Fear and loathing in Noosa

I'm a bit of a bug-phobic. Hubby would no doubt say that's stating the case mildly, but then I've seen folks who would run screaming from a room at the sight of a spider and that really isn't the case for me. Yes, I will call him, with a sense of urgency, to dispatch whatever has crept in, but in the absence of him I have been known to deal with the offending bug with much "ew, ew, ew" and hopping from foot to foot. Being able to squish them and dispatch them is a vast improvement on keeping them under upturned pans until he came home (yes, yes I did that).

The local pest control guy knows me, I've seen photos of his grandbaby. 

My phobia is one of the reasons our unit is clean and clutter free. I keep it that way day to day, washing up is never left, all food is in sealed containers and I vacuum every other day. At the sight of a single bug I go into overdrive, all furniture is moved, cleaned under, vacuumed, the fridge and freezer are moved out and cleaned under (though this is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in fact I'd lay bets my underfridge area is cleaner than most folks floors) and vacuuming accelerates to at least once a day. We don't own many clothes, nothing is stored under beds and cupboards are kept so they can be easily emptied and wiped down. Excessive, much?

In any case, you'd think with regular professional pest treatment and all the precautions above, we'd be entirely clear of bugs. But hell no.

This time we've seen a couple of case bearing moth larvae. Ugh. One of my pet hates. We have no woolens or silk clothes, I've checked all the other clothes and have had a cleaning fest, before sprinkling the place randomly with cloves (according to our long suffering and lovely pest chap, they hate that).

So what else can I do?? It seems unless I live in a hermetically sealed pyrolytic ceramic chamber I'm doomed to feel sick and quiver as yet another beastie arrives. Of course, there's always therapy, but given medical costs here I think the chamber would be cheaper....

Bread and Jam

My dough journey has continued, thanks this time to Paul Hollywood. I read that this chap had a TV show in England about making bread and apparently it was good, haven't seen it here, so couldn't pass comment on that. A quick check though revealed his book, 100 Great Breads, was available at the library, so it was duly reserved. And what a pleasant surprise it was. A decent variety of breads and all the recipes written without flowery unnecessary language, no silly steps that don't add to the finished product and simply, clear, sensible instructions. 

I figured if I couldn't make decent bread with these recipes, then I'd resign myself to my functional, but not that pretty, loaves and give up trying to improve. What a revelation though. The first loaf I tried was the white tin bread and it came out looking almost perfect. I toasted it for hubby, gave it him for breakfast and asked him what he thought. He looked at me like I was demented, thinking why is she asking what I think of toast, not realising at all that I'd made the loaf. Frankly that was compliment enough! So I recommend his book wholeheartedly (I'll actually be buying it, which for me and cookery books is pretty rare), I've ordered his other on baking from the library to see how that compares.

Having made decent bread, I ran out of jam. I did however have half a butternut squash in the fridge (they were $1 a kilo at Coles recently, we've had it every way imaginable!). So a quick google revealed pumpkin jam was a possibility. As always I had to adapt to what I had in and this is the recipe. Despite the volume of sugar, it's quite savoury tasting and would go well with cheese.

Spiced butternut squash jam

Makes 1 jar because apparently it only keeps about a week in the fridge.

250g peeled and chopped butternut squash
250g raw sugar (I'm sure caster or granulated is fine, raw is cheaper here)
a tablespoon of lemon juice
a splash of vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice

Steam or microwave the squash until soft (10 mins in my weak microwave does this). Whizz this and all the other ingredients in a saucepan with a stick blender. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring regularly, for about 30 mins until thick. Pop in a container (a clean jar or plastic lidded one is fine) and refrigerate. 

Try, try and try again!

Dough in its' many forms has been my focus of late. Not sure if this is down to me wanting to perfect it, or just wanting to eat the end result! Whichever reason it is, it seems for the most part to be going well. I've been making filled pide, lahmacun, gozleme, pizza, red bean buns and gyoza. Though I confess, on one day I tried to make gyoza wrappers, I had my first ever complete dough failure and ended up throwing half a kilo of unrescuable dough in the bin. Still, 50c (30p) worth of dough is not going to break the bank, considering, as hubby pointed out the other night, I made nearly $100 of gyoza in one go for the cost in raw ingredients of $5. No wonder we don't eat out much!

This learning and experimentation led me to wondering why the heck I hadn't learned some of this in school. After all, we had a home economics lesson, it was just filled with pointless rubbish! I remember making a completely unseasoned and unpalatable vegetable soup that mum poured in the bin, a scone-based pizza (which I have to shriek out loud now, why not proper dough?) and a sponge cake from a packet. The value to me of knowing how to make food from scratch is immense. If I'd have known half of this at uni I'd have had it made. As it was, I think I was the most creative cook in my small circle and had an annoying tendency of feeding people even then. If I could have replaced the lessons on cloud varieties in geography with some of this knowledge, I would have gladly done so.

Todays experimentation is homemade udon noodles, from lafujimama. Fingers crossed this goes as well as other doughs. 

What do you wish you learned in school but didn't?