Sunlight in my basket. Limes, lemons, mandarins, oranges. So many of them that I am making salted limes for adding to summer soda water and salted lemons for that little salty sour-sweet note that lifts so many dishes out of the ordinary. I’m making lime syrup for cordial, but not being a real sweet tooth, mostly for Asian style dipping sauce for things like rice paper rolls. I’m making Indian…
Like me, the carpet snake likes warm weather. He (or she – we’re not that friendly) has not gone properly into hibernation yet. She’s just decided to have a little snooze, in the sock drawer. Lucky it’s bare feet and sandals weather still.
The low-light photo doesn’t do it justice. Usually I don’t post something the first time I make it, but this will be the last time for the season too. Enough pickles on the shelf, and no tahini in the pantry for baba ganoush, and a batch of chick peas cooked for felafel. So I tried something different. And now there are no more eggplants till next year to do it…
The recipe makes 12 tartlets. They are perfect for lunch boxes, or party finger food – which is where these went. These are really quick and simple, and they were a party hit
The macadamias are just getting cured enough to start using now, and the pumpkin stack on the verandah shows no signs of going down. This recipe makes 10. That many is easy to make and they are at their best fresh. And they are a bit too good. If you make more everyone will just eat them, and unless you have a big household you really can’t call 20 in…
My Halloween lantern for tonight. A particularly daggy one, but Happy Halloween everyone anyway everyone! I am remembering to be grateful for what I have inherited from the ancestors, generation through generation. Music, stories, art, science, inventions, roads, trainlines, medicine, tools. I am remembering to be grateful, and in gratitude, pay it forward.
I heard a mad story last October about a Northern Territory farmer growing out of season pumpkins for Halloween carving. It isn’t easy growing pumpkins out of season. No wonder they cost a fortune.And here, at the moment, the verandah stack grows. The wheelbarrow in the garden is full. Food waste is an odd concept.
For several years now through busy times and camping holidays and all the inevitable ordinary routine-breakers of life, baking our own bread has made the cut – something worth doing even when time is the most precious commodity going and a zillion other things are barking for attention. Which is a bit intriguing.
No doubt this recipe is not authentic, and I would love anyone who has a real Vietnamese grandmother to share the authentic version. But one of the nice things about multicultural Australia is the cross fertilization of ideas, in food as in everything else.
This recipe uses treacle, which is just as healthy as maple syrup and much more local. I also uses 1½ cups of pumpkin puree which makes no dent at all in the pumpkin pile but at least makes me feel like I’m trying.