Feather your Nest Friday, 2nd December, 2022.

It is officially Christmas!   In our house December = Christmas!  Also it is Summer!  We started off with beautiful days.   On the farm Summer is actually the hardest season but it is also when so much produce comes in which is one of the best things! 

For those that followed along in  The Tuesday Afternoon Club  we have made Christmas gifts,  created, baked, grown, preserved our way through the year and we are in good shape for the season.   I did add a couple of things this week including some beautiful soaps (pink Dove, it smells so nice!) and I must credit Stephanie who posted some time ago her use of tiny little sparkly birds on soaps.   They were just divine,  I had the birds on hand for some time but finally had some paper that I thought worked with them.

What I love about making a bulk batch of gifts is having things on hand to be able to give to someone who pops in,  someone who is not on your list and maybe someone you haven't met yet.   

In the garden I picked five good sized zucchini and there are many more coming on!  I put these through the food processor and freeze dried them.  

I am so happy with this!  When I am making a tomato or spaghetti sauce I can bulk it out with a few cups of zucchini.

My freeze dried goods were building up on my table and it was time to find a good cool and dark place to store them.   I found the perfect cupboard which I first had to clear as it stored my stash of glass bottles that I save for sauces,  essences, coffee liqueur and so on.  Once I had that done I set up my freeze dried pantry. 

Mum was coming for afternoon tea so I tried a biscuit recipe as a gluten free option.  It worked so well!   Most times just substituting gluten free flour does work.   I feel often you need a bit more flour.    

There were really delicious.  This is the recipe:

Monte Carlo Biscuits.

1 cup butter softened.

1 and 1/4 cup sugar.

2 eggs.

2 1/2 cups Self raising flour (or SF Gluten free flour)

1/2 cup custard powder (I made sure it was GF also)

Beat the butter and sugar, add the eggs,  work in the flour and custard powder.  Test to see if it rolls into a ball nicely...  here I added a bit more flour.

Make into balls and press with a fork.  Bake about 15 mins.  

When cold fill with both raspberry or strawberry jam and pink icing.   Store in a tin or jar. 

Mum loved them!

I finished off two bibs for Chloe's boys.

With the warmer weather I made a big rice salad and it went with several meals.

My new chickens settled in but it is still really hard to get a good photo!  This is the best I can do:

They are Silver Spangled Hamburgs.  (Immature.)  Which I had never heard of!

Also... my Guinea Fowl are now about half grown and looking awkward!  But they will be very pretty colours.  Once they are mature and can fly the idea is they will free range full time.   They sleep high up in trees and hopefully are safe from foxes.  During the day they then live on bugs and also they are great at alerting you if there is a snake around.

The big project of the week has been Andy working on putting irrigation in the orchard.  It is at the everything is dug up and pipe laying stage. 

I have some young trees doing quite well.   This one has Apricots coming on.  Tomorrow I am going to put netting over them.

Today I made Banana Muffins as I had bananas to use up. 

Each day I pulled up some weeds and some spent veggie plants,  things that have gone to seed.   These fed the chickens and quail and cleared some spaces.  I went through my seeds and planted Thai Basil,  Zucchini, Cucumbers, Chilli and Pumpkins.  If they grow I will get a second round of everything.   The weather is warm so I will be watering these twice a day. 

From my veggie box that I was given last week I made Beetroot Pickles and they turned out really well.

My attempts to share some of Mimi's most helpful tips and recipes were met with so many difficulties!  Andy printed for me all the recipes she had shared and published and I finally got them organised into folders.   These folders have room for more and are becoming my ideas for 2023.   As I put them together I found so many things to try.    These can be found on the Facebook Group "Mimi's a tray of bliss...living a life beautiful for less" group.  They are in the files.   Lots of you had trouble finding this so I am going to gradually post links to them from Mimi's blog.  We will start with something easy, basic and very handy...  how to cook perfect fluffy rice every time (using hardly any electricity) and basic fried rice.  These two things are so economical,  stretch meals... and lead into so many other things!   You can find these here.

I have also been on a mission to print recipes I cannot do without.   Things I use all the time I keep printed and stuck inside my kitchen cupboard doors.  So I just open the cupboard above my mix master and the recipe is usually there.  But I realised I have lots I should have printed copies of.   I saw an online question the other day and someone was advising others to have all their tax information and all their photos on "the cloud" and to "declutter" actual physical copies.  As if the "cloud" will be there in ten years, thirty years...   

Mimi's blog is another.  While I hope it stays up it might not and so I am copying recipes I really always want to have.

The spare pockets are already filling with recipes I want to try,  craft ideas for 2023 and so much more.  This will make these my working folders for the new year.   I hope by January we will be ready to hit the ground running with a whole new year of things to make for our present cupboards!  

How did you build up your home this week?  I hope lots of opportunities can your way! 

I am planning some gift wrapping and card writing this weekend.  I have not decorated yet as we are having a real tree and so I leave it a little while but I want to create some Christmassy atmosphere, twinkly lights,  gifts wrapped,  cards written,  parcels posted and appreciate and take in all of the good things.   There is only one thing better than feathering your nest with your family and that is adding some glitter and sparkle to it! xxx