Making More In My Kitchen

 With the kids home because of school holidays, its very important to have the cupboards full with baking. It stops the temptation to buy things we don't need, and makes great bribes (I mean encouragement hee hee) to behave and be helpful. Yes even the teen boys :)

I started with making Afghan biscuits, don't need a lot of ingredients for these. A great use for our walnuts :)

Next Gingerbread Men, DS8 helped with the icing. Next time will make car ones. As DS8 does like his Gingerbread cookies :)

Then I made Feijoa Jelly. This is my first time, and I was please to see it's as easy as making Crab Apple Jelly. A great use of fruit that kids weren't eating (the small sized feijoas, that a teaspoon don't fit). Now I know they will eat on pikelets and scones (with some fresh whipped cream YUM!)

Look at those beautiful Autumn colours. Feijoa and Crab Apple Jellies make a pretty stain glass window for my kitchen :)

Now I can focus on catching up on washing (got behind after boys came back from camp), and cleaning. Need my lounge back :)

Autumn In My Kitchen

Do you love the colours of Autumn? I sure do :)
Even better when you find them in your kitchen with the autumn flavours to go with them.

Washing crab apples to make crab apple jelly. I love the red, oranges and yellows.

The finished Crab Apple Jelly is also very pretty with the sun shining on them. Had them by the kitchen window to cool.

Orange of carrots and the browns of walnuts. Getting ready to make carrot cake.

Homemade Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. YUM! Perfect for an autumn afternoon tea (or dessert)

Also made chicken stock for tonight's dinner, more for comfort food then colours. The carrot cake I made double batch so half could go into the freezer for a day when I don't have time to bake.
Came away from the kitchen today very happy. now DH has cooked us dinner :)

Preserving

My small preserving cupboard is full this year

I might have been quiet in blog land, but I sure have been busy at home. After making over 40 jars of food (some given to others). I realised we need a better place to keep our preserves. So I have been in the hunt of a secondhand pantry, to go into our garage. That would free up more space in my little kitchen again. We had a good year for peaches, our tree blessed us with heaps.

One of the reasons I have been so busy is I'm now homeschooling my DS8. He can be a bit of a handful (more so when he is sick). But he is progressing with his learning, even doing maths out of school time hours. Still have a lot of work to do on his writing.
One day at a time :)

Other exciting news is we have been making progress with our garden. (not that you would think so at the moment, with the mess out there) We are working on a new fence behind our garage and clothes line area. No more jasmine trying to take over my clothes line. More light, more space. Our dear grapefruit tree is having a new lease on life with room to grow and breathe. The fence that was there before was built on our side and took a chunk of space from our land. It also gave a great frame for the jasmine to grow, and a wonderful living space for rats. No wonder our cat would go crazy with that fence, walking up and down beside it. But now it is gone and new frame work is going up on the fence line. Waiting on some secondhand metal fence materials (and one day a fresh paint).

Now if we could just get the other fence done on the other side near my apple tree, and the new chicken palace done I would be very happy :)

Very Hot Summer Day

In the morning had to take a walk in the garden to cool down from a hot night. My sweet peas are flowering lots. Love the different colours, very cheerful.

 

Look what I found, our 1st passion fruit. I saw the beautiful flower, but didn't think it would fruit. Pleasantly surprised.

 

And look our 1st blackberries. I have to help support the vines onto the fence, as they were going exploring.

  

3 days worth of eggs (but we did use 3 for baking on Thursday). Will be using more today with baking and dinner. Our Brown shavers are laying now (those beautiful brown eggs), and with the others we are getting about 6 eggs a day. I should start recording our eggs, see how many we get per month (and year).

 

Our Waste Not Want Not Cup Cakes. They are really Banana Cupcakes, the bananas were at the bottom of our fruit bowl and starting to go brown. So we needed to use them, then some of our eggs. Also these patty cases were from a Christmas present. They were for shortbread biscuits that come in a box, (biscuits all eaten). Perfect for our cupcakes, since I had run out of patty cases. Made 12 cupcakes. I also added some wholemeal flour to them, with plain flour. Partly to make them abit healthy. But mostly to stretch our flour supply to last till I can shop next week.

 

With 8 of our eggs, and 2 of our courgettes made this Courgette and Carrot Quiche for dinner. Served with some our Butter Beans, picked this morning. Large slices were very filling. Yes we are still slowly going through our courgettes. I have a few more dinner ideas for them yet. Then I will start freezing them.

Mary Mary How Does Your Garden Grow

Wow even with the bad weather we have been having, the garden has taken off. And has been helpful keeping our fruit and veggie budget down. Nearly every dinner has something from our garden now.

Section One has Butternut Squash, Black King Eggplant, Peach Melba Nasturtium, Sunflower x2, Cucumber x2, Black Krim Tomato, Green Basil, Lettuce, Blue Borage, Purple Beauty Capsicum, Green Courgette, Yellow Scallopini, Sun Gold Tomato, Marigold.

Section Two has Ivory Eggplant, Yellow Capsicum, Dwarf Sunflower, Cucumber, Yellow Courgette, Lettuce, Rocket, Butternut Squash, Swiss Chard, Red Chicory, Carrots, Beetroot, Roma Tomato, Green Basil, Celery.

Section Three has Lettuce, Orange Capsicum, Swiss Chard, Sunflower, Cucumber, Red and Green Spring Onions, San Marzano Tomato, Green Basil, Red Capsicum, Butterbeans, Black Velvet Nasturtium, Marigold, Spinach, Tomato from neighbour.

Section Four has Lettuce, Banana Capsicum, Rock Melon, Marigold, Tomatoes from neighbour x2, Green Basil, Purple Broccoli, Orange Long Capsicum, Squire Kale, Greenfeast Peas, Green Scallopini, White Cloud Capsicum.

Section Five has Tomatoes from our neighbour x2, Purple Basil, Carrots, Crystal Apple Cucumber, Dill, Celery, Red Acre Cabbage. Still have more to plant before this section finished.

Section Six has our chickens still at work on it. But in a couple of weeks it will be ready to plant more veggies.

I also did a list of our fruit plants that we have ( I look forward to get back to preserving for winter)

• Brown Turkey Fig
• Grapefruit
• Peach
• Crab Apple
• Red Guava
• Yellow Guava
• Thornless Jewel Berries
• Tangelo
• Blueberries
• Olives
• Mandarins
• Splendor Apple
• 2x Fejoias
• Ted's Red Tamarillo
• Lemon
• Passionfruit
• Thornless Blackberries
• Strawberries

Then we also have herbs in pots, like rosemary, thyme, mint, lemon balm etc

We might not be self-sufficient, but we are eating healthier :)

I'm Doing the Daniel Fast

And finding it really good. It's like going vegan for 3 weeks, as well as a spiritual journey with my Lord.
More info here http://www.daniel-fast.com/
I'm eating only fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains. Drinking only filtered water. And spending more time in prayer and reading my Bible.
I'm actually eating more then I did before, because often I would forget to have lunch. As well as where I would have one cupcake or a couple of biscuits for afternoon tea. Now its a handful of raw nuts, and some fruit and veggies.
I was expecting to have bad headaches with no coffee, but they have been mild. Must be all the water I'm drinking.
I finish on the 17th Dec just before the school holidays.
Sure does make me very thankful for our veggie garden. Have been adding more plants to it. Some just companion flowers. But also some peas, beans, kale.
Can't wait will be moving the chickens at the end of the week and finish off our long veggie garden.
Oh and with the Daniel Fast I'm not having any eggs, so more for the rest of the family.

Time For A Food Challenge

The Monthly Shopping has been a big help with less time at supermarkets. Especially as the past 2 months have been very busy. But this month is the time to a stocktake and cleaning, where we store our food. As well as prepare for the coming busy months.

So $21 Challenge here we come :)

Have just finished a stocktake and with a bit of filling we have almost enough for next months dinners. Almost enough meat for each day, OH BOY!
Might need some flour and sugar for baking. With our chickens provide us with eggs and a freezer with 7 butters, we don't need much else.
We have lots of potatoes, silverbeet and oranges
So now to menu plan.
Will come back to share how that goes :)

Lovely Day

To be outside in the sunshine. But it sure wasn't like that yesterday, when we had a heavy storm.
The bad weather does make me very thankful for the good :)

Our garlic growing, can't wait to use them in our cooking.

Winter fruit, love the colours. Cheery when the days are grey.



Celery growing well, wonderful with our roast dinners. There are 2 of our herb pots on each side. Curly parsley, and mint.

So happy with our raised garden, feeding us and the chickens. Don't know why but some of the pea plants in the middle fell down.

My cleaning supplies, for making our own cleaners. Not just saving money, they are saving me too. I react badly with some chemical cleaners, so these ingredients have been great. Citric Acid, Salt, Baking Soda, Washing Soda and Vinegar.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Make Lemon Honey (also know as Lemon Curd, Lemon Butter)

This is the Lemon Honey cooking that I made for my mum and dad. My dad is Diabetic, and misses out on alot of goodies I make for mum. But I used his Low GI sugar to make this. At first was worried it wasn't really going to work. 

But the end results were well liked by both my mum and dad. Sorry the photo is not the best.

 After making this Lemon Honey, I just had to make another. So armed with 4 more lemons, and 2 more eggs (thank you dear chickens). Some sugar as well, this time plain white sugar, made some for our family.

Classic Edmond's cook book recipe, cooking in the double boiler.

Finished and setting in the jar before going into the fridge.

Yummy on toast, but also great to have on vanilla cupcakes instead of icing. Or use for the filling in a Lemon Meringue Pie.

Potatoes, Potatoes, POTATOES!

Free potatoes we have been blessed with, (minus an ice cream container we cooked up for lunch).  Perfect for our Sunday roasts, chips and potato salads.

Free fruit and veggies, already some used for homemade Chicken soup. A pack of $2 chicken nibbles used for the soup so a cheap dinner.

Homemade Aioli, with our chickens eggs and lemons. This is great for potato salads, and yummy on toast.

Homemade Lemon Cupcakes, again using our eggs and lemons. These ones are going back to the couple who blessed us with the free fruit and veggies.

We also have a free Guava tree that we need to plant. Now if we could just get a free plum tree :)
when you see the prices in the shops, we are so thankful for this food.

A Winter Walk in Our Garden

Loving our raised garden bed. The plants are really taking off, leaving more space in our veggie garden for other plants.

Peach tree asleep for winter, We have to give it abit of a trim. Can you see our chicken's free ranging by the sandpit? Catching lots of bugs :)

Have been working on the veggie garden. Planting our beneficial herbs in pots so we can move them if we need to. Rosemary is in the red pot with Broccoli planted around. Oregano is in the black pot with Cauliflower planted  around.

With cleaning up the veggie garden, look what we found. Our last pumpkin. We roasted this pumpkin for dinner, and it was good to eat :)

Our Oranges are starting to colour up, looking forward to freshly squeezed orange juice.

Our mandarins are blessing us with a bumper crop this year. The fruit is starting to weight down the branches. Excellent for school lunches (and so helpful with our food budget).

We recycle and reuse in the garden too. This old plastic toy box is going to be used to plant our garlic in.  We first drilled holes into the toy box, before filling up with soil from the chicken run. But we are not planting yet till the shortest day.

Now to get some baking done for school lunches this coming week.

Baking and Gardening Too

I haven't just been knitting :)

I have also been baking ginger biscuits for friends.

A "thinking of you" gift.

Dust baths for chickens. I have been scooping up all the lovely soil they dig for me.

Our mandarins are almost ready. I have been doing some tree maintenance.

While the weather has been good I have been outside, weeding our summer veggie garden. Removing more soil from the chicken run, and trying to catch up on our washing.

Free Apples and Feijoas

A bowl of our free fruit waiting to be eaten or cooked.

 Thanks to our dear friends we were blessed with bags of apples. Yummy apples, from 2 different trees. They can eat them all, and sadly not many people were wanting them. So I have been busy cooking them up (yummy stewed apple on weet-bix), preparing for the winter months. I hope with all the extra fruit we will be having this coming winter, will help with combating colds and flu's. Our 2 feijoa trees have given us lots of fruit, so have been cooking them up as well as enjoying fresh fruit for dessert. Looking at the cost of apples and feijoas in the shops, I am very thankful for this saving. One shop had the cheapest apples at $1.99 per kilo, and feijoas at $3.99 per kilo. We have had over 6kgs of apples and over 8kg of feijoas.

Jars of fruit filling our cupboards

As this seasons apples and feijoas passes, our next free fruit is mandarins. They are already starting to change colour, from dark green small fruit to lime green larger fruit.
Oh and while I remember our apple tree had 3 fruit, not an amazing number. But hopefully as it has a chance to spread it roots and grow, it will provide us with more applesd next year.