early morning

A Skywatch Friday photo submission. I've posted a day late, but the photo was taken on Friday. Very early Friday. It was a very pretty very early kind of Friday

summer garden

What's left of my basil. Time to lay it to rest I think.
First capsicum! Looking promising!
My mint is flowering. Apparently this isn't a good thing.
Wild strawberry plants are thriving!
Wild strawberry plants may not be thriving for long...
A little fungi under the curry plant.
Another grasshopper. This one feasting on my rosemary. Arrrgh!
Lavender. Glorious indestructible lavender!

ginger cookies

With yesterday being a miserable old rainy day I decided to bake some cookies. They turned out quite yummy! I can't recall how much of what I used. Creamed some butter and sugar. Added an egg, some flour, a little salt and chopped up some crystallised ginger and tossed that in. Mixed away until it took on the form of something resembling cookie dough. Chilled the dough in the fridge for about an hour and then rolled into small balls. Placed the balls on a baking tray and gave them a little squish with a fork to flatten them slightly. Baked for about 10 mins, then placed on a rack. Once cooled I melted some white chocolate and drizzled it over the cookies. I think dark chocolate and ginger is a great combination but I didn't have any dark chocolate. Oh so tasty with a large glass of cold milk!

Nutritional value: I would guess to be a big fat zero!
Ok, I really need to do a blog post soon that doesn't revolve around food...

made some relish

Continuing on from my previous post I thought I'd share what I made with some of my homegrown cherry tomatoes. Roasted Tomato Relish! First I popped a bunch of tomatoes into a baking pan with some sprigs of oregano, some Italian parsley, sea salt, cracked black pepper and olive oil. I didn't chop anything up prior to tossing it into the pan and the parsley I just roughly shredded with my fingers. Leave to roast away for however long you wish. When I cook I don't time things and I don't measure ingredients unless it's absolutely necessary as it's more fun to make it up as I go along. Taste testing along the way. While roasting start chopping up some onion, garlic & a red chilli & start cooking that in a frying pan.

Ok, so once the tomatoes have roasted let them sit for a few minutes to cool before removing from the stems (unless of course you removed them from their stems prior to roasting). Remove the sprigs of oregano & transfer everything to the frying pan that you have your onion, garlic & chilli in. Add some more olive oil if needed. I then added some balsamic vinegar, raw sugar, more sea salt & cracked black pepper, curry powder & a little mustard. Let all that cook & then simmer for about an hour or so, keeping a check on the consistency & tasting along the way. Many people add cornflour when making relishes & chutneys but I never have. Also many people remove the skins from the tomatoes but I choose not to as they give the relish a nice texture. Add whatever herbs and spices you want to. What I've used is simply what I had on hand as I like to cook things that don't require me going out to buy a load of ingredients that I'll not likley use on a regular basis. Once your relish is ready, scoop it into a jar. You'll know by the consistency & super delicious taste when it's ready. If it's not quite tasting the way you would like, just continue adding stuff until it's awesome! Keep playing!

Don't have any sterilised jars? No problem! If wanting to sterilise an old jar you have on hand simply boil in some water for a while and you're good to go.

If wanting to dig into your relish straight away, then pop a spoon in the jar and slather a big pile on a sandwich. Relish is a really great addition to sandwich fillings but it's also pretty good on it's own spread onto some nice fresh bread.

Made extra and you'd like to give to a friend? Sweet! You can have fun decorating the jar however you choose. Some pretty fabric tied around the top is always nice. As I'm not a sewing type I don't have bundles of pretty fabric at my disposal so I used some kraft paper and string. Not ideal but better than a bare jar.

Well in all the however many years I've been blogging I've just done my very first recipe/cooking style post. It was fun! Maybe I'll do some more in the future.

little things

harvesting cherry tomatoes

dried rosemary

drying lavender

lots of dried herbs

seed saving

wildcrafting dandelions
Trying not to sweat the little things by embracing the little things. Appreciating the simplicity of the small stuff. Life is good. Yes. It is. It's really quite beautiful.