I’ve been enjoying my garden this week. The warm weather is here and things are growing. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know I like to try and grow as many things as I can in my garden. It’s not a huge garden but even in a small garden you can grow things that will nourish your family and give you a sense of satisfaction like nothing else. There is something almost magical about planting a seed, watching it germinate and then finally having something that you can feed to people you love.

I really don’t consider myself a gardener at all I have more of a black thumb than a green one. I’m well known for killing just about every pot plant that’s ever been given to me. Vegetables - I can look after - perhaps I am more motivated by food than I realise. No recipe today, although I’ve been cooking up a storm this week, please forgive me. I’m going to sit back, nurse my sunburn and sit in the cool evening air and enjoy my garden.

I’ll share it with you.

Aren’t flowers amazing? Spring Tulips - one of the first bursts of colour in the garden I’m always torn between picking them and leaving them to bob about in the garden.

Baby Cos lettuces - waiting to be transplanted into the vege garden and no doubt they’ll eventually end up in a Caesar Salad.

Sweet Basil - three varieties. There is a fourth variety there that you cannot see in the photo, fragrant Cinnamon Basil. It does actually smell like cinnamon! I have no idea what I am going to use it for. Pesto and Caprese salad awaits for the more typical varieties.

My Sage in flower, the bees love it, the scent in the warm sun is heady. Sage pairs with onion so well,  one breath in and it reminds me of Christmas dinner. Stuffing would not be right without sage.

This little guy is my pride and joy, raised from a seed in the cupboard where the hot water cylinder is. I was so excited to see it thrive. It’s carefully planted in a little nest of pea straw and compost. I know it looks pretty dull but it”s a Brodé Galeux d’Eysines winter squash. When it fruits (I have my fingers crossed) it will be a salmon colour with little peanut like bumps all over it. I have two in the garden and I can’t wait to see what they look like.

Strawberries, snuggled in next to a wall - they seem to love this little spot in the garden. Isaac watches them carefully to see the first berries appear, he loves to gather handfuls of the tiny wild strawberries that cluster in among the leaves.

Buttercrunch lettuce, Kit’s favourite with it’s soft buttery smooth leaves, we always have a few of these in the garden.

Mint - peeking out from some wooden stairs, it loves the cool damp under there. There are always mountains of mint in the garden for Tabouleh and cold drinks, mint syrup cake and for tossing into salads, it pairs well with lemon for hot sunny days. A recipe I’ve been making a lot recently is over at Kalyns Kitchen - Lebanese Lentil Salad, the flavours work so well together.

There are Borlotti beans climbing up a bean teepee, white onions and rainbow carrots planted in neat rows, zuchinni, chiogga beets, radishes and lanky spring onions, bok choy, spinach and sugarsnap peas. Potatoes that will be ready for Christmas dinner are growing wildly in a large old terracotta pot with their tops pushing their way out of the opening. Tarragon, Thyme, Oregano and Parsley in abundance scattered through the garden.

I look out my window and I see a veritable feast.

I had never heard of smoked eggs until today. I knew about marbled eggs of various kinds and tea eggs, coffee eggs and one thousand year old eggs but not smoked eggs. We went out to the Agricultural and Pastoral Show on the Taieri Plains and there was a chap in a stockmans coat, sporting a leather hat with a pile of small lime green cardboard egg cartons in front of him. He was from the Manuka Smoked Egg Company in Lawrence - Central Otago

He looked as though should be out with a sheep dog and some sheep, not selling eggs in a little tent. I was curious so I ambled over trying not to look nearly as interested as I was. Isaac and Kit headed over to pat the small Fresian calf that was close by and I inspected the eggs.

This was what I saw when I opened the egg carton.

These smoky black, brown and gold eggs with the most amazing aroma wafting out of the egg carton. They were slightly sticky to the touch with smoke residue coming off on my fingers when I touched them. They’ve been smoked over Manuka wood chips, which is really commonly used for smoking salmon, eel, bacon and game here. It gives a rich sweet flavour like nothing else.

I assumed that being smoked the eggs would be cooked but they are in fact raw eggs that have been cold smoked. When I researched a little online I could not find any other results for cold smoked eggs where the egg remains raw after smoking  and ready to be cooked. So they seem quite unusual in that respect.

I thought rather than put them in something that would hide the flavour of the eggs they would be better included in a salad where they could be the star of the show.

This is what I came up with to taste test the eggs.

Just a simple mixed salad with a dollop of aioli on the side. We tried it with a vinaigrette as well, but the creamier dressing was better.

The eggs were reminiscent of bacon! They had a soft smoky savoury taste, and they were really quite stunning in flavour. If you know anyone with a smoker try to tempt them into experimenting with it with some smoked eggs, they were excellent.

I was surprised to see the eggs not coloured at all by the smoking process. They looked the same as an ordinary hard boiled egg sitting in a salad. But the taste was far from ordinary. If you can get hold of these give them a try, surprising and wonderful.

I also wanted to share with you some pictures from the outing. The New Zealand Agricultural and Pastoral shows are something of a tradition here. New Zealand is a country that has always had a strong farming and agricultural community. Many of our primary exports are agriculturally based.

This is such a typical NZ scene

A sheep dog working the sheep, very smart dogs that respond to the merest hint of a whistle, commands or gestures, and the sheep of course scattering everywhere but where they should be going.

The shows are a way for our farmers to show off their prize winning animals, the bakers to bake their pikelets, scones and fruitcakes and the gardeners to gather up an abundance of vegetables and gain the red ribbon for first prize if they are lucky.

Spinners, knitters and weavers usually have a spot out of the sun to show their painstaking and intricate creations. Selling soft bags of wool and fleeces ready to be carded alongside yarns hand spun in all the hues you can imagine.

A Kune Kune, a Silky hen, an Alpaca and a team of ponies. That little Alpaca belongs to Flagstaff Alpacas, they make alpaca yarn in a variety of plys and colour-ways.

It’s a day for the equestrians to groom their horses till they shine, plait their manes and tails and either show their ponies and horses in the ring or put them through their paces for the show jumping.

There are also often massive displays of both vintage and modern machinery, side shows, craft stalls and animals of all varieties, not just sheep, cattle and horses. All manner of local crafters are usually present as well with their stalls dangling with all kinds of wares.

How about this Steam Traction Engine? An amazing piece of machinery and still working as it did when it was first assembled. There was a tiny one too, but this large one was really impressive.

One of Isaac’s favourite parts of the day was watching a science demonstrator make raspberry ice-cream instantly with liquid nitrogen. It was good too! Fresh raspberries and fresh cream.

It’s a slice of real New Zealand, and I just love it. There is nothing better than sitting in the sun on a picnic rug with voices over a loud speaker saying things no one is listening to, drinking a cold drink and eating home-made  bacon and egg pie with a side of magic ice-cream made with liquid nitrogen.

I promised you all a little more about my surrounds while I was on holiday, so I am trying to take my camera with me when I head out the door. I do want to share a little of this fantastic country at the bottom of the planet with you all as well tales of my family and of course my passion - food.

A ten minute trip down the Bay from our house is the Broad Bay China Shop. It is an unassuming little house with all kinds of treasures tucked away within the walls of a very small cottage surrounded by roses. It’s down a winding back street about fifty feet away from the sea, you would honestly not even know it was there.

By complete accident I spent two hours here this morning. There is so much to see in this tiny shop, it’s literally packed from ceiling to floor with china, silver, glassware and linen. None of it is new, but that’s part of its charm. My mother kept saying “It’s like a trip down memory lane” I know I saw lots of pieces that reminded me of my childhood.

You have to inch through the house - not just because you are completely terrified of knocking over something and breaking it, because there are so many bits and pieces to see and corners to poke about in. There are canteens of silverware in old wooden boxes lined with velvet, rolls of music for player pianos, jewellery, crystal, embroidered linen baby gowns, heavy china chamber pots and fine bone china.

As I mentioned.. there is really not a space any where in the house - so the owner has moved stock outside! There are three more rooms out the back which have been added on to accommodate the china and linen. Step stools to stand on so that you can see the pieces on the top, and little chairs to sit on so that you can examine dishes at your leisure.

I went there with the express purpose of getting a handful of bargain plates and dishes to photograph food on. I came away with $50 worth of china and with thoughts of putting a beautiful old antique dinner set on hold. I found some wonderful crockery, which no doubt you will find in some of my recipe posts including some more uranium glass!

If you live in New Zealand and you are in Dunedin, this is really worth a visit. But do make sure that you have plenty of time because it’s so easy to lose hours in there, as evidenced by me arriving in the morning and forgetting to have lunch and leaving in the afternoon. Everything from kitschy to fine bone china is contained in this rose smothered house. If you are just visiting - make sure you take a little time to call in. Sue More has done a fantastic job putting together all these collectable items. You can make an after hours appointment if you are on limited time. I’m thinking about going back tomorrow to take another look at the linen, don’t tell Kit!

Just a photo today, since I am enjoying the day with my family.

Ryan gave Isaac Slime for Christmas…….

No recipe today: I’m going to the movies this evening. I’m going to see Avatar - yes, there is the geek in me coming out.

I did want to show you this. The quilt I want to make has been on my mind constantly. I’m a bit obsessive like that: once I start thinking about doing something, I’m not happy until I’ve completed it, or the very least tried and failed dismally. Which reminds me, I should tell you about my candle making efforts some time.

Anyway, there is no way before Christmas that I can afford to buy all the materials for the quilt. But I found a whole basket of small pieces in the store close to my workplace that were only 50 cents a piece, just big enough for the Ticker tape quilt. I should get about 4 little pieces out of each 50 cent square of fabric.

I’m really excited about the beginnings of my fabric stash for the quilt!

I’m going to make it in shades of pink, blue, green and yellow, bright and cheerful.

As you know, I’ve never made a quilt before, and I am definitely not someone who whips up things on the sewing machine in a flash. In fact, I still haven’t dug out the sewing machine from the wardrobe yet! The quilt is designed to use scraps, but since I don’t usually sew, I don’t have any scraps.

I’m going to finish Nicky’s shawl first, then the quilt will be my next project. The shawl is about seventy percent finished and I am hoping to have it finished before new year - or very close. Any and all comments from people who sew and quilt very welcome!

Best I get ready for my night out with my husband and my daughter!