Well, I had been cooking up a storm, a banquet of Indian food for the Kingower group (we had previously enjoyed Christmas in July at the Church, and prior to that Babette's Feast with a 3 course meal at the Kingower Village Green with a group of 30-40 mainly Kingower people ). I had been asked to make a couple of entrees and main courses, but thought I would make some Indian desserts also.
So, my contribution was :- Cheese Kofta - ricotta, potato, & coriander "cigars" with a creamy tomato/cashew sauce, tikka aloo - potato & green lentil patties and a tamarind sauce, mains were beef vindaloo, and chicken tikka, and dessert was Basindi - rose flavoured custard, almond barfi, and fresh fruit.
Damien and Nicole (from the Kingower School House) made up chickpea balls & lamb kebabs for entree, lamb rogan josh and Vegetarian curry for main, with rice, pappadums and raita.
All up we were to cater for 40 people...
Anyway, I had completley cooked the vindaloo, creamy tomato cashew sauce, & desserts in Melbourne, marinated the chicken and prepared the entree mixtures. I figured that I would shape the kofta and tikka aloo, and cook the chicken in Inglewood. While we were having lunch out in the garden, and I was on the phone to Damien discussing logistics, we heard and saw a huge swarm gather around the back of the house - up at the roof line. You could see the swarm flying, and then land on the wall. We weren't happy, and felt powerless.
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| bees swarming #1 |
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| bees swarming #2 |
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| bees swarming #3 |
They did disperse after a while, we weren't left with a big swarm on the wall luckily. But, I don't know where they went ...not into the roof cavity I hope
Anyway, I started cooking after lunch. The custard was decidedly runny, which would have been ok if it was poured over something, but not if it was to be presented on a plate with other dessert offerings. Naturally this was an easy fix (but not so Indian), as I just put it back in the pan, and added custard powder to thicken it up. The original recipe did not have any custard powder or eggs! It worked out well, and tasted lovely.
Next up was the tikka aloo. The mixture was just too wet to form into patties as per the recipe despite me adding in flour to stiffen it up. So once again I improvised, and and put spoonfuls in the pan like pikelets. This worked well, and saved time.
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| surely that cook should be watching the pan #1 |
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| surely that cook should be watching the pan #2 |
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| surely that cook should be watching the pan #3 |
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| surely that cook should be watching the pan #4 |
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| aha - an action shot |
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| the finished product compared to the recipe photo |
Next up were the kofta which were devlishly sticky to form. With hindsight I also made them too large, so they tended to flatten, and looked like squashed bananas rather than little cigars, but they still tasted nice
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| sticky fingers (and hands) |
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| formed kofta |
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| Finished kofta with recipe picture |
Anyway, this all took longer than I expected, I had thought that I would have some sitting down time before heading off to Damien and Nicole's in Kingower, but that wasn't the case. I assembled everything together and off we went.
It all started out quite well, Justin and Alex unloaded the car and put the food in Damien's ute, and I started cooking the chicken on their BBQ.
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| she's not looking at what she's doing... #1 |
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| she's not looking at what she's doing... #2 |
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| chicken tikka |
Once the chicken was done, I wanted to heat up the entree sauces. However the kofta sauce wasn't in our car, wasn't in Damien's ute, wasn't on their back verandah. Wasn't anywhere!! I must have left it behind in the fridge. Justin kindly drove back to retrieve it, found it in the fridge, asked if there was anything else I'd forgotten, and returned to the School house. In my defence I had so many pots and containers to transport 1) Kofta, 2) Kofta sauce, 3) Tikka alloo, 4) Tamarind sauce, 5) Vindaloo, 6) chicken tikka, 7) rose custard, 8) almond barfi, 9) bag of fruit & bought chutneys, 9 things - some of them quite heavy! and I didn't have a checklist and cross these things off when putting them in the car. My mistake!
Anyway, Justin was good natured about it, and I showed Alex the terrific school room as we'd finished cooking the chicken.
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| school room complete with blackboard |
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| fantastically effective fireplace - with plough disc |
Next up was heating up the tamarind and cashew sauces (once Justin had returned) - on the wood fired stove in the kitchen, while Damien cooked up his entrees
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| Nicole & Damien #1 |
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| Nicole & Damien #2 |
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| tamarind & kofta sauces warming up |
So, then it was off to the old church - as people were expected there at 6pm.
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| St Mary's Church Kingower |
Nicole & I started setting up the entree plates, and that was when I noticed my 2nd mistake. Yep, I'd forgotten the koftas back at home in Inglewood, they were in the red enamel pot which I'd put on top of the wood box next to the wood fire stove. I had had a quick scan of the kitchen, and nothing was left on the table, or the stove, so I thought I had everything. I got very annoyed with myself for having forgotten a second item, but St Justin drove the 10km back to Inglewood again, (about 15 mins round trip) and retrieved the kofta. It didn't make too much of a difference time wise, as people were still settling in, and hadn't really been seated yet
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Damien in front of the serving table
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And then we ate:-
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| 4 x entrees |
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| 4 x curries, rice, chutney & pappadom |
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| dessert - almond barfi, rose custard, watermelon, tangelo, and banana (MIA) |
Unfortunately the entrees were rather cold, but they still tasted good. The mains were terrific, although my fiery vindaloo was a bit of heat squib, nice and tasty, but not too spicy hot.
Logistically, I took my hat off to Damien and Nicole - as they had organised numerous crock pots and rice cookers, and cooked up numerous pappadoms - so the mains were served hot. We also had more room to manoeuvre, as there were 31 people, not 40 as originally expected.
The film was a bit of fun also -Salaam Namaste - a Bollywood movie filmed in Melbourne, and along the Great Ocean Road.
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| Salaam namaste |
All in all it was a great night with most of the "usual suspects" there :- of course Terry, Arleen & David, Maile & Dave, Jan & Jeff, Chrissy & Mark, Roger & Maxine, Dawn, and June etc
Sunday morning we were going to go back to the Church and help clean up at 10am, however Damien called and said that Terry had been earlier and pretty much done it all. Therefore no need for us to go. That said, I went to visit Maile and Dave, as I hadn't been to their place yet, and they had extended us another invitation for morning coffee.
Their place was past Blanche Barkly and then onto the Bead and Butter track, Maile said to "follow the breadcrumbs". Dave had actually supplied me with some excellent written instructions, so there was no question of getting lost. The road/tracks however were unmade, and muddy/pot -holey in places, so I went quite slowly. All up about 20 minutes from Nimmitabel
Their house was up a small hill, actually cut into the hillside granite. A truly excellent location with fabulous views, and a lovely garden to boot. Maile explained that they are above the frost line, so citrus, other fruit trees, orchids, vegies, all thrive (apart from nibbling hares and wallabies)
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| the citrus garden |
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| patio with a view |
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patio view #2
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| Maile & Dave - at the olive tree |
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| View #1 |
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| View #2 - with the outdoor fireplace chimney in the middle of the shot |
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| view #3 |
The house is completely solar powered, (with a generator back up if there are more than 3 days without sun), and they have tank, not town water. As Maile said they are "off the grid" I wonder if we could be completely solar powered at Nimmitabel. Obviously we couldn't have solar panels on our beautiful reinvigorated slate roof, but maybe on future carports etc? It's worth thinking about.
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| one bank of soft solar panels |
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solar panel batteries
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Anyway, I stayed there some hours looking around, enjoying coffee and cake, and chatting etc.
Maile also showed me some of the local Spring wild flowers - which are demure rather than ostentatious
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| pussy tails? |
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| can't remember wildflower #1 |
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| can't remember wildflower #2 |
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| can't remember wildflower #3 |
So back home for lunch, and Justin told me how a bloke from Bendigo National Trust had dropped in, and wants to bring a bus tour through the house. We'll investigate further...
After lunch some opportunistic weeding, and Justin and Alex fixed up the fence
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| fence repairs |
I also snapped a photo of my scrawny single asparagus spear in comparison to some other princely lances that we had seen on Thursday afternoon, and subsequently eaten with dinner on Thursday night (at our friend's place outside Ballarat)
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| my scrawny asparagus spear |
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| asparagus spears almost to hip level! |
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| the above asparagus spears now ready to be eaten |
And lastly, bloody corellas, Justin noticed that they are eating away at a round decorative piece of wall near the roof line at the bay window. At this point, we don't know how to discourage them, as they are so high up, and so destructive. Justin will have to do something from within the attic space to try and deter them
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| bloody corellas |
