My brand new obsession with River Cottage...

For the last week or so, I’ve been sewing into the night; but for a change, I’ve been having a wander online, instead of resorting to the rubbish that we generally watch on the tele. Most nights see me settling in with a big pile of hand sewing, a steaming mug of tea and some kind of sweet treat, and exploring ABC’s iview - and Oh my goodness me! – I’ve discovered the gorgeous, wholesome, homemade world of River Cottage.

Have you watched it before? If not, go for a look here – it was this breakfast episode that had me sewing too slowly for my own good, and salivating at how seriously good and nourishing something as simple as oats can be (and sure, I’ll admit it: I marched off to the shops the next day, stocked up, and I’ll be giving that muesli with orange juice and fresh sliced apple a go this week).

Are you a fan of River Cottage too?

Nat

Baking and making the day away...

There are definitely Christmas-related smells.

For me, it’s spices: ginger, mixed spice, cinnamon and ground cloves. Sometimes even nutmeg. It was heady in my kitchen over the weekend, as I baked the most beautiful pumpkin pies; and it made me smile today, as I introduced the kids to their first Christmas baking experience – a tradition that I’m hoping to encourage within our small family, complete with all the smells, mixing, taste testing and patient waiting that goes along with it.

Our lovely Aunt and cousin have a yearly baking tradition that we were keen to get involved with; and this morning we smelled and mixed, and measured and tasted our way through Grandma’s boiled fruit cake recipe (laden with rum-soaked fruit, nuts, stewed prunes and piles of zesty peel), and a big batch of sticky, moreish rum balls.

I watched the kids mix at the table, standing up on their chairs – absolutely engrossed in the step-by-step process going on around them; best-loved carols played on in the background, spices measured out teaspoon by teaspoon, and once the lid was lifted, the strong smell of the soaked fruit filled the air. It warmed my heart – sharing this with family, and introducing it to Judah and Lou. Coming from a family of the most amazing cooks, the love of cooking and of food is something I’m so keen to weave into their young lives.

The weather turned cool and windy this afternoon, and as I tidied up, I eyed an ice-cream tub full of cherry tomatoes from the garden, which we can’t seem to eat through fast enough. And after a full, sweet day of happy cooking and comfortable chatter, I felt ready (and inspired) to do just a little more.

Relish, perhaps?

Thank goodness for Steph from Mon Petit Poppet, who luckily had posted a recipe not too long ago. The tomatoes were cut up in a flash, generously salted and peppered, and are, as I type, roasting beautifully in the oven.

Don’t you just love productive cooking days?

How was your day today?

Baking = Serenity

I bake a lot when I’m stressed.

It’s something I realised over the weekend, after a particularly challenging morning with the kids, a whole stack of sewing to somehow speed through, and what seemed like hundreds of tedious household jobs to somehow squeeze into the mix. Without really thinking about it, I put some music on, and got out my mixing bowls, some eggs, the flour – and while I chopped, fried, mixed and waited, I was aware of how much calmer I’d become. And how much more achievable all those tasks seemed to be.

I know it was probably just the act of having a small window of time to myself, but lately, it’s gone hand in hand with cooking, and I’m not necessarily complaining – and actually, neither are my family. In the last week alone, stress has led me to bake two gorgeous batches of sultana, honey and oat slice, a lovely silky lemon tart, and a hearty loaf filled with roasted pumpkin, feta and crispy bacon (spread with a little garlic and chive dip – divine!).

How do you deal with stress?

Nat

Image from here.

Point and Shoot: Our Weekend that Was

We’re joining in with lovely Lou’s meme tonight – Point and Shoot. It’s been a while since I’ve taken photos with a P&S purpose, but we’ve just had the loveliest, loveliest weekend – wanna see?

It all started with a lemon tart - my first lemon tart making experience - and it just happened to be so, so good that I made it twice in two days. The first was shared with dear friends after a seafood feast; the second was horded and eaten sparingly, in a savouring-the-refreshing-sweetness-of-it-all kind of way…

The kids were handed oversized gardening gloves on our sunny Sunday morning, and put to work tidying up the sorely neglected vegetable garden. And underneath all those prickly cobblers pegs and spiky, suffocating weeds, were these vibrant beauties…

We turned the soil, all rich and loamy after a few days of rain; we hunted through the strawberry leaves to see if any new berries were forming, rubbed fresh picked lavender between our hands to release its heady scent, and worked up a sweat in the gorgeously warm spring-time sunshine.

There was a long, lazy afternoon of sewing – piecing, pinning and pulling together the six cheerful citrus blocks from my beginners sampler quilt (I didn’t think it was possible, but it seems to be even brighter now that it’s edged with the chocolate brown sashings!)...

…and a big, hearty tart filled with slow roasted winter vegetables and melt-in-the-mouth Danish feta for Sunday dinner (I meant to take a photo of this too, but it was cut up and tucked into too quickly).

Some weekends are just meant for family and pottering, aren’t they? 

Nat

Ps. Got some wonderful photos from your weekend that was too? Join in! Visit Sunny + Scout here to link up with Lou’s P&S post. And check out her beautiful, candid photography while you’re there – it’s heartwarming, honest and utterly delightful x

B is for Barossa

In nearly seven weeks, we’re going on a girly family holiday (kids included, of course) to South Australia. It’s the first time that Mum, Kim and I will have taken a holiday together, the first time the kids will brave a plane flight, and the first time visiting our beautiful southern cousins for a wedding in the iconic Barossa Valley.

We’ve been talking about what we can do when we’re there – and first on the list (aside from spending lots of time with our family), is a visit to Maggie Beer’s Farm shop in the Barossa Valley. I’m already mentally writing a long list of purchases, including fig and spiced pear paste, some amazing ice cream (burnt fig, caramel and honeycomb!), and some delish pheasant pate. I can’t wait to bring them home to share!

But we’re looking for suggestions – what else should we check out while we’re there? Is there anything, aside from all the lovely wineries, that is too deliciously good to pass up?

Nat

Image from here.

Georgie Porgie Puddin’ and Pie…

I was pretty excited to find out this week that it’s the year of the homemade pie. Yeah, I know – with eight months already gone, celebrations on the virtues of the humble pie are a little late; but I’m all about embracing delicious things, so today I’m appreciating the goodness and loveliness that is all things pie-like.

Our pie maker gets a decent workout in our kitchen – almost on a weekly basis. Do you have one?

Our regular pie fillings include:

-         Leftover bolognaise with fluffy mashed potato and freshly grated parmesan

-         Basil pesto, chicken, bacon, pine nuts, fresh cherry tomatoes and roasted mushroom

-         Roasted vegetables (pumpkin, potato, red capsicum, mushroom, and zucchini), Danish feta and sweet chilli sauce

-         Leftover chicken curry

But my absolute melt-in-the-mouth all time favourite pie filling definitely has to be chicken and tarragon. So far, it’s the only recipe that sees Judah and Lou licking their plates clean and asking for more… which can be a rarity with toddlers!

Nat’s deliciously good chicken

and tarragon pie

Ingredients:

About 40g of butter

2 tbs plain flour

1 leek, ends trimmed and thinly sliced

1 ½ cups of chicken stock

½ cup of thickened cream

1 ½ tsp dried tarragon

Pepper

3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

4-6 large-ish mushrooms, thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 egg, whisked (if making a big pie)

And for the cheating bit:

Store-bought shortcrust and puff pastry, thawed just a little

What to do:

Add a splash of oil to a frying pan, and cook the mushrooms until soft. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon, and return the pan to the heat. Cook the chicken pieces in batches until cooked through. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat until bubby and foaming. Add the leek and cook for five minutes, or until the leek softens. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for five minutes, or until the mixture starts to bubble. Remove from the heat and gradually add in the stock, whisking until smooth.

Whisk in the cream, tarragon and pepper to the flour mix, and season with salt. Stir through the chicken and mushrooms. Set aside to cool completely.

If you’ve got a pie maker: Line the pie shell with store bought shortcrust pastry when just warming up. Spoon in the pie filling, and top with a circle of puff pastry. Close the lid and cook for 5 minutes, or until the base of  the pie is golden.

If you’re going for a more traditional pie: Line a 22cm springform pan with the shortcrust pastry and gently press to mould to pan. Spoon the chicken mixture in, and place another sheet of puff pastry over the pie filling, trimming the edges to fit. Pinch to close, and cut three small slits in the centre of the pie to allow the steam to escape. Brush the pie with the whisked egg before placing in the oven (at 180°C). Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until crisp and golden on the top. Set aside to cool slightly before eating.

Oh goodness, I do love pies. They’re just made to be shared, aren’t they?

Do you have a favourite pie recipe?

Nat

Ps. And my favourite pie movie? Waitress, with the gorgeous Keri Russell. ‘Bad Baby Pie’ still gets me giggling…

Image from here.

Grateful #18 – What are you thankful for today?

I would, you know; I'm just that kinda girl. Image from here.

Anyone that knows us, knows that Kim and I are food lovin’ gals. We talk about food a lot, bake weekly, try out and share new recipes, dream about banoffie pies, mellow pear filled tarts, and heart-starting curries. Our beautiful extended family are foodies too, thank goodness! – and they share our love of delicious things, and talk, bake and swap recipes just as enthusiastically.

And have you noticed? There’s a joy that comes with cooking and sharing food with people you love – it wraps the whole experience up in warmth and togetherness.

So because food plays such an important part of our lives, this week I’m very grateful for:

A full fridge. Pretty simple, I know; but how lucky are we to always have a full fridge, stuffed with lots of fresh food? It’s something I take for granted a lot – being able to buy what I need, to feed my children, to cook whatever I like for my family – but it’s given me a reason to pause this week and appreciate the fact that we have everything we need. So very grateful.

Family recipes. We have a small collection of recipes, handwritten by my Grandma, who was the most amazing cook. I can still remember the curry-spice smell of her small kitchen, the way that she would hum made-up songs while cooking, and the instinctive way that she added ingredients to her cooking. She cooked with love and with a generous heart.

Kim and I decoded* her recipes a couple of years ago and incorporated them into a family recipe book, along with nearly one hundred of the best-loved and most delicious recipes from all the girls (and some of the cooking lads) in our family. It’s a lovely treasury – filled with deliciously good and patiently tried and tested recipes, some passed down over generations, others picked up along the way and turned into family favourites. Because I cook from this recipe book a lot, it reminds me often of what a legacy cooking can sometimes be; flavours and tastes transcending time and country, recipes followed to the letter decades before, now passed down to a new generation of family cooks, eager to taste the life that their great aunts and grandparents lived before. Our recipe book is an eclectic mix of traditional Indian and modern day everything; and this week I’m trying out my Aunty Jean’s lamb garam masala, because I’m craving a wee bit of spice in my life.

The loveliness of eating good food with loved friends. I made an Italian beef ragu and invited some of our dear friends around during the week to try it out. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best dish I’d ever made, and could have done with another couple of hours in the slow cooker, but the company was lovely, wine glasses and bottles littered the table (on a school night!), the beef tender, and saucy plates were mopped up with good garlicky bread. The kids stayed up until they were delirious with sleeplessness, and we laughed, chatted and ate in front of a roaring fire. I love the way that food draws people together, don’t you?

What are you thankful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Grateful’s are being hosted this week by the lovely Beth at BabyMac – you should join in too! Link your list to her Grateful post here, or write your Grateful list in the comments section below.

* If you’ve got recipes that have been passed down to you, you may know what I mean. Spidery handwriting, abbreviations, measurements like, ‘a dash,’ or ‘a vis’ and sometimes no measurements at all, trusting that the reader will know by heart how much to add in.

Grateful #11 – What are you thankful for today?

And look! We’re in June already! This week has been a blur of things and stuff and to-do’s being ticked off, but in amidst of all the chaos, this week I was grateful for:

The loveliness of cooking something brand new. I often get into a little rut regarding cooking, and tend to make the same easy things over and over again when I’m short on time. But lately, I’ve been making an effort to try a new recipe a week, and it’s been quite nice making simple, hearty dishes into new family favourites.

This week we tried a delish roasted pumpkin, green bean and feta salad with lovely marinated lamb steaks, and a chicken and spinach potato bake, with a creamy bacon and mushroom sauce. And while it’s nothing fancy, it’s a tasty change from the usual suspects.

Pigtails and Plaits. One sunny, summer afternoon a long, long time ago, my very patient Grandmother taught me how to braid my dolls hair, as we sat together on her bed, silent but enjoying being together. It’s been such a long time since I thought about that memory; but it was the first thing that came to mind as I plaited my little daughter’s hair for the first time this week. It made me grateful for the simple skills that are passed down from generation to generation, and the sweetness of the memories associated with their learning.

What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Join in! Link your Grateful post back to the lovely Maxabella Loves, or write your grateful list in the comment section below x

Image from here.

Cool, calm and collected in the kitchen

Every time I look at these cards, it makes me feel like baking.
In my imagination, my fake self is baking ridiculously beautiful cakes and tarts, wearing a sweet frilled apron and high heels, and has perfectly coiffed hair. The kitchen is gleaming, the children are clean and sweet as sugar, I'm multi-tasking like a professional, and even manage to sit down (daintily) for a cup of real tea in a china tea cup.
You can see it too, right?

Available in our Etsy shop now!

Nat