Squolch

But some things don’t seem to be determined by my conscious mind. I noticed limes in the fridge, ginger in the cupboard, enormous ruby grapefruits in the fruit bowl. No big deal. Normal life, que sera sera, c’est la vie ordinaire mon petit choux-fleur. And then I was chilling with a cup of tea at work and I suddenly thought of those three things all at the same time and knew I had to have marmalade. I mean: grapefruit, lime and ginger? That is GOLD, son.

Criteria for recipe: easy with no dicking about; must produce a sour and/or bitter concoction; must not require overnight sitting. Mostly because it was Sunday and I wanted it NOW. Turns out I’m not a unique and special little snowflake in this regard. Came across this marmalade post on Thursday Night Smackdown, and it seemed like my sorta thing. Only, of course, I wasn’t using lemons. Thursday Night Smackdown’s recipe was an adaptation of this one on Sally and her teacakes. Essentially, you boil your fruit, whole, until it’s soft and squalchy and then purée it. Pick out any seeds, then add sugar, water and any other flavours you want to add, and start boiling. I boiled my enormous ruby grapefruit with a couple of limes: it took about half an hour, which was quicker than I thought. Then into the food processor! Whiz! Squalch! Splurt! (Sexy.)

It's there, trust me.

I added fresh ginger, crystallised ginger, half a cup or so of pineapple juice (because we had some and why not and stop asking questions) and sugar and a little water. Boiled everything until, well, until it was marmalade. And boy howdy snap-pants, is it ever! YEAH! On toast: beautiful. Stirred through Greek yoghurt, awwwwHELLZyes. Yeah marmalade! IS THERE NOTHING I CANNOT MAKE? (The answer is no, but that results in a triple negative — too much for you? TOO MUCH GRAMMAR?)

Gel test, as if I can't tell what marmalade is.

But my triumph could be greater. Here’s what I’ll do next time:

• Purée it to a much smoother pulp. Really really really smooth: the texture of this batch is a little on the chunky side.
• Simmer the fresh ginger in some sugar syrup, or use only crystallised stuff: it’s a little blunt as is.
• Use more pineapple juice in place of water.
• Make more. Much, much more. I only had one grapefruit and two limes, so I only got three jars outta this. They have not lasted very long.

If there’s any lesson to be gained from this (apart from how splendid I, as a cooker, am, but that’s more a gentle reminder than a lesson as such) it’s this: if there’s something you want to try cooking, do it. It’s likely to be easier than you think (unless you’re making, like, walrus consommé or something), and the sense of chuffedness when you realise “YEAH, one more thing I can make for myself” is unmatched.

And then I played with self-portraiture, wherein I learned much.

1. Timers don’t work if the camera hasn’t got a reliable balance point and needs to be propped up on something.

Photobombed by a tripod-stand-in

Here we see the edge of the black plastic thingo I balanced the camera on while the timer counted down. Note the flailing arm indicating lack of preparedness or poise.

2. Holding the camera at arm’s length only works for people with normal-length or longer arms.

Not pictured: arm length.

But at least this photo illuminates my concern with the collar of Black Coffee, vis possibly too big and gapey. Rather than swaddled luxuriously around my neck, it hangs open so I look like a turtle looking out of a bucket.

3. This doesn’t work:

The view from here.

Time spent learning is never time wasted, I have heard. Black Coffee needs armhole tidying (pick up sts around each armhole, work a row or two, bind off neatly) and some Serious Thinking about the collar. Options include:

• ignoring it
• ripping back and making it a snug turtleneck instead of a cowl
• …

Long-term planning

For the record: today I planted shallots, broccoli, beets and snow peas. (This is less about writing an informative blog post than it is about reminding me what I planted.) Having pulled up all the beets for pickling, it seemed logical to invest in the future. Abundance this year was generous and fun: abundance down the line has to be prepared for.

And then this baby rolled down the driveway:

BOMB. Of happiness.

For the baffled: that’s a feijoa. A frickin’ big one. Apart half the size of my hand. The neighbours’ bush is awe-inspiring, with massive pedunculated fruits, the stuff of dreams. When I realised one had dropped into my lap driveway, I pounced. It’s now buried in the back yard veggie patch, along with my hopes, dreams and reason for being. If it grows and makes me a feijoa of my very own, I’ll be damn pleased. And astonished. Feijoas don’t usually grow true to type from seed, I’m told, which means if it does sprout and make baby feijoas, there’s no guarantee they’ll be as plump and seductive as this blighter. They could be tiny, tasteless, annoying, or absent: but feijoas are damn pretty and even if it brings me no fruit, it will be an awesome and welcome shrubbery.

While we’re on the topic of abundance (however tangentially), I’ve just discovered punkdomestics.com, which is an awesome site of preserving, canning, pickling, foraging, and general off-the-griddery. Love this stuff! How did I overlook such an awesome site for so long?

One last thing: my tiny habaneros are fruiting!

PS?

Each has loads of green fruit and one orange fruit each — will we get a flush of red fruit before the cold season clamps down like an icy bear trap of futility? Will there be heat in winter? Will there be habaneros for bethini? Only time will tell. THE EXCITEMENT GRIPS ME AND ALSO YOU PROBABLY!

I did relish; I did carrots; next up: backyard sourcing. Time to harvest some beets, friends.

Harvest!

Frosts are coming and these babies have been in the ground since spring. I have no idea when beets are ready, so I figured they’re ready when I’m ready. Cos that’s how I roll. Pulled them up and got ready to RUM-BLLLLLLE!

There are two sides to successful beet pickling: the beets and the brine. (A third, silent side: clean, warm, dry jars: get those suckahs boiling early so that you can take them out and air-dry while you’re chopping your cooked beets.) I like to roast my beets with rosemary, peppercorns and olive oil, inspired by Alton Brown’s recipe. When they’re tender, let them cool and peel them (if you’re impatient, as I am, you can peel them while hot, but it’s trickier). Then slice. Meanwhile, get the brine hot and juicy: equal parts white vinegar and water, plus half a part of white sugar and a couple of generous tablespoons of salt. Bring it all to the boil while the beets are cooling. Chop a purple onion into half-moons, then layer: you want layers of onion and sliced beets, with a few sprigs of rosemary and whole peppercorns throughout. Then pour the hot brine over the lot, making sure they’re covered. Voila! You just pickled beets, my friend.

I love beets. I really really really do. On sandwiches, in salads; with goat’s cheese and walnuts; with rocket, with olives and cucumber — or, if we’re honest, straight from the jar while I wait for my toast to cook. Plus I grew them myself. Plus they’re super pretty:

Pinker than anything in the whole entire world probably.

I love ‘em. And I love making use of the garden: these beets grew because the plants wanted somewhere to stockpile sugars and nutrients for next season. So they grew big, sweet bulbs on their roots. Bulbs I like. Bulbs I want to roast and pickle. I’m stockpiling: beets won’t grow all winter, but now I’ve got enough to see me to the next crop. I call it a win.

Fig 1a: Carrots.

As you can see, I’m pickling. The earth turns, seasons change, the kitchen moves with it. Pickled carrots combine two of my fav-our-ite things, so let’s go!

I used this recipe from My Own Ideas, and it was easy as anything. (I haven’t tasted the results yet, which makes this blog post arguably premature.) Put simply: chop carrots and garlic and jalapenos, sauté briefly, then simmer in brine and bottle the lot.

Fig 1b: Carrots again

I am curious to know whether sticks or discs is better when it comes to pickled carrots. I went with sticks. Recipe mods: we’re running low on garlic and jalapenos, so I omitted both and instead threw in some sad shallots from the bottom of the crisper. That’s the beauty of pickling: age is no obstacle.

Large jar? Yes. Too large? No.

I boiled an enormous ex-olive jar until I felt it was suitably clean (20 minutes at a rolling boil, bubbles and all), and used that. Once the carrots have had a chance to simmer in the vinegar and spices for about 20 minutes, put them, still steaming, in the jar and ladle the pickling brine over the top.

Lid up. Done. You’ve just pickled carrots. Should be ready for eating in a few days, if my experience in pickling is to be believed. AND IT IS.

Food traditions are interesting: in particular, I get a kick out of “use it up” traditions. You see them in every culture, techniques for reusing leftovers, extending food past its best, or preserving in times of abundance in anticipation of times of scarcity. I think I love it because I get all hippie-zen and reflect on the beauty of the world turning and people learning to bend their food around the vagaries of the seasons. You see recipes that make use of abundance and excess in just about every culture: fatoush, ribolita, bread and butter pudding, almond croissants — all great ways of using up extra and stale stuff. And stockpiling: every single jam, marmalade, sauerkraut, kimchi, relish and pickle ever. EVER. They’re all about making abundance last through the times of chill and lack.

My tomatoes, planted late, yielded a measly five (5) tomatoes. And they were out too late to ripen (my fault, really). So this isn’t really making use of abundance as much as squeezing whatever I can out of the scant harvest. Enter green tomato relish! Wait — why stop at relish? We’re in a preserving frame of mind…can anyone say Pickle Party? Pickle party!! Woot!

This is why I don’t get invited out. But screw you, I don’t need to go out. I got pickling to do.

Few but beautiful, I have to admit.

Step zero: start the day before! Finely chop your beautiful green tomatoes. Finely chop an onion (I discovered, mid-chop, knife poised, my onion was smulchy and gross in the middle, so I dispensed with most of it). Pop the chopped goods in a bowl and toss with a liberal dash of salt: this will help slurp out a lot of excess water.

Step nought-point-five: jar preparation — whatever your method, you want your jars ready to go when the relish is done, so get things underway. I personally favour the technique of piling all jars and lids into a big pot and boiling the dickens out of them as long as possible, but I take no responsibility if you try this and get crippling botulism poisoning.

Step one: next day! Drain off the excess water and sling your tomato/onion/salt in a pot with some white vinegar. Bring it to the boil, and simmer for about half an hour. This step cooks the tomatoes and onions.

Step two: add sugar and spices! You will be aMAZed to notice as soon as you add sugar, a thick sauce forms over everything and begins bubbling. This step sweetens and flavours the tomatoes and onions. Simmer for another half an hour, but pay close attention and stir regularly. It’s thick and will burn easily at this stage, and you do not want the smell of burnt sugar/vinegar/onions in your house.

Step three: mix some cornflour and extra vinegar in a separate tub, then add to your relish to really thicken it. Cook it for another five to ten minutes, stirring vigourously, and then switch off the heat.

Your jars, of course, are ready at this stage. Try to avoid ladling hot relish into cold jars, as they ‘splode. True story. Ladling hot relish into hot jars, then allowing to cool, yields this beauty:

Yay!

From five tomatoes, I managed two smallish jars of relish:

Enough.

Which is enough to be getting along with. I didn’t get much out of my tomatoes this year, but what I did get I have put to good use. Hooray!

Proper recipe: Green tomato relish

• 5 green tomatoes
• 1 brown onion
• a few tablespoons salt
• 140gm white sugar
• 200mL white vinegar
• yellow mustard seeds
• black mustard seeds
• allspice
• 1-2 tablespoons cornflour

What you do

1. Finely chop the tomatoes and onion. Sprinkle liberally with salt and leave overnight. The next morning, drain off the extra liquid and put the tomatoes and onions in a pot with 100mL white vinegar. Bring to a boil, then simmer for half an hour, stirring regularly.
2. Add a generous pinch of yellow mustard seeds, black mustard seeds, allspice, and 140gm white sugar. Stir well and bring back to the boil. Boil for another half an hour, stirring regularly.
3. Taste the relish now and see if you would like any extra salt or sugar: now’s the time to add it! Dissolve the cornflour in the rest of the vinegar and add to the mix. Cook for another minute or two, stirring constantly. When it’s thick, switch off the heat.
4. Ladle the mix into hot jars. Let it get cool, but not cold, and put the lids on. As it continues to cool, it will seal tightly.

Use it wherever you like good condiments. I mostly go for crackers and sandwiches, especially with sharp, crumbly cheddar. Ooooh baby, brine my flank.

This book of short fiction is another of my Library discoveries: I’ve heard Helen Garner’s name a lot — she’s pretty big in Australian literature — so I grabbed this book of short fiction to gain a taste of her work. It’s pretty awesome; the stories focus on the dynamics between people in short episodes. Some of the stories are longer and more involved, and others are only a page or two. She uses different styles of voice and flow, all convincingly. Garner’s writing is really sparse, not a word wasted, but there is so much conveyed, the priorities and attitudes that make up a person’s whole personality are immediately real. Their lives, with all the pain, tedium, joy and humour that make up normal lives, feel clear and believable. The actions and dialogue of the characters are similarly thoughtful and perfectly paced, and the settings are flawless. The precision of Garner’s writing is awesome; this book was a very good introduction to her voice.

(Oooh, and I found some more: some of her articles for The Monthly. Fantastic stuff.)

The White Album– Joan Didion

A random book! I grabbed this one off the sorting shelves at the library because…well, because I had a bunch of others and her blurb looked interesting. And damn if it wasn’t interesting! The White Album is a collection of essays by US journo Joan Didion, reflecting on a few different aspects of American culture at the close of the 60s. As someone who doesn’t have any experience with US culture in the 60s (apart from general cultural understanding and references to it in the Simpsons), it was eye-opening to read about it from the perspective of someone watching its close. Didion’s disillusionment with the way the ideals of the 60s played out is worth chewing over. The emotive power behind the push for revolution that fascinated a lot of people in the 60s seems betrayed or washed over by the influence of media, adopted by many as a social trend rather than a true commitment to change. The essays in The White Album pull apart social meaning as embodied in US institutions like Hollywood, Ronald Reagan’s house, and assorted major social/political figures from the 60s and 70s, and I loved it. Not due to schadenfreude (WHERE ARE YOUR GODS NOW?) but because as you strip away false icons, you create room to find true ones. Didion looks at icons of powerful personal significance to her — unexpected ones like the Hoover Dam and an orchid breeder in Malibu — and from there finds meaning and relevance in a period of cultural chaos. This is the most potent thing the book gave me, I think: a challenge to accepted cultural elements that are supposed to be embraced, the freedom to express disappointment or regret when those cultural elements don’t deliver on their promises, and an example of finding meaning and truth outside those elements.

In Defence of Food — Michael Pollan
I heard an interview with Michael Pollan in 2008 where he discussed the opening line to In Defence of Food and the principles by which to eat that he reaches over the course of the book. The opening line “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”, when discussed in a bit more detail, was seriously eye-opening for me and triggered a way of thinking and perceiving the standard Western food culture. Over the following years, I changed a lot. I already thought of myself as a healthy eater, but as read more — food and cooking blogs especially — I realised how many little fibs I’d bought into in my food purchases. Gradually, most of the processed stuff we bought disappeared from our pantry, as M and I got better at making our own stuff. I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan’s first book, which examined the way food gets to our tables — looking at agriculture, abbatoirs, hunting, growing, etc. It was awesome and really set the path of growth for the way I now look at food. So it was a bit of a surprise to remember that I never got around to reading In Defence of Food until now. It was fantastic. I spent a bit of time nodding in agreement — “Ah yes, Michael, well put. I would have said the same myself.” — but nipped that in the bud. It’s short, arresting and well-written. It’s divided into three parts: the first is an explanation and history of nutritionism and a discussion of the problems that have emerged as a result. The second is a history of the Western diet (changes in agriculture and industrialised food processing, for example) and how our diet got to the state it’s in. The third is the “now what” bit: an explanation of how to break free of a lot of the problems inherent in our food culture and how to find out what to eat. It’s a fantastic book: it’s clear, short, gripping, interesting, logical, and enthusiastic. While I admit it matched the way I feel about food and eating already, so I’m a bit biased: I loved it. It’s exciting and positive and liberating.

Many delicious, uber-ripe green friends are now crowding my fridge. A mix of Shepherd and Hass, if you’re interested. I’m not even sure how I’m going to use them all up, since I have enough to make the phrase “I’m sick of guacamole” more than an hilarious fib. While I’m tempted just to strip off and take photos of myself in a bathtub full of them, smirking at the camera in a salacious display of squishy green wealth, I’m going to take a more practical approach and think about my options.

Day one: avocado on toast, with tomato slices. An oldie but a goodie, and with good reason.

Day two: avocado and salad rice paper rolls with carrot/ginger/miso dressing (adapted from Happyolks).

Now from here, I’m looking for inspiration. Help me foodgawker!

There is an arresting number of sweet avocado dishes out there. I’m not at a stage where I’m interested in avocado ice cream or avocado smoothies — I can see where people are coming from with avocado as a butter substitutes in cakes. I could totally get behind that if I hadn’t gone haywire on the chocolate cake front recently, leaving me with a strong sense of antipathy towards that whole food group for the time being. So let’s rule out avocado cakes, shall we?

Ohh, has anyone got some butcher’s paper and textas? I feel a brainstorm coming on!

• Avocado, tomato and lettuce rice paper rolls!
• Avocado, boiled egg and pesto tossed salad!
• Avocado, preserved lemon and chilli sushi rolls!
• Avocado and banana quesadillas!
• Avocado…on toast again!

I’ve run out of butcher’s paper. I’ll be honest: I don’t really feel like I want to get too inventive here. I love avocados and I don’t think the challenge here is to find ways of keeping them interesting. The challenge here is to eat them all before they go funky. I think a ginormous bowl of guacamole and friends over for burritos is going to be the best option. It combines my love of guacamole with my friends! What more could I want? (Spicy beans, that’s what.)

Preliminary stages of WHOA.

Well, ’round Chez Spoonfully, we be smart. Enter M and his dynamic brains.

Carroty sizzling.

He roasted four fat orange carrots until they were mashable, and then puréed them a bit further with the blender. Then he added egg, flour and salt until he had a soft but stable dough, and moulded them into gnocchi. After a quick cook in some boiling water, he got some onion, basil and rosemary sizzling in a bit of butter, then added the little gnocchs to crisp them up a little.

Briefly plated before gomfing.

These were awesome! Significantly sweeter than potato gnocchi, and beautiful with a little rosemary. In the future, we’ll make them smaller, and maybe serve with some roast red capsicum slices, too. Awyeah. Full marks to M. Someone get that dude a sash: he’s got some merit badges to sew!

No, it's kinda good, you can still see them...

Stewed quinces! Yay!

I know it's a bit blurry, but I think they can still see the cloves and stuff...

Peel, core and slice quinces; mix a spoonful of sugar and pour about two cups of water over. Add whatever spices plough your paddock: I used cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger and nutmeg (in descending order of quantity). Boil until the quinces become lush and soft and start to fall apart. You might need more sugar, you might need a dash of lemon: taste it and see. We’re not formal here.

I admit it's getting a little hard to tell now.

Cameras don’t like steam.

Quinces: you'll have to take my word for it.

This blurry tale is the last of this year’s quinces. Quinces are done, figs are done. I declare autumn: iCal that shit.