Busy in the kitchen

Hello, how are you?  I can hear the sigh of relief in the northern hemisphere from all the peeps who are longing for spring and warmer days.  I know it doesn't really warm up for a bit but I hope the appearance of bulbs poking out of the ground, the lengthening of days and a little sunshine here and there is cheering you up.  I'm not ready for autumn yet let alone winter as we had far too many grey cool days this summer in Melbourne.  Over in the west on the farm they are longing for cooler days after a long hot summer.  I guess the challenge is finding lovely things in all the seasons and making the most of it.

So late February is when the tomatoes start to ripen nicely and then we have to find different ways to use them before they spoil.  I've already posted about oven dried tomatoes here and have made another batch since.  I've also made some tomato chutney and used the few dodgy apples from the tree in the back yard that the parrots didn't get to.
 
 

Chutney cooking up nicely.

 This is cherry tomato tart we had for dinner one evening.  Delicious.

Hubby and I visited a farmers market recently and bought a couple of kilos of blood plums, my absolute favourite plums.   I used some of them to make this upside down cake.  Recipe can be found
here.

With yet more tomatoes ripening in the garden, a mix of cherry and grosse lisse, the making of tomato sauce/ketchup was next on the agenda.  I used the recipe found here
a slightly corrupted version using red onions (all I had to hand), balsamic and apple cider vinegars and brown sugar.  It was quite a process and you need a good three hours to make it but it is SO worth the effort, the sauce tastes amazing.

After the sauce had finished cooking I blended it with a stick blender which reduced the amount of pulp after sieving.

All that remained after sieving and that went into the compost.

The finished product.

 Hubby and I are off over to Western Australia next weekend for two weeks to visit Mum and for hubby, my brother and his mate to go on a fishing holiday for a week down to the south west coast.  On our return we will have some exciting news to share but until then I just have to be patient.

Anne xx

Baking day

It had to be done, baking to feed the hungry hoards.

 A dozen blueberry muffins.

Fifty two Anzac biscuits.

 

Two boiled fruit cakes.

 One loaf of wholemeal bread.

Anne  xx

Easy and scrumptious orange cake

When I had a yearning for orange cake recently I decided to make one but wanted a simple recipe which I found here   It suited me perfectly.  No creaming butter and sugar and using the whole orange, skin and all.

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Orange cake

Photo:  Marina Oliphant

Time

20-40 minutes

This is a simple cake that's great for beginners to try. Use the whole orange, skin and all, for a moist and delicious result.

Ingredients

• 2 oranges
• 180g plus 2 tbsp melted butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 2 1/2 cups sifted icing sugar
• Orange zest, to decorate

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line the base of a 12cm x 22cm loaf tin. Cut one orange into large chunks, leaving the skin on. Place in a large food processor and blend until well pureed. Add 180g melted butter, eggs, sugar and flour then process until well combined. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 50 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes, then turn out of tin and cool on a wire rack. To make the icing, mix icing sugar with two tablespoons melted butter. Juice remaining orange and add small amount to icing mix to obtain a spreadable consistency. Ice the cooled cake and decorate with orange zest.

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I didn't bother with the icing as the cake was deliciously moist.

Make and enjoy,

Anne  xx

Birthday party time - warning, long post!

Well the birthday party is over but what a wonderful time we had.  The birthday person was delighted with all and sundry much to my relief.  One of the things I enjoy about hosting a party is the fun of planning the food, a colour scheme for decorations (I have to have a colour scheme) and of course the cake.  Here are the decorations.

The streamers and balloons were strung throughout the living areas of the house.  I certainly had fun getting up and down on chairs for an hour or two while hanging them.

You must have a big birthday banner to rub the age thing in a bit more!  :-)

Thanks to Miss G for adding streamers to the banner to add more impact.

I love the subdued light of candles and had plenty dispersed around the rooms.  With the two up lights and the lamps on, the lighting was perfect.

 No party is complete without party blowers and poppers!

The birthday person was greeted at the front door with all of us blowing blowers.  This caused the desired result, lots of laughter.

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On the menu

Nibblies to start

cheese platter with crackers, grapes and fresh dates

sun dried tomato and hummus dips

cashew and pistachio nuts

chips (crisps)

To drink

sparkling white wine (we aren't allowed to called it champagne anymore)

white wine

beer

ginger beer

lemonade

Adams ale

Main meal

beef stroganoff

chicken, leek and corn casserole (a new recipe I tried and totally corrupted it in a good way :-)

roasted root vegetables (potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, parsnip, sweet potato) with whole garlic cloves, olive oil, fresh rosemary, sage and thyme from the garden and seasoned with salt and pepper

tossed salad with green oak leaf lettuce, baby Roma tomatoes, red capsicum (pepper), continental cucumber and parsley from the garden

Dessert

birthday cake - lemon curd cake with lemon butter icing

fresh fruit platter with strawberries, mandarin and kiwi fruit

Hot beverages

tea and coffee

I decided on a lemon curd cake for the birthday cake as it was a little bit different and the birthday person's favourite colour is yellow, so that tied in quite nicely with the colour theme.  We also have two lemon trees in the backyard providing plenty of lemons and our three chooks have been giving us some more eggs now that we are getting some more daylight hours.

 I bought some interesting bits and pieces for decorating the cake.

Lovely glossy lemon curd.

The cakes.

The assembling!  Eeek

At this stage I'm in serious doubt that this cake will ever have the slightest resemblance to the image I have in my mind.

O.k., so now we are getting somewhere.  There's more to come though.

Setting the table buffet style.  The cloth place mat under the cutlery is one of a set four found in an op. shop  for 50 cents each.  The brightly coloured serviettes are from a local supermarket.

Birthday person and I let our hair down  grooving to 70's music we grew up with.  Miss C and Miss G, assorted nephews and nieces were highly amused to see our dance moves.  We certainly taught them a move or two not seen for a couple of decades.  :-)

Miss G and one nephew had a few crazy moves of their own.
 

 Cousins clowning around on the sofa as only cousins can.

We had a lovely night together celebrating the birthday person's half a century.  Here's to the next 50.

The Black Hole

Hello! This is my first post ever so thanks for taking the time to look in. Yet another day has gone by when I’ve avoided looking into the black hole. Does anyone else have a black hole in their home like I do? It scares me silly to even think about it. I contemplate different ways I might go about approaching it, but it never seems to get any easier. As each day goes by, the black hole gets blacker, nastier and I chastise myself about my avoidance tactics. I'd much rather be in my garden, dreaming about my garden and planning projects for my garden.

Oh yes, back to the black hole. Can it really be so bad to face one black hole? YES IT CAN, because this dark cavern of horror is my oven. I imagine those of you like me who have a tendency to avoid oven cleaning duties are grimacing in horror at the thought of oven cleaning time and those who don’t have a procrastinating bone in their body are saying to me, just get in and clean it girl!! Oh I will eventually, all in good time. But first I need to have a plan of attack.

Unfortunately for a girl who likes natural cleaners, I’ve yet to come up with one that doesn’t require mainly elbow grease. (Any great recipes out there for natural oven cleaners, I’d be grateful?!) I've tried all those nasty spray cans of oven cleaner that claim to be irritant free or non odorous but alas I still find one small whiff and the back of my throat and lungs feel like they are peeling away.

Now if I was really smart (and I’m obviously not), I would wipe out the oven every time I baked or roasted or whatever it is that happens in an oven. When I had my new oven in my brand new house 10 years ago, I was virtuous for about the first week and then sadly I fell back into my bad habits of oven cleaning avoidance. One of the problems of cleaning an oven is finding a time when it’s not in use. I mean who wants their prime roast leg of lamb or sponge cake infused with oven cleaning smells. And if you use those nasty cleaners that come in spray cans, the fumes hang around for days. Just another excuse I know but it is a real quandary for girls who use their ovens a lot.

I go through stages of loving baking and other stages of loathing it. I love cooking for special occasions but everyday fare and routine cooking can be rather boring. Just something that has to be done to keep the family from starving. So what to do? Perhaps I need a freezer so I can prepare meals and cakes in advance so that we could get by without needing the oven for a week. As a freezer is no where in sight I suppose the oven cleaning duties will keep for another year or two. :-)