In My Kitchen - November 2019

I have been inspired by Sherry at Sherry's Pickings, to join her monthly In My Kitchen blog series, so that I can share some of the activity, excitement, new additions, gifts and general news that are all part of my daily life at home in my kitchen. It has been one of those busy weeks, with a lot happening but no time to write about it until now. I have been sitting on this post since our daughter's wedding, when with a little time up my sleeve after the wedding I went shopping and found some delightful and interesting products, all produced in the Far North Queensland Cairns area. It really is a hive of activity up there with produce from the Atherton Tablelands being used in lots of the cottage industry and commercial products. So some of these products are now in my kitchen,

The Spice Girls, inspired by the singing and dancing kind,  have an amazing variety of herbs and spices to be found on the shelves of the independent suppliers in Cairns and on the Tablelands. Beautifully packaged and reasonably priced I couldn't go past the Sweet Paprika.

The Daintree Spice Co. products make wonderful gifts for friends and south of Cairns their products are hard to find. The Daintree  is a beautiful and peaceful part of the world which brings out the hippie in a lot of people, including me, not that I was ever a real hippie, honestly. I love adding the Lemon Myrtle salt and pepper when I am cooking up a batch of chick peas from scratch and lots of other things as well.

I bought Charley's Chocolate at Jonsson's Farm Market in Cairns, a Market in a building, but only supplying local produce. It can be a bit expensive but the quality and diversity is superior.

I love these fruit vinegars that I found at Jonnson's and a local Cairns butcher's shop. Delicious with strawberries as is a delicious Balsamic Vinegar  when I have it.

No Worries Mate, the packaging sold these lollies to me, what a clever marketing idea, however truthfully the lollies weren't great, not that I'm an expert on lollies. The Espresso Coffee ones were the best. Nice and catchy for the tourists though, and they make great gifts.

I had a lovely surprise a couple of days ago when this wooden shortbread mould arrived in the mail.  It comes from Scots Connection in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and took less than a week to ship. P& J very generously bought it online for me as a surprise after they just happened to visit Mr. HRK and me for morning tea on the day that I baked my first batch of shortbread and I wrote a blog post about it. How very thoughtful of them and now I need to practise using the mold to produce authentic looking Scottish shortbread. No pressure though.

This Garlic Braid was also a gift from a good friend last week as a thank you for hand pollinating her vanilla bean flowers each morning for her over three weeks whilst they were on holidays. She just lives around the corner from us so it certainly wasn't an imposition and we enjoy doing it. It's good to keep our pollinating skills up as I hope our vanilla bean vine decides to flower again one day. The garlic is grown organically up in the cooler mountains of Eungella, inland from Mackay and the braid is cleverly made by the Holistic Pantry. We are always very excited when Eungella garlic appears at our local market.

I lovingly started making sourdough bread again this week and this is one of the loaves made from mostly rye flour. I made two others in loaf tins as well. I was a bit rusty but the bread tastes delicious so now it must be a weekly ritual.

My kitchen isn't complete without one of my orchids to keep my company. This phalaenopsis has been out in flower for a few weeks already.

I could keep writing but it is a very hot day here today, the hottest we have had so it's time to find a cold drink, a cool spot and a good book to read and perhaps a nap. I am thinking of all the poor folk who are affected by bushfires at present and my heart goes out to them.

Stay cool and hydrated my friends and I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Thanks for dropping by.

Best wishes,

Pauline