Our Red House

Little Lemon Meringue Pies (and Thoughts on School Formals)

2013-05-04T20:10:00.003+09:30

School formals in 2013 are much more complicated (and elongated) affairs than when I was at school.

To begin with, when I was a teenager, formals were only for year 12s, while these days year 11s often attend as well.

Where we spent money on a dress, shoes and having our hair done, these days there are manicures, pedicures, professional make up and fake tans to consider.

When I was at school, girls were collected by their partner (or their partner and his mum or dad if he couldn't drive) and travelled directly to the formal.

These days there is usually a before party, a trip on a limo or party bus, the formal itself, and then an after-party that requires an entirely different outfit.

Tonight my daughter went to her school formal. Fortunately for my bank account, she only wanted a frock and hairdo, not the manicures, pedicures and so on that so many of her friends insisted upon.

We did agree to host a before party, and along with various savoury canapes I made little lemon meringue pies.

They were easy and fun to make. I prepared shortcrust pastry and cut it to fit cupcake tins. I filled the unbaked pastry shells with home-made lemon curd which I already had in the fridge and baked the tarts for 20 minutes in a moderate oven.

When the lemon tarts came out of the oven I removed them from the cupcake tins and put them on an oven tray. I made meringue from 3 egg whites and 2/3 cup sugar and piped it on top of the tarts, then they went back in a moderately slow oven for about 15 minutes.

These tarts were definitely the most popular thing we served tonight.

Isn't she lovely?

Finally, a Mirror

2013-03-13T19:24:00.000+10:30

My husband I are really slow when it comes to buying furnishings for our home.

For nearly two years after we moved into our house in March 2010 we had very little furniture in our sitting room.

In late 2011 we finally bought the two sofas you see below. The china cabinet, which belonged to my husband's grandparents, was sent to us by a family member and the coffee table was a gift from a friend moving interstate. It had come to her from her grandmother.

For three years there was a big gap over the fireplace. We knew that we wanted to hang a mirror there, but it took us a long time to get around to buying one.

Finally, a few weeks ago we bought a mirror. Its gilt border works well with our colour scheme and I think it will hang over that mantel for a long, long time. We bought the mirror from a very small, dusty, local shop and the man who sold it looked thrilled to have made a sale.

Now I would like a rug for the family room and then I will be done decorating. For a while, at least.

A Very Local Pumpkin Salad

2013-03-12T17:08:00.000+10:30

Once a month I attend a food swap at a local park. People bring food they have grown in their gardens, we lay it all out on a table, then everybody takes what they want.

This salad was a result of the March swap. Every ingredient apart from the feta, garlic, olive oil (which was South Australian), salt and pepper either came from my garden or from a backyard within a few hundred metres of my home.

The salad was utterly delicious.

Pumpkin and Feta salad

Pumpkin (diced, massaged with olive oil and roasted on an oven tray for 30 minutes)
A few cloves garlic (roast in their skins with the pumpkin, then squeeze out into the salad)
Capsicum (chargrilled, then peeled and sliced)
Eggplant (sliced thinly then fried or grilled)
Rocket
Spring onions (diced)

The above ingredients were combined with a salad dressing made from a dash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Pumpkin Scones

2013-03-09T21:52:00.002+10:30

Inspired by my backyard pumpkin glut, this week I made pumpkin scones for the first time in several years. The scones were a hit, especially when served dripping in butter and golden syrup.

The beauty of pumpkin scones is that they don't really taste of pumpkin, which means my kids will eat them. Especially when I don't actually tell the said kids that the scones they are eating have pumpkin in them.

The recipe I use comes from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, 1996. I previously published the recipe here, although this time I made small individual scones rather that a large round cut in wedges.

A Glut of Pumpkins

2013-03-04T22:06:00.001+10:30

My garden is overflowing with pumpkins.

None were planted by me. They all rose out of the worm castings I used to fertilise my tomatoes last November.

They're mostly Queensland Blues, I think, although at least one Kent has made an appearance.

Faced with a glut that we will be eating for months, I am looking for recipes that use pumpkin. And I am sure I will feature quite a few pumpkin recipes over the next little while.

If you have any suggestions for pumpkin recipes, either sweet or savoury, I 'd be very grateful if you would share them with me.

Saturday Pizza Night

2013-02-24T14:08:00.000+10:30

Saturday night is often pizza night at our red house.

I make a double quantity of a simple pizza dough and roll it out to fit two large rectangular trays.

Usually I make a vegetarian pizza and one with some kind of meat, such as bacon or ham.

Last night the vegetarian pizza was topped with caramelised onion and garlic; tomatoes, grilled squash, silverbeet and basil from the garden; and some pre-cooked slices of potato. The other pizza had bacon, ham, caramelised onion and tomato.

If I don't have mozzarella cheese on hand I grate a little of whatever cheese I have. Last night I used colby. Then it was into a very hot oven for 12-15 minutes.

The advantage of home-made pizza is that it is cheap and you can control the quality of toppings and the amount of cheese used, leading to a healthier meal. And home-made pizza tastes really good.

Back from a Blogging Break

2013-02-23T17:34:00.000+10:30

Walking from Middleton to Port Elliot, January 2013

I realised that I hadn't blogged for a long time when I logged into my Blogger account today and discovered 76 spam comments awaiting moderation.

I deleted the whole lot and now feel ready for a fresh start.

Anyhow, here's a brief update on life at our red house.

I'm still working four days a week and juggling family life, the house and garden, and a range of other commitments. Life is busy but fun.

In 2012 my eldest son finished school with a fantastic ATAR (Australian tertiary admission rank) and a merit (perfect score) in physics. He will begin university in March, doing a double degree in electrical/electronic engineering and mathematical/computer sciences. At this stage he plans to major in maths.

My daughter is 16 and in year 11. She combines a part-time job, schoolwork and a very active social life with apparent ease.

My second son is in year 9 and enjoys sailing and debating. Tomorrow he will compete in his first regatta as skipper.

Finally, my youngest is nine and the most cheerful, happy young fellow you could ever meet. He is a joy to us all.

Boxing Day

2012-12-26T17:14:00.001+10:30

I had a delightfully quiet Christmas Day yesterday, shared only with my immediate family. However, Boxing Day has been full of activity, due to a very welcome visit from my brother and his family, who live in Sweden.

Today we re-celebrated Christmas, with cold ham and turkey, a vegetable flan, two kinds of salad, hot Christmas pudding with brandy custard, strawberry pavlova, home-made vanilla ice cream and fruit mince pies.

We ate outdoors in beautiful sunshine then collapsed in front of the Boxing Day test on the telly. The more energetic family members played table tennis (a Christmas present from Grandad) and Pictionary.

Living so far from my siblings (one in Sweden and one in Sydney), I value greatly any time spent with them.

The whole crowd

The girls: my daughter, sister-in law, three beautiful nieces and me

The Best Christmas Present Ever

2012-12-25T19:00:00.000+10:30

Look what the best husband in the world gave me for Christmas.

I have longed for a Kitchen Aid mixer for years, and especially since my old Sunbeam Mixmaster died last January, but I didn't ever think I would own one.

The mixer is a delight to use; I have already mixed bread dough and made a pavlova for our Boxing Day visitors.

I know many people don't like to get household appliances for Christmas, but for me this gift is a dream come true.

Merry Christmas!

2012-12-25T07:00:00.000+10:30

Wishing you and your loved ones a safe, joyous and restful Christmas.

Sweet Sixteen

2012-12-02T12:08:00.000+10:30

Last night we hosted our daughter's sixteenth birthday party at our house. Although I don't usually publish many family photos, I thought I'd make an exception, just this once.

I am enormously proud of my beautiful daughter and the fine young woman she has become. I am looking forward to celebrating many more of life's milestones with her.

A Selection of Cupcakes

2012-12-01T15:39:00.000+10:30

A selection of cupcakes for my daughter's 16th birthday party tonight.

I made four dozen cupcakes, although a few won't make it to the party because the birthday girl's Dad and brothers have eaten them.

We have (clockwise from the front):

chocolate butter cream on chocolate
orange butter cream on chocolate
pink butter cream on vanilla
a fairy cake filled with home-made jam and chantilly cream

As I write this, my daughter and one of her friends are busy decorating the back of the house with streamers and balloons. The fridge is groaning and the drinks are chilling.

I'll share some post-event photos tomorrow.

The Last Broad Beans

2012-10-24T20:26:00.000+10:30

The beauty of eating truly seasonally is that by the time we have eaten our way through a glut, whether broad beans or zucchinis, we can't bear the thought of eating them again until the next year's crop appears.

Home-Made Mint Sauce

2012-10-15T20:28:00.000+10:30

Mint sauce is the perfect accompaniment for roast lamb. And mint sauce is easy, quick and economical to make, especially if you have fresh mint in your backyard or in a pot.

Mint Sauce

1 Tbsp boiling water

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp finely chopped mint (I use spearmint)

2 Tbsp white vinegar

Dissolve sugar in water over a low heat or in the microwave. Stir in mint and vinegar. Cool before serving.

Chillies for Tomatoes

2012-10-14T20:38:00.000+10:30

A couple of days ago I put out a plea for assistance on Facebook because sparrows and blackbirds keep digging up my newly-planted vegetable seedlings. I have had several seedling casualties in the past week.

One suggestion which seemed worth trying was to scatter chillies around the seedlings. I guess the taste of the chillies is supposed to deter the birds.

As you can see, I scattered some dried chilli flakes around my seedlings today and will wait and see whether the flakes are an effective deterrent. I'll keep you posted.

Do you have any tips for protecting seedlings from energetic birds?

A Bike Ride to the Botanical Gardens

2012-10-13T17:23:00.000+10:30

A gloriously mild and sunny Saturday afternoon seemed the perfect opportunity to go for a bike ride to the Adelaide Botanical Gardens with my husband and youngest son.

Photos were more difficult to take than usual in the gardens because I had to stay clear of all the wedding parties (we counted four, although there may have been more). And I bet each of those wedding parties was glad to have today's balmy weather rather than last Thursday's, when it snowed in parts of Adelaide for the first time in October since 1899.

I had felt rather out-of-sorts today until I went on my bike ride, but a visit to the gardens and exercise were the best medicine possible. My more usual sense of optimism has now been restored.

Beans with a History

2012-10-11T22:13:00.000+10:30

Way back in the late 1950s an Italian man from Calabria brought bean seeds to Adelaide to start a vegetable garden in his new country. Since then, every year, he, his children, then grand children, and now great grandchildren, have faithfully planted the descendants of that first batch of seeds.

Today I was given some of those bean seeds by the Italian gentleman's great granddaughter Sandra, who works with me.

Sandra says the beans are snake beans, and must not be allowed to grow too big or they lose their tenderness.

She told me that her great grandfather also brought persimmons and figs to Australia, which have since become persimmon and fig trees that appear in many of the family's gardens.

I feel honoured to have been given these seeds, and look forward to planting them, watching them grow, and hopefully saving some seeds to pass down to future generations of my own family.

An Old-Fashioned Orange Cake Recipe

2012-10-09T21:11:00.000+10:30

I can't make my usual flourless orange and almond cake at the moment because the blade for my food processor disappeared about a week ago.

Having conducted an exhaustive but unsuccessful search, we suspect that the blade went in the bin when a certain teenage son was cleaning out the food processor.

Faced with no food processor but lots of oranges on our tree, I have begun to make an old-fashioned orange cake from Everylady's Cook-Book (1925). This book was a favourite of my grandmother, who bought a copy not long after she married in 1936.

Like many vintage recipes, the instructions are endearingly brief and require the reader to know how to mix ingredients together correctly (cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs, stir in sifted dry ingredients alternately with orange juice). I make this cake in a greased loaf tin and it takes 35-40 minutes to cook in a moderate oven.

The "King" Orange Cake - Type 1
Expensive. Delicious. Needs careful baking. But is well worth it.

2 eggs, their weight in sugar, butter and flour (with an extra tablespoon of flour), 1/4 teaspoon carbonate of soda, 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 teaspoonful grated orange rind in the flour, orange juice, about 1 tablespoonful.

Icing: 1 tablespoonful of orange juice with sufficient icing sugar to make it like thick cream. Spread on the cake when nearly cold. Bake cake in a shallow tin; will keep moist indefinitely.

Oranges and Carrots

2012-10-08T20:47:00.000+10:30

The carrots and oranges in my garden are both ready for picking right now, which makes for some very orange-coloured - but tasty - snacks.

Home-grown carrots smell completely different, and somehow more carroty, than commercial carrots, and sometimes grow in weird and twisted shapes. The fun of digging up carrots is that you can't tell whether you have a monster or a beauty until it's out of the ground.

I have had mixed success growing carrots in the past. However, this year I dug the soil over deeply, mixed through a tray of worm castings and voila, a few months later my best crop ever.

Our orange tree, is a magnificent specimen which bears masses of fruit each year. The oranges look ripe in July but are lip-puckeringly sour until September. At the moment they are deliciously sweet and juicy and we raid the tree every few days (with a ladder, now that the lower fruit has been picked).

The local possums enjoy my oranges too, but there are plenty to share.

What are you harvesting at the moment?

Spring Magic

2012-10-07T21:45:00.000+10:30

This has been the most magical of springs. The days have been cloudlessly blue and the sun warm and bright. After two and a half years in this house my young fruit trees I are growing beautifully and promise great harvests to come. I have planted my summer vegetables and am excitedly watching them grow.

Life is good.

Flinders Ranges

2012-10-03T20:52:00.000+09:30

Our family has spent the past few days enjoying a holiday in the breathtaking Flinders Ranges over 400km north of Adelaide.

The Ranges are both immensely beautiful and very, very dry, even in early spring. Empty, desolate farmhouses bear witness to the difficulties farming in this harsh, isolated environment.

A striking feature of the Flinders Ranges is the Aboriginal rock paintings on many of the cliffs. Also in evidence are many wild emus, kangaroos and parrots.

We only got a taste of the Flinders Ranges in our short holiday and I would love to go back to experience more.

Old Wilpena Station

Bushwalking

Aboriginal artwork at Arkoola

baby emus

And with their mother

On the way home we visited Port Germein, a small seaside town that was once the chief wheat port in South Australia. The town has the longest wooden pier in Australia, about a mile long. Walking along the pier was a great break from hours of driving.

Almond Blossom

2012-08-25T20:13:00.000+09:30

Like to an almond tree ymounted hye

On top of greene Selinis all alone,

With blossoms brave bedecked daintily;

Whose tender locks do tremble every one,

At everie little breath, that under heaven is blowne.

- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

(bk. I, canto VII, st. 32)

My little almond tree is barely 3 feet tall, but in a taste of years to come, is a mass of glowing, white blossoms.

Such a joyful sight during these grey and rainy days.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

2012-07-22T18:55:00.001+09:30

This mousse recipe is a dark chocolate lover's delight. It is sinfully rich and not very sweet.

Dark Chocolate Mousse (serves 6)

200g (7oz) dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) + extra for shaving

30g (1oz) unsalted butter

3 eggs, separated

300ml (1/2 pint) cream, whipped + extra for decoration

Melt chocolate and butter together in a double saucepan or microwave. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks. Cool to room temperature.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites in two batches.

Divide mousse into 6 serving dishes (or pour into one larger dish) and refrigerate until set. Serve decorated with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

Home Grown Winter Salad

2012-07-21T17:36:00.000+09:30

I was really proud of the salad I made for my lunch guests today as every bit of it came from the garden.

There were rocket leaves, baby chard leaves, tiny new radishes, broccoli sprouts, green onions, garlic scapes, Italian parsley and nasturtium flowers.

Colourful and delicious.

Drawstring Produce Bags

2012-07-20T20:22:00.000+09:30

For the past few years, plastic supermarket bags have been banned in South Australia, yet the fruit and vegetable sections of supermarkets still use thin, single-use, plastic produce bags.

One way to avoid plastic produce bags is to buy or make your own thin mesh bags. They need to be very light so as not to add to the weight of your purchases. A drawstring makes the bags more manageable as your fruit or vegetables will not fall out everywhere.

I bought the ones shown below at Ecolateral on Magill Road a couple of years ago. More recently I have seen similar produce bags made out of cotton.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone took their own reuseable produce bags when shopping? Such a small step could greatly reduce the number of plastic bags going into landfill.