Oat biscuits

I made these oaty biscuits some time ago - see here. This time I used standard rolled oats rather than the larger oats. However the recipe actually called for oatmeal, so next time I might try whizzing the oats first, so the texture would be different again.
In any case they turned out well and no doubt won't last long in the cookie jar!

Bad weather halts progress in the veg garden

Well we've woken to another stormy morning, heavy rain and gusty wind, so it looks as though the garden will have to wait a bit longer for any more attention, shame.
Since I am nearing the end of my pregnancy now, I really don't have the energy to do much around the place these days, so G is the one left trying to get the job done and as he works full time his time is limited. Never mind, he's managed to get quite a lot of the strawberry plants in the ground which is the main thing.
On the food front, we're steadily munching our way through our meat supplies, the occasional roast lamb or pork, and a goat curry here and there. Also roast chicken, I've done this on the rotisserie in our little oven and it came out well. The duck not quite so well, possibly not quite worth all the effort of procuring, especially since they take rather a long time to pluck (more so than the chickens). We have a couple left in the freezer, might give them away to our French neighbours for turning into pate.
Earlier in the week G came home with a large bag of oranges from a local tree, so I've been making juice, using our whole fruit juicer, just have to peel the citrus first and then pop them through the chute, out comes lovely frothy orange juice.
Some things I've made in the kitchen this week: vanilla ice cream (just got a new supply of lovely fat sticky vanilla beans), blackberry yoghurt ice blocks for D, and banana and choc chip muffins.

Strawberry fields forever

Or so it seems anyway!
Some of the new mounds that G has created for our strawberry plants. They'll get a topping of sawdust as mulch in due course.

Homemade pasta

At last I found the time and inclination to try out my new pasta machine. I made wide ribbons - pappardelle - I tried some dough through the cutting blades but the noodles turned out too narrow for the recipe I had in mind, I guess these are for making fettuccine and spaghetti. Anyway, once I had put the test dough through several times to clean the machine, and practice handling the pasta, I got started on making the noodles. The dough is just 1 egg and 100g flour per person, whizzed in a food processor until it comes together slightly then knead on a floured surface.

I made a simple pasta sauce using chopped red onion, a little chilli, some chopped smoked bacon, white wine, cream, sea salt and pepper. The pasta took a minimal time to cooked in boiling salted water (about 2mins). After draining the pasta I added it to the sauce, and served it with some grated parmesan and a green salad on the side.

The taste of the fresh pasta was amazing, much superior to using 'fresh' pasta from the supermarket. I can see this pasta machine will be getting a lot of use!

Tamarillo chutney

We were given a big bag of tamarillos the other day and as I had no homemade chutney or pickle in the pantry, it seemed the right thing to do with them was make up a batch. This recipe (a new one for me) was out of the tremendously useful book 'A NZ Country Harvest Cookbook', by Gilian Painter.

1.5kg tamarillos
500g onions
500g apples
1/2 cup crystalised ginger
2 cups vinegar (I used malt)
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp mixed spice

Peel and chop tamarillos, onions and apples. Put in large preserving pan with all other ingredients. Bring to boil and cook until thick. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. This quantity made 9 average size jars (approx 300g each).

Update at the end of June

Well it's the 28th of June already, time flies!

The strawberry beds in the garden are coming along, the wet weather has put a halt to further digging. We need to get some mulch down next.

The veg garden will be gradually overhauled over the next few weeks as things get moved about. My herb garden is being downsized, I will utilise pots and containers closer to the kitchen for the most commonly used herbs like thyme, coriander and marjoram. The big galangal plant will need to be moved further to the narrower south end. Once I get some cuttings of lemon geranium to take off, the big lemon geranium is going, it's just a bit too big and sprawling where it is, but will make a great low hedge elsewhere. A lot of the bunching onions will probably go too. I might dig up the chilli plants and put them in pots and see if they survive.

We had contractors in recently to re-do our drive. The grader took out a groove along one endge for better drainage down the steep winding part, then the tip truck dumped a thinish layer of stone chip on top of the soft limestone (which is just a base material). Looks a whole lot better and will be less messy in the rain than the lime as the drainage is better.

G prepared another 3 young chickens (cockarels) for the freezer yesterday. Today is the last day of the duck season (mallards) but it is pouring with rain today so I don't know that the resident hunter will be heading out and about. Oh well, we have 3 ducks in the freezer, so better than none!

Winter solstice

Yesterday was the shortest day/Winter solstice. The days will now start to get longer, but it doesn't mean winter is over, in fact it's really just beginning and we can expect our coldest months in July and August. Here is a short report in today's NZ Herald (national newspaper).

While over in the northern hemisphere, this report from BBC News shows the celebrations at Stonehenge for their Summer solstice.