22 June 2009

Little Miss Sunshine


It was a cold, wet weekend. Holden's soccer games were cancelled, and Phoebe and I only just made it up to the markets and back (for prawn dumplings and fresh sourdough) on Saturday morning before it started bucketing down. As usual, I took refuge in the kitchen, while Andrew marked papers and the kids squabbled.

I just happened to have a bowl full of quinces because I just can't help myself - whenever I see them, I buy some. I've already made quince paste for the season, so this time I decided to do pickled quinces. Aren't they pretty? Then I boiled down the spicy, vinegary syrup and it set to this delicious jelly. I plan to serve it with pork chops and buttered cabbage. Yum.

We (myself and occasionally Phoebe) also made 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies, a giant gumbo and chocolate fondant puddings for dessert. Although we tend to eschew commercial television, the kids have been watching MasterChef with some enthusiasm and when they saw the chocolate puddings they insisted that we had to make them. So we did. How you get kudos for cooking anything that easy - even with my ridiculously BAD oven they worked - is beyond me. But they were tasty.

I may have to subsist on lettuce for the rest of the week to make up for the excesses of the weekend's cooking. After the pork chops, that is.

And today, finally, we have sunshine.

1 comment:

materfamilias said...

The quince preserves look gorgeous and yummy! I sometimes miss the kind of cooking you do when you have kids in the house -- not much point now to my making up big batches of cookies, but I remember how satisfying it could be. Hmmm, perhaps it's time to invite my twin 8-year old nieces over for a visit . . .