iSonto #37

This week we are thankful for the way my bag of scrap cloth from sewing projects was transformed into roads and scrap metal and countless other things! 

Elnathan was eager to travel all over the house with his suitcase filled with "clothes" and other fun inventions from scrap cloth.

 Natey's memory verse was Psalm 1, starting with "Blessed is the man who walks not in the way of the ungodly".

Mercy was all dressed up in her cape inherited from Mummy and knitted by Great Nanna. It has been very chilly! She has been giving us things and saying "here you go". Whenever she gets up and Nate is in bed she calls out "boy, boy, boy".

From garden to tummies . . . Remarkably, we are still eating our own tomatoes, ripening on our counter. We have also had lots of greens and are finishing off our potatoes.

 A book we enjoyed together was Richard Scarry's "What Do People Do All Day" which was read and re-read until we returned it to the library.

   

Encouragement, ideas and inspiration came from loving little ones, sermons from Douglas Wilson.

One funny moment was wrestling matches the two children had.

Read more...

iSonto #33

This week we are thankful for the affection between Daddy and daughter even when it comes at inconvenient times such as during fix-it attempts! Thankfully Dave did manage to fix a strip of cupboard above the dishwasher and paint the cornices in the kitchen today despite such harassment from a tiny person saying "Daddy, Hiii".

We are also grateful that Mercy now has teeth to show for her months of teething!


Elnathan was eager to eat carrots he pulled straight from the garden.

Mercy was well rugged up on Tuesday when we had a cold day. Note their waterproof play overalls that save me some washing, courtesy of delinky kids. Since then it has become unseasonably warm!

From garden to tummies . . .

Tomatoes are still coming in large numbers. Mercy calls them "nani". Tomato is a good source of Vitamin E , Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Potassium and Manganese (Self Nutrition Data).

 A book we enjoyed together was "Madeline".

One funny moment was hide and seek games which end in everyone laughing as Nate loves to play but has little idea of what he is doing.

Read more...

iSonto #31

This week we are so thankful for our new kitchen! Kitchen renovations were certainly not something we anticipated doing. I had been content for a long time with our kitchen as it was, aside from the dishes that were hard to keep up with and hurt my back to wash. In the end our drawers and cupboards were also wearing out. It came to a point where we realised keeping up with our work and managing my pain was not going to get any easier until we took the plunge.

Here is our old kitchen:

I did a lot of research, talking, and prayer to try and determine the best company to go with for our kitchen renovations, and which parts to renovate. We had to pull out all the cupboards and replace them in order to fit in a dishwasher. In the end we decided to do the whole kitchen, including the pantry, and to go with O'Brien Joinery as our renovator. We are so glad we did, and thankful to God for the whole process. There were some delays but overall great care was taken and the result is excellent.

Day 1, Monday - the whole kitchen was ripped out! Day 2 - there was a supply delay and we were waiting for them to come back, and going out a lot to keep the children out of the area! We did things that are unusual for us like visiting friends for hours and hanging out in the McDonalds play area! God's provision was evident each day and the children were so happy considering their change in routine.

 

Day 3 - cupboards arrived. When I first saw one of the drawers waiting in our garage, I was so thrilled with it and thought "this will be worth every bit of time and money we have put into it".

 

The step in pantry in the corner took a long time to fit in, meaning a delays.

Day 4, Thursday - the remaining cupboards were put in and electrical and plumbing work was completed. Look - our computer finally has a place other than the kitchen table with cords going everywhere!! We have a wonderful shelf in front of our fridge/freezer section. Nate familiarized himself with the new kitchen, rushing back and forth with containers and trying to climb into the new drawers.

 

Day 5 - plastering was completed and final doors put on. Nate runs out to the kitchen and says "we are going to have a beautiful dinner". We were busy cooking up the home grown tomatoes we had been storing in the fridge.

 

We are just starting to familiarise ourselves with the kitchen and find places for everything, but it is incredible how lovely it feels. We have heaps more cupboards and yet it feels larger! Our bench height is now 93cm which is much better for us both.


Encouragement, ideas and inspiration came from these poppies flowering in our autumn garden. I planted heaps of seeds and only got a few plants. Yet if I hadn't bothered to plant seeds there wouldn't have been anything! Another little reminder that even when we don't see much of a result, it is important to plant those physical and spiritual seeds if we want to see something beautiful one day.

 

One funny moment was on one of our many outings, Nate became a back seat driver and began to inform me "there is a car coming Mum, be careful" or "watch out Mum, there is a car coming".

Read more...

Summer crops near their end

This afternoon we were thrilled to still be harvesting some lovely heads of corn. Our staggered planting has worked well this year, giving us fresh corn for nearly two months. We ate these with guests tonight after cooking them in foil on the braii with some butter, salt and pepper. Delish!

Maybe Mercy Joy is thinking "Hmmm . . . should I start solid food?"

"What do you think?"

One of the challenges of autumn is deciding when to pull things out to make way for new crops. Today the patty pan below got pulled out, as it looked like it was coming to the end of its life. I am learning to be more ruthless.

It is always a challenge to find space for winter crops because summer plantings like squash, pumpkins, and tomatoes last well into autumn. The broccoli and beets pictured below were planted as seeds in January to replace spring crops of peas and broad beans. They will provide food in late autumn and winter.

Today we bought seedlings of parsley, coriander, celery and spinach, which we will need to find space for. I like to grow from seed, but it has been challenging this year due to lack of space in the garden and the many threats to seed pots from toddlers and chickens :)! There have been many successes (broccoli, kale, turnips, silverbeet) but some notable failures, particularly cauliflower! We are still getting heaps of tomatoes, and the vines pictured below will probably be taking up space in our garden for another month. Nate is enjoying a tomato in this picture. He is still learning to choose the red ones, a good lesson in colours!

Here is our bowl of food after wandering through the garden some more . . . chives for potato salad, our last patty pan for the braai, capsicum and radish for a green salad (and lettuce still to be picked). There are lots of tomatoes hidden away below there too - this week has been busy again working out how to use those! We have frozen some plain (peeled, diced and cooked), and others made into a sauce.

That is our garden in pictures for this week. How is your garden going? Are you nearing the end of summer/autumn crops like us or starting a fresh spring? I am so grateful to God that we can look forward to the seasons each year and the different crops they bring.

Read more...

How to use up tomatoes

Tomato is the flavour of the week here at The Drew Patch. As the piles have mounted on the bench I have often found myself thinking and praying . . . what will I do with all these tomatoes! So starting last Saturday, I will take you through some of the ideas I have come up with.

Saturday the 19th: Tomato-Basil Salad to take to a family birthday gathering. This was yummy with things, but would be too strong on its own.

Sunday: we enjoyed fried tomatoes along with zucchini and egg for breakfast, and added a few tomatoes to our baked beans for lunch.

Monday: I decided radical action was needed to address the mounting tomato piles! Fresh Tomato Sauce was the answer. Four kilos of tomato would not fit in the pan I chose, so I ended up making about 2 1/2 kg. We ate it with spiral pasta.

Tuesday: Dave loves macaroni cheese baked with tomatoes on the top, so that is what we had on Monday. Spy the tiny person keeping me company while I cooked . . .

What a pleasure it is to have tiny people around to smile up at me.Cooking can take twice as long with two bottoms to keep clean and dry at the same time, but it is worth the work!

Wednesday: We needed a break from pasta, so I decided to preserve some diced tomatoes to use in cooking later. I planned a freezer meal so I would have time to do this. I also needed a reasonably clean kitchen with a clear sink and benches. Here are all the washed tomatoes and the jars ready to go.

I used a wide variety of tomatoes:

I then diced them all (without peeling as I did not have time), and placed them in a giant saucepan that we received as a wedding gift.

Once they were cooked I heated the jars and poured them in using a soup ladle and my milk bottle funnel. I used the hot water bath method to preserve them for future use.

There was exactly the right amount for seven jars. You can also see my milk bottle funnel pictured!

Thursday: back to pasta! I used the remaining fresh tomato sauce along with some mince for lasagna, along with cherry tomatoes in a salad with lettuce, spring onion, and other garden veggies.

Friday: Pizza with lots of tomatoes . . .

Our latest fun idea is to top our homemade bases with garlic butter (made from our own garlic!) then layer on lots and lots of cherry and plum tomatoes. This picture is of our pizzas in progress. I placed lots of basil below the tomatoes.

Saturday: Dave made a delicious tomato and basil palilf, a rice dish we had not had before.

Do you have any more ideas for using up tomatoes . . . as you can see from the picture above we still have piles of them! Spy them behind the pizzas!

I plan to share this post via the Tuesday Garden Party.

Read more...

Saturday's Backyard Bounty: A glimpse of autumn

A bowl of squash and tomatoes is a glimpse of what autumn looks like for us. I had just been using the twine to tie up some of our wild tomato vines that were draped on the ground. It is hard work to keep up with those bushes, especially with a newborn, and we have not succeeded very well. Thankfully they are still producing, and whatever happens we will get more than if we had not bothered to plant at all! We have more tomato plants than ever before. This week we have used them in zucchini slice topped with thick tomato slices, roast tomato and vegetable sauce, toasted sandwiches, pasta with basil pesto and tomatoes, and just straight off the vine!

Read more...