primal cavewife

The boyfriend and I went to a friend's house near ours and their vegetable patch is beautiful! It is much emptier than ours, but it is neat and without weed. Though they have only just started. They also have chickens in the backyard for eggs! I really want to have some chickens in our backyard too but our lease won't allow us to have animals. :( shame. I hate birds, but I figured if I have them as little chicks and they grow up with me then I would be less afraid right?

 

Anyway, after harvesting the broccoli and cauliflower, I decided I was tired of them and the little baby offshoots were not enough for me to keep them, so my boyfriend and I went on another shopping spree at Bunnings for more seedlings to prepare for summer! Over the last two days, I have planted the little seedlings and replanted some of the older plants to make organise the backyard a bit more. I've had to pull out all the remnants of the cauliflowers and broccolis to make space for our new tiny seedlings!

 

Bought some beautiful butterhead lettuce. Hopefully they will be ready in 4-6 weeks so I can get more seedlings. It's getting so addictive, planting new things!

 

I have been wanting to get a peppermint plant for a while... and by a while, I mean 2 weeks. I love peppermint tea and I love the idea of having fresh peppermint leaves for that. As you can see, that's the only plant in a pot because apparently they are runners and would overtake the entire garden if you don't contain the roots.

 

Bought more tuscan kale. We've gotten more salads this time round because even though the patch is my little project, I like to sometimes make enough for the entire house and the puny plants we have is just not enough to sustain 6 people.

 

The salads include more spinach as well, and I've replanted the old spinach right next to the new seedlings.



Also includes rocket...

 

Then we bought more strawberry seedlings because the old one wasn't flowering yet and my boyfriend is an impatient man.

 

A butternut pumpkin seedling, though we won't be planting this in the patch. It will probably go on the other side of the orange tree because we just do not have the space for it!

 

Tuscan Kale/ Dinosaur Kale/ Lacinato Kale... whichever way you call it, these are the dark leafy kale, which is much different from the curly kale that we are growing in our backyard. The dinosaur kale is supposed to be healthier. So happy that we are adding more leafy greens to our backyard to make salad. We now have rocket, spinach and two types of kale! Maybe next week I will buy more so that we can have bigger salads because one tiny plant of each variety is not enough!

I took spinach, kale and rocket from the backyard, and milk is just an estimation. If you like it thick, add less, if you want it less thick, add more. You could also add some whey protein! The sky is the limit!

 

Ingredients:

2 kiwis

1 avocado

1 banana

1 cup of milk

1 cup of kale, spinach, rocket

I don't like salad. So I've never conscientiously ordered salad and have never made a salad before. Not a fan of raw vegetables and don't like any of the dressings. But there was all these vegetables in the backyard and I don't have to use conventional dressing. Why not do it a paleo way?

 

This turned out to be the most delicious salad I have ever had/made and my boyfriend loved it too. Best thing was, apart from the egg, bacon and coconut oil, everything was from our backyard! It went so well as a side for our surf and turf for lunch! I have never seen him eat all the vegetables so eagerly!

 

Ingredients:

2 eggs

bacon, diced

coconut oil

kale

spinach

capsicum

rocket

salt

pepper

herbs (optional)

The other night, I made a platter of trio meatballs for dinner! Mushroom and Cheese Meatballs, Sultana Meatballs and Vegetable Meatballs! They would make great finger foods at parties too if you are having one!

Ingredients:

500g mince

2 carrots, chopped

2 cups of greens (I picked all I had in my backyard - parsley, basil, oregano, chives, kale and spinach)

1 egg

salt

pepper

Made another soup last night to use up the last my bone broth. I also had to use up the broccoli that has been in the fridge for a while so I gathered all the veges I could find including the stuff from the backyard to make the soup!

Ingredients:

4 carrots, chopped

1 broccoli, chopped (including the stalk)

1 onion, sliced

handful of kale

handful of spinach

herbs (chives, parsley, basil and oregano from the backyard)

1 can coconut cream

2 cups bone broth

salt

pepper

The cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli have been taking over our vege patch with their massive leaves and one day my boyfriend said we should juice the leaves because apparently chlorophyll is really good for you. I was a bit skeptic about eating the leaves so I looked it up online and woah!!! I found out you can do all sorts of things with the leaves! You can juice them, cook them or even make chips out of them! I was so excited when I found out, I went home and plucked a couple leaves off each plant to make sure they don't go bare and started to make the first batch. Here I used kale, spinach, broccoli leaves, cauliflower leaves and cabbage leaves.

Ingredients:

broccoli leaves

cabbage leaves

cauliflower leaves

spinach

kale

coconut oil

salt

We have been having lots of Surf & Turfs lately because it's easy, quick and delicious! But you will have noticed that our kale from the vege patch has finally made an appearance as a side along with the spinach! That's right, now that we've removed the snails from the equation, the kale is slowly growing back with leaves and all - not just stems!! Soon, we will be able to make kale chips with our food dehydrator! Can't wait to try it out! Heard so much about kale chips and I will finally be able to try some myself and picked fresh from my own garden as well!