In My Kitchen - March 2014

In my kitchen, Autumn greets us with a fruit bowl of fruit and a vase of sunflowers.  Sylvia has taken a shine to "yellow smoothies" with banana, passionfruit, nectarines, oats, chia seeds, soy milk and ice blocks.  They are a great way to start the day, especially for a big school girl!

Sylvia will not have greens in her smoothies.  I often add baby spinach and love it.  A week or two ago I had some kale in the fridge and decided to try it in a smoothie for the first time.  It was horrid.  I felt like I was drinking a cup of cut grass.  I suspect I probably added too much kale.  No doubt I will try it again, but with much caution.

E prefers a cuppa tea to a smoothie.  Being an ex-pat Brit, he is always in search of tea from his homeland.  A recent purchase of Yorkshire Tea bemused him.  The packet had the pictures of an English pastoral scene.  Yet, the packet claimed that "Australia deserves a proper brew"!  Huh!  And he thought this was a quintessentially British tea.

E also loves a good pudding.  Just as well.  After Christmas I was in the supermarket and saw this pudding had been discarded at the checkout.  Who could resist a Jamie Oliver Italian-style Christmas Pudding with panettone, limoncello, candied citrus peel and almonds!  Then the weather was too hot for pudding.  Finally at the start of February we tasted it.  I found it too intensely citrussy.  E enjoyed the rest of it over a few evenings with Maggie Beer's amazing Burnt Fig, Honeycomb and Caramel Ice Cream or vanilla yoghurt.

Our dishes pile up quickly.  In February they got the better of our dish rack.  These wooden dish racks aren't as common in the shops as they once were.  Luckily E spied one in an op shop and we have replaced this one.

If only I could sort out my cookbooks as easily as our dish rack.  I got Isa Does It for my birthday but haven't spent as much time with it as I would like.  It is a beautiful book with lots of easy and interesting meals.  I loved the Ranch Salad with potatoes and smoky chickpeas.

E has taken a fancy to a Japanese shop called Daiso.  You can see a few of his purchases above Isa Does It.  Oh so kawaii.  He also bought these cute little containers for Sylvia.  They are so small you need a dropper (at the end of the pack) to fill them.

For my recipe testing with Ricki Heller, I bought some Yacon Syrup (at Flinders Organics opposite Flinders St Train Station).  On the shelf it seemed to say it was $17.  Others had said how expensive it was so I wasn't too bothered.  However at the cash register I found it was actually $35.  Gulp!  I bought it.  Once.  Possibly never again at that price.  I did have an interesting chat with the shopkeeper and another customer about it.  It is thick and treacly, and is both low in sugar and calories.

Lastly, here is our new cookie jar.  We won it in a raffle at a school picnic.  Sylvia was very excited.  It is very cute.  I just wish we had also won so extra room to store it.

I am sending to this Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for her In My Kitchen event.