Australian Atheists Forum

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

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

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.

230g of feisty little red ones.

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

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.

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.

The cutest little pineapple flowers - Can become the nicest pineapples -
One I prepared earlier.

Irrev-Black wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 2:11 pm 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.

'Tis the season.

Chokoes with fuckin' EVERYTHING!

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.