Tag Archives: food

Taking Stock

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So Today was our famers market day. We go to the farmers market at Bundoora stock up on good meat, small goods, cheeses and a week or two of any fresh vegies that we don’t grow or swap that are on offer.

Today before I headed off I did a fridge and freezer clean out and stock take to check what I needed and to ensure that I did not waste anything, or buy things I already have.

We have some changes coming to our house as we retro fit it for conserving energy and the power will be off for a few days to a week so one of the plans is to clean out the freezer. It will also not hurt to process what I have in there, either by cooking it or it processing it for alternate storage such as bottling/canning drying etc. I like most people can rely a bit too much on the freezer  and while a very useful tool for improving self-sufficiency we should remember that at the end of the day it costs us to run whereas bottled fruit or a pack of dried mushrooms can sit there for a couple of years and not cost me a penny.

It is also going to help our budget as well. The retro fit is not going to be cheap but by my calculations we are pretty much setup for the bulk of meals for the next couple of months.

So it might be a good chance for everyone to see what they have in their larder, fridge or freezer and ensure that all nothing is going to go to waste.

Once done I have cleaned out my freezer I will be putting in a good chunk of a whole pig I am buying in the freezer in May to see how I go with it as my primary source of animal protein for the winter. But I will also be processing some into smoked bacon, salami and prosciutto as I have said I want to reduce that reliance on the freezer and keep it as simple as I can  which will help my budget and hopefully the world at large.

To this end tomorrow I will start to plant my bed in the community garden with winter veg. After all if you can grow and harvest it as you go then you are even better off than storing it in the end.

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Making it a bit easier – Laying Boxs on the easy

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Like it or not we all lead very busy lives and the amount time we can get things done in impacts on what else we can get done.

Time should be treated as, as much of a resource as water, soil or anything else required to live your life. And it is very much a non renewable resource, once gone it will not be back. The effective use of that time is what allows us to enjoy the sit down and the time spent with kids, family and friends.

I harp on about how every dollar is time out of your life the less you have to spend the less you have to make the more time you have to enjoy yourself. Pretty simple equation.

I try to tackle the regular jobs that need to be done as efficiently as I can. Getting the setup of this helps out a lot and I was reminded of this morning when I needed to clean out the chickens laying box’s before work.

needs to be cleaned

For a lot of years I had an old 44 gallon drum that I used to use as a chicken laying box in my chicken run. It was something I inherited from my sister with her chickens when she moved north. It sort of worked as the rest of my chicken run was from recycled hard waste. It kept the chickens out of the way and provided them with a space to lay in. The problem with it was that to clean it out was a pain. It meant that I had to reach all the way in and drag out the old straw. The task was messy and unpleasant as you ended covered in dust and chicken manure. It was also time consuming and the combination meant it happened a little less often than would be optimal.

The other big problem was that it was dark and had lots of nooks and crannies could easily lead to lice and other pests not being cleared out of the laying box allowing for reinfestation.  

When I mentioned this process clean out process to a girl at work she said her dad of Sicilian decent just used large plastic pots as laying boxes. Easy to clean easy to handle and can be washed out and left to dry in the sun giving the nasties a good dose of UV to kill them off.

I had no spare large pots but I did have some large plastic barrels used for importing olives that I had picked up.

So I cleared out the old 44 gallon drum out of the shed and cut the plastic barrel in half and washed it out thoroughly and viola as below I had laying box’s setup. A board at the front to stop the chicken kicking out the straw and it was finished.

Where as before the clean out took 15-20 minutes of messy work the clean out now takes 30 seconds dump the contents into the compost bin.

emptied out

Give them a quick squirt out with water if required and dry. emptie out and ready for straw

Fill with straw and done. Maybe two minutes on average and can be done in my work clothes without any worry of getting messed up.

all clean

Mine are on the ground as my birds seem to prefer not to roost but you could easily put them on a shelf up a bit higher if you wanted to as they weigh next to nothing.

I am going to be sharing a few ideas on my chicken run. Partially because i promised it when i started this blog but also my friend Libby from libby cooks is building a new chicken run so it seems like an opportune time to post on the subject.

My what a busy year you have had.

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My what a busy year you have had.

Well it has been a very, very, very busy year.

As I am sitting here having eaten a nice meal home cooked with my family and knocking back a nice cold elderberry champagne I must admit I am pretty content.

Not complacent just content. I wandered around my back yard this evening thinking I need to do this. I need to do that but I reminded myself of the many things I have done.

In some ways the approach I am taking to lighten my step on the earth is working but it is still way too heavy. I am not the worst or the best and if the whole world lived like me we would be in trouble. Conversely if the whole of Australia lived like me we would perhaps be starting down a better road (just my opinion here).

So where to from here? Well for me I intend to keep going. I have a number of things I would like to do this year as listed below but one of things I will do is take more time to spend with my family.

While I was always interested in the world and the long term living of within means, my children bring home why I have to continue to change.  For anyone reading this it is a long term thing. Each day you look at the world a little differently and hopefully a little better.

Achievements this year.

  • Garden more productive than last year.
  • Passive solar changes for the house underway
  • Front yard full of idea’s (most would call it full of junk)
  • 87 posts on this blog (some of them readable)
  • Lots of good meals with friends and family
  • Some bartering for services.
  • Lots of plant swaps.
  • Most of my seedlings self grown (or bartered)
  • New skills such as salami making, meat curing and stone carving learnt
  • A lot of booze brewed (some of it even drinkable – cheers)
  • Foraging skills for plants, materials etc  increased.
  • Bees in the back yard
  • Started a few people on the road to growing their own gardens
  • A reconnection to local food through the garden, the ceres box, and the cheese and tofu coop.
  • And mostly two happy little kids who love the world.

It is short list but there is a good number of things to be happy for I think.

For next year

  • Shed move
  • Retaining walls.
  • Retro fit the house for energy saving
  • The new plot in the community garden
  • More garden beds
  • Cellar space
  • Harvest Honey
  • Hot house
  • More time with my family and of course…
  • two happy little kids who love the world 

This list is shorter as more things will creep in and the last two items will be a strong focus. Time spent smelling the roses and enjoying friends and family more.

I still had to work tonight and again tomorrow, a reminder of the bad old days for me in the corporate world but I am starting see that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Happy to be working at the end of the day and working towards the rest of my goals

May you all have a great new years and safe break (if you are having one) see you all next year (yes that is tomorrow)

New Years Eve Dinner (yes it can be a food blog at times)

Chicken

  • 3 or 4 chicken thighs (you can use breast fillets but thigh are better flavour and will not dry out so much)
  • 2 table spoons fish sauce
  • 1 table spoon of soy sauce
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • Table spoon of water
  • 3 cloves of garlic crushed
  • Teaspoon of fresh chilli
  • Walnut sized piece of ginger grated
  • 4 or 5 spring onions sliced up.
  • 1 teaspoon of brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
  • 1 table spoon sesame oil

Put the chicken breasts in foil and pour over the rest of the ingredients you have mixed in a jug. Wrap up and seal the tin foil and cook in an oven at 170 degree Celsius for around 30 to 45 minutes (breast fillets 30 minutes, thighs longer)

Meat will fall off the bone and both children where getting right into it.

Salad

  • 1 cucumber sliced on grater slicer
  • 1 zucchini sliced on grater slicer
  • 1 carrot peeled and sliced with a peeler in long strips
  • 1 tablespoon of flaked almonds (I ran out tonight)

Mix vegetables together and season with macadamia/olive oil, vinegar salt and pepper  leave for a while then toss in the almonds prior to serving.

Works very well mixed together on a plate with chicken meat, and steamed rice.

An excess of feasting

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Well Christmas is over for another year. For us it has been a good but busy … holiday period. We spent a lot of time with family, travelled a lot and hopefully had slightly greener Christmas for the sake of the kids.

We feasted as royalty could not have 200 years ago. Pork product after pork product after pork product. One of the things about being of German decent on one side and redneck on the other is I have always been exposed to a urbane European background on one side and a very old school country up bringing on the other side.

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For me Christmas has always been about the feasts. On Christmas eve we would gather at my Oma’s house and eat a tradition German meal, soup, good frankfurts, herring salad and of course my oma’s potato salad which still has no equal in my eyes. At that time things like the specialty chocolates would be sent from Germany and there would be counting of them. We would gather eat, open our presents and enjoy each other’s company.

Christmas day was for the other side of the family. Mum slaving over wood fired stove in 40 degree Celsius weather and the far simpler evening meal at my Australian grandparents farm but surrounded by dozens of my cousins creating chaos as only kids can.

In all of this the act of getting together has been the main aim. In times past the act of a feast and a gathering to celebrate was a major thing. To roast a whole leg of something or a large bird. What an luxurious thing. It helped people to bond and was something people could look forward to.

Now with obesity at record levels and the fact we can get anything (including those specialty chocolates) at any time of the year the feast could easily be looked at as just another party.  But the chance to spend time with family is as important as it ever was. Perhaps more so now that I have children and want them to grow up with those same strong bonds I have had with family.

Over time our family has moved away from conspicuous consumption. When I was a kid items like bikes where the gifts we received we then went through the same phase everyone did of lots and lots and lots of presents and now the children get lots of gifts but we keep it toned down for the rest of the family. Books, food items, even plants and seeds are given away. This year a number of us gave Oxfam cards including a well I purchased for my whole family. While we valued and appreciated the gifts given to us by the family as my wife said the best gift we received was a couple of goats that would go to someone who really needs them somewhere.

For us in our conspicuous society it has perhaps come time to realise that less is more, and the act of giving and spending time with family is more import to us that the gifts.

One of the good things about my family is most of them are great cooks, my grandmothers potato salad, my mothers pavlova with berries from her garden, homemade fish pate with fresh dill, salads, trifles, baked meats and more. For me the this year apart from providing the sliced ham from our artisan smoker for Christmas eve I was to bake a leg of ham of ham for the Christmas day lunch.

Now where practical and possible we have purchased heritage pig smoked by artisan for ham however as I had to bake this for a large gathering and at $30 per KG of smoked goodness I couldn’t bring myself to use it for the baked ham. I went for a good leg of Australian ham (which cost me about the same for 4kg as for 1 kg of my artisan ham) and after skinning it and putting together an orange marmalade, Australian Banksia honey, spices and bourbon glaze and baking it in the oven for over an hour I must admit that the taste of the artisan ham would have been wasted on this dish.

It is difficult thing I find. I know that the cost for the better ham would have been small in comparison to my wage and I should get the ethical ham but I suppose I can salve my conscience a bit by looking at the cost difference being most of the well I bought.

Again at the lunch gifts where small and well thought out. Light on the world as much as is possible and in a season of hope I must admit to being quietly optimistic seeing pre war, baby boomers, gen x, y and w all not worried about the material side of the holiday season and just enjoying each others company. It bodes better for my kids future. There will still be a lot to look at raise for them but at least perhaps this message is starting to come across.

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Value the time, family and life you have. Drink blackberry whisky with your father, let the kids play with their grandparents and family as in the end it is all that really matters.

Baked Ham.

Take a good leg of ham  3- 4 kg and skin making sure you leave as much fat as you can. Slice into the fat in a diamond pattern of about a cm or so.

Stud the upper side with a good number of whole cloves (I do one about ever ½ a cm). While doing the cloves in saucepan mix the other ingredients and let them reduce just a bit.

Coat the top of the ham with about 2/3 of the mix and put in a pre warmed oven at 170 degree Celsius  and baste with the remaining glaze every 20 minutes or so. Bake for an hour to an hour and a half.

Leave to stand for about 10 minutes (or longer) then slice and serve.

Ingredients

  • Ham 3-4kg leg.
  • Whole cloves to stud the leg

Glaze

  • ¾ of a cup of orange juice
  • Jar of marmalade (around 1 cup)
  • 1 cup of honey (I used banksia honey for a bit of an Australian twist.
  • 4 table spoons of Dijon mustard
  • ½ teaspoon of nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons (or more) of fresh chilli.

Of Cherries and Tarragon – why we do this again

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We often drift into things.

I have always been interested in living as sustainably as possible but up until 5 years ago it had been 20 years since I had, had a garden to work with. Travel throughout the world and an interest in martial arts and climbing had kept me more than busy over that period of time.

Food had always interested me and I had always tried to eat as local as I could. Be it caribou in Greenland or salmon in Scotland to dhal baat in Nepal the food and cooking it always doubly interested me and it was actually the idea of cooking that pushed me more and more towards my garden when I finally had a place to set up one.

One of the first things I had tried to locate was Tuscan kale. This was long before it became popular on master chef as I had recipes and simply couldn’t find it. So the answer was simply find some seed and grow it. Which I did and still do.

One of the recipes that also caught my eye was recipe for pickled cherries with French tarragon. After decent old search I found the French tarragon and have been growing it for four years now adding it to the French dishes that I seem to lean towards as a style of cooking, but never quiet getting around to making the dish that pushed me to find it in the first place and explore this style of cooking.

 

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Well it is cherry season and I have tarragon in the garden so I have decided to make this recipe tonight. I made up two batches as I ran out of white vinegar and used some red wine vinegar we had in the cupboard.

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Let’s see in six or so weeks if it turns out. It might be completely inedible or not to my taste but nothing is lost. I will still use the tarragon, I will continue to enhance my garden, and I will still head off into new area’s and plans.

 In the end all I loose is a few cherries and time which I enjoyed anyway.

Buzz….

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A.’s bees arrived today.

Honey you have honey for the familly.

Of Mallow and Strawberries

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On Sunday I went and did the excellent Adam Grubb of Very Edible Gardens edible weed walk.

I am interested in foraging and already do some foraging eating nettles and wild fennel, converting sticky weed into bio fertilizer, getting into wild foraged elder and other trees. I have known about dock and dandelion and have eaten them before but wanted to improve my knowledge of the food options that we underestimate and are so widely available. Being self-sufficient is a part of what I am looking at and this is just one small part of the puzzle.

I won’t go into details as to individual plants in this post as this is an area that you are best to go and do a course with or/and get mentored and learn this important skill safely. I have done a courses with Ballarart Permaculture Guild and now with Adam and feel a level of comfort with what I know and don’t know (and have posted on things like nettles) but even then I use a field guide to check things out I am 100% sure of it.

Adam said at the start that you will look at the average plot of grass and weeds a bit differently after the course and yes this is certainly the case and last night I spotted about 5 different edible weeds in my back yard that there was good mallow plant up near the strawberries. So while the 3 year old got stuck into picking the strawberries I picked a handful of mallow buds or mallow cheese as they are known.

They have a nice crunchy texture and taste not unlike edame. So Sabrina and I brought in the strawberries to share and after seeing me eat the mallow she asked to to try it and low and behold she loved them eating them over the strawberries (she can be a strange child at times 🙂 )but she did then clean up the strawberries when the mallow was all done 🙂

Our rule is that you don’t have to eat a meal but you do have to try it and I am glad that this is now coming out in my daughter being willing to try anything.

So go out and learnt some new skills and learn to forage (and do it safely) and if like me you have a family then you might just manage to influence that next generation to something just a bit more sustainable.

Lacto Brewed Ginger Beer

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I have been away for a while due to work commitments to study. It is one of those odd things that happens. I have a 5 year plan and I don’t think I will use this diploma I just got at the end of that 5 year plan but the next 5 years it will be required to lead to the end of the 5 year plan (I think that makes sense)

Sadly you have to balance out the ‘what you want’ versus what it takes to get there. For me it is a balance but one I am aware of and try to manage. I do not want to get to the point where lied to myself so much thinking I can sell my present to do what I want in the future but neither do I want to car wreck the future by doing only what I want rather than what I have to do.  

And also at the end of the day education is always a good thing. People should never stop learning formally or informally. To stop is to in a way to start the trip to death.

But enough of my musings. I have a lot to catch up on for everyone but I also want to spend the day in the garden so my balance for today is the short post below on brewing lacto ginger beer. Last year I did this and this year I am trying again and it is looking very promising with the starter brew smelling SO GOOD after a week of me helping mother nature make it.

To make the starter you need a clean sterilised large mouth jar. A cup and half to two cups of rain water (tap water is ok but boil it and leave 24 hours to get rid of any chlorination before using) . Add a tablespoon or so of grated peeled raw ginger. The amount depends on what you end up grating from the amount you peeled. No matter how much it is add an equal amount of sugar to it needs to be added. Cover opening of the jar with a piece of muslin cloth and rubber band.

Each day you add around the same amount of ginger and sugar and stir vigorously (I tend to swirl it once day as well) after a couple of days you should see bubbles forming and the lovely ginger beer smell will come of it.

It may take a bit longer as it depends what wild yeast is around and the conditions. This year has been great for wild yeast (as I discovered making elderflower cordial which is another story)

As with all my brewing but particularly when using a wild yeast process make sure you sanitise everything when I grate the ginger I pour boiling water over the grater and plate and leave for a minute or so and even pour it over the knife used to peel the ginger. I obviously make sure all of the spoon used to measure and add the ginger and sugar and the stir is clean and had had boiled water poured over it to clear.

I have a couple of more days of making the starter then I can make it up into beer and will post on that then.

Fresh Batch made with a different yeast

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Well another late night bottling up a batch of elderflower brew. This one made with ale yeast.

Not bad on first taste perhaps a bit dry and I am not sure if I left it a day or two to long brewing or if it is the yeast type. Might make up another smaller batch and keep the brewing down to about 4 days.

Having said that still very drinkable 🙂 and off course had to clean up a glass… wouldn’t want a part bottle now would we 🙂

This will be my last full batch for a while I have 30 liters of the stuff. Will freeze and dry some elderflowers instead and leave the rest of the flowers to become elderberries for elderberry port and tincture. After the bugs of this year going to stock up on anything to help the old immune systems over next winter.

Have a great week all and remember wishing for the weekend is wishing away a week of your life go out and live the week. 🙂

The Olla Bed

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About a year ago I built an Olla bed. For those of you not familiar olla are a low tech unglazed earthen ware containers used to provide water directly to the roots of a plant.

A much better article than I could ever write is found at

http://permaculturenews.org/2010/09/16/ollas-unglazed-clay-pots-for-garden-irrigation/

With summer just around the corner (despite the sudden cold snap) I thought I had better give a report on how it is doing.

My Olla are not so pretty being made of some old clay pipe I had access to and some pot bases. I Sanded them to remove any glaze and used silicon to bind it all together. Over the last summer they lasted really well requiring a single fill up of the three olla to last the week.

I also incorporated a mini worm farm into the bed that helps to keep up the worms in the beds and compost it.

As you can see the beds are thriving. Last summer almost all of our salad vegetables came from this one bath tub. I was sick and tired of plastic packets of salad vegetables costing me a fortune and going bad after about two days.

The bed requires very little work to keep the plants maintained and as you are feeding directly to the roots of the plant the amount of weeds has been very minimal. I have used seedlings for the most part planting them around the Olla and this seems to work best for me, the developed roots seem to find the water without much trouble. Direct seeds seem to go the way of the weeds and not do as well.

This year I will be adding some herbs and more leafy greens to the mix and seeing how much I can push the system and how long the reservoirs will last with the bed fully loaded.

In the next week or two I will drop a post on the build process I went through.