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.

a year's worth of tomato

Besides drying and freezing tomatoes, we make a year's supply of bottled puree (passata) so we never have to buy imported, tinned or bottled stuff picked by African labourers in Italy who are paid a pittance. Ours tastes better anyway.
Tomatoes are cut for the pot, preferably sitting beside an almond tree.


Occasionally it's OK to get distracted to eat some of the tomatoes with cucumber, basil and goat cheese.


The tomatoes are cooked until soft and pulpy with nothing added, then passed through the Mouli that Briony inherited from her mother.


The shelf is slowly filling with bottles.


P.S. this passata is always recooked before use, just in case.

the height of summer

Although it's officially autumn, our Tasmanian garden thinks it's the peak of summer. All of the heat-loving vegetables and later fruits are ready and we've got so much good stuff to eat and preserve.
Capsicums, tomatoes, zucchinis, dill, parsley and cucumbers mean we can have Greek-style stuffed vegetables with tzatziki (and Greek-style grilled lamb chops with Greek oregano grown from seed gleaned from a Greek man).


Sweetcorn means happy children


Eggplants, tomatoes and onions


mean pasta con la Norma. Fry eggplants in olive oil until golden. Add to a sauce made with sauteed onions, garlic and quartered tomatoes (should be chunky) and fold through homemade linguine with a good handful of basil leaves and chopped chiles.


And quinces just look and smell so good

Turning produce into crayfish into trouble

On Saturday, my good mate Giles dropped by with two beautiful, live crayfish (Southern rock lobster) that he caught while diving near Tinderbox. With my first opportunity in a while to trade food, I was really happy to swap a box of produce (apples, carrots, beets, plums, tomatoes and garlic). I put the crays in the fridge to go to sleep with a plan to barbecue them for dinner the following night.
The crays were split and a beautiful salad of cucumbers, tomatoes (mamma mia, stupice and sungold), red onion, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice was prepared.


Once the fire had died down to embers, I grilled the crays, shell down then meat side down after brushing the meat side liberally with a vinaigrette made from fresh tarragon, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard.


It was really delicious.

I have eaten crayfish several times before, so I didn't pay much attention to the strange tingling feeling in my lips. Soon after devouring my half a cray (plus a bit of Noah's), I felt quite uncomfortable - sore lips, throat and stomach. My stomach started to feel bloated and I felt nauseous. Nevertheless, we had our family soccer game to play and by the end of that I felt like crap. My face had swollen up and I was now developing hives all over my body and breathing was becoming difficult.


Briony gave me some antihistamine, steroids and ventolin then took me to the hospital where for the first time I walked straight in and was treated by several people at once (for those non-Aussies - we have a public health system here and this is unusual). A night in hospital and I felt much better. I was devastated to find out from the doctor that I should avoid all seafood for 4 weeks then shellfish (I forgot to check if that meant crustacea alone or molluscs as well) for a couple of years!! Hopefully, a visit to the immunology clinic might just tell me that I'm allergic to crayfish - a pity - but not prawns and crabs - a tragedy.

spaghetti con vongole

We are lucky to live on the coast and have a boat to sail on and harvest seafood from. One thing that we really love is clams. There are lot's of little ones here in Tasmania and most people don't bother with them.

We collected some little ones from Mickeys bay on Bruny Island the other day and made an Italian classic - spaghetti con vongole.

It's very simple. In lots of good olive oil, fry some shallots (we had a great harvest of these this year), garlic and chopped tomatoes. I used Stupice and Black Krim tomatoes. Add a small glass of white wine and reduce briefly before adding the clams. 

Steam them with the lid on and when they've just opened, stir through a generous amount of chopped flat-leaf parsley. Toss with spaghetti, red chillis and black pepper.

Bi bim bap

We all love Bi bim bap, a Korean dish that means "mix, mix rice". It's a great dish in early summer and a lovely way to eat lots of different vegetables.  

Vegetables are stir fried or steamed and dressed with sesame oil, garlic and soy and then served on rice with a raw egg yolk and some stir fried meat (marinated with ginger, soy bean paste, spring onions, toasted sesame seeds, soy, rice wine) and dollop of gojuchang, the Korean hot paste. Mix it all up and eat it!

This one we made has carrot, spinach, bok choy, zucchini, garlic scapes, snow peas and chicken. Although it'ss normally made with short grain white rice like that used for sushi, it's even better with short grain brown rice.

Mid-summer update

After a cool early summer, things have finally warmed up and the heat loving plants have sprung into action. 

The tomatoes have grown a lot. We lost a few plants to disease - some virus and some wilt - that I think was due to the cool weather making the plants more susceptible. Plants are approaching the tops of the string trellis system (which I have now learnt that I need to tie less tightly as I also strangled 2 plants to death) and there are plenty of ripe fruit on the Earligold and a few ripe ones on the Stupice, our steadfast cool-weather cropper.

The eggplants have grown tremendously and have set fruit. If the summer lingers we should get a good crop of these as well as the chillis and capsicums that have also grown well and set fruit.

what  bumper year for apricots!. This is the second tree, the Rival, which is just about ripe. The earlier tree - Goldrich - is 3 times as big and produced a big crop of huge and delicious fruit.