Haiku Friday

the sweetness of sun.
a winters weight unbridled,
ready for the crowd.

new year brunch

'brunch' (its the burbs!) is possibly my most favourite time for having people around for a meal. I'm well rested (usually) therefore relatively stress free and ready for what the day brings. Surprising then that i don't do it very often!? New Years brings a flurry of activity and today we had a lovely meal with friends who were all en route home to far away places and wouldn't be seen again for quite some time. we ate, chatted, sunned ourselves, and the bean showed everyone around his favourite place: the vege garden (always something edible to be gleaned at a visit)

Brunch for 12 required 2 hours of prep (pretty good in my book). On the menu was local wood-fired sourdough toast with Gnomes scrambled eggs ala Maggie Beer (secret ingredients of orange zest, local cream and local BD butter and strictly! stirred only with a wooden spoon) local BD bacon, oven baked to extra crispiness ( never ever do bacon in a pan if you like quick and crispy bacon), pan fried mushrooms with garlic, crispy wholemeal waffles with maple and homemade baked ricotta with a tomato balsamic glaze.
Thanks to the wonders of modern online social networking sites, I unearthed a friend with a this recipe which Id made 10 years ago and loved but the ex took all the good cookbooks and this recipe was in one of them. I put the call out and viola, recipe sourced. Its a ripper.

Individual Herbed Lemon Ricotta

500g Ricotta
Dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic – crushed
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ cup olive oil
150g semi dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Crusty bread to serve

Lightly grease and line four ½ cup ramekins with plastic wrap.
Divide the ricotta between the moulds and press down firmly
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours
Preheat oven to 220°C.
Unmould ricottas onto a tray lined with baking paper and bake for 20 minutes or until golden
To make the dressing – combine all the ingredients in a bowl.
Place each baked ricotta into a shallow bowl and pour a little of the dressing over each one.
Serve immediately with crusty fresh bread.

I didn't bother making them individual nor turning onto baking paper, nor wrapping in plastic stuff, nor serving IMMEDIATELY, I just baked a whole-lotta ricotta in a round pyrex dish and periodically poured out excess liquid, for a lovely big wheel, slopped tomato dressing on top and on side. I used freshly oven baked/dried tomatoes instead of semi-dried ones and per usual didn't really measure anything! just tossed stuff in a bowl. Hence the rather large olive oil pool...

duck and porcini ragu with papardelle

To celebrate the coming for dinner of a Perth based blog comrade, laurajane from Loving the Question a life from a midwifes perspective and our first face to face meeting, someting delicious was a definite. I had two ducks in the freezer so i knew it was time to get creative with one of them. Both purchased for a song at $5 each, free ranged and in need of a new home. Mine. Im detecting a very strong theme in my culinary choices these days; whole small wild and game animals are making their way to our table and into our pantry with increasing frequency. Im starting to dream of shotguns and wide open spaces and a pig or two! Its worrying my husband.

So, never having jointed a whole duck before, i loaded up the trusty laptop, pulled up a Youtube clip and away i went, rewinding every so often to get it right. Easy peasy was the ducky. le viola! two legs, two wings, two breasts, one neck, lots of extra skin and an empty carcass. Not difficult at all, you just have to have a sharp knife and keep it close to the bone and cartilage. Usually the pluck is packaged up inside, but this ducky was pluck empty!

Jen from found in translation had suggested this recipe and the blog post was so funny and tickled my fancy that i had to have 'a bit of that'. The recipe called for duck breast but a ragu is always so nice, tender and rich that i chose to use the legs and one breast for this dish as confit duck legs arent really an option as theyre not my thing. But duck stock, rendered duck fat for treaty potatoes and a proscuitto style cured duck breast used up all that remained. Duck breast is happily hanging with the salami, stock in freezer and fat in glass in the fridge. More on that in another post. I opted to ditch the gnocci for a silkier lighter parpadelle and after trying a reconstituted saffron milk cap from my stash, porcini was definitely the way to go. My saffron milk caps dried well and have great flavour but reconstitute into inner sole so do only for flavour, not food. Any ideas why?
I picked up laurajane from the airport, foul weather had kept her in the plane on the tarmac for an hour after landing, poor thing. Welcome to Adelaide! When released, we headed straight for the Central market as my ducky morning didnt leave me any time for home made papardelle. Its weird how guilty i feel about buying things like pasta now. Pasta in bag, we headed home for an evening of conversation and some kid chaos.

The pasta was really really good and relatively simple. The ragu was rich, and sweet and surprisingly not too fatty. Expatriate kitchen was right. "Nothing with duck fat, red wine, porcini and butter could be too bad!" We followed up with a Jamie Oliver baked pear recipe in an orange walnut vanilla syrup served with toasted walnut marscapone. I took this pic mid prep in the afternoon, by desert time all camera activities were long forgotten. Not surprisingly i was totally cactus by half eleven after a full and interesting day. Blog meet ups are always so fun and laura jane was exactly as i had imagined her. Full of life and light and a very generous soul. This is the very special wild woman brooch she made for me, 'Marina'. Hand made and hand dyed felt in my favourite colours, beading and stitching. Isn't she a stunner? Dinner pales in comparison.

its a small, small world

Ive been meaning to do this cross post for a while. Its just a simple lovely story about how blogging can shrink the world and generate connections and enhance community where you never thought they'd exist. I 'found' Kale for Sale via One Green Generation last year sometime and loved her clarity of prose and her subtle humour, and of course her eco-interest and wonderful photos. I've been visiting ever since. So here's a lovely post written by her that brought tears to my eyes. The giveaway is over, Im sorry. Do read it, it speaks volumes about how blogging can potentially have a huge impact in our lives.

love is...

annuska appearing at our door, matching oven mitts on, bearing a gift of hot comforting porky stuff; delicious caramelised aromas wafting, bread in a bag, a half hour chat, a hug, a smile, a laugh. You yourself were not well. Ahh, chorizo delivered by a beautiful spaniard! What more could one ask for...
It was superb.
Thank you, you lovely one.

ladies and gentleman, we have a winner!

drum roll please...




[insert suspense]

B2 draws a name!



CONGRATULATIONS! I look forward to creating something special, made with all the things you love. It was wonderful serendipidity that you included more than 2 of your favourite things. It gives me so much more to work with.

Melinda, Katrine and Aztec-rose and Alex, nice to meet you! And thank you innercitygarden, rixa, karin, restisnotidleness, barbara, julie, veggie gnome, elburro, greening of gavin, kale for sale, jen, annuska and notes from the frugal trenches for playing. I will definitely be doing more of this sometime soon; I cant bear the thought of Veggie and elburro not winning anything again. It's also inspired me to have a bloggy lunch for all those who are interested??? stay tuned, and if and when Im passing by your neck of the woods, i will definitely drop by anyway and cook you lunch!

Laura jane, i will be in touch to get your postal details!

a circle of sorts

Ive been looking, but i cant find one; a knitting circle close by. Initially my reaction was "oh bummer, i s'pose thats it then, cant find one, not gonna happen" That would be the sometimes rather thick, non-problem solving, giving up straight away Kel talking. Then my inner lightbulb went on... "so start one". oh poop! my brain automatically darts to the percieved emotional responsibility for the hanging together and successful meeting of a group. Hmmp. Old Kel tape. Insert new one. I think Im up for it...Im not going to be part of a circle if i dont.

No choice. Embrace it. Its on my list for 2009.

I love the 'idea' of knitting and every winter i get inspired find some wool and set down to make something fabulous. I want to make socks, that beautiful blanket, a jumper for the bean. I can cast on, i can rib, i can drop and pick up and i can do it in the round, until something unidentifiable happens and i cant work out how to solve it. i need to be around knitters who know whats going on! I want to chat, sip tea, eat chocolate, learn to problem solve with sticks and string and make new friends. I started a wonderful bookclub and its still going strong 4 years on...we all get on well and have successfully weathered a few storms and seen new members come and go. But i have never been involved with a 'creative club' like this. So, i have a few questions for those of you who belong to knitting cirlces or any other kinda circle.

How did yours develop? was it word of mouth to friends, through local advertising or some other way?

Where do you meet? Have you always met here or have you changed location for some reasons?

How do you structure the group and the time you are together, if at all?

Do you have rules and are there any things that in reflection you regard as really important about running/ being a part of a group like this that i should know?

Lastly, if you're local and belong to a circle can i join you? lol or does anyone wanna join me in a new one? I really want to finish this scarfe...

Home

bless his little cotton socks, the boy travelled the 14 hour flight home without a peep. We even got a few comments from fellow travellers about his impressive flying demeanour (slept 7 hours and laughed the rest). I even managed to watch a few movies 35,000 ft above sea level.

Home...HOME! God, the delight of walking in our front door was bliss and heaven and even the thought of returning to work next week, (eek, thats like so IMMINENT, so imminent that i haven't even thought about the logistics of it ...thats a bit of a clue into my general character..head..sand..) cannot daunt my joy of beng back in my own space. My own space that still has guests staying (just to keep the party going) old friends are back in town with their two girls (ours return on monday - Yippee).

So we swung back into town and swung straight into news years revelling and woke the next day, a tad worse for wear, but pretty chuffed that we'd managed to cross the pacific with a kid AND do new years in a manner that any 21 year old would have been proud of and then welcomed another 15 friends over at noon on new years day for the long overdue firing of the oven for a serious pizza party.


About 12 pizzas worked their way through the oven and i roasted a few trays of vegetables fresh from the garden. Here's the first pizza; roasted veggies with goat cheese. Yummo. It was perfect weather and a great way to welcome in the new year, although I haven't yet really computed that another year is already underway. My new years resoloutions/missives are about 3 days away yet!

I hope you all had a fun transition into the new year and are fresh for the possibilities of the year ahead.

Wimmin @ the movies

the first tuesday of every month i go with a bunch of wonderful 'wimmins' to dinner and the movies. my invite to join this group took a while; its a select group. Their partners, all men, do their own movie night every second tuesday and Si has been going along to these nights for years. They're his bunch of blokes. So when i came along, i posed quite a dilemma to the group. Some wanted to invite me straight away but others felt confronted by my presence; its a pretty tight knit group who have been friends for twenty something years. I think they wanted to see just how long this relationship would last at the beginning. Possibly some felt like they were being disloyal by inviting me in so readily. I knew i was being excluded and many a hurt and angry tear had been shed on my part.

Its hard for everyone dealing with those who have been widowed when they repartner, especially if the time passed has not been long; its hard for the new partner and hard on the friends. There's no guide book either to help you all out. You just have to bumble along and do the bst you can. In coming along i would be taking the seat occupied for years by their dear friend who is no longer present. after 2 years i was invited along. I'd felt so deliberately left out, not accepted for being myself, not given a chance. My initial response was the revert to the child, to say 'no thanks, you took too long' but i figured that was not the most mature approach. So i said i'd love to and went along with my heart in my throat to that first movie night knowing we all had crossed a bridge, knowing that if it wasnt for the loss of their friend i wouldnt be sitting there. It was a hard night.

That was a year ago. its gotten easier, much easier. i have really grown to love these women. They're warm and funny and inspite of a generation gap,we actually have a whole heap in common. So we tracked of to see Brideshead Revisited last night and for two hours i sat and immersed myself in upper class English neurosis and alcoholism and remembered my very own decadent, delicious and very romantic Evelyn Waugh week in St Andrews, Scotland with a handome and mannered and very experienced lordy-schmordy- something-or-other and identified with the seduction of irresponsible priviledge.