Passionfruit in season

I am lucky enough to have a passion fruit vine in my new back yard. At the moment the fruit is in season and I'm enjoying them with a passion (very bad pun intended). I never used to get in to these little gems of the fruit world, except for special recipes. Now that I have a vine, I'm out there checking every day for ripe fruit. I love the combination of sweet and sour, the colour of sunshine when you open them up, and the crunch of the seeds.

This week I've gotten totally addicted to passion fruit curd. It's a bit of a problem since I'm spending more time at the gymthan I have in years. I don't want all the crunches, lunges and squats to be in vain. But passion fruit curd is so divine, it's hard to keep away from it. It's also so simple and quick to make, and really versatile in its uses. For example, use it as a cake or tart filling, on English muffins or toast, or spooned lavishly over ice cream or meringue.

Today it took me literally under half an hour to make some small, short crust tart shells, filled them with passion fruit curd and topped them with meringue. I placed these under the grill for a few minutes until they started to brown then let them cool. They're perfect to eat alone as a treat or with a dollop of rich, thick cream.

But enough drooling! Here's my recipe for passion fruit curd. I've used 170g of passion fruit pulp because if you're not lucky enough to have a vine, that's the size of tin it comes in.

Ingredients
4 eggs
3 egg yolks
170g passion fruit pulp
3/4 cup caster sugar
150g cold butter
2 tbsp lemon juice
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

In a bowl over simmering water, vigorously whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar until the mixture starts to froth and thicken. Don't stop mixing because you don't want to wind up with scrambled eggs. This could take 10 minutes or so but it's worth it. You'll know when it's ready because it becomes pale and frothy. Add the butter and keep whisking while it melts and combines.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the passion fruit pulp, lemon juice and zest. Let it cool down and then refrigerate.

I don't bottle mine as I use it within a few days usually, but this can be properly sealed and preserved if you want to.

Gippsland's working out (and so am I)

It's Monday morning in Gippsland. It's cold, wet and windy and has been for most of the weekend. The sun pops out from time to time but it's only for show. I've dug out my sexy tartan dressing gown that drives Tim wild with desire (not) and I don't plan on changing until after at least my first coffee. Speaking of which, the jug is boiling and in a few minutes I'll go plunge some coffee and decide on toast or breakfast muffin. Toast would be sensible. Muffin would be delicious. I made some yesterday and topped them with a dollop of strong coffee icing. Mmmm...

The dog is refusing to even acknowledge me and is buried deep in her basket under a blanket. She's not stupid! She knows its cold and windy and once she's up, she'll be put outside to do whatever she needs to do. Since I'm now attempting to 'get in shape' over the next three months, I'm also tired and stiff this morning, thanks to yesterday's trip to the gym. I know, it gets better.

It's just Monday mornings because on the whole, I'm enjoying the country life style. We live in a tiny town of just a few hundred people. It's close to several bigger towns that have everything one needs, including a kitchen store and a knitting store, right across the road from each other. I have a lemon tree and a passionfruit vine and from our front door we look out across dairy pasture and up to the hills. The neighbours are nice and the Bug is settling in and I'm getting used to not being in the office. Truth be told, I'm loving not being in the office and I'm loving being a student again.

As Tim says, I'll never get this sort of opportunity again so I should make the most of it. He's right. I don't want this time to pass and to feel like I've achieved nothing at the end. On the weekend I decided I needed a plan set down in black and white, for all to see. Right after my second coffee, I'll get to work on it.

Anyway, following Tim's man cold, I got back into the groove of cooking. In the last week I've cooked so much and we've taken a whole lot of photos. I will start posting regularly again. But first, coffee. And toast. Or muffin.

NB. The photo is of sunrise from my front door one day last week.

Meal for a Man-Cold

Tim has a man-cold. He's really, really, really, really sick. Really. He keeps telling me at regular intervals just how sick he really is. Really. He reckons I made him sick except I wasn't as sick as him because I'm not a man so I wouldn't understand how sick he feels.

He searched the internet for treatment for a man-cold. It turns out that it's my job to offer an unending supply of tea, sympathy and tasty treats until he gets better. He is exceptionally hungry. I pointed out that this means he can't be too sick, but I was informed, with conviction, that he gets super hungry when he is especially sick. So I cooked.

It turns out that Tim's man-cold is responsible for booting me back into the kitchen in any serious way. Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and dusted off my KitchenAid after a considerable absence. It's not that I haven't wanted to cook or that I haven't been cooking. It's just that a I've had a whole lot going on. Moving to a new state, from city to country, adjustment to a new environment, not to mention new kitchen. And then there have been the treks back to Canberra, the study and the fact that it took weeks to get the internet and telephone up and running. It all takes time and effort. At 11pm on Saturday night, after a seven hour drive, I found myself toasting ham and cheese and throwing together tom yum soup out of a packet.

In essence, I'd resorted to just doing the necessary stuff -dinners, lunches, cookies for Tim to take to work to impress his colleagues with. That sort of thing. The man-cold single-handedly drove me to be creative again and to think about what anything I cooked would like in a photograph.

Needless to say, I did my best to fill every gastronomic need my terribly ill husband might have had in order to restore his health. I preserved lemons. (Obviously these didn't do him any good yesterday, but taking photos temporarily distracted him from how sick he is.) I baked a French-ish pear tart and some scorched peanut cookies. Then I turned my mind to dinner. I thought of all the things a man-cold might respond favourablt to and threw them all in: ginger, garlic, onion, chilli, citrus, chicken and lots of wine.

Now you might think it's odd to combine red wine with chicken, but this works. The red wine combined with the sweetness of the fruit, the cinamon and the citrus add body and depth to the chicken that you wouldn't get with white wine. It's sort of a mulled wine flavour with a chilli kick at the end. Perfect for a cool evening or a man-cold.

Verdict? I enjoyed it. It was warming, packed with flavour, healthy and helped clear the sinuses. Tim said it had a lovely texture but he couldn't actually taste a thing. Perhaps he is sick...

Ingredients
500g chicken thighs
50g butter
2tbsp olive oil
4 shallots, finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and julienned
1/2 brown onion, finely sliced
5cm piece ginger, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely sliced
1 green chilli, finely sliced
zest of one lemon
1/4 cup saltanas
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup muscat (or other sweet wine or fresh orange juice)
2 cups red wine
1 cinamon stick
Salt to taste
Finely chopped continental parsley, slivered almonds and chilli to garnish.

Place the apricots and sultanas in a small bowl. Pour the muscat over, cover with cling film and set aside for at least 15 minutes.

Place the butter and oil together in a heavy sautee pan or saucepan. Brown the thighs on each side, but don't cook through. Remove and set aside.

Add the onion, shallots and garlic and brown slightly. Add the ginger, lemon zest and carrots and stir. Add the apricots, sultanas and cinamon stick. Place the chicken thighs on top of the other ingredients, pour over the red wine and cover.

Cook this very slowly for an hour or until the chicken is full of flavour and falling apart. You can stir occasionally but do so gently so you don't break the ingredients apart. If it's looking too dry, add some more red wine. When the chicken is cooked, pull it apart and stir it through. Add salt to taste.

Serve with rice or couscous. Top with slivered almonds, parsley and more fresh chilli.

NB. You can use chicken drum sticks if you can't get thigh fillets. Just pull the meat off the bone at the end.

Dim sims and removalists

The move is just about complete. "What move?" I hear you ask. The move that is taking me away from my lovely new kitchen, that's what move!

I've decided that moving is a particular brand of hell that should be reserved for use as a form of cruel and unusual punishment, and little else. It really is painful. First of all there's the lead-up in which you have to sort everything out. This wasn't too bad and I got rid of all sorts of things we thought we needed but never really used. Then the pack up. This was interesting. I booked a removalist and all seemed to be going alright, except I seemed to have trouble confirming our address. As it turns out, they had decided they were going to move us to a town that we'd never heard of somewhere in NSW. I found out about this the day before the scheduled pack up. My confidence in them shattered, I promptly cancelled the deal. Later that day I got an email, asking very politely and with apparently genuine curiosity, why I had decided to cancel. Seriously.

A week later a group of people from a different company turned up to pack, on time, in good spirits and with the correct address. Of course they packed everything in their wake, which I suppose is the idea. But I really mean everything, including stuff I'd put to one side to throw out. Such items included Tim's dirty painting gear, the linen off the bed I was sleeping in, a bottle of out of date OJ and the cat. Well not really the cat, but if we'd had a cat and it had been sitting still at the time, it would have got packed! These guys were very efficient!

At the other end, I've managed to unpack most of the main stuff we need to live and that includes the kitchen. It's amazing what you find when you're unpacking and deciding where to put it in a kitchen that isn't yours. Tim says I'll have to make it mine. And so I will.

Not having all my usual cooking resources sorted yet, I went out foraging for easy meals. I wasn't disappointed. The dim sims pictured come from a deli I found in the Gippsland town of Traralgon. It's one of the best delis I've ever been in and for around $30 I managed to buy Tim and I lunch, dinner, dessert and a loaf of artisan bread. Not bad. These were pork and beef dim sims and they were huge, very filling and very delicious. I did nothing fancy to serve either - just steamed and served with soy sauce. I've attempted making dumpling type stuff myself in the past, but I need lessons because it doesn't come naturally to me.

Coming up this week, I have some exciting cooking ahead, including catering for a 60th birthday party. I'm going to do a test run of the cake today so crossed fingers. I've also been given some fantastic kids recipes that I'll be testing as well. I figured Tim's just a boy in a man's body so it all works out.

Better late...

I think it's fair to say that 2009 was a full, rich year. I feel like I barely had time to take a breath and already it's mid-January 2010. To recap, aside from the cooking and photography, we spent the first three months of 2009 planning a wedding and getting married. Over the next few months, we had heaps of overseas visitors come to stay, there was a new job, birthdays, some major home improvements and then without warning, I found myself in hospital. Twice. The second time resulted in a week-long trip to Sydney for my mother and God-mother Ali, who, when they weren't being wonderful and supportive and bringing me proper coffee and drooling over my surgeon, wandered around Sydney shopping and marinating. So it wasn't time wasted.

By December I was ready for some fun and so was Tim, having done so much travel since October that the dog was starting to have abandonment issues (wait until I go back to work!). I felt it was time for a Christmas party, and I was right.

I couldn't stand for hours in the kitchen, so I kept things as simple as possible and made a lot of stuff in advance. My mother and Ali helped and if I do say so myself, we put on an excellent spread. I think particular triumphs for the evening were the stuffed mushrooms, Ali's mini sausage rolls, and the roast vegetable frittata cut into bite sized pieces and served with tomato mustard, fresh basil and fetta on top.

Unfortunately, I picked the hottest night in December and we don't have aircon. I remember feeling the temperature suddenly and steeply rise with the influx of people and not helped by the bottle-neck of revellers who insisted on collecting just inside the kitchen doorway. I just couldn't shift them. About half the crowd eventually spilled out into to the backyard which was excellent. Anyway, nobody seemed too worried, champagne continued to be drunk, food got eaten and we were lucky to get a refreshing breeze fairly early on in the piece. I was exhausted for about three days afterwards, but I needed it and thoroughly enjoyed it and would do it again. Next Christmas.

The purpose of the gingerbread house? I haven't made one in years, I wanted a Christmassy centrepiece for the party, and I could make this mostly sitting down which was absolutely essential in December. It took me a few days to do as I worked in fits and bursts. I had my brother Sam help me build trusses and assemble and eventually taste. There were gingerbread men standing around it but Tim apparently tripped and as he fell, his open mouth was broken by the fall of the gingerbread men. Several times. He tried to blame it on two and a half year old Henry, but I watch enough crime TV to know to match up the bite mark on the gingerbread torso that I did find, with the man. It was way too big for little Henry. At least Tim didn't hurt himself.

What next? Well so far 2010 has involved decisions about moves and jobs and health and studies and I can see it's gearing up to be another huge year involving a lot of choice and complications. Will I take the promotion? Will we get Ladybug a little brother or sister? Will Tim take my name? Will I continue to cook and blog? I know the answer to the last one will be yes, starting with me getting organised over the next few weeks.

Thanks to everyone who read this last year. Please be patient - I will be getting back into the swing of things as soon as I'm removed and resettled.

Silly Season

It's the silly season and so far I haven't done a lot for it. Traditionally, I get cooking in the first weekend of December and start turning out ginger bread, fruit mince and so on, followed by finding a new place to hide said goodies from Tim. This weekend I made a pathetic stab at soaking fruit in grog. Tim took one look before reaching for some kind of shop bought abomination we had lying around.

The first weekend in December also sees me putting up the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, it took me about twice as long to put up half the decorations on a tree that Tim very kindly assembled for me, before retreating to the garage which suddenly needed an urgent tidy up. Maybe it was the Christmas CD I had on a loop? (Well you can hardly erect a Christmas tree without the appropriate sound track playing, can you?!) The whole exercise resulted in me needing a lie down. (This recovery thing is getting old).

Anyway, I feel that Christmas cooking is on the cards in the next few days. I think I'm just about ready to get into the kitchen again, I mean, for something besides toast. At least most of the beverage purchases have been taken care of and that's important. Nothing says 'Merry Christmas' like bubbles...

From the vintage kitchen

I'm in 'pottering' mode at the moment since I feel well enough to be up, but not well enough to do anything much. I'm in a phase of rifling through forgotten boxes, dark cupboards and drawers, to see what I've got lying around that could be given away, sent to the Salvos or eBayed. It's amazing what one accumulates over the years, and I seem to have accumulated all manner of vintage kitchen stuff. Some of it is still functional, some dangerous and some, well I don't actually know exactly what some of this stuff is.

First of all are my gorgeous old Salter kitchen scales. Salter has been around for years and is a bit of an icon. I used these scales, (and an even older set involving free weights in ounces), until about two years ago when I splurged and invested in an electric set. Still, I can't part with old faithful.

The same can't be said for the Sparklet Corkmaster. It's a bizarre looking object that was made for about 20 years in the UK, I suppose in an effort to revolutionise the removal of corks from wine bottles. Whether it works that well is something I've not tested and don't intend to try. Interesting trivia includes that quite a lot were sold to the US Department of Defense, and at a dinner to which James Bond was invited in 'Diamonds are Forever' the baddie brandishes one. Enough said.

Dutch cocoa has also been around for a long, long time. Droste is still made today and in fact, on my honeymoon earlier this year, I found the current product in an obscure little supermarket somewhere on the coast. Droste still uses the same picture. The cocoa is excellent too. The Muisjes I believe are little sprinkles. My mother hails from the Netherlands originally, and I remember them as a kid.

Now this one I'm not sure about. Are you meant to make a bomb, somehow out of Schnaps? Is it like the Jager Bomb? Or something more sinister? The best I can do is that I think this is a dinky little glass flask and aluminium protector for the transport of Schnaps. Am open to suggestions.

Excuse the slightly smudgy shot (Tim will have a fit when he sees this) but this always makes me smile. It doesn't work that well as a shaker because whatever you've got inside comes out a bit clumpyand the lid sticks, but it reminds me of the robots in the original Dr Who show so I can't get rid of it. You know, the ones that gave kids nightmares and everyone in the show ran from in panic, even though they couldn't fit through a door? Funny, funny stuff.

And finally, I give you the Birko food and drink heater. My mother tells me that the Birko is an all-in-one sort of appliance that people had in their caravans and bedsits. Apparently you can boil water, make soup, cook eggs a half dozen different ways, and so on. So all the basic stuff was covered for a person on their own in small premises. Occasionally I look at it and think I should try it out and see what it can really do. But then I remember I have a great big stove that I really love using, even when it's just me for dinner.