What's up Doc..

Oak tree with daffodils

Since it's been such a doom 'n gloom year in our neck of the woods (failed spring, late break, green drought) it has been nice to see some decent rainfalls over the last week or so.  The upside of a drier than normal winter is that the ewes are not lambing down in flooded paddocks so it is more pleasant for them.  We are in the thick of lambing....

so long walks across the paddocks are out, much to the disappointment of my walking companions.  Although the dogs are much more interested in chasing rabbits, we don't want to mis-mother the lambs.

Can't cross the creek..

I have been picking some ginormous carrots out of the veggie garden.  At last, after many failures, I have worked out that you need to dig a trench and fill it with seed raising mix and plant the seeds into that.

So I have been finding different ways to use them.    Of course, being winter, I had to make soup...

with a touch of ginger and some toasted almonds on top.  I also found a recipe in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden book for an Italian Almond and Carrot Cake:

Now I realise this looks more like a pair of fish fingers, but it really was a good cake, it just didn't rise much, and I did forget to put the pine nuts on the top before it went into the oven.  Dear old carrots, they are never really the star of the show, but they can be so very good in lots of ways:  scorched in a hot oven beside a roast, shredded in a stir fry or in a carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  And I love baby carrots roasted and used as a salad with feta, nuts and herbs. 

At long last my chooks have started to lay again.  The Isa Browns usually keep laying all year but the Australorps and Rhode Island Reds simply refuse to lay when the days are short.   I am loving having a soft boiled egg for breakfast, especially when it is dusted with some truffle infused salt.....amazing.

 I watched Heston Blumenthal on Masterchef the other night and he demonstrated an interesting method for making scrambled eggs.  I have always been of the school that cooks the bacon in the pan then scrambles the eggs in the residual bacon fat (plus a little butter).  Until now.  Heston's method is the BEST and you must try it.

For two people:

Fill a saucepan a third full with water and bring to a gentle simmer.

In a glass bowl (I didn't have one so I used a stainless steel one) put:

4 eggs

1 tblsp milk

1 tblsp cream

small knob butter

a little salt

DO NOT WHISK.

Place the bowl over the simmering water and using a spatula gently stir the mix until it looks like scrambled eggs. 

 Put on the plate and finish with a little pepper and maybe some chopped chives.  You won't look back.

It goes without saying that this is always going to be better with free range organic eggs, any egg dish is really and caged hens should be outlawed.  Better still, get a couple of chooks and enjoy the pleasure of your own eggs and having somewhere other than the bin for your food scraps.

Eggs

These are the eggs that the Wyandottes are laying:

I think the really white ones are from the Speckled Hamburg.  They are quite small, so very handy if you halve a recipe and only need half an egg, or for brushing pastry, or a single serve of spaghetti carbonara (daughter's current preferred Sunday night supper)  and they look rather lovely atop a muffin for breakfast. The chooks are laying well at the moment so I have plenty of eggs to give away and still have a steady supply to cook with.

A good way to use up eggs is by making a frittata, which is a nutritious lunch dish, and a great way to use up a few stray veggies.  It doesn't really require a recipe as such, but here is roughly what I do:

Heat the oven to 180c.  Chop up some pumpkin, potato or sweet potato, drizzle with olive oil and cook for 25 minutes until starting to brown and is cooked through.

In a pan gently cook some leek and bacon (zucchini, grated or sliced, mushrooms and red capsicum are good too).

Line a tin with baking paper and spread the pumpkin, leek and bacon over the base.  I often add a few teaspoons of marinated goat's cheese or feta too.  Whisk 5 eggs and  a tablespoon of cream and pour over the veg.  Season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup or so of some nice tasty cheese and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and starting to brown on the top.

Last week I made some individual ham and pea frittatas which I then froze in a plastic bag and are great the school lunch box. 

I also whipped up a passionfruit pudding, similar to one that was published in The Age a few weeks ago.  This is similar to the classic Lemon Delicious.

PASSIONFRUIT PUDDING  Serves 4-5

60g softened butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 eggs, separated

2 tblsp SR flour, sifted

Juice and zest of one lemon

Pulp of 3 large passionfruit

1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 170c.

Cream butter and sugar and add egg yolks one at a time.  Add flour, lemon juice and zest, milk and passionfruit pulp and beat well.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into through the batter.

Pour into a buttered pudding dish (or individual ones), place in a water bath and cook for 30 minutes until golden brown.

It was a beautiful day yesterday so we sat outside to have lunch.

I found this late winter salad recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi whilst reading the Guardian website the other day.  It is a lovely salad, though the philistine menfolk proclaimed it a "chick's salad".

Blood orange and anchovy salad

Of all the salted anchovies in oil on the market, the Spanish Ortiz brand is probably the best (Brindisa sells them at £17.50 for six 47g tins). They are meaty, just salty enough and are filleted properly, by hand, so they don't share that gritty texture many anchovies seem to have. For those people who just can't stand anchovies (even ones as good as these), capers make an adequate substitute. Likewise, normal oranges work perfectly well when blood oranges are not around. Serves four.

3 tbsp white-wine vinegar
100ml olive oil
Coarse sea salt and black pepper
200g raw fennel, cut widthways into 2mm slices
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
5 blood oranges (about 400g in all)
60g radishes, thinly sliced
70g Kalamata olives, pitted
20g basil leaves, roughly shredded
10g tarragon leaves, roughly chopped
30g Ortiz anchovies, cut into 2cm-long pieces
40g rocket

Put half the vinegar, three tablespoons of the olive oil and some salt in a bowl, stir in the sliced fennel and set aside to soften for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast the fennel seeds and coriander seeds in a dry frying pan for about two minutes, until they just begin to release their aroma, then crush roughly with a pestle and mortar.

Chop off and discard the ends of the oranges. One by one, stand the oranges upright on a chopping board and, with a sharp knife, cut downwards to remove the skin and pith in neat sections. Once peeled, cut each orange into 0.5cm thick slices (you'll get around six slices from each orange) and place in a bowl.

Add the radishes, olives, basil, tarragon, anchovies, rocket, softened fennel and crushed fennel and coriander seeds. Add the remaining oil and vinegar, and toss the salad gently – it's always best to use your hands for this. Season to taste, then divide between four plates and serve.

I didn't have any radishes or tarragon (or Oritz anchovies for that matter) but it was still very good.

The first iris

Despite the sunshine yesterday it is still very wet here.  Every time the humble shepherd husband goes out around his sheep I await the "I'm bogged" phone call.  Mud everywhere...