Spring soup with green garlic

Spring soup with green garlicHomegrown green garlic bulbs

I’ve been watching a bird make a nest in our lemon tree through our kitchen window. First I made sure it wasn’t a nasty Indian myna (it turned out to be a more benign but still imported suburban blackbird), then thought to myself, this is going to be good viewing – a touch of David Attenborough in our own backyard. Continue reading Spring soup with green garlic

Baked barley

Barley, tomato and vegetable stew

My husband can make a pot of homemade baked beans with his eyes closed – the beans are soaked and blanched; mixed with onion, tomato, spices. After hours of cooking, the end result is tweaked with honey – white beans suspended in a rust-red liquor. These were a breakfast staple at our old cafe and my husband still tends towards making a mega load, filling lots of containers for the freezer. We pop them out every so often at weekends … Eating them on top of melted cheese toast, scattered with plenty of chopped parsley, takes me straight back to having our first baby. Those were hungry, busy, yet beautiful days, and I remember eating this for lunch, sometimes with one of us with our little girl asleep in the Baby Bjorn, the odd bean landing on her head! Continue reading Baked barley