I'm guilty

I have to be honest, I've been very lazy lately. I've read a lot of blogs, done a bit of knitting, contemplated a few life changes and that's about it.
Tim's heart had another glitch yesterday morning, and at the moment he is in hospital being looked after very well. I have fed the cats, and got myself up to the hospital and to work, and that's it.
I'm hoping he will be home either today or tomorrow, and then we are both going to have to make some changes. I think perhaps a bit of a holiday might be in order, although we won't know what to do with ourselves.
In other news, we are busy trying to assimilate another bookshop into our small space.This was a lovely bookshop, but the owners are now off having a wonderful time, and we have their lovely books.
We have discovered we either need rubber walls or we need to be a Tardis. Our poor little shop is groaning .

I've done it

Well, work didn't really get very far advanced, but I have got all  my blog entries in one place. Terribly out of order, but apart from the seasons not really being appropriate everything is pretty much spot on.
NOW __ WORK!!!!.

Last of this lot

Baking for beginners

Jul6

New Zealands Hottest Home Baker is on TV at the moment, and I keep getting asked why I don’t bake any more. I actually love baking, but I love eating it as well and therein lies the rub. (Butter into flour till fine crumbs.)
I’m trying to lose weight and not succeeding very well and to start baking would be tantamount to piling on more pounds. Mind you, it is winter and one needs comfort food, although today, instead of working, Tim and I have been sitting outside in the brilliant sunshine, just soaking up the rays. If only winter could be like this every day.
Back to baking. I have been reading Marian Keyes “Saved by Cake” , ” her extremely honest account of her recent battle with depression and how baking helped her. A complete novice in the kitchen, Marian decided to bake a cake for a friend, and that was it – she realized that baking was what she needed in order to get.  her through each day. And so she baked, and she wrote her recipes down, and little by little the depression has started to lift, along with her sponges… ” ( from the blurb of the book.
This is a lovely baking book, so many yummies to try, and also an incredibly honest account of a nervous breakdown and how she managed to come through to the other side. She is an inspiration, and I’m going to give her therapy a try.
“Off to the kitchen” she cries.

This entry was posted on July 6, 2013.

2 to go

Low carbing

Oct27

I am on a weightloss trip at the moment and Tim is very kindly on the trip with me. To that end we are following a low carbohydrate diet, which to a carbohydrate addict as I am, is quite difficult. Tim is coping quite well, because bad carbs, as a rule, he can take or leave. I, however am having trouble. I love bread, fresh hot homemade bread, dripping with butter and real honey, and chocolate really is the food of the gods.
Low carb substitutes are not the same. Nobody could ever claim that mashed cauliflower is equal to mashed potato, but it is yummy, and because cauliflower is fairly bland as a rule, you can jazz it up with so many different herbs and spices that you can have a different taste experience every time.
Example from last night -dinner was  lamb leg steak marinated in honey and mint, with carrots, green beans and cauliflower mashed with mint and butter. A dash of salt and ground black pepper, perfect.

Still getting there

Italian Food

Oct10

One of my favourite films is ” The Big Chill” and one of the best bits to me is the kitchen scene where they are cleaning up after a pasta meal.. The music, the camaraderie all just rings a very large bell with me. I’m not Italian, ( Irish) but the general family/ friends atmosphere is so seductive. If we tried dancing in our kitchen, I’m sure disaster would befall us. More than one person in our kitchen constitutes a crowd. Of course, Italian food is truly yummy, and Tessa Kiros’s Venezia makes it all so do-able.
Her Asparagus and Scampi Risotto just melts in the mouth, so creamy and rich, with just the right amount of bite.
The photography is also superb, not just the stunning scenery but the little snippets of life such as a little dog in a shirred and smocked pink dress, on a lead, having a sniff at something interesting on the street.
The book is a beautiful production from Murdoch Books,beautifully bound, heavy glossy paper, gilt edged, beautiful silk bookmark sewn in.This is more than a cookbook, it is a dream.

getting there

Another month has gone by, and I have been very remiss in adding to this blog. Work, and too many cooking shows on TV have all contributed to a lack of writing and cooking.

Well, it’s spring, and I’m still thinking I should be writing something, so today it’s a little discourse on macaroons, which I love.
La Familia Artisan Bakery, which is across from us in Cameron St, make beautiful macaroons, and I do get tempted by them far too often, but on a Sunday afternoon, when they are having a well deserved day off, I can’t actually go and buy any.
So, out comes a cookbook, on this particular occasion   “How to be a Domestic Goddess”   by Nigella Lawson.
The recipe makes sweet and tasty, deliciously light morsels, and it is so hard to stop at just one, but they are so easy to make,if you run out just whip up another batch.

• 2 large egg white
• teaspoon(s) cream of tartar
• 100 grams caster sugar
• 30 grams ground almonds
• 1 pinch of salt for pasta water, to taste
• 1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract (or coconut essence if available)
• 250 grams Dessicated coconut

As featured in

HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3.
2. Beat the egg whites until frothy – no more – then add the cream of tartar and carry on beating, Missus, until soft peaks are formed. Add the sugar a teaspoon at a time and whisk until the peaks can hold their shape and are shiny. Fold in the almonds, salt, vanilla and coconut. The mixture will be sticky but should, all the same, hold its shape when clumped together.
3. Form into clementine-sized domes, 6-7cm in diameter. Don’t make them too flat; they look best if you keep them nicely rounded, but this is really just a matter of personal taste, so follow your own.
4. Cook for 20 minutes or until they’re just beginning to turn golden in parts.

But not yet

Winter’s on its way

Apr10

Well, the weather has started to turn a bit nippy in the mornings these days, so soup season is nearly upon us. Actually it started yesterday, with a batch of minestrone and fresh hot ciabatta bread
.
I will get the hang of photos on this site eventually. This particular photo of bread came from The Fresh Loaf, but the bread I ate was from La Familia in Whangarei . Absolutely beautiful, and far too easy to gorge on, particularly witih honey,  or as yesterday, with fresh fig jam, yummy.
Will make another pot of soup tonight, possibly chicken and vege, lovely and chunky, a meal in one.

The end is nigh

Scones

Apr1

I got to stay at home and play today, so I did a bit of baking. I haven’t made scones for so long, it was fun to just play around and see if my brain, let alone my oven still worked. So, as a treat for Tim, who had been slaving in the shop, I made some terribly rich, buttery scones. Didn’t have any cream for whipping, but that was probably just as well, as I drowned them (well my share anyway) with butter and homemade strawberry jam. A nice hot pot of  Earl Grey tea, and a lovely afternoon tea was had by us both. Have to do this again, soon.

Not many to go

Thinking about baking

Feb11

Just lately I have got hooked on Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series. Set in a bakery, ‘” Earthly Delights”  Corinna is a baker par excellence. With a fantastic supporting cast,  it is very easy to get sucked in to the lives of the inhabitants of Insula, the Melbourne apartment building which houses the bakery and other unusual businesses. Of course, reading these books (there are 6 so far) has inspired me to do some baking. So far I have made white bread, which was delicious hot out of the oven, dripping with butter and some gorgeous honey that one of our lovely customers gave us for Christmas ( Thank you Helen, I am savouring the honey, so yummy.) My other lot was a wholemeal which I did in 4 small tins. Froze 3 and am having the rest for lunch with tamarillo chutney bought from the Farmers’ Market and sliced fresh tomato  with rock salt and black pepper.

Getting there

Healthy Eating

Feb11

2012 is  here, and a wonderful year it is going to be.
My pre New Years resolution is to cook more and eat a tad more healthily. I want to do more with the wonderful fresh veges we have at our local farmers market and what we have growing . However over Christmas I have slightly pigged out on chocolate ( 2 of the basic food groups – dairy and fruit, my theory anyway )
A good start to our healthy eating will be this, which I shall try on the weekend.
Grilled Sweet Potatoes
Use as many Sweet potatoes as needed for your dinner
Preheat the grill to approximately 350 degrees (approximately medium on a gas grill)
This will be approximately when the coals are white on a charcoal grill.
Place the sweet potatoes on the highest rack.
Turn one quarter turn every 10 minutes.
Check for tenderness after 40 minutes. If there are still hard spots, continue to turn every 5 minutes until done.
Serve with butter and a little paprika
With a piece of fish and a crispy green salad -Yummy

Next one

Summer’s on its way

Nov13

Well, summer is a coming, but we’re still having spring weather, rain, warmth, wind and rain again. Makes the grass grow lovely and lush, and all the spring veges are taking off. So, unfortunately are the slugs and snails, but there are ways and means to deal with them. Can’t wait till the veges are big enough to start harvesting, there is nothing that beats the taste of a fresh baby carrot straight from the garden.
I’m actaually starting the veges of from seedlings this year, as I have left it far too late for a lot of the seeds, but at least now I don’t have the chooks wandering around saying “Ooh yummy”. No, Mrs Pretty  and Roosty have left us for better places.  I do miss them, but until I am at home a lot more there will be no more chooks. Now all I have to do is sort out the peacocks, and the cats.
Meanwhile

Sweet and Sour Green Beans
Serves: 4
Total Time: 15 min

Ingredients

• 3/4 pound(s) green beans
• 2 tablespoon(s) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• 2 tablespoon(s) cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon(s) sugar
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper

---

Directions

1. Place the green beans in a steamer basket set over a large saucepan of boiling water. Steam until bright green and crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
2. In a medium skillet, heat the oil. Add the shallot and cook over high heat, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the vinegar and sugar; stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and add the beans. Season with salt and pepper, toss well, and serve.

One blog down

Welcome to the world,baby post

Nov8

I am not a blogger,yet.
At the end of this little exercise I may be on the way – time has yet to tell.
If this works this will be a right mish-mash of thoughts,recipes,photos and things that take my fancy,however I know me and I’m not going to hold my breath that I will ever do any more than this first post.

This entry was (first)  posted on November 8, 2011.

Out of Order No2

Summer’s Coming

Summer’s on its way at last, and soon we’ll be complaining about the heat, so to prepare myself for the upcoming hot months I’m taking a look at some of the newest arrivals about a somewhat cooler place.
Still Life by Jane Ussher is a breathtakingly beautiful photo study of the Antarctic huts used as bases for the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton.
These flimsy huts were left behind as reminders of the brave men, some of whom were never to return, who risked their lives exploring new lands.
Looking at these amazing photos, you wonder how they survived the privations of life in this cold unforgiving climate. What remains is a potted history of the “Heroic Age”, the years from 1895 – 1917, when men were men and women waited at home for them to maybe come home.
Another wonderful  photographic Journey; Improbable Eden – The Dry Valleys of Antarctica by Craig Potton. The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are one of the last truly remote places left on earth. With no cover of ice or snow and no rainfall, these dry valleys are  ‘islands’ in the midst of the frozen ice of the Antarctic continent, a strange environment of ice – covered lakes that hold some of the planet’s purest water, huge expanses of wind-sculpted rock, barren eroded land forms and glaciers that intrude into the edges of the valleys. Access to this unique environment is extremely restricted.
This book is built around the photographs of Craig Potton, who gathered the images on two separate trips to Antarctica. The text is provided by Bill Green whose previous
non – fiction writing on the Dry Valleys won him the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing in the USA.
The final book in our trilogy is The White Desert by Noel Barber  _ his personal story of the Trans – Antarctic Expedition.
Flown in on an American plane, Barber was the first Briton to reach the South Pole since Scott’s party of five in 1912.
He was at the Pole to witness the memorable meeting of Hillary and Fuchs converging on it from opposite ends of the continent,across the white desert to this strange little white oasis.He learnt how and why Antarctica is lonely,dead,cruel,inhospitable and irresistible.
Feeling chilly? Well then, hop outside and enjoy the sun for a while, but spare a thought for those down south in the freeze

Terribly out of order

Hello world!

Well, I have done the deed and joined the world of the blogger.
All I have to do now is actually write something intelligible that people will actually want to read. Basically this blog will be about the highlights, and lowlights ,that we have available for sale in the shop.
I will tell what I have been reading, and what I think of it, or not as the case may be.
For instance, I have just read “A Milllion Little Pieces”. Well behind the times, I know, but it came in as a second hand copy, and it hung around long enough for me to take home over the weekend to read.
I had heard all the hooha over it, which did put me off to a certain degree. But, having read it, I wonder what all the fuss was about.
I was intensely irritated with the Capital letters in strange Places and the lack of punctuation, amongst other things.  
The feeling I got was that because he admits he is a bad person, we should think  “What a Good Guy for admitting his faults.”
However, after all that, I still had to keep reading till I finished the story.
I wonder which bits of it are the truth, and I guess we will never really know. And, I guess, do we really care. He has made his money out of the book, and as a bookseller, so have I, and in these tight times, that is really all that counts.

It seems to have been forever since I have posted here,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
For so long now I have been trying to do 3 separate blogs, but I have finally come to the conclusion, (I'm slow), that they really should be altogether.They are similar after all, but instead of one on books,one on cookbooks and one on gardening books  it's a bit silly to try and write the same thing three diffent ways.
I will gradually bring all the posts here, they may not be in order, but the gist will be there.
Meanwhile I have been shockingly slack, and have been reading blogs from all over the world, wasting a huge amount of time, but thoroughly enjoying myself, and also getting lots of inspiration.
Most of the blogs I am going to are knitting and woolcraft, such as spinning and dyeing, and after many years hiatus I have started knitting again, and surprise, surprise, I can still remember  mostly what to do.
The range of beautiful New Zealand wools is growing by leaps and bounds, and although we don't have a dedicated LYS here in Whangarei, there is always mail order.
I have to start saving my pennies, there is so much I want.
However, back to work. I have approximately 150 boxes of books to process and get out for sale.