what i cooked and ate over my holidays

There is nothing better than a fresh melting moment, is there?

What about one with a generous dab of macadamia chocolate goo?

Thought you’d agree.

The sweet summer indulgence actually kicked off with the much anticipated Christmas pavlova. Oh, wow. What bliss. I could have quite happily eaten the lot (and stolen my parents’ servings mid-fork, too) it was sooo good.

So a couple of weeks later, we made another one, this time with a layer of zappy lemon curd that I made just for the occasion. Mm-mmm.

Mum has perfected the ratio of crisp-and-chewy meringue and pillowy marshmallow filling. Modest clouds of whipped cream and fresh berries — am I making your mouth water? We wondered why we don’t make pavlovas more often; like that other classic, the sponge cake, a pav is deceptively easy to literally whip up and the pay-off is wonderful.

In Hobart, summer finally kicks in around Christmas time, and then sweetness comes from our luscious stone fruits. Decadently fat, dark juicy cherries from dad’s trees; this greedy picker follows the ‘one for the bucket, one for the mouth’ rule. Quality assurance in juicy action! I happily gorged myself on these beauties.

 

I’ve also been stuffing myself silly on apricots (mine and dad’s), plums (ditto — here's my first modest harvest, below!) and nectarines, which, with their juicy combination of sweet and sharp, are perhaps my favourite summer fruit. Luckily my digestive system copes well with the extra fruit and fibre!

I bought a new enamel colander for collecting harvests. I'm quite in love with it!

 

Our harvests were modest this year — the dry conditions have meant smaller crops and smaller fruit — which mum and I do agree has an upside; we haven’t been completely overwhelmed by buckets of fruit to cut up and stew or freeze before they spoil. But I am restocking the freezer ahead of the winter months, and that is always satisfying. As were these delicious tarts:

The warmer months also mean lots of colourful healthy veg, too. Sometimes I fall into eating in a monochrome manner — a bowl of greens with vivid pesto, herbs and pasta, all absolutely emerald, can be my idea of heaven. But ‘eating the rainbow’ makes me very happy. How can this not?

 

Between dad's garden and mine, these are completely home-grown meals!

 

I’d like to think with a meal like this, I’m eating at my optimum. I can literally feel all those vitamins and antioxidants throwing themselves at me! 

Makes up for those times I indulge in a short little biscuit daubed generously with chocolaty goo...