Monday, June 15, 2009

My place

I am a retired teacher and I live in the Gold Coast hinterland. My first project on retirement was to start vegetable growing, mainly because of the convenience involved in not having to rely on supermarkets. I had to clear my small backyard of 3 massive trees that had been planted by the previous owners. The trees had caused all sorts of problems (including the destruction of the sewerage system) so had to go regardless of the vegetable gardens. The one downside of the removal of the tress was the loss of the protection they gave from the afternoon sun - however, the sun is now blocked by passionfruit vines.


The vegetables were going quite nicely until we were hit by a savage storm and everything was shredded by the winds. Despite that setback I still manage to harvest some part of our vegetables from the gardens. So at this point I am reconditioning the beds - I have a section of one of the gardens full of garlic and tomatoes are coming to an end in others (so untidy).

Cooking
Today I am experimenting with cooking an old sweet bread recipe using the breadmaker for the mixing and proving - I'll cook the bread in my bakers oven. For the past week I have been trying to avoid using the electric stove and oven. I bought a bakers oven about a month ago and hope to master it as quickly as I can.

The oven:
This is my bakers oven - it is terrific as I get to cook meals as a byproduct of my room heating. I love it.