Crispy skin duck

I love duck. Who doesn't really.

The cost of buying duck is well out of our price range, and really not a necessity so I wouldn't do it. But my wonderful and ultra-talented Mum keeps Pekin ducks, the result, beautiful young doomed drake to eat and at the moment a good amount of duck eggs. Last night I took the opportunity to roast up a wee quacker - crispy skinned as of course.

And I have realised far too late that there are no plated pictures, no duck left either, it was tooooo goooood.

Our big girl's birthday!

Miss Kei-te-pai has just turned four. She was very excited about her upcoming big day and would tell us everyday what cake she wanted, it changed everyday. Eventually she settled on cupcakes - wonderful and easy to whip up. The next day she wanted bugs. Bugs?! But this is not so surprising as Miss Kei-te-pai is certainly not a girly girl (takes after her Mama on that front!). So what could we come up with:
Bugs!

And Cupcakes!

A happy birthday girl who enjoyed having her friends over for a wee party.

Miss Meggie Moo is just plain happy.

Tomato goodness

It's full-on tomato season here. Apart from the usual fresh tomato dishes I like to make sure that we have lots extra to get us through the year. I dump all the extra tomatoes into the freezer until I have enough to make a big batch of yummy tomato soup. We loooove tomato soup and I find that its really easy to convert into passata or pasta sauce just by adding garlic and herbs.

This is my Poppa's recipe, so it is tried and true.
7lb tomatoes, fresh or frozen
8 onions, peeled and quartered
Salt (definitely non-iodised!)
Sugar (He would use white, but I prefer Rapadura for the extra nutrients plus the molasses taste)

Put into a large pot and bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the onions and tomatoes are soft and juicy.

Puree all the soup through a mouli, making sure that you put the pulp through 2-3x to make sure you get all the juice out.
And yes, it is essential to make a mess while doing this and enjoy it!

Voila! Gorgeous red gold goodness. You can add a whacking great wedge of butter at this stage to give a smoother finish but as I use it for other dishes I leave the butter out until serving.

Goes down a treat...