Showing posts with label Around My Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Around My Home. Show all posts

7.10.2021

Cumquat Marmalade: Winter Sunshine in a Jar

 


This year's cumquots have made the most delightful marmalade. It's like winter sunshine in a jar! 


YOU WILL NEED: 

About 500g of cumquots 

a cup of sugar

The juice of half a lemon 

METHOD: 

Slice the ends of the cumquots and cut them in half. 

Chop the fruit and pulp coarsley 

Mix in the sugar and lemon jouce

Cook on the stovetop sitrring constantly until the mixture thickens 

Bottle in clean jars whilst hot and seal. 


This is one of those experimental recipes. You can try different citrus or blend flavours together. 

All I know, is that when you have a smear on sourdough it is a burst of sunshine in your mouth ! 

2.13.2012

Looking Back

A reader asked me this week how we are settling into our new place. Well, the answer is ...slowly. The past ten weeks have been complete madness. Who would move house in December ?

Here is a summary of some of the events that have taken place in the past ten weeks.


We did the pre-settlement inspection on our new property and couldn't believe that is was ours!

We then had to move our remaining belongings ( we had a HUGE throw out) into this new house. We had about 13 days before we were booked to go away on our annual holiday where we would be away for 3 weeks.

 We frantically unpacked everything, trying to find functional places for everything and work out where everything was ..... like the light switches and blind openers ! lol


We had to settle our birds and chickens in before we went away and undertake the HUGE job of getting our old place ready for our first ever tenants. 






Then we were off on our holiday. Firstly out west to catch up with family and have our pre-christmas celebrations and then back over the mountain to our holiday place....and boy did we need it.


So for the next two weeks we just laid around, read, swam, walked, fished and were generally recharging our batteries.




After we arrived home I headed off with my sister, Mum and niece to take my mum on a birthday road trip.

We headed firstly to the Hunter Valley and had a look at where we used to live and went to school. Then we headed to Bathurst and had a look at my Grandmother's house ( which has been totally upgraded and is truly wonderful!) We then put my father's plaque on his mother's grave and met some  of my aunties.


Of course, no trip to Bathurst would be complete without a visit to Annie's ice cream parlour. This goes without saying.

 We then headed through the blue mountains, stopping for some tourist walks and visiting some local wine stores.



 Then onto Sydney where we stayed at Four Points Sheraton and were tourists in Sydney. We did an historical walk and visited two of the museums, the Sydney museum and the Police and Justice museum.




 On the last evening we went to see Annie -the musical at the Lyric theatre and really enjoyed it.

So, for the last ten weeks I have been away for one month! Now that the children are back into school and I am back into working some hours each week there will be some settling into routines.


All we need now is for it to stop raining so that we can start preparing our new vegie patches. We have had 276mm of rain in the last ten days. On the 8th Feb we had 102 mm in one day! That is a lot of rain. 

My focus is currently on rebuilding my systems and routines. I have been reading back through my old blog entries to keep me on the track. I hope to incorporate all our previous principles and add to them with new found space and fruit trees. 

It is all very exciting! 

The Messy Kitchen

 My kitchen is rarely clean and lovely like you often see on social media.  It is often clean and pretty, only to be messed up again by the ...