This morning
the Hadidas woke me at 5:30 serenading the first spring morning. The year is
flying past, my children are growing fast, life is full and busy and God is
good!
Nourish
I probably
sound like a stuck record saying “Soup Again!” but we are still enjoying soups
every day for lunch. This means that the stock pot is on the go at least twice
a week.
We have
enjoyed the harvests from our winter garden, in particular broad beans,
spinach, peas, spring onions, beets, the last of the purple sprouting broccoli
and cauliflower and loads of herbs for lovely meals. The first asparagus spears
disappeared into Superman and my mouth in a flash…
Keeping with
my plan we are still enjoying delicious homecooked “restaurant” meals from
Jamie’s 30 minutes meals. I know the book is expensive, but if there is one
cook book that I can recommend to a struggling cook, it would be this one. The
emphasis is on good wholesome whole tasty food a couple of nights a week and
for us to learn some more cooking skills.
Baked
oatmeal and homemade yoghurt has been a hit for breakfast on some days. I use
this recipe but add a layer of blueberries and apple to the bottom of the
baking dish then the oatmeal. So yummy!
Scones for
tea, with fresh lemon curd, 5 minute bread once a week, muffins, cheese twists for picnics, cookies
and more were churned out as my daughter got back into baking.
This Asian beef soup was an adjustment of one
in another cookbook which called for chicken…
Brown 4
cloves of garlic, 1 chopped red chilli and a thumb size of grated ginger in
some sesame or peanut oil.
Add you
cubed beef and brown.
Add in 125ml
of soya sauce, a tablespoon of fish sauce and a tablespoon of sweet chilli
sauce. Then pour in 1 litre of beef stock and 250ml boiling water.
You can
either cheat here with 2 packets of 2 minutes noodles (do not use the season
sachet) or make your own egg noodles and add to the broth.
Lastly add
in about two big handfuls of chopped Asian greens.
Cook for as
long as it takes for the noodles to soften and then serve into bowls.
Prepare
We are
preparing for spring…this month we got the compost sifted out and dug into beds
that were empty.
The kids
have been making newspaper pots by the hundreds for spring plantings.
Loads of
lemon curd was made as I picked up a pocket of lemons for R20 at the market and we were rained out the one Saturday leaving too many eggs over!
Green
Normally,
when it comes to containing our newspaper pots I was going to the liquor store
to collect old beer pallets. Now with my sons bringing in so many eggs each
week for clients, we have all these cardboard boxes lying around. We cut them
off about 7cm up and there we have our own trays. The cut off part is shredded,
soaked and put in the compost.
Still using
the citrus cleaner and homemade laundry liquid and am happy with both.
Grow
Seed
planting is high on the agenda and we planted about 120 seeds of courgette,
tomato, spinach and peppers. It was with great excitement that I fetched my
seed potatoes from the Post Office this week. I also found myself impatiently
sticking my fingers into the soil around my garlic to see IF there were any
bulbs forming there. It is a little early as they are only due to come out in
December!
Create
Well I have
not even managed to finish my winter pair of socks…creative time actually is in
the kitchen and for now this is what needs to happen. I really don’t have time
to knit. By the time school is done for the day, sports and cultural activities
attended to, business needs met, it is 8 o’clock at night. We have family
devotions most nights and then I am ready to turn out my light at 9. We have
given up TV for the most part over the last 6 weeks making our evenings free
for real life and this is such a good thing. I was never an addict but everyone
else loved their 7-8 TV slot. We all wonder now why we didn’t do this sooner.
So stretching this category to creating a home that is more in line with God's word and a place where we can truly nuture relationships built on the Lordship of Christ.
Discover
& Enjoy
The last
three Fridays have been a special time for my littlest one and I. We have done
three outings for his history and science lessons and they have all been
special. A rock classification workshop and treasure hunt in the Company
Gardens, a sustainable fishing workshop and visit to the aquarium and then
yesterday a visit to Vergelegen.
I think we
chose the wettest, windiest, coldest day and headed out to Somerset West to
visit the farm of the infamous William Adriaan Van Der Stel. The home and
gardens are hugely impressive as is the later owner’s personal library of 4500
books.
I loved the
formal garden with the veggies and herbs planted in between the low hedges, the
gorgeous camphor trees and strong flowing Lourensford River. My son and his
friends ran around in the rain without a care in the world, spotted the old slave
bell, the owl in the tree and the hollow oak that featured in a story we read
before visiting.
Enhance
My son and I
have been selling his chickens at the market. We have met some lovely folk and
even some who follow this blog have popped in and said hi. We have however
decided that the 5 hours spent there are too demanding on me and will not be
continuing with this, but will continue selling from home and to friends.
We believe
that these fabulous chickens and eggs that he sells have enhanced the community
as they are the best that we can get for people around us. We even have repeat
customers who have come to the market especially to buy from him.
So that was the month that passed...how was yours?
And then our shy Mary Washington asparagus is arriving. We have about 10 spears in different stages peeping through and will make a lovely hors d'oeuvre one evening. In the book "Animal Vegetable Miracle" they talk about asparagus being the first sign of spring...this may well be but it is still freezing here.
