I drove up from Melbourne on Friday afternoon, and he drove from Geelong.
Once again there were numerous dandelion "fairies" accumulated in the hallway - snuck in under the front door
And the tanks were now back in place - yay, but no water in them as yet
Had dinner at the Royal. It was still quite hot, I had the chicken caesar salad, and Justin had a spaghetti bolognaise.
And then watched the "new" Mad Max, I wasn't a great fan, lots of car/truck chases.
Saturday, and it was another very hot day, we basically hibernated inside (I of course watered the garden first) , reading pottering around etc. I thought about going to the the pool, but didn't. Justin drove to Rochester? to view the site of the car accident that the case was about.
We could also see that there had been a lot of wind again, as a reasonably large branch had fallen from the hoop pine, but was still being supported by others
We had our breakfasts outside under the tree, and were annoyed by cockies up in the tree chewing on the pine cones. Little bits kept showering down on us, and in fact, one even fell into Justin's coffee cup - which did not impress him
We did do a little bit of work too - Justin put another layer of oil on the veranda rail upstairs, and also oiled the old card table that we had up there. He was going to oil the fence posts, but that would have been too time consuming, and it was too hot!
In the evening we went to the 1st Saturday of the month get together in Kingower. I tried to capture Justin popping the cork off the champagne bottle, but couldn't quite capture it. Did go and pick up the cork afterwards though - don't want to litter
Stayed for an hour or so, and then back to our place for dinner. We had also invited Terry to have dinner with us, so he followed behind. I'd made up some tuna patties earlier, and some salad, a rather casual dinner, nice enough though.
Went up stairs and watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but both Terry and I fell asleep, so we called it a night, but not before organising a dolmade making day on Monday while Justin went to work.
Sunday and more hibernation from the heat (and more watering of the garden).
Justin installed the curtain rod that Terry had given us (ages ago) in the green room upstairs. He thought it more appropriate than the brass one that I had got (we'll put that one in the little yellow room)
And then a nice campari and lemonade for an afternoon aperitiv (still very hot)
Actually, despite the temperature :- high 30s/early 40s, the house remained relatively cool, as it cooled down a bit overnight, and we had a couple of pedestal fans. So we were pretty comfortable inside (better downstairs than upstairs though)
Monday, and it was strange that Justin had to get dressed in a suit and tie, and then drive into Bendigo
And yes, it was another hot day, thank goodness for air conditioning in cars.
Anyway, I watered selected plants in the garden, went to IGA to get some lamb, and then drove to Terry's for dolmade making (my first time)
My first job there was to trim the stalks off the vine leaves that Terry had picked from Arlene's vineyard the day before.
He emptied a plastic bag filled with what felt like hundreds of leaves into a sink of water, and I then plucked them out one by one to trim.
Next job was to blanch them for a few minutes in boiling water.
And then put them back in the sink of water.
Job #3 was to make small piles of them - without ripping them ( given that they were cooked/blanched they stuck together a bit)
Terry then rolled them into tubes/cigars and inserted 4 -6 of these tubes in jars which he filled with a brine solution
These leaves can then be stored in the fridge for use at a later date. (the brine would need to be rinsed off before use) I must admit this was all quite time consuming - but that was also because of the large quantities.
And then we got onto the meat.
Terry had suggested that I get either a kg of lamb or beef. As I said, I went to the IGA earlier, and bought just over 1kg of lamb chops. Won't do that again, as it was very fiddly to cut the meat from the bones and fat... Would have been better off to get a leg of lamb and just cut off what I needed. and then take the rest home. Oh well that's what I'll do next time
So, once the meat was organised, it went in the mincer
Actually, when I added the lemon juice it cured the meat (went from pink to grey), so I felt confident enough to taste it and see if I needed any more seasonings
Once it was all mixed through we then started making the actual dolmades
My first ones were a bit rough and ready. Told Terry that Justin would be better at this, as he is more precise than me.
Anyway, I started to get the hang of it, and my later ones were much neater/better
Once this was done we lined a saucepan each with blanched vine leaves, and then put the dolmades in layers on top.
On finishing, we put another layer of vine leaves on top, and then some sliced tomato and lemon on top of them - for even more flavour
Then filled up the saucepans with water, popped them on the stove and let them simmer away.
Apparently the longer the better, for the flavours to merge, and for the water to evaporate/soak through the dolmades
Anyway, it got to close to 4pm, and Troy was coming over at 5.30 to discuss future garden plans, so I said I'd better go. The water hadn't quite disappeared, but they'd been simmering away for some hours, so they were well and truly cooked.
Put then in tupperware - and voila - finished!
Justin was already home by the time I got there, so we had a G & T on the back veranda and a couple of my very delicious and very tasty dolmades before Troy came
Troy arrived with a mate - Lucas, and we told them about our next planned projects :- watering system for the front garden beds, fly screens for the windows, and a trellis fence to enclose the orchard and grow kiwi fruit on. (in that order)
I was also trying to get Justin onside for my "formal" rose garden in front of the succulent bed. We had made a deal years ago, I could have that if he could take down the wooden wall in the upstairs hallway. Well he did that one weekend he went there by himself, so yes, I am owed a rose garden.
We had gone into the garden (with hats on, as yes very hot) and had drawn a rough plan of it in the dirt, 4 beds around a centre piece - something like the below diagram
Anyway, this rose garden is still very much in the concept phase, so its not on Troy's list (yet)
He'll hopefully be able to start on it in about a month
Tuesday, and Justin set off to work again in Bendigo, and I tidied up, and left for Melbourne around lunch time after numerous phone calls with Claudia re our proposed big family trip to Hawaii next year - this was extremely time consuming (had done it throughout the weekend)
