Australians All...

Not sure that our rejoicing was as fancy as a lot of people's.  For a start, it was a normal work day.  Then there was the fact that it was rainy and winter-ish outside... not quite Australia Day Barbie weather.  And we were starting our small celebration when you were all in bed recovering from yours.

Having said that, I did make good old meat pies for dinner, and thanks to Barb I even got to dress them up!  Her package arrived right on time, too. Thank you for the lovely surprise, Barbara, it completely made my day.

I put some of the little flags on the front door, too, just to make sure that people know an Australian lives here (I suspect most of our neighbours think I'm English).

Barb also sent me an Australia-shaped biscuit cutter (minus Tasmania).  I'm looking forward to making some biscuits.  I think I'll even make little bits for Tassie.

But back to the pies.  They were pretty good; my shortcrust pastry actually worked out for once. Of course they were generously annointed with tomato sauce.  Here's my artsy photo of them:

Hope you all had a lovely day, whatever you did or didn't do to celebrate.  And I hope you all still feel like you're living in the Lucky Country.

Cheers!

I Wish It Was Spring!

Not because I'm wishing the winter away (although some snow would be nice), but because

I WANT TO WEAR THESE!

How groovy are these fabulous gardening shoes that Aileen sent me for Christmas?  They're lightweight, waterproof, have really good treads, and they fit beautifully.  I can't wait to put them to good use.  I don't think dashing out to the compost bin in the rain, which I did today, really counts.

Speaking of Christmas, Daniel has been good enough to share some Cherry Ripes with me from the stash of outrageous goodies that Frog sent.  Yay!

We invited our friend Chris over and we had olive and artichoke pies, ham, green beans, tartiflette (a fabulously sinful potato dish, the recipe for which is here), and then Daniel made ginger creme brulee for dessert.  Oh, and here's the recipe for the pies.  I'm sure I don't really need to mention that they're both from taste.com.

To top things off (as if that wasn't enough), we visited our friends Shannon and Henry for more dessert on Christmas night.  Shannon had made a chocolate and walnut pie similar to a pecan pie that was to die for.  Needless to say, much exercising has been going on since then!

We had a lovely, relaxing day, as did the furry folk.  Although, to be honest, they rarely do anything else these days.

Oh, and we had the best Christmas tree ever.  We didn't get it until the Thursday before, so all the trees were on sale to the point that we got ours in exchange for a donation to charity. Double bonus, in my opinion.

Pretty cool, huh?  It takes up lots of our admittedly tiny living room, and almost reaches the ceiling!

Hope you and yours all had a lovely Chirstmas, too.  I'm off work this week... trying, and almost succeeding, to do some productive things around the house.

Cheers!

Sad But True

So since I'm having trouble moving photos from the camera to the computer (I suspect dead batteries), I thought I'd share this little Sad But True tale with you.

Daniel went to the store to get the bits and pieces we needed for Christmas, which included some fresh green beans.  Can't have ham without green beans!  He was sorting through them when a woman approached him to ask him how he was going to cook them.  Read that again if you need to double-check, but yes, she wanted to know how he was going to cook the beans!  She then went on to say she'd never had a fresh green bean because... wait for it... SHE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO COOK THEM!!!!  Seriously.  How sad is that?

Even worse, it reminded me of a time I had a similar experience at the green bean stand.  And when I explained to this particular person that, apart from steaming or stir-frying them, I also eat them raw in salads, you would have thought I had just killed and eaten her firstborn child.

Sad.  Very sad.  But unfortunately very true.

Recipe Update

I have some recipes to share with you all, but before I do, I want to crab about this here blog-thing. 

I spent AGES writing a post about the holiday Daniel and I took in northern Idaho at the beginning of October.  I waxed lyrical, wrote witty photo captions, and selected some lovely photos to share. I previewed it to make sure everything was okay, hit the "publish" button, and then watched as most of it failed to publish... AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGH! 

Not only that, but I couldn't retrieve it.  There simply are not enough swear words....

It is probably out there in the ether somewhere at the moment feeling very lonely and scared, so if you see my post, could you please send it home?  Thanks.

In the meantime....

Here it is, The Best Turkey Recipe Ever.  There's a radio show over here called Splendid Table, and the recipe hails from their website.

I'm always a little nervous about cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.  I don't often roast things, and Thanksgiving is my favourite American holiday so I really don't want to stuff it up. I'm not sure this recipe is completely stuff-up proof, but I did manage to navigate it successfully and roast a bird that I was very, very pleased with.  I will warn you, though, it's time-consuming; so make sure you have plenty of said time before you commit yourself.

A few things I discovered: 

• The recipe itself is a little scattered, but it's not difficult to work out what is intended.  It's also fun to read, which is a nice change from all those terribly serious recipes out there.

• I had a 17-pound turkey, and the seasoning mix was a little more than I thought was really necessary.  It definitely seasoned the meat, though!

• Don't skip the gravy, but make sure you have a decent sized shallow tray to roast in.  Mine was a little small, and it took forever to reduce the stock down to the point where it became gravy.  The gravy itself doesn't need thickening; it's very, very rich and a little goes a long way, unless you're Daniel.

• When the recipe calls for lots of lemon, it means it.  I think that made all the difference to the seasoning.

• It doesn't have stuffing, but I'm sure you could add that yourself and adjust the cooking time accordingly.

I can safely say that it was the most tender, juiciest turkey I've ever had.  Daniel and Chris, both of whom have had more Thanksgivings than me, said it was the best turkey they'd ever had. Yay!  And it wasn't even a fancy turkey, just one from the supermarket.

Now I know it's hot over there, and stew is probably the last thing on your mind, but I also wanted to share this recipe with you from our friends at Taste.com: Catalan Beef Stew

Chocolate and orange in a stew; who'da thunk it? Apart from the Catalans, of course.

It is absolutely delicious, and this is from someone who thought she didn't really fancy stew all that much.  Pop it into your mental  filing system and drag it out the next time you get a yen for some stew.  You won't regret it.

So Here's the Flippin' Fountain

At last!  A moment or two to show you some photos.  I don't know how life got so busy, but it did.  Probably that last burst of energy before winter settles in. 

As you will see, what we built is more of a water feature than a fountain, but it's still pretty fantastic, I reckon.

When last I wrote, we had built a circle of stones to place the actual pieces in, and Daniel had installed an electrical outlet for the pump.  Remember that?  It was a while ago.

Here's what happened next:

We lined the circle of stones with weed cloth, because...

...we decided to fill the circle with small gravel with the idea that it would make the base easier to level.  But before we got to the gravel, we (by which I mean Daniel), piled in some dirt.  It's certainly cheaper than all gravel - I just stole some from other parts of the garden. Here's an action shot of the Man himself:

Then came the gravel:

Then came the base, and the first of many excursions into the wonderful world of leveling.  Did you know that leveling comes with a swear word or three?  I do now....

We went with larger pebbles for inside the fountain base. 

And then the pump went in...

...followed by an upside down pot with some strategic holes in it to allow the vertical pipe part of the pump to be placed properly.  This involved more leveling.  And quite possibly a swear word; I really can't remember.

Then came the actual fountain part - which is really just a very large pot - followed by, surprise, surprise, a little more leveling.

Strangely enough you need water for a water feature, so out came the trusty garden hose.

And then came the moment we (and the birds and squirrels, as it turns out) had been waiting for...

Electricity!

A few minutes of holding our breath...

And the water feature arrived!

I hope you aren't too underwhelmed after waiting so long to see it.

It still needs some plants around it, and possibly a sculpture if I can come up with an idea for one.  Those two things will have to wait until spring now, because winter is getting close.

It makes a lovely sound, and we've had the chance to enjoy it in the evenings.  The squirrels and birds adore it; I saw a couple of little feathered folk bathing in the basin this morning.

We're going to have to drain it pretty soon, but I'm thrilled to know it will be there in the spring.

So Where's The Flippin' Fountain?

Weeeeelll.... the best laid plans and all that....

For those of you who don't know, I got the bits and pieces to build a fountain for my birthday this year.  Yay!  The plan was to build it over the long weekend that just happened to be after my birthday.

I had been to the store where we ended up buying the pots before my birthday so I had time to think about it all, and let my subconscious ruminate a little.  We popped down to the store and picked out all the pieces (my subconscious had apparently not been ruminating at all - it took a while), only to find out that the guy who does all the prep work for turning the pots into fountains had taken a three-day weekend, too.  The cheek!  I mean, really, didn't he KNOW what our plans were? ;)

I do believe it was Wednesday when Daniel picked everything up; the pots have the right size holes, they've been plugged where they're supposed to be plugged, and we have a fountain kit.  Daniel also got good instructions on how to assemble everything so it will work properly.

Only problem was, Daniel had a solo backpacking trip planned for the following Thursday - Sunday (yesterday).  We are talking about some rather monumental pots that there is no way I can lift by myself, so the fountain plans got put on hold again.  He actually came home on Saturday, but we didn't get anything done yesterday because...

Daniel had to go to New York this week for work.  He left way too early this morning.

Soooo... you might be wondering if we'll get to it this weekend?  Unlikely.  We have a wedding on Saturday, then Sunday we're going to Sun Valley to see Colin Hay (yes, THAT Colin Hay from Men at Work.  He's a solo artist these days, and his stuff is light years better than any of the rubbish he did with that band).  All things being equal, we'll get it done during the week next week.  I hope so, because the following weekend we're going camping. And the weekend after that we're off to Priest Lake in northern Idaho for a week's holiday (I am SO looking forward to that), then we're off to Salt Lake city for a couple of days to see The Foo Fighters, and we have to plan the hot air balloon trip we bought for 60% off the asking price (it was too good of a bargain to resist)....

I think we may have overscheduled ourselves a wee bit....

Having said all that, we have made some progress.  We went out to the desert to collect some lava rocks to make a base, and Daniel ran some wiring for a power outlet.  I had wanted a solar pump, but everything I read and everything everyone told me, led me to believe they're not much chop.  Unfortunate, but for the moment we'll be relying on mains power.  I don't plan on running it all the time, so it shouldn't be too big of a deal.  In fact, at this stage I'm thinking we'll drain it for the winter, although we can get a heater for it so it doesn't freeze.  We'll see.

So.  Here's where the fountain is going:

And here are the rocks we're making a base for it from:

In case you're wondering, we didn't ravage the desert for the rocks.  We took them from the (dirt) road verges where they'd been kicked up during the road-making process.  And we didn't touch any rocks that were near a critter hole.

I dug out most of the Lily-of-the-Valley, but I still have plenty left.  In fact, they could do with some thinning and dividing:

As I mentioned, Daniel put together a power outlet.  Apparently the crawl space is an arachnaphobe's worst nightmare.  Methinks I will have to have words with the furry folks about that:

After that, we started piling rocks.  Daniel had the bright idea to make a template of the fountain base so we could make sure it was going to be big enough (he told me he remembered me putting down templates when we re-did our kitchen in Illinois... smart me, and smart him for remembering; I was wandering around with a tape measure and getting all confused!):

I've added a few more rocks since this last photo was taken, but you'll have to wait now:

I bought some weed barrier cloth today with the plan of filling the circle with dirt this evening.  The cloth will stop dirt from leaking out and destabilising the fountain base; at least, that's the hope.  But it looks like it's going to storm, so I guess I'll be doing that another night.  Good thing I don't get too freaked out when plans don't go according to plan!

Cheese, Please

Yesterday, Judy (a co-worker) and I went to a cheese making class in a town called Nampa, which is about 20 miles away.  I'd always thought it might be interesting to learn how to make cheese, so when Judy invited me, I happily tagged along.

The class was held in the cheese maker, Debra's, kitchen.  She and her family also operate a store selling beer, wine, and cheese making supplies from their home. 

We made two types of cheese, Apple Cider Vinegar Cheese and Queso Fresco (pronounced 'kayso freskco').  The vinegar cheese was really simple.  The Queso Fresco was also quite simple, but a bit more fiddly and I'm not sure I can describe properly how to do it.  It's a Mexican style of fresh cheese, and actually, that's what its name translates to in English.  They're both soft cheeses, which is probably why they're so straightforward.  I'll give you the vinegar cheese recipe, and then explain what we did.

Ingredients:
1/2 - 1 gallon pasteurized whole milk (I'll let you do the conversion)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions:
Heat milk to 185 degrees F. Add vinegar and mix thoroughly. Turn off heat.

Cover and let sit for 15 minutes.  You are looking for a clear separation of curds and whey.  If the milk has not set, add a little more vinegar until it does set.

Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. Drain until desired consistency.

Remove curds from butter muslin.  Add salt and herbs to taste if desired.

It's now ready to eat, or you can keep it refrigerated for 1-2 weeks.

Here are the things I learned about this ridiculously easy cheese, along with some basic cheese making principles:

1.  1/2 gallon of milk makes a decent amount of cheese, although the quantities we got varied from person to person.  If you want to make lots, use a whole gallon (you use the same amount of vinegar).  We used plain old supermarket milk.  I think with the more complicated cheeses - cheddar and such - you'd want to get your hands on raw milk if you can.  Apparently ultra-pastuerised (not sure if you have that - it's mostly used on organic milk here), will not work.  They heat the milk to the point where all the little greeblies that actually make the cheese are killed off.  Oh the humanity!

2. Raise the milk temperature slowly so it doesn't scorch.  We made ours in double boilers, which is the way to go with this one. Most recipes will specify whether or not to use a double boiler.  If the milk does scorch, make sure you don't scrape the bottom of the pan while you're stirring it.  And if you get a skin, just remove it.  The temperature is really important, so if you go over, let it cool back down before you add the vinegar.

3. Use a slotted spoon to pour the vinegar into the milk.  Pour the vinegar over the spoon and move the spoon around the pan as you pour to help distribute the vinegar evenly.

3. Use a slotted spoon to stir, and stir slowly.  Hold the spoon vertically and work from side to side, rather than holding the spoon flat.  Can't remember why, but this one was important. Stir until the colour from the vinegar has been fully incorporated; you'll see the curds start to separate almost immediately.

4. The whey should be that clear yellowy/green colour I'm sure you're all familiar with, not milky.

5.  Butter muslin turns out to be a fairly fine muslin. Dampen it before you use it.  Oh, and if you've washed it in detergent, boil it for a bit with some bicarb to make sure all the soap residue is gone. You don't want it to be so fine the whey can't drain through, but not so coarse that the curds drain along with the whey.  Apparently old linen pillowcases work well.

5.  We spooned the curds into the colander and then poured the whey in, rather than dumping it all at once.  That can change the consistency.  You can use the whey to make ricotta... who knew?

6.  We lifted and turned the curds using the muslin, to make sure all the whey was gone.  Some people let theirs drain for quite a while to make a drier cheese, while some went with a softer consistency.  It's  a personal choice.  The cheese doesn't taste like much of anything at this stage, except for maybe a hint of vinegar (which not everyone could taste).

7.  We split our cheese into two batches to make two different flavours, and this is where we added salt to taste.  I over-salted mine, but it's still pretty tasty. I used black pepper, onion flakes and chillie flakes in one, and an Italian herb mix in the other. The important thing is that you absolutely must use non-iodised salt.  And this applies to all cheese making.  The iodine will ruin your cheese.

8.  If you're going to eat the cheese straight away, you can mix whatever fresh herbs and spices you'd like into it (tarragon, lemon zest and pepper comes to mind).  Otherwise, you need to use dried.  The fresh stuff will make the cheese go all gluey and unpleasant after a while.  Judy put honey in hers (along with a little salt), which I thought was a good idea.  You could serve it on crackers with fresh strawberries and nuts, or something.  It's pretty much like a dip in consistency.

And there you have it, a really simple cheese!

The Queso Fresco was more complicated.  We used rennet and something called mesophilic starter to get the curds to form. It had to go through a few cooking processes, and we had to cut the curds (they formed a mass that looked like silken tofu) to release the whey.  

Interestingly enough, even though we were all using the same milk from the same store, we had very different results.  Some people's curds set just fine, while others' did not.  This is fairly common, and leads me to believe that with cheese, as with all other cooking, learning how to rescue a disaster is an important skill!

We got to sample a couple of cheeses that Debra had made.  One was Monterey Jack, which is a mild, firm, inoffensive kind of cheese.  It was awful!  It tasted like it had fermented somehow, and was very bitter.  It was a good example of how cheese can go wrong, though.

We also got to sample some Cotswald cheese, which is a much firmer cheese.  It was about four months old, I think, and I thought it was absolutely delicious.

I'm now pondering whether or not I want to take the Farmhouse Cheddar class.  It's more expensive, and will require me to invest some dollars in cheese presses and the like.  I'm not sure I want to do that, at this stage.  It was interesting, and I learned a lot, but I'm not convinced I want to get that carried away with it.  We'll see; at the very least, I have learned some new skills, and got to spend some time with some interesting people.