Merry christmas to all

ready for christmas. Sorry about the serious face. We were deep in conversation about something .I think this was boxing day. Like the red chrissy shirts?... We had late xmas lunch at Sandy"s in the city.

. MMMMMMMMMMm baked salmon and salsa verde..

And amazing prawn and scallop salad...So fresh

Then my rolled stuffed turket breast with pecans, cranberries,

garlic, fresh sage and onion.

there was also my raspberry and moscato jelly ,that I forgot

to photograph before it was demolished.....

The making of the jelly with the muslin for straining,

the raspberries cooking and the Moscato

( sweet and slightly fizzy chilled wine )bottle

and a sparse but weighted xmas tree. Brought inside from the hot sun.

Early December

Happy HAPPY CHRISTMAS. to you and to you and to you...

My gourmet traveller is full of chrisymassy ideas..

Just a small snippet of our place this week.

I did find a few branches from the pine tree outside

to bring inside and put in a vase. Then I put a few large baubles on it and

gingerbread cookies. and with the warm glow of the evening you can also see the gingerbread stars.

they are from the newest gourmet traveller christmas edition.

It is a recipe for speculaas,mmmmmmm

yum very buttery and made with freshly ground spices.

and then my happy hens

have been hard at work trying to hide the latest eggs.

And then the hoya has produced the most perfect clusters of flowers. Five separate blooms. They are quite hard to photograph

the vegie garden

This is the vegie garden out the back near the house on stilts.
We have fenced off an area to make new garden beds
.there is celery,leeks,beans,spinach,broccoli,cos lettuce and the odd pansy plant as well the pea straw has started to sprout as well which always adds to the green..
the rabbits cant get in and we pick every day for the kitchen.

Since we took these pics we have also added a big herb area as well.

The coriander in particular has shot ahead.I haven't grown it before.

spring has sprung a lot

My garden has come alive in the bout of warm and wet weather we have had.

I have grown these Flanders poppies for the first time .

they are so beautiful and so much like a ladybird up close.!!

From little things.....

Here is the dress that I made Liz, for her daughter Kate's wedding.( mother of the bride )
We started with a picture ripped out of a magazine from the dentist.by Liz.
We had a few practice goes of working out how the hang of the fabric would work and
then it was all systems go!!.

The outside layer is a rusty red silk satin , backed with a finer silk in a bright orange.

The idea was that the arms were draped with the lines of silk satin with open strips, to hide the upper arm slightly and for the fabric to drape and flow.

The main dress is a dark burgundy with a stripe of the rust red fabric sewn at the bottom. Also a lovely embroidered silk in a pink and orange that we found to match.
With a covered button in the same fabric.

p.s. the wedding was A HUGE success more pics to come soon.

Marmalade time

These are an amazing fruit that I found at the roadside stall on the way to St Andrews market. There is a lemon and lime and kaffir lime leaf, stall where you can stop and buy these freshly picked. I was looking for cumquats and I had no idea what these were. After looking on the Internet I found they were Australian blood limes.
I cut up the fruit and soaked them as per the cumquat recipe. What a beautiful colour.
Bubble bubble,
Waiting for the sugar to be the right temperature

These are the cumquats freshly sliced

and ready to soak in the water over night

Time to bubble again

Wow here are the jars ready to go.

These are both the cumquat marmalades .

The blood lime is slightly bitter and more of a strong lime flavour.

Already for some fesh bread and lots of lovely butter

my version

Here are my photos of Imam Bayildi ,I made after reading Joeys blog.
It is the most delicious eggplant dish .With many steps but worth the wait.
I asked the Turkish lady at "R couture"about the dish
and it translates as "the Imam fainted".
So we will all be fainting with the beautiful taste.
Although no Imam's around.

The eggplants are all fried and slashed ready to go into the oven
My parsley freshly picked from the garden.

The tomato mixture is ready in the pot with lots of garlic and onions and currants.
The slices of eggplant are mounded high with the tomato mix and topped with the extra tomato and put back in the oven MMMMMmmmmm dished up with buttery pumpkin and Jerusalem artichokes.
Perfect.