Day 6 - Baked eggs with chorizo, and Lumberjack cake

Now we don't have the luxury of taking photos of our dinner anymore, so I'm afraid my Monday Menu posts have faded away. We count ourselves lucky if we get a moment to eat our dinner at a slower pace before having to clean up one of the girls sitting next to us in their high chairs.

But the other day when the girls finally went to sleep I had a moment to start cooking something for dinner (it was just going to be scrambled eggs) and I quickly grabbed the Blue Ducks cookbook off the shelf.



An Instagram friend Charlotte a publicist at Pan MacMillan has sent us a few generous boxes of books. Cooking, gardening and children's books for the girls. I haven't had the time to cook many things but I have poured over the pages, tucking away recipes to try.

The baked eggs are really a breakfast dish, but I love eggs at any time of day. We had some free-range eggs from a friend so I was set.

So easy, quickly fry a chopped onion and some garlic cloves in a pan. Add 250g of sliced chorizo sausage (I used a can of Manolete chorizo which locals can pick up at Bottega Rotolo), and fry until the onion is translucent. Then add a sliced red capsicum (I had some pre-roasted in a jar), a sliced chilli (I omitted this!), a 400g can of well rinsed and drained cannellini beans, a 400g can of diced tomatoes (or whole baby romas like me), a tablespoon of paprika, stir and simmer for 10 minutes. The mixture should be thick but still saucy, season and add a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley. At this stage I paused to wait until dinner, but you can press on if you are hungry.


Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Our fry pan is oven proof, so I just cracked 8 eggs in dents I made amongst the tomato/bean mix. Alternatively you could spoon the mix into the middle of individual terracotta bowls and crack an egg either side of the beans.

Place the eggs in the oven and bake for 6-8 minutes, depending on how well cooked you like your eggs (we like them runny). I served it with Pigeonwhole sourdough, and we all enjoyed it immensely.



I even got a moment to bake on the weekend, quickly making a Lumberjack cake. I used the Woman's Weekly recipe, but made it in a 20cm square tin and doubled the topping mix.


What's been on the menu at your place recently?

Lemon linguine

I meant to post this recipe (if you can call it that) yesterday, but blogger was having some weird issue with the length of the post. I did ramble on a bit yesterday, sorry about that, but I wanted to capture the feel of our weekend.

This is my favourite pasta meal to make, it's so easy and delicious, and we usually have all the ingredients in our home, so no special shopping required. I found it in my first Nigella cook book, How to Eat, the page has became dog eared and splashed.  I remember when I used to dine alone I would make this for myself, serving a rocket salad on the side and drinking a gin and tonic as I waited for the pasta to cook.
I have left out the cream from Nigella's recipe, that used to make it a bit runny, this sauce is much thicker and voluptuous, clinging to the pasta, rather than pooling in the bottom of my bowl.

Lemon linguine

{based on Nigella's recipe in How to Eat}
To serve 2

300g dried linguine pasta
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve on top
Finely grated zest and juice of a lemon
salt
pepper
1 tablespoon butter
Italian parsley

While your pasta is cooking in a big pot of very salty water, mix together the egg yolks, whole eggs, the grated Parmesan, the zest and juice of the lemon, salt and pepper and whisk to combine well.

Once your pasta is cooked, drain quickly and then return it to the pot (off the heat), add the butter and stir to coat the pasta well. Tip in your sauce and stir around to coat. Tip into your bowls, top with extra cheese, chopped parsley and some more pepper.

Eat. Rocket salad and gin and tonic optional.

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.

A hut weekend

Sorry I realised half of my weeks menu is on the computer at work. So I'll delay Monday's menu until tomorrow.
We made the most of our weekend. This long weekend holds fond memories for us: four years ago we camped at our block. It was our first night spent there. We pitched a tent on where the hut is now, made a fire and cooked sausages and fell asleep. Nigella slept in the car cause I was worried she'd chase the wallabies and not come back!
We packed a lot into this weekend. We went shopping in Friday night. Looking at my winter wardrobe I realised it was a little sad. So despite not expecting much, I thought we should give Myer a go. To my surprise I found a pair of black boots, a pair of work pants and three knit tops, all were on sale. I also came home to a skirt in the mail I'd bought online. The boots were so comfortable and looked good, I checked online and found there was a tan colour in the same style. I thought about being sensible, but then rang the Sandler shop in Hobart and got them to hold my size (11 always sells out so fast). I put it to the vote on Instagram with a resounding affirmative. So then I came up with a good excuse to drag Rob into town, so I could try them on. I loved them so now don't need shoes for awhile.
Rob dug out a spot in the garden and planted our two avocado trees (bacon and Reed varieties). I cooked Nigella's aromatic lamb shank stew.
On Sunday we did a tip run, and headed up to Leslie Vale to order garden sleepers for the vegetable patch, and a trailer load of soil. Back at the hut we started recoating the vertical celerytop pine timber cladding. It took us all afternoon, but we actually ran out of the oil, with a 4m section on the back wall and one end of the hut to go. We were pretty tired so just had a light dinner of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil with rye bread.
Today I did a thorough hut clean and took a heap of photos to share here as a hut tour later this week. Rob moved and divided our strawberry patch, tidying up my flower beds as he did so. After I finished phaffing around inside I quickly potted up some spare lily bulbs and helped Rob plant three Corymbia citriodora trees.
Hope your weekend was just as satisfying.

Monday's Menu

Trying a post from my phone, so this might be brief!

Monday
Leftover lamb soup.
Tuesday
Tomato and vegetable soup
Wednesday
A cheeky mid-week cheese platter lunch at our favourite Bottega Rotolo and tomato & meatball soup sauce on pasta.
Thursday
Procuitto & Fetta frittata
Friday
Cheese (again, just a little one though) with rocket, pear and fennel salad.
Saturday and Sunday
My personal tapas plate & Rob's paella

Monday’s Menu

A new regular posting theme for me. Well actually it will be the previous weeks menu. In an attempt to truly web log what we serve on the menu at the Hut, I’ve decided over the weekend to take a photo of our dinner each night over the next year.

The iPhone has helped me document things pictorially recently and looking at the photos, a lot of them are food related.

I think it will be interesting to see what we do eat, and how repetitive we are.

If it gets too boring I may not post them- but it might spur us onto culinary variety, you never know. Hopefully there aren’t too many pictures of scrambled eggs on toast or vegemite on toast!

This week is not complete but there were some memorable meals so here goes:

Monday and Tuesday

Chef: Rob

Beef shin, mushroom and stout pie with mash topping (a tweaking of Matthew Evan’s recipe in his latest book, Winter on the Farm) and peas.

Rating: Pretty good, beef perfectly tender, but needed something to give the sauce some more depth of flavor.

Wednesday (sorry no photo)

Chef: Rob

Pasta carbonara.

Rating: The go to meal for comfort and ease- Nigella Lawson recommends it as a meal to serve with your lover the first time he stays over, preferably in bed.

Given we’re an old married couple now, we eat it quite civilly at the table! We used some real eggs from our friend’s chooks so the sauce was a nice saffron colour.

Thursday

Chef: Rob (I’m not doing well here am I?)

Pumpkin, mushroom, spinach and pistachio risotto

Rating: Colourful and an unusual but satisfying flavour combination. Next day we ate the leftovers for lunch with out the nuts and missed them for the crunch they added.

Friday

Chef: Our equivalent of a take away meal

Cheese selection from Bottega Rotolo: Delice Cremiers, Brie and Parmigiano Reggiano. Fig and walnut rye baguette and a rocket and fennel salad. Oh and a bottle of Cotes du Rhone.

Rating: Delice Cremiers cheese a standout, a light textured cheese like whipped butter, slightly fruity but with a surprisingly clean acid finish. Which meant we could eat it all!

Saturday

Chefs: Rob (main) me (dessert)

Rump steak with Nicola potato chips and spinach.

Cherry and almond cake

Rating: Rob loves to use his Weber BBQ.  Steak and chips is always going to be a winner in this household. We just have to remember to save a tiny morsel for each dog, otherwise they sulk for the rest of the evening. My cake was a new recipe for me, using some gorgeous dark coloured glace cherries. I was a little worried I’d cooked it too long, but with a dollop of cream and a spoonful of cherry conserve it was a pretty good pudding (if I do say so myself).

Sunday

Chefs: Rob and me (terrible I know on Father’s Day- but he loves to use the Weber)

Souvlaki- slow roasted then grilled lamb shoulder, hummous, cacik, green beans cooked in tomatoes and onions.

Poire belle Hélène with home-made vanilla ice-cream

Rating: Our favourite summer food was pulled out of the repertoire a little early; the weather was beautiful at the Hut yesterday. Nothing I like better than putting our food together at the table and then eating it whilst the juices dribble down our chins. It’s not pretty but delicious. The pears has been cooked for about 4 hours and were soft and spiced with the vanilla and the red wine. Mmmm is all I can manage right now.

Well we’ll see what culinary delights the next week brings.

Our life:

Left to my own devices I am actually quite lazy. I admit that upfront. Some of it is learned behaviour, I guess, my parents are really “inside” people, movies, books that’s their thing. Given the choice between staying in bed with a good book (or more likely nowadays the iPad to check out what’s happening in blog-world) or get up and start gardening, I would choose bed nine times out of ten!

But then I started living with Rob. He doesn’t sit still. He lives for action. Doing something, anything, preferably outside with our dogs in tow. He lives by the saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. For someone who is older than me he puts me to shame with his energy!

I think it works out ok for both of us as we counteract our natural tendencies for slothfulness (me) or busyness (him). Sometimes I encourage him to just sit and enjoy the moment with a cup of coffee and a Chocolate chip biscuit (best recipe ever thanks to C & C cupcake factory).

But more often he’s encouraging me to get my lazy butt out of bed and to live life.

I am grateful, for many things that I’ve learnt from my husband, but this is a good lesson to learn.

So our weekend consisted of:

• watching Rob play real tennis (this was me at my multi-tasking best in between points I could read and comment on my favourite blogs with near perfect reception on the iPad and he got to run around for an hour);
• heading to bed early to read new library books;
• going to the gym for a weights class together;
• shopping at Salamanca market, for vegies, seedlings to plant, treats from Jo and Michelle (the gin-soaked damson brownie was to. die. for.);
• visiting my little niece Maisy and marveling at how much she’s grown;
• cooking a lovely dinner of rib-eye steaks, baked potatoes and wilted spinach followed up by a Seville marmalade steamed pudding (I’m unjustifiably proud of my first batch of marmalade!);
• being served said pudding in bed for breakfast;
• sorting out a few last details with the builder at the hut- he even took down his builder’s signs at the front gate;
• cleaning the hut as a team so it was done more quickly;
• sitting for a moment in the sun coming through the bi-fold door while we ate toast and vegemite;
• planting out five cider apple trees, four quince trees and a prune tree in the orchard (stage 3) and protecting them from marauding wallabies;
• cooking a roast chicken in the Weber BBQ for Sunday’s dinner and chatting about how much we enjoyed our weekend but looking forward to falling asleep!

Sorry it probably sounds a little saccharine, but then we have only been married for four months and living in our hut for two of those so we’re still in that honeymoon phase!

Good food weekend

The weather in Hobart was grey, rainy and cool.
This meant it was a perfect weekend for baking and cooking at the hut.

We had a little lunch party on Sunday to prepare for.

So we headed into town on Saturday morning to shop for vegetables, herbs and fresh ocean trout. Luckily C & C cupcake factory are now going to be at Salamanca markets, so we stocked up on salted chocolate chip biscuits, chocolate meringues (nice and nutty with hazels) and chocolate brownies. We also picked up a few loaves of bread from Pigeon Hole.

For Sunday's lunch we made 3 dips (hummus, red pepper and baba ghanooj), drained yoghurt for labnee, crispy lavosh and pitta bread, green beans in tomato, ocean trout with a tahini/yoghurt sauce topped with coriander, mint, chilli, red onion, walnut and sumac salad, a Persian love cake, and baklawa. Sorry the only dish I took a photo of was the baklawa straight out of the oven. It smelled delightful and extravagantly I used pistachios so it was very pretty! Lunch was lovely, but we all felt extremely full afterwards, in fact I struggled to eat breakfast this morning.

Last but not least, our favourite avocadoes are back in season- Reed. They're huge, but their flesh is so buttery, we ate them in a salad with some crispy cos lettuce earlier in the week.

Learning to slow down...

I couldn't go through another weekend of frantic jobs, just to ensure I ticked them all off my list. We tried to be better at slowing down. Friday night was a good start, a bottle of French red with a lovely French Brie and an Italian hard cheese pressed inside grapes. We lingered at our table chatting and enjoying the cheeses.

The weather was a little kinder this weekend- warmer, some sun, although the occasional shower did catch us unawares. Rob did have an important project- building a compost bin- our compost has been going to waste, and as we don't have rubbish collected making sure we cut down on our waste is paramount. So while he started sawing and measuring, I baked a chocolate cake- after watching Annabel Langbein's tv show, the Free Range Cook, we couldn't resist the book. For once I am trying to be good and cook all the things we'd like to try from a new book- this resolution may be sorely tested soon, Rob has just ordered 15 news books from Amazon (only 13 are cookbooks!)

I made sure we took the time to enjoy a cup of tea, and a few walks around the block to watch the dogs wrestle in the mud.

The hut is quite peaceful- although this weekend we had several types of bird visitors, our resident pair of geese (they have adopted us), flocks of native ducks who appeared to be fighting over the dam, cheeky currawongs that liked to tease Claudia and the occasional robin. I'd love to get clever enough to recognise all their calls and songs. But at the moment I just listen and wonder what they're trying to say.

We did go shopping on Saturday, we've been living without a mirror in our bathroom since we moved in. As someone who is extremely short sighted and has to put in contact lenses every day this has been a bit of a trial- the little hand mirror on the bench top wasn't going to cut it for much longer. So we headed into town to visit our favourite second hand furniture shop, after looking around we couldn't really find the right one, but we had a chat to the owner, and knowing our fondness for retro he ran out the back and came back with a simple blackwood framed mirror. Back home it was actually a bit big for our bathroom, but suited the guest bathroom better so we swapped the round mirror to our room and hung the new mirror up. It was a little marked from water or the sun, but as I was oiling the kitchen joinery I just ran the cloth over the frame and it improved it markedly.

We made good use of our kitchen on Saturday night and cooked a special meal, just for us. I steamed some mussels open, then topped them with a salsa of lemon rind and flesh, roasted and chopped up almonds, garlic and parsley. Then we blitzed them under our grill. I was quite proud of these, sorry I didn't get a picture, they were begging to be eaten. Rob tea smoked a piece of Salmon in the Weber, it just had a marinade of whiskey, sugar and salt. We ate it with a potato bread from Sweet Envy and a bottle of bubbles. The salmon was so tender, meltingly so, like it was confit. A slice of chocolate cake with a wicked ganache icing and a cup of chocolate tea for dessert. Another excellent meal together. It's still such a novelty for us both to be able to cook in the kitchen together. We love it.

Sunday was spent finishing the compost bin, I was even allowed to use the power tools to help! Then we put a second coat of tung oil on the kitchen cabinets, and then while we were at it we decided to oil all our retro furniture, rejuvenating them beautifully.

We're getting better at living at the hut now, maybe we'll be able to relax once the long awaited window seat is finished, which I'm hoping is soon!

High tea at the Hut in the snow

Sorry again- things have been flat out at the hut. The weather still hasn't been behaving for a photo shoot, we've had hail, sleet, rain, gale force winds, and snow, but no sun. The hut looks best in the sun.

Last weekend was super busy. We hosted a 16th birthday for Rob's daughter. She decided on a blue themed high tea with 7 of her closest friends. I may have gotten a little excited about the decorating. I have discovered tissue paper pom poms in a big way. I'd found a picture of a party with pom poms, chinese paper lanterns and honeycomb decorations hanging above a table and that was it. I found a great website for a company in the states with the most amazing array of paper decorations, Devra, a family operated business who produce them in New York. The exchange rate was excellent at the time, so I may just have ordered 60 decorations? If anybody wants to borrow them for a blue party let me know!
Throw in some paper fans, a parasol, some white flowers and the decorations were under control (if a little excessive!)


The dessert table had lemon cupcakes (my new favourite recipe thanks to Jo and Michelle), with cream cheese frosting or as butterfly cakes, homemade marshmallow and turkish delight, wrapped bon bons (mini toblerones), Italian chocolates, gingerbread teacup and teapot biscuits, and blue macarons. We also made a batch of gluten free, dairy free, vegan cupcakes for the birthday girl.

The girls braved the snow to get to the hut (I was worried that we might have to cancel) and sat happily chatting over sushi, egg and prosciutto sandwiches and rice paper rolls, playing with their fans. They all wanted to pose with the parasol- not terribly appropriate with snow flurries in the background! After selecting their desserts and drinking strawberry and cream T2 tea, they decided singing and dancing was in order! Must have been all that sugar.

Rob and I finally got to sit for the first time after 11 hours straight. The dogs were a little worried by the singing!
The birthday girl had a lovely day, they all got home safely and we crawled into bed by 8.30pm!

Can you have too much pink?

Well sorry I should qualify that statement- can you have too much pink at a baby shower for a much anticipated baby girl?

My little sister will have her baby daughter Maisy in about 4 weeks time. She will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family so there is much excitement about it all, so it was great fun to plan a baby shower for my little sis with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

I, of course, volunteered to organise the sweet food. So Rob and I spent most of Saturday and Sunday morning baking and icing: coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting and a matching princess cake, heart shaped turkish delight, pink and white iced baby pram and bottle shaped gingerbread and raspberry macarons.



The venue overlooked a beach (which was spectacular enough) but we couldn't help but embellish with some pink tissue paper pom poms (Rob's daughter and I made them the night before), tulips and balloons.


A very girly afternoon followed that included sandwiches, bubbles and fruit punch, games and watching my sister open everyone's thoughtful gifts, which included some incredibly cute baby clothes and toys.
Can't wait to meet Maisy soon.