Sunset under Sydney Harbour Bridge…it was rather beautiful.
under the bridge
17
in the mess of my kitchen lies…
sticky cupboard doors and splattered bench tops,
but look beyond that and you’ll find
a few jars of lime marmalade
Apple and sultana dough ready to be divided into rolls. Easy thing to go into lunch boxes for small ravernous people.
Tea. Not just any tea either but Christmas Tea. Now I’m not known for straying from my favourite tea, (as it’s the best and why would I?) But Christmas Tea? Well I had to give it a crack didn’t I. And bought in one of the best country bakeries I’ve been to in Nimmitabel.
The winter staple of Apple Crumble is back. Taking pictures of said apple crumble must be done in haste. Or small airplanes are discarded and sticky little fingers attack. And quickly too.
Seasonal pears are lining up.
And if I wanted to avoid the mess inside, I just send it outside… I do love eating outside. All the rules are left at the backdoor. I like that.
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What’s been happening in your kitchen lately?
Linking in with the kitchen Queen Celia.
First Light
If I was starting another blog from scratch again, I think I would name it something watery like “Webbed Feet”….well, maybe not that one. Maybe, “The Old Sea Dog”. A blog entirely made up of photos and stories from the sea. A tiny corner to put my salty thoughts, and damp wonderings.
In lieu of having another blog entirely dedicated for my love of the ocean, I do get to sooth my cool water needs with some posts within here and reading this beautiful magazine– Great Ocean Quarterly.
If there is a part of you that yearns for the ocean, a desire for sand beneath toes, rocks by your side and a secret tiny longing for a merpersons tail, than this the magazine for you.*
It’s divine. Every. Single. Page.
There is no other magazine like it.
For the blog readers here, who are also salty people of the sea. This link is for you. A peek into how the article First Light was done in the magazines first edition.
Magic. Pure salty tinged magic.
* I get nothing for mentioning this beautiful magazine, except for the knowledge, that I’ve passed on to someone else who also likes the feeling of dipping their toes into the salty wet good stuff.
That’s just not vegetarian- ELC #4
You’ll probably never find me getting nostaligic over a medium rare steak. It’s unlikely I’ll be looking forward to a dinner of sticky ribs. And just quietly I think roasted lamb tastes like a shearing shed. Meals round these parts are mostly vegetarian, and I like that.
However, just occasionally I feel like something, just a little something on the meatier side- heavily doused in a heady aroma of spices mind you.
Now goat isn’t my normal choice, but I’d made a curry before from it and had really liked the results. My slight, ever so slight issue with making a curry was local spices. Yes, there really wasn’t any. Could I get enough of a curry like taste from the fresh ginger, garlic and turmeric?*
Yes, I could. Combined with the roasted tomatoes and capsicums- which had intensified their flavours in the oven, it really was quite flavourful. The lime gave an added zing to it, and I quietly high-fived myself for keeping it all local, while still making a curry.
One thing that did come about from cooking this dish was my absolute respect for the ancient spice trade. No wonder they were traded like gold. (A new found respect for moderately sized spice rack too.)
*Next time I also know where to source some local curry leaves.
Goat Curry
700g chopped goat leg
(Booma Boers, Dorrigo)
finger of tumeric
(Rita’s Farm, Kemp Creek- 50km)
large knob of ginger
(Rita’s Farm, Kemp Creek- 50km)
10 cloves of garlic
(Keith Hungerford, Bathurst- 200km)
1 diced onion
(Rita’s Farm, Kemp Creek- 50km)
6 quartered tomatoes
(Rita’s Farm, Kemp Creek- 50km)
4 quartered capsicums/peppers
(Rita’s Farm, Kemp Creek- 50km)
cucumber
(Mahbrook Organics, Calderwood-110km)
lime
(Crooked Creek, Palm Grove- 90km)
chilli
(my courtyard)
Finely chop, garlic, ginger, turmeric. Pop into a large pot with the chopped goat meat and brown the meat, then turn the pot off. Meanwhile roast tomatoes and capsicum in the oven. Once these are done and roasted, process them in a hand mixer or something similar and pour the mixture into the meat pot. Add a little water, and slowly cook on a low heat until the meat is soft and coming off the bone.
Serve with local rice, chopped cucumber, chilli and a squeeze of lime.
loving…words. Lots of them.
Loving
…getting to listen to several talks from the Sydney Writers Festival this week.
Loving
…being in a crowd of people with the same agenda. To listen. To absorb. To take in.
Loving
…hearing stories of adventures and a trusty dog.
Loving
…seeing people line up in long queues, not fiddling with their phones, but intently reading while waiting instead.
Loving
…the written word on pages. As much as I love being digitally connected. There is something incredibly reaffirming to see so many people reading books. At the writers festival, if they weren’t reading, they were starting conversations that had come from books. And I’m absolutely loving that.
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What have you been loving lately?
Or what have you been reading?
What wonderful adventure stories have blown your mind?
[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]
The Schupfnudeln Challenge- Frugal Friday
The first part of this challenge is to say schupfnudeln.
Unless you have a German speaking back ground, it’s a little bit of a mouthful. A good mouthful though, let it roll off your tongue and try it out a few times… schupfnudeln, schupf…much like the little pan-fried potato dumplings themselves.
Now potatoes in this household are not a huge staple. My kids are probably the only kids on the planet who don’t particularly like them. Me, I can take or leave them. However I did like making these, as I hadn’t heard of them until recently. They are a German potato dumpling, (which are very similar to Italian gnocchi) where you cook your potatoes, pop a couple of eggs in and then add a little flour to the mixture.
Really simple food, which hits all the frugal bells as well. (I did read this dish came out as the result of army rations.)
Now the second part of the challenge is to see if you can take a picture of these little pan-fried dumplings served with sauerkraut in a tantalising way. Google images of schupfnudeln and you’ll find a whole lot of beige. They are a bugger to photograph. They make children, pets and chocolate brownie seem like a walk in a photogenic park.
Are you game to take on the plated beige?
Schupfnudeln
(I’ve only done this the once, but this is how I did it.)
800g steamed potatoes, with their skin peeled off. Now grate them and put them in a big mixing bowl. Add two eggs, salt and pepper and enough flour to bring the dough together. Knead together on a lightly floured surface, to make a smooth dough and divide off into small pieces. Rolling the edges in a pointed fashion.
Pan fry them lightly and serve with sauerkraut.
That morning, with Ben Lowy
That morning, with Ben Lowy…
Yes, I fell in love again.
Not with Ben, (although he is charming, witty and lovely) but with photography. Madly, truly, deeply- all the cliches that I can bundle together.
It was seven kinds of awesome, it really was.
Thank you Ben.
If you are in Sydney see here for more Head On photo festival goodness while it is still on.
things that mattered
This week was full of ups and downs. Some magnificent ups and some gravelly downs. At the end of it all though, one thing was made beautifully clear to me. All these things mattered. Every single one of them. Sure they might not be important to me two months down the track, or maybe they will be. Maybe even more important and this week was just the beginning.
What does matter though, is that I acknowledged them as being important in these last seven days. Whether they were big or seemingly tiny. They had meant something, and I wasn’t going to push them away.
These were some of the things mattered…
I shared exciting news with loved ones.
I started my day with the best bread that suits me. Those grains, yep, they work.
I stood up, and had an opinion.
I sobbed. Pure frustrated raw mama sobs. Which was actually ok, because at the end of the day I realised how important something was to me and how I was going to have to go about things differently in order to get it done.
I shared within my community.
I stopped.
I said sorry and admitted I was wrong.
I ran to get forgotten library books, because that mattered a lot to someone else.
I made sure that family time was set aside.
I found five minutes of incremental time to be creative, then I found a whole block and that was bliss.
I gently wiped away small people tears.
I cooked and made sure we had good proper food in our bellies. Because when it comes down to it, if the whole day is crazy busy or simply going to hell… well at least we’ll always have real food to fall back on, (and maybe a glass of wine.)
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How about you? What’s mattered to you this week?
Top 10 Collaborative Consumption sites
In January I attended a talk on collaborative consumption as part of the Sydney Festival. It had been one of those days that had been long and hard, and more than a few times I thought I might ditch the evening in the city in favour of a cup of tea and an early night. I didn’t though and damn, I’m glad I didn’t.
My brain grew a little that night. One of those moments where you can almost hear the audible pops, as ideas and thoughts run unhindered when you are by yourself and really, really are able to listen. Needless to say I loved it, but what on earth is Collaborative Consumption?
The sharing economy (sometimes also referred to as the share economy, shared economy, mesh, collaborative economy, collaborative consumption) is a socio-economic system built around the sharing of human and physical assets. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations. These systems take a variety of forms, often leveraging information technology to empower individuals, corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services. [Wikipedia]
In a nutshell it’s a shared economy, and that’s a good thing.
Now there are oodles of different shared economy sites to use these days, it’s just a matter of finding one that suits you and getting started. After that, it’s a kind of landslide effect and the doors keep opening.
Here’s an easy ten to get you started.
1/ Airbnb– accommodation in 34,000 cities and 192 different countries. Options from one night in a tent in someones backyard to a castle for a month- with everything else in between.
2/ Landshare– “Connecting growers to people with land to share.” The concept of Landshare began in the UK and was launched by super-duper popular River Cottage.
3/ Eat with Me– “Connect with interesting people by planning or attending event’s to share food and eat together”
4/ The Clothing Exchange– Swapping clothing either online or at one of their regular exchange meet ups.
5/ Garage Sale Trail– “Bargains are had, treasure is discovered, friends are made, money raised and fun is had by all. The cupboards, garages and sheds of Australians are decluttered, re-used and waste minimisation is put into practice en masse.”
6/ Skillstay– “Exchange your skills. Make new friends. Stay for free.”
7/ Hive Studio– Desk or office space, coworking spaces are offered with a community atmosphere.
8/ Car Next Door– Neighbour to neighbour car sharing
9/ MamaBake– “Group, big batch baking for mothers.” A group (say 4) comes together, cooks one big batch dinner each and then swaps- dinner for the next 4 nights.
10/ Jayride– An easy way to hook up a ride with someone going in the direction you need to. Rides could be free, or for just a couple of dollars.
…and the big mama of them all Collaborative Consumption. My top ten is fairly Australian based but if you click on this link it will take you to which ever country you are from, showing sites that will be more local and possibly relevant to you.
What are some of your favourite Collaborative Consumption sites?
Rose and Pistachio Biscuits (and knowing when to outsource)
I’ve always felt a little guilty at out sourcing my mum’s Mothers Day gift when I was 9 years old. As she unwrapped the very special puffy coat hanger I’d selected for her, she asked with impressed (and clearly overwhelmed with love for her talented daughter) eyes.
Did you make it?!
Er no… I said a little awkwardly, (visibly watching my mothers overwhelmed with love feeling quickly deflate) Ginny did.
You see, I’d spent my hard earned silver coins on a puffy coat hanger that my friend had made. Which I had then bought for my mum on Mother’s Day. Sure I could have made it, but I didn’t. I’d outsourced.
Now while my puffy coat hanger buying days are probably behind me, the odd bit of outsourcing isn’t, (especially if it’s someones lovely recipe to be made.)
I’d had been thinking about the combination of rose and pistachio for a little while but it hadn’t gone any further than that. Just the thinking.
Reaching for my trusty friend google and lo and behold, He Needs Food has a Rose and Pistachio Biscuit Recipe and it looks precisely to my baking liking.* The pictures are gorgeous, the recipe is easy and on baking, they present beautifully. Just the thing for Mothers Day, (that’s if you weren’t already giving puffy coat hangers.)
Thanks John, cracker of a recipe.
* Except for cooking with rose water, I really am not friends with the stuff. Recipe is still great with this omission though.
Autumn I’ve been expecting you
Hello Autumn, I’ve been expecting you.
How to make fancy pants Flower Bread
Bread is one of those things that at times look far more fancy than what it really is. Well, it can do anyway. This Flower Bread is one of them. An easy one to do if you want to team it up with a simple soup or alternatively, tear chunks off and slap some butter on those sides.
First up flatten your dough, this is done at the stage when you would normally shape your bread. (For a basic bread dough recipe see here for a regular yeasted one, or here for a simple sourdough.) Any old shape, as long as it’s the same thickness generally all around. Next you need to divide it into equal portions. I would normally do this as I go along. Again any shape is fine, and a rough triangle is excellent for the next step.
Next you are creating little balls. If you pull those corners into the middle (as if you were making a dumpling) it traps air in and creates a smooth outer surface. Pinch the ends together to seal it. Lightly plop it into some flour (this stops it from sticking to the board or bench top) and leave to the side. Carry on with the rest.
Once you have all your balls. Get two small bowls, one filled with water and the other with poppy seeds (or any other seeds, you might like to use.) Holding your ball of dough at the top where you sealed it, gently dip about a quarter of the dough into the water and then the seed bowl.
Next place them, seed side up into a lined cake tin. Depending on how big you did them, you should fit about seven. Six on the outer and one in the middle. Cover, and let them prove. Then bake at 230C with steam for about 25-ish minutes.
And there you have it… easy fancy pants Flower Bread!
cityhippyfarmgirl 