Food glorious food; Risotto with Pumpkin;

Cooking a risotto is easy.

I had some Pumpkin left which had to be used. Generally Risotto does not contain Pumpkin. My ingredients are:

1 Onion diced, small piece of Pumpkin cut in cubes, 1 cup arborio rice (roundcorn rice) 3 cups of water.

Sweat onions and pumpkin in a little olive oil, add 1 cup of rice, add 1teaspoon curry powder and

mix, let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Now add water always a little say a 1/3 of the cup and stir. As soon as the water is soaked up by the rice add more until you have used it all and the rice is soft but still has a little bite to it. Add salt to your taste before it is finished cooking. When the rice is ready to serve add a good handful of cheese. Parmesan or cheddar if you prefer. I do not think this has to be completely authentic because every cook has his or her own recipes. Some use white wine or chicken stock instead of water. You can also use sweet potato instead of pumpkin which is very delicious too.

I cook this rice in a Terracotta pot suitable for the stove top. I cook this dish on low heat from 5 -3 never higher on a Miele cooktop which goes up to 9 .

I serve the risotto with slowly cooked small tomatoes from the garden. They too are cooked in a terracotta pan suitable for the stove top. They too are cooked slowly on low heat 3-4; until they caramelize slightly and smell delicious, then a delectable sauce has accumulated as well.

Ingredients; small tomatoes cut in half, cold pressed virgin olive oil, Thyme and a little garlic. Herb salt and Pepper.

Lettuce from the garden, with a simple dressing of herb salt, white balsamic vinegar and cold pressed Macademia oil.
Campari on the rocks to keep the cook happy!

The finished vegetarian dish. The skin and the seed of the tomatoes are kept and eaten. When you grow your own vegetable you do not throw half of it out. The skin contains many minerals and the seeds as well.

Meat is not essential with this dish.

The English Philosopher and Politician Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a gourmet, he also liked to experiment with food. Allegedly he caught a bad cold while trying to stuff a chicken with snow and died soon after from the consequences of this cold!!

The Hot, The Loud and the Proud;

The Hot; Ipomea horsefalliae

The Loud; Vriesia grows in the fork of a tree in my garden.

Vriesea carinata

Lobster Claw

Paint Brush

This attractive small plant has a rosette of fifteen to twenty, light green leaves, which are soft textured. Each leaf is only 15-centimetres (6-inches) long, and 2.5-centimetres (1-inch) wide. Also, many offsets form in the leaf axils. On its inflorescence are the most brilliant colours of the genus. The flattened stem is between 5 and 7.5-centimetres (2 and 3-inches) long. On this stem are lobster-claw-shaped bracts. They are coloured bright cardinal red at the base, blending to yellow, and green towards their tips. Out of each bract, a bright yellow flower appears.They grow as epiphytes on bushes, and low on trees in shady areas.

The Proud; Beaumontia grandiflora;

An interesting rare perfumed plant is Herald's Trumpet (Beaumontia grandiflora) which has wonderful large white flowers with a sweet tropical perfume. It is a vigorous woody climber which is native to the region from India to Vietnam and belongs to the same plant family (Apocynaceae) as Oleanders, Frangipanis and Mandevillas which typically bleed a white milky sap from cut stems.

Plant details

Common name: Herald's Trumpet
Botanic name: Beaumontia grandiflora
Climate: Will grow best in the warmer zones of Australia, north of Coffs Harbour, NSW. It prefers sub-tropical and tropical conditions to thrive and can look miserable in areas where temperatures fall below 10°C.
Description: Herald's Trumpet is technically a climber but is normally grown as a shrub to 2-3m (6-10') tall with dark glossy green leaves that are deeply veined. The large white flowers have a rich tropical scent and flowers through the warmer periods of the year, spring and summer.

This meme, The Hot, The Loud and The Proud is created by Noel

It is about plants in bold colours. It appeals to me as my garden is full of "hot, loud and proud plants and flowers.

20th Annual Grandparents' and Special Friends' Day;

at Somerset College; my granddaughters' school.

The get together is an annual event up to year 4. As it is also Easter time, the children and grandparents bring their Easter hats for the Easter hats parade. It is a lot of fun for the children and grandparents.

Somerset College is one of three International Baccalaureate World Schools on the Gold Coast accredited to offer the IB Diploma Programme.

Here is a link to this great school Somerset College Gold Coast

Poem by Kevin William Huff

Teachers
Paint their minds
and guide their thoughts
Share their achievements
and advise their faults

Inspire a Love
of knowledge and truth
As you light the path
Which leads our youth

For our future brightens
with each lesson you teach
Each smile you lengthen
Each goal you help reach

For the dawn of each poet
each philosopher and king
Begins with a Teacher
And the wisdom they bring

I hope Friday the 26.of March was a happy day for you too.

Food glorious food;

It is still raining and very windy. I am going shopping today to buy the ingredients for dinner with the family on Saturday. It will be simple, but delicious. As I usually cook everything from scratch it is still a lot to prepare and cook, lots of fun too.

As entree I prepare Tapas;

White pizza to eat with different cured meat and salami.

I have to make the Pizza dough, but I buy the cured meat.

Gildas; small skewers with anchovies, green Olives and chillies. (Gilda means Lollipop!)

I buy the best anchovies cured in olive oil and green olives but I have chillies in the garden.

Slices of lightly toasted french bread topped with sauted mushrooms and aioli.

I buy a stick french bread, saute the bought mushrooms and make aioli, a mayonnaise with garlic.

Tiny blinis with salmon and creme fraiche.

I make the blinis, small omelets, buy salmon and creme fraiche,

Small grilled eggplant rolls filled with chillie jam and Feta.

I grill eggplants from the garden, use homemade chillie jam and the best available bought Feta cheese

For the main meal I cook delicious shepherd's pies served individually in small earthenware pots. This time of year I have to buy potatoes as there are non available yet from the garden.

I buy only organic potatoes, if possible. I buy 1.5 kg shin beef and mince the meat with my mincer attachment on my Kitchen Aid.

For dessert I make a creme caramel. I use organic sugar to make the caramel, organic milk, and eggs from my chooks. I am "decadent" and add whipped cream to make it very smooth.

To drink, who likes what, Beer, Campari, red and white wine, natural soft drink, wellwater, Brandy Alexander;

This is the menu, we, that is, Eight of us, will eat for dinner on Saturday evening.

It is still raining and the wind comes in gusts, never mind I am shopping and then I am cooking!

What are you cooking on Saturday evening for dinner with family, friends or just for yourself?

Weekend Reflections; ready for school;

click the pic please;

Reflections are fun, go and see more here

Words of Wisdom;

Wisdom is knowing things that help a person to live sensibly and make good decisions. Wisdom is defined differently by many cultures. Some say that wisdom is something a person learns as they grow older.

If someone has wisdom we say he is wise.

The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.

Common sense; good judgment:

The sum of learning through the ages; knowledge:

A wise outlook, plan, or course of action.

"What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.": Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - (1770-1831) German philosopher

Cooking; Lentils; healthy and delicious;

Ingredients to cook a healthy and delicious lentil stew.

2 cups lentils, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 3 bay leaves, curry powder, ground cumin, pepper, herb salt (made from my herbs), tomato paste and water. (I use when ever possible my own grown or organic.)

The ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes mentions lentil soup in his plays and describes it as the "sweetest of delicacies."

Put half a table spoon ghee into a pan and make a sofritto with the finely chopped onion, carrot and bay leaves. The onions and carrots must not get brown. This will be the base for the lentil stew.

Lentils contain high levels of proteins, including the essential amino acids isoleucine and lysine, and are an essential source of inexpensive protein in many parts of the world for those who adhere to a vegetarian diet or cannot afford meat acids, methionine and cystine.

Apart from a high level of proteins, lentils also contain dietary fiber, folate, vitamin B1, and minerals.

Add the soaked and rinsed lentils (soak the lentils 2-3 h before use) and 2 table spoons tomato paste. 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1 teaspoon cumin, salt and pepper to your liking.

mix well and let simmer for 2-3 minutes, add 2 cups of water.

Let this lentil stew simmer for 1 1/2 h or until the lentils are nice and soft. Check from time to time if it needs more water. It can be reheated in the microwave the next day.

Lentils are annual plants producing lens-shaped seeds. A cousin of the bean, the lentil belongs to the legume family, or those with seeds that grow within pods. Lentils are quite rich in iron and have the highest levels of protein of any vegetable next to soybeans.

Lentils, botanically-known as Lens culinaris esculenta, have been a source of sustenance for our ancestors since prehistoric times. The word lentils comes from the Latin lens, and indeed, this bean cousin is shaped like the double convex optic lens which took its name from the lentil.

Lentil is the oldest food legume that has been known to the mankind. The nutritious value of the seeds of the plant is quite high as it is rich in carbohydrates, fibers and proteins and that is why lentil is so popular among the vegetarian population of the world.

It also acts as an important secondary crop in the crop rotation schedule as it has been proven that masur crop is extremely good in fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere and forming nitrogen nodules in the soil that rejuvenates the nutrients and keeps the soil productive for a long time.

Lentil or masur is one of the earliest and first crops that have ever been cultivated. Lentil originated in the central Asian region in the prehistoric times.

The earliest archeological finding in context of lentil is from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic layers of Franchthi caves in the Peloponnese, Greece that dates back to almost 13000 to 9500 years ago. Other ancient findings are from Syria and Jericho area of Palestine that is almost 8000 years old and from Turkey dating back to around 6700 BC.

Bon appetit