Sorry – just one dodgy photo for you tonight of my cherry ice cream… which we are still unsure if it IS actually cherry – it could possibly be blackberry. This is what happens when you don’t label freezer containers. Its dark purple fruit and it tastes good!
(The cherry season was pretty poor last year – what we bought really didn’t have a lot of flavour so I am not surprised we can’t tell exactly what we are eating!)
Anyway – we are planning on a bit of an adventure tomorrow, so stay tuned. (All weather depending etc, but fingers crossed!)
Monday! Blue skies & Sunshine!
Seems one day on – one day off weather wise!
I picked some carrots and herbs from the garden and put a slow cooked beef soup/stew in the oven for dinner
Been thinking upon the next four months – which is the amount of time we have before taking my parents to Japan and travelling about there! (So excited!)
We already live a naturally pretty frugal lifestyle, so the challenge is where to cut corners and budget further and earn a few extra $ in the pocket to take with us.
Tomato mix made earlier in the season – digging in the freezer
We have a good lot of food – meat and vegetables – in the freezers and its a matter of being strict and not whim shopping for something else when we have plenty at home
Slow cooking the cheap cuts. It was fall-apart tender by the time I was done!
We rarely eat out or get take-aways (take outs) so not much to be changed in that area.
Start of my slow cooked beef soup
Its been an unusual year for us ‘extravagance’ wise. We live on one part time wage (Thank-you Jeff) – and generally very happily and comfortably.
Its just when you throw in a major hiking adventure, a ‘new’ car and two overseas trips all in one year, the budget creaks a little – but I like the challenge!
(You only live once, after all!)
So – Apart from living out of the freezer for most things and scraping whats left out of the garden… I need to be proactive about selling off the rest of the garage sale stuff (eg books to book dealer and going online to try to sell the better quality items)
I have a outlet for some of my jams/sauces – now that I am home I need to get cooking ASAP
Not the right season to be getting produce sales like I did for my Texas trip – but maybe look in other areas like selling bottles of my kelp juice (which is essentially free to make) and of course, Ruby always has some garden work for me to do when the weather isn’t dreadful!
Still tomatoes out there!! Yay!
I have also been toying with the idea of diving into the Air B&B arena as well as actively seeking photography work.
The latter scares me! LOL
Anyway – its enough to keep me thoroughly amused over winter this year! (Along with the never-ending photo processing!!)
Jetlag can be a really positive thing. Like when you wake up thoroughly at 4am and remember you forgot to put the bread on. By the time 8am came around it was piping hot and ready!
I am enjoying being home very much – trying to get into a few little routine tasks.
My garden welcomed me home by not remembering that it is actually winter –
Bliss
The tomatoes at the back door are doing remarkably well
Slow of course but steady – and you can’t expect too much at this time of year! Its all a bonus
The hothouse tomatoes look about dead, but have a bit of fruit in there… will have to clean that out soon.
My main garden?? (Big Sigh)
I think it might have gotten away from me! That will keep me out of mischief on the sunny winter days do you think?
Plenty of parsleyBefore
Yesterday’s weather wasn’t too bad – so I made a start on the patch that I want to put the garlic into
After
Then I got tired and it started to rain so I quit for the day… but not before pulling out a bunch of beetroot!
Will pickle ASAP – still loving that with my evening meals
Today I spent the entire day in my PJ’s.
But I did manage to bake a cake…
Simple tea cake
I also took the hint from Pip and put away my bags – I think he feels more settled without the bags out and the possibility of his mum disappearing again!
Bedtime for me! Only 9pm and I am falling asleep!! Weird!
Hope everyones week has started well!
Hello!
I must say, despite our frequent hiking of late, I still had bits of me pretty sore today after yesterdays mammoth walk up that mountain.
We took things fairly easy today – Jeff napped a lot.
Rosemary and I did a couple of overdue kitchen things.
The beetroot got cooked (pickled)
And a lot of tomatoes got cooked (with some onion, capsicum etc) for the freezer for future use. At least the crazy amount of tomatoes is back under control for now!
We then spent a very pleasant afternoon in front of the fire watching movies!!
Rosemary made up a beautiful side salad for dinner – Rocket, feta and the new beetroot! It was sooooo goooood! I am an instant fan!
(Photo: Rosemary)
Anyway – nice to have a slow day!
Time for bed, Rose’s last day tomorrow 🙁
Got to squeeze in a few more activities before we have to say goodbye!
So awesome to have one of my sisters back in Tasmania for a visit! I picked Rosemary up this morning and we started in style with a late cooked brekkie – with thanks to the chooks!
Photo by Rosemary – I was busy wolfing mine down to pause for a photo!
Totally hit the spot!
Jeff was sleeping off another night shift, so it was just the two of us for the afternoon. After a tour around the very neglected garden, we set off to do a walk. It was an overcast day, but pretty nice out there!
At some point I will have to get a greater collection of rock photos from down here… I love the colours & textures.
Back home we picked the first of the pumpkin and the last of the corn! Rosemary got the honour of eating the corn! 😀 I was glad there was one left to share!
We made a pumpkin soup and fresh salad
Such a small pumpkin!!Colour inside was pretty good.
Pumpkin soup is best if you roast the pumpkin first!
I have probably blogged it down somewhere before, but anyway – its a really simple soup.
I frizzle up some onion and garlic, then add in a litre of chicken stock. A couple of medium sized potatoes and the baked pumpkin. Boil then simmer.
When the potatoes are cooked I blend the lot then add a can of coconut milk.
Done. Easy. Tasty!
Its hard to get jobs done when your cat is racing about like a maniac trying (successfully) to get your attention. Clearly he had regressed to kittenhood this morning!
Masterful job at hiding. Pity about the furry backside sticking out!!
Anyway, among other things I did manage to get the batch of bbq sauce done. Some of that will be coming with me to Texas. (haha – is that like taking ice to Antarctica?)
My chef-sister Michelle’s special recipe – and it tastes good!!
All those extra tomatoes I chopped yesterday I made into a sauce and cooked some meatballs. Its great I still have plenty of herbs as well to throw into these dinners.
Even better there is plenty for leftovers tomorrow night so no cooking.
Thats my Kitchen Goddess, Anoia. I invoke her when my cutlery drawer gets stuck 🙂 (Terry Pratchett fans might recognise her)
The other t-towel I can’t bear to use is this perfect one I found –
So – I got back on the bike… bottom less sore today than yesterday so that’s a bonus!!! 😛
Once recovered I got into a few of the vegetables that have been hanging about multiplying.
Have made the first step of the BBQ sauce by making a simple tomato sauce recipe. (See below) Six pounds of tomatoes. That took care of quite a few!!
Even though compared to the amount of plants I have in, not as many zucchinis as I would have thought… but enough!! So got to work and chopped them all up
Five bags for the freezer… these can be used at a later date
Then it was the chillies turn –
Anyone want to come and stay and garden? Will feed you.
The long skinny chillies make such a good font…
Anyway, enough of that – I clearly have too much time on my hands!
I did get outside for a good long time this afternoon and enjoyed some hand watering and picking more stuff!
The corn is now eaten!! I picked the capsicum as I noticed a couple had rotted!! But I was expecting them to change colour. So I tried this one in my salad tonight and it was lovely! Must be time to make up some spaghetti sauce and freeze batches of that!
Cheers!
Tomato Sauce Recipe (Ketchup)
6 lb tomatoes chopped
2lb sugar
1/2 pint white vinegar (300ml)
2 & 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon allspice
Boil all for about 2 & 1/2 hours, then ‘mooley’ (Or blend or whatever you like to do to remove seeds/skin
Re heat and thicken with cornflour if nec.
Bottle up!
Hello! Midweek already…
Most of my day was taken up with finishing some things in the kitchen.
The three beetroots that I pulled up the other day got chopped and pickled. I have really been enjoying it in my salads. Plus I have a buyer for a jar 🙂
I also de-pipped and pulped the last of the plums. Then, because I was on a roll I decided to make that lot straight up into a batch of plum sauce. It turned out really well and I didn’t even have to thicken it!
I got a bit over-zealous and also made up our favourite Japanese dish, koroke (mashed potato & mince made into a patty and fried) and teriyaki chicken. (You know, because I hadn’t stood up in the kitchen long enough already today)
Still… it was a good dinner and lots of leftovers so I might do a day of nothing tomorrow 🙂
Also managed to tuck the tails in on my latest lot of granny squares – a more somber arrangement of colours but I like them too !
Its only 9.30pm and I am DONE for the day! (Even the last of the dishes have been sorted!) Wow… I may get an early nights sleep tonight!
Well… I think the Weather God’s are having their meetings above Flowerdale and are in a cranky mood!
What a (non) summer!
As well as the rain it was cold.
SO – back to the kitchen for me!
I got the vegie mix I made yesterday and popped it in the dehydrator. One more hiking meal taken care of!
I have been running out of room in the freezers. (Probably something to do with all the ice cream I have been making) So wanted to get most of the plum pulp cooked into jam rather than freezing for later.
I did it in two batches (one 5lb’s and the other 4lbs) That’s about the limit for a batch of jam for me. I find if I do bigger lots it NEVER cooks or sets.
I know my Dad is reading this! Hi Dad!! Yep – there are a few jars there for you so you don’t have to be on such strict rations anymore 🙂
Enough chillies to easily make another batch of sweet chilli sauce. But I just topped them & de-seeded ready for another day and squashed them into the freezer. (Handy having a nurse – usually has spare latex gloves to do this job! If I do it without gloves its about three days before I can put my hands into warm water without them stinging like Billy-Oh!)
Last job before dinner (which I was multitasking-cooking) was to cut 6lb’s of tomatos and 2lbs of onion to mix. It needs to sit overnight before doing my tomato relish.
But that’s tomorrow
I have done enough dishes to sink a battleship (ok – slight exaggeration) but I will ignore what is out there until the morning.
Hope your weekend has been fabulous and domestic chores-free!
Cheers!
Last night – before the clouds came in and made Sunday soggy
Hello! That’s Friday done and dusted for me!
Last night there was a lot of thumping on the back veranda, suspected wildlife, so took my camera out with a torch.
The first possum practically fell out of the tree (pictured above). Happily stayed put long enough for a snap. A few seconds later another one streaked out of the tree and away! (No snap)
Then there was a pademelon (small wallaby)
Also getting fat on our apples. There was another one in next doors paddock. This one panicked a bit with me out there, went charging all over the veranda then went bouncing all through my herb garden!!! I went back inside and left them to it. It was running into the fence in a blind panic at one point and didn’t want it ripping itself to shreds.
I wonder where it sleeps during the day?
It was a rain-sun-rain-sun day all day. Ended up in the kitchen.
Depipped the plums I cooked the other day and ‘mooleyed’ them. (Basically squashed all into pulp) Hopefully will make into sauce or jam tomorrow
Then I decided to get on and use some of the cucumbers and made a double batch of my Nanna’s cucumber relish (Recipe in previous post here)
It’s fitting to use Nanna’s old scales when using her recipes!
After boiling all the apple, cucumber, sugar and vinegar (er and supposedly the onion which I forgot about until I was almost ready to spoon it into jars!!!) then you add in the spices and thickener (I use cornflour)
I rectified the onion problem and started to fill my jars
(Jars have been sterilised in the oven)
All done
Again – this is pretty good on all meats and sandwiches.
Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend planned!
Cheers!
All scraps put through the ‘gee-whizzer’ to give to the compost worms
