Spring in Sydney

It's Saturday

 The sun is shining

and all around me these blooms are in full splendour.

Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are.

Another Bloomin' Birthday

It used to be that this blossom always bloomed around my birthday.

With the wacky weather of the last decade it hasn't seemed to coincide.

This year it did.

Just in time to celebrate my double nickel.

Summer produce in a drought

Even though our corn crop has been severely affected by the 2012 Cornbelt Drought

 with careful watering of our vege garden we have managed to now have some wonderful summer produce.

  

Some sweetcorn grown by our neighbours and just picked one hour before we cooked it, added to our summer meal tonight.  This specialty crop of sweet corn grown on 1/4 of an acre and looking so much better than our field corn, benefitted from 10,000 gallons of  irrigation.  

Imagine that- unheard of in Australia.  A drought with unlimited water.  

But not obviously, available for wide-sacale farming.

Still...   No water restrictions here.   

In the meantime our dinner tonight included zucchini, the just picked sweet corn and sweet peas from our garden.

Dont worry, you will see more of the tomatoes over the coming weeks/months!

Do you have any special tomato recipes for everyday meals?

Please share.

Just picked

Fresh from our garden for dinner tonight

The last of the peas, green beans and new tomatoes.

Update:

Salade Nicoise

This was our dinner.

The presentation was from the cookbook  Patricia Wells" Salad as a Meal 

She is one of our favourite cook book authors and the salad was a fresh take on this Provencal classic.

We really liked the separation of the individual components- the vegetables were individually tossed in a light lemon and oil dressing ( I added touch of garlic).

Patricia used fresh tuna, grilled- we do not have that available locally so we tried two types of Trader Joe's canned tuna- the yellow fin and solid white - both in oil.

We liked the yellow fin best- it has more solid pinker chunks as seen on the top of the plate.  It was very similar to our favourite Italian tuna which is readily available in Sydney - Sirena  

The Bandol Bastide Blanche 2011 Rose was a perfect match.

We are in a drought - but it's raining peaches!

We were catching these as they were falling around us.

Two large bowls full.

Now looking at recipes for peach jam.

First day

Woke to a beautiful sunny day after a pretty good nights sleep.  

The welcome home champagne helped!

Typically my first day back on the farm is spent thinking about all of the projects

 I want to do while I am here.  

Sad,  I know. 

 I have to keep reminding myself to relax and enjoy the moment.  

It takes a few days to shake off my citylife.

Mark just ignores my list of "honey do" projects and goes at his own steady farm pace. 

First up, a tour of his extended and impressive garden - lots of tomatoes, peas, beans, zucchinis, kale, garlic, peppers, broccoli.

The peach trees are laden, with fruit falling before we can pick it. The best crop we have ever had.

 I prepared a lemon and thyme roast chicken, which we cooked in the WFO (wood fired oven) and had with orzo, pesto and sauteed zucchini from our garden.
A salad with the first crop of cherry tomatoes.

Eaten outside, with a beautiful sunset, a nice breeze and no bugs. 

Perfect.

Too tired to take a photo of the meal - but couldn't resist this one as the sun went down.

And off to bed.