Autumn is here.

I dunno, I just can't get so excited by summer food as I do eating in the other three seasons of the year. Maybe that's why this blog has become a wee bit neglected of late. Sure, there was the great Asian 'slaw, of which we ate a lot, there were many bug tail barbies, there was the ricotta hotcake Xmas breakfast and S.O. even glazed a ham. Kibbeh, tabbouleh and hummus made with just a touch of preserved lemon also featured heavily. (Note to self: Asian slaw and tabbouleh look alike. What's that about?)




It always takes me months to get over the excess of Xmas, not that we went overboard this year. Just S.O. and I home, with some of the family joining on Boxing Day. But it seems to me that we never start preparing dinner until way too late in the evening ~ I blame daylight saving ~ having had too many beverages to really pay attention to the cooking process.

I must prefer easter. Four days off, great autumnal weather, no pressure ~ an altogether much nicer time, I think.

More cookbooks have joined the library. And I have discovered NPR's Hidden Kitchens series which is the most marvellous series of podcasts. It's just fantastic, and I urge you to subscribe. It's not a cooking show, but captures people and kitchens "under the radar".

We have a lovely new Italian deli opened in our 'hood. Great people ~ Daniel, Veronica & Joanne ~ really wonderful quality Italian cheeses, meats, pastas. So good, that it smells like Melbourne! More about them later.

20 kilos of tomatoes have been turned into sugo, chicken stock has been made. And we've discovered a laden guava tree around the corner ~ who would have thought in inner city Sydney ~ with very generous owners, who put out bags for anyone to take as many guavas as they would like. Love that sort of behaviour.

My friend T and I are investigating a plot at our local community garden.

Excellent Thursday ~ the day before Good Friday ~ is a significant one for S.O. and my's relationship, so will be having friends around to celebrate it. It's our favourite entertaining night of the year, as you know there's another 4 days of R&R following. No long drives or rushed air trips but a long, languid magazine reading, pod listening, book reading, DVD watching , dog walking food fest. Gee, we might leave the house to see a movie, but it's doubtful. And it's even greater to know that our non-Christian cafe owners and restaurateurs in the area are open to cater for us if we get bored with our own company. Couldn't be better, I say.

Greater Success...

...was had with the apple jelly. Gorgeous colour, lovely consistency, not bad flavour. I used Granny Smiths but would like to try it with a more fragrant apple. So if anyone out there knows their apple properties and can recommend one that will give the same jellyesque quality I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Great Appliance Disasters

It was like something out of a Jacques Tati film. A friend lent me his blender to test drive, as I wanted one with a strong enough motor to do ice. No instructions, but hey, it's a blender. What is there to explain.

Let me tell you what there is to explain ~ don't under any circumstances unscrew the base from the thread or this will happen...



It was meant to be a pumpkin mousse made with silken tofu, with pumpkin pie flavourings. It ended up literally everywhere ~ walls, floor, animals, anything there was to cover in orange slop got covered in orange slop.

Sensational!

I have just had the most sensational dinner. Goes like this:

Slice up the best tomatoes you can lay your hands on (I used the Johnny's Love Bites, which are fantastic at the moment)
Put them in a shallow baking dish. Sprinkle over a few leaves of shredded basil. Dice a bit of preserved lemon and sprinkle it over. Break up a piece of fetta over the top. Throw a slug of olive oil over the top, a bit of pepper. You probably don't need salt because of the fetta and the preserved lemon.

Put in a 200 degree C oven until the fetta browns. Scoff immediately with a crusty roll.

It was absolutely sensational. Much more than the sum of its parts.

Think I'll have it again tomorrow night.

What We Hunted & Gathered

Here is a selection of some of the marvellous things we did find though: Grandvewe Cheeses, absolutely marvellous Pecorino, Manchego style and a Camembaa.
Ice cream from the valley ~ with the blueberry and cinammon unmasked.
And this stuff is fantastic~Bill's Beetroot Marmalade. The Drink of the Gods ~ Ashbolt Elderflower Concentrate. Absolutely delicious wth soda or mineral water, as a hot tea with lemon, and bloody gorgeous with a slug of vodka. And when you're already struggling under the weight, the airline restrictions and the eskies, what better thing to do that stop at Wursthaus at Oliver's and pick up a few kilos of wallaby and beef fillet on the bone.

Scoffing in the Land Down Under the Land Down Under

While Sydney foodophiles ~ boggers and non-bloggers alike ~ took time to indulge in Good Food Month during October, we were off for 10 days in Tasmania. The object ~ to find a piece of affordable paradise, and eat everything we could.

Now while I'm sure that the abundance of stone fruit, berries, crayfish and oysters is true, we were slightly out of season for all of it.

Before we get into some food details, a couple of things you probably didn't know about the Apple Isle.

1. While most of the rest of the country has green or black, or sometimes blue rubbish bins, Tassie has Pink. Matching rubbish and recycling bins. Very elegant. The twinset of refuse collection.



2. Although it's absolutely magnificent, and located on a beautiful harbour, it is impossible to buy a piece of fresh fish in Strahan.

Looked OK, but didn't taste like much...

Had to have a laksa, just had to. Couldn't go and get one from the local Thai takeaway. Oh no. Had to make one. I don't know what I did or didn't do, but it was very bland. I did like the fresh pineapple in it though.

Note remote and TV guide ~ a night in front of the box.

Due to ongoing tooth problem, there is very little else to report. Hopefully that will be rectified very soon.

I Can't Exactly Remember...

...what I did with these prawns. However it never ceases to amaze me that something that starts off blue will change to pink with the application of some boiling water and about 30 seconds.

I have been monumentally slack...

...at keeping my blog up to date. After all, the whole point of it was supposed to be about what we ate for a year. I have been working on a number of forthcoming TV series about food, including Bill Granger's and Maeve O'Meara's -- formerly of SBS's Food Lovers' Guide to Australia -- Food Safari. At the end of the day, my photos just don't cut it! But that's no excuse. there was a great Harira , although we went a bit early on that one, as it's Ramadan now.

This one needs a food stylist

A kind of guacamole withe corn. Corn, avocado, spring onions, chillis, sumac, lime juice, coriander.

Lovely but ugly. Good with my tuna and a dollop of mayo.

Goosey...Goosey...

After the success of the roast goose, I decided to try a goose egg found at my local market. It was huge.

It made the most fabulous omelette. And again, preferable to duck for me.

Preserving and Baking

Every year I try to make a batch of Seville Orange Marmalade. I just think the seville oranges make it superior to all others. I use the River Cafe Green book for it, easy and delicious. They recommend soaking the oranges for up to 48 hours to soften the skins and I really think it helps.

When I went to have some a few days later, I realised I'd given it all away. Never mind, just made some more.



While up in the supermarket getting the sugar I discovered the friand tin. How could I resist. Did you know there's 18 grams of butter per friand. I think that's why they taste so good. I quartered a few strawberries onto them in a futile effort to make them seem more benign on the fat stakes. And I used ground hazelnuts rather than almonds, because I love hazelnuts and berries together.

Sushi and Hail

Back on the program

Took me a minute to remember what the third picture was it's so long ago. It was a pumpkin and feta fritta. S.O. even took it to work for his lunch.

A smoked trout salad that I had for lunch, and our favourite ricotta gnocchi with a tomato and roast capsicum sauce instead of our usual gorgonzola. Still pretty good, in fact you can taste its ricotta-ness a lot more. Very delicate.

My goose is cooked

And delicious it was too. The goose was a Xmas present from a friend.

First of all S.O. dunked it in boiling water to tighten the skin. We hung it up to dry and I had a most meditative hour plucking missed quills from its dear little body.

I left the cooking to S.O. He was in the mood and that's always a good thing. He made a fantastic sage stuffing, and had thoughtfully made breadcrumbs from one of our bread efforts and frozen them.

He roasted and basted and roasted and basted some more and voila (or wallah as a friend of mine once wrote). He cooked the spuds in goose fat that we rendered down. Bloody delicious. I have never eaten goose before, and i must say I think I prefer it even to duck ~ and I love duck.

What a great Xmas gift. Thanks Tonti.

I did contribute by making an apple custard tart, and I used the saffron sent by the lovely Emma at The Laughing Gastronome sent me in our Antipodean Blogging by Post Event.

All round a mavellous meal. Definitely not on the program, but who cares.

Still on the Program

Both these super looking meals conform to the CSIRO Wellbeing Diet and were delicious. Stir fried pork fillet, steamed veg with sesame dressing, and rare roast beef with a spinach salad.

Marvellous.

The Wookie's Favourite Magazine

Lala likes nothing better than a new mag to salivate over. Just like her mother.

Two sorts of tandoori

One night was the Tandoori lamb cutlets with baked cumin pumpkin, panch pora carrots and roasted beetroot, and the second innings was Tandoori chicken with curried cauliflower. We baked the chicken, but grilled the lamb.

And S.O. made a ham and veg frittata one night.

Both were delicious.

And on the CSIRO program. Yay. 2 kilos in two weeks.

Anything I can do, he can do better.

Check out his bread. Perfect sandwich material.

I may as well leave the bread baking to S.O. as well.

We Are Seriously on the CSIRO Diet...

It's the only diet S.O. will even countenance, because there's lots of meat in it. But it does seem to work. Really it's about commonsense and portion control as we all know. See some of the recipes

But really it's not that hard. Nothing compared to the smoking.

Tonight I've been marinating lamb cutlets in yoghurt and tandoori-like spices which we'll grill and have with baked cumin pumpkin and some baked beetroot and perhaps some zucchini.