Something that lifts my spirits on stressful days

Is leftover honey prawns for lunch.

I don’t think I could have gotten through all of last week’s organisings without this!

Domestic divinity

Yesterday afternoon and evening were rather creative and domestic as my evenings go—especially for a weekday. There’s something about creative days that makes me happy. I’ve always wished I was more creative. And pottering around in the kitchen is good for the soul, I am convinced.

Libby and I were rostered on to bring some home-baked treats to work for morning tea today, so that was the spur for all this domesticity. We decided on a theme of ‘favourites from an Australian childhood’. This had twofold benefits: all the Aussies (young and old) would get a trip down memory lane, and everyone who didn’t grow up in Australia (at least half the people at work didn’t) would get to try something new and share in the communal nostalgia.

We made chocolate crackles, honey joys, and fairy bread. Yum!

It’s possible I ate far too much fairy bread this morning. Possible, but sources can’t confirm.

I also managed to get some knitting done, on something that is ultra-cute but unfortunately secret. More news on that later.

The most exciting and creative project of the day was the peculiar inside-out rolls I made after Libby went home. I really have to think of a better name for them, so I’d better describe them. I’ve been thinking about making this sort of bread for a while—basically it’s a roll which has filling baked inside it. This way you don’t have to make a sandwich in the morning, you just grab one of these and off you go. It came about because I was trying to think of things that are convenient for Phil to take to work. He travels around a lot during the day and often doesn’t have microwave or fridge access, and some things are liable to get squashed in his bag. My immediate thought was pasties, but the unhealthiness of pastry turned me off a bit. I thought, what if I replaced the pastry with bread? And here we are.

These have a ham, cheese and tomato based filling, but I imagine you could fill these with anything you like, depending on if you want to eat them at room temperature or warmed up. I imagine leftover stews, curries and the like would work well, but I think fresh ingredients would also shine here. I’m thinking of trying pumpkin and feta ones, maybe with a bit of spinach. Or roast capsicum with onion and lemon zest. Use your imagination!

Peculiar Inside-Out Roll Things

1 quantity of Jamie’s basic bread dough (I used half bread flour, a quarter wholemeal plain flour, and a quarter white plain flour, but use what you like)

about 200g ham, sliced

grated cheddar

2 tomatoes, chopped

black pepper

fresh continental parsley, chopped (or other herbs, I used chives when I ran out of parsley).

Follow the recipe for bread dough up to the end of Step 4. While it is rising, mix together your filling ingredients (I basically used the quantities that suited my taste for this filling, but if you like more cheese and less ham or whatever, adjust as you see fit).

At Step 5, after you knock back the dough, divide it into 8 pieces. Press and pull each of these pieces into a circle about 1cm thick; it should be about 18-20cm in diameter. Place a mound of filling in the middle (I used about 3-4 tablespoons’ worth), then fold the dough up and over the filling, squashing it all together so none can escape.

Put the rolls sealed-side down on a baking tray, cover with a clean tea-towel and allow to rise as Jamie suggests.

Once they have risen, cook your rolls in a 220°C oven for around 20 minutes, or until they sound hollow when tapped and are nicely brown.

Leave them to cool for as long as you can stand it, then dig in!

Boston from on high

On Tuesday Boston threw some of its apparently typical Spring weather at us, suddenly becoming chilly and grey. Despite the weather we headed into the centre of the city so Eduard could show me some of downtown Boston.

The first place we stopped was the Boston Common, one of the large parks within the city, and part of the Emerald Necklace. The frog pond was closed but I was delighted with the frogs nonetheless

and also with how beautiful and green everything was.

More of those wonderful big trees!

Spring was definitely in the air, we saw a tiny duckling being shepherded (duckherded?) by its parents

and some nesting swans.

After leaving the common we strolled down Commonwealth Avenue which was again beautiful, clearly the nicer part of town. Instead of the wonderfully rustic wooden houses of Cambridge, this area had stylish brick townhouses, just like you see in the movies.

After a quick lunch (and some amazing chocolates from Godiva’s) we went up the Prudential tower to the Skywalk Observatory, where you can see the whole of Boston spread out before you. An audio tour with colourful local ‘characters’ provided some interesting information about the history and landscape of the city, but the view itself was the real star.

That square of green to the left of the big glass building is the Boston Common we walked through earlier. It was so cool to see everything spread out below you, and to see the differences between different areas—the straight streets and neat brick houses of Back Bay, the wooden houses of Cambridge almost hidden by their trees, and the river winding past Harvard, MIT, and many historical sites, such as the Old North Church (said to have a role in the beginnings of the American Revolution).

On Tuesday night Eduard called on some more of his fantastic local knowledge, taking me to a cute little French-Cambodian restaurant called the Elephant Walk. Again I managed not to take any photos, but the combination of new and different (and very tasty) food and good conversation was apparently too distracting.

On Wednesday Eduard had to stop past the office, which gave me the chance to see Harvard-Smithsonian for real. Like most old observatories, it still has telescope domes, remnant of the days before the city engulfed the area and light pollution made observing impossible.

You can enjoy a view across Cambridge to the city from the roof of one of the buildings—it seems like a nice place to work.

On the way back home we stopped at Formaggio’s, the most amazing deli and gourmet food store I have ever been in. Ever. And I make a habit of going to these places. As it was my last day I couldn’t buy anywhere near as much as I would have liked, but I did manage a small haul that was consumable within the day.

That’s a gourmet sandwich, a pomegranite-flavoured softdrink, a packet of ginger cookies, a punnet of raspberries, and one turkish lavender-scented caramel. I did share the cookies, but the rest was no trouble for just me. Especially the raspberries. I love raspberries and live for when they’re in season. These ones are bigger than the sort we usually get in Australia, and while they weren’t yet as sweet as they probably will be in a month’s time, they were still delicious. And at four dollars a punnet, even with the exchange rate they were cheaper than they ever are in Australia. Bliss! I was surprised how easy it was to eat a whole punnet in such a short time, but they were half gone before we even got home (as you can see from the picture). And of course making up fun ways to eat the rest wasn’t too hard.

However the cutest purchase of the day was definitely the honey Eduard bought—check out the ingredients list:

awwwwww. :)

All too soon after that it was time to pack up, travel to the airport and say goodbye. Boston has been great, and catching up with a good friend I haven’t seen in almost a year has been wonderful. One thing is bugging me though. I was delighted to see not only my first, but many (absurdly cute) squirrels in Boston—and I didn’t get a photo of any of them!