Recipes – Page 4 – Head in the Clouds

Pottering About

Both Jeff and I have managed to catch colds (My first one since moving to Tassie) so I am not rushing around like a maniac.

Still… I started a bit of a vegie patch clean up and am still picking a reasonable amount of food. The chillies recently picked have been deseeded and added to the others in the freezer, and will be made into sweet chilli sauce at a later date.

More apples got put into the dehydrator and the pantry smells good right now!!

The zucchinis are a far cry, size wise, from my other ones, but they still go into dinners and give us a feed! (BTW I will announce the closest guess to the weight of the ‘big’ zucchini at the end of the weekend – one person is really close! 🙂 )

I picked enough silverbeet seeds to last forever and ever –

I will leave it to dry a bit more before taking it off the stems

I am also pleased to see a number of the laterals that I picked last week are showing roots. Hopefully I can ‘winter’ a few of these successfully

I have been running lots of jobs, projects & outings in my mind for the next month to get into as in a couple of days I have my gorgeous niece, Emma coming to stay for 10 days, and a lovely Japanese young lady, Mana, who will stay with us a month and help me out in exchange for food & board

Emma’s recent visit to us, hanging out writing messages to friends in the sand!

Mana on her first visit to us a couple of years ago!

It will be great fun to have a couple of sidekicks here with me. I reckon I can convince them to help fill the car with driftwood from Black River Beach while Jeff is sleeping off a nightshift! 🙂

Emma has been to Japan a few times (very lucky for a young teenager!) and Mana has lived in Australia before, so it will be fun for them both to meet and improve on their language skills!

Tomato-Zucchini Bake

Anyway – I will leave you with a side dish I love making up while the tomatoes & zucchinis are on form. Its a bit of a twist on the stuffed tomatoes. I have a lot of cherry tomatoes this season rather than the bigger ones that I make the stuffed tomatoes with.

First, get a baking dish and grate a good later of zucchini into it

Then layer with thick slices of tomato and thin slices of onion

Make some breadcrumbs, and mix some extra tomatoes up in the Gee Whizzer – I like to add some herbs and garlic salt too –

Mix the two together –

Crumble on top and add a bit of butter and chuck it in the oven for about 20 minutes 🙂

Its really easy and makes a fabulous side dish. You can add whatever else takes your fancy – I have put cheese in it, or added fresh basil on top!

Enjoy your weekends!

Catching up with Preserving the Produce

I enjoy having fresh herbs (and garlic) at hand

Time to get cracking on all those tomatoes! I needed some smaller packs in the freezer that I can pull out and use for dinner every now and again. I did a few containers of plain tomato. Then I also made up a nice big pot of tomatoes, onion, garlic, capsicum & fresh herbs – a nice ready made mix for pasta sauces.

And then in a total fit of organisation that my mother would be proud of, I even labelled and dated the containers!

Onward!

I have been wanting to make up a batch of my Nanna’s cucumber relish. I even went and bought some celery seeds from the health food shop in anticipation of getting my act (and cucumbers) together

Procrastination set in and I have been carrying around this suspicious looking bag in my purse for 3 weeks. I am sure cashiers have raised their eyebrows once or twice as I have opened it up!!

Happily the recipe also calls for apples – another 5 apples put to good use!

First Ingredients:

1&1/2 lb cucumber peeled & chopped

1 lb green apples peeled and chopped

1 lb onion chopped

1/2 lb sugar

1/2lb white vinegar

1 small tablespoon salt

Cook all until tender

Enjoying using my Nanna’s old scales when making up her recipes!

Second Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 tablespoon mustard powder

1/2 tablespoon turmeric

1 teaspoon celery seed

1/2 cup flour (I use cornflour to keep gluten free)

Mix all with a little more vinegar into a paste and add to relish, cook to thicken, keep stirring.

Spoon into sterilised jars

Yum. Another nice old fashioned recipe that I hadn’t made in a while.

I NEED to order more jars/lids – especially lids!!!

Last on my list today was to make up a pumpkin soup. I had been eyeing off my little stash of pumpkins and thinking about soup!

So I baked a few pieces –

First time I have bothered baking pumpkin for soup! Best flavour!

I fried up some onion and garlic, then added a litre of chicken stock and a couple of potatoes along with the baked pumpkin (sans skin of course)

Once the potato was soft, I whizzed it all up into creaminess and was pretty much done! I usually love adding coconut cream or coconut milk to pumpkin soup, but my taste test on this was pretty good so I thought I would leave it as is tonight!

All fancy tonight with an entrée for dinner!!

So I am all kitchened out today. If the weather is kind, I will have to get outside tomorrow to play!

Its only 7 degrees C out there tonight (44F) and we indulged in a fire again tonight. During the day it was on and off again warm and cool, along with sun and rain! Typical “can’t make up my mind” weather for this place! 🙂

Have a great day!

Cheers

Ruby Tuesday. Cows, Cream & Sponge Cake

I really enjoy sitting down with Ruby & a cuppa and listening to stories of years gone by. Funny, happy, & sad tales and very different to the lives we live now.

I dropped in this afternoon (bang on afternoon tea time when the sponge cake was ready for eating!! – more on that later) and asked about her cow.

Ruby and her first husband Bill bought the 2 acre property that had a small dwelling and built up the house that is there now. When they showed it to her Dad, he was very keen that they should run a cow. Ruby and Bill didn’t have the money to buy a cow as they had spent all their money acquiring the land.

So her Dad gave them a cow – a big Durham. It was really too big for what they needed and the property size, so one of the neighbours swapped her for a nice little jersey heifer.

Clearly not Ruby’s cow. This is one of our neighbours that is helping illustrate the story, even tho its not a milking cow, let alone a jersey!!

It was 2 years before she was able to be milked. Ruby said she did the milking as the jersey was small, and Bills hands were too big to effectively milk her so that was Ruby’s job.

They had a separator and a butter churn. The milkman came by about three times a week and collected the cream – and the cream cheque was enough to cover the grocery bill!! Ruby said she made butter about once a week from the cream or when necessary.

This is my butter – just to illustrate the story. 🙂

The best story that was related to the cow, was when Ruby was pregnant with her daughter, Margaret. She was having contractions and reckoned she was at about the second stage, so she thought she had time to milk the cow before trotting off to the hospital. She made Bill bring in the cow… but ended up pushing him out of the way as he wasn’t doing it right and speed-milked the cow! She told me “I don’t know how well she got milked that night, but she got milked!!”

Contractions getting stronger, so off they go to WALK to the hospital!!! This is at about 5pm. Spied by a neighbour they were asked if they were out for their evening stroll. Bill was a bit agitated by this time “No!!” he says they were “off to the hospital to have the baby, so bring the car around quick!!” Ruby on the other hand was quite determined not to make a fuss and walk. She lost that argument and was put in the car.

By 8pm she had a baby girl!!

Can you imagine?? Milking the cow at 5pm and walking off to the hospital to have a baby by 8!

Things are a little different today.

Ruby’s Recipes.

Each week I will try to share a gem from this brilliant tatty old diary-recipe book!

SPONGE CAKE RECIPE – Ruby’s Special

So I stroll in as the kettle is boiling and the first sponge cake is ready for testing!

In her heyday, Ruby would make a lot of these whenever the church had a fete.

This is the current recipe she is using.

INGREDIENTS:

3 eggs (room temperature)

1 small cup sugar

2 tablespoons cold water

Vanilla essence

3/4 cup of self raising flour

1/4 cup cornflour

tiny pinch salt

It was my job to slice this in two! Was a bit nervous!! Margie adds the cream!

METHOD:

Separate the eggs & beat the whites until fluffy in bowl

Gradually add sugar and beat again until sugar is melted

Add yolks and beat again with the cold water and vanilla essence

Fold in dry ingredients

Place in two (pre prepared) greased & floured round tins, 7″ diameter or equiv.

Cook at 400F (200C) approx. 20 minutes.

Today Ruby and Margie experimented with coffee, which was added to the water. It made a lovely cake, but plan to make it more ‘coffee flavoured’ next time rather than todays ‘Hint of Coffee’ (todays had a teaspoon of instant)

Distressingly easy to eat a lot of this! 🙂

Hope you have enjoyed a little glimpse into Ruby’s past.

Cheers

PS Don’t forget there is still time to “Guess the weight of the zucchini” in yesterdays Sloth Post. I am enjoying the messages and guesses so far! 🙂

Guests & Banana/Raspberry Loaf Recipe

We had the luck of being able to catch up with long time family friends today! Helen & Geoff have been on a cruise, which stops off at Burnie for a day!

So with our house all scrubbed and shiny, and lawns mowed, we were able to show them our little patch of Tassie for the first time.

And as you can see – The north-west put on some rather lovely weather!

We enjoyed a little fossick at Fossil Bluff before coming home to indulge in tea & banana/raspberry loaf, garden tours and lunch!

Of course, since making her famous, a must do on guests lists, is a visit to meet and enjoy a cuppa with Ruby! Time was scarce, but we dropped in, and it was so gorgeous as she had the good china out, so we were all posh and drank in style (accompanied by a fabulous Ruby-Made sponge cake!)

So just a short post tonight, although I will add the recipe for the Banana/Raspberry Loaf just in case someone needs it! 🙂

Tomorrow I have scheduled a day of nothing for myself!! I have been working on this idea for a while 🙂 Not sure how I will spend my day of leisurely idleness, but I am looking forward to it!

Hope you have had a lovely day.

Cheers

Basic Banana Bread:

Ingredients:

125g butter softened

1 cup (175g) brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups mashed banana (although I use 1&1/2 and it is a little less heavy)

1&3/4 cups plain (All purpose) flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

1 teaspoon bicarb soda, sifted

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup golden syrup

Method:

Preheat oven to 160C (325F)

Place butter, sugar, vanilla in mixer and beat until pale and creamy

Add eggs, beat well to combine

Add the rest of ingredients and stir to combine

At this point I mix in a cup of frozen raspberries (some whole some a bit crushed)

Spoon into loaf tin (approx. 26 X 11cm) lightly greased and lined with baking paper

Recipe says bake for an hour, but mine seem to take 1.5 hours or even a little longer.

I prefer it cooled, and spread with butter to eat.

In fact… I am going to indulge in some now!

Ruby Tuesday – Autumn in the Garden

A familiar sight smiling over her front gate

I dropped into Ruby’s this afternoon and found her in the midst of preserving her peaches in possibly the oldest steamer I have ever seen! It really looks like it has done some miles, and then some!

Why buy new stuff when the old stuff works?

Apparently it was bought in a ‘mighty hurry’ as years ago she was preserving some peas when her mothers canner sprung a leak! Being very serious about their peas and panicking about losing their gardens harvest, a very speedy trip to the shop was made. (And back then things weren’t as easy to come by as the department store shopping we have now!) The shop owner said he didn’t think he had one, but found this copper one out the back! Not thinking twice, Ruby snapped it up and raced home to rescue the precious peas! Clearly it has worked well ever since.

Just before Easter I got out into Ruby’s garden to do some overdue weeding. Its probably the worst weeding job I have done, as to stop the seed heads spreading I simply yanked the tops off as many plants as I could – I will return to dig the roots up properly garden bed by garden bed. Ruby gets out and pulls out what she can too of course

What I DID notice in her garden was pumpkins

Orange ones –

Pale salmon coloured ones –

Big ones –

And generally pumpkin vines running amok all over the place!

There are at least 10 pumpkins hiding in this patch

Ruby is a classic for burying peels and food scraps all over the garden, which eventually turn into plenty more random potato and pumpkin plants!

I counted 23 established pumpkins growing – she was a bit surprised when I told her how many she had! ‘Oh well’ she says with a grin and a shrug ‘I like my pumpkins and eat them everyday, so that’s good!’

We went up the back for a look at what needed to be done and got side-tracked picking beans. Ruby got a cardigan full – no doubt they ended up on the plate that day

I hope I am this photogenic when I am nearly 100!

I finally got around to checking out the broccolini that I had put under one of my vegie nets a while back, and decided they needed a good weeding! I was amazed at how healthy and sturdy they were looking (not like my poor manky things)

I knew Ruby would have had no idea how they were coming along, as she is nearly blind and there was no way she would have been able to see through the white netting

So cleaned up and mulched with some remaining seaweed, I dragged her back up the yard to check them out. She was so thrilled – I think she is planning her meals with them already!

Her artichoke plants are reaching the sky –

And the new lettuce, despite the oxalis, is thriving.

RUBY RECIPES

I thought I may try to share a recipe each week from this crazy recipe book of Ruby’s. As you can see, its a falling apart, tatty old diary that is stuffed full of notes, newspaper & magazine clippings and other collected recipes from friends. It’s a family heirloom in itself I reckon!

Today I will share the “Apple Slump” recipe – some readers from One Hundred Dollars a Month may have seen this already…

Ingredients:

5 or so apples, sliced

1 & 1/2 cups of self raising flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 ounces melted butter

pinch salt

1 cup water

Method:

Slice up your apples

Place in baking dish. I sprinkle cinnamon and sugar between layers

Fill baking dish

Mix other ingredients until smooth

Slowly pour over apples

Put into oven at 180 deg. Celsius

Bake for an hour or until sponge top cooked.

It will ‘slump’ as it cools.

Easy old fashioned recipe – lovely with cream or ice-cream.

Cheers!

Jam, sauce & dinner

Since there is a market upcoming (although by the sound of the pouring rain as I type, it may be a no-goer) I thought it best to drag some of the umpteen squillion bags of raspberries out of the freezer and make some more jam. Everyone seems to love it. (Except my weird husband who avoids it because he is a sook about seeds in his teeth! 🙂 ) (more for me!!)

It was important to test it –

Tick.

Moving right along to make up that sweet chilli sauce

Recipe for those who are interested:

You’ll need a long lead time if you want to grow your own chillies and garlic, otherwise its pretty straightforward.

Ingredients:

300 grams chillies (deseeded)

100 grams garlic

70 grams fresh ginger

1.2 litres of cider vinegar

2 kg sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Put your chillies, garlic and ginger in the Gee Whizzer with a bit of the cider vinegar to puree

Add to large pot with remaining ingredients and boil (keep an eye on it – horrible to clean up if it boils over)

Recipe calls for 25 minutes of simmering but I need a LOT longer (ie an hour or two) to reduce to the desired thickness

Do yourself a favour and DO NOT INHALE while cooking or even washing the pot. Seriously. Your eyes will water for a week.

Pour into sterilised bottles and enjoy.

Drizzle on cream cheese and biscuits (crackers) or very nice with spring rolls

Since I had made meatloaf yesterday I didn’t have much to do to get dinner ready, except trot down the yard to my personal supermarket to pull up some carrots –

Impressed with my carrots that I have mostly ignored all season!

Pick the first of the pumpkins It was so small but the plant has died back so why not try it? Glad we did – tasty!!

And a visit to the herb garden for some basil, parsley and oregano. Honestly – have you seen how expensive ‘fresh’ herbs are to buy in the supermarket? Even if you don’t have a garden, grab a few pots and grow your favourite herbs. You won’t look back!

I also had a taste for some stuffed tomatoes, so while the vegies were baking I prepared a few. Its another great way to make use of your excess tomatoes.

First whizz up some breadcrumbs and add some fresh herbs (or dry) and a bit of garlic salt

Get your tomatoes, cut in half and scoop out the centre.

Smush up or whizz up the centres and add them to the breadcrumb mixture then spoon the lot back into the tomato shells.

Top with a bit of basil and a smidge of butter. They will take about 5 minutes under the grill so you can do them last thing before serving up dinner.

I have no photo of dinner because I was hungry and ate it – plus it wasn’t that photogenic anyway – but it was fresh and tasted not too bad at all!

Cheers

What goes around…

I am trying out this whole “Circle of Life” thing and applying it to the household budget, garden produce and grocery shopping thing. I figure I need to make the property pay its way as much as possible, then put those dollars back into things I can’t make or grow myself.

Today was one of those ‘mostly kitchen’ days where I am trying to convert raw food into saleable food, and most of that entails an awful lot of chopping!

First things first, since the day was sunny and breezy I had to do at least some housework related jobs, so two loads of laundry got put out on the line, but I successfully avoided the folding of all the previously washed stuff (that’s why we have a spare room right??)(Altho that pile is getting a bit of a worry as Jeff was complaining about lack of clean undies)(and no – there wasn’t a lack – they were just hiding under some t-shirts)(because you all needed to know that)

Anyway – so, ever hopeful I go and set up my “For Sale” tables out the front in the hope that people may stop and take some tomatoes off my hands and give me some money in exchange.

That done, it was time to get the tomato relish bubbling away and chop into more tomatoes. I had been up silly late last night chopping tomatoes and onions so they could ‘sit’ overnight ready for me to do something with today.

Even with that 6 pounds in the pot and a box of them out the front I was still left with this to sort –

So chop chop chop, another 6 pounds done and put in the pot with the right ingredients to get some tomato sauce under way.

(See bottom of post for Tomato Relish Recipe)

We eat our dried apples fairly smartly… so its back to apples!

Source Images: DSC_1368.JPG (Av: F22.0; Tv: 1/250 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Afternoon under the apple tree

There is a local market held on the foreshore twice a month. I try to get there to sell off my excess produce, sauces, relishes and jams. People seem to like the fact I have grown and made it all myself – organically – so I do reasonably well.

I get to meet lots of people, its lovely and social and the view of the ocean can be pretty good too!

Source Images: DSC_1815.JPG (Av: F14.0; Tv: 1/800 sec.; ISO: 640; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Wynyard Beach – on one of its grouchy days!

I put aside the money from these ventures and it goes back into buying our meat (which we source in bulk locally) and other things like milk, butter, flour, chocolate etc. My aim is to have more money coming in from produce than leaves in supermarket costs. So far this year I failed in January, but succeeded in February! Yay !!

On tomorrows list? Chillies, tomato sauce, corn – stalk mulching (if its not raining) and apples… will be dreaming of apples…

Source Images: DSC_1358.JPG (Av: F22.0; Tv: 1/250 sec.; ISO: 1000; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Still plenty of apples left

PS In case you were wondering, my roadside stall brought in the princely sum of $3.50 today!! Hilarious! Best not give up my day job huh?? Hang on – this IS my day job!! 🙂

RECIPE – TOMATO RELISH

Credit to my Nanna!

INGREDIENTS:

6lb ripe tomatoes chopped

2lb onions diced

2lb sugar

3 tablespoons mustard powder

2 tablespoons curry powder

vinegar (I use white to keep gluten free, but malt and cider also work fine)

salt

Cornflour

METHOD:

Mix chopped tomato and onion in a large pot, sprinkle with a handful of salt and leave overnight. Next day pour off excess liquid, then pour vinegar into the mix until covered. Add sugar, mix in and bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer uncovered for 2-3 hours. Prepare about 10-12 jars – clean and sterilise in oven (I do mine at 100 deg celcius) and wash lids. Mix mustard and curry powder with a couple of heaps dessert spoons of cornflour into a separate bowl. Add water and make into smooth paste. Pour into tomato mixture and reheat to thicken. I usually let that cook for 5 – 10 minutes more.

Pour relish into hot jars and seal.

Fabulous on most meats – hot or cold. Gorgeous on ham and cheese sandwiches and it makes a delightful pizza base sauce! Enjoy!