On the kitchen bench.

Did I say we're shearing? Did I say that when you're shearing you go through a lot of food? A lot. And so, consequently there's been a lot of foodstuffs on the kitchen bench lately.

Some of it's pretty. Some not so pretty. Here's some of the prettier stuff. Courtesy of my phone. Snapped quickly as the prep work commenced, or continued. Or as the shopping was put away after the farmer's markets...

Here's a gluten free orange cake. Yum. This is one of those cakes where you put the whole orange in, rind and all. The best bit about this version is that you don't have to prep-boil/cook/stew the cake at all. Just chop up and chuck in!

And then we have some eggs in the bowl. A used bowl! Another cake had already been mixed in here. What a lazy cook ;-) You get like that at shearing time. I prefer to term it 'efficient'!

Ah, persimmons. For a great little persimmon and walnut cake. This one is very good. Quite like a banana bread, so great toasted with a bit of butter. It's a google discovery that I had a bit of trouble finding when I wanted to cook it the second time! When I found it again I wrote the recipe in my book! Preserved for next year when the persimmons are ripe again.

What's the combination below for??? Can you guess? A farm bench must at sometime produce scones yes?! But I won't claim to making 'real' scones. These are the quick 'n easy lemonade version. There isn't time for rubbing butter in around here...!

But I do sift the flour ;-) Mostly.

So there you go. A little series of shots on the kitchen bench. What's on your bench? 

We're currently on 'pause' out here because we got 15ml of rain yesterday and so ran out of dry sheep to shear. This means we have a few days off waiting for the rain to stop and the sheep to dry out. Quite nice really. Even though we know it will mean more work and complications later.

Hope you're getting some time to pause. And be warm! See you again soon.

Emm.