In My Kitchen - February

February?  Really?  And it's a short month, so 'twill be March before we know it.  The older you get, the faster it goes, don't you know!  January was a busy month, with lots of guests and visitors and social events.  And lots of baking, and preserving.  I have pickled beetroot, and cucumbers (so tangy and delicious), and the jar of red and green chillies is still lurking delightfully in the fridge. 

I am about to lunch on corn thins with smoked salmon, and my cukes - oh yes, and the roasted tomato butter that I made last week.  I've just walked back (800 metres) from our local indie bookshop, with a copy of Jay Rayner's new one Nights Out At Home.  And I am just finishing Nigel Slater's new one A Thousand Feasts.  Oh the joy I find in their beautiful writing - and the descriptions of gorgeous food.

It is our wedding anniversary today; we married on a very hot day many moons ago, in our friend's backyard.  We were mowing and weeding her yard the morning of the wedding.  A caterer slipped in with the food and the cakes while we were saying the "I do's".  We came inside to a beautiful feast laid out, to the surprise of our guests.  Such great memories!

In My Kitchen:

I love these Mason Cash measuring cups!!

the cuz sent me this fishy dishy for Christmas

and I bought some honey by the roadside, on a day trip to the Hinterland

I made some nut butter + tahini biscuits

I bought 'shroom bag clips, some macadamia oil with lemon myrtle, and a wee scoop

yep, I made another batch of pickled beetroot

gifts from Princess Pia, from her South Australia trip

I bought this at a country bakery (their own brew that they use in their meat pies)
- it's kinda like Worcestershire sauce!

and I bought these at the local Health food store

and there's Persian Blue salt, and a Greek ceramic bowl

I love to make a condiment, so this was a sure thing for me

and citrus cordial was made for Mr P.

the curveball - a Bunya nut, weighing 6-10 kgs, and bloody dangerous!

It's Bunya nut season at the moment, so watch out!  Not only are they incredibly heavy, but they also have killer spikes all over them.  I managed to cut myself just poking around this one.  The Indigenous peoples have been eating them for many years, boiled or roasted or turned into a flour.  

The people of the local area would hold bunya nut festivals, inviting people from other areas/tribes to the Bunya Mountains.  The trees are endemic to Australia, specifically south-east Queensland, and the tallest bunya pine in the Bunya Mountains is 51.5 metres (169 ft) high!  Wow!

c. Sherry M.

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