In My Kitchen: July 2018

July finds us halfway through the year but not even halfway through winter.  I am missing our heater and am pleased the days are now starting to lengthen after the solstice  The school holidays have started and our kitchen table already has a sickly green tinge from a solo craft session by Sylvia involving food dyes.  Today we had a quiet day at home experimenting with fondant cake decorating, playing scrabble and hoping futilely that the washing would dry outside.  Nationwide, July starts the ban on single use bags at major supermarkets.

Above is a new range of seasoned rice crackers by Sakata made with vegies.  They came in individual packets but I had to try all three types: beetroot, spinach and pumpkin.  So pretty and great to eat.

We've been trying new crisps recently.  Sylvia convinced me to buy her buttered popcorn flavoured pringles.  They smelled like buttered popcorn but tasted like pretty regular pringles.  E really loved the Sriracha chilli and wild lime crisps from Kettle.  I also had some parmesan and roasted garlic crisps from Kettle that were very nice.

The most interesting crisp purchase, however, had to be there Kraut Krisps.  I bought them thinking they were flavoured with sauerkraut but they were actually made with 50% sauerkraut (if memory serves me corectly).  They tasted like corn chips with a slight sour flavour.  I really liked that you could eat crisps and get a probiotic intake.  I bought them because they were on special but I loved them enough that I would purchase them again.

My mum is always very generous is sharing food.  She made lots of dishes recently when she had a clean out of her fridge.  She brought me a tub of curry that needed some chickpeas and spinach.  It was delicious with rice and brussel sprouts.  I wish I had a photo of her spanikopita that looks very fancy with slits across it.  We had some at her place a few weeks back and she sent us home with one for the frezer that we ate last week.

Who wants to eat ice cream in cold weather!  No me.  Unfortunately I live with those who do so this appeared in our fridge.  I had a taste and it was ok but I would prefer to eat an iced vovo biscuit with jam, marshmallow and coconut than to have it in ice cream.  E and Sylvia enjoyed it.

A few weeks back we had a family lunch to celebrate a few birthdays.  Sylvia and I made some of our favourite recipes: cheese and parsley muffins and grubs.  We had a few muffins to take home but the grubs went in a flash.

Our favourite Coburg Farmers Market has moved to a more convenient location so we have been going there more.  (I am planning to write more about the new place some time.)  We really love Gorgeous George.  His strawberry kombucha is excellent and the ginger beer kefir is lovely, though quite strong.  You can see the chunks of ginger at the bottom of the smaller kefir bottles.  He also sells a lovely sauerkraut.  I have been eating it in my cheese sandwiches at lunchtime.

When Gorgeous George is not at the market, we are attracted to the Good Seed who also do some great kefir.  I took this Beetroot and Orange kefir down to Geelong.  My mum said she could taste the beetroot quite strongly.  I loved the fizzy fermented juice and didn't think the beetroot flavour so strong.  (Maybe that was because I was trying to convince Sylvia to try it though I failed at that!)

I could not resist this gorgeous purple cauliflower.  It has sat in the fridge for a week while I have walked along the road of good intentions.  Tonight I chopped it up and roasted it and had it on a cooked pizza base with blackbean hummus and sauerkraut.  There is roast cauliflower left for tomorrow but I am not sure it will get the showstopper dish that such a glorious colour deserves.

We are eating lots of packaged cereals lately.  I have been eating muesli with yoghurt (I quite like the Heritage Mill toasted muesli).  Sylvia had been having a glass of milk and dry cereal.  These wild berry Fruity Bites were a hit with her.

As I mentioned in my blackbean hummus post, Sylvia is quite taken with black so we have bought a few black foods, such as these activated charcoal crackers.  However she is too fussy with what she will and wont eat to incorporate too much black into her diet.  I used it as a reason to include black beans in a stew I served her but it didn't really impress.

After my success with Sourdough cheeseymite scrolls, I tried the same dough in lamington scrolls.  I patted out a large rectangle, spread with about 2 tbsp condensed milk, 2 tbsp desiccated coconut and a good handful of choc chips, rolled it up and baked it.  Then I topped each scroll with something like this chocolate frosting and coconut.  They were nice but not quite what I wanted.  The bread part was not soft enough, the filling wasn't quite right and the topping was too thick.  I am thinking I might try it again with jam in the scroll and a thinner icing.  Stay tuned ...

Most successful was a sour cream flatbread quite like this yoghurt flatbread.  I made them after Sylvia and I had a cheese wrap on the way home from after care.  Sylvia wanted another and I said I would just made one.  Then I regretted my rash promise.  Flatbreads are quick but can still be taxing after a busy day of work.  It did use up the sour cream that I had bought for baked potatoes.  And the leftover flatbreads were good to grab from the pizza a few days later to top with pizza sauce and cheese for an easy lunch.

Finally I am sharing the shelves over our oven.  I quite like having them there but they do get very grimy.  I recently cleaned all of the shelves including the kitchen hen on the top shelf.  My older sister gave me the kitchen hen for luck when I moved into my first student house.  Given that in a few months we have had problems with our oven, our heater and our microwave, I thought I should treat my kitchen hen well as we need all the luck we can get right now.

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.