Thursday's Feast...

I'm lucky that I don't have to go to my day job every weekday. It's nice to have 1 or maybe 2 days (if time permits) in the week for cooking up something delicious. I'm talking about the home-made-from-scratch kind of food here that takes a couple of hours or sometimes half a day to cook. Yet for most of that time you are doing nothing much at all, just enjoying the smells that are wafting through from the kitchen and thinking of the silence there will be at the dinner table that night as everyone is far too busy enjoying their meal to chatter much at all.

The Autumn weather is upon us now (and has been all through Summer lol), the log fire is lit almost every night and I'm thinking of the darker evenings starting to draw in, of knitting warm woollen sweaters for everyone, and of meals for my family that offer warmth and comfort with no stodge in sight. Vegetable soups, casseroles thickened with pearl barley and lentils, Beef Daube, pot roast chicken and all the tasty things the cooler weather brings.

My family adore curry. No matter what variety or form they take anything curry is good (maybe because 3/4 of the household are male?). I have experimented over many years with perfecting various curry recipes to our personal tastes.

The most requested curry is a Lamb Pasanda ~ chunks of juicy and tender meat cooked for 3 hours in a beautiful sauce that gains it's depth and heat from the warm spices - ginger, chilli and cinnamon. It's a North Indian dish that was derived from a meal originally served to the Moghul Emperors. It's a variation on the Urdu word 'pasande' meaning 'the favorite one' ~ referring to the prime cut of meat that was traditionally used.

Yes, it's on the menu here tonight:

I shall happily share my recipe with you. I have a very good butcher and use either lamb forequarter that has been boned and skinned, or a butterflied leg of lamb depending on the price/my budget, both give good results although the leg meat is obviously the primer cut. You can ramp up the spices to suit your personal taste ( I often add extra chili and ginger, maybe an extra teaspoon of each)
I love using fresh chilies but they vary so much in heat and it's impossible to get a standard base from which to work with ~ so for these kind of dishes I use the ready prepared, minced fresh red chili that comes in little jars that you keep in the fridge as I find I can get a more consistent result with it. This dish is even better if you can make it the day before eating and keep it in the fridge overnight (well covered). The flavours meld and mingle better if you can do this  wait this long? It serves 6-8 generously ~ but there are usually only 4 of us so we often eat this for dinner the next day too.

Lamb Pasanda
Serves 6-8 people
For the Pasanda paste:
2 fat juicy cloves of garlic, crushed
3 heaped teaspoons freshly grated ginger
3 level teaspoons fresh prepared red chili (see above)
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon Turmeric
3 green cardamom pods
2 heaped tablespoons tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons oil (preferably sunflower/vegetable, don't use olive oil)

Mix everything above together in a bowl and set aside.

For the Pasanda:
1 tablespoon oil (not olive oil)
900g lamb cut into large cubes
2 large onions, diced
3 fat cloves garlic, crushed
6-8 tablespoons natural yoghurt, plus 2 tablespoons extra for serving (low fat is good)
300ml chicken stock
4 tablespoons ground almonds mixed with 100ml cold water

Heat the oil in  a large pan and gently cook the onions with the garlic for about 10 minutes until they are very soft and starting to caramelise.

Turn up the heat, scrape the onion mix to one side of the pan and add the cubed meat. Let it brown before turning, don't stir it, you want it to brown nice and quick and get a good colour on the meat, remember colour = flavour. When it's nicely browned turn down the heat and add all of the paste to the pan, stirring gently to coat the meat. Let it cook for 5 minutes, giving it an occasional stir. Add the yoghurt a spoonful at a time and stir it in, then the add the almond/water mixture and stir well. Gradually add the chicken stock, stirring again until everything is nicely mixed.

Bring to a gentle simmer and put a lid on the pan but leave it slightly off for the steam to escape. Leave to simmer gently (a few bubbles should be just breaking on the surface occasionally) for 3 hours, stirring it every now and then ~ enjoy the aroma that will fill the house.

After 3 hours give it a good stir, then gently mix in the extra 2 tablespoons of yoghurt and garnish it with freshly chopped coriander.

The only thing to serve with this (as far as I'm concerned) is a Fragrant Pilau rice~

The secret of a perfect Pilau is to wash the rice first and then soak it briefly. This moistens and softens the grains, enabling the rice to absorb moisture during cooking which results in a fluffier rice. I only use basmati rice, it gives a much superior result and flavour than any other variety. This is true, believe me, coming from someone who struggled to cook 'perfect' rice for many, many years. I usually put saffron in this rice but I had run out today, the saffron adds a lovely golden colour but it's good without.


Fragrant Pilau:
Serves 4 - 6 people
600 ml hot chicken or vegetable stock
generous pinch of saffron (optional)
50g butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 fat clove garlic, crushed
2.5 cm piece of cinnamon stick
6 green cardamom pods
1 bay leaf
250g basmati rice, washed and soaked in cold water for 30 minutes
50g sultanas (golden raisins)

Stir the pinch of saffron into the stock and set aside.
Melt the butter in a pan that has a well fitting lid. Add the onion and garlic and cook for a good 5 minutes until softened but not starting to colour.
Add the cinnamon, bay leaf and cardamom and cook for 2 minutes.
Drain the rice and add to the pan, stirring well and cook for 2 minutes more.
Add the stock and the sultanas and bring to the boil. Stir well and reduce the heat to low. Put the lid on and time it for exactly 9 minutes. When the time is up remove it from the heat immediately and let it stand for at least 5 minutes with the lid still on tightly.
Fluff the rice with a fork.
You can also add some dry roasted nuts to the rice after cooking. Just cook either cashews or peanuts in a dry frying pan until they start to colour then sprinkle over the rice before serving.

All together in all it's glory:

I serve the curry and rice with my home made spicy apricot chutney (similar to mango chutney but using apricots) and a simple tomato and onion salad.










Our apple tree is totally laden with fruit this year. I'm not sure what type of apple it is (which is the problem when you buy a new home, you are never sure what everything is that's growing in the garden) it's a very old tree and I think it's possibly a Gravenstein. They are definitely cookers although the boys have eaten a few and said they aren't really that sour. I made a batch of spiced apple sauce with them a few days ago and it turned out great (apart from getting third degree burns on my hand when I stirred it and it erupted like volcanic lava!). I'm going to have to think what else I can make with them as I estimate there's about 25 kg of apples ripe and ready to be picked. At the weekend there will be the bestest Apple Shortcake in the world to share with you! Here's a sneak peek~

February already!

Again I have lots to say & show you. How the time flies by, I've been busy with other things and fail to find the time to blog as often as I would like. Christmas & New Year were here and gone in the blink of an eye and now it's February already.

Firstly I would like to introduce you to the two new additions to our family:

This is Caesar, he's 10 months old and is the cutest little boy. I love the colours on his body and his neck has the most lovely shades of grey. There is definitely a sock yarn colourway in him. I adore his fringe ~ it has perfect stripes of charcoal grey, chocolate and white and I dream of combing it. He's my little baby.

Here's Jupiter, he's 2 years old and is quite the bossy boots ~ but he looks after Caesar very well. I got them last month through a friend of a very thoughtful friend who was emigrating back to the U.K. They have both settled in nicely and are now eating out of our hands. Both are already halter trained and love to go for walks (if you can catch them first that is!) We can't believe how lucky we were to get them, they are lovely animals and have very fine fleece ~ I shall be looking forward to spinning their fibre into something special. I'm going on a course this weekend to learn all about alpaca husbandry.

On the crafting side of things ~ I'm so lucky to have such a thoughtful and clever  husband, he found this old battered skein holder at a flea market. I was a little horrified when I saw it, it was filthy and covered in dirt, cobwebs and dust and had seen much better days. The woman he bought it from was very surprised that he even knew what it was for lol.

Once he spent time on it and worked his magic it looked like new. All the wooden parts were sanded clean, the ties and copper wires holding it together were all replaced. It now looks like new and I'm so happy with it. It works brilliantly and has been used many times already. He knows what makes me happy!






I've been knitting quite a bit recently and have been trying to get my Ravelry projects up to date. I'm not quite there yet but hope to be soon. My Christmas present to myself this year was the Kate Davis Sheep Heid kit, I won't go into detail on how long it took to actually receive it after ordering it at the beginning of December ~ I shall just say it was a very very long time! I really enjoyed knitting the hat and I love the colours, and of course I love Shetland yarn. Kate is such a clever lady. The Rams and Yowes blanket is the next project on my list.

Last week I dyed up a sweaters worth of Bambaroo sock yarn in a silver grey & blue mix to knit Current. I like the little details on this cardigan, the pretty cable edging is lovely and is worked in with the cardigan body so no picking up stitches afterwards. 

I also have something on the spinning wheel ~ I dyed up a bulk lot of combed top for a stall I had at the Spinners & Weavers Guild agm a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't bear to part with this particular braid so I kept it, it's Shetland fibre dyed in a pale gold colourway, here it is all prepped into luscious clouds of fluff ~

and on the bobbin~

I love to spin Shetland fibre, I think it's my most favorite of all. I find it so easy to draft and to spin very fine singles with. BFL comes a close second in my book.

TTFN~

Look at the size of this...................

One of my hens laid the biggest egg I have ever seen yesterday. I'm not sure which one actually laid it and I found myself watching them to see if any were walking funny....... after laying something this size.......but no clues were found. Surely the hen would be so proud after laying this little beauty and would want to let us know.

119g

Can you spot it trying to hide amongst the others?  The other eggs in this pic are all large sized and weigh about 65g.

A very big catch up.......

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted here ~ 7 months have gone by, in the blink of an eye!

There's been so much going on here I'm not sure where to start ~

We had a reasonable winter apart from 2 very heavy snow falls, somehow the Winter seemed to be very short. Luckily we had a new log burner installed and the first major thing we did to our new home was insulate everywhere as there was no insulation whatsoever in it. We did the roof space, underfloor and also the exterior wall cavities. We were as snug as bugs compared to what we had experienced over the past 3 Winters. I still find it mind boggling that most NZ homes, especially the older ones have no insulation. Saying that when we first arrived in New Zealand we rented a house that was 8 years old and there was no insulation in that house either, it was often colder in the house than outside. I had honestly forgotten what it was like to live in a warm, dry home. We still have a log burner with a wetback to be fitted in the kitchen diner but that will be done after Christmas.

Mostly every spare minute I can find is being spent in the garden. The place hadn't had much done to it for over 3 years and the garden as you can imagine was very unruly and out of control. We have been digging and laying paths, digging out and building raised vegetable beds (2 completed, 2 more to go), the formal garden is fairly large and the weeding alone is a full time job. However, we have been laying weed matting and bark chips in an effort to conquer this. The garden is looking much better than it did 6 months ago.

Spring has sprung and we have had spectacular cherry blossom, tulips and daffodils (although ours were out in the Autumn strangely). The flower beds are full of peonies that are fit to burst any day, rhododendrons of all colours and varieties, the rose bushes have put on a lot of growth over the past few weeks and the Camellias have been and just about gone. We planted a few fruit trees in the Winter months ~ quince, fig, bramley apple,  peach and a beautifully perfect damson tree that my boys bought me for mothers day that I was thrilled with.

The raised beds that are completed have just been planted with raspberry canes, beans, peas, lettuce, silver beet and bok choi, we are now eating the broad beans I planted back in Autumn. The asparagus bed is supplying us with plenty of spears ~ enough to eat them daily. There is nothing better, in my mind, that goes as perfectly with asparagus spears than a freshly laid brown egg:

We succumbed and got 10 laying hens. My clever Hubby built a posh coop to house our new girls:

This is Minerva, she is top chick. I named her after my dear Grandma. Minerva was the first hen to lay an egg ~ she did it under the cherry tree on her first day with us while we were faffing around sorting out the water dispensers etc. I was shocked when I turned around and saw her stood there with an egg at her feet. She keeps all the other hens in order. We have only named 3 of them so far, there's Minerva, Matilda (who is the scrawniest looking hen and is the first out of the coop on a morning and last in at night she runs to greet us when we approach) and Maisy who is a pale golden brown and white colour, Maisy is the prettiest of them all.

The hens are very entertaining to watch, they go absolutely crazy for the scratching wheat in the afternoons and eat any table scraps we may have, left over and gone to seed veg from our garden, weeds etc. The hens love over ripe avocados and kiwi fruit. They are currently in a large fenced off area in the side paddock but after another week or so when they have got completely used to their environment we can let them fully free range on the paddock. My girls are making me so proud, they are laying at least 6 eggs a day.

There hasn't been much on the knitting/dyeing/crafting front going on at all. I keep knitting little things such as fingerless mitts or hats. I have spun a little bit of the alpaca fleece and I finally finished spinning the shetland combed top, all 900g of it. I seem to have been spinning it forever. I'm going to knit a hap blanket from it, maybe in the fall because I can't imagine knitting something like that in the Summer months.

There has been lots of baking going on too, however I haven't taken photographs of any of it. I made the most yummy sticky toffee cupcakes and an apple shortcake that is out of this world. I will bake them again soon and post the pics and recipes here, very soon.

I have lots more to say, but maybe tomorrow ;-)

A Color Swap package......

.....arrived at my house today, it was from my secret spoiler Nicola aka Clasheen from Ireland. My colour of choice for this swap was wheat/pale gold. I was totally blown away when I opened the package. Nicola is extremely talented at felting and she kindly made me the most stunning felted vessel which was inspired by a stone wall ~

it's absolutely beautiful. I can't stop petting it, the inside is as smooth as a peach.

Also included was a cake of beautiful hand dyed silk yarn along with 2 skeins of a beautiful blend of merino and silk fibre in yummy shades of gold and chocolate brown. It's as soft as a cloud.

Next up are the treasures I received ~ a hand blown glass button full of beautifully interesting patterns and colours, a large stone bead (bottom left) which I absolutely love ~ I'll make this into a pendant. The button at the back is really large and will be perfect for using on a hat or a felted bag.

Here's a pic of the entire package. Nicola was such a generous spoiler, I received Irish tea and Coffee, Baileys truffles, and lemon and Ginger tea which could not have arrived at a more appropriate time as I have an awful cold gifted to me by my dear Son. The package really made my day and I feel well and truly spoilt.


We are still unpacking boxes here, I thought this
would be a great opportunity to properly sort out my stash. I've taken over the smallest bedroom as my craft area (which believe me is very tiny). I'm trying to find a home for everything but I'm lacking storage ~ I seem to be unable to find certain things that I'm looking for but can find the things I don't want/need at the moment. I've decided I have far too much yarn, at the old place I had plenty of storage in my craft room and the yarn was never on show so this is the first time in ages that I have seen it all in one place at once. I need to go through it all, decide what I'm going to knit and use it up! I'm not putting myself on a yarn diet or anything that extreme.

I haven't knit much at all over the past month or so with everything that's been happening, I cast on Idlewood yesterday but decided to use Naturewool (from my stash, me being a good girl and all that). I could not get gauge at all with this yarn, the stated gauge is 15 sts to 4'', the closest I can get and still produce a fabric I like is 20 sts to 4'' so I have been crunching the numbers and practically rewriting the pattern. I've not got too far with it yet, maybe 8 rows in.

On the cooking front I decided to treat myself to Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan and have been trying out the soup recipes. Every one so far has been really tasty, especially the sweetcorn soup and the leek and potato was much nicer than the recipe I had been using. I can't wait to start trying out the chicken recipes next.

I'm Back...

I moved house at last and that wasn't without it's trials, the place still isn't officially ours ~ the earthquake saw to that. We had just left the solicitors after signing off the paperwork for the property purchase when the quake hit. It seems all the paperwork and computer files were lost and we are now waiting for new papers to be drawn up and signed. At least we have a home to live in, many people haven't been so lucky.

We had left Latimer Square 10 minutes before the quake hit, we nearly called at Starbucks for a coffee but decided not to because the traffic is always busy around the city centre at that time of day so we headed away from the city centre towards home.

I didn't know what was happening when it first started, for a moment I thought the steering had gone as the car wouldn't do what I wanted it to, we were sliding all over the road and then I realized everyone else was doing exactly the same. I stopped the car and could feel the road undulating strongly beneath us, I could see brick walls falling down just up the road and when I looked at the lamp posts around us they were swaying like they really shouldn't be. I thought they were going to snap and come crashing down. It seemed to go on for quite a while. We just sat there in shock, people were running out onto the street for safety, vacating their homes and shops that were shaking violently. I knew it would have hit the city hard because the waves were coming from behind us, I remember saying to my hubby that it would be the Port Hills.

My next thought was my boys, one was at work and the other was in the city centre waiting to collect his car from a garage. I contacted them both immediately and was relieved they were safe but they were shaken up by it (my oldest Son was overseas on holiday when the Sept quake occurred so hadn't experienced the main quake). We headed home, the traffic was just terrible as you can imagine everyone was trying to get out of the city.

On the journey home I was wondering if the final chimney would have come down through the roof of the house - it was made unstable by the September quake. The other chimney had come down in September but for some reason this one was left standing ~ it was a high one too, about 6 feet and had twisted on the base. We got home and the chimney was still standing there on the roof. No damage to the house and everything inside was still in it's rightful place (we still hadn't unpacked everything at this point). The boys had just arrived home when there was a big aftershock that rattled the whole house. My Hubby got up on the roof and removed the chimney, I was frightened it would come crashing down on us.

We turned on the tv and could not believe what we were seeing, the city was in ruins. People were dead and missing. It felt as if it wasn't happening here in New Zealand, that we were viewing events in another far away country.

We were hit badly in the September quake, we had severe structural and internal damage to our home, lost a lot of our belongings (I know they are just things and don't really matter), we lost furniture that was smashed to pieces by the force. It has taken us nearly 6 months to get back on track, endless paperwork filled in for the insurance companies, numerous visits from structural engineers, the stress of it all, feeling unsafe even at the slightest tremor as the whole house would shake. I think moving out of that house and buying this one is what has kept my sanity intact.

Our new home is a one level farmhouse built of wood. It's on wooden piles instead of concrete (our old place was on a concrete slab and I'm convinced that's why the quakes felt so bad there). The ground we are on here is shingle and we are 140 mtrs above sea level, no floods or liquifaction ~ I feel safe here. This house has stood through both quakes, having only minor damage in the first one, I think the Farmer that built it over 70 years ago knew what he was doing!

Our village didn't seem to be affected, everything was open and normal, but that makes you feel guilty when you see what other people are having to put up with. There are entire housing developments in some of the suburbs that don't have power, water or sewerage facilities. My Husband keeps reminding me that we were without those facilities in September, we had no water for a week and no reliable power for 5 days but it still doesn't make you feel any better about it all. Many people have had to vacate their homes and many have left to start over in new places.

If I had come home to a scene of destruction then that would have been the final straw for me and I think we would have left here for good. We will stick it out and see what happens and I truly hope we have seen the last of the big quakes for along time.

For now I have things to keep me busy, I have a veg garden ready to plant up with Autumn/Winter veg and I aim get the dye pots out this week and concentrate on getting stock levels in my shop back to normal. I have a shipment of beautiful lace weight merino/silk yarn due to arrive any day now and I'm looking forward to working with it and creating some beautiful colourways. I will donate 50% of the sale price of lace weight skeins sold in March to the Red Cross 2011 Earthquake appeal.

TTFN

A spiffingly scorching Sunday

What a hot day we have had here today, a whopping 40 degrees. It's a little too much really when there are things you want to get on and do. The heat always makes me feel tired. However, I cooked lunch early today ~ I made Meatball Subs from Smittenkitchen. They were totally yummy and I highly recommend the recipe.

Secondly, we haven't moved house yet, there's a major delay due to the recent quakes.....I shall say no more. We should have moved in on Friday but now it's going to be at least another week and a bit away. So, what to do?

We have been at a bit of a loose end this weekend because of this, everything is packed up and ready to go, a lot of our possessions have now gone into storage (did I tell you the house we are moving to is roughly only a third of the size of this house ~ it will be fun!).

Since most of my knitting, sewing and other craft stuff is in storage for the time being, and I didn't want to knit anyway on such a hot day, I decided to make a start washing one of the fleeces I have had stored in a box for a while (glad I purposely left this one out of the storage pile).

This particular fleece is Romney, and is from a sheep that lives very local to me. I decided to wash the fleece using the little at a time method. So firstly I picked out the locks and tried to get a nice mix of the colours that run through the fleece ~ I wrapped them in a laundry bag, next I soaked them in hand hot water with pure soap added for about 10 minutes. Then I drained the filthy water and did the same thing again. It was rinsed in hot water twice but I left the fleece to cool in the water on the last rinse. I gave it a quick spin in my fibre spinner (a salad spinner) and laid it out to dry on racks on the patio. It was so hot that after an hour I turned it over and it was totally dry. The fleece has retained some of the lanolin and has the most lovely smell (I'm a secret fibre sniffer).

This is a picture taken before washing the locks. The colour range in this fleece is beautiful, from cream through to the deepest bluey grey although the majority is differing shades of browns.

I'm going to prepare all of the fleece in this way and card it on my drum carder. I will spin it into a worsted weight 2 ply yarn. It's a large fleece (approx 4 kg), so this is going to be an ongoing project for quite a while yet. I don't know what it will end up becoming, my Hubby and my Brother have both said they would like a sweater from it. I wanted to knit a nice throw for my new home, but I do have a pile of different coloured Shetland combed top to spin that I had sort of earmarked for that project. So we will have to wait and see. I do think it needs to be made into something special, after all ~ I read something the other day that said how a hand spinner will put between 200-300 hours work into a fleece, starting with the washing through to the finished product.

I have put a pair of small batts of this Romney fibre into my shop, I have 2 more to list later but that will be it ~ it's all I'm willing to part with!