In My Kitchen: November 2020

Every month this year, I remark on how quickly the month has gone! But the real question is, where has 2020 gone? The situation is so frightening all around the world, and yet our kitchens continue... 

On the garden front...

My dad's banana tree was attacked by insects and he hung these up to ripen on the balcony. These were intensely sweet with a strong banana flavour that is just not found in shops anymore.

I have a miracle tomato plant that survived the winter. It was hibernating for about 2 months, and just when I decided to pull it out, it started to flower. Now there are a couple of hundred little cherry tomatoes on the vine. Go tomato plant! I'm cheering for you.

 

Some of the bok choy was kept to grow for seed, and there must have been several thousand seeds here. One time when my dad came up to Newcastle, he showed me how to get the seeds out of the pods. He says he learned this from when he had to work on the farms during the cultural revolution!

 

These were the very first of the beans. It's my first time growing them and I was so excited to see these babies. 

On the baking front... 

I made sourdough bagels using the recipe from Emilie Raffa's book, which is my quintessential bible of sourdough. These worked out really well - tender crust, chewy but light interior. Is there anything better in the universe than fresh warm bagels from the oven? 

Well, maybe fresh warm baguettes would be equal first. I'm still working on my shaping and slashing, but it's pleasing that I'm able to get a consistent crisply shattering crust with a creamy buttery interior. And that's before you add the butter! 

I was also really delighted with this spelt walnut loaf. I was quite distracted on a zoom call and forgot what weight of water I started with, so I had to eyeball it. I usually add chia seeds if it seems too wet after the dough is mixed, but this time the dough was so wet I could barely shape it. It still worked out beautifully though. 

Onto the Food and Music series...

My piano duet friend and I ate this olive sourdough one night with a simple vegetable soup. I think it looks like an alien with weird eyes. We are still working on the two Beethoven projects - on this night we played the Op. 125 string quartet arranged for piano 4 hands, and also the 8th Beethoven violin sonata. 

With my string quartet, we had curry night with a deeply rich beef curry and a mild veggie korma,  accompanied by sourdough naans which were wonderfully puffy. We ate these with the blood boiling Mendelssohn's Op. 13 string quartet and the very sweet Beethoven Op 18 No. 2 string quartet. 

I called ths our traffic light dinner - lamb shanks, mash and fresh greens. We were a trio that night (absent violist) so we played the Goldberg variations for string trio and the Archduke piano trio. 

We also ate these mulberries off the cellist's tree! There is no joy greater in life than picking mulberries straight off the tree - one for the pot, one for me! 

My curve ball of the month: I finished a jigsaw, the first one in about 20 years!

I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the In My Kitchen series. Thanks Sherry for giving us an opportunity to review the culinary delights of the month - in answer to your question last month, I'm a lady!