Kitchen – Page 7 – Head in the Clouds

Attached to the Kitchen

Finally a day that seemed more like summer!
And I, insanely, spent all day in the kitchen! Its 11.30pm and I am STILL not finished and I think I am a little over it!
It was the Plum-Worcestershire sauces fault. I only make it once a year and the quantities are rather large and everything has taken an eon to do.
Plus, once you have boiled over a sauce that has three tins of treacle in it and had it ooze all over your kitchen, you get totally paranoid about it happening again (The clean up was horrendous) so I had to stay close all day.

First things first. Lets wrap up the choc-rasp/ice-cream bites thing.

Melted the chocolate and got most of the squares dipped before the chocolate went doo-lally on me and wouldn’t go runny again.

Mine didn’t turn out magazine worthy, however…

A hasty photo before Jeff and I taste tested and pronounced a success!

I think next time I do this I can just use my recipe of ice cream, bung some fruit in and do the same – into a square tin, cut and dip in chocolate.

So – onto the buckets of plums and the sauce

Luckily I have my super garlic stash upstairs, as this recipe calls half a pound of it! (I use a bit more)
And it takes a looooong time to peel that much garlic

Happily you can just chuck the plums in as is – no messing about with taking pips out or skinning

I also set another big pot of plums to cook…. will sort them out tomorrow

You also need a lot of spices – about an ounce of each kind.

The house smells a bit amazing – although its incredibly strong when you are near the mixture

Also three pounds of white sugar, two pounds of brown sugar and 7 pints of vinegar! (over 4 litres) (Why you need a massive pot!!)

This whole thing took a couple of hours to come to the boil!!!

In between hovering over my sauce I sorted dinner and crocheted a few more granny squares!

Once the stones leave the plums, you need to strain it then reboil.
I was bottling it up when I realised I didn’t have enough bottles ready, so right now I am just waiting for the next lot of bottles to sterilise before finally finishing this marathon!!

Hope everyone else has managed to move more than ten feet from their kitchens today for more than 15 minutes!! 😀
Cheers!

Chocolate Covered Raspberry Ice Cream Bites – Almost!

Hello!
I did a nice healthy pick in the garden yesterday – I see some more tomato relish and sweet chilli sauce coming up! (Not to mention a boat-load of cucumber relish)

I am a little disappointed I didn’t finish my ice cream project today. Seems the mixture needs WAY more than 4 hours in the freezer before I can finish off the final steps

I saw this fabulous video-recipe pop up on my facebook page and decided that I needed it in my life.
I can’t add videos here, but will share it on my facebook page for those who are interested. I will certainly write down the instructions but the video made it look incredibly easy.

So – a 395g tin of sweetened condensed milk into a pot and stir in a pack of white chocolate melts – 225g

Once melted and mixed, pop it into the fridge for 15-20 minutes to chill

While it was chilling I went to scavenge what was left on the raspberry canes (Seriously – be nice of people to share this stuff at the BEGINNING of the raspberry season!!)

Take mixture out of the fridge and add in a 250g pack of Philly spreadable cream cheese (I am sure any spreadable cheese will suit)

This went into the mixer until smooth then I added 300ml of cream and kept beating until fluffy

I threw in the raspberries and mixed them in by hand. I then added some of my frozen ones just because I could

I lined a square tin with baking paper, put the mixture in and added a few strawberries into the top layer

Even a heart shaped one – I just noticed it has ticked over into Valentines Day here 🙂

Anyway, enough of the romance.
I put this into the freezer which was supposed to be ready in 4 hours for the last step.
Nope – A short while ago I stuck my finger into the very soft mixture and decided it could stay there until tomorrow.
Basically you take it out, cut it into squares, dip each square into melted chocolate and bung them back into the freezer. (Like thats going to end well… haha)
Anyway, can’t wait until I finish these off, re-freeze and taste test!

Then I will have to get off the frivolous cooking train and get my sauces made!

Cheers!

Muesli Bars

Hello! There is Friday gone! Hope everyone has some excellent weekend plans.
Clearly my Saturday plan will be something to do with sorting/cooking the plums Jeff brought home from Ruby’s that he helped pick!
So happy – my upcoming plum jam crisis has been averted (for now)

Well… my husband is getting a bit more daring in the kitchen! (proud wife moment) He looked up how to make muesli bars (or granola bars) and went off on his merry way.
The first batch was excellent, so we did another lot today

I will add the recipe at the end of the blog for anyone that is interested in giving them a go

Some of our dried apples from last season

Since you can get a bit creative about what goes in them, I started having thoughts about strawberries

Pickings are getting slim, but I put these on to dehydrate today as I reckon they will be awesome in the next lot of muesli bars

I can’t tell you how good strawberries smell as they dehydrate!

And here is a Jeff-Action shot, just for his parents to see 🙂

Half an hour in the oven and ‘Voila’

Tasty and will be excellent to take on our 6 day hike across Cradle!
The plans are all coming together!

Cheers!

RECIPE FOR MUESLI BARS

9×9 inch pan – criss cross with wax paper going up the sides and also grease paper

Preheat oven to 165C (325F)

INGREDIENTS

2&1/2 cups oatmeal (we used rolled oats)

1/4 cup desiccated coconut

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Then – make up one cup of whatever you like to add to your bars. It can include, crushed nuts (we have used almonds and cashews) dried fruits – so far we have used apple, apricot, sultanas, – choc chips.

METHOD

Mix well all ingredients and press down into your tin really firmly

Put in oven for about 30 minutes

Allow to cool COMPLETELY in tin. Once cool, you can remove and slice!

Relish

Hello!
Not a lot from me today. I am still doing things in slow motion thanks to my shoulder which is still not playing nice at all.

But I did get my relish made! So happy to be restocked! (See bottom for recipe if you are interested. Its a lovely old fashioned one from my Nanna)

I hung out some washing and then got sidetracked by shoveling some dirt around the ‘boardwalk’ and putting some rocks back at the front to try to blend it more… then figured that was a worse than bad idea. (not what I did but because it wasn’t really helping my shoulder much)

I played with my garlic scrapes – just trying to put them all in a bowl to do something with

Someone had suggested making garlic infused olive oil which I was keen to try – then read there is a high risk of botulism from the process, so I got nervous and abandoned the idea. Still not sure what I will use them for

I did do some housework – but didn’t get all that far. So I sat down for a bit and finished Miss Emma’s late late late Christmas present

Done! (again – night time not the best light for the colours but you get the idea!)

So… looks like I might achieve an early night tonight!! You never know!

Cheers!

Recipe for my Nanna’s tomato relish:

Ingredients

6lb tomatoes (3kg)

2lb onion (1kg)

2lb sugar

Vinegar (you can use white, malt or cider vinegar)(Avoid malt if you are keeping it gluten-free)

2 tablespoons curry powder

3 tablespoons mustard powder

Cornflour to thicken

Salt

Method:

Chop tomato in to approx 1cm chunks (You can peel if you want to but I don’t)

Dice onion

Put both in large pot, mix and sprinkle top with a handful of salt and leave overnight.

In the morning, drain off excess liquid.

Pour vinegar over the mixture until covered/saturated.

Add in your sugar and bring to boil… then let cook slowly for an hour or two.

Prepare about 10 good sized jars by washing and sterilising in the oven at 100C

In a separate bowl mix your curry & mustard powder along with a couple of heaped spoonfuls of cornflour add some water and mix into smooth, runny paste. Stir into your tomato mix and cook for a few more minutes.

Pour hot into your jars and seal with lids. (Apron good – can be messy and splashy!)

Enjoy.

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

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!

Chook House Spruce Up (& Stuff)

The sunflower gives up! (Warning for those eating, next photo includes chook poo)

Hello! Whats on everyones weekend agenda?
I figured it was time to give the chicken coop a bit of a clean up – the weather was lovely and hot, so figured the whitewash would dry out super quick.

I accidentally whitewashed Screecher! She snuck back into the nesting box and some of it dripped through!!

I am excited to see the corn has silky bits!

Everywhere I look I have little tomatoes forming!

If they ripen I will be able to stock up on my sauce and relish again!

Marigolds are scattered all about the garden

Was good to see the bees out working in the sunflowers

Dinner tonight was great! I thawed out some rump steak for Jeff to BBQ, and I thought I would make some stuffed tomatoes as a side dish to the steak, potatoes & salad. Its a bit of a favourite and we haven’t had it for ages!

Its so easy – just scoop out the middles of the tomatoes and smush or puree.

Whizz up some bread crumbs and chopped herbs (I also like to add garlic salt)

Mix through the tomato pulp and spoon back into tomato cases

Tonight I topped them with butter, basil and parmesan cheese. Five minutes under the grill and done!
We thoroughly enjoyed!

Hope your weekend is fantastic!

Cheers

PS Occasional extras on my Facebook Page
PSS Some other flower shots from around the garden today

Planting More Tomatoes!

Hello!! How is everyone doing?? Lovely summery day today here in Tasmania!

Time to get back into my garden and do something useful!
I had those self seeded tomatoes in their pots growing away happily. I think they may be cherry tomatoes. Anyway, seemed a shame to not do anything with them so I thought I might clear out the ex-garlic plot and chuck them in

Thinking upon the advice about the bees from yesterday, I figured I could pull up the carrot plot, save a few seed heads and leave the bees to play on some of my other flowers

And I am pleased to report that my ‘Lazy Gardening Technique’ works well. I am getting food from the random potato plants that have popped up that I didn’t bother pulling out.

That’s given the rhubarb and celery some breathing space!

Back to the tomatoes…

They are used to being outside, but a bit of wind-support around here never goes astray!

That’s 27 new plants!! It is a bit late, but whats the worst that can happen?? Fingers crossed there is enough time left in the season to get a bit of fruit off these!

In other news – the pesto was great! I was really happy with how it turned out. Last night I cooked up some fettuccine, stirred the pesto through and topped with Parmesan. Too busy eating to take a photo. 🙂

Tonight I used the pesto again, but in a different way. Please forgive the very much not magazine images of my dinner prep –

I got some chicken thigh fillets and topped with the pesto (I never use breast as I can’t seem to cook it right for most of the ways I use chicken – we prefer the thigh)

I rolled them up in bacon and skewered them to hold. They went into the oven.
Meanwhile I made up a tomato-zucchini sauce thingy to pour over the top of the new potatoes that I steamed.

Totally nothing fancy – just garlic & onion fried, then added the zucchini & tomatoes. (Couple of spoons of sugar because Ruby said so) salt and fresh herbs. Let that simmer away while everything else was cooking.

Dinner was appallingly late because we didn’t get inside until after 7.30pm!! Summer is like that here!

Hope you all had a lovely day!

Cheers

Nothing like fresh herbs to liven up your dinner!

Kitchen Day

Hello!!
I had a mad day in the kitchen. There was a list of stuff I wanted to get done floating about my head, so on with the apron and into it!

First things first – raspberry/banana bread!

Frugal tin lining – taking Ruby lessons!!

If you would like the recipe, click here.
Round one of dishes.

I had a box of bananas to sort out, so I got on to that next.

Into the freezer so I can make my cake anytime and not rely on finding the appropriately ripened bananas at short notice!

All whizzed up and ready for the compost.

Running distressingly low on gourmet ice cream… so began stage one of the process, so it could cool as I did other things.

I felt bad I had deprived the chooks of cakes for quite some time… so I whipped them up a couple of cakes too.

They were delighted.

I only took them a few slices, but they were gone in short order!

Next – pesto! The thing I have been madly growing basil for!

The recipe called for roasted garlic. So the smell in the kitchen took on a radical change! mmmm

Its crazy how much the basil reduced when chucked in the Gee-Whizzer! I used cashews instead of pine nuts (I was price driven in that choice.) The taste test seemed good, but I will make some pasta tomorrow night and get some Parmesan cheese and try it out properly. Will let you know! 🙂

In there somewhere today, bread got baked and dinner made and I was up to round ‘who knows’ of dishes (btw I hand wash – never had a dishwasher)(So I am over dishes today)

10pm rolls around and I have said see ya to Jeff (night shift), done the dinner dishes and then finished up the last part of the ice cream

Vanilla ice cream – whisking through the strawberries

Taste test on this was creamy-dreamy
(Aaaaand the last lot of dishes!)

So – I am all done for the day! Hope yours was a good one!

Cheers

Pip was instrumental with moral support.

Behemoth of the Garden

Kitchen day – time to put the pinny on!!

Hello! How is everyone’s week trundling along?
I thought I would take a weeding break and tackle a few kitchen things.
First things first – need to show off my beetroot!

I figured it was about time to dig it out of its cosy home in the hothouse and see if it would cook up alright

It cut rather nicely and I have been cooking it tonight. I probably need to taste it properly when its cool to give you a verdict on whether I left it too insanely long.

As I type I am waiting for some cooked and pureed strawberries to cool off. I want to make some ice cream before hitting the hay

Making step one – the vanilla ice cream with plums cooking behind

I picked a few plums and cooked them up too – wanted to try a different flavour in the ice cream.

When they had cooled I picked out the pips by hand then ‘mooleyed’ all the skin etc out so I was left with pulp

Also cooked up a pot of raspberries then sieved all the seeds out.

What I don’t use in the ice cream I will pop into the dehydrator to make fruit leather.

We made some the other day but I am yet to scrape it all off the trays! They got a bit stuck. I will use some baking paper for the next lot!! Still… tastes good!

Well – I suppose my strawberry mix might have cooled down enough to finish up this ice cream caper. (Its only 11.30pm 😀 )

Hope your day was great!

Cheers

Todays pickings! We ate most of those potatoes!! Same with the lettuce and basil. One of the Black Russian tomatoes is showing colour. Can’t wait to get into that! Another cucumber, oodles of snow peas and all those luscious raspberries!