2013 PRODUCE TALLY

Well I finally have put my butt into gear and getting back onto the blogging horse after having my second son! I thought I would start off with a tally of 2013's produce. I will also be updating on my birth story, renovation goals and our upcoming 3.5 week holiday!

Artichoke 507 grams
Bay Leaf 79 grams
Beetroot 3361 grams
Bok Choy 54 grams
Broad Beans 10506 grams
Broccoli 714 grams
Cabbage 5161 grams
Capsicum 2964 grams
Carrot 383 grams
Cauliflower 4008 grams
Celery 654 grams
Chili 735 grams
Corn 201 grams
Eggs 653
Garlic 3010 grams
Kale 879 grams
Kumquat 15 grams
Leek 2631 grams
Lemon 846 grams
Lettuce 771 grams
Loquat 295 grams
Marjoram 237 grams
Marrow 30853 grams
Onion 676 grams
Parsley 3125 grams
Peas 171 grams
Pumpkin 37902 grams
Rhubarb 2052 grams
Rosemary 4 grams
Sage 502 grams
Silver Beet 11843 grams
Tarragon 443 grams
Thyme 131 grams
Tomato 60732 grams
Zucchini 25671 grams

TOTAL 653 EGGS AND 212.116 KILOGRAMS OF FOOD

one of my favorite harvests, These guys lasted for 9 months throughout winter and were super easy to grow!

NO SHOW AND A TALLY CATCH UP

Sorry I have been a no show on here! The last few weeks of pregnancy were an exhausting few, with many chores that needed to be completed before we brought our new little man home. And then when I thought I had at least a week to go, my waters broke 1 week before my due date! I will post our birth story in the coming weeks.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD JIREH SAMUEL BORN 14TH NOVEMBER AT 2:37AM WEIGHING 2980 GRAMS OR 6 POUNDS 9 OUNCES AND MEASURING 49.5CM IN LENGTH

23/9/13 - 1/12/13

64 eggs
347 grams onions
1235 grams leeks
2315 grams silverbeet
344 grams parsley
10506 grams broad beans
113 grams capsicum
11 grams thyme
295 grams loquats
507 grams artichokes
163 grams chili
2082 grams rhubarb
337 grams celery
321 grams carrots
947 grams beetroot
3010 grams garlic

TOTAL 64 EGGS AND 22.533 KILOGRAMS OF FOOD

WEEKLY HARVEST 35 & FOOD SWAP

Spring has definitely sprung! The garden has become lovely and productive. I have been able to go out everyday and pick something to include in that night's dinner. I am looking forward to summer so that we can have more variety and more volume of produce! This week I also went down to my local food swap so I could swap some of my excess greens for things that I haven't grown.

16/9/13 - 22/9/13

12 eggs
279 grams onion
1396 grams leek
161 grams sage
319 grams parsley
56 grams thyme
9 grams chili
47 grams broccoli
742 grams silverbeet

TOTAL 12 EGGS AND 3009 GRAMS OF FOOD!

To the food swap I took, parsely, sage, thyme, chili, and

yellow silverbeet.

In return I took home this lovely aloe vera plant.

This huge fig tree.

Some oranges.

A large bunch of lemon myrtle. This is an Australian native - bush tucker food. I searched high and low for some earlier this year and it was only when we were in byron bay on holiday that I found some at a little organic shop. So I am thrilled to have some in it's natural state and not pre ground. The great thing about lemon myrtle is that it has anti microbial benefits. Much like tea trea except this is edible and not just topical. 

While we were in the garden we went on a snail hunt and this is half of our bounty. Squiz had a lot of fun helping collect and squash the offenders. 

WEEKLY TALLY - NUMBER 33 & GARDEN SNAPSHOT

I have been slowly cleaning up the winter garden to make room for my spring seedlings which I will start to sow at the end of this month and early next month. It's been a slow process as it's been getting harder to bend down and stay bending down, so something that would usually only take me a couple of hours, need to be spread over a number of days 15 minutes at a time. I am hoping to keep up with the garden this summer, even with a newborn! And those homegrown veggies are going to be even more important as bubba Will starts his first foods!

2/9/13 - 8/9/13

24 eggs
509 grams silverbeet
989 grams beetroot
98 grams capsicum
31 grams carrot
11 grams chili
93 grams peas

TOTAL 24 EGGS AND 1731 GRAMS OF FOOD.

Now for a look at what my garden is doing!

I'm starting to get baby broad beans after months of flowering!

Still so many flowers!

The celery has taken off!

And the silverbeet bushes are getting larger leaves after a trimming! Excuse the massive weed!

The chili somehow continued to fruit throughout winter, even though the chilis are smaller and the leaves sad. 

WEEKLY TALLY - NUMBER 32 & GARDEN SNAPSHOT

The garden is going wild! A combination of lack of energy and lack of time is really resulting in a jungle! But with the beautiful weather Melbourne has been receiving over the last few days I have started to tame the wild, and hope to head out there after this post and clean up the rest of the beds!

26/8/13 - 1/9/13

10 eggs
14 grams chili
1 gram thyme
187 grams capsicum
1154 grams silverbeet

TOTAL 10 EGGS AND 1356 GRAMS OF FOOD

This is where my purple cauliflowers once grew, I still have some cabbages growing nicely in there, Hopefully they will be ready before the dreaded white moth appears!

I have my tomatoes in as well as some brassica. 

An overgrown bed with a lovely lime green broccoli surrounded by garlic growing nicely

The jungle! A mix of weeds and lettuces that have overgrown and gone to seed!

One of the cleared out beds.

Another overgrown bed full of garlic.

The beautiful lime green broccoli

My herb bed being taken over by parsley.

CHILI CHOCOLATE MACARON

This may very well be my last sweet treat post until bubba Will arrives! I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be continuing the rest of my pregnancy with gestational diabetes, and a glucose tolerance test in the next couple of weeks will confirm this. Everytime I eat something with sugar in it is hits me so hard that it's a battle for me to stay awake. But in saying that I will be hosting a 3rd birthday party and a BaByQ so I'm sure some sugar will sneak in, especially because I love am addicted to the white powder!

I made this for my husbands 30th last month, and it has taken me this long to post about it. I love the combination of chocolate and a surprise hit of chili in the back of the palette. The macaron shell is quite an easy one in comparison to some. Not too much technique, just getting your egg whites whipped to the right point, not too runny and not too stiff. weighing out all your ingredients and sifting them a couple of times. A correct oven temperature is paramount and making sure you turn the timer on is just about all the skill you need to make these beauties. This recipe makes approximately 35 macaroons

CHILI CHOCOLATE GANACHE

250 grams dark chocolate
2 vanilla beans split and scraped
3 cayenne chilies seeds removed
100 grams cream

Heat cream, vanilla and chili together until just before boiling. Take off heat, remove chili and add broken up chocolate and use a bar mix to blitz until smooth. Reserve for later.

MACARON

140 grams egg white
70 grams caster sugar
230 grams icing sugar
120 grams almond meal
2 grams salt
cocoa powder
smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius. Whip egg whites and sugar until stiff and then continue to whip for 2 minutes. Sift icing sugar and almond meal twice discarding any bits that do not pass through the sieve. Fold into egg white with a metal spoon in as little folds as possible aim for less than 20. Place mixture into piping bag and pipe onto trays lined with baking paper and bang the tray down on the bench a couple of times. Sprinkle half with cocoa powder and the other half with smoked paprika and let them sit for 10 minutes before baking them in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes.

ASSEMBLY

Match up the macaron shells so that both top and bottom are even sizes. Spoon or pipe in a tablespoon of the chocolate ganache and place both halves together and enjoy!

WEEKLY HARVEST - NUMBER 29

This week was quite a successful one, I had a bit of a clear out of some of my greens, as they were  getting overgrown. Hopefully they can get some more light and produce bigger leaves. I picked nearly a kilo of leaves from one silverbeet bush and it didn't even look like it had been touched! 

5/8/13 - 11/8/13

11 eggs

2616 grams silverbeet

431 grams parsley

155 grams capsicum

68 grams peas

19 grams chili

1 grams bay leaf

TOTAL 11 EGGS AND 3290 GRAMS OF FOOD!

WEEKLY TALLY - NUMBER 27

Things are slowly picking up in the garden, with a decent amount of produce being picked from the garden this week. I have decided as the beds empty that I will leave them that way, as we are due to have a baby mid to late November. I want to get my summer crop in before baby Will comes along so I don't need to worry about it heavily pregnant or with a newborn. I am hoping to have all my seedlings sown by late October, so that means I will set my seeds in mid to late September. I don't want my beds to be occupied by the time I am ready to get those seedlings in. I am surprised my chili bush is still producing. I have some flowers on it and new chilis growing. It hasn't been affected by the frost this year, as last year it lost nearly all it's leaves. I am even more surprised that the chilis are ripening on the bush, I was always under the impression that the chilis needed heat to turn red.

TALLY 22/7/13 - 28/7/13
336 grams cabbage
7 eggs
1487 grams cauliflower
21 grams chili

TOTAL 7 EGGS AND 1844 GRAMS OF FOOD

GARDEN SNAPSHOT

The garden is growing well, but as it is the middle of winter things tend to grow a lot slower. We were lucky enough to receive a load of beautiful mulch from a friend who is an arborist, so this was spread over last years load which was looking quite sad.

Our truckload of mulch

This is what the paths looked like before

And after

I love the look of fresh mulch!

Now for what's growing, the leeks are doing great!

And so is the garlic

And the herbs, and rhubarb

Hopefully the broad beans will flower soon

The celery is starting to take off and the silverbeet continues to produce well

The chili bush is still looking healthy and some chilis still on it and they are slowly turning red

The cauliflowers look like they will all be ready at the same time!

The purple sicilian variety really is so pretty!

More mulchy goodness! This took me forever to move! I did about 2/3rds by myself and then hubby helped with the last bit. I was unable to move the wheelbarrow so I loaded it up and he tipped it out for me!

The peas are doing well, but not as well as last year!

More garlic

And more silverbeet

The lettuce is still doing well

I don't think I will get sick and tired of looking at fresh mulch.