In My Kitchen April 2015

And so April rolls around bringing Easter, ANZAC Day, school holidays and birthdays.  Daylight savings ends and Autumn has well and truly set in.  My kitchen has been filled with lots of fresh produce, generosity and a few favourite recipes.

Above is a picture of the salts in my kitchen: spicy salt, onion salt, French lavender salt, Himalayan salt, smoked salt, BBQ salt, wild garlic salt and regular salt in the salt hog.  Then I remembered I hadn't included black salt and table salt.  It sometimes seems like my salt habit is taking over the kitchen!

We have been off to Farmers Markets quite a few times, including one weekend when I went to three, having discovered the two were actually not on that week.  I am particularly keen on buying in-season apples from markets because they are so much better than those at the supermarket.  The above haul is from the Flemington Farmers Market.  Apples, plums, bagels, tomatoes, strawberry vinegar, dried apricots, almonds and beetroot. 

The tomatoes from the farmers market went into a batch of Tomato Kitchen Sink Chutney.  It is something I really love but E isn't eating it as much because he is ploughing through a chilli jam he was given for Christmas.

Another tomato product in my kitchen has been these Karg's Tomato and Mozzarella Crispbreads.  They were rather tasty with some hummus.  And very crunchy.  I bought them out of curiosity.  They are not likely to be a regular fixture in my kitchen but I would definitely buy them again.

On International Women's Day I was invited to an afternoon tea.  My friend Penny asked us all the bring bunches of purple and/or white flowers.  During the afternoon tea she made bouquets for everyone to take home made of a selection of the flowers we brought along.  It was a lovely gesture of community and I loved having the flowers in my kitchen.

Another kind gesture was the offer of quinces by one of the mothers at school.  We took away a heavy bagful.  Mardi warned me they were wormy and we did indeed spy one worm trying to escape the fruit bowl.

I cooked up the quinces and baked an apple and quince crumble (a bit like this).  It was lovely with some yoghurt.  That left me with lots of quince syrup.  Sylvia and I have gradually been drinking it with a little vinegar and lots of soda water.

I gave a lot of the quinces to my mum.  She has been making quince jelly ever since I can remember.  When we were young one of dad's colleagues had a quince tree.  These days my mum takes quinces where she can get them.  And still makes quince jelly.  The colour is just beautiful.  She sent me home from our last visit with a jar for us and a jar for Mardi.

My mum also gifted us some eggplant and feta filo pastries that a friend of hers had baked.  They sat in the freezer until I needed some quick dinner.  We already had coleslaw in the freezer.  I just had to cook the corn and broccoli and chop up some tomatoes.  Easy.  And delicious.

When I originally made this teriyaki tofu with brown rice and kale, E said it would be better with more vegies in the rice.  This version with corn and carrot was lovely.  However I think I could have cooked the tofu longer until it was a little charred.

A friend gave me this pomegranate off her tree.  I tried to blend up some of the arils in a smoothie in a high speed blender but it was still a bit gritty.  We really loved the rest of the arils plain or with yoghurt and muesli.  I just wish I had got organised to scatter them over a salad.

We had pancakes the other morning.  Unusually we didn't have a manky banana to use in our regular pancakes.  So we made these vegan pancakes.  I doubled the recipe, but didn't double the maple syrup, turmeric, salt and vanilla essence.  The mixture was really thin and a bit of a nightmare when we tried to make shapes with a squeezy bottle.  I added a bit more flour and it worked much better.  I tried a face, a flower, a gingerbread man and a giraffe.  I am hoping to make a green giraffe pancake one day.  That would make me very happy!

I am sending this post to Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for her In My Kitchen event.  Head over to join in (by 10th of each month) and/or check out what is happening in other bloggers' kitchens.