Tuesday, January 22, 2013

food for thought



Malaysian Curry Laksa may well be my favourite thing to eat and for the first time I made my own (recipe here). I was a bit too cautious with the chilli but it was delicious. Making the paste is easy - or would be with a food processor (I haven't graduated beyond  a mortar and pestle, and hand egg beaters, but I kinda like it that way..). What I love about making my own is using fresh ingredients i.e. crap free chicken, good quality fish/ prawns, silken tofu....rather than fish balls and spongy tofu, to which I have forced myself to turn a blind eye in restaurants over the years. 

As for the tarts which have become a favourite here and are super easy to make, I've abandoned the pastry 'cos they are so good without. I just made the recipe up, which seems to always make enough to fill 9 holes in a muffin tin....
Beat together -
  • 2 or 3 eggs
  • a cup of almond meal
  • a dash of vanilla essence
  • a teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar 
  • this time I added 1/4 cup of cream but i don't think it's necessary
Then distribute strawberries and blueberries or which ever berries you have at your disposal, evenly between the oiled muffin tins, and pour almond mix evenly on top.

I baked them at 200 Celsius in our gas oven which has dodgy seals so maybe bake at 180 in a grown- up kitchen with stuff that works properly. (fellow renters will empathise..)

There's a fantastic new post over at Whole Larder Love about killing animals for one's own eating purposes - very inspiring. It's something  that Big Honey and I discuss and think about often. We have talked about buying chooks to fatten and slaughter for our own table. Big Honey also devised a pigeon trap for the many visitors to the chook run. Our Mediterranean neighbours have been eating their own rabbits, lambs and pigeons for years and have given us instructions which we are yet to carry out. I would love to be able to produce as much as possible in our quarter acre back yard, which seems to me to be big enough for a lot more. I read Novella Carpenter's wonderful book  Farm City : The Education of an Urban Farmer and got all starry eyed thinking surely we can produce more than fruit, veges, eggs and honey. I re read chapters of Etain Addey's A Silent Joy; Diary of a Hill Top Farm (one of my favourite books of all time), and dream of being a proper small scale farmer when I grow up.. Oh that we could graze a cow or a sheep or a goat in the back half of the neighbour's yard and make some cheese too... But I'm also realistic about time and circumstance and I know we are doing what we can now; and simple stuff like making bread and yoghurt and jam keeps me happy. 





 




1 comment:

  1. Oh goodness Kirti! You are a kitchen goddess! Do you know that!!
    I would love to come and eat your tarts...doesn't that sound provocative!!
    I'm coming to eat your tarts!!!!

    ReplyDelete