the red kitchen

Picnic in the park

I loved this article about picnics. Makes me want to bundle up a thermos of instant coffee and a stack of squashy sandwiches and head for the park.

Actually, tomorrow we may just do that. It's the 1st of August, but because of the heatwave fireworks, bbqs and grills have been outlawed, so the home-packed picnic will be reigning supreme. I'll roast a chook, slice up some chilled watermelon, pack up the hommous I made the other day with some pitta breads for dipping, oh and let's not forget the banana cake made with the extremely over-ripened bananas (the squashy black ones make the best cakes), apples, beverages and that should do us.

Hmm, now I think about it I also have a roll of frozen chocolate chipper dough that I could whack in the oven for some freshly-baked cookies...

Oh! and I could also make marinated tofu rice wraps if I have time...yes, I suppose I should really start marinating, packing and planning now. Anyway, we've finished watching all the Battlestar Galactica episodes in the house, so what else is there to do?

Sugar fingers

Sugar fingers, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I made shortbread from the River Cottage Family Cookbook for afternoon tea and Max couldn't resist helping himself to some sugary crumbs before the first slice was eaten (note green playdough on his fingers, remnants of the T-Rex necklaces he made earlier in the afternoon).

The shortbread was good, despite having to substitute cornflour for rice flour in the recipe, and very simple, a good one to make with kids as it doesn't require much mixing or other technique, merely rubbing the dry ingredients with the butter and pressing into a cake tin (don't even have to bother greasing or lining the tin).

And, it looked super lovely, sweetly pale and sprinkled with vanilla sugar from my big glass bottle of lumpy, vanilla-soaked sugar.

Schlangerbrot

We had a party for Max and Lolly on Sunday, a sausage sizzle in the park*, in the bitter cold and mud which no-one seemed to mind at all (much fun was had by all).

Above is a specimen of the (infamous) schlangerbrot (snakebread), lengths of bread dough wound around a bloody great stick and charred, err, cooked, over a fire. One of those things for which nostalgia seems to play a key part in the attraction (for Bruno, harking back to his days in the pfädi, or scouts). Most often they are rumoured to be blackened on the outside but raw on the inside, but these were surprisingly delicious and well-cooked. Or maybe they tasted so good because it was so damn frrrrr-fr-frr-freezing cold, and they were so divinely hot.

* Found a use for my 2 leftover rolls of frozen chocolate chipper dough. Chippers were a party hit with the semi-frozen, smoke-wreathed guests.

Toast - the story of a girl's hunger

Lately I've rediscovered toast.

For a while I forgot about it, indulging daily in the pleasures of fresh, soft bread. But recently I've been hauling out the toaster every morning, as much for a sense of thriftiness (thanks, Rose Prince) as for a simple delight in thick slices of slightly crunchy, hot, buttery, jam-smeared bread to accompany my morning ucp of tea.

I don't like my toast too toasty, unlike Bruno, who likes his well-browned and crunchy crunchy. I like mine with only the merest hint of colour, just enough crunch and warmth to let you know that yr not eating raw bread anymore, but something infinitely more delicious (and better suited to chilly mornings).

I whack on heaps of (unsalted) butter and smooth on some of whatever jam we've got open - at the moment we've got strawberry and vanilla, a particularly wonderful accompaniment, and some of Bruno's mum's yummy apricot jam, as well as the too-stiff cherry and vanilla jam that Sean and I made when he was here, which of course still tastes fab despite it's difficult consistency - or some honey if I'm feeling up for stickiness and mess.

I don't like too much jam or honey - I have a weird phobia about sinking my teeth into lots of sweet stuff. I always imagine my front teeth rotting away in such a concentrated sugar bath, which is why I often tear my toast into small pieces and eat those, thus avoiding biting altogether - just enough, not knifefuls.

Bread with butter and jam only really swam into view for me once we moved here and I started to make my own jam. The bread here is so fantastic that it becomes much more than just a couple of slices of cardboard or cottonwool hastily eaten before running out the door. Not only is the bread hearty and sustaining, it is, almost without exception, unsliced, so it takes a little more effort to pop it into the toaster - you gotta slice it yrself, and properly, evenly or else it won't fit into the toaster. Only after 3 years of practice can I now almost cut bread properly, and even so I still do uneven doorstops when I'm not paying attention. I think it takes a lifetime of experience : )

Buttery jam bread is about the only breakfast I can stomach during the week when I am hauled out of bed by the kiddies at an unreasonably early hour of the morning to demands of 'bix! bix!' (weetbix). I sleepily make the kiddies weetbix with hot milk (for some unknown reason they both love weetbix, Lola especially), and then set about slicing and toasting something for myself. After they've finished their weetbix the kiddies will have some bread and jam too, although I know Lola just tolerates the bread (she's not a huge bread eater, unlike Max) for the jam - one day I caught her eating spoonfuls of jam straight out of the jar with a big spoon.

On the weekends we take more time, and we'll often have eggs (soft-boiled or poached) or french toast, sometimes with the cheese box on the table as well, sometimes not. But always with bread, butter, and jam. And coffee!!

My favourite bread at the moment is a deliciously brown and malty St Galler Landbrot. It toasts fantastically - in fact, it is better as toast than fresh - and keeps well. It comes in a bumpy lump, and the crumb has a great smooth, firm texture. It's available from Migros, for the bargain price of FR2.20. Small price to pay for so much breakfasting pleasure.

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)

the vexing question of saturday lunch

saturday morning is always such a frenetic rush in the kitschenette household. there are shopping lists to be written (entailing at least partial planning of the up-coming week's meals), recycling to be sorted (glass - green, brown, white, tins, PET bottles, plastic milk bottles...they all need to go to different places) and dropped off, and afore-mentioned shopping to be done. by the time i get back home it's practically almost lunch-time, and i'm starving, the kids are starving and bruno, well he always seems to be hungry : )

most weeks we just throw together a kitchen sink lunch ie. bread, cheese, avocado, yoghurt etc etc but today was so cold that i really felt like something warm and comforting. i'd bought some ready-made pastry when i was shopping so i had the brilliant idea of making little pies for lunch. so quick, and easy (always my main criteria), and with the added bonus of little kiddies adoring them.

so simple! i used a large mug to cut out pastry rounds, and lined a muffin tray with the rounds. i had some left-over tomatoey chicken casserole, so i used that to fill some of them. i grated an apple and used that to make a quick apple pie, sprinkled with brown sugar. then i used a drinking glass (importantly, smaller than the rounds made by the mug) to cut out rounds for the top. i then wet the edges of the pastry casing and laid on the top, pressing the edges closed with a fork. a brush of egg yolk, and into the bottom of the oven on a baking tray (to crisp the bottoms) at 200°c for 15- 20 mins or so, until golden brown and delicious (you can move the pies up higher in the oven to brown the tops after 10 mins or so).

i made these mostly for the kiddies, but adults seem to find them irresistible, too. so keep an eye out for marauding adults if you leave them prone on the kitchen bench, wafting off their gorgeous smell.

the white stuff

phew, it's been an exhausting few days, with little time to eat and not much appetite on all our parts. max is still fighting off the nasty tummy bug and is reduced a mere shadow of his former self, poor babe, and still cannot keep much down. it's a strictly white food diet for him for now - zwieback, pasta, rice etc. high point of the whole affair was sitting down to dinner last night, having prepared a nourishing chicken soup, and max puking at the table...yes, including into his bowl!!!!!! SO disgusting, i had to just shut my eyes and not look. not his fault of course, but somehow i just didn't feel like eating the rest of my soup...back to that ol' stalwart, bread and nutella (plus a fortifying glass of red wine). the jar of nutella is the most popular thing in our household at the moment!

yesterday at migros i discovered to my delight that last year's favourite seasonal yoghurt is back in production - belle hèléne (chocolate and pear). so good! it is not too sweet, slightly sourish, with a good chocolatey flavour and colour, and satisfying chunks of pear throughout.

sell by: 21.05
consume by: 27.05
note 'yoghurt' in 3 languages, as is everything here (makes for very busy graphic design on all products. sometimes they squeeze in 4!) - german, french, italian.