Monday, February 20, 2012

Abundance

Right now we are gathering so much from the garden that many of our meals are almost entirely homegrown. I have just munched my way through this salad and apart from a little marinated feta cheese sprinkled over the top the entire bowl was picked fresh from the garden moments before I ate it.

As I enjoyed the fresh vital flavours of the salad greens, herbs, tomato, cucumber and capsicum, I realised how lucky we are to be able to grow so much of what we eat. The addition of our new poly-tunnel this season really has contributed a great deal to our garden's bounty (and it's not even finished!)

The cucumbers have gone rampant and we were in danger of disappearing under a mountain of them so I resolved to pickle some of them over the weekend. I dug out my trusty old book of preserve recipes, given to me by a friend many years ago. I found just what I was looking for, a recipe for bread and butter cucumber pickle. Much slicing and dicing later, and a little cooking, I had these gorgeous looking jars ready for use later in the year when the garden won't be so productive.


Today I've also been out picking blackberries. I have been keeping an eye on the roadside brambles while out and about, waiting for them to ripen. We had a little rain in the past few days and this seems to have really brought them on, so today I stopped on my way home from an errand and picked myself a bucket of these glossy, black jewels. I'll put them into the freezer so that they are there for us in Winter when a nice blackberry and apple pie might be just the thing to chase the winter blues away. Or even better adding them to a raspberriy crumble, where their inclusion acts as a foil to the intense flavour of the raspberries, creating an all together devine combination of fruit under an almondy crumble mix.

As for the studio, right now I'm working on a polar bear cub. He's just a pile of bits at the moment, but in the next day or two he will come to life as I work on him. I'm having to take things a little easy at present, my hands are playing up again. I have to mix things up a bit so I don't run the risk of further straining them.

8 comments:

  1. Your post reminds me, of doing those pickled cucumbers when I was on the farm. They taste yummy. Are your fingers stained from the blackberries?
    Hugs
    Kay

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  2. Oh how I admire you with your garden and your rural living. You food looks divine.

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  3. How lovely to have a meal fresh from the gargen. It will be at least six months before I can do the same. Take care of your hands.

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  4. Oh wow, I would love to be able to eat entirely from my garden (I don't actually have a garden, never mind the climate to grow all this!)

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  5. Homegrown produce - my idea of heaven. I am really looking forward to the garden this year. Now I'm at home, I'll have time to grow more. Spring can't come soon enough!
    Hope you are able to rest your hands.

    Hugs

    Sue

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  6. Kay not my fingers but a new top got it as I leaned into the brambles to get the huge, hard to get berries! And Katy, we live at the bottom of a hill in a bit of a frot pocket, hence the poly-tunnel....just to make sure! :o)

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  7. Looks Yummy!!!
    But save those magic hands!!!!
    xxxx

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  8. wow, what a given surprise to have natural dye on hand, can it be on the bear's paw too, just to give them to taste the berries flavor ;)

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