Chilli sauce for a chilly day....

My husband brought me back a copy of Chili Lovers Cookbook from his last trip to the USA and as we have a few overwintering chilli pepper plants in the greenhouse with some little green and red offerings I felt compelled to make the most of them one cold wintery day last week.

So I adapted the Chili Sauce recipe and ended up using:


1/2 lb of a mixture of whatever chillies I had - Jalapeno, Marconi red, a couple of Thai..... (cleaned, stalk and seeds removed then soaked in warm water until soft)
2 cloves organic garlic
a good 2 cm sq lump of fresh ginger root
1/4 C water
a few springs of fresh oregano from the garden

I blitzed it up with the hand blender and ta-da !!!

It was gorgeous - I have had it on chick pea fritters, beef pitas and in soups

LOVE IT!

A Yarn to tell.....

I am having a ball getting back into knitting and crocheting. One of my Grandmothers taught me to knit when I was about eleven and I managed to produce a neat little summer top, but I never really got into it.
Only years later, with little ones of my own do I now understand the importance of the craftwork skills and not only have I begun knitting again but I have been to a local wool shop for crochet classes and am in seventh heaven looking for beautiful yarns with which to practice.
I am now working on a crochet cardigan for myself after crocheting hats for my wee ones and flowers for embellishments. I have, though, fallen in love with granny squares and the multitude of patterns and projects that can be born from this simple square.

One of my first easy to do and quick to finish projects was a hot water bottle cover.

All I did was crochet 8 granny squares of varying designs, from a lovely little book for beginners - stitched them together (with simple double crochet, although now I have come across 10 different ways to join granny squares I shall be experimenting) and crocheted a slight collar with treble crochet - magic!

I highly recommend you get to a local crochet class, we must not let these wonderful craft skills die out.

Yarns - kid in a candy store, me!

Couscous balls

I needed a quick filling lunchtime meal for the cherubs as they have a club tonight and we always get back late so have a form of cold 'picnic' before bed.

I am also trying to use up leftovers as I hate throwing any food away, even if it's being recycled by the chooks, I like to see what we can make of it first.

So today I was presented with leftover couscous...

The cherubs are not mad keen on the friable texture, a bit like trying to shovel sand onto a fork!

So I mixed in a good couple of tablespoons of fig syrup - left over from making my fresh fig preserve and a couple of tablespoons of ground almond.

I then took about a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and rolled into small balls before cooking in the oven at around 190 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes, until they had browned a little.

Delicious!!!

There was a nice texture to the bite and they hold their shape really well so are going in snack boxes too.

The most important win - the cherubs ate them!!

No gray and no spray......

The rain has passed, the sun is out and the sky is a glorious blue....

We are slowly reclaiming parts of the property for garden and veggie/fruit growing. Flowers are done mostly in pots as the moment, until I get around to preparing areas of ground for them to flourish 'au naturel'.

The land has had it tough in the past, ex-dairy farm and so quite intensive 'off-site' inputs into the land and lots of output. We are not looking to get certification but we are aiming at managing our land with a sensitivity to nature's order, so spray-free and reusing material from one part of the property on another. However, in these early days we are having to bring in potting soil and garden mix to have any medium in which to grow the veggies.

Just recently we dismantled 4 compost heaps we had set up when we moved in and had not really tended to - we simply added to them with peelings, cuttings etc. and turned when we remembered (and had time). Well, nature got on with it and we had enough homemade compost, full of worms, to set up four or five no-dig beds for a more concerted veggie growing effort this year (partly spurred on by the fact that the cherubs are less needy and a little more helpful in the garden and in amusing themselves).

We didn't set up borders to the beds this year, I might do that next year with old sleepers. This year we simply reacted to the successively maturing seedlings in the greenhouse! So the first bed was laid out so that I could get the squashes and zucchini in and then it was corn, then tomatoes....

So we simply did newspaper, straw (actually recycled old hay from the property), compost and seedlings. We have weeding to do, but actually the crops have grown so well they are outcompeting the weeds, which I shall pull out to try and reduce seeding. Irrigation is important but the set up does hold on to moisture really well and the plants have survived being left for two days in heat when in the past, plants straight in the ground would have perished on the first day.

This is definitely the way to go for us on this land.

We not only see the benefits in the environment by going spray-free and growing things more naturally, but the more we read about pesticide residues in food the more we believe in the benefits to our own health and especially the health of the cherubs. We aren't perfect, we don't always use organic growing material, we live close to non-organic farms and so drift and leaching will impact on our land. However, we do what we can. We buy organic when possible and we grow spray-free and we hope to reduce any negative impact on the environment and on our bodies, targeting the dirty dozen as we can.

The no-spray strawberries were a hit this year. We didn't have huge crops everyday but a steady trickle that allowed the cherubs to taste their deliciousness almost every day and even provided enough for a couple of pavlova and a jar of jam!

Happy New Year and here comes the harvest!

Well it's been a while. Mostly I was busy getting trees planted, seeds sown, seedlings watered, kiddies to school and the usual jazz that any SAHM might have on a daily basis.

Spring was nicely wet and so was the early summer so we have not reached the horrible dry conditions I find very difficult just yet, although I am sure that is to come.

We have a pet lamb now and our lone calf born in October is doing very nicely. Mum is doting as is Auntie and the three are enjoying the slowly increasing shade from the trees we are getting going around the property.

The lamb is a proper pet lamb, actually he's not sure if he's a person or dog. He gets on very well with our larger, younger dog who is able to hold his own against playful butts. He also likes to 'just be with us' when we are in the garden doing our jobs - I guess in his eyes we are part of his flock.

However, as much as the lamb (he'll always be a lamb to us no matter how ridiculously big he gets!) is great company he is also a driver for us to get on with some more heavy landscaping tasks such as fencing.

We have ideas about fencing and 'cutting' up the garden (which is still reminiscent of its paddock heritage) so that we can have pathways leading to secret corners and more truly garden like features. These ideas are being finally put into practice, albeit slowly, as the need for protection from a dry-grass weary lamb becomes immediate. He does keep the grass down around the property and helps us not have to mow as much (long term plan is to get rid of grass and plant up with cropping plants/trees and natives), but he's quite partial to variety! Who can blame him hey?

So, slowly I am getting post and rails up, using a hand borer and re-acquainting myself with the composition of our soil and the improvement in worm count since we moved onto the land.

The zucchini, squashes and cucumbers are growing prolifically and I am having to become a tad more adventurous with my use of these in fresh recipes as there is only so much preserved produce one wants in their store cupboards. I have opted for preserves that have shown themselves to be favourites of the children - otherwise we end up throwing excess to the animals or giving lots away and even neighbours have a limit for pickled zucchini!

 

So I have made some piccalilli, curried pickled zucchini, rhubarb and apple chutney and am making tzatziki on a daily basis (a very simple chopped cucumber, garlic and yoghurt mixture - takes me back to holidays in Corfu, just delicious).


I went all out on trying zucchini recipes from the BBC Good Food website and my go-to girl, Nigella Lawson. I can heartily recommend courgette fritters, courgette and mushroom bread and courgette loaf cake.





 We all loved the courgette filo pie, my version of Nigella's courgette and chickpea recipe. Letting it cool a little, it sliced beautifully and was just as tasty cold the next day with salad.

I am also starting to turn my hand to cheese making. It's going to be another slow burn project, but having satisfied myself that I am competent in Ricotta, Labneh and Mascarpone making I tried making Halloumi - spurred on by a cheese-making kit I got for Christmas. It is produced by the Country Trading Company in South Island, NZ and contains a beautifully constructed Feta/Halloumi wooden frame/press. The method was simple enough and it worked! My blocks of Halloumi rose up in the whey and we had delicious fresh 'squeaky' cheese for our BBQ supper that same night.

 

 

 So the New Year is off and running - busy, busy. Gardening, construction, baking, cooking, preserving, craft bits and bobs as I can fit them in (there have been a few woolly hats and sundries made during lazy evenings with a glass or two of a warming red wine).

 

All the very best for your endeavours and I shall keep you posted periodically on what I get up to......

Winter Chills......

Well technically it is Spring but the weather has not decided on that really yet and we are getting some belated Winter wind and rain.
Consequently, the jumping from barmy to chilly weather has played havoc on our bodies and my cherubs and I have been struck down with a terrible sinusy lurgy.

It is at times like this that you don't actually feel you want to eat anything substantial but I know I should be taking in some well needed nutrients if I am to kick this sucker into touch.

We were so affected we didn't leave the house so I am delving deep into the abyss that is my chest freezer and trying to use up meat cuts before we go for another homekill.

That's when I found the bacon hock....what to do? I admit I have not cooked one of these before.

So after much trawling of the internet and cook books I decided on boiling the hock in stock and using the meat in a soup. WOW...delicious, nutritious and, although the girls still weren't up to eating much I used the soup juice to soften up some mashed potato for them, they loved it.

And it's easy peasy to make :) Don't worry too much about exact quantities, feel free to fiddle to your heart's desire.

Hearty Hock Soup

1 organic Bacon Hock
2 large organic Agria potatoes
1 large red Kumara
2L organic vegetable stock with 4 cloves and 8 black peppercorns and 1 large organic garlic clove squashed
2 large organic carrots
bunch of homegrown parsley, mint and thyme
3 white onions
extra organic garlic

Place the hock in a large saucepan and pour in the stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the meat starts to come away from the bone.
Pull out the hock and allow to cool, then take the skin off and cut the meat off the bone into chunks.
Strain the stock and return to the pan. Put in the washed and chopped potatoes, kumara and carrot.
 Cook until tender.
In a frying pan sauté the sliced onions until soft using oil with two squashed garlic cloves.
Add the onion to the pan and chop up all the washed herbs and add those too, cook a little longer (say 10 minutes).

Enjoy and be well!

It's been a while......and Story Stones

I was going to start by apologising for my tardiness in adding to my posts, but then I thought......heck, WHY?

Initially, the reason the writing this blog was to help me review just exactly what I had been up to all day when I flopped down having finally got the wee ones off to sleep.
It still is that to me, but sometimes....often, real life is just so darn busy I don't find the time to sit and cogitate on what I am so darn busy with!

I am thrilled to think some other mums and friends out there might pop in for a peek at what we get up to, but I don't feel pressured by it, think I'm going to make a living from it or often, don't have time for it.

Hopefully when I do post something it might be interesting or even useful to someone out there. I am certainly not going to put a post up every day or every week just to be regular.

Right, enough ranting......................what have we been doing?

Well, we have had family gatherings, tree planting, fence building and animal wrangling.

We have been putting in many more natives and fruit trees - we love the cherubs being able to wander around in the summer and autumn, eating directly from the trees - and improving fencing to keep the cows from getting to our garden or the little stream by the citrus orchard. We have also increased the livestock count by adding pet lambs to our happy home and the cherubs are thrilled. The little woolly fellas think they're dogs and go hurtling around the paddock with our big pawed sofa hogger.
The cherubs are in to books big time - one is learning to read and the other has really switched on to the power of her imagination. So many library visits later.....

Phew.....

Well, today I got to have a go at making story stones with the cherubs. I saw some ideas on pinterest and thought - How cool is that? So I got the cherubs to choose pictures from stickers, fabric and magazines and we each made up a set of stones as practice.

We used:

• polished pebbles - you could scavenge them from beaches, your driveway etc
• PVA glue - it's nontoxic, washable and dries clear
• sources of pictures
• Scissors for fabric, scissors for paper

GO WILD!

The idea is to choose, whether blindly or knowingly, say 3 stones and using the 3 pictures tell a story to everyone else. It can be done as a competition, winner of best story gets a prize - say a new book?
Can be used on camp overs, parties and in the car. (Of course mum and dad can always make more adult versions for their friends ;) )