It’s been tricky finding time to blog lately. Ironically, that’s because I’ve been so busy cooking and gardening and writing fiction. March was always going to be a bit of a time-buster for me – it’s tomato season where I live and wow, have I got tomatoes. This weekend alone I turned 9kg of Romas into a delicious salsa my kids won’t leave alone. Nachos are the new vegemite toast right now.

I’ll post that recipe soon, along with the most incredible zucchini and corn relish that I recently discovered, pickled gherkins a couple of different ways, tomato sauce, chilli sauce, red chutney, and green tomato chutney, among other goodies that have been keeping me busy. But first…the garden.

A single day’s haul, including our first chilli, cucumber and capsicum

Zucchini. I’ve never grown it before this year. Why did no one tell me that one family of five probably only needs half a dozen plants at the most? I planted twenty. Yes, we’re totally zucchinied-out. I’ve been grating it raw into green salad, baking zucchini bread, zucchini slice, zucchini and haloumi fritters, zucchini muffins, and zucchini omelettes. I’ve made relish, I’ve blanched, I’ve frozen. And still, the plants keep producing…

Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini…

Beans. Climbing beans were one of the first vegetables I tried growing at home. After an aversion from being fed too many as a child, I quite like them these days. Mostly. This year I chose a different position in the garden, and while they’re growing and producing really well, they’re just not as sweet as previous years. Bummer. My chickens like them though!

Beans! And some basil, flat leaf parsley and spring onions

Celery. Yeah, I’m one of those weird people who actually enjoys drinking celery juice. So this year, fed up with buying them every single week, I grew them against the advice that they’re kinda difficult to have in the garden. All lies. Don’t believe it. Celery is easy-peasy. I didn’t blanch them (where you try to keep the stems white by growing the plant in troughs, or cover the lower part with pipe or newspaper)—I just stuck them in the ground, watered and fed them, and watched them grow. Very nicely, thank you! Besides juicing, I’ve been drying both celery and celery leaves in my dehydrator.

Who says celery is hard to grow?

Capsicum. Known, I believe, as peppers in other parts of the world. This is another vegetable we’ve grown before, but never in big numbers. Last year, I made a totally yummo red tomato chutney, and the secret ingredients in that were red capsicums and pickled gherkins. I’m serious! The capsicums are growing well, though not many have made it to the red stage yet as we’ve been picking and eating them green. Sooo sweet! Even Mr 6 Year Old Fussy Pants is stealing them to eat raw.

Baby capsicum

Gherkins. So, yeah, speaking of needing pickled gherkins for my tomato chutney, I thought it would be a good idea (hahaha) to grow and pickle them myself. The packet of seeds I bought only contained 25 seeds and, because I’d left it really late in the season, I decided to plant them all, guessing only half or less would actually germinate. Yeah. Wrong again, Mandy. I now have twenty-five gherkin plants fighting for space in a very small bed, growing up and out and climbing (ie. strangling) everything they get near. Both the plants and fruit are super-prickly, which makes it hard to get near without gloves. However – my gherkins have been producing so many flowers (and then gherkins) that the bees are flocking. Swarming. Both. This makes my allergic middle child a bit nervous, but the rest of my garden very, very happy. Gherkins need picking every day, so they are a bit time consuming, but the pickling side of things is pretty easy once you’ve done it a couple of times. I have dozens of jars in the pantry, pickling away, but will wait a couple of weeks for the taste-test before posting the recipes.

A Triffid? Close, but not quite. Gherkins taking over the world

Next up – Sweet corn (and the best ever way to cook it), chilli, cucumbers, raspberries, more strawberries, herbs, and tomatoes. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes…

This is a new one for me, but one that I’ll definitely be making again. Without the icing it freezes really well, so it’s a good dessert to put away for when it’s needed.

Cake

• 2 (about 300g) grated carrots
• 1/2 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup golden syrup
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• Roughly chopped walnuts

Icing

• 250g spreadable cream cheese
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 2 tsp orange or lemon juice

Preheat oven to 170°C. Sift the flours, bicarbonate of soda, walnuts and cinnamon into a large bowl.

Put the brown sugar, oil, milk, golden syrup, eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl. Mix until well combined.

Pour the oil mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir gently until just combined. Stir in the grated carrot.

Grease a cake pan lightly with oil, and line with non-stick baking paper. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake for 1 hour. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Icing

Place the cream cheese, icing sugar and orange or lemon juice in a bowl. Mix until well combined.

 I’ve mentioned before that we have a glut of strawberries happening at our place this year. I’ve been growing them in pots for 3 or 4 years, and a good day’s picking would mean half a dozen, maybe more, and gobbled up within minutes of reaching the kitchen. If they reached the kitchen. 

This year, we built a dedicated strawberry patch. I split a couple of the plants I already had, and planted about six more from my local nursery, in the hope that I’d have enough for jam in a next year or two. Wow, did I underestimated the fruiting ability of a happy strawberry! Still not getting enough in one day for that illusive batch of jam – but there’s been plenty of other recipes made. Including this one – possibly my favourite:

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

In the past, I’ve used a basic vanilla base without eggs for my strawberry ice cream. Since I have so many strawbs to play with this time around, I figured why not go for a traditional ice cream base using eggs (did I mention we also have a permanent glut of eggs, kindly laid daily by our eight backyard chickens?)

What You Need:

• 3 cups of fresh strawberries, hulled and chopped roughly into quarters. Put aside 1/2 cup to add to ice cream later.
• 1 ¾ cups of caster sugar. This will be divided into 2 lots – 1 cup for the strawberry sauce, ¾ cup for the ice cream base.
• 2 eggs.
• 3 cups of heavy cream.
• Juice of one lemon.

How It’s Done:

Add 2 ½ cups of chopped strawberries, 1 cup of sugar and the lemon juice to a medium saucepan. On a low heat, cook until the mix resembles a slightly chunky sauce and sugar is dissolved. It’s okay to bring it to a simmer, but try not to boil. This step will take around 20 minutes. Make sure you stir frequently. Allow to cool and then refrigerate.

For the ice cream base, using an electric mixer, whisk the eggs for a couple of minutes until they become light and fluffy. Whisk in the ¾ cup of sugar a little at a time until completely combined. Then add the cream and whisk until blended. Here’s a secret – even though this mix will be at room temperature, chill it for an hour. Your ice cream machine will be so much happier you took the time to do so.

Once both mixtures are sufficiently chilled, begin churning the egg mix according to your machine’s instructions. I use an ice cream add-on to my KitchenAid machine, but there’s plenty of dedicated ice cream makers out there, ranging in price from hundreds of dollars right down to $30.

The trick is to keep the bowl in your freezer so that at any time you need it, it’s fully frozen. My machine will produce soft-serve ice cream in around 25 minutes, so I churn the egg mixture alone for half that time, and then while the machine is still running, add the strawberry mix. Once the required consistency is reached, add the reserved chopped strawberries and continue churning for a further minute or two. You can either eat now, or pour into a sealable, freezer-happy container for a further two to three hours, which will give you a great, scoopable consistency.

Be warned…you will never, ever bother to buy commercial strawberry ice cream again. The difference is AMAZING.

*best eaten within four days, due to the raw egg factor of this recipe. That’s if it lasts that long…

It was one of those Monday afternoons. You know the kind, we all have them. Our home is currently undergoing huge renovations, with most rooms involved – thankfully not the kitchen, been there, done that – we’re talking dust, chunks of plaster, holes in the roof and walls, new windows going in, old ones going out, floor coming up, floor going down, walls being chainsawed completely out of the way. And dust. Again.

Anyway, I was madly preparing ‘stuff’ for my oldest son who was to undergo oral surgery the next morning**, middle son had been in a wonky-computer related meltdown all weekend that I hadn’t quite managed to resolve, and then, with an hour to go before school-pick up, Lovely Husband reminded me that I’d promised to make youngest son cupcakes, to be ready when he got home. Of course.

No time to make the real deal from scratch, and no time to get to the shop. So this is what I made:

(And this is why it helps to keep a pretty well-stacked pantry)

What You Need:

1 packet of commercial chocolate cake mix.

Cupcake liners.

60g dark cooking chocolate.

125g butter.

6 tablespoons of milk.

500g of icing sugar.

Lollies. I used jellybeans and M&M’s.

How It’s Done:

Make and bake cupcakes according to the directions on the packet. I always keep a chocolate and a vanilla cake mix on hand for emergencies like this one. And, you know, lazy baking days.

Allow cupcakes to cool completely. Confession – I ran out of time, so cooling happened while I did the school pick-up. But it worked out okay because the boys helped decorate, which is apparently, almost as fun as eating the cupcakes.

 For the icing, add chocolate, butter and milk to a large saucepan. Bring to boil, giving it a good stir frequently. Remove from heat and beat in icing sugar until smooth. You might find you need to add a little more icing sugar or milk, depending on consistency. You can either pipe the icing on (beware though, it stiffens quite quickly) or just smooth it on with a knife. We are talking emergency cupcakes, after all. Chop around half of your desired lollies, leaving some whole. Press into icing and you’re done!

 **this may or may not translate into ‘I was having a complete and utter freak-out at the thought of my son undergoing surgery’. He did fine, by the way.  

Here’s my Cod with Cream recipe because many, MANY people have asked for it ~ Diana Pinguicha

Ok, so, you need:

– 2 very generous slices of cod

– eggs (ideally, 1 per person, but more if you want to make extra for lunch/whenever — I’ve seen this eaten at 10 a.m.)

– Potatoes (ideally of this type. If you don’t have them, regular fries will do)

– onion & garlic (it IS a Portuguese dish)

– bay laurel (2 or 3 leaves)

– salt & pepper

– parsley

– cream (if it’s heavy, dilute it!)

– milk

– flour

How You Do It!

1. Boil the cod with the eggs until cooked. Turn the over on at around 150ºC or 200ºC.

2. Meanwhile, fry onion, chopped parsley, bay laurel, pepper and garlic in olive oil. Once the cod is done, slice it and put it with the onions/parsley/etc mix. Wait a bit then throw in the chips and the sliced eggs. Salt it to your taste, but I usually just use two pinches.

The Béchamel Sauce!

This tricked me for a while, getting all lumpy and stuff — but no longer! You can buy pre-made béchamel sauce, but I’d rather do my own.

1. Put 3 spoons of flour in a bowl with a bit of cold milk (enough to dissolve).

2. Heat 3 spoons of olive oil; once it’s hot, put in the flour with the milk. Now, add more milk while stirring, stopping when the sauce is creamy and consistent. Around half a litre of milk should be enough for the sauce, but I never measure it. I just add until I feel it’s right.

The Finale!

Now, all you have to do is add the béchamel sauce to the cod/chips/eggs /etc. Add some cream (not too much). Put it in an ovenproof dish and cover it with cream.

Put it in the oven until the top is brown.

Ta-daaa! You’re done! If you want, add some bread crumbs or cheese on top. Bread crumbs can make the top crunchier, but the cheese will change the flavor significantly. Try with and without to see how you prefer it.

Some notes to consider:

– If you buy salted cod, do not forget to de-salt it! Put it in water for a day or two while changing the water 2-3 times a day!

– You can accompany the cod with tomato salad! I season mine with olive oil, fleur du sal, balsamic vinegar and soy sauce.

It’s delicious!