meat on a stick

Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet

2010-08-04T15:10:00.000+10:00

But the fruit of the lemon is impossible to eat!

I'll beg to differ if you don't mind.

Semi-recently, the fiend and I were in Bendigo to check out what turns out to be a most rad tip shop. On our drive through the suburbs, somewhere near the uni, I spotted a stunner of a lemon tree. Flippin' teeming with glossy yellow fruit. Teeming. And this fruit mind you, was text book quality. Lovely size, not too big not too small, perfume that Suskind would be proud of, and the colour, a divine, sunshine rich yellow. I could go on about the lemons, I imagine I will talk about them for years.

Well we grinned and took a couple. The tree was hanging over a fence. A couple is fine this way I reckon. But considering these specimens we took a chance and knocked on the door...

The gent that lived there was so lovely and so generous! Not only did he agree to us helping ourselves, he supplied us with a plastic bag and scissors. Gave us advice on zinc for citrus plants and said we were welcome to return. For reals.

Such happiness.

A gorgeous big kilo jar of preserved lemons was made. They preen on the window sill, hang out with the trout mug and promise of future middle eastern cooking experiments.

And since we boozed our way through our last lot of limoncello at a recent dinner party, some more had to be made. So yummy, but sampled only during cold months, so I can't wait to have it icy cold in the sheet hot Melbourne summer.

Zesty!

Gleaning is such rewarding and delicious fun, dontcha think? :)

The princely quince, revisited

2010-08-01T11:44:00.000+10:00

Well, after the rock hard discontent of last season's quinces (a very unusable paste), I rolled up my sleeves and decided to ignore cooking times and use all the old methods for testing jam set.

Hooray for sheet-test! Hurrah for wrinkle-method! I win! My prize? Five jars totaling around 1.5 kg of quince conserve.

Lovely chunks of fruit suspended in jelly, just as promised by amazing Sally Wise (name and nature!) in her delicious book 'a year in a bottle'. I love this book because she lives in my ex-home state Tasmania and includes lovely home stories with many of the recipes.

See anything interesting in the background? That's another story ...

:)

let's make a dill

2010-02-20T18:37:00.004+11:00

Whilst the fiend was doing some painty touch-ups in Balaclava, I had a little wander along Carlisle Street. Having fun ogling a new suburb and its little shops and jealously regarding funky breakfast places that I'll never go to, I happened across a green grocer. And prominently placed, were a pile of pickling cucumbers!

Gasp!

I sidled over and had a closer look. Rare veg! I haven't spotted these little babies in grocers before. I handed over some squids and took my precious cargo along with some dill from 'out the back' back to meet the fiend.

Raised eyebrows.

Not to worry. We'll see later on who becomes enthusiastic all of a sudden they're converted to sweet, garlicky, crunchy treats.

cinnalicious for breakfast

2010-02-20T18:23:00.005+11:00

these lovely pears are all eated up now. they were from the lovely greengrocer/florist near the northcote social club, and the groovy italian fella there helped me pick the best pears for bottling. his pear intelligence is to be thanked. no i can't remember what they were. delicious?

don't they look pretty and pure there in the bottles? the big ol' stick of cinnamon changed all that pretty quickly. soon enough they became a spicy golden colour, the stunners.
what with the cold nights creeping into our little country cottage now, looks like the porridge pears will be making another appearance...

turn the beet around

2010-02-20T18:00:00.018+11:00

aren't they pretty? a bundle of beets.

this is a retro post from early summer, when a little visit to south melbourne market gave us these beets.

beet beet. sugar beet. sugar beet. bee-eeeeet.

cooked to be tender and sliced up all deliciously.

we took some straight round to an early summer bbq and delighted in their vinegary goodness.

pucker up!

look below! there's the beginnings of the stained red beet thumb from rubbing the skins off. hee.
don't breathe too deeply over the vinegar okay. it's a bit scary when it gets in your pipes.
aren't they lovely and velvety coloured in their jars, and there are a couple other little jars with diced beets too that would be fun to stir into goat's cheese and baby spinach salads i reckon. yum.

beaver street plum source

2010-01-06T11:59:00.007+11:00

so say you are wandering the neighbourhood on your way to a rad thai restaurant to get the banquet option, like always, to overeat and try as many things delicious as you can, and the fiend and yourself come across a gutted house with a beautiful big and prolific plum tree in the front yard... what do you do?

well, the very next day you come back armed to the teeth with umbrella and greenbag and pretend not to look weird in the 30 degree heat with the umbrella. but then, you flip the umbrella to create a catch all, and strip those branches with an impressive and tidy guerilla action and pretty soon whistling away with nearly 3 kg of sweet little red fruits.

they are so yummy that you eat a few handfuls whilst flipping the stack of preserve books you seem to have somehow amassed of late. choose recipe based solely on which one doesn't

require you to pit the fruit first (c'mon they are tiny plums, there is no way i'm doing 3kg of pitting) and settle on Sally Wise's Plum Sauce from A Year in a Bottle. Or, as we call it, the Beaver Street Plum Source.

After snacking on some, there wasn't quote 3kg for the recipe so I had to throw in a couple apples. There are so many ingredients in this, so many lovely spices and bits, and the garlic. Oh the garlic. It didn't make nearly as much as promised, but was a supreme sauce. We ate it that night with roast potatoes done in duck fat (which likely deserves it's own rant) and lamb chops.

since this discovery, we have wandered our neighbourhood and found a stunning array of food growing over the backs of alleyways, the amount of big old fig trees around here is just awesome. grapes, lemons, nectarines on our street, apricots, crab apples, even a rampant zucchini that has draped over a fence. things are going to get good.

how to be a master preserver - lesson one with the mint jelly

2009-10-15T18:39:00.008+11:00

i love preserving. i love buying the books especially. i love the pictures of colourful delicious jars lined up. i love opening the cupboard and grabbing a jar of tomato pasta sauce from last summer. so far, it's been a bit slapdash. in a very scientific way though of course. no e-coli for us. but now the number of books i have seems to exceeded the number of preserves i have made, and this my friends is no good. (wonderfully no good).

So watch out beasties because the mint jelly is now lurking about!

but it unfortunately wasn't the most awesome mint jelly. but maybe because i don't love mint jelly? shut up. it was in the easy-get-started-type recipes, and anyway, we had a date for roast lamb the next day.

so here are some pretty picks of my strange coloured jelly, where i refused to use food colouring, and despite issues with pectin (powdered vs liquid) it set to a very reasonable state. instead of using the liquid pectin 'pouch' they had in the recipe (?!) i used about 6gm of powered jamsetta stuff. -side note: keen to also try the homemade pectin from lemon skins. wooooooo

look! this is my pretty new 'water bath canner' with a wacky name and not easy to say quickly. some people even like to call it a 'hot water bath canner'. c'mon you can't even make an acronym out of it.

i am sterilizing the jars. yes indeed.

now i am chopping the mint.
(the mint comes curtesy of the south melbourne markets. not just dim sims i tell you.)

straining the mint! funky pants jelly bag. i am so specialised and awesome.

this how the hwbc looks on my stove. (i.e. excellent)

and this! well this is the end result. it looks more like green tea, eh?

but at least it set right.
thus ends the lesson. if you want it to taste more minty than the bugger turns out, then just chop some extra from the garden and mix it though before the lamb gets involved.

ta-ra!

lemony delicious

2009-07-15T09:34:00.004+10:00

i made slice. i never make slice.

and if i did it would probably be something chocolatey or cheesecakey.

then i saw this. what a beautiful website! what a stunning, luring snack.

so it came to be that i was eating warm, not quite set slice at 9.30pm last night and loving it.

PS. it's true, the edge does go chewy and caramelly.

update on the pickled garlic

2009-07-14T18:16:00.005+10:00

it's yum! i wasn't sure it would be you know. because one of the jars mayn't have sealed properly and the cloves seemed to glow green internally. weirdos.

but we opened a non-green affected jar and included some on an antipasto platter with friends the other night to great acclaim. then next day worked some chopped into a nachos salsa. winner.

FAIL - his royal highness, the princely quince

2009-06-07T20:27:00.008+10:00

well a colleague was lovely enough to give away quinces at work recently, and once i managed to get my head out of the bag and stop smelling it, i made quince paste. or tried to.

it is princely, but it is also punishing. it sticks like concrete to the dishes and burns you if you touch it.

a labour of love produced four jars.

four jars of rock hard quince. woe betide the servant of quince! fool to temperature and timings. swoon and utter abject misery.

banished from the kingdom of sublime scent. unrequited cheeses, all doomed...

the sad thing is, i shy from failures, i likely won't try it again. there are too many other preserves to try. if i had a quince tree of my own, yes i would toe the princely line, but nope.

hark, i hear there are some pomegranites on the horizon...

Hugh F-W our hero, and garlic in a jar

2009-06-07T20:12:00.003+10:00

i bought this awesome book. it's loveliness is endless. it's country as, progressive in a way of c'mon get with the times and eat local, slow food etc. i love it.

i immediately pickled some garlic and fennel in jars, which we have been fortuitously been putting aside.

the best thing is that the guy behind it all is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Whom we love. Doesn't he have a dreamy name? Dreamy dream, River Cottage is our dream.

Pink peppercorns have a certain style. See.

and those are the olives that the fiend bought and has been processing slowly with water and salt and we will have delicious olives forever more.

jam to day ratio = high

2009-05-23T18:10:00.004+10:00

These are just some of the jams of Tasmania.

We've come back from a lovely break away to my island home.

Foodies paradise. Classy cool climate grapes into pinot noir, beautiful plentiful diary farms yielding cheeses like you wouldn't believe, oysters farms and wild apple trees.

the fiend and i had to buy another suitcase to fit our accumulated winey and preservey delights. oh dear, but it was worth it. we actually bought a wheel of cheese. almost three kilos of sheepy milky goodness.

go to tasmania now. drive amongst the pristine small town wonder of it all. stop and sample. chat and chomp.

my bread won't sing, or i am a virus

2009-04-24T14:00:00.002+10:00

but it looks lovely.

when you take your artisan bread out of the oven it may sing or crackle, but mine is stoically silent.

maybe because it is whipped out by the croc glove. see him? evil.

we love baking bread, but mixing it everyday gets less fun. so now we premix the dough and it's been yummy and via this magic book, have learnt about oven timers and baking stones and steam.

steam? yes. at least the water on 'broiler tray' action gives me some noise.

unrelated matter, anyone else get sick from their flu vaccine? meh!

scrap happy!

2009-04-16T12:20:00.003+10:00

Look at this lovely most lovely bundle I got in the mail!

a sweetiepie accordian notebook, crafty cards that the handmade paper is soo tactile and look at those matching scraps. yes, she is a clever clogs.

along with a groovy mix cd of 20 tracks including some new fun ones for me and some favourites, wine song - yeah!

THANK YOU KATE!

The swapapalooza (you can sing that to the tune of bee bop a lula if you change the accents a little.) was a resounding success. well done georgielove you are particularly rad.

power ranga

2009-04-08T13:25:00.004+10:00

it's fun. google luckily/unfortunately and your name.

Luckily, Bridie isn't allergic to peanuts.
Luckily, Bridie managed to stop that transaction.
Luckily, Bridie has done the potatoes...

Unfortunately Bridie is the only one that is still alive. (ooh!)
Unfortunately bridie away so dossin in da office.

and my most favourite:

Unfortunately, Bridie (more commonly known as retarded magpie, Swansea or power ranga) didn't go.

fizzy bubbly

2009-04-03T09:00:00.002+11:00

look at its loveliness! it worked out a total treat. there is just a light fizz and plenty of sweet gingery taste.

i used pip's nostalgic recipe and fed the little thing for two weeks while flatmates watched on in amusement.

I don't recommend reusing listerine bottles, turns out you can never really get rid of the taste of that stuff. luckily that was only one. the rest are scrummy. little bit of lime, little bit of gin. mmmm. next time, earlier in summer. or actually in summer.

we have a milkman!

2009-04-02T19:54:00.003+11:00

we do! old school values or the convenience of modern life? awesome nonetheless. nevertheless. notwithstanding.

[s]he comes early every wednesday and drops us off 2 litres of skinny milk for me and the fiend and 2 litres of fat milk for my flatmate.

not as lovely as the milk bottles with silver foil tops that my nanna used to get and then keep the tops and make them into pretend coins for us. but still quite lovely.

homage to the simple things in life

2009-03-21T19:53:00.000+11:00

thank you angry chicken! i really like your style. you are a machine. and now because of your groovy blog i have made butter. you can see in the middle the separation between butter and buttermilk. and then the lovely bread i made to go with it. soft and delicious it rose to the occasion. ha.

it was very simple as promised. didn't take long at all in the fiend's lovely kitchen aid. the getting the water out bit was a touch tedious. but only because i'm the most impatient person in the world. but it went down a treat with the flatmates.

success.

butter.

equality for books

2009-03-21T12:45:00.000+11:00

have read the book grocer blog before, it's funny. esp the shark bit.

and then i found it on sydney road. lovely sydney road.

and all the books are priced nice and low and reasonable, so you know any paperback you like is only going to be $6 and any hardcover is only $10. and i liked two paper and one hard. picklehead is already very funny and moving and foody. the bookbinders with the surname damage is the king of thing i like. there's a word for that, when your name suits your ocupation. the fiend knows it. i can't remember.

delicious things that have happened around our house

2009-03-16T11:36:00.000+11:00

a quick round up of some tasty treats to remember

backyard antipasto and crumbed treats from piedimontes iga
when the fiend made croissants from scratch
a baked egg pastry delight and homemade panini loaf
birthday cake for the shark (bought from dexter's lovely cake lady)

we heart fowlers

2009-03-14T20:59:00.001+11:00

the fiend boyfriend managed to get a hold of a whole bunch of fowlers jars. do you know about these? they are (were?) a wondrous home preserving system, with a very cute and domestic lady in the manual.

and you get to preserve all the wondrous foods of the rainbow, from everyday fruit and veg, to soup and meat and cooked spaghetti (!)

we're starting small. 5 litres of tomato sauce.

stay tuned.

a lovely musical lunch break

2009-03-04T19:04:00.000+11:00

Wandered over to City Library yesterday to grab the latest in a certain trashy vampire series that i am admittedly hooked on (despite not really liking the main character OR her love interest hmm, but it does have an element of suspense that keeps me on). When I got there, so lovely because someone was upstairs playing the piano. I remember this happening once before and snapping the lovely old lady doing it with her gorgeous long white hair and nimble memory fingers and no sheet music. magic. and i've even tracked down my pic from then, see? and lucky because i didn't venture up this time, just listened from the queue. que-ue.

degraves always lures me but i rarely ever eat there, partly because i can't decide, partly because of the outdoors smokie people. then what i thought was still degraves, but is actually 'centre place' or 'centre plaza' or something, i happened along a crazy busy fast moving mass of people paying for food, so i joined it and worth it because, yum. flaky pastry cheese and spinach for primo price of $2.50. I think i'll have to go back. just for the photo mind you. BUT there was also a girl playing a sweet violin right nearby, so i got to listen to her while playing crumb face. happy lunch!

kitchen superhero: australian garlic

2009-03-04T18:52:00.002+11:00

Found some! It's not common, as you may know. I've been on the look out since reading this article and then randomly at my friend's local grocer, there it was.

Pretty huh? I wanted to marry it, but my lamb got to it first. So I gave them a congratulatory gift of rosemary sprig and left them to it.

Plus some loverly tomats from the garden:

and delicious slow cooked lamb casserole. which i didn't get a snap because it was too yummy i guess and we got distracted. but that's the way it should be with delicious dinners.

repeat the sounding joy!

2008-12-23T12:30:00.000+11:00

ARGHHHG! I'm psychotically excited now, flying out to family tomorrow night! Everything is piled up with tags on the floor hoping that my fiend boyfriend will take the wrapping over.

Freaky bejeezus I'm super excited about the presents and handing them over. And I totally can't wait to see what everyone else has been doing and thinking.

Merry Christmas online world! Snaps to everyone crafting away out there!

champing at the bit

2008-12-12T12:34:00.001+11:00

argh! i can't post anything because of family members who may be reading this dodgy blog!

i am working on lovely chrissie projects. i put together three projects in three days! listen to me brag! i expect to put up a flurry of pics after the big flynn event.

hurrah!

a dress for lilian grace

2008-12-09T15:28:00.000+11:00

i loved this! such a simple quick and happy project. I'm pretty sure I faffed my way through this in an hour. i have no idea if the proportions are right for her, however the ribbon makes it adjustable (vaguely). Practicality of the ribbon staying tied? Nil. So I might have to do the ties in a less slippery fabric. Ooh! Or even a cute button down number with lots of different button holes.

tag, i'm it!

2008-12-08T20:12:00.000+11:00

my sis tagged me because she wants to know 6 quirky or unimportant things that make me happy

1. typos. say, if that had remained saying 6 quicky things. now i want to name 6 quicky things
2. finding a wish tree in our street with little cut out love hearts from some children with what they wish for, mostly peace and for everyone to be happy and well. bless them! and also seeing bits of their wishes floating down the street and getting caught in the gutter because it was windy as all getout that day.
3. the smell of frangipani
4. clothes from the market
5. cooking something brand new to me
6. videos on the internet of cats or dogs doing silly things for example

stop dreaming about makeup, as one of my boy-friends likes to say

2008-12-08T10:55:00.000+11:00

So I'm being extra ambitious and combining two crafty projects to make something gorgeous and useful for the american contingent of the family. my aunt and cousin will, all things being sunshine and luck, receive a little travel make-up bag each for christmas.

i'm using the boxy pouch tutorial, and lining the bags with fused plastic to make them waterproof and easy to clean. yeah!

the material i've chosen is locally made, hand printed by a gorgeous melbourne company, ink and spindle

also, my most exciting mail to arrive in recent times: an hundred zips i bought from ebay for $10. check it out.

Green Christmas!

2008-11-26T11:53:00.001+11:00

Hurrah for Flynns and hurrah for them getting on board and being socially and environmentally on board for a recycled/handcrafted (or both together!) gift giving exercise!

I'm super excited to be doing this, and really hope it will become a tradition. Time these days is short and time spent making something special that someone will love is to be treasured. I'm thinking there'll be less gifts this year but more talk and ideas. For once, I feel like I'm ahead of the game, already making progress with a couple of projects, although there are so many ideas that I may well get overwhelmed. Eeeeee!