Fusilletti pesto (below) and the other picture showing, fiochetti with rainbow chard, cucumber, tuna, lemon and red onion. During the summer months I have the opportunity to reduce my trips to the green grocer. With basil, cucumbers, zucchini, dwarf beans, rainbow...
I feel so rich when I have a bounty of greens in the garden. I feel so loving, lofty and vivacious when basil bursts forth from the edge of the garden bed. And a soundtrack, with a melodious, monumental symphony, floats around me as I harvest summer greens and make...
Now on the way to school or on the way home, Ahlia picks berries for her treat. Boysenberry flowers..Fruit beginnings. Harvest time.
Now I am creating my own bread recipes. I added two tablespoons of cocoa to the sourdough basic recipe, a large handful of sultanas, and a large handful of hazelnuts. A tbs of honey too. A bitter flavoured breakfast bread with a tinge of sweet.
I am using my lettuce for all sorts of meals. This rice, cicory and bechamel sauce dish with the addition of whipped eggs is baked and served. Add grated zest of lemon and nutmeg to the bechamel sauce for a delicious flavour.
In the past few weeks the humble broad bean has decorated our meals. I made broad bean mustered rice balls, fried and golden. Broad bean and cicory salad with fried egg for breakfast. Broad bean dip with anchovy's on sourdough toast. And for the chickens a broad bean...
It is time to feature broad beans in my kitchen. With a rich harvest I am committed to cooking broad beans with every meal. And while for some this might sound like a dire situation, for me the challenge of celebrating one ingredient in the kitchen for the length of...
Bread fever has not died. I am as keen to make bread as ever before and I am getting faster too. On the weekend it was fresh bread heaven. We sat 6 at our table. The loaves of warm bread sitting on the cooling rack ready for slicing. The table was laid out with...
In the garden blossoms are blooming and their colour saturated. Ralf is checking the bee hives for pests, and honey. With the warm weather the bees and the blossom will come together, each nurturing the other.
Like a pet it is, the bread I make. A constant fixture that I bake. I never tire of making it, watching the rising and kneading the mix. At night I start, by day break its full, bloated and ready to be halved in two. The tins make toasting easier and sandwiches ripe,...
In summer, winter, in autumn or spring, polenta delicious, delicious I eat.
I really enjoy learning from friends. From friends most of all because an intimate relationship has been established that makes the learning process very gratifying. There is also an opportunity for me to learn not only about their craft but to learn more about them...
I am slowly working towards perfecting my bread making and baking...I have gleaned from here I have gleaned from there... Ken tells me stories, Lise and others too... there are different approaches to making bread and you choose the approach you want according to the...
There is never a time when I look inside the fridge and think "there is nothing to eat". As long as there is one vegetable in the fridge then I know that a visit to the garden will make that two (vegetables) and with that a meal can be started. In between the growing...
The heavy meals and comfort foods of winter sometimes need to be put on the back burner for something a little lighter and refreshing. For me at present it's a Moroccan Soup Bar inspired dish. Olive oil is heated, a large clove of garlic finely cut is added and fried...
In the winter months, I like to purchase Flat Pancetta. Sliced very, very thinly at the Delicatessen, and fried for a mere minute or less, tossed in this case with Flat European beans from our garden and a very easy and tasty salad is made.
Abundantly in the garden you grow. Beautiful shaped fruit on an evergreen shrub. I wish I loved you so I could eat you...but no matter how beautiful you look I have yet to desire you... but as the chickens enjoy you, to them I feed you.
The Kalamata olives are ripe. We have a very small tree. It has been crowded greedily near Pandorea jasminoides 'Lady Di' and some Sedum flowers. And yet it is productive. I will harvest and bathe them until they are tasty.
A very beautiful harvest of Kaki fruit from my small tree in Reservoir. I grew up with Kaki trees in Italy, and remember thinking they were amazing. Tomato like in appearance but so vastly different in flavour. The large seeds rolled in my mouth like boiled lollies...