Garlic Update

The garlic is doing really well! Here a picture. Full post to be found here.

Eco Pot Holder

...made from reclaimed op-shop remnant fabric. How good is that!?
This lovely hand-made gift arrived in the post a while back.
Thank you Telela from Life is Better Barefoot! Check out her other hand-made gifts that kept her very busy indeed.

It's a dilemma, though - this is far too special to use as pot-holder!

The end of the season

...at least for certain mushrooms and fungi in the forest.

I took tons of photos of various fungi. They are absolutely fascinating in their colours and shapes and their various hiding places. Here's one of my favourite pictures:

Lemon & Chilli Pickle

A great way to use up chillies and lemons! This pickle is lovely on bread or crackers, mixed into quark or ricotta, added to stews, pastas, etc. An incredibly versatile paste, indeed!
12 lemons (chopped finely)*
20 chillies (deseeded)

Roast the following spices individually:
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp black mustard seeds
10 cardamom pods
1 tsp fenugreek seeds

Chop 10 cloves of garlic. Then grate 2 tbsp ginger.

Heat 5 tbsp oil and cook garlic, ginger and leaves of 3 sprigs of curry leaves for a few minutes.

Add all ingredients plus 1 cup of white wine vinegar to pan.
Simmer until everything is cooked and it turns into a thick paste.
*I didn't chop the lemons finely, but into biggish chunks according to recipe. I had to scoop the lemons out to blend to a paste. The second batch I made, I had finely chopped lemons and they cooked beautifully. But the paste was chunkier.

Fill into sterilised jars. Enjoy!

Caerphilly

This is a cheese that I will definitely make again. It is tasty, creamy and crumbly. Another big advantage, it does not need long maturing. You can sample it 3 weeks after you have put it in your cheese fridge.

Lemon Curd

Brought a bowl of lemon curd to the seedsavers' gathering yesterday afternoon. Together with some freshly baked bread. The lemon curd frenzy that ensued was amazing. Here is the recipe:

Zest (fine) and juice of 6 lemons
8 eggs - lightly beaten
200g unsalted butter
400g sugar

Bring some water to boil in a saucepan. Put all ingredients in a heat-proof bowl. Place bowl over saucepan.Stir occasionally, until everything is mixed in together. Then continue stirring for about 10 minutes or until mixture thickens. Take off heat, pour mixture into sterilised jars.

Seal.Enjoy! I read that it freezes well, so I have put a few jars in the freezer and shall see what the lemon curd is like when defrosted.

Perennial Cotton

I saw a picture of perennial cotton flowers in a catalogue last year and immediately put it on the 'must-grow-list'.

1 (one!) seed germinated.

Well, the flowers are pretty, the plant is small and fairly hassle-free to grow. But I also expected a ball of cotton wool after the flower. And this is a major disappointment - no cotton wool ball. *sulk* How cool would that have been?!

Wild Mushrooms...

...and what to do with them.Another recipe idea - this time on Adelaide Kitchen Gardeners.

Mushroom Schnitzel

Or to be more precise - crumbed mushroom slices.

After a good walk in the forest, mushrooming, you will be hungry. Clean your pine mushrooms (you have brushed them clean in the forest anyway, but they may need a little wipe with a damp cloth), cut them in approx. 5mm thick slices, then crumb them.

Fry in some butter and/or oil. Serve with veggies or just some tzatziki. We had them with leeky mashed potatoes and sautéed carrots and celery. Yum!

Wild Mushrooms...

...for wild people.Now is the time to go mushroom hunting. But if you are not sure which ones are edible and which ones make you go all funny (or worse) - grab a friend who knows! There is a place and time for experimenting - this is not one of them! Learn more about mushrooming on Adelaide Kitchen Gardeners.

Autumn

It's a great time to go for walks in the forest. The air is crisp and clean. The silence calms a stressed mind. The mushrooms are just a bonus - especially if you can take them home for a meal. Not this one, of course!

Purple Dragon...

...carrots!

Our favourite variety around here. This summer I had a real bumper crop, for the first time. I had always been struggling with carrots in the garden.
The trick (around here) is to sow them in Autumn while the soil and weather is still fairly warm (the new carrot bed was soon this March), cover the seeds thinly with soil, water in well. Then cover with some hessian, so that the seeds don't dry out and/or birds can't munch on the seeds. Uncover when you have good germination. Then wait and enjoy! :)