In My Kitchen, June and July, 2023

This is a quick roundup of what has been happening in both my French and Australian kitchens and all things related, since I last posted an In My Kitchen, which is a while. Regular readers of my food blog will know that I travelled over to France for two months so I won't repeat the details of what I have already written here about my trip. Most of the cooking I did in France was to feed my son's beautiful family, including my 7 year old grandson, and 4 year old twins, a boy and a girl. The three children have just had birthdays over the last month. I was so fortunate to be there for the twins 4th birthday. This post is my June submission to the #IMK series hosted by the wonderful Sherry from Sherry's Pickings. Each month food bloggers from around the world gather to share what is new in their kitchen.  

Anybody who cooks for children is no doubt aware of their food preferences, but when this includes one who won't eat eggs, or anything obviously containing eggs, one who doesn't like cheese, yes I know it's France, the cheese haven of the world, although he adores fruit and would live on it if possible. One who hates fresh tomato but is fine with pasta and pasta sauce, and then there are the various vegetables and aversions to a few vegetables. However they love pumpkin. Having said all of that though, in general they love food and are good eaters, in particular Evie who eats really well and puts the boys to shame, most of the time. It was a delight for me to be able to cook for them. My son loves his food, and generally does all the cooking for the meals, so they are in good hands as well. I tried to give him a break from cooking whenever I could whilst I was over there. Does any of this sound familiar to those of you with children, or grandchildren? I actually don't remember our children being fussy eaters, but perhaps I've forgotten. However over time children's preferences will change, and the importance of  healthy home cooked food, and just the occasional take away, shines through eventually.

I made a "French" Bread and Butter pudding for dessert one night, using two day old Brioche, Nutella, and used an online recipe for the custard. I was really pleased with how it tasted, however the children thought I could have added more Nutella. I really thought it was sweet enough. Nutella is still so popular in France. In the supermarkets I saw whole shelving bays devoted to Nutella, in bottles and packaging of various shapes and sizes. 

A few batches of my Aussie Damper Scones were always delicious straight out of the oven, just because the children and my daughter in law loved them. They are easy and quick to make, and the ingredients are always on hand, although at times I used some buckwheat flour if we had run out of plain flour. They were also easy to make with little Evie, who loved cooking with me.

This is still a very edible batch given I had help from a four year old, and used a variety of flours as well.

Another batch performing the disappearing act

Evie and I cooking scones together

Corn Flake biscuits were a winner, and Corn Flakes were on rotation over there as a  breakfast cereal, so were generally available in the pantry. The twins took their job of crushing up the cornflakes very seriously. 

French Afternoon tea in the summer garden in Lodeve, where Myrtille's mother Catherine lives was a treat.

Catherine's special French Chocolate cake. She also makes this cake for the children's birthdays.

A view over Lodeve from Catherine's kitchen.

Matthew cooked Canard, or braised Duck breast a couple of nights during my stay. The duck can be purchased with instructions on the packet, and this is Duck breast not Duck legs unlike Duck confit. It wasn't very difficult to cook and was absolutely superb to eat. The presentation on this plate isn't great, but when there are 5 hungry mouths to feed, it's just a relief to have it cooked. Honestly, I've never eaten more delicious duck. We went out for dinner on my last evening in Montpellier and I ordered Duck confit, but it wasn't as enjoyable as the duck my son cooked.

Searing the duck breast

Canard, perfectly pink in the middle

Baked vegetables to accompany the duck

I cooked this simple and delicious chicken traybake with corn fed chicken, which has yellow coloured skin because of the corn they were fed on, and local French vegetables including Kale, leeks, carrots and zucchini, which came in the organic Vegetable and Fruit box that they collect each week. Corn fed chicken is more expensive, but much better quality.

Locally grown organic kale

We call them Madeleines, the French called these  Magdalenas. These little cakes could be purchased in large cellophane packets, and individually wrapped. They were  delicious and looked just like Madeleines.

We enjoyed these French hors d'oeuvres when we were invited out to afternoon aperitifs. They were all bought frozen from a supermarket which only sells frozen food and were delicious.

My son took Hugo, our 7 year old grandson to the French Tennis Open at Roland Garros in Paris while I was over there, and brought us back some beautiful merchandise, a lovely handbag and Roland Garros canvas shopping bag pour moi, and a set of Roland Garros espresso coffee mugs for Mr. HRK. They have pride of place in our kitchen, and the handbag and canvas shopping bag were well used while I was in France.

The June Tropical Ginger Harvest

When we arrived home, it was time to harvest our patch of fresh ginger growing in the back garden. We waited a week to take a breath and settle in, and then the second week was officially "ginger week". We dehydrated a bucket of ginger, and I put aside 1200 grams to make Stem Ginger in Syrup, which I love to have on hand, bottled  in the refrigerator for adding to ginger cakes and desserts. If you have fresh ginger growing, you can read how I make my tropical stem ginger at this link. Yours is probably ready to harvest now as well. It's always ready in Winter to be harvested if it was planted early enough in Spring/Summer.

Tropical Stem Ginger in syrup

I also now have enough powdered ginger to last me for another year. 

Washed

Skins removed

Four trays in the dehydrator ready to be dried for powdered ginger.

I made this Golden Pear, Raspberry, Almond and Maple syrup cake for dessert after I returned home, and used fresh raspberries this time. The first one that I made with frozen raspberries looked completely different with the rich redness of the raspberries colouring the cake in layers. Take a peek at the original post I did on this and you will see what I mean. I'll write up the recipe again though as soon as I can. This is a delicious cake.

I cooked Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew,  in Montpellier, and again when I settled in at home as well. The tomatoes and fresh vegetables in Montpellier were just exceptional and made this dish very tasty.

When we arrived home, I was thrilled to notice that our Italian honey bees were feeding on the Blue Butterfly bush in our front garden. It's a beautiful bush and bees love blue and purple flowers. Mr. HRK inspected the beehive, and despite our absence, it seems to be thriving which is a relief. If we can survive the Spring bee swarming season, we should be harvesting honey later in the year. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for dropping by to read my post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.

Warm wishes,

Pauline

Our Backyard Honey Beehive Swarm moves into it's New Hive

One of our bees in our garden on the Salvia flowers

At last, we have moved our bees from their adopted Bird Box into their new hive, with the assistance of Keith Lang, who with his wife Denise own a local Mackay company, Pure'n Natural Honey. This has been a work in progress for a couple of months. Since I last wrote about our Bees (see previous story here), which had swarmed into the Bird Box located on our backyard Palm tree last Christmas, Neil (Mr. HRK)  has moved the Bird Box hive three times.  Down the tree, a metre at a time, at fortnightly intervals; then a metre across on trestles, toward the future location of the permanent hive; and then to a spot directly adjacent to the new hive. With minimal calming required from the smoker for each move, the bees coped remarkably well with each transition, and found the hive easily again after a day's foraging. I don't think we lost many at all.

The New Hive

Our original Bee swarm in the Bird Box on the Palm Tree

Neil has been building the boxes  and the internal frames with foundation wax, for two new bee hives, over the last couple of months, all from scratch, and all from recycled materials. The hives have been constructed from old waterbed timbers, including the bedhead and the frames that he was given. The honey extractor (centrifuge) is also built from scratch, from recycled pieces of metal and bicycle parts, except for the food grade bin. A couple of the metal components needed to be purchased online. All of that activity kept him well occupied. It is great to think this whole project has been very environmentally sustainable.

Home made State of the Art Honey Extractor (centrifuge)

The big day arrived last Sunday when the Bird Box beehive was to be relocated to the new Beehive, which is set above the ground on a concrete slab amongst the rain forest area of our garden. Keith arrived early and equipped to help us move the hive. There is a lot to it, and Keith has years of experience and knowledge with bees. In fact what he doesn't know about bees, hives and honey probably isn't worth knowing. The hive was smoked carefully and the process began. This needs to be a very gentle and slow activity, so that the bees don't get stirred up and start attacking. Keith and Mr. HRK donned their bee suits and started dissecting and analysing the combs  in the bird box. I was also wearing mine as a precaution, as I was the brave photographer.

The inside of the very full Bird Box Hive

It is important to check for disease with a hive like this one. Thankfully overall it is a healthy hive. Keith found only a few small hive beetles which he thought was pretty good and placed a bait in the hive for them. There was also a little chalk brood in there which apparently is because of the moisture which could enter the bird box, but otherwise it was all looking good.










Below are Neil and Keith checking one of the brood combs from the original hive,





The search was on for the Queen Bee and any signs of problems in the hive. Just in case he couldn't find the Queen, Keith had brought a new Queen with him. Most of the combs had been moved and the bees dropped carefully into the new hive when Neil spotted the Queen Bee, right at the bottom of the bird box. The clever girl had been evading discovery up until now.

There she is, where he is pointing.

K

A rather fuzzy closeup of the Queen Bee

Keith, who I must add has been gloveless throughout this operation and miraculously only suffered one bee sting, carefully picked her up near the head and separated her into a small box for relocation later. She was then given a dab of pink paint for easy recognition later in the hive by us.

The bees had built beautifully consistent rows inside the Bird Box which Keith attached to the frames with rubber bands and carefully placed into the new hive. All the wooden frames were constructed by hand by Neil.



















Below, the brood box is successfully completed with the Queen Bee excluder in place. The second box in this picture was used to keep all the bees together and with a little smoke they retreated in to the brood box.





It's all going well and getting ready to take the extra box away.

Feeding the Bees

There was little food in the hive for them,  because of the difficult weather conditions that bees have been coping with lately.  They need some of their own honey to feast on. However Keith brought a new frame from one of his hives laden with honey that the bees can enjoy. So they will be ok.
We also made up a sugar and water syrup solution for them to eat and to help with the readjustment.

Sugar and water bee syrup  recipe: (There had to be a recipe somewhere in this story.)

Boil the kettle and measure one cup of water or use one cup of distilled water. Add one cup of sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. When cool, add this solution to a plastic sandwich bag, and press the edge closed. Remove the lid, and place it on the top rack in the beehive and gently cut two small slots into the top plastic surface. Press the surface very gently so that a little of the solution seeps through, and watch the bees crawl toward it and start feeding. This should keep them fed for three days in addition to what they forage out in the garden. Smoke the hive, and check the sugar bags in three days, and replace until there is enough food in the hive for them to live on. We used two smaller bags as we didn't have any normal sized sandwich bags.

The metal Queen excluder which the Queen can't fit through but the honey bees can, was placed above the brood box in the hive.  The brood box contains all of the brood comb that was  inside the Bird Box.

Close up of the sugar syrup bags and the bees and the black hive beetle bait box in the background. On the left is all the comb with honey that was attached to the top of the bird box hive.

Neil cutting small slits in the bags

Shortly after the move and closure of the hive, the bees were exploring their new home. We left a small portion of the Bird box hive comb outside the entrance slit which is at the base of the box, as the bees will be attracted to it's scent and find their way home much more easily. The top goes on with the honey comb, sugar syrup and bait inside.

Neil has replaced the repaired bird box back onto the palm tree in the hope that we may attract another swarm. Keith suggested we add a couple of drops of lemon grass oil to the box as an incentive for another swarm of bees to settle there. Our bees had also built a comb outside the bird box so they were possibly looking at expanding or swarming again.

Neil and I still have a lot to learn about beekeeping, but we have also come a long way since Christmas. I hope all of the experienced beekeepers and Apiarists who read this will be kind with their thoughts about some of my beekeeping terminology. By blogging this, I hope we will also receive some interesting comments or emails from you, dear reader, and that we will continue to learn and enjoy our bees.

A Bee Friendly Garden

We are aiming for a Bee and Butterfly friendly garden, and are particularly conscious now of growing plants that will attract and feed our bees. They are loving the New Guinea bottlebrush at present, and if you look carefully you should be able to see the bee in the middle flower in this photo.

They also love the purple Salvia flowers (photo at top of page) we have growing in a few spots, and we recently purchased a few  Coleus plants. Remember that old fashioned hardy plant with a variegated leaf which our Aunts and Grandmothers always had in their gardens? It's making a comeback and the bees just love the blue/mauve flower spikes it produces. Ours is yet to flower but it shouldn't be long. Wandering Jew is another old fashioned plant that sends bees crazy with desire, however it also goes crazy in the garden and will take over so it needs to be planted in a sunny spot where it can be the boss. We are gradually adding to our garden of bee attracting plants and I'll write another story about this at a later date.

The biggest benefit for us with having bees besides the honey they will produce, is their pollination of surrounding  fruit trees, flowers,  and vegetable gardens, and for the neighbours as well. On an optimistic note, we are hoping to harvest some of our own honey by next October, for our own use and a few gifts.

Speaking of honey.......

 I am very happy to be able to promote a wonderful, local honey product, produced by Pure'n Natural Honey. This is a family owned Mackay business. Their beehives are placed in carefully selected pristine bushlands, and also move their hives to local farms growing macadamias and citrus to assist them with their pollination. The honey is 100% natural and raw and tastes delicious with well known health benefits. Also thank you to Kylie for providing me with the Pure'n Natural honey photo.

Products can be purchased by clicking on this link, or visit the Wednesday morning Farmers Market at Bluewater Quay in Mackay. The product is also sold at various Airlie Beach outlets, and is used by numerous restaurants and cafes in the region. You can also keep up to date with what is happening by subscribing to their Blog here.

We are very fortunate that Keith from Pure'n Natural Honey has provided a lot of his support and knowledge with our backyard bee hive, and as part of their business initiative, assisted us with successfully moving our hive.

Mr. HRK and I  would love to hear from you with any advice, comments etc, which you can provide either through the email box on the side bar of this post or in the Comments Section at the end of this post. Click on the title link at the top for the Comments page.

Thanks for dropping by,

Best wishes

Pauline