Today we're making...

A bloody big mess!
Yes, it's tomato passata.
What's the story?
Mr TG&C's tomato crop has been out of this world, this year. And we had over a kilo of beautiful, luscious, ripe tommy-toes gathering in the fridge. What to do with them all? There's only so many can be eaten on Sao's with cheese for afternoon tea and a cuppa.
And he wanted to do "something" with them.
Check out the recent tomato crop on the previous blog.
Having attempted relish and chutneys before and failed, I decided I wasn't up for that failure again.
And I had seen passata on some cooking show or other. So why the heck not?
Well, it's not difficult like Rosella Jam is.
It's just fiddly and rather messy.
Better clean up the kitchen before he gets home!
This is the recipe I used, though they all seem to be much-of-a-muchness...
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/passata

Thanks SBS.
And in the absence of a tomato press, I was wracking my brains, trying to figure out how to squeeze all the goodness out. Tried our Christmas ham bag. Nup, no good, tomato guts went everywhere. So that was one dirty cloth to be washed.
Then I just got out a sieve and potato masher and did it that way. Seemed to be fairly effective though messy.
So in the end I reckon we ended up with about 1.5 jars (using our own basil leaves, of course). Which is ok. They're boiling away as we speak.
Wrapped up in a tea towel each. That's another two dirty cloths to be washed.
Why do I hurt myself so?
Till next time.

What a pithy,pulpy mess.

Note the splatter in the background. No, it's not a crime scene. Well, it's probably a cooking crime but only time will tell.
 

This is what I managed to reduce it down to - there was just the seeds and the skins (below) remaining.

Ta da!!

 

Of life and death ...

What a morbid headline, I hear you say. Well, I guess you could say that. But there's a tremendous amount of it around at the moment, so it seems. There always is, I know. But it seems to be hitting those around us particularly hard of late.
During a recent wander around "my" grounds, I got to thinking about the cycle of life. (Gawd almighty, this wasn't meant to be a D&M - someone stop me now!!)

.....
....
Well, no one stopped me so here goes. There's so much death and sadness and pain that it becomes all the more important to appreciate the life that there is around us. In my view, that is.
The orchid that's never flowered before, that bloody rosella that seems determined to die (but I won't let it, dammit!), and the mandarin tree that just decided to up and kark it. (or cark it - either seems permissible?)
But then the tomatoes have gone great guns this year, the corn's been lousy, lettuce great, pawpaws prolific, pineapples on the grow, and bush lemons aplenty for pad thai.
Must do a lemon butter one of these days.
One of the constants in our garden is the lime tree. It ALWAYS has fruit on. The mango tree out the front on the other hand, never does. We're starting to think it's fruiting days are over. But it's still a  beautiful tree and gives fabulous privacy.
What's growing in your garden and what are you doing with it?

Don't mind the spots. Just cut them out. Grown sans chemicals so worth a cupla spots.

Special variety of tomato known as the prolific lawn cherry tomato. Great for feeding little boys fruit straight from the plant. Big boys too!
 

Lett...uce pray!
 

Tomatoes.

Oh look, there's a tomato.
 

Tomato, anyone?

Need I say more?

So how's about the weather, huh?

Corn. Obviously. Hopefully we'll get something edible this time around.

Pineapple. Also obviously. Hoping to make a pineapple jam for a good friend - if the fruit survives the three of us!

 

Starting over

Well, it's winter again so Mr TG&C has been hard at work planting seeds and then planting out the resulting seedlings. Well, those that come up. Not having a wonderful strike rate at the mo. What's yours like?
But we're not giving up and so far we have corn, tomatoes, snowpeas, capsicums and silverbeat planted in the vege patch.
Elsewhere in the garden we have a proliferation of pawpaws actually fruiting AND a few Jap pumpkins. These were a conundrum to me this time around as we had very few female flowers to pollinate the boy flowers with. Anyone got any tips on what it takes to create girl pumpkin flowers?
Anyway, here's a visual feast of what's growing ... and what's not!

Inspired

Yes, yes I know. I've been a bad girl. But anyone with children can relate, I'm sure. So little Blake Nathaniel arrived just seven days after my last post and this is my first chance to get blogging since then.
He's a champion little felluh - great at feeding, great at sleeping. Just great, in a  nutshell.
And after reading a couple of my favourite blogs, I decided to get my fingers tapping. Hence the "inspired" title of this blog.
Currently it's raining. Yep, it seems the wet season is here. It's funny, after just 13mm of rain a few days ago, the lawn instantly went from crunchy brown to luscious green. Nice.
Another of the big reasons why we live here.
So, to recap the last six months in the garden. For some reason the vege patch didn't do so well. I keep telling Mr TG&C that we need to do a pH test. Anyhoo, hasn't happened yet. Maybe one day.
We had an abundance of silverbeat, almost too much, lotsa lettuce, some cherry toms and lotsa snowpeas.
The capsicums (or bell peppers as he prefers to call them) didn't do so well. Even one plant that ended up under the mynah bird trap and was therefore protected.
Anyway, so 2013 is another year so here's to being inspired ... and doing something about it!
Oh, and if you're looking for a bargain, check this out!

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/earlville/other-garden/yukkas-for-sale/1011076049

Absence makes the heart grow fonder ...

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
Oh, there is another excuse .... here it is!

Yes, we've been growing one of these for the last few months and our due date is almost upon us so as you can imagine, myself and Mr TG&C have been a little preoccupied.
However, in the meantime, here's an update on the garden. It's now winter here in the tropics of Far North Queensland and the weather has been rather magical. While we've had some rain over the past week, today we had a beautiful, sunny, 26 degree day and it was just perfect so the garden is starting to get going again.
Here's a sample of what's growing at the mo....

A few seedlings in pots, growing, growing, growing, getting ready for being planted out into the vege patch proper.

Our one-and-only orange. This tree is probably only about 18 months' old so I don't have great expectations of it just yet ...

This is a certain nawty dawg. Well, we love him, and he did chase some religious types out of the yard the other day (!!) but he's rather naughty too. If it's not picking almost ripe capsicums (now we have to put them in pots on the deck to protect them!), he's digging at the compost bin in a bid to get at something nice and smelly in there, or his latest trick is trying to get underneath Mr TG&C's mynah bird trap. Grrr. Any suggestions?

Rosella, rosella. Now, we've only got about three of these bushes in our yard and I reckon you need twice that many to get a decent crop for jam-making. However, I have found that if you pick as they're ripe, then chuck them in the fridge, they last a good couple of weeks until you're ready to get jamming. The other benefit of this is that the outer red "petals" aren't as tough to peel after they've been refrigerated for a while.

Mandarins. These are about the same vintage as the orange, but there's about half-a-dozen fruit on this one so we have high hopes of seeing some yummy sweet mandarins in the kitchen before too long.

Lime-alicious.This is the same era as the other citrus but seems to have more oomph than the others. He's been fruiting for at least six months straight. And they are BIG and JUICY.

Monstera deliciosa. I posted a pic of this fellow quite a few months ago now and thought I'd show you an update. He hasn't fruited yet but I can't wait for the day he does!

The existing yellow passionfruit vine. Yesterday Mr TG&C planted a purple passionfruit beside it, so hopefully it will look all nice and colourful when both are in fruit at the same time. What do you reckon?

Till next time. I promise I'll try not to leave it so long in future!
x

Wet season, wet season ... where fore art thou?

Well, it's mid January and where oh where is this damn wet season? Bring on the rain, I say. Mind you, we did have 28mm at our place last night.
Despite, or perhaps because of the heat, the garden is going nuts at the moment. Plenty of interesting things fruiting.
Here's a sample...

Limes. Apparently the tree has decided to go nuts this year. So what to do, what to do? One solution was lime cordial. Yum. Find the recipe I used here: http://cocktails.about.com/od/makeyourownmixers/r/lime_cordial.htm. Another solution is my famous lime and coconut cake. This is for the work people tomorrow. Provided they're good!

Lime cordial concoction. The recipe says to let the rind sit in the mixture at least overnight before straining, then allowing to sit for another 24 hours. Anyone who knows me, knows patience is not what I am known for!

A bit off track here, but I just wanted to say it is possible to use everything. We bought a hot chook for lunches the other week and while there wasn't much meat left on it once Mr TG&C was finished with it, boiled down with some veges, it's made a couple of lovely chicken and vege pies and chicken stock. If I can do it, anyone can!

Watermelon. From the garden. Yumbo. Got another 3 or 4 still in the vege patch getting themselves ready for consumption. Also picked a pineapple yesterday but it was only a baby and unfortunately didn't make it to photographic stage. Take my word for it that he was yummy too.



Capsicums. In pots. On the deck. Because a certain grey person keeps EATING them! This is the only way to keep them safe. Nuts.



The lazy blogger

Well, I won't say people have "nagged" me into writing the blog, but life has been a little, shall we say, crazy hectic. Holidays, house plans, etc etc. Life. It seems to happen, doesn't it.
Anyway, here's a little photographic essay of what's been happening of late.

Repotted fig tree. Even though couldn't see roots poking out bottom of previous pot, poor little thing was rather rootbound. So almost as soon as he was re-potted, he sprouted new growth. There's hope yet!

Rosella plants. These are the result of boiled rosella seeds. Anyone who has made rosella jam knows what I'm talking about here. So I thought I'd have a crack at planting the seeds and look what turned up. Fingers crossed I can grow some this time!

An orange. Well, it's a green orange so far. But one day it will be an orange. Hopefully. This is the first fruit produced by this tree. All the rest of the babies dropped off. This one being preciously guarded.

Eggplant. Growing like a weed now. We're not big on the fruit, but isn't it nice to know that we can?

Ahh, this is a bit of a sad story. This is/was a butternut pumpkin. While we were away he rotted. Better luck next time.

Lime. I think it's ripe, do you?

"Normal" pumpkin. Not ready yet, but watched eagerly every day. Great in all manner of dishes but my new fave is pumpkin and fetta quiche. Mmmmmm.

It's not edible, I know. But can you see the little green stick right next to my fingers? That, my friends, is a GrassTree. Planted from seed purchased from Bunnings. Seed packet cost $3.85. Think it contained about 20 seeds. Cheaper than $40 for a big plant....

Do tomatoes grow randomly at your place? I let them go when they come up wild like this. I figure they must like that spot for a home. Am I nuts? Probably.

Laden passionfruit vine. Only problem I have, is once they fall to the ground and I pick them up, they're rotting. Anyone got any tips on what's going wrong?

Another damn zucchini. Don't you know you shouldn't be growing now??

The vege patch currently, with carrots in foreground (they also shouldn't be growing now) and hessian encased capsicum plant. To prevent a certain four-legged person accessing and munching on said capsicums. Naughty puppy.

Rampant watermelon. There's about half a dozen fruit on this, about the size of bowling balls. Fingers crossed.
What's growing at your place at the moment?