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Wednesday 7 November 2012

Quail in our Garden


Funny thing happened the other day, as I came in our front gate I saw a quail wandering up the drive ahead of me.
I ran inside to get Tim. He suggested we shoot it and have it for dinner, which I did not find very funny at all.
It wandered around the garden then climbed the stone fence and skipped off next door.
We have no idea where this bird came from or ended up, but what I do know is they do not run around here wild, so I assume someone locally is keeping quail and this little chap got away.

I was very pleased he left our property in one piece, as I have a very fast, hunting cat called Snow that lives with us.One lucky bird.



Sunday 4 November 2012

Food and Fundraising.

Aargh I hear you all say....... fundraising is a constant part of our children playing sport, for either club or school.
We had a quiz night for the cricket boys at school recently and I put my hand up to organise the food side of the night.

Given it was a quiz I decided to make the food, platter style so people could remain at their tables while enjoying the quiz. We only had a small domestic oven in the kitchen, so most of the food would be served cold. The final number was 350 people.

I decided we could have some warm food, so it was slow cooked pork, pulled and served in a fresh bread bun, and meatballs in a tomato sauce. The rest was served cold including roast chicken sandwiches, fresh vegetarian spring rolls with a dipping sauce and cheese straws.

I cooked the 20 kgs pork ahead of the day and pulled it and sauced it, then froze it down until the day. I rolled and cooked the 700 meatballs, then froze them down too.

I cooked the 16 chickens, and made 15 L meatball sauce the day ahead,.
16 roasted chickens



15 L meatball sauce


On the day, I had a gang of helpers to make 900 cheese straws, 700 chicken sandwiches and 350 spring rolls.

The platters looked amazing, everyone enjoyed the food very much. The best news of the day was that I managed to keep the food costs to $2.30 per head.

Platter

We had the support and generosity of the local businesses with some donations of food and very sharp pricing on the rest. I grew a lot of the veges and herbs we required.



It was a big week and night, a very successful evening raising enough funds to keep the school cricket club in good fettle for the rest of the season.