Don't Leave Home Without Your Garden!

Colleen Jordan's A-Wearable-Planter

Henriette from tjou-tjou sent me this link to Colleen Jordan's lovely idea - I love it and you can order one here.

Sugar and Spice...

I've posted this after the fact because I think Valentines day is overrated. 
Not so however, love. 
It has become our little family tradition to show each other how much we love one another in small ways.


Like this from my daughter...


and this from father and daughter, a real treat.


And then there is of course, the plump, red, juicy and wild, garden variety of love...  

What a day x

First Impressions Count

And I have impressed myself no-end I'll have you know. 

This weekend hubby and I set out to try and copy my sister-in-law and my brother's fantastic recipe for homemade pizza on the weber. The results have me still wagging my tail four days later.

Perfect Pizza Topping: Basic tomato mozzarella base with 

Spanish chorizo, fresh rocket, avo, a parmesan-like cheese and pepper...yum.

QUICK PIZZA DOUGH

Makes about 5 large pizza’s

Ingredients:

1 x 10g instant dry yeast sachet

10ml salt

45ml olive oil

45ml honey or sugar

350ml lukewarm water

500g (890ml) cake flour

Method:

1. Mix yeast, salt, oil and honey or sugar together.

2. Slowly add flour and mix with a wooden spoon until a kneading dough is formed.

3. Knead for 10min on a flour-covered surface.

4. Let the dough rise for about 30min (in a warm spot)

5. Knead and roll into a circular base.

Alternatively

Do it my way – throw everything together in a mixer and continue from step 4.

Tomato base:

2 x 250g tins of plumb tomatoes

absolutely masses of garlic (and I do mean at least 5-6 cloves)

salt & pepper

Throw into a blender until smooth

Get your weber fired-up. Hint: your coals should be spread evenly.

We made these on the weber with a pizza pan from Woolies. For toppings start with your basic ‘Margerita’ add anything you can ‘cook’ to that and your fresh ingredients afterwards. I used the fabulous Col’Cacchio’s menu for inspiration.

Not bad for a first try...

Present-A-Cabbage

Every now and then (and it's more now than then) a freshly baked, delightfully fluffy home-baked milktart crosses the road my way, courtesy of the lovely lady who lives across the road from me. How to return the favour? I'm not anyone's idea off a master chef so I turned to my newly grown treasure chest.

Here's how it's done:

Pick one beautiful cabbage head

Cut off the extra leaves

Fold the others over to 'package' the contents

pull it all together with the longest leaf you can find of a Dietes Grandiflora

and hey-presto one freshly packed pressie!

Eat Your Heart Out

Told you it would be worth it. 

Just look at my bounty! How crunchy is that?

P.S. I believe my 'sweat' potatoes might be less successful...oops.

Family Investment

Towards the end of last year we started family veggie & herb beds, boxes and pots. 
Shopping by committee lead to a rather odd shopping list: radishes, mielies, coriander, cabbages, assorted lettuces, basil, onions, spring onions, carrots, watermelon, chillies, celery, parsley, sweat potatoes about covers it. 

The planting bit was just as higeldy-pigeldy, but a good old fashioned dirty bit of fun never hurt anyone. Wait till I show you the proof.