Last Dance on the Beach

As mentioned in my last post I am doing Last Dance on the Beach Afghan with a CAL that is being run by a small group of CAl lovers on Ravelry.  The pattern is still available free from the Scheepyes web site. 

We are about to start week 4 and amazing of all I am up to date!

These are week 3 squares.

The pile is starting to grow

I still haven’t decided on the colour of joining yet, I have a grey in the same wool that might be ok.

This cal has special meaning for me as it commemorates a young designer the late Marinke Slump ( aka : Wink) from www.acreativebeing.com and was the final design she was working on at the time of her passing. In accordance with the wishes of Marinke’s family, 12 of her online friends and bloggers have completed her unfinished design to present this beautiful and sensitive CAL in Marinke’s memory and as a tribute to her work.

My first steps from doing granny squares was thanks to Wink and her blog,  These I did in 2014 –

I never finished this afghan as I ran out of cotton, I am thinking perhaps I should make a project bag out of them

These mandalas were published Simply Crochet, I cant remember which issue, they still adorn my bedroom!

You are sorely missed, even from the other side of the world Wink.

See you tomorrow with part 4 of the Lillianna Cal.

Sharon

Changes

Hi, I am revitalizing this site,  it is obvious I am lazy at writing recipes, well I tend to eat them and then remember I need to take photos, lol.

Circumstances have changed for me recently, I am housebound due to a bad accident which involved falling off a ladder while hanging curtains.  I damaged both knees quite badly and am confined to the lazy–boy or crutches for the time being.  I have physio etc usually in the mornings or a home help comes in etc.  But the afternoons and evening are very long.  In the spirit of making a silk purse out of a sows ear I decided to get cracking on all the crochet and art projects I keep putting off because of lack of time.  So Alice and Phylis  is going to be my diary of my progress and hopefully by the time I am on my feet again the blogging habit is ingrained!

I downloaded one afghan  cal from Ravelry that I had an eye on and got sucked into a cal that was previous to that, similar design that would make a pair in my lounge.  Both in cotton from my stash even if one is aran thickness and the other is dk thickness.

I got stuck in and unfortunately I finished the 1st clue with two days and had to wait a week for the next part!  So that’s how the second afghan got started, same again!  So a third cal got started…. yes same again!  So I decided to go with it and have made a time table, a different project a day, it seems that cal parts are usually involving up to 4 hours of work.

Here is my time table

Monday – Lilliana Cal

Tuesday – Atlantis Cal

Wednesday – Mandilla Madness

Thursday – small projects i.e washcloths, toys etc

Friday – Amanzi Cal

Saturday – Off

Sunday – Last Dance Cal

As of today Saturday 21st Oct this is where I am at with the different projects.

The Lilliana Cal –

I have just started Part 4 which was released last night, tut! that’s for Monday, lol.

The Atlantis Cal

I have nearly finished Part 2, here is a photo of it  at the end of Part 1.

Mandala Madness

Have just finished Part 1

Photo to come

Small projects

I have been making toys and washcloths to sell and for charity.

Here is a selection of toys I have made recently.

Amanzi Cal

I only started this yesterday and haven’t finished Part 1 wihic is rather large as it is the central block athat is about 18 inches.  So, I am giving myself 3 weeks for that as it rather complicated  Part 3 came out today , but I see these are somewhat smaller, so I just might catch up.

The Last Dance Cal.

I am following this as a cal on a ravelry group I belong to. We are up to Part three, I have done part 1 and 2 and half way through Part 3,  part 4 starts on Monday.

Week 1

Week 2

There you have it!

I will post every days progress and there I will give out more detailed information about the projects.  What about your art projects, I hear you say, I am posting my progress with them on my art blog Rainbow Splashes every Friday.

See you tomorrow with my last dance cal.

Sharon

Sweet and Sour Artichoke Salad

I have an abundance of globe artichokes growing in my garden.  I have only ever eaten them by sucking on the ends of the petals(?)with butter.  A yummy experience but very messy.  On Sunday I decided to trawl through my cookbooks and see if I could find some different ways of eating them.  One book was a goldmine, The Italian Cookbook by Gabriella Rossi.  If you want pretty pictures, this book is not for you, but if you want to know about authentic italian cookery, then this is a good cookbook.

I have modified the recipe somewhat, as I did not have any peas but had a lot of asparagus I wanted to use up.  I was a bit uncertain  how asparagus would go with a sweet and sour sauce, but used the logic that asparagus and broad beans go well together, so there was a good chance that it would work. I have to say that the combination was divine, and I would have asparagus in preference to peas any day.  Also the sauce was lovely and I am looking forward to trying it on other salads, cucumber springs to mind.

Ingredients

• 6 small globe artichokes
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions chopped
• 175 g/6oz/1 cup fresh baby broad beans or shelled frozen beans
• handfill of asparagus stems or 1 cup of peas
• salt and ground black pepper
• fresh mint leaves for garnish
• For the dressing
• 120g/4floz of white wine vinegar
• 1tbsp sugar
• handfull of mint leaves torn roughly

Method

Peel out leaves of artichoke and discard.  Cut into quarters and take ot choke if there is one (thats the fluffy stuff, although if they are young there should be any.) Place in a bowl of water with the lemon juice.  Heat oil in large pan, add onions and cook till soft and translucent.  Add the drained artichokes to pan.  Pour in about 300ml/114 cups water and cook covered for 10 minutes  Add asparagus cook for 5 more minutes, add beans and peas if using.  Cook another 5 minutes.  Drain and cover and leave to cool.
To make dressing mix the ingredients in small pan, heat gently till sugar dissolves, simmer for 5 mins stirrinng occasionally.  leave to cool. To serve, drizzle the dressing over the vegetables and garnish with fresh mint leaves.
Enjoy!

Celeriac – Ugly But Divine

Celeriac

Dug up some celeriac this morning. This is the first time I’ve succeeded with Celeriac. I have tried three years in a row and failed miserably every time. They either bolted or stayed the size of golf balls. This was their last chance. You never see it for sale in the supermarket yet cheffy TV programmes and cookbooks all extol its virtue. So at long last I can try it. It doesn’t look very appetizing, but they say you never can tell a book by its cover.
I decided to google celeriac and have discovered a great place for recipes. The BBC lifestyle site has recipes from all their cooking shows since whenever.  I found 137 for celeriac! http://www.bbc.co.uk/food. This one was from the Masterchef programmes.
Celeriac and Apple Rosti

Ingredients
4oz potatoes (pref waxy),
4oz celeriac
2oz apple
2oz butter
2 tbsp oil
salt and pepper

Method
Grate potato and squeeze out juices. Peel celeriac and grate. Peel apple and grate, Mix all together. Heat butter and 1 tbsp oil in fry pan. When sizzling, add the mixture and press down firmly. Season well and keep pressing down so strands form a rosti or pancake. Takes about 10 minutes on medium heat.
Melt remaining butter on top of rosti and turn over and cook other side till well browned. It will keep for 20 minutes on a low heat. Cut into portions and serve.  I tried to make mine too big and it fell apart, ended up looking like hash.  Next time I will use spoonfulls of mixture.

Divine! I had the rosti with some bacon. They went well together. Going to try it as a mash tomorrow with my Pork Chop. They all seem to rave about it as a mash. Another way that I am going to try it is to add some grated to coleslaw. I think it will be yummy that way too, especially with red cabbage. This is a vegetable I will never go without again, so versatile, I even snacked on some raw. Would be nice with sticks of carrots.

Lemon Shortbread

I love Shortbread, in all its forms.  I started to bake it when  I was about 13 for my father as he loved it so much, then it was plain shortbread, now I have a tendency to add other flavours, such as this one with lemons or sometimes in summer I like to add English lavender flower seeds, or sometimes I like to add ground coffee.

Lemons are very plentiful at the moment and my little lemon tree is groaning with the weight of the fruit so I am finding ways to use them in all my cooking.

Lemon Shortbread

Ingredients

• 200 gm (7oz)butter,
• ½ cup(4oz) castor sugar,
• grated rind of 1 lemon (NB lime is nice too, or a mix.)
• 2 cups (8oz) plain flour sifted,
• ½ cup desiccated coconut.

Method

My spring garden

Beat butter and castor sugar and rind till light, Work in flour and coconut, but not over work!  Roll out to 1cm (¼ inch) thick and cut into shapes of your fancy. 
Bake 20 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius , cool on tray.

 

Ingredients

Fritters have always been part of our family’s diet.  When Mum got out the chopping board and the remains of the Sunday Roast we knew it was fritter night.  If there was no roast left it was usually vegetables in the fritters, mostly corn, but on frigal nights probably before pay day, it could have simply been potatoes and parsley.
Yesterday I was out in the garden doing my daily check up, when I noticed that the coriander was starting to go to seed, there was still lots of healthy growth, so I picked a handful and brought it in.  I didn’t fancy a curry, but I suddenly remembered Mum using parsley a lot, why not coriander.  They were delish!

 Take your favourite fritter batter or follow this one.

• 125g (4oz) s/r flour or plain flour and add 1tsp baking powder

• 1 egg beaten

• pinch salt

• milk

• handful coriander or a mix of parsley and coriander

Method

Put flour salt and egg in bowl and add a bit of milk, beat till smooth and add herbs. Now add more milk till it is dropping consistency, (the amount depends on how much moisture is on the herbs after washing and drying).

Heat some oil or butter in fry pan (I use a mix as Then the temp doesn’t get too hot.  Add tablespoons of batter and fry till bubbles appear.

Flip them over and cook til the bottoms are brown. Place on oven proof plate and put in a low oven to keep warm while you cook the rest.  Makes 10.

Serve with a side salad of choice.
Next time I make these I might add some corn and perhaps a pinch of cumin and coriander powder or just curry powder.  The variations are limitless.

Anyways, a marvellous way to use up a gut of herbs.

Gugelhopf Kiwi Style

Gugelhopf Cake

This cake is Alice’s version of her German mother-in-law’s recipe.  My great grandmother originally used yeast and sultanas and currants.  Over the years the fruit varied but a favourite variation was prunes or prunes and dried apricots.  Today, Ive used my favourite, prunes and apricots.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup chopped dried apricots
• 3/4 cup chopped pitted prunes
• cold tea or water
• 170 grams butter
• 170 grams sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 225 grams flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 125ml runny yoghurt or milk.

Method

Cover the dried fruit with the cold tea or water leave for a few hours. Drain.
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy, add eggs  and beat till well mixed if it curdles dont worry. Add the flour, salt, baking powder and yoghurt or milk.  Using yoghurt makes the cake moist.  Finally add the drained fruit.
Mix separately 110 grams brown sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and 1tsp cinnamon.  Place a third of the cake mix in greased 25cm ring tin or Kugelhopf tin,  sprinkle with a third of sugar mix and repeat twice.  Bake  at 170 C for 45 – 60 mins (I find it takes 60 minutes in my Kugelhopf tin) or until a skewer comes out clean.

This cake can be eaten plain or for special ocasions a lemon icing drizzled over it is scrumpious!

Gugelhopf is sometimes called Kugelhopf depends where you are from.  It is originally from the Alsace area but many European countries have a version.  It also can be sweet or savoury. I have made the yeasted version and it is very nice but like a lot of yeast cakes it has to be eaten on the day.  The version above stays moist for quite a while.

Eltham Slice

Eltham Slice holds a special place in my memories, it was a friend’s grandmother who introduced me to it.  When I was 10 or 11, I went to stay with a family friend on a farm near Eltham in Taranaki for the holidays.  When I went home,  I demanded my Mum make two dishes!  One was this slice,  I don’t know what it is really called but our family called it Eltham slice, we spent quite a bit of time visiting my friend’s grandmother who lived in Eltham and we watched her bake everyday and she always gave us a little package of these slices to take home, but we would stop at the overbridge, get off our bikes and sit down and scoff the lot!  It was the other recipe that make me change from just eating to thinking about how food is cooked.  It was baked apples!  I told my Mum that Carol’s Grans baked apples were much better and please could she cook them that way.  The awakening of a cook?

Ingredients

• 100 grams (4oz) butter
• 3/4 cup (6oz) sugar
• 1tbsp golden syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 cup (4oz) flour (all-purpose)
• 4tsp Baking Powder
• 1 cup desicated coconut
• 1 cup mixed fruit

Oven 160 C
Line a swallow baking tin (12×8 inches) with baking paper.  Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup and cool, add vanilla and beaten egg.  Beat well, sift flour and baking powder and stir into wet mix with the coconut and mixed fruit.   Spread into tin and bake for 25 – 30 minutes.  Stand in tin for 10 minutes.  The slices can then be coated with just icing sugar or you can add a sour cream icing as shown in photo. Slice into bars.

Sour Cream Icing.

Take 1 cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), sift and add sour cream till it is the consistency you desire.  If using  spread on cake and sprinkle heavily with coconut.

Enjoy!

Comfort Food

Flowers from my garden that brighten up a dull day

This week is all about comfort food, great for those days that are damp and dark, or just those busy days when you want to get something ready without too much fuss, but feel sustained.  I know that both my grandmothers cooked these dishes, perhaps without my tweaks.  I was looking at my pile of winter squashes – pumpkins here in NZ and I realised that I had better start using them before they started to spoil.  So I chose the biggest pumpkin, an Italian heirloom variety I obtained from Kings Seeds.  Its flesh is sweet as and nice and dense. 

As it is raining and miserable outside so I decided to make soup.  To make the meal more special I am going to share a pudding that my Grandmother Phylis always made.  Very yummy and slightly decadent, just the job for a dark day, well any day!

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

This is a variation of the classic Kiwi soup that all New Zealanders are weaned on!  I suppose every family has their variation.  In our family there was always bacon or ham and it was left chunky rather than purreed.  Our family always had a dash of cream or milk added at serving, but that is purely a personal preference.  The spices are my generation’s addition, our grandparents would never have added spices, maybe parsley that’s about it.
Ingredients
800 gm small pumpkin, squash or butternut approx peeled. (TIP put pieces of pumpkin in the microwave for a minute or two and it is so much easier to peel).
200 gm potato peeled.
1 onion sliced.
Half leek sliced.
2 rashers of smoky middle bacon cut into pieces.
Clove garlic crushed.
Vegetable stock cube crumbled, or your favourite stock.
Half teaspoon cumin and 2 teaspoons coriander both ground.
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of milk or cream (optional)
Chilly flakes or grated cheese for garnish

Fry onion and leek in tablespoon of oil, add garlic, then add spices and fry for a minute or so.  Add diced bacon.  Chop pumpkin and potato into small chunks add to pan, stir and then add stock cube and cover with water.
Cook at a slow simmer for twenty minutes, do not overcook as you want the pieces of pumpkin to stay whole.
Thats it.  You can add cream, or a sprinkling of chilly flakes or some grated cheese.
Have with chunky home made bread.

Chocolate and Banana Bread Pudding

This is the deluxe version!  I loved it whenever Grannie (Phylis) would start gathering all the stale bread and reached into her stash of chocolate.  It meant yummy Posh Bread and Butter Pudding as we called it.  Sometimes, it had banana in it sometimes not. 
These days whenever I want a chocolate fix and and need good ole comfort food, this recipe is what I turn to,  Hardly any work and ready in no time!
It is great as it can be translated into a massive dish for lots of people or a dish for one greedy person or two more restrained diners.  I have given amounts for 2 people (for every two people increase accordingly).
Ingredients – 2 servings
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 tbsp sugar
as many choc bits (buttons)
 you can handle
1 small banana (optional)
marg or butter to spread on bread
3 slices stale bread, approx I sometimes use a stale large burger roll, whatever needs using up.  The amount of bread determines how custardy it is.
Method
Beat egg and sugar together and add milk.
Butter bread with choice of spread, (Butter makes the top crunchier)
Put a layer in a greased dish, sprinkle some chocolate bits and slices of banana if using on the bread.  Add the eggy mixture to the level of the layer and then add another layer of bread chocolate etc. Then some more of the egg mix.  Try and do no more than three layers, it would be better to use a shallower dish if you need more layers.  Finally, sprinkle some extra sugar over the top and a few more chocolate bits.  At this stage I usually start heating the oven up as the pudding is better if the bread can absorb some of the egg mix before baking,  but if you are in a hurry it can go into an already heated oven without any serious damage to the finished dish!
Bake in at 160 C for 30 minutes or till well risen and gold and set.

 Enjoy!

 

Fish Chowder

 

Seafood Chowder

 I love fish, do you?  New Zealand is slowly becoming awake to the fact that it is an island nation that is surrounded by yummy fish.  In my childhood there were fish and chips on Friday night, which was usually lemon fish, and no choice of type of fish.  I think the fish mongers sold snapper and cod, and of course whitebait, oysters and crayfish in season.  Today when I go into the fish shop or look at the fish stand in the supermarket I am bewildered by the choice.  I would dearly love a chef to put a book out on NZ fish or there be a chart or something that can be used so we can match our fish with classic recipes.

Anyways, I was luckier than most my father and grandfather were keen fishermen.  Where ever we lived we would in the weekends go with Dad on his fishing sorties.  I think to give Mum some peace!  I remember snapper and whitebait when we were living in New Plymouth and an encounter with a shark!  Yep I was out with Dad in our little yellow tin dingy near the sugarloaf and a shark started to nudge the boat, I was petrified!  Needless to say it took me ages before I would go out again.  Living in the Waikato there was trout and I learnt to enjoy smoked fish in the smoker Dad built.  In the Bay of Plenty, there was flounder and pipis (clams), Toheroas (this was before they were protected).  I was a teenager then, and we would build a fire out of driftwood after putting the Contiki out and then digging for Toheroas or gathering pipis depending where we were and having a feed then pulling the line in much later and having whatever was caught with fresh bread that Mum had baked that morning.  Wonderful memories.

At the moment Hoki is in season and real cheap.  I brought a lot at the fish truck that parks itself nearby every Thursday. Hoki is a wonderful flaky fish and can be quite meaty.  It is the favourite for fish and chip meals these days.  I had crumbed fish for the last two nights and this morning was looking at the rest thinking I wonder if it fresh still, however, no fish smell, so sorry cats! So Fish Chowder it is for today.

 

 This is more of a method than a recipe, but there are given ingredients no matter how you vary it.

Essential ingredients

– Fish whatever you have to hand, potatoes, onion, corn, bacon – rind taken off and preferably smoky, milk, vegetable stock or fish stock (I prefer vegetable it is hard to get good fish stock)  The variations come in what other vegetables you might add beans, peas etc.  Today I added celery, Florence fennel and pumpkin (not a lot and put in at the last minute so the soup wouldn’t go too orange!)

Method

Fry the onion, celery and fennel in a little butter till transparent, add the chopped bacon and fry for a few more moments, then add the potato stock and boil for about 15 minutes.   Add the peas, and pumpkin or whatever vegetables you are using.  Cook till they are all tender then add the fish and cook till nearly opaque and add milk, taste and season as necessary, heat through and serve.  Some people thicken it with corn flour (starch), I prefer a thin milky liquid.  I added fennel as a garnish because I had used fennel as an ingredient.  Parsley is also a good garnish.

Florence Fennel

 N.B I have not given measurements as it varies each time I make it.  But as a guide I made enough for two people, I used ½ onion, 2 rashers of bacon, 1 potato, 1 stick of celery, ½ a fennel bulb, handful of peas and corn.  1 stock cube, and covered everything with water and at the end I usually add the milk to make it the consistency I want.

Other variations – sometimes I use smoked fish instead of bacon.

I used fennel today for the first time, as I am the proud grower of Florence Fennel.  I have tried a number of times and have failed!  This year success!  It gives the soup an extra special something and strangely it lost the strong aniseed flavour.  There was just a hint.