In My Kitchen: June 2018

Winter has been heralded by some recent chilly mornings, dark nights, a rough cough and not much cooking.  I've been making big stews that last for days.  Last week I decided that it was leftovers week because we had quite a few meals in the freezer. And my mum has brought down some of her leftovers for me.

We also had dinner from the fish and chips shop last week on a particular cold and busy night.  The above photo is of some serviettes we were given as a present from E's family (thanks Anne) in Scotland.  They are rather striking to have on the kitchen table and useful for chips.

Last weekend my dad came to help around the house with his drill and tool kit.  Lunch was a fairly simple matter of sandwiches with fresh bread.  I took my cue from Jac's carrot and spinach crunch lunch wrap and had a great sandwich with hummus, grated carrot, rocket and chopped cashews.  It was excellent.

Another good experience with my bread was making cheese on toast with leftover cheese sauce from mac and cheese.  It was a little like Welsh rarebit as I like some mustard in my cheese sauce.

As mentioned previously, I had a go at  Kari's vegan creamy tomato pasta sauce.  It went very well as a base sauce for pizza together with mushrooms, red capsicum, olives, cheese and rocket.  There is hummus in the sauce and I would like to experiment more with hummus on pizza.

A few weeks back Sylvia and I went to East Elevation for lunch.  I wasn't a big fan of the mushroom, lentil and gruyere pies that were on the specials board.  They looked great but there was too much mushroom for my tastes.  I think they would appeal to mushroom loves.  And I enjoyed the greens and roast potatoes served with them.  We both loved the chocolates on display and brought home a few chocolate teddy bears on a stick.

May was Mothers Day so I made a card for my mum.  Sylvia gave me some Smalt fudge which was excellent and I have yet to try the soap she gave me.

We went to Geelong for a Mothers Day lunch.  I took a salad based on one from Ricki Heller's Living Candida Free.  The recipe had cabbage, carrot, broccoli, red pepper and pepitas with a home made dressing.  I used a shop dressing but kept the rest of the vegies and it was excellent.  My mum made a wonderful beetroot, feta and walnut tart, cauliflower cheese and roast vegies.

Today we went to the Coburg Farmers Market which has moved from Coburg North to Coburg Primary School.  It is a much more central location and the school has lovely buildings and grounds.  It was a sunny day and lovely to be there.  We bought some Pink Lady apples from our favourite Three Bridges apples.

We chose the slightly blemished apples which are a bit cheaper.  I feel that it is important to support fruit and vegetables that are not quite right to fight the waste of farmers having to throw away good food that has slight blemishes.

Our other favourite stall is Cocoa Rhapsody.  They love to try new chocolates.  This strawberry white chocolate had some citrus flavours and a bit of texture from the coconut.  It was truly scrumptious.

And we brought strawberries.  They've been great for snacking on today.  We also bought some strawberry and apple kombucha, some apple juice and lovely big potatoes from Trentham that I baked and served with cheese and baked beans.

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event, that was started by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial,  If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to peek into more kitchens.