Making Ricotta

Matron of Husbandry over at the simple green frugal co-op posted some instructions a few days ago for making your own ricotta. It looked ridiculously easy- except for the milking your cow bit - I cheated and bought some from the store! - so with lasagne on the dinner menu last night I decided to give it a go.

I won't post the details here as the instructions in the link above are excellent. But here's a few photos to prove that it works! For those that are interested 2L of milk yielded 325g of ricotta. I used apple cider vinegar, and it required about 3 tablespoons (60ml) to get separation.

Snapshots of yesterday

Yesterday I made 11 jars of lemon jelly, and canned 4 litres of home grown tomato and courgette mix.

While I was working the welcome swallows were teaching their young where the best bugs could be found........or maybe they were just supervising my kitchen work!

I spent quite a bit of time working...

but still managed to fit in a load of washing

and I found a new recipe to try from the latest Good Food Australia mag (potato, chick pea and spinach curry). Of course I added extra chilli so Jerry wouldn't notice there was no meat!!!!!

Tonight I'm trying a chicken salad with peach salsa from the same magazine. I know it's naughty to buy them when I have so many cookbooks, but there are so many tasty things to try, and the shiny cover and glossy food pics just call to me from the newsagent ....

Yesterday's harvest basket

The tomatoes are finally ripening - yesterday we picked 4kg of a mix of amish paste, zebras, purple russians, beefsteak, red fig and tommy toe. Oh, and another 2kg of courgettes....

Of course, when you're taking photos of your harvest you need to keep an eye on your chickens...

or they will just help themselves!!!!!

Handmade heaven

When I cleared out my PO box today I found a welcome treat! My parcel of handmade soap from Kirsty at Gobblers Run. Kirsty makes the most gorgeous soaps (visit the website and look at the pics of the coffee soap, for example).

But with my dodgy skin I went for the low/no/natural fragrance options. In my lovely recycled paper goody bag (which even had my name on it!) there was

• Goats milk soap
• Goats milk soap with honey and oatmeal (smells good enough to eat!)
  
• Pure castille soap
• Shaving soap (olive oil base with french clay and shea butter)
  

Don't they look lovely?