we’ve planted, as well as some that have self-seeded…

Pete’s beloved chickweed – growing like a weed!

Our crazy bed of nasturtium triffids, all self-seeded from last year…

On the herb front, oregano is thriving…

…as is the impossible to kill continental parsley…

…and the rosemary is doing fine too.  The sage, however, seems to be dead, possibly because of all the rain.

The rhubarb has survived its first year…

…and the sorrell is growing happily in its little corner.  Both the chickens and I love it!

Can someone please tell me what the trick is to growing strawberries?  We can raise beautiful plants, but every berry seems to be eaten by slugs before they’re ripe.  We even caught Bob the dog having a nibble recently!

Finally, I bought an expensive Italian sweet onion from the fruiterer and let it sprout – hopefully we’ll get some seed for next season!

What’s growing in your garden at the moment?

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , , , | 67 Comments »

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