November 2020 – MakeCookGrow.com

Working, Decorating and Cooking and Eating

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I have been working for the past three weeks. I worked as an invigilator or supervisor for final year secondary school exams. This year has been very different for all schools and especially disrupted for final years students.

We have been very lucky and safe in Western Australia. Until recently, the hard border isolating WA from the other states of Australia meant our only CV-19 cases were people returning from overseas. These cases were managed with well organised quarantine arrangements. A range of assessments will be considered for university entrance to reflect this disruption.

Starting on Wednesday I am back to my usual occupations including Pilates, Mahjong and Yoga. Working is stimulating and satisfying but returning to my usual day to day activities is relaxing . Well, Pilates isn’t relaxing, but I’m sure it is good for me!

advent calendar

When our son was little we had a lovely fabric Advent Calendar with numbered pockets. These had tiny boxes of Lego, gold coins, chocolate treats and other toys tucked into them for him to discover as we counted down to the Big Day. We have no need of an Advent Calendar now, but I couldn’t resist this wooden house with it’s tiny drawers. The inside of the drawers is painted red, which I really like. Slowly filling them with grown up treats such as chocolates, messages about fun things to do each day including special walks for Louis, the dog and some lottery tickets. Christmas is different when there are no small children visiting.

framing botanical prints

The prints framed.

The rather gorgeous print from KMart and the newly framed botanical print.

My Mother gave me these two prints, a tulip and a hippiastrum (amaryllis). I paint botanical water colours and have done so for years. I was going to frame these in Ikea frames but the dimensions just weren’t right for the size of the prints. Walking through KMart I saw a gorgeous floral wall print but what really attracted me was the dimensions of the frame. It was perfect for my botanical prints! Bought two. Then I pondered for ages about mounting boards. Eventually I decided to try doing that myself, too, and bought some heavy (300gsm) Arches Water Colour paper. It is thick with a slight texture.

The dimensions of the frame with this art print were just what I wanted to frame the botanical print.

Positioned the print and then measured the area to cut out. Ruled the lines, used a trimmer to remove the centre piece then used UHU glue to adhere the print to the mount along the top.

Removed the original staples along the sides and base, but re-used those along the top. I didn’t remove the top ones but simply tilted the backing board, inserted the newly mounted print and pushed the backing board back into position within the frame. I had no way of re-stapling, so I used tape instead to secure the backing board.

Repeated for the second print, which was a bit faster to do as I knew what I was doing this time!

afternoon tea and DINNER

These chocolate strawberries are a new favourite. Strawberries are plentiful now and although melting the chocolate takes a while the actual dipping process is fast and easy. When all the strawberries have been dipped I put the tray in the fridge for a few hours before serving. They are proving to be very popular and pretty, too. Search for an online tutorial.

An early afternoon tea so I served light, easy finger food. This was almost “finger” dessert! Apart from chocolate dipped strawberries, there’s Christmas cake, ginger biscuits, some bought Italian biscuits and Turkish Delight, crystallized ginger and chocolates. Quick, easy, delicious.

Tray bake dinner with sautéd cabbage. The butternut pumpkin “chips” were partially oven roasted, then the broccoli was added and finally, for the last 20 minutes, the salmon fillets. Drizzled with a marinade of 2 dessert spoons of mirin, soy and maple syrup with a generous squeeze of lime juice. I turned the fillets after 10 minutes to crisp up the skin.

The chopped up cabbage is pan fried in butter and when the edges start to brown or caramelise, I add a generous splash of Apple Cider Vinegar and let it all cook until the liquid has evaporated. Good grating of black pepper finishes it off. We really like cabbage cooked this way.

Using the same pan I cooked the cabbage in I roast some sesame seeds to sprinkle on the salmon to serve.

This will make two dinners for us as I will cook more vegetables to add to the leftover heated salmon and pumpkin chips. The remnant marinade keeps the salmon moist when reheating.

November 18th was World Princess Day. I have no idea how a princess celebrates her special day, but it did remind me the next series of The Crown has started. So have many articles disputing the accuracy of the events portrayed. It seems this series is loosely based on historical events, many occurring within living memory and open to interpretation depending on your political and social affiliations. This is a drama production, not a documentary.

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Sewing a Fish, Mending, Recycling, Celebrating and Growing

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SEWING a FISH

Our son has this gorgeous ceramic sardine shown above. Inspired by blogs written by Ann Wood (here) and Kate (here), who have both been making stitched fish, I gathered the materials to make a Christmas ornamental fish, too, based on this ceramic sardine.

I cut a pattern from paper, following Anne Woods template, but later I modified the fatness of the body to better reflect the shape of the ceramic sardine.

Sewed the fish pieces together, eventually. Went upstairs to my sewing machine and discovered it wouldn’t work. Baffling as I’d used it last weekend without any problem. Fiddled about but made no progress so went looking online. Thank you to all those wonderful sewers online who have written about solving problems with sewing machines. So helpful! I finally solved the problem and sewed the fish, leaving the tail open to stuff it.

Stuffed the fish with polyester wadding, poking it in with the scissor blade, then hand sewed the end of the tail. It could have been machine sewn, too, but this was just as easy.

Started pinning on pieces of ribbon, leaving enough on the middle one to create a hanger. Hand sewed the ribbons on when I was happy with their placement. Added a bead to make a hanging loop on the longer, middle ribbon then worked on the face. Tossed up between button eyes, as on the two blogs I refer to above, or sequins, which seem shiny and more fish like. Although I had lots of buttons to choose from I thought they all looked too big. The only sequins I could find looked strange, too, so I ended up stitching the eyes in place.

My mother harvested anything reusable off worn out clothes, including hundreds of buttons. I now have those jars of buttons. Looking through them was quite nostalgic as I recognised some from my childhood clothes.

The finished fish, ready to hang.

PERSIAN CARPET REPAIR

Running up and down the stairs, trying to get the sewing machine working meant I saw this chewed Persian carpet again and again. It’s not new damage; it’s the result of Louis teething one day when we were both at work six years ago. I’d done a temporary repair a few years ago but actually sat and fixed it properly today. Lots of stitching and trimming and eventually the edge is secure but a little misshapen. Louis lay next to me watching carefully. Such a help.

The finished repair. I used embroidery thread and some wool to secure the frayed edge.

MINIATURE PICTURE and EASEL

Last term our painting tutor gave us each a tiny canvas and easel to create our own miniature. She has a collection of traditional miniatures and some she has done herself. I painted a bird in a bird cage hanging from a branch. It was all right but not great. Time to repurpose the little canvas and easel.

Went looking for something to cover the painting and add interest to the little collection sitting under masses of pink roses.

Printed off a pretty peony image and glued it to the canvas leaving lots of paper to fold around the edges. I used Mod Podge to glue and seal the image. Smoothed the front and left it to dry, then folded and glued the edges. I cut the surplus paper from each corner to create a sharper edge, then glued them down, too.

Much prettier. Don’t know how long it will last before I want to change it again but for now the pretty pink peonies work well with the masses of pink Pierre de Ronsard roses I’m picking from the garden.

JACARANDA DRIVE

This time of the year the jacaranda trees are in full bloom. Heavy wind and rain has resulted in less dense flowers but I still really enjoyed driving around the older river suburbs to enjoy looking at the trees. My mother, who went to school in this area, remembers planting the jacarandas on Arbor Day. They are very beautiful.

CELEBRATING

Celebrated my birthday last week. Birthdays seem to come around rather too quickly these days. Way too many candles for my lime tart, but loved these number sparklers. Reminded me of Guy Fawkes night, which was such fun when we were children but was banned in Western Australia in 1967 to prevent personal injury and bushfires.

Our son came down from Kalgoorlie for the weekend and we celebrated my birthday by going to yum cha, one of our favourite family foods. We hadn’t been to the yum cha restaurant since early this year due to CV-19 concerns. We wont be going again for a while, either, as our hard borders came down last Friday night, allowing Australians from most other states to return or visit. Unfortunately the first plane load of visitors came from South Australia where there had been an unexpected CV-19 hotspot. We now wait to see if this means we now have active cases in Western Australia.

GROWING and PICKING

Cut the cos lettuce, washed the leaves and picked them over to remove any discoloured ones, then patted them really dry on a tea towel.

Planted a punnet of cos lettuce about two months ago and have begun eating them. Today I made a Caesar salad, without bacon as I didn’t have any left. Some recipes use anchovy paste in the dressing, I use finely chopped anchovies in mine. This is a classic salad using cos lettuce and tasted very good. A simple family lunch with cold roasted chicken, baby romano tomatoes, potato salad and the Caesar salad.

Friday November 13th was World Kindness Day. Well, that was easy enough to celebrate, wasn’t it?

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Should We Eat Quinoa plus Chocolate Strawberries, Christmas Cakes and Remembrance Day

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THOUGHTFUL EATING

Disrupted food distribution this year has highlighted the amount of food Australia exports and imports. We have benefited from local asparagus, prawns, cherries and crayfish being readily available at good prices. A lot of our seafood, harvested from clean waters, is sent to Asia. But what is more disturbing is the amount of imported food we have and the impact of that on the countries producing these foods.

Earlier this week I was reading Nat Locke’s Opinion column in The Sunday Times Magazine (8/11) and was reminded of some of these imported food facts. Quinoa, that beloved superfood, has been eaten by the indigenous people of Peru, Chile and Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador for thousands of years. The Western passion for this seed has driven up the price to the point where the locals can no longer afford to buy it. It is cheaper to buy junk food. Land used exclusively to produce quinoa has eliminated diversity and totally changed the diet of these people.

Keen on coconut milk for your curry, as a plant milk alternative or protein ball snack? Well, much of it comes from Thailand where monkeys are captured in the wild and forced to pick thousands of coconuts a day. Training a monkey to pick coconuts is a brutal process, too. Milks from Brazil, Colombia and Hawaii are usually harvested by tractor mounted hydraulic elevators or humans on ladders. Check the label then look online for more information.

There’s a problem with almond milk, too. Eighty percent of the world’s almonds come from drought-ridden California and require enormous amounts of water to grow. On top of that, we should consider the carbon footprint involved in getting them to Australia. Look for almond products from Australia. We now are the second largest almond grower in the world.

CHOCOLATE STRAWBERRIES

I’ve been working all this week and felt pretty time poor but also wanted to make a little treat for a dear neighbour to celebrate her birthday. Strawberries are plentiful here and I had some 80% cocoa dark chocolate in the cupboard so decided to try making Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. I’ve never done this before but found easy directions online.

While I waited for 150gm of broken up chocolate to melt over boiling water I gently washed and dried a punnet of strawberries. I made sure the boiling water didn’t touch the bowl with the chocolate. Stirred regularly. When the chocolate was melted, I simply dipped the strawberry, using the stem as a handle, into the hot chocolate and rotated to cover it evenly.

I allowed a brief drying time then set the strawberry on a sheet of baking/parchment paper on a baking tray. Some sat well on their tops, some leaned against each other and some fell over, but they all set well.

I left them in the fridge to firm up until that evening. I made a little “bowl” using the saved lid from a cardboard cylinder. I lined it with paper towel, arranged the dipped strawberries then tied it in cellophane. Added a rose to the ribbon and took it next door!

Leftover chocolate and another punnet of strawberries became my husband’s dessert that evening. I reheated the chocolate in the microwave, firstly for 30 seconds and then for 20 and it was perfect.

Quick, delicious and pretty. And fairly healthy, too.

CHRISTMAS CAKES

The fruit for these cakes was put to macerate in brandy mid October so it was time to make this year’s Christmas Cakes. Fruitcakes seem to divide the masses; some people love them, some people don’t like them at all, but most of us really, really like them! Soaking the fruit and then making and storing the cakes to mature is very much part of my family’s traditional Christmas planning, a tradition which may die with our son who doesn’t like fruitcake at all.

I use a double layer of thick brown paper and then baking/parchment paper to line the cake tins. This ensures slow, even cooking of the dense cake mixture. The almonds are blanched, ready to decorate the top of the cake along with some glacé cherries. In the past I’d roll out and carefully apply a layer of marzipan over apricot jam topped off with a thick layer of white icing. So much fiddling, so much sugar. My mother always decorated with almonds as we had an almond tree in the garden, and now I make a pattern of almonds and cherries pressed into place before the cakes go in the oven, too.

All held in place using one of my favourite tools, pegs! They are removed after the first spoonful of mixture holds the paper lining in place.

Mixing, enjoying the scent of brandied fruit, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, almond essence and vanilla essence. We both made a wish, then into a slow oven for about three hours.

Left the cakes in the tins in the oven until the oven was cool and then put under a tea towel on the bench to completely cool overnight. Slow cooling prevents cracks on the top.

In tins and into the cupboard to mature. A little drizzle of brandy every few days adds to their richness.

REMEMBRANCE DAY in AUSTRALIA

On the 11th of November Australians commemorate Remembrance Day. This day has been observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of WW1. At 11 AM on 11th November 1918 the guns on the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare.

Since 1920 Australians pause at 11 AM for one minutes silence to remember those who have died in all conflicts and peace operations around the world.

In Perth the official Remembrance Day service is held at the War Memorial in Kings Park, high on the escarpment above the City. Buglers at each main intersection in the CBD sound out The Last Post in synchronization with the Kings Park bugler just before the Minutes Silence. When I was a small child all the traffic halted and men stood to attention with their hats off and in classrooms the children all stood by their desks. World War I touched Australia in a way that our other wars haven’t. Nearly all our fit men aged 18 to 40 went, so almost everyone’s grandfather and father was an ex serviceman. Red poppies have been a symbol of commemoration since 1920. Poppies were the first plants to bloom on Flanders Field in Northern France and Belgium.

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How to Marble Paper with Shaving Cream and What Is Countrycore?

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SHAVING CREAM MARBLED PAPER

For many years I have written a daily journal. I buy the red and black A5 sized notebooks you can easily find at news agencies. Recently these books have been available in other colours on the spine and corners, so easy to match with your chosen gift wrap covers. This is a convenient size to take traveling. I write with a fine 0.4 felt tipped pen as this doesn’t seep through the paper, discolouring the reverse page. I cover the front and back with gift wrap or some similar paper, leaving the spine uncovered.

Journals with traditional red spines and ones with pink spines. I’ve also seen these diaries with lime green and bright blue spines now available.

I glue a calendar in the back and also glue lining papers in the front and back covers. Up until now I have marbled the papers using non-toxic Japanese inks. (http://: https://www.makecookgrow.com/2017/08/how-to-marble-wi…water-based-inks/) Today I decided to try a technique I have used to decorate hard boiled eggs at Easter time, but not paper.

Japanese ink marbling

SHAVING CREAM MARBLED PAPER

Gather:

1. a can of shaving cream

2. several colours of food dye

3. paper to print on. I recycled A4 photocopy paper

4. a container bigger than the sheet of paper to be printed

5. protective plastic for your work surface

6. an old credit card, or similar rigid material to scrape the shaving cream off the paper.

7. rubber gloves. This way of printing is messy!

Shake the shaving cream vigorously then squirt it into the container until the base is covered. Spread to make a smooth surface, then drizzle with food dye. Mix the colours to create swirled patterns. I used a chopstick for this.

Smoothed the dye with gloved hands, drizzled food dye, swirled with a chopstick.

I flattened the cream a bit, then after squirting on the dye, placed the paper on top. Smoothed over the paper to ensure all of it was in contact with the dye.

When you’re happy with the colour distribution, smooth your paper over the surface, peel off and then scrape the surplus cream off the paper. Place flat to dry. Add other colours to the cream or just reuse the existing dye to print more papers. I don’t have an old credit card to scrape off the residual foam so used some stiff cardboard. It got very messy and needed replacing half way through the process.

This is a cheap and easy way to print faux marbled papers. The colours are generally stronger on recycled photocopy paper than when I print with water based Japanese inks. Other papers grip the colour differently.These are strong, vibrantly coloured patterns and I’ve decided I prefer the more traditional colours I achieve with Japanese inks.

I would do this activity outside if I was working with children as it is messy. I’d also recommend they wear art shirts or aprons. I used recycled A4 printer paper and bought food dye and shaving foam. I estimate my cost for this project to be less than AU$10. The Japanese inks I like to use cost about AU$50 but last a long time.

COUNTRYCORE

So what is Countrycore? Apparently, it is the biggest lifestyle trend during quarantine and it just passed me by! Countrycore is all about living like your Grandma did, supported by modern technology. It’s about living in an imaginary cottage in the country where you grow your own food and flowers, have animals, surrounded by peace and calm and nature. You bake and cook from scratch and practice many crafts to decorate your environment, relax and reuse materials. All this involves wearing floral, tiered dresses ( think Laura Ashley from the 1970s ) to go searching for mushrooms complete with wicker basket and hair ribbon.

So it’s like I lived as a child, growing up on a farm, surrounded by nature, chintz, wholesome food, animals, a make and mend attitude, but no floral frocks. I can only think of one frock photo and that featured a tulle petticoat. I generally wore hand-me-downs from my brothers, so there’s photos of me in jeans and checked shirts although Mum was keen on plaiting my hair, another Countrycore passion.. No mention on Instagram of over three hours a day spent on the school bus either! Nor milking the cow every third morning.

Social media is hopping with Countrycore lifestyle images and I can see the appeal of a slower life eating fresh food surrounded by nature. Apparently there’s over 700 000 posts on Instagram on the subject. I think many people have re-assessed how they live and what is really important to them during this year. And there are so many enticing photos on Instagram!

November 7th is NUMBAT DAY. Above is a photograph of a numbat (Myrmecobius faciatus) as you may not have seen one before. Numbats are a small marsupial common in the south west regions of Western Australia although they used to be found in the east coast, too. They are threatened with extinction, with only about 1000 left in the wild.

We celebrate Numbat Day to draw attention to the need to conserve the species. Introduced predators such as foxes but particularly feral cats are threatening their survival. Unneutered cats left to wander and breed are threatening many small bush animals. The day focuses on responsible pet ownership and reminds us to never remove hollow logs, the natural home of numbats, from the bush.

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