the red kitchen

turkish delight

i've been getting lots of hits lately from people coming from this gorgeous site. unfortunately, it's written in turkish, so i'm at a loss as to what she is saying : ) however, the food looks fantastic. and, i've just discovered an english version of her site. i'd love to try some of the recipes, perhaps the lovely little fig cakes, or the peas with olive oil (because i'm still in love with peas), or these (i'm not sure what they are but they look delicious!).

other food blogs i'm enjoying lately: not just desserts (from the lovely lushlife) for tropical brisvegas food delights; the hungry tiger, for gorgeous photos and beautiful vegetarian food, cooking for engineers, for those of you with logically-inclined minds (i do not count myself along you, however); orangette; a spoonful of sugar; and movable feast, for a chef's view on things.

things are pretty quiet on the cooking front in the kitschenette household. lola has a tummy bug and is back to eating stewed apples and such. today i will also make her the amazing, wondrous gastro carrots to help her along.

however, the weekend approaches. i've a hankering to make another sticky date pudding. perhaps with a roasted chook or two. we've been eating lots of vegetarian meals so i think we can break loose and feast on a chicken to celebrate the weekend. and, seeing as last week's mass zopf production was such a success, i think i will repeat the experience.

amazon kindly delivered this book up to my doorstep yesterday. it's very nice. but perhaps a little too old for max to use on his own yet. we've been doing quite a bit of baking together, now that he has his new apron that he got for christmas. like all kids, he loves to lick the bowl after we've finished makign the cake. however, hallelujah, he also loves to wash up! let's hope that he never loses that interest.

i'm also waiting for this and this.

sticky fingers

i promised to post the recipe for the fantastic sticky date pudding with toffee sauce that we had for dessert last weekend. unfortunately, we devoured it before i could even think about taking some pictures. but what better excuse do i need for making another one : )

this pudding is so evocative for me of the first winter that we spent here, struggling with the freezing weather, being away from friends and family, being a bit homesick but still excited about the adventure we had embarked upon. the first time i made this was when my friends pip (hi, pip!) and sam came to visit us that first winter, so it reminds me of them as well. we had seconds the following day with cups of tea, setting a precedent for all future sticky date puddings in the kitschenette household. mmmm. i love how food becomes so bound up in memories.

although there is usually enough pudding left over for the next day, funnily enough the toffee sauce ALWAYS gets consumed (last week donat was eating it by the spoonful, scooping it straight out of the jug an dinto his mouth). inevitably, i have to make up an extra batch the next day to go with the leftovers. note to self: make double batch of sauce next time!!!

here then, is jill dupleix's sticky toffee pud:

mass production

phew. just finished kneading a double batch of zopf - that's a whopping 2kgs of flour bashed around by yrs truly. i've now got the ginormous forearms of a well-seasoned old sailor, and my muscles are all a-tremble from all the unaccustomed exercise.

i've been meaning to increase production of zopf loaves for some time now, as i always want to give out extra loaves to our favourite people but never have enough - usual output is a piddly 3 loaves per batch (one for us, one for bruno's parents, one for peter and steffi). but the thought of handling all that dough has quite frankly scared the pants off me. even now, the double batch of dough is threatening to break loose from the gladwrapped bowl and take over the kitchen bench, and i've only just finished kneading it! anyway, i thought i'd give it a try today. fortified myself with a few bracing cups of coffee and kneaded away...2kgs of flour, 200g butter, 1.2L of bio milk, 2 Tb salt, and it will later need the yolks of 4 eggs to glaze all 6 of the loaves i will make. crikey.

at one time i thought to go into commercial production making zopf, as everyone seems to love it. however, seeing as my maximum output has been 3 loaves which take a number of hours to prepare (admittedly much of that is spent waiting around for the dough to rise, not actively doing anything), i reasoned that it would not really be a profitable exercise. however, if i had that kitchenaid...... : ) actually, even that would probably be too small. i'd need a massive commercial mixer, and a huge oven to bake the loaves. one small domestic oven certainly wouldn't cut the mustard with that lot. well, maybe one day if we ever go back to oz i will think about it again.

now, who has been nice enough to me lately to warrant a loaf of freshly baked zopf....

(this is an old picture, taken by the lovely michael a couple of years (!!!) ago)

salad days

nusslisalat, from bruno's parents' garden

for dinner tonight

how exciting!

look what i found in my mailbox today. timely - just last night i was moaning about having nothing to read.

a bit beige; kids' stuff

i got sick of looking at all that beige. beige - what was i thinking?! even though i am tired of the old colour scheme, it will have to do for a while until i find some time to finally redecorate. can you cope?

in my last post i had a (satisfying) whinge about how none of the family were eating my cooking. i was starting to take it personally. i mean, we had sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and max turned his nose up at it for ..... a green apple. yes, a green apple. surely he is no child of mine. well, that meant more for us greedy adults (and it fed 3 big pigs double helpings, twice. recipe to follow). but i did start to wonder if there was something wrong with my cooking.

anyway, after some thought i decided to change some of the conditions of meal times, rather than the actual meals, and relax a little about it all. some minor adjustments were made. now, as much as possible, lola eats with us at dinner. previously she had her dinner separately because she was going to bed so early, at 6pm. now, we try to wait until bruno gets home so we can all eat together, unless he is away in basel or working very late. everyone has exactly the same thing on their plates, and lola uses, or tries to use, a fork and spoon and glass like the rest of us. i've made a great effort not to hover over her while she is eating, trying to spoon that extra forkful of peas or rice or chicken into her mouth. now, we help her little bit if she's having trouble, but otherwise she is left to her own devices, and she does pretty well wielding her spoon and fork, with only the occasional tine in the eye or spoon in her cheek. also, i never offer her something if she has her mouth full. she will invaribly spit whatever she has in her mouth out down her shirt in preference of that something (hopefully) better.

max and lola eat together at lunch, and have the same thing - before i had made them separate lunches. now i've realised that lola is really old enough to eat anything, and max only ever wants to eat what lola has anyway. so max has regressed a little to his toddler lunches of pasta and fruit pieces, but i don't think he minds too much.

lola has given up her baby highchair, and now has max's old tripp-trapp.  she refused to sit in her old highchair, so we graduated her to the big kids' chair. she loves it, because she isn't strapped in (we don't bother with the restraint), she is right at the table with us, and she is able to climb up and down by herself. now when she is hungry she climbs up onto her chair and waits at the table for me to find some food for her (that is, after she has done a reconnaissance mission around the kitchen looking for any stray food that may be lying around).

not huge changes, i know, but enough to make a difference. i suppose i also needed to acknowledge that lola is growing up fast and doesn't need to be treated like a baby anymore. anyway, it has all made a nice change to our previously stressy mealtimes.

striking

that's it. i'm going on strike. the blasted children have refused to eat any of the lovingly prepared, carefully crafted, nutritionally sound dishes i have placed before them for days, the ungrateful wretches. the family shall have to fend for itself because henceforth i am cooking solely for my own gratification. i totally agree with lucinda - it's a waste of time making darling little meatballs, kiddie-size anythings (except the pies i made a few weeks ago), special salads etc, esp. when it is so often refused or rejected. lola seems to be subsisting on breastfeeds, petit suisse and the whites of hard-boiled eggs (although perhaps with less breastfeeds she would eat more), max lives off breakfast, apples and darvida crackers, plus handfuls of raisins, and bruno eats at mostly at work. i'm left to eat up all the unfinished kiddie meals (saltless, chilli-less). great!

well, no more. i'm having the weekend off family cooking. no-one is going to fade away. i can't see any protuding ribs in this family. i, however, am going to cook all the things i never get to cook when i'm cooking for the family. lots of chilli, properly seasoned, and maybe a delicious pudding or two, or three. strangely, despite my love of puddings, both max and lola aren't very interested in the kind of heart-warming desserts that i love. biscuits, icecream and chocolate, yes, but sticky date pudding with toffee sauce? no. bread and butter pudding? no. rice pudding? no. crazy! i don't know what happened in the genetic whirlpool, but they got the swiss biscuit and chocolate genes, not the english pudding genes.

please excuse the unfinished re-design. i just can't bear to look at those old colours anymore. new banner coming soon, just have to consult the photoshop help pages a few more times....

postscript: further confirmation that simple is better. lola just ate a whole mango, sliced small with a clementine, and yet another egg white. i don't know why i bother cooking anything!!!!