eggplants. grown and baked

so delightfully glossy

So we've been growing eggplants this season and they look incredible. It's such a healthy plant bearing gorgeous deep dark luminous fruit {or vegetable?}. I have always adored eggplant. Such full voluptuous shape and I like the mystery of the transformation from raw and spongy to the silken roasted flesh of this curious vegetable.

roasted beauties

Again, it was an Ottolenghi recipe that drew me: [http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggplant-with-Buttermilk-Sauce-365110]. This dish is actually gracing the front cover of 'Plenty'. It is very simple to make and the texture is divine. The buttermilk-garlic-yoghurt was great, the garlic is left raw so it adds a nice tangy warmth to the simple sauce. I am not usually one of sauces but this was quite lively and well balanced {and terribly easy to prepare}. I had some left over and mixed it through some lentils with green beans, a little Spanish onion and pommegranate seeds. It is a very versatile sauce, I'm sure I'll be using it more oft.

they really were delicious. and quite fetching visually

There are about 7-8 more little egglets on the way, at the moment they are more {chicken} egg size but they do grow kind of rapidly so I look forward to more meals with them. If anyone has a great recipe using eggplant, please let me know-I usually just slow bake them with thyme or make baba ganoush.

a little baking

One of my friends made a gorgeous cake, her very sweet partner said that it was the Grandfather of all cakes, the First Cake etc so I was inclined to try the recipe out as it was a carrot cake {a type of cake of which I am particularly fond, when done well}.

happily this recipe only called for one carrot's worth of gratings

It was a recipe from Ottolenghi. I have a book of his called 'Plenty,' which is full of delightful recipes. I find he used spices that I don't usually use which is great because it opens up many different flavours. I feel like it's easy to use the same old spices but quite fun to use sumac, za'atar, cumin etc. Anyway this carrot cake---> http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/carrot-cake was pretty darn delicious. It has a really lovely moist crumb with a pleasant crunch to the outer part of the cake. The flavours were warm and rich but not too much. A cake I could probably eat for breakfast. On an indulgent day.


I always struggle to follow a recipe exactly but with this one I made only a few little tweaks. I used ginger and cardamom powder instead of cinnamon and clove, I added a little lime rind to the icing and for the nut topping I used about 20g each of pistachio and walnut {both lightly toasted} and a little sprinkling of dried {edible} rose petals. We had it for a little afternoon treaty with some earl grey. I was very happy with how it all came together. I realise that my favourite cakes are ones that have whipped-into-stiff-peak egg whites folded into the batter for the last step. It seems to give that lovely lightness to the crumb, but then it's also nicely dense. Oh Cake, I adore you.

rose, pistachio and walnut. I like the number three.

lime rind. absolutely worth grating

flowers and cake for afternoon tea

our tame cockatoo. he seemed to be fond of the cake also.

flowers {always}: wedding bouquets

The second day at Little Flower School began with a thorough discussion of the many details involved in putting together a beautiful wedding. I have assisted on many weddings and have been lucky enough to do all the pretty things like making bouquets, church arrangements, table centers, button holes, hair circlets but it was good to go through the other details. It was however, quite distracting as we were also surrounded by the most beautiful of blooms.

I was taught to spiral all hand held bouquets so Sarah and Nicolette's method of non spiraling was fun to play with. I suppose spiraling makes the bouquet quite tight and neat but makes it impossible to get that lovely light airy feeling in your work.

I chose to work in tones of peach, silvery sage, creams and browns. I began with the beautiful peach-blush and green quince which had a few lovely little branches coming off them. 
I was drawn-as ever-to the most beautiful fragile peach garden roses. They smelt sweet and slightly fruity like apricots with just a little hint of lemon. You can see the quince just to the right of center and another piece branching out to the left. I love stephanotis and had only used it in button holes previously so was very happy to use it here. Flannel flowers are a favourite of mine, they are so luminous, I feel like they must grow by moonlight instead of by the sun. A few sprigs of jasmine and a little dried clethora put the final touches on this bouquet. It made me feel a little like getting married.

We bound just a little of the stems which what I prefer too, leaving a more natural look than the constricted look of a fully bound stem. The girls said they often leave long ribbons on their work which is something I hadn't thought to do previously-I loved it! Walking around in a lilting breeze with these flowers would be so pretty!

Everyone who took the class made such delicately wrought, gorgeous arrangements. I took mine home to watch it slowly, and beautifully, fade. I couldn't help myself, I kept a few little pieces.

rose and fruit bearing adventures

I spent a little bit of time researching the roses I mentioned in my previous post and was momentarily attracted to the idea of purchasing bare root roses, which would make me feel like I'd been patient and that they were more mine alas alas, I couldn't wait until May 2013 which is when they are best planted. Instead we set off for Galston, North-West of Sydney. It's a very prettily settled rural area, we used to have horses there for a few years. The nursery we went to is called Green E Plants Rose Nursery. The owners were really knowledgeable and pleasantly peculiar which made it an even better experience. We bought 8 small potted specimens.

On the way home we spotted some side-of-the-road fruit, which is the very best kind of fruit. They were selling local nectarines, peaches and strawberries. Such warm bright colours and strong sweet fragrances, I couldn't resist buying far too many. We had extended family staying though so I justified my over-buying by pushing the precious fruit onto them in fresh, poached, barbecued and baked form.

When we were in Morocco in 2012, we came across locals cooking sardines in a Shwia {I'm not entirely certain how it is supposed to be spelt-I looked it up but can't seem to figure it out} over coals on the street. Basically, a Shwia is a hand held wire barbecue rack. We wandered around and bought two and have since cooked pilchards, prawns, sardines and peaches on them. They are really great to cook with because sometimes barbecues scare me a bit as I think I'll over cook everything. With this Shwia device, you can bring the delicious thing you are cooking as close to the coals/flames as you like and take it off very quickly-reassuring everyone involved that the thing won't get crisped.

silvery fish

I cooked the 'road-fruit with some thyme and rosemary on cooling coals for about an hour-checking them pretty oft. They were amazing, such a lovely rich flavour. We ate them with ricotta. The smell of them is incredibly enticing.

summery delights

 I also made an upside down peach cake which I was happy with. The peaches kept it quite moist so it was almost a pudding but the crumb was quite light somehow too. I'll post the recipe soon.