Beetroot harvest

I guess it’s about time for another garden update. Mum always asks about how the beetroot plants, tomatoes and other plants are doing almost every time she calls. So since pictures paint a thousand words…

Here is hubby’s latest addition to the vege patch. Definitely a good idea now that the blazing hot summer heat is upon us.

The grapes are growing steadily. Not quite ready yet but they look like they’re on the right track.

The cherry tomatoes are looking exceedingly gorgeous. We’ll be harvesting them next.

Because today’s focus was on the beetroot.

Hubby wanted me to show this next picture to show just how much he’s had to endure with keeping the caterpillars and pests in check. Things could have looked a lot worse than this had it not been for his constant warfare against those pesky critters.

Here they are peeking from underneath their leaves. Get ready to die!!!

First victim. They’re not very big because we decided we’d better harvest them before caterpillars eat them all up before we do.

All washed and scrubbed. We look forward to eating you soon.

The countdown begins

So yesterday was my last day at the office and I am now officially on maternity leave.

8 days to EDD.

The number one FAQ I get at this stage is: so how do you feel?

Well, I'd sum it up in three main points...

#1. Surreal. Even at 38 weeks I still struggle to grasp the whole concept that I am going to be a mum to an actual little boy. I still have moments when I pause and think that maybe this is all just my imagination. And then I feel a little kick. That pretty much jolts me back to the 'realness' of what's happening now.

#2. Undecided. You'd think I'd have everything all settled and planned out nicely. But even at this second, I'm worrying about things like sleeping arrangements (separate nursery or co-sleeping?), birth plan (go with the full works or tough it out?), heck I was so undecided about whether to have a baby shower until I reached the stage where I was just too tired to plan one.

#3. Completely inadequately prepared. As I flick through various Facebook statuses and photos of friends who are also preparing for their own stork deliveries, I see all the thorough preparation with ceiling level stacks of diapers, mountains of baby clothes, heaps of toys, libraries of books, baby bottles, sterilisers, feeding/diapering/bathtime equipment... I shoved the laptop in front of hubby and frantically repeated "how come we don't have this??? or this??? or that???" I'm left feeling so inadequate when I compare it to my own meager preparations.

Christmas cooking begins

Now that we’re well into December, I think it’s safe to start taking about Christmas and sending out Christmas greetings and wishes.

Our Christmas tree is up again…

And over the weekend, as the picture below illustrates I’ve launched into baking-frenzy mode…

Hubby found the assortment of little gingerbread men too cute for words... no words required anyway, he just popped one of these babies into his tummy.

This is the recipe I used

The gingerbread cookie dough is not difficult to make. The most time consuming part for me was cutting out the gingerbread men shapes. Although I had a cookie cutter, the warm weather made the cookie dough turn soft and oily very quickly, so I had to refrigerate the dough in between 'rolls' before I cut out another batch of cookies.

The part I enjoyed most was decorating the little men. I said to hubby that I wish I could get all the little men pre-shaped and pre-baked so I could just focus solely on decorating an endless array of the little men.

Hubby's contribution to the process was 'eye power' and 'backseat driver'... he perched himself on one of the stools by the kitchen counter to observe and provide directions now how to better control the speed and precision of my piping technique to get more even lines. I didn't need all that so I waved him off. Then he helped himself to the big jar of an earlier batch of gingerbread and parked himself in front of the TV. After munching down three men, I warned him not to finish all the Christmas cookies before it was even Christmas...

He was like "So are these Christmas cookies like Chinese New Year cookies? Specially made only for festive seasons?" I never thought of it that way, but it was kind of an interesting question. I suppose the answer is "Yes"

Hubby was very impressed with gingerbread men and remarked how great it would be next time to have our kids in the kitchen helping to decorate cookies together. A mental image of a cookie dough covered kitchen, kids and me with gobs of icing dripping everywhere flashed through my mind. But I'll worry about that part of parenting much later.

A never heard of before Hakka specialty

I have not posted an updated related to my cooking escapades for a while, so I thought to share one of the cooking projects I undertook over the weekend:

Presenting… Hakka Thunder' Tea Rice or Lui Char Fan

Growing up I’ve had the privilege to enjoy lots of yummy traditional Hakka dishes like pak cham kai, ngiong tew foo and kiu nyuk… but in all my years, I’ve never tasted or even heard of this thunder tea rice.

I came across the dish and recipe on Table for 2 and found it so intriguing. The fact that it was a Hakka speciality peaked my interest even more. So I rolled up my sleeves and just dove into it. The recipe wasn’t actually difficult but was just a bit methodical as it required quite a bit prep time for each condiment

There is also a special ‘tea soup’ base to prepare, which was basically whizzing up an assortment of herbs and condiments.

To serve, you just scoop in some rice into a big bow and arrange all the condiments around it, mix some hot water with the ‘tea soup’ base and pour it over the rice and condiments, then mix it all up and enjoy. Sort of like a Korean Bibim Bap.

If you love vegetables, you will really like this dish. I was a little worried that hubby might find this a bit too vegetarian for his liking (no meat, and three types of only lightly blanched veges served with some herby soup paste) but he said he said found it quite tasty.

Any Hakka people out there can vouch this as an authentic Hakka dish?