Category: Kitchen

I got into the garden today to pick a few things – yay me!

Made up another large pasta mix to feed the hordes and a bit for the last square inch of space in the freezers

The boys made us dinner last night… Okonomiyaki!! Yummo. I don’t think they have ever made it before (the clue to that was someone googling how to cut a cabbage!)
Still… they worked it out and it was fabulous.
If you haven’t had it – its sort of a mix between an omelette and a pancake. We love it. I should remember to make it a little more often… so I bought some cabbage seedlings in the hope that I will get around to planting them!

Back to dinner – Put out some good side salad dishes to go along with the main dishes and got out some of our nice plates too!

The beetroot patch in the garden is going along amazingly well

My asparagus is not dead… I am just ignoring it as it takes so long to take hold. Actually I think it is going along ok

Lettuce is lovely… and I have carpets of parsley!

I made the chooks a couple of chicken cakes… they were very happy indeed.

Sadly we lost Screecher the other day. I think she was just old (since she has been with us since we first got here) For a couple of days she was mopey and not eating, then just died on the second morning. Poor old girl. We miss her – she was so naughty about getting into things she shouldn’t and showing no remorse!! She had a good life though!!
So we are down to 7 birds now. We have plans to get some more but not until we have gone through our string of visitors and upcoming hikes (so end April perhaps)

The boys have one more full day left.
Then Wednesday I have to get up hideously early to get them to the airport. Then almost a full day before our next guests arrive! Will be a speedy housework session followed by me passing out that evening haha

Snap dragons self seeded as I was hoping!

Anyway, I need to get a wriggle on and get to bed!! (and its not even 11pm!! wow!)
Hope your week has started amazingly!

Cheers

Hello!
My grand plan of slothing is still not quite coming to fruition! Still… I am enjoying a few days at home and not travelling so much each day for a change!

I made a nice big batch of pickled beetroot! So happy to be stocked up again!
Poor Jeff – he finds the smell of that cooking quite hard to take. I must admit it does get eye watering in the kitchen while its simmering!

Anyway, I promised myself at least one big garden task to knock on the head today – and the hothouse seemed like a good place to start.
I literally had to begin at the doorway and slowly work my way in.
I pulled out a lot more tomatoes and tied up the more promising ones.
I also pulled out dozens of strawberry runners!

Have no clue where to plant them. Hoping they can live in this tray until I am done with visitors.
I also found a lot of hiding cucumbers! I was going to pull all the plants out but relented and left some there that looked like they were flowering again. I did thin it out, cut back some of the leaves and vines – so we shall see.
These old cucumbers will be great to collect seeds from. (oh.. and one failed rock melon)

At least I can get into the hothouse now without doing some complicated twisting dance through the greenery!

The whitefly has taken hold again so I will need to get back in there daily with my spray to calm them down again.

Finished off the night with a lovely dinner that included my favourite stuffed tomatoes!

Cheers!

Hi there!
My poor gardens are so unruly!
They have gotten such a good lot of rain over the last couple of days!

Even though these patches are doing well, I was hoping to have lots of lettuce available for when our guests arrive!

Hungry caterpillar making itself at home in my tomato!! Happily this season, we haven’t really had any grub issues with the tomatoes which is excellent. This is the only one so far that I have seen. So the chooks got a bit of a tomato/grub feast!

This afternoon late, the rain cleared up so I took a basket around and collected tomatoes.

And some corn for dinner!

The majority of the day was spent in the kitchen. I had to make a start on clearing space in the freezer. So I had taken out a bucket of plum pulp and a bag of raspberries.
I made a heap of raspberry/plum jam. Its a nice mixture. I found a stash of all these really big jars so I used those, which made for much less work.
I also finished off the ice cream – also plum/raspberry flavoured. Thats one I haven’t tried before so hoping its ok.

I have a small amount of the plum pulp left but I ran out of care-factor to do another batch of jam. Maybe tomorrow??

Screecher, now in her dotage, lays very odd shaped thin shelled eggs. They have a tendency to go off a lot more quickly and the white is not clear. I figured best not to eat those ourselves. So I scrambled all her eggs today and fed it back to the chickens. Wow… I know it sounds weird, but did they ever scoff that down! I should have included the shells too. I often include the shells when making them a cake!

My second planting of sunflowers have just started to bloom!  Rather pleased I have the timing right on that at least. Just in time for guests.
Also, not so brilliantly timed for guests, a rat has had the audacity to die in the walls in the kitchen!!! I am burning a LOT of incense!!! Eye roll. Sometimes country living is a bit whiffy! haha

Hope your weekends are going fantastically!
Cheers

So… I actively planned to do nothing today.
I really tried to sloth.
Eventually I got the guilts and (still in my nightie) chopped up the tomato and onion to make some relish!
I cried a lot. (onions, not because I failed to sloth)

I’ll probably cook it up tomorrow.

I did get out of my nightie before wandering about the yard. Saves explaining myself when I get caught by people dropping in! (I did replace the nightie with outside clothes otherwise the explaining might have had to be more creative)

Compared to last years pathetic attempt at pumpkins, this season is going fabulously well! I think I have at least 5 of this type of pumpkin growing happily. I have heaps of the smaller butternuts growing beautifully too!

Did I mention I finally pickled some beetroot the other day? Have been scoffing it ever since.

The potatoes are slowly dying off. I am hoping they will be ready to dig up completely while the three Japanese boys are here. They might enjoy the process!

Dodgy photo but this patch is my second round of sunflowers! While I was in the garden I did some random weeding around the place – just because I could! Every bit helps right?

This discovery made me laugh. I finally have my first watermelon!!!!
What a pip-squeak!

Another haul of apple cucumber, a few beans, tomatoes and some corn for dinner!

Well… that was my day.
I have plans to be more exciting tomorrow!

Cheers

Jobs that take on a life of their own.
We got the second coat on the front today which was great – and a lot more quickly done as Jeff didn’t need the extension ladder like I did to reach the top!
We then started eyeing off the boards that were all beginning to warp upwards.
Meh- why not? Grabbed the crowbars and other useful tools and started prying them up.

Under that layer of dirt and debris, there was a nice big concrete slab.
The timber pieces laying on top that were bolted into the cement and used to nail the veranda boards onto were completely rotting away.

We now have a mini renovation job at the corner where the slab ends (Leaving a dip and a hole) as well as making the cement slab even and prettier!
The veranda boards are actually in quite good condition – just grotty and in need of cleaning and staining. We removed all the nails which took a while, but they are all stacked and ready to be used… not sure where, but we will think of something!

We also did our tip trip today to get rid of about 3 months of rubbish. Mostly household stuff with a bit of stuff around the yard that really was past its used by date. Not photo worthy, but great to start fresh with empty bins again.

Looking forward to pickling these beauties and adding them into my salads!

Found another couple of ears of corn ready today – they are already in our tummies and much enjoyed!
Lots of home grown on the plate tonight… not least our fav. summer side dish, the stuffed tomatoes!

Hope your day was just as delicious!!

Cheers

Hello! How was the weekend?
I wrote up an ambitious ‘to do’ list for today and got through everything except cutting up those chillis!

Firstly was to finish the first coat at the front of the house.
Tick. I needed both ladders to do this. (Jeff sleeping today) So I wasn’t super fast, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it might.

I followed that job up by bagging up the rest of the mushroom compost out of the trailer. We need to make a trip to the tip soon so it will be handy to have the trailer empty!

Make part one of the next batch of ice cream (tick) (Yes the recipe requires eggs)

Make Pesto! Tick!

On a side note, I finally got some roots happening with the basil cuttings!

Prepare ingredients for tonights zucchini slice dinner (another tick)
Step one.. go pick some carrots and whatever else is out there…

Step two… chop and grate

I moved the sprinklers all over the place today to give some of the dry areas a good soaking. The ground is cracking!!
I also spent some time getting my challenge photo for the subject of ‘recreating art’ and I think I like the result… but will post tomorrow as its not due in the challenge until the day after tomorrow.
THEN it was a speedy trip to Ruby’s to plant some lettuce before coming home to cook my zucchini slice.

I like getting lots of things crossed off a list!

Cheers!

PS anyone else having issues with getting/not getting the blog post emailed to them? Suddenly wordpress doesn’t want to send me my own posts!! I can’t figure out why but to be honest I have spent very little time trying to problem solve this one 🙂

Hello!
Back to the garden and kitchen to work on whatever needs to be done.
Poor Pip back to the vet today for another injection and an added antibiotic.
He handled it better than me. According to the vet, there was much less drama – only one little growl.
I really didn’t like to ask what happened last time!!
Its a worry when your fur babies aren’t as healthy as they should be!
Still – he came home and napped with Jeff and is now snugged up on my lap as I am typing. Seems I am forgiven for putting him in the carry case and driving him to the lady with the needle.

Yesterday I put in a small plot of lettuce.

They weren’t growing so fast in the pot… not surprising as it was just cheap potting mix with no mushroom compost. Time to get a few into the ground

I didn’t do much apart from weed, dig and add compost to a couple of short strips.

The outside tomatoes are going well… I finally got around to tying a lot of them up. There was a lot of ‘sprawl’

I even got my first outside tomatoes with colour to pick!

(These are the heirloom beefsteak which I grew from seed)

The rambling duck yard pumpkins seem to have managed a couple of actual pumpkins!! About time!

Yesterday I got a lovely lot of hothouse tomatoes and more cucumber… and a whole heap of apple cucumber that went a bit mad while I was gone for two days!

Oh – and a hilariously small passionfruit. I think I should cut it open and try it tomorrow!

I am worried that its hard finding potatoes. I am really hoping my crop is not all leaves with not much underground. I do know its a while before proper harvest, but I am rather attached to potatoes…
This lot were just beautiful – steamed with butter, salt & pepper.

Today I picked what plums I could reach by myself. A friend is picking up this lot. I have no room left for more in the freezer. (I ordered a side of beef so I REALLY need to clear at least one freezer!)

I even had some kitchen time – made some blueberry ice cream and cooked up a pot of onion, garlic, tomato, herbs, zucchini & capsicum and popped them in the freezer. A start of storing my winter collection of spaghetti sauce and sauce for casseroles.

Well… time for the rest of this household to get to bed!

Hope your day was great too!
Cheers