So I have a habit a bad one, well actually a bad two (well actually a lot but I am only talking about two today).

1. I tend not to start stuff and to procrastinate on things rather than getting into them

        and

2. I tend to get 95% of things done and not finish the last 5%.

The thought occurred to me as I was making my first ever batch of scones. I have always been daunted for some reason by scones. Perhaps it was the fact that the CWA always used to make the best scones at all the local shows I used to attend as a kid. Somehow I built them up in my mind as being difficult when in fact I have discovered they are very easy …

I have also noticed this has hit me with this blog. I have some ideas for a post and then seem to manage to put myself off writing it. To hard other things to do (what other things? Even I don’t know). Or I get started and get to within the last little bit and then manage to find reasons for not finalizing it.

So basically it is time for me to hard the …. up and get on with it. On that note the recipe for scones is as below.

Speak to you all a little more often I hope.

Basic Cheese Scones.

• 2 cups of self-raising flour
• Tablespoon of butter
• ½ tablespoon of sugar
• ½ cup of tasty cheese grated.
• ¼ cup of parmesan grated.
• Pinch of salt
• 300ml of milk
• 1 egg

Sift flour, sugar and salt together. Pinch in cheeses and butter till the flour mix resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add lightly whisked eggs and milk and combine. Turn out on floured surface and knead quickly (apparently too much kneading makes them tough). Roll dough to 1 inch thick and cut using a cutter. Place on greased tray in an pre heated oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 10 -12 minutes.

So I have started the tale of the trip I mentioned last post but for some reason I am suffering from a bit of procrastination. Some would call it writers block for me it is just plain old procrastination. Sometimes I just have to get into stuff to get going but at the moment I am going to have to wait for the phase to pass and get this tale told then.

Since we got back it has been a case of head down and sort out sick kids, works and life in general.

To keep it in perspective life has been pretty good I have managed to track down another window frame by the side of the road for the hot house I am building.  Planted some more beans, radishes and other veggies even managed to take off from work earlier to take my aunt from Austria to the airport (family is important to me)

When I got back one of the first things I did was to make up a big batch of homemade soup.  I am always amazed that people seem not to realise how easy it is to make soup and it put food on the table for 2 nights and a couple of lunches. Took about 20 minutes to make and an hour to simmer away and gets better each day.

My friend Libby at libby-cooks wrote about how hard it is to keep to the ethics of food and sorting out where it comes from and who or what is harmed in getting our daily bread (and other food groups) For me I find that making my own meals from as local or as ethical sourced base ingredients helps to keep me relativly sane trying to sort this out.

So for the rest of the week we at pretty well. One night we had a meal of the excellent broccoli  fritters I have made before and managed to cut and fry some of the bacon I made just prior to my trip (I was hanging out for this). Some of the Risonni and chorizo  Salads made from scratch, and this evening a very nice penne pasta made with bacon, leek and pumpkin.

All good simple food made from scratch most of the food came from our garden or the ceres box. Quick to make and all pretty good.

But back to that procrastination … yep looking at this list I have even less reasons to not have done that post… Oh well maybe tomorrow I will get it done…

Simple Soup

Sweat some carrots, celery, leek, 4 bay leaves, a bunch of flat parsley and an onion in some olive oil for about 10 minutes till soft but not browning. Add several crushed cloves of garlic and about 250 odd grams of smoked pork hock or bacon pieces. Drop in a can of chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 10 minutes stirring regularly. Add 2 litres of cold water salt and pepper to taste and 3 medium sized potatoes diced to about 2cm cubes, diced parsnip and a small diced turnip(any or no root vegetables are good). A bunch of kale or other greens (I used some Tuscan kale and Russian kale). Simmer for an hour or more and serve with rye bread and some of your favourite sliced or grated cheese. This soups stores well and is even better on day two or from frozen.

Bacon, leek and pumpkin penne

Finely chop 500 grams of pumpkin and steam or microwave in some water till very soft.

Fry 250 grams of thinly sliced bacon (I used thick cut homemade bacon) 2 small leeks in some oil.

While doing this cook half a packet or so of penne in some salted water (a bit more is fine this pasta sauce coats the penne beautifully)

Once the bacon and leek are just starting to brown add 2 crushed cloves of garlic and all of the drained pumpkin. Add 250 – 300 grams of tomato passata stir though and cook until the pumpkin has virtually dissolved down to a paste and mixed through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss through the drained penne and stir till coated. Serve with grated parmesan (or not)

Gallery

3200km in 9 days.

A burning art festival.

Some truly remote areas of this country.

And some very interesting insights into life, distance the take up of renewable energy and from the most unexpected of quarters a view on the true Australia.

Yes I have been traveling. More to come in the next few days.

So tonight’s meal was baked ham studded with cloves and a honey mustard glaze, broccoli fritters and a Croatian cabbage salad.

Not a bad knocked up meal.

The ham is inspired by a meal a Canadian friend made when he crashed at my place for a few weeks in his travels, the salad is from A.’s heritage and the fritters are from a new facebook page my friend Libby from libby cooks directed me to.

I get my inspiration from my upbringing as I have said in other posts my parents had little (well by first world standards) but what we had we used wisely. I have developed over time the skill to use what was at hand to make do.  Be it cooking, the travels I have done, and life in general. I would say frugal rather than cheap but I will accept either tag as at the end of the day they are just tags.

And like most I find inspiration online as well.

I posted a list of blogs today that I follow the one comment on reflection of these is that all of them have a thread of people living their dreams and lives and within their means. The world is certainly not in great shape at the moment and if we are all going to get by I would say that more people getting by on what they have is going to have to happen. Making do is going to have to stop being the norm of the 3^rd world and become the realm of the first world. I hope these are skills I can pass onto my kids.

But enough preaching meal was as below.

Baked Ham

Take a piece of ham put whole cloves into the skin of the ham every centimetre or so. Mix honey and mustard together to taste then pour over the ham as a glaze. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for one hour. Slice and serve

Broccoli and Parmesan Fritters

http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/06/broccoli-parmesan-fritters/

Cabbage Salad

Finely sliced cabbage, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar to taste.

It is the weekend and I am at home with the kids today. A. is off to her community of sewers which will mean that I need to keep a sick 1 year old and a smart hyperactive 3 year old who uses her powers for evil at times entertained for the day.

And as it is not really conducive to creative writing I am going to cheat today and put up a few blogs that I read on a regular basis.

This is not all the blogs I follow a selection of a few. As you can see it is an odd mix of things and the only two things that bind them together is they are all different, and that they tell a human tale of life. Each has a different perspective. You don’t have to agree with everything on the blogs and I certainly don’t but that does not make their perspective or the fact it makes me think about my own perspective any less valuable to me.

Soon we will travel to another state to spend some time with an artist friend of ours and his friends as they run an art festival in the desert. To many of my work colleagues this seems odd. They mix in similar circles to themselves, families with kids.  There is nothing wrong with that but A. and I made the decision when the kids where born we would ensure thy mixed with all sorts of people. Life is diversity and as a permaculture principle you integrate not separate.

Hopefully at least one of these might perk your interest as well.

BLOGS

The Hungry Giant. This is one of the first blogs I subscribed to. It is a great little food blog and a very natural view of food from a culture that is both close and yet nicely different from my own. I already plan to make some of his tocino when I make bacon next (minus the msg) http://thehungrygiant.net/

The great Milkwood farm lots of good stuff here. http://milkwood.net/

The urban forager is great and makes we want to go back and live the UK again and makes me think about what I can use in my own area. I would say this is one of my favourite blogs. http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.com.au

My good friend Libby’s blog. Her amazing food and a strong ethic to life is covered in it. http://www.libby-cooks.com/

A bit commercial but a good read. I like the tales he tells as I grew up in the area he talks about and my views as redneck kid of the same things he does seem a little less romantic. But to his credit he lives his life to his dream. http://wholelarderlove.com/

Earthen Acres is wonderful little blog I don’t agree with everything from the author but that is life. What I love is the simple philosophy of being in control of your life and not going beyond your means. So much of our lives are made a misery by chasing things we really don’t want or need and this blog looks at this issue in a great way. http://earthenacres.wordpress.com/

Ranting of an amateur chef. I don’t always go for his food but get some great ideas and love how he pulls together so many meals on so many days. I worry my email is not working I don’t get my daily update. http://rantingchef.com/2012/07/13/cioppino/

My good friend Josh at apocalypse. http://apocalypseequipped.blogspot.com.au/

 400 days till 40 is my morning coffee at work read. http://400daystil40.wordpress.com/

A good mix of eclectic stuff here on food and life. http://jibuyabu.wordpress.com/

I particularly like the stories of Europe http://comeduemaiali.wordpress.com/

Tales from the land next door that I need to spend some time in. http://atdownunder.com/

This is my 50^th post and thought I had better do a bit of ‘not an urban hippy’ philosophy. Of late the blog has been more like a food blog and that is ok but today something a bit different.

So the weekend was an interesting one from a number of points of view but perhaps the thing that stood out in the weekend right up to Monday was the sense that a lot of people seem to be using their ‘I have done good’ to excuse them from basic manners and what I will call basic goodness. All these things I mention below are small things but they seem to me to add up to a certain feeling…

It started on Saturday with our usual run to the farmers market. We had a good morning chatted to our usual vendors and bought a bit more and bit less than usual. Then on the way out I spotted that someone has left an empty coffee cup behind our car. Not a biggie a minute for me to drop it in a bin but it seemed to me that one of the things that a lot of those folks who go to a market covet is a ‘green tinge’ and here they can’t do the most basic of environmental things and ensure that they put their rubbish in the bin.

As with all first Saturdays of the month we headed to a local swap meet next. We sit, we swap we have coffee the kids run around and Andrea chats. Or that is on a normal day. However this was a little different, I am on the news letter of a local transitional network and knew they would be out in numbers at this event having advertised this to us all. They had overwhelmed the place and the usual suspects had fled it seemed. I got a taste of ‘transitional networks view of community’ when I was waiting in line for a coffee you pay by donation. I had been waiting patiently for a while as there was just a couple of poor volunteers serving people and low and behold a couple of the transitional group wandered inserted themselves in the spare foot in front of me a and the counter and demanded a coffee and cake. When I raised an eye brow the people acknowledged me and then turned their back on me. No doubt safe in their knowledge that they were building a better society based on community and basic values like politeness… We fled like the other regular attendees.

Onto Monday and as I reflected on this I passed the salvos and the two other charity shops on the way to work it hit me again. People had dumped crap everywhere most of it would be unsaleable. The salvos and other charities spend millions each year getting rid of rubbish dumped at their stores rather than helping people. And perhaps with a slightly different perspective I now noticed this and thought I am sure these people console themselves that ‘we are donating this stuff’ when in reality they are getting rid of stuff they might have to pay to get properly dealt with. But with a very clean conscience no doubt.

These are just small things I noticed. I was perhaps a little bit more aware having read a few articles lately one of which was an article on how the purchase of fair trade and organic items seemed to predispose people to acts like littering and not showing basic politeness.

My own philosophy on this is simple. Being of old redneck stock I was taught basic manner by my parents and grandparents. I take my hat off when I go indoors, I open doors for people, I oddly still call the older people who where around when I grew up as Mr and Mrs, I say hello to people and speak to my neighbours (I even help them) and I teach my kids to say thank you when some does the same for them.  My opinion is If you wish to build a good community and society you need to stop with the view that you have done your good now you can just go back to your normal self. Be good because it is good. Be polite becuase if you can’t be how the hell can you hope ot build a comunity based on mutual respect. At the end of the day if all you get is a better world what have you lost?

But enough of the rant there is kilo and half of pork to be salted for making bacon. Bacon hmm yes more like a food blog…