Elderberry Syrup Cooking
Sourdough proofing
Mandarines vinegar made
Plate of fruit for kids morning tea.
Must be Sunday morning in the urban hippie household. Have a good day in the sunshine all
Well we had a minor visit by Jack Frost.
All this after I told my father we don’t get frost anymore here. Mother Nature must laugh at me some times.But it has been to long since we had this part of the natural cycle so I am enjoying this.
Looking like a beautiful day in the land of the urban hippie so of to get into it.
For those of you who don’t already know I have a Facebook page and this gets updated by my wordpress account but I also do post a fair few more small updates and photos there. So if you have Facebook please like. The link is down the side of this page.
Again I have been absent; again I have what I believe to be a good reason to have been absent.
At the end of the day life is life and the blog is a part not all of my life.
The last couple of months have been pretty tough for me. The matriarch of our family passed away. My Oma and one of the most wonderful people I have ever been lucky enough to have known. It has left me with a far bigger hole in my soul than I could ever have imagined and as such my thoughts have not been on the little things like this blog but on dealing with the loss but also the legacy of my grandmother.
Add to this, in this ‘lucky country’ there has been the usual frenzy of fear mongering about the job situation and the economy. The problem with this fear mongering has been it offers no solutions. It only offers a very negative view of the world and as the name indicates generates a sense of fear.
Society Says; Don’t have a job you will destitute, don’t rely on the government safety net they are taking it out from under the most vulnerable. It is a great way to keep people complaint and on edge. Makes them much better workers and willing to give up there all ‘for the dream’.
Even I have found myself thinking of this in the last few weeks, it percolated into me while I was busy off dealing with the grief and loss in my mind.
At the end though a few things have reminded me of the real situation and have allowed me to look at things with the legacy of my grandparents world view and the way they dealt with and lived with the world. My grandparents knew what was important. They lived through a world war, knew hunger, travelled to the far side of the world to a place they probably knew less about than I know about Mars in the easy knowledge age we call the internet.
One of the photos’s that always strikes me at events like my grandmother’s funeral is a photo of my grandparents standing side by side near the Bonegilla transit centre. In one hand they each held a small suitcase in the other the hand of one of their two daughters. This was it. All they had in a place so far from family and friends.
It is very confronting image and yet a very positive one for me, they made a choice for a new life and tough choice made for the sake of their children and their future.
My grandmother had some money on her arrival. She worked on the transit ship to Australia as a teacher earning a few pounds to help with the new life.
And it was hard. Share crop working on a farm with two small children, my mother talks of grandmother canning/bottling beans and fruit and anything else they could lay their hands on, growing gardens, milking cows they lived a frugal life but one with their kids and their children in a place of peace after a time of trouble.
Even when they moved to near where I was born to allow their children a better standard of education they lived frugally, nothing wasted, again gardens, they had some land. My grandfather a wheel write by trade built the house they lived in first one half then the other. They grew more comfortable both had good jobs they were still frugal, never cheap but always frugal. The effects of the post war period in Germany had a huge impact on my grandmother. Trying to feed two small children in such a time affected her deeply and the even when I was a teenager my grandmother still had a year’s worth of canned and dry goods in the cupboard. She would cycle these forward, nothing ever went out of date and she just did this.
Such hardship is not a common way of life now, or is it? Unlike my grandparents who could work as accepted refuges in this country, current refugees don’t have that luxury they live on $6 a day after expenses a lot of the time. Single parents have their safety net ripped out from under them, expected to do the impossible and find work and manage children, a task we as two parent two income family find hard at times.
True a lot of it is caused by a lack of skills of outsourcing our requirements or thinking a job will buy them the dream. Don’t get me wrong my grandparents where very, very keen for all their children and grandchildren to have educations, jobs, careers. Make your way into the world be independent. But after what they lived through they knew that you had to rely on yourself as well. Like it or not you cannot isolate yourself from the world.
The biggest advantage that my grandparents had was community and now the biggest problem I would point is as the complete lack of community. For the most part people no longer help out their neighbours or their community. A lot don’t even help out their family. This is great if you want to sell a product or a service. Less so if you want to be free of the fear that the media is peddling.
And it impacts on all aspects of life, even the much vaulted permaculture folk. I see few if any offers to teach skills to people like refugees or those on newstart. Skills that by their own admission have the power to do great good in the world. We feel we need to get a value for our time and for ‘our’ skills and knowledge. We make islands of one and other even here in the lucky country.
So the legacy that I got from grandparents is to be a part of society, even if you don’t agree with everything about it. Be self sufficient, have good skills, build community and work with it be that your neighbours, your friends or family. Work hard and be careful with that bit of money that you sell yourself for each day. It is after all a part of you that you sell each day.
And the gifts. More than can be numbered
Let start with all of the above. My grandparents showed me how they did it with the lives they lived, how you make your own path and walk it with pride. They taught me skills I use now to look after my own family and probably the most important thing they taught me how to look at the world and realise how much potential is there and how lucky I am to be here.
The fear that I and others feel from time to time is reasonable given the complete lack of positive news often seen in the media. But it is not reasonable to sit back be afraid and do nothing about it.
Today is the start of 44th year on the planet. So as I sit here with my fingers still stinging from the 4 stock pots full of nettles I just processed I am going to try to move forward and use the memory of my beloved Oma to remind me of where I need to go and how lucky I am to have had her as a guide. All I can do is try to live up to her memory and try to pass on these things to my children.
So as with most people our weeks are very busy. Both of us work and the kids are in full time crèche life is busy but with winter and with the sick season on its way we still like to ensure that we eat well at a decent price without breaking the world during winter.
One of the solutions we have found is to put together a big pot of soup for the week. The kids get a good lunch at crèche and A. and I often eat leftovers from meals and lots of fruit and veg during the day so hearty soup, salad and sandwiches works well in a busy rush home and get the kids ready for bed evening.
We have a good number of soups we regularly do. One that is always a favourite is the leek and potato soup with parmesan rind. Pretty damn good, kids love it we love it but not really a great source of the mix of vegetables that promotes immune system and general health over winter (damn).
Two others that we make regularly are pumpkin/vegetable soup and minestrone. A big pot of one of these two soups would be made most weeks for us and we would get 2 -3 nights worth of meals with sandwiches and salads from it.
Both soups are great as they use lots of in season vegetables and use what is local and are very easy to make and are both very cheap. The can be made quickly and easily even with kids running around and organising a week night .
I am lucky I have access to good veggies I grow and from my parents and farmers markets we also use cheap off cuts of meats, these tends to be a very small amount often coming from things like prosciutto rind, de skinned sausages, bacon and off cuts of ham from our local boutique smoke house vendor. So as I said even on a budget these are easy to make and generally pretty good for you.
Easy Minestrone (big soup)
Ingredients
A lot of my soups, stews and casseroles start with a mirepoix which is a French term for a mix of the carrot, onion and celery which is sweated down in a pot with a little olive oil. The only real trick is to not turn up the heat to high and to leave the lid on when sweating the vegetables. Under no circumstances do you want to let the vegetables brown at all. I tend to leave it for around 15 minutes and about ½ way through I throw in the garlic and bay leaves and herbs. Once the base has been sweated add the stock, wine and the passatta sauce and bring to the boil then simmer for 20 – 30 minutes (good time to get the kids bathed and in their PJ’s)
After the simmer time add the pasta for another 10 minutes at a simmer then add the beans and simmer for another 5 minutes (if you use fresh green beans add them with the pasta)
Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh herbs, some grated parmesan (or not) and drop of good olive oil. Freezes exceptionally well as lunches.
Pumpkin/Vegetable Soup.
This one takes a bit longer so best made on a Sunday or while making Mondays dinner and just get better as you reheat it.
For me the only difference between pumpkin and vegetable soup is that in pumpkin I use a lot more of the pumpkin where as in a vegetable soup I will use a greater mix of vegetables. The Veggie soup is great as a way touse up any leftover veggies you might have hanging around and again freezes well.
Ingredients
As with the other soup above this one starts with a mirepoix which is a French term for a mix of the carrot, onion and celery which is sweated down in a pot with a little olive oil. The only real trick is to not turn up the heat to high and to leave the lid on when sweating the vegetables. Under no circumstances do you want to let the vegetables to brown at all. I tend to leave it for around 15 minutes and about ½ way through I throw in the garlic and bay leaves and herbs. Once the base has finished add the cubed pumpkin and potato add water to just cover the veg and bring to the boil. Add a good amount of salt the garam masala, pepper and turmeric. Add your piece of ham, bacon or hock and simmer till the potatoes and pumpkin are soft.
Stick blend it til your desired consistency. Serve with sour cream or yogurt. I like to add in some fried sliced chorizo on top as well .
The kids love a good cheese toastie to go with it this and I have a few ways to make it and one of our favourite is to use the Lebanese flat bread, fill with grated cheddar cheese and a little mustard, butter both sides and put in a press grill. Comes out crispy and cheese filled for the kids (and big kids) to dip into the soup.
I suppose I should post that I did something amazing on this day? Got my garden ready, visited some shining example of how someone has gone there already. Built something made something?
But no it was just another day for the urban hippie family. Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday party and we had good gaggle of local kids and their parents along. They ate, drank had a good time. Kids painted and ran around the back yard eyed of ducks and chickens and the bee hives. Parents and a few relatives commented on what I was doing and suggested they would like to try some of the ideas. So from that point of view some good came out of it. But basically the best thing was local people enjoying time with local people.
So today started a little quiet with A. needing a bit of a sleep in and my plans to do something for IPD didn’t quite work out but that is ok.
I got to watch the kids doing some painting , then go to their swimming class and then the rest of the day spent visiting family up country. All in all very enjoyable day. I came back with another couple of boxes of quinces from family and really need to get bottling this week. But that is about as far as a concrete outcome I could come up with.
It got me thinking about the IPD. A lot of people are blogging or commenting on the things they are doing. But shouldn’t IPD be every day? Permaculture being Permanent Culture then IPD should be like any other day. Getting up and doing the little things, feeding the chickens and ducks playing with the kids, time spent with community and family discussing ideas (as I did with one of my cousins) watching and observing making small changes. Interacting with family and the local community? Spending time with my kids in the garden (after all my kids are a primary driver of why I do this stuff)
So all in all I am happy with my IPD and could not think of a better way to spend it. Don’t get me wrong the ideas people have the events they have run are great and it is obvious that such a day is more for those outside the fold rather than in and very important at this junction in time.
So for me the day is like any birthday I have had in the last 20 years or New Year’s. It is a good chance to look at what has been done and needs to be done a time to get some inspiration and some perspective.
At the end of the day (pun intended) Permaculture will know when it has succeeded in getting permaculture to the masses. When we don’t need to celebrate an IPD as it would be like celebrating a Monday.
Is barter more ethical than buy?
It is an interesting question and perhaps a little more complex than I thought initially.
On a first look the answer is yes. Barter is good as people do not exchange funds they trade an item or service in our case alternative medicine for some goods or services we have such as our duck eggs.
It is a win win for those involved we get looked after and it helps to offset the feed bill for our ducks and chickens. The alternative practitioner gets the duck eggs he needs as some members of his family are allergic to chicken eggs. They are fresh guaranteed organic and better value (or so he tells me than the ones he gets through commercial elements)
Add to that our ducks have a much better life than most commercial fowl and raised in what I look at as pretty sustainable way.
Often it is what you have in excess that is swapped so it is way of ensuring that things are not wasted and are shared around to those who need it. Which is something the world can most definitely do with.
And finally as was pointed out to me this morning by friend who was staying for a few days in Melbourne with us while he attended a course.
He noted I was cleaning the duck eggs for the appointment tonight and commented that bartering makes you more accountable for what you are trading. Handing over cash is easy getting cash is easy but it can lead to devaluing of what you do or make or sell. Bartering where the direct value of a product or service you have is based on the quality vs. the quality of the thing you are getting in return makes you really look at it and make sure it is as good as you can make it. Having pride in that item or service
On the flip side you are effectively not paying your dues to society. And this is where it gets tricky. Because in reality you are not paying your taxes to the government it is to society that the taxes go through the medium of the government. We are taxed so that import things like social welfare, infrastructure and really important reforms like the NDIS (national Disability Insurance Scheme) can be payed for.
It also means that people have a job to allow them to buy goods and services that couldn’t be bartered for.
We also pay for a lot of stuff we don’t like, as an example we subsidise already wealthy companies (corporate welfare) and a governments that we often don’t really believe is worth what we are putting in.
So it is a balancing act. I think that swapping items and services is great if done on a sustainable level,
And here is the kicker it is a sustainable level we are talking about. If everyone keeps below the tax free threshold and barters the rest that sounds great for them. For society probably not so great in the medium or long term. And at the end of the day ‘you are the society’ and a sustainable society is what we should all be interested in.
It is not that I have not had any idea’s or even had tales and items to write about but I just cont seem to get them down in words. A couple of times a day I have a good blog in my head and then when it comes to writing it get caught up in whatever else I let myself get distracted with.
I am now just going to sit down and start writing so if it comes out as junk some days so be it you guys can always unsubscribe if it gets that bad 🙂
The last three weeks have been busy and I will write about them as I can. I went on juice diet for 15 days. The diet is a detox diet based around the fat sick and nearly dead documentary. It was a success with me feeling great at the end of the diet. Lost a good bit of weight and my liver appears to be much happier. I have done this last year and had a similarly good experience in regards to weight loss and keeping it off but also in some other health aspects. I plan to also do a vegan diet in spring to get my body working again.
The thing about this sort of radical diet is that it is not that radical. It is in the modern world but in times not so distant fasting and hunger where a part of our lives we are designed for it. And the type of fasting on vegetables is particularly good for us as is gives us a nutrient burst that for times such as spring allow us to get our bodies functioning and on track.
I still cooked for my family and it is interesting once you are on this diet how you look at food and how our society deals with food differently.
I eat a lot of good food (one of the reasons I need to fast, one of the reasons most people need to fast once in a while) and most of it is seasonal and cooked from scratch where possible.
The thing that strikes you is the sheer volume of food available and the amount of advertising that goes with the food. It is everywhere and very pervasive and not eating and being aware of it you almost get to step outside the subliminal side of things and see why people are packing on so much weight.
I still did my gardening, did exercise and walked to and from public for work and I didn’t feel weak at all.
Not sure if I will do this diet later in the year. Think once a year about 12 days would be optimal but I am going to do a 21 day vegan diet in spring. This is both an idea that Chinese medicine and also the paleoarchaeology types who study us from a historical point of view recomentd. For both a good amount of bitter greens and a high nutrient low calorific diet in spring helps the liver get back in shape after a winter of stored food (typically comfort foods for us now)
I did get to add in a bit of urban hippieness into the diet. Green smoothee’s of Kale, dandelion leaf, nightshade leaf, mallow leaf, cleavers, nasturtium and even a few of my precious nettles (although they are being saved for soup, gnocchi and pasta) from my back yard made the diet cheaper and easier this time and allowed me a side line of interest to help keep me going.
I am adding more weeds all the time into our diet and this is working well, the kids love them and in our societies nutrient poor energy rich foods, the weeds being the opposite makes for something we should all be eating more off.
FYI the weed walk with Adam Grubb is on for those in Melbourne in a couple of weeks time. Check out the link and attend if you can it is a great walk well worth the money and time. You will never look at a grassy field the same ever again.
There seems to me nothing more appropriate than Nana teaching her granddaughter how to make Anzac biscuits on Anzac Day.
In some countries they have the skills of the grandmothers day. This is most days when my children visit their grandparents 🙂
Well despite having only just caught up with sleep, being part way through a 15 day juice detox and getting back to a busy week of work I am still buzzing from my last weekend and start to the week. I went to the amazing Milkwood Permaculture Institute up in Mudgee to attend a natural building course.
I will not go into details of the building process as I think it is only fair for Milkwood to publish the detailed steps in their excellent blog (they allready have an overview of the build so jump to their site and have a look once you have finished reading this post) which I would strongly recommend that people sigh up for.
Suffice to say I had a great 4 days we built a rubble foundation, stacked bales, built a reciprocal roof, rendered the outside with lime render, the inside with clay render and put second hand timber on the roof in preparation for a earth roof they are planning (we didn’t quite get onto this but that was no biggie)
My brain was fried by the sheer volume of information and the professional builder who was the instructor gave us amazing amounts of information and was so generous with his knowledge it was ridiculous.
But it was more than the course. Being at Milkwood showed what can be done. As Sam the builder said ‘Many talk the talk, these guys walk the walk’. We did a quick site tour and the knowledge and skill and the understanding is everywhere. From the management of water to energy to food production. All done with a level of practicality I don’t often in people who are out to change in this area.
The people on the course where great and everyone got a chance to try everything as well as get good sound theoretical knowledge and ask as many questions and discuss options.
We ate incredibly well (most of it from Milkwood) and sat outside and watched the stars, drank tea, planned and chatted as a group.
Even the 11 hour drive home and a couple of hours sleep before heading to work, worked out well. It gave me the time to sort through the info I had in my head and idea’s I need to get into. And boy do I have a few idea’s.
I have already put in more winter vegies and am looking at the hot house glass going I have to get this going now. I have to get the new chicken pens sorted. And a host of other things to keep me entertained.
It is still unlikely I will ever get a consensus for a move out country and build something as grand as full sized sustainable house and permaculture life style block 🙂 At the end of the day I do see a reno of my place in the very near future and a weekender where I can put in more food forest and my own zone 4/5 and build of a small place to stay in. Probably a lot like the one we built up there. The reciprocal roof is such a thing of beauty I couldn’t not have one on any building I built.
I also gained a huge amount of knowledge about what to do with my place to get it more efficient. So I will continue to dream and will most likely be back to Milkwood to do more courses. I will also still keep working on getting the most out of my little urban block. After all not everyone can have acreage in a finite future and being able to do what I can in the suburbs is the most important thing.
Oh and one last thing. I got to see the mythical upside down fire in action. And yes it definitely does work.
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Why make it yourself?
This is often the question that I get asked?
It has been a busy, busy week. You know when the proverbial fertiliser has hit the wind displacement device when you have to do two weeks of work to be able to take a week off to go on holidays. To say my current work load is unsustainable is to state the bleeding obvious. This is a story for another day though.
Added to that I have had some issues with the second car and we are trialling having only one car and me using public and the bike as my mode of transport to and from work. this is working out well but means I have to be a bit more disciplined and means it requires more organisation.
So that has been the reason for no posts over the last weeks. We have however been trying to keep living the life and to a greater extent we have been.
I have cooked meals for friends and family and we have offered friends to stay in our house rather than paying for accommodation and keep the money go round going. We have carted our kids, and still grown our food and all this with a couple of people working far too long hour’s is it any wonder we need a holiday 🙂
I try to cook our meals as much as is possible from scratch that is not to say that I don’t use some items such as yellow curry, garam massala mixes and items like mustard (although I will be making my own mustard soon enough)
Last weekend I made up a porchetta with fresh herbs from my garden for dinner, pancakes with no mix. We ate veg and salads from our garden including a tomatoes and basil salad with 5 different types of tomato and3 types of basil. During the week we ate meals that we had cooked for lunches and I started the week with $45 in my pocket and ended the week with $43 in it and no sense of hunger or having missed out.
So why go to the trouble of making our own from scratch especially when we appear to be time poor? Well the cost is a major issue. We don’t work to work, we work to allow us to get ahead and in time. If we work long hours and just waste the money then we are going backwards.
I also like the challenge of doing things from scratch. I talk a lot on this blog about the developing of skills. Making it yourself makes you less of a slave to the system and ensures that if the time comes when you cannot easily buy the service you can always do it yourself.
It also means I know what the inputs into something are, especially useful with cooking and knowing what our bodies and the bodies of our children get put into them.
It gives a real sense of the cost of things to the world. Sometimes it is not cheaper such as the bacon I make. I can buy cheap bacon for much less than I can make. But that would factory farmed pork, in unsustainable practices to a large multinational taking the money of shore. And it does make you wonder what the final cost to the world of such an item really is when you realise it costs me twice as much to make it and I don’t even consider the labour involved.
So it makes you look at the world differently.
It makes you realise what real things should taste, feel and be like. Not the bland hand to mouth no thought I will buy more stuff to make me feel better lifestyle.
And the final reason is that it is interesting and fun. Which helps to keep me sane on the stupid go round that is the culture we often deal with.
As I have said a part of the week as been in seeing if we can cope with out the second car. Our kids love the simple joy of being carted by us in the bike trailer from crèche rather than by car and despite the organisation and discipline the time spent carting the kids has reacquainted me in an odd way with the world around me as I cart the kids or walk to and from the station I check out the herbs. See mallow and mallow cheese in abundance, edible nightshade, dandelion and other ‘weeds’. I also see some interesting things people. Guerrilla gardening, by putting plots in unused spaces, wild harvesting and gathering. Keep an eye out for items I can use later on and the huge waste of space that we have in the cities that could be used to solve a great many of the problems we have from homelessness to growing our own fuel and food to connecting as a community.
It is also feels a damn side more useful than a lot of people I see rushing home so they can change to go out to do some exercise…
So while busy the week has been good with more time in many ways than most to look at the world and enjoy the time with family and friends.
This week I am in Apollo bay for the week with family for a beach side holiday. Tomorrow we will catch up with Libby from libby cooks for a meal including quite a few foraged dishes and we will then explore the area, hopefully do a bit of foraging and just enjoy the time with family.
If I don’t post I will definitely have to come up with a new excuse other than work 🙂 wont I ?
Homemade Porchetta.
Butterfly a roast and lay flat on a chopping board. I left the roast in the fridge uncovered for 5 hours to allow the skin to dry out to get the best crackling prior to this step.
Dry toast 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds.
In mortar and pestle or the food processor in a pre apocalypse kitchen put together a selection of fresh herbs from the garden, lots of basil (or basil mint as I used in this case) and parsley are a must, as is garlic and some rosemary (not too much) other than that just use what you have. I used oregano, thyme and sage as well and could have added some French tarragon I had if I wanted to. A little bit of salt and pepper and some chilli to taste. Blend with as little olive oil as you can to make a smooth but not sloppy paste.
Spread over one side of the butterflied roast, grate a little lemon zest on the top and then roll and secure the roast with twine or wet skewers.
Liberally coat the skin olive oil and salt and fresh black pepper.
Pre heat an oven to 250 degree Celsius
Put roast in for 30 minutes and you should see the crackling start to blister. Drop the heat back t 150 degrees for 2 hours or so then ramp the temperature back up to 250 degrees for the last 20 minutes until the crackling is perfect.
Serve it? We had simple boiled Dutch cream potatoes and other vegetables to go with it.
Any leftover should be sliced thickly and eaten on sourdough for lunches 🙂
Photos of the making of porchetta below.
I am NOT an urban hippie 