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three favourite books

Currently, these three books are my favourites! I recommend them to friends who I know will enjoy them and I frequently refer to the recipes. These books are guides to gardening, preparing food and the last one is all about making, cooking and serving pasta. Our son was coming down to stay on the weekend so I began making sauces and gathering ingredients to make pasta. He has the pasta making machine so his pastas come out perfectly laminated, smooth and absolutely delicious.

His trip has suddenly been delayed! I already had the lasagne organised, I’d bought the fennel for the gnocchi, I’d bought ravioli and the ingredients to make a sauce for that and the pasta I thought we’d be making. The lasagne is from  Nagi’s recipe tin eats (here) I use her recipes a lot as they really suit us. This lasagne says it serves six but it actually resulted in eight generous serves.

Garden Like A Nonno

This book is packed with information about growing your own food and flowers and utilising every asset available, especially if it is free or recycled. Jaclyn Crupi tells stories about both her (nonnos) grandfathers and their gardening habits and skills, how they preserved their crops, dealt with pests and enriched their soils. I found the hints on increasing soil quality really useful as I garden on grey beach sand. A good reference book.

Nonna Knows Best

Jaclyn Crupi”s  second book and this time she describes the beliefs and habits of her two nonni (nonnas) and their contemporaries.  The essence of this loving account about how nonnas live is simple; grow your own and shop locally, take care of your family, friends and belongings, be sociable and stay closely connected, keep things simple, love generously and unconditionally and be in touch with your spiritual side. Have a nap in the afternoon should probably be added to the list! Sounds easy, but these nonnas work hard in the kitchen and the rest of the house and the garden. Whilst maintaining the habits of the countries they left, often as small children, these nonnas make new homes and new lives in ‘the lucky country’.

Pasta Love

Jaclyn Crupi was born in Australia and spent a lot of time with her Italian grandparents, aunts and uncles and other relatives. She writes lovingly about the various regional pastas and the sauces eaten with them. Only one pasta maker referred to in the book actually weighs her ingredients, the rest just make a volcano shape with flour on the benchtop and add water or eggs until it feels just right. This book is a love letter to pasta but also tells about the Italian ladies, including her nonnas, she learnt pasta making practises from, their histories and how they came to be in Australia and the jobs available to them at that time.

You might have noticed all three books are written by the same author, Jaclyn Crupi. Australia is made up of so many cultural groups and we’re quick to adopt the best foods from every country. Genetically my family has no connection  with Italians, but our tastes buds really like their cuisine. Their pasta in it’s many shapes and forms, the accompanying sauces, the vegetable rich soups, the beautiful salads, their amazing desserts and those cakes! What’s missing? Pizza! Apparently I am the only person in the world who doesn’t really like pizza.

I feel my family are multicultural in our food preferences. Along with Italian food, we regularly seek French, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and German food. We shop for food in an Italian green grocer, a German supermarket, an Indian supermarket, a Chinese grocer and several different Italian shops for cheese, bread, cold meats, biscuits and assorted other temptations. I have just eaten a bowl of Japanese rice crackers.

Yesterday I bought a beautiful fresh fennel bulb to make a gnocchi sauce I thought I’d read about in the Pasta Love book, but I can’t find it! All the online recipes I found had milk or cream in them and didn’t feel right. So no recipe as I’ve improvised and although we love the gnocchi in fennel sauce I’m not sure if I could exactly reproduce it!

Thinly sliced fennel was lightly browned in a pan with preserved lemon strips added after about five minutes. Then I added a roux made from chicken stock, butter, water and flour and let it all cook. No added salt as the preserved lemons were very salty. Lightly browned the gnocchi then added it to the sauce. Served with the fennel fronds (dill) scattered on top. Added some grated sheeps’ pecorino, too. I hope I can reproduce this as we really liked it.

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PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

Do you remember for a few years before the pandemic arrived, Christmas parties and social commitments began to move from December into November? I actually quite like the festivities being spread over two months as it often meant some calm time to get ready for The Big Day. I have already started making plans.

We always soak the mixed fruit for the Christmas cakes for about two months before making the cakes. I like the cooked cakes (I make two) to ‘rest’ for a few weeks before cutting them. The tastes blend and mature, resulting in  delicious, richly flavoured cakes which smell wonderful.The leftover port not absorbed by the fruit is adding to the cake mixture. Then when the cakes are cooked and ‘resting’ my husband drizzles a bit more alcohol onto the cakes. He likes moist cakes.

We have two bottles of mixed fruit soaking in port on the bench. We invert the jars every morning until I’m ready to cook. I no longer layer marzipan and then icing on the cakes as it seems too rich. I decorate the tops with flaked almonds and cherries.

Our second Christmas preparation was when our son was here for the long weekend we started to plan the flavours for the Christmas Day cassatas, his specialty.We planned three layers. The first was icecream flavoured by dried bitter orange powder then added dried mango. Eventually, we decided the bitter orange was too strong.

The middle layer was strawberry icecream, made using freeze dried strawberry powder. When the icecream was properly mixed, we added dried blue berries. This layer was delicious!

The top layer was freeze dried mango powder flavoured icecream with chopped freeze dried strawberries. Although the three colours looked pretty together and mostly tasted great, we have decided the bitter orange icecream flavour was very strong and too bitter for the other flavours.

Experimenting with various blends has resulting in plans for two separate cassatas: one which will suit my Mother made with glace fruit and another one with three flavours created with freeze dried powders and freeze dried fruit to result in  three distinct flavours and colours. Each cassata will be served with raspberry crumble on top. Crunch, great flavour and very pretty.So, the dessert is decided and the fruit for the cakes is soaking.

Most of our preparations involve food and gifts. With no small children involved we don’t decorate a tree anymore, but I do a wreath on the door and a huge red bow on the gate and a few other decorations, too, such a baubles in the entrance. None of these things will happen until December. What plans have you made?

IN THE GARDEN

I renovated three painted ceramic spheres. They have been in the garden for many years and it was beginning to show! Not only did they need a good scrub, but I had to sand them as some paint had chipped off. Then after they’d dried in the sun, I painted them. Took a few days. Now they are back in the garden, looking good.

I find this petite sander really handy for small jobs.

Sanded smoothed edges and ready to paint.

Nasturtiums would take over the World left to their own devices. The yellow ones and the orange ones seemed to have created  yellow and orange striped flowers.

The Keeper of the Limes. This gargoyle keeps a close eye on the back garden.

Tinkling fountain and blooms appearing everywhere. Spring is so pretty.

STANLEY TUCCI’S  FAGIOLI SOUP

You might have first become aware of Stanley Tucci from his series ‘Stanley Tucci: Searching Italy. It’s obviously all about Italian cuisine and featured many producers and fabulous looking markets.He also acted in The Devil Wears Prada but is probably better known for his knowledge of food. Yesterday he shared his favoutite soup recipe. It is a traditional Italian recipe for Fagioli Soup. Not only is this soup delicious, Tucci says he turned to it frequently to rebuild his strength after treatment for oral cancer. He says it is ‘…easy to swallow and contained all all the nutrients to keep myself healthy.’

Adding the baby spinach to the bubbling soup.

Coincidentally, I’d made Fagioli Soup the day before. Tucci’s recipe used cannelloni beans but I used the less traditional lentils as that’s what I had and he used cavolo nero and I used baby spinach leaves, because again, that was what I had on hand. This is a wonderful, robust soap, full of flavour and economical, too. By the second day it was more like a stew, which apparently how it is sometimes made in Italy. The beans are a cheaper source of protein than meat. Look for recipes online, they’re all very similar.

I served this Fagioli Soup with crumbled pecorino, just as Stanley Tucci did, too. This may be old fashioned peasant soup but we thought it was wonderful.

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FIELD MUSHROOMS

Field mushrooms are large, almost flat mushrooms with dark gills. They grew down in the paddock when we were children and we’d be sent with knives and buckets to collect them. Visitors would come from town to pick these lovely mushrooms, too. They were cooked in a big pan with butter and served on toast.  So when I saw these in the green grocer I bought a big bag full, just for myself! I am the only one who eats mushrooms.

Peeled off the skin, which is easy to remove, then trimmed the stalks and cut the mushrooms in half, only because they were so large. Cooked them in melted butter, served them on toast. Fabulous lunch. I’ll buy more while they are in season.

I haven’t seen any mushrooms growing in the wild for years. The French like to go mushroom hunting in the forest for their favourites. They consider mushroom collecting a national pastime. If they are unsure if a mushroom is safe to eat, they can go to their local pharmacist to check. All French pharmacists can identify edible mushrooms. The French have 3 ooo types of fungi, including girolles, chanterelles, cêpes, bolets, morilless and of course, truffles. As soon as autumn arrives and the rentrée is over and the new school year begins, the French go foraging.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know I am a fan of ratatouille made from seasonal vegetables. Not always traditional vegetables, as you wont find eggplant in my pot, but you will find other  delicious vegetables because of their colour or because I have something fresh that will sit well with the other ingredients. So it will come as no surprise to learn that this week’s ratatouille has field mushrooms in it. Big, meaty, marvelous,  halved field mushrooms cooked in  butter with the zucchini and onions. Then I added the usual tomatoes and diced tomatoes and some herbs. Delicious!

On the topic of food, we were given a punnet of (out of season) strawberries. They looked ripe but tasted tart! Not keen on wasting food I halved the strawberries and marinated them in kumquat syrup for several hours. A couple of scoops of icecream and marinated strawberries plus the syrup drizzled on top made a lovely dessert.

CASHLESS BANKS

Recently, the Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, announced  plans  for major changes  to Australia’s banking systems, including phasing out the use of cheques by 2030. He claims the current systems are inhibiting the adoption of cheaper and more modern payments methods. He claims it will increase productivity which has stagnated during the last three years.

Following this announcement, The Macquarrie Bank has announced  today that between June 2024 and November 2024 they will phase out cash and cheque services across all their bank’s wealth management products, which includes pensions and super accounts. At the same time automated telephone services used to make payments will cease. It is expected the other major banks will follow with similar announcements in the near future.

Macquarrie Bank claims less than 1% of their transactions involved cash or cheques. There is a real problem with this plan. It will create difficulties for older clients who rely on cheques and are not confident using online banking, it assumes every client has access to digital technology and a reliable internet connection, which can be erratic or totally missing in regional areas, some clients do not feel online banking is safe and secure (with good reason) and some communities do not have access to ATMs. (My mother doesn’t have access to an ATM and relies on withdrawing limited amounts of cash at the supermarket checkout  and pays larger accounts via cheques posted to the business. She no longer drives and will be struggling when cheques are phased out. Similarly, an elderly friend paid her care service provider’s account via a cheque at the local post office. Then the care provider stopped taking cheques as payment and she was completely at a loss. Eventually, her son solved the problem by digitally paying her account, resulting her feeling dependent on family members and also feeling her finances were no longer private. Not good.)

So now we wait and see if the other major banks follow suit.

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sleep

Do you sleep well? I haven’t for years. Poor sleep is related to cognitive decline, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, depression, heart attacks and strokes.  I’ve spent an enormous amount of energy trying to improve the amount and quality of sleep I get. I rarely buy books, preferring to borrow them from the library, but I have a collection of books about sleep. I’ve followed the instructions from each, precisely, without improving the outcome.

In fact, the current book about improving sleep sits beside the bed with a bookmark half way through as I’m not supposed to follow the advice in the next chapter until I’ve mastered the first step towards wonderful sleep. It’s never happened despite my dedication and determination to master the technique. So, just like every other book about sleep, actually, no help at all.

There’s no better click bait online for me than ‘How To Get Better Sleep’. That one item lead me to many other items about caffeine in the morning interfering with sleep. Apparently, the best time to enjoy your first cup of coffee is about 90 minutes after you wake up. Your cortisol levels peak three times a day and one of those times is when you wake up. About ninety minutes later, your cortisol has returned to normal levels.

Cortisol controls alertness, focus, regulates blood pressure and your immune system and metabolism. Cortisol follows your sleep-wake system and peaks about about 30 -45 minutes after you wake and then slowly declines. So here’s the problem; coffee interfers with the build up of cortisol and adenosine, which induces the sense of sleepiness later in the day. Caffeine is an adenosine blocker and therefore interferes with your circadian rhythm. The recommendation is to avoid caffeine for about 90 minutes to allow cortisol to be released which increases alertness naturally.

Prepared to try anything to get more sleep, I delayed the first cup of coffee for 90 minutes each morning for five days. After three nights of worse than average sleep I dug a little deeper to see if there were other variables which might help. Discovered drinking a glass of water,  exposure to  sunlight for about 10 minutes, stretching, eating breakfast and meditating are all recommended. Being outdoors as the sunsets works for some people, too. As this is my preferred time to garden, as it is cooler, I began this recommendation immediately.

The result? Three consecutive nights poor sleep, one night great sleep (so exciting), another dreadful night. I will persist a little longer

food

Usually I feel the last months of the year rush by, but March seems to have arrived very quickly this year. In the Southern Hemisphere, March marks the beginning of Autumn, but you’d never know it here in Perth, where the temperatures continue in the high 30°Cs. Humidity is high, too.

The early months of the year seem to be favourites for celebrations. We’ve finished with the really big one, Christmas, then the new years starts with  St Valentine’s Day, next is St Patrick’s Day followed by Easter and finally, Mother’s Day. Then we get a bit of a rest depending on your family birthdays’ and wedding anniversaries. Preparing for Easter is always special so I’m beginning to plan now.

Meanwhile, I’ve used sourdough ‘discard’, leftover from feeding the starter, (getting it ready to make bread) and made more scones. Delicious.

Sweet corn, considered animal food in some countries, but popular in Australia, is at its best at the moment. Do you cook it in the microwave?

I put the cob onto the plate in the microwave and cook it for three minutes, trim the end, strip off the leaves and serve with butter and grated pepper.

Another vegetable in good supply at the moment is celery. I have begun buying it. I was growing celery from the cut off base but the stalks have begun to taste bitter. It is now compost. The last bunch of celery I bought was huge and I knew we wouldn’t eat it all while it was fresh. So I made celery soup using the recipe from  Feasting At Home (here) There’s no cream or milk in this recipe so it was wonderful served cold. The recipe includes a pinch of cayenne pepper which really adds flavour.

Thickened with a small amount of potato, this celery soup is delicious hot or cold. The recipe makes quite a lot, so a jarful went into the fridge with two more containers of ratatouille which I made the same day.

When it’s was very hot and humid chilled celery soup and ratatouille were very welcome.

The new sourdough bread recipe from Feasting At Home, discussed on in previous two blogs, makes very good bread. So good in fact, we are eating it so quickly I am making bread every few days. The latest recipe I’ve tried to use the ‘discard’ from feeding the starter was corn fritters. So good with sweet chili sauce.

Loved the rustic looking boules/balls I first made but it is better for us to make a rectangular loaf. That way we cut of similar sized slice each time.

Did you know cigarette butts take 10-12 years to decompose?

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a new cookbook

I really like reading about bloggers who use randomly or carefully selected cooking books from their collection to inspire them and then write about the recipe they made. I find myself using online recipes more often than books except for a few favourites I’ve printed off which are tucked into a folder. I usually look online for inspiration and directions. Often I found myself going back to Nagi  Maehashi’s site recipetineats.com. ( Just like 335 million other people as it turns out!)

Two of the weekend papers we read now feature her recipes in their magazines. So when I saw a review of her recipe book, RECIPE TIN EATS DINNER I knew I’d use it. She writes the recipes and tests them and takes the photos, ably assisted by Dozer, her golden retriever. He features in some of the photos.

Last night I made ONE POT BAKED GREEK CHICKEN AND LEMON RICE. Like so many of her recipes, all the ingredients were ‘at hand’ either in the fridge or the pantry. And like all her other recipes I’ve made, this one was very, very good. She says it serves five, it actually made enough for six serves for us. It wasn’t a one pot dinner, either, as we added roasted carrots, roasted mushrooms and peas and beans as we’re trying to increase the number and variety of fruit and vegetables we eat each week.

DINNER also has a very useful comprehensive glossary at the back, information about her philanthropic endeavor serving food to vulnerable people in Sydney five days a week and a little bit about how Nagi went from corporate city girl to recipe tin eats. Inspiring.

desiccants and plastic

A desiccant is a substance used to keep or sustain a state of dryness in its vicinity. The most commonly used desiccant is manufactured from sodium silicate and sulfuric acid. This mix has a particular affinity for absorbing water. Desiccants protect the integrity of the product they are stored with, often in a bottle. They should remain with the product until it is finished.

My problem with desiccants is not their effectiveness, but the fact they used to be packed in paper or other cellulose sachets which are compostable and now they come in small plastic pellets. This creates more plastic rubbish.

Recycling is not a satisfactory long term solution for the disposal of soft plastic waste. It simply delays the production and distribution of plastic microparticles into the environment.  Whether recycling soft plastic replaces aggregate in concrete or in roads and paths, or steel and wood in posts and furniture, we are just postponing the time when the product inevitably degrades, breaks down and releases extremely dangerous micro particles. These micro particles then enter the environment, the food chain and the bodies of fish, cattle, sheep, pigs, birds and ourselves.  Finding alternative uses for plastic waste may make companies which use plastic look good and make us feel virtuous but the only effective solution is to stop using it. Neither is biodegradable plastic a solution. It degrades by breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces until it becomes micro particles too.

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The best way to limit plastic entering the environment is to simply not use it. This would lead to less plastic overall. Recycling plastic is expensive and it degrades each time it is reused. So, brands claiming their clothing are manufactured from recycled plastic bottles create two bigger problems. This process takes the plastic out of the multiple recycling process and apparently most of the clothes end up in landfill within 12 months as discarded clothing. Plus every time an item of clothing made from plastic is washed it releases micro particles of plastic into the water ways. Green washing at its worst.

We must decide if we want to ingest plastic and risk the identified and as yet, unidentified hazards or use other materials where possible.

roses

The garden and the house are full of roses which is just how I like it! For the past two years the roses were decimated by chili thrip. Treating chili thrip involves using the sprays recommended by your local gardening centre. I also read about digging out the first layer of soil if the roses are in pots and replacing it with fresh soil as the thrip lay eggs close to the surface in the soil. I did this in the rose bed, too, but it was a big job. The other issue is that your close neighbours need to treat their roses at the same time.

Treating and eradicating chili thrip takes close observation, regular treatments and cooperative neighbours. Checking every day for signs on rose buds and reacting with the recommended spray is essential. Keeping the bush as healthy as possible helps, too. With regular treatment it seems to eventually move to another area. Unfortunately  I know some people in this area who removed their roses after two years of infestation rather than keep using the recommended sprays. I’m glad I persisted.

WORLD REMEMBRANCE FOR TRAFFIC VICTIMS

This Saturday, 29th November, is the day to remember that more than a million people die from traffic accidents every year.More information:

www.worlddayofremembrance.org/

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aprons

Do you wear an apron when you’re cooking or involved in other domestic occupations? When I was a child it seemed that all mothers wore an apron over their clothes. If they weren’t wearing an apron, one was hung on the hook behind the door.

Although I remember wearing aprons when I was first married at some time I stopped. I don’t remember the reason or even when this occurred.* Now I often wear one! If I’m cooking or even working in the garden I’ll probably wear an apron. I think rediscovering aprons was motivated by bread making. No matter how careful I am, during the process of measuring, weighing, mixing, resting and kneading the loaves, I will get flour, or worse, dough on my clothes. Now I always put an apron on. I have quite a few.

The word apron comes from a Medieval French word for small tablecloth, ‘naperon’ which eventually was shortened to ‘aprons’. Aprons aren’t just for domestic activities. They are worn as parts of uniforms, in  trades and for rituals. Aprons are made from a variety of materials, including cotton, linen, PVC, rubber, canvas and leather. They can have a bib top covering the front of the wearer, or a half apron, or a wrap-around with crossed back straps. I prefer aprons to cover the front of what I am wearing.

Neither cooking or gardening but actually removing paint from a metal screen.

If I’m going out into the garden I will probably wear an apron. I snip and trim, so keep secateurs in the apron pocket, I re-pot, I add fertilizer to pots and beds. I wipe my hands on the apron and drop it in the laundry when I come back inside. Recently I was doing a project involving paint stripper, rust retardant, primer and paint. I wore a wrap around apron which successfully covered me from top to bottom! A big pocket is good, too.

* My husband says I stopped wearing aprons when we moved overseas. Sounds right.

flower arranging

Many roses grow with a central bloom and three, four or five buds around it. The central flower blooms first, sometimes days before the others. I cut these out of the cluster, resulting in a short stem, then bring them inside. Due to their short stems they’re hard to arrange in a vase.

The central rose on each cluster blooms days before the surrounding flowers. I snip them out of the cluster but they have short stems. My solution is rubber bands! I make a grid using bands slipped around the vase. If I’m using a bigger vase I make a grid to create small squares. This means putting bands across then from front to back. The flowers are held in place and look lovely for days. By then the buds originally surrounding the middle bloom are ready to pick on a much longer stem, so they don’t need support.

The rubber bands don’t really show up on the vase.

tiny eggs

Our dear neighbour delivered a dozen sweet little eggs. She has  Dutch Bantams and Japanese Bantams, which are quite petite so the eggs are tiny, too. After I’d admired them for a while, I decided to make a tortilla. Also known as a Spanish Omelette, Spanish Tortilla and Tortilla de Patatas this wasn’t just the usual egg, onion and potato tortilla but an easy way to use up a carrot, red cabbage and green cabbage salad mix I had in the fridge. I was thoroughly sick of chewing and chewing . I’m keen to increase the number of fruit and vegetables we eat each week but this mix required way too much chewing and a lot of dressing to make it appealing. Decided to cook it.

I fried the onion then put it in a bowl, fried the carrot and two cabbages and added them to the onion and then fried three very finely sliced, peeled potatoes and added them, along with the other fried vegetables, to the twelve beaten little eggs.

Scraped the whole lot back into the pan and cooked it until it was nearly set then put it under the grill to brown the top. The red cabbage looks rather unattractive in the photo but actually tasted really good in the tortilla. Meanwhile, I’d peeled and deseeded a butternut pumpkin and roasted it in a tray.

Served the tortilla with roasted pumpkin  and peas. Seven serves of vegetables. Good.

making cards

For the past three weeks I have been going to a class where we learnt about Japanese and Chinese brush painting. Firstly we explored bamboo and leaves, the second week was flowers using ink and then paint and this week we focused on painting flowers which we then made into cards. I actually did lessons with the paining master in China but whatever I learnt there has long gone. I really enjoyed working with the tutor and have been to other classes she’s run in the past. I enjoyed focusing on a new technique and learning new methods. The class was often about ten people so it was comfortable and a bit chatty, too. I also liked the cards I made!

remembrance day

Today, the 11th of November, is REMEMBRANCE DAY. We stand for a minutes silence at 11am to remember those service men and service women who have served in all wars and peace keeping missions.

LEST WE FORGET

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concussion

What is concussion? Concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury. It is the result of a blow, thump or jolt to the head or to the body, causing the head to jolt back and forward such as a whiplash injury. The head moving rapidly shakes the brain which can result in chemical changes. Sometimes brain cells are stretched and damaged. Usually described as a ‘mild’ brain injury, evidence now shows the long term effects of concussion can be serious.

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Symptoms of concussion can include headache, confusion, poor co-ordination, memory loss, sleepiness, nausea and vomiting, dizziness and fatigue. In the past concussion has been treated as something that will pass with time. If severe doctors recommended “cocooning” remaining in a dark room and resting, plus treating headaches with over the counter medication.  (Avoid ibuprofen as this can cause bleeding) All that has changed recently due to the research showing that concussion  can result in long term neurological disease.

Diagnosing concussion involves observation of neurological responses such as vision, hearing , balance, reflexes) and cognitive aspects, such as memory and concentration. Imaging tests may also be recommended. This will rule out other head injuries. Research now suggest the best way to recover from concussion is to begin cardio exercise as soon as possible such as using an exercise bike or elliptical machine, but not running which can hurt the brain. Get the blood pumping! Follow this with something cognitively stimulating such as reading, games or puzzles but avoid screens if possible. Return to school or work gradually.

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Concussion can result in long term problems. Research on older professional sportsmen indicates that repeated concussion can result in permanent brain damage. Neurodegenerative diseases related to repeated concussion include  Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, slurred speech and significant memory problems, parkinsonism or the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (tremors, muscle stiffness and slow movement), sleep disturbance, smell and taste dysfunction are also common long term symptoms.

New research indicates concussion is a serious injury which needs professional diagnosis and treatment.

Bottle brush

During late winter and early spring our arum lilies bloom. I really like the sculptural appearance of the lilies and glossy, generously sized leaves. I bought the vase I put the lilies and leaves in just for this purpose. The only problem was the water gets murky towards the base after a few days and I couldn’t get anything long enough and slim enough to reach the inner base to give it a good scrub.

I invented a long vase scrubber! I don’t see a commercial application for it but it was just the thing to clean the vase. I used a rubber band to secure the bottle brush in a pair of long handled tongs and scrubbed the vase clean. Very satisfying.

This is a bottle brush of another kind. It is very attractive. The development from nobbly little boxes, actually called budding capsules, splitting open down the length of the bloom is wonderful to watch. These amazing flowers come in red, yellow, orange and pink. Endemic mostly to the coastal regions of Australia, although some grow in the centre, too, they are also available at any native plant nursery.

The name bottle brush is derived from the appearance of the flower. Bottle brushes (Callistemon genus) looks like a bottle brush! The entire genus is endemic to Australia but have been keenly been adopted by the rest of the world. They are drought tolerant and require little water once established.

other things

Continuing with Japanese/Chinese Brush Painting. First lesson was bamboo painted with ink, this week was flowers in water colour. I enjoy focusing on developing new techniques and working with other people trying to also master this way of painting.

PIERRE de RONSARD ROSES

The garden is amazing. The Pierre de Ronsard roses on an arch are covered in blooms. I was considering removing them earlier this year and am so glad I just cut them back.

SNAP PEAS

All winter I have been picking enough snap peas from one plant to serve two people every few days. I am drying two pea pods from the snap pea plant to plant some more peas for the next few months. To grow peas from the pods it is best to leave a few pods on the plant to dry and then leave them outside until really dry. Then split the pod open and harvest the dry peas. I like to soak them overnight before planting, but not everyone agrees with soaking. Make holes about 2.5 cm (1 “) deep. Plant two peas in every hole . Add liquid seaweed. Water regularly. They’ll germinate in about nine days.

A blogger I have followed for years always weighs her produce when she picks it and keeps a record of how much she has harvested. I think she likes to work out how much money she has saved growing rather than buying produce! Do you do this?

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enjoying asparagus

Do you really like asparagus but find steaming it a bit of a faff? I cook it in the microwave! It stays slightly crisp and very tasty. We really like it prepared this way. I like serving it simply, too, with a little butter, some black pepper and maybe a squeeze of lemon. Easy instructions on how to microwave asparagus  https://www.makecookgrow.com/2021/11/fast-delicious-dinner-reading-and-when-do-you-decorate-the-christmas-tree/microwaving

Most commercially grown asparagus in Australia is grown in Victoria. It is marketed nationally and internationally. Apparently 31% of Australians regularly consume asparagus. I served the microwaved asparagus with chicken rogan josh and couscous. Bit different, but I didn’t really feel like rice!

restoring garden toolS

Spring means lots of tidying up in the garden. I soon discovered both pairs of hedge clippers were really blunt as were a pair of secateurs.  Not my really good, really expensive rotating handle secateurs, but the every day ones I keep handy for, well, every day jobs. Really blunt. I’d seen an item on Gardening Australia, a television program, about restoring old but solid tools.

First step was to wash them clean to the assess the rust. There was so much! And other bits I didn’t recognize. So, as recommended I put everything in a  bucket of vinegar. It took eight litres to cover the blades and other metal pieces of the three tools I decided to restore. Also the laundry smelt strongly of vinegar. Left them, as advised on the program, for seven days.

As the acetic acid reacted with the rust it left clean metal behind. The smell of vinegar was quite weak by day five, which was just as well, as it made me think of fish and chips. A bit of scrubbing and rinsing, then I left the pieces to dry. I couldn’t remove the evidence of knocks and other marks on the clipper handles or the handles on the old secateurs.

Next I needed to sharpen the blades on the clippers and secateurs. Our son had left me his whett stone after he’d sharpened our kitchen knives. A whetting stone is a fine grained stone used to sharpen the blades of cutting tools, such as knives, scissors and garden tools.The friction used by grinding against the stone hones the cutting edge.

To prepare a whetstone it needs to be saturated in water, in this case a tall jug. I left the stone in the water for a few days. The stone is orange and white as one side is coarser than the other. I set it on a towel on the work surface. I began with the coarse side facing up to get the angle just right, then refined the edge using the white side. The tools I was sharpening already had beveled edges. I wish you could see how clean they are but the photo doesn’t do them justice!

Using the sharpened, cleaned tools is such a pleasure. The handles on the older clippers are wood and I found evidence of them once being painted red. That’s a step too far for me! So I oiled the moving parts with Singer Sewing Machine Oil, tested each on an over grown rosemary bush and feel pretty pleased with how sharp the tools are and how smoothly they move.

I really enjoy the using these tools, now. What really made the difference was oiling the moving parts and sharpening the blades.

By the way, I used some of the murky, remaining vinegar from soaking the tools on weeds growing in pathways. The vinegar near the bottom of the bucket was beyond recycling. As the vinegar smell had almost disappeared I’ll have to wait a few days to see if there was any remaining weed killing strength in it. If it doesn’t work I’ll be back to boiling kettles of hot water to pour on the weeds.

what is a counselor of state?

This week King Charles III announced five new Counselors of State, including younger members of the Royal Family. What is their role? Apparently, a Counselor of State can be asked to step in and assist with some of the roles expected of the King if he is overseas or otherwise unavailable. They cannot perform all the official  roles expected of the sovereign but can sign invoices and attend meetings of the Privy Council. The five newly appointed Counselors of State  are The Queen Consort, Prince Harry, Prince Andrew and Princess Beatrice.

DID YOU KNOW

Sheep outnumbered people 2.5 to 1 in 2020. There used to be an expression that Australia rode on the sheep’s back!

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July is cold this year. We haven’t had our usual rainfall, either. I have been occupied despite the weather!

cooking chicken tikka masala

Warm and comfortable food features here during winter and we really like a good curry. I found this Chicken Tikka Masala online at https://www.thecookingfoodie.com/recipe/Chicken-Tikka-Masala-Recipe and set about preparing it. Like so many things I cook, the ingredients are readily available or easy to acquire. Apart from the chicken I had everything else. The chicken was cut into cubes then marinated in yoghurt, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, paprika and garam masala.

Then the browned chicken is added to a sauce/gravy mixture of onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chili, coriander, cumin, garam masala, diced tomato and yoghurt ( the recipe actually calls for cream but I prefer yoghurt). It tasted as good as it smelt and we really enjoyed it.

The recipe said it made five serves but actually we had six generous serves. So, two serves in the freezer, two in the fridge and two for dinner that evening. This is a lovely, rich recipe and I’ll be making it again.

reading

A few weeks ago I reviewed Lucy Foley’s cleverly written murder mystery The Guest List. Featuring any number of people who would have liked to murder one of the main protagonists, it wasn’t apparent until the very end which one was responsible.

This week I’ve read The Paris Apartment. Foley writes gripping murders set in contemporary environments. Her stories are full of twists and turns, so action packed and a little bit scary, too. This story involves the half sister of the man who has disappeared arriving in Paris, realising he is missing and trying to work out what has happened. She moves into his apartment in a rambling old house full of very odd people. Things start to go very wrong and she has no idea whom she can trust. It’s a great read.

eating mussels

It’s mussel season and I’m keen to eat them! No-one else in the family eats mussels so I made a little feast for myself. This year I cooked the mussels in a simple sauce based on passata with some herbs and vegetables. I like the flavour of the mussels to star and not be overwhelmed by the sauce.

Our mussels are caught in the Cockburn Sound, about 11 kilometres from here. Originally mussels were wild caught but since the 1980s they have been farmed.

making bread

I usually made two loaves of rye sourdough at a time. Two loaves last me about two weeks. Most of the bread is sliced then put in the freezer. I have a piece of toast at breakfast and a piece of bread at lunch time. This has worked well for ages but I must eat more bread when it’s cold! This week I have made three loaves, two regular loaf shaped ones and a boule, because I don’t have three rectangular dishes!

This bread needs a few days from start to finish. I take the starter out of the fridge and feed it flour and water before leaving it on the table near the window for about 24 hours. It starts to bubble and increase in size. The next day I take some of the bubbly starter/sponge and mix it with flour, water, salt and a tablespoon of molasses.

I used to mix it by hand as I liked to feel when the dough became elastic and ready.  Now I mix the dough in the mixer and then leave each loaf to rise again. This takes about two hours. Next the loaves go into the oven. The serious bakers say you should bake one loaf at a time in the middle of the middle shelf of the oven. I cooked two rectangular loaves side by side on the middle shelf and the boule on the shelf below and they look good and taste great.

cat aggravations

I’d like to say I am not really a cat person. We have a dog. It is not a friend of cats and usually ensures none venture into our garden. Dog has been sleeping on the job, obviously. Went out the back door the other day to find a pot plant which had been sitting on a ledge, smashed and the plant a bit of a mess. Assumed it was cat damage. Knew I would have to buy two new pots and re-pot the plant and another one, too, as they were in matching pots. Annoying.

Had to buy two new pots. Annoying.

Later that day my husband heard a crash outside the back door and went to investigate. A rustic wooden ‘house’ which had been on another ledge was on the ground but part of the roof was smashed off. Humph. Out with one of my many glues and masking tape to repair it. I have repaired this roof in the past but the little house, made out of scrap timber, reminds me of a beautiful garden we visited on a farm down south during an ‘Open Garden” weekend. So, I’ll repair it again and investigate ways to discourage cats.

The rustic little house is becoming weaker but I’ll keep repairing it for now. This strip has broken off the front previously.

Glue then held in place with masking tape.

did you know?

There are about a million camels roaming wild in Australia’s deserts. They represent the greatest number of purebred camels in the world and are exported to the Middle east.

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