Lantanaland......as a holiday destination.

When we leave Lantanaland it is like a big living animal, all these little bits need feeding and putting away and I like to feel that the land likes having someone around. So one of The Wife mates from work has come down for a few times now and I just love it.

I love the fact that Louisa and Steves kids are getting a taste of the country, getting to know the animals and their habits and taste their food. We are never here, so the kids would see Lantanaland, I hope, as their holiday house, their little slice of paradise that they get to go and visit.

JB talked in his Blunty today about how kids are being denied the joy of the old fashioned backyard and one of the things I really enjoyed as a kid was the few times we got to go and visit a farm and camp or stay. The Wife told me the younger son was very into the animals, he was in charge of feeding and was going down and talking to the ducks. We also returned to a great letter and some hand painted Easter eggs.

Next time that they want to come babysit Lantanaland I'll talk to Louisa and see if they want to do more with the animals, maybe by then I'll have a cow and I could teach the boys to milk!

The postscript to this story - last time they stayed my house pump failed and they had a night with no water, so I'm glad they came back and had an incident free visit.



Lantanaland from the iPhone

Happy meal

In my quest to save money (so I can afford a cow) we are having one meal a week where I focus simply on the spend. This week was a old Jamie Oliver recipe, like all his early recipes it is very simple.

Just slice a few potatoes into cm thick slices and toss with oil, salt, diced garlic and rosemary. Bake till just golden. Cook off a big heap of mushrooms with butter and more garlic and finish with juice and zest of a lemon. Take enough fish fillets skin on to cover the potatoes, not too thin fillets and cut through the skin halfway about four times. Stuff these cuts with a mix of fennel, dill, basil, parsley, basically whatever you have in the garden. Drizzle the skin with oil and sprinkle with salt. Toss the mushrooms through the taters and lay the fish in skin up on top. Bake until fish cooked.

This may not be exactly how a very young Jamie did it, but it's what I do after having first done it. We had a small salad from the growbed on the side, dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of fishy oil from the bottom of the pan.

Normally I won't cook to price, just to flavour, but I really want that cow.(which my mate has named Dolores, great cow name)

Total cost for two? $9





Lantanaland from the iPhone

Cook books

I own a few cook books. Some are essential, like Stephanie Alexanders cooks companion, the best reference that I have, while others are beautiful, like Jamie Oliver’s garden based book with all the color sketches and Maggie Beers book with the embroidered cover.

Most have been given to me as gifts, in fact one of the few things I miss about being a kid is the stack of books I'd get a Xmas. Now no one buys me fiction anymore. But I still get cookbooks and the occasional garden book. A couple of our close friends gave me my favorite non fiction book -The Healthy House Cow.

I do have a few yawning gaps in my library. Asian cooking. Need the spirit house cook book or something that will teach me the building blocks of that style of cooking. Suggest away people.

But flicking through my collection with some guests on the weekend I saw a book I would recommend to everyone. Practical, no silly cheffy food and the picture on the front features the authors obviously sloshed. Cooking Under the Influence -check it out.

Lantanaland from the iPhone