This time of year, part of the evening ritual is chopping some firewood and lighting the slow combustion stove. I’m not a huge fan of winter but I do like the stove. It’s a lovely old Rayburn we bought second hand about 20 years ago, probably half a century or more old. It warms the house, the hot water, the dinner, and the rising bread all at the same time
I went out intending just to plant out the seedlings of the staple root crops – beetroot, carrot, onions, and parsnips – and get another round of them in. (Have a look at last month’s post for my method of starting them off in the shadehouse). And then I just kept going. And now as I sit at the computer I can hear it all being beautifully watered in.
I went out to pick some greens for lunch this morning, thinking there’s not so much in the garden this time of year. Before I knew it though, my basket was full and I was using my shirt to carry the extras. Winter is a surprisingly good growing season in most of Australia.
The dessert version of these is easy, but the healthy lunchbox version is a little trickier. It is still easy enough, though, to be within the bounds of the Muesli Bar Challenge rule: easy enough for busy parents and even kids themselves to be bothered actually making, routinely, for daily school or work lunchboxes.
All these healthy ingredients make up for the fact that, unusually for my lunchbox baking recipes, I think these go better with white flour. They are still good with wholemeal, but there is something about fluffy lemony lightness that makes a midwinter day bright!
The seasonality of gardening is a profound reality. There is no getting round it. I think in our modern, urban culture, we are so divorced from the seasons, so used to having strawberries in autumn and apples in spring, that it is easy to think we are boss of the seasons.
These are steamed muffins and they have a texture a bit like a steamed pudding. So they survive well in the rough and tumble of lunch boxes.