Last Night

My house mate/best friend/all-round awesomeness cooked dinner last night. We had pasta with HOMEGROWN tomatoes and zucchini. So delicious. We also had some wine, and then the camera came out.

Yes, it was hot yesterday. 39degC. It will be 42degC today. Charming.

A New Year

Last night (New Year's Eve) I had some family and friends over for dinner. I've never really been that excited about New Year celebrations - only really for 2000 - and I gave up staying up for midnight years ago. The deal we all made was that the party wasn't to go on late. Most of us were tired and wanted sleep and that suited me fine.

I set up my market table on the front verandah and decked it out with a lovely red tablecloth, fairy lights, candles and a red lamp shade over the light. It was so much fun doing it and getting ready.

Our verandah is hemmed in on all sides by buildings (which is why our beautiful 1930s bungalow is so cheap!) but it never seems to matter. The setting sun comes through the two townhouses at the front and the breeze still blows there. Plus, there are no overlooking windows, so it is very private.

It was a lovely summer's evening - some thought a little cold, but I was fine. We ate homemade mountain bread chips with homemade roasted carrot dip and homemade olive tapenade then a bbq and salads, including tomatoes grown in my vege patch roasted with cous cous, basil, rocket and parmesan and a roast pumpkin salad. To finish we broke open the fruit cake my mum made my aunt for Chritmas (just three ingredients - mixed fruit, chocolate milk and sr flour!), which was delicious.

So, all in all, it was a really lovely night. We watched the blue moon rise and talked, drank and shared our resolutions. My visitors left at 10.30 or so and I fell into bed, happy to be able to sleep.

This morning Katrina and I took the dog to the beach - a glorious sun-drenched, breezy beach with dumping waves and miles of white sand. Bess chased the ball a lot, we all got wet (some of us got dumped as well) then came home and showered and ate left over salad. Yum. Such a great start to what I'm determined will be a great year.

Best wishes to all for 2010!

A Trifle Trouble

For Christmas lunch this year, I made a trifle. Trifle with moscato, actually, from Gourmet Traveller (the only magazine I'll read). I started cooking it three days before Christmas, after spending two days before that going to a wide variety of shops to find the ingredients, including Creme de Cassis and real creme fraiche. Thank god for the RE store in Leederville!

Amazingly I found fresh blackberries (expensive!) in Coles.

It wasn't until I got to this point that I realised I was making blackberry jelly from scratch! It took 50mins to infuse this mixture of blackberries, sugar, vanilla bean, moscato and creme de cassis. Then it took two days to set because I didn't have the gelatine amounts right - I had halved the recipe (originally for 20 people) and I find the maths a bit tricky. But got it eventaully and it was worth it!

Then, at the last minute late on Christmas Eve I realised I didn't have enough sponge and had to make another one! Finally finished at 9.30pm and fell into bed thoroughly exhausted.

The syrup topping was also handmade and oh, so rich and yummy. The layers were jelly, sponge and creme fraiche with lemon rind and vanilla bean seeds.

So rich and so delicious! I couldn't find a big enough glass bowl to show off the layers, so it had to go in this bowl, which was a little disappointing, but didn't detract from the taste at all.

And, best of all? It has stayed at mum's place. No stupid overconsumption of trifle for me!