A rainbow of goodness, colour your plate......

Dinner tonight was beef sausages made from our own home raised steers, and a colourful selection of vegetables. We've grown a fair bit of veg over the years and that feeling of satisfaction you get seeing a plate full of home produce never wanes. If you've never grown a thing in your life, try it some time, you won't regret it.

So here's what we picked today.... leek, kale, carrots & silverbeet (rainbow chard)

The leeks and greens tossed in a little butter, olive oil with a few small cloves of garlic, sweated down in minutes taste like heaven on a plate.

Steamed carrots

Sausages cooked on the bbq, a few oven chips and behold..

.....a feast.

...and lets add a splash of red...home brewed plum wine...

Cheers!

Bread and cucumber pickles

It's been a busy couple of days in the kitchen 

and boy was it hot! 

Probably the hottest days so far!

So it was cucumber day, this little lot needed to be used

I used this Bread and cucumber recipe from here I have made them before and there is, quite likely, another post on the blog somewhere saying exactly the same thing, it just saves you looking for it.

BREAD AND BUTTER/CUCUMBER PICKLES

5 medium cucumbers cut into 5 mm slices

350g onions, sliced very thinly

green capsicum and red chilli are optional

50g salt

350 ml cider or white wine winegar vinegar

350g sugar

2 level tablespoons mustard seed

2 level tablespoons celery seed

½ level teaspoon turmeric

¼ level teaspoon cayenne pepper

Slice the cucumbers, onions, capsicums and chilli and place in a bowl, and salt and let stand for 3 hours. 

Drain, rinse under the cold tap and drain thoroughly.(I used my salad spinner for this job)

Bring the remaining ingredients to the boil in a stainless steel saucepan and then add the vegetables. Reduce the heat, bring just to the simmer and cook 2 minutes.

Pour hot into sterilized jars*, making sure the liquid covers the cucumbers and seal.
* Wash the jars, rinse and place in oven tray, I lined with brown paper bags/baking paper, I don't let the jars touch. Put in a hot oven until very hot. I took them out one at at time to fill.

I was given some large Agee jars, and as I was making such a bulk lot of these I used them, I just had to buy lids..

I have this handy funnel that fit's perfectly into the neck of the jars making getting the pickles into the jar. Unfortunately it's just a bit too big for normal jars and I hate having to spoon it in! I get in enough of a mess as it is....

 I used the pusher thingie from my blender/smoothie maker to make sure it all packed down well

The seals need to be soaked in hot water so the rubber softens to allow it to seal

Place it on the top of the jar

And screw the top on really tight, be careful every thing is bloody scalding hot!!!

 I made it all in two of my big pans, this one......

 Which yielded 4 jars

and my preserving pan

  which yielded 3 jars

So yep you guessed it! 7 jars in total..

 The thing is I still had some of the vinegar mix left

and all these cucumbers!

 So ditto above but today instead....

I didn't quite have enough green pepper/capsicum so I added some sliced runner beans

And got 3 large jars and one small which wasn't quite full so we'll use that first

Still there was vinegar mix left , so I bottled that too! It can be used in cooking and on salads

Another job needing doing today was racking off the wine into a clean fermenting bin

That solid block is the must(plum waste)

Sugar added  after dissolving in warm/hot water, lid on, airlock fitted and now we wait.

And that's me done for the day! Done in I reckon

Hope you're all having/had a great weekend

'ot and 'oomid....

....that would be the weather, so it hasn't helped spending the last 2 days slaving over a hot stove!

Never mind, fruit needed preserving.... 

No you're not seeing things, that is a bath...with a shitload of plums! And that's just windfall fruit that I've picked up off the ground! There's heaps more on the trees. We have two trees and two varieties but I have no idea what variety they are. There is a dark flesh plum, Black Doris ? I think, quite a tart flavour. The other has a yellow flesh and a red - purple skin, and much sweeter.

The best $20 I ever spent was on the preserving pan!

I use jam setting mix when I make jam, cos I'm lazy, no other reason and it pretty much guarantees the jam will set....except for the strawberry jam I made today, although it might eventually.

Add the jam setting mix, 1 packet to 1.75kgs fruit 

(I used 2kg cos I'm a rebel)

Stir until it begins to boil, then slowly add 2.1kgs sugar, allowing to dissolve.

 

Let the jam (rolling) boil for 6 minutes, pour into hot/warm sterilised jars.

Usually I do that in the dishwasher but I had them boiling away in a large pan of water

I made a batch of plum wine last year and it's pretty good, so I'm making more. To the plums I poured over boiling hot water, allowed to cool off then added a campden tablet and pectinase, it's been steeping for 24 hrs now and I'll let it go another night as I added more water today.

To be continued....

...and I still have a basketful left!

The veg garden is starting to produce, we'll be well fed for a while now.

Last nights dinner, all home produced...even the plum wine.

Home made tomato sauce too (last season)

Corn on the cob (last season) frozen in it's husks and then nuked in the microwave for 3/4 mins

The only thing we didn't grow was the onions! Total fail, thanks to the weather and the chooks.

Today's efforts.....

5-6kgs of strawberries picked, second cropping

I used 4kgs to make jam, which hasn't set properly and yet I did it exactly as I did the plums yesterday. I wonder of it's because strawberries have a higher water content? 

Ah well it tastes bloody lovely!

I would show you the garden, but I'm saving that until the first Monday in February. 

I was recently invited to join a Garden Share Collective, an idea set up by Lizzie Moultand over at Strayed from the Table who is a writer, cook and fourth generation farmer on their property in Australia. The idea of the Garden Share Collective is a community of bloggers that do seed swaps and get ideas from other gardeners. As well as get advice on problem areas in the veggie patch. The more the merrier to help problem solve the better. All that is required of me is to do is a monthly blog post (over view) of our garden, to share what we  are doing and planning to do. Hopefully we can all support each other in our endeavors and encourage others to attempt to grow things for themselves. 

I will add a link in the right hand column if you would like to go check it out.

Just look for the Garden Share Collective logo

Laura over at Our Wee  Farm is also part of the group.

Anyway that's me done for the night, I'm off to watch TV and I get to choose whatever I like cos himself is on night shift tonight.... and I get a kingsize bed all to myself! Woohoo!

And there it was gone...

Another week bites the dust, the clocks go back a summer buggers off leaving us with dark and almost frosty mornings! I don't like it come back!! 

Internet woes continue  and this post has taken two day to try and put together, so I'll let you look at your leisure cos I'm off to watch TV for the rest of the evening.

Dog run almost done, a couple of gates needed and some temporary fence under the deck. This will be changed once the deck is replaced

 

This part of the veggie garden had gone feral, so we cleared a lot of the stuff out..

....we picked the last of the tommies...well nearly, one plant left with a few...

....signs of autumn are everywhere...

...my roses just keep going even after such neglect!...

We had rain and so the grass is slowly coming back, these fat buggers Isobel and Cara didn't suffer through lack of grass...........

Peppers finally ripening, I'm growing them in a glasshouse next year and the spa is finally fixed! Yay!

A very old craft project finally went up on the wall, still missing 'Living the' as I'm stumped as what to do with the letters I bought...need inspiration...

The wine has stopped fermenting and needs racking off into demijohns, it's still a tad cloudy for bottling yet..

..some missed presents I didn't share, the rose is Dublin bay..

... ongoing project on my hook, working to get it finished...

..and finally some progress is being made on the blanket...