My Voice?

 

My voice has gone missing. I have a cough and when I speak it is coming out rather croaky unless I resort to whispering. I've been lead to believe the whisper is preferable. Fortunately though I do not feel the slightest bit sick. It's my birthday on Friday and I don't want to be poorly especially then. Anyway, I'm sure I'll locate my regular vocal abilities in the next day or two until. It doesn't matter too much here what I sound like so I'll keep exercising my blogging voice a little bit.

 

It probably happens in most households that the person having the birthday chooses their meal (or perhaps they choose the restaurant). It's what happens here anyway. Last year Grace couldn't decide from a rather long list of favourites so I thought why not a week of meals decided by the birthday girl. It took the chore of meal planning out of my hands for the week and she chose things that we all like anyway. So I thought why not for me too.

 



A lot of our dinners are coming out of this book this week. Lentil and squash pasties , leek and blue cheese tart, spicy lamb burgers to name a few.

And for my birthday 'cake' I am finding it hard to go past this chocolate chilli tart with dulce de leche ice cream. I'm not really a fan of cake so a chocolatey tart sounds good to me. I have the magazine from the local library and the recipe proper isn't on the Taste website as yet but there is a good recipe adaptation here if it appeals to you.

And what else to eat during my birthday week. Sugar snap peas of course. They are by far the best peas this year. I always favoured snow peas but the sweetness and juiciness of the sugar snaps has actually toppled the snow peas from their pea pedestal.



 

Bunches of Broccoli Waltham. Steamed until they are only just done. The broccoli are almost all done for the season so it's time to make the most of them.

 

And because it's my birthday on Friday, Brussels sprouts will be on the menu. I love them. My ruby variety are leaving their run a bit late and I think the warm weather will be too much for them before they crop heavily but their leaves are quite stunning and worth growing for them alone. The leaves actually taste fine. As a note to myself, I am going to try starting my Brussels sprouts earlier so they have more time in the cold and lessen the chance of them bolting when the weather turns warm (usually early these days).

Of course there could be surprises in stall for me and I might be whisked out for a fancy meal but I don't think so. I love cooking and I love cooking new things. But, I will not be washing up on Friday.

Do you prefer home cooked birthday dinners or a restaurant treat?

Tracy

Simply Busy

A brief chat with a friend this morning got me thinking about life and such. Well about my life in particular and how I am happy to be living it. I am well aware of how very fortunate I am to be living right here, right now. Of course things do not run smoothly and on a daily basis there are minor predicaments to deal with but they are more often than not the type of trouble that causes laughter later or even fodder for schadenfruede.

 

Bees, pollen, larvae and capped brood. Looking good.

 

Right now I am busy. Not busy in a crazy too much to do sense but more busy like a bee. I know what I have to do and it is enough. The garden is starting to pick up with new growth with the warm days (and nights recently) we have been having. Unfortunately the one really cold night we had froze the leaves and fruit that were forming on the black mulberry tree but I checked it today and there are new leaves coming on now so all is not lost.

 

We checked the bee hives on Saturday and things are looking good there. This early in the season there is no honey for us but they have enough for them and there is plenty of brood and pollen to keep bee numbers up. Last summer was quite hard on the bees with it being so dry and flowering being interrupted by the hot, dry weather. Here's hoping that this summer there is a little (or a lot) more moisture in these parts.

 

The two rams also had a hair cut on Saturday and the ewes will be shorn next week. The younger ram, Darrel, is a pleasure to shear when compared with Crinkles (so Tim tells me because I do not go into the paddock with Crinkles). He is 100kg plus of bossy ram and I'm sure if there was a picture in the dictionary of headstrong then he would be there ready to butt and bully.

Darrel at front looking unimpressed with his new hair cut and Crinkles wearing a lewd grin.

I think his attitude was picked up when he was a lamb. He was born and raised on a school farm and had more handling and human contact than necessary.

 

 

Fiona shared a picture of her wisteria (perhaps just on Facebook I'm not sure) a week or so ago and mine is just opening up now. How sweet it is.

Wisteria almost seems too good to be true. Gorgeous blooms and a scent that doesn't overpower but lingers in the air.

So having said all that, I am busy. Simply so. And in the evening if we have nothing else we want to do, we have started watching our River Cottage/ Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall collection again. At the moment we are watching "A Cook on the Wild Side". Makes me want to take a trip to the UK and cruise around in a Landrover or travel along in a canal boat just a little bit.

Tracy

River Cottage Lunch

It may be quite some time before I actually have lunch at one of the River Cottage establishments but nothing stops me from having it at home. I used Hugh's recipe from the River Cottage Veg Every Day! book to make up Sunny Corner Farm version of a very satisfying baguette with broad beans and asparagus.

It was completely delicious and didn't suffer from my improvisation of home made bread rolls and cream cheese rather than goats cheese.

The chickens have been having the best time too. Their foraging is getting beyond what I am happy with, a little too free range. When they see me turning soil or weeding, they are there. It appears that I am the source of all things delicious to chooks. I am not about to lock them up (not yet) but I am seriously considering electric poultry netting as a control mechanism. I'm just trying to decide if the $300 price tag is worth it.
Tracy

It started so well

The growing season got off to a flying start this year. We had a mild winter and an early spring which sometimes felt more like summer. A couple of kilos of strawberries and mulberries too and enough flowers to make some elderflower cordial. My youngest is a River Cottage fan (so am I)so we made elderflower cordial as part of our home school activities. It was a little too sweet for my liking but no one else complained.
Things however took a turn for the worse in the garden. We have had a plague of grasshoppers.They have stripped most of the vegetable garden and are now at the stage of eating the bark off the 13 newly planted heritage apple trees.I'm not sure if they will survive. It is very disheartening. I think the mild winter may have upset the balance between some grasshoppers and too many.

Most information regarding the eradication of grasshoppers/locusts involves chemicals which could be fatal to our bees and propbably not too good for us either. Organic and permaculture methods of barrier plantings etc had no effect as they were in such large numbers so we had to resort to a spray. The spray is organic approved and developed by the CSIRO. It has the potential to harm bees but most research indicates that it is safe when used appropriately.I am hoping and praying that our vegetables,herbs,fruits and ornamentals will be back on track and the casualty list isn't too high.

Best wishes,
Tracy