Tired for Mother's Day

Last Friday after the May races I was feeling extremely delicate.  How old am I going to be before I realise that gin and tonics are not an adequate substitute for food?  It was a fantastic day as always, and beats any day at Flemington hands down.  I am going to gloss over the "incident" of a horse in the Grand Annual leaping a two metre high fence into a crowd of onlookers who were outside the track.  Enough has been said already.  It was a most unfortunate freak accident (not many horses can jump that high).

Friday, then, was a day for ugg boots, lighting the fire and a bit of cooking.  Every time I walk into the pantry I have to pass three of these:

which the hunter and gatherer husband bought home from a duck shoot over Easter.  Time for action, I thought to myself, and so I made some soup.  I often cook the pumpkin for soup in the oven, which is lovely, but due to my weak condition I decided to throw the onion and garlic in the roasting pan as well.   Worked a treat.

There are no specific measurements to this recipe, just use what you have and just cover with the stock.

Preheat the oven to 180c.  Peel, seed and chop the pumpkin.  I used about half of the above.  Place in a  large roasting tin and add a chopped onion (or a couple of leeks would be good too) and about 5 cloves of garlic, not peeled.

Season with s & p and drizzle with olive oil.  Put in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes.  At this point I went outside to do some gardening and forgot about the pumpkin.  It probably had about an hour and 15 minutes and was a little charred on the edges, but it didn't seem to matter.

Put it all in a large saucepan and squeeze the garlic from its skin.  Cover with chicken stock.  Heat gently so the stock is warm.  Whizz with stick blender or in a food processor.  Season with salt and pepper and a little nutmeg and some cream to finish.  I crumbled over some Meredith Dairy goat's cheese and chives from the garden.

Helped the hangover enormously.  We then went out on Friday and Saturday night so by Sunday I was beyond doing much at all.  I do not expect much on Mother's Day and the Little Princess bought me this charming treasure from the Mother's Day stall at school, (which I paid for).  She also wrote a very sweet card which makes it all worthwhile.

Look how well my cauliflowers and spinach are growing... I only put them in the other day

as well as the garlic and rocket..

Musical

The Little Princess was introduced recently to the musical South Pacific by her grandmother.

She has been floating around the house singing There is Nothing Like a Dame, Bloody Mary and I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair.  Good housework music, and so so catching.  Can't get that song right out of my head.  I remember listening to Mum's copy of the vinyl record when I was about her age.  (Showing my age now...).  I think she would love My Fair Lady too, with Wouldn't it be Loverly, The Rain in Spain and the Ascot Gavotte and "in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen."  

Annette, who helps me in the garden, gave me these lovely nugget pumpkins.  I hollowed one out and put in some butter, a little olive oil, garlic, sage, pine nuts and salt and pepper, put the lid back on and cooked it in the oven for about an hour.  Delicious.

Cooking continues apace for the holidays and Easter.  Inspired by Zachary Pelaccio who I saw at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, I boned out a leg of lamb and put it in a flavoured brine for dinner on Tuesday night for some friends.   

That's what it looked like after being in the brine for 24 hours.  I put it on the barbeque as normal and it was great, just giving the lamb a different edge.  Sorry no pic (camera broken, phone in car when carving).  More on Easter to follow.