The Turmeric Process

Turmeric is on my mind, burning my nostrils and throat, but oh my the end result is making my heart pound with joy.

Not sure how many of you will be interested in this post but I thought I would put it out there for people trying to figure out how to process the wonder spice turmeric. I'm sure there are other ways to do this but here is how we did it.

1. Harvesting of the turmeric and cleaning



2. Next is boiling the turmeric only for about 10 mins this locks in that most amazing vibrant colour.
   



3. Drying the turmeric. We used our food dehydrator which took about 10 hours on medium. You can skin the turmeric before drying if you like but we didn't bother as it was picked the day before so the skin was very thin and also alot of the goodness is in the skin.
   




4. Grinding. This is the most rewarding part the smell is so incredible and the colour is amazing.



5. Get cooking with your homegrown, home processed wonder spice turmeric.

Homegrown

A few things from our yard.My first ever homegrown sundried tomatoes, so proud of them.
First batch of mulberries now in the freezer waiting for more for mulberry jam

Around and about

Some findings from the garden recently, there is so much produce coming out of our patch at the moment. Here is a tiny bit of the more interesting findings.

Gatherings for dinner.

The biggest broccoli we have ever seen, photo doesn't do it justice at all.

A normal egg vs a very strange oblong streeettttccchheed egg. We have never seen one like it!

And lastly a beautiful photo to treasure of little rascally girl with her grandad. So precious.

Toy car holder & a healing tea.

I have been seeing this toy car holder around crafty blog land for a while and have been wanting to make one for my little man. So finally I got the last bout of inspiration needed from this great blog , and as a well done gift for him for really learning soo much and trying so hard at school, it awaited his arrival.

Well he just loved it. He immediately went to track down his 5 small toy cars and straight away parked them in what we call "The garage".


As i said he only has 5 cars so plenty more car parks left for future cars. I did 4 rows of 4 pockets and the bottom row has 2 large pockets for a bigger car or roads ore whatever he needs it for, i found it hard to find sweet boy car material rather than speedy racey crazy car fabric, so I finally found this material which is a bright road print.



Yay I can cross this off my mental list of things I'd love to do!

We also picked one plant of our Turmeric we have growing yummo a yummy curry was on the cards from rascally daddy, which smelt as good as it tasted. I did a bit of research online to find out how we can use this more than just drying and grinding it!

I found an unreal recipe for a Turmeric tea which is soo super dooper good for absolutely everything, here's the link to the recipe she also lists all the health benefits very interesting, it really is delicious and tastes better than CHAI TEA. Now I know that is a huge call but really it is!! You have to give it a go! You add honey and milk after it brews and yummo feel it warm & heal your body.

Rag rug take 2

So I had finished my failed 1st rag rug which is now a bowl that holds my crochet doilies.

Failed? no nothing's ever failed just altered, though I was not satisfied with just my bowl when I really wanted a rug.

So if at first you don't succeed try try again. I did and my 2nd attempt at a rag rug is actually really working.....IT"S FLAT!!!!!!!!

I am so excited that it's not curling up. I'd been googling and worked out I had been doing too bigger stitches which then cause it to go tight and curl up so I add more knots on a loop and bingo no more bowls. I may just do another bowl though I really quite like the rustic look of them.

Here's a couple photos from our day in the garden.

A legless lizard


Some yummy fennel.

And I thought I'd throw in a really yummy curry pie my rascally husband made. It was devine!

Hope everyone had a blissful weekend!!

Jars of love

Our family has grown.... we are now proud owners of Bees!

The big moment, Introducing them to their new home.

Cute little native bees. We have had such an awesome week of observing there behaviours and watching there absolutely amazing display of organisation. What busy little bees they are, I found one on one of our flowers and boy oh boy was little rascally boy excited I don't know though I think I might have been even more excited. It's such a great thing to watch my boy watch and learn so much about nature, it thrills me to my core.

I have been watching our Rosella bush flourish and produce for a couple of weeks knowing the inevitable was bound to come.

Yes the day arrived! Picking, and all that removing of flesh to find the calyx!! Aarrgh!!! I only picked half the bush so in a couple of weeks......Yep that's right.

Anyone who has made Rosella jam before willl completely understand the process of it. But you know what I really love to make it picking them with rascally girl at my side taking them out of the basket as I put them in.....Getting the seed out with my rascally boy and having our hands sting with pricks afterwards, then to stirring oh stirring the pot oh and the aroma!

You see I got there and have 7 beautiful beautiful jars of love.

Grown with love, Made with love, Eaten with love.... love love love!!!

Alright now I'm off to sew sew sew....yippee!

Homegrown Observation

I've had a day of wondering around the garden breathing in everything I can today. I thought I would share some sights of my day.

Lime tree producing extremely well as always. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do with too many limes? Besides cordial.

Rosellas ahh not long now and I'll be busy apicking and amaking some jam and maybe some cordial if we've been good. (soo much sugar though)Oh our beautiful Turmeric popping up to smile at us! Sweet sweet potato in the background.Chookies laying loads of scrumptious eggs for us all. Thankyou chookies. Our Rooster I've named Sargeant he is an amazing rooster he's so protective of his hens best we've ever had. Maybe too protective.

I just have to share what my little rascally boy just came up & said to me. Background info first he calls his granddad "Dad Dad" and Dad Dad is 84. Right now you've got that info, he walked up to me and said....

"I can't believe Dad Dad was born in the olden days and he's not dead! He's still here!"

Hahahahaha so absolutely pure and innocent. I love it!

Oh my

I've showed a couple of figs from our tree in a previous post, but this far beats that picture.

Oh a few days of neglect and holding off on picking and eating and look what we've got.

Oh my Oh my I am a lucky lady; That's rhubarb too in the background for some reason our rhubarb never goes a deep red like you see in the shops, they're still really yummy though. I love to make rhubarb crumble or rhubarb upside down cake.

Plus some beautiful roses from a friend for helping her out with some sewing of....

Yep garters garters and more garters.

She makes veils, does beading on wedding dresses and all sorts of things and had her first time at a bridal expo, so these garters were a to buy on the day thing. She just needed me to join and overlock them as her overlocker had a heart attack.

I finished my other dress for the dress shop last night. I really am slow at it I guess I find other things to do like read great blogs, wash up, clean up, iron yadda yadda yadda you get it right?

It's hard to show the true green colour it's between a flash and no flash shot.

My rascally boy is so super excited he couldn't fall asleep last night.

You see we're going on a date!

Yes just me and my special little mate. He is starting prep next week, so I wanted to do something really fun with just the two of us before this monumentous milestone occurs.

Our plans are to see Alvin and the Chipmunks -The squeakual then get a bite to eat for dinner. He was so cute yesterday he told me to stop talking about our date because he's just getting too excited!! So please stop mummy! So cute we can't wait. He's picked out his outfit and tried it on twice yesterday and once already this morning.

Ha ha I've just found the 'add another image' button when posting photos. I've been doing one at a time previously! So slow!

Natures magic

Oh the absolute beauty happening outside.....rain rain rain it's so magical.

The vege garden is lapping it up as are the fruit trees. I went for a wander around the yard while rascally boy got soaked and splashed in the big puddles. Well this is what greeted me as I walked up to the fig tree......

Nice and plump ready for me to wrap my mouth around, mmmmm so good.


I spent most of the day inside baking today getting ready for Daddy rascals first week back at work with lots of yummy treats.

Carrot cake Daddy's favouriteand cupcakes his other favourite made with love from a rascally boy and rascally mummy.
Look at the concentration!

I've also very nearly completed my 1st dress for the dress shop, I've been frustrating myself with this 1st dress I've been thinking way too hard about what I'm doing, whereas usually when I sew I just go for it and don't think. I need to get back to that otherwise these 5-6 dresses are going to take me a lifetime!!!

Reading over this post it seems the thing on mind today is FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!
I hope anyone who reads my blog doesn't mind all my food photos, you can tell I LOVE FOOD and love to cook, especially for my beautiful family.