Mum and Dads chorizos

Got a phone call from Dad, he needed some help to tie the pork sausages up. These are not any ordinary sausages, they are mum and dads spanish chorizos. 

We have grown up with them, my son loves them, Isabel loves them, everybody loves them. The mince is mixed with paprika, garlic, salt and white wine, left overnight and then put into the casings.

Mum was in bed, she didn't get much sleep and had to work later that day, and the chorizos needed tying and hanging up. We were half way through eating our lunch at home when he rang, so we progressed our lunch to dads shed.

After a long working life, Dads hands aren't the best at tying fiddly string, he sections up the sausages and I tie string, lots of string! I really enjoyed spending time with him, he reminisced about doing this with his mother in Spain when he was a kid. Now he has retired we see a lot more of him, and I loved that my girls were there too, participating in a family tradition.

Brett is still on time off work, and he came half way through to help. It took us nearly three hours. They will hang here to dry out a bit, and Dad will put them in the smoke house for a couple of days.

This is a pork leg in salt, a familiar sight from my childhood too, only on a smaller scale. Dad used to have an old bath full of salt in his shed for salting pork. This will end up delicious proscuitto, Mum has some pancetta on the go too.

I brought home one sausage and some loose mince. We were having chicken wings for tea, so I stuffed some of them with the mince. I hung up the lone sausage in the kitchen to dry out and froze the rest. The flavour was amazing with the chicken. I freakin love the taste of this stuff, I wish you could smell it, taste it even, it really is the best!

Do you have favourite food traditions in your family? I'd love to hear about them.

 

Sweet Potato Pie

I have too many sweet potatoes, Brett bought more from the Harndorf fruit and veggie market on his way home from Adelaide and I already had some. I've been using them to make baby food, but Summer is eating a lot of the stuff we do now so I went looking for a recipe. I found this one and it's delicious. 

Sweet Potato Pie

500g sweet potato

125g butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla essence

Shortcrust pastry

Boil whole sweet potatoes until cooked through, strain off water and remove the skin. 

Mash with butter until smooth. Add remainder of ingredients and mix.

Place shortcrust pastry into a pie dish, pour mixture in and bake at 175 degrees for 50 minutes to an hour.

I used margarine instead of butter, and all spice instead of cinnamon and nutmeg. I used the same pastry recipe as in my asparagus quiche, but you can use the frozen stuff. It kinda reminds me of custard tart, but with a veggie flavour.

Silent Sunday - tulip

Open Garden #3

I planted about 8 garlic cloves two weeks ago that had started sprouting in the kitchen. They have just started to poke up through the soil. They belong to the species Allium, garlic being Allium sativum. Chives are included in this species as well.

cute aren't they? :)

Peas, beans, cabbage and strawberries don't like growing anywhere it, but roses, tomatoes, apples and peaches will appreciate its presence, to keep the nasties away.

Look what I bought at Woolies, $14 marked down to $5.50, aren't they gorgeous. There is six bulbs all together, thats less than a dollar a bulb! Bargain! They are looking pretty on the table near the front door for now, before I find a spot for them.

Purple and White

The innocence of white,

pure and elegant

The royalty of purple,

 dignified and proud

peaceful

majestic

Lake Mac 2

 Lake McIntyre

Nature is beautiful

beautiful nature 

Cake, tea cups and feathers

Not the best of days, Isabel was naughty central ALL day, mainly giving her sister the shits, which in turn gave me the shits. I did get a fair bit done, despite her pushing me just about every second of my day, the naughty chair got a work out. I had tears at one point, and the little bugger brought me a tissue, redeemed herself with a  heart melt moment.

I baked.

Complete with finger holes, Isabel climbed onto the bench while I was hanging out washing

 Boiled Chocolate Cake

 120gr butter
   3/4 cup sugar 

1 cup water 

   1/2 tsp bicarb soda

3 Tbsp cocoa
 1 1/2 cups SR Flour
2 eggs, beaten

Boil butter, sugar, bicarb, water and cocoa for 2 minutes. Let cool.

Add flour, then egg.

Bake in a moderate oven for 45 mins.

I fixed up an old chook house.

My dad got it at a clearance sale, he frequents them a lot since he retired a couple of years ago. He bought it for mum, she didn't want it, along with half the crap stuff he comes home with. Most of it is actually good, I love this picture he got with a bulk lot, it's hanging in my kitchen, I like tea cups.

I'd been thinking about chooks for a while, so after I finished patching up holes in the wire, we went and picked up two chooks from this old fella round the corner. Isabel was very excited, and has exclaimed since to everyone we have seen, "We got CHOOKS!". Funny. She loves to feed her uncles chooks and collect the eggs, now we have our own, yet to be named girls. I'm thinking Henny Penny and Chicken Licken.

Look what I found in the morning!!!

Lake Mac

The kids were driving me up the wall, nothing was making them happy, I chucked them in the car and went to Lake McIntyre. It's a great place to tire the kids out take some time out and get some fresh air. I always enjoy going there.

Open Garden #2

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Coriander

I was excited to find some coriander, or cilantro, coming up from seed near the vegie patch. It's a love or hate kind of herb. I love it in a fresh salad with chick peas, tomato, cucumber, celery and spring onion. Whereas my mum hates it in anything.

If you have it in your garden, and like to companion plant, it goes well with dill, chervil and anise, but if grown with fennel it will wilt. Dill, chervil and coriander growing amongst carrots and cabbage will protect them from pests.

Big Mac sauce!!

Drivelology posted the you tube video on how to make Big Mac sauce on her blog. I was a bit excited!

Who knew it had dill in it? I have dill coming up in the veggie patch from dropped seed, and had a go at making the sauce to have with our burgers for lunch. I don't use dill for much, usually in potato salad, so happy to have something else to use it for.

 

The video didn't really give exact measurements, but this is the recipe I used(round about). You can adjust it to what you think tastes like Big Mac sauce for you.

Ingredients ready

1/2 cup of Mayo

2 Tblsp Tomato sauce 

1 Tblsp American mustard

1/2 onion, finely chopped

3 tsp caster sugar

2 Tblsp chopped dill

Mix all together, taste and adjust if needed.

This is the sauce I ended up with, we had burger sangas for lunch, there was a hint of Maccas there, probably would have been a bit more if we had some microwaved buns to use instead of sliced bread!