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 :)

Country Drive = Cheap Food

Our family driving through the Karangahake Gorge. Love our country :)

 DS13 and DS14 have been on a christian kids camp as junior leaders. The camp is at Waihi Beach, a lovely place (beautiful beach). It means having a country drive to and from, but well worth it. The boys had a great time, and we got to pick up some cheap fresh food.

The results from a night of cracking walnut shells.

There was a couple of cute kids selling walnuts on the side of the road. We had to stop and buy a bag. It cost a $10, but well worth it when we almost filled to jars with them. To buy them from the shops and fill the same jars would cost over $28. So plans are to use them for carrot cake and yummy dinners of Bacon and Walnut Gnocchi. Also should make a batch of Afghan biscuits with walnuts on top :)
But that was not all we got. At a fruit and veggie shop heading home (before the city) , we picked up some carrots and onions. 20kg onions for $6.99 and 15kg carrots for $7.99.
At another shop brought 500g of garlic for $5, we love our garlic.
Now I need to prepare some of our carrots for the freezer, to make them last like our broccoli we did. With this type of buying I might be able to get our grocery budget lower than $100 per week. That would be helpful.

Waihi Beach on the day I dropped the boys off to their camp. Could of stayed there for the week myself :)

Autumn Veggie Garden - Welcome the Greens

Planted out a lot of seedlings on the 21 April. Filling up our veggie garden again.

So thankful for our veggie garden, it blessed us with a lot of food for Summer. Now with this next lot of plants, should help us through autumn and winter.
Have planted out celery, Brussels sprouts, sliver beet (have some colourful ones as well as the good ole green kind), cauliflower, broccoli, pak choi, and kale seedlings. Also planted some pea seeds.
Later on will plant some bean seeds.
One of the things I have done this year is re-planted our capsicum plants into pots. Somewhere I heard to do that as they can keep giving your more capsicums and grow into bushes that keep giving for a few more years. And I have to say it's true so far. We are getting lots more capsicums.

One of our 4 capsicum plants i have re-planted. Look at all those capsicums! Very handy for soup, stews and stir-frys.

Veggie garden this morning 26/04/2013, the celery at the far end is what we planted first and have already used some in making chicken stock. Love watching plants grow.

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.

Some Cucumbers, Courgettes and Sunflowers

Went out to water the garden this morning and look what I found. 1 Cucumber and 7 courgettes.

 

So added them to what we have already. I won't count them. So I have started to give them away. Though I going to change the menu to use some more up. Instead of Sliver Beet Quiche on Saturday, it's going to be Courgette and Carrot Quiche.

  

Had to share what was waiting for me by my computer this morning. My lovely sunflowers (and a few inch worms hee hee). At least I'm still getting to enjoy them.

  

Now today when I went to make sandwiches there was very little mayo left. Now because we are doing so well with the $100 Food Shop, I didn't want to go buy some more. So mashed up 3 avocados and added them to water down mayo (so I could get it all out of the container). And it's yum. A good waste not want not dressing.

 

Going to use the leftover avocado mayo with the roast chicken tonight :)

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.

 

Using our Courgettes

Jamie Oliver's Courgette Carbonara Recipe. A good use of our courgettes.

 

 

Getting all ready even have our eggs waiting to be used. Didn't have to buy anything extra as we had in our fridge and pantry all we needed.

 

 

Our Courgette Carbonara. Very happy with the end results, tasty with leftovers for tomorrows lunch.

 

 

Now the Courgette Carbonara used only egg yolks for the sauce. And since we had leftover egg whites and not dessert planed. A Pavlova was a great idea.

 

 

Didn't take long to whip this up. Those are yesterdays stewed plums for a sauce. Oh and some leftover cream from dinner :)

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

Christmas was Great

Christmas Lunch with family, simple with alot of love. We used compostable plates, bowls and cups (so not to fill rubbish bin, and less dishes to wash)

Our $35 Christmas Ham. We have already had 3 meals from and still going.

Veggies and flowers from our garden. Saw the same bunch of flowers in a florist for $10. I love sunflowers lots, and happy I don't have to buy them. We have to keep an eye on our courgettes now as some are becoming marrows.

Had to share our 3 different types of courgettes. Having them today for dinner, in a quiche and pasta sauce. Love the colours. That middle courgette is a heirloom variety, and our first year trying it.

We also have our 1st cucumber growing, will have to pick soon for salads. Have to prepare our stage 6 garden for planting more veggies.

Today will start to pack up our Christmas boxes, and get them ready for next year. Went to the Warehouse shop today to buy some Christmas items for 60% off. This helps with the Christmas budget alot. But also helps to have less trips to shops in the busy time of year. Being able to buy 8 rolls of wrapping paper for $1.60, and gift tags for .80c is a great saving.

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.