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We are galloping towards the end of the year at some pace! October was a busy month with a roller coaster of hot days turned to pouring rain, of getting life in order only to sink into a feeling of being totally overwhelmed, and of crazy busy days at work following a wonderful holiday in Daylesford. It was the month for getting updated: a haircut, a car service and a bike service.
Above is a picture of some rosemary and flowers I collected after pruning the garden last weekend when we had barely finished before the rain soaked the plants and the washing on the line in what turned out to be the wettest day in 18 months. The weather was so wild that there was a hurricane in Werribee. I heard a woman on the radio the following day describe the wind peeling the roof off her pergola like the lid of a sardine tin and lifting her husband a foot off the ground.
We brought a few souvenirs home from our 4 day Daylesford holiday. These gorgeous spoons, with fancy metalwork on the handles, were found in a box of cutlery in an op shop. They are in regular usage. You can also seem some retro chunky beads that was one of Sylvia's jewellery purchases and the edges of a batch of Lemon slice made by Sylvia to take to Daylesford for snacking.
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I bought this Spring Bouquet Japanese stoneware dinner plate at the Daylesford Mill Market. It was overpriced at $28 but I had never seen a green version the commonplace brown floral stoneware dinner plates that are sold dirt cheap in op shops everywhere. I love using it in the kitchen. No no regrets!
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I also bought 3 of these gorgeous greeting cards at Daylesford Mill Market at a reasonable price (I think they were $3 each). Sylvia bought the fairy card at the Daylesford Convent Gallery for a lot more. I have been meaning to put the one of the hungry cat with ukelele above
the cat food bowl. (It reads: Let me play you a song: it's called there's no food in my bowl!)
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When it comes to food our cat Shadow is very needy. He is able to go and eat by himself, but if we are about he likes to scratch and glare and even reach his paw around my computer screen to let me know he needs someone to come with him to his food bowl in the bathroom and give him a pat before he will eat.
He loves his dry food. Sometimes I wonder if he used to be given cat food from a tin because he always is a bit excited whenever I open a tin. But it is not just tins. He is often interested in any food, especially cheese. If I get out cheese for anything he just appears just magic. He loves the stuff and if he could he would live on the stuff. Recently my neighbour bought chicken necks for her cats who refused them. So she tried them with Shadow but he would not touch them either. I was a bit proud of him! And relieved he did not suddenly demonstrate a love for chicken necks because I could not and would not serve them to him.
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One more souvenir from Dayelsford is a light shade to go in Sylvia's room - from the Dayelsford Bazaar. If there had been two I might have got one for my room too. The domed shell has green leaves and trim in a lovely shade. I have put it away carefully until I can get a light shade for my room and have an electrician convert the light fittings in the bedrooms.
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In September I finally posted the recipe for these wonderful Easy brownies that are mixed in the tin. On a whim, Sylvia made them again in October. Midway through making them she discovered that we had no eggs. She was already up to her armpits in mixture so I suggested she instead add a couple of chia eggs (where a chia egg is 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 3 tablespoon of water). It worked fantastically. She was less impressed than me but I would do this again - perhaps a little flatter but still were easy, chewy and tasted amazing.
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My favourite new recipe of the month was this Crispy rice salad that Sylvia found online. Rice was cooked and mixed with oil, panko crumbs and seasoning before being crisped up in our airfryer (much quicker than the oven in the recipe). This crispy rice was scattered over a salad of dinosaur kale, cucumber, avocado, edamame, spring onions and herbs with a dressing of kewpie mayo, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, chilli, honey and sesame oil. It was delicious and then being It was great because - twice
rice and edamame - about 1/2 tsp chilli paste in dressing and rice
basmati (did not have to cool too long - ok warm) 8-10min at 200c in
liner in airfryer. The fresh veg with the creamy dressing and crunchy rice was amazing. This is one to repeat as the weather gets warmer.
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Sylvia had fried rice from a food court at Highpoint shopping centre that she loved. She told me I put too much soy sauce in fried rice and need to be more like that fried rice. She found me a recipe - 'dad's' fried rice. I was happy to try it but it had too much egg. So I found a recipe for a vegan egg fried rice using a besan egg. In addition, instead of frying the veg, I steamed it in my microwave steamer with vegies (peas, carrots,
corn, edamame and later spring onion) on one layer and rice warmed up on another layer. It was a good fried rice but I would make changes. I needed to leave the besan mixture to firm up a bit more before stirring in the rice which became very clumpy. As I finished cooking it occurred to me I had doubled up on the seasoning and in future if I used the two recipes together I needed to ease off on the seasoning. This is a recipe I want to work on. Stay tuned!
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I made a barley stew one night. I used what was about: onion, celery, carrot, potato, green peas, green lentils (that should have been soaked), edamame and of course barley with some simple seasonings of stock powder, dried herbs, vinegear and honey. It worked really well and filled up our tummies!
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When I heard on the radio that it was international mashed potato day on 18 October my mind went into flights of fantasy about having time to make lots of mashed potato dishes and writing a long blog post about my love of mashed potato and all the ways I loved to feature it in recipes. In reality, it took me a few days to make one easy celtic mashed potato dish with the wonderful name of Rumbledethumps. When I had previously made it I steamed the leek, cabbage and broccoli and it was really green. This time I fried the leek and cabbage and steamed the broccoli and it was more beige. Nevertheless it tasted lovely and felt like a healthier way to eat mashed potatoes.
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Another recipe that appeared quite easy was a Miso, tomato and oregano pasta by Ottolenghi. After congratulating myself during the week of using up a tub of cherry tomatoes, I found that they had been intended for this pasta. So it all changed. I added sundried tomatoes, green olives, butter beans, parsley and spring onion. The miso, maple and garlic granule dressing was good but I needed more because we used more pasta. Sylvia tells me we need to do it Ottolenghi's way next time!
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While at Preston Market, we found these mil tea Kit Kats. I think we bought it based on the cute red tartan packaging, thinking you can't go wrong with Kit Kats. It was ok but the white chocolate was a bit sweet for my liking. If only they were as amazing as the packaging!
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My manager had 6 weeks of leave. It was great to have time to catch up on my to do list without having more added to it constantly. But it was also good to have her back. She bought us all a pair of chopsticks and a cute little cat chopstick rest from Japan. It was very generous and so nice to see all the different pairs of chopsticks around the desks.
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Sylvia's dad found her a tub of 2 minute mac and cheese topokki. It is like a modern update on the 2 minute noodles of my youth. Just add boiling water. Sylvia found the sauce a bit sweet but loved the instant chewy rice sticks. I liked the sauce and topokki and thought it a decent stab at Korean fusion fast food.
I liked the look of these Vegetarian "Hacao" dumplings at KFL supermarket. (Wikipedia tells me that traditional Cantonese dumplings can be anglicised as har gow, ha gow, hau kau, or ha kao.) The ingredient list was not as disturbingly long as some frozen dumplings. They were filled with seasoned Yam bean, Caro, Tro, Mung bean, Black fungus, Chinese mushrooms and "Bean cur sheet" (which I think is meant to say bean curd aka tofu). I took a bad picture of the filling but was more impressed by my photo of them in the microwave steamer, I'd love to have them again but Sylvia less certain.
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Sylvia is a big fan of Frys vegan soy and linseed schnitzels but had not liked their vegan nuggets. The new packaging for the nuggets got our attention more than the "new and improved" claim. Sylvia at the nuggets in the packet with one going to me to taste but we were not enthused enough to buy them again.
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I stopped at Terra Madre and bough some eco sponge cloths and eco scouring pads. It seemed the right thing to do especially with the pretty patterns on the cloths. In my ideal world I use them to replace my usual blue kitchen sponges with a scouring pad attached. Yet they are so pretty I have been reluctant to use them. It is the dilemma with kitchen and cleaning clothes that it is so nice to have them looking pristine but we really want them to use them as intended they get very manky. I am working on it!
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I am a fan of Remedy kombucha which is readily available in my supermarkets and cafe. Even so, I have noticed that there is less kombucha available in cafes lately, as though the enthusiasm for kombucha is waning. There are now many more low-cal adult sodas on the market that aren't tooth achingly sweet. I remain faithful to kombucha and wish every cafe offered it. It is interesting to see some newly packaged Small Batch kombuchas being produced by Remedy. Is this to get attention in a crowded market. I was not a huge fan of the Lychee and Strawberry (unlike Sylvia) but loved the Yuzu and Madarin. They are photographed with a couple of Sukin products. It is a skincare range I like using with aromatic essential oils.
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October ended with Halloween and not much energy. We had plans to look at some houses but in the end were defeated by tiredness and wet weather. Earlier in the day I stopped at Back Alley Bakes for some Halloween baking. I had orders to buy a pumpkin scroll but found they were only available on weekends. So instead I bought her a skeleton gingerbread and a lime and olive filled ghost biscuit.
I also bought the Spooky Special scroll with swirls of black sesame fnagipani, a yuzu custard filling and a meringe flourish on top, and a loaf of seeded sourdough. As so often happens at Back Alley Bakes she did not like my choices but at least the skeleton was a hit! I loved the dark and delicious swirls in the scroll. I could have done with less custard but it had a lovely citrus flavour. And as always the bread is lovely for some easy weekend meals.
I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post's url to Sherry by 13th
of the
month. Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her
gorgeous hand drawn header. Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host
this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share
glimpses into their kitchens.
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