Little Fish Creations

I had some dramas this week on the chickpea front. I decided to cook some from scratch rather than using tinned chickpeas. The recipe I was using said to soak the dried chickpeas in water overnight then boil for about an hour the next morning. Easy. Right? but no, they weren’t cooked. They were hard and horrid and not lovely at all.

After a bit of chickpea chatter on Facebook and a bit of reading on the nets I decided to keep on boiling them until I was happy. They took 2.5hrs.

I made a baby hummus for Ada: pureed chickpeas, moistened with homemade chicken stock (that I had on hand because I was making soup) and a little squeeze of lemon. She liked it on toast and mixed with sweet potato mush:-)

One corner of the internet pointed me in the direction of Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat – which I own. (How to Eat is a chatty, wide ranging cookbook with none of that sexy, fingerlickin’ feasting you get with her tv shows).

Apparently there are a few tricks:
1) soak the chickpeas for longer – like 24hrs or more
2) make a paste of 1tsp bicarbonate soda, 1tsp flour and 1tsp salt and add this to the soaking water
3) you may have to cook for a long time – say 4hours
4) she says not to lift the lid for the first hour because it might cause the chickpeas to harden.

So, I threw my lot in with Nigella and soaked 3 cups of chickpeas of 22hours then cooked. I checked after and hour and they were DONE! I have to note that these were different chickpeas (the little brown variety called Desi) and my earlier batch was the big white ones. So unfortunately I’m not sure if Nigella’s tips were the key or if it was the variety.

3 cups of dried chickpeas heh? Yes that expands to 7.5cups cooked. I portioned them up into ziploc bags and chucked them in the freezer. Except for some that I’ll roast tomorrow. Roasted chickpeas with garlic salt and cumin = yummy snack.

And while I’m sharing, this recipe has been on high rotation in our house recently:

Roasted Vege and Chickpeas
Adapted from this recipe out of River Cottage Veg Everyday (my new, absolute favourite cookbook!)

750g Assorted Roast veges (leftovers usually)
Oil (we use olive oil)
A tin of Chickpeas – which I estimate to be about 1.5 cups of the home cooked peas, maybe a little less?
1/2 a lemon
Salt and pepper
2 garlic cloves, sliced
Fresh coriander roughly chopped

~Heat the oven to 200degC
~Put the oil into a non stick roasting pan and put into the oven for 10minutes until oil is really hot (I’m not sure we need to do this since the veges are pre roasted… but we do)
~Meanwhile, cut the roast veges into bite sized pieces,
~Carefully toss the veges and chickpeas in hot pan
~Pop into the oven for 10mins
~Take the vege/chickpeas out of the oven
~Stir through the garlic and juice of the lemon
~Sprinkle the coriander over the top

Serves 4

Looking at this now, I wonder if the whole lot could just be assembled in pot rather than turning on the oven…

Hi Friends!

I’ve been blogging since early 2005 and in that time my interests have shifted – as is natural So. I’m declaring here that this blog now concerns home economics, parenting, gardening, cooking and the good old arts and crafts. Pretty much anything that I’m into at the moment!

While I’m at it, I want to send out love to my sister Meg and to my friend Sarah who I think are my main readers these days… I hope you enjoy the change and I also hope some new readers and commenters join you soon! hehehe

The garden has been growing brilliantly since my sister came to visit and to give me a hand in getting the vege patch going.

This is a view showing the bed that runs along the fence looking up towards the two elevated, triangular shaped beds in the top corner of the yard. In the foreground you can see the broccoli. As per the instructions on the punnet tag I’ve cut out the central floret in the hope of inducing lots of side florets.

Also in that area I’ve got bok choi. I’ve never been able to grow Asian greens without them immediately shooting to flower. I ripped most of them out in disgust, but the two plants that Ieft have gone from strength to strength so maybe it doesn’t matter if they flower. I have yet to harvest any of it but I might use some this week.

I replaced the bok choi with some spinach seedlings which have been scratched out by damned blackbirds Grrrr!

When we arrived there was a stand of sweet corn in this bed which was nice . Jasper was introduced to the delights of gnawing away on a freshly picked cob – yum!

Kale. A vege I don’t have a lot of experience with – I don’t recall it being grown when I was a child so maybe it’s new to Tasmanian gardeners? At the moment it is still tender enough for use in salads so that’s what I’ve been doing with it. Thanks to my sister Meg for the seedlings!

We inherited a large, healthy patch of silverbeet with this garden too so we are going to be well supplied with greens with the kale and lettuce that I’ve out in.

This photo doesn’t do my savoy cabbages any justice – they are HUGE! I have some big sauerkrauting plans for these beauties… And maybe kimchi… Hill St grocer used to sell daikon radish and they might do again. Or maybe I’ll try to grow some!

I also have a big patch of red cabbage so we’ll be right for cabbage too this winter. I’ve just got to stay vigilant with the cabbage munching grubs I squished a legion today.

One area of the garden doesn’t seem to grow as well as others – I’d love to know why. I’m quite worried about the large patch of cauliflower and broccoli I’ve got in there. Sigh. I think I forgot to SeaSol them when I planted them out so maybe they have suffered from transplant shock? They just haven’t gone anywhere. The spring onions I put in the same area are also going badly compared with the ones I planted out at the same time in another part of the garden.

We inherited lots of great stuff with this house – so far the greatest bonus is the strawberry patch. We scoffed handfuls of gorgeous berries every day for weeks after we moved in. They have slowed down to a couple of berries a day now, but I look forward to next year’s bounty! The strawberries take up a lot of space but I think they are worth it. Sharing this bed is a mature apricot tree, a jostaberry bush, a small peach tree and a good sized nectarine tree.

We have also inherited a couple of immature apple trees and small, unhealthy cherry tree that may be removed in favour of a green gage plum next year. Either way, I’m reading up on how to prune fruit trees

I expect that things will slow down in the garden from now on as the weather has turned cold in the last few weeks. I have two areas that I need to prepare for garlic – last years patch supplied us for only two months and I’m hoping to plant enough for 6 months this year – I bought some great bulbs from the farmers market the other week, but we ate them. Whoops!

Simple to make/comfy to wear.

I bought this soft double gauze from Linnet in Japan.

I have made three since I set up my new sewing room last week and I’ll be making many, many more.

Though my growing boy needs a whole new set of pants first and its a pretty high priority! This time ’round his pants will have pockets – essential for any (almost) 3 year old it seems.

I am so happy to have a whole room of my own again. It is away from the children’s rooms so I am able to sew in the evenings too – what bliss!

She is six months old today – in this photo she’s chasing bits of banana around on her high chair tray

We have moved and are very happy in our new place – we now have space to swing a cat (if we desired lol)

I tempted fate and I WON! As mentioned in my previous post I planted tomatoes and I’m pleased to announce that we will not be around to harvest them since we have FINALLY BOUGHT A HOUSE! Yes I do shout it out like that every day

It seems planting garlic didn’t provide temptation enough for fate and I’ve made my harvest this week -perhaps a little early for some bulbs but the tops were seriously dying off do I figured it was time

These are the same garlics that sent me to hospital during my pregnancy. It turns out that digging over a garden in your third trimester is not recommended (take note pregnant readers!!! MW especially!)

Sometimes when I look at Ada it’s like I’m looking at myself and I get a bit startled by it. Which is funny since when Jasper was little I’d often see my sister, Meg, in his face especially from certain angles.

Ada has been an easy baby to care for SO FAR (I always say that so I don’t jinx myself… And then laugh at my silly superstition!). And the great debate is around whether it’s because she is easier than Jasper OR if it’s because we (mostly) know what we are doing this time. A bit of both – we suspect.

Another superstition… I’ve planted tomato seedlings in our garden in the hopes that this will tempt the fates into helping us find a house to buy. Because the fates would love nothing more than to see me nurture tomato plants all summer only to find that we have to leave before we get a harvest!

The thing is… If we stay here much longer I will have to give up my sewing room because Ada can’t sleep in our lounge/kitchen/dining space forever!

Busy days!