It takes a lot of figs to persuade me to bake with them. Figs are like the perfect fruit. They taste amazing, they’re beautiful, you can have them sweet (raisin toast and ricotta) or savoury (with rocket, blue cheese and balsamic on flatbread), and I can eat them until I run out of daylight. But […]
Tagged abundance, awesome, figgy figgy fig figYesterday was beautiful. Sunny and breezy, we went walking through the paddocks behind my parents’ house, where there’s a creek with wild quince, fig and walnut trees, wild blackberries, wild rabbits — I know. It’s all so perfect that I’d suspect my parents’ place had a gas leak, but then how did these BAGS AND […]
Tagged abundance, figgy figgy fig fig, jam!One thing I noticed very quickly while researching cheese recipes was the number of FAQs that dealt with the issue of what to do with leftover whey. When you make cheese, you separate almost all the fats, sugars, proteins and other good stuff into the curds, and then lift those out of the watery whey. […]
Tagged adventures in cooking, cheeseYou would not believe how many puns there are that incorporate the Australianised pronunciation of “pho”. I have so far dodged all of them. You’re welcome. I made pho! Back in the day, when I still ate meat, pho was one of my favourite things in the whole world. I loved the flavours, the smell, […]
Tagged awesome, beautiful soupI understand the science (kind of) and the process, but it still blows my mind. Warm the milk, add the culture; let it sit, add the rennet; let it sit…CURDS. Cheesemaking is rocking me in no small way. I’ve made four (successful) batches of cheese now, and that last moment where you approach the pot […]
Tagged adventures in cooking, cheese, science!It was kismet. A few days at home, sick, reading up on cheesemaking; then I get back to work and, before I can dismiss the idea as the fevered ravings of a feverish fool with a fever, my coworker starts talking excitedly about her friend’s triumph in home haloumi. If that complete stranger can do […]
Tagged adventures in cooking, cheese, science!I spent a very happy couple of hours pondering what books to take to NZ with me. I knew I wanted something challenging, but not off-putting. Last time we went to NZ I fell deeply in love with Virgina Woolf, from the moment I started reading The Waves (I was sitting on the front porch […]
Tagged reading timeHopefully you’ve now got a good ol’ Salt N Pepa chorus bouncing unceasingly around your cerebral orb. I’m in love with a pressure cooker. I know I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but seriously: did you know you can cook beetroots — whole beetroots! — in like twenty minutes? That’s so fast. That’s…like, stupid fast. […]
Tagged beautiful soup, pressured