Lemons Galore, and the Water Rush

Here's a bucket of Lemons! gifted by my friend, Stacey.  She was trimming her tree, and this is only a small portion of what came off it. I won't even mention what she left on it, gazillions of lemons still.

Apart from all the usual suspects, I am also going to try a few new things. I heard about peeling the skins and dehydrating them, then blitzing in the blender, to make lemon powder. I reckon that could be pretty good for popping into muffins, cupcakes and drinks.  Maybe even the odd salad dressing.

Some will be juiced and frozen into cubes.

Hopefully none will rot on the bench (generally happens when I run out of puff at the bottom of a glut).

We are having the best Spring we've ever had at our house.  No drought here.  It has rained every week, and we've had the odd major drenching. Combine that with many fine, warm days and you have the perfect recipe for a great garden.

The vege patch is going mad with asparagus and the raspberries are fruiting up nicely.

Water has always been a major headache at our place. If you've read my blog posts before you might know this. We run out. We save washing machine water, shower water, sink water and more. Some years we've only just made it through without everything dying. Well...big revelation! there was a blockage, probably a stone, in our intake pipe.  I won't bore you with how this happened, suffice to say, it's been like that since we built our house 6 years ago. DANG. Double DANG. Turns out there's also been a slow leak under our concrete (cue big hole now cut out), which has been a contributing factor.

Roll on better, watery years!

Stocking the Shelves with risotto

It is late Winter, and not a lot happening in the gardening but net mending, digging over and putting on compost.

So I have been stocking my shelves.

First I made French Soup and pressure canned it.

Then I made 11 packets of risotto.  The packet risotto is a family favourite for whipping up on lazy Saturday afternoons. Or as an easy side dish on nights when it's hard to russtle up something more exotic.

Here's how to make it.

Into a jar or self sealing bag (I vacuum packed mine) put:
1/2c Orzo  (pasta in rice shape)
1.5c White Rice
1 crumbled oxo cube in your flavour choice
1t garlic powder (not garlic salt)
1t dried parsley
1t dried chives

If you had dried onion flakes or a packet of dried mixed vegetables these would go in well.

Mix the whole lot together and write instructions on the outside.  "Brown in 1T butter, add 4c water, simmer 15mins).

I made 8 Beef and 3 chicken. 

For my 11 finished packets I used 2 packets of Orzo pasta.

Orzo pasta 500g was $2.39 per packet.  I didnt have dried parsley or chives, but bought it. I now know to make some during the summer!  I bought WW garlic powder which was $2.00 and I used half of the jar.

It works out at $12.30c for the 11 packets, or $1.12 per EACH.