Tomato Soup

Once again we have an abundance of cherry tomatoes that have popped up without us planting them. They self seed each year and not always where we want them but we put up with them to get these little beauties.  I'm about to make my favourite Cherry Tomato and Chili Jam blog post here and last weekend I made some roasted tomato soup.  I know it's not really soup weather here in QLD but I work in a really cold office and as I'm not a Coffee drinker, soup is a great thing to have for morning tea.

It's healthy gluten free, dairy free and nutritious so it ticks all the boxes.  I read a few different recipes but then just improvised.   
Here's what I did with around 30 grams of cherry and small roma tomatoes. I cut them in half, put them in two baking trays and drizzled them with olive oil.  I cut the top of a garlic bulb and put one in each tray.  I then baked them for about 40 minutes at 180 degrees.

I then transferred the tomatoes to the Thermomix.  I squeezed the garlic out of the cloves and then blended it all on speed 9 for a couple of minutes. At the end of the blending it looked like tomato puree and there were no skins to be seen.  I added about 2 cups of water and a couple of tablespoons of my vegetable stock - recipe here.  I then cooked it on 100 degrees for 15 mins and finished it off by blending it for another minute.I didn't add any cream as I'm dairy free so just ate as is, and it was delicious :-)

5am Sunday Gardening

I was out in the garden at 5am this morning and spent a good two hours just trying to tame what had become a wilderness in only a short amount of time.   It's very very humid here and we are getting sunny days and some rain at nights which means everything is growing.  Unfortunately it's also bringing in all the pests and I've given up on growing Kale and Mustard Greens for now (among other things). 

I really enjoyed the garden last Winter, we were virtually pest free and keeping it tidy was a lot more enjoyable in our beautiful Brisbane Winter. 

Anyway no complaints we are still getting plenty to eat out of the garden and providing I'm out there at 5am all is good.
I can see I'm going to be making some Pesto in the next few weeks with all the basil I have.

I had a great little helper this morning. Except for the time she dug up a hole heap of dirt looking for a lizard.

Pumpkin and Ham Slice

Ready for the oven

This is my twist on the old Zucchini slice.  I had ham that needed to be used, an excess of pumpkin and eggs (one of the baby chicks laid for the first time today).


I cubed up some Cheddar cheese and Parmesan cheese and grated in the Thermomix. The weight was 120 grams all up - mixed for about 5 seconds on speed 8.  Put the cheese aside in a bowl.

I then roughly chopped one carrot and about 200g pumpkin.  Put the carrot, pumpkin and an onion cut in half into the Thermomix.   I then chopped on speed 5 for about 6 seconds.

Ready to eat

Then I roughly chopped up a whole red capsicum and put this in to the Thermomix with the other vegetables and a few sages leaves I got from the garden. I chopped just for a 2 seconds on speed 4.

Then back in with the cheese, 6 eggs, 50 grams macadamia oil, 170g chopped ham a good pinch of salt and pepper and 150g of SR Flour.

Mixed it all together on reverse speed 5 for 10 seconds then poured into baking tray lined with baking paper.

Put into a 180 degree oven for 35 - 40 minutes.

Fighting Winter's Ill's

Garry has a fairly serious cold /flu (possibly even Man Flu) so I made him this smoothie for breakfast.   He doesn't even bother to ask what's in it anymore but it went something like this.


Almonds
Camu Camu Powder
Probiotic Powder
Vital Greens Powder
Coconut
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Vanilla Bean
Frozen Banana
Lots of Silver beet

Blitzed in the Thermomix for 2 minutes

Making Stock Powder

400G of Vegetables and Herbs

I've owned a Thermomix for about 6 months now and the first thing I made with it was Vegetable Stock.  This is so simple to make and it adds such great flavour to our meals. I make sure I always have a supply.

After 20 mins in the Thermomix

Pouring on to the dehydrator Tray

After making a couple of batches and freezing in ice cube trays I came up with the idea of drying it out in my dehydrator and turning it into a powder.  This is the only way I'll bother making it from now on, it's so much easier to have on hand in  powder form.  I just keep making up a new batch when I have vegetables that need using up and I keep adding to the same bottle of powder and give it a bit of a shake up so the old and the new mix together.

Into the Dehydrator

After 12 hours of drying and broken by hand

It looks kind of like a bottle of coloured sand.   I am lucky enough to have a Thermomix and a dehydrator but the stock could be made on the stove and then the paste dehydrated in the oven.  My appliances just make the job quicker.

When I Grow These

Thought I'd fire up the blog again as we have a plan to get back to the farm.  It will take a few years but there is a lot to plan and that will keep me focused.

I've just been washing this week's fruit and veg and thinking about how hard it would be to grow a week's worth of veggies.  We have the space but I know from my attempts before I need to do a lot of research on planting cycles so we consistently have food.   So exciting to imagine this one day.

Making a Recycled Worm Farm

 

Like all good ideas we got this one off Better Homes and Gardens.

 

The Thai Restaurant near us always puts their styrofoam boxes out the back of the restaurant for people to take, so we went and got two this morning. I had some hessian left over from the garden I made a few weeks ago.

 

The only thing we needed to buy were the worms and we got these from Bunnings this morning for around $48.00 for 1200.  I think we actually got a good deal as I counted 1251 when we put them in.  I was also very pleased to see that we got QLD Worms.

The top box has holes in the lid to let some air through and some holes in the bottom to let the juice out.  The brick on top is to keep it secure in case our resident possums get interested.

The bottom box doesn't have a lid on it and the hessian between the boxes is to stop the worms slipping out the holes.  The hose feeds down into a plastic container in the tray of the wire basket. 

We needed to put our worm farm up this high just in case Layla got interested.

First we put a layer of shredded wet newspaper in the bottom, then the worms and a layer of vegetable scrapes and dirt.

We'll see how long it takes to get some fertiliser.   I usually pay around $40 for a small bottle of seawood fertiliser for the garden so we should see a return on our investment pretty quickly.

Secret Cherry Tomatoes

I just found these and many more growing wild in the back garden amongst the shrubs.  A great surprise.

Wall Garden

Today in my never ending search for new places to plant vegies I made a hessian wall garden.

It was easy to make and very inexpensive (under $10) now we need to wait a few weeks and see if it actually works.  I've planted a mixture of lettuce and rocket.

Slow Living Diary - August 2012

I'm joining in with a community of bloggers started by Christine over at Slow Living Essentials.  Christine had this fantastic idea at the start of the year to focus on 9 elements that will help to maintain a focus on slowing down and enjoying the simple things in life.  I only found Christine's blog half way through August but thought that it blended well with what I am trying to achieve on my blog so I wanted to get started straight away.  The idea is post at the end of the month (or the start of the new month) and reflect on the 9 categories and share your achievements (or even lack of) for the past month.   I've included Christines description for each category in italics next to the title.

Nourish : Make and bake as much as possible from scratch.  Ditch overpackaged, overprocessed convenience foods and opt for 'real" food instead.  Share favourite links/recpies/tips from the month.
Cooking from scratch is pretty normal for me.  I think my best effort in the past month was my Zucchini pesto and chicken dish made with my Spirooli.   You can see the whole blog post here

 

 Prepare: Stockpile and preserve, Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce.

Having only just moved in the last month I haven't done a lot of this.  However I did shop in bulk and stock the freezer as well as making a couple of weeks worth of meals for Layla (the dog) and freezing those. 

 

Reduce: Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

Not sure if this counts but we did sell some unwanted furntiture on e-bay at bargain prices to help out others and cut down on the excess "stuff" in our life.

 

Green: Up our lives. Start (or continue) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies.

I discovered the wonders of Coconut oil.  Not only is it great and healthy for cooking it makes the best mosituriser.  This is all I use now and my skin seems to love it.  It has also cut down on all those little plastic bottles that used to fill the bathroom shelves.  (ahh just realised this also fits the Reduce category).

 

Grow: plant/harvest. What's growing this month?  What's being eaten from the garden.

My favourite category and on moving into our new house the first thing we did this month was plant.  We now have herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and bok choy growing.  Check out my planting post

 

  

 

Create: to fill a need or feed the soul.  Create for ourselves or for others.  

My other favourite :-) I finished off some dishclothes and face washers.  I made a little crochet purse and finished off this mat just in time to go under my anniversary flowers.  

 

 

 

  

Discover: Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests. Trawl libraries, second hand shops or local book shops to find titles that fill the need. 

I enjoyed re-visiting my gardening books to learn how to grow herbs and vegetables in pots in the new house.  I've only been used to planting in garden beds, so this is new and experimental.

 

Enhance: community: possibilities support local growers and producers.  Help out in your community. Start a blog!

I started blogging again after a 3 month break while we got settled after the move.  I found the local growers market and have been supporting it every Sunday morning usually while others are sleeping. I have also really enjoyed reading other blogs and I'm just amazed at how many inspirational and talented people there are out there.

 

Enjoy: Life! Embrace moments with friends and family.

I had a couple of really nice dinners with some special friends this month.  I've also bought some beautiful framed prints. These are from a very talented photographer.   I posted a pic below but please check out Jen Waltmon's Red Bubble site  Thanks Jen I'm enjoying them immensely !

 

 

 

Thanks Christine for starting the Slow Living blog idea. I look forward to having a whole month to reflect on next time.

Jen



 

 

 

 

 



Sunday Projects

I'm off to a good start, I've been to the market and bought a punnet of lettuce and a few herbs.  I then came home and potted them and re-potted some of the lettuce that had grown from seed all too close together.  I'm now calling this the table garden.

 

I have a few unfinished projects that I'm going to start to finish today.  I have some cloths to finish off and I might make a table mat with all the little squares.

 

 

I've picked up this magazine rack at an op shop over a year ago.  I have taken the old cover off to use as a pattern and I have sanded it back and lacquered it.  I just need to make the cover next.

 

 

Shame I also have to do things like grocery shop and clean the house today !

 



Loving my Spirooli

The Spirooli loaded and ready to go

I bought this last year when we had an abundance of zucchini in the garden.  Last week I bought some beautiful zucchini at the market so got it out again to make some zucchini pasta  Well it's not actually pasta, it's just zucchini, and I served it with other vegies and some pesto.  Healthy low carb and delicious. I got my Spirooli online at Raw Pleasure

In action
 

Dinner
 

Early Sunday Market

The sun coming up over the market

I finally found a market close to home that isn't one of those fancy markets where everything is expensive and "special".  This is just your ordinary farmers market with a bit of 2nd hand stuff as well.

I loved buying my fruit and vegies at the market when we were in the country and now I can do the same here without it costing a fortune.  I do this early while Garry is still asleep.

Today I was looking for some Basil to plant but I'm told I'm a little early for that.  So I just got a few silverbeet plants to add to my growing garden.

Layla was very lucky, she got a special cushion for the back deck. 
I think she likes it she's been like this for a few hours testing it out :-)

Hello Blog - The Start of a New Garden

Our Back yard with not much going on

I've missed blogging but I wasn't really sure what to blog about now that we are back in the city. 

As the weather is starting to warm again we decided it was time to do some planting.  This was all the inspiration I needed to blog again!

Garry doing all the work.  Layla taking it easy.

As we are renting the house and sharing the backyard with Layla we have to think carefully about this vegie patch.  We had some lettuce that had grown from seed in a few pots and a bit of parsley and that was about it. 

Today in the green pots we planted cucumber and Tommy Tomatoes and I'm hoping they will grow over the lattice work of the carport.   I will move them further apart as they grow.  They are on bricks so that Layla hopefully can't dig in them.

I've also planted some chives and am planning on going to the markets in the morning to see what else I can find.

Stay tuned and see how it all grows (or doesn't).

Ok watch this space hopefully the white lattice will be full of green soon

Chilli Oil

I'm still overwhelmed with study and assignment writing but took a short time out this morning to make some Chilli oil.  Our Chilli bush is one of the few things in the garden that has liked the ridiculous amount of rain we have had.

Last Subject

Last week I started the last subject in my Masters of Learning and Development.  Normally I don't post stuff about work or uni on this blog as it really doesn't suit the theme.  My reason for mentioning it now is that blogging over the next 10 weeks will be a bit intermittent.  Although I have studied and blogged before I didn't really focus enough on studying and my purpose now is to put in a very strong finish for my Masters.

I have created a blog for my current subject "Online Pedagogy" and while most will find this of no interest at all, some of my training buddies may.  The blog link is http://edc8114journal-jen.blogspot.com.au/ and I will also add it to my list of favourite blogs on the side.   This blog will form part of my final assessment where I need submit a reflective journal.

I will post the odd "simple life blog" when I can.  It's currently pouring again and I'm looking at a river outside my office window.  We planted around 40 seedlings in the vegie garden yesterday and I fear that most of them will have washed away.   Ohhhh the life of a farmer !

Red Curry Sweet Potato Soup

I used some of our recent crop of Sweet Potato to make this soup.

Recipe

500 Grams of Sweet Potato slowed cooked in the oven with the skin still on.  Once cooked scoop the flesh away from the skin.  (fed the skin to the dogs)

1 Brown Onion, 2 cloves garlic and 2 sticks of celery (chopped) all cooked in 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Then add 2 tablespoons of Red Curry Paste (maybe less next time)

Add the sweet potato flesh and 1 litre of vegetable stock.

Cook over a slow heat for 30 - 45 mins.  

I then used the stick mixer to blend out all the lumps.

Reheated just before serving and added one can of coconut milk (440ml)

Served with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of mint.

It was delicious but maybe just a touch to spicy 

Sweet Potato

2.2kg

Our first attempt at growing Sweet Potato has been a huge sucess.   I bought a Beauregard Sweet Potato from the Diggers Club in October and planted it straight away in a dedicated garden bed.   I wasn't too sure when to dig it up but when I took a look at it last Sunday I realised I'd possibly left it too long.  We had a huge mound of sweet potato errupting like a volcano out of the soil. 

As you can see we had a couple of very very large sweet potato but the majority of the crop are a perfect size.   In total we dug up 8.5kg !

Now it's time to look for those sweet potato recipes.  We'll also cook and freeze a lot to have later in the year.  



The Whole Crop

Changing Direction

Today is the end of my working life in the city and while I am very happy to be moving permanently to the “bush” there are things I will miss.   Actually it's the people I will miss!

I’ve been working for the last year or so with a group of great people and I will dearly miss the chats, lunches, drinks, and just the general highs and lows that we have shared.

This picture is part of the fantastic gift they gave to me.  They also gave me a voucher for the hardware shop where I will be looking for a gate to be part of the fence we (Garry) are about to build around the garden to stop Lilly and Layla digging up the veggies.   (stay tuned ………)

Monday I start a new job 15 mins from our property but today I feel sad to be leaving good  friends……………………

Okra Flower

I planted Okra for the first time a few weeks ago and it has just started to flower.

I've only eaten Okra a few times in my life so am looking forward to trying a few recipes.  Hopefully I'll like the vegetable as much as I like the flower.