aka R’acquel

My son was so upset when the Leura snails attacked his lonesome bean plant he germinated at school. Much happier now, because he’s got all sorts of beans & legumes starting to sprout in his new indoor “jungle” pot. He’s been so overjoyed that the garden he’s always dreamed of has finally come true.

My armaryllis bulb which lives outdoors on the otherhand, has not flowered since i first bought it in 2006 …because the snails kept slaughtering with a vengeance. Decided to take some action last week, by drowning it in snail bait. Aggressive little bastards - 6 dead snails already. Ewe. Here’s hoping it will flower during Christmas this year.

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No luck in trying to source recipes for Lavash bread that didn’t look too different to the usual mix of ingredients that I’ve seen for normal bread recipes over the years. I thought it was supposed to be something special, but after this experience – apparently not. I think it seems to have a whole lot more to do with how thinly you can roll out the dough. Tossed recipes aside and opted to go with my own experimental combination of bog standard ingredients involved in bread-making.

Rye is probably not the ideal flour for this. Coarse and dense in texture, with noticeably less gluten in it compared to regular flour. It doesn’t puff up & raise as much with yeast compared to regular flour as well …but the results of this experiment were fairly surprising.

As for the ingredients, going to do this Swedish style – where dry ingredients are measured in terms of litres & millilitres …and I’ve just assumed that you fill the measuring cup until it hits the right L or ml level.

You can probably still do this if you don’t have a pasta mill, but I’m glad I’ve got one.

Ingredients
500ml rye flour (..erm ok, that’s 2 cups!)
25ml dry yeast (… I would’ve used more because supermarket yeast is always so flaccid & pathetic here, but that’s all I had)
2 Tb sugar
½ Tb salt
250ml lukewarm water
Some really nice olive oil (I used Mount Zero’s Basil Infused number for this one)
…and keep that bag of flour handy on the side as well, coz you’re going to need it

Optional extra – a favourite seasoning, lemon & pepper is fantastic

Method

1. Chuck everything that’s dry together into a mixing bowl and add the water, mixing swiftly with a fork or spoon until the flour starts to clump up together in chunks.

2. When you’ve managed to get most of the flour to stick together, tentatively group it together into a ball with one hand, use other hand to incrementally toss a little more flour around the slowly emerging ball to prevent it from sticking to your hands.

3. Knead the ball for a good 10 minutes. Sure – you can use a machine for this, but if you have the time, do it slow-style on a lazy sunny Sunday by hand.

~

When Aidan saw me getting up to my antics by kneading the dough, he stopped to enquire about what I was cooking this time.

He gave me such an aloof expression because it didn’t sound as exciting compared to our adventures with Ancient Egyptian bread the other day, toddled off back to his computer to get on with playing some Mech Quest.

~

4. When kneading is finished, cover the whole ball with some olive oil. Cover mixing bowl with a teatowel, set aside in a warm place and let it rise for 45 minutes.

I use the oven. Turn it on to full-throttle for a minute or so, then switch it off. Important to make sure that the temperature is a very gentle, luke warm. You don’t want the heat to scream at the bread like hot sand would scream at bare feet on a beach.

~

Made an active attempt to engage the attention of my son…

“See Aidan, this bread has yeast in it – which is going to make this ball of bread poof up a bit into a bigger size when it’s done!”

Hmm yeah, ok mum – whatever. As I was putting it into the oven for rising, Aidan suddenly rushes into the kitchen hollering out,

“Can I help?!! I want to help!”

“Yeah, sure! This bread has to go into the oven to rise, and when the timer rings – you can help me to punch it rotten coz it’s going to be all poofy.”

The timer rang, it was time to pull out the poof …my excited son, looking forward to the unveiling of the tea towel, which only revealed a moderately poofed ball of dough.

“Hey! It’s not any bigger!” he says.

“Yes it is, not by much because it’s made out of rye flour.”

“It’s not any bigger!”

“Yes it is, here – look at the photos… can’t you see it’s just a little bit bigger?”

…he scrolls through the before & after shots on the camera.

“Nyah! It’s the same size! Oh wait, yeah – maybe just a little bit bigger, but only a little bit!”

5. Knead the dough for 15 minutes.

~

Had fun teaching my son some hand skills on how to knead dough. Pushing in with the balls of the hand, curling the end with the tops of the fingers, shifting the bread to the centre.

“Yay! Pasta mill!!!!!” 555

~

6. Original recipe said to divide dough up into 8 balls, but I would recommend about 12-15 balls. Coat balls with oil, set aside in a warm place to let it rise again for 1.5hrs.

NB ~ Raising times – I opted for longer times because I was using rye flour and it doesn’t poof up much….

~

This was the noisiest bread I’ve ever prepared in my entire life. When I pulled it out of the oven at this stage – the dough was hissing like a snake …and breathing more than my husband’s green beanie that has never been washed. (It’s true! If you smell my husband’s green beanie up real close, especially when it’s sitting on Mitch’s head, I swear you can hear the lanolin ~ breathing…)

~

7. Time to start rolling the baby dough-balls out really really thin. It took about 10-15 folds & passes through the pasta mill on the widest setting before the dough started form a lovely lasagne-like elastine consistency, ready to be incrementally passed through thinner settings up to number 6 on the dial. Hard to guage thickness without digital callipers, but we’re looking at dough that’s about 1.2mm thin. I’m sure it can be achieved with a rolling pin, but a lot more fun for my son to use the pasta mill.

8. Prick flattened dough with a fork to make lots of dots. This is probably more important if you’re using normal flour, as I imagine you’ll end up with bread that poofs up a lot more aggressively like rye-based bread won’t… It’s as though the pricking action is a form of knitting or crochet for the dough.

9. Preheat oven to full-throttle?! Recipe I read said 400degrees, my highest dial over here is 250C. Cooking time – recipe said 6-8 minutes, but with my dough – if you want it to remain soft & pliable to use it for roll-up bread with that really uncooked taste you get with Lavash – it’s more like 2-3 minutes. Either way – it’s a very fine art that will require accurate time & experimentation until you get the just-right feel you want to end up with. The temperature of your oven, is definitely going to affect it too. Could very well work ok at a much lower heat setting – but I gave up on the idea of using these for roll-ups and was set to have slightly-more-crisp Lavash which is the same as grilling it.

10. Tasty alternative ~ coat the thin layers of dough with olive oil, sprinkle with favourite seasoning on top then bake.

Very surprised by the results. I was expecting a complete failure with this but no – it looked exactly like Lavash bread in the supermarket, complete with those signature little air bumps (the photo above doesn’t do it any justice). Knocking these up by hand for the next dinner party over here – as they’re a much healthier alternative compared to using corn chips as dippers.

For more pliable results to use this recipe as roll-up bread - I’d probably use a lot more olive oil inside the mixture. The only regret with this run ~ not having any olive tappenade, hummus or Georgian acika for dip (dang) ~ but the lemon & pepper versions totally rocked, delightul with cheese but just as good on their own.

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A very special week for me with many old things before Aidan’s birth coming back to life with zest, cooking in particular. Have still enjoyed cooking the last 7.5 years but it hasn’t been quite the same - not so much time or as much passion to indulge gourmet ingredients and food prep that takes much longer compared to more ‘efficient’ forms of slow-cooking for the family.

It was a sad death for the olde-gourmet cook-within, which i mourned for many years, but remained grateful for how the experience of MS & life with an autistic kid had such an acute impact on shopping & managing food, for the better. It was a few months ago when i saw a window of potential opportunity that it might be possible to tap back into that former way of life together with my son in the future. A flashing vision of walking through the streets of Balmain & Glebe in Sydney with him as an adult - surveying the next crazy gourmet ingredient we haven’t tried and are keen to experiement with. It gave a small window of hope that this old way of life, could find a way of coming back to me again.

It was also a few weeks ago when i finally learnt about the story of where this ‘knack’ for hosting came from. The ‘foodie’ side is present in both sides of my family, but my mother recently told me stories of how her mother used to prepare formal banquets of food for family gatherings on a monthly basis revolving around a giant table where people would bring many different kinds of food. There wasn’t a single event in my life, where people didn’t go crazy over my mother’s food.

My mother’s ‘reputation’ for food in the community - always present in my life so i can now understand how this knack is something that was probably acquired by having so much exposure to hosting food ..and have met many other people in my life who are no different. One thing i have enjoyed a lot about being a parent, has been the experience of knowing how various things in life, get passed down to the children over the generations. Not that such things need to be confined within families alone - a general pleasure in how children (and adults) learn things throughout their life, which gets passed onto other people - and so forth.

This vision of seeing my son as an adult, doing the whole gourmet food thing like his own mother one day - seems more present in my life and i saw the beginning of this potential future start to awaken a lot yesterday, upon attempting to follow up with Mrs.Lifecruiser’s recipe for Swedish Cripsbread. Inspired, because i just happened to have a lot of spare rye flour in the pantry…

…but also received a wonderful hamper package of Australian Mount Zero gourmet condiments from two special friends of mine last week as well. My heartful thanks to The G* Spot & The Principal’s Wife, for such a meaningful gift i shall treasure forever.

I was intrigued by the Egyptian Dukkah bottle of spice, a mixture of pistachio, hazelnut, sesame seed, almond, corriander, cumin, salt & pepper. Decided to dump a liberal dose of this paired with the basil-infused extra virgin olive oil into the Swedish Crispbread recipe.

Have had good success in teaching my son to cook as part of his homeschooling routine ( archives collected in Aidan’s Cook Book over here) - asides from being a good excuse for him to develop fine motor skills - an excercise to teach him skills for independant life as an adult in the end.

As i was making the dough, my son walked in and asked,

“Hey Mum - what are you making?!”

His enthusiasm - through the roof, something exciting for him coz it’s another strange ball of dough, which usually entails flattening it out in some fashion. It was also another moment of my son recognising i was getting up to some cooking antic - something that his mum usually does, but has certainly been doing considerable amount of slow-food this week. Although the base was Swedish, i figured it was appropriate to say i was cooking some Egyptian bread. As soon as it escaped my mouth, Aidan was hooked.

“You mean like the Ancient Egyptians?!!!!!”

Ooooh, we struck something intense. Ancient Egypt - one of his special-interest subjects stemming from soooo many years ago, most likely through the Jumpstart Explorer’s game that featured heaps of information on this period of history. Thing is, Aidan’s usually very sensitive to spicey food, but i knew it was worth going along with this Ancient Egyptian thread because {{{boom}}} - tapping into anything that relates to his special-interests like this, always becomes a very powerful motivator for learning and trying new things.

“Yeah… just like the Ancient Egyptians! This dough has some Egyptian Dukkah in it, from this bottle of spice over here, which is a combination of ingredients from this place.” The bottle of Egyptian Dukkah (as proof), sure gave this a lot of authenticity as he started to read the story on the back of the bottle. lol

I remember as the word ’spice’ came out of my mouth, my body went on autopilot knowing i had made a potential blunder, as Aidan’s so hyper-sensitive to this word - but no. I think it’s because he was so pre-occupied with the concept of Ancient Egypt that it was another one of these instances when trying to tell him anything when his mind is in this state, is something that will fly over his head.

“What year was it, the Ancient Egyptians? Was it the year Zero?!” he asks. 555

Our lives had just invented a new kind of time-machine at this point, just like the Jumpstart Explorers game. Indulging in something that took place how many hundreds of years ago …dang, i don’t know that one, but wow. Not only a new exciting way of exploring the subjects of geography & history with food, but another great tool to counter Aidan’s sensitivity towards eating different/new food as well …or perhaps this is a part of him that’s starting to go through a natural shift that i’ve noticed this week.

Aidan jumped in with a lot of,

“Can i help!!! Can i help?!! Can i help?!!” …and somehow, he raced into the kitchen to pull out the rolling pin without me seeing it …so i couldn’t find it anywhere, but my body could sense & hear my son was excitedly running around the house with it, firmly gripping it in his fist like a club. Enjoyed the irony of having a heart-shaped cookie cutter in the kitchen to keep the outcome of this recipe close to the picture in Mrs.Lifecruiser’s Swedish Crispbread post.

Parting shot of my love hearts above, while Aidan did a fantastic job of making some Ancient Egyptian pigs. Like, oink oink…

Saw significant progress on the whole fine motor skills front, Aidan’s clearly improved a great deal since we did the pancakes. I taught him how it was important to scatter flour on either sides, which helps to prevent the dough from sticking to the table. He was quick to do the “back off mum, i KNOW how to do it!” thing, and oh my - he totally got it. Totally understood it, and didn’t have a single moment of his dough ever sticking to the table - making me smile, because i remember my mother teaching me the very same thing, so vividly. Such a very small, small detail about learning how to cook, but an important one nonetheless, which i learnt from my mum.

There was also the other skill of learning how to apply a lot of pressure with the cookie cutter (and give it a little wiggle) to make a ‘clean cut’, because this dough was not as soft like playdough. Such things would’ve been so challenging for Aidan in the past, but he got through without any drama and he executed it so well.

“Is this teamwork? Am i co-operating mum?”

- ha, another thing which hasn’t been his greatest forte, sourcing a lot ‘poor team player’ criticism from school, but no - doing such a fantastic job of being a great team player, but more importantly - Aidan knowing this for himself. Although i acknowledged he was doing a great job, i didn’t need to - my son had clicked into it for himself, showing signs he was beginning to understand how this sort of a thing is supposed to work. My internal dialogue at the time,

Son - this is an example of really good team work taking place right now. It’s comfortable, there’s joy & a sensation of peace between the parties working together, participants are self-motivated and in general, it’s a really good sign when you see teams that are able to self-organise like this, no need for an overt leader to gracefully push & inspire any slackarsed-morons to get up off their arses to contribute. You could probably face the day of being in a bad team, like your mother has had to on so many occasions in life (ha, at school & uni especially!), expending far too much effort on micro-managing poorly performing team members, all in the name of delivering an exceptional result that will rise beyond existing standards - to deadline, every single time. May you never see the day of “chest la vie - you just have to put up with it and learn how to live with (and manage) the morons who will waste far too much of your time and energy.” I hope you learn the important lesson & value of how it’s so much better to consciously employ quality players on a team upfront - much earlier than your mother did…

What i loved the most about the photo on Mrs.Lifecruiser’s post, was the dots. Piercing the dough… something i’ve never done in my life with baking things. Experienced a lot of pleasure crafting this food which connected me to the old days of making food like this when i had the ‘time’ before child, but this time - doing it together with my son …and taking our time, with slow food.

My camera’s not working well with a broken lens, dissapointed that i couldn’t take a shot of how Aidan was holding the fork to make his own dots on the pigs. Although it was an awkward grip, he still had a lot of well controlled acuracy with it. A reassuring sign, to not be so worried about how he holds things, no need to re-correct it - knowing he will find his own way which is comfortable for him by seeing him able to achieve intended results with joy, and without stress. Again, challenging dough to work with, where i had to instruct him on needing to be careful in how much pressure to apply, but he totally got it. No mistakes with breaking dough, no drama.

When the timer in the oven rang, my son was over the moon. He raced towards me saying it was ready,

“Look mum, i turned the oven off for you so it doesn’t burn!” …which i appreciated even though we had a few more to bake. lol. I had no idea how Aidan would fair with these crispbreads, like hello - it’s loaded with spices but it didn’t bother him a bit. Had no qualms about grabbing his first pig and sinking his teeth into it. For Aidan, he wasn’t tasting food & spice - he was biting into Ancient Egypt - I could see it on his face.

“Hmm, not bad! I like it!” he said. He grabbed a heart and raced into Mitch’s work room to give some to his dad, while i was left in the kitchen laughing coz my kid just stomached something really spicey without complaining about it at all. Mitch came back to me afterwards, saying how Aidan did this really long rant about this bread from Egypt - which explains why my son came racing back to me announcing me it was “unleavened bread” (with great wonder) because it had no yeast in it (my husband assuming this, with the whole Egyptian thread’n'all). Kept my mouth shut as this did have some yeast in it but more happy to enjoy seeing my son get excited to learn about different types of bread.

Final outcome of the plate for the adults of this family to enjoy together with organic orange & beetroot relish, wild Australian olives and peeled slithers of cheddar cheese drizzled with more extra virgin OO …and feeling sad that the Olive Tapenade had been used up on home-made pizza’s the last two nights.

I had made a cheese-only pizza with cheddar & feta for Aidan the night before. One half of the pizza for him, the other half paired with Olive Tapenade for Mitch & me as a formal entrée to enjoy before a more meatier gourmet round that was in the oven. When Aidan realised there was olive involved, he complained about being able to taste the olive last night even though there was none of it on his bits at all. Just the knowledge of olive being present, enough to put him off.

Funny thing is, he had no qualms about diving into the left overs of these things from Ancient Egypt on the adult plate last night where there certainly was a lot of olives present. Could see the look on his face with the remaining hearts and pigs, a trip into Ancient Egypt with every single bite. Perhaps more pleasure, because he had a part in making them as well. No mustard in the house to enjoy this like Mrs.Lifecruiser traditionally does, but Aidan thought they were fantastic, polishing off the remainders with a bit of butter …and vegemite.

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Very busy with work atm. I was really stumped by this error message in the browser;

Line: 2
Char: 1
Error: Invalid Character
Code: 0
Url: http://[url address]

It didn’t give me enough meaningful information to understand the problem because i was looking for an invalid character, some kind of $#*^ on a line 2. Hmm, something in crutches, or sitting in a wheelchair perhaps? 555 May cause problems with functionality or display of the website …and yet it was displaying fine on my computer and the client had no display problems either.

Google searches weren’t very useful beyond hinting at me that it was an issue relating to javascript, so bingo - i targeted the navigation bar that was using the animate.js for rollovers - and that’s where the problem was. Instead of targeting this javascript file on the server, it was pointing to the version of it existing on my C drive c/o Microsoft Office in the fpclass folder. Problem solved, but man - that error message was so obscure and i can’t stop thinking about javascript functioning as crutches for invalids.

Oh well - back to my work…

…and considering myself very lucky to be working from home, because it’s definitely lot less hazzardous on the waistline by doing it this way. 555 They’d sure go so well with my cup of coffee at the moment tho. Dang!

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Keeping my eye out for that bright star which sits near the crescent moon as it did on this day. Another time, another place ~ i’ll see you there.

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I ran out of the house, mortified. What happened to my Bonsai?! Bonsai! Bonsai! Bonsai! I couldn’t remember where i put it. Dang. Found him tho.

Poor thing! Got into this state without any leaves again! Dang! It’s no wonder this winter has been so bloody challenging! You aren’t dead! You can’t be! You know how to survive shit like this, just like i did when childbirth killed me. Gently proded at Mr.Rx’s leaveless branches - nup, still far too much juice in his heart. Far too strong to die.

Scrolled back through my blog, to find old pictures of my bonsai. Found myself laughing went i found 1:1 With My Bonsai Fig dated September 24th 2006. I repotted this guy when i moved to this house, and burried some secret treasure underneath his roots, so it looks like September 24th will be a really good day to unearth and repot him again. I look forward to seeing how my secret treasure has been going in there too!

Time for another spring cleaning just like i did with Bonsai Fig – Taking It Easy as i contemplate on how things went downhill Since We Moved Here.

Aidan’s doing well, i’ll leave it for another post - or no, i really ought to leave that for the record-keeping stuff with re to homeschooling. For now - i must review the degree of entropy that accumulated during this harsh winter.

Would you look at that?! Primary centrepiece of the sanctuary ~ barren, dry - the dwarf palm is choking with it’s throat cut off by a flying twig, but interestingly enough - there still seems to be a passionfruit sprout in there (which has never really gone anywhere beyond being a sprout) and the other strange thing is i’ve never seen these succulents turn so pink & red before. You can see what some of them looked like when i was Mowing My Bush With The Psycho Flies of Leura a while ago. I wonder if it’s the constitution of the soil that’s made it so over the years. A change in PH?

Another classic sign of entropy with my Giant Agave That Should Look More Like This - but the damage to the leaves is also caused by the cold climate as well. I still mourn the loss of my Bird of Paradise plant when we moved here too [wahhh]. The quality of sun over here, is just not the same as it used to be in Newtown - but i’m not complaining.

Released from the cage! The agave was screaming for damage control & repotting. Last time i repotted this bugger was when i was in Newtown - around 3-4 years ago. I knew i was up for a challenge, because the last time i tried to re-pot the bugger, it was so heavily root-bound that it formed it’s own pot. I don’t know if the neighbours were watching, but i must’ve looked like a crazy lunatic when i tried to smash this bugger out of it’s plastic bucket on the front lawn today. Actually, I had a lot of fun turning into a barbarian yielding an agave-stuck-in-a-bucket club. It was very similar to the wonderfully primal sensation i always get when I’ve chopped wood with an axe. Phwoar.

NB to husband (or self): Hon! That chair is broken and it needs to get tossed!

Now - what to do with a pot woven by nature? If i had a garden of my own, this naturally woven pot could turn into something really interesting.

Repotted with brand new soil and looking forward to seeing where this plant will go in another 3-4 years time, wondering if it’s trunk will ever outgrow this particular pot. Tried to move the pot to another location where i could have more direct-view access to it from inside the house, but i don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t know - but for now - my long-time sanctuary stemming from the days of Newtown is in need of some major TLC.

Bonsai fig is currently sitting next to the agave and has been placed onto an emergency drip. Will i ever see this one bare flowers and fruit? I don’t know - only time will tell but i know it won’t die.

My only saving grace from this appauling winter ~ at least these guyz seem to be doing ok without any kind of assistance. This is the succulent that didn’t flower for a period of 18 years when my mother got a cutting of it from Joan Evans during the 80s. Quite something that it’s flowers used to take someone’s breath away a good 30+ years ago, and how it continues to do the very same for my mother and me to this very day.

In the meanwhile, I’ve drowned my armarylis bulb with snail bait, because i’m sick and tired of those bastard snails hacking at it so badly and i want to see it flower this Christmas. There ~ nice to get my hands back into the bloody dirt again. It’s been too long. Green thumb is coming back, but i’m definitely going to pour all the love into the pots that i OWN!

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Temperature spike in the weather this weekend, an unusual early hit of summer heat. Sensed it would have been 30C+ in Sydney. The magnolia tree at this house, hardly as impressive as the one at the former one. A white iris blooms in the never used front-yard. Perhaps i might get lucky this year and see if any of my migrated tulips flower.

It seemed like the drought could’ve been over last year, but i’ve been noticing otherwise during my Leura Hikes the last few weeks. We did get such a massive dumping & lasting of rain last year, but no…. i don’t think it was enough. I can see it in the plants.

My passion for gardening has gone downhill ever since we moved to this house. I’ve had enough, of this house. At least the winter doona curtains are down, clearing the flow of chi somewhat but this house still feels blocked up. Spent the weekend gutting the accumulation of entropy out of the place - it’s starting to feel much better now.

Memories of the 15m balcony in Newtown. Those pot plants, generating the corner i had assigned as my ’sanctuary’ - token of a dream to own a glasshouse, or no - it’s not a dream, a vision. I’m really really old, widowed, with white hair - in my glasshouse conservatory, hovering over a laptop to write stories - but it’s so far into the future that they’ve got these brain-implant things so you don’t need to type. The implant can read your mind, so you can make feature films instead.

What broke that passion for the plants? Oh that’s right, we moved into the Blue Mountains and i got over-excited because for the first time in my life, i was living in a free-standing house with 800m2 of dirt. Like, OMFG - not only a frontyard, but a mega back-yard as well. A garden that endured 8 years of neglect. Really loved putting the love back into the earth over there, and i remember how it started to lift up the feeling in the street. So much so, that people walking by would comment, gardening enthusiasts would stop to chat, phrases along the lines of,

“So nice to see someone caring about this garden for a change!”

…and then the owners had to sell the joint, time for us to move-out - like dang! I felt so pissed off because i put so much energy into that earth, only to have to face a big,

“FUCK OFF!” at the end of it.

Then again, i guess it wasn’t a complete FUCK OFF, because the new owners of the house were… wow, amazing people - for which i still need to ship a token of thanks to them for forwarding our mail. I think that was the only saving grace of that place - placed into the hands of other people that would look after it, give it the healing that this place deserved.

So yeah, that’s why i haven’t been able to give much of a shit about the garden here, i don’t bloody own it. A funny experience of returning back to a Newtown way of life - a reminder of;

“Hey - what’s yours, is in those pots that you own!!”

…but i don’t have that 15m balcony anymore. No “view” of these pots, so their function - completely redundant …and the presence of drought in the last few months, is showing - quite badly. What’s also showing, is the utter harshness of this recent winter.

Holly shit.. what’s happened to my BONSAI?!!!

Crap. Time for me to fuck off and see if the bugger is still a live, because i can’t believe I’ve forgotten about it’s existence.

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