mountain masala

Update on Worship

Last night I was part of an "Update" series for ministers and lay leaders on the topic of worship. It was one of four sessions over 2 days organised by the College and Mission Resourcing SA (another synod dept), aimed at giving people a brief update on "what's the latest?" in an area, while (hopefully) leaving them hungry for more. I co-presented with Rev Jenni Hughes, who is an excellent liturgist and musician. We had 45 mins each. The room was full of about 30 ministers, for whom this is their bread and butter, and some (mainly older) lay leaders. How many wanted to 'jazz up' a traditional Sunday morning, and how many wanted to move to new pastures?

The topic came about because the recent NCLS data shows that the Uniting Church in SA has some work to do in the area of worship.

Here's what I did:

Pie again....

Lamb pie with sweet potato, pine nuts, eschallots and feta. cooked up with coriander, ground cumin, paprika, allspice, cinnamon, ground ginger, chilli powder, honey, chopped dried figs, grated lemon zest. served with sauted zucchini, a sambal of roast red capsicum, eschallot, vino cotto and szechuan pepper-salt, and yoghurt on the side.

"Departures" - Bernard Fanning

Lamb pie

Home-made lamb pie with mash, mushroom and peas. This is leftover filling from the pie the other night made into small pies, but this time using store-bought shortcake and puff pastry. I've just decided not to use pre-made shortcrust pastry ever again...

Young people leading themselves

One of our daughters is getting quite involved with The Oaktree Foundation, a social change movement run by young people, with almost no paid staff. Accordsing to their website,

"The Oaktree Foundation is Australia’s first and largest youth-run development agency. We’re another garage-startup. We began in 2003 with 30 people, working in living rooms and public halls. Now we’ve grown to become an established NGO, comprising of 300 volunteer staff and seven fully operational state offices."

Our daughter has been on the "Make Poverty History" national road trip to Canberra, attended by 1000 young people, is volunteering one day a week in the SA office (she had to apply and be interviewed for this), was making a promo video for them last night, and is about to go to Cambodia with them for 3 1/3 weeks to check out their development projects.

I'm intrigued by how empowered these young adults both feel and are. No-one in the organisation is over 26 years of age. For a long time I've felt that young adults will eventually leave any organisation that they are not running. I know so many Christian young adults who are more interested in changing the world than in joining the church. Church is not a 'cause' in and of itself, and most church youth or young adult groups have social transformation as a minor aspect of what they do, if at all.

Darren Percival sings Ray Charles

The other night we shared a wedding anniversary present - an excellent meal at The Apothecary 1878 in Hindley Street. Lovely old venue, excellent food and wine. Great staff.

Darren Percival was the runner-up on The Voice last year. We didn't really watch the show, but managed to catch a couple of Darren's performances and were very impressed. He's been touring with a Ray Charles tribute on the back of an album. This was the last night of a six month tour. It was a fantastic evening. Great songs, great band. Darren invests his songs with his being in a way that I've rarely seen, transparently joyous and melancholic, effervescent and infectious. You can't help but delight in seeing someone so happy in sharing their gift. [BTW he also does amazing stuff with loop pedals...] Here's a taste of the show...

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Memes #2

More sci-fi and fantasy memes with a biblical twist, featuring Stark Trek, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, 2001: A Space Odyssey, True Blood, Xena, and Lord of the Rings. ....

Lamb, Spinach, Cheese and Freekeh Pie

I adapted a pie recipe today and it worked brilliantly. I used Maggie Beer's easy sour cream pastry recipe, and took inspiration from here. I blind-baked the base (just saying this because last time I didn't. (This is the third time I've ever made a meat pie!)

I stewed some lamb chops on low heat on the stove top with diced carrots, celery, garlic, leeks and green peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme and tarragon. Strained them, kept the stock, and cut up the chops, discarding bones and fat. I ended up with about 600g cooked lamb. I put the stock back on the stove to reduce.

I had part-cooked 1 cup of  freekeh (green wheat grains) to go into a salad. I'd tried to microwave them and they were still undercooked. The lamb itself needed more cooking. So I ended up putting the lamb, freekeh and stock back in a pot together with 1 chopped leek and 2 chopped spring onions to simmer for another 1/2 hour. (Exit the salad idea.)

The strained lamb and freekeh mixture was mixed with 150g fresh spinach (blanched and chopped), 100g crumbled feta cheese, 1 cup ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, a large handful of chopped parsley and juice of 1/2 lemon, salt and pepper.

There was too much mixture for the pie. So I took 2/3 of the above and mixed through 2 whisked eggs. I put this in the pie case and put the remaining 80g of crumbled feta on the top of the filling. Then added the pastry top and brushed with beaten egg.

The pie case turned out fine, the filling wasn't too wet, and it tasted really great! I actually made a pie that didn't fall apart. Most of all, the freekeh was fine in the pie, well-cooked and tasted good within the filling.

Now I'll try to write it up as a proper recipe for one pie. We have enough leftover filling to make some smaller pies for lunches.

Related articles

freekeh salad

Freekeh Burger with Chipotle Mustard

Freekeh Is The New Buzz Food For 2013

Cardamom Spiced Freekeh

Blood Orange

The first from our tree!

Poached Pears in spiced syrup

These are in a syrup that I half-turned into toffee when I was trying to brown the pears - 1/2 vanila bean, 2 cloves, 1 star anise, 1 cinnamon stick, water, white and brown sugar. Served with marscapone.

Related articles

Poach the nashi

Yes honey, they are boiled pears...

Ingredient of the week: star anise

Port Wine & Beaujolais Poached Bartlett Pears