Sunday, January 25, 2015

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Peach Wine #3

The wine has sat for a week and it's looking a bit clearer with a fair bit of sediment at the bottom, time to siphon it into a clean and sterilised demijohn, leaving the muck at the bottom behind.
I'll leave it for another week and see if it's clearer.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Menu Plan 12th January

This week's quote is more by way of a piece of good advice, I read it on someone else's blog recently and I wish I could remember who's so I could give them the credit, if it was yours please let me know. I love it though, so simple but so important.
The weather has been so changeable lately that it's very hard to know what sort of meals to plan, we had Tomato Soup for lunch one day on the weekend! Not something we would usually do in Summer but the weather was cool and the tomatoes were ripe!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Peach Wine #2

The Peach Wine has sat on our dining room table for a week now, I've given it the occasional poke with the wooden spoon, it certainly looks smells and sounds like it's fermenting.
I strained it today and poured it into a sterilised demijohn with an airlock on top.it smells quite vinegary but that's pretty normal at this stage, I'll leave it for another week and I might siphon into another demijohn to leave behind some of the sediment if it has settled by then.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Quinoa Salad

I don't usually get excited about salad, I'm just not a fan of raw leaves, having said that, we had this salad with some barbequed chicken last night and I loved it!
It was relatively quick and easy too as it needs to be on a weeknight.
 I started by laying down a bed of Baby Kale, we've grown a lot of Kale lately and it was great to find a new way to use it, I usually cook it.

Next, I peeled and chopped a Mango and a Cucumber,added them to a cup of cooked Quinoa along with a handful of flaked Almonds.
The dressing was simply a glut of EV Olive Oil, the juice and finely grated rind of a Lime and some Salt and Pepper.
I mixed the dressing through the Quinoa mixture and piled it on top of the Kale, topped with a few Basil Leaves. Done!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Menu Plan 5th January

This week's menu is up and as I'm back at work this week, it's a fairly non-demanding meal plan. During my time off from work I had a couple of major power cooking sessions with my daughter who has inherited our small freezer when we upgraded to a larger one, well, when I say upgraded, it cost $60 on Gumtree and it's an oldie, but I hope, a goodie! I'm loving having the extra room and being able to stock up when I see a bargain.
We cooked up a storm with 2 slow-cookers on the go as well as things baking in the oven and bubbling on the stove-top, As a result We both now have ready cooked meals that we can heat up when we get home from a long day at work. Much as I love to cook, it's so nice to have a night off sometimes.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

In My Kitchen

There's a lot less in my kitchen than there was a couple of weeks ago, I've had some time off work and have been on a major decluttering mission!

 
There's a batch of White Peach and Vanilla Jam made with peaches from a tree that we dug up and brought with us when we moved here 5 years ago, last year was our first crop and this year we have had around 9 kilos of wonderful peaches.
 There's a Panettone, bought half price after Christmas and just the thing to enjoy toasted for a special " on holidays" breakfast. Hop over to see Celia at figjamandlimecordial.com to see what's happening in kitchens around the world.

There are a growing number of lovely zucchinis, I do love the challenge of keeping up with them and not wasting a single one.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Peach Wine #1

Way too hot to cook anything today, the last of the white peaches from our tree, however, were sitting on the kitchen bench beginning to look decidedly overripe. After a quick internet search I decided that Peach Wine would be a good solution, no cooking, just a bit of chopping and mixing. A kilo of peaches and a kilo of raw sugar, 4 litres of boiling water all went into a sterilised bucket.
After the mixture cooled down (as much as it could on a 40 degree day) 1 tablespoon of bakers yeast a teaspoon of citric acid and a cold cup of black tea were added. It needs to sit with a lid on for a week before straining and siphoning into a glass demijohn. It,s a bit of an experiment but I have high hopes, I'll let you know how it goes!

Friday, January 2, 2015

Meal Planning

I have been doing a weekly plan for our meals for a couple of years now, I like to put it up on our Menu board so that everyone can see what I have in mind to eat for the week. Sometimes things change, for instance tomorrow will be a day of Total Fire Ban and I had planned to cook sausages over a fire in our chiminea. We've still got some ham left from Christmas so I think we'll have that with some salad. 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

A fresh start...

The first day of a new year seemed like a good time to start a new blog but after much consideration , breathing life back into an old blog that I haven't posted on for over 2 years seemed like a better option. I just knew that if I had to start from scratch it might just never happen, so welcome to 2015 and welcome back to My Garden Feast!