Tuesday 6 December 2016

In My Kitchen: December 2016

December has arrived, breathless and bold.  Everyone is celebrating: the end of school year, the summer and Christmas.  Last weekend we were at Coburg Night Market (Indian style nachos were amazing), a carol service (where a pub rock duo don't seem to know many carols and end up singing Wonderwall and Uptown Funk) and Sylvia's gymnastics display day (where I won the raffle).  We are high on excitement and low on energy!  And I need to find time to vacuum the house.  So let's ignore the floors while we take a peek into my kitchen.

Firstly I must show off our first and finest strawberry that Sylvia ate before they were either eaten by birds or defeated by my lack of watering.  Now that there is more sunshine and less rain, I need to get into better gardening habits.

We went to the Melbourne Vegan Eats Brew and Food Fest in November.  E wanted some sausage rolls but they were taking too long.  Later when we returned to Half Pint Dairy for an ice cream they had lots of sausage rolls.  We bought some beetroot and cashew sausage rolls to take home for dinner.  They were magnificent.  We ate them with leftover bean stew and lettuce.

I haven't had as much time for dinner lately as I would like.  Some shortcuts have been called for.  Such as the wonderful falafel from Half Moon Cafe in Coburg.  They are made with broad beans and lots of herbs.  When fresh they are crispy outside and soft and green inside.  After a day in the fridge, they firm up but still taste exceedingly good.

And then there have been days I haven't got to the shops.  I set out to make overnight sourdough bread a couple of weeks back and found I was out of my regular white flour.  I looked for what flours were about the kitchen and used 1/4 white flour, 1/4 wholmeal flour and 1/2 spelt flour.  The bread was great with far more depth of flavour, albeit a little less lift.

We have made time for the Coburg Farmers Market.  The cruffin was for E though Sylvia and I had to taste the strange hybrid of a croissant and muffin.  The garlic scapes ended up in nachos.  The oranges were quartered and put into Sylvia's lunchbox.  The kale went into this salad.  And I enjoyed the new vegan creamy macadamia and pear chocolate from Cocoa Rhapsody.

I was so excited to see Savoury muesli bars.  But I felt cheated once I got them home and tasted them and checked the ingredients and the sugar content.  They were held together with glucose and tasted slightly sweet with some cumin flavour.  The biggest betrayal was looking at the sugars in the nutritional breakdown which was about 13 g per 100g, compared to Sylvia's regular sweet muesli bars which are about 15g per 100g.  Disappointed!  They wont be in my shopping trolley again.

We have bought some fun stuff too.  I love the colour of the carotino oil.  I thought it was made of carrots but it is actually canola and red palm heart.  The loose leaf Hibiscus tea with ginger, vanilla and mint is from Juanita's Kitchen and very nice (Actually I was given this after a meal at the cafe but not in my capacity as a blogger.)  I love the mini bagels.  They are great to store in the freezer for lunches for Sylvia when we are out of bread!  And I really love the purple carrot, beetroot and apple juice.  I find it quite strong and have it with half juice and half soda water.

I have so many recipes to try that I usually can resist the temptation of food magazines.  However I was tempted by this new Follow the Crumbs magazine I picked up in the supermarket.  It was so interesting I bought a copy (and it wasn't cheap at $9 or $10).  I enjoyed looking at it and then not had time to pick it up again.

Sylvia made this toilet paper roll people one day when she had idle time.  They are rather cute!

My neighbour gave to a charity that came knocking at her door and they gave her vouchers to buy some magazines.  She gave me the vouchers and so I received these cute house pegs with the magazine.

I spent November blogging lots of vegan recipes for Vegan Mofo.  Above are some gingerbread men from Isa's Vegan Holidays Cookbook. I didn't like them quite as much as my regular gingerbread but it was pretty good.  And we had fun decorating the gingerbread men.  Sylvia did the skeleton and I did the guy in the tie.

Finally here is a peek into the raffle that I won at the gymnastics display day.  I had made gingerbread houses to donate to the raffle and was embarrassed to win one back.  In fact, so mortified was I that I asked that it be taken out of the hamper and raffled again (much to Sylvia's dismay).  We had lots of other lovely food and gifts in the hamper, including a David Brewster calendar and some gorgeous fleece hats that one of the coaches made.  Sylvia has been wearing one of the hats to bed every night.  (And yes it is summer!)  We also have a voucher for I Carusi Pizza which I look forward to using. 

I am sending this post to the In My Kitchen event, that invites bloggers to share a peek into their kitchen.  Started by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, it is currently hosted by Lizzy of Bizzy Lizzy's Good Things.  If you would like to join in, send your post to Lizzy by 10 November .  Or just head over to her blog to check out some fascinating kitchens.

18 comments:

  1. It is looking rather festive in your kitchen. The hibiscus tea interests me. So funny that you got picked for the raffle. I have dried petal which i have used to make a drink, may enhance it with some ginger now :) Talking about magazines, like you i have avoided them but I picked one up today as it had some interesting Christmas recipes. Look forward to reading more about the content of your Crumbs

    Happy strawberry picking, get them before the birds do.

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    1. Thanks Shaheen - I've been trying to find time for Crumbs but have been getting interrupted. I have made some omelettes tonight from the I Could Never Go Vegan book which we loved. I've got netting up to protect the strawberries so now I need to remember to water them (30 C today and 34 C tomorrow)

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  2. I like to think that winning small raffles is the prelude to winning something major :D

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    1. Thanks Faye - if only these omens told the truth :-)

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  3. The floors can wait! These look delicious :)

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    1. Thanks Chelsey - I have given the floors a little love but it doesn't take long to look like they have never met a vacuum cleaner!!!!

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  4. Hi there lovely one... so many goodies in your kitchen! Those savoury bars sound interesting. Wishing you all the very best for a happy December, and thank you for the shout out and the peek into your kitchen xx

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    1. Thanks Lizzy - I would love to create a truly savoury muesli bar - these ones have got me thinking about it and if it is possible

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  5. Yum, I'd love to try the beetroot and cashew sausage rolls. Shame about the savoury muesli bars - they sounded interesting.

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    1. Thanks Cakelaw - yes, I would love to try making the sausage rolls and some proper savoury muesli bars in my kitchen

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  6. Your kitchen looks fantastic Johanna, and I am particularly impressed at the sound of beetroot and cashew sausage rolls and macadamia and pear chocolate! I would have been drawn to those muesli bars too so it's a shame they packed so much sugar in. There's a bit of sugar in your hamper too but that looks justified and a great win :-)

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    1. Thanks Kari - I was really disappointed about the museli bars - fell for the marketing! And yes there is a bit of sugar in the hamper but we are trying to make it last and it is all in a good cause!

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    1. Thanks NRA - we had plans for them but they have got lost in the hurly burly - I must hunt them out

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  8. my antennae went up when i saw that carotino oil. it is as i understand it from the same tree as palm oil which as we all know is destroying the environment and leading to the death of orang utans in the wild. oops sorry! on my high horse here. it is just an issue close to my heart. def. not having a go at you! love the sound of the falafels. how marvellous to grow your own strawberries. have a great xmas. x

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    1. Thanks Sherry - I was drawn in by the colour of the oil and initially thought it carrot - then when I read "red palm heart" I thought it like tins of palm hearts and did not twig it was maybe palm oil - it is a curiosity purchase and I am not sure I am likely to use it again but if I am tempted will have to check out the palm oil connection! Thanks.

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  9. Your kitchen looks so lovely. The sausage rolls sound just delicious - were they a lovely red colour inside? I looked at those muesli bars too the other day, but put them back after reading the nutritional panel. Disappointing! Lucky win with the hamper and hope that solo strawberry is a prelude to lots more! Have a fantastic Christmas x

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    1. Thanks Lisa - I can't remember with the sausage rolls colour - I think they were red inside but as beetroot tends to lose its colour when baked I am unsure. You were more cautious than me - I did look at ingredients but did not twig that the glucose adds quite a bit of sweetness.

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