Hamburgers from scratch.

I'm starting to get better so cooking a lot more. Having a lot of thinking time allows for elaborate meal planning. I'm slowly starting to incorporate stuff from the garden, but, apart from herbs and spring onions there isn't much ready yet.

The other day I decided to make hamburgers from scratch. I figured it would be a project that would easily last the day. 

I was super pleased with the result.

The hamburger buns were beautiful. I proved them under the heat pump and they rose superbly. I made two little ones for younger eaters.

I found the lid of my Easiyo yoghurt maker the perfect mould for the hamburger patties, and a jam jar lid was great for small kiddy patties. The mince patties included sage, spring onion and parsley from the garden.  

We had potato wedges sprinkled with stock powder to accompany. The girls liked the meal a lot, although my youngest objected to the poppy seeds on the top of the buns - she was worried they would grow in her tummy!

The first moments of the school holidays.

School pickup yesterday was fun. The children and most of the parents seemed happy and I'm sure the teachers were thrilled. My six year old wanted to do every planned holiday activity STRAIGHT AWAY. I conceded with an art activity.

I can't remember where I saw this idea, it is hardly novel. I collected river stones, bought test pots and used sharpie pens to write on the stones.

It was great fun. As usual, I had to recognise that my daughter had her own decoration ideas and she started off with elaborate, multi colour stones that were for 'decoration, not labelling.' She neatly wrote some plant names, adding love hearts or 'polish' (gold paint) here and there.

We also made some decoy strawberries. I read in an article somewhere that a family used decoy rock berries to misdirect birds or to hide amongst real ones to give birds a fright if they try to nibble on them. They are cute regardless and fun to make!

Again, we used a sharpie pen for detail.  The stones were then sprayed with clear varnish to protect the writing. Be careful about spraying, too close and the pen may run. Spraying from 30 cm is good.

Third Annual Chocolate Festival

This year I was very pleased to be invited once again to attend the opening of Wellington's annual chocolate festival.  Last year I was quite overwhelmed to attend, as the festival was also the start of the New Zealand Food Blogger's conference and also the first time I'd spent time away from my youngest.  Given I've spent a lot of this year sick, and have only regained the ability to eat chocolate quite recently the invitation was gratefully received.

The festival opened with a toast - with chocolate ganache pots, instead of champagne. The festival was noticeably bigger than last year - a lot more small chocolate makers.  It also seemed better attended - it was very busy by the time I left. I wonder if last year the festival was swallowed up by Wellington On a Plate, held at the same time? This year there was just enough time to feel sad that Wellington On a Plate had ended when it came time for the festival. A special thing about this year's festival is an emphasis on fair trade chocolate and detailed package labelling of bean type and country of origin.

The festival has lots of fun elements - I regret not staying long enough for chocolate bingo (using chocolate bingo pieces and receiving chocolate as a prize).  I made sure that I left the perennial chocolate fountain to the end - last year delicious warm chocolate landed on my dress, leaving me with a distinctive stain for the rest of the day.  For a further $10 festival attendees could make four little ganache pots (as above) and take them home in a small clear box.  Mayor Ceila Wade-Brown was the first to have a go and very kindly shared out her creations.  Food and hospitality students volunteered to assist the public with making the ganache pots - and I was surprised to learn that some of these students were from Auckland, having made their own way to the conference.

The bit that I loved the most had to be all the new flavour combinations - La Petite Chocolat had matcha flavoured bars and some amazing ginger and mandarin chocolate.  My favourite flavour, salted caramel appeared in a couple of stalls, including local producer Bohemein.  Big Bad Wolf had a very appealing sausage with a mole (chocolate) sauce.

Chocolate is an amazing food.  While reading the packaging notes of White Rabbit Cacao's Venezuela Mantuano Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao bar I noted that you could taste 'complex berry fruits and stone fruit.'  The chocolate did have a strong raspberry taste to me.  During the Food Blogger's conference last year we had a chocolate masterclass where we learnt the elements of chocolate tasting.  Great chocolate hints at other tastes (unlike most commercial chocolates which often taste strongly of sugar).  Of the chocolate I have tasted so far the White Rabbit Cacao is my favourite - shiny, with a good snap and the delicious berry flavours.  It actually seems mean to write about it without sharing the chocolate with readers!  I'll stop writing!

The most special part of the day was catching up with other food bloggers.  Long ago conversations were remembered and memories of last years conference were discussed amongst sampling from the trade stalls. I've spent a lot of time thinking about food blogging today.  There are a lot of food bloggers from last year who no longer blog.  Lives change, focus changes.  There are also a lot of new food bloggers.  I love blogs.  I love reading what people find interesting.  Blogging is a great way to share passions, to inform, to keep a record of special times.  I have no idea how long I'll keep blogging at Make-Do Mum, but I suspect as long as there are fun food events and food experiments to conduct, I'll be writing for a while to come.


Disclaimer: I was an invited guest to the festival and received a gift bag containing products or vouchers from most of the businesses I mentioned above.  I've done my best to be honest and mention only those stands and products that I was most interested in.

Garden: the best laid plans and rehab gardening

Earlier this year I became a tad garden crazed.  It helped having a single tomato plant produce 666 individual cherry tomatoes.  I kept a tally of everything I harvested and the long warm autumn encouraged the mass planting of seeds.  I was determined to produce a lot of winter vegetables.

I got sick so at the end of May I planted the biggest seedlings in the garden and left the rest to die.  I planted the garlic very early and figured a few extra weeks couldn't hurt. Three months passed.  The first thing I checked when I got home from the hospital was the state of the garden.  The big storm in June was not kind to many of my plants in the front garden.  There was growth, but it was very small.  As I write most of the stuff that went in my garden in May is only getting close to producing anything now.  The exceptions were bok choi and Chinese cabbage - two vegetables I was specifically told not to eat on discharge!  Ironic.

I've been a bit bored recuperating.  I want to do stuff, but don't have the energy.  I do though have the energy for elaborate garden planning.  I'm on my third draft.  I've also been planting a few seeds.  By a few I mean:

• Sweetcorn
• Black popcorn
• Heritage large tomatoes
• Heritage cherry tomatoes
• Big Red tomatoes
• Sun cherry tomatoes
• Pumpkin
• Jersey Bennie Potatoes
• Courgette
• Apple Cucumber
• Watermelon - Ice Cream and Sun, Moon and Stars.
• Rainbow carrots
• Broccoli Romanesco
• Rockmelon
• Lettuce
• Dwarf Beans
• Red Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Capsicums
• Magenta Spreen
• Zinnias, Larkspurs, pansies, calendula, marigolds
• Coriander and Basil

And since it is too cold outside for most of these seeds I am gardening inside.  My bathroom (very warm room) and the spare room have become a nursery. 

The top of the cupboard is perfect for growing corn.

The bathroom sink is, fortunately, wide.  The left side.

We go through a lot of eggs in this house and I'm finding the containers useful

I'm sure that there will be space for everything (finger's crossed).

I am determined not to plant things out too late this year - a fatal error in previous years.  When I feel sure that we have passed the stage where frosts will come then I will be cheerfully filling in the garden.  My aim is to have one whole week this summer where I do not have to buy any veges or fruit.  The plum tree that I bought for $5 earlier this year is covered in blossom and my blackberry and raspberry canes are looking promising.  We have a huge amount of strawberry plants and this should be the year when we finally get some feijoas. I think a week without buying fruit or vegetables is a real possibility.

Pink flower sushi for six year olds.

Isn't this pretty?  Well, pretty to a six year old at least. My oldest loves eating sushi, and her favourite is salmon nigiri.  But making fresh salmon nigiri everyday for her lunch is unlikely to happen, mainly because no one else wants to eat quite as much salmon as she does.  This sushi flower though has ingredients that we do generally have: ham and egg.

I had colouring dramas.  I wanted to use beetroot as my colouring agent but didn't want boiled beetroot flavoured rice.  I was not getting a bright enough pink with the beetroot juice I'd made so added a small amount of ordinary red food colouring.  No matter how much I mixed it I could not get uniform coloured rice.  Next time I would add the colouring the sushi vinegar, or use more highly concentrated beetroot juice.  The beetroot juice was at least evenly colouring the rice, just not deeply colouring it.

Very coincidentally, a Japanese friend and his family popped over to visit while I was making these 'flowers.'  I was worried about adding too much liquid to the finished rice as I didn't want it to be too gluggy. He said that it was typical to use a little less liquid when making Japanese rice for sushi to allow for the sushi vinegar that you put in at the end.  I'll remember this tip for next time.

Pink sushi flowers:

(this recipe assumes that you know how to roll sushi - you should watch a tutorial on You tube if you are unsure).

Prepared Japanese sushi rice
Sushi vinegar
Concentrated beetroot juice or red food colouring
Two eggs
Soy sauce
Thin slices of ham
Sheets of nori
Pickled ginger (if desired)

Mix up two eggs with a teaspoon of soy sauce and spread thinly over a frying pan.  When cooked through, remove from heat and cool on a tablecloth. Take a sheet of nori and place on a sushi mat.  Place the omelette in the centre.  You can either cover the omelette with thin slices of ham (as I did) or tear ham into small pieces and place randomly over the omelette (this gives a slightly different effect when rolling).  If you want to use pickled ginger as well as or in place of the omelette you can add it here.  Tightly roll this mixture and place to one side.

Add the sushi vinegar (with the food colouring) to prepared rice (look at the back of the sushi vinegar bottle to determine how much is needed for your amount of rice).  Stir through thoroughly. Spread evenly over the sheet of nori.  Place the egg and ham nori roll on top and roll together.  Use a sharp knife to cut into slices.

Variation ideas:

• I think adding black sesame seeds to the pink rice would also look good, I might try this next time.
• I'd be tempted to try using baby spinach, and might in fact omit using a separate sheet of nori for the egg and ham in favour of baby spinach.
• Japanese food stores apparently have a fish based food colouring you can use as well.

Reviews and pineapple flower cupcakes

Take a look at these beautiful pineapple flowers.  I've never eaten dried pineapple before but, wow, it is delicious.  This recipe, for pineapple,coconut and lime cupcakes caught my eye while I was reviewing  'Alice in Bakingland' by Alice Arndell.  It is a beautiful book to just look through, and these pineapple flowers grabbed my attention.  This batch was a trial for my husband's workplace.  During my recent illness they were very kind, giving my husband heaps of time off, and sending home a lot of meals for the freezer.  Unfortunately, the batch didn't quite make it there! Visitors and time passing meant that they were gratefully received at home!  I'll make another batch, I swear!

Absent for a lame reason and my very dull recent food experiences.

A few months ago this blog abruptly stopped.  Turns out that my family history of bowel cancer became a personal history of bowel cancer.  There was little time to reflect - the two weeks after my colonoscopy were filled with further investigations and serious medical conversations (if you are being evaluated for cancer ALWAYS take a support person to appointments) and then the verdict.  It was the very earliest of stages, and due to a condition called serrated polyposis syndrome I would need my large bowel and rectum removed.  Straight away.  Testing during surgery would determine if oncology treatment was required.  From the verdict to the surgery we had four weeks to arrange a nanny, extra childcare, freeze meals (we bought a chest freezer) and organise everything. It was a manic time, quite horrid and so busy I barely gave the consequences of the surgery much thought.

The surgery was meant to take place in two parts.  The first would remove the large bowel and rectum, then use the small bowel to create a pouch (the new rectum) and also create a temporary stoma to allow everything to heal. The second, eight weeks later, would remove the stoma, reconnect everything and be the end of my treatment.

The first operation went well, but the small bowel didn't quite stretch enough for an easy stoma.  The doctors felt that I wouldn't be able to manage this stoma myself, so the operation was bought forward two weeks.  I managed to get a post op infection, probably from the central line in my neck so stayed in hospital for two weeks. The stoma failed right around two weeks, and became infected as poo leaked into the area.  It was very unglamorous.  The second operation went well, and I was glad that I had no more operations in my future.  Except, the wound was quite infected, and I spent a further three and half weeks in hospital with some funky temperatures, four more trips to theatre to clean the wound and mostly unable to eat due to a very unhappy bowel.

My hospital food experiences included: not eating at all (for days at a time), eating the 'low residue' (no fibre) diet and for a few days receiving nutrition through a PICC line into my arm.

I've been at home for three weeks and am very weak.  I'm not cooking and have no food experiments planned!  The monotony of the low residue diet continues (there is ONE green vegetable in my OK to eat list) and I could cheerfully never eat cauliflower again.  My bowel will take around six months to adjust to the new set up.  Fingers crossed, because I spend a fair amount of time in the bathroom at the moment.

As I get better, I'm sure I will be up to blogging again.  I love the people I've met through blogging, the experiences I've had (including reviewing cookbooks) and keeping track of my family's day to day life. As it is, I am currently feeling tortured whenever a new issue of Cuisine magazine arrives and we are working our way through dozens of donated frozen meals!  We have been excellently supported, and I'm grateful things were caught at an early stage.