Setting the Pace

It's that time of year isn't it? Where if you let it, the days fly by and the weeks shoot around...and you just may get caught up in all the frantic-ness that is the Festive Season...
Despite my commitment to go handmade this year and despite my silliness at still not having made a decent dent in my projects I am choosing to slow down instead....inspired by my love of the Slow Food Movement.

Last weekend saw Mia and I both clad in our pyjamas....as it was after all only 7am.....fossicking through the garden for goodies. What an early morning treat to have dew on your feet and fresh cool air on your face as you exclaim over each delicious find.

A happy little weekend harvest for our Thank You dinner. You can't get much slower than that can you?

We continued our pleasure and pace through the week with lunches as well......again straight from the garden......

via little chopping hands......

to our bellies.....

and back to the garden again......

This weekend I'm going to practice some slow sewing and slow gift making.......and just maybe, well most likely, more slow pyjama harvesting and eating.....will you slow down with me?

Happy weekend everyone.

Flowers and Fruit

The garden is transforming at such a rapid rate....

Here are a selection of blossoms and bundles of goodness showing around the place at the here and now......

I wonder if it is too easy to guess what they all belong too?

Beets

The sweet Karenjane from Bare Feet and a Free Spirit has asked me to share some tips on cooking beetroot. I really only have one recipe of my own and other than that I just "wing it"....but I am more than happy to share what I do because I just love my fresh beets.

They are a fairly versatile vegetable and that colour, well!

You can simply pluck your beetroots straight from the garden and grate them fresh into a green salad.... but I like mine roasted.

All it takes to roast your beets is about an hour in the oven wrapped in foil for medium sized bulbs...about 180C should do it. Just check with a skewer if in doubt. After that the skins will peel away easily with your hand and you are ready to eat them with your other favourite vegetables or keep some handy in the fridge to quarter and throw through salads. I think they partner oranges beautifully in a tossed green salad or add a little goats cheese for an even more perfect salad experience!

I've also just learnt recently to make a vinaigrette with the roasted and peeled skins. Pop them in a saucepan, after you've peeled your baked beets, with some water and reduce it right down....then combine that with your olive oil and balsamic (or any vinegar of choice) as you would make a normal vinaigrette. I'd imagine this would be delicious over a mixture of roasted root veges or maybe even a pasta dish as well as salads.

Here is the recipe for the Moroccan Beetroot Salad from Saturday night......
2 Beetroot
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon of orange flower water (optional)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
You can cook your beetroot by simmering in a covered pan for 25 minutes or roast it in the oven (in foil) for about the hour. (I baked mine....I have never actually boiled beetroot). If you do boil, reserve 1 tbsp of the liquid when finished.
Cut the beetroot into small wedges and mix gently with the reserved water and other ingredients. Very easy and very delicious. If you can get the orange blossom water, do so because it is well worth it.

And of course, famously there is Borscht for which there are thousands of recipes that sadly I have never made but will be trying (I promise myself)with this years crop. There was a recipe for some here a while back kindly shared at The Bird Bath.

Oh and don't waste your greens! You can cook them up just like any other green.

Enjoy your Beets Karenjane and please share your results!

Saying Thank You

My love of and lack of opportunity these days to throw dinner parties inspired a Saturday night Thank You meal for a generous and very clever fellow.


Ingredients from the garden and goodies from an early morning jaunt to my new favourite place combined with a full day in the kitchen resulted in a small banquet....Moroccan style.


The menu....
Fresh grapes, dates, feta stuffed olives, cinnamon almonds and baba ganoush.

Lemon chicken with my own lemons; spiced beetroot salad; cous cous with almonds and currants; tomato, cucumber and capsicum salad, and broad beans.

And for dessert.... honey almond pastries; cinnamon oranges, and Turkish delight.

My fridge still has a bouquet of orange blossom water.....divine.

We're only small....

We had more storms again last night.....three in a row in fact....together with some torrential downpours.

The lightening in the distance, which caught my eye from the lounge room, before the second storm was just magnificent. I found myself standing, watching (and snapping) from our driveway as it flashed and strobed all around me. It's bursts and constancy were just commanding.

As single raindrops hit my nose through the air that seemed to pulse with electric charge in a raw purified kind of way, I could not help but feel small.....inconsequential in nature's considerable design.

It feels like nature is purging itself of the drought we have been in for what seems like the longest time.

Rightly so I am reminded of nature's power when my chest tightens ever so and I feel that slight sense of anxiety as the rain buckets down heavy and hard, bluffing me with it's seeming perpetuity.

Rightly so the earth demands respect and reminds us of our size.....and our place.

We are, after all, small....

What's growing....

With all this rain, stormy nights and steamy days the garden is growing with great speed.
I snapped these photographs a couple of weeks ago and thought I should share them quickly now before it all fruits, morphs, takes over the house or finds itself eaten and thoroughly enjoyed without even a peep for the outside world....or a reminder to myself of what was growing and what it looked like a very short time ago.

You can see the space for eating ice blocks had nearly been taken over (today being truly overgrown and fruiting) by some of our beetroot, cucumber and pak choi which has also almost all been tossed in the wok for Asian inspired dinners now....

The bananas are flourishing and sending up many suckers which is great for transplanting later for future leafy extensions to the food garden...

My Autumn Royal black grape was also shooting out nicely...it's just a baby though, being about a year old I think so we are another year or two off fruit from this vine yet. As of yesterday afternoon it is settling into a new home on the side fence behind my olive tree. It was at risk of being shaded out by our new building addition so the humble Aussie backyard icon, the choko, has been planted in it's old place.

And my sugar baby watermelons are also showing steady growth and have found the trellis up to the shed. I am hoping, in a kind of experiment, that they will grow up there as well as over the garden bed just as my pumpkins did early in the year.....well we need lots of space for lots of sweet summer indulgence don't we?

More updates to come I'm sure...... what's growing at your place?

Spring Vegetables....

Our beetroot is nearly all ready for harvesting so I plucked my first three for a fitting Spring vegetable dinner last night.

Just adding our cherry tomatoes, which have been booming, and some basil fresh from the patch and it's too easy to whip up a little something delicious (but quite difficult to photograph)....

I'm feeling quite fortunate today after enjoying our homegrown fresh goodies and the rain in the warmth and safety of our home. Sunday's spectacular storms have left many just on the other side of town in a natural disaster zone, who must be feeling quite wet, hungry and devastated with homes destroyed and sadly one life lost. There is a delicate balance in natures fury and today we are the lucky ones to have been able to admire it's show without the fear and loss of being in it's full wake.

Finding the way....

What do you do when you are feeling a little untethered....a little removed from your path....and it's predicted to be a 31 degree day?

Gather the family... pile them into the car, hit the road.... and drive.
A straight unstopping reliable path....

that leads us straight to our favourite stretch of beach hugging our perfectly aquamarine Pacific Ocean.....

Then, jump straight in.....

Watch your babies play......

and ponder for precious moments......

Release, re energise and be free.....

Explore.....

and discover.....

Then watch as storm clouds and lightening gather wildly from the mountains and over the sugar cane fields to follow our refreshed and tired souls home.....

Absolution

Please allow me another post on ladybugs?

Since my little battle with the cuties below on my potatoes and my awareness of just how many different types of ladybugs I have in the garden at the moment (a good sign of organic gardening I find out)....

I've had the opportunity, as coincidence would have it, to take part in an Australian Ladybug Survey and have my finds placed on a map (and you can too). It is a perfect opportunity to do my bit, as well as a chance to become involved and be even more mindful of the many many tiny ecosystems functioning together in my patch of earth......and maybe, just maybe pay some enjoyable penance for my strong dislike of the creatures a little while ago.

You can watch the episode that pointed me in the direction of taking part on Catalyst here and the wonderful website inspired by Adam Slipinski's tedious and longstanding commitment to finding and describing all the little critters here. After immersing myself years ago in botany and zoology as part of my University studies I have a huge appreciation of the grandiose and patient work they are doing....amazing.

All this talk of ladybugs reminds me of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun and that famous ladybug quote.....

"when I was a kid I used to go out and try to look for and catch ladybugs, finally I got tired and fell asleep. When I woke up they were all over me." "Ladybugs Katherine, Ladybugs!"

How many ladybugs are in your garden?

::: By Artisan Hands :::

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist”
Louis Nizer

Our backyard project is almost complete......

I don't know if it is in my nature, being the Granddaughter of a carpenter, to love wood work and all things timber. I have been admiring the skill and pure craftsmanship involved in working with tool, timber and hand in my backyard for the last week or so. Not to mention completely drowning in the mathematics involved in building.....my goodness you lose it when you don't use it and become totally immersed in everything baby, earthy and crafty.

There really is something to simple hand tools though isn't there? The eye, the hands, the tool, the shaping and chipping away, and the satisfaction that must come with completing that last strike of chisel or hammer, cut with a saw or piece of fine joinery.

Roger has been using tools that belonged to both my Grandfather and his own Father. The sentiment in his hands today still using the tools that were once held to work wood by others hands, family, long ago is stirring. I think it leaves a little piece of everybody behind in this project along with a big bit of soul from the hands, brains and heart of today's builder.

I'm going to miss the sound (and smell) of sawing and hammering in the backyard; watching the creative process; making lunches and cups of tea and gathering in the late afternoon to admire the days progress and chat about changes and plans......

(photo by Mia...)

but the next stage of it's existence is also soon to begin after some minor "finishing off" by me and that is going to be even more fun!