Published November 20, 2006 by

Fine

summerI grew up without seasons. Permanent summer… sort of. Wet season or Dry season – I never quite worked out why the Dry season was always wetter. The only real distinction was that cyclones were a potential for one or the other and the other part of the year was fine.

This is my excuse for not recalling if we are still in Spring or have moved on to Summer.

Melbourne weather is ridiculous, four of five days ago there was snow on the not so distant mountains and today and tomorrow we’re up to 36 degrees (97 Fahrenheit).

This evening was stunning and the kind I’d like to prolong forever. Sat outside at Geoff’s with our feet in the pool and the sky was about as blue as you can get.

I’ve always loved Psalm 19 go on have a read.

General Holidays Life

Published November 20, 2006 by

Mmm Pie

donepie.jpg

And voila! One cooked, brilliantly smelling pumpkin pie. The tasting is yet to come.

* 3:05pm Oh yeah, I can cook! Tastes superb!

Cooking General

Published November 20, 2006 by

The Great Aussie Pumpkin Pie

Using this pumpkin pie recipe (Wycliffe Cookbook):pierecipe.jpg

This bit of Jap pumpkin:

pumpkin.jpg

The rest of the ingredients:

piestart.jpg

And some pretty standard pie dough (also Wycliffe Cookbook):

piedough.jpg

I am in the middle of cooking:

piebec.jpg

A pumpkin pie:

pieandmiddle.jpg

Here it is uncooked:

uncookedpie.jpg

And… I’m still waiting for it to finish.

Cooking General

Published November 20, 2006 by

Hmmm Pie

pumpkin pieIt is not autumn, it is spring. This is Australia, not America. Hence my current dilemma.

The other day I had some ridiculous brainwave to have a mock thanksgiving (ie: devise some excuse to make and eat pumpkin pie, because I like it).

Having grown up with American families I’ve been exposed a couple of times to the excited uproar of turkeys and pilgrims (or Chicken and kids dressed up in paper hats – ahh the benefits of the Pacific) otherwise known as Thanksgiving, which is on the 23rd November. Infact, I think my little sisters may have even been Indians in a Thanksgiving play.

The simple fact is. I have now gone and invited four people (plus Geoff – because we’re having it at his house) for dinner on the 26th. Which means I have to cook a roast, which I can do, but also a pumpkin pie.

Here is the problem.

Australians don’t eat pumpkin pie. This means that they don’t sell ‘pie pumpkins’ (which I’ve deduced as ‘sugar pumpkins’ – thank you Google) or pumpkin puree in a can – not to my knowledge anyway. Apparently when cooking from scratch, pumpkin pies are very easy to stuff up.

You can attempt it with Butternut Pumpkin (which was the only kind of pumpkin I knew about before today) but it’s not the ‘best’.

I’m now thinking that I should follow my parental’s advice and give it a trial run… so it’s off to the supermarket for me and I shall keep you posted.

*11:34am: latest findings suggest Jap pumpkins

Cooking General Life