New Year update

Happy new year!

Seems a good time to do a garden update, which I've not been keeping up with at all.  Lots happening in the vegie beds, from left to right now filled with:

• tomatoes and zucchini
• onions and carrots (plus nasturtiums).  Chilli seedlings squeezed in.
• beans and cucumbers, pumpkins seeds just germinated.

First harvest of zucchinis, beans and cucumbers already done and eaten, tomatoes just flowering.

The apricot tree is also doing well, with lots of fruit shaping up well, but the possums have been getting into the net.  Can't work out for the life of me how they got in last night - previously there was a hole chewed in the bottom, but I blocked that up, so they must be sneaking in underneath where it's a bit loose perhaps?  It was just touching the ground and weighted down with some bits of wood around the edges.  I heard that hanging mothballs around was supposed to deter them so I scattered a few around, but can't saw it slowed them down at all. Next step is to tie the net more firmly around the trunk of the tree above the ground.  If all else fails, I'm going to pick them early and let them ripen on the windowsill. Last year they decimated the tomatoes, this year the apricots..... fat lot of good the guarddogs (ha ha ha) are doing.

Pavlova quest

I'm constantly trying to make the perfect pavlova, and maybe I'm getting closer.  No matter how many times I try though it's never absolutely right - I'm still trying to get it snowy white without too many cracks.  There's a plethora of advice out there - but maybe it's just practice makes perfect.  And forget chocolate and other variations, I just can't get seem to get both the extras plus a good rise in mine.

Today's Xmas effort is actually my second attempt - I tried to do a raspberry one first and it ended up a flat meringue pancake with dessicated raspberry jam on top (see previous paragraph).  It tasted just fine but looked terrible.

Not too bad.  But still too browned.  And its fallen quite a lot (more so than previous efforts) - I think this time I might have had the oven a little low but I was trying to avoid it browning.  Do they just photoshop the ones in mags so they all look snowy white???

So here's my recipe, which is a combination of lots of others and adjusted for my particular hardware (Ilve 90cm oven and kitchenaid mixer).

6 egg whites or 9 bantam egg whites, at room temperature 

Pinch salt

200g caster sugar

1 tsp cream of tartar or white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cornflour

Preheat oven to 180C, NOT fan forced.  Prepare a tray with a 20cm circle marked on the underside of some baking paper.

The cornflour and salt are supposed to help stabilise the meringue.  I've tried it with and without the cornflour and not sure I notice much difference, but I've not experimented with leaving the salt out.

Beat eggs whites and salt with wire whisk on speed 4 (low-medium) until soft peaks form.  This takes a while but does seem to make for better aeration (a kitchenaid tip).

Add sugar in 3rds beating at speed 6 and scraping down bowl each time.  With the last third add the vanilla, cornflour and cream of tartar.  A lot of recipes say to fold these in these (or white vinegar instead of cream of tartar) right at the end of all beating, but I find the folding deflates the meringue too much.

Turn speed up to high (10) and beat for 6 minutes.  The whole beating process takes me about 8 minutes.  The sugar should be well and truly dissolved - test by rubbing between your fingers and there should be not gritty feeling.

The meringue is now quite stiff and is really quite resistant when you try to make a mound with it.  If you over eat it, it becomes (relatively) floppy again.  I don't find the description of "glossy stiff peaks" very helpful as it's pretty glossy from about 2 minutes in as far as I can tell, and I have never noticed it losing its shine and going dull, which is supposed to be a sign of overbeating.  I used to beat it for more like 10 minutes, just by setting the timer and letting the mixer go for it, and it was only by accident that I discovered the meringue was actually a lot stiffer if I stopped earlier than that.

Mound onto your baking tray in a circle, trying to mess with it as little as possible.  I pull up the sides to make vertical ridges as that's supposed to help it keep its shape better.

Put in oven on low shelf and turn down immediately to 125C.  Bake for 90 minutes.  Leave to cool in oven for as long as possible.  I leave the door shut.

I think next time I'll revert to the temps that Stephanie Alexander uses (150 for 30 mins and then turn down to 120 for the rest) or try preheating to 150 and then turning down to 100 for baking (last time I tried this I got sugar syrup weeping, which is supposed to be a sign of undercooking).  And I need to keep experimenting with the shelf height.

Best broad beans ever

A great season for the broad beans this year:

Note sure if it was the extra compost, lots of seaweed solution or actually remembering to top them when the flowers had set this year... but we got about 800g of beans, and I reckon there's still about the same amount yet to be picked. Rose loves eating them raw, so probably there was more like 850g originally! Not sure what's going on with the second planting of peas this season - nothing seems to be germinating which is a pity as Rose loves eating them too.  Sugar snap peas are doing well, although a bit of blight is discolouring the leaves although it doesn't seem to affect the peas themselves so I've not done anything about it.  Beans are up but looking a bit chewed around the edges.  Again, unless it affects the beans themselves I probably won't bother doing anything about it.

Here's an update on all the beds.  Broadbeans as above plus a few cucumbers in the front part, onion and carrots bed doing quite well after a late start.  This year I accidentally killed off most of my onion seedlings after they got waterlogged, so I bought some shallots and red onion seedlings, well past their prime in a punnet.  They seem to be settling in ok though. Tomatoes and zucchini partially in as still waiting to harvest the garlic - also have eggplant seedlins to cram into this bed. The garlic looks pretty sad and thin, although a lot better than the pathetic crop from last year.  Not sure what the problem is - maybe they didn't get enough food to start them off. Chillies and capsicum seedlings are looking ok and will get planted out soon too into the root vegie bed, so everything will be really crowded.  I'd like to rest beds between seasons but never seem to get the chance! I built a mini greenhouse for my seedlings and cuttings, after one I saw on Gardening Australia, and it seems to working really well.  At least my correa and prosthanthera cuttings haven't died yet - not sure why I have such trouble with them as I thought being tough plants they should strike reasonably easily. I'll try to post something about that sometime.

The chickens are a happy little flock now that Caramel has been cured of being broody - a week in chicken prison (aka dog cage) seemed to do the trick.

Egg skelter

Here's my latest egg toy: the egg skelter.  No more stacking cartons in the fridge as the oldest eggs are always at the bottom, to be used next, while new ones go straight in at the top!  Brilliant! (Had to buy this straight from the manufacturer in Devon, England but still worth it in my opinion).

The Cosy Coupe Makeover, part II

Ok, started this ages ago, took quite a while to finish due to travel, lots of layers of paint, weather, toddler being much more active....

Step 3: Sand and paint (after constructing painting bay) - took 2 cans of pain to do 3(ish) coats

Step 4: Re-assemble

Step 5: Mask and spray on racing stripes (had to touch up the red again after doing the stripes due some spots of not very good masking)

Step 6: Re-assemble steering wheel, add new key and petrol cap (bought from Little Tikes supplier in Oz)

DONE!

Chocolate and caramel eggs

Not Easter yet, just the first egg from the new chooks.  Guess which one is from the young 'un?

Chocolate and Caramel

Meet the newest members of the family:

Chocolate and Carmel are gold laced Wyandotte bantams - so pretty!  About 7 months old.

Had to reinstate the old coop and fence off half the new run as a quarantine area. Lots of concerned clucking from Henny, Penny and Jenny.  I'm sure they'll all get used to one another eventually.