Books are kind of a big deal at our place. You might walk in and think we are somewhat drowning in them, but we like it that way. I started reading to Ben the first night home from hospital when he was just 24 hours old, and have probably read something to the kids every single day since then. Back in the early days, with just one small baby who couldn’t answer back, I think I had the most fun. I got to pick the books and would spend hours with him stretched out, head on my knees and toes not quite reaching my lap, listening intently to ‘The Elephant and the Bad Baby’ (Probably my all time favourite kids book).

These days I don’t get much input into the kids reading matter. Young Joe is in that feisty stage of wanting the same book over and over again. Dan and Ted are in the midst of a joint love affair with all things Star Wars, scouring the local libraries several times each week for new Star Wars finds, which I dutifully read night upon night upon night. Ben does his own thing, he has reading sussed and is enjoying his independence when it comes to picking books.

So it was with some excitement that I opened a package from my friends at Munch, with The Dragon Hunters book to review. Finally I would get to choose a book to read to the kids. First up I gave it to Ben (7) to review – after all I am an ops manager in my real life, and delegation comes automatically to me. Here’s what he thought;

‘The main characters were Paddy, Flynn, Coco and the dragon. I really liked the book because it was entertaining for me. My favourite part was when Paddy and Flynn tied the rope to the dragon’

Then I read it to Dan (5) and Ted (3). What a joy to finally take a step back from a Galaxy far far away and into an imaginary word that captures everything I love about independent books. I could tell the kids were enjoying it as they were peering into the book, studying the pictures, smiling and quiet. This is just a lovely book. It rhymes, which is always relaxing. It has great illustrations. It’s funny, clever, and it’s about brothers, adventure and being a bit brave. Perfect to read in front of a blazing log fire on a blustery night.

Thanks Munch.

Six years ago we arrived in Wellington, just ahead of Matariki, although I had no knowledge of Maori celebrations then. I just knew that our little rented villa was darn cold, drafty cold, with not a radiator to be seen. Ben was 16 months old, seemingly without interest in shifting forth in any direction. A determined sitter who had to be carried everywhere, every entertainment fetched to within his limited reach. I was heavily pregnant with Dan. Aching and whale like, smiling at my new midwife, ‘yes, everything will be fine, yes I am feeling OK’. I had passed the point of being able to fly home safely. There could be no reversal of plans. We sat on the floor, waiting for our life in London to arrive, neatly packed in a shipping crate.

Just after midnight on mid winter’s morning Dan arrived. I always think of him as a mid-summer baby, born in the wrong hemisphere. I find even now, when I finally feel settled in this land far, far from home. Now, with the drafty, lonely first Wellington house a distant memory. Now with a garden full of flowers, and space, and friends, and my crazy, gorgeous kiwi boys who clearly belong right here. Even now, as mid-June approaches the pull of home is so strong. Thoughts of the path I didn’t choose, the people I wish I could laugh across a table with instead of conversing through a computer screen.

But whereas six years ago the homesickness would be overwhelming, turning me into a great anxious bundle. Now, I pour a wine. Bake a chocolate cake (well OK – I do that most days, homesick or not) and think of trips we’ve taken. Dan’s 3rd birthday party on my grandmother’s lawn. Ted and Baz sitting on a pile of sticks in a Welsh pub garden. Dancing like teenagers at Jake and Lisa’s wedding in a room full of everyone who matters most. Pouring dark chocolate into milk on the bank of the Seine, and all that followed one rather special child free day in Paris. Then I start planning the next big trip. Matariki, it turns out, is a great time to look at the stars.

Ingredients
4 x large apples, peeled, cored and chopped into big chunks,
2 x Persimmon, peeled, cored and chopped into big chunks
A handful of frozen blueberries (if you happen to have some around)
50g butter, cut into small cubes
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup of mixed ground seeds and shredded coconut (pumpkin / flax / sunflower etc)
1 tpsn of coconut sugar (or brown sugar if you don’t have coconut)

Method
Put the fruit in an over dish with a splash of water.
Chop the butter into the ground almonds and then rub together to make a breadcrumb texture. Mix with the ground seeds, coconut and sugar.
Sprinkle over the fruit.
Bake of around an hour on 180.

Now we’re rural, it seems that a constant electricity supply is not something that can be taken for granted. Today, for example, someone somewhere turned out the power, all day long. I took it as a sign to give the garden some attention. Luckily our friend and nanny is staying, and she actually knows what to do with a garden fork, plus she has significantly more strength and stamina than me. She pulled the weeds and old plants from the greenhouse, turned the soil, shoveled in compost and then planted neat rows of salad and red onions. In the outside beds went broad beans and broccoli, and a suspect a fair bit more besides from my bill at the garden centre. The boys assisted way more eagerly than if it had been me in charge of the gardening. Probably because a sense of confidence in what you are doing inspires participation (whereas I tend to mill around, half heartedly pulling at the weeds before giving up and deciding to go and bake some cookies). The boys collected piles of leaves from underneath the old oak for mulch. It all looks very promising. Provided the chooks don’t get in amongst it.

I got a light scolding for letting the sheep into the garden. Admittedly it was all starting to look a bit friendly as the sheep marched straight onto courtyard and peered in the back door, then sauntered off to eat the roses. ‘You’re getting them into bad habits’ I was told. ‘They will wreck the garden’. All this of course is true. I do not always have good instincts with these things.

In amongst the frenzy of winter planting, the pumpkins were harvested. Now, I don’t normally enjoy cutting into pumpkins. In fact, I’d go as far as to say, that cutting the things up is a major disincentive to cooking with pumpkin, but today I was eager to crack into one. If I was a proper blogger, I would have taken some photos of the rather beautiful orange interior. Next time.

Pumpkin and coconut curry

Ingredients
Flesh of one pumpkin (or half if it’s a biggie)
4 -5 cloves of garlic
1 chili
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
Handful of cherry tomatoes
2 spring onions
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tin coconut cream
1 tbsp coconut oil
Handful of mint.

Method

Fry the spring onion, garlic, chili and spice in coconut oil. Add the pumpkin and brown it slightly, Add the coconut cream and simmer for 30 minutes until soft and sticky. Mint to serve. Good with rice, and chutney, and a sprinkle of slivered almonds.

The week after we moved in, I came across a recipe in Jamie (Oliver) magazine for apple brownies. The recipe, read in the shadow of our apple tree, spoke to me in a way chocolate recipes tend to do, only a little louder. I made the first batch within an hour, switching out the plain flour for rice flour to make them gluten free. They turned out fine, but they felt like a starting point. Since then, I’ve adjusted just about everything, and made low sugar / grain free / extra chocolate / apple and rhubarb / apple and plum / spiced apple versions.

I like brownies – and I still have a whole lot of apples on that tree. Today’s are the best so far. Plus I actually got a photo before the kids got their hands on them, so the recipe finally makes it’s way on to the blog. (Thanks Jamie Oliver for the inspiration.)

Ingredients
4 large cooking apples
70g butter
100g dark chocolate
3 eggs
70g soft brown sugar
50g cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
70g rice flour
70g ground almonds

Method
Lightly stew the apples with a splash of water for 10 minutes. You want them to have a little bit of texture rather than to go to total mush (have tried both and am not a fan of the super sloppy apple). If you are trying to eat your way through a full tree of apples, you can make a giant pan of stewed apples – you’ll need about 3/4 cup for the brownies. While stewing you can add a cinnamon stick, star anise, coconut sugar or nothing at all. I recommend nothing at all – life is complicated enough.

Melt chocolate and butter – which can be done if you place it in a heat-proof dish above the stewing apples.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together.

Add the dry ingredients and the melted butter / chocolate and whizz it all up into a beautiful batter using a food processor or a strong arm.

Gently stir through the apples. If you are too rough they will disintegrate and disappear into the mix – which still tastes good, but I prefer a distinguishable apple trail running through the brownie.

Pour into a lined baking tray and bake at 180 for 20 minutes until they are cooked through and bouncy to touch but still with a hint of gooeyness.

When they come out, cut them into squares and wrap any you’re not planning to eat straight away in baking paper before putting into the cake tin. They keep really well for a couple of days – maybe longer but haven’t tested their durability for obvious reasons.

Do rats eat spiders? I guess I could google it easily enough, but it might shatter the idea that has somehow formed that the unpleasant rodent sentries that prowl the land are at least doing something useful. Is starting a recipe blog post with talk of rats and spiders a good idea? I would imagine it definitely doesn’t make the top 10 tips for food bloggers.

Shall we talk about music instead for a moment? On Sunday I downloaded Yazoo ‘Only You’, Human League ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ and Wheatus’ Teenage Dirtbag’. I then listened to them on a loop while pottering in the kitchen making soup and apple brownies (which I will put up on the blog soon – definitely the best use of apples from the tree so far). The stresses of the week, which were numerous, and less worthy of blog-space than spiders, melted away.

Ingredients
One super hot fat chilli from the garden
4 -5 cloves of garlic
Butter
Cup red lentils
2 large sweet potatoes
Enough stock to cover everything
Turmeric
Sour cream

Method
Fry the garlic and chilli in butter, add everything else except the sour cream and simmer for 40 minutes or so. Blend with the sour cream. Hope the chilli was one of the super hot ones rather than the crazy, little red beasts. Ponder whether rats eat spiders, whilst singing along to Teenage Dirtbag.

And all this whilst cleaning out the chicken’s patch. It started with a book from the library about chicken rearing, which actually contained the phrase ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’. I’m not sure how this book came to be published, or if it contains reliable information on chicken care, but it did create a degree of unease that we haven’t been keeping the chicken quarters in particularly great shape.

On went the wellies, the old clothes, the rubber gloves. Out came a shovel, old broom, wheelbarrow, giant garden scissors (that probably have their own special name that I don’t know about). I hacked away the nasty spikey branches of what I guess may be hawthorn trees (no idea what hawthorns look like but these suckers definitely had spikes), I scooped every last piece of crap, and piled the compost high.. I even ventured into the coup itself, bravely ignoring the extremely scary looking spider webs. Oh yes, on the eve of my thirty fifth birthday I have become a bona fide chicken farmer.

Cleaning out the chickens is a truly rank job. I almost boiled myself alive in the shower afterwards washing off imagined grubs. I think from now on ignorance is bliss, I will not be checking out any books on sheep care from the library any time soon.

With a large glass of white to take things to a more civilised footing, the afternoon was finished off cooking, with intermittent assistance (of sorts) from the boys. Despite giving bagfuls away at every opportunity, I am feeling the pressure of the still groaning apple tree. I stewed as many as I could bear to peel (not that many) with rhubarb. I still haven’t attempted to get to the high ones. I also have no idea how long they will last on the tree.

We then made hummus – using a recipe Dan brought home from school; 1 can of chickpeas rinsed, a little grated garlic, 1/4 cup of olive oil and juice of a lemon … blended up and it’s ready for carrot sticks to be dipped. I love how inspired the kids get by anything that happens in the classroom relating to food – I have a feeling the enthusiasm would have been way lower if this recipe had come from me, but Dan’s asked for make it four times since he made it at school last week. He didn’t even like hummus the week before.

Finally we made pizzas for dinner, with the sauce coming from our tomato glut; several cloves of grated garlic in a slosh of olive oil, tomatoes which can go in whole or halved, a few leaves of basil, 1/2 tsp of salt, and a little balsamic vinegar. Once it starts to cook give it a mash up and let it simmer for 10 minutes or so then push through a strainer to remove the seeds and skins. Perhaps there is a much easier way to turn a bowl of tomatoes into a pizza topping, but this works and it’s tasty, and there are no crazy lumps and bits to freak the small folk out… not a single slice left over for the chooks.

I must add that I did not stroll out of our front gate with brown nosed, bare footed chilun in tow, and a basket of freshly baked muffins under one arm, cross the road, wander through the vines and announce myself as the new neighbour. I did not then return with a selection of wine to sample. Nope. I guess I could have had a shot at pulling something like that off, if I was a little bolder. Instead I noticed Tora Bay on offer in the supermarket in town and threw a few bottles in the trolley. Turns out, not only is it sustainably produced, it’s seriously drinkable. So now I can talk to the kids about the importance of buying sustainable and local…with a large smile and a cold Sav in hand.

Moving in Autumn, and inheriting a vegetable garden that has things ripe for the picking, feels a bit like cheating. As my brothers will confirm, then I’m not one of these principled people who is averse to cheating, so I’m happily harvesting whatever I find and feeling pretty lucky. I blanched the beans incase they were tough (no one like a tough old bean) the cooked with garlic, chili , basil and feta.

Inheriting a couple of sheep, on the other hand, doesn’t feel like such a lottery win. It’s not that I dislike them, I just feel a bit inadequate around them. Which on paper sounds more strange than it did as a thought in my head. I feel like I should be doing more for them – looking after them somehow now they are part of my flock, and yet they don’t seem to want anything so we’re pretty much just ignoring each other. I’m a little worried about them tonight though – it’s pretty wet out there. Do sheep like the rain or are they huddled together in the old tin shelter?

I’m still going to write primarily about food, there will be more wine (well we are living in amongst the vineyards now – which right now as the grapes drip heavily on the vines means that the constant soundtrack alongside the birdsong is that of gunfire, as someone out there seems pretty intent on scaring anything that might consider sneaking a juicy one.) I’m also going to write about the garden, about which I know precisely nothing. I can just about recognise an apple tree, and I know the roses are the ones with the thorns, but past that I am clueless. Being clueless about something has never stopped me wanting to write about it. In fact writing about stuff is my path to learning about it, so I hope this blog will help me figure this gorgeous garden out. It will also be a place to ponder things that never used to cross my mind but are quickly becoming important matters ; why are the chickens laying only a couple of eggs a day between 7? Why does cockadoodle the rooster have a paddy flap at random intervals rather than just at sunrise? Why do the sheep sometimes appear at the gate and look expectantly at me? Should I be bothered by the rather significant number of rats (outdoors thankfully) – disconcerted by their boldness perhaps? Exactly how cold is it going to get in winter? How are we going to get the apples from the top of the tree? What on earth are all the plants / trees / flowers? Where should we make the logpile and how do I overcome my fear of what may lurk in it?

For the time being I’m just cutting roses for the table, pulling apples for crumble and for juice, eating tomatoes and basil with everything, and taking a moment to watch the butterflies dancing about on the lavender….’but are they the right kind of butterflies’ said the man of the house – of course I had no idea there was a wrong kind.