Food for thought

Having always loved to experiment with recipes, I have now been encouraged to create my own by growing vegetables in our backyard and watching the past two seasons of Masterchef.
Last night was one such night!
Our chili plant is still loaded but is beginning to feel the effects of our cold winter despite being protected from the frosts and winds, so I decided to pick a couple to use in a Mexican style sauce to go with our rump steak. To make the sauce I sauteed a green and a red chili, five cloves of one of our remaining garlic bulbs and 3 large mushrooms in some olive oil. I then added a bottle of crushed tomatoes that I'd harvested and bottled in autumn and simmered until it had reduced. It was mildly hot [which is our preference] and certainly added to the scrumptiousness of what would otherwise have been a plain old meat and veg! The accompanying veg were cabbage from our garden and locally grown cauliflower.

There are many bottles like this keeping us going over winter and spring

Three of my garlic plaits that have hung in my kitchen

The finished sauce 

For dessert I had picked the lillipilli cherries from the Australian native tree we planted two years ago. i made them into a delicious stewed fruit to have with homemade icecream.

Our lillipilli cherries, also known as magenta cherries

Dessert

Altogether, it was a fairly basic meal but one that gave a great deal of satisfaction to both cook and hungry husband!
BUT - while we have plenty to eat, the ability to both grow and preserve food - at this time a famine is gripping the Horn of Africa. I wonder how many in our affluent western world even care?