Kitchen – Head in the Clouds

Minor Sloth Day

Hello!
It rained and drizzled today. Of course it did! I did washing last night so it would be ready to go on the line early!
So I put it out anyway. The breeze between the droplets actually got them almost completely dry!!
I put the fire on late this afternoon to finish off the clothes (well, really it was for me because I was chilly and a fire is so nice!)

I accidentally did a little weeding on the trip back to the house after hanging the laundry. And picked strawberries!
I was planning on a nothing day…

Best laid plans and all that… I actually really wanted to try out making rhubarb/raspberry jam.
Have to start making use of the monstrous rhubarb plant thats thriving away down in the garden.

750g of 1cm chopped rhubarb,
500g of raspberries
1 large orange. Zest and the juice – add water to the juice to make up to 225ml
900g sugar
(13g pectin but I just squeezed lemon juice in)

You cook the raspberries, rhubarb & orange zest and juice for about 30-40 minutes until everything is mush.
Then add your sugar and pectin or lemon juice and fast boil for about 10 minutes – or until you can see its ready.

I tried a bit when it was cooled off and I really really liked it!
Looking forward to brekkie tomorrow morning! Something new for my toast!

Hope you’ve had a great day too!
Cheers!

Cooking

My goofy blue eyed boys make me smile!
How was your day??
I am not sure I really got up to anything noteworthy! I did brave the weather and put on a much needed load of laundry (Clean ‘foundation garments’ were starting to get scarce!)
I used the last bit of laundry detergent so I made some more. Emma helped – she wanted to learn how it was made too.

1 cup lux soap flakes, 1/2 bar of grated velvet (pure) soap, 1/2 cup lectric soda, 1/2 cup borax.
Bring all to boil in one litre of water, then add into bucket and top up with another 9 litres of water. Add some nice smelling oil (I use eucalyptus)
Put into bottles! (Leave lots of shaking space as it settles) Takes about half an hour. Easy!

Time to clear some stuff out of the fridge. Cakes for the chooks! (Bread crumbs, rolled oats, cheese, left over cat food, cabbage, eggs, powdered eggshell etc)

They all seemed pretty keen except one girl who was intent on digging a hole!

Either its an elusive worm or an elaborate escape plan.
We have one crook bird at the moment! Not sure why. She was sleeping on the nest last night and she looked very dumpy this afternoon.
They’ve all been fine up until now 🙁

Put some of the leftover soap into my garden tap wash station mesh bags!

Actual strawberries developing on the unplanted plants!

At first I was ‘yay’
Then I was ‘Damn’

Nearly the end of the week!!
Stay strong 🙂

Cheers

Pumpkin and Potatoes

Hello!
Here we are in Monday again!
Yesterday it rained a bit and I did a bit of a catchup on the house work which I didn’t bother blogging about.
You’re welcome 🙂

I did pop in to see Ruby yesterday to have a lovely chat and a cuppa. We made garden plans mostly!!
I hadn’t realised she had run out of pumpkin! I knew she had gone through all her potato and was planning to drop some off, but decided to also cut into one of my big pumpkins.
Wow – I know why I want to concentrate on growing butternut pumpkins this season… they don’t fight you as much. Honestly… its a hospital trip waiting to happen!!

I finally got it cut in half, scooped out and saved the seeds before peeling and cutting it into manageable pieces!

A bag went into our freezer but most of it got delivered to Ruby and another friend, Shirley. I still have plenty of pumpkin out there – this way its much easier for the ladies of advancing age to cope with!!

I also got out into the shed and knocked the sprouts of lots of potatoes to deliver to the ladies too! (and brought more into the house for us)
I do suspect I will be using lots of these to fill that huge patch in the garden!

Ruby also requested some runner bean seeds as she had failed to save any. Easily done. They are still hanging on the fence in their pods!

Off into town with my bag of veggies!

Ruby’s magnolia tree is looking magnificent!
She is so proud of it and reckons its the best its ever been!!

Poor dear was having a rest when she saw me arrive… then of course lets me drag her out for photos under the tree!!

She will be 102 in a couple of weeks!!

She is still a terror! She told me she was going to plant the Christmas peas early September. Right. No worries. I plan to get in there and put up the trellis … Nope. She’s planted them already!!!! Now I will have to wait until they sprout so I can see where to put all the climbing frames haha.
She planted a row of potatoes too today, but said she got pooped and had to stop and sit

She was a bit indignant as she pointed out the chair that she sat in – which was full of water!! So I said “So you wet your pants huh?” She chuckled and said well if she had of it would have served her right but getting a wet bottom from the chair was a bit unfair!!
She cracks me up.

We’ve been transplanting her daffy bulbs into this unused patch and its quite the picture right now! Very spring and cheerful!

Back into town I went and managed to get into a local coffee shop and ask for the coffee grounds! I have been meaning to get onto this for an eon and never remember. The girl at the shop kindly said I could put my own bigger bin out the back and they can empty the daily grounds into it for me so I don’t have to come in each time! That will go well in the compost!

I also picked up my seed potatoes!
(Really feels like the new season is happening!)
I also grabbed some cheap potting mix which I will mix with some of the leftover mushroom compost to start some seeds in soon.

Back home it was cabbage harvest time as I had planned a stirfry tonight.
Of course the girls got the outside leaves.

Most of them were getting into it enthusiastically, but one girl seemed more amused by picking up leaves and tossing them!!! Was so funny. I didn’t get great snaps, but you’ll get the drift

Chooks!! Never a dull moment with them!

Hope everybody’s week starts fantastically!
Cheers

Just Another Day

Hi there!
Not much terribly exciting happened today.
It rained (a lot) (again) and I ran about like a maniac getting things done while the girls were at school.
Their laundry – keeping the fire going to get it all dry, baked them a cake because the school is taking them to Cradle Mt tomorrow and I wanted to pack something extra in their lunch.
Hopefully they will get to see some snow…

I also baked the chooks a cake – with a very peculiar mix of ingredients.
There were a few eggs that had been cracked in the nest that I didn’t want to risk eating – shells and all.
Some leftover cat food. Some dodgy yoghurt.
Some oats, flour, old cereal, bacon rinds, some cooking fat…
Thats all I can remember. A completely horrific mix that the chickens went wild over!!! Don’t have to be a great cook to please the feathery friends, thats for sure!

And in the background of life, I am still crocheting a bit in the evening, so I snapped a photo of the latest bags.
Sadly the yarn I was buying for this suddenly disappeared from the shop.
Time to move on to new designs soon!

Hope your day was lovely!
Cheers

Baking Days

Hello!
I have been doing a little baking with the girls as its a really good interactive task to get them talking and thinking in English – with the bonus of something tasty at the end of it all!
This chocolate cake was made yesterday afternoon after school – and is now all gone!

This morning I went into Wynyard and picked up the Kinmen Island teachers and drove them into Burnie. The buses here aren’t that convenient and it was nice to have a chat to the two ladies. I have invited them to dinner next Friday and as a bonus they are going to teach me how to make a traditional hotpot meal from Taiwan!

I got back, treated the girls to a cooked brekkie (eggs, bacon and toast) and then because we couldn’t go to the beach until later in the afternoon (tide timings are important here) they decided they wanted me to teach them how to make chocolate chip biscuits!

That was fun! We made a lot and also slipped in the task getting their laundry done too!

The afternoon at the beach was lovely, but will report on that tomorrow as I am pretty tired now!
Tomorrow we are going to markets and another little town to check out shops so the camera will be left behind for once (will probably regret that, but…)

Anyway – I will share this photo of a gorgeous scallop shell I found today! I don’t think I have ever found one with both sides still joined!

Right – going to take a leaf out of Pip’s lazy book and head to bed!
Enjoy whats left of your weekend!
Cheers!

Fumigating With Garlic

Time to bring out the big guns!
I reckon those plug in scent things (which pretty much just mingled with the dead thing, so I ended up with “Vanilla Rat”) gave me a headache as I had a low grade one for about three days.
Again the sun was shining today so I opened up all the doors and then started to peel garlic. It got up my nose and banished the dead rat smell as I worked so I was pretty happy with that.
Then minced and threw it into the dehydrator!
Walking inside was like walking into a wall of garlic. I think I have successfully marinated the rat as even now after the dehydrator has finished, I don’t smell the rat!
You cannot fathom how pleased I am right now.
Mind you, I have some reserve garlic in case it all goes pear shaped in the next day or so!
Bonus side effect – dried garlic to store!!

Coming up to the last month of winter and I see flowers about to burst forth!

Pip got lots of outside time today – he was curled up looking cute on the chair – until I tried to take a photo then the ears went back and he point blank refused to pose properly again.

Proud moment as I picked and ate my first cabbage from that lovely patch!

A few slugs chewed on the outer leaves, but the heart was tight and perfect.

I used half of it tonight in a stirfry I made for dinner and it was lovely! Not bitter at all. The other half I am going to deliver to Margie tomorrow as I don’t have a plan to use more cabbage in the next couple of days so they might as well take it fresh! (Share the love!)

And somehow I have made another four bags. They are rather relaxing to sit and create and I am enjoying the colours!

And last but not least – found this box of the most delicious home baked biscuits (cookies) at the back door this afternoon!! And so far I am clueless as to who the awesome person was that left them.
Dead rats aside? I love the country!!

Cheers!

Window Dressing

Hi there!
I am still being rather boringly domestically inclined.
Fired the cat and cleaned out the pantry to disillusion the mice.
Sigh. Country living!!
Everything in there is now in glass or heavy plastic containers. It was a long tedious job, but another tick off the list.

Another thing we had to attend to, were curtains in the top room

Not having any neighbours – just cows and the odd possum or two, we have never bothered with taking time to get any curtains up there. Poor Mum and Dad staying in summer get the sun in at about 4.30am so I haven’t been a model daughter in this respect.
However, when the fellow who is organising the international students came to inspect the house and room he was concerned that teenage girls might feel a bit vulnerable with a big open window to their bedroom/teenage retreat.

So…. off to the op shop (thrift store) and hardware shop.
Got 4 matching curtain panels for $12!!! Bargain huh?
Some stretchy wire, 4 hooks and a tall husband and we were in business!

They worked out looking way better than I imagined for a ‘dodgy brothers’ job!! Not that they will block all the light but they will help with retaining heat in the room too. As these students are coming from a country that rarely drops below 10C and right now they are in mid summer… we don’t want them to freeze!

We only used three of the four curtain panels so we cut the remaining one up and made two table covers and also used the shortened top part to hang in the bathroom window and in the laundry. So we got good use out of it all.

I have bought extra hot water bottles so they have something warm to snuggle into bed with too.

I am also working on a little ‘Welcome to Australia’ pack for each of the girls.
My lovely friend Maureen gave me these fantastic bags she made – I wanted to buy them but we have settled on a trade (she gets 5 litres of plum pulp when she is ready to make sauce!!)(Gotta love a good barter!)
I am putting a few things inside the bag for the girls, including chocolates and I have made up a journal each for them. I just got a plain sketch book and covered them with some of the pretty art paper I have. I will write something on the first page for them to encourage they use them to keep a diary of what they have been doing every day. Something to look back on later!

Of course the evening knitting and crochet is muddling along – I am making a pair of navy blue cuffs for one of my cousins who is in the police force.

And – Tah Daahhh!! Blanket done!

In a fit of something or other, I even tucked those dreaded tails in this evening!!
I think this will officially be my first Christmas present this year done as I thought it would be suitable for one of my young nieces.
Now… do I have time to do one each for the other two nieces???? Hmmmm

Still, its cosy and I am happy its done.

In the kitchen, casseroles & soups are orders of the day, not to mention some fresh baked herb and garlic bread!

It may be dark, cold, windy, raining and generally miserable, but I am loving it all!!

Cheers!

Bits and Pieces

Hello! Start of the week again.
Desperate times at Norwich House. We were nearly out of sweet chilli sauce!
I was waiting for Jeff to get up to tell me where he stashed his handsaw so I could tackle the garden, so I started on cooking. Took me hours and never got back to the garden. A double batch takes forever and I still think its probably too runny. Oh well.
It used some chillis out of the freezer and a heap of the garlic and the house smells pretty good. Also meant that I cleaned out some of my bottles from the cupboard. (Stern words to myself for putting them away with their old labels on them so that added a heap of time to my job)

In a much less arduous task, I made up a new batch of laundry liquid.

Yesterday’s wood gathering activities were slowed up when I found a new resident in my work gloves.

It was quite at home and in no hurry to come out!

I eventually relocated him/her to a pot of parsley.

The potted garlic are looking quite happy! I am torn between planting more or just dehydrating the lot that’s left.

The rescued leek! Now will have to look up a decent recipe to make use of all of these!! I have cleaned and cut them and they are in the fridge waiting their turn!

The local gift shop hasn’t sold any of my berets, but can’t keep up with gloves! So putting a few together to try my luck there.

This pair I just finished I really like so am trying to sell via my facebook first before putting them into the shop where I will lose 30% commission. Pure wool so really cosy and I quite like the slight mismatch of them.
Anyway… will see what happens.

That’s about all from me – been on my feet too long today! Will be nice to snuggle into bed with a book
Cheers!

New Plans

Check out this lovely big capsicum!! Not bad for the middle of winter hey? It was sweet too – I was a bit afraid it might be bitter.

I decided to keep the seeds, which are now in my net dryer in between the parsley and the thyme!

Well… more sorting today. This time we were re arranging upstairs.
I have just filled out umpteen forms and been registered officially (Working with Vulnerable People) so we can take on a couple of international students.
You know… because the house is always so empty! haha

I heard that the local schools were short a few places for some students from Taiwan to stay so I got in touch with the organisation.
Gone are the days when you just put your hand in the air, got handed a student and went home with them!!
There was quite a lot to the paperwork, even without the registration part, which is basically a background check to make sure you are not too dodgy.
Hence the difficulty in finding beds for all the students I guess.

Anyway, if all goes to plan we will be getting two students who will share our upstairs room (Teenagers love that space!) They go to school during the day, but we get to take them places over the weekend.
Dreadful time of year to visit, but its because they are in summer holidays. Fingers crossed for the appalling weather this week to get it out of its system for a while.

Our house is being ‘inspected’ next Thursday (yeah yeah – there are good reasons to my frantic domestic bliss) and an information night the same evening.

A little different to our usual hosting, but should be fun – lets hope the kids like hiking!!!

I didn’t get out much today. It was twilight the whole miserable day!! I took the chooks some warm mash which they were pretty thrilled with.
I also made pizza’s for dinner.
I was meant to take a final shot of the cooked pizza… but we ate them before I remembered!

Week is about at its end already! Amazing.
Hope your week has more sunshine than mine!
Cheers

My capsicum is a bit ‘Edvard Munch’ don’t you think?

Eau De Garlic

Wow.
Has anyone dehydrated garlic before?
I have a new cure for ‘dead rotting rat under the floorboards’
The smell in the house is amazing – walking in from outside is almost a physical smack!! Honestly, a vampire would last 2 seconds before vaporising!!
I spent quite some time peeling this lot which hasn’t put a dent in the overall supple of cloves I still have.
I cut the tails off, then put them in a jar, shook them vigorously then they peeled fairly well. Still took ages!
Anyway, I minced them up and chucked them in the dehydrator where they have been taking over the house ever since.
I am hoping to grind them into powder and make garlic salt. Will see how this first lot goes.
Was also thinking of mincing up into butter and freezing – easy to throw in the pan when needed.

Oh, here is the finished glove that I will need to take apart!

I think its pretty and I can now work out the sizing better.
This is the one I did the other day from different yarn

I have so many single gloves right now!!
I made another bag tonight but didn’t take a snap yet.

Most of the day was fairly domestic. My winter really isn’t so glamorous but I am enjoying anyway. Jeff and I promised each other that rain, hail or shine we would hike somewhere tomorrow!! I’ll let you know how that goes!! 😀

Cheers!