Friday Feelings

Friday is…….A quiet moment with your favorite uncle, just being together, eating frozen strawberries & watching the sunset. 

…… washing the organic lettuce under the outside tap so the grubs don't come end up in mummy's kitchen.

….. laying on the lounge cuddled up in the very first blanket mummy knitted. Its ‘The Daddy Mans blankie’ which makes it very sought after by the little people when they are feeling sick.

…… finding this peach tree riddled with fruit fly wrigglers.

 

How is your Friday Feeling?…..

My plentiful garden

Today was our first silverbeet harvest. Our garden has provided my kitchen with its first real sign that it will indeed be plentiful . The bounty was luscious & green & oh so crispy, I have been waiting and watching it grow, considering which dish would best fit such high expectations. Cheese & Feta filo pastries, or gently steamed with a nob of butter and little soy sauce. On a hot baked spud with sour cream & coleslaw. Undecided I let the small people decide and of cause they asked for 'Silverbeet & Cheese Cannelloni.' This is the meal EVERYONE in this house asks for on their birthday, this is the meal that comes out at Christmas, Easter, & Anniversaries. This is vegetarian decadence at its best, there is nothing low fat or healthy about this meal, except for the silverbeet itself. A tray of cannelloni is totally devoured by the 5 of us in one night with maybe two pieces left for the daddy mans lunch the next day. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family has for the last 14 years.

A Swelshed Recipe for Silverbeet & Cheese Cannelloni

2 Packets of cannelloni tubes although this recipe is for 1 1/2 packets cause that's what fits in my tray

Sauce

1 onion chopped

oil
1 red capsicum

dried basil

dried thyme

tbsp sugar
tsp salt

1 jar of tomato sauce (homemade or plain pasta sauce)

1 satchel of tomato paste

1 tbsp white vinegar

about 1/2 cup water

Cannelloni Filling
2 bunches of silverbeet

1 tub of cottage cheese

dried oregano

salt

sugar

nutmeg

black pepper

Topping

1 tub cream cheese

1cup grated cheese

Note: all the ingredients are to taste, I guess they would be around 1/2 - 1tsp each

chop onions, saute in oil, add chopped capsicum (I like to do onions & capsicum in the food processor, it makes a finer sauce) stir until onion turns clear. Add seasonings, jar of tomatoes tomato paste, vinegar and water. Boil then reduce heat while you make the filling.
Steam silverbeet until just softened, then drain really well. Chop spinach add cottage cheese and add remaining filling ingredients. Stuff cannelloni (this is really messy so just use your hands, or your kids hands if they are helping) Don't put too much filling in cause the tubes break. Arrange them in an oven tray or casserole dish, pour sauce over the top and spread evenly. soften cream cheese and spread over the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese and bake for around 30 - 40 Min's or until the pasta is soft. Serve with salad or veggies.
This entire salad came from the backyard as well, we are well on our way to making a complete meal from our garden.

Australia's Most Wanted

The 'Phantom Scribbler' is living among us. She seems to strike just as I sink into my lounge chair for a coffee and her weapon of choice is a bright yellow highlighter.
This is the wall in my hallway & although I love her interpretation of the sun rising over the blue & pink hills, I think this type of art work is best represented on a blank piece of paper and hung on the walls..... She appears to disagree.
I have scrubbed this particular wall clean at least five times only to find a similar, yet more involved, piece the next time I walk by. It is because of this that I have decided to live in harmony with my little 'Phantom Scribbler'. I no longer scrub the walls clean and she no longer steals the bright yellow highlighter from my office desk. Besides bare wall's are meant to be scribbled on...... aren't they?

The First & Last Harvest

I have had a mulberry tree in every house Ive ever lived in and strangely enough this is the first time I have made mulberry pie.

Traditions hold powerful emotions & the Mulberry tree tradition is just as powerful as any other. All five of us stand at the base of the tree and eat mulberries straight off the branch. We did this everyday until one of two things happened.... the tree stopped producing .... or the wrigglers entered the fruit.

This year our tree had berrie's along time before our first sighting of fruit fly so with basket in hand I dared to break tradition & create a desert.

I snuck out every morning to pick berries from the tree to hide in a container in the freezer. It took 5 days of picking & 5 afternoons of tears when again there were no berries on the tree, but I finally had the 420 grams of Mulberries I needed for the pie.

My Nanna Smith's Mulberry Pie

420 grams Mulberries

2/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all purpose white flour

double crust pastry

Drain berries in a sieve

Preheat oven about 200 in fan forced

Heat sugar, flour & juice drained from the berries until thick

Put into bottom of pie crust

Lattice the top of the pie

Rest in refrigerator for half hour

Bake until golden

Serve with cream or ice cream.... or both

Verdict: They LURVED IT!!!

Stealing the bounty

stealing the bounty, originally uploaded by The Swelsh's.

It doesnt get any better than this. Fresh organic snow pea's, picked straight from the vine,right outside your door. If only she could wait for the tomatoes to ripen...... My beautiful babe ......