In my kitchen: August 2020

What a strange year 2020 has been. After the first lockdown, there was a time of optimism that we had done so well in Australia to have averted many Covid-19 infections & deaths. The last month has seen some unravelling of this optimism in Victoria where they have gone back into lockdown. Despite all this, life and eating (and IMK) goes on...

In my garden...

Lots of my lettuce is thriving. There is something so wholesome about watching a tiny little leaflet emerge to become a full bodied confident leaf. 

There have been so many snow peas, and I have taken to the joy of eating one off the vine as a treat after work. 

 

On the baking front...

There have been several spectacular loaves this month. 

I tried sourdough baguettes again. My first attempt last winter was a flop as I had not let the yeast develop fully. I made these when my friend J came to visit for the weekend and they were really, really good. The crust was dark and crunchy but the interior was meltingly soft. The creamy texture of the crumb makes it feel like it's already been buttered! Definitely looking forward to making this again. 

My friend sent me an article about sourdough one day and I had a loaf proving, so I was keen to try out the bread-face Picasso style... 

I also celebrated my birthday this month, amid a very busy clinical week and some tragic news from a friend. Not to do anything by halves, I had 3 birthday cakes!

I baked this very simple apple cake for my family, with a tender moist crumb and whole mouthfuls of apple in every bite (4 in the whole cake!)

The next day my friend from work brought this extravagant chocolate hazelnut torte from Baked Uprising in Maryville. This was intensely sweet and went perfectly with some strong coffee.

The last cake was an orange almond cake which I made for my quartet. 3 whole oranges from my friend's tree boiled for an hour and blitzed together with half a bag of almond meal, half a dozen eggs and a generous splash of poppy seeds... the orange flavour was full on crazy! 

Finally, onto the Food and Music series....

I went up to Kirra to visit my friend L along with her mum and another music friend from Brisbane. We had a lot of fun playing the strangest combination of instruments - a piano quartet in our sense comprised piano, recorder, violin and trombone! We also played some simple Haydn piano trios with me on cello.  

I brought Barney my sourdough with me to Queensland, in hindsight it would have been funny to print him a border pass as a souvenir! We ate some spectacular rye loaves that were baked fresh while we were playing music. I love simple lunches like this with lots of fresh produce and warm crusty bread. The smoked salmon from her local place in Coolangatta was out of this world (red - chilli, green - dill)

My birthday menu with my quartet was this slow roasted lamb shoulder rubbed with yoghurt and spices. The musical menu was the Scherzo movement from the Brahms Piano Trio no. 1 (one of my favourite movements of all time), the Beethoven Op. 3 string trio and the Borodin piece for 2 violins and cello in G minor, based on a Russian folk song.

I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the IMK series - thanks Sherry!