San Choi Bow!

I dunno how many different ways there are to spell san choi bow.

Who cares though, I made it last night, and it was great! Whats even better though, it took about 15mins from start to finish, I think the most fiddly part was breaking off the lettuce leaves, washing them, and placing them carefully in a bowl.

I found a recipe online somewhere, but true to fashion I didnt use it once I was home... another typical thing for me to do, is to eat everything before taking a photo. We were starving, we didnt wanna wait.

This is a really forgiving recipe though, and the quantities, in my opinion can be adjusted according to your taste. Im sure there are some SCB purists who believe things must be put in the pan at the right time, with the right things otherwise its been bastardised.

However, I believe that food is there to be eat, enjoyed, and plates licked clean. So ill include here a rough guide, to the ingredients I used, in roughly the quantities I guesstimated. However as I said, they're there to be changed. If you like more chilli - add more. I need not explain this concept further!!

San Choi Bow

250g mince (I used beef, its what we had, however its traditionally made with a mix of pork/chicken. So suit yourself to your tastes, what you have and whats on special!)

2 garlic cloves (grated/blitzed/chopped/crushed)

1 chunk of ginger (prepared like the garlic, I grated it, skin on. Throwing caution to the wind me)

1 green chilli (we used green cos we like the freshness, and took the seeds out)

3 generous tsp of sambal (indonesian chilli sauce - delicious, buy some, use it, love it)

1 tsp chinese 5 spice

1/4 cup chinese cooking wine (or thereabouts. I didnt measure, just splashed)

1/4 cup oyster sauce (free pour - I love this stuff)

1 tbspn thick soy sauce

Quantity of noodles of your choice (good way to bulk out this meal, with cheap noodles. Makes it uni student suitable)

Sliced spring onions/water chestnuts/bamboo shoots

Method

1) Get ready to wok. Heat oil in your wok, and have everything already good to go, cut up and sorted. This is a fast meal to make, but easy to screw up if youre leaving things to burn in your smoking hot wok while you catch up on prep. Depending on which noodles you have, prepare them now (I had rice noodles, that needed to be soaked in hot water for 5-10mins).

2) Add your sambal, garlic, chinese 5 spice, and ginger, and stir it. Alot. Hot wok = burnt garlic, which tastes crap. Keep it moving. It smells good, doesnt it.

3) Add your mince, give it a stir to coat it all in the chilli/garlic/ginger goodness. Depending on your wok, and how much you're cooking (if you're like me, you havent followed the ingredient list and are reading this with a kilo of mince in your hand... never fear, you can make this work), cook the mince in batches, in another pan, or in the wok, it doesnt matter. If you have too much meat in a pan, it brings the temp of the pan down. High temp = sizzle
Sizzle = flavour.
If the temp of the wok is reduced too much, there isnt enough sizzle. You dont want the mince stewing in the juices it releases cos the wok isnt hot enough, you want it sizzling, and the meat should become brown, not a pallid grey being simmered in mince water.

4) Once youve tackled the mince, and its all in the pan, add your sauces, chopped chilli, spring onions, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots. Get stirring, keep it moving. Make sure its all covered in deliciousness.

5) Cooked noodles are drained, and chucked in. Stir. Make sure its all coming together - have a taste, add anything you feel is lacking. This is your dinner, not mine, add what you like!

6) Serve in iceberg lettuce cups, fold them up and prepare to make a mess!

Allow about 1 or 2 serving spoons full of the mixture per lettuce cup.

This would also be great rolled up in rice paper rolls - which is my next plan!

If youve done it all right, this whole meal shouldnt really take longer than 30mins (if youre really taking your time chopping and generally pottering in the kitchen) however it took me about 15-20mins.

Apologies for no pictures............ we ate it........... it was really nice, with a real chinese flavour. Once youve got the sauces/spices, this is a real pantry meal. Grab it all and go.

Fun for kids to wrap their mince up in lettuce leaves, good way of coaxing bf to eat his greens. Can sub the meat for soy mince/quorn/tofu of choice for those less carnivorous. Add more veges, carrot, chinese greens, baby corn - just make sure you add them when its appropriate to make sure they're cooked properly.

Try it, its so easy and fast, its a definate winner for mid week dinners!!

Green Carrots?

I have found the solution to my green flecked carrot cake! Too much bicarb!

Here is the science behind why your carrots may turn green when you bake with them, from this Food Science website

"Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking, explains that carrots turn green when the batter "contains too much baking soda, or when the soda isn't evenly mixed in the batter."

Carrots contain pigments that are sensitive to changes in pH balance. When the shreds of carrot come into contact with the alkaline baking soda, a chemical reaction takes place that causes the pigments to change color.

Ipso facto, green carrots!

If your carrots turn inexplicably green with a recipe you've used many times before, the likely culprit is that the baking soda didn't get fully dispersed throughout the batter.

If your carrots are turning green every time you make the recipe, the ratio of baking soda in the recipe is probably off. Try reducing the amount by a quarter teaspoon next time you make the recipe.

Unappetizing though they may be, cakes and loaves with green carrots are perfectly safe to eat and taste no different than normal cakes!

Blueberries, sunflower seeds, and walnuts are also reactive to alkaline environments and experience similar color changes when the amount or distribution of baking soda is off."

BTW that picture is of Chard Muffins from the Apron Stringz blog... but you get the picture ;)

Too many carrots!!

We get our fruit and veg delivered by The Organic Collective, where we get a box full of random organic, local fruit n veg. Its awesome, its cheap ($37.50 for the 2 of us per week, in total), and its organic, WOOHOO! Anyway this week we got ALOT of carrots! We always get a few carrots but this week we got alot, and I was tired of roasting them, or putting them in a soup, so I decided to take action! Action in the form of Tessa Kiros' Carrot Cake, from Falling Cloudberries, which I havent cooked much from as yet, but we'll get there!

Anyway, 400g of carrot later, Ive definately made a dent in the carrot supplies, which is a relief... as delicious as roasts are, every night? A bit of variety is nice, and its been ages since I baked anything.

I didnt have many walnuts, maybe 20g left so I added a handful of mixed coconut, banana chips and dried pineapple to the batter, which were all pre mixed with the walnuts anyway - Im not fussy about these things, Im not likely to go sorting through the fruit and nut jar to find the lonely walnuts. It all goes in! Those who say baking is an exact science - pish posh, near enough is often good enough!

I decided to make cupcakes rather than a whole cake, as they're easier for my bf and I to take to work etc, and they're in friendlier portions (though, I dont know about you, but it DOES make eating more than one portion weigh much lighter on my concience than 2 slices of cake might!). The recipe calls for the cake to be baked for an hour, these cupcakes are done in about 20-30 minutes, depending on your oven... This is much better, I feel less guilty about eating more of them, AND they're baked in half the time. Enough to put a gleam in a gluttons eye!

They came out looking fab - they rose up beautifully (with 3 tsp of baking powder/bicarb, it'd wanna rise up!!) and didnt sink down at all. I obviously couldnt resist trying one straight away, warm, straight out of the oven... Its hard really, for cake fresh out of the oven to taste anything but delicious and that these were, it was to be expected.

After waiting for my bf to come home with cream cheese (with strict instructions which kind to get, where to get it and which ones NOT to get) he came home with the goods, and his parents, always willing cake testers! Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I am terminally half arsed. I often take short cuts, dont follow instructions fully and dont measure things out properly. About half the time things go better than expected... sometimes they fall slightly short of the mark and rarely do things totally just roll over and die. Thankfully the icing didnt roll over and die (or taste like someone would rather do that, than eat it) but it did turn out slightly lumpy, because I didnt sift the icing sugar. I had no intention of sifting it, and in turn, ended up with slightly lumpy icing. What of it, it hasnt affected the taste, and considering they're going to be mistreated by being thrown into my lunchbox on a hasty, late exit to school in the mornings, no one will notice or care but me. You'll notice there is one missing... I need not explain what happened to it - it was very nice!

Something quite strange happened though... Something I added into the mix, once it was cooked, underwent some sort of chemical reaction and turned green. I have no idea what, but little flecks of green are now in my carrot cupcakes! They have no taste, and you dont notice it, aside from the random green flecks. If it were banana, I could understand it goes brown and gooey, but carrot? Or maybe the pineapple, the coconut? Did the bicarb react with something? Who knows! It still tastes great. Ill still eat them! It'll take more than random greenness to stop me eating something delicious!! They're moist and quite light... with almost half a kilo of carrots in there you wouldnt be far off the mark to say they're almost healthy!! We wont talk about the 2 cups of sugar...... Regardless, here is the recipe for you guys to have a try!

Carrot Cake:

4 eggs, lightly beaten

250g caster sugar

185ml sunflower oil

300g plain flour

3/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

400g carrots, peeled and grated

55g chopped walnuts

Cream Cheese Frosting:

180g butter, softened

250g icing sugar

180g cream cheese

3 drops vanilla extract

Walnut halves to decorate (optional)

Preheat oven to 180oC/350oF/Gas4. Grease and flour a 24 cm springform tin or bundt pan. Whisk eggs and sugar until creamy, then whisk in the oil. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon. Add this to the eggs and whisk. Add the carrots and nuts and mix together. Scrape into tin and bake for an hour. Once the cake has cooled; For the icing whip the butter and icing sugar together until its stiff. Beat in the cream cheese and vanilla. Spread over the cake.

Pappardelle w/braised leeks/pangrattato - Jamie at Home

As a part of our organic delivery box we got a leek, and I didnt really fancy making leek and potato soup, which was my first thought (we dont eat leeks often - almost never) but I remember seeing this pasta dish on jamie at home, and thinking it looked good... so i thought id give it a go I have the book, but have included a copied and pasted version, heres the link for the recipe (the picture at the bottom is also from that website... again too keen to eat to remember to take pics!).

"I've called this great dish, with its slap-you-round-the-face flavors, "cheat's pappardelle," as you can cheat by cutting your own pappardelle from ready-made fresh lasagne sheets. Pangrattato is a rich bread-crumb mixture originally used by poor people in Italy for giving their food extra flavor when they had no Parmesan cheese.
Ingredients

5 big leeks, outer leaves trimmed back, washed
Olive oil
3 good knobs butter, divided
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
A few sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked
A small wineglass white wine
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pint good-quality vegetable or chicken stock
12 slices ham, preferably Parma
2 (8-ounce) packages fresh lasagne sheets
All-purpose flour, for dusting
2 handfuls freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving

For the Pangrattato
1 small handful dried porcini mushrooms
1/2 ciabatta bread, preferably stale, cut into chunks
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions

Halve the leeks lengthways and cut at an angle into 1/2-inch slices. Heat a wide saucepan, add a splash of oil and a knob of butter, and when you hear a gentle sizzling add the sliced garlic, thyme leaves and leeks. Move the leeks around so every piece gets coated. Pour in the wine, season with pepper and stir in the stock. Cover the leeks with the slices of Parma ham, place a lid on the pan and cook gently for 25 to 30 minutes. Once the leeks are tender, take the pan off the heat.
To make the pangrattato:

Whiz the mushrooms and bread with a pinch of salt and pepper in a food processor until the mixture looks like bread crumbs. Heat a generous glug of olive oil in a frying pan. Add the garlic cloves and the rosemary and cook for a minute, then fry the bread crumbs in the oil until golden and crisp. Keep shaking the pan - don't let the bread crumbs catch on the bottom. Drain on paper towels, discard the rosemary and garlic and allow the bread crumbs to cool.

Bring a big pan of salted water to the boil. Lay the lasagne sheets on a clean working surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Place the sheets on top of each other and slice into 1/2-inch strips. Toss through your fingers to shake out the pappardelle, then cook in the boiling water 2 minutes or until al dente.

Remove the Parma ham from the saucepan, slice up and stir back into the leeks. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then stir in the Parmesan and the rest of the butter. Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the cooking water, and add the pasta to the leeks. Add a little of the cooking water if need be, to give you a silky, smooth sauce. Serve quickly, sprinkled with some pangrattato, extra Parmesan and any leftover thyme tips. Serve the rest of the pangrattato in a bowl on the side."

Well... it was really really good!! as you can see by the reviews on the website with the recipe, everyone has loved it.

I used a stock cube, and it was a touch salty and I used pancetta rather than parma ham (either way, they're both salty) which adds to the saltiness. the leeks were creamy and so tasty, the wine/stock/pancetta combo is a real winner, and so so easy to make. I cooked up 2 pieces of chicken in another pan and then used that pan to cook the breadcrumbs in (bf tends to pout if theres not much meat in things) which was def a good idea as I had cooked up a bit too much spag... oops... the chicken was a great addition though it went perfectly with the dish. I also used marjoram instead of thyme as that was all I had but regardless, it was great. the pangrattato was awesome, my first encounter with dried porcini mushrooms, it was great, so much flavour!!

This is an EASY dish to make, and could easily be a storecupboard standby as it doesnt really require anything too crazy. Have read other reviews saying ppl were going to try it with leftover ham/bacon etc rather than parma ham, and i think theyd all be great. Omit the meat for my vege friends, as it would still be really tasty! A pretty fab, easy meal that I urge you to try if you like leeks!!

Strawberries, farm fresh!

Today I stopped by the Berry Sweet strawberry farm in Bullsbrook to grab some "seconds" strawberries from their farm shop. For $5 you get a pretty big punnet of their top strawberries, which is cheaper than in the shops already... However for between $8-$10 (depending on the size of the box you end up with) you get a massive box of strawberries which are their second rate quality, not fit for the supermarkets... the picture on the right is of my $10 box of "not fit for supermarket" berries... some look a little bit old, but I've gotten berries like that in the punnet you get from the supermarket, so Im not complaining at all!!

When I went to take the photos of the berries, I sat on the kitchen floor, taking pics... eat a strawberry, take a photo... strawberry, photo, berry, photo... They're so nice and sweet and so juicy!

But what am I going to do with them?? Ideas Ive had, or been given that are very viable, are margaritas, jam, and cheesecake... Strawberries and cointreau seem to be a popular combination, I might try a strawberry and orange cheesecake tomorrow - since I have a few oranges to get rid of too, after visiting a work colleagues farm, and her offloading a number of oranges, a huge broccoli, cabbage, and 6 free range eggs!

Life in the Chittering Valley is pretty good :)

Germination!

2 weeks ago, in 8 little black plastic punnets (that I bought for $1.30) I planted 6 different kinds of seeds in special seed potting mix... Rocket, purple climbing beans, heirloom tomatoes, leeks, sage and spring onions have been planted, and waited upon by one fairly impatient gardener!

The rocket took about a week to show signs of life, and the little dicots are about 2cm tall now! I took those seeds straight to school for the kids to plant, in the hope that something they've sown will germinate quickly and spark their interest! So Im looking forward to being able to add rocket to my meals in the near future, in the knowledge that when it looks like they're going to run out, they germinate quickly and Ill be back on my way!

Tonight I went and had another look, in the vain hope SOMETHING will have sprouted... Upon having a look I think I acted like a child at christmas when I saw a bean had sprouted! I had a little poke around and found that more were starting to come up!! Without digging too far in and disturbing the little seeds, I found that quite a few had germinated so I think its pretty safe to say, that I'm going to have at most, 16 purple bean plants! I also noticed something else coming up, much smaller, just poking its little head out, but I cant remember what it is... I think its either leek or sage, I cant remember... Either way, its on the up!

I think things may have gone faster if I had've chosen a better spot for them, because they didnt get as much sunlight as they should have, I think... So I've decided that, if I remember, Im going to have the seeds outside in the sun during the day, and for part of the night, in the bathroom under the heat light... I dont know how that will go, but I worked on a flower farm in Queensland for a month when I was backpacking around, and in order to get the Chrysanthemums nice and tall, so they had long stems for good bunches, they were under lights all night, and obviously, sun all day. Im hoping this same idea will work for the germination of seeds - they need sunlight to grow, and Im assuming the grow upwards in the search for sunlight, so if theres light on more often, Im thinking they're going to grow a bit faster? Looking at the picture, it doesnt look very impressive... But there are bean shoots coming up in the top left and right punnets, and I honestly think, in the last hour, after I gave them more water and lots of light, a few others that might have needed another day before I saw them, have started to come up! More to come, but I think the light idea is a good one!

I suppose this means Im going to have to get busy on getting the garden ready?! There are ALOT of weeds out there, still! I actually may have teed up a sheep or 2 to get rid of them! Ahhh the country life :)

The new garden!

Today I have finally decided to do something with my expanse of yard out the back. I have been very fortunate (or unfortunate in some peoples minds) to have been allocated a 3 bedroom house, with a generously sized backyard. At first I didnt know how long Id be staying here, so I didnt touch the garden. Then I went away for the holidays, and came back and somehow, the backyard that was already full of weeds, was a forest. Hmmm...

Today I went to the nursery to order some plants for the Horticulture class that I teach (not by choice, though it has certainly sparked my interest!) and had a chat (for ages!) with the guy that runs the place and found out they're opening a fruit and veg shop there - awesome! At the moment I travel 45mins to go to a market rather than buy the overpriced and substandard quality fruit and veg available at the supermarket here... Anyway I saw lots of cool things that I wanted to plant but they were all in seedlings, which is normally better, but because I havent established any kind of garden patch, buying seedlings now wouldnt be that smart because Id have nowhere to plant them...

Anyway I headed into the city to do my shopping, and once Id done that, I went into the garden shop next door. I could have bought 100 things there, but after talking to a few of their staff (who were really good - I got asked if I needed a hand a few times, and when I asked them something they were helpful) I left with a handful of seed packets, a pitchfork (to get the weeds!), some soil with added nutrients thats meant for seeds, and a little tray to grow them in... It all came to about $50, which wasnt too bad!

Ive come home with a packet of heirloom tomatoes, spring onions (which came with the seeds on a 6m long dissolvable "tape"), sage (meant to be a natural insect repellant), rocket, leeks (meant to be easy to grow - winner!), and purple beans. Ive put the seeds in, covered the seedling tray with gladwrap, watered them and left it outside on the porch! Im pretty impatient so I hope they come up fairly quickly!!

Once Ive figured out where the sun is in the garden, Ill transfer the seedlings and buy some new seedlings to plant. Im planning on having a herb garden (I already have HEAPS of rosemary which was here when I moved in), and also putting in come chillies, capsicum, summer lettuce, beetroot, corn and whatever else looks nice and is in season when the time comes.

After Id done that I attacked some of the weeds... This is going to be a bit of a job! I think Im actually going to mow the weeds down, because some of them are quite grassy and would be fine if they werent a foot tall! The others though, are going to have to just get pitchforked out! Which I discovered today... Will be a bit of a job, some have very well established root systems! Im thinking about asking the education dept, who own the house, if they might be able to get some of the backyard paved, which would make entertaining much easier! Theres also the added bonus of having less garden to take care of... Cos those weeds are going to be the end of me!!

Jylland Winery

5 minutes from my house, on the road out of my town on the way to Perth, is Jylland Vineyard. Its set on a hill with a view over the surrounding farms and green fields. To me it looks like the Margaret River of the north! They're open all weekend and have a blackboard menu, I guess they only put on the menu whats fresh, seasonal and available. Perfect. Today they had carrot soup, french onion soup (both $10), coriander chicken pie ($17) and something else that has slipped my mind! They also had 4 delicious sounding desserts, all for $6 and coffee was $3.50. Certainly not Margaret River prices! They also have 2 platter options, one is $15 pp and the other $25, which you have to book ahead for. If they use all local produce, which Id say they do, it must be fantastic.

I tried a couple of wines, including their JRB (Juicy Red Blend) and the shiraz, both of which I bought a bottle of. The JRB is really light and fruity, perfect for when you dont want anything too heavy - I think its also perfect for making sangria! Without the headache of a cheap n nasty red! and it was only about $15 I think, cheap but not nasty!

They let me in on their little secret - well hardly - the Chittering Valley is having a food and wine expo on september 12th, excellent, where do I sign!? Ill be there. All the 7 wineries are putting something on, Adele, the woman who I was speaking to, was saying they were deciding the menu tonight. She said last year they had 4000 people there, and they were totally not ready for it but this year they were going to be prepared! Im really looking forward to see what they put on...

After my little tour around the region today, Im pretty stoked with what I have on my doorstep. Fab wineries with great food, and cheap!

If only I could get the city gang to come out here more often!?

Bindoon Bakery and New Norcia

I was meant to have a friend come over this weekend, but she bailed (2 big nights in a row - but didn't plan on telling me she wasnt coming till I asked her.. nice hey) and so I was left wondering what to make of my weekend at home in the country. I've boycotted going into the city for a few weekends, because I'm tired of travelling the 2 hours there and back for friends who are never prepared to come out here. So today, on a sunny, blue skied sunday, I decided to go and sample the goods from Bindoon Bakery, and see what New Norcia had to offer.

Bindoon is about 20mins away, on the Great Northern Highway. Its home to many a mandarin and orange grove, and more famously, the Bindoon Bakery. I heard it was award winning but I didnt know what for - bread, pastry, pies - no idea. So I went for coffee, cake and a pie. Yes I made a pig of myself! But I didnt eat the entire piece of cake, thats sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me to finish it off! I've recently read that it has won awards for its vanilla slice, which I didnt order. Bugger. Next time! Anyway, I ordered a beef and guiness pie, and a cake that I wasn't too sure what it was. The pie was alright, the pastry was great, as I would expect from any bakery pie, but as usual, the filling was more sauce than meat, and didnt blow me away with flavour. I'm finding that most places I go that are known for good pies, Im disappointed with, because the sauce is a bit too gelatinous, and isnt meaty enough. Yes they're better than a Mrs Macs, but at the same time, still not mind blowing! Considering it cost $5.50 I was expecting more meat. It was nice though, Id go back again, but probably wouldn't go for a pie!

Now the cake, Im not sure what it was, I forgot to ask. I figured Id go for something that really gives the baker a chance to show off their baking skills, rather than how well they make custard or glaze fruit. A cake is ALL baker. So it tastes like a pretty standard butter cake with walnuts, with butter cream icing. I was expecting more to be honest! The texture of the cake was pretty nice, it was dense and moist and resembled my nannas coconut cake, without the coconut! But it had a disappointing amount of walnuts in it, and needed some more flavour - something extra! a squeeze of lemon, some cinnamon, something! Actually lemon would have been nice to cut through the fattiness of the butter cream icing, which after 2 or 3 bites makes you feel a bit like your arteries are clogging up! Didnt say it wasn't tasty, just obviously unhealthy! However the consistancy of the cake kinda saved it, as well as its size, it was huge! Some for now, some for later! Next time I go Ill have a crack at the vanilla slice...

Anyway, off to New Norica! Its a really old town which started in the 1800s because some spanish benedictine monks started a mission for the Aboriginal people living in the area. The architechture in the town is pretty special, and as the town is on the highway you just drive straight into it, its really unexpected if you dont know whats there! One of the first things you notice is the hotel, its really big for a tiny town surrounded by farmland! I went in to have a quick look, I didnt realise there was a cafe there, which I was excited and bummed out by at the same time, because I'd already eaten at the bakery, and there were a few things that I definately wanted to try! For some reason the ploughmans lunch appealed to me, which was cold meat, cheese, salad and bread. It sounds boring, but I'm imagining it with fresh local bread and butter, pickles etc. Next time...

I headed into the museum and shop, and somehow got talked into paying $10 to visit the museum... It wasnt THAT interesting, Ive been to better, and worse! There were some cool things though, all the old tools they used in their bakery, and all this old homeopathic stuff, little vials of god knows what... cos kinda cool. But then I headed into the shop, which is where I found the food! Food is always what gets my attention... They sold the New Norcia Bakery bread, nut cake, biscotti and chocolatti... and it was all pretty expensive. They had 3 kinds of bread and the only one they had left was the multigrain fruit loaf, which definately grabbed my attention when I read the ingredients! Sultanas, bakers flour, wholemeal flour, currants, dried apricots, unsalted butter, yeast, wheat flakes, crushed wheat, kibbled soy, linseed, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, walnuts, sesame seeds, rye flour, salt, water, vitamins (thiamin and folate). WOW. This stuff is GOOD for you! and at $9.90 a loaf it'd wanna just about cure cancer! This is not a bread I'll be making a habit of buying. Its definately nice. But not near on $10 a loaf nice. 680g for $9.90. and its a small loaf, its just really heavy! But ill support the all natural ingredients just this once, next week when I go there Ill buy another one lol. I also bought some of their biscotti which was really nice, they had some to sample. Its nice and lemony. Also quite expensive... I bought the bread, the biscotti and a bottle of their shiraz (I didnt know they did wine too?!) and it cost me about $50... expensive. But worth it for a one off.

After that I just wandered around the place for about 45mins, checking out a cemetary (alot of monks with Spanish names, quite old, some from the late 1800s) and just generally wandering around the property. Didnt see any monks though...

Drove home, with my ipod playing a brilliant mix on shuffle (Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kasabian and The Verve amongst others) and then on the way decided to pop into one of the wineries thats on the road home, Jylland, which can be saved for another blog post ;)

those greeks had it right...

Its funny how sometimes even though you know of a classic food combination, you dont necessarily eat it, or really know how it tastes, you just know its a classic/common/popular combination. I'm a creature of habit and while I can tell you the classic combinations for many foods, I dont necessarily eat them very often, because I tend to eat the same things pretty often - purely because, again, Im a creature of habit, I buy the same stuff at the supermarket all the time, because I dont plan to go to the shops. I live almost an hour from where I go shopping, and so its often a case of "Oh well Im going to the city today anyway, ill do my shopping". And off I go and do my shopping without planning at all... I really should plan more but I spend so much time at school, planning lessons etc that I dont really feel like planning 5 or 6 meals as well! Even though Id enjoy it! Anyway Im getting off topic...

I just discovered for myself, the deliciousness of greek yoghurt and honey... dear lord, this yoghurt is good! Ive been getting into eating yoghurt every morning with my oats (with extra frothed milk from my coffee, crushed frozen raspberries and a splash of apple and cinnamon juice) and the yoghurt Id bought was just plan old natural yoghurt from Brownes, which is decent enough! But today I went to buy some more and all they had the local shop was the greek kind, so i just bought that... after a delicious dinner of roast beetroot, sweet potato, carrot, boiled potato with butter, S&P, and a grilled chicken breast, I felt like something fruity - so I decided to get into the persimmons that Id bought from the market the other day. Might as well chuck on some yoghurt, and since Id bought some local natural honey - why not drizzle some of that on too? Anyway, enough about my thought process, to the important stuff, it is SO delicious! The greek yoghurt is so much creamier, and milkier than the other stuff, and while its still quite sharp, the aftertaste is smooth and, well, again, creamy! I was really suprised at how lovely it was... and it was sweetened so nicely by the honey, which isnt too overpowering, as Ive found some store bought stuff.



Ive tried persimmons before, but I think it was toward the end of the season and they were a bit too soft and tooooo sweet. But they had a little container with some pieces cut up, and I tried one and it was really nice, sweet but not too sweet. Its hard to describe the flavour, especially now since Ive smothered it in yoghurt! But the combination of the 3 is just divine... Im really blown away by it! Ive always favoured simple food, where the product speaks for itself, the best ingredients cooked simply - so you can actually TASTE the vegetables/fruit/meat etc... and so todays discovery of an in season fruit served with creamy greek natural yoghurt and a drizzle of local, natural honey, is right up my street! Add some chopped almonds, dried cranberries and white chocolate buttons (aptly named "Celebration Mix") and you have a delicious breakfast or dessert... Yum Yum YUM!