lemony delicious

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.