Pickled Zucchini and Zucchini Fritters

I made Zucchini pancake/fritters the night before and they were so yummy. See the brown paper scrunched up instead of paper towel. I do not buy paper towel as I think it is a processed good we can easily do without. Mick thought this was a novel idea but I always keep all my brown paper bags - wrapping etc and you can just scrunch up a piece to put fryed food on to soak up and drain of excess oil. I then just throw the paper into the compost bin. I do not cook a lot of fryed food but this works well when I do and looks really cool.

I made Pickled Zucchini (see homemade preservesss). I tasted this and it was so yummy and will only get better with age and the vinegar settling down. Good way to use up extra zucchini. Just add to a leafy green salad.

Can you see the possum in this photo - outside the screen door. He ate my parsley that was in a pot on the steps. Parsley will have to be grown in the covered vegetable garden.

Storm in the distance late yesterday afternoon. Lots of noise and dark clouds but hardly a drop of rain on our patch of dirt.

This is the salad we had with our dinner the other night. I have to be honest - it is no wonder it is hard to eat out anywhere else - when you make food for yourself you can make it just the way you like with just the yummy things that delight you. I am forever dissappointed when I eat out at resteraunt or cafe.

DO ONE THING DIFFERENT EACH DAY

Today I got out of bed at 6.30 and had a cuppa and then went to the local market down the road and a garage sale in town that I had heard was on. I was getting so lazy and even though this is something I liked to do I was constantly making excuses and never getting up early to go to these events. I got lots of goodies. I enjoyed the misty early morning and was home after lovely chats to people by 10.30 this morning. Because I am getting up earlier each day I am finding I am getting into the habit very quickly of being an early riser again like I used to be.

Cheers,

Wendy

My day today....

It my daughter's 21st this year in November. I am organising a Chicken and Champagne Brunch in a local parklands and then a few friends (and apparently her old Mama Bear) are going out to some fancy smancy nightclub in the city to party the night away. I am so looking forward to her 21st and I cannot put anything on here with regard to decorations or what I am doing because she reads my blog and my facebook page so I have to be careful to keep it all secret. Her instruction are to be at her brunch by 9.30am all dolled up and feeling gorgeous and be ready to greet her guests as they arrive at 10am.

It was my birthday yeasterday and this is a photos taken exactly 49 years ago to the day with my Daddy in Mt. Isa. Love my parents to bits.

I cut a pattern of a little dress my grand daughter wears and I have used some scrap material to make her a little dress. Probably wear a little coloured t shirt under it when playing out in the sun. I have posted it to her so I can see if this one fits all okay and then I can't wait to make a lot more.

I picked up this second hand top for myself for a dollar last week and it was a bit to small for me - I like things baggy. It has a zip down the front and a draw string around the waist. So I thought maybe I could cut the sleeves of and sew it into some handles and then run across the bottom to make a carry bag - maybe for the beach for my towel or something.

So this is the end result and it looks like a awesome dirty cloths bag or pj bag for in your bedroom. It can also be used as the bag I thought of at first. I have made handles and stiched bias binding around the holes but when I hung it on the hanger I just thought it was the best dirty cloths bag which is easy to wash itself and unzips right down the front to get the cloths out easy.

My daughter gave me a food dehydrator for my birthday. I have a play around with it today. Success with dried orange slices which I can use as decoration but they are very tasty as well. It is suggested that you can coat in melted chocolate but I think the peel is a bit hard - I will try a few things.

I dried mushrooms as well and these were a complete success. I only did a few and I put them into a jar in the fridge and will use them in a week or so in a stew or soup and see how they go. Great idea once I perfect the storage to take advantage of the excess produce when mushrooms are on special or the shop has a sell out of mushrooms.

I tried banana and weet potatoe as well but even though I can eat what I dried I don't think they dried out to well. I think I have to do things a bit differently.

Oh well. Of to cook some dinner.

Cheers,

Wendy