Cherimoyas

One of our neighbours brought round a big bag of cherimoyas for us. These huge subtropical fruit are delicious. Not usually seen for sale except up here in Northland and then only in a very few green grocers.
I took the opportunity to make some ice cream (recipe no. 2) and also some sherbet from this site. Delicious.

Kumara and date loaf

This recipe was for kumara and apricot loaf but I used dates instead. Sliced and buttered, it was nice and moist, and went down well with the rest of the crew here at CTF.

1 cup mashed cooked kumara
2 cups SR flour
1 cup chopped dates
grated rind of 1 orange
1/2 cup wheat bran
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 Tbs golden syrup
1 cup warm orange juice

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Butter a 22 x 12 cm loaf tin.
Combine all dry ingredients in bowl, add golden syrup and orange juice. Stir to combine. Pour/spoon into loaf tin. Bake for around 45 mins.

Progress in the veg garden Oct 09

We've made a little progress in the veg garden. The weather has been a bit off putting for outside chores. Now have about half the potatoes planted. Varieties are Cliffs Kidney (earlies), Urenika (Maori purple skin/flesh, yam shaped) these can be either earlies, are waxy when young, or maincrop when they turn floury. I prefer them waxy. Kowiniwini, which are another Maori potato purple blotches on white skin, quite a 'knobbly' type of potato. We also have Red Rascal, Rua and Desiree to go in.

Also have planted 2 eggplants 'Long Purple' and 'Black Beauty', chillies 'Rocoto' and 'Asian Fire', some basil and mesclun, and 2 passionfruit. We're going to try red, white and black currants and see how they go for us.

G has finished planting the feijoa hedge by the citrus orchard. Most of the citrus trees are looking a bit sad as they are too exposed to the elements. Also have taken a bit of a hammering from slugs and snails.
We've been eating lots of fresh sprouting broccoli, globe artichokes and strawberries. Also some freshly dug potatoes last night for dinner, very nice.

Wet weather again

It's been pouring with rain for most of the day. Which reminded me of the few days we took up in Hokianga to get away after the loss of Lawrence.
Here are a few photos of that trip:

Our accommodation

Just kidding! This was it, a lovely old farmhouse.


And some views of the Hokianga harbour (a short way from the house):

First of the spring asparagus

Not out of our garden unfortunately, but still delicious. For dinner tonight we had lightly steamed asparagus, organic broad beans (from a kind neighbour), a handful of peas, all in a creamy white wine sauce with a little lemon zest, and some freshly made pappardelle pasta. Oh, and of course a little grated romano cheese on top.
Am now just having a little shot of Lemon Z limoncello to round off the meal - yum!