Garden Greens

The leafy green garden beds have been overflowing with rainbow chard and English spinach, and I have been trying to find different ways to use (a lot of) this in the kitchen.

I came across a great recipe that, thankfully, called for 750g of greens. With the addition of some cheese and a bit of fillo pastry I was pretty sure the kiddoes would get into it without the fear of it being 'poison'.

After an hour in the oven, this dish, along with the addition of a couple of salads covered just about every colour of the rainbow.

I think a thick, legumey, tomatoey soup might make its way to the table by the weekend as I know I will be able to add quite a lot of spinach and chard at the end. I might even have another go at soda bread.

How do you use your leafy greens?

Take care

Homestyle

You know things are going along nicely when you start the day with homelaid scrambled eggs with homemade English Muffins.

I thought I would share an inspirational Ted Talk with you today from Pam Warhurst on how we can eat our landscapes.

You may even want to read a little more about Incredible Edible or watch another lovely video.

Take care 

It's Getting Hot in Here ...

I thought I would show you how we have managed to get the tomatoes ripening through the cooler months in our own little hot house.

Our vege gardens are all out the front as this seems to be the sunniest part of the block. There are a few sunny patches out the back, but we want to be able to let the chickens have the run of that area.

We are using Hills Adda Gardens which are really easy to assemble. Another thing I love about these is that they are quite shallow so I don't need to use a lot of compost and manure to fill them. I have put a corner-to-corner frame using some pipe and tied the two pieces at the top.

I found a piece of plastic wide enough to fit over and hold this down with bricks. Now that the weather is warming up, we peel the plastic back during the day and just comer everything over at night.

The tomatoes are loving the warmth and rewarding us for our efforts with some gorgeous fruit. With the price of tomatoes at the moment, it is great to be able to pick one or two a day straight from the garden.

I am sure that we will adapt this in the summer months when the temperatures head over 40 degrees C to cover the crops with shade cloth.

Take care

A Day of Firsts

With the start of a new week came a few exciting first.

The tomato bushes have managed to keep fruiting through the cooler months, with the help of a homemade hothouse (more on that later), and I have been slowly watching these round bottomed babies turn from green to luscious red. With the need for a midmorning snack, and these looking too good to leave any longer, the idea of a simple morning tea of tomato on toast, with a pinch of salt and pepper, was enough to get these tastes buds excited.

Yes, it was amazing.

I always love trying a new recipe that will hopefully become a family favourite and extend my repertoire just a little further. After eating the most amazing Spanish Tortilla in Barcelona last year, in a tiny, no-frills cafe, I wanted to be able to recreate this delicacy at home. The kiddoes renamed it "Chip Pie". For a first attempt, the results were pretty pleasing, but I think I will still keep searching for another recipe. Any suggestions?

I honestly think it was even better the next day for lunch, but don't tell the others.

Another one to add to the list.

But the most exciting and wonderful first was that our girls are growing up.

We followed the delighted, and almost hysterical squeals of "Come quick!", out to the coop and found this tiny, precious egg sitting in the box. 

After photos and excited phone calls to grandparents, it was decided to add the egg to the tortilla. It was a very good decision.

I hope you all had a fabulous start to the week.

Take care

Making Mustard Update

Yesterday morning I drained the mustard seeds and added these to all of the other ingredients. The seeds had swollen quite a bit over night so I was glad I had put in enough water.

These were all whizzed, and came together nicely. The texture was rough, more like a seeded mustard, as I couldn't process these any further. I was quite glad as I prefer a rougher texture. 

The initial taste test had me a little worried that I have wasted quite a few ingredients and a bit of time as it was very sweet from the honey. I had read in the book that the flavours calm down a little after a few days, so I popped it into the fridge to see how it might change.

I am sooo glad I did. This mustard is amazing!

The honey calmed right down and the flavour from the seeds is really strong. If you are a fan of wasabi, this is the mustard for you.

This is a keeper. I am looking forward to trying a couple of other recipes from the book.

Take care

Making Mustard

One of the best incentives for me to get housework finished, is finding a Book Depository parcel at the front door. It makes me hurry around finishing everything I had already started. Just before I get the last thing done, the kettle is turned on, a cuppa is put on to brew and I look around for the nicest/quietest spot to open the package. With cuppa in hand and a sunny spot located, the envelope is opened.

Late last week I went through this ritual and was so happy that Homemade Pantry was inside. This is a fabulous book put together by the creator of Eating from the Ground Up. This is one of those books that wins you over before you even open the first page. The cover is gorgeous and felt wonderful in my hands.

In between sips, the pages were turned to tell a new story and share a new recipe.

One that really excited me was mustard. This is something I had never thought to make but couldn't believe how simple the recipe sounded.

At the moment I have half a cup of yellow mustard seeds soaking ready to be made into the condiment tomorrow.

In the morning I will drain these and add them to 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 teaspoons salt and 3 tablespoons honey. With 1/4 cup water, this will all be processed together.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Take care.

My Milk Dilemma

We are working our way through PFJ here in the Mouse House, but I must say that one of my biggest challenges is milk. There are so many options that I actually feel my head spin every time I stand in from of the dairy cabinet at the supermarket.

We were tending to buy either Margaret River Organic milk or Bannister Downs milk before the challenge. I love that both of these are small Western Australian farms that I am able to support. ONe of my dilemmas here is that Margaret River sell their delicious organic milk in 2 L plastic bottles.

I like to buy the Bannister Downs milk as my local supermarket regularly stocks this, and I like the thought behind their packaging. Bannister Downs have recently brought out a pasteurised only milk in glass bottles, and I was thrilled when I came across one of these at the Jude Blereau cooking demo, so after contacting the dairy I found that a local shop was stocking this. I was a little disappointed though to find that it was being sold for $4.69 for 750 mL, a 70c markup according to the dairy. My son could go though that amount of milk in one sitting so financially this isn't really an option. Another Western Australian company, Sunnydale, is selling milk in glass bottles but the same shop is selling these 1 L bottles for $4.99.

Brownes is probably the biggest collector of milk in the state. This company have been around for over 100 years and they sell milk in a variety of sizes and either plastic or cardboard. Harvey Fresh is another collector but they only seem to use plastic bottles.

I try not to buy milk from the eastern states, not because I don't want to support the farmers there, but I don't see why I should be paying transport cost across the country when we have the product here.

The big supermarket brands are not even an option after the milk war.

After years of buying low fat milk thinking that this was a better option, we are now back on to full cream milk.

So here's the dilemma.

• Do I buy milk from small farms even though their milk is in plastic?
• Do I buy milk from the big collectors because I can get it in 1 L cardboard cartons?
• Do I buy organic milk even though it in plastic?
• Do I buy pasteurised only milk in plastic?
• Do I buy milk in glass bottles even though it is $5 a litre?

What do you think about when buying milk?

Take care.