Recent Posts

Showing posts with label Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchen. Show all posts

A weekend in the kitchen

 

Always nice to have a clean kitchen.  With floors scrubbed and benches cleared away, it's worth taking a photo or two.   Although, it didn't look like this for very long.  Because yesterday we worked on a photo shoot in the kitchen, and as you can see, it gets rather untidy during the process. 

But working from home is always great, (I will show you the results when they're published in a few months) there is so much to learn, with the added bonus of a fridge filled with delicious things to eat.  

Today the kitchen is back to normal, a bit messy and cluttered, but at least I can spend some time in the garden, instead of cooking dinner.  

With a break for afternoon tea of course. 






In the kitchen

Oh I am so excited to see these Gourmet Farmer recipe videos!  Filmed in my kitchen a few months back and around the house a few months ago, this was such a tasty project to work on. Not only did I get to shop for ingredients, style the props and wash the dishes but best of all, the house was filled with delicious food.

It's amazing to see it finished and online.  There are ten videos all up - you can check them all out here!

Taking over the kitchen

I love it when guests take over the kitchen.  I really do.  I love the sharing and talking, the tasting and the excitement of eating something new when people come in the kitchen and cook.

On the weekend there was plenty of that.  Foraged mussels steamed with garlic from the garden, just-caught fish, steamed and stirred through just-picked garlic scape soup.  Slow roasted juicy pork ribs from a friend's pig and fresh new pink eyes fried crispy in a pan, washed down with cider from down the road and gin from across the peninsula. Food we had grown, caught, foraged ourselves, or knew who did, was prepared, shared and eaten.  It doesn't get any better than that. I love that.  

There was also a dog named Henry, I think I loved him the most.






A well-lit kitchen





Scenes my well-lit kitchen this week, as I work with a team of talented people in our house to cook, shoot and eat amazing food.  Well, it hardly seems like work to me...but it is.

The days start early to get the Rayburn blaring, the crew arrive to set up huge lights and the domestic espresso machine struggles to keep up with demand.  The days end late with tea towels to be washed, leftovers to be stashed (somewhere!) and recipe notes to be written up.

But my oh my.  Everyday I get to pimp my kitchen with vintage jars filled with herbs, flowers and foliage from the garden, and fill my stash of props with ingredients. Not to mention learning so, so much AND getting to taste absolutely delicious food.  It's so much fun.

Our well-lit kitchen now features an industrial bench that we've been dragging around since before Elsa was born. We think we might keep it in it's new spot permanently.

This project is for some online stuff....I'll let you know the details when it's ready...can't wait!

Creative Homebodies

Hello!

I wrote a post over at Justb.  You can read it here.


In the kitchen







A few snaps of the kitchen, which received a jolly good scrubbing today.  Because I am avoiding those several kilos of quinces that need preserving. We're slowly learning to use the Rayburn, our lovely English girl.  It's taking a lot longer, to, well cook on it that we thought.  Fires need to be stoked at around 2pm to get the oven hot enough to cook dinner. But we rarely get there, with the temperature languishing at around 150 degrees for hours and the children having last minute grilled cheese on toast, which still takes about 30 minutes using the Rayburn.  Then finally tonight's dinner is ready at 10pm, so  it becomes tomorrow's lunch.

When the oven does work, and is firing nicely, the results are amazing. Nothing dries out in the gentle cast iron heat.  And anything slow cooked is marvellous.

It's comforting to hear the noise she makes as the water fills up and she gurgles and glugs, heating our hot water cylinder. You can hear how the fire's going too, by the crackle and ticking noise the oven makes.  That noise in the background keeps me company when I'm home during the day.  Lets me know what's going on and if she needs my attention.   Just like a child, silence usually means trouble and the fire's gone out. 

She's a little bit contrary, but extremely capable when she feels like it. And we love her dearly.  We've yet to think of a name for her, I'm not entirely sure, maybe after my one of grandmothers, Hilda or Cecilia. What do you think?  Do you have any suggestions that might suit this contrary English lady?  







P.S. here's what the kitchen usually looks like, taken on Sunday morning.


Apple Town

That very clever Daniel Grey made a very sweet film when he visited our kitchen with his family and Luisa.  I love it.


Tomato talk







It's around this time of year, mid autumn, that the talk around town turns to tomatoes.  How did your tomatoes go this year?  Did you have enough to preserve away?  Are you saving any seeds? Ketchup, kasundi and passata recipes are shared and jars and bottles of preserves exchanged.

While it seems hard to find the time, the effort of bottling the glut is certainly worth doing, with a pantry filled with a stash of sauce as your reward.  Setting aside a day to spend with a lovely friend, tucked away in her gorgeous home in the hills, processing tomatoes, eating delicious food and sharing stories was the highlight of a busy week.   We had to buy our tomatoes, but we both dream of a day when we can grow enough of our own to preserve. Without the tyranny of bad weather, possums and blight to stand in our way. Now that will be something to talk about.



PS Oh my, I am totally blown away by the wonderful comments and well wishes for the giveaway.  Thank you so much for your lovely lovely words!

In my kitchen

Yesterday was one of those gorgeous days in the kitchen that puts a smile on my face every time I think of it.   Totally perfect.    Meeting in real life a delightful family I've known online for years, cuddling gorgeous baby Poet and talking to an adorable young volcano scientist.  Eating Rayburn toast and jam and apple cake.

I thought I took loads of photos but I didn't. Oh well, luckily there were a few other people taking a snap or two.  Can't wait to see them. They'll be lovely memories of a very sweet day in my kitchen.


 

Another gorgeous day...

...shooting at the farm.  Styling, learning, laughing and of course, eating! 



.


Steam punk kitchen...







The kitchen's looking a little steam punk here today with copper pipes, brass fittings and gauges cluttering up the space.  We're on the home stretch now. I think we can light the oven tonight.

Meanwhile, the table is covered with the creative mess of sickly peeps making paper dolls :: pencils, sharpenings, tracing paper and scissors.

It feels truly autumnal today, cold and rainy, with a chill inside caused by the wide open doors to allow the plumbers' lengths of hoses, pipes and lagging to flow out the kitchen.

Hugo is home sick with a cold, but we have the fire on, apple sauce simmering, (from our own apples!) and our tomatoes ripening on the window sill.  A perfect day to light the Rayburn. Yes, all is well here in the steam punk kitchen.

Ready and waiting

It's a bit like preparing for a baby a friend said. Months and months of waiting and exciting anticipation.  Getting ready for the arrival by preparing the hearth (just as you would a nursery) walls are painted and tiled, floor reinforced and tiled, window installed and finished. All the paraphernalia, flue, tank and radiators are here and waiting.  Two weeks over due.  Any day my baby is due.  Any day.

The pantry





There's been sick peeps around these parts.  Up all hours, lots of washing, squeezing juices and making soup.  But I'm not getting sick. Not me. Too busy thanks.

Around all the nursing, we're fiddling around with the kitchen trying to prepare for the big arrival. For a long time now we've been on a mission.  One to find the perfect pantry cupboard.  We've hunted and scoured for such a long time.  We like those old pine dressers, you know, the farmhouse type ones.  But they just don't hold enough stuff.   Book shelves, stainless steel racks, we've thought about of all types of storage solutions but we were prepared to wait until we found just the right piece.

However, as we ripped out the last of our existing built-in cupboards to make way for the hearth, things started to get desperate.  Nothing like having your pantry stacked in boxes on the floor to take the joy out of cooking.  Perhaps we were going to have to get something custom made. Like, right now.

When suddenly, there it was.  A giant blue vision at the local second hand store.  It was massive, it was loaded with shelves.  And it was perfect.
I love that it came from an old girl guides hall.  It has £ 8-0-0 written in yellow handwriting on the side and is 235 centimetres tall.  And now it lives with us.

Of course, there isn't quite enough room to fit all of our things. But really, can you ever have a big enough pantry?   I'm just so happy we found it, that it just fits under our ceiling, and that it's painted the most lovely shade of blue. And that it has found a home here with us.

Eight houses



Eight houses in four years I counted yesterday.  That's how often we moved house before we finally found our little farmhouse in the Huon Valley.  That's a lot of boxes to pack when you're pregnant or carrying a little one on your hip. Or both.

Whilst moving every six months can be a real chore, it does mean you are constantly editing your belongings. And after almost five years in our little house, the lack of editing was made glaringly obvious this week when the contents of the pantry were stacked all over the kitchen.   The floor to ceiling built-in cupboards were ripped out and they housed not only our bulky pantry items but the high shelves had become a bit of dumping ground for the stuff we no longer use.  Conveniently hidden out of sight and out of mind.

Now that those cupboards are gone, we've limited storage space, so yep, it is time to say goodbye to those sipper cups and edit everything down to the bare essentials.   Sadly, this also means the end of my op shopping for china and linen habit.  There's just no room.  I had to take it all back, some with the op shop price tags still attached.

With four big boxes safely delivered back to the oppie, we now have a little more breathing space.  It feels quite liberating really.  The dodgey floor has been fixed up ready for tiling, the old hot water tank will go and a new one installed in the roof.   The new reclaimed window (above) will be installed once the rain clears later in the week.  Then we can enjoy a new clutter free and light kitchen. It will be like a new house, with the bonus of not having to actually to move yet again.