In My Kitchen: July 2015

It is the end of the first week of the school holidays.  Sylvia has had swimming lessons at 9am each day.  I am glad the swimming intensive has ended.  Our chlorinated hair feels like straw after hours of swimming and I am looking forward to a sleep in.  On the upside we have had great fun, met great new people, caught up with a few old friends, and done some local shopping afterwards. 

One local purchase is this new saucepan that is between my largest saucepan and my stockpot.  I am often looking for a saucepan of this size.  It is the same style as my other Baccarat saucepans that I have had for 13 years and are in pretty good nick, albeit less shiny than my new saucepan.  I can't wait to use it.

A more impulsive purchase was this Iron Broo Tablet that we bought E when we were at the National Celtic Festival.  It was the usual tooth aching sweetness of tablet but I liked the slight flavour of Scotland's national soft drink, Iron Bru.  E said he couldn't taste it but I could.

A curious item in my kitchen this month is carrot jam.  My mum was gifted it by a friend and passed it on to me along with some quince jelly and apricot jam.  I am wondering if the carrot jam would make some interesting baking as I am not sure I will convince E and Sylvia to eat jam with grated carrot swimming in it. 

I have been shopping at CERES farmers market recently and find myself buying the cute vegies.  Purple potatoes (not pictured here), coloured carrots and Romanescu cauliflower.  I resist the bread because I often have my own loaves as in the picture above.  On a recently visit I was offered loose garlic cloves for a song so I took a handful.  And Sylvia picked me the flowers.

Here is the close up of the Romanescu cauliflower.  So pretty and strange.  I regret to say it went into a stew.  It surprised me at how well it kept its shape.  I do wonder how it would be to roast it whole like this roasted cauliflower.

Sylvia had a friend over for a sleepover recently and we made pizza for dinner and apple rose tarts for dessert.  I thinly sliced some roasted purple potatoes and baked them on one of the pizzas with some tomato sauce, and cheese.  The potatoes were really crispy like chips and were amazing on the pizza.

I have visited the new Smith and Deli twice because I happened to be in Fitzroy.  So expect a fuller write up in the not too distant future. On my first visit I purchased this chickpea, apricot and cumin.  Actually I am not sure I got the name quite right as there is no name or ingredients on it.  I guess this is what you expect when you purchase on the second day of business.  It was nice with lots of Moroccan flavours but I had hoped for chunks of dried apricot and there were none.  I also bought a block of Loving Earth's raw caramel chocolate and really loved it's creamy buttery flavours but it went before I could get my camera out.

Another new chocolate I sampled recently was this Toasted Coconut Chocolate from Madecasse.  It was nice but not quite what I was after.  I really love the Whittakers coconut block chocolate and hoped this would be a dark chocolate version with the coconut mixed into the chocolate.  The Madecasse block, however, was chocolate with a generous sprinkling of toasted coconut on the underside.

Possibly one of my favourite purchases in the last month was the Pure Harvest Coco2 Hazelnut Spread.  It is made of rice malt syrup, hazelnuts, coconut oil, cocoa powder, vanilla and salt.  I love a product with an ingredient list so simple that I don't mind typing it.  It is vegan, free of refined sugar, gluten free and tastes amazing.  If you want to compare it to Nutella, then Nutella is like a cream cheese spread and this is like a ganache.  Dark and rich and gooey.

I was inspired by a post on BuzzFeed about making pancakes with nutella inside.  Sylvia remembered it as kids will.  We tried it a couple of weeks back with our favourite banana oat pancakes and Coco2 Hazelnut Spread (above).  I thought the mixture might be too thick but it seemed fine.  I tried it again this week with vegan pancakes when Sylvia had her cousin over for a sleepover.  The batter was much thinner and harder to flip.  I think they were the messiest pancakes I have ever made but so yummy.

I have never heard of Annas [sic] Ginger Thins until I found them at an IGA supermarket recently.  According to the packet they are very famous in Sweden.  I can see why they would be.  They are crisp and melt in the mouth.  They were very popular in our house.

I love trying vegan cheeses and was excited to find Sheese in the IGA supermarket.  It was from Scotland and I wanted to like it.  But it ended up being thrown out because it didn't melt or taste nice and it had a weird after taste.  Sheesh!  Disappointing after trying Daiya and Biocheese and knowing how good vegan cheese can be.

Finally here is a sandwich I made for Sylvia for our one leisurely lunch this week.  Sylvia had a picnic in the front garden and ordered a vegemite sandwich with some fancy vegies.  When I gave it to her she told me that it looked amazing.  What a sweetie!

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.