Jazz up your winter soup!

Or any left-over stew, etc.

Toast a thick slice of (sour dough) bread - or brush with olive oil and place under the grill or on a hot griddle. Poach an egg.

Put toast in soup bowl. Add soup or stew. Then top with poached egg. Great for a cold winter's day. Very warming and wholesome.

It's a sunny winter's day

...and the proteas are looking good.So does the blue sky and fluffy clouds. :)

Sourdough success!

Wow! What a wonderful surprise!
Let's hope this is not a fluke, but a sign of great things (loaves) to come. :)

The recipe:
200g starter
400g bread flour
300ml water
10g salt

I took the starter out of the fridge late morning, so that it could warm up and expand a little. At around 4pm I added the flour and water and started kneading until the dough was silky soft and smooth. Towards the end I added the salt and kneaded it a bit more. Then into a floured bowl, cover and let rest on the kitchen bench where it is not very warm. Ready for a (very) slow rise.

This morning, I took out the risen dough, shaped the loaf and put it on the baking tray to rise a bit more.

2 hours later, the bread was in the hot oven and baking nicely.Lunch was good! :)

Purple cauliflower

This is the biggest of the lot. The others are about half that size. So we should have a staggered harvest. That would be good.
I am already looking forward to this cauliflower. One thing that irks me a little - the caulie does not stay purple when cooked. That's a real bummer!
It is extremely tasty, though.

Sourdough revisited

I have been experimenting with sour dough again. This is one type of bread that I have not been able to master - yet. Give me some yeast and I'm a happy camper! But sour dough...
Anyway, it's been irking me for a while (again) that I still can't produce a good loaf of sour dough bread. So I made a ferment (first stage) that looked really good. Then fed the ferment (stage 2), and that's where it went all a bit pear-shaped, I think. Anyway, long tragic story cut short.

Here is one yeast-based loaf of bread and the other is the failed sour dough.One good thing - I have now quite a bit of dried ferment and can use that to make another starter, if need be.

Garden Salad

...with Miner's lettuce, Lamb's lettuce, Calendula flowers, parsley, coriander, baby carrots (it's time to thin out the carrots!), salad burnet, spring onions, various other lettuce types. All fresh from the garden.

Home-made bacon

This is ridiculously easy to make. Quick and easy. All we need is a free-range, organic or bio-dynamic pig. And some salt. Next time we make our own bacon, I shall take some pictures and do a little write-up.

This is definitely the best bacon ever!Plus our own free-range eggs.

More holiday pictures

Here two shots taken during a leisurely drive through the surroundings of Wynyard. It was a glorious day and the landscape just fantastic. Our hosts were lovely and generous with their time. Thank you! :)

The beach...

... at Wynyard. How long ago this seems! What a great time we had! :)

Let the porky feast begin!

Baked beans on toast for brekkie. With freshly juiced apples and good strong coffee.

Then spare ribs as a snack later in the morning, as all this cooking is very hungry work.Finely sliced triple-cooked pig's ears.As starter in a salad. Beautiful!Chorizo & chickpea soup with poached egg. Devine!The rest of the meal will have to wait until tomorrow. I am too full to continue.

Pigging out

As you can see here:Then there is the menu for 2 days.

The meal.

Best crackling ever. Roast from the wood-fired oven.

Stuffed chops. Meat and veg in one.

Tomorrow we'll be REALLY pigging out. We'll start with the baked beans (slowly simmered with some roasted pork bones) and freshly baked sourdough bread. Snack of spare ribs at 10am.

5-course pig meal for lunch. Oink!

Diet starts on Wednesday. :)

We are staying at a place...

...for the next 3 nights where the community notice board in the main street displays this:

Masterchef...

...eat your heart out!

THIS is how you do Eggs Benedict!Thank you, Linda & Bob! :)

Scallops

...from Kangaroo Island, bought fresh from the Farmer's Market. Scallop season seems to be very short, so it is a good idea to get your fill while they are in season. Well, okay, we are talking local scallops.

Anyway, we watched the guy at the stall open the scallops, tasted one fresh from the oven (oh oh ohhhhhh) and bought a good lot.

Opening them at home was a lot more time-consuming and messy than anticipated. (Never think something is easy, when watching an expert!) But it was good fun and we got there.

We did encounter 2 of these little crabs. How weird is that?! Spot the crab!
Then each scallop received a dollop of butter, finely chopped garlic and parsley. Then about 3 minutes under the grill and then a squirt of fresh lemon juice. Eat with freshly baked, crusty bread. Mop shells with bread. Enjoy!