Beware the jalapenos!

On Monday evening I cooked up a batch of apple chilli relish, using some of our jalapeno chillis that we have stacks of in the freezer.  In an attempt to make it kid-friendly, I halved the quantity of chillis that the recipe called for... but didn't count on the potency of those jalapenos.  I had a taste after it had cooked for a little while, and it nearly knocked my socks off.  So I doubled the quantity of apple.  And we've still ended up with a relish that has a decidedly large kick to it.  Definitely not kid-friendly.  I guess I'll have to try with some less potent chillis...

This is the season for

SOUP!

I made my first soup for soup season last week.  It was spicy sweet potato and chickpea soup.  Now I will need to try hard to not overload the weekly menu with soups (I find them so quick and easy).

PYO Raspberries

We got given some raspberry canes in autumn last year.  We had been wanting to grow raspberries for a while, but at $15 per plant it was going to be expensive to get enough.  Anyway, I didn't expect to get any raspberries until next summer as they only fruit on the new canes which grew the year before.  So I have been surprised that this autumn some of the canes have been fruiting!  Only a couple so it means only 6 or so raspberries are ripe at any one time, but it is nice to be able to go out and munch on a few, when fresh raspberries are no longer available at the markets.

OUCH!

I hurt my back packing the car to go camping at Easter...After living in pain for a few weeks, I finally got around to going to the physio a couple of weeks ago.  My pain/back is better than it was, but it still isn't back to normal.  As a result I'm not allowed to do any back flexion exercise/movements...so I basically can't do any lower body weights, and vege gardening is virtually a no go zone.  Any high impact exercise also increases the pain, so I currently can't run or do anything except the lowest intensity in step class.  The physio got me to do a 5min test run on the weekend to see how my back would cope...I didn't sleep much after 3am as my back was so painful and the getting ready routine this morning was also done in much pain.  The physio has peeled away the layers of pain/injury so that it now seems to be a sacro-illiac joint issue.  I've been given more stretching exercises to do for the next few days and I have to go for another 'test run' on Thursday so I can tell the physio what the pain is like when I see her on Friday!  (At this stage I'm not looking forward to that, if the pain is going to be like it is after the last 'test run')

Going out... just because!

After church today, Mel commented that it would be nice to eat outside - it was a beautiful sunny day.  The trouble was, our outdoor table was still inside from the games night on Friday, and Mel was wanting to do some stuff on it this afternoon, so we didn't have a table to sit at, so we had to go somewhere else.  So, we got fish and chips and ate down by the river instead.

Games games games...

We had a games night at our house on Friday night - we'd been meaning to do something like that for a long time, and finally got around to it.  So a game of RISK and a game of Settlers of Catan were played - lots of fun, except I won RISK.  Which meant I, as the host, was destroying our guests.  Ooops.

Canning

That's what we've spent the past couple of evenings doing.  Friend from church rent a house on a fruit orchard and we were out there for lunch on Sunday and got to pick a stack of fruit.  Mainly apples, but some pears and  feijoas too.  So we've been learning the art of canning to preserve the fruit without having to freeze it.  And it will help us have a supply of fruit over the cooler months when there isn't as much fresh fruit around.

Just re-organised my freezer

Not much in the way of unidentified objects or stuff that needed throwing out, but just tidying up so everything fits a bit more nicely and all the meat is together etc.  Now I can fit in the fundraiser pies that were delivered today!

Curry according to Dad

I cooked a decidedly yummy curry this evening, which due to lack of ingredients didn't really correspond at all to the recipe I originally looked at.  So, in the interests of possibly one day recreating this dish, here's the recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 4 bay leaves
• 6 cloves
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 1 can tomatoes
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 1/2 cup milk (because I didn't really have enough yogurt...)
• 4 chicken thigh cutlets
• a splash of salt

That's all that I remember putting in anyway!  Cook in the usual way:  fry the onion and garlic in the butter, add the spices.  Cook for a few minutes.  Brown the chicken in the spices.  Add the tomatoes, yogurt, milk, 1 cup water.  Cook for an hour or two (or if, like me, you're pressed for time, the pressure cooker works well!).  And there you have it.  Curry according to Dad.

Meatballs...

What are they?  Mine always turn out as meat triangular prisms!

Orb #4

In the past couple of years, we've gradually been getting each of the kids sleeping bags, so they could come on tramping trips with me, or so we could actually go camping again.  Originally, we had a Winnie-the-Pooh, big, not-particularly-warm (although cute) sleeping bag that was given to Ben, which is what Ben used once he'd graduated from baby sleeping bags.  Then, we got Joanna a Kathmandu Pipsqueak bag - it was cheap and good enough for summer camping in the Waikato.  When I was planning on going up to the Pinnacles with Ben last year though, we decided that something a little warmer would be good, so we bought a Kathmandu Orb for him.  Planning for our South Island holiday this year, meant Naomi would need a sleeping bag, and we decided Orb#2 for her would be appropriate - it's a warmer bag than the Pipsqueak, and we were expecting it to be quite cool at Nelson Lakes in particular.  On the way to Abel Tasman though, our roofbox got broken into, and Orb#1 was stolen.  So we bought Orb#3.  Nelson Lakes, as expected was quite cold: 2C in our tent wasn't exactly what we would consider summery weather!  Joanna slept OK, but only just.  So, we've now bought Orb#4 to replace Joanna's Pipsqueak - hopefully it will keep her warm enough for a few years to come and be suitable for more than just mid-summer in the Waikato!  Although it's unlikely to be warm enough for snow-camping... (I think that's a few years away for the kids!)