blogging on an empty stomach

Late last Sunday evening I was happily sitting up on the day bed in our studio listening to a podcast and knitting rows of my colour work socks. It was the end of a busy weekend and the relief I felt at being able to sit in one spot uninterrupted, taking sips of a hot cup of tea in my favourite mug and knitting a bit, felt immense.

But then as I started to increase the stitches for the gusset it occurred to me that when I'd altered the pattern to knit from the toes up, rather than as the pattern was written - from the cuff down, I'd started the chart in the wrong place.

At first I thought I'd continue on and try not to think about the fact that I'd started knitting half way through a flower. No-one would know except me. Then I looked through the Ravelry gallery at all the other photos of these particular socks and realised that the whole reason I'd decided to knit these socks was because of how beautifully the design lay on the socks and to do it differently would ruin the entire effect. And then I decided that there was no way I could continue because I'd know, and I wouldn't enjoy the knitting as much and I definitely wouldn't be as proud of the final result.

So I started analysing the chart to try and work out if there was a possibility of rescuing any of it at all. And then as I was contemplating pulling out hours and days worth of stitches, I noticed that instead of feeling defeated something crazy was going on inside me. My heart was beating loudly and my breathing was speeding up and I felt a bit crazy.

First I slid one sock off the needles and started ripping at the stitches. Long strings of wiggly white wool and then blue wiggly wool started to make a nest in my lap. It always seems strange that yarn that has not long been knitted becomes wiggly so quickly.

It was almost fun pulling all those stitches apart until I realised that I'd better wind them onto their balls or they were bound to become one big knot. Which they did at a few points of course, and that nearly made me cry, but luckily I had nice pointy 2mm needles to stick through the knots and undo them.

Thankfully my farmer boy came into the room just in time to help me wind the balls of the second sock and to reassure me that it was indeed a very upsetting thing to happen and that it was okay if I wanted to cry. I thought I would but I didn't.

I had hoped to keep a couple of inches of knitting above the toes but in the end wasn't able to catch all of the stitches and ended up saving nothing but the two blue toes.

That night I couldn't sleep and lay in bed dreaming up the words for a book about life lessons, told from the perspective of the knitted and unknitted socks. All night I worked on the chapters in my head. Patience, focus, concentration, the ability to adapt, strength, the importance of appearance, turning things upside down, learning from mistakes, dealing with our failures... the list of things the socks could teach lengthened.

And as I tossed and turned I became more and more convinced that this was a brilliant idea. Knitters, crafters, hand-makers, hand made appreciators, Steiner folk, the audience for this book would be niche but strong.

As daylight dawned I must have fallen asleep because the next day the future of that book didn't look as bright....and the sight of those little blue toes looked a little depressing.

It took from Monday til Thursday to knit back to the spot where I'd pulled them off. This time I knitted the chart backwards and I'm thrilled with how they're working out. And although those four days are already just a blip in my knitting life, although the book idea seems ludicrous now, I still am interested in how my knitting humbles me and makes me a better person.

(Ravelry details here)

In other news, I had hoped to show you the slabs of wood we cut from our trees earlier in the week. Beautiful slabs that will hopefully become shelves for my studio before the year is out. I also thought you might like to see the hyacinths and almost flowering daffodils, the germinated broad beans and the budding almond blossom. But it's blowing a gale out there and is POURING with rain and it's just not going to happen.

Here are the only two outside photos I was brave enough to take today, just outside our front door, as we were coming in from moving the chickens to higher ground this morning (wet down to my undies). 

But crappy outside weather is the absolute best for sitting by the fire and reading and also for getting into the kitchen and making delicious and hearty food for the fam. And just my luck that Julia Busuttil Nishimura's  new cook book Ostro arrived at the post office this morning. 

In the inside flap of Julia's book it says 'My approach to food favours intuition over strict rules and is about using your hands, rushing a little less and savouring the details. It is food that slowly weaves its way into the fabric of your daily life - food for living and sharing.' Sounds pretty perfect right!

Ostro is also one of the most beautiful books I have seen in ages, each photo is more delicious than the last. I can't decide what to make first. In fact it kind of makes me wish we were in the future and I could press a button on a page, reach in and grab that gnocchi for my lunch, or that Greens Pie, or....

Note to self - never blog on an empty stomach or you'll spend far too long ogling the beautiful pictures and reading the scrumptious recipes, delighting over Julia's gorgeous wardrobe, her perfect props, her effortless style, not to mention her sweet son Haruki.

Congratulations Julia, Ostro is sublimely delicious from front to back!

Congratulations on Ostro to you too Michelle Mackintosh, designer of all the most beautiful books in the world (including mine) and maker of some of the most gorgeous too.

And that's me and my Friday blog for this week.
I hope it wasn't too sock heavy for you.
I hope you've got a lovely, cozy weekend lined up.
For the first time in months we don't have any plans at all.
It looks like it might snow though which would be fun.

So how about you?
Would you read a life book if the narrator was a pair of hand knit socks? HA!
If you could press a button and reach out and grab any dish to eat in the whole world right now what would it be?
Do you prefer sweet or savoury?
Do you cook from books or do you make it all up?

I think it's time for lunch, you can probably hear my stomach growling from there.

Big toasted sandwich love,

Kate

xx

Toffee apples.

This autumnal afternoon in April, after weeks of picking, drying, bottling, stewing and baking apples, when Miss Jazzy suggested we make toffee apples, I jumped at the idea. And then I sent her and her sisters down to the orchard to pick some.

They came back with a box of Splendors and a fistful of sticks and we got to work.

We followed this recipe.

Delicious heritage apples picked fresh from the tree, toffee cooked from the very best certified organic ingredients, excitement in the anticipation, delight in the crunch, pure childhood joy!!

Years ago I made toffee apples and sold them at farmer's markets, today I enjoyed not worrying about the bubbles and just enjoyed the process.

And they were declared the best toffee apples EVER!!

Toffee apples in Autumn are going to be a family tradition at ours now I think.


When was the last time you enjoyed the sweet childhood fave?
If you close your eyes can you remember that mix of sweet and tart?
The crack of the toffee and the crunch of the apple?
Deeelish!

Later
xx

Oh and my book is going to the printers tomorrow. OH MY GOODNESS!!!
I'll show you the cover in a few days time. Eeeeeeeeep!!

what we've been up to X six

One

We've been letting the garden decide what we eat.

Lots of salads, freshly dug potatoes, baby beets, pestos, plum cakes, pullet eggs, berry sorbets...still no red tomatoes though.

Two

We've been heading out after dinner to turn pumps and sprinklers and taps off.

As the sun slowly sets over the hill, the temperature drops a bit and it's the perfect time to explore, to throw rocks in the dry creek bed, to catch naughty runaway dogs, to pick berries and carrots, to swing under the big Blackwood tree and to feel a bit wild and free and crazy.

Three

We've been starting to think about our trip to Israel this year.

The sights, the smells, the tastes and the culture. I thought cooking our way through Jerusalem might be a good way to prepare the girls. We started with the Krantz cakes the other day, deeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!

Four

We've been gathering bucket loads of seed off the blackwood trees to regrow and replant and make wind breaks and reforest this place. There is something very wonderful about collecting seeds and growing plants from them. Magical. Sustainable.

Five

We celebrated wonderful behaviour and filled sticker charts with a trip to the water slides with friends. Every single time I saw my girls yesterday they giggled excitedly at what a brilliant time they were having. And they totally deserved it. I am such a fan of the reward chart. I wonder if it's too early to start new ones.

Six

And I've been making and photographing. Now that I've pretty much finished with the words for my book, I'm on to the making it pretty bit. I'm writing lists, collecting ingredients, making stuff, setting up scenes and photographing it all. It's scary and overwhelming and exciting and fun. I wish I knew more, had more time and owned some vintage suitcases.

So there's my second last Tuesday of the summer holidays six.
What're yours?
Care to share?

Later potata
xx

Three fails!

It started off as a great foodie plan, filled with so much winter goodness. Miss Pepper ordered pumpkin soup. She was desperate for it. She would eat four bowls full if we made it.

Not being a pumpkin eater myself, I hid my concerns and I asked for advice on choosing a good one. 

We came home with a fine looking Jap, we sliced it in half and she scooped out the pips. She saved them in a bowl so she could plant them in the ground. She was careful to get them all so she could plant HEAPS!!! She would grow a life time supply of soup pumpkins she announced.

And then we found a recipe and followed it to the gram. I would not be tasting it, so I had to trust it.

Then we chopped and peeled and measured and seasoned and boiled and simmered and finally we blended.

Then I sat her down for lunch with a steaming hot bowl of pumpkin soup. 

And after one mouthful she declared it was waaaaaaay too spicy. She put down her spoon and left the table. And that was that.

Failure number one.

While the soup was cooking I considered the big chunk of orange we had left over and decided to make pumpkin scones. I googled and started assembling the ingredients for the first recipe on the list.

We weighed and mashed and measured and mixed. Then we rolled out the dough and cut the circles and popped them in the oven.

But for some reason, no matter how long they spent in the oven, they came out like small, hard orange rocks.

Failure number two.

And then the mandarinalade.

You can probably guess what happened to that.

It was all going to plan. I was already standing next to the stove, so I decided to finish the batch I'd started the night before.

I blended, I weighed, I measured, I stirred. And it boiled and boiled and boiled.

After about 25 minutes, it was finally at that stage where the jars were warming in the bottom of the oven, the plates were in the freezer ready to start testing for readiness...when Miss Pepper started screaming at me from the bathroom to come and wipe her bum....

Burnt mandarinalade.

Failure number three.

I felt awful. Three strikes and I was out. My cooking morning had been a waste of time. And a waste. And I still had to make dinner. And do the dishes!!!!

But then the boys came in and loved the spicy, hot soup after their freezing, cold morning. The girls ate the pumpkin biscuits when they came home from school (anything with a bit of sugar). I gave the family tastings of the burnt mandarin marmalade and they didn't hate it. Maybe I'll cook with it, maybe it'll make good compost. And my farmer boy saved the scorched saucepan with the help of some bicarb and vinegar.

And then the 500 day-old chicks arrived. Eeeep, so cute!!!

It's all good, just a little bit different than I'd planned.

And no more orange in my life for a while I think.

So how are you going this week?
Are you winning in the kitchen?
Could you cook something you don't eat yourself?
Do you do orange?

Check ya chickies. xx

Cheesy green garden bread. ( a kind of recipe).

I gathered a colander full of kale, beetroot leaves, mustard greens, spinach, rocket, parsley and rainbow chard. I wilted them, squeezed out all the excess water and cut them into teensy little pieces.

Then I filled a mixing bowl with;

2 cups of wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
a small pile of grated parmesan
a small pile of grated mozzarella
a small pile of grated vegetarian tasty cheese
a small pile of feta
a third of a cup of sliced olives
half a cup of milk

I let the mixer mix all the ingredients together until they were combined and I had a really wet dough.

I plopped the dough mixture onto a floury bench and rolled it into a log.
Then I cut the log into three even pieces and rolled them into long thin snakes.
I laid the snakes on an oven tray covered with baking paper.
I joined the three snakes together by pinching one end.
Then I plaited them and tucked the last pinched end under.

Then I popped the braided dough into a hot oven for about 45 minutes.
I pulled it out when the top and bottom were golden brown.

It smelt incredible. And it tasted good. Really, really good. But it's almost gone already and the girls aren't even home from school yet.

Oh well, I'll just have to make more.

I think this is the type of recipe you can modify to suit whatever is in season, or whatever's in the fridge. I am super-dooper excited to try it with tomatoes come summer.

I think that apart from the flour, the quantities are pretty forgiving. I think that it would be delish with crumbled feta over the top...or slathered with butter...or humus...or dunked in soup...And I think that this is going to be the best lunchbox and afternoon tea snack. And I think this is a great way to get your kids to eat their greens. Yum!

Can you smell it from there?
Are you going to make some?
What's cooking in your kitchen.
What sort of things do you love to make?
I hope you have the happiest weekend folks!

xx

Cook while the oven's hot.

These wintry days, if you're looking for us, the chances are you'll find us in the kitchen by the wood cooker. Drinking tea up at the bench, kneading bread, rolling out pasta, chatting with the sour dough starter, stirring the soup, cutting up salad, or just supervising all of the above.


Our Esse is fast becoming the heart of our home. She is burning hot all day and right through the night at the moment, cooking our food and keeping the radiators in the rest of the house warm. And we've all been gravitating towards her.


It's comforting to read Little House On The Prairie to the girls every night and learn that it was the same back then too.


I guess that's what winter is all about.

The biggest differences we've found so far since cooking with wood are that;

• the oven is always on, so we may as well pop something in it.
• we are growing our own fuel source, which feels really nice and self sufficient.
• the days of pressing a button and turning a dial are long gone.
• there is about a one hour time delay between a warm oven and a hot oven.
• a good seal and dry, dense wood is the answer to the overnight burn.
• our kitchen is no longer the coldest room in the house.
• I never have to get up in the night to check that I turned the oven off.
• I am growing to love my kitchen.
• slow and steady wins the race.
• the wood cooker has her own personality and we are falling in love with her more as the days go by.
• we are baking with no exact temperature guage and without a timer. The breads and cakes go in when the oven is hot and come out when they look and test done. 
• cooking can be an absolute joy.

Now if only the dishes fairy would visit it would all be perfect.

So what's cooking with you, good looking?
Made/eaten anything extra tasty lately?
What are you having for dinner tonight?
Got a recipe to recommend?

See ya later, roast potata.
xx

PS ohmygoodness blogger, your spacing issues are killing me.

My list of wintery wonderful.

And just like that the warm, sparkly days are over and the cold weather has moved in.

I know lots of people who love freezing cold days.
They love dressing up in tights and jackets and boots.
They love snuggling inside and doing wintry things.

I do not!

I feel trapped by wintry days.
Grey days make me grumpy.
I need sunshine and warmth for inspiration.
I like hanging the laundry outside, pottering in the garden and having picnics.
I like sun dresses and summer fruits and sandals.

The only thing I like about winter is soup.
I love soup.
Oh and I also love watching my gang wearing the woollies I have knitted for them too.

But that's not really enough is it?

Winters are long and cold in these parts.

So I am wracking my brains trying to come up with a happy winter list.
A list of things to get me through the cold months ahead.
A way to forget the funk and remember the fabulous.

So here it is.

MY LIST OF WINTER WONDERFUL!

(yes, I know it's not officially winter but it may as well be.)

Keep the house looking lovely. As clean as possible and fresh.
Change the bed linen often.
Keep jars of fresh flowers around the house.
Keep going with the painting and decorating.
Play music and dance about the house.
Buy a new front door.

Walk/run often.
Get outside whenever we can.
Rug up and do the farm stuff.
Light bonfires.
Explore the bush.

Spend time with my boy and my girls together and alone.
Find and buy some fun tights.
Make some plans for a road trip.
Go out.
Make arrangements with good people.
Make and have handy a stash of scarves/hats/leg-warmers/gloves to brighten up an outfit and keep cozy.
Always have something to look forward to.

Menu plan and menu shop.
Eat from the kitchen garden as often as possible.
Take spirulina and vitamin B.
Eat seeds and honey and legumes and farmer Bren's bread.
Experiment with lots of different types of soup and hope my kids wanna play too.
Buy a new bottle of Kahlua.

Build up my yarn stash.
Make, make, make.
Buy some oils and candles for bath time.
Write some patterns out and have them tested.
Stay inspired.
Have a project or two on hand all the time.

And spend lots of time with this kiddo.
See the world through her four year old eyes.
Play with her.
Be present and patient.

So that's it - My List Of Winter Wonderful.

Do you have any suggestions for getting through the chilly months ahead?
What do you like to do when the days get short and cccccccold?
Are you a hot or a cold weather person?
If it's warm where you are, can I come and visit?

Have fun out there and stay warm.

Bye. xx