Southern Girl

Well, I am feeling very guilty and quite shut off from the blog world, as it has been quite some time since I have written, and even longer since I have read what everyone else is up to!

Allow me to explain...
As the last part of my degree, I have been sent to Dunedin to work in an internship-esque arrangement for 3 whole months! Unfortunately, I don't have internet access at home so I have not been able to post anything.
So, I've snuck on here in my tea break to reassure those who care that I have not, in fact, fallen off the face of the earth. I am just quite near the bottom of it, literally.

I plan on heading back home every second weekend or so, and while I am back in my own home, will most definitely endeavor to a) do something that involves my sewing machine, kitchen, or garden, and b) write something about it!

Paddy, who is in charge of my very baby seedlings, and protecting my fruit trees from any sign of a frost, assures me that everything is fine, and the house and garden are still standing. I get almost nightly updates and he even brought me photos down this last weekend as proof my trees were alive and kicking (as much as mostly dormant trees can be...). What a darling, he sure knows how I tick.

I am still myself though, as much as is possible, and I'm still baking, and making bread and buying my veges from the Farmer's Market. However, with a laptop that won't read my camera, no internet, and a flatmate I am trying not to weird out too much ("excuse me, can I please photograph your dinner?"),  it has been hard to write about these things.

So, that's where I am, and will be for quite a few more weeks. I look forward to a thorough catch-up of everyones goings-ons and a new and exciting post this coming weekend.

Parcels of Delight

I really, really enjoy baking bread; I feel like it calms my soul. Everything from plain sandwich/toast loaves to crumpets to special filled loaves, it all gets me excited (and hungry). I love the versatility of a good basic dough recipe, and I often do most of my creating from this foundation.
It was my turn to bake for a meeting this week, and I decided to bring out an old tried-and-true classic. A colleague asked me what they were called and I decided on 'parcels of delight'. Homemade bread rolls stuffed with blue cheese and homemade spicy pear chutney. Are your tastebuds tingling yet? They should be...

For this recipe, I use my basic white dough. The rest is really very easy:

1. Seperate the dough into 12 pieces, and shape into balls.

2. Flatten out a ball on your hand, and place a little bit of filling (I used blue cheese and pear chutney this time) in the middle.

3. Bring the edges of the flattened dough up to meet, pinch together to seal, and gently reform into a ball.

4. Place each filled roll seam-side down into a pre-greased muffin tin. Repeat steps with remaining 11 balls.

5. Spray with water and sprinkle with topping of choice (I used sesame seeds this time). Leave to rise as the oven heats up.

6. Bake at 180 degrees ish until golden brown and sound hollow to tap on their bums.

Serve warm from the oven, while the filling is still melty and delicious.

The fillings can be whatever you want them to be, just don't put too much in! So far I have made them with chocolate and jam, blue cheese and pear chutney, and cheddar cheese and tomato chutney, but really the sky is the limit. I don't bother to change the dough for sweet versus savory, but make sure you sprinkle something on top to identify which flavour is which!

Here is another delicious variation to my standard dough, for which the recipe is here.
For this loaf I modified the recipe to 1.5 cups white flour, and the remaining wholemeal flour. To the dough I added a good handful of rolled oats, around 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, and a tablespoon or so each of linseed (flaxseed) and sesame seeds. As the dough came together I added a little extra water to get it to the consistency I wanted. It turned out absolutely perfectly, and looks scarily similar to store-bought Molenberg, but tastes a whole lot better!

Spring Garden Planning

What a busy week I've been having! I've recently found out I'm moving to Dunedin for 3 months for the final clinical placement of my degree. How exciting! In only 14.5 weeks I'll be a qualified Speech-language Therapist!

But, with this move not far in the distance, I've got ALOT to get organised. From accommodation to car servicing to assignments, and of course, I'll have to be super on to it with my Spring seed planting! I plan to come back for a few weekends to see Paddy and my garden (and I can't miss mine or Paddy's birthdays or our 5 year aniversary!) but I need to have all my seeds ordered and planted before I head off. I'm always slow off the mark with seed raising, but this year I hope to be different.

So, I've spent the last week perusing the King's Seeds catalogue, and creating a strategy for how I am going to fit it all in my teeny tiny garden! Where there's a will, there's a way... trust me.
So here we go, the plan (sorry about the picture quality, click for a better view)...
 

With the addition of my new fruit trees (including another this week, a double-grafted dwarf apricot!) I am going to have to move outside the gate and onto the driveway... Not ideal, as I like to be able to keep an eye on my babies, but unfortunately necessary. Luckily it's actually one of the sunniest areas of the house, and I know the trees will love it.

In my list, there's a lot of regular, tried and trues- my favourite bulls blood beetroot and chantenay carrot, as well as a few new varieties of old favourites, such as slowbolt coriander, genovese giant basil, and a new black coral zucchini. I've also branched out,  including in my order some medicinal flowers, inspired by my much-loved 'Grow Your Own Drugs' books, as well as some new and exciting tomato and chilli varieties.
I find in a small, mostly concrete-surrounded garden, getting bees in can be a problem, so I'm always sure to stock up on bee-attracting flowers. Last year my borage, phacelia and nasturtiums worked a treat, so I'll be sure to plant plenty of those, as well as a few flowers for cutting.

At this point in winter, I start to get a bit down by all the grey days and persistently cold weather, and it always makes me feel better to plan my garden and focus on the upcoming Spring. With the addition of my wonderful new fruit trees, I am even more excited than ever to watch my garden grow!


And, just to make me feel even better, I'll leave you with some photos of my garden from last Spring. So much to look forward to!

An Eco Sort of Birthday

It is a very special friend of mines' birthday this week and I wanted to make her something extra special. She had mentioned to me at the market last weekend that a mouse had eaten her trusty eco-bag when she was in Vanuatu (I know, what a drag huh). Having recently successfully made my own market bag, I thought this would be the perfect gift for her. Fabric shopping ensued and I found the most perfect piece at a closing down op shop for $10. Perfect!

However, this wasn't quite enough for me. I'd been brewing a plan for a while now, to make netting produce/dried goods bags out of an old net curtain I had finally removed from my window. Now, I have nothing against net curtains- they are great if you want to spy on neighbours, or dance around your house nude in the day time. But if I look out my window, all I see is fence, which negates the need for the net curtain to protect me from neighbours, or to protect my neighbours from me. The impending birthday was a perfect opportunity to try out my plan.

 The Husky, all set up in my new sewing nook.

The shopping bag was a breeze. I chopped an oblong of fabric to the size I wanted, sewed up the sides and hemmed the top edge. Then, I added handles and sewed across the diagonal of the bottom corners to make a square bottom. Easy as pie.

The produce bags were even easier. I used the hemmed edge of the net, cut to the size I wanted and sewn up the open edges. I used old curtain cord as the pull tie, threaded into the already hemmed top and burnt to seal the edges.

These bags are fantastic! I can't believe I have waited so long to make them! I will definitely be making some for myself in the future. By using a recycled curtain and cord, thrifted fabric for the bag, wrapping paper from my linen cupboard and a homemade card, this whole present cost me only $10, and I know the birthday girl will love it.

Best Satay Ever

Most of the time I love cooking. But, there are those odd times when I get home from work/uni at 6pm, am HUNGRY, and don't want to wait any longer than about 34 seconds before I am eating dinner.
When this situation occurs, I have a few go-to recipes, that are ready within ten minutes of getting home. This is one of my favourites.

Best Satay Ever

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 - 1/2 cup boiling water
2 cloves garlic, grated or finely sliced
1cm grated ginger OR 1/2 tsp dried ginger
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp wine vinegar (or white wine)
1 tsp sesame seeds
1/2 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 - 2 tsp sweet chilli sauce

Place all ingredients in a jar and get your shake on. The amount of hot water depends on how thick you want your sauce.

My favourite way to serve this is with noodles and a clean-your-fridge-out vege stir fry. Tonight's stirfry contained brussel sprouts, red capsicum, pumpkin, leek, garlic shoots, corn, celery and egg noodles, served with baked honey soy tofu and a dollop of left-over avocado mash. Yum!

Obsessed...

I've been kind of obsessing over a few websites lately. So much so that my uni work is not getting done, the dishes stay unwashed until Paddy gives up and does them (not such a bad thing...), I am overdue for a new (and proper) blog post, and most dramatically, I haven't even begun to plan my spring/summer garden yet.
However, with all their distraction power, I decided I must share the love and the websites that are currently taking over my life...

Lisa Leonard Designs
The most beautiful and personalised jewellery ever! I just mentioned to Paddy that if I was my own boyfriend I would be so awesome at buying me presents. I'm not particularly subtle, and that includes at dropping hints. Maybe I'll just email him the links of the things I like?

vol25
Gorgeous prints. I actually want them all. So much cuteness, I can't handle it.

Young House Love
An adorable couple, cute baby and an amazing house. I have the overwhelming urge to redecorate. The thing I love most about this blog/website is they do it all themselves! It is a bounty of great do-it-yourself ideas.

Any sites you are currently obsessing over? Do tell...

Under the Weather

I've been feeling like I'm coming down with something these last few days, and I'm not happy about it. I've been on holiday from university for a few weeks now and it just so happens that the week I start back for the most intense stretch of my entire degree, my body decides to get sick. Not impressed body, not impressed.

At the slightest hint of a cold or flu, Paddy and I have a few things we like to do to try and knock back the bugs before they get started. Despite a number of interesting medical ailments, I try my best to avoid going to the doctor as I find they are much too quick to prescribe antibiotics. I much prefer to make my own home remedies.

Lemon Honey Ginger Drink
I used to make my lemon homey drinks by pouring hot water over lemon juice and honey and calling it a day. But, when an old work colleague enlightened me to the glory of juicing the lemon and ginger through the juicer, and then adding honey and hot water, my immune system was never the same again.
For this drink, I juice a whole lemon, with just the skin removed (leave as much of the pith as possible) and a good 2 or 3 cm of ginger through the juicer. To this liquid gold I add a generous helping of manuka honey, hot water, and stir to combine. This tart beauty will definitely make your taste buds tingle, but really does the trick for soothing sore throats and getting lots of vitamin C into your system. It's nice cold too if you are that way inclined. I drink as many of these a day as my bladder can handle.

Healing Broth
A cheesy name, but a definite winner. This recipe is adapted from James Wong's 'Grow Your Own Drugs' herbal medicine book and TV show.

We have been using it for a few years now and it never fails to make us feel better. It would also be easy to make vegetarian, by changing the stock to vegetable, and swapping out the chicken for some lentils or legumes. 

Healing Broth

2 litres homemade chicken stock
1 chicken breast, sliced
2 onions, thinly sliced
Mushrooms- as many as you like!
3cm fresh ginger, skin removed, thinly sliced
10 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 large red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
2 Tbsp goji berries, soaked in hot water
1/2 packet dried soba noodles
Extra garlic and ginger to serve


Place stock, chicken, onions, mushroom, ginger, garlic and chilli in a large pot. Simmer on low for at least an hour. Add drained goji berries and noodle and continue to cook until noodles are al dente. To serve, finely chop 1cm ginger and 2 garlic cloves per bowl, and ladle hot soup over. Garnish with parsley and enjoy! Best served with homemade sourdough, of course.

This makes a huge amount, that feeds Paddy and I for at least two days; by which time, we are feeling better!

Other ideas:
I have been using Vicks to clear chest congestion since I was a child, but with my new awareness of the potential risks of petroleum-based products, I am keen to change to a more natural alternative. ecoMILF has a wonderful recipe for homemade vapour rub using almond oil and peppermint or eucalyptus oil. This sounds like just the ticket to me, so I am keen to give it a go.

With these plans in place, as well as lots of extra water and sleep, any colds we have are generally gone within a few days.