Tea for Tuesday

 

On this long Anzac weekend we went to the mainland for a Garden visit for ROGI, we visited Halcyon Cafe in Hamilton and we weren't disappointed by the menu. 

I choose the croissant and smoked salmon for breakfast and M chose the rosti. I always have an English Breakfast tea and water. M had coffee and water and gobbled both up before breakfast arrived.

Hop over to Elizabeth and Bluebeard's blog to see what other people are eating and drinking

Tea for Tuesday - Pineapple Pie

There is a wonderful lady on the island Lusi who makes these wonderful island desserts. She made me one on the weekend called Pineapple Pie. I used to eat it in Fiji. Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it out. Here is the video.

I'm going to link up tomorrow with T for Tuesday, Bluebeard and Elizabeth she will be so surprised because the last time I linked up was May 2019 a loong time ago.

So abit of light reading about tea for you below:

I saw this on facebook under GREAT BRITISH TREA PARTY and loved it, especially the part about giving up sugar and the reasons, it made me think about how lucky we are to have so much at our finger tips and #Covid-19 has come to take us back to those days that our ancestors had to live on so little-we are definitely spoilt.

Mary Berry on Tea, pictured at home in Buckinghamshire - English food writer and television presenter.

"My mother was fussy about making tea. When we had guests, she would have two pots of leaf tea – one of Earl Grey and one Indian. If it was just family, it was a blend of Indian tea with a pinch of Earl Grey, which was dearer but we loved the flavour, so only a pinch. I like the idea of being quintessentially British and only drink tea in the afternoon. I have a cup of hot water when I wake up. Then I have coffee. In the afternoon I like weak Earl Grey with milk but no sugar – perfect. I find Earl Grey fresher than Indian tea. Just one cup is enough; I like it as a treat. It’s how I was brought up – nothing in excess, everything should be treated as something special."

Whenever my husband serves me tea or coffee he asks “Sugar?”, knowing full well that for the 50 years we’ve known each other I’ve answered “No thank you”. That’s because during the war my mother said: “If you give up sugar in tea and coffee, I’ll be able to make the odd cake, stale bread and margarine pudding, or rhubarb and crumble.”

Green Tomato Pickle

Last weekend my local vegetable shop Willow and Oak had some green tomatoes for sale, I was over the moon. I have not been able to find green tomato for 10 years since I got the recipe and made it. It is one of the best pickle recipes I have ever tasted.

Hence me trying to plant a lot of tomato trees this year. I bought the whole box which came to around 5 kgs. Which was 2 lots of the recipe. That was a lot of cutting up, thank goodness hubby helped me.

 I turn them upside down to sterilize the lid

Here is the recipe:

Green Tomato Pickles 

6lb (2.7kg) green tomatoes

2lb (900G) onions

2lb (900G) white sugar

2 pint (900ml) white vinegar

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp mustard

1 tbsp curry or less ( I use 1/2 that)

1 tbsp salt

4 tbsp plain flour

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground all spice

Cut up onions and tomatoes. Sprinkle over the salt. Leave OVERNIGHT covered in fridge.

Next day drain well.

Add sugar, ¾ vinegar and bring to boil. Simmer for 2 hours. Add spices cook further ¼ hour. Mix flour with rem. vinegar. Stir until thickened.

Pour into very clean glass jars and seal

Winter Scavenger Hunt 2019

I first saw the Scavenger Hunt on Nil's blog and curiosity got the better of me so I wandered over to where it all began with A Bracelet of Days. It's almost the end of 2019 Winter Photography Scavenger hunt which started around Dec 2019 so I am scrambling to find all the photos.

Here are my finds so far:

1. In the bag: Obviously something has opened up the bag and started to eat the content of my straw

2. Contrast: I bought these shoes cheaply and going to plant something in it, it's a size 10 so way too big for me to wear. I love the contrast of where I had left it outside the patio on the stones

4. Colours: I love the colours of the vegetables I bought last weekend

5. A Garden Gate: I saw this fence on my walk today, I love the contrast of the cement posts and the wood

7. I stood here:  One stubbed black toe

10. The little things:  Woolworths were giving out the Stikeeze toys if you spent $20 or more, they have now stopped giving them out due to the Covid-19. The coin is our $1 to show the size

13. A keyhole: Our front door key hole, its located too close to the edge and the handle is hard to turn

14. Flavour of the month: Chillies, I love my chillies and I discovered I have about 7 chillie trees, 3 I planted and the rest the birds planted

 Wild chillie trees marked by the orange ribbons so hubby doesnt mow them down

 Chillies for cooking                                   Chillies for drying 

 Turned those chillies into chillie jam, its more hot than sweet. Stored upside down to sterlize the lids

15. Letters: The letters I received this month

17. A Line: This rope fence was in a very long line, the whole line wouldn't fit into the photo

If you wanted to play, here is the list:

We're now in to April and have until the 30th to find the rest of our photos for the Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt. For those who may not be aware of this .... I extended the end date to April 30th 2020 and added some more photo prompts to help anyone who was self-isolating as a result of the coronavirus crisis. This is the revised list:

1. in the bag
2. contrast
3. the way to go
4. colours
5. a garden gate
6. vintage 
7. I stood here
8. 11 o'clock
9. solitary
10. the little things
11. industrial
12. time for tea
13. a keyhole
14. flavour of the month
15. letters
16. a barrier
17. a line
18. a chain
19. an alley
20. monochrome

Alt A: Chess or Checkers
Alt B: Market
Alt C: The View From My Front Door
Alt D: Three Colours On One Item
Alt E: I Am Reading
Alt F: The Sky Today
Alt G: Free Choice

Alt H: Free Choice  

Pantry Cleaning Out

This lockdown from the Corona Virus is spurring many people on to do stuff around the house. Well I now have the opportunity to clean out my pantry that was needing it badly. Because I cook many cuisines, I have lots of different items to cook these.

 I have a small walkin pantry

 I definitely need split shelves, as you can see the wasted room in each shelf that I could fill and make it neater and easier to find...someday

 All items out on the tables so I can fumigate and wipe down all the shelves and walls to give it a real good clean

What are you doing for your self-isolation or lockdown? 

Homesteading and Chicken Poop...what to do?

So after a rest from raising ducks, lots of ducks and finding it was too expensive, $50 a week of feed was too much especially as the ducks weren't giving me much eggs, was cheaper for me to go and buy eggs hahahaha however those eggs were really nice.

Anyway we gave the ducks away to friends and family so they have gone to a good home.

I want to get chickens this time, they are more economical and give more eggs like 300 per hen.

On visiting the chicken run I discovered a pumpkin plant growing in it as well as a paw paw tree hahaha, I must have fed the ducks with those and now they are really thriving in the best soil we have on our property.

So for those of you who like me need some help with raising chickens The Prairie Homestead is one of my favourite blogs to follow, this link is about raising laying hens.

This next link shows how to make your own chicken feed, and lots more other great information in there. I am looking at the picture of the ingredients and thinking to myself "that makes a good dahl soup" hahahah Nils will be proud of me.
Ok seriously its easier and convenient for me to go to the Pet shop and get a bag of feed and I'll keep all those lentils to make hearty soup now that winter is coming along.

Gardening and how to start your vegetable garden 

Here's a wonderful candied walnut, apple and cranberry salad

 A month ago we went to a friends house to get some chicken poo, I haven't look at my garden for a month, you can imagine my surprise when I went for a squiz the other day only to find the chicken poo in the white foam boxes had sprouted beautiful tomato plants. Three healthy plants in the box above and off course some weeds lol.

One healthy plant below. So today I will be going out and replanting them so I can take the foam boxes to get more poo to use. I'm going to dump the poop and plants in the garden and stake them.

In the raised bed to the right I have a fruit tree growing, I have no idea what it is, if anyone can recognise the leaf I would love to find out what I planted 3 years ago LOL

 The raised bed behind the box has a lime tre (I think) and some garlic chives. The reason i dont  know what trees I have is because three years ago I planted trees and they all died. We then let a chicken roam around in there and she must have pooped at all the roots so all these trees have suddenly come alive. So lesson is dont despair or discard dead trees, they will come alive thanks to chicken poop.

It even grew in the bag we had poo in, check out the healthy mint behind the bag

More photos to come in next post, my garden has expanded

Tea for Tuesday - Brookfield Stamp Camp 2019 - food

Last weekend I went away to a Craft Camp in Brookfield Queensland. I have been before three years ago and loved it. Just driving up to Brookfield was so tranquil and gorgeous.

I have some pictures of the craft area in THIS POST.

Breakfast

Fruit and coco pops

                                                                  Poached eggs and bacon

I loved the fruit and yoghurt and had it everyday for breakfast

Canadian Pancakes, never had them before. 

 Lunch and dinners, cajun chicken was very nice

 I cant remember what this was

This was my favourite, Nachos, the meat sauce was so yummy. 

I kept running out of cheese, then avocado then nachos lol

Dinner, honey chicken and beef in black bean

Dessert: Trifle pudding, was too sweet for me

Pudding and ice cream

Hop on over to Elizabeth's Blog to see other beverages and what everyone is up to