38/52

Maggie: They are both growing up, literally and in their behaviour.  In a rare semi-serious mood, the rest of the photos Maggie was pulling crazy faces and laughing.
Elisabeth: So innocent, yet I think she was holding Maggie's head down!!!

Joining in with Jodi's 52 portrait project at her blog Practising Simplicity.

We had a quiet weekend. Shopping for excellent bread at Pigeonwhole bakers, visiting my Mum in hospital as she recovers from a hip replacement, visiting friends for a lunch of baguettes and cheese and the best doughnuts, collecting eggs from their chickens, gardening together, eating together, taking backpack adventures (the girls favourite sort at the moment). Last Wednesday we had a check up at the NICU clinic. Girls are doing really well, no concerns or issues. Both had put on 2kg in the last 6 months, so Maggie is 8.6kg and Elisabeth 9.3kg. They were so funny after it had all been done, they climbed into the toy box in the Dr's room together for a chat. Even he thought they were so cute he asked if he could take a photo!

Monday Menu

Monday's Menu

A lovely quiet weekend. Saturday was sunny and warmish, so we opened up all the doors of the hut and headed into my flower garden to weed. The garden is coming along, but I'll save that for a Friday flowers post!

On Sunday we headed to Cygnet for breakfast at the Red Velvet Lounge (I had a half breakfast while Rob had the works, including black pudding). Then we wandered around the market (which didn't seem to have as many produce stalls this time), but we still found a bargain $2 Tupperware container (it looked brand new!), a long black linen dress for me at the second hand clothes store behind Lotus Eaters, and a cute vase made from a Grolsch beer bottle.

We had to collect plants and go shopping for one of Rob's 2nd year prac classes - Supermarket Systematics; he gets the students to classify fruits and vegetables into their families to introduce them to taxonomy.

Then after a nap on the window seat we cleaned the hut.

On the menu at the hut this week:

Monday: Asparagus, pea, silver beet and bacon risotto.
Tuesday: The power was out so we headed to the local pub, I had crumbed scallops and chips and Rob had a steak and chips.
Wednesday: Free range scrambled eggs on wilted silver beet on sourdough toast.
Thursday: Cheese and more sourdough bread.
Friday: We had beef, Guinness and potato pies for lunch and Jackman and McRoss so just snacked.
Saturday: Brined and barbecued chicken on salad.
Sunday: After our big breakfasts we didn't feel like lunch or dinner!

What's been on the menu at your place this last week?

Monday's Menu

Hello again.

I couldn't resist posting twice.

As you know I was at a conference all week, and as you do, I ate morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea all week. Oh I felt like I was going to explode. I'm terrible I can't walk away from those sweet treats. As a consequence our evening meals were more like snacks.

Monday: Left over roast pork, cabbage and apple, rocket toasted sandwiches.
Tuesday: Rocket salad, with soft boiled eggs, speck, croutons and black pudding (much to the horror of many on Instagram).
Wednesday: Cheese, crackers and olives
Thursday: Steamed broccoli with chilli, lemon oil and anchovies.
Friday: Pasta and meatballs.
Saturday: Roast short rib of beef with thyme, baked potatoes and rocket salad. Followed by the sticky maple pecan cake
Sunday: A big lunch out, at Fish Frenzy, Blue eye trevalla and chips for Rob, crumbed scallops and chips for me and grilled fish and chips for Rob's daughter. It was nice, but I ate far too many chips and definitely didn't need dinner.

What was on the menu at your place this week?

Monday's Menu, a little late

Hello. Sorry I'm late. I've flat out this week with the conference booth, so have only just got the chance to create my weekly menu photo collage.
We're both still recovering from this silly head cold, so neither of us has felt all that keen in the kitchen. But there were some highlights still:

Monday: leftover beef Bourguignon.
Tuesday: chicken and ramen noodle soup.
Wednesday: Pasta puttanesca .
Thursday: Baked beans and fried eggs on toast!
Friday: Spinach, fetta and mint pastry triangles.
Saturday: Roast loin of Mt Gnomon pork (Vermey's are stocking them now!) on a bed of savoy cabbage and apple with potato stacks. With a fruit mince and apple crumble for dessert.
Sunday: Rocket salad, with speck, soft boiled eggs and croutons.


I hope that next week is a little less frantic and I have some more time to write here. I miss it.

a belated Monday's Menu

It was quite a grey old weekend in the end. I was hoping for some more sunshine, but it was still nice to relax at home. We felt quite good about the cleaning and tidying both at my parent's shed and ours (Rob gathered up another trailer load of rubbish and recycling from behind our shed).

Menu wise this week:

Monday: Chicken cacciatore with boiled potatoes.
Tuesday: Chicken and vegetable soup.
Wednesday: Pappardelle with some chicken cacciatore.
Thursday: Ziggy's hot dogs! An excuse to eat our home-made tomato sauce. I added some hot english mustard quite liberally, which cause a wasabi rush right down to the tip of my nose. But I love that feeling and kept eating anyway.
Friday: Cheese night was back, a hard, French goat cheese, called Chebris Brebis, a soft French cheese, Picolin and Gorgonozola Dolce. All delicious in their own way, served with a little fig and walnut baguette and a rocket salad.
Saturday: Pasta and meatballs.
Sunday: Dry-cured, then hickory smoked slow roasted in the Weber beef short ribs, with potato stacks and rocket salad.

Other treats this week included; speckled bread (fruit loaf), a lamb, potato and pea parcel at Jackman & McRoss, figs grilled in prosciutto and stuffed with fetta, pancakes with maple syrup, boiled eggs on toast, left over pasta and meatballs on toast, and that chocolate caramel peanut slice.

What's been on the menu at your place?

Monday Menu {the Hoot cake}

Well this last week was all about one thing the cake. My sister sent me a text a while ago with a photo of a Hoot cake (up until that point I admit I had never heard of Giggle and Hoot). It looked doable. I gave them a few types of cakes to choose from (for inside) and they decided upon a caramel mud cake.
So over the last couple of days the cake took shape, I baked two mud cakes, made some buttercream, Rob sandwiched them and covered them in the white fondant (he's much better at that than me, and believes he has a second career in plastic surgery if he ever desires a career change), then the cake was carefully transported to my sisters. Where, on a very cool and miserable Friday evening, she and I set to work with 2 kilos of coloured fondant and that photo. We're pretty proud of our effort. Although it didn't start promisingly when I was quickly trying to make some royal icing to use in sticking the bits together with. I hit a spatula in the mixing bowl with the electric mixer throwing icing sugar and goopy icing all over me and the bench and the wall. My sister just heard me say "oh no". She had the good grace just to laugh at me, and the damage wasn't too bad. But we moulded and rolled and cut and came up with:


My sister had cooked up a storm, baking cupcakes, jelly cakes, scones, biscuits. meringues, fudge and fairy bread. I offered to make a second cake just in case the 40 guests were still feeling hungry. I quickly made the Annabel Langbein lemon and coconut cake on Saturday morning, covered it in cream cheese frosting and added some pink mini bunting. I left the coconut out of the icing this time, as I thought that last time it made it look a bit lumpy.


The party was a great success, the birthday girl walking around (yes she can walk), dancing to music, opening lovely gifts and being loved by all her many Aunties, Uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunties and uncles, and friends. I'm not sure what she thought of the Hoot cake, she smiled and looked intently at it, and seemed shocked by us all suddenly bursting into song. But she knows how to clap and clapped along with us.

I got the icing from a new-ish cake decorating shop in South Hobart, A Tiny Bit Marvellous. A bit like a lolly shop for cake decorator professionals and wannabes like me!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and doing some de-beige-ing.
The menu this week (apart from the cake):
Monday: leftover beef and quince tagine with pumpkin and fennel couscous, and a fennel and orange salad.
Tuesday: a fish-less paella, with roasted red peppers and olives.
Wednesday: a spinach and pine nut omelette.
Thursday: Tomato pasta sauce, with red peppers, olives and fetta.
Friday: THAT cheese (1792, a washed rind matured on a piece of Huon pine board).
Saturday: Beef, mushroom and red wine pie.
Sunday: Beer braised ham hocks, with fennel, apples and cabbage.


What's been on the menu and your place?

One Year and Monday's Menu {Flatbread Pizza}

So first up, today is a special day at the hut.
A year ago today we invited our closest friends and family down to the hut for Rob's birthday party.
It was meant to be a house-warming too, but the build of the hut hadn't quite gone as fast as we'd thought.
But that didn't matter, we ate all our favourite foods, drank sparkling wine and enjoyed the sun.
In between main course and dessert, we had organised a little surprise.
Just a little ceremony.
I can still hear the gasp.
Happy 1st Anniversary Rob, it was a perfect day and our first year has been a memorable one.
(If you'd like to read the full story of our surprise wedding last year click here).

Back to our menu.
Monday: Beef and red wine stew.
Tuesday: Gres de Champenois with fresh figs and salad.
Wednesday: A tomato based pasta sauce with eggplant, zucchini, olives and fetta.
Thursday: Pork sausages and mash with home-made tomato sauce
Friday: Pesto and potato pizza (see the recipe below).
Saturday: Margaret Fulton's tarragon roast chicken with roast vegetables.
Sunday: Yum cha and Me Wah. Steamed dumplings and roast duck and many other delicious morsels.


Rob used this bread dough below for the pizza base.

Annabel Langbein's Crusty Flat Bread

This is a wonderfully supple focaccia dough that makes enough for two large loaves. You can freeze half the dough to cook later. We used leftover mashed potato, but if you don't have any in the fridge, boil potatoes until tender, mash them and allow them to cool before adding to the recipe. The wetter the dough is, the lighter the finished result will be, so don't be tempted to keep adding flour.

Prep time: 20 minutes + 3 hours rising, or 12 hours in the fridge.
Cooking time: 25 minutes.
Makes two large loaves.
Crusty flat bread dough
1 ½ cups warm (not hot) water
1 ½ tsp dry yeast granules
1 packed cup cooked and mashed potato
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 ½ cups high-grade or baker's flour, plus extra for kneading
2 tsp salt

Topping
1-2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp fresh rosemary leaves
½ tsp sea salt

Place warm water in a large mixing bowl (a breadmaker or electric mixer with a dough blade is ideal, if you have one). Sprinkle yeast over the water and allow to stand for 2 minutes. Mix in the mashed potato and the cup olive oil. Stir in the flour and salt and mix until the dough just starts to come away from the sides of the bowl.
Turn the dough on to a lightly floured board and, using lightly oiled hands, knead about 30 times (or for 3-4 minutes on the dough cycle of a breadmaker). Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with muslin or a teatowel and leave to rise in a warm place for 3-4 hours, or until it has doubled in bulk. You can also leave it in the fridge, covered, to rise slowly overnight.
When you're ready to cook your bread, place a baking stone on the centre shelf of the oven and preheat oven to 220degC. Turn the risen dough on to a lightly floured board, divide in half and shape each half into a ball. Roughly flatten one ball on to a tray lined with baking paper, pressing the dough out to an oval shape about 25 x 20cm. Use your fingertips to press dimples into the top of the loaf, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt. Slide the baking paper with the dough on it off the tray and on to the preheated baking stone. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden.
When cooked, the bread will sound hollow when you tap it. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking stone for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool. Repeat with the other ball of dough. If you want to save the second ball of dough to use later, place it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean cloth and place in the fridge for up to 48 hours. It also freezes well. Thaw before pressing out and baking.
This recipe is from Annabel Langbein Free Range Cook.

So once it had been kneaded, Rob rolled it out very thinly. He made a pesto and smeared that across the pizza (you could use a bought pesto, but we still have basil so are enjoying it while we still can).
He carefully sliced raw potato very thinly and spread them across the pizza, then sprinkled rosemary sprigs on top. He cooked it until the base was golden and crisp (how we like our pizzas).

Next morning he added some currants to the remaining dough and made cute little currant buns which were light on the inside but nice and crispy on the outside.

Monday's Menu: one word - cheese

This weekend was all about cheese.
I can't believe I ate cheese with bread or crackers for dinner three nights in a row. Well actually, maybe I can. Rob was on a field trip all weekend, so we thought we'd head to Bottega Rotolo and pick some cheeses for an easy dinner. We chose three (with Tina's expert guidance) a Shropshire Blue (that bright orange cheese), a Rondin de Brebis (sheep's cheese) and soft Saporini (cow, sheep and goat's cheese), with a bottle of Jansz and a loaf of Pigeon Hole bread it was the perfect way to finish off the working week. Rob headed off on his field trip early on Saturday morning, and I headed into town to shop for food. I had to pick up some little pork chipolata sausages from the Wursthaus and they were cutting a large wheel of Pyengana cheddar. I had the best of intentions, it was going to be saved for a treat to share at Easter. I had organised a lunch for my Mother's birthday on Sunday, and decided to do roasted chicken wings two ways. Rob was catering for the uni students with the same recipes on his field trip. Nigella's one pan sage and onion chicken and sausage, and Ross Dobson's lemon thyme chicken wings. They went down a treat yesterday, with some roast potatoes and salad. My sister had made a pavlova which was delicious and I made a lemon and coconut birthday cake (see the recipe below).
Anyway, I was so tired on Saturday after cutting up a zillion chicken wings and baking the cake I decided just to eat the left over cheese for dinner. Claudia accompanied me on the window seat, she loves cheese almost as much as us. Last night Rob returned home, and as I'd had the big birthday lunch, I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, Rob felt like a snack. I said "Well I bought a piece of..." resulting in us munching on cheddar with two dogs sitting very neatly beside us drooling!
Culinary highlights other than cheese, include sausages with home made relish, scrambled eggs and silverbeet, chicken and mushrooms casserole on pasta, and meatball soup.

Annabel Langbein's Lemon coconut cake. 

The cake is from Annabel Langbein's book Free Range in the City. Easy, delicious and feeds my massive family!

3 cups sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest and juice of 4 lemons
2 cups neutral oil (I used rice bran)
1 3/4 cups plain unsweetened yoghurt
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
4 cups self raising flour
a pinch of salt

Coconut Icing
75 gm butter, softened not melted
250g cream cheese
1/2tsp coconut essence
4 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease a 28-30cm springform tin and line with baking paper.
Place sugar, eggs, lemon zest and juice, oil and yoghurt into a food processor or mixer and whizz to combine.
Add coconut, flour and salt and pulse until just combined (don't overmix). It will be lumpy but that's fine! Transfer to the tin and bake about 1 1/2 hrs, until cooked (check with a skewer into the middle or until it's springy). Cool in the tin.
To make the icing put all the ingredients into the food processor and whizz or beat until smooth. It may need to go into the fridge for a little bit to firm up before you use it. Spread the icing over the top and sides of the cake.

Monday's Menu {cheat's ravioli}

How can it be the last week of March already?
This last week flew by, with my trip up to Brisbane, the weekend was upon us before we knew it. Poor Rob had a cold this week, so with the cold weather on the weekend a pot of soup and a casserole was in order.

This weeks menu:
Monday: After making a zillion spinach and ricotta triangles (Claudia Roden's recipe) for a Harmony Day lunch, I came home with the leftovers. We reheated them and made a Lebanese salad to match. I finally used the purslane I insisted we grow, it's nice and crunchy in salads. We froze the remaining triangles for an emergency meal some time.
Tuesday: Another salad with soft boiled eggs, prosciutto, Meredith Dairy Goat Cheese.
Wednesday: Our cheat's ravioli - see below for the recipe.
Thursday: Massaman Curry, whilst I was in Brisbane. I need to cook this one at home, I haven't eaten it before I don't think, if anyone has a favourite recipe for this curry please pass it on. Oh, and I couldn't resist the chocolate tart either.
Friday: Beef pho in the Canberra airport.
Saturday: Vegetable and barley soup.
Sunday: River Cottage Chicken and mushroom casserole with Cider. Best thing was there are enough leftovers to eat on pasta tonight after work and the gym.

The Hut Ravioli

As we ran through the supermarket the week before, we grabbed a packet of wonton wrappers from the refrigerated section.

Image from Supreme Quality Foods

We hadn't used these in a long time. But we had a faint memory of seeing Simon Bryant use them on the Cook and the Chef as ravioli instead of fresh pasta.

It was a week night, which means by the time we've been to the gym, collected our dogs from doggie day care (ie my parents place) and driven to the hut it was probably around 7. We decided to "make" ravioli for dinner. A week before I made a batch of Nigella's meatballs and frozen them for use in pasta and soups.

Nigella's meatballs

250 g pork, minced

250 g beef, minced (or we used 500g pork and veal mince)

1 eggs

2 tbsp parmesan, freshly grated

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

3 tbsp semolina, or breadcrumbs

1 pinches pepper

1 tsp salt

To make the meatballs, just put everything in a large bowl, and then, using your hands (if you wet them with a little water the mix doesn't stick as much), mix to combine, before shaping into small balls.

So I wrapped (a still frozen) meatball in between two wrappers (sealing the edge with a little water and squishing it out a little so the joins were not too thick).  Meanwhile Rob quickly fried a chopped onion and some garlic in a little olive oil before adding a bottle of tomato passata. We quickly boiled the ravioli then added them to the tomato sauce to finish off.

We served them with some dollops of ricotta cheese (left over from the triangles I'd made earlier), lots of chopped fresh basil and some grated parmesan.

They were good. I think we might have to try another filling this week. Any suggestions?

A belated Monday's Menu

We're making the most of the late summer/early autumn produce at the moment.
I didn't mention that we visited a friend on Friday evening and she begged us to take tomatoes, pears, quinces, plums, prunes, zucchinis and grapes. We were happy to oblige.
Our basil plants are still going strong.

Monday: Pasta carbonara. A favourite recipe in our home.
Tuesday: Steak on the Weber with silverbeet, beans, leeks and mash.
Wednesday: Fresh super sweet corn (from another friend's garden) and tomato and meatball soup.
Thursday: Pesto risotto with Meredith's goat cheese (if you haven't tried that cheese, please do, you'll thank me).
Friday: Pan-fried tomatoes, zucchini, speck, onions with basil and parsley.
Saturday: Nigella's aromatic lamb shank stew (an old favourite recipe of ours that we hadn't cooked in years)
Sunday: Fresh mozzarella with tomatoes and basil, a piece of Asiago cheese and Pigeon Hole rye bread (can you tell we visited Bottega Rotolo the day before?)

The sushi was a lunch date during the week from our favourite sushi shop R. Takagi.

Monday Menu

I'll let the photos do the talking. Soup, steak, spaghetti puttanesca, soup, cheese, lime and chilli chicken, chicken pilaf, macarons.
That cheese was pretty darn good.
I just completed a job I'd been putting off for awhile- a clean up of the pantry. It looks much better now.
Hope you had a good weekend, we hid inside from the heat only venturing out to take the dogs to the beach.

Monday's Menu

Ok so at least we got back to regular meal times this week.
It was cool earlier in the week so we felt like warming foods.
Monday was a roast tarragon chicken with roasted parsnips (our favourite), carrots, sweet potato and zucchini.
Tuesday was easy then, as Rob made a leftover chicken and vegetable risotto.
Wednesday has become our traditional pasta night, so it was our store cupboard favourite pasta puttanesca.
Thursday we decided on steak on the Weber, with grilled eggplant, tomatoes and onions with a last minute sprinkle of basil.
Friday night we treated ourselves to our old favourite cheese! A glass of French red wine, with a loaf of fresh bread, some oozy chèvre and a bizarrely orange blue cheese- Shropshire Blue. The iPhone app I have Fromage recommended eating the blue (or orange) with a cup of tea, a combination I tried the next day and it was surprisingly good.
Saturday, truthfully we decided not to take a photo, although it was delicious, fresh butter beans and boiled pink eye potatoes, but unfortunately the steak we cooked alongside was a touch (only slightly overdone), Rob now has quality control and was disappointed, so I decided not to take a picture. It still tasted pretty darn good though!
Sunday we had our friends around for lunch. I baked some potato and rosemary flat breads which went down a treat while we waited for the lamb shoulder to cook. Rob had slow cooked it the day before, so then it just needed a quick grill. We served it with couscous and roasted vegetables (parsnips, carrots, red onions and beetroot) and minty yoghurt. Sorry I forgot to photograph it, but as I've just ordered a lamb shoulder from Mount Gnomon farm we may do it all again this weekend! We finished it off with a chocolate cherry pavlova. I poached the cherries, and I have to admit my first pavlova collapsed into a sad looking cow pat overnight. So I whipped up a replacement in the morning. You know I don't like to brag, but I'm going to, it was fantastic. I thoroughly recommend you try it!

Monday Menu

Being on holidays is good, we've been able to eat when it suits us, although that has been quite late some nights.
The Weber has been back in action for roast lamb shanks, and a Tarragon roast chicken. We had a chicken salad the next night (our lettuce is big enough to harvest). Other nights we've just had simple food, steamed broccoli on soba noodles, or fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes & basil with bread. We also headed to Cygnet yesterday, picking up some veggies and a sirloin roast.
Today we've been snacking on cold roast beef on toast, we cut the Guinness Christmas cake so have been eating it with tea, and we picked up some mince pies from Jackman & McRoss (we scoffed 3 each in the car!)
Rob made some shortbread, and we made some fruit mince together. I just popped a chocolate pavlova in the oven too, as some friends are coming for lunch.
We've also been making ice-cream with last weeks bargain, vanilla with some alpine strawberries. Also we're in the middle of an ice-cream cake for a birthday party on Wednesday.
Both Rob and I are enjoying our break and are nearly ready for Christmas. Hope you had a lovely weekend.

Monday's Menu

Lamb souvlaki and soup. Had to have the souvlaki with out pitta bread, as the ones we had bought were a little green when we went to use them!
New York Times salted choc-chip biscuits. Still perfecting the recipe, we became addicted to them on our weekly visits to the C & C cupcake factory market stall. Now that Michelle and Jo have moved onto exciting new adventures, we have have to feed our own addiction.
A lunch date with Rob at Tricycle, we ate this chicken slaw (delicious mayonnaise) and little cakes with coffee. I admit to not being great company- sinus pain from hayfever was sending me a little batty last week, so my mind was all over the place.
Dinner at Mum and Dad's on Thursday.
The return of the cheese platter, a nice goopy soft cheese with a layer of truffles, a blue cheese called Fourme d'Ambert and a 24 month old piece of Parmigiano Reggiano to nibble on with a walnut and fig Pigeon Hole baguette.
One of Rob's students gifted him a grow your own mushroom kit, so we ate oyster mushrooms with rib-eye steak, and vegies.
I made the easiest chocolate cake ever, a prune version of Nigella's store cupboard chocolate cake. Any cake with a ganache icing is a winner for me.
Finally chicken wings and chips for an easy Sunday night dinner.
Again, after looking back at our week, I think some green vegetables are in order!

Our life...

The end of the working week found us shopping, first at Bottega Rotolo for cheese, and Christmas treats such as glacé clementines and chocolate with nougat in it. If you're a local and haven't visited them you have to check out their Christmas goodies.
Next was the Mother's market in Battery Point for jam, melting moments and brownies from C & C cupcake factory. I have to admit the melting moments didn't make the end of the street! I also bought a cute brooch for a friend for Christmas and an elk for the window from Dick & Dora.
It was a lovely evening, Rob spent some time outside raking the grass, I couldn't help myself and wrapped a few gifts, with all my new accessories. Last year we left all the wrapping to the last minute. It started off neatly, but soon disintegrated into hastily wrapped and scribbled tags. So with good intentions I plan to do them as we buy them this year.
We've decided to have categories for our presents for each other and Rob's daughter. The categories are: need, want, wear, eat, drink, read, play, write and watch. (We don't get the last few!) I'm feeling pretty smug as I have 4 of Rob's 6, and know what one other is (he does too- I wouldn't dare buy his scythe for him!) Do you have any present traditions?
Today has been grey and a bit damp. After the gym and a little shopping, we met a guy at Margate to check out the pavers we hope to buy in the next few weeks. Having the terrace paved will make the hut feel really complete. We're planning on having different sized sandstone pavers. That's what we're planning for our holiday, what fun we have!?
Then in Margate we stopped to pick up some (18) fence posts, although we had the trailer, I think Rob meant to go and get them tomorrow, so we didn't actually have a rope. My worst fears were realised when, as we drove onto the main road, one of the posts rolled off the top! Luckily it just ended up in the gutter. After sheepishly retrieving it, a nice guy gave us a piece of rope, so we safely got them home.
So Rob has been out in the rain all afternoon (he couldn't help himself) digging post holes whilst I stayed nice and dry stamping gift tags and baking a chocolate prune cake.

Monday's Menu

What a weekend hey? (Sorry for those of you not in Tasmania, the weather was quite perfect, warm days and evenings- even got up to 30 on Sunday!)
Highlights this week food wise- chicken wings and asparagus cooked on the BBQ, the most tiny, perfect egg and ham roll from the Pigeon Hole Cafe for breakfast, Roast pork with roasted fennel and carrots, some more French and Spanish cheese, bubbles over to celebrate our visiting friend, and new season nicola potatoes.


I was saddened to hear of the death of Sarah Watt, the Australian film director and animator from cancer. I really loved the movie Look Both Ways. I think of her children, Clem 18 and Stella 13, and her husband William McInnes, and think how desperately unfair life is sometimes. Today I listened to a recent interview with William on ABC National Radio and he was still so positive about the time he had left with his wife and had not the slightest indication of bitterness or self-pity. I can honestly say that if I was in a similar position I'm not sure I could be that brave or act with such grace.

Friday Flowers

I updated my camera app on the phone yesterday and it's been misbehaving ever since. So my picture of the sage flowers is a little dodgy. Luckily by the time I got to work an update to fix the update was waiting in the app store.


I walk past these every time I head to the laundry/shed hut and out of the corner of my eye I think it's Lavender, even though I know we didn't plant any!

While we wait for our little box hedge to grow around the hut, we have co-planted with herbs, so far we have tarragon, sage, basil, thyme, coriander, mint and parsley. Also some beetroot for the leaves in salads. All are growing well except the basil which is being hammered by slugs, despite Rob's beer traps and frequent night time raids to squish them.

Looking forward to a slow weekend, a good friend is coming down from Northern Tasmania to stay for the first time. We have another pork shoulder to slow roast, some French cheese to eat and I'm debating what dessert to make, chocolate pudding, lemon tart or a steamed pudding.

Hope you have a relaxing weekend like I plan to.

Monday's Menu

We had a great cooking week this week. With the warm weather (even in the evenings) we have been using the Weber BBQ to cook as much as possible.

I think this regular post is helping us raise the bar, we’re thinking about trying new recipes and making the food we eat more presentable. I’m very thankful to have a husband who loves to cook for me, and that it’s a passion we can both share. I have to say that he introduced me to good food, although I was interested in cooking before I met Rob, he made me think about making the most of every meal we eat.  Sorry just a little sentimental moment there; back to the food.

After our lunch party last weekend, we enjoyed the left over cheeses, with a salad for dinner on Monday night.

One of our friends had given us a selection of her chutneys and relishes on Sunday, and I desperately wanted to eat them with some good sausages, sadly by the time we got to the butcher, Rob decided to skip the sausages and buy rib-eye steak. So he cooked it on the Weber, and we ate it with some cubed potatoes and wilted spinach.

Wednesday night we were home quite late (Rob had been up to the Tarn Shelf at Mt Field setting up a transect to measure with his students), so I quickly cooked us puttanesca.

Thursday was our show day holiday, it was a perfectly sunny day, Rob decided to brush cut the orchard, so I stayed inside to keep the dogs away, and with the sea breeze I could feel my hay fever symptoms flare up. So I thought I’d make us a quick Lebanese feast for lunch. I’d made some lavosh for a work lunch the day before, and we already had some labneh balls in oil in the fridge, so I rolled them in za’atar. I made a batch of hummous and our favourite red pepper and walnut dip. Then I put together a green salad with lots of mint and a sprinkling of sumac. That night it was Rob’s turn, our new favourite recipe for the BBQ is chicken wings marinated in lemon (juice and rind), olive oil, garlic, thyme and chilli flakes. We served them with some grilled Asparagus.

We bought a pizza stone a couple of weeks ago (our oven has a pizza setting we were yet to try) so we thought we’d give it a whirl. Rob made up a batch of dough and we used up all the bits and pieces in the fridge, tomato passata, olives, anchovies, grilled red pepper, labneh cheese, and parsley as a topping.  The first one we tried to move from a tray onto the hot stone, which was quite unsuccessful, it just stretched the already thin base out so we rolled up the edges and left it on the tray.

The second one Rob quickly put together on the stone. They were different, I quite liked the one with the bready edge, but the one baked on the stone was super crunchy. Maybe we have a new Friday tradition?

We were slightly indulgent on Saturday morning picking out a selection of cupcakes from Jo and Michelle’s Salamanca stall.  Rob had a lemon curd and berry ricotta crumble cake, whilst I couldn’t go past the vanilla and rhubarb and the chocolate and honey. They are so good, that neither of us really want to share! We have to wait and hope that they’re there next week.

We ate a dinner of couscous, Lebanese green beans (cooked in tomato and onion with allspice), and grilled eggplant, zucchini, fennel, peppers.

Finally Sunday, the trial run of the chicken wings had gone so well we ate them with some roasted kipfler potatoes, watercress, a garlic and rosemary ciabatta. Our friend's children loved the wings (even with the chilli).  Then the cake.

What was on your menu this week?

Monday's Menu

A varied selection this week-
Monday- was a silver beet duck egg omelette
Tuesday- Left over rump steak, was transformed into an open steak sandwich with kipfler potato chips.
Wednesday- we went out on a "date" lunch at  Tricycle. Rob had the most delicious pork, lemon and fennel meatballs on white bean mash, and I had a red lentil soup with mint and sumac. We couldn't resist a lemon curd cupcake with coffee either! Wednesday night we had lemon pasta. A quick no cook sauce (lemon juice, parmesan, yoghurt, egg yolks and parsley).
Thursday- the last of the steak on top of a vegetable soup.
Friday- after tackling a few house maintenance jobs it was quite late so we settled for crackers and cheese!
Saturday - We visited Sweet Envy, next time I'm going to get one of each of these biscuits, I always look at them and end up picking something else. Rob cooked a chicken on the Weber (flattened out) with just lemon, thyme and chilli, with some bbq'd Asparagus.
Sunday - I mentioned that we invited friends down for lunch, the weather was horrendous, but it didn't matter, we snacked on soy baked almonds, baked olives, and wagyu sausages with chutney. Then Rob quickly cooked the rump steak again, we served it on salad leaves and with some roasted kipflers.
We had a selection of incredibly ripe French cheeses and then finished off with a lemon meringue pie. We had a lovely afternoon (and evening!) chatting, eating and drinking.

So glad this week is a short week (Hobart Show day on Thursday). Am looking forward to a quiet day at the hut. How was your weekend?