Meanwhile, below the tamarillo...

Garlic, leeks & shallots in the front block.  Remnants of  parsley & silver beet in the back.  Broad beans earmarked for the back block.  The last of the basil in the tin pot, a bath of mint in the distance.

 Turnips, swedes, beetroots in the back block.  Salad bits in the front.  Tubs have rhubarb, garlic, cabbages, garlic chives, herbs.

Back block has salad things (will have sapphire potatoes once seed potatoes are available), front block getting its turn with green manure.  Sage in the front pot.  Snow peas in the bin closest to the wall.

No armistice here!

It's ANZAC Day in Australia, commemorating the pure folly that was the Dardanelles Campaign in World War 1. 

Here, at the front in Burwood, the war continues.

The above rat trap, on a brick wall, is what protects these tamarillos...

from the fate of the apple tree at the other end of the brick wall:

Sure the net helps a bit bit, but didn't stop the possums.  A few sore toes did.
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The (F)easter Holidays

I'm an atheist, so Easter wasn't that much of a religious experience although I am looking forward to tonight's debate between Richard Dawkins and Archbishop George Pell on the ABC.

No, Easter was a Feaster for the Burwood crew.

Friday Breakfast - Hot Cross Buns.  Of course, I had waited a year for them.

Friday Dinner:
Mushrooms Kilpatrick as a starter.
Roast Lamb, baked potatoes and salad for main
Individual Bread & Butter Puddings, made with hot cross buns, for dessert.

The lamb is unusual - it is cut to the bone in a series of slices that makes the leg look like a pile of chops held together by the bone.  A stuffing made of parsley, garlic, capers, anchovies, breadcrumbs and olive oil is smeared between the slices and then the whole lot tied up with string and roasted.  To carve you just slice down the bone and there you have it.  Yummy chunks of aromatic roast lamb.

Made some microwave marmalade while all this was going on.

Saturday Breakfast was toast and marmalade.

Saturday lunch was wraps made with leftover lamb, stuffing and garlic yoghurt.

Saturday dinner was sous vide lamb backstraps (58degC, 2hrs), browned on the BBQ,  sliced and served on a bed of home-made hommus, garnished with garlic yoghurt, thinly sliced red onions and roasted walnuts.  Tomato side salad.

Sunday breakfast was boiled eggs.  Tried Heston Blumenthal's method (bring to boil, cover, take off heat, wait 6 min and serve) but slightly overcooked them - yolks just past runny.  Need to practice.  Plus toast, croissants, chocolate...

No Sunday lunch needed.

Sunday dinner:
Pumpkin and Fetta 'tarts'; experimented with taco shells.  Tasted great but hard to manage with a knife and fork.
Lamb with cauliflower mash and chickpea pancakes.
Almond cakes with pureed quince and Greek Yoghurt.

Monday lunch - toasted sandwiches with a medley filling from the leftovers.

Monday Dinner: Bung-Ho Pork.  Named after Margaret's Dad who liked the dish and also had the habit of walking into room with a general greeting "Bung-ho!".  The meat is belly pork, usually slow cooked in a soy/sherry/ginger/star spice/cinnamon mix.  Today I am trying a variation in a pressure cooker I got for my birthday.  Served with rice and sliced spring onions.

The diet starts tomorrow.
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Tamarillo protection

After the possums got stuck into the green tamarillos I netted them and also put rat traps on the brick wall to pass on the message that sore toes await anyone who walks along the wall.

Seems to be working - they are developing colour nicely.
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Sous Vide playing

Bought a Sous Vide controller on-line from a crowd in Canada.  (Don't you love the internet?)

Plug my rice cooker into it, fill it (the rice cooker) with water and the controller then maintains the desired temperature of the water.  Why?  Sous Vide cooking is low temperature cooking.  For example, I am currently cooking lamb backstraps at 58degC (136F).  They will be done in 2hrs and then I will quickly brown them on the BBQ.

They should be moister.

Here is the space to watch:  [Late breaking news: Delicious!].

Have done chicken breasts (70C/158F) and they were much moister than normal method.  Plus can't overcook.

Fish is brilliant.  Moist & flaky.

The jury's out on eggs.  A couple of attempts were less than encouraging.  The white was not set to my liking.  But early days.
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A high maintenance love affair.

I have a quince tree.

I love quinces but I am not alone:

Moths love them.
Ants love them.
Mould loves them.
Last year even rats loved them.

You can't eat them raw.
You have to cook them.   Because of the moths, ants and mould, there is a lot of halving, coring, trimming, quartering and peeling.  You then stew them or bake them.  As mine are never whole, pristine fruit like the ones in the photo, nabbed via Google, stewing is the go.

Before you leap in and tell me about Quince Paste, let me say I tried making it one year.  It becomes a seething, boiling, volcanic hell-hole of a saucepan.   It spits lava at you.  Hot, blistering lava.  The only sensible way to stir it is with a towel wrapped around your arm.

But I have found a better way:  dehydrate the poached segments.

They dry to a beautiful texture that goes beautifully with a nice cheddar.

Today I cooked the remainder of our crop.  A lot of trimming and peeling.  The worm farm got the trimmings, happy little worms.  I get the rest.

Some of the stewed fruit will be dessert, the remainder will hit the dehydrator.  Can't be bad.

Forest Painting

After a long absence...

After a long absence from the brushes, spent some quiet time in the gazebo doing an abstract forest scene.

Looks better at a  distance at the moment.

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Saturday night meal - Feb 25th

Another flavour experimenting meal:

Pre dinner nibbles:

1. Potato crisps with Brie gel, vanilla infused olive oil and ground coffee.
This was good.  I did it last week but used Pringles then.  They allowed a more uniform presentation.  Chips are a bit hit or miss at far as size and shape goes.

2. Beetroot chips with Brie gel, mashed walnuts and fresh fig.
Really nice but hindered a bit but the beet root chips - they were all very small.

Starter

Had eight for dinner so opted not to do the poached eggs but still wanted to do the asparagus and liquorice.  So did asparagus, smoked salmon, cream cheese and liquorice, based on the fact that dill is often paired with salmon and has aniseed flavours.  Worked well.

Main:

Chicken and strawberry salad.  Successively layered on the plate: baby spinach, sliced avocado, sliced bbq-ed chicken (still warm), sliced strawberries, finely sliced celery, finely diced red onion.  Dressed with a strawberry vinagrette.

Dessert:

Homemade gingerbread, fresh yellow nectarines, rum sauce, vanilla ice-cream.
One of the guests brought a very pleasant muscat that went very well with the dessert.

With coffee:

Dark chocolate and cumin truffles.  (What sort of fool picks a 38deg day to make truffles?  Oh.)

Having a lot of fun playing with the flavour matching thing at the moment.
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I'll be the xylophone...

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The lyrics, in part, of the Foundation's song "Build me up Buttercup" go:

(Hey, hey, hey!) Baby, baby, try to find
(Hey, hey, hey!) A little time and I'll make you mine
(Hey, hey, hey!) I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone waiting for you
Ooo-oo-ooo, ooo-oo-ooo

But, no matter how often I listen to it, I am sure they are saying:

I'll be the xylophone waiting for you


Ooo-oo-ooo-dear.
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How to Annoy Spiders

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Sprinkle glitter on their webs.

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An Adventure in Flavour Pairing

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An interesting meal tonight:

Appetiser: A brie gel piped onto Pringles, topped with a few drops of vanilla infused olive oil and sprinkled with ground coffee.  Had with beer.

The coffee added interesting graininess and went very well with the brie; both have a similar after taste.

Starter (above): Asparagus, sautéed in a little butter with a star anise, served with a poached egg, some diced liquorice, and a  sprig of Tarragon.

Everything fitted together very well - especially the asparagus and the liquorice.

Main: Chicken tenders fried and wrapped in bacon, served with broccoli, brie and croutons.

Nothing very adventurous here but the flavours all matched brilliantly.

Dessert: Banana poached in a vanilla/citrus syrup, served on a bed of chocolate 'gravel', with a wedge of tomato sauce ice-cream and garnished with crushed Amaretti biscuits.

This was the one I had the most fears about.  Not the chocolate (a 50/50 mix of milk and dark, chopped in a food processor until a coarse 'crumb') but the ice-cream.  On its own it tasted a bit like cold Thousand Island dressing but, eaten with the banana and chocolate, it fitted in beautifully.

Most of these courses owe their inspiration to the Food Pairing site but the only one that was a direct copy was the Pringles and Brie Gel; the rest were modified.  For example, rather than make the Tomato Sauce Ice-cream from scratch, I took a good vanilla ice-cream and stirred tomato sauce through it and then refroze it.  The asparagus starter owes its inspiration to a comment in Heston Blumenthal's book (Heston Blumenthal at Home) where he said asparagus and liquorice are a good combination.  He was right.
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Oh, smashing shot, Witherspoon!

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Last Saturday, packed a picnic (cold chicken, crusty bread, grapes, wine) and went and sat under the trees at a local park and watched a district cricket match for a few hours.  Most civilised.

Had no idea who was playing, cheered and clapped without bias.

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Hometown Tourist

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Last night we did the 'tourist thing' in a little tram-shaped boat - the water equivalent of those faux trains that take tourists around so many cities.  Happily, once you were on it you forgot what you looked like.

The trip went around the docks, across to Williamstown and, after fish and chips, back again.

It was a 'sunset' trip.  Here are a few photos.

The Westgate Bridge.

A container ship reloading.

The Westgate, later at night, on the return trip.

The docks work around the clock.

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Green Rhubarb

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A few folk queried the safety of green rhubarb in an earlier post.  See Here.
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