A Saucy Tale

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Posted on December 31, 2012

Yesterday I picked 2 kg of cherry tomatoes from the bushes that grow wild in various parts of our garden.

Firstly, I removed the stalks and rinsed them and then added the 1.5 kg that were already prepared and frozen from a couple of weeks ago. It was time to make some tomato sauce (ketchup). The recipe is super simple and is written near the end of this post.

Home-grown cherry tomatoes have a very short shelf life so unless you are feeding an army, it makes sense to freeze the excess immediately or otherwise they go to waste rather quickly.

You will need a large saucepan or stockpot depending on the quantity of tomatoes that you are processing. Mine is a stainless steel one with a heavy base which helps to stop the food burning. This is important because by their very nature, most jams, pickles and preserves have a high proportion of sugar. Many of the old-style preserving pans are aluminium, however, I do not use aluminium for perceived health reasons.

Apart from the tomatoes, you will need a few other ingredients.

Here is the recipe.

TOMATO SAUCE

Ingredients

3kg ripe tomatoes
15g whole cloves
15g whole allspice
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
250ml vinegar
375g sugar
60g salt
500g onions

Method

Place the cloves and allspice in a muslin bag. Roughly chop the onions and tomatoes. Place all ingredients in the stockpot and simmer for approximately 2 hours, stirring regularly. Remove spice bag and discard. Strain or process mixture in a blender to required consistency.

Return mixture to a clean saucepan and bring to the boil for 5 minutes before pouring into warm, sterilised jars. Seal jars and store appropriately.

Notes

When using cherry tomatoes for this recipe there is no need to chop them.

I used chilli powder instead of cayenne, powdered instead of whole allspice and I always use raw sugar. The powdered spices and raw sugar tend to make the finished product slightly darker.

I use a hand-held stick blender to process the mixture. Whatever method you use, be very careful when handling the hot liquid as it can be unpredictable.

The original recipe can be found here. It is also in Sally Wise’s book, ‘A Year in A Bottle’.

This is a tasty tomato sauce which bears no resemblance to the commercial varieties. Enjoy!

Community Service

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Posted on December 5, 2012

This morning when I took the rubbish bins up to the roadside this is the scene that greeted me.

We live on a quiet, semi-rural road and our driveway is opposite a minor road junction. The rubbish truck does not go down the side road so each rubbish collection day the bins from the side road and a few surrounding properties are lined up on the verge near our driveway.

This morning one bin was open and several items were scattered around. I am not sure how this happened but I know that with the automated collection of the ‘wheelie’ bins the remnants would be left behind. I grabbed a bag, collected up the loose items and put them in the bin. This ensured that we were not left with a mess on the verge.

Here is the same scene a few minutes later. It is a small but worthwhile job and keeps the area clean and tidy. Much better than whinging about the rubbish lying on the footpath.

My Choices

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Posted on November 7, 2012

This afternoon I left work early (3pm) and did the shopping on the way home. Simply Good where I buy most of my dry goods (flour, seeds, nuts and dried fruit) is only open until 5 pm on weekdays and 9am – 12md on Saturday. I am happy to support these traditional opening hours that allow retail staff to spend time with their families, however, I do have to be organised as it is about 40km away from where we live. Since it is on my way to work I decided to drive my car to the railway station nearest to the shop and then do my shopping on the return journey.

I stocked up on all of my usual supplies as well as a couple of extras for some Christmas cooking and I am hoping that I will not need to go again until the New Year. Aldi supermarket was my next stop and I was particularly to find that the cat food (fish varieties) was back in stock. Finally, a few things from the fruit and vegetable stall and I was home. By this time it was almost 6pm but still daylight for another 40 minutes.

When I arrived home I checked for mail, collected the rubbish and recycling bins that had been emptied. Next it was down to the backyard where I let the chickens out for a run, watered the vegetable gardens and weeded the small bed where the lettuce seedlings are becoming established. I picked lettuces, collected eggs and organised fresh feed and water for the chickens.

Collect the washing from the line, turn the plastic bags which were drying on the airer, unpack the groceries and decant the loose nuts, seeds etc into their relevant jars.

Then it was time to cut up the chicken and vegetables for the stir-fry and make the sauce.

While I was doing all this it occurred to me that most of these chores exist because of choices I have made, but I would not have it any other way.

I could throw out the plastic bags, put the wet washing in a tumble drier, buy my eggs and all vegetables from the supermarket, buy ready-made prepared meals and convenience foods but I choose not and I am very happy with my choices.

House Extensions & Other Projects

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Posted on October 21, 2012

Not our house……the hen house is being extended with an outdoor run for the 5 chickens. They have previously free-ranged over about 3/4 acre of our land but the current chickens are an adventurous bunch and constantly feel the need to find gaps in the fencing (or dig under it) and free-range in the neighbour’s yard where they are not welcome. I have patched up the various spots where I thought they were escaping but 2 in particular do an excellent imitation of Houdini.

Yesterday we went to Bunnings Hardware to get some materials and we have made a start on an enclosed run for them. It is not as good as letting them free-range but in the interests of maintaining a reasonable relationship with the neighbours we have decided this is the way to go.

Here are the posts all positioned and ready. We have designed it so that the existing gates can be latched in the ‘open’ position to completely enclose the run. We will let the posts settle before attaching the wire next weekend. I will post some more photos when it is complete.

This is only a temporary measure as we will eventually be building a new chicken house and large run (including the orchard) when we re-do the front fencing and permanently fence the entire vegetable garden area. Like many things around here, it is a work in progress.

The other work in progress is building more raised garden beds. Unlike the chicken run we have not bought any new materials. Here is some of the leftover iron from the wall cladding of the house.

The Duke is using rivets to join some of the smaller pieces together.

The supports are some steel posts we inherited and even the rivets and screws are leftovers from other people’s projects. We built one bed last year and used a hardwood post (from Freecycle) as the supports. Because these beds will be used for growing vegetables we do not use treated timber as the chemicals leach into the soil.

This is the first bed we built. This picture was taken when it was first done. We put cardboard down, then filled it with mulch, leaves, shredded paper and grass clippings. This eventually decomposes and we now have a productive bed full of rich soil at no cost.

We have a productive weekend and there will be more coming up.

Challenges – An Update

Garden Update

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Posted on August 15, 2012

Much of what goes in the the garden happens without a lot of input from us due to the fact that both The Duke and I work full-time.

Today I want to share some progress on a couple of different fronts.

On Monday we finally had the large poinciana tree near the driveway removed. This has been planned for over 12 months but when another large limb dropped a few weeks ago we were galvanised into action. The tree lopper came on Monday and by the time we arrived home there was no sign of it apart from a small pile of sawdust where the stump had been ground.

This is now the view from our front verandah. We will be replanting beside the driveway but have yet to decide exactly what we will do.

This is the remainder of another tree stump which we also had removed to make way for a revamp of the vegetable garden area.

The harvest from the vegetable gardens has not been as great as last year but today I was finally able to pick the broccoli.

2.1kg of broccoli from 6 plants is not a bad return and that is only the main heads. As usual, there will be more smaller secondary florets. We will use some of this before we go away and the rest will be blanched and frozen.

The cauliflower has been a disappointment compared to last year but at least I got some. There was also 1 other small head which I picked for dinner last week.

Like everything else, the snow peas have not been spectacularly prolific but here are enough for the stir-fry tonight and the salad for my lunch tomorrow.

Finally, this is 836g of ginger that we pulled up on the weekend. It grew from 1 small piece that we planted last year. There is still more in the ground but I saw no need to harvest any more! We will be dividing it up and planting lots of separate pieces. The plants look lovely and thrive with the other ornamental ginger, cordylines and heliconias that are growing in the shade of the the cedar tree.

Last but not least I wanted to let you know about my 2 new blogs.

Eating For Health is about my decision to try a grain-free, sugar-free diet. Click on the link and find out more.

Somewhere, Anywhere is my travel blog. This will be an online journal of our travels, beginning with our upcoming overseas trip. You will be able to follow our adventures as all of the updates will be posted on there.

Split & Stacked

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Posted on August 12, 2012

Today The Duke split some more firewood and I stacked it. This is the perfect time of the year for this kind of job as the weather is pleasant during the day and we have had no rain for about a month so the wood is really dry.

Here it is all stacked along the side of the woodshed. This is in addition to the stack that we have under the house. We do not use a lot of wood so this will be a good start on our supply for next winter. It is a great feeling to know that what we are doing know will keep us warm next year.

Do you do any seasonal preparation ahead of time?

Clearing the Paddock

Crash!

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Posted on June 28, 2012

Last night when we got home we discovered that another large limb had come off the poinciana tree. The tree is close to our boundary and this has fallen across the fence and into the neighbour’s ‘paddock’ near the front of their block. Undoubtedly, the wild weather of the past few days has contributed to this latest loss.

There have been at least 3 other occasions where sizeable branches have fallen from this tree and we had decided that it really needed to go and were planning to have it lopped later in the year. This latest incident has forced us to re-think our plans and move them forward so I have contacted a tree lopper. He is going to come next week to give us a quote.

As well as having the tree lopped, we also plan to get it mulched so that we can use this in our landscaping. We have decided that we can better utilise the mulch than making more firewood as we really have plenty and this type of tree does not burn well. I am hoping they will be able to grind the stump so that we can then decide what we will plant in this area.