We made breakfast in our local park.

I woke this morning and just had the idea to make our breakfast in the park.

I jump on my ideas sometimes, last week it was to have a yard sale, today a humble brekkie in the park. Well it took some preparation but it was worth it.

The Autumn weather has been just perfect. So with basket in hand we simply crossed our street and headed to the park, how easy is that.

Whilst we were there we attempted a family shot what a flop that was, there was wiggling, sunlight in our eyes, one wanting to go home, oh well it was fun and comical none the less

If you are interested here is my recipe for Ricotta hotcakes is down below, they are gluten free.

The flour mixture used in my hotcakes is gluten free and is a blend of red sorghum flour, rice flour, tapioca starch, and yellow maize flour. I have learned a ratio method for flour blending which has been so successful. Basically It's a 40% wholegrain flour to a 60% starch ratio. It means as long as you stick to this and are accurately weighing you can mix whatever you have on hand to make up this ratio. I feel better adding in the whole grains, starches just make me feel like all the goodness is gone.

Today's hotcakes were fluffy and light and so scrumptious.

Here is my recipe.

200g ricotta
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/4 cups of a gluten free flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 pinches of bi carb soda

In a medium bowl whisk together the ricotta, eggs and milk.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, bicarb, xanthan gum, and baking powder. Sift these together.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mix it all together.
Pack in a container and head to the local park.
The mixture keeps for the day quite well.
If you need to add extra milk please do, as some flours may absorb more liquids. For me the batter should be dollopy not runny.

Ricotta cream

Ricotta as much as you like
Runny honey
Lemon zest

Whisk the cream up till it's lovely and smooth.

These are so good, Circe is eating pancakes for the first time in I don't even know how long. She loves them, I feel like I have conquered something, even if it is just pancakes.

Last year's chestnuts makes today's cake

A chestnut tree is both a blessing and a curse.

At the moment ours is looking spectacular, heavy with green spiky chestnuts in its branches. They are about a month away from falling, so we get to enjoy the look for a while.

The times this tree is a curse?  When it is in flower it lets off quite a pungent smell, Luckily this doesn't last long.

Or when its spiky balls of pain turn our front yard into a mine field. During this time there are is a prickle in the foot once  day or so.  Depending on who it is and on the time of day you get reactions from toughness to tears.  Wailing drama sometimes, if Circe is feeling small. "Please help me!", or "You have to carry me, spiky bombs are going to get me!", and  "You can't leave me behind!".

Pain and endless sweeping path aside, nothing beats collecting the actual chestnuts.  Getting them down with the rake, whacking the big bursting-at-the-seams chestnut with a broom to get the nut out. Over a few week I collect at least three kilos from our tree.

Once I've got enough to make a batch I process a big lot at once.  I split the shell without stabbing myself, boil them, peel them, and blitz them to make chestnut meal.

This year I ended up with three one-kilo batches and kept them in my freezer.

I pulled out a ziplock bag today and made this sweet chestnut cake from CSIRO's Food intolerance Management Plan book.

It's quite good in that it gives some details on the science, I really like this book.  But the picture did not appeal to me.

The edges looked leathery, common with gluten free recipes, and reminded me unpleasantly of the banana bread I'd tried the week before. I didn't like it, the kids refused it in their lunches.  Normally it'd all still go, disappearing from the tin late at night, but it was so tough on the outside that even Aaron wouldn't it eat.

Later I heard that the chickens wouldn't even it eat.

But once I got started, I was thrilled by this recipe, really thrilled.  It took a lot of eggs, but by gosh I've got a lot of eggs since all the chickens are laying.  (Sometimes it seems like they lay twice a day and I'm loving it.  Eliza will eat scrambled eggs for breakfast.)

Everything had such beautiful textures and colours, I kept wanting to touch the batter.

And making up the recipie to suit me felt good, empowering. I just loved the fact that I could do that, It felt really good making this cake.

I replaced the chestnut flour with my chestnut meal, and the rice flour and cornflour with a gluten free plain flour that I am really happy with. The cake was light moist and just gorgeous dusted with icing sugar. It had a real Italian cake flavour to me, I wanted to bring a piece to my Mum it was so good.

Blessing I think, in the final accounting.



And thank all of you for the messages of support for Circe. She is getting stronger with almost every day, she is gaining weight and feeling much better. I cannot believe how frail and sick she was only five weeks ago. I keep squeezing the little plump legs she's getting and looking at her filled out cheeks.  That's a blessing, too.

play with your food

I wish I could say I love it when my kids make a creative mess, but I can't.

I'll admit it, it makes me a little stressed. It seems as though it always happens the hour before dinner. There will be homework, pens, pencils, crayons, dominoes, books, whatever takes their fancy strewn across the table.

Tonight was no exception, in fact tonight it was a bigger mess than usual. The mess was (of course) a good mess, a map of Terreria. For that hour a huge sheet of cartridge became an imaginary world containing rivers, rocky terrain, hide outs, and underground mines. Kudos to my enthusiastic husband for taking a computer game and translating it to paper and keeping Phoenix off the laptop. He was making it easy, sitting with Phoenix in his lap, taking turns drawing and colouring.  Just nice.

Where there is pen and paper and drawing it is difficult to keep Beatrix away. She claimed her little corner, too.  Then more than a corner, then she's still working on it when everyone else has moved on to something else.  Probably go back and work on it tomorrow, too.

Here is where this story of play spilt over into food, it's always about the food with us isn't it?

The table being the colossal mess that it was, we could have either stalled dinner and cleared it up (and risked a thick-set polenta) or we could pour it out onto chopping board and eat it right there. That's how my mother tells us she and her family did when she was little in Italy. Kudos again to Aaron for suggesting that tonight.

I didn't take much convincing, and it was pleasantly like my mother describes the experience. We stood around the chopping block eating hot creamy polenta with mascapone and parmasen, bubping elbows and laughing and chatting. Aaron and I had spicy Italian pork sausages, and there were some lovely beef ones for the kids.  We also had Broccolini and Chinese broccoli sautéed in garlic to go with it all.

But the before-dinner activities had put us in mood of maps. We lay out our rivers and hills in polenta, a rain of parmasen covered the moors, and we were giants wielding sausages, claiming victory when we'd eaten away our section of polentenous terrain. And they ate it all, kudos again again!

If you'd like Beatrix's sure-fire recipe for the polenta we had, it's here. I wish I had the recipe for the love, the laughter, the pure joy of family we had.  I'd sure share it around if I did.

   

I like it white with one

Just before I married I lived in a warehouse (my studio actually) with my partner.  I've written a little here and here about that time in my life. Today's post however is about the wall in our shared kitchen at that studio.

Because this was a shared space there were comings and goings, visitors, students from the art classes run there, the artists in residence like myself, five of us in fact lived in this wonderful place. The wall over the sink and bench space was scrawled with the many ways we each enjoyed our tea. We always knew how to make someone a cuppa because it was right there, even if you'd never met them before then.

My love of tea was born here, at this place. Many an afternoon were spent  sipping tea around the most wonderful table, it seated 20. It was made from timber found in the studio, we all loved this table. I learnt that making someone a tea instantly made your home warm, inviting, and a place where chat would flow freer.  Maybe that makes me a bit of a tea junkie but did anyone ever refuse a tea when they needed to talk?

Since that time I was introduced to irish breakfast tea by my husband's Uni friend, she and I were like sisters. We drank tea, ate toast, and chatted all things china, vintage, thrifting, fashion, and shoes. She's been away for several years now, but whenever I have a Twinings Irish breakfast I think of her and miss her.

I went through the earl grey stage at University, a little like people do when they smoked Alpine cigarettes.  I am so earl greyed out that I cannot even stand the smell  worse still if a stray bag has permeated the regular tea tin.

Today I buy fairtrade black tea, I am not adverse to herbal tea I just don't really like any store bought ones. I'd rather steep some peppermint leaves or squeeze some lemon and honey or grated ginger.
I think I'd like a wall like the one we once had, it would be a little like not needing to ask a persons name again for the eighth time.

I'd begin my wall with how we here like ours.

• Me white with one, I need the energy.
• My husband likes it black with one.  (What he needs the energy for, no one knows.)
• My oldest daughter went from white with one to black with one like her father.
• My son likes his white and sweet.
• My second daughter likes hers white slightly sweet and with a straw of course it barely tastes like tea by then.
• My youngest daughter (based on today at least) likes hers with grapes and a fork. Why I don't know, but boy did she enjoy it.

On the weekend I like to make a little bigger deal of morning tea. Today's was served with a mixed grain loaf (I'd baked first thing this morning after discovering an empty bread bag) and some yummy jams.

How do you like yours?

too much on my plate

I feel like a bit of a stranger here on my own page. I haven't felt able to write lately, too many worries and too much to do.

Last Saturday night I received a call from one of my sisters. When I saw her name on the screen at 9.32 pm I knew something was wrong. She sounded distressed - Mum had called her telling her Dad couldn't breathe.

My heart sank, the show I had been watching on my laptop was left playing, I strapped on my sandals as she was talking to me, she was already heading there as we spoke. I kissed my husband goodbye telling him my Dad can't breathe I have to go. My husband has lost both his parents in the last two years,and he has lost an Aunt and Grandfather and more recently a dear cousin with a young family. We've grieved too much recently. He kissed me hard as I left.

I got into my car and drove there faster than I would've. I imagined that this drive was one I would never forget. I was mentally preparing myself, repeating out loud please don't die now. When I arrived he was gasping for air sitting in the chair he always sits at: To eat dinner, to watch TV, to read the paper.

Every Christmas my brothers and sisters complain how we cannot all fit in that tiny living room anymore. That night with two paramedics and all of their things the space seemed suffocating.

I watched as the paramedics tore open syringes, tapes, bottles, things I didn't recognise. Wrappings everywhere. Their impatient requests for his medication, for room to be made, for the cat to be taken out, it was all frightening to me. They seemed as panicked as I felt, Mum seemed calm but when I held her she really wasn't. I told her everything would be OK, even though I didn't believe it.

I could hear them on the radio, they were trying to get an intensive care ambulance there and they were preparing for him to go into cardiac arrest. They pushed the table to the wall, careless with it, desperate for more space. The next thirty minutes were awful, my whole body was shaking. We stood in the road as they moved him from the one ambulance to the other, just watching. Then they shut the doors, and we couldn't even do that.

Again all I could think was please don't die now, there is too much that hasn't been said, time you haven't had to enjoy your life. I thought you have worked too hard, you thought you were stronger than anything. But I see now that you are just as vulnerable as all of us, then and there I realised we are just like machines we break down we fall apart, none of us are indestructible.

At least twenty of us waited in the Emergency room, grand-kids and nieces and partners and new boyfriends, only allowed in to see him two at at time. Desperate calls were made to missing siblings: At a wedding, at a river cruise. We all came together to support each other and be there for Mum and to let Dad know he was loved and that we were there rallying him to get better.

A week and a bit later and he has pulled through. Six days in the hospital, and he went back to work the night he was discharged. Against medical advice. He looks the same to me on Friday and seems like himself. My sister today tells me he says he doesn't feel like himself, that he is scared. This is more than I have ever heard him admit. Everyday I am afraid that he will have another heart attack.

I promise to be a little more lighthearted next time (no pun intended!) and show you some of our other goings on.

going away

I don't really ever go on about how it is for me having four children.

I try to keep my posts mostly positive sometimes I share snippets of the difficulty mostly I share the happiness and joy they give me. I have been a parent for ten years I have been a wife for almost seventeen. Today I stepping away from my post to spend some time away with a friend for the first time in all those years.

I cannot express the sadness I have to leave my still breastfed almost two-year-old. I know that she will be fine, I intend to continue to feed her when I return in four days. This may seem wrong or insane to some to go away for a break. My own self is struggling with it all.

I give everything to my house I have neglected my idea of home.

I am going to miss my family and I am going to appreciate them more when I return. I am looking forward to quiet to sleep and the break from all the nagging I have been doing, to not have to look after anyone for these up coming days. I hope I learn something about myself and redistribute myself in different ways when I get back.

I leave here with no lists, no instructions... just trust that will be ok.

tinfoil hearts on the kitchen floor

title is obvious, by ines brenneman.

After making promises I realized I had not kept up my own regular postings. Oops!

I started this week with a big project last Saturday night. Six cushions in one night for my sisters' birthdays. I had a lot of silks and linens which were perfect for them, thanks as always to my seamstress neighbor's cast-offs. I called in my other neighbor, funkbunny, for some company and help. We are birds-of-a-feather and sewing together just works for us. We took only 3 1/2 hours, it was great.

I was a little sorry these had to be split; they looked great as a whole.

The next morning was Mother's day, it was lovely, three breakfasts in bed and lots of cuddles and a sleep in. Which was much appreciated after the late-night sewing!

My highlight was Beatrix's first attempt at mushrooms on toast, these were amazingly good. My little heart skips a beat now when she says "Mum I am ready to cook more." That's my girl, she was along time coming in the culinary area, but here she is, Yeahhh.

I couldn't ask for more.

Later that day I had eight children on my kitchen floor picnicking with some deliciously good (if slightly ragged) three-colour marble cake.

I was content. Feeding cake to this herd of small children, I felt eight little memories being made right there.

Later that day I went to a family gathering for Mother's day, pillows to give and food to share, children bundled into car we set off.

My plan had been that the sister would get two pillows each. My sisters decided instead to split them between two, and I offered to make another three more for the one who went home empty handed. It was easy to agree as two liked the same ones, besides three together looked better than two together and I was feeling a little generous seeing as it was Mother's Day.

It could not have made me happier. I was having a pass-the-love-on kind of day, and just like they say it came back to me...

I'd left a little earlier than my husband on Friday morning. We bundled the kids into the car, he waved goodbye (looking very cute in his shirt and tie, may I add). When I returned later that day my husband surprised me with tinfoil hearts on my kitchen floor.

I could see them when I opened the door sparkling and glistening in the rainy mornings filtered light. My first thought was that he'd eaten an Easter egg and left the wrappings all over the floor! As I drew a little closer, I noticed they were cut out tiny hearts, about fifty. My heart went all gooey. And then I thought how silly of me to think such a thing of him, I felt a little bad.