Thursday 3 December 2020

In my kitchen: December 2020

I had organised to have four weeks off in November to travel overseas, but obviously that did not happen! Instead, I visited friends in Darwin and Gold Coast, and I did the NaNoWriMo challenge (National Novel Writing Month) - the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I felt an incredible sense of satisfaction when I finished on November 30, what fun that was!

What a year it has been. There have been incredible changes in my life this year, and Covid has put a lot of  things into perspective. I have never felt such a profound sense of gratitude for the people I am connected to and the joyful things I have. I'm also gobsmacked that I can still find out all these new things about myself like I love long complex recipes (23 step mooncake? yes please!), and that I love sketching! 

Here my zucchinis are flowering. Sadly all the baby zucchinis died while I was away last week on the Gold Coast, probably from dehydration during the heatwave. 

Proud to harvest my very first ever beans! I went up to Darwin for a week, and when I came back the tomato plant that had survived the winter was completely covered in green stink bugs. With much sadness I had to pull it out of the ground, and eat the remaining 100+ cherry tomatoes. 

I adore the tropical fruit in Darwin! We ate mangoes every day, as well as papaya and rambhutan. My favourite of all time is jackfruit, so intensely sweet with a tiny hint of tartness. I love peeling them too, to get rid of the seed and membranes and finally be rewarded by the fruit!  


On the baking front...

I made this vegan carrot cake for my dear friend B. The cream cheese icing was so interesting - cashews soaked in hot water for an hour, then blended with coconut cream, maple syrup and apple cider vinegar till smooth. It slathered on extremely well, and was the perfect combo with the caramelised walnuts.  

This pumpkin pie was made with some leftover roast pumpkin puree. The pumpkin itself I was storing "just in case" for Covid, but I figured it was getting a bit old. This is also something I never knew about myself... that I love making pie crust!

We made these mochi (sticky rice balls) on the Gold Coast. Our Chinese dumpling party made boiled dumplings (pork and wombok filling), fried dumplings (egg and chive filling) and these mochi. I didn't realise how labour intensive they would be! The glutinous rice flour is steamed then "beaten" but it got stuck to everything. We boiled the red beans with some orange peel and the flavour was incredible, perfect complement with strawberries.  


Onto the food and music series...

We had sourdough pizzas one day, cooked on the barbeque. I made the tomato sauce with fresh oregano from my garden, it really makes a difference. We ate these with the Archduke trio, my all time favourite piano trio now, and also the Mozart Divertimento in Eb for string trio. 

Here is another meal we had at the quartets for the other violinist's birthday. Beef stew, Yorkshire puddings, mash and salad. To celebrate her birthday we played Shostakovich's 8th string quartet, something that I never ever imagined I would play in my life time! It is so incredibly dark and complex. It was like climbing Mt Everest and being in awe at what the body can achieve. 

And finally, who can resist Pengy in a fruit bowl? 

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, who hosts the In My Kitchen Series. Merry Christmas everyone and see you in 2021!

16 comments:

  1. Food and music again -- so wonderful, and I always want to be with you to listen.

    be safe... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. Thanks for visiting Mae, one of these days I must put up a recording of my quartet :)

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  2. So sad for you that you could not travel! We are in the same predicament here :( Those purple beans look amazing :)

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    1. I was really amazed that the purple beans turn green when you cook them! they are so pretty on the vine and I love seeing a bowl of both purple and green beans

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  3. how amazing to write 50K words in a month! i struggle to write a couple of thousand in a week:-) please put up some of your sketches. would love to see them. Pengy looks adorable! that icing sounds so interesting; cashews and coconut cream etc. brilliant! Thanks so much for joining in IMK!! happy festive season. cheers
    sherry

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    1. Thanks for hosting Sherry! I draw for fun and it is SO much fun, maybe that can be my curveball pic next month, I do love the idea of a non kitchen curveball. Happy holidays!

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  4. Love all of those dishes, especially the pumpkin pie. I just heard about the writing challenge in a webinar earlier this week. That sounds intriguing. What is that, about 6000 words a day? Impressed!

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    1. Hi Debra, it averages out to 1700 per day. I skipped a couple of days and made up for them on other days.. it was surprisingly less painful than I thought it would be!

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    2. Fabulous array of tempting food, but Mochi is definitely my favourite sweet of all time. A great foody post.

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  5. Your pie is beautiful, I love the garland of leaves. Mochi is a favorite of mine as well but hard to find here.

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    1. Hi Liz, I love the idea of pastry leaves too! can't wait for the weather to cool down again and get back to wintery pies :)

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  6. Food and music—two of my favorite things! I hope you *will* put up a recording of your quartet. Pleased to "meet" you at Sherry's Pickings #InMyKitchen!

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    1. Food and music are two of my favouritest things as well! They are both very soul nourishing :) hard to convince amateur musicians to record sometimes, we are all self conscious people!

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  7. Congratulations on completing your 50,000 words, and also for discovering that you love to write long recipes -- or sentences. (I'm sort of a Hemingway-esque writer myself, even though my brief blog posts don't reflect that.) Someday I hope to break out of the mold. Yay for sketching, too! "Art" has long been my final frontier and I'm so glad you found your new playground! Thanks for the cashew cream cheese frosting recipe, too, and your "dark and complex" observations. That pretty much describes these days -- cooking, music, and creative-wise. Best wishes to you 'n' yours during these tentative holidays, xo.

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    1. thanks for dropping by Kim, isn't it funny how we can discover new "playgrounds" in adulthood - I love that term, I'm going to borrow it! wishing you a merry christmas season too!

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