Backyard Harvest

Why is it called passionfruit I wonder? I guess it is rather exquisite and a bit fancy as far as fruit goes. Perhaps because it is a very colourful arrangement -pretty to look at along with a unique and explosive flavour... We grow it and I'm glad because I like it and it is very expensive to buy - even when in season. I saw it at Pak n Save yesterday at $26.99 a kilo!

On the other hand, at this time of year we have the mighty marrow. How does this ugly monstrosity start out as a delicate flower to fill with soft cheese and fry in a fine batter? I have done it before but was too slow to undertake such a scheme this year - I only dreamed of it. The flower then becomes a sweet little shiny green zucchini (sounds exotic) to slice in a pan with a splash of balsamic to serve as a side or include in a stir-fry. Then what seems like overnight it suddenly becomes this trifid-like creeping plant producing massive green logs that lurk under their huge umbrella leaves! Mmmm what to do with the Marrow Mountain that Darling Man has delivered to my kitchen?

With many other homey-jobs to catch up on yesterday I chose to ignore it. Not my problem I thought. Don't want to know. Give them away. Compost them. Bring me a sun-drenched strawberry or plum, peel me a grape even but don't lumber me with marrows!!!! Please!

Anyway dinner rolled around and I got all inspired and cut one of the smaller ones long-ways, scraped out the seeds and rubbed the cavity with our lovely fresh garlic and filled it with kumara, red onion and bacon mash, topped it with a herby crust and baked the blessed thing! An ordinary marrow suddenly became something quite stunning served with salad and Darling Man's Tomato Relish.

'Marrow Dressed to Kill'  - make it up as you go along -

So 'Passionfruit & White Chocolate Cake' - I saw it on the internet (no picture included), printed off the recipe but stalled on actually making it - I was thinking to myself - how could that work???

Anyway I finally took the plunge and it is definitely a keeper. It is firmly pasted into my recipe folder and I have already made it a second time. I only paste in when I know it works and will potentially return to make it again. It gets an extra tick because it's a one bowl affair and I can throw it in the oven during dinner time preps. Easy peasy. You might like to try it too - especially if you have a vine of your own or a ready supply.

Passionfruit & White Chocolate Cake

125gms butter
150gms White Chocolate melts
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup coconut
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup passionfruit pulp
Icing sugar to dust

Heat oven to 180 deg C. Line a 20 x 20cm (or a 17 x 27cm) slice tin with non-stick baking paper. Place butter and white chocolate in a large heatproof bowl and melt in microwave or over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until smooth.
Stir caster sugar into melted chocolate mixture. Next, stir in coconut, then eggs. Stir in sifted flour and baking powder and lastly fold in the passionfruit pulp.
Pour the mixture into prepared slice tin and bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until firm. Cool in tin, then remove and slice into bars or squares. Dust with Icing Sugar to serve.

PS - Whilst pasting in this recipe I found one for Chocolate & Zucchini Cake - I vaguely remember making it at some stage - oh well it must have made the cut! Another mighty marrow bites the dust - although it does say 2 medium zucchini - we might be a bit past that by now!

Christmas Leftovers

I LOVE raspberries. They're like a cluster of little red jewels just bursting with summer flavour. We bought a $15 punnet from Flay's Berry Farm for Christmas Day dessert - white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. I enjoyed having a few more days between finishing work and Christmas Day this year to do my festive cooking. The preparations went pretty well but I still seemed to flounder a bit and ended up visiting a supermarket and or corner dairy a total of 6 times over a three day period which was a bit crazy and disorganised of me. Even the berry farm was visited twice on Christmas Eve due to us realising on the first attempt that they had no eftpos. We were not the only ones to do it either! 

Each Christmas I vow and declare I will be more organised the next however I seem to be doomed to a mad rush arrangement where I throw my hands up and announce that it is all part of the fun of!

After Christmas was all over I found myself with a 1/3 of a punnet of raspberries rapidly turning to sludge. There is only so many times you can enjoy them guilt free with cereal in the morning. One must think of something to DO with this leftover luxury item! So I decided to boil it with sugar to preserve it in a jam-like state so that I could bake a favourite slice once I felt the urge to cook again post the Christmas effort. And when all the the other Christmas goodies were gone from fridge, freezer and cake tins. A bit of research - I was sure Mum would have that recipe somewhere. However, Belgium Slice my Mum told me is just the Belgium Biscuit recipe in the Edmond's cookbook made into a slice instead of rolled out and cut into biscuits. It is my best ever Christmas leftover recipe. I also like that during the holidays - once the madness of Christmas is over - one has the time to look for treasures like my little vintage plate. I love it's style-y ripples / tucks / pleats that grace its edges.

PS. Now quite obviously I baked this slice and wrote this post a few weeks ago now. The delay in posting it is due to computer hassles. All fixed now and I am planning to have another go at this Belgium Slice, with the other half of the jam-like mixture and this time I may add 'leftover from Christmas' glace cherries which I see winking at me from the fridge door.

Something old, something new.....

... something borrowed and something blue. Darling Man always has a blue shirt in his wardrobe. It suits him because of his gorgeous blue eyes. When our Amy got married recently she decided to have a piece of her Dad's blue shirt sewn into her wedding dress for her 'something blue'. I carefully cut a heart shape from his current blue shirt and my sister from France (who was in Noosa with us for the wedding) stitched the heart into Amy's dress on the morning of the wedding. I had already stitched a swatch of Amy's wedding dress fabric into her Dad's shirt to fill the place her 'blue' heart had been taken from!

The 'blue' heart features in their wedding highlights video which you can watch here -Steven & Amy

Reunions

This was one happy reunion - Auntie Erica meeting her two lil nephews and one lil neice for the first time in the flesh. Of course due to the wonders of modern technology especially via skye she was previously able to connect in an 'of sorts' kind of way. Other regular up-dates gladly gobbled up via facebook, emailed photos and video clips... However nothing quite matches the skin on skin, touch and smell and kiss connection that she has been enjoying over the last month with these darling lil people. We have all loved having our Erica home a month early from London for some beautiful, quality time together - the four sisters have been hanging out together heaps too of course!

Her next happy reunion will be with her husband Dean when they meet up in Brisbane when we all gather for Amy & Steven's wedding - a happy union that will take place in Noosa on 12 12 12. Another happy reunion for us will be with our sisters - Pete will be joined by two of his sisters in Noosa for the wedding - one who lives in Australia who is also looking forward to meeting her great nephews and niece for the first time. My sister from France too will be there for a reunion with us all - especially lovely for her to see our Dad and Mum for the first time in ages... along with the first meeting of her great nephews and niece.... her nieces and their partners for the first time in a while... her first attendance at one of our family weddings - oh this is such a tangle of multiple reunions that I am quite losing count!

Life is made up of a series of hellos and goodbyes, arrivals and departures, welcoming and farewelling.... it is the mixture of joy n sadness and longing n full-heartedness that make it such a full and rich experience. In a weeks time I am anticipating a heart so full it may just burst!

London Hospitality

To celebrate Mothers Day our Erica took me to Jamies Italian - it was my choice and it was certainly something different. Darling Man and I have watched quite a few of Jamie's TV 30 minute meal sessions and have been impressed with his 'styles' so I thought it would be cool to go to one of his resturants since we were in London after all!
We had a really special evening together - what could be better than quality time with one of my favourite wise women in this world!!!
It was very lovely - lovely, lovely, lovely!!!!
However the food was very average - but we were so caught up with enjoying each others company that we didn't even mention it for ages..... nor did it even matter in the grand scheme!

Some of the best food we ate in London was at Erica and Dean's flat. These Red Velvet Cupcakes were amazing. Not just because they were tasty but because a whole lot of effort and love went into them due to the fact that the oven in their flat needs some careful managing to say the least! I particularly admired Erica's determination to make delicious things for us to eat while we were at their house. It was important for her to have us sat around their table eating food that she herself had prepared for us.

We were treated to these gorgeous tarts at Erica's friend's nursing home accomodation - baked in a communal kitchen specially for us to enjoy with our afternoon cuppa.
 Again extra tasty and enjoyable because of the thoughtfulness of that hospitable act.

One of the most hospitable people I know is our dear friend Keriata - in the terms of hospitality being about love and acceptance and making each person feel like the most special person in the world - she was an expert. Sadly she passed away at the weekend in London after a period of illness. I bumped into a mutual friend today and she said - even though we all knew the end was near - now that she is gone it feels like the world is an emptier place somehow. It is very difficult to believe that a person so vibrant and full of  life and love could gradually slip away from us as she has.
We certainly enjoyed Ewan & Keriata's loving hopsitality on a number of occasions when we have visited with them in London - now precious memories to cherish and a sterling example to follow.

Hospitality I think is about welcome, refreshment, sharing, acceptance and love..... we have been delighted to discover on many and varied occasions that London is a very hospitable place!

Soup Weather

Where else in the world upon first stop at lunch cafe after arrival would you find 4 soups on the menu? Ireland of course. Maybe it's because they often have 'soup weather' over there! I chose Chicken and Broccoli and it was delicious.

The breads were amazing too - actually the food in general in Ireland was exceptional and the people very friendly and hospitable.

Travel can really inspire one to launch into creating new dishes once one returns home. After tasting a couple of really decent chowders in warm, cosy cafes in Ireland... and believe me they are a haven... Darling Man decided on return home that he would give it a whirl.

His Chowder is in fact way better than anything I tasted in Ireland. Since we have been having a bit of 'soup weather' ourselves it has been the perfect lunch and dinner (until it runs out) meal. Home is a pretty cosy haven to retreat to when husband on holiday has time to learn to make chowder!

P.S. His imminent return to work will see me back in the kitchen... sigh....

Special Birthdays

Our lovely Erica sketched and coloured this gorgeous card for me earlier on this year when I had a special birthday. To celebrate we went out for a nice dinner with our kids. I considered that to be a suitably low key way to mark the day - I am not a fan of a big fuss and am a bit averse to surprise parties but I did enjoy that our girls secretly organised a birthday cake for me and Pete did a beautiful impropmtu speech. All these special things gathered up together made for a perfect day and I was really touched. The cake was crafted by Amy's lovely friend Karen. I'm not sure if you can really see it in the photo but the 'lace' around the edge of the cake was pearly. She is a true artist.

Karen also made a cake for Amy's 21st Birthday Party which we went to last night. Pete and I sometimes can't believe that our baby girl is 21 and we don't know where all those years have gone. Other times we are just relieved to have got to this stage in the life of our family and wonder how we did it! We had had four daughters and our family was complete just before my 30th birthday. So that's the reason Amy and I end up celebrating our 'special birthdays' around a similar time. Milestones in family life are little opportunites to pause and reflect, give thanks to God and to savour that sense of heart-overflowing blessedness.

So we were the 'oldies' at Amy's birthday party but we did enjoy the beautiful 'young' people - they are so fun and interesting to chat to. The lovely cake-making Karen came especially to encourage Pete and I before she left - telling us what a lovely friend Amy was and what a good job of bringing her up we had done. Such things are very nice for parents to hear and we so appreciated that she took the time to do that. Our son-in-law Paul made Amy a 21st key which was also very thoughtful. People do sometimes moan about young people but personally I 'rate' them. I love their energy, creativity and freshness.

The Boys

I have just finished knitting a hoodie for each of our two lovely little grandsons. Kaedin recently celebrated his first birthday and Floyd is 6 months old now. They are so darling and give us so much pleasure. I love to talk about them and I especially enjoy refering to them as 'the boys' after having all girls ourselves. It just sounds so nice to me and different. They are beginning to take more notice of each other now and sort of 'play' together. Kaedin is very enthusiastic about Floyd and likes to kiss and hug him a lot. Floyd is however a little unsure of his exuberant affection at times. I asked the girls to do me a little photo shoot when they tried the hoodies on yesterday....

... so now I am all ready to start something for our new little grandaughter. Lola Adele Maria Verhij joined our family 2 weeks ago much to the delight of us all. 'It's a girl' YAY! I met up with Annah and Lola at the wool shop to choose a shade of Debbie Bliss cashmerino so I can knit her a little cardy for next winter. She has been given so many lovely knitted things for now so I can relax and take my time over this next project. She is pictured below wearing a gorgeous little set made by her great-grandmother and my mother. When I was a baby it would have been called a layette. I love the way Mum has adapted her knitting to keep it stylish and relevant to today's babies. She also made Lola a beautiful blanket that Annah really loves.

 I know I haven't written my blog for ages and you may well be thinking I am only using it as an excuse to brag about my grandies - well it is true - I confess. However to get back into my blogging I did need to up-date you with what has been going on in our lives and it has been quite a bit as you can see. Three grandchildren within a year has been pretty full-on - but very lovely!

Shirley's Stitches

When in Hawkes Bay last week on a wee holiday we popped in to see my Aunty Shirley. Whilst we sat in her tastefully appointed lounge I couldn't help but allow my eyes to wander onto her beautiful needlework. It was artfully displayed just behind and to the right of where she was sat as we chatted. Her home is FULL of a great variety of her exquisite stitches. One piece she claims to treasure more than any other as it was stitched at a painful time when her son's health was precarious.

As we moved into her living area for her to make our tea we spotted 'stitches in progress' on the table - Christmas decorations for the gala to raise funds for her granddaughters teeny country school. She is aiming to make 100 of them and I'm sure she will do just that!

I have lots of 'stitch-related' memories of Aunty Shirley which are precious to me. I feel honoured to have had many women in my life who have inspired me to stitch... not least of all my own dear, patient mother who untangled many a wayward stitch of mine! AND allowed sewing chaos to take over our small family lounge room for many years - all in the name of giving our creativity full rein!

Holly, a niece of ours has lately been keeping me up-dated with her own fledgling journey into the world of stitching which reminds me of my own beginning... a Girl Guide biscuit box crammed full with fabric fragments, pins, needles and threads, domes and lace and a Mary Poppins doll just begging for a trendy ensemble! And many an ensemble I did stitch including a little lace bra... imagine the teeny-ness of it if you will!!!

In 1932 Lady Bledisloe, wife of the then Governor General attended the handicraft exhibition of the Women's Institute's annual conference in Wellington and was overheard to say, 'I feel I want to go home and make something.'

Where did all these desires to stitch have their inception? Not everyone is taken with it... are there less and less taking up needle and thread or needle and yarn? Or is there in fact a revival of such things?

'New Zealand had more home dressmakers per head of population than any other country in the world, proclaimed NZ Woman & Stitch magazine in 1974.'

Happy Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary - on this day 28 years ago we were wed in Rotorua at St Micheal's Catholic Church. We are enjoying a quiet day at home - sat by the fire - Darling Man with the Saturday papers and me with a copy of 'Inside Stories - A History of the NZ Housewife 1890 - 1975' by Frances Walsh - reading interspersed with knitting Kaedin's little jacket. In my book I read some interesting statistics 1930 one divorce for every 18 marriages, 1965 one divorce for every 12 marriages and 1975 Approximately 1 divorce for every 4 marriages.

One can't help reflect on why ours has lasted so long... I think it is mostly by God's grace. God has been our place of safety and He has strengthened and helped us through many a troubled time. We have been committed to each other no matter what and have decided that it's important for us to stay together because of our commitment to God and for the sake of our children. One of the girls wrote in an anniversary card - 'You two are a shining example of love through difficult times, of enjoying and appreciating each other in everyday moments' and another in a text - 'Thank you so much for the fantastic example you show us.'

There is no sense of pride in all this - we know as well as the next couple that marriage can be a treacherous and difficult thing to navigate at times - full of potential pitfalls. All I can say is thank you God for these years you have given us and thank you for your generous and forgiving love shed abroad in our hearts to share with others. First and foremost with our nearest and dearest.