Tomatillos and Giant Snow!

Every year I try to grow something new amongst all the usual stuff that I grow in my garden.  So, this Spring/Summer garden season, I'm growing snow peas and tomatillos.  For my kiwi peeps, tomatillos are a small (cherry sized) green tomato that grow in a husk.  They originated in Mexico and are a staple in that country.  Tomatillos are most used for a green sauce called "salsa verde".  Being here in New Zealand, I'm missing my salsa verde and have put matters into my own hands- I'm growing my own this year! 

 

The photo below is an image from the internet of what they look like when picked from the vine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My plant is only a foot tall at this point and have just been transplanted from starter pots to the actual tomato garden.  Yes, I have an actual separate garden bed for tomatoes.  My handsome, handy-hubby builds me anything I want.

 

(The lower red circle is the actual tomatillo plant and the red circle above is a sunflower that will tower over my tomatoes in a couple of months)

 

On to my cute baby snow peas..............

 

I planted my snow peas the first weekend in October.  Photo below.

 

 

I only knew that they would climb up the trellis and be low maintinance.  Well, they did grow up the trellis and have proven to be low maintinance BUT, really?

 

 

I think Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk) will be climbing up my snow peas.  They are all out of room to climb and some vines have made a U-turn and are heading back down.  Look out below......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo below is of my strawberries, spinach, and beetroot. 

All while I was sewing.....

Before I went down to my woman cave/sewing room, I took this picture of my hunny, creating his next sausage recipe.  I thought,' right, while I'm in my sewing cave, you'll be playing with your sausage... again.'

So, off I went to do some creating of my own.  When I was done, he was just wrapping up with his....

The main ingredients were, pork, bacon, sun dried tomatoes, basil, shallots and herbs.  I can't tell you the rest or .....

I'm a very lucky woman for more reasons than his sausage.

New Sewing Project

With my life being a bit busy and complicated I had lost my inspiration in some of my hobbies, one being my sewing.  So, to find my sewing “mo-jo” again, I enrolled myself into a sewing class that meets one night a week.  Two weeks ago I made a cute little top that uses elastic thread to gathered at the waist and neckline.

Took most of the first class un-picking the elastic thread from my top because I couldn't get the darn tension right.  Deep sigh...........


My next project was to make a skirt with an elastic waist and a flared ruffle out of the material below.  Cute for Spring/Summer!

   

In class (photos not taken), I pieced the skirt together and put in the elastic waist.  I was sent home (at 9:45pm) with marching orders/homework to “stay stitch” the ruffle to the skirt and gather it evenly.  I was like, right?!?  WHAT?  It always sounds so easy when the instructor is standing right next to you.
In the photo below you’ll see that I’ve pulled the top threads to the basted/stay stitched rows to gather the ruffle.

Once my ruffle was evenly distributed to the bottom edge of the skirt, I pinned it in place so that I could sew it together.  As you can see by the next photo, I had a little assistant.

This is the ruffle sewn on.  The thread from the stay-stitch just needs to be removed.

Next I had to overlock the seam, which keeps the fabric from fraying.  On a side note, I’ve owned my very own overlocker since Feb 2011 and this is the first time I’ve used it.  Teehee…  It was very exciting!

And finally I get to model my new skirt.  Ta-da!

Since I had a bit of free time this weekend, I also made this grey and brown striped tunic top to wear with jeans.  Yay!

What's next?  Well, I've had pajama pants cut out for Holming for over a year.  Maybe I need to put thread to those pants..... and, I'm sure Alex is waiting for a little something too.

Spring is here!

Here in New Zealand, the seasons always start on the 1st of a month.  So Spring started on September 1st, then Summer will start on December 1st.  You can do the math for the following seasons.  This is the last weekend of October and the sun finally made an appearance.  Hallelujah!!!!

Since the sun was shining, we decided to start our traditional, Saturday- Seafood BBQ, which will go on till we can’t anymore (maybe late March).  Each Saturday, we choose 3 (or 4 if we are greedy) different types of seafood to season and grill in 3 different ways.  This Saturday we had lemon fish, which I seasoned with garlic butter, lemon ride and lemon juice.  We also had prawn skewers and steamed mussels.  For veggies, we had asparagus and courgettes all dressed with garlic butter.  YummY.

Since the sun honored us with its presence   for both days of the weekend, we headed to the beach.  Anawhata Beach is a west coast beach that has black sand.  To get there, you must hike down through the Forest for about 20 minutes until you get to the beach. 

Sunny and Alex loved it!  They ran….

And ran………

And ran…………

Then we settled near the water and sent Alex to her cave!

We took a self-portrait... Look at the happy couple:)

We had a fantastic time at the beach.   I think Alex and Sunny will sleep like little angels tonight.
Night, night kids.

All in a day’s work

While my husband is the handy sausage maker, I’m still the chicken keeper. I currently have 7 chickens ranging in age from 3 years old to 1 year old.  Out of the seven, five are laying.  One is retired from laying and the other is confused is she is a he or a she.

Being mid-Spring, this is the high season for laying.  This is all in a day’s work. 

We had these exact fresh eggs with yesterday’s homemade sausages.  We are very spoilt in this house.

Boys and their sausages (trying to keep this PG12)

My husband has always wanted his sausage to be longer and tastier than any others.  Well, this weekend was his moment to man-up.  Show me what your beef is made of Baby! He finally brought out the sausage maker I bought him 2 birthdays ago.

Because most store-bought sausages have such a high fat content (and us being such health nuts), he’s always wanted to try and make leaner sausages.  Per 1 ½ pounds of meat, most recipes add ½ a pound to 1 pound of pork fat.  Yuck! 

He was a man with a mission this weekend.  I was only the photographer as he didn’t want me to touch his sausage…. I’ve never!

So, to start, he marinated the meat and herbs.  Once the meat was ready, in it went into the meat grinder.

This shot is from the other side.

Next he had to put all the ground-up meat back in the grinder to push it into the casing.

                                           (I have no comment about this photo but know I’d love to!)
It’s a tricky thing to fill the casing evenly through a very long sausage without breaking it.  See my honey’s long sausage.

Next he had to make them into individual sausages by twisting them at every 5 inch intervals.

Here’s the finished product and a very happy honey.

Almost time

It’s almost Spring.  With a sunny Saturday at hand and time to myself, all I wanted to do was get stuck into my garden.  No interruptions, no lunches to make and well, nobody but me, Sunny…. and the chooks.

Before you can start to plant a veggie garden or any type of garden, there are always pesty weeds to deal with.  The only thing that grows in my garden all Winter long are weeds.

I’m pleased that my parsley grew throughout Winter along with the weeds

Once I had dealt with the weeds, I needed to add nutrients to my soil.  I keep a compost bin in my backyard which I add most kitchen scraps (the one’s the chickens don’t get first), green and brown organic waste then wait till it breaks down to soil again.

                                                      More on composting in another post.

Once my piles of home-brewed compost are in place, I layer it on top of my existing soil and wait.  I wait for a few weeks to a month while the rain spreads the nutrients down to the rest of the soil. 

What do I do while I wait?  I plan my garden.  This is where my handy hubby comes in.  Honey, where should I plant my beans?

If I didn’t have chooks, I would have put the weeds in my compost bin but I saved them along with some extra worms for my girls. Everyone benefits in one way or another today.

Five years

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband. We are a bit late with the celebrations but what can I say, we've been busy.
We booked a four day trip to Queenstown, which is on the Southern end of the South Island. We literally went there to RELAX. We had 10 hours of sleep every night in addition to a daily nap.

Queenstown was incredibly scenic and picturesque. I've uploaded some of our photos here with captions included.

Enjoy.

February Egg Count

One hundred and three eggs for the month of February. Wilma, the 'rock star' from last month finally took a much needed break. What does one household do with 103 eggs (that's 8 1/2 dozen)? We share. I gave 2 dozen eggs away last month. I love nothing more than to share homegrown food with friends and family whether it's from my garden or my backyard egg shop.

(you can click on the spreadsheet to see a bigger view)

It will be sad when the garden and chooks stop producing due to shorter days and cooler temperatures.

First weekend in Autumn

When I heard that we were getting hit with a heavy storm on Saturday, I couldn’t wait to have a lazy day indoors. The storm hit hard, it rained sideways but I didn’t care because all I wanted to do was start on the quilt I had planned to start 6 months ago.

Fortunately, I had already cut the material- 72 squares measuring 8 ½ x 8 ½ and 288 strips that are 8 ½ x 1 ½ . Now I just need to sew it all together. These things take time because, once a square is sewn to a strip, it needs to be pressed before the other strips can be sewn on.
Fortunately, I had music- hit here for video.

And, I had an ironing assistant- click here

I did have another kind of helper.

SUNNY!!!!!!

Goodbye Summer

This is what Summer sounds like around here. I took this video last week, early in the morning while going down to let the chooks out. It’s the mating sound of a Cicada, which are common throughout the warmer parts of the world, particularly the tropics. So by the end of Summer my ears hurt because they are so loud. While reading up on the net about Cicadas I read that this sound can actually cause hearing loss in humans. Now I know why I feel so deaf by the end of Summer.

Good bye Cicadas, I’ll hear you next Summer…

Flash Flood

Thunderstorms were predicted for Northern parts of Auckland on Friday night. So at about 6:30pm, it all started. Except that, it literally downpoured for almost an hour with thousands of lightning strikes. I've NEVER seen such heavy rain in my life. It was very scary. Here's a short video of the torrential rain in my backyard. Notice the waves of water running down the nice footpaths that lead down to the chicken run. YIKES!

During this flash flood, the kitchen windows were leaking, water was coming in from under the dishwasher AND we also had a leak in the storage room downstairs!!! I had every towel that we own soaking up all the water from around the house.

My husband was out swimming at Piha beach with his mate (as one does at the end of Summer) while all this chaos was happening. When I text him the video clip from above, he sent me this photo of the beach he was at.



When he returned, he was shocked the to see that a) the power was out and I was sitting in a candle lit house (thanks to my mom for bring me a bag of 100 tealights) and b) all the towels on the floor and widows around the house. He's always away when things like this happen. Grrrr.....

Bolognese Sauce

I’ve had a special request to share my Bolognese recipe. I hope this will be made by you all.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

5 cloves garlic, minced

5 strips streaky bacon, finely chopped

1 ½ pound (700 grams) ground beef

2/3 cup red wine

2 14oz (2- 400mL) cans crushed tomatoes

1 cup chicken or beef stock

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp basil, chopped

1 tbsp thyme, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese, grated (for serving)

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add onions and garlic. Saute for 3-4 minutes. Add bacon. Once bacon is just cooked, add the ground beef; sauté, breaking up with back of spoon, until browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. (The beef doesn’t have to be completely cooked.) Add wine; boil 1 minute. Add crushed tomatoes, stock, tomato paste, and herbs; stir to blend. Reduce heat to a low simmer until thickened, 1- ½ hours. Season with salt and pepper.

Maybe a nice Valentine's Day dinner?

Egg Count

As you know, I have kept a small flock of chickens (up to 7 now!) in my backyard for the last year and a half. Since I’m no longer a beginner at chicken keeping, I thought this year I would get more organised at keeping track of my egg count (my chickens’, that is). I created a spreadsheet that I can fill in whenever one of my girls lays an egg. This way I can tell who is laying and who isn’t.

As you can see by my spreadsheet I have some good and bad laying going on with my flock. I didn’t need a spreadsheet to tell me that Chica, my 9 month old Araucana ISN’T LAYING ANY EGGS! She’s the one that is supposed to lay the blue or green shelled eggs. Sadly, we are keeping her because she’s just become part of the family.

On the positive side, you can see that Wilma is a “rock star”. She was unstoppable last month. This breed usually lays 3 eggs a week. I guess she’s special.

What I didn’t put on the spreadsheet is that on the 31^st, she laid a shell-less egg. This happens when they are running low on calcium. And as you can see after laying 30 eggs in a row, she was flat out of calcium.

Lastly, I can’t believe I had 95 eggs last month! I mean, what does one household do with 95 eggs!?!?? Fortunately, my mom was here to help consume some of those eggs and, I also gave about 2 dozen away.

I also think I’m becoming a bit of an egg hoarder…. But that’s another blog post, perhaps another time or never!

Sewing again

Having the little one with us has forced me to pick up a bit of sewing. I was a bit reluctant (or lazy) to dust the old sewing machine off and put thread to fabric but, I did it.

Every little girl needs a cell phone cover…. Especially a purple and pink one!



Next, she needed a cute bag to carry her cellphone, daily planner and supplies. Out came the cutting mat and rotary cutter. I did have a helper at hand….. eating oreo cookies!



It’s a purple-ish flowery fabric for the outside and beige fabric that has music notes for the inside.

Here’s me sewing it together.



Here’s the inside (with a pocket).



And outside



The happy owner of the goods!
In the end, I’m quite happy that I was inspired to sew again. I have a quilt I’ve been meaning to make ever since I got back from my last trip home. It’s all cut out and ready to sew. Let’s see if I really do it.

Hello again....

It’s been about 3 months since my last post. A lot has happened to keep me from posting but, I’m looking forward to getting back into the rhythm of normal life at the Lee house.

Just to pick up from where I left off from my last post, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum had gone broody one too many times for my style. They were re-homed at the end of November to a nice couple that live on an acre of land. Happy ending….goodbye!!

Since then, I’ve been here and there, collecting different breeds, to up my egg count (from my girls….). I now have quite the collection of hens- 7 of them. Except that one doesn’t lay… don’t think she ever will. She goes in the nest everyday as if to lay an egg but forgets to leave her deposit. Never mind about her shortcomings…. I have 6 other hens to compensate for her lack of!

Now that I have 7 hens, things get a little noisy as feeding time. Here’s a video showing what feeding time sounds like. Notice the grey hen sounds like a sheep…. Figures as we are in New Zealand.


In case you didn’t hear my growling hen, Gingernut, here is a short clip of her growl. She does that only when she sees me… It’s funny.

(my videos are now linked on you tube as some of my readers have been unable to access the videos that were directly loaded into my blog. For the inexperienced, once video is finished, hit the back arrow twice to return you to the blog.)