It has been an absolutely hectic month of work for me, interspersed with lots of baking.
Barney had a mild near death experience just after Easter, where he went to sleep for 4 days and refused to bubble. Looking at his lifeless body twice a day made me terribly depressed, but I kept feeding him stubbornly. Fortunately he came back just in time for the celebration of the first anniversary of my string quartet on Anzac day.
He made a very fine Turkish style pide stuffed with spinach, mushrooms and cheese. We also made some little Turkish breads with Barry, Barney's son who lives with our cellist. We ate these in the intermission between our anniversary program of the Schubert string quintet in C and the Dohnanyi piano quintet Op. 1.
We are yet unnamed but since 3 of us now have Barney in some variation (and we always have some type of bread when we play), I suggested we call ourselves the Barney quartet. However I don't think the others are so chuffed with the name!
Here he is in hot cross bun form. The ones on the right are from Barney the original and the ones on the left from Barry his son. Glazed and warm out of the oven, we scoffed a bunch of these lovely fruity buns to accompany Schubert's Death and the Maiden.
I had some spectacular loaves this month, but I particularly loved this one which seemed to be smiling.
Sourdough bagels also worked quite well, dense and chewy with a crisp crust. I made some cream cheese to go with it too - amazingly simple, just milk boiled, lemon juice added then strained and the curds pureed till smooth with a sprinkle of salt. We ate these with Mendelssohn's string quartet Op. 13 and Brahms' piano quartet Op. 25.
Last weekend my lovely violinist mathematician friend Tanja was visiting from Canberra. These sourdough croissants were a great weekend project for us, and in between laminations of dough we played Bach's Double violin concerto.
Before I started making bread, I never even dreamed I would one day make croissants. It seemed as about far away as going to the moon. The fact that we managed to pull it off is pretty incredible! Though we didn't have a scale to weigh the ingredients (or a ruler to measure the length of the dough), which drove Tanja crazy.
Words cannot describe the aroma that filled the house as this baked in the oven. Wonderfully flaky and crispy, yet buttery and soft on the inside with all those layers. Pengy and Barney really outdid themselves!
To finish, a few snaps from my dad's garden where the summer veg season is coming to an end.
The mint has had a few near death experiences but recently started growing well again.
We have had so many chokos we don't know what to do with them! Mostly we eat them thinly julienned in a Chinese style salad with rice vinegar and chilli.
A baby pumpkin - there are a few more on the vine now waiting to be eaten.
A few chillies that we don't know the species of, but boy the green ones were hot!
And the last of the tomatoes, best eaten straight from the vine.
I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event.
Barney had a mild near death experience just after Easter, where he went to sleep for 4 days and refused to bubble. Looking at his lifeless body twice a day made me terribly depressed, but I kept feeding him stubbornly. Fortunately he came back just in time for the celebration of the first anniversary of my string quartet on Anzac day.
He made a very fine Turkish style pide stuffed with spinach, mushrooms and cheese. We also made some little Turkish breads with Barry, Barney's son who lives with our cellist. We ate these in the intermission between our anniversary program of the Schubert string quintet in C and the Dohnanyi piano quintet Op. 1.
We are yet unnamed but since 3 of us now have Barney in some variation (and we always have some type of bread when we play), I suggested we call ourselves the Barney quartet. However I don't think the others are so chuffed with the name!
Here he is in hot cross bun form. The ones on the right are from Barney the original and the ones on the left from Barry his son. Glazed and warm out of the oven, we scoffed a bunch of these lovely fruity buns to accompany Schubert's Death and the Maiden.
I had some spectacular loaves this month, but I particularly loved this one which seemed to be smiling.
Sourdough bagels also worked quite well, dense and chewy with a crisp crust. I made some cream cheese to go with it too - amazingly simple, just milk boiled, lemon juice added then strained and the curds pureed till smooth with a sprinkle of salt. We ate these with Mendelssohn's string quartet Op. 13 and Brahms' piano quartet Op. 25.
Last weekend my lovely violinist mathematician friend Tanja was visiting from Canberra. These sourdough croissants were a great weekend project for us, and in between laminations of dough we played Bach's Double violin concerto.
Before I started making bread, I never even dreamed I would one day make croissants. It seemed as about far away as going to the moon. The fact that we managed to pull it off is pretty incredible! Though we didn't have a scale to weigh the ingredients (or a ruler to measure the length of the dough), which drove Tanja crazy.
Words cannot describe the aroma that filled the house as this baked in the oven. Wonderfully flaky and crispy, yet buttery and soft on the inside with all those layers. Pengy and Barney really outdid themselves!
To finish, a few snaps from my dad's garden where the summer veg season is coming to an end.
The mint has had a few near death experiences but recently started growing well again.
We have had so many chokos we don't know what to do with them! Mostly we eat them thinly julienned in a Chinese style salad with rice vinegar and chilli.
A baby pumpkin - there are a few more on the vine now waiting to be eaten.
A few chillies that we don't know the species of, but boy the green ones were hot!
And the last of the tomatoes, best eaten straight from the vine.
I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event.
