Fantastic Op Shop finds

Yesterday I had the best find for the best price ever!!! An amazing retro butlers tray. It was $3 and looked really scummy when I got it. But I have been wanting a butlers tray for years and the new price of $75 (upwards!) has seriously put me off. It has cleaned up so well it is much better condition than I thought.
This is so much better than anything I could have bought new.
Aaron has promised me breakfast in bed tomorrow with it. Hot croissant and coffee - YUM.

I also got this awesome shaped carafe. Last year I tried to alter the Lemoncello recipe I have, to use the abundance of fejoas up, and the resulting Fejoacello worked so well everyone loved it. So this year it is going into mass production and what better than to put it into awesomely shaped carafes.

Seed Collecting Time

rainbow beet, eating pea, bulb fennel, sweet pea, kurly kale

Yes it is autumn in the garden and I am either collecting the seed from the plants that I left in for that purpose (or bemoaning forgetting to leave a plant in and realising I will have to buy seed!!!), sewing green crops and generally not doing too much work but eating the harvest.

The ice cream recipe

My cousin Alison has asked for the recipe re the blog about making home made icecream. Note that this makes about 3 to 3.5 litres of ice cream.

500ml cream
8 egg whites
3/4C castor sugar
1 tsp Heilala vanilla - pure vanilla bean paste (bought at raewood fresh)
   (if you do not have this you can use 2tsp of real vanilla essence but the bean paste is way better)

Give the egg whites a beat until stiff and holding together. Slowly add the caster sugar as though you are making a meringue or pavlova.
In a seperate bowl whip the cream. Add the vanilla and beat to mix through. (if you beat the vanilla into the egg white it will affect them)

Mix the two together. Put into containers to freeze. Yes - no churning, no fussing needed and it is delicious even a few weeks later.

If you want to do a flavour just use some homemade jam. Beat 2 T of jam into the cream before putting with the egg whites and then swirl another 6-8 T jam into the finished mixture to leave a pattern and threads of the fruit. (home made raspberry jam works really well)

Fresh Strawberries - Mixed Berry Jam

As the weather is so grotty I knew that the rain would start making the Strawberries go to mush. Yes we have fresh strawberries in the garden!!! I have always grown sucessful strawberries and so far we are on our second cropping with more flowers coming on. The only problem is that my third crops never ripen as it gets too cold.

Anyway, I picked about 250g of strawberries and was stuck with what to do with that amount. We had Strawberries and Meringues just last week. So I thought that I would put together a mixed berry jam as the first lot I made in the height of the soft fruit season was all finished. Gosh it was good. I still have a lot of fruit frozen to deal with "some other time", so that time is now.

In a pot goes on low heat
250g frozen blackcurrants
250g frozen redcurrants
250g frozen blackberries
500g frozen raspberries

Put a lid on and let the fruit soften and thaw, the juices should start running. I then added
1/2c water
250g chopped fresh strawberries and brought it all to a simmer.

Into the pot goes 1400g sugar and stir until well dissolved. Let simmer for 5 minutes, add the juice of 1 lemon and let simmer for another 5 minutes (the longer cooking time is for the currants). Take it off the heat and stir for 5 minutes, leave for 5 minutes and stir for another 2-3 minutes. (What this does is ensure that the fruit evenly distributes through the jar when setting - prevents the jams where you get the fruit rising to the top)

Put into clean sterilised jars and put lids on securely.

There was a little left over that I put in the fridge. I then made a batch of raspberry jam using the same utensils - saves me washing. By the time that was done we needed to try it all. A batch of pikelets later with the taste testers declaring it scrummy!!!!

Making a recycled Eco friendly laundry bucket

Today being such ghastly weather I am tackling a pile of things that should have been done months ago.
The first on the list was getting a bucket to use for soaking clothes etc in the laundry.
This bucket is very sturdy with a metal handle which has a wooden holding piece where you pick it up. So comfortable and easy to use. It is an old 10 litre paint pail.It was covered in a cream coloured paint inside and out from the messy painters.

first...clean it up

first - put it outside in the rain. This made the outside labeling easy to come off and starting working on releasing the paint from the plastic of the bucket.

second...add water

second - put it in the laundry tub and use the grey water coming off the wash cycle of the washing machine. This lifts the paint and the last bits do with a brush. Don't forget to clear out the drain as you do this.
Third - fill the bucket with the clean water coming from the rinse cycle. Put in your soaking aid. Put  in the clothes and you have a fantastically strong laundry bucket.

third - use it.

Why is it Eco?

• No extra water was used cleaning this up to use for a new purpose.
• It has not had to go into the landfill
• I have not bought a cheap bucket from a new shop that will break the handle and perish or snap in the first few months of use.

So good for the environment and very good for my wallet.

Damaged Quince Treet

Our Quince tree always fruits so heavily that the branches bend down each year with their load. But today with the wind they could bear it no longer and we lost about 1/4 of the tree. It has also put another main branch at risk so it will have to be severely pruned this winter.
Still lots of fruit on it but I hate to see the garden damaged.

Great Secondhand Shop finds

The Duvet Cover

The down inner.

I was thrilled with what I found at an Op Shop in Rangiora today. A brand new duvet cover. I normally only do 100% cotton for bedding but this is a good brand and high thread count. I am a white freak when it comes to sheeting too!! Then a 95%down duvet. Wow - no marks, no stains and looks like it may not have been used. The inner which I have been using as a duvet for Eli since he moved to a big bed is an old feather sleeping back that I unpicked, turned a side around and made it oblong with straight sides. It has worn and I have been patching it as feather puff from nowhere. But now I wont have to!!

Trying to pretend that summer has been hot

We had a weekend away in Cust to pickup one caravan. This was the last weekend of summer and we were determind to spend it swimming at the river. It was cold. The whole time was spent with us exclaiming how warm we were!! NOT

Finally untangled

Lots of tv watching later the beautifully silky smooth angora is in knitable form. Thanks to a wool winder. My sewing machine was fixed faster than the untangling took but I have also been clearing out my craft area, a very t tough job.

Lovely food from the glasshouse

Gorgeous cheery tomatoes, crisp cucumber and spring onion. All to make souvalaki for tea. With the weird weather this year we would have had very little summer crops without our lovely glasshouse.

Winning with "Good" Magazine

I am a winner!!!!
I entered a competition with Good Magazine and I have won Annabel Langbein's newest book - Free Range in the City. I am so thrilled. They emailed me today.
I love the magazine for all it's green tips. How to recycle, reuse and lower you affect on the planet. Lots of good craft ideas too.