Lantern Festival

At the Steiner Kindy, they have a mid-winter Lantern Festival every year. For the last couple of years, Jack and I have made the biscuits. This year Jack asked if we could bake an extra batch, and eat them all ourselves! Once you have tried them, you may wish to do the same...

Here is the recipe:

175g butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

2 cups flour

3 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1. Soften the butter; stir in the brown sugar. Whisk the egg, then add slowly, alternating with the flour and spices. until all the ingredients have been worked together to form a dough, which you can knead a little into a ball. Then refrigerate it for a couple of hours. 

2. The dough will really firm up, so slice the dough into 'rounds', then roll it out to 1/4 inch (or half a centimetre) thick. Cut into star shapes.

3. Bake for 10 minutes at 175 degrees C. The points of the stars should be brown; then you know the biscuits are cooked through. Enjoy!

Meet our architect...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11259133

Bread...

Following from a couple of recent bread photos that ended up on Facebook, it seemed like a good idea to share my bread recipe with you :o)

I make my own bread because

1. you can’t beat the smell of freshly-baked bread;

2.  it tastes heaps better;

3.  I can work my frustrations out on my kneading; and

4. Vogel’s and other commercially-made loaves have milk powder in them (and I am trying to cut down on the amount of dairy I am eating).

So here it is…

Ingredients:

1 tsp active dried yeast

500ml tepid water (blood temperature)

500g high grade flour/wholemeal flour

extra flour for dusting

handful sunflower seeds

small handful sesame seeds

extra virgin olive oil

bread tin that can take 1.5 litres water

Put the yeast into a large bowl. Add the tepid water, and leave for 5 minutes or so. (The amount of water you add at this stage dictates the size of the loaf. I started by using 300ml but my loaf never filled the tin, so I gradually increased it to end up with the right amount of dough).  

Add enough high grade flour (I use a mixture of white and wholemeal about 2 thirds to 1 third) until the mixture comes together when stirred in the bowl. I start with a whisk and then work up to a wooden spoon.  Add the salt and as soon as you can, tip the whole lot on to the bench and start kneading… another sprinkle of flour, another bit of kneading… When the dough feels pliable and elastic, but not sticky, put it back in the mixing bowl you used earlier, with a layer of oiled cling film tucked in around the dough, and a clean tea towel over the whole bowl. I put it on a sunny window ledge until the dough has doubled in size. This can take several hours, so I usual start this process when I am going to be home at lunchtime or am around for most of the day, say at the weekend.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, add a large handful of sunflower seeds and a small handful of sesame seeds to the dough and knead it again. This gives you the flavor and texture of the seeds without having the trouble of getting them to stick to the top of your loaf.

Once it is all mixed in, grease a bread tin with extra virgin olive oil, and put the dough in it. Cover with the tea towel and leave to rise. Once it fills the tin, bake in a hot oven for 35 minutes or until the bread is nicely brown on top, and has a hollow sound when you tap it. You can always stick a skewer through the centre just to make sure.

Wait 10 minutes if you can bear to, and then slice, spread thickly with butter, jam or whatever is your favourite, and try not to scoff the lot in one sitting!

The Brief

The Brief

We have decided this build that we are going to use an architect to help us design our new home.

One very useful resource has been the website of NZ Institute of Architects (http://talktoanarchitect.co.nz).
It gave us the framework for writing a brief... 

Here is some of the information that we gave to three architects to start the conversation to see if they were interested in us... and we in them…

About Us

As a family, we consider ourselves to be eco-aware, creative, book readers, gardeners (things we can eat), cooks, design-conscious.

We are building a new home because we have lots of ideas that wouldn’t fit into the first home that we built (and designed ourselves). We want the opportunity to work with an architect who will hopefully offer us creative solutions and stretch our ideas. We don’t want to play it too safe, design-wise. We would want to build the house ourselves, using our construction business and its sub-contractors.

We love this area. It’s a great community and we have work and lots of friends here. We have bought an acre section near our existing home that we hope will give us outside space, a north facing aspect and external and internal privacy.

Here are some images we like:

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, California http://www.bcj.com/public/projects/project/102.html

MW Works Architecture, Washington

http://www.mwworks.com/Projects/Case-Inlet.php

Crosson Clarke Carnachan, Whangapoua

http://ccca.co.nz/projects/hut-on-sleds

Pekapeka house

Patersonson architects

http://www.p-a.co.nz/pekapeka%20house/pekapeka%20house.htm

Howe House by R.M. Schindler, 1925

Olsen Kundig Architects, Seattle

http://www.olsonkundigarchitects.com/Projects/46/The-Brain

Home is a refuge from the busy world, relaxation, somewhere to plan new projects/ overseas trips. Somewhere warm, comfortable, beautiful and functional. No bling/artificiality, but very stylish. Our new space should be casual, welcoming, light, modest, edgy (industrial), with private space and family/entertaining space. We would also like some ideas for hard landscaping around the house, and how the house may fit into the wider landscape.

We currently have an orchard, garage/workshop, timber store, art studio, sleepout and a modest 3-bed house.

Specifics: Likes and Dislikes

We like board-formed concrete, painted brick, steel windows with glazing bars, natural materials (timber, wood, stone), timber weatherboards, board and batten, negative detailing, modernist styling, reclaimed materials, Lifemark principles and exterior finishes used inside.

We like Art Deco and 50s Californian design.

We dislike fake materials (plastic trying to be wood, concrete trying to be tiles, etc).

Meeting the neighbours

Let me tell you all about the new piece of land… I have to pinch myself really, because it is a whole acre and has a small stream running through it.
Ha! Coming from suburban London, I never thought I would be saying that to anybody…

The stream gully is partially planted in native NZ bush so about a third of the land is not usable if you were thinking of using it as a small-holding. But it has a gently-sloping north-facing aspect (good in the Southern Hemisphere) and we think it is interesting because it isn’t just a flat paddock. The lack of usable land seems to have put people off in the past, which is why it was in our price range, but we love the fact it is hilly and has a stream and has some character. Having some space around our new home is as important to us as having usable land.

The section has previously uncultivated good soil and it backs on to a paddock and a cemetery; there are bees next door and a lovely big oak tree. There is also an old laundry outbuilding.

The section is about 3 kilometres from the centre of Coromandel Town so we’ll continue to have good access to shops which is great if, like me, you are reasonably impetuous in your cooking and fairly disorganized in your planning.

This is the PLUS list by the way…

The MINUS list includes a few challenges: the section has a proliferation of weeds (thistle, blackberry, arum lily, couch grass and montbretia).
It is also adjacent to the main road between Coromandel and Colville so that doesn’t give us a lot of privacy, especially to the southwest. The prevailing wind is from this direction, so we may have to plant some kind of shelter-belt.

This open aspect includes a clear view of our neighbour to our east who, although charming, has quite a prominent property, which we will want to screen ourselves from a little. 

The other challenge about Coromandel Town as a place, and Top Town in particular (as the northern part of Coromandel Town has been known since the Gold Rush days) is the high rainfall (often over 2,000mm/year).

So that’s it for now… as the weeks unfold, I am sure I will have more to tell you about progress on our new section and plans for the new buildings that we hope will one day grace it, as well as seasonal stories and recipes.

Next-door view of paddocks and cows

The bee hives on the next-door property, adjacent to the fence line