So Fresh

I thought I'd give an update on out tomato harvest and show what the rampant cherry tomato plant has produced. Hunny made a lovely veg pasta witht the sweet fruit...

I have to admit that to me they taste just like any normal shop-baught tomato... I'm not entirely sure what I expected it to taste like, but they're still marvellous! :)  So here they are:

Another special little surprise was the very first gardenia from our little gardenia tree. My mom always says that it's a special gift from my great-grandmother, because she always used to give us loads of gardenias from her old tree.

They are so beautiful and smell intense and rich. Ahhhhh!

Delicious!

So, yesterday was the 3rd day of the 2nd stretch of my holiday (confused...? so am I ;)

 

I decided that I would make us a Moroccan chicken and chickpea soup and so I Googled 3 recipes that I combined to make an awesome flavour-filled pot of steaming soup. After I bought 2 whole chickens and a few minor ingredients from the supermarket, Jenni and I ventured into our garden to harvest a few sprigs of this and that and gather an entire basket of veg fresh for the pot. Taking Jenn along of coarse makes the job take twice as long, since I have to keep rescuing my celery stalks and spinach leaves from my little helper... before all our ingredients end up with baby-dog teeth marks in them. I ended up giving her the first piece of whatever I was picking and then she would run off with the piece of bean or whatever - rather cute.

 

Mmmm mmmm, Delicious, Frikkie's favourite !

 

Back in the kitchen we had an entire basket full of spinach, parsley, celery, tarragon, marjoram, thyme and 2 chillies fresh from our own organic garden. In the photo is also a bunch of cilantro (young coriander leaves) that I'd thinned out the previous day. I was looking desperately for a few islands of salad burnet and found 3 babies from the seeds I'd sown along with the coriander, so I made some space for them to grow. I just love both the salad burnet and coriander because they will always reseed them self and you'll have some for ever if you don't pull them out (which = easy enough).

 

You shouldn't have...

No... u REALLY shouldn't have!


This morning when I got to the kitchen I discovered a gleamingly proud Sashi perched over a small gift he had brought - to say thank you for all the lovely food we provide him with. It was rather upsetting, but I had to get the camera out to try and take a snapshot of his gratitude... just some of the small ways our pets colour in our lives and get us even more late for work! Shame, it was a very cute and very small little shrew of some sort but what was worst is that it was still slightly alive! :(

 No actually the worst was that in it's fear at being pawed and dragged around the kitchen it urinated all over the floor and now the kitchen reeks of rat-pee :( :( And the poor little thing - it must have been so scared and suffering a slow death. :(


I'm not exactly a bunny-hugger (although I do admit to having hugged one once), but I just find this extremely upsetting, especially on an empty stomach! The little creature was lying there with its shiny whiskers moving up and down with exhausted, shallow breaths - it was so horrible! And I couldn't do anything to save it. I Really wish the cat would stop doing it! Or he could at least just kill his catch before dragging it into the house! :P


Jenni had another little surprise for me: a lovely pumpkin flower that she picked fresh from the vine. OK, it wasn't especially for me - but I claim all the contents of the garden as mine, so I demanded my flower back. At least her taste in organic produce is improving - pumpkin flowers beat donkey and goose manure hands down!