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Saturday, November 3, 2012

In My Kitchen - November 2012

As summer approaches, Perth's weather continues to be bizarre. Last weekend we were fishing on the boat in 34C temperatures. This weekend we're back to trousers and jumpers, dodging the storms. After spending the morning out yesterday, there was no way I had the inclination nor patience to go grocery shopping in the afternoon. So I stayed home, used what I had in the house, and baked. Here's what was in my kitchen yesterday (all the edible parts have already been consumed).

The baking began because we ran out of bread, so I baked a loaf of Mixed Seed Bread


With fresh bread in the house and the weather being foul, I couldn't resist making a pot of Teresa Cutter's Vegetable Minestrone Soup. This soup, with bread makes a hearty dinner that everyone will eat.


Without grocery shopping we had few snacks in the house, and Poppet always wakes up from her nap starving, so I thought I'd make a batch of biscuits. Trolling through recipes I'd never tried before I found a link to this cookie recipe at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. Like Celia, I used wholemeal spelt flour, cranberries (as I had both in the pantry at the time), and 54% Callebaut callets. The result was a chewy, chocolatey, tangy cookie that everyone in my house approved of. Several went missing before making it to the cooling rack.




While I was busy baking away, Chicky (who did help with the cookies) decided to work on a creation of her own. I believe it consisted of water, whole macadamias and flour initially. She mixed them together then covered it with plastic wrap to....umm....rise maybe? I'm not sure what she thought might happen.


Later in the day she came back to the creation to complete the final steps. This involved adding some flowers from the garden, something that might be a spring onion (I didn't actually see it before it was added), and stirring with a plastic spoon. She is heavily influenced by the story Wombat Stew at the moment, after a little friend introduced her to the idea recently. Our garden (and now my kitchen) is filled with buckets/cups/containers of water plus <insert random ingredients here>.


While Poppet was less interested in the creative process than Chicky, she did bring me some lovely flowers from the garden yesterday afternoon, and left them on the kitchen bench.


A toy camel made it into the kitchen this week, and got left on the bench during the bread-making process, so he got covered with flour. 


The final item that technically isn't in my kitchen anymore (because I ate it), was a block of House Blend, 70% Cocoa content chocolate from Bahen & Co, a small, family-operated chocolate facility in Margaret River. The owner is a cousin of a friend and she gave me a block of this to try recently. I haven't tried any of their other varieties, but the house blend has a unique, almost fruity after taste and is very "adult". It is gorgeously smooth, yet a piece or two is all you need to satisfy that chocolate craving. I look forward to trying some of their other varieties.
 

That's about all that's happening in my kitchen at the moment, but head over to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to have a peak into some other kitchens around the globe this month.






8 comments:

  1. Oooh, bespoke chocolate, I love it! How nice to hear that there are small scale artisans making that! Love Chicky's creation - I wonder if it was spring onion or onion weed? ;-)

    Glad to hear you liked Dan's cookies as much as we did, and your mixed seed loaf looks absolutely fabulous! Have a great week, Pam! xx

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    1. It could have been anything from the garden really, we have all sorts of bulbs with long stringy foliage popping up at the moment. The cookies were great. I must make another batch soon.

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  2. I love the labels for this post- Bake,Bread,Chocolate!
    Those are my favorite kitchen words.
    And the camel- flour covered camel- I'm still smiling from that picture.
    Thanks so much for sharing!

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    1. There is ALWAYS at least one toy covered in something in my kitchen heidiannie. It doesn't matter how many times I say "no toys on the kitchen bench", I always manage to find something hiding in there :) I don't get too upset by it though, they normally manage to make me smile.

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  3. Hi Pam, A two humped camel - cool. Your bread looks perfect.

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    1. That bread is evil (in a good way). There is something about fresh bread that I can't leave alone. A whole loaf rarely lasts more than a day in our house.

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  4. What delight - I love the cookies. Send me some?

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    1. I'm not sure they'd make it through customs :)

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