Monday, May 08, 2006

to warm your toes

And so, the temperature drops on the abruzzo club clock (8 degrees last night) and our correspondent's mind turns to keeping her toes warm... Yes folks Melbourne autumn - sure feels like winter.

When I can't find a lovely lady to keep me warm I find that zupa ogorkowa (pickle soup) is the next best thing. I made some for darling Bindi, who has been in the surgical wars and she was as pleased as could be. I used the last of the summer's homemade pickles, added a little celery but no flour so it was nice and brothlike.

Another good way to keep warm is of course, in front of the oven. For Asha's Mexican dinner I made a batch of spicy chocolate gingerbread. The plan was to amp up the chilli flavours but instead, due to a bit of vagueness and ignorance I ended up with a crazy black almost liquorice flavoured cake. See, I just don't know that much about molasses and didn't realise how strong blackstrap molasses is until Adam raised his eyebrows at me chucking half the jar in. He had me totally freaked out, telling me nobody but him was gonna be crazy enough to appreciate the heavy liqorice flavours. But it mellowed out in the oven and was a big hit. It's moist and just doesn't taste like it looks.. People were impressed and said it tasted "adult". Personally I'm not so much into being an adult, unless it's in an adult bookstore way.. But the cake rocked. I made it with a ganache chocolate topping because I've found the gingerbeer icing disappointing...

Now, I'm off to figure out what you can bake with tamarillos..

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

if you find any good tamarillo recipes - please post them! i have a laden tree and i just can't work out what to do with them, because i don't like them. even the chickens aren't that keen on them! but it was the only pre-existing fruit tree at our house so i can't bear to cut it down. besides, it looks so pretty with its huge green leaves and beautiful dark red globular fruit. i tried making tomato and tamarillo jam (v important to take the skins off) and it is gorgeous and honey-like, but i don't love it enough to make jars and jars full...

dell said...

oooh tamarillos. there's a tree at the end of my street slyly advertising her plump fruit... i have been so tempted to steal them. BUT i haven't.

i love tamarillo pie. but just make it up as we go. it's also nice with apple in jam...

Anonymous said...

so here i am procrastinating homework internet shopping for an insulated baby bottle carrier and munching on the last of the divine ince cream brownies from the freezer and thinking my time could be better spent commenting on how fantastic the freezer supplies have been, the pastry on the pieroshki was melt in your mouth, and the filling sumtuously flavoursome, the brownies so sock-it-to-ya sweet and cold punctuated by crunchy walnuts...mmmm. esther you rock
(p.s. why is the hot pink jumpsuit boy called sandy?)

GS said...

Oh tamarillo's, you'll make an expat kiwi girl cry in envy (just as well I've had a secret stash of fejoias this autumn).

My mum would stew them up with sugar. Pure and simple. I used to like them best on cornflakes. Now stewed tamarillos would be about the only thing to ever get me eating a bowl of cornflakes again!

Or try hot over icecream. Just thicken the juice with a little dissolved cornflour and watch the warm crimson delight melt away the snowy ranges.

shannon said...

need i remind you that you have a blogging public?