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kitchen and garden diaries

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the pumpkin harvest, quick pumpkin and coconut curry, and a winter planting frenzy

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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.


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why I’m a lazy blogger and some good simple food we’ve eaten this week

I have a confession to make. I’m a lazy blogger and I don’t plan on changing. I don’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do.  I don’t comment on other blogs very often at all. I don’t proof test my recipes. Sometimes I don’t even write the recipes very clearly. My grammar is patchy.  I waffle on about random things. I don’t style the food. I don’t style anything actually. I’m not consistent. I don’t index my photos so they can be picked up by search engines. I don’t send witty and original tweets. I don’t link up very often. I am still baffled by widgets (possibly why I don’t link up much). The thing is, that all the ‘blog’ side of the writing feels like a bit too much like work. I really just like messing around with food, and messing around with words.

My mother had (and still has) numerous postcards on the wall of the downstairs loo. They made a big impression on all of us (my two brothers and I). I know this to be true, because we still reference them. One of them said ‘Life’s too short to iron your underpants’. I’ve always vaguely had that in my mind, but the last couple of weeks have really reinforced it. Another one said, ‘Women need men like a fish needs a bicycle’. That one I’m not sold on. I like a man around. In fact I like having five of them around (and I count myself beyond lucky that I have all my boys .. big and small, in my life).

Why am I writing this post? Because a few things have happened recently. Big things. Things that make you realise that every second is precious. That it’s OK to carve your own way. To please yourself. There is no formula. No right or wrong. It’s just putting one foot in front of the other the best way you know how.

Enough waffle for you? Ready for some actual food.

How about some creamy, spicy, roast pumpkin, chicken and corn soup with fresh parsley.

Pop a whole chicken in a pot covered in water and simmer slowly for a couple of hours with some salt and pepper, a little turmeric (why not) and perhaps a stalk of celery, a carrot, and some fresh herbs if you have them to hand.

Roast some small chunks of pumpkin. Take the chicken out and shred it. Strain the stock. Chop some onion and garlic and fry with chilli powder (to taste, I used about 1/4 teaspoon). Add some shredded chicken, the pumpkin and the chicken stock. Throw in some corn and cook for a few minutes. Stir in a couple of spoons of sour cream and chop over fresh parsley.  Perfect for an autumn day – It’s spring here of course, but I sometimes find myself eating for the English seasons rather than the NZ ones. I’m a little weird like that.

And now for a salad.

Buttery pan fried sweet potato chunks, raw raddish, pear, raw courgette, a few garden greens (baby spinach and parsley). Dressed with olive oil mixed with pomegranate molasses and a little apple cider vinegar.

The final offering of the day is this. Excellent with simple roast chicken.

A couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a little chili powder and turmeric, 2 fat shaved courgettes, a handful of bean sprouts, a cup of frozen peas, the juice of a lemon and some crumbled feta cheese.

Just before you go, here’s another little ‘thought for the day’. My six year old has a sweater that has ‘think of your own ideas’ printed across the front. I hope he grows up to realise you don’t need to run with the herd. Being your own person is the biggest favour you can do yourself.


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ginger chicken drumsticks with pumpkin

Of course, writing about sleep deprivation earlier in the week has totally jinxed me on a number of levels.  J has plunged me into a new level of exhaustion by waking up even more regularly …and  it appears that no amount of bone broth is going  to have me skipping round the block this week. Today, I couldn’t even be bothered to unscrew the lids from the spice jars. Tonight’s dinner was therefore very simple. Chicken drumsticks, pumpkin, grated ginger, garlic, onion, bay leave a little turmeric slow cooked in a low oven for a few hours. Added some frozen peas at the last minute just to get something green into the meal and had with a side of lacto-fermented ginger carrots (and some rice)


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roast garlic, pumpkin and turnip soup

More pumpkin soup this weekend. This time with extra roasted garlic – a whole bulb of fresh local garlic roasted until sweet and then each clove popped out of it’s skin.

A whole pumpkin made enough for two weekend lunches. Saturday topped with roast beetroot  and goat feta and Sunday topped with crispy bacon.


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‘rollover’ slow cooked pork with chickpeas

I wrote a post yesterday over at barefoot and soul about real food , which addresses writing about food in a way that’s helpful and inspiring and accessible. Tone is a big deal to me.   I’m sharing my kitchen diaries because they’re real and because I care about real family food, and I hope in some small way that writing about is useful.

So on the theme of being useful …. here’s a tip that will make your life easier, give you a big injection of bone broth magic and save you some cash…. Include some ‘rollover’ meals each week. A ‘rollover’ is just my way of saying ‘leftovers’ but I like to think of it more as one dish rolling into the next bringing all the goodness and flavour with it. We have a lot of rollovers here. Top of the rollover pops is the slow-cooker casserole into broth.

This started as a slow cooker casserole; Bone in pork steaks, garlic, cinnamon stick, turmeric, star anise, bay leaf. cardamon pods, carrot, pumpkin, persimmon (yes, I put persimmon in everything last week) tin of chick peas, cider vinegar, water, salt, pepper – probably a slug of red wine … so basically a totally random array of stuff thrown together in complete haste during the pre-school chaos that is our house. I didn’t even bother to cut up the meat or brown the meat or really think through the flavour combinations – literally just chucked it all in and hoped for the best. As it happens it tasted absolutely fabulous – pretty much everything does that goes into the slow cooker I find, especially if there are some bones in the meat and some spices).

Reheated the leftovers with water and some fresh baby spinach (and yes those are more lacto-fermented ginger carrots on the top…for more on the lacto-fermenting fandango read this post).


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super-moon shanks

When you live an upside-down, wrong way round life, you miss out on crisp Autumn evening outings for bonfire night and the like. It was therefore a treat to have a reason to bundle the kids into their warm gear and out into the twilight to watch for the super moon rise. ‘Waiting for Super-man’ by the Flaming Lips was playing on an imaginary loop in my head, but then it often is. It’s one of those songs that kind of haunts me a bit (not in a bad way , it just does)..do other people get this or do I sound a bit nuts?….blame the super-moon…

The lamb shanks cooked all day in the slow cooker with lemon, olives, carrot, pumpkin, onion, garlic, tomato paste, red wine, water, fresh mint and star anise. No method to the madness but rather fine with rice and broccoli.


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un-artisan pumpkin

At a farmers’ market I visited recently (not in Wellington) they were selling ‘artisan’ pumpkins by the slice. Now I think that’s a bit of a stretch. These pumpkins were are beautiful deep orange and I’m sure they were quite fabulous, but artisan pumpkin? Perhaps I’m just not sophisticated enough to appreciate it’s potential.

What I am very appreciative of though is the abundance of super-cheap and extremely good un-artisan pumpkins in season at the moment. We are literally trucking through the stuff at every opportunity.

Last night roasted in a ‘roasted and raw salad’ ; You just roast up a pile of veg (I used pumpkin, kumara and parsnip) and grate some raw veg (I used carrot and courgette) and then you toss it all together with  some grapes and feta and a honey / roast garlic dressing (roast the garlic in with the veg and then mash it into olive oil with some cider vinegar and a little honey). No photo (dinner was a little hectic last night) but it was rather good alongside a roast chicken.

Roast chicken last night of course means chicken stock today… and therefore I was able  to make very quick simple pumpkin soup a little bit special, with the addition of the fresh stock. Just chopped pumpkin simmered with garlic, red lentils, garlic, turmeric salt and pepper and then blended with a little sour cream.

I just wish they weren’t such a pain to hack up – or maybe I  need some new knives…


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rosemary roast pumpkin and beetroot salad, with feta, pear and courgette

Picked up a whole pumpkin this week for $2. Been looking at it, trying to summon the energy to hack the thing up. I have heard of people roasting it whole and scooping out the flesh afterwards, but I had a nice tray of caramelized chunks in mind, so baking it whole didn’t seem like a good plan. Got Jake to chop it and we were away.  Roasted with whole garlic gloves, whole chillies (frankly just wanted to use some up and was intrigued as to whether roasting would make them hotter or mellow them out …mellowed them on this occasion, but chillies are like kids – you can’t expect consistent behaviour. ) Covered in rosemary leaves, from the garden, rubbed in olive oil (the olive oil stops the rosemary burning) coarse sea salt and pepper. Oh, and a big chopped beetroot.

Covered a large plate with chopped cos lettuce, shaved courgette and slivers of pear. Piled on about a third of the pumpkin (the rest will be soup for tomorrow) and everything ele from the roasting tray – crumbled over some goat feta, and dressed with more olive oil, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

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