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Inspired by Jamie Oliver’s new series Comfort Food, we made burgers for dinner last week (his original recipe is here). We made a simpler version, omitting the mustard and bacon.

A couple of notes:

The brioche buns were a riff on our sweet dough recipe – I halved the sugar and used lard in place of the butter to give them a more savoury note. They were shaped into twelve rolls, flattened slightly, then spritzed with water and topped with sesame seeds before baking. Here’s the revised ingredients list, instructions are here:

  • 1kg bread/bakers flour
  • 20g dried/instant yeast
  • 14g fine sea salt
  • 40g caster (superfine) sugar
  • 120g lard
  • 4 large (59g) eggs
  • 500g full cream milk, at blood temperature, or UHT milk, unrefrigerated

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For the sauce, we blitzed together a half batch of speedy mayo with a chipotle chilli (in adobo), a little Worcestershire sauce and a couple of tablespoons of semi-dried tomatoes in oil. This was mixed with chopped garden lettuce and spread over the buns under the patties.

Best burgers we’ve ever made! We’re really enjoying both the tv series and the Comfort Food cookbook. I only wish Jamie would release his cookbooks in Kindle format!

I was chatting with the lovely Marisa at Rino Saffioti’s Chocolate Shop last week. She was very interested in our crumb cake recipe and wondered if a gluten-free version might work.

I decided to experiment with some White Wings GF Self-Raising flour (note the claim at the bottom of the bag that it “bakes just like regular flour)…

I made the cake following our recipe exactly, simply substituting the gluten-free flour for regular self-raising. It worked brilliantly!

There was only a slight difference in the texture – the gluten-free version was lighter than the original…

I took the cake down to Marisa’s shop and she popped it in her display cabinet. Apparently it sold well!

I’m going to bake another one of these and use the cake mixture to top a fruit crumble. We have so many gluten-intolerant friends these days – it’s nice to have new treats to bake for them!

Our last flock of chooks reminded us of Morris Dancers and Ninjas.

This lot are the Fat Fairies. They have lovely temperaments – the group is harmonious with very little squabbling. And with the onset of spring, they’ve been eating and laying like crazy.

As with all fairies, they’re hard to capture in photos – there were only seven unblurry shots out of the 132 I took yesterday…

All the surplus rainbow chard in the garden ends up here…

The fairies adore old sourdough…

They’re currently laying at their peak – we’re getting four to five eggs a day (which explains the frenetic cake baking of late)…

Last week, one brave hen laid a 105g egg! We couldn’t figure out who it was – no-one appeared to be walking funny that day…


It’s a long weekend here in Sydney, and the sun is shining!

Hope you’re all having a great weekend too!

In my kitchen…

…are our gluten-free chestnut flour brownies, baked for Terri’s birthday. These have become the most requested thing I bake…

In my kitchen…

…is a kilo block of Parmigiano Reggiano, picked up on sale for just $20…

I grated most of it and stashed it in the freezer with the rinds…

The last bit of the cheese was turned into parmesan cookies

In my kitchen…

…is a copy of the newest Jamie Oliver cookbook…

In my kitchen…

…is blueberry crumb cake. It was a big hit with the boys…

In my kitchen…

…is my latest chilli fix. I take these chipotle peppers in adobo…

…and blitz them into a paste with the stick blender. I’ve been stirring this into everything…

In my kitchen…

…are barberries from Harkola. I’ve been on the lookout for these ever since we tried them at the Georgian restaurant

In my kitchen…

…are loads of backyard lemons and eggs…

In my kitchen…

…is a new decanter dryer from Peters of Kensington. It works very well and is far easier than trying to balance a decanter on its head like a giant mushroom…

In my kitchen…

…is a gift from our neighbour Liz – a Wonderbag slow cooker. This South African product is basically an insulated bag which keeps food warm, enabling it to continue cooking after it’s been removed from the heat source. We can’t wait to try it!

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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. Please upload your post by the 10th of each month.

Here are this month’s posts:

Emily @ Cooking for Kishore (New Jersey, USA)

Christine @ Food Wine Travel (Brisbane, QLD)

Sue @ Birgerbird (first IMK post! USA)

Ngan @ Ngan Made It (San Francisco, USA)

Maureen @ Orgasmic Chef (Sunshine Coast, QLD)

JJ @ 84th & 3rd (Sydney, NSW)

Clare @ The Life of Clare (Geelong, VIC)

Claire @ Claire K Creations (Brisbane, QLD)

Olivia @ Mademoiselle Mange a Sydney (Sydney, NSW)

Bernice @ Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen (Calgary, Canada)

Marian @ Apricot Tart (Coffin Bay, South Australia)

Danielle @ The nOATbook (Melbourne, VIC)

Emma @ SurreyKitchen (Surrey, UK)

Selma @ Selma’s Table (London, UK)

Lisa @ I’ll Be There With A Fork (Brisbane, QLD)

Clara @ Heritage Recipe Box (Boston, MA, USA)

Beck @ In Search of Golden Pudding (first IMK post! Canberra, ACT)

Melissa @ The Glen House (Ireland)

Tania @ The Cook’s Pyjamas (Perth, Western Australia)

Emma @ Gustoso (Brisbane, QLD)

Laila @ Table of Colors (Finland)

Maree @ Around The Mulberry Tree (Gippsland, VIC)

Fran @ The Food Marshall (Canberra, ACT)

Becca @ The InTolerant Chef (Canberra, ACT)

Ella @ Mulberry & Pomegranate (Sydney, NSW)

Sally @ Bewitching Kitchen (Kansas, USA)

Moya @ Food and Tools (Bahrain)

Kari @ Bite-Sized Thoughts (London, UK)

Serena @ Anything But Toast (Canberra, ACT)

Nicole @ Miss Food Fairy (Melbourne, VIC)

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella (Sydney, NSW)

Vicki @ Boiled Eggs & Soldiers (Sydney, NSW)

Giulia @ Love at Every Bite (Canberra, ACT)

Glenda @ Healthy Stories (Melbourne, VIC)

Debi @ My Kitchen Witch (Sheffield, UK)

Johanna @ Green Gourmet Giraffe (Melbourne, VIC)

Anne @ Life in Mud Spattered Boots (Essex, UK)

Amanda @ Lambs’ Ears & Honey (Adelaide, South Australia)

Jane @ The Shady Baker (Broken Hill, NSW)

Gretchen @ Feeding My 3 Sons (South Carolina, USA)

Sandra @ Pass The Recipe (Melbourne, VIC)

Sherry @ Sherry’s Pickings (Brisbane, QLD)

Stephanie @ The Dessert Spoon (Brisbane, QLD)

Kirsty @ Make it Bake it Snap it (first IMK post! Canberra ACT)

Ardys @ Ardysez (Alice Springs, Northern Territory)

Glenda @ Passion Fruit Garden (Perth, Western Australia)

Tania @ My Kitchen Stories (Sydney, NSW)

Fran @ Life in the Food Lane (Houston, Texas, USA)

Liz @ Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard (Gold Coast, QLD)

Lori @ Creating Beauty in the Kitchen (first IMK post! Pacific Northwest, USA)

Charlie Louie @ Hotly Spiced (Sydney, NSW)

Ale @ Ligera de Equipaje (Argentina)

Mandy @ The Complete Cookbook (Sundays River, South Africa)

Liz @ Bizzy Lizzy’s Good Things (Canberra ACT)

Greg and Katherine @ Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA)

Jennifer @ Milk and Honey (Gippsland, VIC)

Joanne @ What’s on the List? (Adelaide, South Australia)

Tandy @ Lavender and Lime (Gordons Bay, South Africa)

Francesca @ Almost Italian (Melbourne, VIC)

A few bits and pieces from the past couple of weeks…

. . . . .

The fennel in our garden is going gangbusters…

We’ve been eating lots of fennel pizza, as well as delicious fennel salad

. . . . .

The gorgeous gals at Little Flowers sent me a present! Pete and I pop in to say hi whenever we’re eating at Velvet Garage – we’ve now used their service three times…

. . . . .

The birthday run continues! Two more neighbourhood chocolate cakes went out last weekend…

. . . . .

I’ve been baking pies – the lard pastry I made in bulk and tucked away in the freezer a few months ago has been defrosting perfectly (the recipe is in our July IMK post)…

. . . . .

This t-shirt design made me laugh (but I didn’t buy it)…

. . . . .

I’ve been baking April Bloomfield inspired scrolls, filled with the last of our broccoli raab. The raw leaves were blitzed with mozzarella cheese, chilli, garlic and a little oil to form a pesto, then spread over sourdough prior to baking…

Small Man was a huge fan of these…

. . . . .

Our aquarium is being overhauled. These magic rocks are called MarinePure and they’re going to help keep the algae in check. They’re man-made, and look a bit like balls of coral…

We’re getting all new African cichlids, but Elvis the catfish is staying. Did you know catfish can wink?

 . . . . .

What’s been happening in your part of the world?