In My Kitchen - December 2013, and my lucky streak

So it seems December has rolled around again and we have already seen enough decorations about, yet there is still a little room for some Christmas cheer.  Having a 4 year old around really helps.  But I am not buying a large singing Christmas tree for her.  However we did get excited at the Christmas BBQ shapes at the supermarket this morning.  So begins a peek into my kitchen, which actually has been full of good food, but not much Christmas.  Yet!

I was really pleased to manage to get to our local farmers market this month.  I was very excited to buy lots of good produce.  You can see what I did with the dried apricots, purple carrots, cultured beetroot, asparagus and milawa white cheese elsewhere.  Stay tuned for use of the sauerkraut brine.  Can you guess what I have used it for?

These baby carrots at the market were just so gorgeous that I bought them despite also having purple carrots in my shopping bag and regular orange carrots in the fridge at home.  I roasted them with maple syrup and they were wonderfully sweet and tender.

More goodies from the Coburg Farmers Market.  I am usually very suspicious of apricots at this time of year but I have bought such delicious stone fruit from Smiths that I was willing to take the risk.  They were as full of flavour and juice as all apricots should be.  The cherries were pretty good too.  I have told you about the kale becoming healthy chips.  Less healthy was the brownie with a caramel layer.  It was sheer chocolate decadence and we shared one piece between three of us.

One of our favourite regular stalls at the market is the chocolate lady from Cocoa Rhapsody.  We always have a taste and buy a block.  The salted lime is a favourite but I was interested in the new Almond Pinstripe with a layer of dark chocolate and a layer of creamy white almond layer. It was superb.  (Not vegan.)

I also went shopping at Brunswick IGA.  Here is some of what I bought.  Quite a lot of it is available in other supermarkets.  Yet I was still very pleased with my haul because it included black beans, Marry's Gone Crackers, strawberry and pomegranate tea and linden herbal tea, all of which we can't buy in our closest supermarkets.

Best of all from IGA is their extensive chocolate range.  This Russian Earl Grey Tea dark chocolate from Cafe Tasse was amazing.  Not only was the chocolate smooth and rich but it had small tea leaves throughout it that had a pleasing crunch.  (Not vegan.)

I have mentioned that Sylvia is going to school next year.  Not only has she had school orientation sessions but at her kindergarten they have a transition program.  Part of this is bringing a packed lunch one day a week for a month.  (She usually gets a cooked lunch.)  We have had lots of discussions and tried a few different things: vegemite sandwiches, sushi, rice crackers and dip, roasted chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, yoghurt covered rice cakes and fruit.

I was surprised at how much Sylvia enjoyed being able to choose her lunch rather than eating what was served to her.  She ate all her lunch each day.  She is excited about packed lunches next year.  It will be an interesting challenge for me to be making lunch five days a week next year.  I am sure there will be some posts about it.

Cindy kindly pointed me towards a local source of liquid smoke.  It is the gourmet food store at the top of the escalator in Lygon Court.  I was so excited that there were three types to choose from that I bought two.  It mostly goes into tofu bacon.  Tonight I was too lazy to marinate the tofu bacon.  Instead I cut the tofu into chunks, fried it in the frypan and then added the marinade until it was a sticky sauce.  (A bit like this.)  So so so good.

We bought some strawberry jam at the Kerrimuir Primary School fete.  Even though there was already strawberry jam in our fridge.  The latter came from the supermarket.  I confess that I bought it for the glass it came in.  The Kerrimuir strawberry jam was a timely reminder of just how good homemade jam can be.  It not only tasted delicious but it also tasted of strawberries.

Sylvia and I visited a friend with two kids who sung the praises of "squeezies".  I'd never heard of them before.  But we had to try them.  We found these five:am berry yoghurts in the supermarket.  We took them home and sucked the yoghurt out of it.  That was fun.  They tasted good.  Then we forgot about them.  They were just a novelty.

I have been experimenting with making tortillas.  So far I have had ones that were too thick and ones that were thinner but only one looked right.  The above tortilla.  The rest had the wrong texture (uncooked with a few burnt spots).  I will keep trying and if I succeed in making the tortillas I have in mind, I will write more about them.

This sourdough bread dough is just one of the things that have gone wrong lately.  I have been distracted.  I forgot the salt in this dough and then I forgot about the dough.  It rose and rose and rose.  It tasted ok but the salt makes a difference to flavour and texture.  Below is a sourdough loaf that was far more successful.  I was so proud of my slashes.

I am sending this post to Celia for her In My Kitchen series.  As always I encourage you to join in or just see what is happening in other bloggers' kitchens.

Finally I have been on a lucky streak with blog giveaways lately.  (E says I should buy a lotto ticket.)  I wanted to acknowledge the bloggers from whom I have received goodies:

• Louise of Months of Edible Celebrations held a World Pasta Day party for her seventh blogiversary.  I was delighted to join in and even more excited to be one of the recipients of a Powells book voucher to celebrate.  I have a copy of Ottolenghi's Plenty in the post.
• I then won an e-book by Dreena Burton, Plant-Powered 15, from a giveaway by Janet of the taste space.  It has fifteen tempting but healthy recipes and I have bookmarked a few to try out.
• Lastly I found out today that I won a pack of Kez's Kitchen's gluten free cereal bites and snacks that was held by Cass of Food is My Friend.  I can't wait to try them.

Thanks to these bloggers for their kindness in sending me these goodies.  I also think it is timely to thank Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for the work she does on hosting In My Kitchen.