Not for Aunty Pi

Drool Aunty Pi, drool....

Dear Aunty Pi,

I'd like to ask you a question. Why can't you eat bird chili? I think it's the most delicious, delectable, and delightful fruit on earth. Okay, let's not start an argument whether chili is a fruit or a vegetable. What I know is it can be used to add zing to any savoury dish. Of course, there are people who swear by chocolate coated chilies too.

Anyway, remember those surplus from our garden? We've harvested more chilies last weekend. The problem with the chili plants is that once one starts to fruit, the rest follow suit. And we have seven of them.

Well, blame Yummy Mummy and Andrea. They suggested that we pickle or preserve this manna from heaven. So, here's our version of pickled chili.

Pickled Bird Chilies a la Angelina

Ingredients: (to make one 1/2 liter jar)

100g fresh bird chili

Please discard the stems and wash thoroughly. Beware of cat fur...

1 cup vinegar

We tried this delightful Middle Eastern red vinegar.

2 tsp dill seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 bulb garlic, sliced

The dill seeds come from our garden too. Mustard seeds and garlic - from the shops...teeheehee...

1 cup sugar (we use brown, not white)

Method:
Bring vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil and simmer about 7 minutes to a light syrup.

The red vinegar and brown sugar combine to give a nice caramel colour to the syrup.

Put one layer of bird chilies in jar.

No need to cook the chilies. They go into the jar raw.

Add sliced garlic.

Layering chilies and garlic in jar is supposed to spread the flavours.

Cover with syrup and cover with tight lid.

Mama bought the jar at Ikea!!!

Refirigerate for at least 3 days before serving. Try it with char kuey teow or fried noodles or soup noodles. Itadakimasu! purrr...meow!

Of Chilies and Babies

It's been raining cats and dogs since Christmas. A day without rain has been quite rare lately. Some areas in the Outback are even flooded after years of drought. Seems like the water restriction for Sydney has been lifted as the dams are filled up quite nicely lately. Let's hope it will be a loooooong looooong time before the authorities impose such restrictions again. However, that doesn't mean we should stop our water conservation effort.

With the rain, some of the plants in our garden are taking it hard. Some are showing stress due to over watering while some are attacked by fungi and snails. The most distressed seem to be our bird chili plants. Mama decided to harvest the fruits early to prevent further damage to the crop. At least, if the plants die, we can still save the fruits, she said.

Here they are, our summer chili harvest. We'll start re-planting when the rainy season is over. What we can't eat now will go into the freezer.

Talking about chili, a deranged man (in my opinion) had gone around smearing babies' faces with chili powder yesterday!!! What must he be thinking? Mama got so angry and said the fitting punishment for the man would be to smear his face with our chili. Whoa! People, don't ever make my Mama angry. She becomes fiery and you'll be chili-fied!

This is what we read in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

Sydney (16 Feb): A man has been arrested following the assault of two toddlers with chilli powder in Sydney's inner west, police say.
The 40-year-old man allegedly assaulted two young children in separate incidents when the toddlers were being pushed in their prams by their mothers while shopping.
A woman entered a greengrocer on Liverpool Road in Ashfield when it is alleged the man approached her 18-month-old son who was sitting in a pram and rubbed chilli powder on his face just after 11am (AEDT) on January 25.
When the toddler began to cry, the man ran from the store.
The boy was treated by his doctor and did not sustain any serious injury.
In the second incident, a woman was shopping in a supermarket on Liverpool Road when a man allegedly approached her two-year-old seated in a pram and smeared chilli powder over his face about 7.45am on Monday.
The man fled the scene before police arrived. The toddler was taken to Canterbury Hospital by ambulance for treatment.
A man attended Ashfield police station about 9.40am on Monday, where he asked to use the toilet and allegedly tried to dispose of a packet of cayenne powder in the bin before police discovered what he was doing.
He was arrested and taken to Campsie Police Station, where he was charged with two counts of assault.
He will face Burwood Local Court on March 4.

* All places mentioned are suburbs neighbouring ours.

What a crazy world we're living in now. purrrr....meow!