Slowly. I’m trying to take things slowly.
It’s not the normal state of play for me. I’m more of a take things fast kind-of-a-girl.
Since we are here, locked in our home for 14 days, it does seem the ideal time to try to change things up a bit. Or maybe I should say change things down a bit. To try the ‘slowly and surely wins the race’ mentality. To breathe between tasks, to smell the roses, to make well considered decisions. To take the time to appreciate what I have.
In an effort to do this, I began the day with what I believe is quite a popular activity on weekends, I had a sleep in! Neither Dave nor I are normally ones for a sleep in. If I am going to have a rest, I’d rather get up early, immediately have breakfast (of course!), do a few jobs then go back to bed and read or nap. But this morning, I actually did sleep in. Yesterday Dave did the same and it is such a rare occurrence for him that for the couple of hours I was awake but he wasn’t, I kept checking on him thinking he must have been sick – but no we are both perfectly well, thanks for asking! No signs of any viruses, COVID or otherwise here.
Once I did get up, I made a conscious decision to take things slowly today. It’s back to work for me tomorrow (albeit from home) and things will get hectic then, during the day at least.
I have three ‘slow’ projects on the go:
- Make a sourdough starter
- Make my own mustard
- Sous-vide the leg of lamb
1. Sourdough starter
On Friday, I researched on the net about how to make my own sourdough starter. As always, there is lots of information available, so it took me a while to wade through it all. Eventually I found a recipe that used wholemeal flour, and since I had a kilo of that, and not a huge amount of other flours, I choose this one (click for link).
The recipe is on an SBS website which in the past I have found to be quite reliable. It was also ‘rated’ quite high on google, plus the measurements were all in weights, not volume, which I prefer for accuracy.
Yesterday morning I completed step 1 (Day 0) which was to:
1. Place 125g wholemeal flour and 125g water in a medium bowl and stir until well combined.
2. Weigh a clean, dry jar with a lid that you are going to store your sourdough starter in and note the weight down.
3. Transfer the flour mixture to the jar, seal and set aside in a warm draught-free place
Day 1 (today)
- Nothing to do today except watch 🙂 So far so good, a crust is forming and it’s darkening and rising slightly! 2. Seeded mustard
The idea behind mustard is simply just grind mustard seeds and add liquid. At its most basic, this is all mustard is. English mustard, for example is nothing more than water and ground mustard seeds.
I found a stash of about 50g of yellow mustard seeds in my pantry. I must have bought them for some recipe at some point, who knows what and when 🙂 . Since I had a couple of bottles of beer in the cupboard (and no one here drinks beer), I thought making a beer mustard would be a good idea. I’d also heard from a good friend that her Dave (we both have one) had enjoyed making beer mustard (thanks Sandy!) I’m going with this recipe. I’ll update you on progress tomorrow.
3. Sous-Vide Leg of Lamb
Sous-vide cooking is all about slow, and since that’s my theme of the day, that’s the way I decided to cook the leg of lamb that has been tempting me in my fridge since it arrived on Friday. I have an immersion circulator, which is probably my favourite kitchen toy appliance. Basically it keeps a water bath at a very accurate low temperature, and food is cooked slowly by immersing it in that warm water.
Obviously you don’t want to place a leg of lamb directly in the water, so the first step is to vacuum seal it. If you don’t have a Cryovac gadget like I do, you can place it in a large zip lock bag, remove the air and then seal it. Either way, you don’t want air inside the bag, otherwise it will float.
In the bag with the lamb I put a few things to flavour it including garlic, rosemary, Italian herbs, salt and papper, honey (the last from the jar you gave us @Sandy) and olive oil. The slow cooking allows those flavours to really suffuse the meat.
The lamb will now need 24 hours cooking @132.8°F (about 55°C). When its ready, I’ll finish it in a very hot oven to crisp up the outside. I can’t wait! (well I can actually, because I’m practicing being patient 😉 )
[wpvideo qgVVGPqK ]
My task for the afternoon is to set up my home office properly, ready for starting back at work tomorrow. When Will asked when we got home what he could do to help, I asked him to get me a new monitor, as the screen on my laptop is not really big enough for day-to-day work. He arrived with it on Friday afternoon, knocked on the door and sat it on the front porch. (We paid him with a packet of toilet rolls, yes, it’s true, we did!) I now have a well set up office on our dining table, complete with two screens plus the I-pad; a comfy office chair; a remote keyboard; plus a notepad, pens and other stationary. Dave has his computer set up at the other end of the table, so I will also have company. From here I can see the backyard and beyond it to the Gregadoo Hills; have good natural lighting from the dining room window, plus down lighting above when needed. I may never want to go back to my office @ Wagga Campus 😉
Never far from our sides are the pets. I’ve thought in the past about taking Darryl to work on the ‘bring a pet to work’ days, but the reality is he doesn’t like being away from home anyway. So this is a big win for him, and Velcro the cat, to have constant companionship. Darryl is moving regularly between Dave and I, he doesn’t know whose pats and tummy rubs he likes the best. I think he’s in doggy heaven 🙂
Yesterday I promised bolognaise sauce hints. So here are my thoughts:
- Keep it simple. I only use lean beef mince, tomato passata and seasoning. No garlic, red wine, carrots, or any other ‘secret’ ingredients.
- Cook it long and slow. The flavour will develop best if you cook it for at least an hour over low heat. Drink the wine you didn’t put in while you wait.
- Always brown the mince first. Stir it very well (i.e. hard) while it is browning to break up the mince to give it a good even texture.
- Be generous with the passata. I made a large batch with about 750g of beef mince and used two whole 700g jars of passata.
- Rinse out the passata bottle with 1/2 cup of water then add that to the pot. The extra water will keep it moist during the long cooking time, and you wont waste a drop of passata.
- Season with salt, pepper AND sugar. But do it to taste once its been cooking for a while. Depending on the brand some passata can be already seasoned, or not.
To finish today’s post I’m going to share with you a picture of some flowers that were dropped on our front porch by my beautiful friend Claire this morning. I wish I could share the smell with you – it has permeated throughout the house and is just so lovely. She also dropped off 24 DVD’s… Dave will be watching 60-year-old black and white cowboy TV shows for days!
Plus a pic of lunch in the sun – leftover Thai pumpkin curry. Waste not want not and all that!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, peeps!
Sara x