More homemade

Well, I cooked up another batch of tomatoes this afternoon and came out with 5 servings for the freezer. Have had to move on to the upright freezer since I've got the underfridge one bursting at the seams. My tomatoes are definitely out-performing last years both in yield as well as size. I think we'll get them to last quite well especially since I don't seem to cook with tomatoes so much while on the GAPS diet (probably since I can't serve up pasta sauce on pasta at the moment which was a good staple meal a few times a week before).

I put another batch of yoghurt on as I used up the last 500ml for making some ice cream GAPS style.

2 cups of homemade yoghurt
1 ripe banana
2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp pure vanilla essence

It went down well, we'll see how it goes down when I serve it up for the kids birthday party in April lol*.

Today I also received some almonds I'd ordered through our organic co-op and decided to try out some almond milk. So I set a cup of almonds to soak in water for 8hrs.

I then drained them, added 3 cups water and blended till smooth. I drained it through a fine sieve and added a little vanilla essence (and popped the pulp into the freezer for using in baking). It tasted nice but slightly bland but I'm sure Nathan at least will like it. I am investigating growing my own almond trees (apparently you need two or there are some dwarf self-fertilizing ones available). To buy organically from the shop the nuts are $40/kg and through the co-op around $20/kg which is a significant difference but still pricey in the big scheme of things.

*I am also looking at how I can throw the kids a small joint bithday party as sustainably as possible (their birthday's are 6wks apart). I will be catering the food GAPS style and have quite a few yummy options so far but a few recipes that still need testing. I am looking at getting or making some little bright coloured paper lanterns instead of balloons that can be kept and reused another time, making a bunting for decoration, making some new funky table napkins instead of disposable and a few party games that don't include a bunch of junk for kids to take home.

Yesterday Nathan wanted to make his own scrambled eggs. He's been increasingly wanting to cook his own food (banana pancakes are becoming a bit of a standard recipe around here and then he figured scrambled eggs weren't so different). I did do a bit of extra stirring for him, but the rest was his work.



We also did a batch of fresh juice yesterday with the arrival of our new vege box. We used beetroot, apple, orange and pear. I was busy washing out the gear and turned around and saw this sweet little face playing with her image in the stainless steel of the juicer.


I picked these long forgotten and neglected carrots the other day. This lot survived the carrot fly but didn't get thinned hence the stumpy appearance. They were tasty though and the kids enjoyed munching through.


And wow, tomorrow is the last official day of summer.