Recipe - Tomato Relish

Well Christmas is over for another year, and we have all started to slow down after the mad rush of the past week or so. A little more rushing than usual as Miss 9 had a bit of an accident on Sunday and now has 7 stitches in her shin. The poor little thing had a 3 inch gash on her leg with about 2 inches of bone exposed! But she is hobbling around just fine now and the wound appears to be healing nicely.

If you are experiencing a glut of tomatoes right now, as we are, here is a great recipe that will use some up in a most delicious way. It is from Complete Perfect Recipes by David Herbert, one of my favourite and most used cookbooks.

Tomato Relish

Ingredients
1kg tomatoes
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 small red chillies
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup red wine vinegar (I didn't have any so I substituted white wine vinegar and it was still delicious)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon curry powder

Halve the tomatoes and remove the seeds, then roughly chop and pop into a saucepan with the remainder of the ingredients.

Bring to the boil and reduce heat and simmer for around an hour, or until it is thick and a bit jam-like, stirring occasionally. Season to taste.

Pour into sterilised jars and then store in the fridge for up to 1 month.

I usually like to let these types of recipes to sit for a week before eating to allow the flavours to develop, but the batch I made last Sunday (before Miss 9 hurt herself) is already gone!

It is lovely with leftover Xmas ham, or with cheese and crackers. Yum!

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas

For those of us celebrating, I hope you have a lovely day, filled with family and friends, good food and a glass of your favourite!

Cheers!

Makings and Made

I've been playing around in Miss 9's bedroom, moving furniture, having a big clean out, and generally having fun with the decor. Here's a little peek at what I have done:

I crocheted these lovely curtain tie backs, pattern found here.

Making a little reading nook for her. Still a few more frames to be added, I think...

But she loves her 'new' room!

Cheers!

Tomatoes

Summer is on it's way and you can definitely feel it here!

Except I wish it would rain.

Usually our spring brings lots of lovely rain and the occasional afternoon thunderstorm. But not this year. With the exception of a little rain last night, we have had almost no rain for weeks, maybe even months. Just the occasional sprinkle that doesn't even touch the ground.

So the gardens have to be watered. But under this little bit of TLC our tomatoes have flourished. These were planted just over a month ago and are now huge! It won't be long before their fruit is ripening and we have our own lovely tomatoes to eat and share with friends.

We have planted 7 varieties we bought and currently have 4 that I have grown from heirloom seeds (with a few more almost ready for transplanting). I am looking forward to seeing what comes from the heirloom ones, as they came from a mix of varieties, who knows what colour they will be!

How is your garden going? Are you getting enough rain?

Cheers

Kitchen lighting

My kitchen's lighting has been causing me much frustration for a long time, a single bulb hanging in the middle of the room, not being able to see the sink or bench properly in the evenings due to my shadow blocking out much of the light. But I have only recently decided on what I wanted to do about it after seeing these photos.

I found these lights, which I loved and still do, but at $200 each they were a little outside my budget. So, one day, wandering through Masters with Mr Homespun I stumbled upon these.

Not quite as fancy, but still giving me the same look as the expensive ones and they were less than $40 each!

And the end result (along with a few down lights):

A kitchen I can see in!!! I love it, and I love that such a huge change came with spending so little. And the new down lights are LED, so they use very little electricity and I will pick up some LED globes for the pendants next time I am out and about.

What project shall I tackle next?

Cheers

Book Week Parade

A couple of weeks ago our school held it's Book Week parade (a little late I know, since Book Week was actually in August, but since our school hasn't had a Book Week parade in the 9 years I have had kids going there I am certainly not complaining).

Can you guess what Miss 9 went as?

Pippi Longstocking of course!

So I got my first craft fix in ages, I made the tunic top, with the crossover back just like Pippi's, and since I wasn't able to find a pattern to fit Miss 9 I had to make it myself. I was so proud of myself, it is the first time I have ever made my own pattern for anything! And it's reversible!

And she was the cutest Pippi!

Cheers

PS I have also given you a sneak peak of the almost finished chicken house, I'll post details soon.

Catalina Festival 2012

During WWII there was a RAAF base very close to where Homespun headquarters is now and each year there is a festival held to celebrate the area's heritage and the grand old planes that were stationed at the base, the Catalinas.

This weekend we were thrilled to have an actual Catalina not only do a fly pass, as happened a few years ago, but actually land and allow visitors to have a close up look at the plane.  I believe this was only the second time since the base closed that a Catalina has landed here. There aren't many of the old sea planes left in the world, so the crowds came out and the traffic was backed up for 5 kilometres and many had to wait an hour to park their car! Luckily we live so close and didn't have to worry about that.

We have a local group who do fundraising and have purchased an old Catalina, but she is still in Sydney being restored. If you would like to read more about these grand old girls, please visit the Catalina Flying Memorial site.

Hope your weekend was as fun!
Cheers