Africanaussie

Last weekend I decided to make cheese again, and called up a friend to see if she wanted to join me. I have a tiny kitchen and knew we would have to share the thermometer, but had pretty much doubled up on everything else we would need. We made haloumi, and whey ricotta, and it was a fun afternoon.  There was a forty five minute break where we sat and had a salad and some of my life changing bread.  I gave her the recipe so that she could use some of the leftover whey to soak the ingredients for the bread.  Using up every last scrap of the ingredients is something I love about cheesemaking. That night I made up a simple salad of greens, avocado, sauteed haloumi and tinned tuna. Yum When she had left I looked in the fridge and realized I had another two litres of milk just sitting there.  It was not going to be used up before it went off, and the kitchen was all still nicely sterilized and ready for cheesemaking.  I got out the recipe book, and found that...

Hello!  Come on in   ... dont be shy! I am once again joining with Vicki at Grow your blog  to discover more wonderful blogs to read and follow and also to expose my blog to more readers.  thanks so much for hosting this, Vicki,  I did it in 2013  and it was such fun! Firstly, an introduction: My dear hubby and I (my name is Gillian) live in the tropical north- east of Australia.  We both grew up in South Africa, lived our separate lives for 20 years, and then "found" each other 10 years ago. 7 years ago we moved in to a unit with a very small backyard, which was dominated by a huge lychee tree, and nothing else.  Slowly I have added more and more small fruit trees, anything that flowers, and a food forest.  I am lucky enough to be able to tuck orchids into the trees, and they often surprise me with their flowers: There is nothing I love more than wandering out into the garden and picking some eggplant, sweet potato, ginge...

I realized lately that when things are flowing nicely I really dont think about them much.  Point in case is the worm buckets that I started out back in November 2013. You can read about that here:  My start in worm worm farming. Just over a year now, so they have run the cycle through a wet season and a dry season. I also put some little worm tubes into the wicking beds, but they dont seem to do very much, although I place a few bits of fruit or some scraps into them every now and again.  They might need to be emptied out and re-filled.....  The in-ground worm buckets on the other hand - oh my!  they are a wriggling mass of healthy fertilizer manufacturers! Here is the one bucket in the sweet potato bed. I think two are just perfect in my little garden, as I like to have kitchen scraps to put into my compost tumbler as well.  Since I started the buckets I notice the same tiger worms in my compost tumbler, so not sure how they migrated there, b...

I had a cheese making kit from Gavin at the little green cheese on my Christmas wish list, but the local pharmacy had another brand on special so that is what I got.  The day after I got the kit I was busy in the kitchen sterilizing everything and starting my first batch of cheese.  How exciting!  This is something I have wanted to try for ages. Firstly, this takes time!  You can do something in between, but you are going to keep going back and checking on it.  I used the local supermarket milk - four litres of it, and it just fitted nicely into my biggest pot. Once the feta was done, I made whey ricotta.  You still end up with a lot of whey and I drank a bit, but it doesnt taste that wonderful. I made the feta brine with whey - it supposedly adds extra flavour.  I used some for soaking beans, that releases enzymes and helps with the bloating that comes from eating beans.  The rest went into the compost.  The ricotta was yummy with s...

Happy New Year to all of you!  I wish you all lots of Health, Wealth and Happiness! Dear Lizzie at   Strayed from the table   has her post up and running ready to link up to.   I really enjoy seeing how everyone elses garden is faring, although I must admit after looking at Lizzies okra I have okra envy - I really thought okra would grow well here, but mine is struggling. The humidity and heat over the Christmas season was really oppressive, and then over the weekend it rained!  When I aded these stones last year I dug a bit of a ditch on the outer side, but clearly that was not quite enough for the quantity of rain that we have.  I started to make this path a little lower, hoping that the water would run down there and soak into the ground to be used up by the plants.  I discovered that the asparagus roots are reaching out into the path, so moved the side of the perrenial bed over a bit, but probably need to make another plan, maybe just a skinn...

Last weekend I was busy baking and tidying up the garden.  Hubby has erected the new gazebo that we bought.  Almost the same as the last one we had which lasted a good five years, so hopefully this one does the same. I felt a bit guilty inside with the aircon on, while he was outside in the tropical heat.  We both achieved what we had hoped though, and this week I will be able to give out some of my home made Christmas treats.  Next weeekend I will bake some of the more delicate items to be served at Christmas. These bliss balls are what I have in mind for dessert .....  recipe A new recipe I tried was the Gingerbread Mocha biscotti:  recipe  here at kitchen simplicity.   They are lovely, and perfect with my little teabag idea that I already posted about. Rooibos chai cookies which I dont really have the recipe for as I swayed so much from the original recipe. Here is the original recipe.  I made the chai mix and added it to some rooibos t...

I received an unexpected package in the mail this week.  A pyramid nativity!  It turns!  It comes with love from my daughter who is living in Germany at the moment!  She knows I love nativities, and this is unlike anything I have ever seen before. The theory is that in a small, cold  draught free room the heat will rise and send the windmill spinning, which in turn will rotate both of the platforms.  At first it wouldn't work - firstly it is hot here, secondly we have the fans going, and at times the aircon, and it is in the middle of an open plan kitchen living area. My dear sweet patient, persistent hubby has made a plan.  I hope you can see this little video. It is now a tropical Nativity pyramid!  With the fan on it goes around like crazy - probably too fast, but once the fan was adjusted it settled down to a nice easy rhythm.   Down the bottom are Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the Three Kings.  On the Top level is a shepherd w...