Category: Kitchen

Not Resting

So… we might have a few apples to do something with!
These ones are now soooo sweet and juicy!
I did get another lot into the dehydrator. Will have to get some more storage jars soon.

I am doing a pretty bad job of resting. I meant to sloth about inside all day with my photos. I actually don’t feel that fabulous. Almost more flu-like than straight cold-like.
Anyway…
First up I had to put a slow cooked beef soup/stew on

Then I was forced into going to the supermarket as we had no milk… had a few other things on the list too.
On the way in I spotted someone giving away free besser blocks.

So… picked them up and then unloaded them into the carport. My back really thanked me for that. (Hey they were free!!)
Thought while I was at this not resting thing I would bring up a load of fire wood, then do the apples, then make an apple dessert

I did get through a few more photos of our hike, but its the time of night that the computer gets sad and spends more time ‘not responding’ than doing anything useful.
So to protect my computer from mortal injury (me having a tanty) I am giving up and going to bed.
I can hear the rain just started up out there coming down hard and steadily! My plans to clean the chook coop tomorrow might be thwarted!

Cheers!

A few late strawberries!

Attached to the Kitchen

What a terrible day to have to be inside in the kitchen!!
At least I got the last of the clothes dry from yesterday that needed finishing off!

I did do a bit of foraging out in the yard and soaked up a little of the sunshine while I could

Pumpkins going along well…

Back inside I made up a double batch of rissole mince so its ready for me to cook tomorrow night once we get back from sightseeing. (Planning on DIY Hamburgers)
I also cut up 12lb of tomatoes to make a double batch of sauce

I used a bit of an eclectic bunch of bottles… tried to get all the big ones – Jeff mainly uses this sauce, so he is set for a while (Probably about 10 litres there!)

Then I baked a cake and a loaf of bread.

I failed to photograph it, but I also baked one of my butternut pumpkins and turned it into soup for dinner tonight.
My friends arrived in late so I didn’t want a huge heavy dinner. So soup, salad & garlic bread seemed sensible. (And home made ice cream of course!!)

Anyway, I am glad to have finished with dishes
The weather forecast looks completely horrible, but we plan to go out and find waterfalls and beaches anyway!

Hope your day was great!
Cheers

 

Jerky Done – Recipe

Its hard to photograph jerky in a way that looks appetising… but I will have to say it really tastes amazing. Very happy with the outcome!
I have been running about doing lots of little tasks – nothing really bloggable so will leave the jerky recipe here in case it is of interest to anyone!

I used some rump steak. Whatever you use you need to cut out fat. I am a novice at this whole jerky thing, some of you will know what to do a lot better than I do!!
Anyway, this is the marinade:

1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce (I used my home made plum-worcester sauce)
2 teaspoons ground pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder (I used several cloves of fresh garlic chopped small)
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (I used one fresh chilli chopped small)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons honey

I mixed all this up thoroughly and put the sliced beef in to marinate overnight
Drain.
5 hours in the dehydrator at 70C seemed to do the trick

Yummo!

Using the Produce

Lovely day today! I got to go for a drive up into the country to look at a hay baler for my friends. (Just needed to make sure that the seller and machine were legit – I know nothing about hay balers!!)
Anyway, was sunny and warm for a change!

Mostly I was trying to get kitchen stuff done – more apples into the dehydrator and finished off that batch of relish that I started yesterday.
I think I’ll have to do some sauce for Jeff next. Still a ton of tomatoes out there!

I made a marinade for my beef jerky, cut that up and its now soaking. Will get it into the dehydrator first thing tomorrow. (after coffee)

Raw meat doesn’t photograph pretty… but it does smell pretty good! (Soy, worster sauce, honey, pepper, garlic, chilli, nutmeg, brown sugar…)
The meat scraps that were too fatty for using I put into a makeshift soup tonight that turned out pretty great (if I do say so myself). Just whatever was around got thrown in! Add some veggies and salad = dinner!

I have just finished baking some cakes. Jeff turns 50 tomorrow (well.. actually today!)(Up late as usual)
If he is reading this he is about to find out I baked him a carrot cake!
Two carrot cakes. Plan is to put cream in between them! Hope they taste ok… never made one before! They smell good so thats a positive start!

Best get a move on towards bed so I can be up early to greet my Nightshift Nurse in the morning! (Good Wife)

Cheers!

Hiking Food

Hello there!
Got 4 trays of my veggie mix into the dehydrator where it is currently making the kitchen smell rather amazing.
I am still debating about making something different or put up with the same meal daily.

No photos, but finally Margie got to lop my hair off. It has been making her twitch for a couple of months.
I got Kirrily to brush out the dreaddies last night then today Margie took about 6 inches off it. I can still pull it into a band but it feels a lot better now – less to carry up the mountain?

Again – no photos, but I turned the rest of that butternut pumpkin into soup this evening. Bit of salad, slice of fresh baked bread… mmmm

I will attempt to be more interesting tomorrow!
Have a great day
Cheers!

ps – my cat is a little snot. Dead to the world in an upside down twisty cat pose on Jeff’s lap – until I move a muscle towards getting my camera! 😀

In The Kitchen

So… I am sitting down having breakfast and looking out one window to see lovely blue skies and sunshine, then look out the other window and its pouring rain!! Seriously! Tasmania!!
Jeff took things mostly nice and easy today. (apart from an hour pedalling on his stationary trainer!!!!) I enjoyed hearing more about his hike!

Listening to Jeff’s Overland Stories and talking about gear, I got super enthused about my upcoming hike with Fiona. Actually we leave in less than three weeks and I still have to fit in a couple more Japanese visitors just before we leave!! (Of course)
So… among various other things in the kitchen today I put on a big pot of tomatoes & veggies and cooked them up. Tomorrow I will start dehydrating the lot.

I also have the ingredients to make those muesli bars again as well as some beef jerky.

Another batch of apples went through the dehydrator as well today. Plus I picked another bag for the Walnut Man, delivered it and bought a nutcracker. As much fun as it is smashing the walnuts with the butt end of a knife, I can see it ending in stitches.

I picked my first butternut pumpkin today – cut and roasted a few pieces. Its very very nice!! Looking forward to making a pumpkin soup with this too! I have lots out there so I don’t have to skimp!

Of course, I saved some seeds!

As well as baking bread, making an apple slump and doing a million dishes, I also made up some stuffed tomatoes as part of dinner – Those big tomatoes are perfect for it!

Long day on my feet but no practice hiking! I really HAVE to get back out there more often to keep up some sort of fitness.
Hope your week starts well
Cheers!

 

 

Apples to Walnuts

Steady solid soaking rain pretty much all of today!
I picked a number of apples to deliver out to Ruby & Shirley – got Shirley stocked up on her parsley. (I have forbidden her to buy it at the supermarket since I generally have massive amounts of it)(I think they now charge almost $3/bunch)
Most of the apples I swapped for a bag of fresh walnuts!! How lucky am I?? Although I think I didn’t hand over enough apples for the amount of walnuts I got! I did hurry the apple picking because it was so wet standing out there!

They are so good!

Then in a fit of being a good wife, I baked a batch of choc chip biscuits (cookies) so I can take them down to Lake St Claire tomorrow. My planned trip to collect the soggy tired husband!
Its slightly worrying – because there has been no contact all week, I just have to hope nothing untoward has happened between Cradle and Lake St Claire!
Hoping to leave early as its a 3 hour drive.
I have clean dry clothes and a towel packed for Jeff in case he arrives wet through (very possible) as well as some sandwiches, something nice to drink (although I am sure he will be heading straight for coffee) and some fresh apples.

Best start working on another early night. Be a bit embarrassing to sleep in tomorrow wouldn’t it??

Hope your weekend is going along well!
Cheers!

Apples and Chillies

Hello!
All a bit mundane here (so nice!)
I took Pip off to the vet for another injection – the lovely vet comes out and tells me “Well, we are never going to be friends” (Meaning Pip)
He was not pleased with her and vocalised that a lot, but happily there was no shredding of vet involved.
He got lots of cuddles back at home and is now happily buried under the doona snoozing.

Another wild windy day. Can’t help thinking of Jeff often!
I mostly parked myself inside.
One of the items on my list is to get apples through the dehydrator.
Made a start today.

I whizzed up all the scraps and threw those together with a bunch of other scraps and made a couple of chicken cakes. The girls were huddled down the back, their feathers all being blown every which way, but seemed pleased with their warm treat!

While I had no plan to cook anything with chillies, I needed to cut and deseed the ones I picked yesterday. I have had to throw lots in the freezer whole – something I don’t like doing as its so much easier to take them out ready to go! But… time!!! (as in lack of it)

No lack of time excuses this week, so on with it!
Saving a bunch of seeds from all the biggest ones.
I really do need to hunt out what bottles I have kicking about and get on and make a double batch of the sweet chilli sauce.

Friday is around the corner!!
Cheers

Pottering About

Hello!!
For the first time in I don’t even remember, I had no deadlines, no plans, no people, no obligations!!
It was a lovely day!
I did think I was going to stay in bed and read all day, but…

I just had a great day wandering from this job to that doing whatever I felt like doing.
I cleaned up my cos lettuce seeds a bit then pulled out the first sunflower patch and collected a bunch of the seeds.

The chooks very much enjoyed pecking through the leftover sunflowers!

Even got a few eggs!

Check out some of the amazing weeding my friends Ruth and David did!! It really was a fantastic job… and now gives me a starting point to work on.

There are lots more tomatoes out there to go and pick… maybe tomorrow.

After a months worth of guests, our tomato relish situation has become dire. It seems to be a big hit with everybody!!
So – time to get chopping and make a new batch – or three!

I teared up a lot chopping the onions! But this lot can sit overnight before cooking it up tomorrow.

I threw together a meal for myself and Kirrily tonight – bits and pieces of leftovers and some baked potatoes
One of the perks of having visitors is gaining a few new kitchen ideas.
David mixed some of my pesto through the tomato salad the other day and I am quite the fan!

The temperature has dropped a bit in the last few nights so I have treated myself to a fire. I feel a little guilty thinking of my husband who is probably permanently soggy up there in the wilderness! The forecast wasn’t very hopeful, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that he will get a bit of clear weather for a while!

Anyway, best be off to bed. Don’t want to let the night get too late. I have a long list to start working my way through tomorrow!
Cheers!

Disappearing Hamburgers!

Well… it was the last day for the boys here at Norwich House. I managed to get a snap of them with our new boarder Kirrily – they have all had a lot of fun and laughs together. Its going to be a bit quiet around here for a while after tomorrow!

While I didn’t get to drag them around the complete Anniversary Bay loop today (Daisuke hurt his ankle with some enthusiastic trampolining the other day so we didn’t push it) but we went up to the Wet Cave and up to see the view over the beach

It was a really sunny warm day which was nice of Tasmania to behave for their last day!

Smack in the middle of the day is not ideal for photos… but I can never help snapping a few

I left the boys at the beach and came home to make the rissoles (hamburgers) up for dinner later.
Cousin Jeff appeared with a rather large load of firewood!

And I was like ‘Awesome – thanks so much because I had totally run out of things to do and I was getting bored’
No, wait…
I think it was more like “Don’t you think I have enough to do?” (I might have said a mild emphatic swear word in there too)
Cousin Jeff said with my bad attitude the price just went up
I love family! haha
Anyway, he figured while I had three strong lads staying I should be able to get this lot stacked in a jiffy!

And for city boys they did a pretty great job… sure the wheelbarrow might have crashed once or three times but once they sorted the balance thing out we were on our way!
Certainly a lot quicker than what I can do on my own that was for sure!

So I cooked up a stack of rissoles and we all made up our own burgers at the table – Quite something to see 18 hamburgers devoured in one sitting!
Something gratifying about seeing your home cooked meals enjoyed so much!

Well… I have to get up at 4am (which is closer to my normal going to bed time) so I need to scoot.
Not promising a story tomorrow as I reckon I will be like a zombie tomorrow evening!

Cheers!