Purple Dragon carrots

We are still harvesting purple dragon carrots. I've finally managed to grow them nearly all year round.

They seem to come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. But they all are tasty!

Kiwi update

Here is the messy plant, with our haul of kiwi fruit. The plant is all over the place and we'll have to do some serious tidying up this season.

 The fruit is small, but who are we to complain? We grew it!! :) There are five (5!!) all together. I think they are ready to be picked, but will have to check my books first. Unless someone here can tell me when to pick kiwi fruit?

Proteas

The proteas are starting to look rather stunning!

 Love these flowers!

They are such easy plants to grow. Very hardy and low maintenance. In fact, don't pamper them, they don't like it!

A very short break in the rain

We have been having wonderfully rainy days the last two days. A bit cold, but I don't want to complain. The rain is beautiful. The ground makes squishy noises when you walk about.

The water tanks are overflowing - they've done so for a month or more, after every rain. Here you can see the garden water tank overflowing. The sun had come out for a few minutes, so I quickly went and took a few pictures, before it started raining again.

The white camellia has been flowering for a while. The red ones have fat flower buds on them and should start soon, too.

 The proteas are starting to flower.

A new vice?

I don't have a sweet tooth, but at the moment I seem to be baking a lot (which I absolutely love), and eating the result, too!

The raspberry/quark cake (As mentioned before. Several times, I believe.) served with home-made raspberry ripple ice-cream. Oh boy! Pure raspberry indulgence. :)

I still have some cream for another batch of ice-cream. What's your favourite ice-cream flavour? Tell me. Please. :)

Caerphilly

Winter is the best time to make cheese around here. It's easy to maintain the ripening temperature (approx. 13C) and humidity (75-85%). Without having to muck about with a cheese/wine fridge.

Caerphilly is probably one of our favourite cheeses. It's also easy to make and 'only' takes 3 weeks until you can sample it.

This is a whopper of a cheese! The biggest so far, as Chocolate's milk is amazingly creamy at the moment. The yield is 1.75kg from 7.6 litres of milk! Can't wait to taste it. :)

Red Cabbage

Isn't that just the funkiest cabbage?!

Incredible colour and pattern.

Very, very delicious, too! Sautéed with apples, caraway seeds, a bit of lemon juice and finished off with some butter.

 No, it's not from our garden. :)

Quark and stuff

I have been inspired to do more cheese-making again. Had become a bit slack, just the occasional mozzarella or haloumi. But I've dusted off the cheese press, the hoops, etc. and will make a (semi-)hard cheese or three in the next few months, while it is still winter. I have found that the cooler months are easier for cheese-making. The cooler temperatures and the higher humidity make the ripening process a lot less hassle-free.

Quark was high on the agenda in the last few days. Here it is, draining. Also learned (only took me a few years!) that when you drain quark a bit longer, you have cream cheese. I know, I'm slow at times.

So, half of that is being used as quark. Some of it to be spread on bread, some to share with friends, and some in my favourite raspberry/quark cake, for example. (Only a few slices left - and they are in the freezer, for later.)

And the other half was drained a bit longer and will be used as cream cheese. Chocolate (our friends' cow) is giving us a lot of super-creamy milk at the moment. Thank you, Chocolate! :)

Of Mallee, Woylies and Boodies...

...at the Yookamurra Wildlife Sanctuary.

First we went on the Mallee walk to learn heaps about the Mallee. What fascinating trees they are!

Absolutely beautiful, too.

The sun was setting and the scenery was just gorgeous.

As you can imagine, I took heaps more photos, but won't bore anyone with them.

We went for a night walk later on, and saw some boodies, woylies, possums and kangaroos. Incredibly fascinating creatures, all of them.

Thanks to the Mt. Pleasant Natural Resource Centre for organising this event! We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. :)

Apfel-Quarkkuchen

I had some home-made quark in the fridge that I wanted to use up. So this Bavarian recipe (from one of my favourite cookbooks, "Ein kulinarisches Rendezvous mit Bayern") came in handy. Was really delicious, but the sugar-high was incredible, as I am no longer used to sugar! - Well, maybe I should have stopped at one piece and not gobbled up more. And I'm not telling how many pieces more!