An overflowing container of cherry tomatoes, a visit with the most treasured man in my life, getting covered in Cobblers Pegs as I lift up the vines gently plucking each little red ball off the stalk, dicing a handful through tuna mornay for dinner. A family table; laughs, love and the hope of tomorrow. Just another afternoon at The Farm. That was how I spent my May Day afternoon.
Olives for me and you
The other weekend when we were coming back from Gumbarra, I got lucky 🙂
We had driven to Cunningham’s Gap to pick Mum and two other walkers who had walked from Sylvester’s lookout to the gap along the top of the Main Range Escarpment. Mum had gone to the toilet to freshen up and on her way back had gotten talking to a Land Crusier full of Italian men who had taken a one day holiday to pick the olives for the year. Whilst talking Mum had mentioned to the blokes that her daughter would love to pick some olives and could they tell me where they picked up, the answer was a hearty no but we will give her some olives. I came down with Mum’s hat and I skipped back to the car with a hat full of olives and a smile that didn’t leave my face for a good 48hrs. I also came back with tips on how to best cure them. You need to rinse them in water for a week said one. The others said no, just straight into salt water in which an egg will float with a little bit of garlic and a chopped up lemon. They all nodded and said yes. Then another adds, you must put in a little bit of wine vinegar and change it every so often.
I know have a container in the cupboard with olives curing in and you have no how idea how big a smile that puts on my face.
Now I just have to play the waiting game.
I have been talking about making a trip out to QLD olive country since probably September last year, as we are smack bang in the season at the moment my talk ramped up a couple of weeks ago. I only wanted a small amount to play with. Mum sort of talked me out of it – You want to drive 3 plus hours to pick perhaps 2kg of olives and how much do you even like olives Helen? Next year after this batch have worked out I’ll be there. I am also very interested in having a going at pressing my own oil, I understand the science of the matter and have found a few little notes on extracting olive oil yourself which I will keep in mind next year.
Next year, there is always next year.
Pomegranate Love
I have long been intrigued by these jewelled fruits. I have pomegranate molasses which I often use in cooking (makes a mean roast chicken). The price of fresh ones though and that they always seemed to be USA imports had put me off actually buying one. Last Saturday though whilst at the fruitshop I noticed they were selling Australian pomegranates and at $2.49 each they were not too bad in price. I racked my brain trying to remember what I had read on the net about picking one. Not been able to to remember much I went for the normally fail safe of picking fruit that is heavier than it looks.
It sat in the fridge for a week before I was game enough to decide break it open. I was in the middle of baking a yoghurt cake to take to meet a prospective flatmate and thought mmm I could add some Pomegranate to this. I cracked it open and carefully picked out one little jewel to taste. That first little jewel knocked me over and I instantly declared my love. Instant Love.p
I think I might be buying more of these in the future. I tried talking Mum into planting a tree in the back yard. She said no before I even finished the sentence. One day I will have a garden with a pomegranate tree. One day.
And in other news (said in my best news reader voice).
Since coming home from work on Friday I have not worn my ankle brace at all. Which is good. I know my ankle is healing as I find my self doing things that I wasn’t able to do before. Like sitting on my ankle when I tuck one leg up or walking down steps almost normally. All about going forward.
Wedding Morning Tea Cakes
One of the ladies in Mum’s staffroom is getting married this weekend, so I made some suitably simply elegant cupcakes for the staffroom morning tea.
The chocolate cake recipe is from The Australian Woman’s Weekly cupcakes book
Double Chocolate Mud Cake
60g dark chocolate coarsely chopped
160ml water
90g butter, softened
220g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
100g SR flour
2 tbsp cocoa
40g almond mealPreheat oven to 170°C (150°C fan forced). Line a standard 12 hole muffin tin with patty pans.
In a double boiler melt the chocolate in the water, stirring till smooth. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients and the chocolate mixture, stirring till smooth. That is it. Then it is just a matter of dividing the mixture evenly between the 12 pans (I used a pastry bag as the mixture is quite runny) and cook for about 20 minutes.Once they are cooled it is time to decorate.
I warmed some blackberry jam to use as the “glue” and coloured the white fondant to a very pale pink. On a well dusted silicone mat, I rolled the fondant out nice and thin, then pressed a Fiskars Texture Plate into the fondant to make it “all pretty” on top.Place in a container and every so often open the lid a fraction and inhale the chocolate. Or you could just eat one 🙂
Easter Cooking
no not hot cross buns but just good food. I had plans of going away this glorious four day weekend, going bush and exploring. Sadly though that has not been the case as it is nearly two months from when I wrecked my ankle and it is still causing me havoc. Most recently from me thinking it was better than it was and overdoing it, so much that I spent a fair bit of Friday in bed recovering.
Yesterday we had not one but three phone calls from Iceland!!!! That does not happen very often even less than once in a blue moon, more like once is a red moon. It was one of my brother’s birthdays so he rang to say hello and then he passed the phone to one of our other brothers. Then one of my sisters rang to have a chat. Then to top it off Karl the next eldest in age brother from me rang from Ãsafjörður the town of his birth where he and a big handful of mates were at Aldrei fór ég suður or I Never Went South a music festival that is exactly how I think a festival should be and so looking forward to going to one year soon. One of the first things Karl mentioned was that he had seen Svavar play with his band Hraun earlier on and commented on his polaroid picture taking which I had to laugh at as last year when Svavar was here I think he quite possibly took more poloraids than he drank beers and that is saying something. A little while later Karl asked if I wanted to speak to Svavar as he had just walked outside, I said of course why not and that was then the most amusing thing. Karl handing a phone to someone who does not know him and saying there is a girl on the phone from Australia for you. Very hilarious. So that was quite a fun thing.
When I woke up Sunday morning I didn’t expect to speak to any family in Iceland and much less Svavar.
Back to the food.
Easter Friday I made a a big whopping batch of pesto (we are talking 1kg plus here). Don’t underestimate my love for pesto or the fact that my pesto could rival that of the best Nonna made pesto from Genoa well I haven’t tested it against a Nonna from Genoa but I think it could. I made a pesto loaf using a slightly different bread recipe to what I normally used and well moral of that story, when making a plain white loaf, use the recipe you know! It is edible but that is about it, the Mum analysis is that I probably altered the water content too much when adding the pesto.
Dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday.
Four slices of bread toasted on/under the grill, rubbed with a little bit of garlic, topped with some more pesto, then some toasted prosciutto, some semi-dried tomatoes, a sprinkle of salt/pepper/oil and a fine grating of pecorino. It was quite delightful, my only wish would if we had had some salad greens in the fridge to add as well.
Lunch for Mum and I today as well as lunch for the next two days.
Little egg and bacon tarts.
Puff pastry shell pre-baked for a few minutes to crisp the bottom up, spread with some pesto, filled with sautéed onion, garlic, shallots and bacon, topped with egg, pecorino, seasoning and cream fraiche with a semi-dried tomato on top, baked for a handful of minutes and served with a quick grate of pecorino and served with a good handful of fresh beans.
Then in the freezer I have some lime granita and I made a pretty tasty dinner tonight which was cannelloni stuffed with mince, pesto, ricotta, parmigiano, bread crumbs, seasoning, parsley, semi-dried tomatoes, onion and an egg to help bind it all together in a sauce of tomatoes, spinach, ricotta, onion, garlic. Pretty nice, no photos of either though because the lime granita is just that and well the cannelloni as good as it tasted didn’t exactly look good and most of it disappeared pretty quickly.
Tomorrow it is Tuesday which means the end of the four day weekend and back to work.
line of eggs
Despite promises by Mum that we wouldn’t be getting any Easter Eggs this year, Pabbi just couldn’t resist and since Mum is walking the border line at the moment somewhere between the Mt Lindsay border gate and the Boonah border gate (hopefully much much closer to the Boonah gate since she started at the Mt Lindsay gate on Friday morning), Pabbi could do as he wanted.
I woke up this morning to find a carton of eggs on my desk. Never mind the fact that I still have my three Lindt Bunnies from last year on my desk and we only finished the other eggs in September. I did only buy them though to take photos of though and I didn’t eat them last year after taking photos of them so I could take photos of them again this year!
First thing I did was to go outside and have a play. This was one of the photos I took. Pabbi asked me what I was doing. I said taking photos because what else am I meant to do with them? Eat them?