Another year goes by ....

And so we say goodbye to 2010 ....   The year of the infuriating vuvuzelas ... the year we were proudly South African ... and the year my eldest turned sweet 16! 

This month we spent a few days at Witsand ...like we do each year ....

KM getting bloodworm ...

Here he got one.. great bait!

 Boys pumping prawn .... well supposed to be ....

 The quaintest cottage in Witsand ....

and when the wind blew ... and boy does it blow there, I caught up on my granny squares ....

We came home to loads of veg from the garden, especially marrows.  The perfect opportunity to make some of  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Glutony.

Recipe:

1kg overgrown courgettes, unpeeled but cut into dice no bigger than 1cm (discard seeds from really large marrows)

1kg plums roughly chopped
1kg cooking apples peeled and diced

500g onions, peeled and diced

500g sultanas or raisins

500g light brown sugar

750ml white wine or cider vinegar, made up to 1 litre with water

1 tsp salt

1 chilli deseeded

for the spice bag

1 thumb-sized nugget of fresh or dried ginger, roughly chopped

12 cloves

12 black peppercorns

1 generous tsp coriander seeds

some grated nutmeg

Put the vegetables and fruit in a large, heavy-based pan with the sultanas or raisins, sugar, vinegar and water, chilli flakes and salt.

Make up the spice bag by tying all the spices in a square of muslin or cotton. Add the spice bag to the pan, pushing it into the middle.

Heat the mixture gently, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar, and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 2–3 hours, uncovered, stirring regularly to ensure it does not burn on the bottom of the pan. The chutney is ready when it is rich, thick and reduced, and parts to reveal the base of the pan when a wooden spoon is dragged through it. If it starts to dry out before this stage is reached, add a little boiling water.

Pot up the chutney while still warm in sterilised jars with plastic-coated screw-top lids (essential to stop the vinegar interacting with the metal). Leave to mature for at least 2 weeks – ideally 2 months – before serving.

With all the cocktail tomatoes I made jamie Oliver's tomato sauce ... I love the orange colour of the tomato sauce as opposed to the more common red ... last year I made a batch with green tomatoes ... hmmmm very yummy.  This year I did not sieve it and the taste is much more intense.  If you don't like coriander then definitely sieve it! 

I had these 2 old frames lying around that M was threatening to throw out.  I made one into a notice board ... just glued cork on with wood glue and the covered with some material I had in my stash ...

 The other I made into a chalkboard .... KM left me a little message .... boy am I blessed!!!



For the Wall!

I finally got around to hanging this awesome frame that KM made for me.  He is such a handyman and makes the most stunning things ..... the paint effect is all his to match my blue studio.

awesome hey?  I am such a lucky mom!

and I finally finished this canvas of KD at Storms River.

I made all the embellishments on Photoshop and just printed them.  Next time I must paste them on too..... hmm that's an idea.

Time in the patch

This weekend I slogged in the garden.  Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth it?  The hard work, the time, the water, the manure, the time, time , time .... but then when you get your hands in the soil and see the seeds spring to life and start to yield fruit, the bees buzzing about doing their thing .... at the end of the day your whole body aches... yeah it is worth it.  This is what my patch looks like today:

and the happy hippo sleeps .....

this water bath is for the bugs and hippo of course...

my dh just loves to add these touches to my patch..

and the first sighting of the butternut

...and the squash

and even the front garden could not escape the invasion of veggies........ we trimmed the sides of the lavender but kept the flowers for the bees.  I always keep something flowering for the bees, I just love them buzzing about our garden, pollinating here and there.  And that would be the reason that very often things are way overgrown, flowering and going to seed .....



Pictures on a rainy day!

Just some happenings in the patch ....

OOOh I just love this patch of ours!

Felted Ornaments!

i just love these heart shaped felt ornaments ......

To copy free country heart template, just double click picture and save.

Making biltong!

This family is all crazy about biltong.  A few years ago KD  made this biltong box with my DH.  It is really simple, just a box with a door and some holes on top.  There is a shelf just below the middle with some smaller holes and then the bottom has a lightbulb in.  Simple!

To make the biltong: 

Cut strips of topside or silverside into desired thickness.

Dip in apple cider vinigar and rub with coarse salt.  Allow to stand for atleast an hour.

Scrape excess salt off and coat with spice .

We like ground pepper and coriander seeds.

Hang for 24 - 72 hours in biltong box, depending on thickness.

When we smell that amazing smell from the biltong box we start testing . I am not sure of the shelf life, but ours never last more than 48 hours.

Ready!  Enjoy!!

Canvas Scrap

This picture has been stuck up with prestik in my studio forever now and the canvas collecting dust, moved from spot to spot even longer , so I thought I'd try and scrap them.... it came out better than I expected and I learnt something new, you can modge podge photos too ....  Such a cool pic of KM. 

Homegrown!

Why is there something so thrilling in harvesting and cooking your homegrown veg?  Is this normal or am I just a tad odd?  This is our first yellow zuchini grown in our patch ......I placed the phone beside it so you could see how big it was.

Family

Welcome to my blog.  I am so glad you stopped by, do stay a while.

Meet the family......