Late Night Cooking

Well… just to let you know, its not all Beaches & Sunshine around Norwich House. Behind the scenes I am getting on with a few tasks as well as acting Chicken Wrangler – gently introducing the new girls to the old.

I finally got around to making some pickled beetroot

I had some vague instructions from Ruby, so I just went for it

To be perfectly honest, it tastes bloody awful, so I put the whole thing, pot and all, in the fridge and thought I had better ask Margie for a proper written recipe. The lovely lady handed that over today, so I will be able to hopefully rescue it in the next day or two.

I picked and roasted the rest of my beetroot to make chutney

I’ll add the recipe for this at the end of the post, for those that are interested.

The recipe calls for three Granny Smith apples, but there is no way I was going to especially buy apples when I am still snowed under with our own!!

I did forget about getting some orange juice… happily I remembered I made some orange juice icy poles a while back, so I saved myself a few bucks there!

I had to scrape together a hodgepodge of jars and lids to finish the job as the order I made a couple of weeks ago seemed to have been lost in the ether…

Naturally five minutes later I find a bunch of boxes on the back porch full of jars, bottles and lids!!

Sigh

However, it did kick start me into restocking my sweet chilli sauce

I like the fat long chillies as they are less fiddly to cut, so I saved a bunch of seeds to hopefully restart next season

The rest of the scraps I put in one of the Origami bins as they can wrap and compost easily, with less chances of the chickens getting into them. I am not sure if they are bad for chooks, but I can only imagine laying an egg is tough enough without the burning sensation of overdoing it on chillies!

I managed to get 9 bottles out of this batch, Mana is getting one to take to Melbourne with her as apparently it “is the best tasting sauce in the whole world” (I am not sure I embellished much 🙂 )

So here we are at 10.30pm finishing up making sauce!

Chickens

I’ve been slowly introducing the new girls into the old girls company. So far so good… the biggest of our new girls doesn’t take any guff from anyone, so that’s good. The three younger ones are a bit more timid, but they can hang out together.  Tonight I transported them all into the main coop – they are sharing two to a nest. (They look cute cuddled up together)

Tomorrow I will pop them up on the roost so they get used to that.  Some wing clipping will be in order too… they fly up and over fences too easily and I am not keen to go racing about the paddocks with the cows and electric fences to get them back! (the last time I went near an electric fence I got zapped on the backside – VERY undignified!)

We also have a crook chook – she has had a bad leg for a while. At the moment she is pretty listless with not much appetite.  We have her inside at night in the cat carrier and in the hothouse by day where she is warm and sheltered but not too cooped up.

Dunno if she will survive, but she will get every chance.

I am also attempting at the moment to make some cider vinegar

Tonight for the first time I got it out of the cupboard to stir it up

I was quite pleased how it fizzed up. That’s a good sign right???

Its back in the cupboard, but it smells pretty good. I’ll have to find the recipe again to check what I have to do and when. Since its only scrap apple, water and a bit of sugar, its not much of an investment if I get it wrong.

Of course I am still putting apples through the dehydrator. I suspect Jeff is eating them almost as fast as I make them!!

Despite the rain and cold weather there are still a few pretties in the garden  – photographed a few in between rainfalls

Since Mana is catching a plane tomorrow, we dropped in to say goodbye to Margie & Ruby. (Not least Macca!)  Of course there was cake. (A sponge from Margie!! Yummo)

I am now going to sit for a few minutes with my rediscovered crochet skills before bed!

Cheers!

Beetroot Chutney

INGREDIENTS

5 beetroots

3 brown onions

3 granny smith apples (or whatever you have)

500ml balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup orange juice

2&1/2 cups raw sugar

½ teaspoon ground cloves

METHOD

Bake beetroot (Approx 2 hours) then dice

chop apples and onion

Put all ingredients in pot and simmer 1 hour

I love this on top of cheese & biscuits (crackers). Also mixed into some cream cheese with a squidge of lemon juice makes a wonderful dip!