Mashed potato topped with mushrooms in a sweet & salty sauce

I threw this together for lunch yesterday & thought it was worth sharing because it's delicious, quick, & easy, & if you already have some left-over mash it would be even quicker :0

My Dad's mash

Ingredients:

- 4 medium sized potatoes - Roughly chopped

- A fist sized chunk of pumpkin - Roughly chopped

- 1 tbs of Nuttelex

- 1 tsp of salt

- 1tsp of pepper

- Soy milk (as required)

Method:

1. Wash, peel & chop the potatoes. Peel & chop the pumpkin & put the lot into a steamer.

2. Steam until everything is very soft & easily mushed with a fork.

3. Tip out the steaming water & tip in the potato & pumpkin, to this add the salt & pepper & mash until it's as smooth as you can get it.

4. Add the Nuttelex & mash that through. Finally add a bit of soy milk for creaminess if the mix is a bit stiff/thick.

The pumpkin makes the mash yellow, but more importantly it adds flavor, & gives it a much smoother, richer consistency. My father always made mash this way, & as a kid I remember being confused the first time I saw someone else's mashed potato because it wasn't yellow.

Mushrooms with sweet & salty sauce

Ingredients:

- 6-8 medium sized Mushrooms - Cut in half & sliced

- A half dozen sticks of Asparagus

- Half a small Onion - Finely diced

- 1 small clove of Garlic - Minced

- 4 tbs of Mirin

- 1 tbs of GF Soy sauce

- Pinch of Salt & Pepper

- 2 tps of Sesame seeds

- 1 tbs of Oil for cooking

- 1 tbs of Nuttelex for cooking

Method:

1. Prep the onion & garlic, put it into your skillet/frypan & set aside. Prepare the mushrooms & asparagus, but keep separated. *To prepare asparagus snap off the ends (they will break where the woody part of the stem ends, so don't cut them!) Then chop them into 3rds. If you've got particularly thick asparagus you might want to slice them longways first so they're not too chunky...

2. Add the oil, salt, & pepper to the onion & garlic, & saute for a few minutes until slightly glassy. Add the mushrooms, Nuttelex, mirin & soy sauce & continue to saute.

3. After the sauce has reduced & thickened slightly check the flavour & adjust as required, then add the asparagus & sesame seeds & saute for a few more minutes until the asparagus has softened.

All finished~

I really enjoyed this meal & I will most definitely be making it again.

If you give it a go, I hope you like it!

Bye for now : )

Really odd long slug thing with gold stripe...

I found this thing on a piece of scrap paper today, & honestly I swear it was blue when I first saw it >_> I took it out to some dirt (cause originally I thought it was a worm) & poured a little bit of water onto it & it changed colour from blue to black with a bright gold stripe running the length of it's back, but it's belly was still blue. I'm still not 100% sure what it was, but it started moving & it left a slime trail behind it (like a slug) so I figured that must've been what it was...

Anyway here's a pic, if anyone knows if this is indeed a slug &/or what type it is, please tell me, I've never seen one before .___.

Check out how long this thing is 0___0' See why I thought it was a worm at first >_>

No antennae either ???

Yep... what a weird critter, we let it go near the fence (away from our veg)

Ja...

Instand avocado snack ::: Healthy & delicious c:

I've pulled this little trick ever since I was a kid, my Mum showed it to me & it stuck :)
So here's how to turn an avocado into a tasty hand-held snack...


1.Cut the avocado in half lengthways & twist to separate the halves.
2. In the half without the pip cut in some slits all the way around using the edge of a spoon.
3. Set the avo down & add a pinch of salt & pepper & a tiny splash of white vinegar, mirin & sesame oil *(alternatively you can use olive oil if you don't like sesame) & you can experiment & try different ingredients for your mini dressing :p
4. Swish the dressing around using the spoon & consume~


DONE, instant avocado satisfaction 'XP

Enjoy~

Amazing Gluten-Free Vegan PB & Choc-chip cookie recipe \:D/

Look at those fancy cookies.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup of Plain GF flour (I used Orgran flour)

- 3/4 cup of Brown sugar

- Vegan Dark Chocolate (approx. 47.5g) - Roughly chopped

- 3-4 tbs of Peanut butter

- Pinch of Salt

- Nuttelex (approximately 3-4 tbs, but may vary)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (338 ºF) set to fan bake. Roughly chop the chocolate & in a large mixing bowl combine it with all the other dry ingredients & give them a quick mix.

2. Add the peanut butter & mix well.

3. Add 3 tbs of Nuttelex to the cookie dough & mix thoroughly. If the dough is still crumbly add a little more & mix well until it forms a firm, shiny dough. Be careful not to add too much or the dough will become too soft & oily.

4. Place balls of the dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, flatten the balls slightly & bake for 20-22 minutes, or until golden brown.

That's it! Pretty easy considering how amazingly tasty the cookies are :)

& using the base ingredients you can add whatever ingredients you like to make your own custom cookies. I have made peanut butter + sultana, chocolate + coconut (tasted like bounty) & also brownie style cookies (I may post this recipe cause it worked out so well) Just note that you may need to adjust the base ingredients a little depending on what you add, ie. adding coconut made the mix a bit dryer, so I added a tiny bit of Soy Milky to even it out, etc.

 The mix with dry ingredients only.

 The dough ready to be baked. (It should be nice & firm)

 Rough balls before being flattened slightly.

Go enjoy some cookies!

Some good news if you love Bamboo :)

If you're like me & you think bamboo is incredibly beautiful & have always wanted some growing at your place, you might be interested to know that not all bamboo is invasive & difficult to control, as seems to be the common belief. There are 2 types of bamboo, 'running' & 'clumping' bamboo. The running variety can spread very quickly & may become extremely difficult to control, & near impossible to remove once well established 0_0 Luckily for us bamboo fanciers there is the clumping variety \[^o^]/ These bamboos (as the name suggests) only grow in a contained manner & are much easier to control, they can actually be quite challenging to propagate, which tends to result in them being a little pricey, usually upwards of $40 for a small plant. That's ok though because as many people already know bamboo is a type of grass & is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet, with certain varieties having been recorded at growing up to 1 meter in a 24 hour period [: I...
Bamboo has many uses, some varieties have edible shoots, the wood can be utilised in a huge variety of ways (& has been for centuries, especially throughout asia) it makes a beautiful, natural screen, & is very aesthetically pleasing. There are over a thousand varieties of bamboo, & they can vary greatly in size, shape, colour, foliage type, density, etc. I have been investigating varieties which are suited to my particular area (Victoria, Australia) & happily I have quite a few to choose from :) redcloudbamboo.com.au has some helpful information & photos, but I managed to find bamboogrove, which is closer for me, & they carry many of the same varieties :D
In the next couple of weeks or so I should have some lovely little bamboo plants in the garden & photos will definitely follow :p The only trouble I'm having is deciding which variety to choose, there are so many @_@'...

*Please note that these photos are NOT mine, they're all courtesy of Google images ':)


G'night all...

Best chocolate drink. EVER

If you find it, try it ;3
Also available as a single serve drink box, I go through one of those in about 30 seconds, so I was ecstatic when I found these large ones at my health food store :) Now I always have some in my fridge :p


Ja...

Progress out in the Garden - Complete with photos of course :)

So far things outside have been a little up & down, I'm sure that's not uncommon, especially for a pair of inexperienced permies like myself & Eli. However we are persisting, & we're both confident that over time we'll be successful with most (if not all) the things we're trying to grow ]: )
The main issue where we are is poor soil, it seems a little compacted, clay heavy, lacking in organic matter, has pretty average drainage, etc. The yard has been bare for many years, mostly just grass & common 'weed' species (which I have learned give clues to the issues with the soil) As a result our present aim is to improve the soil as quickly as possibly. Our main techniques so far have been compost, worm tea (not enough castings yet) & support plant species. Given that this is really our first major attempt at gardening I'm pretty pleased with how things are going.
So far the plants we've had the most success with are snow peas, potatoes, salad greens, choko & daikon. The strawberries, cabbage & onions are ok too. The carrot seeds unfortunately never made it, & the watermelon was a no show ]:( However, recently I did buy a significant number of new seeds, so adding some diversity should (hopefully) really help :)
Today I also began using Fukuoka's seed ball technique (or something similar anyway) so I'm very anxious to see whether it will be successful... only time will tell :/


Photos -->

Both the chokos are going strong. We started these by basically

burying a whole choko, & both were successful & sprouted :D

I love these squiggly vines, they remind me of the long curly cord

on those chunky old telephones <3

My father gave me some random beans, I planted a couple & both

sprouted lovely shoots, this is one, which I have planted next to

some Rosemary. They are companion plants (or so I read) so I'm

hoping they do well next to each other :)

Salads-a-plenty \:D/ & so very tasty .___.

One of the many pea shoots that have sprouted from seeds within

the pea straw covering the beds. I'm pretty much just letting them

do their thing, & I'm glad I did, they're starting to flower, & this

one caught & held some of last nights heavy rain, very beautiful!

And and and! our very first snow pea! /'XD\

Officially this is really our first vegetable (aside from lettuce)

Having grown virtually everything from seed & in soil that's not

the best, I was really excited to spot this lovely little thing :)

Here's hoping we start seeing a lot more produce very soon ^___^

I always seem to have heaps to do out in the garden, loads more seeds to sow, compost to make, photos to take, it's keeping me very busy, & I feel like I'm learning a lot by finally being hands on, up to this point most of what I know has come from books or the internet. I'm starting to understand little things that didn't quite sink in when I'd read it, & I've also gained new perspective, a lot of things I had previously considered to be annoying or useless I can now see as being the opposite 'X)
Getting outside & becoming involved in gardening using permaculture techniques has been amazing, I'm really glad I've had the opportunity to do it, & I really hope that permaculture spreads & more people get started growing food using these techniques. It's certainly making me very happy, & soon I'll have some lovely fresh vegetables to eat & share :)


Definitely time for bed!
More tomorrow,
Ja ne...

Top 3 texture packs for Minecraft :) (((+ screenshots from my games :3

Just quickly, here are my 3 current top favourite texture packs for the ever amazing Minecraft :)

1. 'Adventure Time' texture pack - This is a lower res pack, so it should run well even on a slower computer :) This is the most 'cartoony' pack I have found & the colours, pixel charm & quirky character won me over & now I use it all the time. Most of the paintings come up blank for me, but hopefully this will be fixed in a future version, other than that it's pretty much the bee's knees ;p

2. 'Sphax pure BDCraft' texture pack - Great texture pack, very smooth & clean, higher res than Adventure Time pack, but should still run well on an average computer :) All the elements in this pack are beautiful & fit together seamlessly. This is my next most used now days.

3. 'Minecraft for Kids' texture pack - This is one of the first packs I started using & I still love it, it's really only dropped down to 3rd because some parts have not been updated for 1.8 (understandably, there have been a lot of updates released) & the colours are a tad flat & uniform (I like a bit of whimsy) This pack still has my most favourite glass texture, the wool is super & the water is great too. This pack is high res & may cause some lag if you're not using a decent computer.

So there you go, that's my 2 cents on texture packs for the moment :)

Enjoy!

Ja ne :3

Sorry for the lack of activity... but here's a mayo recipe! + photos ;)

*Insert embarrassed greeting here*...
I feel kinda bad having blogged so little lately, it's been a combination of things keeping me away, but I'm pretty determined to keep up with it as best I can.
All that aside, I made mayonaise this morning, completely from scratch using fresh ingredients & it was pretty amazing :) I'm going to list the ingredients, & the approximate amounts I used, however it's another one of those 'loose' recipes that you can adjust to your liking :)
This recipe is based off miss Voodoo's mayo recipe, which can be found >>> HERE


FRESH HOMEMADE MAYONAISE


Ingredients:
- 3 egg yolks
- 6-8 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 4-8 tsp vinegar (I like my mayo a bit more vinegary, so I opted for 8)
- 1-2 tsp raw sugar
- A pinch of salt & pepper
- 1/2 a small clove of garlic
- A few sprigs of parsley (or just about any other fresh herb, dill, sage, chives, etc)
- Good quality olive oil


Method:
1. Add all ingredients except the olive oil into the blender & mix until well combined.
2. Set the blender to a low speed, remove the lid & slowly drizzle in olive oil until the mix thickens. *Be careful not to add too much or the mix with become sloppy*
3. Replace the lid & blend at a moderate speed until thick & creamy.
4. Check the flavour of the mayo & add ingredients according to your taste, briefly blend again to combine, & it's ready!


I put my batch into a mustard jar we had saved (& washed of course :p) You never know when jars are gonna come in handy! :)
The mayo was delicious, fresh, & free from any nasty or unusual additives :) It went straight onto my egg & lettuce sandwich, & it was amazing!


photos photos photos ...

The Vitamix looking a bit messy after the mayo adventure :p
T o t a l l y worth it though!

The finished product, it was the perfect amount for the jar, lucky!

My lovely breakfast :)

I picked the lettuce straight from our garden, & the eggs are from the market.

All accompanied by the super tasty Vitamix mayo! :D

What a brilliant start to the day <3

I have a bunch of backlogged ideas to write up, including a really great gluten free cookie recipe & the easy curry recipe I mentioned a while back, & I'm almost ready to post the follow-up to the washable pads I bought a few months back.
I'm off to do a few things out in the garden, & I'm going to take the camera, so expect a post later this afternoon with update about our plants so far :)


Thanks everyone!
Ja ne...

Herb Blog by Mudbrick Cottage

The Mudbrick Cottage Herb Farm is based in Queensland, here in Australia, they grow hundreds of varieties of herbs & also run a blog & classes to help teach people about the wonders of fresh herbs. They sell seedlings which they can send just about anywhere in Australia :) I came across their blog yesterday whilst searching for organic seeds, it's full of useful & amazing information about herbs & their seemingly limitless uses :) I am trying to learn as much as I can about these incredible plants, which is probably good given the number of different herb seeds I bought yesterday ^___^'
There are far more useful herbs than I ever realised, helping with everything from stomach ache, ulcers, helping with dry/damaged skin, stress, deterring pests, attracting beneficial wildlife, assisting other plants, etc,etc,etc...
So if you've ever sought a natural answer to something you need, fresh herbs could provide the answer!


& check out their blog for heaps of information & ideas for how to use fresh herbs-
Herb Cottage Blog


I'll leave you with a picture of a herb I'm particularly interested in at the moment because not only dose it have a variety of uses, but it's very pretty too :D
& it's called Borage -

Ja ne...

'Tomorrow' a beautiful documentary everyone should see...

Please watch this short documentary about Pets Haven, & the amazing work they do, whether you have any pets or not it's a valuable film to see...


Tomorrow from Visual Contact on Vimeo.

& please spread the word about Pets Haven...

petshaven.com.au

A tumbleweed rolls by, & in the distance a lone figure stands...

It's me! :D
I haven't stopped blogging, just a dry patch people, no riots necessary ':)


Quite simply I've been tied up, I'm embarrassed to admit it that it hasn't been with anything terribly important, just a lot of things all at once >_> things in the garden, some random (paid) work, *cough* minecraft *cough* & other such things.


I'm back now, & happy to say that I'm in no shortage of things to post about, actually I have a huge backlog of ideas now ^___^' videos, recipes, photos, all the usual things.


To start things off, here are a few photos from around our garden...

These are some of the only plants we have bought (& not started from seed) just a few scented & herbaceous plants to add variety & (hopefully) help keep some pests away 'X0

The smaller top bed, we put this one in near the balcony so that we could utilise the support posts to put up wire for some climbing plants like snow peas ^_____^ We have started all of these plants from seed & have used purely organic techniques, no harmful chemicals will ever be used on our garden :)

We bunched up some random rocks/pebbles to help reduce erosion from water that drips (& at time gushes) from an open spout from the gutter above.

Seeing the climbing plants gripping to the wire we set up makes me feel warm & happy <3
Go snow pea GO!

We have 2 much larger beds down the bottom, & some of the plants are doing quite well so far, including strawberries, onion, garlic, potato, etc. We are however having some issues with slugs :( To try to help remedy the imbalance we're going to allow our plants to get a bit bigger in pots before planting them out into the beds, I'm also starting to research plants which are natural deterrents to these hungry buggers so we can incorporate them into the garden. We have also started to encourage predatory animals by planting species that they like, as well as creating shelters & water sources for them, so they will hopefully move in & start making a meal of the pesky slugs 'XD Some time in the not too distant future we plan on investing in a few chooks, so maybe they will find & eat some pests too :)


Well it's getting late, & I have a super busy day tomorrow, but I hope I can post lots more very soon.


G'night all~

Addiction thy name is Minecraft >_>

About 2 weeks ago my sister introduced me to a game called Minecraft, since the day I started playing I have barely stopped @_@' It's still being developed, but it's so fun & addictive I can't stop playing... I love everything about it .___.


You can try it for free here, but it's only $20 to buy an account at the moment (once the game is complete the price will go up) There's a single player mode, but you can play online too, so you can gather up a bunch of friends & play together :)


When you begin, your first objective is to survive the night, when the sun sets bad guys come out & you will die unless you find somewhere safe to hide ':) You have about 10 minutes to figure out how to do this...
Once you get going the game is very open, gather resources, build, go fishing, go mining, explore, whatever you like ^___^


Minecraft site: minecraft.net - main website
Minecraft forum: minecraftforum.net - best resource for mostly anything minecraft
The skindex: minecraftskins.com - many many skins to download for your character
Minecraft Wiki: minecraftwiki.net - solved just about every question I've ever had regarding mc


Screenshots from my game...

Piggy be watchin me >_>

I'm using this texture pack, so my game looks different from the default ;3


& here are a few videos...
Funny spoof music vid -

Video tutorial, one way to survive your first night -
(***Contains spoilers - Don't watch this is you'd rather try to figure it out for yourself!)

Awesome (but kinda long) video of an amazing landscape someone has created -

Yep, that's the basic idea x___x

Making a compost pile : ) (((Lets see how many different words I can use for poo :p

This is our second compost pile now, the first one turned out ok, but we didn't have any manure at the time, which is pretty important to help the matter get hot enough to break down more quickly. However compost seems to be quite forgiving, even if you have no poop available, vegetable scraps still break down well too, it just takes longer & it seems to be a different process (more research & experimenting imminent...)
This time we did get out hands on some manure :D my ex bosses (who are now friends) welcomed us to gather us much horse & cow poo as we wanted & even bagged up some pigeon poop for us, how lovely ^_____^ We wandered around the paddocks scooping up droppings for a while & by the end we had 3 grain bags worth of cow, 2 of horse & the bosses gave us 3 of pigeon. We could only fill the bags 3/4 of the way (that crap's heavy 'X ) so I would estimate we left with around... 150kg of dung! yay!
We hauled it home in the back of the ute & later got started constructing the compost pile, here are progress shots-

This is the base. We used pea straw, but any kind will

do, we wanted to avoid wheat, barely etc because of

my allergies :s So step one is to lay down a good bed

of straw no less than 1meter x 1meter in size, the pile

will need to be at least 1 cubic meter when complete or

it won't break down quite right.

This is the first addition of manure, spread it evenly over
the base, but not too thick, you want to end up with much
more straw than poop otherwise the matter will break
down too quickly & become too hot & it will lose mass.
The straw also allows airflow, this is an aerobic compost-
ing method, so good airflow is very important ;)

A couple of layers later (around the middle) we added
all the vegetable scraps we had from the kitchen.
Almost anything can be added to a compost pile,
absolutely avoid things that won't break down though,
like metal, plastic, etc, but shredded paper, cardboard
& tissues along with any fruit & vegetable scraps are
ok. Teabags & eggshells are fine too (do check the
teabag for staples tho) At this stage we also added
worm tea, this is just the liquid that runs out from our
worm farm, it's a dark liquid comprised of water,
worm castings, worm pee & I don't know what else :p
This acts as an inoculant & adds important beneficial
microbes to the pile. You can also use human urine,
a old semi-rotted carcass (omg gross) or any
combination of the three.

This is near the top, I lost count of how many layers we
did, but by the end it was pretty tall : ) As mentioned
above we used horse, cow & pigeon manure in our pile,
but pretty much any droppings are ok to use, including
pig & chicken poop ;)

Laaa!~ This is the finished pile, it took us quite a while,
maybe close to an hour, maybe just over (not really sure
:p) but we did it! :D

The final step is to give the pile a good hosing, microbes

like water & it helps everything spread throughout the

straw to mix & mingle :) We hosed away at it for a few

minutes trying our best to get it wet through, but without

completely saturating then it.

We then covered it with a tarpaulin (any waterproof

cover will do) & just leave it to do it's thang.

The pile will need to be turned in 4 days & then every

second day after that for 16 -18 days, then (if all goes

well) it should be ready! The compost is ready when

everything has completely broken down & it will look

& smell like rich, beautiful soil. Really good compost is

perfect for starting seeds, adding around plants in the

garden, spreading over new garden beds, & so on : )

RainboW :p

So that was our adventure for today, we did also plant some seeds, grabbed some more supplies from the hardware store, & Eli got started building a small table for us to use when we plant seeds (squatting/kneeling gets tiresome :p)


As a final note, we learned about this composting method via a DVD called 'Permaculture Soils' by Geoff Lawton. We bought the DVD HERE, but I'm sure many online shops will be selling it :) This DVD is brilliant, it' full of all sorts of useful information about how to create your own permaculture garden (with a focus on soil obviously) I'd highly recommend it for anyone.


DVD trailer:

So if you're interested in the wonders of compost & it's functions & uses it may be worth researching a little to learn about how you can make your own special pile ^___~
Hope you all enjoyed our compost adventure & that maybe this will help/inspire people to start their own :D


Ja ne~