In my kitchen ~ March 2015

Gosh these monthly in my kitchen series roll around quickly!

There has been lots of preserving happening here in my kitchen, and with a new addition of a dehydrator, we are building up our store cupboard nicely.

I've been inundated with tomatoes, like more than half the country I have a guess - but isn't it just lovely.  There is just so much you can do with them, if you are stuck for ideas here's some of my favourite recipes here.  We have also had a bumper chilli crop which we have been making Mr. GW's chilli sauce and pickled hot whole chillis that he is addicted to. 

The chillis we grow are a mixture of birds eye, fire cracker, cayenne, pepper chilli and a heap of self seeded unknown varieties.

I've been making my tomato passata with a new oven roasted recipe I'll post in the coming days if you are after a quick and easy one.  

I dehydrated some of the bounty and then popped them into a jar with some extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil.  So thrilled to be able to do this as it just adds some variety to our preserving.

I used up the end of my peaches but these didn't last very long.

I was totally excited to be gifted these cute and delicious biscuits from Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella as a valentines day give away. I'm going to admit I lived up to my name sake and ate them both while no-one was home with a cup of tea and they were heavenly.  Why do things taste better when they are given to us with 'love' and when you are sneaking them? :)  I actually didn't feel guilty, I savoured every bite.  Glutton, yep!

I received a beautiful but cheeky card in the mail from a dear friend, it's on my kitchen mantal and I chuckle and feel heart warmed every time I read it.

We have been loving the La Nova anchovies in the big jar.  I did a little kitchen experiment  adding them to a potato bake.  It was sliced potatoes, a scattering of anchovies between each layer (there was 3 layers) and then cover with chicken stock and bake at 180c for 30 minutes.  Take out and then micro-plane or grate over some parmesan cheese and pop back into the oven for another 15 minutes or until nice and golden.  What a hit - Delicious!

This is a great chook book but it should be called "The spoilt chook".  Our girls have settled in so well, you can read about their arrival here.

And look what we found yesterday!!! I'm just thrilled to bits :)

So thats me for this month.  If you would like me to pop over to see  your kitchen adventures, leave me a comment :)

Ciao, Jan x

Everythings peachy

Until you have the experience of your own gardening glut, you really can't imagine how much pleasure you will get from an over abundance of your very own hand picked produce.

Our peach tree, self sown from the worm farm 7 or so years ago, has produced the most beautiful yellow peaches this year.  A big thanks must be given to Hawkie, our latest garden addition, who we have been moving around with such success, he may get a girlfriend if he keeps playing his cards right.  Not so much as a nibble from a bird on my peaches, unbelieveable! And I never used netting, just a fake easy to care for hawk with beedy eyes.

I must also admit, I'm not much of a jam eater.  I've really enjoyed making jam this summer, but I wanted to stretch my kitchen abilities and come up with some other ways to extend my haul.  I made peach leather that I'm just in love with.  I will make it a bit thicker next time and I have purchased a dehydrator that I'm patiently waiting to arrive to give it another crack.  I chose to peel the peaches like you would for tomatoes, scoring the skin and placing into simmering water for a few minutes.  If your peaches are super ripe you don't even need this step.  I also pureed them in my super bullet and froze a heap of it into ice blocks for my green smoothie addiction.  And finally, we enjoyed some mixed with proscecco for some peach bellini's - heavenly delicious!

Now to patiently await my tomato glut...

Ciao, Jan x