2014 - Where to from here?

I do like to set myself some goals to go for during the year, I find it helps motivate me to get out and try new things, as well as trying to improve my skills in things that I love doing. And for a bit of extra motivation I thought I'd make a bit of a public service announcement about it! Obviously I'm not completely gung-ho about these things, what with it being mid-January already (well, that was when I wrote this), but I'm hoping this post will serve as a reminder of some of the things I'd like to do this year. It may also give certain friends of mine ammunition to push me into trying things they've been bugging me about for a while!

 
1. Race a criterium

Yes Lee-Anne, I'm going to have a go! I don't think my excuse that my bike handling skills aren't up for it is valid any more (though I'm going to maintain I'm probably not fast enough - not something that has ever stopped me before), so I'm going to give it a go.

2. Bush walk somewhere I haven't been before

 

I love bush walking, it's what I grew up doing as a kid, but I always end up going to the same places. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I love to see the way the seasons change, the little details that are different every time I go (which is nowhere near as often as I'd like), but I'd like to go a little bit out of my comfort zone and go somewhere new. Suggestions welcome!

 





3. Keep the blog going and add some recipes

I have to say I'm truly in awe of people who manage to create an almost daily blog update (I'm looking at you DC Rainmaker), and while I'm not planning on going to that extreme, I'd like to keep the blog going, as I've enjoyed writing it. I'd also like to add some recipes to the recipe section, except that means I may actually have to measure things! This is going to be hard work!

4. Get back into bread making, especially sour dough

I love making bread, the texture, the smell, the process of converting flour and water into something that fills the house with house watering smells and then burns the mouth as it is eaten to soon. I love the taste of sour dough and the simplicity, no fancy ingredients, really, just flour and water. That being said, the last time I tried I ended up neglecting my barm and it turned pink! So maybe a bit more diligence this time. And I have to find more people to eat it, Mr Carl isn't the biggest fan of sour dough.

5. Charcuterie

This one is all your fault Leia! A friend of mine once taught me how to make bacon. She then gave me a book for Christmas about charcuterie. I think she's trying to tell me something. So, I'm going to try one recipe from this book. I may even pick a selection and let you all vote! 

So I think that's enough to keep me busy for the year. Hopefully some of you may yet join me in my endeavours, or at least eat the proceeds!

New Years - Food, feasting and lizard herding!

Hungry?

This post is really an just an excuse to post up a picture of the awesome New Year's Eve feast we had. As a cook there are few things more pleasing than a table full of awesome food and good company to share it.
 

Carl and I have a bit of a tradition of having a few friends over and breaking out the weber on New Years Eve. Actually, I believe this is what we originally bought the weber for, and then my sister gave us a charcoal spit for Christmas the other year, so we really had no excuse for not putting on a good feast.

Still not hungry?

This year the feast included a selection of dips with toasted Lebanese bread, including home made baba ghanoush. This was my first time trying to make this and there's probably a few things I'd do differently next time, but overall I think it was a success. Possibly the hickory smoked eggplant was a bit too much, but it seemed like a convenient way to roast the eggplant at the time.

Hungry yet?

We then had hickory smoked lamb and chicken (weber) and roast pork on the spit, accompanied by cous cous salad, Mediterranean roast veg salad, roasted potatoes and a green salad. Enough to stuff ourselves silly!

Dessert was supplied by our guests and consisted of an exquisite, rich chocolate cake which I'm told was sweetened by raspberries. In addition there was a huge bowl of fruit salad and whipped cream, and to round out the mix a lovely orange a poppy seed cake.

It was all awesome!

I like to start the year how I intend to live it, so feasting with friends into the wee hours of the morning was definitely the way to go!

Our resident Blue Tongue . . .

Some of you may have heard a story about the last new years eve that we put on, specifically that we had to devote a great deal of time carefully herding our resident blue tongue outside after he decided that he much preferred the coolness inside the house. Anyway, we managed to get through New Years eve without the lizard sticking his head up, however on new years day I found him patiently waiting by the front door to be let in. Suffice to say, we rounded him up and put him out the back, safe from cars and cats! 

... in his natural setting (courtesy of Carl)

Crazy Christmas 2013 - Recovery

Rideable!

So after all the excitement of Christmas, Carl and I thought we ought to burn off a few serves of Christmas pudding. Thankfully, the next door neighbour has a motocross enduro track on his farm and he had graciously given us permission to ride around it! We talked Dad into dropping us up there, which meant that on average, our ride would be downhill. Can't get better than that!
    

See - we made it!

We actually rode parts of this track about two years ago and I think for both of us there was a significant increase in our skill level over that time. Having undertaken part of the outback odyssey probably helped a whole lot too! We spun up rocky hills and bumped our way down others, letting the bike roll where previously I would have been cautiously on the brakes. Even the sand didn't slow us down as much as it had previously and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on this beautiful, flowing course!
 
   

 

 Happy Cycling!

Unfortunately, the good times wouldn't last and soon my tyre was making that unpleasant hissing sound that indicated that soon I would need to stop and attend to it. Thankfully, using slime tubes meant chucking some air in it, giving it a spin and we were good to go. But as a precaution we decided to head in the direction of home. 

Patient Pitchy

In my defence, I was having so much fun I really didn't want to leave, so when I suggested taking a slight detour down a track I really thought it would only be a little bit extra. As it turns out - it was, but it was also covered in prickles that decimated my tyres and produced a rotating slime geyser as I rode! Very impressive, but also slightly worrying as we were about 10km from home. Still, we pumped some air in, spun it round and took off. We had to do this a few times, but eventually we made it back.

Can we make it?

Turns out we weren't the only ones with a flat tyre, Dad had somehow managed to get one on the Toyota and so we all spent the afternoon fixing tyres. I have to say, bike tyres are a lot easier to fix than car tyres!

The view from the road

   

After cleaning up, we headed inside an out of the sun. As it turns out, sunscreen only lasts so long and I had managed to get sunburnt again. So staying inside and chilling out seemed to be the best plan for the afternoon. This include a game of "Terror on the Skies", an airship pirate board game I had brought with me. As it turns out, Dad was excellent at it, and proceeded to mercilessly kill all our crew!

Not just a roadie!

The following day was going to be our last on the farm, but with my recent over exposure to the sun I needed to keep time outside to a minimum. Mum had requested that we check out a new road they were putting in to their sand pit, as she had plans to ride it herself and she wanted to know how hard it would be. So Carl and I set off to explore.


 
 

Up we go!

As it turns out, the road had a certain amount of kick to it, 11% in places. For comparison (and because riding is too much fun to stop) we also rode the hill on the road into the farm from the highway. That one turned out to be easier.

My road

With the last of the riding behind us (especially as my other tyre went flat later that afternoon), Carl and I spent the remainder of the afternoon chilling out with my family and getting beaten by Dad in Terror of the skies. However there was time for one more adventure once the sun was low enough to head outside, and Carl and I grabbed our cameras and headed down the creek.   

My childhood playground

This is a bit of a tradition for me, as a great deal of my childhood was spent running around in the creek, I always like to fit in a bit of a walk to see what's changed. It's also a good excuse to pull out the cameras. Carl and I enjoyed this very leisurely evening walk, using the golden light of the setting sun to enhance our photos.
 

 

 Sunset at Salt Creek

Eventually we wandered back to the house and had a lovely, candlelit dinner, courtesy of my mother! Admittedly the candles had batteries and were Christmas coloured, but it was still very relaxing, and a great way to finish up our Christmas holiday.

Crazy Christmas 2013 - There's no place like home!

Home sweet home!

 
So after a crazy weekend of baking and partying, Carl and I headed back to my parents place, a farm on the Eyre Peninsula, near Cowell, to celebrate Christmas with my family. Naturally we packed bikes! Not to mention all the baking plus fresh fruit and vegetables from the markets as well as some cider and all the Chrissie presents! If we had broken down, we would have been able to have our own Christmas party on the side of the road with all the stuff we had in the car!

What Contessa loves!

 
After a bit of a late start, Carl and I arrived at the farm just as they were preparing tea. Fingers itching to cook, I soon jumped in and took over as my sister and mum looked after my new niece, who was worn out from the trip to Whyalla earlier that day. Soon a wonderful dish of spaghetti and meatballs, courtesy of a recipe from my sister, filled us all up.

Happy Cycling!

Tuesday dawned clear and sunny and we were itching to get out on the bikes, however a more important task lay before us - wrapping the Christmas presents! Mr Carl is quite a perfectionist when it comes to wrapping so it took us a little while to get them all up to scratch and under the tree.

Dusty Bikes

 
Finally done (though there was one last very important present to go, but it wasn't finished yet), we got the bikes up and running and headed out to see what my dad and brother in law were up to. It was sandier in places that I remembered being clear previously, though there's a lot of drift sand on the farm which is fairly mobile, so I shouldn't have been so surprised. After trying to find a clear path to the windmill and failing, we decided to bush bash our way there. We couldn't get lost, as the windmill was the highest thing around, but that didn't mean that we couldn't find our way into a few prickle bushes. 

Turned out that Dad didn't need any help, and it was reassuring to know that he hadn't injured himself. Carl and I decided to try the track that Dad drove in on to get out, though we thought it would end up too sandy. Surprisingly our skills had dramatically increased since the last time we were on the farm and most of the sand was rideable. If we'd known that in the first place we wouldn't have ended up in the prickle bushes.

Big dam - little water

 

A quick ride out to Clutches Hill to circle the big dam and check on the sheep completed our morning ride. It had warmed up enough to make spending the afternoon inside an attractive idea, which was just as well as I had a present to finish. 

How my ideas start

 


As I mentioned in a previous post, this year the Riches family has a new addition, my niece Imogen! And I wanted to give her something special for Christmas. About halfway through November I had had a brainwave that I ought to make her a raggedy ann doll, since I couldn't find one online. But then I had an even better idea - I'd make her a set of dolls that resembled her parents! I'm still not sure if this is creepy or cute, but it made for a lot of laughs as my brother in law is called Ken, so I was essentially making a Ken doll!

 

Turns out that my other sister had the sewing machine and I was too lazy to go grab it so I decided to hand sew the doll. Mr Carl was designated official stuffer! Anyway, what with all the cooking and other bits and pieces, I hadn't got that far on the project and but I was pretty close to completing the "Ken doll" in time for Christmas, even if Imogen would have to wait for the rest. So I spent the afternoon prior to Christmas sewing, and completed the Ken doll about half an hour before we headed into Cowell for the Christmas pageant and dinner. 

Christmas!

Christmas day dawned warm with a slight breeze, though we were lucky that it wasn't as hot as had been forecast earlier in the week. Dad started setting things alight in preparation for the Webber and the spit, then patiently waiting for Imogen to wake so we could open presents. Eventually we were organised and presents were opened! Cookbooks featured heavily in the gift giving department, with my sister surprising me with a cookbook full of Christmas cooking! Now I can't wait until next Christmas! Just so you don't think that cycling was neglected, I also received a pair of much needed road bike shoes.

"Ken Doll"

 


Finally Imogen (well her mother) got to open her presents and I was happy to see that the Ken Doll was a great hit. I had deliberately made it so it was soft and washable, with no parts that could be pulled off and eaten. Imogen promptly started chewing on the head, so I'm taking that as a win!

 
The remainder of the day was spent eating and catching up with family and friends. The food was amazing, as always, with chicken done on the spit and pork and duck done on the Webber (hickory smoked). That was accompanied by roast veg and gravy, as well as grilled veg salad and salsa. All topped off with Mum's Christmas pudding - what a day!

Crazy Christmas Cooking 2013

I have to say I really enjoy Christmas holidays. For one thing, having time off is good for recovering from the day to day stresses of a full time job, and it also offers a chance to catch up with family. But a big part of Christmas for me is the cooking! 

Food has been a big part of Christmas ever since I was a kid and with my three sisters and my mother, we would bake multitudes of slices and nibbles. This tradition has continued as we have grown and now we bring all sorts of slices and delicacies home to try. I must admit, I'm usually the one that talks them into trying something new, but it's rare that I don't get pestered for the recipe!

The beginnings of Christmas!

This year was a little different, as only two out of the four sisters would be able to make it to my parents (this is the down side of growing up in the country and moving to the city). My mother had been flat out with the business and the farm, as well as taking my father to be treated for his usual Christmas injury (my dad has a habit of injuring himself at Christmas, thankfully he got it out the way early this year). The sister who was visiting had a three month old daughter and as such was struggling to get enough sleep let alone do any cooking! So with this in mind I knew I'd have to step up and fill the house with all sorts of baked goodness!

The start of my Christmas Stash!

I set out a plan, starting about a month out from Christmas (which is why I haven't had much time for blogging) to bake a Christmas feast! I started with Christmas cakes, loosely based on my mum's recipe, however I'm a terrible one for measuring or following directions so I basically use this as an excuse to get rid of all the dried fruit in the house. Then go buy more! I had wonderful glacé peaches and black cherries from the markets as well as figs and dates combined with the standard sultanas, currents and raisins. Four cakes later and I was done! It is just as easy to make two cakes as one and as I wanted to give a few away as pressies, so I ended up making four.

More baked goodness!

It was then onto Christmas pudding. One of the aspects of Christmas I really enjoy is sharing food with people, so I ended up making two batches of Christmas puddings so I could give them to friends and family. I remember why I don't generally make Christmas pudding - it is hard work, and two batches are even harder! I was using mum's recipe again which has an error I always forget about. If you take it literally it says you need six pounds of fruit per batch of pudding mix! In reality you only need three, I think the recipe is just saying you can use three pounds of any fruit you want or you can use three pounds of the fruit specified. Suffice to say I went the any fruit I felt like option! I did make an important discovery about pudding mix though, if you run out time to cook it (which given that it takes about three hours to cook, this is an entirely reasonable thing to do) you can store it, ready to go, in the fridge overnight and it will still cook up fine the next day. Mum was very pleased that I was the one to experiment successfully with this.

A good mornings work!

With the hard graft out the way it was onto the nibbles. I had made a plan in my head to do shortbread, gingerbread, kourabiedes, Leia's craisin cookies, choc chip cookies, snickers slice, yum chuck and these jam shortbread biscuits I had seen in the back of a magazine. However the weather had other plans for me and as we reached 40 something degrees in the week leading up to Christmas, my grand baking plans were rapidly falling apart!

Pirate Adrienne (courtesy of Carl)

Still, a lot can be achieved if you manage it right and I decided that I could do a lot of the prep work without having to actually turn the oven on. My poor food processor got a serious workout, since it was already out from making breadcrumbs for the puddings, I figured it was more than capable of making the gingerbread and shortbread dough. Trying to work in the cool of the evening but early enough that the noise of the food processor didn't upset the neighbours was a bit of a trial, but over a couple of days I had a ball of ginger bread and shortbread dough stashed neatly in the freezer. Both only took about 10 minutes to throw together but it felt like an hour in the heat.

While this was happening I was also putting together layers of the snickers slice. Each layer takes between 5 and 20 minutes to put together, but as this is best spread over multiple days (to allow the slice to set), it's not a lot of work. Though when I got to the caramel stage I flatly refused to make it until the weather dropped below 35 degrees!

Who can play the fastest? (courtesy of Carl)

Which left me Saturday morning to complete it, bake the gingerbread and shortbread, and make the craisin cookies and kourabiedes before heading over for an early Christmas lunch with Carl's family. I decided to scrap the choc chip cookies and jam cookies and I thought I'd make the yum chuck on the Sunday, as it is was a special request from one of my sisters. Believe it or not, I actually managed to cook everything and have packages ready to go for everyone by midday and by 1pm Carl and I were enjoying a Christmas feast with his family. 

The final farewell (courtesy of Carl)

This actually marked the end of my Christmas baking, my good intentions to make yum chuck on the Sunday went out the window, as did my intentions to ride a time trial! This was at least in part due to a late Saturday night as we celebrated the summer solstice with the always amazing Spiral Dance in a gorgeous renovated theatre. As it turned out, this was to be the last gig that my good friend Rick would be the drummer for, having been with the band over seven years, he had decided he needed some new challenges. So a bitter sweet night was had by all as we danced the night away, celebrating the solstice with good friends and good company. Holidays had begun! 

Happy Solstice! (courtesy of Carl)