Australian finger lime love 💚 and enhancing baked beans with anchovies

Finger lime love 💚

Before we get to me expressing love for the Australian finger lime…

Three Australian finger limes

This is a photograph of three Australian finger limes on a cutting board.

Visitor behaviour at Yummy Lummy

Earlier in the year, I mentioned a spike in views on Yummy Lummy as a result of the vanilla slice article written by Jolene Laverty.

This week I noticed a similar spike. However, the difference was a high number of views without a corresponding number of visitors. I could see the visitors were likely from Australia when I interrogated Google Analytics.

Graph showing a spike in views

Graph of Yummy Lummy blog statistics

I hope whoever was trawling through Yummy Lummy found whatever he or she was looking for. It’s not the first time. I’ve written previously about internet and social media trolling and the unpleasant behaviour that can occur when people try to make life difficult. I’d prefer people who have an issue with me to confront me directly rather than in roundabout ways. If whoever was doing it was after something to have a go at me, feel free to contact me.

It would be nice to think whoever it was, was looking through recipes, however, the posts that were visited weren’t recipe posts and many of them were from between two and four years ago.

If you’re reading this and wondering how do I know what visitors were looking at, it should come as no surprise at just how useful Google Analytics is for bloggers.

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Finger lime love 💚

Have you ever enjoyed the mouthfeel of the firm juice-filled sacs of the Australian finger lime? It’s not so much the smooth sacs of juice but the little explosions of tangy goodness as you move your tongue and gently squeeze the sacs as you masticate. The result is a cascade of spurts of refreshing nectar.

Finger lime enhanced fennel salad with Coles chicken Kiev

This is a photograph of Saturday dinner. Coles chicken Kiev with finger lime fennel salad.

Finger limes are native to Australia and are now a so-called gourmet product popularised by Australian TV cooks and chefs. I’m not sure if finger limes are exported or if the shrub can be grown overseas for commercial cultivation. You can find more about Citrus australasica on Wikipedia.

I remember the first time I tried finger limes. It was in a salad at a Canberra restaurant, viz., Black Fire Restaurant in Braddon. The next time was around Christmas a few years ago and a friend added the taut juice-filled vesicles to some fresh plump Sydney oysters with mirin and miso. Best oysters ever.

So this week I found some finger limes in Coles and thought the translucent caviar-like vesicles of happiness would go well with a fennel and lime salad. I served the salad with a little leftover roast lamb shoulder which I had cooked on Sunday evening.

One of my favourite flavours is lime and I usually make my fennel salad with lime zest 💚 and lime juice.

Valentine’s day

My gut feeling is that this day didn’t gain much traction locally. While social media was full of red roses and romantic wishes from Tweeps and Facebook friends, I hardly saw any evidence of Valentine’s Day while I was out and about.

As a curmudgeon in-training, my hope would be we could do away with this day forever. I mean, what’s the point?

Florida mass murder

There has been so much written about this already, the facts can be found elsewhere. Regular readers know I don’t express political opinions here, however, what I hadn’t really appreciated until very recently was the drilling school students in the US go through in preparation for active shooter events.

I read a status update from a US-based friend on Facebook and it really hit home just how the lives of school students in the US are dominated by very real threats of injury and death. My friend’s son mentioned how concerned he was about the protocol of locking the classroom door and getting behind desks. He assumed a shooter would shoot out a lock and simply walk in and unload. My friend is an expert in doors, especially locks and security doors and she was able to reassure her son that schools in the US require doors on classrooms to meet some basic requirements and it’s unlikely a lock could be shot out so that the door would simply open.

I hope school students in Australia never have to experience this sort of drill requirement let alone a real active shooter situation. That said, I hope fire and natural disaster drills occur regularly. I remember at Royal Darwin Hospital we had to drill for tropical cyclones and flood events. I remember at the Princess Alexandra Hospital we had regular fire drills which resulted in regular visits from local firefighters. More recently, I’ve participated in fire evacuation drills at the Canberra Hospital and Health Services.

Anchovies

Do you like anchovies? I love the little salty oily fishy tidbits of joy. I really like them on a pizza, even if it’s a plain tomato paste, basil and cheese pizza. The addition of those little fish that go crispy in the pizza oven really enhances the flavour. I was reading a blog post from a food and photography lover in France and he described how he enhanced an humble tin of baked beans by adding a little garlic and anchovies. I did a short show about it over at the Random Yummy episode 3. Please have a listen and let me know what you think.

I tried to do the same thing and made a tin of Heinz baked beans taste so much better.

The anchovies and baked beans I used

This is a photograph of a tin of anchovies and Heinz baked beans on a cutting board.

Sydney

On Tuesday I found myself flying to Sydney for a meeting in the CBD.

Canberra Airport public art

This is a photograph of "The Athlete" at the Canberra Airport. It's a piece of public art depicting a naked woman in the stance of a shot putter.

While there is a lot of criticism of the public art in Canberra, especially the very large sums of money spent on the artworks, I’m a bit of a fan. Most of it is gaudy but for reasons I can’t explain, I like it.

The Athlete is one of my favourite pieces.

Circular Quay fire

This is a photograph from The Exchange building on Bridge Street Sydney. It shows a cruise liner berthed in Circular Quay.

Even though the meeting was scheduled to begin at 10 am, I booked the 6.30 am flight from CBR. The Sydney traffic is unpredictable and flight delays out of CBR can occur. It is fortunate that I did make the early booking. The traffic was very bad, especially in the CBD. There had been a fire which resulted in evacuations and street closures in the CBD. From what I’ve read, gas cylinders exploded and it’s fortunate no one was seriously injured. From what I could see seated in a taxicab; fire, ambulance, and police services were in full swing doing all they could to protect lives and property.

All I could see from the building I was in was a cruise liner and some smoke.

High speed Wi-Fi

A screenshot of an internet speed test showing really good download and upload speeds.

While the humidity of Sydney made me happy it was the free Wi-Fi on offer at the meeting venue which had me ecstatic. It’s not often you go somewhere and you get this sort of quality Wi-Fi. I wish I could get this sort of service in Canberra. I used to think my little MacBook was slow and getting old, but when the internet speed is good, that little machine sings sweetly.

Chicken Kiev and the MEATER3®

The MEATER®️ inserted into a chicken Kiev

This is a photograph of a chicken Kiev with the MEATER deeply inserted.

One of my most visited posts on Yummy Lummy is How long do you cook a Coles Chicken Kiev. Now that I have a MEATER® meat thermometer, I wanted to see what the ideal cooking time would be.

I used 75 °C/165 °F as my target temperature and went for it. You can read the new post at Yummy Lummy. It was a good quality assurance exercise. Check out the post to read why.

What I ate this week

I wasn’t as diligent this week with my food photography. I was in meetings for much of it.

Monday dinner

Baked crispy skin salmon with a stir-fried kale slaw

This is a photograph of Monday dinner. Oven baked torch seared salmon with stir-fried kale slaw.

Tuesday dinner

I went out to the local Canberra Southern Cross Club and had a chicken schnitzel with beans, guacamole and sour cream.

This is a photograph of Tuesday dinner. Mexican chicken schnitzel with chips and salad.

Wednesday dinner

Chicken Maryland with anchovy and garlic baked beans served with crispy Brussels sprouts.

This is a photograph of Wednesday dinner. Garlic and anchovy baked beans chicken maryland with crispy Brussels sprouts.

Thursday dinner

Leftover lamb with finger lime enhanced fennel salad.

This is a photograph of Thursday dinner. Finger lime enhanced rosemary lamb and fennel salad with Australian finger lime.

Friday lunch

Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

This is a photograph of Friday Lunch. Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

Friday dinner

Leftover lamb with spicy creamy cheesy vegetables

This is a photograph of Friday dinner. Super spicy leftover lamb with cheesy creamy Brussels sprouts.

Saturday breakfast

Baked eggs and Spam

This is a photograph of Saturday breakfast. Spam and baked eggs with cheese.

Saturday lunch

Chicken salad

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Chicken salad sans dressing.

Saturday dinner

Coles chicken Kiev with finger lime enhanced fennel salad

This is a photograph of Saturday dinner. Coles chicken Kiev with Australian finger lime fennel salad.

Sunday breakfast

Cheesy seedy baked Spam with poached eggs garnished with dill and parsley

This is a photograph of Sunday breakfast. Poached eggs with Spam 💚

Sunday lunch

McDonald’s (Maccas) McNuggets (Nugs)

This is a photograph of Sunday lunch. McDonalds McNuggets (Nugs) and mustard.

Final words

So dear reader, what do you have planned for the coming week? Have you had weird behaviour on your blog? Have you tried the Australian finger lime? What would you sacrifice for decent internet speeds?

Feel free to interact in the comments or via Twitter or Facebook.

Catch you next week.

13 Replies to “Australian finger lime love 💚 and enhancing baked beans with anchovies”

  1. Before your post Gary I had never heard of finger limes. I thought from your photo they were baby zucchini. Will have to look out for them now.

  2. We can get finger limes in the States – some places you can get them fresh, otherwise you have to order them or get lucky enough to find them at the store (say, if you live somewhere cold like Wisconsin).

    1. Excellent Sarah. I hope they’re not too expensive. The season is short, so they’re once a year sort of thing.

    2. Not too bad – I have bananas I can only get from Hawaii which are far more expensive. And I get the dried ones, because the fresh ones are just prohibitive, cost-wise.

  3. I had to google those limes. They are fascinating!!!!!!!!! if they are exported to AK, they’d probably be pretty nasty by the time they arrived.

    I’m always intrigued by your eating the skin on your fishes. I’ve never been able to do that. I do have earrings made from fish skin……

    I love your week of yummy meals-I didn’t know you could ‘check’ to see where people are reading from. They probably had to go get snacks after reading your blog! I always get hungry.

    1. Hi Kris, thanks.
      Fish skin is really nice, especially on salmon, but also on table fish when it’s cooked whole and steamed, especially Chinese style with soy, ginger and chilli. I’m not sure about the fish in Alaska and other states of the US, but here a whole bream or snapper works well and the skin is great.
      The WordPress reader also gives you some interesting demographic information.

    2. What is a table fish???? I thought salmon was a table fish! But, all of ours is skinned and boned and frozen. (Actually, it is not any good and I’d toss it if I dared. Mom thinks freezer burned food is ok. Shudder!)

    3. I meant any other fish which might be served whole, especially Chinese style when it’s steamed in a wok with soy, ginger and various herbs.

  4. Sounds like quite an eventful, week, Gaz. Really enjoy reading these recaps and your thoughts throughout this week on Sundays 🙂 I haven’t had tried the Australian finger lime. It is something I’ll have to think of trying at some point, and it can probably jazz up my dishes.

    That Spam with eggs look so good. I think a dash of cheese wouldn’t have hurt 😃 Hoping this week is a smooth one and that work goes okay. And hoping to make a cheesy dish 😃😃

    1. Thanks, Mabel, I hope you have a good one yourself 😃
      If you see any finger limes in the shop, try them, preferably on a salad or maybe on some salmon.
      The Spam turned out well and it’s such an easy way to prepare it 😃

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