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Grey Cold Days

It’s so hard to get inspired on cold, misty cloudy days. The two males of the house – hubby and male puss are snuggled in the lounge in front of the heater with the playstation. Female puss is out in the dining room in direct line with the heat pump snoozing on top of a huge pile of cushions. I decided to warm up the house and our tummys with a cooking morning. First up were pikelets – different recipe this time to add to the recipe pile.

One egg, 3T sugar, 1T melted butter or canola oil, half cup milk. Beat with a fork and then add one cup of self-raising flour, mixing slightly only (like you do with muffins). Add an extra tablespoon butter/oil if using trim milk.

– Alison & Simon Holst

I’ve always known about not overmixing muffins but until I found this recipe I never knew about it for pikelets. It makes them rise really high and fluffy. I make them for my mum now as well and she puts them in the freezer. When you thaw them out pop them in a frying pan with butter (go lovely and crunchy) or put them on the sanwhich press to reheat. Gorgeous with maple syrup.  

Second up was banana cake with cream cheese icing. Makes the house smell beautiful.

Third was hummus. Fourth is lunch – BLTs. Might have to do some exercise this afternoon to burn off all the food! 

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Mediterranean Lunch

As the sun fades this morning and the grey clouds roll in I have decided to try and brighten up the day with a mediterranean lunch. My mum bought me some haloumi cheese the other day as a gift so I thought it only right that I invite her around to have some of it fried and then sprinkled with lemon juice – mmmm. I also made some hummus this morning – it tasted so amazingly good I was tempted to eat it all there and then. It is a lot cheaper than buying from the supermarket and you can alter it to your taste. I presume it would be a lot cheaper again if I bought my chickpeas and cooked them myself – next task to investigate. This recipe is from a Craig’s promotional recipe booklet – it doesn’t use tahini paste.

Hummus

300g can Chickpeas in Brine, well drained

2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped

Half teaspoon salt

Half teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 Tablespoons Oil

Juice of one lemon

Blend all in a food processor until smooth. Can add quarter cup sun dried tomatoes or 50g feta or 3 tablesppons basil pesto (or anything else you like).

Got to go – Tabouleh is calling to be made – I’m cheating with couscous. Now I wonder if my guest will bring with them a nice glass of wine to wash the meal  down with?

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The power of sunshine

On days when the sun shines it always seems that you can achieve anything. This morning waking to a glorious blue sky was a wonderful surprise after the cold and wet of the last few days. The vege garden is bursting along with growth – it’s hard to keep up with the caterpillars who probably think they have found paradise. I’m not too fussed as long as they leave us enough food for our dinner. Today was worm tea day – plants get fed every two weeks. I found out a few month ago that my in laws had a worm farm and weren’t using the worm tea. Now that I have told them they can use it as fertilizer and how to dilute it (1:10) we have family squabbles about who should get the supply of worm tea each time.  It has encouraged me to start thinking about starting our own worm farm as the plants just love the worm tea and it would mean we could recycle our organic waste. We presently share a small wheelie bin with my mum but if we reduced our organic waste we could perhap share our bin with a third person in the street or change to a company that only picks the bins up when you want it picked up. The worm tea would also make a great gift idea for friends who garden (although not the most fragrant gift!)

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Taking the plunge: de-cluttering the wardrobe

One of my major goals this year has been to make de-cluttering a permanent part of my life. Each month I can slowly see more and more progress in the house. In January hubby and I cleared out our wardrobe – all my clothes that didn’t fit me but that I couldn’t bear to throw away went into a wardrobe in the spare room. Slowly I have realized that my clothes in the other wardrobe aren’t that important after all and every few weeks a few have been going out in the charity clothes bag or to jumble sales. Last week I bit the bullet and got my sister–in-law around to do some ‘shopping’ as she is the size I am no longer. Off went my beautiful tops, jackets and trousers – some from my days of shopping in London and Paris (when I was single and carefree and smaller). I am much happier now knowing someone is making use of my clothes rather than having them taking up space in the wardrobe and as a bonus my sister-in-law gets to update her wardrobe for free. It is such a lovely feeling to walk into the bedroom wardrobe every day and find our clothes so easily without wasting time – we can even take visitors into it to show it off! As a money bonus we also now realize that we don’t need to invest money in more wardrobe storage space – we have more than enough room, the problem was too much stuff. If you find you just can’t give something away because of the memories you can always take a photo of it or perhaps turn it into something else if you are good at sewing.

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To Leek or not to Leek

I have been umming and aahing for weeks over sowing leeks. Every different source of information I read gives me varying advice as to when I can plant them – it gets very confusing for a learner vege gardener. I’m not even sure I like leeks but I have become so enthralled with the pleasure of eating our lovely home grown spring onions and red onions that I thought I would continue with the onion family. My pack of mini leek seeds tells me I should have had them sown by early summer – December – but seemingly there are lots of opinions Gardening: The leeks you want – Gardening – NZ Herald News so I’ve decided this morning to go ahead and give it a go. I can always take them in over winter as they will be in pots. On the sowing list this morning was also more baby carrots, spring onions, winter spinach, heritage lettuces from Koanga nursery and mixed variety lettuces. While writing this I am munching away on gorgeous cherry tomatoes (must plant lots more next year!). Everything I have grown over the last year has been from seed – it feels a much greater achievement than buying seedlings from plant shops. I was so proud this morning to see my first 3rd generation lettuce growing happily – grown from seed I collected from lettuces that had self seeded from my first set of lettuce seedlings that I bought two years ago. My mother-in-law has also collected seed from the lettuces I grew for her and has in turn passed extra seed on to her sister. My $3 investment in six lettuce seedlings two years ago has produced at least a hundred lettuces so far and will continue to grow hundreds more for a growing group of people.

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New Life

I haven’t written much this year as my laptop hard drive finally died at the end of January. By the time I found a moment to drop my laptop off to get a new hard drive and pick it up again almost a month had gone past and I have got out of the habit of writing down the happenings in my life. My second hand laptop has only cost me in total $600 (original price I paid plus the new hard drive four years later) and the new hard drive is guaranteed for another two years. As a bonus if we ever get robbed I don’t think my laptop will get stolen as it definitely looks its age! When I went to pick up my laptop it was easily the oldest laptop in for repair at the computer shop. So my computer has a new life now and definitely feels a lot stronger. I could have got a second hand hard drive but risked paying the extra $60 for a new one as I get the guarantee with it – only time will tell if that was the correct decision. I get the feeling that my computer guy doesn’t have much faith in my old laptop surviving much longer but the two of us (me and my laptop) have been through a lot and I think it will be with me for quite a while yet. Sometimes we are too quick to throw out the old when a bit of new life is all that is needed.

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De-junking Challenge 1

Checking my kitchen collection of recipe books last week I found to my surprise that I own 25 recipe books plus three recipe scrapbooks. Although I’ don’t know how many recipe books the average Kiwi owns I definitely think I would be considerably above the average, owning close to a small library – it seemed like the perfect project for my first de-junking challenge for 2011. An afternoon later of leisurely looking through recipe books I was down to 19 recipe books with a few more still to go once I have photocopied a few favourite pages. I was feeling very proud of my first de-junking mission of the year – this wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Until, that was, I realised with dismay that on the shelf next to my small library of recipe books was another small library of seven year old food magazines. It was a very good example of having things right out in the open that you pass every day and hardly ever notice or use. So my afternoon task today is to work my way through the food magazines pulling out the last few recipes I want to keep (but will probably from past experience never cook!). After that the magazines will be passed on to another family member to see if they can find any tempting recipes for their household.

Achievement so far: 1 spare shelf, one much tidier shelf.

Further action needed: Still need to de-junk more recipe books: Can I get it down to single digits???????

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Clutter’s Last Stand

 

This is the title of Don Aslett’s de-cluttering book – one of my library books for my summer reading. I‘ve talked before about how important I think it is to take the time out every now and then to reflect on the ideas in de-junking books like this. For most of us our obsession with owning more and more things has been with us since our childhoods – it is not suddenly going to disappear overnight because we want it to, we need lots of support and inspiration from others – some may even need professional help!. This year I have decided not only to continue with my non-consumerism train challenge but also to start de-junking my life so I can actually enjoy and use what I consider important enough to keep after my de-junking clear outs. When I met my husband 12 years ago I could fit everything I owned in a car. In those days I didn’t even own a bed, I figured it was just as easy to sleep on the floor – hubby didn’t share my views and after a series of carpet burn incidents our first purchase together was a bed. Twelve years later we now own three beds despite the fact that the inhabitants of our household (myself, hubby and two cats) all share the same bed. De-junking challenge starts tomorrow…….

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Coconut Macaroons

Over the summer holidays I have been browsing through my collection of recipe books and recipe files collected over the years. A good pastime activity can be to see what you can make from the ingredients already in your cupboard. Over the last few weeks one of our favourites has become the Edmond’s Cookbook Coconut Maroons.

125g Flaky Pastry, Raspberry Jam, 2 Egg Whites, 125g sugar, 75g coconut, half a teaspoon almond essence.

Roll out pastry and line patty tins. Place a little raspberry jam in the bottom of each. Whip egg whites until stiff. Fold in sugar and coconut and essence. Place spoonfuls of the mixture in patty tins. Bake about 45mins in a moderate oven at 180 degrees.

I changed the recipe a bit to fit what was in our cupboards using puff pastry (2 sheets), any jam and vanilla essence. I also found with our oven half an hour was more than enough to cook the macaroons.

Last night as the macaroons were in the oven hubby commented that this would be the perfect recipe to make when selling your house as the smell of warm coconut just wafts throughout all the rooms – men will say the darndest things when they are drinking beer.

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Summer Garden Challenge

My summer garden of veges in pots on the front porch is booming away. Lettuces, spring onions, red onions, mesculun, peas are all providing us with summer veges. The beans, cherry tomatoes and parsley are not quite there yet but should be ready in a week or two. Yesterday I sowed more spring onions, lettuces, chives, basil thai and parsley. Now that I’ve got the hang of keeping a constant supply of veges I thought I would branch out with the type of seeds I am trying. So yesterday I purchased some organic seeds from Commonsense Organics. I am looking forward to seeing what type of lettuces grow from my Koanga Gardens  heritage lettuce mix. My next step is to get some certified organic potting mix so I can raise some organic herb seedlings and pass them on to friends/family as gifts.