Our humid weather
Except for the four days our daughter visited, my kitchen was not a festive place in December. Our weather was very hot… and unusually humid.
Martin Place, 18 Dec
We were away in Sydney exactly during the siege, exactly in, and near, Martin Place. It has left me reeling a bit.
My Kitchen Mojo is still a no-go.
Tasmanian Clotted Cream
I have never before, in my 31 years living in the Northern Territory, seen ‘clotted cream’ in the grocery. Am sure the out of date milk in the fridge in Darwin heat may have looked the part a time or two… but to see it for purposeful procurement, was a first!
SolidTeknics cast iron pan, made in Australia
This gorgeous SOLIDTEKNIKS cast iron pan made its way into my kitchen via our lovely daughter. Of course it was the one and only thing on my Christmas list, which either says a lot about my lack of needs, or speaks highly for the pan, so we’ll go with the latter. The learning curve with the pan is a bit steep. I’m screwing up a lot. Eggs hate it. Yes, I have consulted a learned friend as well as two websites on the matter, and I’m closing in on the secret, but I’m not there yet. All suggestions welcome! I found out about this beautiful cookware via one of our IMK group, accomplished cook and kitchen guru, Bizzy Lizzy.
Allison making pork belly
Delicious Fennel Pork Belly
Our daughter had my kitchen humming during her visit. It was 41 C (106 F) the day she and I had planned to bake fruit cakes and roast pork belly with roasted veggies.
Of course.
My overheated brain forgot to remind me to photograph the fruit cakes, but it was such a pleasure to watch Allison so confidently making her favourite Jamie Oliver pork belly recipe I certainly didn’t miss a chance to photograph that. It was delicious!
Alpine Coconut yogurt from Coles
I also discovered this new coconut yogurt in the grocery store, expensive, but delicious, and still cheaper by about 25% than the health food store version, though it does have a very small amount of sugar in it!
This is my short IMK post for this month… we live in hope that the food gods will smile on me in 2015. There are a few tentative glimmers here and there. New Year’s Day breakfast was a success, but you’ll have to wait until next month for that photo. It may be the only one I have!!
My very best wishes to you all! Be sure to call around to Celia’s place at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to see what’s happening in the kitchens around the world!
ardysez 
I’m sure you’ll defeat the new pan Ardys, hang in there.
xxx Happy New Year & Humongous Hugs xxx
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Thanks David. I’m hanging in!
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Hi lovely one… happy new year. I’m so delighted that you were gifted one of those cast iron pans… (and thanks for the kind words and shout out!). Have you seasoned it? Keep on with road testing it, you’ll soon get it working for you, it’s an awesome pan to cook in… but make sure you wear protection if you touch the handle… I forgot the other day and had to sleep with an ice pack on my fingers! Ouch. Where did you find the clotted cream?
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The pan was somewhat seasoned when it arrived, but yes, I am continuing to season it by using it. There is a method suggested to season that requires it to be baked in a hot oven for an hour and left to cool in the oven. With temps over 40C at the moment, I can’t bring myself to do that. My friend tells me she just seasoned hers by using ghee and cooking, so that is what I’m trying to do. The other problem I have is that the weight is quite a challenge for me, even without food in the pan! Nevertheless I love it and will figure my way through as I go. The clotted cream was from Coles. I have noticed the last two years at Christmas, both Coles and Woolies have their ‘Finest’ and ‘Gold’ ranges available. Most of it disappears again after the holidays. It was part of the ‘Coles Finest’ range of foods this year. Thanks for reading Liz.
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I also got several cast iron pans for Christmas, different brand of course since I’m not in Australia though. I think the really small one will be used often for fried eggs for my son in the morning, he is eating a lot lately! Happy New Year!
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When we were at home, over 40 years ago now, my Mum had a small cast iron pan she called the egg pan. We were never allowed to cook anything in it except eggs! I may have to get a little one like that for my eggs. I hope you enjoy your pans too. Thank you for reading.
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I’m sure you will have lots more successes than failures in that beautiful dish! It has also been unseasonabley humid here on the Gold Coast so I can’t imagine how much worse it is in NT. Thanks for sharing! Liz xx
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Thank you Liz. I am not sure our humidity is any worse than yours, but we are just not used to it here in Alice. The usual joke when explaining to someone why 40C doesn’t feel so hot here is that ‘It’s a dry heat’ !! But this year it has been high temps and some humidity to go with it, so we are feeling it.
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Oh the humidity! Why do we do traditional Christmas dishes in our Australian heat?!
Your pan is just lovely… I can’t wait to see what you create with it. I will also have to keep my eye out for that yoghurt at my Coles. Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for reading Lisa. I am gaining some knowledge with the cast iron pan. Am now on the hunt for good oven mitts as I’ve discovered the pan’s handle is so hot, when using it in the oven, the heat seeps through the silicon mitts I have! Couldn’t believe it.
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I sometimes wish I’d taken my father’s cast iron pans when he died, but I know I would not have kept them in as good a condition as he did. He fried bacon and eggs every morning, and his cast iron was exceedingly smooth. This month is my first experience with IMK; I’m having fun with it!
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Hi Jean, I wish I had kept my dad’s cast iron pans too, and yep they were really smooth too. He’d keep a dozen eggs out in an ‘egg basket’ and fry one up every day. Must have been the English in him. Thanks for sharing 🙂 K
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I wish I had taken the small cast iron ‘egg pan’ my Mum had too. Don’t know what happened to it. When she and Dad moved to assisted living it all happened so fast things went everywhere. Thank you for reading Jean, IMK is a very fun group.
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Hi Ardys, it must have been awful being on the periphery of that awful Sydney event. It does hit hard especially when close by. Just horrible. I understand about the humidity, I HATE IT! Whenever we travel to Asia I look like total tool wandering around with a wet towel on my neck. Plays havoc on cooking, especially bread and pasta and just deflates your whole body I reckon. I’m a cast iron tragic but haven’t heard of that brand so will be checking them out. Its all a learning curve, but what an adventure! Cheers.
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Yes, I think actually being in Martin Place at the time, but not knowing what was happening and having ourselves just come from a coffee place called Chocolat, made the whole experience very personal for me. Am trying to move on and not make it into more than it was, after all, we were not directly effected and my heart certainly goes out to those who were/are. I think you’ll find the cast iron from SolidTeknics is first class. If only the human using it had first class skills!! Lol.
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Nice pork belly. We also had that with our Christmas dinner. 😀
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Thank you Misky. It’s funny that we are once again eating some of these more traditional dishes. Even though my grandparents raised pigs I don’t recall them serving pork belly, but maybe they saved it for themselves! I do recall it being a southern dish and hearing about it, but I had never eaten it until I came to Australia and the Chinese were using it in Darwin!
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106 degrees F!! Oh my. I would find it diffiicult to eat at all. I got the Jamie Oliver book for Christmas as well, I’ll be interesting in reading future posts of recipes from the book. I haven’t seen the TV program.
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Hi Ardys, your cast iron pan brought back some memories for me. That porkbelly looks quite delish! Kirsty xx
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It’s interesting how some of these old cooking methods are regaining popularity. I suppose partly it is because people are trying to eat fewer processed foods, and with buying fresh foods, one needs appropriate cooking methods. I use my crock pot regularly, even in summer, now. Thanks for reading Kirsty.
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The pork belly looks amazing, it is really tough going trying to bake in the heat let alone the killer humidity at times. Big win with the clotted cream though.
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Thanks for reading Liz. Our weather has turned blissfully cooler and rainy at the moment. Loving it.
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What a dramatic photo your first one is. One can almost feel the how heavy and humid they are, wanting to drop down raindrops but them moving on to drop them somewhere else. Lovely. How nice to have your daughter home. I’m sure that made it feel more like Christmas than anything else. I love your new pan, it looks great. Happy New Year to you and yours!
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I love living with the mountain ranges so close. They give such drama to our skies in so many different ways. Our wet-ish weather continues and is most unusual for us. It was great to have Allison here. I always have a day or two of sadness when she is gone again…something I think my own Mother still deals with when I leave the US every time. But we both consider ourselves lucky to have a wonderful mother/daughter relationship! Thank you for your wishes and for reading Laila, best to you and yours as well.
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See, the nice thing about Twitter is that I now KNOW your cooking mojo is back! 🙂 The cast iron pan is very impressive, but goodness it looks heavy. Eggs don’t like my non-stick pan, so I’m not sure how they’d cope with cast iron – I’m sure there’s a trick there I don’t know about! I’m so glad you had a chance to cook with your lovely daughter! Lots of love and Happy 2015 to you all! xxx
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Haha, yes, the cooking mojo does seem to have returned. I love your photo, it matches your cheeky comment about Twitter! The weight of the cast iron pan is a problem with which I am grappling. Not easy as I am a small person. I use ghee in my non-stick pan to cook my eggs, and I don’t wash it, just wipe it out. Yes, cooking with Allison was the highlight of Christmas for me. Best to you Celia, and thanks for reading and hosting IMK!!!
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The cast iron pan looks really good, and I can imagine that it will come in handy for so many other things too. What is in the coconut yoghurt? I might try and concoct some. Clotted cream and the Centre don’t seem to match in my mind at all!
The food Gods will smile when they are ready. I have days/weeks where cooking doesn’t happen. Lately I have been stuffing upn everything. Last night I cooked a pudding, but forgot to to the oven back to bake, so it was grilled!! I think we will eat salads for the next month- the food gods maybe saying something.
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Am still struggling with the cast iron pan. Have had about 50/50 success and failure! Something I am not sure I will be able to cope with is the weight of it when full. It is at the very upper limit of the strength of my small frame! If Don is around he will wield it for me, but he is not always around. The coconut yogurt is very simple, just coconut milk (presumably full fat) with the usual probiotic cultures and a tiny bit of sugar, though I don’t usually eat sweetened yogurt so I would leave that out if I was making it, I think. Some of the coconut yogurts I’ve eaten are rather sour, though, so perhaps that is why they’ve added the sugar, about 2% sugar, whatever that amounts to. The combination of more time and cooler temps over the last few days have awakened my mojo! Things are much better. I hope your food gods smile on you, too!
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I urge you to persevere with the cast iron pan Ardys. They get very hot so don’t need as much heat beneath to the point I often put a simmer mat beneath. I have arthritis in my hands and just pull the pan aside remove the food then let it cool before cleaning. I find cast iron far superior to any other cookware. I find heat and humidity kill my cooking mojo too, but as soon as a cool change sweeps in, I’m off and running
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Right you are, Sandra! Thank you so much for the tips. I will persevere. Am sure I will develop and adapt new cooking habits. Our weather has suddenly cooled and we are having 27 and 28C days with rain at the moment. Bliss. My cooking mojo has returned! Although today’s mis-adventure had less to do with lost mojo, than too little oil underneath the cauliflower crust pizza!!! Thank you for reading!
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I am a fan of cast iron too – although do not have any in the kitchen currently due to having to use the pans my MIL got us for our wedding ( 😉 ). If you struggle with the weight I would suggest getting one of those handles that clip on the side so it is a two handled pan – allowing you to hoist and swirl with a little more ease. I was trying to ascertain why eggs were giving you jip, is it that they stick? Foolproof way to cook nonstick is to have a mix of butter and oil in the pan to cook – sounds silly but one stops the other drying out because they operate on different heat levels 🙂 One thing I am going to get is a solar oven for summer – no more stifling hot kitchen for me!!! Take care
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I had not heard of the side handle for the cast iron, will have a look if I find I can’t cope as is. Yes, the eggs stick like crazy. I’m currently using ghee to cook with. I do understand what you say about using oil with butter, have done that over the years, but not with this pan as yet. Will give that a try. Am not familiar with the solar oven concept, sounds interesting… Mr Google here I come! Thanks for reading Charley!
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The cast irons are heavy but they cook so well. I do the same as Charley – pull the pan across and off the heat and scoop the food from it. And, it does need a lower flame as it retains the heat so well. There are some good articles on Serious Eats, The Kitchn and Food52 about seasoning and using cast iron pans..
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Thank you Selma. I will check out those suggested internet places for further advice. I think that technique of dragging the pan off the heat and scooping the food out is a good one. I have done it once or twice and it will take some getting used to, but like anything worthwhile, practice makes perfect! xx
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I agree, ’tis not the season to be spending too much time near devices that emit heat! I’ve done little proper cooking I’ve done since Christmas Eve, notably slow cooker pulled pork! That said, your frypan looks great. I inherited a couple of cast iron frypans from the G.O.’s rustic no-brand collection but haven’t yet spent time with them. I have very good cotton lined silicon mitts from PoK but can’t see the same on there now although they have similar.
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Thank you EllaDee, I have been too busy photographing the ‘wet event’ to look properly for oven mitts, but I will get there! Had a success with the new pan this morning, so hopefully things will smooth out now!
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i keep hearing about these cast iron pans. people seem to love them. how shocking the martin place incident was for everyone. so very sad. it must have been great having your daughter with you over xmas. have a great 2015.
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