Harvest Monday - Thanks Mr Street-tree!

This week's harvest Monday comes courtesy of the apple tree in our street, on my lovely neighbour's nature strip. I'm all in favour of growing edibles on the nature strip even though it's unclear whether it's legal or not (check out Veggiegobbler's post on this) but someone many years ago must have felt the same because the tree stands at least 5m tall and this year is laden with apples. The rainbow lorikeets have been feasting on them so at the weekend we decided that it was time to claim some of our own.  The apples are reasonable - a bit sour for eating fresh and on the small size, but fine for cooking and of course, free. 

Half an hour later with some help from LittleFB and his friends we had most of a laundry basket full.  A bit of chopping and cooking later -I did about a third of the basket-  there were two freezer containers of apple pulp and four sheets of apple leather going in the dehydrator.  The apple pulp will be good for using in desserts (I like the look of the apple custard shortcake recipe from Out of the bottle by Sally Wise)


I added some honey to the pulp before dehydrating to sweeten and a bit of cinnamon . It's best not to use sugar as this makes the leather brittle. I might make some apple jelly with the remainder.  Anyone have a good recipe?  
 
So, yay from street fruit trees. I think every street should have at least one!

Harvest Monday - Parsnip-tastic

 

Ooops, I forgot to post this yesterday but here is our parsnip haul - pretty good I reckon, especially with the problems that  I had last year.  The reason why there were all harvested at once is because I needed the space in the bed to grow garlic, and I decided that freezing them might actually improve their flavour a bit. 

So, the parsnips were peeled any any big ones cut into pieces.  Then I blanched them in boiling water for 3 minutes and popped them on a freezer tray.  After they had frozen solid I packed them into freezer bags (a good tip here is to close the bag almost completely, put in a straw and suck all the air out before quickly sealing up the last bit) Now there are a a couple of kilos in the freezer ready to be popped in the oven for some roasted parsnipy goodness.     For more harvests head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

We did it! We preserved tomatoes in the Fowler's!

Yesterday our friends called us from the farmers market - they were thinking of buying a box if tomatoes and could they come over and use our Fowler's unit to preserve them?  This was just the push that we needed to learn how to use the unit and also preserve some our tomato harvest.

They arrived today at around 11am, armed with tomatoes, two kids and a delicious lunch of bread and cheese.  Between settling the baby and pulling out piles of lego and train tracks for LittleFB and his play-buddy, we set up the preserving station - jars were washed and dried, lids and seals prepared and cutting boards and knives laid out for everyone.  I went online and found the 'written especially for me' tomato bottling tutorial by Tanya of Suburban Jubilee which was incredibly helpful.

What a nice way to spend the day.  We chopped and packed the tomatoes into jars to which a little vinegar had been added, just to be safe.  I know that this isn't done by everyone, but it's our first time doing this and we wanted to err on the side of caution.  How pretty the multi-coloured heirlooms looked in the glass jars.  We had a few spare so we did three full of apples and pears from yesterday's foodswap (more on this later).

The jars were sealed with new rubber seals and clean lids, and the clips fastened before they went into the Fowlers.  After a couple of hours heating and some cooling time they are now all sitting on the bench top waiting to have their seals tested tomorrow.  All-in-all a learning experience, and very satisfying to know that we will  be able to open a jar of hom-grown summer goodness in the depths of winter!

Harvest Monday - Autumn abundance

The kitchen bench has been overflowing this week. This time of year always brings an abundance of produce and it's very satistsfying to see such a sizable harvest, although keeping up with it all is actually quite a challenge - in the past week I've made: zucchini bread, two batches of tomato sauce for the freezer, zucchini and tomato risotto and a pumpkin lasagne. It's a good job I love cooking!

A mixture of heirloom tomatoes. Most of the plants are slowing down now but I reckon there are still 10kg or so of green tomatoes left on the vines.  With the nice warm weather we've been having, and a sunny dry forecast for the week ahead I'm hopeful that they will ripen. Also in the basket are some zucchini from the never-ending zucchini bush which has provided us more than 50 fruit, and in the foreground some amaranth.  I'll do a separate post on this soon because I'm so impressed with this hardy summer green. We've been eating it wilted in a pan with some browned onions and a bit of chilli and a spoon of labneh on top. I discovered this yummy yoghurt stuff recently and can't stop eating it. It's especially good with spicy beans or beetroot or on a curry. 

Here is the last of the corn, more tomatoes, beans (blue lake, purple king and dragon's tongue), eggs from the girls and a pumpkin.  You can see how the pumpkin has some dryness on the skin.  This happened to a few of the pumpkins on this vine (which has almost completely succumbed to powdery mildew). Two of them split and were inedible. This one was OK, although the flesh was a bit dry. I roasted it and made a pumpkin and ricotta lasagna which went down a treat with the boys.

And here is a close-up of the enormous beetroot. I actually gave this to my neighbour as she makes a yummy beetroot relish (I'm just hoping she gives me a jar in return!). I hope all your harvests, big or small are make you smile and I look forward to reading all about them at Daphne's Dandelions.

A creative weekend

We've been doing lots of sewing recently which I've been loving, especially as LittleFB has been really interested in helping. Here are a few of our projects:

This is Goosey Lucy from a free pattern available from thelongthread.  She was lots of fun to make - the only tricky part was attaching the beak to the body  Do you like the fabric?  I couldn't resist buying a few bits and pieces in Spotlight the other week especially as the spotted cotton was only $3 a metre.  I appliqued the heart by using that clever fusing stuff that you iron on and then went round the edges with a narrow zig-zag stitch. I reckon she turned out quite well - a bit wonky in the eye department but perhaps that adds to her charm.

Which one is the real cat?

LittleFB was very keen on making his own softie so I suggested that he drew what he wanted onto some plain fabric using a fabric marker pen.  He drew our cat, Anastasia and then we cut round the outline, added a backing and stuffed the body.  The legs were added separately, and she was finished off with a collar and sparkly button, all chosen by him. He's very pleased with the result and so am I even though she does look more like a mutant cow than a cat.

Next I put together a couple of fabric flowers using this tutorial from wise craft.  These are actually really easy to make and require very little sewing.  I sewed a safety pin onto some felt and attached it to the back so now they are ready to brighten up a jacket or bag.  Endless accessorising possibilities!

Last a project that I did today with LittleFB and his friend.  They wanted to make "treasure maps on the sewing machine"  so this is what I came up with:  they chose fabric and told me what shapes  they wanted to cut out. then I did some dodgy sewing to fix everything in place. They were fun to make and a big hit - they spent the rest of the day using them to find treasure round the house and playing pirates. 

Are you trying to lead a "simple life"?

Over the past few years,  I've been consciously trying to lead a simpler, less consumer-driven life.  We grow food, cook from scratch, and I'm learning to sew. We'd rather spend time with friends and family hanging out on the porch than expensive nights out in the city and it is reassuring, through reading blogs from all over the world, to know that there are many others who choose to live this way too.

The Simplicity Institute has recently been set up and they are conducting a survey on simple living.  Here is a bit more about it and a link to the survey.  It's genuine and you won't get bombarded by spam if you provide your email!

The Simplicity Institute is an organization dedicated to research and policy analysis around the topic of simple living, downshifting, and similar lifestyles. This research is profoundly important as it touches the core of global problems such as climate change, over-consumption, work-life balance and a host of other social and ecological issues.


The Simplicity Institute's current research project is focused on people who have chosen a 'simpler' lifestyle, including changes such as reduced or restrained income, reduced consumption or reduced working hours.


If this sounds like you, then you are part of the most promising social movement on the planet. Learning more about people like you is therefore extremely important, so if you can spare 4 minutes to answer some quick questions then please do! As an added incentive, if you participate you'll go into the draw to win an exciting book package on the topic of 'simple living'.To learn more and help build a better future, click below:

http://simplicityinstitute.org/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=2

Harvest Monday - March 7th

We picked a few of the borlotti beans this week.  I just love their beautiful pink mottled skins and the pretty pink and white beans inside.  It's the first time that I've grown these and am pretty pleased, although I was expecting them to be a climbing bean. Instead they stayed about 30cm tall so they must be a bush variety.  I got the seeds from Andrews Stockfeed, a great place that sells everything that you need for chickens, birds and pets as well as some seeds, straw and compost.  Anyway, despite failing to climb up the elaborate string and stick frame that we built for them the beans are lovely.  We cooked these in some stock for about 30 mins before adding them to some homemade tomato sauce which we all enjoyed.

I also harvested some corn from the front garden.  The cobs were rather short and fat and not as sweet as the corn that I grew last year but still, corn from the garden - what could be better?  We ate it with some leftover home-grown potatoes, beet leaves and garlic chives just fried in a little olive oil and served with some beetroot filo scrolls.

Making more softies...

I had time this weekend to catch up on some projects that I had been meaning to get to for a while.  In the garden I cleared all the dead leaves from the tomatoes and zucchini and had a bit of a tidy up.  I also tied up the tomatoes into the florida weave that I've been trialing this year. Ive learnt a few things during this process which I will share in another post.  On Sunday the weather turned rainy, perfect for some sewing. 

LittleFB picked out this little guy from the Softies book and I made him over the weekend from scraps of op-shop and gifted fabric.  He was fun (if  bit fiddly) to make. LittleFB  has named him 'Rocky' and likes him very much.