Two things I love about TI are spending time with special people and
meeting new friends. We have more time here, quality time to spend with people who matter. And into the bargain, TI attracts some
wonderful personalities who are keen to step outside the boundaries of
convention and discover something new about this part of the country.
Well, we hit the jackpot on the first day of the September
school holidays. Family are visiting
from Melbourne, Brisbane and Toowoomba (Sueche, Martina, Dusty, Savannah and Dola) and two WWOOFERS (willing
workers on organic farms), Oliver and Raman arrived. They had motorbiked up the Cape
and popped over to say hello. As you can
imagine, floor space is pretty tight so Oliver whacked up his tent in the
backyard and Raman is swagging it on the veranda (with the many loads of washing).
We, as in seven Titaseys arrived on Sunday after eleven weeks away and thanks to Dr
John, I didn’t have to go shopping because he cooked a sumptuous Sunday roast dinner for us.
On Monday, I planned to buy groceries, but Seffy crashed at midday with fever caused by a bizarre, but brief virus. By the time I settled her with a liberal dose of paracetamol
and the cliffhanger chapter in Craig Cormick’s, Shipwrecks of the Southern
Seas, about Barbara Thompson being rescued by the Kaurareg in 1844, the
shops were closed.
It was a bit of a bugger as there were 12 people for dinner. And I hadn't been shopping.
No problem.
One of my favourite challenges on TI is making delicious
meals when I don’t have half the ingredients.
Last night, I had less than half the ingredients and some of those I had were well past their use-by-date.
I had:
6 freshly caught fish
2 freshly caught crayfish (strangely, the two crustaceans vanished from the steamer when I was fetching herbs from the garden)
1 apple, starting to shrivel
1 orange, starting to shrivel
Freezer-burnt feta cheese
Red wine vinegar
Soy sauce
Garlic (from a jar, yuck!)
Raw sugar
And lots and lots of fresh produce from our back garden and
friends and family to help.
Sueche and Martina fried up 2 of the snapper, with the bones (yummy) using Tony’s secret seasoning involving Keen’s Curry Powder.
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| Oliver oversaw the salads being assembled and he and Raman cut up kilos of salad greens. Kibby pulled a face! |
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| Roasted fish with garden herbs. |
Apple and orange salad with freezer-burnt feta.
Chop the last apple and the last apple found in the fridge, the ones starting to shrivel.
Chop fresh rocket and garden chives.
Toss fruit and greens with freezer-burnt feta, shaved while frozen.
Yum!
Green pawpaw salad
When I get in a foodie mood (rarely) I am a big fan of Luke Nguyen’s green pawpaw salad from Songs of Sapa,
but I didn’t have lemon, chilli, palm sugar ... Infact, the only ingredient I had was green pawpaw. I reckon if Luke tried this
green pawpaw salad, he and most of Vietnam would thank me for enlightening them.
1 green pawpaw, grated.
1 packet Home Brand chopped nuts, matured for two years in
fridge (may be found at back of fridge behind other items) and roasted in fry
pan.
Coriander, basil and mint from the garden, chopped.
Dressing:
Red wine vinegar, heavily sweetened with lots of raw sugar.
Garlic from a jar.
Soy sauce (in lieu of fish sauce – not ideal, but what can one do?)
Toss all together.
The leftovers tasted better today!
Green garden salad
Two tomatoes (from Sueche and Martina), chopped.
1 limp carrot, grated, then chopped when limpness makes
grating difficult, even dangerous.
From the garden:
Curly cale/curly spinach/Vietnamese spinach (green curly
stuff, so far, name unknown)
Basil
Parsley
Dressing:
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil (Geoff McKenzie’s best olive oil all the way from
his farm in South Australia )
Home brand wholegrain mustard
Salt
Don’t forget:
2 large pots of steamed rice
2 half-consumed bottles of red, one a merlot and one a cab sauv from three months ago. Mixing dregs of one with the other to make the third glass was fine.
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| Happy eaters with Chinese laundry backdrop. |
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