Gardens and Growing Stuff

[Irrev-Black]

@stylofone - Whipper-snipper: (n) An object primarily used in the breaking of plastic string and raising of blood pressure.

[Hambone]

And occasionally gardens are good for creating a place for passing magnificent things to meander through.

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This splendid chap appeared outside our bedroom window a few days before Xmas and hung around for a week.
Feral, but dazzling. It made our normally quite Bolshie brush turkeys suddenly shy and sulky. Don't blame them.

[Irrev-Black]

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One day's haul of giant birdseyes from one bush. (Peppers hybridise promiscuously!)

Tonight, health and lack of interruptions permitting, there will be some sambal oelek.

Ingredients

225g (1/2 lb.) red bird’s eye chillies or similar
1 tbsp white rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice or more rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 ½ tsp salt or to taste

Instructions

Place all of the ingredients in a pestle and mortar or food processor and grind to a paste. If using a food processor or blender you might need to add a drop of water or vinegar to make blending easier. If the paste is looking watery, just strain it out. Pour the thick paste into a clean jar that has a tight fitting lid and bring it out whenever you want a good spicy kick.

And, apart from making very sure my jars are sterile, that will do.

[Irrev-Black]

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230g of feisty little red ones.

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Just one of these limes gave enough juice for the recipe.

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My shoulders proved to be too old for the mortar and pestle biz. (Shame, because I have a nice one I use for peppercorns and the like.)

We wound up whizzing it in Herself's faithful Breville. The fumes were enough to make me cough, and I'm a veteran chillinaut.

While the finished product looks quite unlike the Yeo's or Conimex stuff I usually buy, Herself did a little shuffle round some reputable recipe sites, and she assures me it can be cooked or raw.

I look forward to test-driving the stuff when it's had a few days to fester.

And, of course, there will almost certainly be plenty of additional peppers to use when I try variations.

[Irrev-Black]

Important datum regarding that sambal oelek recipe:

225g of peppers, plus the other ingredients, is enough to neatly fill a Bonne Maman type jam jar.

[stylofone]

I just spread four months worth of compost on my as yet unplanted vegie garden. I put off finishing this project because I don't have a fence and the roos already like to lie on it. Also I am a chronic procrastinator. The roos are my inspiration because they are usually extremely relaxed, they really know how to recline impressively.

But I was forced to act on the compost front because the bin was sitting where my new tank will be, and I have to level an area by Monday when the tank will be delivered. The fence should be built soon too, and I'm thinking of a spring planting program.

[Hambone]

The cutest little pineapple flowers -

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Can become the nicest pineapples -
One I prepared earlier.

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[Irrev-Black]

2024-02-05_IMG_7088-giant-birdseyes.JPG

One day's haul of giant birdseyes from one bush. (Peppers hybridise promiscuously!)

Tonight, health and lack of interruptions permitting, there will be some sambal oelek.

Ingredients

225g (1/2 lb.) red bird’s eye chillies or similar
1 tbsp white rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice or more rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 ½ tsp salt or to taste

Instructions

Place all of the ingredients in a pestle and mortar or food processor and grind to a paste. If using a food processor or blender you might need to add a drop of water or vinegar to make blending easier. If the paste is looking watery, just strain it out. Pour the thick paste into a clean jar that has a tight fitting lid and bring it out whenever you want a good spicy kick.

And, apart from making very sure my jars are sterile, that will do.

(Schnippi Krokodil!)

That cold-process stuff is hardly distinguishable from raw peppers, though it kept nicely in the fridge.

It was hot enough to make me question the wisdom of adding more than 1/2 a teaspoon to a rice-and-dumplings feed.

As Herself suggests, a de-seeded version is in the works for very soon.

[Irrev-Black]

'Tis the season.

Chokoes with fuckin' EVERYTHING!

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[Hambone]

Ah Chokoes! or as my dear old mum used to call them, Christophines - (she grew up partly in Trinidad and that was the local name for them).
I know, I know - if you smother them in something delicious, they can be ... delicious too(?) - hmmmmmm.

However, come the famine I'll be fighting over them with a side of cobbler's peg salad.