Recipe recycling

LAST night after a lovely day driving around Daylesford (great Sunday market and vintage train ride), visiting Trentham (darn it Du fermier was closed) and then wandering around Castlemaine for the festival, visiting the city at gallery, various weird and wonderful exhibitions and having a yummy lunch courtesy of the Dhaba food van (loved that Punjab curry), I sat in front of the fire tearing out recipes from a heap of food magazines.

Here's one I inend to bake tonight....

American style rhubarb and ginger pie

As a dedicated buyer of these glossy magazines which cost a mere 20 cents at the local op-shops - a leviathan saving on the $7 plus cover price - they offer great value for money. Once these magazines have been read through they are then passed on to other friends.

Often no recipes makes the cut but once one does, I go through it to make sure it's within the realms of my skills, budget and taste buds, then riiiiiippppp and paste, in it goes to my big cooking scarp book.

If the recipe is an absolute genius, then I pass it on to friends too.

This project started around 30 years ago and I'm still using recipes i culled from newspapers back in the day. Some recipes have never been tried and eventually are pasted over with something more suitable but the big majority have had their time in the sun.

There's something very satisfying about the serendipity of the recipes too.
Lat week a friend in my fire brigade swapped me some rhubarb for eggs and low and behold, while toasting my toes i came across half dozen recipes for rhubarb and ginger pies!

So after I finish planting out the seedlings, cleaning the chook house and run and re-planting the front nature strip garden now the new footpath has gone in (thanks to the workers who did their best and left most of the garden intact), I'll settle down and bake those pies.

Now autumn is firming in charge, they'll be the prefect way to finish off a day of pottering about in the garden.

Stormy weather and broccolli

AS soon as I had finished painting the laundry door and window sills, it looked like rain.

Why does it seem as though whenever one finally gets around to completing a task one has put of for ages, the weather chooses right now to change?
Anyway, the door looks damn fine, I'll do a second coats tomorrow when sunshine is predicted and the garden just loved the soaking.

Last Monday it was 40 degrees Celsius and yesterday it hovered around 15, so no wonder the garden loved having all the dust washed off. You could see the pumpkin leaves and the fruit trees plump up as the rain swooped down.

 

My water tank started to overflow but due to leaves in the filer rather than too much inside. It's 9000Lt so holds a bit but was almost empty, so it's great to tap the sides and know there's at least a couple of thousand in there.

 

Despite getting caught in a few showers, it was hugely satisfying to plant broccoli (green dragon), brocannini and spinach seedlings in the ground (formerly in the tomato beds,) now they are strong enough to be transferred out of the seedling trays.

Hopefully, they will be safe from the hens thanks to a few coils of green wire I found at the tip and have used to make a barrier.

 

Of course the feather riot were incandescent with rage when they released they could not get into the beds with the tantalising seedlings, but they soon wandered off in search of unwary insects and fallen fruit.

 

There are still a heap of spinach seeds to plant to ensure a steady supply but i'll leave that until tomorrow too.

 

Now I've fed the chooks, it's time for a coffee and the Sunday papers.

Shopping heaven

SHOPPING online is easy, convenient and, let's face it, kind of dull.

Give me a real shop, with stuff I need, staffed by people who know and are passionate about the product and I'm in heaven.

OK, so trawling the supermarket aisles for loo paper and staples such as home-brand flour and bicarbonate soda is not my idea of fun, but I'd much rather pay a bit more when shopping for things that really matter...

Chooks in Compost

YESTERDAY I emptied out the sixth compost bin and was happily surprised to find the contents were really great about 30cm down into the mix.

Hilda on worm patrol while Gidget and Ledger scratch about

While the worm population was not up to the standard of the other bins, there were enough of those wonderful creatures in the bin to have converted the grass clippings, straw, food scraps not fit for the gals, shredded newspapers and other green waste into glorious compost.

The compost then went int a couple of beds to fill them up and prepare for plantings - the clay base here really eats up good soil so I need all seven bins working hard to keep up. 

Hilda, the chooks evidently agreed as when i turned my back to get the garden fork she dived in head first to enjoy the worms and hhopefully she also added some fertiliser of her own.
After emptying the bin I then moved it under the fig tree and the chooks had a good old scracth in the bin footprint, digging up insects.

Yesterday at the AngleseaTip, sorry, Landfill, I pulled out of the plastic recyling pile a perfeclt good cone green compost bin. No lid that i could find but who cares? I filled it up with grass clippings, staw, weeds, shredded paper and some already created compost with a few worms to get it started and its now under the plum tree.
  
Other booty from the tip included some green wire to grow the sweet peas along and some canarie wire I'll strech across the beds when i plant some seeds.

Now the new compost bin, code named 'fig bin' will get all the coffee groundsw, etc. If only it wouild keep the parrots off the figs, but that's another post.

Autumn bliss and community radio

NOW the Indian summer appears to have melted away, it's finally a proper autumn - cool evenings, crisp mornings and sunny days. Perfect for turning over the compost and digging it in to some garden beds in preparation for planting while I listen to the wireless.

Five of my six bins are doing well, so I shall empty out the recalcitrant bin and distribute the contents amongst the others and start again.

This always puts the feather riot in seventh heaven - they cawk and sqawk their way through the decomposed material, pulling out worms and beetles with gay abandon. (It makes a nice change form them escaping into the potato bed and trying to dig up all the kipflers!)

This week I'll also pull out the last of my tomato plants and do some much needed weeding - and show my support for community radio.

BTW, today is a great day to show your support for community radio -

3RRR, and community radio in general, is facing a tough time and needs your help.

3RRR  is not asking for your financial support this time around, just 30 seconds of your time to sign up to the campaign at committocommunityradio.org.au

The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia requires funding of $3.6 million per year to maintain digital radio infrastructure for the 37 metropolitan community radio stations that hold digital licenses. Having previously committed to the full amount of funding, in the May 2012 federal budget, the Government committed to only $2.2 million per year, for four years, leaving a $1.4 million per year shortfall.

The Commit to Community Radio campaign has been established to get this $1.4 million shortfall addressed. At only about $40,000 per station per year, it’s really not a lot of money in the scheme of things, but other stations aren’t as well supported as Triple R and the transmission infrastructure is shared, so we’re committed to a “one in, all in” approach.  Unaddressed, this shortfall is likely to see community digital radio services switched off.

So make like the feather riot! If Layne, Ledger, Philly, Gidget and Hilda can show their support, you can too.

Chook chat

EVERY time one of the gals lay an egg she lets out a cawk-like cackle to tell her friends and they all enthusiastically cawk back and forwards in delight.

Today they are flapping about their run, chasing foolish crickets in between laying.

For the last oh, say two years, the little devils have been laying under their excellent hutch in he far right hand corner which entails getting a steel rake to cover their largess.

So yesterday i crawled under the chok shack and firmly wired off their cellar.

This morning i was rewarded by an egg in the hutch nest.

How long this will last it any one's guess as they pace the run like POWs.

I'm sure they will have figured out a way around the birdwire - after all, they managed to almost lock me in the run the other day when in their rush to get out into the garden when he was feeding them, one knocked the door shut.
Tricked by a chook, is not a good admission.

Gidget on cricket patrol

Indian summer

As the temperature continues to soar, king parrots alight onto the apple trees and take a few bites and eye off the figs. Meanwhile the feather riot gang meander up and down the vegie beds, eyes peeled for any unwary insects. The sprinker connected to the tank throws a gentle spray over the newly planted beans and all is right with the world...