"Balmoral Park" farm garden

I am cooking for fifty people at a function on saturday night, no time to  blog but will post some pictures and recipes as I go.

In my quest to grow all my own herbs and spices http://balmoralparkgarden.blogspot.com/2010/12/inventory-of-herbs-and-spices.html   I decided to try and grow our ginger. I think i was prompted to do this after paying almost $30 a kilo for some rather ordinary ginger one day. My plants came up alright and seemed to be growing quite well. Naughty Elle dug up some of the plants in the garden but I had some growing in a pot. All of sudden it has dried right off so I thought I should harvest it. I was a bit disappointed only about 300 grams, but it does look lovely. I have already put a few pieces in pots under the cold frame so hopefully I will get a head start for next year and Elle will have stopped digging. The Turmeric was even more disappointing, nothing to harvest, but I have also planted some of that in pots for next summer as well. My cold frame is chock full of things I am trying to start, maybe I will need a bigger one.

I cant remember when I stopped drinking instant coffee, many years ago though. I found in my workplace that people were constantly making instant coffee and by the end of the day I felt horrible after drinking it. At that point i changed over to drinking herbal tea at work to be sociable. Probably at about the same time I discovered that I enjoyed milky coffee, Latte or a good Cappuccino. Going for coffee became an occasional treat and then later a weekly trip to Coffee Culture in Bowral became a Saturday fixture. I think my friend Rossana introduced me to the stove top  pot, they have a coffee first thing every morning. Initially i used to make stove top coffee on the weekend. Somewhere along the way I got a milk frother, this lifted the quality of the coffee and made it just like cafe coffee. I don't know why but for me the froth really improved the taste. When Zoe was at uni and living at home I was spending some time at home setting up my business. She got in the habit of aski...

I've noticed on Masterchef and other cooking shows there are a lot of references to cooking with love. There are however, no attempts to describe what is meant by this concept. Now I think i know what they mean but it is a concept to be treated with caution. I think you do need to have a passion for good food, that starts with the ingredients that you use, the best that you can get, that doesn't always mean the most expensive, but often does mean the freshest, ingredients in season, and local ingredients. A lot of love and care can turn the most humble ingredients into a feast. Love cant make up for knowledge though and I think all cooks need to develop a healthy respect for the basics. What goes with what, how certain ingredients behave under certain conditions etc. Popular cooking is full of jargon, Peter, who believes in the erroneous concept of more is more and steadfastly refuses to use any basic cooking cooking principles, can be heard to mutter about caramelisation, he ...

One of the reasons we chose to live here is that there are four very distinct seasons. Beautiful Spring, stunning autumn, blazing hot summer and generally a cold, but bright and vibrant winter. This winter has been a bit different, certainly it is cold, but is has been bleak. No cold frosty mornings followed by crisp, sunny days. It has been overcast and drizzly most days. I was sort of complaining to myself about it this morning and thought about embracing it. I am fortunate in that despite living in quite a draughty old house, I have two lovely fires that keep the place warm. Since moving here I have also come to love my hot water bottles and , hitherto despised, flannelette sheets. The idea of a day without taking miss Elle for a walk is unthinkable so this morning I rugged up and off we went up the hill. It was a drizzly, misty morning. I feel very lucky that I have a long Drizabone to wear. When I was younger I worked on a farm with disadvantaged Young people. We worked outside ...

I'm trying to build a garden and raise a puppy, a Border Collie puppy at that, known for their energy and curiosity as well as their intelligence and loyaltyt. Cant say I don't enjoy a challenge. I have invested a lot of time in training the lovely Elle and is most ways she has been very quick and responsive. She is also, I hate to say it, very naughty! She has already had two brushes with death caused by her curiosity,  http://balmoralparkgarden.blogspot.com/2011/04/cautionary-tale.html    the rat poison episode and then the undoing of her stitches. No doubt she is a precious girl and I love her to bits but she is very naughty! When Zoe was here she decided Zoe was another puppy and persistently jumped all over her, a habit I had thought she had got out of and then yesterday she was back to her old gardening habits. My back was sore so we didn't go for our usual long walk. Every time I looked outside Elle appeared to be asleep. Well no wonder she must have been ver...

We have six old citrus trees here, two mandarins, two oranges, two lemons. They have fruited quite well most years since we have been here but this year they have the most extraordinary crop. They are loaded. We probably should have thinned them out but left it a bit too late. We have been eating the mandarins for a few weeks now, they are a bit tart but nice nevertheless. they are getting sweeter every day. We will have to give lots away and find some good mandarin recipes. I might have a go at preserving some segments as well. The oranges are not quite as prolific but will still keep us going for many months. The great thing about the winter fruit is that you can leave it on the tree and just pick it as you need it. We have planted some new citrus trees as well. they are very slow to grow but the ruby grapefruit tree has a decent crop this year. I really like grapefruit for breakfast. I will have to look after the other small citrus a bit more this winter and hopefully th...