spring goodies

Yummy goodness from the garden, spring salad of broad beans, rocket, lettuce, celery leaves, avocado and haloumi (made using this recipe).

I also absolutely had to share this great juice recipe. A couple of weeks ago I went to a "know your weeds" workshop, held by Isla Burgess. It was a great introduction to knowing what "weeds" grow around us, I have been looking at our garden with a new eye. One recipe I tried and really love is a juice made with cleavers. Cleavers is a "weed" found in almost any garden here, and it seems to grow quite prolifically as well. It is full of good minerals, especially silica (which is what makes it "sticky"). While browsing to find a good photo of it, I found this website that also explains what the health benefits are. That much goodness and free to top it all, how could I resist.

Cleavers (photo from here)

The juice itself is really refreshing and tastes a bit like watermelon. I sometimes add a dash of honey, or just drink it as it is. I even tried it in a smoothie with banana and yoghurt, and Tahi liked it.

It's very easy to prepare, just grab a good big handful, put it in a pot with a bit of water at the bottom and pound it. The water turns dark green. I pour the liquid into a jar, fill it right up with water then add honey. Try it, you won't be disappointed!

Spring

Is probably my favorite season. The garden is looking amazing, with blossoms and flowers everywhere, bees happily buzzing. Our veges seem to get a boost from it too. And the weather finally warms up!
We are all loving hanging out in our back yard, soaking in the sun as much as possible.

 I'm into new experiments at the moment. We started getting raw milk, so I decided to try and make my own cheese. I've been dying to try for ages, but I wanted to make it with fresh milk. So I made some ricotta last night. It's super easy and so much nicer when fresh. I didn't realize though it takes so much milk to make a little amount of cheese!

Mini art journal challenge: week 9

This week's prompt: "inspiration found". Hum... Tough one. I couldn't point to one thing in particular that inspires me or helps me get my little grey cells going. It's what makes art so fascination I guess. What inspires one person will seem so ordinary and irrelevant to the other. And what we make of inspiration is another thing all together!
One thing I have noticed, is that the more I think about creating and create, the more I feel inspired. It could be anything: music I hear, a walk at the beach or in the bush, a memory, someone I meet, a book I read,... Hence what can be read on my card: "everything and nothing"!

I used cut out letters from a magazine for the words "everything" and "and", and wrote the word "nothing" with a silver outliner for glass colour. The leaves were cut out of some green and white fused plastic and sewn on the card, and then three plastic buttons were sewn on top. The background is painted white and has strips of magazine glued in random horizontal lines.


On another note, we went to Morere hot pools this morning, about 50mn from Gizzy. It was raining intermittently and we saw lots of rainbows on the way, very cool! For the first time ever I could even see the bottom of one end.

The hot pools are one of our favorite spots in winter, the water is super warm (there are 2 pools, one hot and the other even hotter) and one side of the pools is open with a view of the bush. Best of all, it is hardly ever crowded.