Stir-fry sprouts ...

Tonight's stir-fry worked out so well. I started by browning onion slices, some steak strips and dried garlic.

While those ingredients were cooking, I made a quick sauce with soy sauce, a slurp of sweet chilli sauce, a dash of my home-made Worcestershire and the last dregs of a commercial smoky BBQ sauce. Well, I think that's what I did - it was really good and hopefully I can do it again!

As the title suggests, I rinsed off our tray of sprouted stir-fry mix and tossed them into the pan for a few minutes, just before serving - along with some rehydrated peas.  The end result was very tasty - and Vaughan actually ate a few sprouted chickpeas!

There are plans to start off another stir-fry sprout tray tomorrow.  Our first tray only took three days but the temperature has been cooler due to all the rain.  The sun came out this afternoon and it looks as if the hotter weather is set to return.  Hopefully our seeds will continue to sprout as planned. 

Vaughan's View: Geckos

Photo credit:  Vaughan Hamby

Some of these geckos can clone themselves.

Girl geckos?!

Vaughan caught another Prickly Gecko.  This one was older, so we could see the prickles. 

From further reading it seems they are more commonly known as Bynoe's Gecko, which is in keeping with their scientific title of Heteronotia binoei.


(We have two reference books and quite often they vary in terms of naming particular reptiles).

One of the most interesting facts about these geckos is that some populations are entirely female.  They reproduce without male participation - by cloning themselves!  Nifty, eh?!

Cobb Cooker: Rock cakes

I used four heat-beads for our lunchtime damper and belatedly thought to use the residual heat for more cooking.

By the time I made the rock cake mixture, the beads had largely burned away.  I added one extra to cook the first cakes.


After half an hour, I turned the rock cakes over.  Obviously that's not the usual cooking method but it works OK!   The cakes had an extra thirty minutes of cooking time on their second side - and were done.  I had a bit more mixture so dropped four spoonfuls on the solid plate.  Nick added two more beads, which resulted in a quicker cooking time for the second batch.

How were they?  Pretty good!  Nick took several over to share with our neighbour, who ate two (and didn't offer any crumbs to his dogs) - so obviously liked them!

Cobb Cooker: Damper

I made damper for lunch today, using one of our Cobb Cookers.  From past experience I knew the more basic the recipe, the better the result - so I googled till I found one that was super-simple. 

Actually I used the recipe as a rough guide, making a double quantity of dough with self-raising flour as I don't think I brought baking powder (and couldn't be bothered looking)!  I used milk powder in with the flour and added about 2 cups of water.  After about 30 minutes on the solid BBQ plate, Nick and I flipped  the damper over to cook for another half hour on the second side.

Nick, Erin and I enjoyed our damper with olive spread, vegemite and/or cheese.  Vaughan preferred to eat his with BBQ or Goat Chasers sauce!  (I bought the Goat Chasers sauce for Nick while we were at Wagga, cos it reminded me of our adventures chasing goats on the Bluff).  Strawberry jam was also a popular topping choice.

Wishful wandering ...

When we were last at Yowah, Nick spotted a lizard in the wishing well. Others had fallen in and not made it out again, so Nick rested a stick against the wall of the well, as an emergency exit.

The stick was still there when we checked - and even better, the well was empty of lizards!

Nick had found twenty cents near the bore head so made a wish - no doubt for an opal as big as his head!

Wandering about ...

The bore drain runs along the back of Louie's house (and most of those along Matrix Drive). There is a street map here.

Nick and I went for a walk this morning, along the bore drain. Some parts of the track were quite boggy from all the rain but it was good to get out.


I thought at first that the white chairs belonged to one of the houses but there were other sets placed at intervals along the path, so perhaps they are the Yowah equivalent of park benches?!

We walked up from the bottom of Matrix Drive to the bore head (1 Blue Bonnet Boulevard) and then looped down along Harlequin Drive, past the Rural Transaction Centre.

We cut back through Park Lane, past the Museum to Matrix Drive for the homeward stretch.


The corrugated iron building (at right) in the pic above is an old hut.  A lot of Yowah's houses were this basic style when I was a kid.