Friday 1 September 2017

In My Kitchen - September 2017

Hi my friends in IMK world.  This is a short post from me this month.  Mr P. and I have been hit by the plague recently - i.e. influenza and bronchitis, which lasted for 2 weeks.  We were contagious, we were as weak as kittens, and we were completely unable to do anything except sleep like the dead.  I am slightly less dead this week so am throwing together an IMK quickie.  I hope you can join me with goodies from your kitchen.

So, as you know, just email me with your post, or add a comment below with your post URL, or add your link your very own self! Check out the How-to on my sidebar if you are confused.


In my plague-ridden kitchen (ha ha!):





home-made coriander oil


I had a bunch of coriander and I had lots of olive oil.  We were heading out of town and I didn't want to waste the herbs.  So I shoved them into a small jar of oil and let them infuse away while we were gone.  When I got home, I strained the oil, et voilà - herby oil ready for cooking.




some locally made Worcester I bought on our trip to Rockhampton


We love Worcester in this house, and I often make a batch at Christmas to tide us over for a while.  I had to buy this one when I saw it in a little coffee shop in a country town on our way up to Rockhampton last month.  Haven't tried it yet so I can't report on it.  




cute little tumbler I bought at Rockhampton Gallery; local artist Tricia Greinke


We dropped in at the Art Gallery in Rockhampton.  Mr P. can't do stairs very well so we asked to use the lift.  The very sweet girl on the counter said "Yes, but you have to go through the Exhibition so you'll have to keep your eyes closed."  There was a fashion type exhibition which you had to pay to get into, so we weren't allowed to look.  Then I had to use the toilet; guess what?!  It was inside the Exhibition, so once again I was told I would have to walk thru it with my eyes closed.  Oh boy, did we laugh later.




home-made toasted muesli


I went down to the bulk store a few weeks ago to buy lots of grains, nuts and seeds to make toasted muesli for Mr P.'s brekkies.  Wow, I love that store.  It's next to the Japanese Mart so I have double the reason to go there.




gorgeous home-grown cumquats for marmalade 


Our lovely English friends gave me a bag of their home grown fruit to make marmalade.  These were gorgeous little orange globes, soft and perfect.  Recipe coming up later on the blog.




home grown limes from other friends 

There were more but we used them already:)  These were lovely; fresh and organic and full of juice.  They have been used in salad dressings, and for baked fish and chicken.





yep that's my shoe; oh, and a new tea-towel 


It was Love your Bookshop Day recently, so I hotfooted it down to one of my fave indie bookstores Avid Reader and bought a tea-towel.  Oh yes, and a book of course!




you guessed it!  Harry Potter soup cauldron - I mean mug




A Harry Potter shop opened last month out in the sticks.  Mr P. and I trotted out there on a Sunday (which is where we got the plague I reckon) to check it out.  Oh my, it was brimming with Potter fans. And the most photographed boy in Brissie, who dresses like Harry and has his photo taken ALL The TIME.



beautiful strawbs ready for freezing 


I think there has been a bumper harvest of strawberries here this year, as they are plentiful and cheap.  So I bought 3 punnets and have sliced them up for the freezer.  They go into the freezer till rock hard, then bagged for the future.  Now I am fully set for breakfast smoothies for a while.





last but not least - home made raspberry vinegar



Our mates from Tasmania came up a few weeks ago, bearing gifts of raspberry vinegar, made with their own fruit of course:=)  As you may know, Tassie folk are resourceful and active, and ALWAYS have gardens full of produce.  Thus they spend all autumn harvesting, freezing and preserving etc.  Based on the cost of raspberries, our friend said she had a veritable gold mine in her freezer.



   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   







                   

Sherrys Pickings

36 comments:

  1. Hi Sherry,
    You managed to do a lot of kitchen stuff despite your "plague" didn't you? I enjoyed reading about your preserving the spring harvests. Infused oil is a great idea for bunches of herbs that are too big to finish.

    For me In My Kitchen is a time for a retrospective of some of my thoughts -- as it seems to be for you as well. This month I wrote about the ideal and the practical.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. Hi Mae
      Thanks for joining in this month- and so promptly:). Lovely to see you here. Yes it's fun to look over the past month isn't it? Thank goodness I did some kitchen-y stuff before I got sick. First day of Spring today. Yay!

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  2. Sorry to hear that you are crook. Hope you feel better very soon - although it doesn't seem to have held you back!

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    1. hi amanda
      this was all before we got the plague:) We were comatose in bed for nearly 2 weeks.. end of third week=still not up to par but getting there. Thanks for joining in the IMK fest.

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  3. Oh no, I hope that you're recovering! Our household was also struck down with the flu and my husband was in hospital with pneumonia for a while. It's been a TOUGH winter! Welcome Spring, I hope that it's kinder to us all.

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    1. Hi Shari
      Crumbs. Your poor hubby. I thought we might have ended up in hospital ourselves at one point. So a very warm Spring is coming. Goodness knows if the germs will go at this rate. Thanks heaps for joining in!!

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  4. I was wondering where you'd been Sherry! Sorry to hear you've been unwell-we went through it too and it was hideous. Love the Harry Potter mug and the home made raspberry vinegar! :D

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    1. I think everyone in the country has been sick Lorraine I've heard of several people going to hospital with it and a few nearly dying. Just awful. Yes all I could do was sleep! Getting back into things slowly now.

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  5. It's been a rotten bug, laid me low too. Looks like you were well prepared. I'll have to hunt down the Harry Potter shop, I have an obsessive coming for a school holiday visit in a week or 2. Must try my hand at raspberry vinegar, berries have been super cheap and good over winter. Hope all my pinky things work, almost forgot what to do. :-)

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    1. hi sandra
      yep it was a terrible sickness. glad to be getting well. the shop is in samford so a nice country drive. thanks for joining in again this month. cheers sherry

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  6. Oh no, sorry to hear you've been so unwell! There is nothing worse. A few years back I had a double whammy of pneumonia, as well as glandular fever (!). I just wanted to go to sleep and die. Get well soon and thanks for hosting, despite your ill health. (Love all the goodies). xx

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    1. Oh wow. That must have been dreadful. I once had 3 different itis-es at the same time. It was ghastly. At least an IMK post is fun and easy. Cheers!

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  7. Sorry to hear you have been unwell - we had had it bad this year and it has knocked us about but we are much better. Good luck with recovering - sounds like you need to take it easy a bit longer.

    I love all your kitchen goodies - am jealous of that tea towel and your harry potter mug - I think Melbourne needs a harry potter shop - our local bookstore had a harry potter day and it went crazy - the owners told me that any new promotion will just have "harry potter" at the start of it. Lots of great produce too - I think that citrus looks like just what you need while you are ill.

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    1. hi johanna
      slowly slowly we are getting better. what a horrible flu! yes the harry potter shop was sooo crowded when we went. they had fabulous things there, and it is decorated with HP stuff everywhere. gonna be 31C today - phew! thanks for joining in my dear. cheers!

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  8. Sherry, I'm hoping you 'n' yours are feeling better by the day. Yay for Spring! (It's almost Autumn on our side of the world.) The sunny, citrusy goodies you wisely prepared in advance will be good medicine, and your beautiful tumbler and whimsical mug will be good "sipping" vessels. Will link my IMK post soon. Take care!

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    1. Thanks kim. Lovely to see you here. We are slowly getting better. What an illness it has been! The worst on record apparently. Maybe people's immune systems are going haywire these days? Too much rubbish in our food and air. ..

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    2. Sherry, SO sorry for missing the whole she-bang this month, but "life" happened. Will try to catch up with your lovely, convenient "linkers" before Sept is over; otherwise I'll be first in line for October, LOL! Thanks again for hostessing this wondrous world-wide forum.

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    3. No worries Kim. Hope to see you next month. :)

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  9. Hope your feeling better Sherry and you managed plenty despite not feeling well. Lovely when friends share some of their home grown produce and am sure the marmalade will be delicious. Love the cute tumbler. Thanks again for hosting :)

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    1. hi moya
      thanks so much for joining in IMK this month. always lovely to see you here. Spring has sprung with hot weather already - 31C today. heaven help us when it gets to summer. cheers!

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  10. Oh I hope you've recovered. Its been a dreadful flu season. Here's my post this month, short and sweet at my end too. https://napolirestaurantalert.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/in-my-kitchen-september-2017/

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    1. thanks so much and thanks for joining in. This is dreadful but I don't know your first name and i can't find it anywhere on your blog! so thanks NRA:=)

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  11. Sorry to hear that you've been ill! Nevertheless a very nice IMK post! I have also added my own post for this month.

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    1. thank you. and thanks for joining in. cheers sherry

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  12. Hope you are feeling better soon! Being sick is never fun. I loved your idea of coriander oil, I think I'll put it to use next time we leave for a trip. And you had me laughing when you had to walk through the exhibition with your eyes closed...hillarious! :P I just posted my IMK September here: https://tableofcolors.com/2017/09/05/latvia-the-land-of-flowers/
    Thanks for hosting!

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    1. thank you very much for joining in IMK this month. Yes i felt very thrifty using up the fresh leaves in the oil. i don't like throwing food away. always makes me feel so guilty if i do. cheers sherry

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  13. Hope you are feeling better! I never knew you could make your own Worcestershire sauce. Something I must look into :)

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    1. Thanks Tandy. Getting better. Yep you can make your own Worcester. Amazing isn't it? I was surprised when I saw the recipe. It tastes different to commercial stuff but I like it. Cheers thanks for joining in this month x

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  14. I'm sorry to hear you've been so unwell. Many thanks for hosting in spite of it - I'm sure you could have done without that really!

    All the citrus fruit sounds like just the thing for overcoming illness, and freezing strawberries is a great idea. Your homemade oil infusion is inspiring too.

    I hope you're both 100% again before long x

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    1. Thanks kari. We are a lot better now. Thanks for joining us for IMK. Cheers sherry

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  15. OMGoodness! Hope you're both feeling better now! It's not a nice flu this year, my mum & sister both had it! Feel better real soon Sherry. Loving the idea of infusing oil with fresh herbs. I've never thought about doing that but now I will be trying it for sure! Thanks :) xx

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    1. Yes thanks Nicole. We are both feeling a lot better now. Thanks for joining in again. Much appreciated. Yep herby oil is a good thing:). Cheers!

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    2. Hello Sherry, hope you are much better now. Brilliant idea on putting herb into olive oil....I usually chucked those fresh greens into freezer before going for vacation on rush mode but will do next time with herbs. I envy your Tassie folks. And your granola looks delicious. Take care.

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    3. Hi Aida
      Much better now thanks. Yes I sometimes throw herbs in the freezer too but it's nice to have the Herby oil. Yes the toasted muesli went down well with hubby. Cheers sherry x

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  16. Hope you & hubby are feeling better now. It sure knocks people for six this flu this year! Rest up & drinks lots Sherry. Loving your idea of using herbs for herb infused oil. I've never tried it before but will be giving it a try now for sure :) xx

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