Foraged woodland garlic

Before spring really got underway, I had been impatiently anticipating the appearance of woodland garlic, or ramsons. It is not something we have in Australia, but I had seen photos of beautiful and vast carpets of wild garlic in flower in woodland undergrowth. I couldn't wait to see, smell and pick it for myself. The day we moved into the cottage I could smell the subtle scent of garlic on the breeze. It wasn't hard to identify the fresh leaves of wild garlic shooting up from the sodden earth. I crouched down, plucked a leaf and crushed it between my fingers. It is unmistakeable. Our village is surrounded by it, in the woods, by the roadsides and on the banks of the brook. 

Although the leaves have been pushing up for well over a month now, the white flower heads are just beginning to open en masse. It won't be long before that woodland undergrowth is a sea of white.

Wild garlic is vibrant, lush and glossy, and such a welcome sight after the depths of winter. The most wonderful thing about wild garlic though, is that it is an abundant and delicious wild food, perfect for harvesting and using in everyday cooking. I am losing count of the ways I have been incorporating it in our meals. 

I've chopped the leaves up and stirred them through scrambled eggs. I've spiked mayonnaise with it for using in homemade sushi. We've used our food processor to turn pocketfuls of leaves into pesto. That pesto has served as a dip with crackers, has been spooned over jacket potatoes with sour cream, and been stirred through pea risotto. I am yet to have it on pizza or pasta, but I am sure it will happen soon enough. It is really very versatile. Imagination is the only limitation.

I am planning to make a few batches of pesto in the coming weeks. It freezes very well, and I'd like to have a supply of it to use in cooking come the autumn and next winter.

Wild Garlic Pesto

wild garlic leaves

toasted pine nuts

olive oil

parmesan cheese

Use a food processor to mix these ingredients in quantities to suit your taste and achieve your own desired consistency. Be sure that you are harvesting wild garlic though. The leaves are quite similar to those of lily of the valley- which is poisonous to humans.

Kate  x

Winter pears

The apple tree that we usually pick raid from each autumn was almost entirely bare this year, so I am embracing pears in a big way to make up for it. A healthy addition to the fruit bowl, but also easy to turn into a sweet dessert.

They're beautifully photogenic. These are the Corella variety. The prettiest of all the pear varieties in my opinion. They lend themselves to a still life composition so nicely.

Ever since I read A Garden in the Hills by Christine McCabe (one of my favourite books of the last 18 months) I have thought about trying her apple fritters recipe. Now I am wondering if I should try it with these pears.

Recipe from A Garden in the Hills, page 307

To make the fritters, sift together 1 and a 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 and 1/3 tsp of baking powder and a pinch of salt. To this add 1/2 a cup of brown sugar, 2/3 of a cup of milk and 2 well beaten free range eggs. (Preferably Claudette's. Of all the hen's eggs hers are the loveliest- brown shells, saffron yolks. We know they are hers for so resolutely independent is she that Claudette commands her own nest, frequently escaping the confines of the large chicken run to rummage among my vegetables.)

Mix well and add the apples, peeled, cored and cut into thin slices, or grated if you're in a hurry. Drop tablespoons of the batter into hot oil (Mum used fat or dripping) and cook until golden. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately with great, fat dollops of cream.

I think this would work well as a sort of pancake/pikelet recipe too. 

Maybe for brunch this weekend.

Kate  x

Can't bake a cake without breaking eggs

The weather outside is miserable. My cake baking hankerings are at fever pitch. But there is one particular recipe I am keen to try, and wouldn't you know it, I'm an ingredient short. I could don my rubber boots, a warm coat, and venture to the shops, but I'm a resident of Sydney, and everybody knows that Sydney-siders can't function in the rain. Why? I'm not sure. It's just an accepted truth. You will never encounter another major city coming to near-standstill just because a few drops of water fall from the sky.

As soon as the heavens begin cooperating with my food cravings, I'll be making this MILK AND CITRUS CAKE. Imen's blog FARMETTE is one of my absolute favourite food and lifestyle blogs. I cannot wait for her cook book to be available in Australia. It is sure to be filled with extraordinarily stunning food styling and photographs of the Irish countryside. In the meantime if you're hungry (pun) for more of this hearty, farm-kitchen style cookery and exquisite images, follow Imen's blog and INSTAGRAM feed.

I am also keen to try THIS just as soon as I can get my hands on some lavender free from nasty pesticides. Again, wishing I could time travel back to my OLD HOME to savour a backyard acreage of flowering rows of lavender.

And this heavenly looking LILAC PAVLOVA recipe will be attempted just as soon as the summer lilacs start to bloom. G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!

Kate  x

Cake, styling and photograph by Moss & Vine

Cake originally appeared in THIS blog post.

In praise of simple pleasures

It might be the cold weather, the shorter days, or the inevitable mid-year slump, but we find ourselves indulging our desires more and more at the moment, and damn the calories consequences. Before I share what we are loving (and slathering in double cream) in our nest right now, let me just also note that we imposed a little dry period for the first few weeks of June. I am alcohol-free most of the time anyway, however Alex tumbled from the wagon when he had a beer with a seafood platter lunch. In his defence it was the long weekend, and the sun was shining. And we were next to the water, looking at pretty sail boats and a frolicking seal. But not all of our weaknesses come attached to excess calories. Mine are usually floral related. Or found in vintage and thrift shops.

I am taking full advantage of the early spring flowers that are available right now. I bought a bunch of poppies to give to my Mum on the long weekend. Then I snuck out to the camelia bush in my Nan's backyard to pick this pink beauty. It has resulted in a new appreciation for these wonderful and DIVERSE FLOWERS. If only they in turn appreciated being cut and put into a vase. Camelia is used almost exclusively for its leaves in floristry. The flowers have little commercial value as they die quickly. 

We've been eating SCONES too. Quite a few scones actually. Two batches and counting. The food related indulgences have me most worried, because it's not limited to scones, jam and cream. There is also an increase in the amount of crusty white bread being eaten. Melting moments, FUDGE, chocolate brownies and copious amounts of french onion dip have also made appearances. 

The up-swing of scones is the chance to indulge my current obsession with silver spoons. Jam spoons, teaspoons, mustard spoons. I want them all. My preoccupation with CUTLERY is unshakeable. I'm having a serious love affair with cutlery right now. HERE, HERE & HERE.

It is funny almost sad how excited I can get over a good INSTAGRAM hashtag these days. I think the lack of flower flinging in my day-to-day life recently has left a creative void that needs filling. I am attempting to self-teach better prop styling and photography. Instagram hashtag competitions are a wonderful prompt for this practice. I love the monthly #7VIGNETTES, and @ITS_MY_WEEK run a fantastic weekly competition with a new theme each Monday. But given my adoration of vintage cutlery, I participated in #THESPOONSERIES tag with much enthusiasm. My entries? HERE, HERE and HERE.

Other tags I recommend exploring?

#MYMONTHOFSUNDAYS

#FRIDAYFAFFINGCOMPETITION

#SEEKTHESIMPLICITY

&

#PROPSTYLERS

The gym is calling me back.

Kate  x

Styling and photographs by Moss & Vine

Fudge (pictured) from TILBA TREASURES Ulladulla Aus

May?

It's May already. Really? I feel as though it was only last month that I was sat cross-legged on the lounge room floor wrapping Christmas gifts in brown paper. Now autumn is in full swing. Even with the startling amount of rain we've been enduring lately, I still love and embrace this season in all its glory. I adore autumn and the filtered sun that accompanies it. I love the crisp morning air, and the promise of snow soon to settle on the mountains back home.

I drove home to the mountains for a fleeting visit last weekend, hopeful that even with the approach of winter there would still be something interesting flowering in the garden that I could cut to bring back to brighten our little city flat. 

Sadly but not unexpectedly, anything that had flowered and flourished over the summer had retreated beneath the cooling ground in anticipation of early frosts. The vegetable patch was almost bare, save for the small clump of rhubarb that seems to defy all seasonal obstacles. Over the fence in an abandoned backyard, however, there was an ancient very old apple tree heavy with an abundance of blushing apples. For me, apples are synonymous with autumn. I didn't hesitate to take advantage. I returned to Sydney with a gluttony of refreshingly imperfect fruit, and little idea of how I am supposed to eat my way through them before they start to go bad. I've been eating them fresh for breakfast all week. And I keep meaning to stew some to have with porridge. But I also wanted to turn some of the apples into something slightly delectable and otherwise banned from our diet. Something naughty.

I carefully halved and cored a handful of them before baking them in the oven to eat with butterscotch sauce. I appropriated THIS recipe for butterscotch sauce. It's not the healthiest way to enjoy apples, but I don't regret it one bit. It is definitely a sometimes only food. Until next autumn...

Kate  x

Styling and Photographs by Moss & Vine

26 nectar moments OR comparison is the thief of joy

 It's my birthday! I am 26 years old.

 My twenties (so far) have been more wonderful than not. I am healthy, educated, fiscally fit, and happy. It is more than many people get in a lifetime. But there has also been an abundance of self-doubt, and harmful comparison of my life with other "more successful" people that I know. I am gradually realising that it is far more useful to focus on the things you have accomplished, than to always look to the things you hoped to have already achieved.

Have you heard of the Nectar List?

It's the opposite of a bucket list. It's fun, and if you do it right, it breeds a feeling of satisfaction and, even more rare, contentment.

So for my 26th birthday, I sat down and wrote 26 entries on my very own nectar list.

1. I've photographed the rooftops of Paris from the Eiffel Tower

2. I've had a brilliant view of New York's Central Park from a plane window

3. I've had a bonfire in my garden

4. I've watched the new year fireworks beneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge

5. I've had jewellery bought for me at Tiffany, 5th Avenue

6. I've lived in a multi-generational household

7. I've climbed to the top of St Paul's Cathedral, London

8. I've swum in a muddy dam

9. I've swum in an infinity pool

10. I've fed the monkeys at the top of Murugan temple, Kuala Lumpur

11. I've dined at Rockpool

12. I've dined at the Auckland sky tower revolving restaurant

13. I've lived abroad

14. I've seen the Olympic torch being skied down a mountain

15. I've rode on the back of a camel on the beach

16. I've walked The Mall, Washington DC

17. I've felt euphoric with the realisation that there are empty seats next to me on a long-haul flight

18. I've perused Degas' famous works at The Met

19. I've been brought to tears by music

20. I've been brought to tears at a wedding

21. I've chopped my hair off with reckless abandon

22. I've seen Girl Reading by Renoir (one of my favourite paintings) in the Musée d'Orsay

23. I've held the soft-cover, published work of my brother in my hands

24. I've bathed by starlight in a hot mineral spa on the edge of Lake Rotorua

25. I've watched the sun set over the Indian ocean

26. I've planted a herb garden

Of course, there is far more to my life (and everyone's life) than those 26 simple things. I could probably write a list of 260 things and still not be done. 

I'm hopeful that my 26th year will bring more nectar to my existence. 

Let's eat cake!

Kate  x

Flowers, Styling and Photographs by Moss & Vine