Caravans, raindrops on roses, cosy pizzas & chatty cousins

Saturday 11 May

Last night’s chilli was so good! A hit with all two of us. As I was making it, I remembered that I used to make this a lot when we were camping, so that’s probably why it’s embedded in Max’s memory so positively. The kids used to love going camping. Usually we went down to Wilson’s Promontory and camped with big tents just back from the foreshore of Norman Bay or Tidal River. A few times we took Cam’s dad’s caravan down and rigged an annex up beside it. I liked the caravan times best, mostly because the boys were so busy all the time when they were little. Having some semblance of order made things feel less chaotic for me. Also it’s nice to not sleep on the ground. I think staying in a caravan is a lot like having a very functional cubby house. Cam usually disappeared for hours to go fishing and I was alone with the kids a lot. It felt a bit more secure having the caravan, like I could lock up and be safe, if need be. Not that it felt particularly unsafe, but you know … women are always mindful of such things. 

Once we ventured further than Wilson’s Prom, driving up to the Croajingolong National Park – apparently – and unbeknownst to me at the time – a favourite place of one of the many young women himself was having covert dalliances with. (We can laugh about these things now, decades later, can’t we?! Gulp.) Quite aptly, we almost slid off the road and into a creek as we drove the last leg of the extremely corrugated and extremely long dirt road in Cam’s old Valiant. Then we realised there was no beach access from the campsite he had chosen. Next, our campsite and tent were invaded by giant goannas … they literally tore holes in the tent like hungry baby dinosaurs. We fled, all of us white faced and fairly terrified – back along the painfully corrugated road to the highway and onto the suburban charm (in comparison) of WIlson’s Prom, and one of us learned a lesson about researching campsites. (Hint … it was not Cameron!)

Anyway, back to the chilli. It’s probably the same as your recipe, but here’s how I made a GIANT batch (8 or so serves).

Pip’s White Lady Chilli

500g of beef mince
500g of pork mince
2 x 410g cans of red kidney beans
3 x 410g cans of diced tomatoes
1 x 410g can of corn kernels
3 carrots, peeled and sliced into ‘coins’
2 sticks of celery, chopped finely
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ cup of tomato paste
1 packet of supermarket ‘taco seasoning’
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
1 tablespoon of sweet paprika
1 teaspoon of chilli flakes
4 stock cubes of your choosing (I used chicken)
500ml of water
Salt and pepper to taste
A slosh of olive oil

Put the mince into a large pot and fry until it’s starting to brown, spooning out any liquid that cooks off it. Add the onion. Fry for a few minutes. Add everything else. Simmer on a medium low heat, stirring often to avoid it sticking, for an hour or so. Two even. Whatever you like. When it’s done the liquid will have reduced and it will look thick and deliciously deep-red.

Serve with rice, sour cream and cheese. Or in tortillas. Or all of these things

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I woke up at seven this morning, let the puppies out for the early morning horse-around, made a pot of tea and then sat down here to write this to you. After that was hot shower and then I am going to go for a cemetery walk because I didn’t end up doing that yesterday after all. I will listen to a podcast while I do that. I’m going to have breakfast when I get back, I think. For some reason I don’t feel like tackling the kitchen at the moment (likely because the sink is full of dishes waiting to be washed).

Getting dressed: jeans, blue long sleeved tee, cricket jumper, snowflake socks, Blundstones.

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I went to the cemetery and walked for half an hour or so. The air is so fresh in there. The roses are still blooming and prettily weighted with raindrops.  There were quite a few early callers leaving flowers, perhaps because it’s Mother’s Day here tomorrow, or perhaps just because. There are lots of jonquils peeping their little green spear-like leaves out of the earth too. After a bit of a walk, I grabbed a coffee from the little cafe in the grounds. Their adjoining shop was full of fresh flowers, ready for the weekend procession of people. Roses, Sweet William, carnations, chrysanthemums, daisies, in bunches and, in the case of the roses, also in neatly-wrapped single stems.

I took my coffee to the car as it’d been raining and the cafe outdoor seats were wet. I could have sat in the covered outdoor area, but there was a group of older women there chatting away and it felt like it’d be an intrusion. Perhaps they met here at this time each year? Perhaps they were cousins? Or old school friends. I do not know. They were talking non-stop, definitely catching up after a while, though. Drinking my coffee in the car seemed like a better idea.

After the cemetery I went to the local shops and bought things to make Mother’s Day evening pizzas. I’m going to – inspired by Reannon’s comment here – make the overnight pizza dough today and then Max and I can have pizzas tomorrow night. I got all the ingredient details from this excellent Substack. Thanks again to Reannon for the recommendation!

Tonight’s dinner will be leftover chilli. Perfect Saturday night fare. I was thinking of making a batch of Anzacs too, because the kids are dropping in tomorrow. 

Breakfast was late in the morning today, and it was two big cups of tea and a little stack of peanut butter toast. I listened to a Holly Throsby album while I was tooling about on the internet. I’m almost certain I am going to discuss her book Cedar Valley as one of my Honours year case studies, alongside Amanda Lohrey’s The Labyrinth and Lucy Treloar’s Days of Innocence and Wonder. I KNOW this is a big shift from where I started out, but it’s okay. That’s how Honours is likely to go, apparently. You start somewhere and then in the early stages of writing your creative work (in this case a lengthy short story) and research, you are pointed in an adjacent direction. I’m excited about where I’ve ended up at this point, and am now actually very glad that it’s more local and more aligned to my own lived experience. Fingers crossed it will all turn out okay. I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

I made a batch of Anzacs, which I have detailed below in photos so – if you are new to making these or have been tripped up in the past – you can see just how small you need to roll them and how spaced out they need to be on the tray when baking. They spread a lot.

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Pip’s Anzac Biscuits
Adapted from the Australian Women’s Weekly recipe

2 tablespoons boiling water
90g rolled oats
150g plain flour
200g brown sugar
70g desiccated coconut
125 grams roughly chopped butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons of boiling water
½ teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

1. Mix the sugar, oats, flour, coconut together in a large bowl.
2. Melt the butter and golden syrup together in a small saucepan until combined and runny. Remove from heat.
3. Mix boiling water and bicarbonate of soda together in a teacup. Add this mix to the butter/golden syrup saucepan. Add the vanilla extract too.
4. Next, add the butter mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients (the sugar, oats etc). Mix well with a wooden spoon. Roll into balls around the size of a 50c coin and place on baking paper lined trays with plenty of room between each dough ball. If you wet your hands, they will be easier to roll out. (I use three trays for this, to ensure there is enough space between each cookie.) Small is best here. You don’t have to flatten the balls, they will flatten and spread all by themselves.
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until a deep golden colour. Let them cool on a wire rack and then pack into tins to eat yourself or share with friends. Or both!

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Next, I watched a great rubbish show (Love Under Cover) and also a cheesy one (The Castaways) which was so unnecessarily cheesy as it had a great cast and could have been so much better.

Good stuff

I always love reading Rhonda’s blog.
Blueberry muffin loaf at Smitten Kitchen
A champagne omelette for that special breakfast?
Drew Barrymore’s house in the Hamptons is for sale. Its kitchen is straight out of a Nancy Meyers film.
Seven comforting classic audiobooks to listen to.
How to make strawberry oat bars.
More of the brilliant Brian Wildsmith.
This broccoli salad looks super good and super crunchy.

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Sunday 11 May – Mother’s Day

A little sleep in today! Up at 8.30 and Max had already made a pot of tea (this one) so that was a good beginning. I made some toast with Vegemite and am now settled in front of my laptop finding out what’s going on on the internet today and looking at a cute video on YouTube.

Getting dressed: Jeans, fair isle socks, a grey long sleeve tee, cricket jumper, Blundstones

One of my kids came over to visit in the morning and another came over in the afternoon. We actually had such a nice relaxed day. I am a lucky duck. In the morning I made a cinnamon tea cake (from a packet) and we had cups of tea and chats together. In the afternoon we got fish and chips from the local shops and ate that together. Then Rin and I went to buy some dirt and a couple of seedlings and also to pick up some cardboard from the dumpsters out the back of the locals shops. (“Take whatever you like!” the man who came out the back door of one of the shops said.)

Next, we zipped home and made a new no-dig garden bed over a sunny patch of lawn. I planted some giant silverbeet and some mini-cauliflower seedlings. I’m going to sow some other things this week as well, I think some peas, some round carrots, some spring onions and some broccoli. And perhaps some of the mini cabbages I saw at Bunnings. So cute! I’m also going to ponder building a little barrier around the new partly to encourage the dogs to stay off and partly to provide a visual boundary between the lawn and the garden bed (mostly inspired by this great book!) I’m hoping to make three more beds for vegetables (tempting the rental gods by laying down roots in the process!) It took three of us about ten minutes to make the first one, so that was super motivating.

We listened to Taylor Swift in the car when I was taking Rin home and it was a lovely sunny day to be singing along and doing homey family things. I enjoyed it all very, very much. 

For dinner, I rolled out the pizza dough I made before bed last night (the one Reannon and Sonya had pointed me to) and made a big rectangular pizza for Max and I to have for dinner. I topped it with homemade pizza sauce, hot salami, mushrooms, green pepper, mozzarella and plenty of oregano. It was honestly my favourite homemade pizza ever. The crust was especially good. Well worth making it the night before and the small amount of yeast means it’s not spongy, but rather crunchy and chewy and soft. Would recommend.

(sorry for bad night time kitchen photos, pals!)

I must admit I am extremely knackered after all the doing and seeing, but that’s ok. I can have an early night and climb into bed with a cup of tea and Masterchef on the iPad. The perfect end to an ace day, really.

Hoping you had an okay weekend, dear reader. And if not, I hope the week ahead is markedly better.

x Pip

Top image: Ebb Tide Rose

If you fancy, buy me a coffee —>  https://ko-fi.com/piplincolne

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