February 2017 – Page 3 – Head in the Clouds

Garden Produce and Cooking

Hello!! How has everyones week started? I have done something annoying to a muscle under my shoulder blade and ow ow ow – I can’t turn my head easily and its a general pest! Things got done slowly with a lot of whinging. (Jeff was asleep so I had to whinge to myself)

Anyway, I had a really nice time picking things today. A silly amount of cucumbers were ready – hoping to sell these but if not, will have to break out the cucumber relish recipe and make up a batch or 10.

I got into the kitchen to start processing – sweet chilli sauce was up first. We ran out a while back and I finally had enough chillies to make a batch. It takes a lot of chillies to get 300 grams! (about 10 ounces)

(recipe here )

Midnight in the kitchen not the best time for taking photos – oh well

I also had enough tomatoes to make up a batch of tomato relish! I think we are close to being out of that too – its one we use a lot! (as well as the usual use on meat and sandwiches, it makes an excellent pizza base sauce)

So I made a start by chopping 6lb’s of tomatoes and 2lb’s of onion. It has to be sprinkled in salt and stand overnight. Tomorrow I will pour off the excess liquid and start cooking

During the chopping, I multi-tasked and set the ice cream maker going (I had pre-made the first bit earlier in the day) then added the pureed cherries that I did the other day.

I enjoy taste testing

Anyway, got some bread baking now for my breakfast tomorrow. Best get myself to bed. Its horribly late! 🙂

Cheers

One Year Ago

Hi there – slow, cool & rainy Sunday for us!
Thought I would have a quick peek at what was happening February last year. This season is waaaaaay behind in comparison!

This time last year I was gobsmacked by a photograph of a potato that sold for over a million dollars. So I had a go at taking my own potato photo – sadly no-one even offered me twenty bucks for it!!

Our cat was still cute (I think) and we were starting to stock up on firewood

And the vegetables just kept on coming!

I dabbled in a bit of selling out the front

Its annoying I just don’t have enough to put out the front yet – my Texas Fund needs topping up!!

And of course there was lots of pretty stuff too!
Hope your weekend has been excellent and relaxing!

Cheers!

The Start of the “Boardwalk”

Hello!
Lovely day here today. We took advantage and made a start on the garden boardwalk (clearly I convinced Jeff it was a great idea!)

Eventually we need it to continue up over the stupid concrete filled barrels, but for today, it was a small start at the bottom end, to see if the
Dodgy-Brothers-Millar-Team could actually make up something that would work.

Starting point – rocks to be removed, weeds to pull and look – my ~~container of collected crap~~ treasures!

Gathered materials (all the free wood we have collected)

Lets take a moment to pause and admire these excellent sawhorses that my mother made!! She is an amazing dressmaker and all around crafty person – but she did a stint in woodworking while I was in high school. The sawhorses were one of her projects. We were lucky enough to be given them and they have come in very very handy many times!

(And my husband is also awesome at sawing 🙂 )

Spacing out the slats. (Flies were really bad today! Hence the fly veils!)

Aaaaand it pretty much looks like a table

Tomorrow after the cement has set, I will go about building up the rocks around it so hopefully the first part will fit into its place a bit more naturally.
Now that we have done one small section, we are a bit more confident on moving on to the next bit!

There was still plenty of daylight left by the time we had packed up the tools, so we decided a hike around Anniversary Bay would be good for us and the upcoming trek

The views along the coast never disappoint

Game time – spot the echidna:

Spot the wallaby:

Tide is a lot higher today than when we were last here

The tide being high, we had to walk over more rocks in this section than usual

Hope your weekend is going along fabulously!

Cheers!

Weeding (again)

Here we are! Friday, weeks end and time to get into a little work in the garden today. Those weeds won’t fall out by themselves!

Actually I like weeding. Its satisfying and its not something I have to make extensive plans with or overheat my brain on 🙂

Wasn’t a bad day – its been rather cool for February though…

It was also lawn day – the chooks get a bit displeased because I lock them up in their coop area while all the gates and fences are open for Jeff to mow and whipper-snipper everything.
The girls are so excited when they are finally set free again!

A decent afternoons work! I suppose I need to go stock up on seaweed again!!

All flowers, not many beans! You can see the potatoes in the background that have really yellowed off. This worries me. I think its way too early for them to be dying off. Suppose I should check my photos from last season to see how they compare. I know I harvested in March last year… just can’t remember how long before that, that they had started dying off.

Cucumber flowers keep coming and going – this one going.

Corn is really starting to form up well! I have my hopes up…

I also saw another couple of man-fern fronds unravelling!

Hope your weekends are awesome!

Nighty night!

Day nicely rounded off with a kilo of raspberries!

Starting to Gather Seeds

Hello! We are stampeding through the week – well, time is… I am meandering and not achieving a lot.
I did start making a collection of some of the seeds around the garden

Podding the sweet peas is quite relaxing

Carrot seeds are fuzzy and weird!

I will be putting some in the garden soon to start a new lot of carrots growing that will hopefully take us a good way through winter

Parsley is everywhere… this is the only seed head I have spotted that is about ready for me to pick

Mostly the snow peas aren’t dried enough to pick properly, but I did get a few handfuls of seed

I have very much enjoyed these snapdragons… such a rich colour. So def. saving those seeds in hope to get a few more popping up around the garden next season.

A few tomatoes and zucchini were ready to pick today

Of course I had a pocket of beans to munch on as I did the rounds of the garden!

Hope your day was excellent!

Cheers!

Ice Cream and Dehydrating Stuff

The week is rushing by, and its February already!
I got some extra wife-points by turning some of the cherries into cherry ice cream (Should tally my points and see about getting a present when I reach 100) 😀

The photo doesn’t do it justice, but I was in a rush to get it to the table and scoff.

It turned cold today – and rained off and on. So I really have nothing too exciting garden-wise to report from Norwich House.

I did actually book our Overland Track hike for mid-March so we are committed now!

I am slowing trying out more with the dehydrator to arrange some sensible lightweight meals to take along with us

One of my page followers, Judy, gave me some links via facebook to groups that are keen on dehydrating, which is awesome so I can ask questions and hopefully get together some simple meals that taste good.

Not sure if I had mentioned how awesome the beef jerky that my husband made recently (it really isn’t the most photogenic subject so you will just have to imagine the goodness) Anyway – that’s going to be a welcome snack on our hike

It is generally a 6 day affair – but of course people have suggested taking enough food for 8 days ‘just in case’

I did some meatballs tonight in a made up sauce (just garden stuff – tomato grated zucchini etc) I thought I could try to dehydrate the leftovers.
We ate it on couscous which wasn’t bad, but I think I would prefer pasta. The couscous was so quick to prepare tho! That certainly gives it bonus points!

I saw some dehydrated meal packs in the camping shop – wow!! Somewhere between $16 & $20 per meal! I KNOW I can do better than that!

Will be grateful for any and all suggestions 🙂
We will be ‘practice cooking’ whatever I dry over the next little while so we can be confident of having our skills up to scratch BEFORE heading out on the great adventure!

Very much looking forward to it 🙂

Hope everyones week is going nice and smoothly!

Cheers!