Winter Dinner

Cooking dinner is not really my thing - it's Hayden's, and he has even been known to get a little bit tetchy with me when I stray into his domestic territory.  It's his creative time of day, and I try to leave him to it - I'm usually delegated the task of keeping Lily distracted and out of the way (or is it that she's delegated the task of distracting me?)  

Last night, however, I took control of the kitchen and was inspired to stir up a wintery pea pumpkin and parmesan risotto.

I was glad I did.  It turned out quite well!

The Hungry Girls

In a recent rash of ordering books over the internet (what? my winter interests have been kick-started.  As mentioned in the post below it’s time I turned to creative things, like cooking, gardening and cosying up our little home) I ordered this:  The Hungry Girls’ Cookbook Volume 2.  

At the time, I was mainly wanting to have a look at how they’d hand made the book - I think I was vaguely hoping it would inspire me to make my own.     It didn’t inspire me that way - it’s too nicely done for me to get that ‘hey, I could do that too’ feeling.  But it did inspire me to cook, so in some ways it has achieved what it set out to do.   It’s got just twelve recipes in it, and I’ve made two of them so far - Carrot Fritters and a Quick Spanish Dinner of mixed up potato, capsicum and chorizo.  And they both turned out delicious.  I’m seriously looking forward to making the Nepali Dahl with Eggplant Pickle.  It’s ages since I’ve eaten a lovely comforting blandish dahl.  It’s a craving I get every so often, and our local indian takeaway makes it just too damn thick and tasty.  Sometimes I’m after something with a whole lot less impact.

Anyway, I highly recommend The Hungry Girls’ Cookbook.  It has a simple cardboard cover and it’s bound with string and staples, and the book itself has a beautiful soft smell.  Its something like green tea, and it makes me think of hanging out at Jan’s place.

Telling the Truth

Is it just me, or does this bread look delicious?  Like I’m really living in my rustic farmhouse fantasyland where I make everything beautifully and effortlessly by hand?   As I was cutting and spreading it, I was wondering just how GOOD and SATISFIED I'd be feeling if I’d made the jam myself too, like, a year ago and then kept it in the cupboard with a little label on saying the kind of fruit and the date.

I made the bread using the same sourdough recipe that worked so well for me last year.  The weather here has turned delightfully Autumny (the Townsvillians are talking about “winter”; it was a story on the news when three French backpackers got lost in our local rainforest and spent the night on a rock ledge "while temperatures plunged to 12℃”).  I started up my sourdough starter a while ago, and last week I made a terrible loaf (not concentrating; put in twice as much water as I should have) so I was really pleased with how this one looked coming out of the oven.  I rapped it on the bottom, and it sounded hollow.  Good sign.

But.  However.  It tastes ...only fair to moderate.  I cut the first slice right off the cooling rack, spread it with butter and then something out the window caught my eye.  Maybe a bird, or a colourful butterfly.  I had made it all the way out into our front yard and was looking up in a tree when I realised that I had been munching on the bread all the while.  The taste of it had not even intruded into my consciousness.   When have you ever eaten bread fresh out of the oven and not even realised you were doing it?  I should have been thinking "MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmMMM ... delicious!" but instead all I was thinking was, "yes.  It is bread that I'm eating.  Chew #1.  Chew #2. Swallow?  OK, yeah, swallow."

What a shame.  Maybe if I was a better blog-liar I would have had you believe that it tasted just as good as it looks.  Time to work on that perhaps?