Welcome to my Kitchen for the month of October. Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the birdies is? My dad says this all the time, throughout the entire 3 months of Spring, every time someone mentions Spring. Is your dad one of those dad’s with the “sayings”. My dad has a lot of sayings, and I find myself repeating these sayings to my kids. The older I get, the more like my dad I get. Much to the dismay of my Significant Other. He’d much rather me be more like my mum; she’s a doer, a list maker, a “get in and get it done” woman. My father is a Gunna. So am I. We’re Gunna Marshalls. We start stuff, with all good intentions and then remember there was something else to do, perhaps something else we started a week ago, that really needed finishing, so we move our attention to the older task. We get stuff done. Eventually.

The good thing about this, is that my mum and SO are very similar. They get shit done. That’s just what they do, they’re doers. So, frankly, they need people like my dad and I, so they have “stuff” to do. Otherwise they’d be bored. Or become crazy cat people. This is our selfie at Floriade.

 

In My Kitchen this October…

…is some fruit that required alcoholic soaking, and jarring. The jar on the left contains spiced brandied cumquats, and on the right are chartreuse soaked dried fruits – pears, apricots and apple. These will be turned into fabulous Christmas treats. Of which treats I speak, I know not of. Yet. If anyone has any recipes that will make good use of these, feel free to drop me a line, as I seriously have no clue. BTW is it cumquat or kumquat?

…is my new spice container, a traditional Masala Dabba. My Indian friends have seen the state of my spice drawers and, suitably horrified, gave me this for my birthday. The harderst part about this gift was deciding which spices to put in the little cans. I chose those that I use the most, cardamom pods, mustard seeds, masala blend, star anise, cloves, a curry powder and fennel seeds. I’m sure to change them around.

…is my new teapot. Tweenie and I have decided that we are going to start drinking leaf teas, and can you believe it, I’ve never owned a teapot! We have quite a few different tea bags, but we’re ready to become Ladies and think we need the proper stuff. Now I’m trying to source the matching teacups to this Kimono pot, as they’ve discontinued this pattern. Why, I wonder, it’s gorgeous. But at 50% off, what a bargain!

…is the tea we bought before we bought the teapot. It’s so damn hard choosing the teas at T for 2. Far too much to choose from, but since we’re both partial to Chai and Tweenie’s majorly partial to chocolate, we bought a box of this to get us started on our loose leaf tea journey. A cup of this last night whilst we watched Divergent, was lovely. I’m really looking forward to starting our tea traditions, and experimenting with the thousands of tea types that are out there.

…is this cake stand. I took Buddy to the shops yesterday for a bit of one on one time and we ended up at Sauvage Urbaine. That was an exercise in wont-ever-do-that-crap-again. Have you even been into this type of store? Everything breakable is piled up on top of each other, with glass this that n everything else, precariously balanced, creating a mothers worse nightmare. To his credit, Buddy did alright, not a single breakage. Although, when his sight alighted on this, his eyes widened and he screamed out “Oh My God! This is beeeuwdiful, mum. You HAVE to buy it!!!” How could I not? When a 4 year old boy squeals with delight over a cake stand, you buy it. Every woman in that store would’ve throttled me if I hadn’t.

..another view of the had-to-have cake stand, and yes, my Christmas snow globes are out! They were tucked away in my wardrobe, but when swapping over from winter to summer, this long weekend, they begged to remain out. And so they shall. If  I can make the Christmas period start early, so we can enjoy it longer, then I will. By God, I will.

…are two items I ordered (read: got for free off the hostess as she scored a stack of free stuff!) from one of those Your Inspiration At Home parties. I’m not a huge fan of these types of things, being that I like to prepare all my recipe bases and mixes from scratch, but this was fun. They have some really yummy stuff. Tweenie came with me and she helped me choose these two out of the hundreds of things we looked at/tasted. We use the vinegar on strawberries (YUM) and make Chilli hot chocolate by melting chocolate, adding heaped tsp’s of the powder and mixing it through hot milk. Seriously good stuff.

…This is Tweenie’s fruit break at school. Can you spot the Foodie’s daughter?

…is a bottle of marinated feta that my dad made. Lot’s of herbs from his garden, chilli’s and EVOO, hence why it’s solidified in the fridge. Looking forward to using this in as many dishes as I can during the upcoming warmer months.

And last but not least, in My Kitchen this October are a number of packets of Jerky, Stockman Sticks jerky. My dad’s shop, Brew Your Own at Home stocks this Jerky, and we’re in there “buying” packets of it at least once a fortnight. My kids are fans of jerky, or Turkeyio, as Buddy calls it. Why? Who knows, what an odd thing for kids to be just a little bit obsessed about. The last packet that is left on our shelf, after getting to sample the entire lot recently, is the Whip Cracker. Seriously hot stuff. Tweenie loves this one, Buddy and me not so much. Our favourite is the Beach Bull, there is a distinct seafood smell to it, but the taste is really mild. It seems to be the softest of the jerky’s and is the first packet off the rack when we’ve run out. Why can’t they just like chips?

You can find them online, on Facebook and at the Old Bus Depot markets in Kingston.

Thanks for dropping by and checking out what’s in my kitchen. Head over to Celia’s blog Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to see what everyone else is up to. See you next month 🙂