A Whisper of Spring
And it appears that self-levelling cement isn't always quite level. Oh well, we won't talk about that. On the cooking front we are doing very well. The weekend saw two casseroles, a batch of pain au chocolat, cupcakes, two different flavours of biscotti (chocolate and lemon and almond), and a lemon delicious pudding emerge victorious from one baking session. Oh, and rhubarb meringues to finish off. The meringues were an absolute triumph. We always seem to have a couple of egg whites loitering in the back of the fridge. This week there were lots due to a double batch of lemon butter The Girl made. Hence the biscotti, and of course, meringues. Last Spring The Girl whipped up a batch of raspberry meringues for Posy's birthday party, to rave reviews. We hit upon rhubarb as a Winter substitute. We roasted chopped rhubarb for twenty minutes or so in a moderate oven, then The Girl mashed it and swirled it through the meringue mixture. Happy pink Winter goodness. Meringues now promoted to 'health food'.
I am loving finding new ways to eat what we have grown. Due to the children requiring large park-like spaces of lawn to do cartwheels on and run about like mad things, I don't have a large vegie garden, but this year I am determined to squeeze vegies into every available space, and then, and this is the other trick of food gardening, not waste any, but actually eat it all. To this end I am trying to find ways to add vegetables to more of what we eat. Last night I made vegetable soup. Usually I serve soup with bread, or a batch of cheese scones, but last night I hit upon the idea of vegetable pancakes. Not a new idea, obviously, but just one I had never associated with soup before. I used our usual pancake recipe, added salt and cumin, and grated vegies. So yummy, and my peculiar youngest children, who don't really like scones (who doesn't like scones?), gobbled up pancakes with added vegies. Not that I'm complaining. Now I need to find ways to use all that red chard I planted a couple of months ago. It hasn't grown much yet, but Spring is coming, despite the snow on the mountains. I know this, because while I was trapped inside on the weekend, applying Antique White USA semi-gloss enamel to window frames, I spied the year's first jonquil in the garden.
I am loving finding new ways to eat what we have grown. Due to the children requiring large park-like spaces of lawn to do cartwheels on and run about like mad things, I don't have a large vegie garden, but this year I am determined to squeeze vegies into every available space, and then, and this is the other trick of food gardening, not waste any, but actually eat it all. To this end I am trying to find ways to add vegetables to more of what we eat. Last night I made vegetable soup. Usually I serve soup with bread, or a batch of cheese scones, but last night I hit upon the idea of vegetable pancakes. Not a new idea, obviously, but just one I had never associated with soup before. I used our usual pancake recipe, added salt and cumin, and grated vegies. So yummy, and my peculiar youngest children, who don't really like scones (who doesn't like scones?), gobbled up pancakes with added vegies. Not that I'm complaining. Now I need to find ways to use all that red chard I planted a couple of months ago. It hasn't grown much yet, but Spring is coming, despite the snow on the mountains. I know this, because while I was trapped inside on the weekend, applying Antique White USA semi-gloss enamel to window frames, I spied the year's first jonquil in the garden.
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