Sunny Lemons

Today is all about Sunny Lemons, we have a small lemon tree in our vege garden area and it is full of fruit. I love anything lemon especially if its very tart. 

Drying lemon peel and what to do with it.

 First off i scrub the lemons with a small nail brush to remove any dirt. The water in the green tub will be tipped onto the garden when im finished instead of going down the drain.

I use a sharp knife to peel the skin off the lemon, you don't want too much of the pith [the white]. As you can see above most of the pith still remains on the lemon.

If the slices are too long cut or tear them so they sit flat-ish on the dehydrator tray. I ended up with 5 trays of peel from 16 lemons. When using your dehydrator you use the same amount power if you do 1 tray or 10 trays so if you can, fill up the other trays with other items.
This day i added one tray of parsley, one of pac choy and one of bread so all 10 trays are full. Those trays will go on top as they will finish drying quicker than the peel.

As you can see above, i also did two trays of orange peel as well.

Six hours at 55 degrease Celsius and this is the result, crispy hard peel. 

The peel was then put through my Tribest Personal Blender [i will do a review on this another day].

What do you do with all this peel you may ask, well it can be used in biscuits, slices, cakes, pies, ice cream just about anything you might like a lemon flavour to. 

Now i have 16 lemons that need to be juiced, some of the juice will go in recipes and the rest will be put in the freezer for future use.

Stay tuned for lots of lemon recipes.


Linked here Homemade Monday #91
and here Farm Blog Hop
and here Homestead Barn Hop #169
and here Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop #84
and here Homemaking Party
and here Maple Hill Hop #41
and here Backyard Farming Connection Hop #91
and here Tuesdays With A Twist #69
and here Home- Making Mondays #11
and here Homemaking Party

Green Breakfast

im trying something new this year to get healthy & stay healthy.

they say you should eat green vegetables for breakfast well im not too keen on having steamed broccoli for breakfast so my solution to a green breakfast is this beautiful green shake.

Green Shake


1 frozen Banana [or fresh]
4 Strawberries
2 handfuls of spinach
1 1/2 cups water
blend until smooth, if its too thick for you add a bit more water.
it tastes great :o)

and to go with my green shake 2 organic eggs from my chooks lightly scrambled [nothing added] seasoned with pepper & celtic sea salt. you could also add parsley or chives but i didnt want to go down the back in the rain again to pick some.

this is not a diet, its a life style

it was a very big drink so i didnt have my organic green tea until about 1/2 an hour later.

Pavlova

Pavlova

4 Egg Whites {left over from the custard]
1tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/3 cup sugar

Beat eggs, vanilla & cream of tartar until soft peeks form.
slowly add in sugar, beat until stiff peaks form.

line a tray with either baking paper or brown paper, use a small dab of mix to each corner so the paper stays flat while cooking.
spoon mix onto your tray in any form you like, above it did 2 rectangles.
oven 150 Celsius [300F] for 30 minutes
turn off the oven & leave in there for a few hours [door closed]
when i make these i make them late in the afternoon & leave them in the oven over night.
i usually make two or three because i like to layer them with cream in between.
i did not have any fresh fruit so i used fruit that i froze last year.
Passionfruit, Strawberries & Raspberries
defrosted before adding to the pav, you get lots of runny juice its very delicious

Pie & Custard

a handful of this

plus a few of these

makes this

Rhubarb from the garden & few green apples from the tree makes a wonderful Apple & Rhubarb Pie with some home made Custard.
i stewed the Apples & Rhubarb separate, then mixed them together & poured it into the pie crust.

Home-made Custard

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup thickened cream
• 1 vanilla bean or 1tsp Vanilla 
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 
  
• Combine milk and cream in a small pot & add vanilla [if using vanilla bean split bean lengthways & scrape seeds into milk & drop in the bean] 
• 
  
• Cook slowly on medium heat until hot but not boiling.
• 
  
• Whisk egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a glass bowl.
• 
  
• Remove vanilla beans from milk mixture. 
• 
  
• Pour hot milk mixture over egg yolk mixture & whisk 
• 
  
• Pour into a medium pot & cook on low, stirring constantly for about 10 mins or until thick & will coat the back of a spoon. 
• Do not allow custard to boil, as it might curdle.

i hate it when you have a recipe that calls for either just the whites or just the yolks. when this happens i always have a companion recipe to use the left over egg. in this case it is Meringue/ Pavlova. i will post that recipe tomorrow. 

Raspberry Bramble

we have a Raspberry Bramble down the side of our house, its shady & wet most of the time. this is our third summer here & its the first time i have gotten any raspberries, as usually the birds have stripped the bramble clean.

these pictured above will be ripe in two days.

Miss Sally Girl loves fruit she can just snack on any time she likes, here she is picking raspberries. when i go out to pick them she has to stay inside or i would get very few in my bucket :o)

the bramble is not huge, probably 2 1/2 metres wide & 3 metres long about that any way. the area was bigger but i cut them back last autumn. they are super easy to grow & need pretty much no maintenance if you dont want them to take over keep them cut back & remove all the ones that pop up around them or you can also keep them in pots.

they are not very spiky like the blackberries so are much easier to pick. the fruit hangs low under the leaf canopy away from the main spiky branches.

the bucket is a 1kg honey bucket & it is 3/4 full this is from a two day pick. pick one day then skip a day then pick the next. I have a short list of what I will do with them & ill post recipes when  I've decided.

to clean & store any berries i make up a mix of 1 part Apple Cider Vinegar to 10 parts water, swirl around & then drain [you can rinse but i dont bother].  the reason i wash my berries like this is because most berries go mouldy pretty quick & this gives them a lot longer mould free life.
store in the fridge or lay out on paper towel to dry then place on a try with none of them touching & freeze, when frozen store in tupperware or zip lock bags. If you have a dehydrater remove any stems before drying, for a quicker dry cut in half long ways.

Veggie Garden

with no work i have plenty of time to get things done, esp all the things that keep getting put off

yesterday A' & i finally finished off the fencing around the veggie yard now miss Sally girl cant get in well fingers crossed.

i pretty much worked all day 9 till 4.30, needless to say i am a little tired now.

first up i built a trellis well not first as i had to cut the branches first & play tug of war with Sally Girl, she loves it when we prune the trees. sooo much fun to be had.

bed #1 is half purple beans & half yellow zucchini & down the centre because it likes shade is 2 rows of english spinach.
bed #2 is two types of beetroot
bed #3 is spring onions then globe onions & at the end is bok choy

bed #8 along the fence was just a huge pile of dirt that i moved today & is now home to sunflowers along the back. at the right hand end are 3 types of carrots, then 2 types of cucumber that will climb the flower stalks as well as attach to the wire fence & right at the end are the only 2 strawberry plants that are left after Miss Sally got a hold of them.
there are 3 trees in front of bed #8 a fig, peach & a lemon.

Veggie Garden

its been quite a while since we were down in the veggie garden, yesterday we had 2 m3 of soil /compost mix delivered & 4 garden beds went in. we did want raised beds but we just couldn't afford the timber so we will do without. i will be putting down mulch in the walk ways. we still have 4 more beds to go in over the next few weeks.

today i potted up a whole stack of seeds & as there is still a chance of frost i rigged up a kind of green house.

using the old trampoline, two large plastic bags & a few bulldog clips.

Garden Notes

Garden Notes
20kg of Potatoes dug up 

these are just a few that were drying in the garage

Sweet Corn coming on a treat


we have had a lot of rain here in the last few weeks, its good & bad. good because rain is always welcome, bad because a lot of my fruit has rotted & gone moldy before it was even close to ripe.


2 weeks ago i planted out another 2 rows of potatoes & they are already up to knee hight, thank you rain :o)
we have a load of granny smiths on the tree this year [mmm apple pies]


the Rhubarb has gotten out of control 


a couple of months ago i bagged up the fig tree & now i have figs just about ready to pick plus a whole heap of babies just coming on


looking out my window i just counted 47 white cockatoos down the back, they are truly a pest of a bird, they eat all of our fruit & make a huge mess, not to mention the cones they drop out of the pine tree down the back [look out below]


our two giant blood plum trees did not get any fruit this year but a small one in my front garden was loaded, we managed to get a few before the baby magpies finished them all up. they were small & super sweet.


for those of you who know about our solar panels you might be interested to know that our first bill was $123.86 & our second bill was $3.25
that makes you want to worship the sun :o)

Back at last

my computer got a nasty worm virus about a month ago, took a week to get me up & running again but unfortunately all the programs i know & love could not come with me to my new & improved computer as they were so old & you cant get updates for them. so now i am trying to work all these new programs that are really not easy. needless to say there have been a few tense days & a few choice words mumbled at the screen. not liking windows 7 at all grrrrr, google chrome doesn't do much for me either.

well enough about that, how about an update on the solar

our new bill came in & went went from $520 on our last bill to $124 this bill, how cool is that.

over summer will be even lower as this bill was over the winter, shorter days with rain & cloudy over cast days. we dont generate power unless the sun is on the panels. so over all i think we did brilliantly.

on the garden front, we are swamped with yellow grapefruit & mandarins, the grapefruits i have been leaving out the front for people to take. on a side note just before i came in i went out the front to bring in the crate & what ever was left of the fruit & some crappy person took the crate as well as the fruit. next week i will have to put a sign not to take the crate, that is after i bring home another one from work.

there are happenings in the chook yard, potatoes have sprung up in the first two rows i planted & last weekend the other two rows were planted out.

i let the chooks into the second part of the run to clean it up ready to plant out some corn.

as for those girls of mine, Miss Brown, Miss White & Miss Grey are taking it in turns to sit on 8 eggs. so who knows maybe this year we will get a couple of chicks. last year their shed got flooded while they were sitting, it was a very bad 2 weeks.

as for the rooster that i was assured was a hen has decided to jump at me when my back is turned, his spurs are an inch long so a little scary. if hes not careful he will be destined for the oven.

this is what my rhubarb looks like after a month, i can already taste the apple & rhubarb crumble mmmm

today we put in two posts for the new veggie yard, curtsy of the lovely old lady next door, the area will be fully fenced with the wire concreted into the ground as we did with the chook run. the reason for this is the area is not just for garden beds it will also have a couple of residents, the quacking waddling type.

last month found us at the Gardening Australia Show, it moved from Homebush down to Rosehill. it wasnt all that great & it was a lot smaller than it was before. however i did pick up 18 packets of organic seeds from the Greenpatch stall, so it was worth the trip.

that same weekend we went to the Organic Expo down at Darling Harbour. one of the reasons for going down was to find a new meat supplier as our old one only sells to butchers in the city now. no luck with the meat but did get few good ideas, oh & lots of samples esp as we had trade passes.

Out in the Garden

spent the day in the yard yesterday
pruning, mulching, fencing off some of the lillypillies that Sally keeps pulling out
chopping firewood, turning over the compost (its looking really good)




planted out the Lemon tree i received as a B'day gift in 2007
fenced it off as Sally loves to pull out anything that has been freshly planted



the boys & i fenced off a part of the chicken yard & dug 4 potato beds
today i purchased seed potatoes from http://www.bulbsdirect.com.au/
King Edward
Nicola
Saphire
at $7.50 for 20 potatoes of each variety
also ordered a Silvan Giant Rhubarb

a Day in Town

Last Sunday 'A' & i ventured into Town
[for those of you who dont know where Town is well that would be Sydney, Circular Quay to be our destination] we dont go into Town very often we just arnt Town people with our Rail,Bus,Ferry tickets in hand we caught the Train into Central & changed for one to the Quay.


it was about 9 am when we stepped onto the platform. a short walk from the Quay found us at The Rocks where the market was setting up.
we had a lovely wonder around & then popped into the Lowenbrau's for a hearty breakfast mm cant recommend the breakfast.




then we were off to our intended destination, we had come to see an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney. for those of you who dont know the museum was built on top of the First Government House. $10 entry fee & a bright orange sticker stuck to my cardy, up the stairs we wandered.
the exhibition we had come to see was

'Skint' Making Do in the Great Depression

The New York stock market crash called BLACK TUESDAY, 29 October 1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression. 'A' & i spent a good 2 hours in there reading about how people lived/survived what they did for fun, stories that made me nearly cry, listening to radio broad casts from Don Bradman & Phar Laps melbourne cup win.

it is a very inspiring exhibition, made me even more thankful for all we have.

we live a life a luxury they lived a life of necessity

80 years ago people survived with no homes, no work, little or no food & in doing so created the 'Make Do' principle that they would pass onto other generations.
now more so than at any other time since the end of the great depression, the 'Make Do' principles are coming around again. we are becoming more about family/friends, reusing, recycling, keeping chickens, growing our fruits & vegetables, bartering & sharing knowledge.
we could all learn a lot from the people who found a way to live.

for anyone wanting to go to the exhibition it is open until the 25 July
or you can go here for some film footage
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/03/26/2857612.htm


while in the museum we also saw another exhibition called 'Up The Cross' a photographic exhibition by Rennie Ellis & Wes Stacey 1970-1971



after leaving the museum we headed back to the Quay & caught the ferry over to Manly. for me Manly wasnt the attraction it was all about the Ferry. for those of you who dont know, i lov traveling on ferries
[trains come in a close second]
as a kid a spent a lot of time in the wheel house of pretty much every Sydney Ferry as well as some of the floating restaurants.
the rock & sway of a vessel on the water is awesome.
we had some fish & chips for lunch & the ferry back to the Quay
[we did go over to the beach & i have to say i have been to hundreds of beaches & Manly wouldnt even come close to being a must visit a second time.]

for anyone who hasnt been on a Manly Ferry, they never have to turn around there is a wheel house at each end, so the skipper & engineer just walk to the other end.

Pears

on Wednesday i brought home a box of Organic Pears from work
now i need all your Pear recipes

i have just made Pear Ice Cream
& have a recipe for Pear & Cinnamon Muffins that i will make on sunday
also a Chocolate Pear tart

so if you have a great recipe or one you havent tried yet, send it to me & ill give it a go
either email it to me or put it in the comments

has anyone ever dried Pears in the oven? if so i could use your hints & tips

i had one for morning tea, they are oh so sweet & smell devinne :o)

Blogtoberfest last day

i havent had a garden Veggie/Fruit update for a while, so camera in hand i went for a walk



Apples no idea what sort its a fairly old tree, i am going to try & save them from the birds this year


Apricots


Blueberries


Lettuce/ Great Lakes


Endive


Bush Bean


Carrots, laying the hessian over them has really done the trick, i will be planting more this weekend


Cauliflower


Butternut Pumpkin, Zucchini/Black Beauty, Lebanese Cucumber



& last but not least something pretty
the first Cornflower, i have grown them from seed, they have taken quite a while but i think they are well worth it, cant wait until the whole patch is blue