Weekend eating

I've been forgetting to post about the fish Graeme's been catching recently. I wonder if it's because I'm trying to block out his encounter with a shark?... Hmmmmm

Anyway, the red morwong and black drummer fillets were cooked with capers, lemon, butter and fresh tarragon. Simple but very very good. Especially with creamy parmesan polenta. 

Those pools are lemon juice, not butter...
OK, maybe a bit of butter...

The garden needs a bit of TLC at the moment. The layers have all sunk down, so a lot of the plants have suffered from not being exposed to full sun. Add to that all the rain we've been having and the tomato plants were a mess. Most of the fruit had split skins, and had started rotting.

I'm experimenting as I go along, taking herbs out of the garden and putting them into pots to make room for more salads. But I start one thing and often don't get to see it through, and before I know it another week has gone past, and it's a mess again.

While Kian will sit on the grass for a few minutes, he now thinks it's fun to walk around the beds ripping all the leaves out. He started with the marigolds, which I let him de-head, but then when I wasn't looking he'd pulled out beetroot, an entire coriander plant and one strawberry plant. So having Kian out there just makes more work.

But Graeme and I did need 20 minutes or so to clear the other bed, and build the layers back up, so we thought a bucket of water would keep him amused for that long.

Except he tried to climb into it head first and almost got stuck (with his head in the water).

We can't take our eyes off him for a second. So it just meant he stayed on my hip, while Graeme shovelled.

Most of the tomatoes this week were no good, but I still managed to pick a couple of baskets' worth.

Tomatoes and purple carrots ready to go into the oven...

And earlier that day some pitta breads for lunch...

I've picked up all the green tomatoes off the ground that must have fallen off in the rain. What would you do with a great big bowl of green tomatoes? Chutney?

Actually, Graeme's just picked four green chillies from his chilli plant, so a green tomato chutney might be just the thing. 

(In my head, yes. It makes perfect sense. A green tomato chutney with a nice kick from Graeme's chillies. Hey, I could even make enough to give away a few jars as gifts. Trouble is, I keep looking at these tomatoes in the fridge and saying 'I must do something with them'. I'm feeling lazy this week, and, well chutney doesn't offer quite the same reward as chocolate cake, does it? I mean, I'll leave Pinterest to make custard, even bread. But chutney?)

P.S. I've been beavering away over the last few weeks trying to finish my story. My blog is a big work in progress, but at least I've finished one page!

Is this really a food blog?

I know my blog cites food as its main reason for being, but really, when was the last time I posted about food?

I wanted to create a space where I could share my passions and until very recently my biggest passion was food. Well, it still is. Just that a few things have got in the way.

Children for starters. Nothing gets in the way of creating something lovely in the kitchen like a one-year-old whinging and whining, koala-hugging your leg all day long. Nothing.

Yes, I've been completely uninspired where food's concerned, because Kian has decided to take this separation anxiety thing to its very limit. We're at the point where I can't bare to be at home between meals, because if he's not asleep and not eating, it's moan moan moan. As soon as we go out, he's OK.

Even Luca held his hands up to his ears yesterday and shouted 'Kian, stop being so noisy. Stop whinging!'. If nothing else, it made me laugh.

And then there's getting stuck in a rut, sticking to a very dependable repertoire of meal ideas. Kids, bless their little cotton socks, don't only sap you of time and energy, I've found, but creativity gets lost too. So needless to say, I've been feeling a bit flat about this.

Until last weekend.

Suddenly, I wanted to be in the kitchen again and I wanted to eat great food. So after a morning of taking the boys swimming and fishing, I made a sort of fruit salad. Peaches, nectarines, mango and passionfruit. And the thing that made my tongue do a little dance: lots of lime zest.

Then we went down to the garden and picked lots of tomatoes.

Graeme made me a tomato and caramelised onion tart tatin years ago and it was divine. So I made that, and we devoured the whole thing. The entire tart between two adults and two little kiddlywinks. Kian hasn't been fond of popping cherry tomatoes like his older brother, but I had a feeling he'd eat them like this, and I wasn't wrong. Sweet, roasted tomatoes with softened onion and rich, buttery thyme-scented pastry - who wouldn't?

As for dessert... I had a can of condensed milk in the cupboard (still haven't got round to making dulce de leche), so I quickly made a batch of no-churn strawberry ice cream. Very easy and rather delicious.

A swirl of strawberry puree 

If that wasn't enough for one day, I made a loaf of sultana, cinnamon and pecan bread in the breadmaker (have I mentioned how I'd be lost without my breadmaker?), so we'd have something exciting to wake up to.

Lunch the next day was a glorious concoction of haloumi, mint and tomato (our first tomato glut ever!) on flatbread. All roughly chopped and in the oven until the haloumi starts to take on a bit of colour. I loved it, but the boys weren't keen. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

It felt good to eat well, and to be inspired.

I'm going to try and make my food posts a bit more frequent than once in a blue moon. But it all depends if baby koala will ever let go...

P.S. Having a lot of trouble posting pictures lately, hence why they're floating all over the place!