First Timer

One of the things that happens to me in on long warm days  is the overwhelming urge to get cooking in the kitchen. When I say cooking, I mean specifically - cooking something with flour. For a Three-Signature Dish girl like myself (stir fry, curry, vegie pasta) deciding to cook with flour is akin to becoming an Expert In The Field. It raises you up to Senior Lecturer of Cooking, (rather than Bachelor of Arts student mashing together your old vegies and spaghetti for dinner). Here is a long-winded recipe for First Timers' Quiche:

1. On this particular occasion, the flour fetish led me first to the shops (organic food shop - expensive, delicious food, with paragraphs of earnest words on the labels  describing the bursting goodness in the growing/buying/eating of the food that'd probably wash me clean of all my sins to humanity, were I a practising Christian). I'm sorry for that long sentence.  The staff in this particular organic food shop were also crisp, pure and with a hint of wanker about them. Perfect for such an establishment. And for a fellow wanker like me.

2. So, spelt flour (s, p, e, l, t ) under arm, I attended to the next task: vegie picking in the backyard. This must be, without doubt, the closest thing to acheiving enlightenment without religion for me. In my flip flops, peering between the umbrella leaves of the zuchinni, and pumpkins,  treasure hunting a huge bowl of food allsorts; all of them there because of dirty hands and blessedly hard work. (There is actually a silent spot, if you perch yourself in the middle of the vegie beds where no other sounds penetrate and all you can see is green leaves and bees). This is my favourite part of cooking. Neo's too.

3. It's only then that I flicked through a recipe book, ingredients ready but no idea what to do with them. I'm pretty sure this is a usually disastrous method of successfully cooking something - by starting with the food and only then deciding what to make. But it makes for great training for the week where you've been too lazy to go shopping and need to make something out of whatever you've got (for iphone users - the app Recipe Search is a great assistant). And there I found quiche!

4. Making pastry REQUIRES a phonecall to your mother. Especially when patience is not a virtue and you're not completely prepared before you start. So I started with something that looked nothing like my mum ever made and called to seek guidance. Guidance patiently handed out, I bid farewell and carried on.

5. The chopping and grating of other ingredients came almost as a relief once the mess of flour and butter started resembling mum's rhubarb tarts' pastry. Zuchinni, tomatoes, chives, cheese, purple onion: 50% of these from the garden - not too bad. These were all chucked in with the beaten eggs then poured into the First Timer's pastry base. Some salt, pepper and the ceremonious sliding into a hot oven.

6. The eating of the quiche was also fairly ceremonious. After an afternoon of foody smells wafting through our little house and a hungry boy slinking around the edges of the kitchen, the First Timer's Quiche was pulled out. A salad, tossed together with pretend sloppiness, a couple of tall glasses of water and it was ready.  We sat and ate together, abundant praise peppering each of the boy's mouthful and gratefully received by this First Timer.

 I slept sound and easy that night.

The Sweet Little Miracle of Basil

Riding high on the wave of pride since my last successful recipe (Sun-dried Lettuce), I  felt it was a perfect time to come back down to earth and go for something a little less ambitious. A well-worn, familiar recipe that requires little more than sweet, homegrown basil and a gentle blender. Yes, it's that darling of everyone's eye - basil pesto. 

Its a real fine thing when the directions for a recipe include "1. Gently mash ingredients together" as the total preparation. Well, punch me a lisp and call me jamie oliver! 'Cause I think I might have made the greatest pesto I've ever tasted.

It started with the massive clumps of green basil busting out between the tomatoes last week. There was no way we were going to consume it all in time... (There was no way I was leaving it to the same fate as the lettuce... ) So first and favourite job - picking the basil.

Next the garlic. Family heirloom, grown and plucked (after surviving a  hurried transplanting halfway through the year) from the pots of herbs by the back door. 

Being of the mild, Russian variety, I chopped a few cloves into big yummy chunks.  After this, the parmesan cheese, grated from a hard, old block that was hiding in the fridge for longer than most dairy foods can handle (sweet, stoic parmesan). 

Cashews were next ( in place of pricey pine nuts), followed by generous hand squeezes of lemon. The oil, I put in last and only a fraction of what recipes online suggest. This accidently led to a better solution to the pasty/soggy pesto I've made before. The pesto (pulsed and prodded, rather than mashed and pulvarised) remained chunky and chew-worthy.

 Then I scooped spoonfuls onto a bed of pasta and drizzled olive oil generously over the top, and stirred. Positively mouth-watering. 

It was all deliciously devoured over the next 48 hours by both of us. It was so good I think I could have almost bathed in it...

Thank you universe for the sweet little miracle that is - basil.

Recipe: Sun-Dried Lettuce

 Sun-dried Lettuce


Ingredients:


* Homegrown lettuce
* Lettuce holding receptacle
* 40 degree day in a badly insulated weatherboard house
* Neglilence




Directions:


1. Pull the lettuce from the garden.   


2. Fail to use the lettuce or place in the fridge. Instead, leave the lettuce in the receptacle on top of the kitchen bench.


3. Lie around in your underpants, eating zooper doopers and whining quietly about how hot it is inside the house. (Optional: Curse the landlord for charging this ludicrous rent for a virtual house-sized sauna. Remember - leaving the house for a shady park or the pool will mean having to put on more clothes and a missed opportunity to whinge pointlessly). 


4. Straddle the fan.


5. Leave the lettuce to set. Or, just ignore the lettuce completely.


6. By the following day, the lettuce should be ready (see below).


Before:

After:

YUM!

Bum Cracks and Gin

Possibly the best thing about the grown up garden is the sharing of it's space and produce with friends. 

When a mate dropped over one afternoon recently, we finished off a slim and lazy G and T before meandering through the plants to pick tomatoes, dig up potatoes, and snip some sprigs of mint and sage. It felt great to gather up a bunch of homegrown vegies and pass them on for someone else to enjoy. 

 This weekend, another friend came and met me out the back, picking green caterpillars off the struggling broccoli.  We got bogged down in between the tomatoes and basil, making old lady jokes about bum cracks showing and composting small children. 

And now here is old Sunday night already. Creeping in slowly and softly to remind me that I can't spend all my life out there picking and weeding and yarning.... There's other obligations to be met; other responsibilities to be faced up to. 

So here's to the next time we see you little garden.