Brighten up

A little bit of paint on this milo tin has brightened up my kitchen and provided handy storage for my utensils!

Brighten up

T-shirt scarf

I saw this idea awhile ago and then revisited it on Pinterest.

A friend of mine has done me a few favours lately so I thought I would make her one out of an old yellow t-shirt I had. I added some black ribbon, black leather tie and a vintage button to make it a bit more glam.

It actually requires no sewing - just cutting and pulling and then some hot glue gun action. Simple really!

There is a great tutorial for this on this site.

T-shirt scarf

Rainbow beets

The other night I had an absolute craving for Silverbeet.

It may have been my body telling me I needed iron and salt after playing football that day. It could have been  my mind reminiscing about my childhood.

Luckily I have these amazing rainbow coloured "beets" growing in abundance in my garden.

This one reminded me of an Oompa Loompa!

I simply cut off the stalks (even though they are so pretty!) and then roll them up into a bunch and slice them in rounds. Then into a pot they go with a bit of water and some salt to cook.

The best bit however is the water left after cooking them (something my Mum gave me as a child). In this case it was a beautiful warm maroon colour. I simply added a bit of salt and pepper and had the most wonderful nutritious drink with my dinner that more than satisfied my craving!

Rainbow beets

Hey presto - pesto!!

I have recently discovered the delights of home made pesto. Now even though I do have a few healthy basil plants growing in my garage I would much rather use herbs that are in abundance.

I have lots of wild rocket growing which whizzed up made this fantastic pesto.

Rocket pesto

2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 cups of rocket
1/4 cup olive oil (approx)

Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth. Add oil gradually until pesto is a good texture.

I also like to make this parsley version:

Parsley pesto

2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2 cups Italian parsley
1 cup of basil mint

So easy and so tasty!

Hey presto - pesto!!

Ear, ear

Apologies for a lack of posts during the month of March. A combination of bad weather, busy work schedules and winter sport starting means that I have been away from the garden, the sewing machine and the house.

Summer has been and gone without warning. The weather changes from hot to mild to freezing cold. Rain, wind, sun - the garden is not sure what is happening to it.

However I managed to pick some of our home sown corn despite the wind making a mockery of the perfect rows. It looked more like a sculpture on the Wellington waterfront than the upright rows in a corn maze.

The corn itself was DELICIOUS! And really this photo does not do it justice. It was sweet and juicy and just so much more satisfying knowing that you had grown it yourself. As my partner said "it's hard to imagine this was grown from one of those tiny bits".

We will be growing corn again in summer, if summer ever arrives again.

Ear, ear

The garden in February

Tomatoes and Violets

Blackberries

The beds are full

Fragrant Basil

Red Kale Jungle

"Gold Rush" Zucchini's bathed in golden light

Skyscraper Corn

Ear that?

 Just some of the treasures from my vegetable garden.

The garden in February

Potatoes

Decided to finally dig up the last of the potatoes tonight. Wasn't expecting this many!!!

The varieties are Cliff's Kidney, Jersey Benne, Purple Passion, Desiree and some special Maori varieties: Tutaikuri and Karuparera. My favourite are the Karuparera.

Me and my 2-pronged fork did a really good job!

Most interesting potato dug up was this one:

Use your imagination!

Potatoes