A Year of Learning, Growing, Preserving and Sharing

2025 has been a year of many successes, with just enough failures thrown in to keep me grounded. I’m hoping 2026 continues this trend — learning, improving, and enjoying the process along the way.

Lately, I’ve been busy in the preserving corner of the kitchen. I’ve dehydrated some sourdough starter as a backup, along with lemon rind that I had been freezing while preserving lemon juice earlier in the year. The dried lemon rind has since been turned into lemon pepper, which will be used throughout the year as a seasoning on fish, pork, and vegetables.

The dehydrated sourdough starter is my insurance policy — either in case something goes wrong or if anyone would like some. This original batch was gifted to me by a friend and is over 160 years old, so you can understand why I’m doing everything I can to protect my little lot.

I have been making bread products for over 30 years but have never ventured into sourdough bread. I’ve officially begun this journey, although my first loaf was a complete failure… at least according to me. The chooks thought it was fine, but I knew it wasn’t what I was aiming for. Today I’ve commenced my next batch. As I sit here writing this, I’ve just fed a portion of starter and am eagerly watching it grow. I’ll continue to discard and feed until I have a very healthy active batch, with the hope of starting the bread tomorrow. I’ll keep you up to date on how this attempt turns out.

With the weather warming up, I’ve reduced my crumpet making and commenced granola production instead. I used some of my sourdough discard in place of egg whites, and it has been very successful. My first batch of almond and cranberry granola was devoured within a few days as both breakfast cereal and snacks — I even caught my husband with a bowl full while watching the cricket yesterday.

The vegetable garden is going well, and yes — I did manage to pick tomatoes before Christmas for the first time ever, beating my lovely next-door neighbour! With the warmer weather, I’m now picking a large bowlful each day and will commence preserving this weekend.

My peas, which had a very hard life (thank you, rabbits), have reached the end of their season and will be pulled down and turned into pea straw to mulch around other vegetables. I’ve started picking green and butter beans, and to my delight, my kidney beans have commenced flowering. Preserving kidney beans is a first for me so I will take you on this journey and we can find out together if this was a good idea.

My sweet corn has emerged a little patchy, but I am not too concerned and I’ve sown another succession planting of beetroot. Zucchinis are growing in abundance, and so far we’ve enjoyed them in slices, fritters, and cakes/muffins — although I’ll soon start preserving them as well.

I have my first batch of sauerkraut on the go using my homegrown cabbages. We’re enjoying fresh coleslaw with my homemade dressing and have gifted many cabbages to friends. Capsicums have begun producing fruit, and the other chillies have just started to flower. Hopefully the warmer weather coming up will give them a good boost, but keeping up the water to the veggie garden will be my top priority over the next few days.

Each Christmas, I put together gift boxes for friends filled with preserves, fresh vegetables, and homemade goodies. Every year I try to add a few new ideas, and this year the star of the show was Pistachio Shortbreads. I’ve received some beautiful messages about how fantastic they were. My only problem is that whenever I make them for us, we eat the whole batch within a couple of days — they’re just that good.

I’ve added links to the recipes in this blog. Give them a try and let me know how you go and what you think.

Happy gardening and preserving. I’m looking forward to sharing lots more preserving over the next few busy months.