Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Eat that Yellow Dragon (and Hooley dooley)

Well here's a pic I forgot to put on before. (I think). The wiggly zucchinis from my neighbour down the street (who has a mandala garden like this one but way better). These are vertically climbing zucchinis that grew so many that she gave me about 3 kilos and then more. So what else but rabbit bread and the fluffiest, most moist and yummy zucchini lemon scones (yes they worked!).

Wiggly zucchini scones:
1 cup finely grated zucc
bit of lemon zest
1cup unbleached flour
1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil to rub into flour
1 tsp baking powder

That's it! rub in butter to flour and baking powder, add zucc and lemon zest and you're good to cut and bake. I think I baked at 170C for 15/20mins. Can't quite remember. Until golden anyway. YUUUUM.



Eat that Yellow Dragon... Fruit
 About a year and a half ago, we went to the Qld/NSW border for a holiday. What luck to find a place called Tropical Fruit world!!!  Steve rolled his eyes the whole day, "did you see that guy taking pictures of an Avocado on a tree?!" my response, "Why weren't YOU taking pictures?!"
Anyway, we got to try all the lovely tropical fruits and this one I've finally seen in the shops. I don't like the red one.



 This one has the texture of a soft ripe pear, seeds like a kiwi and tastes like.... erm.... water. Maybe with a teeny tiny after taste of tapioca, but mostly just juicy water. HA! Oh well. Good for us I'm sure.







Hooley Dooley.. This bread is really olive oil bread made into mini burgers. I forgot that at such a high temp (220C) this kind of bread creates lovely air pockets. Olive oil bread by Richard Bertinet is simple. Flour, water, salt, olive oil. It's so fluffy and crisp it's delightful. NOT the ideal think for mini burger buns...









With sourdough starter the bread doesn't rise as fast BUT in the oven they really pop up.








Lucas loved stuffing carrot sticks through the holes and eating his that way.






These are the little guys. The burgers are made from left over red salmon, small kidney beans and sweet potato from the previous night's dinner. They SCOFFED them down! Woohoo!



 p.s. I was out of carrots, zucchini and sunflower seeds.. oh and sultanas. So this is renamed "bird bread" with pepitas, raisins, currants and dried banana coins. I didn't let it rise over night, just 4 hours so it's a little dense but soooo nice and we love it.

Friday, March 11, 2011

The best kind of post, pear crubmle and a whoops.

EDIBLE GIFTS!


I received my long awaited birthday present last week. Nice!
FREEEEE from Anathoth. How lovely




If it's not home made and very good, then just go out and buy Anathoth jam. It's from NZ.

Another six jars of jam to my store cupboard plus the home made plum jam from my bro's small holding, makes at least a year and bit's worth of jam. Nice!










...Speaking of food
Success in the (bought a) glut of fruit and using it department. I got about 4kilos of really ripe pears for a dollar YES! A DOLLAR! shared them, and then used my share to make pear crumble PROBLEM, no oats. So I used my home made raw muesli (rolled oats, sunflower kernels, date, sultanas and pepitas) mixed with unbleached flour, butter and a bit of sugar for the topping.


The filling is raw sliced ripe pears with about a half cup of frozen raspberries ontop before the crumble mix.

The kids ate it for dessert and breakfast. ;o)


Woops.. I made some Richard Bertinet style olive oil bread rolls the other day - gorgeous flavour. Lucas helped... burnt them. grr!
 
you get a round of dough and cut it with a credit card and turn them inside out. Fun.. if you get to eat them afterward. They were rock hard with my overcooking.




Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Cin sourdough/End of season/dehydrator

Well.. it burnt. Stupid computer. The crust was nice and thin (as you can see) but it was totally burnt so I cut it all off!




The inside was lovely and fluffy, soft and tasty. Albeit rather small slices.




So I stuck some more bread on to do the long rise and used the last bits of produce from my garden to make a lamb shank casserole. I use Patritti to drink and cook with as I'm Tetotal. It's delish and really adds that depth of flavour you need with some dishes.

The next day my lovely neighbour came around with some zucchinis she'd grown. Wiggly ones!!
I totally forgot to ask her what they were called. They're climbers.



Then I got a bargain at the shop. Dried them and packed them away. I think I'll grind them up for a tasty flavour additive to soups or.. just make it all a soup!





 Still on a roll I made very very bad jelly with agar agar. As you can see - spoon standing.. blurgh! haha!