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 :)

Getting Busy Harvesting and Preserving

Made some Courgette Chutney, another way to use up what we have growing in different ways. Made 3 jars of chutney (gave one to my dad) Next I have to try them in a cake.

 

Harvested our beetroot. Of all the seeds I sowed 10 plants grew. And of those 10 plants, 8 were big enough to preserve. Made 2 jars of beetroot.

 

Cucumbers have taken off in our garden. Lovely fresh in a sandwich or salad. But I might have to preserve some, and see if anyone wants some if they keep coming like they are.

  

Our 1st Apple Cucumber. They wouldn't grow for me last year. So I'm very happy see not just one but 3 more also growing.
Yes cucumber crazy this year :)

 

Our Butternut plants are doing well, already fruiting. The vines look a little sad at the bottom, but has lots more green leaves at the top. Our other NZ pumpkin has gone crazy growing (over 3 metre long vines) but no fruit yet.

 Very happy with the garden, but I still haven't planted up stage 6 garden. hopefully in the coming weeks that will get done. I want some more lettuce and peas.

 

Week One $100 Food Shop

Making a good start to our $100 Food Shop Challenge (long may it continue)



Our Budget Envelope for our $100 Food Shop. Having only a $100 placed in the envelope helps us not to over spend.

Part of what is helping us this week is using what we already have in our garden and pantry.



The plums we were given are now turned into......

Plum preserves ready for winter.

All the plums are cooked up, but some are for summer desserts. Plums and ice cream yum :)

We are having a courgette glut. So coming up with ways to use them.

 

 



With the help of our eggs, flour, baking powder and some milk. We were able to make fritters.

Courgette Fritters ready for lunch.

For dinner we had roasted scallopini with roasted potatoes and cold sliced ham.
I'm going to be making courgette chutney, which will help to use more of our courgettes. Then use that for our homemade hamburgers.
There are also recipes for making cakes with courgettes, we should try as well.

Grow Our Own, Make Our Own

One of the wonderful things about having a veggie garden is being able to grow ingredients needed for making our own products.
We are not able to grow everything we like but sometimes we get blessed from our friends who have had extra (hope to do the same for them).

Our first cucumber for the season. Have more growing :)

2 boxes of Broccoli thanks to dear friends.

Got right on to preparing them for the freezer.

Our basil growing in the garden. Have over 20 plants now around the garden. So using to make our own basil pesto. Will freeze some for the winter months.

We used the pesto here with risoni. And had a side dish of our courgettes with onion. Was a yummy quick dinner.

Started up a ginger beer plant to fill our cupboard's with the refreshing drink. And a good use for our lemons.

The ginger beer in bottles. making our own means we can control what goes into our drinks (less sugar, and real ingredients not chemicals)

And look what dear friends have blessed us with more. Plums and tomatoes. Our tomatoes aren't ready yet, so these were very welcomed for our salads. Plums will be cooked up and preserved for the coming winter months.

Waste Not Want Not - Be Thankful For What You Have

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.

Wet Day so a Good Preseving Day

Rain coming down heavy. DS13 wanted to catch some water for the garden :) Every bit helps.

So no gardening today, but a good time to add more preserves for winter. Feijoas and Apples today.

It's also a good day for homemade soup with chicken stock from the roast chicken we had last night. And veggies from our garden. Good old comfort food :)

Preparing for Winter

My start on preparing for winter. 1 litre jars of peaches, pear and plums. Sadly was abit early for the fejoias. But our 2 trees have started to drop their fruit, so will have to cook up with apple. I'm hoping to get some more apples to bottle up to. Our dear little tree only has 3 little apples growing. So will be on the look out for cheap apples.
My plan is to not have to buy any can's of fruit for winter puddings. I hope to get better at harvesting and collecting free fruit.
Sadly our tomatoes this year have not done so well, partly to do with the weather. But I have been able to make one large container of tomato soup. It's in the freezer for now. Might be able to make one batch of tomato relish I hope. Yummy on roast beef mmmmm!

Foraging Day

Today going on a search to find fejoias for bottling up :)
Have been given a bag of pears from friends, so will be bottling those too.
As well as our own peaches yum.
I have been down with a terrible cold, and recovery has been slow. But I'm so excited about today's bottling adventure. I don't know if anyone else gets joy from bottling fruit? Or loves opening their pantry to see the jars all filled ready for winter. But I do :)
I was so worried my cold was never going to go and I wouldn't be able to do it.
So heading off now to search a park for fruit :)