Pumpkins and Apples and a Garden Show

Pumpkins and Apples mean winter is on its way. My favourite season, the time when I feel most like myself.  I found a shapely butternut pumpkin at the markets. She was the Marilyn Monroe of butternuts, shapely and curvaceous and alluring.  I had to take her home with me. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin risotto, pumpkin pie. (ooh just found a recipe for a pumpkin quiche, now that sounds nice)

Old Granny Smith, green and so shinny and firm, it was like the old girl had had a face lift. A bag was purchased - they now lie in the bread making bowl, waiting to be peeled and cored and sliced up, to be laid in a pastry bed with sugar sprinkled over. Did I ever tell you the connection I have with THE Granny Smith of the Apple fame?  No?  Well stay tuned for a blog post right there.

On the weekend we went to the Garden Week at Perry Lakes. Highlight for me? Not all those amazing plant displays, the water features, the 'birdcage' (although they were amazing and inspiring) - nope it was a stand where they were selling apples - from the Perth Hills - just picked yesterday. It was like finding the gold at the end of the rainbow.  I was so busy buying and eating apples I forgot to take a picture!

Funny, the little things are the ones that mean the most.

Here are a few non-apple pictures of the Garden Week.

An Easter Escape

I will write more about our weekend away, but for now, these pictures will tell 1000 stories.

Our rig - Navara, Trailer Camper, Motorbike and Kayak. Cunderdin WA  

Outside the (closed for Good Friday) No3 Pumping Station Museum at Cunderdin

What you do on camping trips

What we go out here for!

Camp - and boys getting a lesson in wood chopping

More Trees 

Even more trees

Minty - even she likes camping - its the camera she hates!

...and more trees ...

We actually wore Tommy out - ever so briefly

Having fun at the dam.

Having fun on the motorbike - view from the dam

Over 100 year old aquaduct

Karalee Dam

For a 14 year old, blind dog, she still has fun - she went swimming too! Tommy follows her about and looks after her.

Sun setting on a fun day - these boys will sleep well tonight

Slow cooked lamb on a real open fire - we had this for Saturday night - with a bottle of red, under a full moon and a trillion stars.  Beats any 5 star hotel!

When Fantasy meets Reality

Pinterest for women is like a man looking at pictures of a playboy bunny and thinking that would be nice!

You look at pretty pictures of tables set in fields, or apple orchards, with linen cloths and dainty china, tiers of little cupcakes, scones and neatly cut sandwiches.  A string of pastel bunting, billowy swags of tulle, wooden table with paper lanterns strung above.

You get an idea.  What if I have a garden party for my friends?  We could all dress in floral, cotton dress's, be carefree and wallow away an entire afternoon, laughing lightly and sipping pink champagne.    I could take the dining table out onto the lawn.  I could quickly sew up some chair covers in calico and tie a pastel pink ribbon to the back, pop in some dried roses.  Cut out triangles of scrap material and string them together.  It will mean a trip to Spotlight, but it wont cost much.

You have a few 'trio's' but need a few more.  You start to watch Ebay for Royal Albert and Royal Doulton.  A few parcels arrive, you think they are a bargain at $35 a set.  You buy a silver sugar dish and polish it.  On holidays you find a pure white linen tablecloth and eight matching napkins.  The shop lady (who was twice your age, well almost) says they will take a lot of ironing.  You laugh, a little too gaily  that you love to iron.  

You attend high teas at a few places, just to get ideas of what food to serve.  You make up a menu, write it out in long hand calligraphy on sepia paper. You make invitations the same way and hand deliver them.  Sunday.  1pm.  4 weeks from now.

You let a week go by, plenty of time, it's just afternoon tea.  Three weeks to go,  you panic.  Four weeks seemed plenty of time when you planed this, but then you make the 'to do' list. It seems endless.

It's real now.  You have to follow through.  You start by going to buy material.  The natural calico ends up costing you $120 for 8 chairs.  The tulle another $40.  The parcel of material sits on the dining table for a week before you have a chance to sew it.  The chair covers are harder than they look.  You make 3, then have a go at the prettier bunting.  By 10pm Sunday night you have made 2 metres, you are pretty pleased with yourself.

The next weekend you find a perfect silver tea set in a second hand store.  You are delighted.  You rush home and spend the next 4 hours polishing it, plus all the little silver cake forks your Grandmother left to you. You now have enough fine china trios for your eight guests.  You wash them all by hand, drying them carefully.  It takes you ages, but you tell yourself that to slow down is a good thing.  The rest of the house is a shambles and don't even think of going into the laundry!

You go online and find a site that sells everything party.  You buy cupcake cases, striped straws, pastel icing, sprinkles, paper lanterns, sugared almonds, candles.  It costs $124 but you tell yourself you will have these things for years.

There is a week to go.  The garden is still a mess.  You haven't picked up the dog poo for a week now and the lawn needed mowing a month ago.  There are dead patches mixed with eye-high grass.  The roses need a good prune, and cooch has invaded the flower beds.  You work like a navvy in the garden, and cajole your husband to help by offering favours you know you will be too tired to grant.  You rush to Bunnings and buy 'potted colour' at exorbitant prices.

The weekend of the garden party.  Saturday.  You want to make everything from scratch, the old fashioned way.  A shopping trip with a toilet roll for a shopping list, which includes a visit to the kitchen shop to get specialised tart trays and a 3 tiered platter.  You get home, exhausted and not at all feeling like cooking.  You poach chicken breasts in tarragon to make sandwiches.  You make cupcake batter and set out 2 dozen pink pokerdot cupcake cases (you want to send everyone home from the party with their own, beautifully decorated cupcake to remind them how wonderful you are). 

You bake and ice and decorate.  Piping bags were never your friend.  At 7pm your husband casually wanders in and wants to know whats for dinner.  You snap at him, 'fucking cupcakes!'  At 8.30pm you are eating Maccers from the kitchen bench as you stir custard.

By 11pm you are exhausted, you have been in the kitchen all day.  You feel a little panicked that you haven't yet cleaned the house or scrubbed the toilet.    But you go to bed satisfied that you have made all the cupcakes, have made the filling for the three sandwiches - smoked salmon mouse, chicken and celery in creme freche and cucumber and sour-cream  there are 10 individual chocolate mouses in shot glasses (2 extra as you broke your deal with the husband and this may get you off the hook), miniature lemon meringue pies, fruit custard pies - you even made the tiny pastry cases and glazed the strawberries with apricot jam.  You sleep, but not well - a to do list for tomorrow running through your head.

Midnight.  You wake with fright as you just remembered that you left the fruit custard tarts to cool on the bench and they have custard in them and need to go in the fridge.  You debate if they will be ok, have visions of your lovely lady guests with food poisoning, and get out of bed to find a container they can be stored in and wedge a place in your overflowing fridge.  Its 2am before you finally get to sleep.

8.30am.  You have slept in!  You start yelling at your husband to stop being a lazy bastard and help you.  You make him clean the toilet while you start cutting crusts off two loaves of white and wholemeal bread. He comes back 2 minutes later and says he is done.  You know damn well it wont be done properly and have to do it yourself.  You hate him.  You tell him so.  He takes off to the shed.

You know your hair needs washing, but no time now. You need to get the table set.  Your sister-in-law phones you and asks if you need some help?  You try and keep the panic out of your voice as you casually say no love, all under control, I just want you to come and enjoy yourself.  

You have to go and apologise to your husband, you need him to help you move the dining table onto the lawn.  He helpfully asks if you cant just use the outdoor table?  No you say through clenched and stubborn jaw - the vision is for an extravagant dining table on the lawn.  It's the whole POINT!  He just silently carries one end as you struggle and heave it past door frames.  You take a chunk of plaster out of the wall.  You swear.  He disappears into his shed again.

The linen table cloth, that has been ironed once, still looks like its been slept on by the dog.  You set up the ironing board and try and fix it.  The bloody old bitch at the shop was right.  You hate her too.  You reason that when its covered in plates, glasses, napkins and food, and you have sprinkled rose petals all over you wont notice the wrinkles.  You are wrong.

It's now 11.30am.  The table is set.  It looks pretty.  Now to move all the chairs outside and cover with the calico.  You don't dare ask the husband, you can hear him hitting something pretty hard in his shed.  The covers are fiddly, the bows on the back even more so.  You only got around to making 6 covers, too bad!  You think to hell with dried roses.  

The 2 metres of bunting only goes on one side of the fence.  You had visions of it all the way round.  It looks a bit naff.  The paper lanterns keep falling down from where you have strung them.  It's 12.45 and you still are not showered or dressed and you have scones to make and pots of tea to prepare.  You stuff the very expensive tulle back into your laundry.

You just get in the shower and you hear the door bell.  Shit.  You husband comes to the rescue and starts telling your 8 lady friends what a bad mood you are in, and laughs that you will need a lot of champagne to calm you down.  You get out of the shower, still half wet and throw on the floral dress, that you just remembered you needed to iron. Makeup and hair are forgotten.

Damn them all for being on time  and damn your husband for not taking them straight out into the garden.  Now all the ladies are assembled in your kitchen, which looks like a teenagers bedroom, you look like a bedraggled,  crumpled teenager to suit.  Smile.  Open a bottle of pink champagne and get them to follow you out to the garden.

The oos and ahhs at your elegant, garden, Pinterestque table setting don't take away the exhaustion and despair you are feeling.  You gulp down your champers and fill up the glass again.  A kind friend follows you into the kitchen so you mercilessly put her to work arranging food onto platters.  She asks a million questions of how you want the cakes placed, which platter for the sandwiches, do you want the scones on the top tier or the bottom.  You don't freaking care anymore because the scones are burning.  

It all goes off pretty well considering   The ladies have a great time, you are glad however when it all ends earlier than you fantasied about.  Your husband ventures out of his shed when he hears you have got drunk.  He flirts with your friends, and tells them stories about how much of a bitch you have been preparing for this day and you don't care.  Only your sister-in-law stays to help clean up. You feel bad.  Every Royal Doulton, every silver fork, every crystal platter has to be washed by hand. You can't do it in the dishwasher.  You tell her you will do it all tomorrow.  She tries to insist she will help.  You get cross and tell her to go the hell home.

There is lipstick on most of the linen napkins and pink icing and rose petal stains on the tablecloth. They never come out.

You and your husband have cupcakes for dinner, you were too drunk to give them out to the ladies as they left.  The kitchen stays like this til morning.

Nope.  The fantasy never lives up to the reality.  Any playboy reading man will tell you that.


Footnote : Pinterest did not have any pictures of the reality ... I wonder why?

New Page on this Blog

Started a new page on this blog for a new little project I am running.

Called : A Year with Thermomix

I am keeping this record for a year, as an experiment, to help with the weight loss tracking, to make the most of the new (expensive) toy and perhaps to be of interest/help readers.

Happy Birthday Son #1

He turned 26 today.  My little boy!  We are taking him and his beautiful, gorgeous girlfriend to dinner tonight, but this was his gift from his mum. 

He is growing a beard as he is on campaign for the next few months (election) and they work long, hard hours - no time for shaving and grooming. 

So very proud of my boy/s (both of them) - he is such a fine, upstanding, young man with a generous spirit and amazing sense of community.  He even shared his apple pie!

Happy Birthday Darling.

Making Christmas Presents - Chutney

I am feeling rather chuffed with myself that, to date, I have not bought one commercial present - and I am trying hard to keep it that way this year.  We have had a general concensus that no bought presents are to to given or recieved this year.  Only home made ones, or the present of the persons presence!

I don't trust that people want my presense so much, so tonight, I am making chutney as gifts.  The recipe is from the man I secretly want to run away with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall but only as far as River Cottage.

Here is the link to the original recipe ...

hughs-fig-and-cranberry-christmas-chutney-recipe

Makes 2-4 jars

Ingredients

• 500g onions, chopped
• Scrap of oil
• 1kg diced apples, any will do but try to include some Bramleys
• 500ml cider vinegar (I will use verjuice)
• 400g demerara sugar
• 200g dried figs, diced
• 125g dried cranberries
• Zest and juice of 1 orange
• Generous glass of port
• 5cm piece root ginger, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves (will leave these out as I hate them)
• 12 cardamom pods
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 100g walnuts, roughly chopped

Method

1. Start by sweating the onion in a scrap of oil then add the apple. Pour over the vinegar and sugar and and once it's had a good stir and the sugar has dissolved then fun can start.
2. Add the fruits to the pot then after that the orange zest and juice, followed by the port.
3. Next it's time to put together your spices. Tie the ginger, cloves, cardamom pods and coriander seeds in a clean square of muslin and secure with string. Immerse the pouch deep in the simmering chutney and let it bubble away for an hour or so, making sure to stir it regularly so it doesn't catch on the bottom.
4. Add the walnuts and cook for a final 30 minutes. If you can part your chutney and see a little bit of pan on the bottom you are done.
5. Decant the warm chutney into sterlised jars, seal with vinegar-proof lids and allow to cool.

I will post back and show how it went.

Coming up ... 11 glorious days off!

Not that I am counting or anything, but just in case you were curious, there are approximately 104.2 hours until I can departmentalise my work life from my home life.  Eleven days to wallow about in our pool, to water the garden at my leisure, to have sleep ins (well laying in bed awake, can never 'sleep' in), to read the six books I have beside my bed, the four I have on my kindle and the stack of nine beside my chair in the reading room.  Ambitious?  I love a challenge! 

My folks are coming up to stay with us, to stay in what they now call their 'City Apartment'.  Our recently renovated Guest Wing - I love that.

For the first time, Son #1 will be hosting a family Christmas event.  We are going to his house Christmas Eve for dinner and drinks.  He has worked so hard building a patio, gardens, a lawned terrace - it will be special to see him be a host!

Christmas Day is going to be a cook off between my Dad, Mum and I.  We all have cookbooks at the ready, bring it on!

Boxing Day is always a toss up between drag racing or watching the first day of the test match from the pool.  Weather will be a deciding factor.

Then endless days of nothing.  Doesn't get better than that.

What I learnt this weekend

As the silly season gets a good grip on our lives, we are pulled from social event to social event, in ever increasing frequency.  This weekend we were out Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  All good fun and worth the effort, but also tiring.  So what did I learn this week?

• Grumpy really does start at 50.  Uncle J turned 50 on Friday.  In true form, he didn't want to do anything but smoke his cigar, drink and moan about the world.  Being his special day, we indulged him, but when he started to say that Shakespeare was a pretentious twat, I drew the line.

• I never knew I was so passionate about Shakespeare (I am not really, but it is fun to bicker and argue with cranky, middle aged men)

• Sheep poo doesn't feel so nice squished between your toes.  I was helping Son#1 with a little garden project, and we had emptied a bag of sheep poo on this garden bed a few weeks before.  It was now wet and breaking down nicely.  I had stupidly not worn suitable shoes for digging in (I thought we were just going to do the fun bit, like shopping for plants at this stage) so had to wade in barefoot.  It was all very Bohemian.

• Watching a lone bagpiper play a traditional song moves me to tears.  We went to watch Son#2 girlfriend play in her brass band (she is a very talented trombone player).  It was held at the Salvation Army hall in the city and it was a huge crowd.  The theme was very British, and very moving.

• We have now renamed our little part of the world Bas Vegas.  Mr K spent the entire afternoon putting up blue lights around the pool.  Its all very Flamingo 1950.

• Don't mess with a proven pastry recipe.  If I do say so myself, I make a pretty good apple pie.  My mum makes one to rival it.  I have her recipe, but like all offspring, we try and make it better, make it our own.  Over the years I have tweaked, and changed and perfected my own recipe.  Except yesterday, when I was asked to bring an apple pie to a Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to experiment with my pastry.  Fail.  Back to the original.

• When you put out your rubbish for bring-out-your-dead collection, and a lot of it is good stuff that you hope other people will take - it will rain like it hasn't done in months and ruin the stuff you have kept dry and safe.

Well that's about all the lessons I can stand for one week.  The week coming up looks like a doozy too. 

What did you learn this week?

My rubber man in the kitchen drawer

I was rather outnumbered last Friday night, in a good way - Mr K had invited his best mate over for dinner.  He has recently become a bachelor, or rather, a week-on week-off dad, but this was his week-off so he was playing bachelor.  We also had the resident bachelor, Uncle J, just home from a trip to the island where he owns land, and in need of some home cooked Aussie tucker.  (I encourage his visits after he has been away as he normally brings me a large blue bottle from duty free!)

 

So there I was, making dinner for three men, the ultimate feminist - when I had need of my little rubber male replacement tool.  I keep it in the third drawer down in my kitchen drawers, as the kitchen is where I use it the most.  It's orange and rubber and dimpled, and it comes in handy when I don't have a man around.  But it failed to satisfy this particular night.  I had no choice but to get a strong male to help with the task.

I had a choice of three.  Mr K was otherwise occupied - having decided that now, with guests here, was a good time to fix the light in the pool.  He now had transformers and screwdrivers and globes on the outdoor table.

Mr New Bachelor was busy opening beer.

So that left Uncle J, who first had to give me stick for needing a man in the first place, teasing me that I had my own device for the job.  I told him that yes, I did have my rubber man, but this night, I could not manage on my own.  I needed a real man.  I think he liked the ego boost as he did as he was asked.

Either that, or he really wanted the pickled onions in the jar I was trying to open.

Do you have a rubber man in your drawers?

Mine was a party gift from Tupperware

A Story of Seven Summers - Hilary Burden

A book review, with love. 

This book has been a kind of bittersweet affair - I have wanted to read it, but also not wanted to.  So, not one to believe in 'fate' or 'it was meant to be' - I picked this book up last Friday when Strawb and I had a girls day out that started at the match-made-in-heaven Bookcaffe.  After morning tea (which sad to say was ordinary, except for the chai latte) I could not walk out of a bookshop without at least buying one book.  There this book was, begging me to buy her.

Let me explain why this was bittersweet.  I first saw this book review in my favorite magazine Country Style.  I could just tell by the cover alone that it was my kind of book - one that would have me wishing for more in my life, wishing to be somewhere and someone else. Chooks, apples, basket of herbs, a veranda ... yep, my kind of book alright.  Reading the review and the words Tasmania and Writer popped up.  OK, this was becoming like my ultimate fantasy (well the one where I am skinny and rolling about in the hay with a long haired Brad Pitt isn't going to happen anytime soon, so I needed a back-up fantasy).

I wasn't so sure about the red shoes, they don't look they would be much use in a chicken pen, but hey, who am I to judge - it was someone else's biography.  Hilary Burden is actually a very down to earth, warm and talented writer.  She left a career in journalism in London to go back to her home state of Tasmania, buy an old run down farm house, called White Cottage, but what Hilary calls, The Nuns House, as it used to be inhabited by Nuns, to live and thrive on her own.

I love the way she writes with such candor, with a personality and light shone on everyday, ordinary things and places.  It was like I became one of her close neighbours or friends and shared everything with her.  And the bonus at the end of each chapter was a country style recipe. I am going to try each and every one starting with the lemonade as I have an abundance of lemons at the moment.

Although I loved the book, and read it in 2 days, I knew it would stir up feelings of deep longing and frustration that I want to live this lifestyle, but I am stuck where I am for the next 5 years at least.  I have always wanted to go to Tasmania, but I cant bear to go visit - knowing that I will love the place and have to make the tough decision to either come home, or give up my family, friends and life here in WA, to stay.

Mr K has made a joke of it for years, that he won't ever take me to Tassie.  He knows too, that my heart won't come back from there if I go.

So, if you have a stronger constitution than me, do read the book if you get the chance.  It's so well written, uniquely Australian and country.  Hilary has also started a fresh produce business, and this is her blog about it. 

Hilbarn

Thai marinated pork chops with chilli dressing - Makes Bob a Good Cook!

This recipe is the discovery of the year... what my Dad calls a real 'Keeper'  And this was the letter I sent into Delicious Magazine to explain why...

You know how they say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?  Well my dad, along with my back catalogue of Delicious magazines is living proof you can!  I recently had my country parents come to stay with me in the city as my mum needed a hip replacement.  My dad was to take over the cooking duties for her when they got back home.  Doing a bit of homework, he came across my stash of Delicious magazines in my cookbook bookcase.  Each morning, at breakfast, he would read a new magazine, with accompanying yumms, and oohs and ‘oh this looks nice’.  He would carefully write out the list of ingredients of his chosen dish, periodically asking me what things like star anise or mascarpone was.  We would then go shopping, prepare the meal that night and a whole world of food and cooking and delight opened up to him.   When they got home, Dad ordered his own Delicious subscription, reworked the vegetable patch to include lots and lots of herbs and restocked the pantry!  My Mum is now well on the way to recovery and could take back the cooking reins but my Dad, the 75 year old, Old Dog, is having a ball.  So is my Mum!

Thai marinated pork chops with chilli dressing (<-- Original Recipe here)
Serves 4

4 eschalots, sliced
1 tbs grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Handful coriander, including stems, coarsely chopped
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs caster sugar
4 (about 200g each) pork cutlets
Olive oil, to brush
1 Lebanese cucumber, cut into chunks
Chilli dressing (recipe below) and mint leaves, to serve

1. Place eschalot, ginger, garlic, coriander, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, sea salt and pepper in a food processor and whiz to a paste. Transfer to a shallow, non-metallic dish and add the cutlets. Mix well, then cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
2. Preheat a barbecue or chargrill pan to medium-high heat and brush lightly with oil.
3. Grill cutlets for 3-4 minutes each side or until cooked to your liking.
4. Serve with cucumber, chilli dressing and mint leaves.

Chilli dressing
Serves 4

2 tbs rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tbs caster sugar
1 tbs fish sauce
1 long red chilli, finely chopped
1 tbs thinly sliced spring onion
1/4 Lebanese cucumber, seeds removed, finely chopped

1. Place vinegar, sugar and fish sauce in a bowl and stir until sugar has dissolved.
2. Stir in chilli, spring onion and cucumber.

I have done this with lamb chops (Mr K's favorite), beef spare ribs and the pork.  All are equally scrumptious.  The Chilli dressing is also lovely over a salad or grilled vegetables.  Beware however ... once you have had this, you will never want to cook plain chops again!

Would love any feedback if you try it?

1910

This is one of my favorite pictures.  I received it last Christmas as a gift from my parents.  It's beautifully framed and sits in my dining room.  When I first opened the wrapping paper and saw the image I thought, WOW, what an awesome picture.  It had everything that appealed to me - old houses, people with character, the era, rural life, sepia photography.  Mum and Dad sure did a good job of choosing this picture for me.

Except they didn't ...choose it that is.  This photo is actually of my own family.  Despite many (as in 25) years of doing my family history, I had never seen these people or this photo before.  The people are Thomas and Harriett Russell, at their home in Blayney NSW. It was taken in 1910.  I wont bore you with the rest of their genealogy, but so you can get your bearings, they are my great great grandparents.

My Dresser where their photo sits with all my other cherished things.

 

The reason I am sharing this with you today is I had this thought while I sat at my dining table reading recipe books (well Delicious magazine actually, what Mr K calls my 'porn') and making a shopping list of ingredients to concoct all the wonderful meals I salivated over.  It dawned on me, as I wiped drool off the pages, and looked at this picture, that my dear great, great grandmother, Harriet, would never have had such a luxury of choosing a recipe and popping down the shops for the ingredients. 

Quite the opposite in fact.  She would have looked at what food was available and thought "What can I make with this?"  She would have had very little I am guessing.  A chicken did not come in neatly packaged Styrofoam trays, with skin removed and boned.  A chicken was killed only for a special occasion (that's why a Sunday roast was so special) and it would make three meals at least - the Roast, leftover meat would be picked off the bone for a chicken and vegetable pie and then the bones used to make chicken soup.  Nothing was wasted, not like today when I cringe when I see a chicken carcass tipped into the bin, the breast and legs pulled off and the rest discarded.  We are so wasteful.  If we went back to the old days where we had to breed and care for that chicken we would understand the value of it.

There was not a rainbow of vegetables to choose from either.  What was available was whatever was in season.  Food could not be grown all year round, we had to eat what the climate and mother nature dictated.  Necessity to preserve means we have yummy things like pickles and preserves and dried fruit and vegetables.  I find when I have to be frugal, I get far more creative in the kitchen.  Even if we don't have to really pinch pennies, I still regularly have a clean out the pantry/freezer challenge and see what I can make with what I have to hand. 

I feel sad sometimes that we dont live like this anymore.  I yearn for a more 'connected' life, one that we have skin in the game in.  I want to feel proud that I grew what I cooked, and feel a sense of satisfaction from this.  We have lost our connection to what it means to be a human at its basic levels.  Sometimes I just have an overwhelming NEED to get my hands in soil and compost. 

I wonder if we dont all have this desire inside too?  Is that why there has been such a resurgence of people having backyard veg gardens and chooks.  Is this how we will get the best of both worlds? 

 

Quiche - for real men

When I first started being responsible for myself, I started to cook and to understand that cooking was really just a science experiment - with a whole lot of luck and disasters thrown in.
 
One of the first things that I tackled as a new wife, was quiche.  In Australia, in the early 1980's, quiche (or egg and bacon pie) was only for 'poofta's*'.  Real Men Did Not Eat Quiche.  But they liked a good egg and bacon pie.  Mr K was not a poofter, well if he was he would not have married me, so I knew he was man enough to eat, and ultimately enjoy, quiche.
 

My first attempt at the French Quiche Lorraine was a unmitigated disaster.  Soggy yet at the same time crumbly pastry (took a lot of talent to manage that) egg mixture that had curdled and gone hard (again, how I got two opposing states in one glorious pie is any ones guess) and a watery ooze that really made the whole thing a dogs dinner (literally, the dog got to eat it and even she picked out the bits of bacon and turned her nose up at the rest)
 
Never one to admit defeat, I set about becoming the Queen of Quiche trying the Margaret Fulton recipe over and over again until I could proudly call myself Lorraine!  I have tweaked it and adapted this recipe until it made its way into my recipe book written in Biro (no less)!  It's been a staple meal over the years, always a good impromptu lunch, or dinner with a salad, or when I do mini quiches, catering for the masses.

 
I hadn't made one for ages, and had the urge a few weeks back to make one for lunch.  Tried a few tweaks of the old recipe and I like this one even more.  I have used my favorite Aussie cook, Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry recipe, which is very much like my own pastry I made up, except simpler.  Then a very basic egg and cream mix, add bacon, cheese and any vegies and you are done.  It turns out beautiful everytime, a great one to impress the girls at lunch.
 

 
Here is the original pastry recipe:
 
Maggie Beer - sour-cream-pastry-recipe

Pastry
 
125ml sour cream
250g plain flour
200g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

Process in a food processor, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30mins

I don't blind bake this, just roll it out, put into a pie tin (one with a removable base) then refrigerate until the filling is ready.  When I do bake it, I put the pie dish onto another heavy tray to help cook the bottom.

Cut up 250g packet of rindless bacon into thin slices.  Fry off until just cooked. 

Mix in a bowl -

6 free range eggs -please be kind to hens and use free range.
300ml cream
salt & pepper
chives and/or parsley

Grate -
100g Gruyere cheese or similar

Now assemble the pie.  Spread bacon on the uncooked pastry base.  Then the cheese.  Pour over egg/cream mix.

I sometimes add asparagus, or zucchini.

Bake for 10mins in 200 oven, then turn down to 180 and cook for further 30mins.  It should look cooked but still have a slight wobble.

Cool and serve with a salad.
 

 * No offence intended with this word, I am just using a colloquial term from the era when this was stated.