How to make 'Bickford's' Style Lime Cordial

On the weekend I decided to make some lime juice cordial with the excess of limes from my tree. I followed Matt Preston's Lime Cordial recipe (with half the amount of sugar) and was pleasantly surprised at the result. I have been having a dash with soda water and it tastes so much like Bickford's lime cordial that I'm sure it would make a great lemon, lime and bitters. The best thing...1.5 litres cost me less than $1!

This is a recent shot of my lime tree which is fully laden with limes at all different stages, so it will be productive for the next few months. That's a lot of cordial!

INGREDIENTS

10 limes

4 cups water

3 cups sugar

2 tsp citric acid

1 tbsp tartaric acid

METHOD

Using a potato peeler, peel long strips of the zest off five limes.

Juice all of the limes.

Add the lime zest to the water in a saucepan, and bring to boil. 

Pour in sugar and powders and boil for 3 minutes.

Remove from heat and pour in the lime juice,  ideally through a sieve so your cordial does not become cloudy.

Bring the cordial back to the boil and gently simmer for two minutes.

Remove from heat, and when cool, funnel into sterilised bottles. Matt suggested Johnnie Walker bottles to keep with tradition, but I had a couple of Grants scotch bottles I kept for the shape, and they do the job just perfectly (I boiled them in a pan of water to sterilise).

So, there you have it. A really easy recipe that can be used with any type of citrus. So, if you don't have a lime tree, or oranges are on special, now you know what you can make.

Any more suggestions for lime recipes? I can see I am going to need a few more ideas :)

Simple Living Sunday 21

Well, let's just pretend it is still Sunday...where did it go? We are having another heatwave here in Gympie so I did not get all the planting done that I wanted to do on Saturday. I am hoping it will cool down for this weekend where I have two full days at home and my boys are away at their Army Cadets training camp. Fingers crossed. Oh...and the eggs are not mine, they were given to me and are farm-fresh so I thought they would fill out the basket nicely :)

Despite the lack of water the limes are going crazy and I am collecting a dozen or so a week.

The lemons are almost there too. Just waiting to ripen. It has taken a long time to recover from last years flood.

I am hoping this will turn into another big pumpkin. I am pollinating like crazy with little success...

...most of them end up looking like this.

I am amazed that this squash just keeps on going. I have not tended to it for ages.

My newly planted seeds in the water tank garden.

A surprise find under the gum trees. My daughter Lauren planted her own garden when she was little with cuttings from her Nan's garden. I'm sure Valerie would be smiling from heaven to see this hibiscus bloom.

Out of focus but it's a cicada shell on my passionfruit. Wonder if that's why I have no flowers?

The aloe vera are looking very healthy.

The side garden which needs to be prepared for Autumn planting.

Pity it's the wrong season for Rockmelon. These two have popped up from a few seeds my husband left in a pot.

I decided to use some of my homemade yoghurt to make greek yoghurt - something I had not tried yet.

You just let it strain through cheesecloth for about two hours in the fridge.

And the result was just devine. Beautiful creamy yoghurt. I will be doing this with all my yoghurt now. It's also less sour than the natural yoghurt.

I bottled up some bircher muesli to have during the week. Old coffee jars are great for this, to avoid spillage in the fridge.

With all the limes I collected I decided to make lime juice cordial....and it tastes just like Bickfords! Will post the recipe later this week.

Finally, a beautiful card posted by a beautiful lady - Eva from The Multitasking Mummy. It certainly did brighten my day!! Thanks :)

So, now for another huge week at work. Bring on the weekend!!

A line in the sand

Image Source

Have you ever reached that stage in your working life where you just snap, stamp your feet and shout "That's it?"

That's what I did at 3am this morning, after waking up stressing about things I had not completed yet. I drew a line in the sand, a decisional line which I will not cross over. I need to do this, before I really do snap and explode, which I feel I am on the verge of...either that or finding a corner in which to bury my head and cry (and that is so far out of character for me, that it's comical).

At times I love my job, but I cannot handle the volume of it at the moment. I am a conveyancer for a law practice, which means I handle the legal transaction in the buying and selling of houses. What used to be a relatively straightforward process has now become a nightmare, as banks outsource their business to external companies. These companies, or settlement agents, don't care if it settles on time...even though they work and are paid for by their bank. They have a job to do. So we are constantly pushing and shoving to try and get a transaction through on time, while people are waiting with their removalist trucks ready to move in. Sucks when you are the bearer of bad news, especially when it is out of your control. It never used to stress me out, but I am feeling it now.

Add to these complications, an increase in volume of 50% due to a property boom here, and shortness of staff, and you end up with a situation where you feel you are drowning. This job has waves of it, like just before Christmas when it happened again. When you know you can't catch up for weeks, and are behind the eight ball every day...your enthusiasm for work is non existant...and that's when you need to draw that line in the sand, because what you are feeling about work spills over to your home life....it always does. Weeknights I am not the fun, happy soul I usually am - I am too stuffed to hold conversation and just want to hide away and not make any more decisions.

So, it's funny for me that I would choose this forum to express my frustration, as I have always been conscious of what people think (and who may see this that I know), but writing it down does sometimes help. It's also that factor of law of attraction type stuff, putting it out to the universe so that something else will come along. I think I would be ready for such a change, although the security of seven years in a familiar environment and the benefits that are associated with that (flexibility, long service, accrued sick leave, friends) are hard to overlook.

I know that this wave will crash in a week or so, and I will rise to the surface again, as things slow down and work returns to a more manageable pace...so do I keep paddling? Or has the damage been done because I am dreading the next time it will happen, which is a certainty. I think I have my answer, either I change the situation I have or I find another one. Life is too short to be spending so many hours of it in a place where you are losing yourself. My simple life journey has shown me that...and I am loving my weekend life at home. Now, I just need to work towards finding that balance.

How do you know when it is time to change? Where do you find the courage to explore new avenues?

Have you ever felt like this, or am I just being melodramatic or pre-menopausal?

Wordless Wednesday - More Botanic Gardens

I took so many photographs of the Maroochy Bushland Botanic Gardens that I decided to share some more :)

 

Planning an Autumn Vegie Patch

I am not a seasoned vegetable grower and still had my learners on when I planted my Spring vegie garden. Surprisingly the research I did beforehand, and a fair bit of dumb luck, gave me some wonderful results, and I am still harvesting several months later. I have made many mistakes, planting out of season, using the wrong fertilisers, watering incorrectly etc, but i have learnt from my mistakes and all of them are documented on my blog, which is a wonderful reference to look back on next Spring. Now it is all about Autumn planting and I am sharing the process I have gone through to plan my Autumn vegie patch, as a reminder for next March, and also to encourage some of you to give it a go. Even if you have never gardened before, it is amazing the results you can have, like in the photograph above :)

The first thing I do is research. This is my favourite gardening magazine, and at the beginning of every season they tell me what grows well in my area, South East Queensland. My area is classified as sub tropical and I make a list of suggested crops and suggested fertilisers and soil preparation.

Down To Earth

I also rely a lot upon Rhonda's advice. Her book is invaluable and I am constantly referring back to her website for advice when I run into problems. She lives about an hour from me so I follow her planting guides and will be planting garlic this winter at her suggestion. Check out her blog if you are starting a garden from scratch for the very first time. It's where I got all of my information for my Spring garden.

AUTUMN GARDEN PLAN

                                          March                   April      Seedling              Sow Direct           Full Sun

Asian Greens                     x                              x              x

Basil                                   x                                                                              x

Beans                                 x                              x                                              x                              x

Beetroot                                                             x              x

Broad Beans                                                      x                                              x

Broccoli                             x                               x                                             x                                                                            

Cabbage                             x                              x              x

Carrot                                 x                              x                                              x

Cauliflower                        x                              x              x                                                              x

Coriander                                                           x                                             x

Cucumber                           x                                              x

Eggplant                            x                                                                              x                              x

English Spinach                                                                x                                              x

Garlic                                                                    x                                              x

Kale                                      x                              x              x                              x

Leek                                      x                              x                                              x                              x

Lettuce                                 x                              x              x                              x

Onion                                                                   x                                              x

Parsley                                 x                              x                                              x

Pea                                                                       x                                              x                              x

Potato                                  x                              x                                              x

Silverbeet                            x                              x              x                              x                              x

Snow Pea                                                            x                                              x                              x

Spring Onion                     x                              x                                              x                              x

Strawberry                                                         x                                              x

Sweet Corn                         x                                                                              x                              x

Tomato                               x                              x              x                                                              x

_________________________________________________________________________________

I then  got very organised and made up a table on my computer of what I wanted to plant from the suggestions given. Over the past couple of months I have been gathering seeds from various sources...nurseries, specials bins, neighbours, my own harvesting...

...and my favourite seed supplier The Seed Collection (most seeds are only $1 pack with free postage if you spend $5) recommended by my friend Nanna Chel who has a lovely blog Going Grey and Slightly Green. Visit her for some handy gardening (and craft) tips and a fantastic series on herbs.

I then researched which seeds are best to grow by seedlings and which to plant direct. Each seed packet recommends which is best. So, to get an early start I planted my cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes into seedling trays in February. I used good quality seed raising mix and water them with a teaspoon of epsom salts dissolved in the water (as suggested by Rhonda). Seems to be doing the job.

These are the seeds I will sow direct this month. My snow peas and broad beans will wait till April as suggested.

Next step was the preparation of my garden beds. I had to clear away all of the weeds and remnants of vegetables that died during the heatwave.

I then raked back the existing mulch to prepare the soil underneath. In Spring I had good quality topsoil delivered so I am only preparing the top 10cm of this soil, to replace what the growing plants may have taken from it.

I added some organic cow manure. I can pick up bags of manure from local farms a lot cheaper but this has already been composted and worked well last time.

I also added some of my own compost for extra organic matter. It's the first time I have used it so I hope it works :) i googled pictures to make sure it looked okay and whilst it could have been a little finer, I think it will do the job.

I sprinkled the manure and the compost onto the soil with a shovel.

Then I dug it into the top layer, about ten centimetres deep.

Finally I covered it with a layer of organic cane mulch. We are expecting rain this week so I will let the mulch and the manure settle in before planting out this weekend. 

This is a very rough picture I drew to plan where I am going to plant, according to sun requirements, and ensuring that I have rotated crops ie. don't plant the same thing in the same place as last season.

So, there you have my grand master plan for my Autumn vegie patch. It will be lovely to see how it progresses over the next few months. Wish me luck with the rain!

Are you planning an Autumn Vegie Patch?