Monday Menu

We are still eating very well, thanks to dear Rob. Come 5pm the girls hit full volume and seem to forget how to sleep until 8pm. So often Rob's lovingly prepared food is wolfed down, watching the girls waiting to see who will cry next. Or indeed holding one. On weekends we've been trying to eat our dinner at lunch as the girls are usually happier then (i.e. asleep).

Rob was very proud of his meatloaf yesterday, and he should be. One of those dishes I swore I'd never eat again, with memories of a soggy bread filled mix, with raw onions and those rubbery boiled eggs, had me coming back for seconds yesterday.

Rob's garden is still producing well (horticultural fleece was a good investment), we're enjoying leeks, garlic, carrots, parsnips, spinach, lettuce, broccoli and rhubarb.

Monday Menu

A big two week post. Yesterday I felt queasy and unwell. Still do a bit. So i wasn't that inspired by food if it wasn't a salada. Hoping the girls don't catch it. Rob came home early to look after me.

Pick of the week Roast Mt Gnomon pork, and THAT ice cream.

Monday's Menu and snail mail

What an odd weekend weather wise, windy on Saturday (but sunny) then on Sunday we had rain/hail downpours every hour, so we kept trying to do stuff outside before scurrying inside to hide (especially Nigella and Claudia!)

We visited the Woodbridge Nursery and picked up some flowering plants for my garden and some lettuce and broccoli seedlings for the veggie patch.

On Sunday we took delivery of two round bales of pea straw and lucerne hay for mulch.

Menu wise-

Monday: Salad with carrots, cheese, broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes.
Tuesday: Chicken breasts with crispy sage on a bed of rice and peas.
Wednesday: Broccoli and chorizo frittata
Thursday: four bunches of asparagus steamed, prosciutto, fresh sourdough bread and a few slices of parmesan cheese (and soft boiled eggs for Rob.
Friday: Barbecue sausages and silver beet.
Saturday: An aged piece of porterhouse beef on the bone, roasted with onions. Our first harvest of some cute little parsnips and carrots, more silver beet and some steamed new season pink eye potatoes (not ours).
Sunday: As we ate some leftover beef on fresh bread for lunch, Rob just fried up the leftover pink eyes as chips with some parsley. Oh and we had an apple and raisin crumble for dessert (I always double the crumble recipe which means we have frozen crumble topping ready to go!)



I got busy stamping some parchment writing paper, putting my Webster's dictionary stamp set  and Kikki.K to good use. I have written most of my letters as part of Sarah's Good Mail Club, and it's quite satisfying to see the pile of fat creamy coloured envelopes pile up on the table.



How was your weekend? What have you been eating recently?

Monday's Menu

Well Spring certainly started with a bang in southern Tasmania. Blue skies, warm temperatures. The weekend was perfect.
We pottered in the garden, weeding my flower beds, Rob installed a new overflow pipe (the outflow from our tank currently ended in the middle of my rose bed which is not ideal), he has redirected it to the veggie garden where we hope to put a water butt (a barrel). My anemones have started to flower, blue, pink and white and the occasional rogue red one!

Yesterday we headed into town and had yum cha at Me Wah with Rob's daughter for Father's day.  We love it, trying steamed dumplings (pork, prawn, vegetarian and trevalla) the obligatory roast duck and pork ribs. It was certainly buzzing yesterday, with families of all different combinations shared lunch.

I must admit we came back home to the hut and had a nap to sleep off all that food!

Menu wise this week -
Monday: Stir fry rice.
Tuesday: We headed out with my work colleagues to Ethos. To eat a series of tapas style dishes. My favourites were the fried chickpeas and a chorizo sausage cooked in red wine with potatoes. It's a lovely space, and the food was ok. But now that I've been I probably won't be in a rush to revisit.
Wednesday: We stopped by Bottega Rotolo for some lunch (beautiful minestrone for me) and had an asparagus, speck and parmesan frittata for dinner.
Thursday: Scallops with bacon on rice.
Friday: Penne pasta with pecorino, peas and speck. This was delicious!
Saturday: Beef shin stew with mash potato.
Sunday: After our big yum cha feast we had some leftover beef shin stew with pasta.

Monday's Menu

Back on track.
Sorry I'm yet to fulfil my promise of a risotto recipe post, but I will get there.

This week has been another quiet one. The only trip out from the hut over the weekend was to head to nearby Kettering and walk around the point (waving to the Bruny Island ferry as we left) and around to Trial Bay. A nice little stroll through some Allocasuarina forest and then some open eucalypt forest.
The puppies loved it. First of all it was a new walk. Second of all it was nice and muddy, so they came back with mud splattered bellies and paws. Thirdly, whilst we sat on the park bench handily placed on the point to watch the ferry they could paddle, and "accidentally" go in too deep!

So the menu this week:

Monday: Beef Shin stew with boiled potatoes.
Tuesday: Beef Shin stew with added mushrooms, potatoes and broccoli.
Wednesday: Stir fry rice with omelette.
Thursday: Pasta with Parmigiano-Reggiano, peas and parsley.
Friday: Mt Gnomon pork chops braised in white wine, fennel and apple with mash.
Saturday: Slow cooked lamb shoulder, with potato gratin and peas.
Sunday: Lamb, barley and vegetable soup.

A few treats during the week included a lunch date at Tricycle for pork meatballs on white bean mash, and a flying visit to Sweet Envy on Friday for our favourite potato and rosemary bread, and a few sweet treats. Rob picked a lemon meringue doughnut (which apparently was excellent, he declared Alistair a genius) and I had a Bada bing chocolate caramel biscuit, which was very good but I struggled to finish it.

Hope you had an enjoyable weekend.

A belated Monday's Menu

Just catching up with the blog posts.

A brief Monday's Menu post

Monday: Stir fry rice with lots of fluffy omelette on top.
Tuesday: Pea, bacon and mint risotto.
Wednesday: Limonata pasta with Meredith's Goat cheese and roasted red peppers.
Thursday: We went to a screening of a Plant genetics documentary (our life is so exciting!) so I scoffed a cottage pie at the cafe at the back of the State cinema before hand. No photo though.
Friday: We headed out for soup at Jackman & McRoss, tomato, lentil, and bratwurst. It was so good. For dinner we had steak with potatoes and silverbeet from our garden.
Saturday: A vegetable soup for lunch and baked cheesey potatoes for dinner.
Sunday: Beef shin cooked in red wine with rice.

Monday's Menu {Kinfolk inspired lunch}

We spent nearly the entire weekend at the hut, which in our opinion is just about the perfect weekend. We did slip out early Sunday morning to a local beach for a quick dog walk and to pick up some last minute items for our lunch.

Instead of Easter chocolate this year (because we get enough of that anyway) Rob got a nice bottle of Lemon Olive Oil and I got my first copy of the magazine Kinfolk. It is beautiful. Really it is a book, not a magazine, with lovely thick paper, gorgeous photos and essays. No advertisements, not even recipes, just well thought out words.
I can't describe it any more eloquently than their manifesto:

Kinfolk is a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings. We recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relationships and energizes us. We have come together to create Kinfolk as our collaborative way of advocating the natural approach to entertaining that we love. Every element of Kinfolk—the features, photography, and general aesthetics—are consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived. Kinfolk is the marriage of our appreciation for art and design and our love for spending time with family and friends.


Inspired by this lovely magazine, and by reading Stephanie Alexander's biography recently as well, we invited six of our friends over for Sunday lunch. Rob and I discussed the menu over the following three days, and changed it a few times but ended up with:

Oysters with Champagne

French onion soup with parmesan croutons

Roast rib of beef with potato gratin, stuffed tomatoes and a green salad.

Quince and pear Tarte Tatin

I admit that Rob did the cooking this time, whilst I cleaned the hut (no mean feat with two wet puppies coming in and out all morning), and set the table.
We got it all together just in time for our friends arrival. After a garden inspection we retreated indoors to enjoy our Autumnal menu and each others company until dark!


Pink Chrysanthemums for some colour, the table setting, discussing gardens I think, I smiled at the collection of Blundstones and Birkenstocks discarded in the breezeway.
Our menu for the rest of the week was a little less indulgent, but just as tasty. Pasta carbonara, vegetable soup, steak with broccoli and mushrooms, I made a large Spanakopita, and Rob made a nostalgic mince dish from his childhood. With the Anzac day holiday, we did some biscuit baking and on Saturday I was treated to marmalade and pecan muffins in bed.