Pasties for the freezer

Today we have a respite from the very hot days we have been experiencing over the past few weeks.   There are  fires burning in three states, homes have been lost and someone has lost his life while trying to escape a fire.    I always have a bad feeling when we have hot north winds, it usually means there will be a fire somewhere in this country during summer.   My thoughts go out to the many people who have lost everything in these fires,  It would be devastating to know your home and everything you cherished were gone in a matter of minutes.     
I  decided to take advantage of the cool change and turn my oven on to do some cooking.  I have a lot of vegetables, thanks mainly due to my garden, I also had some pastry in the freezer, so I chopped the vegetables along with some leftover haricot beans and made pasties. They smelt so good as I took from the oven that I had to have one for lunch, the rest will go in the freezer.   My above fridge freezer does'nt give me room to store much besides necessities,  I've have been thinking about buying a small freezer, which would fit in my laundry and give me space to cook and freeze more.
Vegetable Pasties:
This recipe will make six large or more if you want smaller pasties
1 onion finely diced
1 potato either grated or finely chopped
1/2 carrot finely diced
1/2 cup peas
1/4 cup turnip or sweet potato finely diced
salt and pepper
chopped parsley, as little or as much as you like
4 sheets of pastry, I have used frozen flaky pastry because that is what I had in the freezer, or make your own pastry, either shortcrust or flaky
I added 1/4 cup left over haricot beans to the mix

Combine all the vegetables with the parsley, salt and pepper in a large bowl.  Lay out the sheets of pastry and using either a saucer or bowl cut circle shapes in the pastry.  Place an equal amount of filling onto the pastry. Brush around the edges with water, join edges together and pinch to seal.  Place onto a tray and piece each one with a fork, glaze with egg wash or milk.  Bake in oven 200c for 10 mins then turn the oven down to 180c for 30-35 mins. They will be golden brown and delicious, enjoy

Pickling and spices

Over the past few weeks I've been doing some pickling, bread and butter cucumber pickles, my home grown beetroot and onions.    I've just gott back into this after quite few years abscence, I used to make jams, chutneys, pickles and sauces, it feels good to be in the kitchen again.  I've been using and old recipe book by Family Circle, this has anything you may want to preserve or bottle, jams, jellies, pickles, relishes, chutney and sauces.  This book is well used and the one I always turn to.  My mum had a Vacolas bottling kit and what seemed like a thousand bottles with bands and clips, every year we spent days in the kitchen with her blanching and skinning tomatoes to bottle, to make sauce, cutting green tomatoes and vegetables for pickles and skinning fruit to preserve in jars for the winter.    Mum bought boxes of fruit that we did'nt grow in our yard,  it seemed like most of our summer holidays were holed up inside, in fact it was probably just a few days or maybe a week.    It was so good in the winter to be able to open what had been stored.   I recently asked my dad if the Vacolas unit was in the shed, to my disappointment it was'nt,  I have checked the internet and was blown away by the pricing on the new units.   The new Vacolas units are electric,  I remember mum's being a stove top unit, boy our house must have been hot in the summer with that pot cooking on the stove almost non stop.     The weather-board house I grew up in had no insulation in the roof and no air-conditioner, I do remember sleeping outside some nights until the mosquitoes buzzing around sent us back inside the house. 

Roses

My garden is making me very happy, my roses are beautiful, I planted them into pots this year but they will be planted out into a garden bed during the next stage of the  garden renovation.   I've been cutting blooms to take inside and I've given a bunch of roses and lavender to a friend for her birthday.    Just walking out to the vegetable patch to collect what I need for lunch or dinner is wonderful,  I love the fact that I don't have to drive to the shops to buy vegetables, I'm making do with what I have here.    Even my two daughters have been over to collect some vegetables, I think they are surprised that I have grown them.   When I was younger I always had a vegetable garden, but on reflection I think I gave up after the dog continually ate everything, so they may not remember.    The labrador we had used to take fruit from the trees, as well as anything she could get into, and if she could'nt get in she would eventually find a way.    This morning while drinking a smoothie, enjoying the sun and just looking around, I  felt very pleased with what I've achieved so far.   Stage three will start when the weather cools down, I have been looking through a garden book, "What plant is that" by Readers Digest and have decided what I would like to plant against the back fence, I need to enlarge the existing garden beds, which means digging out more of the lawn, I've been debating whether I actually want the lawn at all.  Oh well, plenty of time to think about that one.

Lightshades

I've said in previous blogs I have lived in this house four years.  Over this time I have been searching for light fitings for most of the rooms,  I have looked in a lot of shops and most of the fittings are too modern for me, so I just keep looking.    I do have two beautiful leadlight shades I took from the previous house, replacing them with other shades before I left.    My husbands sister made these for me so I had a sentimental reason for taking them down.   I have been meaning to have them installed here but have put it off and then forgot about them.    I recently came across the box they were stored in while taking down christmas decorations.    I asked my sons father-in-law Frank if he would install them along with Daniels help,  Daniel would have to go up into the roof cavity to secure the light fitting to a beam because of it's weight, this would be no mean feat for someone who hates spiders.    He found this a difficult job, along with the spiders there was'nt much room in the roof space to move around the heating and cooling ducting.    I'm now happy to see this beautiful light fitting up and sharing the limelight with it's mate the standard lamp.   The other shade will be next but not sure which room it will live in.

Christmas madness

Deacon with Grandma,                             Daniel painting Connor,                              Grandma with Santa

I'm feeling a little overwelmed, the first week of December is almost over and I still have so much to organise, my head is spinning with everything I want to do.   The shops are very busy, the shopping centre in my town is building an extension and a large section of the carpark is closed off, so it is a headache trying to find a carpark.   My daughter has a birthday next week and she has decided to have a bbque on Saturday night, I haven't bought a gift for her yet, what to buy her,  I asked her, and her reply was "I don't know" I thought she might of helped me a little.   The Vietnam Veterans Childrens Christmas party was last Sunday, it was a lot of fun, the magician kept us all entertained.   My son, the one who does everything and my daughter-in-laws sister, Belinda volunteered to be the face painters for the day, they did a fantastic job, the kids looked really good.  Once the magician was finished with his show the children were anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive, everyone except Deacon.   Deacon takes after his mum, she was also scared of the big man in red, all the coaxing in the world would not entice her to sit with Santa.  Deacon was playing with other children when he spotted Santa coming in the gate, he froze until he had passed by and then made a run for me where he stayed until his name was called,  Aunty Tanya picked him up to collect his gift from santa, screaming and crying while Taneesha was trying to take a photo.   Once santa was gone he settled down to eat his icecream and lollies.   This morning while Daniel and his father-in-law install two lightshades for me I have been writing Christmas cards , this always takes longer than I plan, I usually end up writing a few words in most of the cards, well the cards I send to the people I don't see very often.   This afternoon I will sort through the recipes that I am going to bake next week, some I will give as gifts and some will be for over the Christmas break.

Last craft day

Sunday was the last craft day for this year, our craft day has been succesful so I'm hoping that we will continue this next year as well.   Our theme for the day was Christmas, and everyone had something different in mind to make on the day.   I saw some cute paper decorations that I wanted to make, I remember my mum having some of these decorations when I was young, they were flat half circles, when fanned open they formed a ball.    The directions for these were simple enough, cut nine 3" circles, fold each circle in half and stack on top of each other, tie these together with cord down the middle of the stack, the idea then was to fan them apart and glue each fold a little from the top and bottom alternating as you glued them together.  I found the glue gun was the best method for this. Once complete run some glue along the edges and sprinkle with glitter. Seemed simple, well, as you know what seems simple is not always that way, it took me all day to complete just two.  Yesterday I managed to make another four, so, I was faster with each one I made.  Taneesha made lovely tags for her gifts, Tanya bought a panel to make an advent calendar, Belinda was making gifts for her sons school friends,  and Jacinta who has always been tinsel mad made a wreath for her home.   Belinda had made some yummy truffles,  as you can guess these did'nt last long.

Vegetable patch

I thought you might be interested to see how my vegetables are growing.   The carrot seeds have sprouted, the beetroot, silverbeet, and tomatoes have taken off, the capsicum is a little slow, but my brother-in-law informs me that they will grow when the soil warms more.   I have peas and beans about to climb the wire fence and cucumbers are now trailing on the ground.   While visiting my sister I noticed my brother-in-law has covered everything in his garden with mesh,  I'm thinking of doing the same thing, although I'm concerned it may prevent the bees from pollinating the tomatoe flowers,  I don't like using chemicals and hope I can go organic. I am very pleased with my little vegetable patch.