Can I Get a Kale Yeah!

Kale has been one of the easiest and most satisfying things I have grown in the veggie garden.  Just throw in a few seeds and stand back!  Like most things that I have an abundance of it is now a case of finding things to do with all of this kale.  Just the other night at our book club gathering one of my friends was espousing the delights of home made kale chips, so I went on line and found a bunch of instructions, recipes and tips for making the perfect kale chip.

 So while the oven was heating up to fan force 170 degrees I went out to the garden with my scissors and chopped off a bunch of the biggest leaves.  They had all been recently washed by the big rain storm we had last night so I thought I would just go about removing the stems which can be bitter and woody, and cutting the leaves into chip sized pieces.  There was lots of little green bits all over the tea towel and my hands which on closer inspection were moving!  So another good reason to wash your kale leaves it seems is to avoid having extra protein on your chips in the form of cooked aphids.

Not having a salad spinner I laid the leaves out on a tea towel and blotted them dry, which was time consuming to say the least.  I then tried laying the tea towel on the open door of the oven to finish off the drying process, which seemed to be effective.

Then into the bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil or your oil of preference and massage the leaves until all the little ridges and valleys are coated.   I then spread them out on some baking paper on my very old reliable baking tray and put them into the oven for about ten minutes. Timing will vary dependant on your oven so watch them carefully as they can burn quite quickly. 

Once out of the oven allow them to rest for about three minutes as they continue to crisp up.  Sprinkle with sea salt and sweet paprika or another topping of choice like Parmesan, Dukkah, chilli etc.  There is always enough for a couple of batches so try a couple of different flavours. Most people I have heard from find these little morsels of goodness very addictive but I have to be honest and say I am not a fan!

No, they do not taste like chips, no, they are not as good as a packet of Smiths Salt & Vinegar and quite frankly it was laborious to make a handful of chips that were gone in three seconds.  Particularly as I had to wash them about four times to get rid of the aphids!

So give it a try and see what you think, as I said many, many people enjoy these crispy little things, but me, I say - Kale No!

Making Al Fresco Dining More Pallet-table.

A new restaurant has opened up in the suburb adjacent to us.  A friend and I a couple of months ago went there to have lunch to celebrate her birthday and I was really taken by the use of recycled timber and retro furniture in their decor.  I mentioned it to Benny and so one Sunday after we had had an exhausting 4km walk around the lake at the dog park we decided to go and check it out as a family and have a much needed beverage.

The first thing we noticed were the tables, which were higher than normal and constructed of three transport pallets put together to form two supporting sides and the top.  Extra boards were added to the top to fill in the gaps and the whole thing was sanded til smooth.  Four holes had been drilled strategically at each place setting presumably to hold a frosty beverage.  Nicknamed “beer holes” they were the perfect size for a stubby or can and positioned directly over a crossmember so that they were supported about ten centimetres under the hole in the table. Genius!

The seating was a mishmash of up cycled beer kegs, a collection of new “retro industrial” metal stools, a few dilapidated and dated couches and a couple of old lawn chairs.  Coffee tables were also made from pallets on casters and there were a number of other quirky tables scattered in various corners.  The front counter and bar were decorated with spliced together recycled timber (presumably also from pallets), mirror and iron sheet.  The overall impression was of outback verandah come shearing shed, it was warm and inviting as well as (to me) inspirational!

Rewind several weeks and after my first visit to Jimeez I had casually asked if Benny had any pallets laying around work that he could bring home for me for a project I wanted to make.  As the resort he manages is undergoing a major refurbishment the place is teaming with tradies, skips full of rubbish, tiles, timber and concrete dust.  Surely there were pallets in there somewhere.  I was rewarded a couple of weeks later with about eight of them in various states of repair.  The three best were selected to be the guinea pigs that would form the first of what I hoped to be three new outdoor tables.

A couple of weekends ago, Benny took the job on, with a little help from our neighbourhood five year old helper Tom.  He secured the legs to the top, removed odd boards, stabilised the base and then filled in the top with some scrap boards scavenged from the pallets that were in disrepair.  

This weekend it was my turn to do the finish off  so I donned my proper personal protective gear armed with not one, but three different sanders (doesn't everyone have three of everything in their shed?) I began the laborious task of sanding the rough and ready boards into a smoother version that wouldn't leave all of our guests with splinters each time they propped up the table to join us for a drink.  

Feeling a little like Tim the Tool-Man road testing a variety of sanding implements on a TV show, I began my task.  First I tried sanding with the belt sander which certainly ripped into it the fastest but not long after I had started the third board it slowly wound down and called it quits never to start again.  Next I tried The Renovator with a finishing sander attachment, which was slow but very precise.  I swapped over to the palm sander which was the best by far, grinding off most of the roughness whilst leaving a numbing, pulsating feeling all down my hand.  

This I then followed up with the finishing sander, which saw the table top smooth and ready for a coat of oil.  In homage to Jamie Oliver we used what was handy and we had prolific amount of and that was, yes you guessed it,  generous slugs of olive oil.  During the previous week Benny had yet another trip to Bunnings for a hole saw big enough to create the holes for the stubbies to sit in and so the four holes were drilled to house the first beverages.

Luckily we had four stools that we had claimed instead of allowing them to be taken to the dump and we were ready for our first meal outdoors at a “proper” table.  The table was gingerly loaded into the back of the ute and transported slowly up to the back yard from the shed.  The neighbourhood children were quick to come and have a look at the finished project that they had helped us begin the week before.  Many marshmallows were roasted by the kids in celebration of a job well done and many beers and wines consumed (only by the adults of course).  Oh and I think we had dinner????

BEE B&B

Following on from my last post you may recall that our veggie garden is suffering from a distinct lack of pollinators.  I know the weather has been quite cold and frankly apart from the egg plants there are No flowers in our garden at all to attract them.  So off I went to research and found online a very basic design for a Bee Hotel which quickly morphed into a more elaborate and quirky design for my Bee B&B as I like to call it.

I went straight to Bunnings which as it turns out was a silly mistake as after I came home I discovered all of what I had bought wasn't going to do at all.  I searched around the workshop, the wood pile and the property and found all I needed to make a totally recycled bee environment.

The main part of the house is a drawer out of what once was Lawson’s baby change table which in a fit of madness Brent cut up for fire wood!!!! ARGH!  The table top was saved and has since become the timber frame for a piece of art we bought at the Maleny artists co-op  and takes pride of place on the deck.  The drawers were set aside until they were needed and now I had the perfect project for one of them.  The roof was made from offcuts of timber and the inner will be filled with logs, offcuts and some cut up bamboo stakes.   

Now it seems native bees and other pollinators like about a 6mm diameter hole to crawl inside of and set up home, so with some help from Benny to set up the drill press for me, I went about drilling many, many holes in one end of the wooden sections.  

Now that house and innards were ready to go it was time to attach it to the dead tree stump in the veggie garden.  I asked Benny to saw off a little more of the stump to create a level pad to attach it to.  He cleverly suggested mounting it in such a way that if it ever had to be moved I wouldn't have to remove the logs to do so, by attaching a plank to the tree, and then attaching the house to the plank from the underside.  Therefore the removal of four screws from the base will allow the house to be removed in tact.

I enlisted the help of Lawson to fill the Hotel with the logs and bamboo.  He commented that his time playing tetris had come in handy for just this sort of occasion!  The final piece is something really cute and quirky, with a Motel Vacancy sign out front to let all passing bees and other pollinators know that there is a room with their name on it with a beautiful garden view especially of the flowering eggplant.

Now excuse me while I run off and make the beds in anticipation of the first arrival of our winged guests.