duck 'proscuitto'

Another cured meat post. Cant help myself really, it just feels a bit too good being able to make your own cured meats. Its a bit like lion taming or home birthing (haha, obscure). Its also ridiculously cheap and you can choose happy meat. This is my latest curing atempt;duck proscuttio
From everything i have read, curing a whole muscle like this is pretty fail proof. The meat cut required for a proscuito style cure has been minimally damaged, only a few cut edges, unlike salami where the meat is minced and is therefore more likely to be open to spoilage from bacterias you dont want. The salt does all the work. And the air. There are no fermentation and humidiy issues to worry about. Its just straight up uber salted meat drying.
I'd kept aside a duck breast from my last ducky adventure just for this purpose, if Id had a pig i would have started with that!
So i buried my duck breast in a kilo of non-iodised salt (kosher salt apparently! i never knew what the big fuss was with kosher salt, i mean its not cheese and its not ham and its definitely not both, so whats the bother? Kosher salt is a brand i have since discovered). Apparently the iodine in salt changes the cure flavour a little poorly. So folowing Mr Charcuteries' instructions, i headed into the five minute world of preparing a meat for proscuitto cure. Dead easy. Buried it for 24 hours in the salt an dpopped it in the fridge. After the 24 hours were up, i rinsed it, patted dry and wrapped it in cheesecloth and hung it in the pantry which stays a pretty stable temperature of between 11-14 C. Mr Charcuterie reports that the breast should be ready in a week from cure, but having squeezed and poked and sniffed(definitely smells like proscuitto!) its not quite ready me thinks its still too soft, so i will leave it another week but the colour has certainly changed from a lightish pink to a deeper more translucent maroon. Hoping it will be ready for the Gnomes visit next weekend when we undertake some joint wine making adventures.

And, for all you foodies out there, this food blog search is a gem.

cunning cloches *with update

we've had some pretty foul weather these last few days and yesterday heavy rain, hail and frost were all expected. I'd even heard rumours of overnight snow and its raining heavily and hailing again. Great for the reservoirs and the water tanks but not such good news for all the tender seedlings that I had moved out into the vege beds in great faith this early in the season. Hail is definitely a new tomato killer, all that ice on the ground forms a lovely layer of frozen air and kills them off, just like frost. Panic! Bugger. Damn. Fowlers no.31 preserving jars to the rescue! These makeshift emergency cloches kept the seedlings toasty warm overnight and i slept through the hail and storm and sit here listening to the lovely sound of water rushing everywhere secure in the knowledge that these early outers were safe. Hoping the peas and beans survived the night.


* Im so so glad i did this. More hail came bucketing down a few hours after i posted. It was pretty decent stuff.

lazy gardening tips

What does a lazy gardeners saved seeds from last season look like?
...someting like this!

This technique requires no washing, stripping, drying or sorting of sloppy seed and pulp! Plop mashed insides, in this case tomato ( works for cucumbers, zucchini...sloppy seeds) on paper towels, spread somewhat, leave to dry in cool dry spot. Fold and store or leave in piled stack. Write on each towel what type of seeds they are. When ready to plant out, chop paper towel into small bits and plant out seed/s (with piece of towel is ok). Voila! easy seed saving for lazy gardners. Works every time.

Ready to go today were last years best producers; yellow pear, green zebra, black russian and a pink 'somethingorother' (i just labelled that one 'pink' obviously thinking at the time that the rest of the name would be obvious when planting time came!). The weather does tend to push you outside at this time of year. The winter vege patches really need some serious attention dont they? straggling old sorry things they are at this time of they year.. I did attempt weeding and general prepping on most of the patches today but small person issues hindered the whole hog happenning -what else? and at one point nearly rolled himself sideways over the edge of a 2m dry stone wall and onto the driveway, how he managed such a feat under and behind the grapefruit and mandarin i dont know but small people have a way of doing the seemingly impossible don't they?, and quickly!

I did however manage to weed a carrot, beetroot and tomato bed and de-rocket the cabbage patch. I found a few cabbages that i had cut back ready to pull from last season , but didnt, and they have sprouted two leaders on either side of the cut and are producing small heads in each. A bi-annual cabbage! Extra perfect for the lazy gardner, but the ones i planted out a few months ago are really looking quite good, the 'foil' of rocket forest surrounding them really keeps the pests at bay as they cant see the leaves well when they fly over looking for cabbage! Brilliant companion planting.

Another lazy gardning trick that is a stroke of engineering brilliance is leaving last summers' bean stalks on the bamboo trellising we use. The old winding thick stalks provide the perfect easy grip surface for the new seasons peas on the rather slippery bamboo. Pea anti-skid, free. The peas i put in a few months ago have survived the onslaught of winter slugs and are now a good 2 ft tall.

Didnt quite get around to potting up the tomato seeds...

Haiku Friday

the pressures of time.
life runs away, weeds flourish.
f*#k f*#k f*#k f*#k f*#k

Haiku Friday

the pitchfork sinks, stops.
black earth crumbles, falls away.
a majestic spud!

rain gardening

Its not generally my favourite way to do it, but time was running short, plus Im pretty stubborn and I had committed to getting it done this weekend.
Boy in bed = time to do stuff = plant artichokes; they're the funny looking short pale grey frondy things that appear quite limp . i planted a row of five behind and three in front. They should look quite striking in this spot, me thinks.
Didnt count on it being quite this wet.

I have discovered over the years that whenever i dont let self imposed limits stop me doing any kind of stuff, im always really pleasantly surprised at how i feel afterwards. Its really empowering to not let minor discomfort stand in the way of achievement. Also, being outside in the rain getting soaking wet always throws me back into childhood.

Sadly you cant see the rain still dripping from my nose nor just how much trouble i had taking a shot that wasnt all nostril or feet using a camera that inverted me and moved the image in reverse.

Im hoping they like this spot out the front of the house by the road and that not too many teenagers give them a thwack on the way past nor that they get suddenly repossessed at their peak and turn up on someone elses' table.

garden tour [with Gnome]

This is my blatant attempt to win a fantastic cook book from Mad Gnomes. Check it out. Some great giveaways in swap for a Gnome pic! This gnome is carved from a dead tree that still has roots in the ground and he wears his original bark coat. He looks a bit cranky (a mad gnome?) and sits amongst the agapanthus that line the driveway keeping a lookout...

Actually, while i was out taking a photo of our gnome, I had thought a garden tour may be of interest to some of you. I know i love to see where everyone lives, locate your stories, gardens, vegetables and lives, its the nosy parker in me.
The vegetable garden is not very abundant at the moment, offering us kale and potatoes, rocket, carrots, cabbage, lettuce and the last few yellow pear tomatoes each day. These tomatoes are the only ones i have 'wintered off' ( well actually just couldnt be bothered pulling them out).

The citrus are producing like crazy; on the go and in the fridge are oranges

mandarins which are small but sweet and juicy and grapefruit and my favourite lemons are about to ramp up into full production mode.
Courtesy of the Gnomes in the last day or two are some artichoke plants and 20 odd rabberry canes. Sweet. Looking forward to joys of both of these. I need to get them in the ground today.
These pics were taken just now so you can see its not pretty weather for gardening but i promised myself to get them in this weekend as we leave for holidays in 2 weeks.

I do believe that its something furry not slimy that is ravaging the rhubarb, decimating it. Im not sure if its got much of a fighting chance? I will cover them with some wire and see how it fares.



The dragon at the bottom of the garden has shed its skin and is looking rather wiry and cold; fitting for a dragon no? and the only colour left are the azaleas in the japanese stone garden.

The solar cels are still ticking the meter over but the boat that simon has been building since before we met is a little behind schedule, what with a new persons added to the mix, full time fathering, building the studio and the garden always needing something doing and wood chopped...
Its not the boat we intend to use on our big adventure!
ahh winter...sometimes i love it...

from little things, big things grow

so i started with a manageable amount...
over time, they grew,
and grew,
and grew until finally i had so much bean sprout i was overwhelmed. I had removed them from their sprouting jars days ago as the roots had begun to weave around the insides and quite frankly they were freaking me out with their very apparent 'aliveness'. They had been happily sprouting in a huge bowl since then. The stupid thing is none of us like raw sprouts all that much, especially in winter. I sprouted these up for pad thai, thinking that the one cup or so of dried bean wouldn't make that much...pad thai made, sprouts used and heaps left over.

So last night i faced off with the sprouts, a do or die moment where it was either use the lot or ...or...hang onto them in indescision (and compost next week?). I managed to use 6 cups of fresh mung bean sprout for our dinner; I was dead impressed with myself.

Mung bean fritters,
served with sauteed kale and steamed new potatoes.
Brilliant.

Besan flour, brown mustard seed, egg, splash of stock , lemon juice and tumeric and the sprouts.
We ate the lot.

first potatoes

boiled kipflers, eaten whole with skins on, dipped in mayo, bitten and dipped again...OMG! Today i will add anchovy and capers... Id prepared the first new spuds for the boybean for last nights dinner, chopped up into small cubes and topped with some fine grated pecorino, the delicate curls contracting when they met the heat of the spuds...thought he'd love them as they were so sweet and soft, but no. I ate the rest! Happily.

For me, pulling up new potatoes is one of lifes natural wonders and a moment filled with fear and anticipation; fear that you will spear the best of the bunch *crikey!*, and anticipation of just how many will be unearthed and how big they will be * you beauty!*

The potato patch soil is so soft and dark, crumbly in all the right ways and the earthy, musty smell thats released when im removing vines and their secret stash makes me happy to the core. This patch has been well composted and it shows. I will definitely miss my garden when we set off to sea and im a little overwhelmed at the unknown challenges of trying to get some fresh stuff growing aboard a boat. Challenge may be an understatement? No composting too, so how to deal with food scraps? Yikes, much food for thought.

Pulling potatoes. It's up there as one of my most favourite gardening moments.

bean sprouts

The pad thai we are all craving is a loooong time coming.

This is the extent of my gardening over the last few weeks, besides the removal of offending green but very velvety and plump pests from the kale, just rinsing mung bean shoots twice a day, turning and, well, just waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Maybe tomorrow...

kale karma

I'm not normally a violent person.
Until now.

I dont spray with organic pesticide.
Maybe I'll start. Maybe a kale isolation unit could resolve the problem. I used to just 'remove' offending pests.

I can overlook the holes in the outer leaves of the cabbages, who needs the outer leaves? And why dont they eat the chard? We have plenty of that.
But oh the kale, NOT THE KALE!
My coveted Tuscan kale...
That pushed all my Tarantino buttons.

rhubarb and a chive update!

its occourred.

my new rhubarb plants are in. Im hoping for a big, bright, showy display right next to the studio. I put the rhizomes down to get a spade and noticed the amazing contrast of the red with with the purple wall. Home found. Decision made. New bed required. So the Bloke made a lush new bed from some great compost right in that space that needed filling.



And Ive put to rest my obsession with planting chives from seeds and, courtesy of the generous donations of Veggie Gnome (garlic) and Olive (regular), am now the very happy owner of a chive plantation!

May they thrive for me as they did for them.

And just coz i can, here's yesterdays mushroom haul; nearly 2kgs and tonights dinner. God, i could have kept picking them for hours except that just would have been uber greedy. A good brush off and some pasta is all thats required.

chives

No, its not the next installment of my seasonal recipe posts, Im calling out to all chive growers. Are chives really that temperamental to grow from seed? Im on about packet five and Ive had not even a peep. I can grow carrot, beetroot, well everything else Ive ever tried from seed, but not chives. Its driving me crazy. Im planting shallow, about 3-4 mm, covering with light loamy soil, watering and... naught.

H.E.L.P please. Are you having trouble with chives or is it really just me. Does every gardener have their achilles heel and this is mine?

Cauliflower

Just coming in to flower if you got started early and beginning to make a show at the markets, is cauliflower. A winter vegetable of the brassica family which has a reputation as a one hit wonder of 'Cauliflower cheese' fame. Cauliflower plays a poor second to its green cousins in this household but this one was just so firm and heavy, tightly budded and pure white that i couldnt resist. But it sat on the counter top until a yellowing leaf really prompted me to use it before all those features that got it entry into the house, disappeared. Refusing to do cauliflower cheese, which everyone does love, and trying to do something a little less button busting, i decided on... pasta. This dish uses a whole cauliflower a provides a good serve of vegetable per person.

Pasta 'chi Vrocculi Arriiati' (Sicilian Cauliflower Sauce)

1 cauliflower
2 tsb olive oil
1 onion
1 tsp saffron
3 anchovy fillets
50g sultans/raisins
50g pine nuts/blanched almonds
50g grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
4 basil leaves

Cook whole cauliflower in salted boiling water. While still firm, remove from water and reserve water.
In a pan heat half the oil and add finely chopped onion.When it begins to turn coour dd saffron which has been softened i little warm water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Divide cauliflower into small florets and add to onion mixture with anchovie fillets, nuts and raisins/sultanas and cook until fillets have dissolved. cover remove from heat and leave. Cook pasta in reserved cauliflower water. When al dente, drain and add to cauliflower mixture with cheese and chopped basil. Serve.


This 'sauce' was surprisingly tasty and we had it served on organic Australian multicoloured penne. The sauce was sweet, full of complexity and just about perfect. It got the big thumbs up from everyone, especially the kids. I dropped the anchovy fillets back to jst 1 as b2 will eat 1 fillet as it adds saltiness without the fishyness. I have tried 3 or so in other dishes before and been rightly busted and she had plain pasta that night. We had no sultana/raisin so i 'foraged' a big handful out of our muesli bin and brushed off the oat dust! I also would use almonds next time as they grow locally but i found some pine nuts in the fridge so i used them up and we generally only buy local cheese so we had some chunky grated SA pecorino on top. Local salt instead of anchovy would suffice if you want to up your loca content (unless you can find local anchovies and let me know!) and retain its vegan status, without the cheese of course. This will definitely be on our menu again.

in the garden right now

in the 'bottom' vege patch...
kale kale kale. This shows just one small patch of red russian, russian red, whatever you want to call it. I have rows of tuscan black alongside the red and a whole newly sowed patch of tuscan black. When i realised just how much kale i didnt have, i realised i needed more. Its my favourite and its coming along nicely. the russian red has a very juicy fleshy stem, quite unlike the flatter tougher and very vegative stem of the nero. Im sneaking in a few pickings in very small amounts, to use as contributor to stuffings or flavour enhancers. Frying up a few leaves for the boy this evening for his omelette, the smell of crispy kale drew me back to the memory of kale chips experienced in California at christmas. I cant wait for an excess of kale!


The peas, massey gems and snow peas and some telegraph i think were sowed dilligently and yet are struggling. well, they're flowering and setting pods but the plants are so small and just look kind of hardy and not lush, so i have applied a good dose of garden lime to help with the high acid problem we have up here in the hills. Peas like a more alkaline soil and as you can see by the pine needles in the pic, acid conditions abound. As these look a little 'sad', i have planted a new lot in the 'top' garden using the old bean trellising. Im reckoning these one will streak ahead.


The bush beans are ploughing ahead and flowering and the damn horseradish which is the very large lush plant in amongst the beans,which i have tried to move and kill many times is loving the attention and is thriving like i have never seen it.

Im really loving not having to water so much and thinking about watering all the time! At work, panic..agghh, forgot to water, call home...can you squeeze it in...please?

garden somethings

Autumn is so beautiful but theres not alot happenning in the garden besides leaves turning and falling and the vege patches look a tad cold and lost.


The quinces are fruiting, so too are the apples, well apple in the singular actually. The golden delicious had a small hole in the net and the bloody parrots got the lot!. The orange, the lemon, the grapefruit, a mandarin and the pistachio and walnuts are a cropping too.


A few autumn bulbs save the garden from looking too forlorn and expiring. The bella donna lilies, the crocus and the...

well Im not sure what the red ones are, but they all make me happy when im out checking on the vegetables.


This little skink caught my eye at the base of the black bamboo as it was sitting in a natural spotlight. Theyre so lovely.


Ive still got loads of tomatoes ready to ripen, the rocket as always just does its thing (i can never work outwhy it so expensive to buy as its really just a weed - because they can), cabbages are up, the bush beans are charging ahead and flowering already and the purple magic beans are on their second wind!. The kale is getting tempting and potatoes, purple dragon carrots and bulls blood beets are hitting their stride. Its all going somewhere, theres just not much to eat!

This monkey is the second last in a chain from one of the chains from the front of the house. Its part of a rain chain of about 15 monkeys, a japanese answer to down pipes; we have none. They're a little more aesthetic dont you think?

stuffs up

first the crone, then nature witch, now me. Blogging mojo = zero. I usually love to write, i love the freshness of a new 'page' an empty space to be filled with some words, but lately the idea of sitting down to creat a post has actually left me physically feeling sick to my stomach. i thought it may have ben the flu and that it would pass, but maybe i just need a break? too much going on...somethings gotta give...all those cliches, maybe its a need to be focussed on the ouside, the physical.. maybe I've just got nothing to say? *laughs* I have been doing a lot of sitting in the garden, just looking, especially just sitting in the sunshine and looking at the water in the creek and trying to breathe my racing mind and heart to slow, a simple meditation.

Despite all my misgivings about feeling compromised with the wordsmithing, thankfully the garden is happily chugging along blissfully unaware of my mojo meltdown. Everything i planted up last weekend has sprouted; my stuffs up!. Its fantastic and i havent needed to water all week as the rains have been so thorough and the morning dew just tops everything up. Im excited about the kale which looks just like cabbage (doh) which is also up, both are onto their fifth leaves, the root vegetables; beets ,carrots and parsnips are looking strong despite their delicate demeanour, the bush and purple beans are streaking ahead ( next sowing i will do some regular grren climbers as the purple one do tend to woody) snow peas and mammoths are travelling a good 6 inches up their supports, the chards are putting in a rainbow appearance and the chives are just peeking through as are the potatoes. This is what it must be like growing in sub tropical conditions! I love it! So my first foray into sowing the whole lot from seed direct has been successful thus far. Like a child, the birth is over, now the transition into adulthood and navigating through the perils of the seed teen years begins.

from seed to seed

finally...a gardening post. i have been 'preparing' the garden beds for a few weeks, clearing out all the old veges, turning the soil, planning the plantings and getting the compost finished and sieved. When you have limited space you have to be clever how you plant. In between kids and work, snatching good time to move enough compost to regenerate old beds and prepare them well enough for seed sowing has been tricky. Yesterday my lovely bloke and I managed a pretty good day outside, getting both top and bottom beds ready for winter planting, leaving behind the still productive plantings.
We tag teamed it with bean duties inbetween time for him hanging in his jumping contraption under the apple tree; its quite sweet as he has worn a bare patch with his feet into the earth from many half hour sessions. I'd made things more of a challenge for myself this year by resolving to try and do all our veges from seed. Id kept some seed from last seasons crops ( carrots, beans, beetroot, lettuce, cabbage) but id also had some new seeds arrive from Eden. Yesterday i sowed carrots, parsnip, beetroot, bintje potatoes, beans, chives, kale, rainbow chard, sweet pea and climbing peas, wild rocket(aragula), garlic, with more to sow in March.
According to the guide, its a waning moon and 4 days off being full. I figured thats close enough and besides, i had a free day! I always look forward to the beginning of a new planting season. Everythings looks so full of potential, neat and free of weeds or straggling bits and rows are ordered and crisp. I love the reward of sowing seeds after so much preparation and I love the anticipation and the wait for the first sign of them emerging from the soil, that lovely sense of timelessness when Im out watering, ambling and looking closely for that first sprig of green.

So i have to be vigilant over the next few weeks, watering every morning so they never dry out, get stressed and D.I.E, keeping the slugs n friends at bay and the damn cat out. Should be a challenge.

I'm really looking forward to the kale, did i say kale?