Project Kitchen... Done! So let's cook some zucchini!

Remember last week when I wrote about Frans going under the house to connect the pipes? Well, this is where he was meant to go. And he just couldn't bring himself to crawl over that long diagonal pipe you see below. 

So he decided to forget about going under the house and instead of waiting for Stephen, he would demolish a wall of paneling and access the pipes from inside the house. Of course there were beams in the way weren't there?! So he put down his tools and waited for Stephen. In the mean time we had exposed form work to admire and tools to step over till he arrived. 

And to the rescue he came!

Let me just say here that Stephen is a sparky. His usual dirty work happens in roof spaces. He's not a fan of going under houses either. His main concern was 'are there any snakes?'. Of course not. We hoped! This man is a legend. A job that Frans had procrastinated about for three days, took him about ten minutes. The job was not without its challenges. The biggest challenge being the small space, the spider webs and the dirt!

He emerged victorious and impressed his future father in law with his bravery. All that was left to do was for the future mother in law to wash those clothes! The least I could do...

And here's the completely installed and functional hands free hand basin. Neat!

And here is the newly painted wall, filled holes and neatly installed super dooper range hood. We will repaint the kitchen soon. Then the little wooden shelf with get a coat of paint as well. 

And so a newly completed kitchen upgrade required a celebration. The kitchen had been shrouded in plastic sheets with tools scattered all over the table. I had been out picking veggies and was keen to get cooking again. 

STUFFED ZUCCHINI 

In mid September I planted a bunch of squash seeds. I bought a pack with six different varieties. Being so far south, our season seems a little later and shorter than the warmer areas. So it's with great excitement that I've started picking the fruits from these plants. Checking my planting notes I see that it took 12 weeks from seed to fruit. I've planted a few batches since then and I hope that I'll be picking zucchini for a little while longer. The challenge is always what to do with all the fruit when they ripen simultaneously. We have a favourite recipe. It's an Italian Stuffed Zucchini dish. It is simple to make and can be enjoyed for a few days. We eat it warm or at room temperature. It makes a great side dish at a barbecue or can be served as a main with a salad for a light lunch. Served with a chilled glass of something dry and white.

This is my version. I try and use ingredients that I have grown myself; the squash, onions, garlic and herbs. Then there is the egg that I use from our own hens and the breadcrumbs made from the bread I baked. We just planted a few olive trees, but it will be a while before we can press our own oil. So in the mean time it will have to be store bought. Australian of course.

A basket of mixed squash. 

All the ingredients are gathered. 

Zucchini - I used the pale green ones, as well as the round yellow and green.

Roast pumpkin (yes, it's still from those three pumpkins we cut up a few months ago! This is the last packet)

Herbs. I used dill and parsley.

Garlic. Just a few cloves. Chopped or crushed.

One onion chopped.

A cup or two of roast pumpkin, cut into 2cm cubes.

Olive oil.

About two cups of breadcrumbs.

A cup of grated Parmesan or strong cheese, grated.

Optional: A few spoons of ricotta cheese.

The first job is to gently saute' the onion in a pan with a little olive oil. Add the garlic cook till the onion is translucent. Don't brown it. 

While the onion is cooking, cut the squash in half length ways and scoop out the flesh. Some of the larger fruit have fairly big pips. You can separate the pips out if you wish or just chop them up with the rest of the flesh. They are soft and sweet and you will not notice them. I kept most of the pips aside. 

The flesh is then chopped up into small pieces. Place into a mixing bowl and add half the bread crumbs, herbs, onion, pumpkin, egg and half the cheese and mix together. Add the ricotta if you're using it. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then fill the clean, scooped out shells with the filling.

Scatter the remaining breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese on top of each stuffed half.

Drizzle the tops with a little olive oil. Bake in a moderate oven untill the tops are golden. Around 45 minutes will do it.

And what about the pips you ask?

Well, I take a paper towel and place a group of seeds in a pile. I make a number of piles on the sheet. Then I leave them to dry. Once dry, I simply roll the sheet of pips up and store them in an envelope till I'm ready to plant them again. Write the date of harvest on the envelope! Planting these seeds will be around September this year. When I'm ready to plant, I'll just cut the sheet into squares, one pile of pips per square. Then I'll plant the square. I'll let the strongest two or three seedlings remain and remove the rest. 

Seed saving is great for the budget! Collecting seeds is a good way of ensuring your continuing vegetable planting ability without buying commercial seed. I only grow Organic seeds. No hybrids. This way I know my saved seeds will sprout and grow next season.

Back to the baked zucchini. Delicious! What you don't eat immediately, can be stored in the fridge for a few days. The larger halves can be sliced into chunks.  

Summer is a really busy time for us. The veggies are flourishing and the fruit trees are groaning with fruit. This week I'll be picking more nectarines. They are the white variety. Delicious when picked straight from the tree. I like them crunchy. Frans likes them a little softer. 

Two peach trees have fruit almost ready to be picked. One peach is pinkish-red and the other is a yellow variety. I don't know their names. Yet. When I was a kid my Mum made peach jam with yellow peaches. I have a vivid memory of little lumps in golden syrup, with a delicious peachy smell. I'm going to give it my best shot at trying to duplicate it!   

And here's wishing you a very peachy week! 

An action packed week

Meet Etta Jalapeno. She's our latest addition to Otway Fields. Her mum seemed to be pregnant FOREVER! We were starting to wonder if she was just fat! A couple of weeks ago when we slaughtered our steer, we had the opportunity to put the mum into the cattle pen. Our neighbour Graham had a good look at her then and proclaimed her to be pregnant. We just had to be patient. This was an important lesson in record keeping for us. We had a very vague idea of when we had Graham's bull over in our paddock last year. We didn't write down the date of his visit, and this left us guessing for weeks as to when we would see another little calf. So, at last.... here she is. Sara named her Etta, after Etta James' tune.. At Last. She was born on a 42 degree day. So I named her Etta Jalapeno. And no, we won't eat her. She'll go to the sale yard in a few months.

Just an hour or two old.

Etta is a wanderer. She gets into all sorts of funny spots. Frans found her on the other side of our fence on the road side shortly after she was born. He got her to our top paddock where she then crawled into a spot beyond the electric fence. She needed help to get out.

She then wobbled her way along the fence, sometimes getting a little too close! Such a silly little girl. 

She was still to have her first drink. Frans pointed her  her towards her mum and she eventually found the teats with the help of her mum who nudged her to the right spot. 

Finally mum and calf found their way to the centre of the paddock. It didn't take long for the rest of the calves to come and investigate their new half sister. 

A day later, and Etta is happy and content. And we have a new visitor for a few weeks. A bull. A BIG bull. The cows are getting frisky and this time we've recorded the dates of the bull visit! So if all goes well, in 9 months and 9 days from now, we should have another calf from the cow that birthed in September. 

 Project Kitchen!

One of our goals on the farm is to hold cooking classes, using our organic kitchen garden for inspiration. We also want to sell our preserves and pickles commercially. To do this we need to have our kitchen properly fitted to comply with commercial food preparation. Fortunately, the kitchen is fairly new and we did not have to do too much to change it. We needed a more powerful range hood and a small hands free wash basin. Frans being the handyman that he is has undertaken all the work himself. He decided that he would tackle both tasks simultaneously. So for the past week the kitchen has been a bomb site!

The new sink fits comfortably where our wine rack used to be. Inlets, outlets, connections.... everywhere! 

The small cupboard and old pull out range hood was removed from above the stove. Nothing is ever simple, and there were holes to be filled, drilled and the wall painted before the new range hood could be put into place.  

Yes, that is a vacuum cleaner on top of the stove. Frans is a tidy freak. I'm not complaining! Even with the careful covering of equipment, there was still a fine layer of plaster dust covering the kitchen.  

And it's done! Wall painted, range hood installed and cleaned of finger prints on the shiny new metal flue, and we're in business.

And this leaves the final part of the sink installation to be completed. Frans had to venture under the house to connect the outlet of the sink to the main outlet pipe. He procrastinated for hours and invented other jobs that needed doing in preference to going under the house. 

He finally mustered up the courage, packed all the tools he might need into an Aldi bag, prepared a light to see by and headed into the underbelly of the house!  

There was not much room to spare and he wiggled into the crawlspace. He lay there for a while with his feet poking out. I heard muttering and then "No. That's it. I can't do it." And back out he slid. He is not happy. He does not like to admit defeat. But in this instance, he just can't face the claustrophobic feeling that being under the house gives him.

So... plan B. Back upstairs he started stripping panels from a wall to connect the pipe from above the ground. But nothing is ever easy... (did I say that already?) There are beams in the way of where the pipe has to go. This requires a lot of drilling and mess! 

Plan C. Wait for Stephen. 

So we have waited till this weekend. Stephen (Sara's fiancee') has offered to go under the house and finish the job. Yay! I'm looking forward to later today when I can once again see the kitchen table! All the mess will be cleaned up and we can then get the final approval for the kitchen. 

 Project Poo!

When you live in the city or a town where you have town sewage, you don't have to think about flushing the loo. But if you live on a property with a septic tank, or a water treatment plant like we have, then waste is a constant topic of conversation. Our dishes and clothes require biodegradable products. We have to read labels carefully on cleaning products. Our waste system is one where everything is decomposed naturally. Some products like fat, milk and cream are not allowed into the system. They take too long to break down. I've had to get used to wiping out any greasy baking dishes first before washing them. Any milk that needs throwing out goes onto the compost, not down the sink. We have been careful with what we put down our drain. But sometimes, a problem arises and hands have to get dirty!

We had a service person out last week and he made an 'uh uh' comment. This did not sound good. There was a problem with the holding tank. The water was not as clean as it should have been. The quickest way of fixing the problem was to empty out the whole plant, clean out any crappy bits (yes, it's a bad punn..) and then refill it again with dam water. The service guy left Frans his pump and instructions on how to do the job, wished him luck and left. Frans asked me to figure out a way that he could scoop the poop. I came up with this solution. It is my very own Pooper Scooper. I think I might market it! 

Ami's Pooper Scooper. Shade cloth with a piece of wire turned around the outside. Then held onto a long pole with another piece of wire and some gaffa  tape. A giant strainer. It worked a treat! 

It was then down to business. Frans scooped and I sprayed the 'net' clean.

I was surprised that this job wasn't as smelly as I would have thought it would be. But oh, the flies!!

And on a much prettier note, remember the little nest of birds I showed you last week? Well, the little birds flew the nest yesterday. We found two of them on the ground, flopping about. I tried to pick one up and put it back into the nest thinking it had fallen out, but it just summersaulted back onto the ground. The baby squawked loudly and the mother echo'd it's cries with loud screeches of her own. We left them and let nature take it's course.  

Finally... Sara and Stephen arrived yesterday for a couple of days. They have a new puppy. Her name is Tilly. She's a cross border collie/staffie. She's three months old and a bundle of energy. Nala has enjoyed playing with the new pup. After all the running and chasing, both dogs flopped and slept for ages! 

 And we wish everyone a Happy Australia Day for the 26th!

A decorating urge!

Every now and then I get a bee in my bonnet and decide I want to paint something. Now! For a long time I've been looking for a metal plant stand. You know the type. Rusted. Old. 70's. Yep, that's what I wanted. I trawelled through ebay and found plenty that I liked. But there was always the hassle of the 'pick up'. So a couple of months ago Frans and I went to a clearance auction down the road from us. It was my lucky day. There was a lot there with a plant stand and a few extra bits and pieces. I didn't really want everything. Just the stand. We waited for the lot to come up and I put up my hand. It was mine. For a grand total of $5. FIVE DOLLARS! We went home with two plant stands, two metal candelabras, and a magazine rack. Off to the hardware store I went and purchased three cans of brightly coloured spray paints. The paints cost more than the stands! I have to tell you though, that these sought after items sat in Frans' shed for a while before I finally got to them! I picked a day where the wind wasn't blowing. Found some packing boxes and flattened them and set up my items on the boxes. I was ready to go. I started with the bright orange candle stick. Next the purple one (not shown). I sprayed the plant stand a bright turquoise. I couldn't wait for all the items to dry! Once they were good to go, I placed them along the east facing windows. There is an ugly facia running along the bottom of the house and the plant stand and pot plants now disguise it somewhat. I have been saving and gathering old olive oil cans. Frans drilled holes in the bottom of them and I planted them up with geraniums. I think it looks ok. Better than a bland wall.

A recycled, upcycled plant stand. Groovy baby!

Don't you love the little watering duck? Found it at the Reject shop for $1.

I bought citronella candles from Safeway. They're not cheap! But they do help with keeping the mozzies at bay in the evenings.

This purple plant stand is still a work in progress. It needs three tiles to sit on the metal bars. I'm thinking that some mismatched brightly coloured ones will look good. Back to ebay....

The plant stands along the front wall of the house. Don't mind the messy path.... I really should put the hose away when I've used it....

I still have the magazine rack to spray. That will look good next to the couch on the verandah. Somewhere to put all the stray magazines that find their way into the house!

Organising is good for the soul...

Every now and then the pantry needs a good going over! And boy, did mine need one. The problem with most pantries is that they're designed by MEN. And they don't do the cooking. So nothing really works well. So I took myself off to Ikea and bought some metal shelves to put into the pantry.

Then I just needed to get someone to put them together for me. Ok, I could have done it myself, but if there's a willing helper around, why not use them... Stephen to the rescue!

Before...

After....

Gotta love Ikea!