Where I'd quite like to be now

Pressing my face into the window and wondering what cake to buy :-)

Instead I'm contemplating a very hectic 5 days, including working all weekend  :-(

Super brownies

I made Dixiebelle's chocolate and zucchini brownies a few weeks ago. They were so good I made them again on the weekend. I made a non-gluten free version. I made one lot without raspberries, and one lot with. The with version I think wins.

I highly recommend them

Saving over $2k without even realising it

Wow. Sometimes it really does pay to pause and reflect. Over the weekend I updated my harvest tally for the  2011-12 season, and came to the staggering conclusion that even this early into the season we have grown over $2000 worth for fruit and veg!! I have weighed recorded almost everything we grow (minus what I eat in the garden , and herbs and leafy greens). On Sunday I did some online research and put per kg prices for the equivalent organic item next to everything and added it up - $2047. And that's probably a bit higher as I didn't weigh or include all the lemons and limes.

Crikey!

Now, the bulk of that - a staggering $1450 - was for the berries and currants - which have an average organic retail price of $52 per kilo  (assuming you can even get them - and I suspect the redcurrants and blackcurrants would be more as they are harder to pick)

It really is quite sobering to see how much all that produce is worth - we tend to take it for granted a bit. In  some ways it is a paper only saving - we'd never actually spend that much on berries if we had to buy them - we'd just be going without. But either way, it has been an interesting exercise.

Fruity weekend

Our peach tree has been dropping almost ripe fruit for the last week or so. Rather than waste it I decided to make a batch of chutney. I chose a recipe from the Ball complete book of home preserving - Caribbean peach chutney. It smells pretty good!

 

Our neighbours down the road as usual have too many damson plums this year - so while Jerry enjoyed a refreshing dip after a hot day, I picked 2 buckets of fruit. Today it's cooler and raining, so out with the steam juicer and to work. 1 bucket gave almost 6 litres of juice. I've used 2.4 L to make jelly (9 jars) and the rest I'll preserve in the fowlers for more cordial or jam making later in the year. I'm in the process of juicing the rest

Next week my uni course starts - so I'll be working part time, gardening and preserving the harvest part time, studying part time and looking after Jerry (full time!!). So needless to say my idea of doing the weekly independence day challenge has fallen by the wayside!! I have no aspirations to be superwoman :-). I'm already thinking of dropping back to just one subject this session to ease myself back into study. After all, the tomatoes and fruit won't wait until I have time to do bottling.

I hope you've all had a good weekend