Dog friendly camping at Maleny Showgrounds

Ah Maleny! What a beautiful part of the world. We just spent a few days camping with the poodle at the Maleny showgrounds, which is only about a 10 minute walk from the town centre.

We set up our little camp site and headed into town and bought lovely produce and I found this gorgeous bunch of home grown roses at the nursery in the middle of town.

I had recently added these jaunty cutlery pieces to our camping kit and they gave us lots of pleasure to  use.

Here's our little gazebo set up. We were set up right on the bank of the Obi Obi Creek which was flowing beautifully.

There is a wonderful rain forest walk at the end of the showgrounds, which leads you all the way to the bottom end of the township. Our favourite places to shop in Maleny are the Organic co-op, the IGA with its lovely timber floor, great stock and old fashioned service and Rosetta Books, and our best places for coffee are Monicas and Colin James.

Parsley, Sage and Oregano

This evening, I was looking for some inspiration from the herb garden and picked this perky handful of parsley, sage and oregano. I was looking for a recipe to use about 800 grams of chicken tenderloins. Here's what we did with it:

I roughly chopped the oregano and sage and mixed it with the grated rind of a lemon, two crushed cloves of garlic, a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I tossed the chicken tenderloins in this delicious mixture and let it sit for a few minutes whilst I prepared some vegetables to steam.

I took a large fry pan, heated some olive oil and browned a handful of flaked almonds and set them aside. I then fried the marinated tenderloins for a few minutes on each side till they were crispy on the outside yet still succulent inside.

Just before lifting them out of the pan, I poured in a dash of vegetable stock (water would do) and the pan deglazed its delicious garlicky coating back onto the chicken. This only took a few moments.

I served the chicken with a side of steamed vegetables and drizzled the chicken with a dressing made from the chopped parsley, a crushed clove of garlic, the juice of a lemon and a tablespoon of olive oil.

It worked out beautifully and we will definitely cook this again.

Chilli Harvest

Summer is drawing to a close, and we don't have much to pick in the garden at the moment, but we just harvested these chillies. What a beautiful array of God's colour they are. What a delight to have them on the bench to look at until we are ready to cook with them.

Cornflowers at Christmas

I love that scene in the movie Room with a View when the two gentlemen adorn the two lovely old ladies with cornflowers. Here are some cornflowers that I grew this summer and used on our Christmas table.

We just had my Mum and Dad for lunch so here's our very simple outdoor table setting for the four of us. We had roast lamb, potato bake and home grown vegetables followed by meringues with fruit salad.

Cooking from the garden

Here are some things we picked from the garden this afternoon. We've got loads of basil and beans, and we picked a little zucchini, some young lemongrass and a Kaffir lime leaf. I had some chillies that we had grown and dried and I have just bought some organic, Australian garlic from the organic shop.

So, what to cook to use all of this in one dish... we love Thai, but because of Simon's food intolerances we can't use any bottled sauces.

I had 500g of chicken mince, so here's what I did:

• Heat some olive oil in a large frypan
• Stir fry the beans and zucchini for a couple of minutes, then remove from pan and set aside
• Stir fry the crushed garlic, chopped chillies, lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaf and some grated ginger and chopped shallots for about 20 seconds
• Add the chicken mince and stir fry until cooked through
• Return the vegetables to the pan with the juice of a lime
• Add the big bunch of shredded basil and stir through until the basil wilts
• Serve with jasmine rice, a spoonfull of natural yoghurt and sliced cucumber
It was very tasty and a good use of the produce from the garden. This amount served the two of us with a little left over for lunch tomorrow.

Off to Beatrix Potter's House

Beatrix Potter was the most wonderful, inspirational author, illustrator and devotee of nature, and I admire her greatly. We are hoping to travel to the UK this coming year, and one very special thing that I would like to do is to visit the area she loved so much, near Lake Windermere in the Lake District, and go to see Hilltop, one of her farms. I have been reading about Buckle Yeat, a guest house that is nearby to Hilltop. Buckle Yeat is featured in some of her illustrations and I think it would be delightful to stay there as it still runs as a guest house today. I wonder if anyone has stayed there or has suggestions for our time whilst in that area.

Summer Tomatoes

We've been growing cherry tomatoes, and here is some of our first crop for the summer. It is such a lovely thing to pick something that has grown in your own garden. Such a simple thing, but it just brings so much pleasure.