tacos!

Tacos in Australia means those crispy taco shells from the supermarket filled with all sorts of horrible things. We really love real tacos in the USA from taco trucks and little taquerias. So, we have to make our own. Starting with masa harina (corn meal - not polenta) mixed with lard and water to make a soft dough. Balls of this are squashed into 4 inch circles and cooked on a steel plate. The filling can be pretty much any meat. Here, I've used free range ground pork cooked with garlic, onion, cumin, and corn (frozen from last summer).
Salsa verde is made by boiling tomatillos (also frozen from last summer) then blending them with salt, green chiles and coriander leaves. Chopped onion is then mixed through. Take a bite then take a bite of radish. These ones are called D'Avignon - not very mexican but they taste the same.

farfalle with rapa

Last night we made fresh farfalle (bow ties) with durum semolina and water. After rolling the dough in the pasta machine, Briony cut it into rectangles then pinched the centres to form the bows


Meanwhile, I fried a couple of salted anchovies, and a heap of sliced onions in olive oil. I threw in some chopped garlic and the very last of our semi-dried cherry tomatoes from last year.

Once a big pot of water was boiling and salted, the greens, known as rapa, cime di rapa, rapini or turnip greens (which they aren't, actually)


were chopped very coarsely and thrown in the water till just wilted then scooped out and put aside. The pasta was cooked in the same water, drained and then tossed with everything else, including a handful of chopped flatleaf parsley and some more olive oil. We grated some romano cheese on top, added a bit of chopped chili (from the freezer from last summer) and it was delicious.

late spring update

The weather finally decided to become spring-like and it looks like all of the rain is now over. The warm weather, plus time, has meant that the hungry patch is over and now there suddenly seems to be lots to eat in the garden again

Here's a bit of a list:

rocket, bok choy, rapa, mizuna, spinach, leeks, radishes and a couple of tantalising strawberries.

The warm weather encouraged us to plant out heat-loving plants like our tomatoes

with which we are trying a slightly modified trellising system this year. Last year we used strings up to a horizontal wire. The strings cut into the thickening stems and may have caused some problems - not sure. This time we're using thin and cheap 6ft bamboo poles inserted into the ground and tied off to the horizontal wire. We have planted all our old favourites (from saved seed) - stupice, costoluto, mamma mia, black krim (a superior version of black russian) a few cherry varieties and a new one we're trying this year called speckled banana.

Our broad (fava) beans will be ready soon and so will the garlic. I think the garlic will be early compared to last year.

early spring - it's getting exciting!

It's early spring here and things are getting exciting. Blossoms are abundant on our fruit trees and the garlic, which we planted in April, is looking very healthy.



We planted two varieties - a "tasmanian" purple softneck and this beautiful, pink, hardneck that we found in amongst some garlic at the greengrocers once.


We bulked it up last winter and this year have planted half of our crop (total of about 600 plants) to this variety because it tastes really good and keeps brilliantly.

At about the same time in April, we cleared up the summer gardens, rototilled them and then sowed the area to our usual green manure - oats, tic beans (small fava/broad beans), peas and lupins.


These survived the really wet weather and are now growing very quickly. I think I'll be slashing these and getting the summer beds ready in about 2 or 3 weeks.
This closes our annual cycle as we started this blog at around this biological time last year

hot sauce

I love hot stuff and have since I was about 5 years old. I'm obviously not alone as the use of chiles spread from the Americas through Asia, Africa and Europe. Just about any kind of condiment that has chile as a central ingredient makes me get really excited and curious. So, it might seem strange that I (and the rest of the family) still like tabasco sauce.

Last summer, we had a bumper crop of super hot chiles.


These were grown outdoors, in soil, with not a shred of plastic anywhere proving that Tasmania must have reasonable summers.

We froze and dried lots and then still had plenty to spare so I decided to try and make something that resembles tabasco sauce so that we wouldn't have to keep buying those dinky bottles in boxes imported all the way from the USA.

Using this recipe -

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh red chiles, chopped
2 cups cider vinegar
2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

Combine the chiles and the vinegar in a saucepan and heat. Stir in the salt and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, cool, and place in a blender. Puree until smooth and place in a glass jar. Allow to steep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator. Remove, strain the sauce, and adjust the consistency by adding more vinegar if necessary.

I made about one litre of this sauce


It's really great and probably even better than tabasco even though it doesn't get the 3 years of aging in oak like tabasco does.

Winter is over and we are still alive.......

Although we haven't posted anything over the winter we are still alive and we have eaten well. It has been the wettest winter here for about 50 years apparently. Much of this wetness came later in winter and so our brassicas established themselves well early on and fed us right up till now. We have been eating heaps of kale (3 different types), broccoli, purple-sprouting broccoli, sugarloaf and savoy cabbages and purple cauliflowers


We also had a great crop of swedes (which I think are called rutabagas in North America), beets, carrots, winter spinach and silverbeet (chard). Together with our stored garlic, shallots, pumpkins and bottled tomatoes, frozen ducks and free-range pork (which we bought as a whole beats and froze) we have eaten really well this winter. Unfortunately, most of this went undocumented mostly because we were slack and partly because it's much nicer taking food photos with natural light. We're only now getting into days that are long enough to eat dinner at dusk.

Here are three random meals that I happened to photograph:

A kind of ratatouille made with the last of our eggplants, capsicums and tomatoes (all roasted first) served with polenta and grilled chicken thighs


A noodle, cabbage and carrot salad - Thai-style - served with grilled albacore tuna


agnoloti stuffed with roasted pumpkin and topped with sage, garlic, butter and parmesan

nam prik num

When we were in Northeast Thailand some years ago, we spent a lot of time eating. This was OK because we were cycle touring. A staple meal in those parts is steamed sticky (glutinous rice) eaten with grilled chicken (gai yaang) and green papaya salad (som tum). It's hard to describe how well those textures and flavours combine. The only thing that may surpass som tum as a component of this trio, in my humble opinion, is nam prik num (pronounced "num pick noom"). This is like a Thai version of babaganoush but it's better because it's got chillis in it.
It's very simple. Eggplants and big green chillis (hot but not superhot) are grilled, peeled


then pounded in a mortar and pestle (som) with lots of garlic, fish sauce and lime juice. Get the balance right!


Eat this with steamed sticky rice and, if you are an eggplant lover, you may not find anything better. Bri and I are eggplant lovers and, this dish, ratatouille and pasta con la Norma are the best reasons to grow eggplants.