Dinner tonight

Tonight I didn't have to cook, which is nice!
M did instead.
I gathered the ingredients together for him, starting with eggs from our girls.

Made a wonderful omelet and chopped it up and put to one side.

Veggies included broccoli, carrots, baby corn and more. Nearly all from the garden.
With that we had these delightful things.

Parsnip chips. oooh so nice.
And here is the cook himself. M.

Was a yummy dinner, although I don't think he was that impressed with me jumping around with the camera in hand. I was at a loose end having the job of cooking most nights.
I don't mind doing it, not when the ingredients are so good. The local butcher here is really fab and growing your own is the only way to go.
I had some fun recently cooking with goose eggs!

The huge one above weighed 235g and the little one was yolkless and the first egg of the season for our french wheaten marans. Start off gently sounds sensible to me.
So I made vegetable fritters with the goose egg yolk, it was so big it sat in my hand from fingertip to wrist. It was too big and slipped off. I whipped the white and added it just before cooking. The goose egg had no discernable flavour, just like a giant chook egg. Really great to use. Came from a neighbour.
Hope you had a lovely meal tonight like me.
Dayla

The Winter Garden

Hi there,
I was reading a blog today from some one who lives in the sub tropics. And they were saying that they can grow stuff all year round, not like those who live further South where they can only grow veggies in the Summer.

Well I live in the mountains in Victoria and over Winter we have been enjoying the sweetest parsnips,

OH Parsnip chips are delicious!

they love the cold, it makes them sweeter. Carrots ditto.

Interesting specimen on the left. See how the others keep away from the different one. Mimicking human behaviour!

Celeriac which is so velvety in soup, sweet and nutty roasted.

The broccoli is just coming on, and yes again so sweet and nutty.

Rocket with large peppery leaves, not the stringy stuff in restaurants.

A wall of rocket.

Silverbeet, when we beat the chooks to it.

Rainbow chard. Not very big as we keep picking from them.

Most of our girls. That's Julia on the right, she is a french wheaten marans hen. Very rare I found out. Google them!

The cauliflower was a disappointment, not sure why.

They headed but were small and flat, they looked like they were old, but they're not.

Parsley so profuse it is almost too beautiful to pick.

So much parsley, this is my hybrid. A partly curly leaf. We like it a lot.

I am watching the globe artichokes putting out their lovey lacy leaves and I am dreaming of their produce in a few months.

I sowed the seed for these last year so we should see some fruit this year.

Broad beans emerging

Sowed the seed in June but it has been so cold they have taken a while to get to this size. I am not worried though. I planted the seed in between the old corn stalks for support.

and garlic reaching for the sky.

All the fruit trees are flowering or just about to with bulging buds of the darkest pink on the peach trees and white for the apricots.

My tomato seedlings are up and being potted on along with lots of different chilli's and many other things.

I sowed all my tomato seeds, some as old as 1998, a couple have germinated from those. The little pots are just potted on from punnets.

This week, in the week leading up to the full moon I will be sowing my pumpkins and squashes for Summer. So a wonderful productive Winter and hopefully Summer to come. All year round gardening here in Healesville.
Dayla
ps I ate my first asparagus spear today!

Rag Rug finished and in position

Hi there,
Here are some snaps of my finished rag rug.

The photos are taken from each end.
It is about 3 1/2 metres long and is in 3 sections. Laced together so I can undo a section if I need to chuck it in the washing machine.
It took a month or two but was good to make. Very therapeutic actually, in 2 ways. The first is the repetitive action, focusing on the process. And secondly I used up a lot of otherwise ugly or unsuitable for patchwork fabric.
I have made round ones before but this was my first rectangular one. Made going up a side and flipping it over and going up again and flipping, etc.
I did have a problem with some of the edges though. As the fabrics were of different weights the stitch size was quite different and this meant the  width started to vary. I got so caught up in the doing I didn't pay much attention to the sides and as you can see, it bulges in one spot. But that's ok because there is a doorway there and the swelling helps to keep it in place. Mind you it is very heavy and thick and isn't going to slip around at all.

Had to snap the suns rays shining through what I thought was smoke from our chimney but M thought it was mist from the mountains. He is such a romantic!

Just beautiful!

Dayla