Monday, February 28, 2011

S and M bats


Well what do you know? Life couldn't get more exciting. Sitting in the garden last Friday, with a cool drink in hand and delicious snacks on plates in front of us, we looked at the swarms of bats, mm wrong word I think, streaming in from the direction of the sea towards the fig trees. Yes, I looked up the collective and it can be a colony of bats, most possibly said when they are asleep, or a cloud of bats. I like the cloud description; they scattered and screeched and fell into the trees in a noisy cacophony. Like so many feathered, raggedy clouds torn into pieces by the trees. Just be glad you don't live on Bellingen Island.

So there we were swapping bat stories when Ms Mova reported such close encounters from her deck that she could have leant out and touched them. "They are amazing," she said," I could see their little pink tongues and they were all dressed in black leather with little stilettos as they primped up the branches in search of the fruit."

Imagination was exchanged by hard labour on Saturday for the working bee. More piles of 'stuff' were moved around the garden. The fruit trees were surrounded by more soil and covered in the newly arrived mulch.
Barrow loaders spread out the mulch along the ends of the beds and of course Ms Teapenny was intrigued by all the movement and jumped onto the barrow to have a look. The others were not so impressed and kept quiet in the shade afforded by the door on such a muggy day.


And look what else we found! The most wonderful sweet potatoes from our plants which came from the sacking of Villiers. Thank you fellow community garden.


Ms Designer was checking out the radicchio helped by Lucy Legless and we started talking spinach recipes. "Just cook it with rice and lemon," she said. Sounds delicious. Ms Tagalong seemed to remember a wonderful recipe written out on a scruffy pink piece of paper which had travelled half the way across the world. Ms Tagalong's filing system never ceases to amaze, the recipe was located, so here it is and enjoy!


Spinach pie
450g spinach, washed and chopped
250g brown rice
500ml hot water
1 onion finely chopped
1 Tsp oil
1 tsp butter
2 Tsp chopped parsley
125g strong grated Cheddar cheese
2 large eggs (free range of course)

Topping
2 Tbs wholemeal breadcrumbs
1 Tbs melted butter
Cayenne pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste

1. Place butter and oil in a saucepan
2. When hot, saute the onion until tender
3. Stir in rice to coat then add the hot water
4. Simmer gently for 40mins
5. Turn into a large bowl to cool
6. Combine with cheese, eggs (lightly beaten) parsley and chopped spinach
7. Season well with masses of grated nutmeg
8. Place into a well-oiled pie dish
9. Mix breadcrumbs with melted butter and cayenne pepper and place in a medium oven for 35mins.

2 comments:

  1. Think I'll give the spinach recipe a go !!

    Carole

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry I missed the working bee but I had a really full weekend. I loooove sweet potatoes.
    A big thankyou to whoever did my chook duty on Saturday night.
    Paint Pot Pat

    ReplyDelete

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