In My Kitchen June 2013

It’s that time of the month again! Come round, gather up and take another sneaky peak into my kitchen, courtesy of Celia, the wonderful creator of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

So what’s In My Kitchen this month?

My new bench top compost bin!

My daughter gave me a proper rotatable compost bin for Mothers Day and I was stoked! When I told some of my workmates what I received, they looked at me with sad eyes and asked if I was disappointed. Ha!! Best present ever!!

Since moving from an apartment to a house with a wonderful pizza shaped backyard, I’ve become so conscious of sustainability and being environmentally green. My veggie patch is thriving and continues to feed us. We would like to return the favour by keeping our food scraps and returning the favour. This little compact bin sits next to my sink, collects the peels, skins and off cuts of vegetables, fruits and egg shells and then gets tossed into my mother of a compost bin that sits outdoors under the sun, brewing happily away.

In My Kitchen: is a beautiful arrangement of Camellia flowers from my front yard.

Our front and backyard has quite the collection of mature and established Camellia tree’s, many well over 30 years old. They continue to flower throughout Autumn and Winter and I love displaying the cut flowers throughout my house.

In My Kitchen: is this terribly embarrassing apron

A gift from my Kitchen Tea party 6 years ago. I suppose it’s something I was suppose to wear for my husband when I cook him dinner!! Ha!! I wear it every now and again, purely to entertain myself for a laugh.

In My Kitchen: is a jar of green cherry tomatoes, pickling away

My Mother and I recently visited a local Community Garden and the Tomato bushes had an abundance of green tomatoes. We were encouraged to pick as many as we wished, so we did just that and turned them into pickles. They have another 2 weeks of storing before we can open the jar and give them a taste.

Growing up, my Mumma would always have plenty of jars of pickles in the laundry. The laundry was often the darkest and coolest room in the house and the perfect place to hide the pickles. I say hide, because my Dad and I would often sneak around the house in search of pickles, find them and open the jars, well before they were ready to drink the pickling liquid, vinegar and all…Yes, we’re weird!

Also In My Kitchen is a large bowl of home-grown West Indian Lime and Mandarins.

Mr Wog is a horticulturist, a nursery purchaser and a handy landscaper. Do we have the Garden from Eden? NOOOOOOO! Plumbers have pipes at home that leak, Electricians have light globes at home that need replacing, and we have a weed infested backyard. Well, most of it anyways! I have a wonderful veggie patch in one corner that is most happy and thriving, but the rest of the yard is what he calls ‘A work in progress’

So anyway, Mr Wog quite often does garden consultations around Sydney, primarily the Northern Beaches and he comes across some of the most beautiful waterfront gardens. One client he was visiting had an overgrown West Indian Lime and Mandarin tree, with fruit completely overtaking the leaves. He was welcome to forage the trees and brought home these beauties. I love that there are blemishes, I love that the skin and peel are not perfect, I love that these are not ‘seedless’ and I love that these taste real. By real, I mean when you cut the fruit, the zing from the citrus squirts and fills up the room with its freshness.

I can’t wait till our citrus trees properly fruit in our own backyard.

Hope you enjoyed this instalment of IMK, they’re always the post I look forward to the most! Read my previous entries here xx