down to earth

I asked Hanno to buy some lamb neck chops for me last week and since then they've been sitting in the freezer ear-marked for Scotch broth. I made a thick version of it yesterday. I know it doesn't sound appetising but if we're not going to waste any part of the animals we slaughter for meat, neck chops must come into play at some point. Lucky they are so delicious. This is an old recipe I've been eating all my life. It's my mother's recipe but there is a very similar version in Maura Laverty's wonderful classic Irish cooking book, Full and Plenty.

For two people, you'll need four neck chops. If you can't find neck chops, look for forequarter chops. There isn't much meat on each chop so if you're a big meat eater, you'll need more. Trim the fat off the chops and cut up your vegetables.

1 onion, quartered
the green top off a head of celery, or two sticks of celery, sliced
2 carrots, chopped into chunks
1 sweet potato

You can add other root vegetables such as swedes, turnip, parsnip if you want to.

You'll also need:

salt and pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
½ cup washed pearl barley
1 ½ litres water, maybe more

You'll need a cast iron Dutch oven. If you don't have one, start the cooking in a frying pan and transfer it all to an oven proof dish with a lid for slow cooking in the oven. Neck chops are one of the cheapest cuts of meat and usually have a bit of gristle and cartilage. Long slow cooking dissolves that part of the meat and you end up with meat falling off the bone and dissolved nutrients, such as glucosamine, in the broth. You don't have to bother about making stock for your sauce either. You'll cook the meat on the bone with a lot of vegetables so you'll make stock as you cook.

Add a small amount of oil to the pot on the stove and start cooking the lamb. When they've browned, add the vegetables and allow them to get some colour. All the colour you add at this point is extra flavour in the finished dish. When you have a bit of colour on the meat and vegetables, add salt, pepper and the paprika. Then add the washed barley and pour in the water.

The barley will thicken the broth and the more you add, the thicker it will be. Don't go overboard because it soaks up a lot of water. Put the lid on the pot, bring it to the boil and then place it in a preheated oven on 160C for about two hours. Test taste for seasoning and add more if it needs it.

A cheap alternative to serving this with potatoes is to make herb dumplings. They're delicious and go really well with all sorts of stews and soups. Men love dumplings and even though these chops don't have much meat on them, with the addition of the dumplings, it's filling and delicious.

To make dumplings:

3 cups SR flour
2 tablespoons room temperature butter
enough water to make a dough - like a scone dough
salt and pepper
herbs - parsley, chives or whatever you like the taste of

Rub the butter into the flour, salt and pepper with your fingertips and when it looks like breadcrumbs, add the chopped herbs and enough water to make a moist but not wet dough. Form the dough into balls and add to the broth in the last 20 minutes of cooking.

And that's it. A delicious and hearty meal for a very low price. I hope you try it.

Virginia Woolf once said: A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. I'm not sure I agree with that but I do know that any creative activity is nurtured by a room of one's own. I think the creative process is more than a space though. I know when I started writing my blog, I did so in our noisy lounge room and that was far from private or my own. Moving to another room gave me the impetus I needed to improve my blog writing and express my creativity in different ways. I was encouraged to commit to the work of the blog and the room itself gave me a place where I could sit and think before I typed.

For over a decade I wrote on a second-hand, chipped, melamine desk that pinched my arms when I leant on it. I wrote Down to Earth and The Simple Life at that desk sitting on a third-hand chair. You're lucky you were out of ear shot because I let rip at that desk a few times.

And then I decided I needed a change and that I spent a lot of time at that desk and should enjoy being there. I talked to Hanno about it and started planning.

I've set up my room mainly for writing and sewing. I have my computer at one end and the sewing machine at the other. It's just the right combination for me. I bought two small chests of drawers from Ikea and that is where most of my sewing, computer and writing accessories are. Two small kitchen tables, side by side, have given me enough work space to comfortably work at both ends.

When Tricia was here she tidied out my fabric stockpile cupboard. It feels good to have space for the fabric away from ribbons, lace, buttons and embroidery paraphernalia. As my grandmother would have said: a place for everything and every thing in its place. I wonder how long it will stay like that. I have good intentions, very good intentions, but with fast days slipping away towards deadlines, good intentions are sometimes not enough. At least I know it won't take much to clean up.

That's the new book document on the computer screen. When I finish writing this chapter I have three more to write, and four more to read and approve the editing. It's been a tight schedule but I work better under pressure and the structured writing program has helped a lot. Otherwise I would have been faffing around making excuses to go into the garden or to sew for a while.

There will be time enough for all those things in July and beyond when the writing is complete and I return to being a full time homemaker. Then it will be a better balance of writing and sewing which I can imagine myself doing for a long time to come in this beautiful room we've created here.

But in all those years when I didn't have my own room I was still creative and looking for places to express it in a realistic way. You have to be able to do that until you have the good fortune to have a room of your own. If you look at two photos up, there is a wooden box at the end of the desk. I have that there because I'm making up a sewing kit to have in the lounge room. I want to be able to work there as well, especially when Jamie is here. If you don't have a space to call your own, claim some. All you need is a spot where there is a place you can sit and work on your crafts, or just to relax and have a cup of tea. There will probably come a day when you will have your own room, maybe like I did when your children leave home and there are spare bedrooms. In the meantime though, take time for yourself wherever you can to express your creativity, to plan your next work project or just to relax and calm down.

I haven't quite finished my room yet. There is still a bit of fluffing I want to do. But there is no need to rush, this room will be here for a long time.

Along with the slowing down and the occasional aches and pains of ageing, there are also many pleasures. They are too many to count, they change all the time and they're often simple things that aren't noticed or not possible when you're younger and working for a living. Yesterday's particular pleasure was roast lamb for Monday's lunch. What decadence! It's an innocent pleasure, a real part of Australian family life and something to share with you all on this cool Autumn day.

My sister and I grew up knowing two things: mum and dad were always right and, come hell or high water, there would be a roast lunch on Sunday. It could have been pork, chicken or a rolled beef roast but mostly it was lamb. Dad would usually do the cooking on Sunday and mum would help serve and wash up. Along with the meat there would be potatoes, pumpkin, onion, peas, carrots and gravy. Afterwards there was sometimes a dessert of an apple pie or steamed pudding with custard. It was all cooked from scratch and always delicious. We didn't have a lot of money but mum always brought good food.

I like slow cooked lamb so I put the leg in the hot oven around 7am and after 30 minutes reduced the temperature to 160C. It sat there roasting till about 11am when I added potatoes, pumpkin and onion and turned up the heat again. At 11.30am I removed the lamb, put it on a plate, wrapped it in foil and covered it with a clean tea towel. When the vegetables were cooked, I removed them from the roasting pan, saved the juices for the gravy and started boiling a broccoli head.

I had home made mint sauce in the cupboard so that was added to the plate of steaming roast lamb and vegies. I thought of all those people out there having a sandwich and a cuppa for lunch, all those people eating a burger and chips, and all those who had nothing. I wished I could have shared lunch with anyone who was hungry. We'll be eating this lamb today as lamb curry with rice and I'll give some to Sunny for her tea when she picks up Jamie this afternoon. There is nothing worse than having to cook a meal when you've been on your feet for hours, working. A good curry made with roast lamb should help Sunny unwind after work and know she is loved.

And for dessert? We're harvesting our backyard oranges at the moment and even though they look a bit green and are marked in places, they're as juicy and sweet as the best orange you're ever likely to buy. In fact these oranges are better than those you buy. Nothing better on a warmish autumn day than to finish off lunch with an organic orange.

I baked a banana buttermilk cake yesterday as well. It's for morning teas during the week. Usually I add walnuts to a banana cake but as Hanno is still having problems with his teeth, I added thick pieces of banana instead. Delicious! I'll be doing that again.

There is enough leftover lamb for at least two more meals. I think I'll make up all of it into a curry today and then I won't have to cook lunch again until Thursday. Many people think cooking from scratch takes longer, and sometimes it does, but there are ways of saving time too. I would have spent about 15 minutes yesterday peeling vegetables and making gravy. Today it will be another 15 minutes spent preparing the curry. That's not too bad - 30 minutes all up for our main meal over three days. And maybe I'll be able to stretch it even further. :- ) What are your tricks for saving time when you're cooking?