At last, it is starting to feel a little like Autumn. The mornings are cold and the days are not so hot. It’s been a crazy Autumn so far. Hot and dry. Around these parts, most people light their fires by ANZAC day (April 25) or even earlier. This year we still have not lit […]

Well, the seasons have officially changed! The sun is coming up later each day, and although it isn’t cold yet, there is a chill in the air in the morning and evening. In the garden, the vegetables are ripening quickly and although not all our crops were a success, we have more than enough fruit […]

The summer harvest has started, and I’m once again the proud owner of oversized zucchinis. Seriously, you only have to miss them in the garden for a day and suddenly you have more than you can possibly need. Zucchinis are a vegetable I can take or leave. They are great for bulking out mince, but […]

The other day, discussions started about what we should have for Christmas dinner. Obviously, my kids have the big issues to deal with! There was much dissent around the main course, though there was unanimous approval of our traditional triple chocolate and raspberry pavlova for dessert. After moving to the farm, our Chrismas lunch usually consists of cold meats […]

It’s holidays here on the farm at the moment. We love the downtime. The kids spend hours on the trampoline, or else tramping around the farm intent on doing something – I’m not too sure what. Despite the lack of rain, the weather has been nearly perfect. Holiday adventures and plans seem to make the […]

One of the things I’m loving about our farmhouse is the kitchen, and now that the weather is warming up, I’m keen to get food in from the garden and start cooking again. Unfortunately, September is a bit of a sparse month in the garden. We do have a little kale and brocolli, but not […]

One of the first things we wanted to do after we moved to the farm, was to get a few chickens. Just a few weeks after we arrived we were joined by six chickens to provide us with eggs. Five years on, we have 11 chickens and all of our original chickens have gone, save […]

When I was small my grandparents were mostly too unwell to have much to do with me, and by the time I was 14, they had all died. So I really appreciate that my children get to spend so much time with both sets of grandparents. CB’s parents are right here on the farm with […]

The kids have been wanting to have a go at making ginger beer all year. Generally, they only remember at 6.30 on Sunday night, or just before school, or some other inconvenient time. Or else they remembered at a good time, but I didn’t have the ingredients. Finally, during the last holidays, we had a […]

Do you know what I’m looking forward to at this time of year?? Salads. Lots of delicious salads. Ask me in autumn, and I will tell you that I am over tomatoes, and never want to see another cucumber again. But at this time of year, I’m craving some crunchy lettuce, and sweet tomatoes. Salads […]

We have been super excited to watch our asparagus patch finally yield us some delicious morsels. Asparagus takes several years before you can eat the stems, so when they started poking their heads out we were ready. Unfortunately, if you forget to pick them, the aspargus shoots grow very quickly and become woody. We’ve been […]

Long before CB and I had children, we used to think of possible business ideas. Things that could combine our talents, provide an income and give us time together doing something we loved. Of course, most of our ideas really were just fantasies. But it is fun to dream, so often on long drives, we […]

And just like that, it is Spring again. My goodness I’m ready for some sunshine, and a little bit of warmth in the air. And no rain. Please no more rain (for a few weeks anyway)! It seems strange that to be saying that after such a dry Summer and Autumn. There was even talk of the […]

I’m back with another kitchen hack. This time I wanted to share my little trick for rolling pastry or biscuit dough without getting flour all over kitchen. Before I had worked out this hack, I used to avoid making pastry because of the mess. Flour would always manage to be spread all over the kitchen […]

Well the sun finally poked out between the clouds on Saturday and it was glorious! When the days are relentlessly grey, and wet, and cold, you almost forget what the sun looks like. So I wandered around the farm for an hour or so and just soaked the sun up on my back. After a few […]

I always struggle to find motivation and creativity at this time of year. The short, cold days, combined with the busyness of work mean that there is not much room left in my head for new ideas. This year seems to be particularly hard going, perhaps because work is very busy, or perhaps it’s like this […]

As part of my job, I’m often cooking all sorts of things that I would never normally make at home. Usually it’s to demonstrate to my students some principle of food preparation or a particular skill that they need to know. Occasionally I will take some of my creations home for my kids, but usually […]

Well the cold weather has arrived with a vengeance around these parts. Inside, the fire is toasty warm so we keep it going all day and all night. Outside though, it is definitely heading into Winter. We’ve had such a long, mild Autumn that I had quite forgotten just how cold it can be. In […]

Our basil was super late growing this year. Earwigs ate the first lot of plants, and the second lot took a while to get going. We even ended up buying several batches of basil to cook with because we didn’t have any in the garden. At long last however, the basil plants are full of […]

During the Autumn holidays we went for a drive down to Canberra. We had a little shopping to do, and we also wanted to check out the National Arboretum, which we have driven past several times, but have not actually visited. After a morning spent in a large shopping center, the Arboretum was just what we needed. […]

There is something soothing about making bread. Kneading the dough until it is smooth and satiny – neither sticky nor dry. It is something that I do quite regularly at work with my primary students (usually to make pizzas), but not so often at home. Which is silly because, despite the recipe looking complex, making bread is […]

Growing up my parents always had a couple of passionfruit vines growing on the fence. Every summer we would be able to pick some, cut them in half, and spoon out their delicious pulp. If they were too sour, we’d add a sprinkle of sugar, and keep right on going. Passionfruit went our Christmas  pavlovas, and sometime […]

It’s a season of abundance here. The fruit trees are heavy laden, and the vegetables are ripening faster than we can pick them. We scramble each day to collect in the harvest and to store and preserve as much as possible. At the same time we try to use as much of the produce as […]

Autumn has arrived at last, and with it the Autumn harvest. Though the tomatoes have slowed down a little, the pears and apples in the orchard are ripe for picking, so there is no let up on the cooking and preserving going on in the farmhouse kitchen. The Easter long weekend proved the perfect opportunity […]