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.

Cheap Coffee

My DH and I love a good Flat White coffee :)
It's our little treat together. But with a cup of coffee at a cafe costing $3.50 to $5, we began a search for the perfect cheap coffee fix.
First we found out we could make it cheaper at home then from a cafe.
We started with a stove top espresso, but have now got a coffee machine. Which has helped us to be able to get that yummy creamy top to our flat white coffee.
Then the search for cheap beans started. We did find a good brand of coffee from the supermarket, and would buy it on sale. But still at $6.99 for 200g, we thought we could do better.
Then we found http://www.greenbeanhouse.co.nz/
And after watching a video on how to roast our own beans, we brought our 1st bag of green beans :)
$13.50 for 1kg of green beans (prices can vary on beans), and postage came to just over $20.
So for $4 per 200g we are very happy.

Our home roasted coffee beans, before we ground them.

And the final yummy flat white coffee mmmmmm

Fixed My Camera

After a search on ideas to fix my camera, all it took was some lemon juice and a cotton bud. So we are back in photo action :)

DS12 made us Pavlova with our eggs. Yummy desert, and great school holiday activity.

It's cold here, very cold. A frosty morning photo.

School holidays is almost over, and then I will have to do a walk through my garden (with it's highs and lows).

My Camera Is Broken, and My Garden is Blooming

Would love to share the happenings of my garden. Even though it is cold and wet, so much has been growing. Our mandarins are still coming, sweet with a few seeds. Our garlic is planted :) We have more herbs in pots like Lemon Balm, Parsley and Coriander. More fruit plants like Crab apple tree, Tamarilo, and Blueberry. We have Pak Choy growing, can't wait to use for our stirfry dinners. Pea plants are away, climbing up their framing. We will be able to use our colourful Swiss Chard soon.

I made a windfall fruit juice, after a stormy day knocked fruit off the trees. Added some honey and sugar with the juice and water. It has been a good pick me up drink. Also made a Waste Not Want Not Soup, with leftover veggies from other dinners. With some garlic, and rosemary YUM! Have also been making cupcakes for Birthdays, and a batch of mini cupcakes for DS12 shared lunch today.

Now the next challege is to stay out of the shops during School Holidays. The temptation to have takeaways, and ready-made snacks is so much stronger in Winter School Holiday time (well for our family). But not this time! Firstly it's time for a clean up, and declutter. The problem with a little home and 4 children is how easy it is to fill with stuff. It's felt more overwelming lately due to not been able to go outside as often.

OUR PLAN OF ATTACK!

• This coming week my DH is also home for a week long holiday, so this is going to be a TOTAL family working bee.
• We will be doing a room a day, till it is all done. There are 7 rooms in the house, we have 9 days. But with 2 of those days being Sunday - Day of Rest, means we will have 7 days to do 7 rooms.
• Motavtion is we work in the morning together, so we can have the afternoon or evening to do something fun. Ideas are MOTAT, Libaray, Park, Family Games Night, Visit Grandparents, Op shops, and Friends.
• We will be declutting items we don't need. By giving them to those who can use them, clothing bins, or selling online.
• We will have some homemade snacks ready, baking, sandwiches, popcorn etc.

Hopefully with the home clean and sorted we can all enjoy our home again :)

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.