Tuesday 22 January 2013

home again, home again

birthday sushi night - tuna, salmon, flying fish roe, seaweed, prawns, #heaven #latergramneed more practice at the #sushi rolling, but not the eating!#birthdaycake #mudcake #raspberries

While we were away some new neighbours moved in. Mr and Mrs Bulbul have built a nest two feet from the back door and hatched three little ones in our absence. It took us a day or two to realise and the poor things must be rethinking their decision as we noisily bang through the door at all hours. Here is Mum (or Dad?) sitting ready with a bug to feed them when the coast is clear.

Luckily they are persevering and its really wonderful to have this squawky new life in our garden.

As I said before, the garden mostly survived our absence well. The tomatoes especially are still going great guns. These three different red cherry tomatoes are plants I bought from the garden centre, I like the Sweet Bites best. The green zebra and yellow pear tomatoes are grown from seed. Sadly the green zebra didn't get much water while we were away so I'm trying to coax them back to life. They are such pretty fruit. The yellow pear are thriving and the organza bags I sealed them into and home made fruit fly trap seem to have been really successful at protecting my crops. Touch wood!

Those funny mid size orange ones are self sown. They are incredibly prolific but I've been cooking with these ones as they never seem to go really soft at the top even when left on a sunny windowsill.

In other news my lovely girl's birthday was celebrated in style with a trip to yum cha at the Fish Markets. Its not our usual spot (we love Zilver in Chinatown) but it was great to be amongst the bustle and smells of the Market and meant we could buy up supplies for our roll your own sushi night. The birthday made a great excuse to indulge in tuna and salmon sashimi, flying fish roe and prawns.

We had to try and roll smaller size sushi because we only had a little sushi rice in the cupboard and I fear some of our attempts would make a sushi master cringe! They all tasted fantastic though and it didn't cost that much to completely spoil the five of us and the sushi loving birthday girl.

This year clever Santa provided Adriano Zumbo packet mixes into each kid's stocking. On that record hot day last week (45 point something in Sydney and my phone app said 46 degrees here!) we came home from a quick pool trip to our nice cool old house and made salted caramel macaroons. Even with the packet mix they are a little tricky - and I think perhaps we didn't cook them quite long enough as they were a little soft and hard to handle at the end - but they were soooo delicious and we're keen to try again. There are video instructions online which go through each step which is a great help, and I think they make a great school holiday project.

9 comments :

  1. Happy birthday to your daughter. I would not mind a birthday like that - yum cha, sushi and chocolate cake - yum!! Well done on the tomatoes. Ours still have no fruit, but I'm kind of writing this season off for the garden and looking forward to the Autumn plantings (it's a bit heartbreaking otherwise). It's nice to be away, but it's nice to come home too.

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  2. Happy New Year Susie. Glad to hear you had a super summer. Love all of your photos - the cake looks stunning...

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  3. Your tomatoes look wonderful. I am about to start hervesting, though desoite watering regularly, one of my plants has fruit with brown bottoms. Can't work that out.
    I tried those macaron as well. They were delicious! I took a plate of them to a picnic and one friend ate almost the whole lot!

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  4. Happy birthday to your girl!
    What a beautiful tomato harvest, love all the colours..
    My kids love nori rolls, no matter how clumsy the rolling is. Yours look great. Such an easy healthy meal.
    x

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  5. Happy birthday to your girl.

    Nothing beats the taste of fresh, ho,e grown tomatoes!

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  6. Wow! Check out those tomatoes!!! I can't believe all those amazing colours!!!
    Carly
    x

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  7. These pics are fabulous! And your tomato varieties are beatiful together! We are having sushi for dinner tonight, it is one of my all time favourite meals. Welcome home xx

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  8. Great photos! Love the little birds :) Looks like your daughter had a fantastic birthday treat... YUM!

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  9. Oh those little birds...so beautiful! Such a gorgeous range of beautiful pictures..xx

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