Life Without Anchovies

OK We are back from Malta - Now What?

2011-03-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

A few Pics from the journey

Breakfast in Germany on our way home, devine waffles.

Lunch in Singapore

Eggs Benedict Singapore style

We were very interested in the use of Carobs and carob processing in Malta, but we were unable to find carob used in menu's anywhere. The same with pommegranate, and prickly pears. We did however, find jams and liquers made of all of these fruits. Our favourites were the carob and almond liquers. We brought some home with us.

We came home at the end of summer expecting to find the landscape pretty dry, and our garden not too productive. Happily, we found green everywhere, the summer had been so wet, and mild, only one heat wave to speak of, and there was an abundance of fruit and vegetables. What a lovely home coming.

This was the bounty of one morning's picking. The village is providing figs, almonds, plums, peaches, and the largest harvest of beautiful apples I have ever seen in the village.

I decided to use for the first time a fantastic Fowler's Vacola kit that I bought from a friend, Chas Martin.

I was very excited to be able to use this fancy machine, and it came complete with original instructions.

It seemed to work beautifully, but time will tell, I hope the fruit and chutney is more successful than the dehydrated fruit and veg I tried last year. Unfortunately, many of the dried tomatoes went mouldy, wasting time, energy, and olive oil.

It gave me such a great feeling of satisfaction when I pulled these jars out of the tub. I felt somehow more secure, I just found it all very exciting.

I picked 6 kilograms of tomatoes from the garden - some were under ripe and some were eaten on one side, so I decided to try making tomato sauce for the first time ever. (I have never grown so many tomatoes in my life). I finally get to try my Willunga Lion's Auction purchase - the capping machine. It worked beautifully.

Enough tomato sauce for our needs, and enought to give away as gifts to people giving my son lifts to work experience!

The biggest jar of anchovies I could find!

We have been having lots of fun since our return, shopping for foods that we have not bought for 12 months. I have noticed how expensive food is, processed food that is. My son is so excited to have nutella in the house! I am allowing a honeymoon period in the household, while we re-adjust to life with anchovies.

I would like to return to a diet of predominantly local foods, with a few condiments and treats allowed. The reality for me is that it takes a lot of time and energy to buy local, and prepare it, and cook it. I have spent vast amounts of time in the kitchen and garden this past year. I would like to spend more time doing other things, to have more balance in my life. So I say goodbye to the strict 100 mile diet, and hello to a more relaxed, hybrid diet of mostly local foods. It feels okay to have this compromise, ultimately, it needs to be flexible enough to marry into a modern lifestyle, and convenient enough to allow me to persue other interests. My son I think for one is so relieved to be able to eat "normal" food again, and I am enjoying being able to take snacks like organic chocolate with us when we have spontaneous invites to other people's homes (instead of the usual almonds and olives). I am also enjoying shopping at the local food co-op again!

I have learnt so much about food, and my local area, and picked up so many skills of preserving and preparing foods. It has been an interesting and valuable experience, and there are certainly many foods that were staples, that I will not buy any more, now that I am aware where they come from.

There are many new things I have not tried, that I will go on to do, such as learning to fish, and learning to kill and prepare fowl. I would love to try smoking and salting fish/meat as well.

So this year I am determined to continue learning, grow more food, catch more food, and spend less time on my computer!

Local Food in Malta

2011-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Before we Flew out to Malta, we visited my niece in Melbourne, and sourced some local fish and chips in Smith street - (possibly the best fish and chips I have ever eaten) served with house made tartare sauce so fresh I could taste the capers and dill. Polished off with some local beers made with Victorian grown hops. :) It was so nice to have a cold beer on a hot day. I have missed that.

On arrival in Malta, we had a few weeks left of the year to experience Malta's local cuisine.

Only joking! We could not buy this until after the new year! I have no idea where it was made, but certainly not in malta!

We quickly became aware of the local staples. Wine, cheese, olives, seafood, pork, oranges, dates, figs, honey, and fruit jams. Our flat has a great view over small fields, rather like allotments, and I love watching the farmers working them by hand.

the view from our balcony

local family planting potatoes

watering

Walking around Gozo, the island where we are staying, I was struck by the amount of vegetable growing. The land is carved up into very small plots. The crops are mostly vegetables, similar to they ones we grow in Australia, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, broad beans, the common annuals.

Granny's carob syrup - very sweet, seems like mostly sugar.

Pommegranite jelly and Prickly pear jam, again both very sweet, not much flavour. I think they are mostly tourist fodder as I have yet to find any menu's in Malta including Pomegranate, Prickly pear, or carob

There are orchards, mostly of citrus, and pomegranate, but also some stone fruits. Many olive trees, and vineyards, but all on a small scale.Carob trees, and almonds grow wild, as do prickly pear, and bamboo. The locals use the prickly pear as wind breaks, and shelter for their seedlings, as well as harvesting the fruit for jam and licquer.The bamboo is used for training climbing veg, and constructing shade structures, including shades on roof terraces and pergolas.

cactus is rampant

The Pomegranate licquer was a disappointment unfortunately.

The soils appear thin like ours, and limestone rich. The boundaries of the fields are lined with limestone walls. The other thing we noticed were many small huts around th landscape, we thought that they may have been shepherd's huts, but they were built as hides for bird trappers. They are very numerous accross the island, not so numerous are the birds. But that may also have something to do with the profuse number of stray cats roaming around.

The most appealing thing about Gozo agriculture is the lack of mechanical input. The majority of fields are tilled by hand, some watered by hand held hose, weeded, and harvested by hand
The one exception being a small hand held cultivator that they walk behind, to till the soil, and prepare trenches for planting. the ingenious thing about this little machine, is that when they have finished on the field, they can replace the blades with wheels, which then allow it to be used to tow a trailer, giving the farmer a nifty ride home with his utensils. I love this idea for our ecovillage.

the machine up close

with trailer attached

the cultivator in action

Our meals here have been an adventure, I was expecting a spicy, middle eastern influence. But I would have to say that the food more resembles Greek cuisine to me. (I thought that Moroccan food would be spicy too - very disappointed) English is the national language along with Maltese, which is just as well because there are a lot of consonants in their words, and there is a lot of toungue curling and sort of grunting. It sounds a bit like a mixture of French and Arabic. I cannot pronounce most of the town names. So just as well the menu's are all in english. Here is what we have been eating:

Fishing is a very important food source

Fish for lunch at Xlendi -and pics of the local trade for Andrea! Also at Xlendi, local icecream! It has been a while!

A Gozo traditional Christmas treat, made with dates, a bit like a sweet bagel.

Our first Gozo shopping trip, in the recreated village of Bethlehem!

Michael shops at the market

We also bought a traditionally made basket to carry our goodies home.

The boys come home from the local bakery with these Gozetan delights

The Gozo Salt pans - yay finally - local salt

Lunch at Otters in Marselforn

bread with ANCHOVY paste!

local rabbit

Local wine - we have found most of the reds here quite mild, almost like rose. This one was a little better.

octopus

rabbit stew - a local specialty

Last Aussie Blog for 2010

2010-12-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Hi There,

This will be my last Blog entry in Australia for 2010.
We are off to Malta for 2 months from Tuesday - two days time. Michael has Long Service Leave, and we wanted to visit a place where we could do some research on Mediteranean foods that will grow well here. Michael has a company there, and a friend has offered us his holiday home, so we will be doing lots of Blog research. I am particularly interested in recipies for carob, pommegranite and quince, three plants that grow well here with very little attention, and I have scant knowledge about processing, preserving, and eating. In the mean time, here is a catch up photo diary of our eating habits of the past few weeks.

Broad Bean Harvest - I have found that they are delicious and sweet if eaten young and cooked briefly. I eat with butter, yum.

BD TTT Beef from Farmer's Market

New local Yoghurt available at Coles

Stir fry in the new Wok, home grown veg and venison strips

Michael found this local salt at Marion Bay general store on his last surf trip.

Local Bacon found by Michael in Foodland in Seaford

We have finally run out of dried yeast - amazingly the jar we had in the freezer lasted this whole time. We cannot find local yeast, so Michael has reprieve from baking bread. I have been experimenting with potato scones, and muffins, both without any raising agents. The muffins use lemon zest and yoghurt. The potato cakes, which are delicious, are lots of butter, mashed potato, flour, & salt.

Potato scones are cooked on a hot skillet, with flour - not oil. Makes for an interesting challenge.

Lemon muffins, I made these for the WWS School music concert.

Food Forest

I have attended a couple of Sunday courses at the Food Forest in Gawler http://www.foodforest.com.au/

One on Organic Vegetable growing and Free Range Poultry, and one on Organic Fruit and Nut tree growing.They were both very worthwhile and enjoyable, stacked full of useful information and hands on learning. Anne Marie and Graham are such a wealth of knowledge, such down to earth people, so generous and passionate. It is so wonderful to experience their willingness to teach and share with others. While I was there I ate their delicious home grown goodies, dried figs, apples and pistachios, and fresh white mulberries, yum. I also purchased some of their new apple cider, apple cider vinegar, and their new movie! a very good insight into to their Food Forest lifestyle with a great interview with David Holmgren, the co-founder of Permaculture, and interviews with the Brookman offspring. Very inspiring , well made, and easy viewing, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDmbbqsGIg.

Local lunch at home

Home made mayonnaise - I always think it takes too long, but actually, it tok only minutes, I did not even use a recipie. local olive oil, our own eggs, salt, Farmer's Market garlic, lemon juice. Blend together, keep adding olive oil till it gets thick. EASY.

It has lasted in the fridge for at least two weeks. I add parsley and dill from the garden to make tartare sauce, and add lemon juice to make a salad dressing. yum.

It is always such a pleasure to be invited to Ruth and Tresh's house for dinner! They are so generous and the atmosphere is so relaxed, Ruth is lovely and Tresh is such an entertainer, here he is making bread in the pizza oven he made.

Hot bread from the wood oven! What a treat.

Ruth's desert, with local Willunga grown berries and home made berry sauce. So Delicious, Ruth's deserts are legendary.

Breakfast without toast

Latest farmer's market find - fruit leathers made in Aldinga Beach! and such a huge variety of flavours.

Steve Poole's plums - thanks Steve

Our latest purchase a WebberQ BBQ from Mitre 10 in McLarenVale. we decided to upgrade from our old clunker, and it was highly recommended by friends the Notts and the Goods. We like it too. It is supposed to be energy efficient and easy to use & clean. It certainly seems to cook well, and it's all good so far.

Lynda my good friend and neighbour, helping me enjoy the results of my first try cooking on the new Webber Q. We ate the best zucchini I have ever tasted from Lynda's garden, and chicken sausages from Willunga butcher. They are usually very fatty when fried. On the Webber grill they were sensational.

Breakfast 2 without toast

Here is the Worm Farm Fridge. I saw a version of this at the Blackwood Primary school community garden. I was inspired because I don't have a space in the garden that does not have direct sun for the whole day, and my old worm farms were the standard can-o-worms black plastic variety and they seemed to get too hot in summer. In fact we lost them last year in the November heat wave. The Fridge is insulated against heat and cold, is white (doesn't attract heat like black) and is providing a lot larger surface area for the worms. I am hoping that this will keep them happy and healthy enough to multiply to a number that will deal with all of our household waste that cannot go to the chickens. Citrus, tea leaves, garlic, onion, floor sweepings, etc.

It feels good to be using a fridge that was unwanted, recycling it into a useful item. It is up on bricks to a bucket height to allow the worm juice to be drained off. It is also on a slight angle to allow the flow of juice. There was already a hole that was the perfect size for the plastic pipe - reused from the fridge. I had to fill a few holes with silicone, and siliconed around the hose. I used the wire mesh from the back of the fridge as a grate to keep the worms and debris off the gravel at the base.

The gravel is to allow the water to drain easily from the farm, and prevent the worms from drowning in the fluid at the base of the farm.

ontop of the mesh I laid shade cloth to improve drainage and stop debris falling through.

ontop of the shade cloth I laid the stuffing from our old club lounge suite which I had saved when we had it re furbished with new foam. The cotton wadding and coconut fibre/horse hair is perfect bedding material for the worms, and it did not go to landfill.

Watering in the bedding

with food added

Happy worms

I added shade cloth to cover the farm and prevent flies and other flying bugs breeding in the wormfarm. I could have used flyscreen, I attached it with velcro to make accessibility easy.

Aarod cooks breakfast

How nice to have a 16 year old who likes to cook. We bought bread at the Farmer's market this week, a treat before we go.

The real reason we are going to Malta!

Michael brought this hope with him on his last trip. It is Anisette liqueur, an aniseed drink I expect like Ouzo. It is traditional in Malta to have a shot in coffee.

Day 313 PHEW!

2010-11-08T21:21:00.000-08:00

I Am A Bit Over It

Yes, as you can tell by my lack of posts, I am a bit Over it all now. I also lost my camera, so no pics of Tasmania! and I have to use the old camera for my Blog Pics.
I spent a few weeks in the lead up to my Tasmanian Overland adventure dehydrating food, tasting various packaged dehydrated foods, and mixing up tasty and healthy dried concoctions, that were not local, so it was a bit strange after having such a limited diet for so long. On the trek I enjoyed tuna, wasabi, nori sheets, mung bean and lentil sprouts, cuppa soup, hot chocolate, sugar (it was lighter than honey) powdered milk, Willunga museli, dried fruit & nut scroggin, Madura tea, museli bars, cous cous and rice. I must say, it was very nice having the variety, and a lovely treat having the tea and hot chocolate! I was pretty disciplined though, I did not take chocolate (too heavy) or sweets. I did take lots of home made beef jerky, and curries (which I had to make with foreign spices). I also gave myself a break from the diet while in transit to and from Tassie via Melbourne, it was nice not to have to think about it. To savour whatever I fancied form the menu without having to ask where everything comes from. The fall out from this has been a big relapse in my resolve, and I have to confess that I have decided to include Madura Tea on my diet. At least it is Australian. I just find life is not the same without tea. Must be the British blood, life is too short to not drink tea! S Tea is oficially the one thing I cannot live without, so I am ordering a Camelia Sinensis tree this month - to try growing my own. The pantry has inevitably, some left over dehydrated stuff, which we are treating ourselves with. Mostly I couldn't do without - Willunga Almonds for quick easy snacks, lashings of local wine, Mark and Lisa's apples & pears, and local dairy products.

Chickens
This week's challenge is our chooks deciding that they don't like our new Royal (Rip off) Rooster chook tractor. The irony is, we paid a small fortune for this deluxe chook palace, fox proof floor, lightweight aluminium construction = easy for one person to move & no mite breeding habitat in the wood. We got rid of the $40 fox proof floor after day 3 I think, as the poor girls couldn't scratch properly, and it made the tractor heavy and difficult to move. They still were not happy = not laying. We bought them delicious Organic wheat and barley from the food co-op, - still no eggs. We stopped moving them daily. Yesterday we got 2 eggs from our 3 girls for the first time. Things are looking up. We are considering making them a new stationary chook pen, or putting the girls in the freezer and trying again with a new batch of point of lay chooks who will be trained from day one to be nomadic. My latest research involves finding another type of feed for the girls, as they may not like the new mix. I have been a bit dismayed by thr list of ingredients in Red Hen mix. On the plus side, they are Lauckes grains, but ingredients like yellow colouring, fish meal, blood and bone, and meat meal, as well as canola, soy, and corn, all concern me. I emailed Lauckes and they were unable to tell me whether the grains were genetically modified as the producers don't have to label their products. The meat products were Australian, the fish imported, not sure where from. So I have now emailed and await replies from Baristok and Fleurieu feeds. I am also investigating local places to send our girls for processing as I understand that there is somewhere that will process small numbers. They are 2 years old now, will need boiling/ crock pot roasting, but as I buy chickens to eat anyway, it seems logical.

What are we eating this week?

Baker Girl

Actually this is not a photo from this week, we haven't seen the beautiful Bread lady at our door for several weeks. This is the fabulous bread that she delivered to our door twice a week for $6. Made from sourdough and Laucke's organic flour. Yum. We miss you Tamara & Erica!

My lunch of local bread - I think this is actually Russel's, Farmer's Market tomatoes and cheese, and garden greens, I have given up on the local pink pepper corns - they just don't work in the grinder, are sticky, and not that peppery. So I decided to use the peppery flavour of the nasturtiums instead. Don't know why I didn't think of it before! yumo.

Bananas

These were grown by Steve Poole in Aldinga Beach - he apparently had 6 bunches this year! Such an inspiration, and to be so generous with them - thanks heaps Steve! They were not as sweet as I expected, being a lady finger variety. I think maybe they need more water or feeding? I have planted 2 baby plants from my sister's place. I have planted them in 2 different locations in my garden, even though it is best to plant them together. One will get more sun, but I will have to remember to water it. The other is more sheltered, but gets less sun and more run off from the raised bed and outdoor shower etc. It's a bit of an experiment. Hers have not fruited yet, so the race is on to see who's tree fruits first!

I think this was my first breakfast on return to Aldinga after trekking the wilds of Tasmania. More nasturtiums for the pepper flavour - it actually works a treat. It gets me thinking, before spices came along to the european table, we must have relied much more heavily on herbs. So much so that the manor house garden always had a substantial herb garden (for medicinal use as well). When spices came along, they were probably as exciting as convenience foods are today. You did not have to go out to the garden to get flavourings from the herb patch, you had spices at your finger tips in the pantry. It makes me wonder how many spices could be substituted with herbs? I wonder if kitchens were much more self sufficient pre-spice trade - or just more bland?

Decadent lunch, Primo Estate Colombard, Alexandrina Gouda, Mark and Lisa's pears, Farmer's Market cucumber, and snow peas. Udder Delights blue cheese, Perry's Fruit & Nut Nursery avocadoes. Delish.

My first harvest on my return. It was so wonderful to come home to a lush green abundant garden! I had so much broccoli - I love it, so I plant a lot! But I have not got the right method of succession planting sussed yet, so it all ripens at once. My first instinct, is to give it away, but this time, I decided to blanch and freeze some.

My first post Trek dinner, Spanikopita (there is lots of spinach in the garden), I had no garlic, so I put in lots of onions, browned them first, and our own home processed olives ( this batch was a garlic and pepper flavour - superb), as well as some herbs from the garden. I made the pastry as I had no pasta sheets. I made it with olive oil as I had limited butter. It was wonderful, and not so hard to make pastry. I tell myself it is hard, can't be bothered, takes too long, etc. but actually, it is ok, messy, but not too time consuming at all. I wonder if it is the same for bread - I tell myself the same things about bread.

Trying out some more heritage seeds. I am excited about trying new types of tomato and different coloured carrots. I am also trying to get used to starting new seedlings as soon as I have planted the first batch.

My prize broccoli

Prize Broccoli and me! It must have been all of the rain we had over winter, it meant that the crops were delayed by the cold, but bumper because of the water -I think? Maybe I just don't normally water enough?

Actually, I have been feeding the veg a lot more this year, with worm wee, seasol and charlie carp, as well as BD preps.

Farmer's Market roast Chicken and veg. (My greens)

Tea, Almond paste, Seedlings

2010-09-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

Day 268

Well It has been a long time - this is the catch up Blog Post.

Tea

Green Tea with Jasmine, from a good and generous friend.

I must admit that tea has been my greatest challenge. I miss it terribly, and this gift has helped enormously. I have decided to order two Camelia trees to try growing my own tea in wine barrels.

I had a cup of Madura English breakfast tea one night at another friend's house and it tasted beautiful, just superb (probably tasting all the better because of my abstinence). I took the liberty of taking some of the same tea bags with me on my recent trial trek from Deep Creek to Kings Beach. I ended up bringing most of them home with me as it turned out, because David Blacklock, the teacher I travelled with; provided me with my tea fix on a regular basis. He was armed with the newest camping sensation - the Jet Boil, which biols water in about 2 minutes! David would put a pinch of leaf tea directly into the billy, boil it up, and serve without straining. I actually loved the simplicity of it. No wet tea bags to carry out, no tags staples and cords, just pour away the dregs to compost onto the ground - excellent! I am a convert - I did not even mind the tea leaves - there is something authentic and "Bush billy tea" like about the experience that appeals to the outdoorsy part of me. (maybe on the Tassie trek I will try adding some gum leaves as well- then I will have to start singing Waltzing Matilda.....)

Now I have a box of Queensland grown teabags which I have enjoyed being able to share with visitors. It is actually such a huge part of our society's welcoming ritual to offer a visitor a cup of tea, and it just isn't the same when I offer herbal tea (unless of course people prefer it, which I find is rare) Maybe I aught to just bypass the whole tea palava, and offer visitors a glass of wine instead? Sort of doesn't work at ten in the morning, or with tradesmen if I want an acceptable finished product....mmm

Lemons and almonds from the road side stall on Aldinga to Willunga road. Lemons were dry inside, with some disease, lots of pips, and not much juice. Almonds were small, tasted like they had not been dried properly, some damp sort of taste, and the bag contained some shells and husks and stones. Buyers BEWARE. Nothing beats the quality of the almonds from the Willunga Farmer's Market for freshness, quality, and flavour.We especially love the roasted almonds...yum! We have been enjoying Hardings almond paste from the Market, and I decided to try making my own.

Almond Paste

I tried roasting some of our raw almonds in the frypan.

Put the roasted almonds through the juicer very slowly.

The paste is quite dry, and would be difficult to spread, so I add local olive oil as there is no local almond oil.

The olive oil makes it smooth like peanut paste, and I add honey to disguise the olive flavour.

I tried a few different additives for variety. One with carob powder, and one with honey and salt.

Almond Paste in the Jar ready to spread on toast. I am not sure how long it would last. I kept it in the fridge as almonds (and all nuts) once they are shelled should be stored in a cool place to stop them going rancid.
It does not last long enough in our household to worry about use by dates.

The most popular version in our household was the one with added salt and honey. None of the versions lasted very long. The greatest compliments came from the teenager who said that it was the best almond paste he had ever tasted....nice.

Russel's leftovers for breakfast heated in the oven....a family favourite.

Lunch - steamed cauliflower, brocoli, garden greens, and a white sauce with Langhorne Creek horseradish and beetroot spread for a little extra oomph.

My seed purchase from Green Harvest in a neat little seed raising box I bought from Cheap as chips for about $7 - very effective.

The beans ready to plant out, and the others on the way - very exciting!

I have fallen off the wagon so to speak, with our local diet. I made the decision to buy non-local dehydrated foods and tea, hot chocolate, etc. for my 3 day trial trek, and for Aarod to take on his recent canoe trip. I did not predict the fall out. Of course we needed to test out the new gas cooker before the trip, and of course there were leftovers after my trek and Aarod's canoe trip, so the pantry has one drawer at present that contains all manner of prohibited goodies. Two minute noodles, hot chocolate, tea, wheat bix, powdered milk, cuppa soup, to name a few. I have to admit that they have been too tempting for me to have in the house! I have never been one with a strong willpower. My motto is mostly, "If there is chocolate - it will be eaten." So I have to confess that the diet at present is somewhat a hybrid of it's former self. We are also presently planning an extended trip to Malta, so we will continue to eat local foods while staying there, but will be realistic about airport food and other tricky situations. As the year progresses it gets harder to stay focussed and committed, but ultimately we are sticking to eating and purchasing local foods as much as we can, without being so rigid when we eat out, and allowing the camp treats to be consumed rather than being thrown out or given away.

Russell's Leftovers

2010-08-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Day 231

Russel's Leftovers Feed Us!

Aarod works at Russel's Pizzeria in Willunga most Saturday nights and sometimes we are lucky enough to have some leftovers brought home. Above are delicious meatballs and below is the pizza dough made into a lovely loaf of bread!

We still had more, so we made scrolls with home made lemon curd and home made pesto.

scrolls cooling - they were a bit over cooked!

Michael also made a meat pie

Roast Lamb from Phaedra in the crockpot with potato,onion, rosemary from the garden and garlic from Farmer's market.

Venison

Michael chops up the venison, a very welcome gift from Jason (Phaedra's husband). The meat is so incredibly lean and fresh. We were very pleased that Jason dropped in after his successful hunting weekend!

Spaghetti bolognaise made with venison mince and home made tomato sauce.

Preparations for the Tassie Trip

Dehydrated bolognaise sauce for my hike in Tassie in October. I have been invited to go along with the year 11 class from Willunga Waldorf School on their Overland Trek. I have started getting my food ready, and Aarod's food for his canoe trip next month. I have made an executive decision that not all of the food that we take on our trips will be local. Phew! too hard. We will take some milk powder, some scroggin, some noodles, and probably some dried fruit and chocolate! - need to keep the strength up somehow!

one of my favourite simple lunches - pasta with garlic, olive oil, and Finniss River Romano cheese (I spent my teenage years living in Finniss, so this cheese has a historical attraction for me). - it is a little less salty than Parmesan cheese, so I add a bit of salt too. When I have them available, I add chopped sundried tomato, basil, and anchovies, one or all of these. Yum.

The second harvest of asparagus this season - it is a bit early, but very welcome at my table. This is the largest spears we have had yet -about as thick as my thumb!

Butter Shortage

2010-08-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

Day 230

Making Butter

The Farmer's Market still has no Biodynamic butter, apparently they don't have enough milk to make it. When they have plenty of milk they make skim milk and use the cream to make butter. So they were out of skim milk too - the two products are linked. In desperation I bought 2 tubs of cream and decided to make my own butter!

Paris Creek Biodynamic Cream

I simply added the cream to my food processor with the plastic blade not the metal one.

Wizz for ages untill the mix looks like scrambled egg. At this point the curds and whey separate -

(I remember that from little miss muffet)

I used wooden spatulas to squeeze out the excess liquid

This takes a bit of patience, it is a bit tricky but not hard, doesn't take that long.

It is so satisfying to see the end result - it looks just like the butter from the shop!

You end up with butter - on the left, and butter milk - on the right.

The butter milk is actually quite creamy still, and I just add it to pancakes. The butter tastes great, but it has started to smell slightly off - like smelly cheese... So I am keeping it in the fridge to hopefully prolong it's shelf life. I am not sure how long the cream was in the fridge before I made the butter. I guess it's important to use fresh cream = sweeter smelling butter.

Haloumi, from Fleurieu Farm, farmer's market mushrooms, and olive tepanade, with garden salad.

Scrambled egg with parsley, coriander, tomato, and greens from the garden. (The tomato was picked green and has been on the kitchen bench for weeks, and finally it is red and delicious).

Breakfast Pancakes

Pancakes made with the buttermilk from butter making, Paris creek milk, our eggs, Lauke's flour and farmer's market LSA mix.

Pancakes served with Mark and Lisa's pears marinated in lemon juice overnight, topped with pantry icing sugar - (that was lurking undetected for a while)

Served with Muntries jam.

Pears and Phaedra's home made yoghurt - what a treat!

Stir Fry Dinner

Bamboo shoots top left, lemon grass top right, ginger bottom right, all home grown and ready for the stir fry.

We had to dig up our neighbour's bamboo that has taken over our vege garden , so to make it more positive, we decided to try eating the bamboo shoots. But they are evil looking critters - see top left of cutting board. They look like little horns, and are tender in the centre but hard as laminate on the outside.

The lemon grass I purchased from the farmer's market, and is the first time I have used this from my garden, it is now of a size that is able to be harvested.

Galangal root from Steve Poole's garden - it tastes and smells like a very mild ginger, but is much tougher to cut, it does not have the same spicy heat that ginger has, but unlike ginger, it will grow well here, I have planted some in my garden.

Stir fry end result.

Fruit Trees, Grafting, Seeds

2010-08-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

Day 248

Grafting

This is an Espalliared Plum rootstock that we bought 2 years ago from the rare fruit Society. The graft did not work so we were left with a very vigorous very spikey tree. Apparently plums do very well in this environment, so it is a good rootstock, however, you can only graft plums or apricots onto it. Neither of which I particularly wanted in the garden now that the village farm has so many plums and apricots; (We chose this before the farm orchard was planted) so I asked the rare fruit experts for grafts that will give me something unique. Above is a pic of my first ever graft, a double header - Mystery and Plumcot - Interspecific plum x apricot. These are a cleft graft mainly because I could not get the grafting knife I bought from Green Harvest to cut (very disappointing) so I ended up using my trusty stanley knife. This was the best cut I could manage, also the rootstock is very large, so I bodged it really, but I did make sure that the cambium layers of the rootstock and the scion were aligned, (aren't you impressed with the jargon) and because there was so much trunk exposed, I decided to spray the exposed areas with steri prune just for good measure - to keep out infection. (the black stuff).

This is another 2 year old plum that I cut back and grafted with a yellow fleshed plum - Coes Golden Drop. Grafted the same way.

Here are the two cuttings I bought at the Rare fruit Society a - Fig - Preston Prolific (amber flesh) and a Grape - Himrod Seedless - pink flesh. Hopefully they will have grown some roots by Spring, and I can plant them out.

Here is one of the three bare rooted fruit trees I bought at the Rare Fruit Society for $6. I bought a peach, quince, and a nectarine. They don't look like much at the moment.

While I was taking the photos I realised that the poor olive tree (To the right of the insulation) has actually survived the constant attacks by the weevils. These small shoots were protected by the yoghurt container, and out-lived the weevils (I think they die off in winter) I am inpressed by the tenacity of the tree!

I also discovered this proof that the insulation barrier does work - see the weevil hanging on to the left hand side of the cuff. It looks like it got stuck in the fibres but maybe the cold killed it??

Seeds

some seeds I potted up from Green Harvest

The seeds in this nifty seed raising box - from Cheap as Chips for about $7

Dinner

Dinner of Angelakis Bros. local Garfish served over (Byron Bay) brown fried rice.

In the kitchen with Aarod

2010-08-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Day 247 The Hunt for Butter

For a couple of weeks we have had no butter, as the Paris Creek dairy has run out, and I have tried all of the local supermarkets. I was excited to find another butter from the Fleurieu, and goats milk haloumi, and yoghurt; at Goodies and Grains at the central market. Hindmarsh Valley dairy in Victor Harbor as far as I know, is the only other brand of local butter available (apart from Paris Creek) all other commercially available butter comes from interstate!

Teenager in the kitchen

Aarod

cooking onions - he is home from school for the day and is still complaining of "boring lunches and no food in the house" He tries to persuade me to buy him something from the Willunga bakery while I am there. So I bring him home some mince and chopped steak from the butcher, and teach him how to cook pies and pasties. It is a miserable wintery, overcast, windy, day, we spend the whole afternoon with the oven on, in the kitchen, creating. He actually enjoys himself, we keep the house warm, and use up all of the butter!

Aarod's almond biscuits

Pies and Cornish pasties

Cutting out my pastry

Cornish Pasty filling - Farmer's Market root vegetables, celery from my garden, mince from Willunga butcher.

cornish pasties into the oven

Meat pies with potato mash topping

and grated Paris Creek cheese ontop

pies and pasties cooling

In the Garden & Central Market

2010-08-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

Day 217 Time to get into the garden to make sure we have something local to eat this spring and summer

The first trees for thr future Bush Tucker Orchard Two Desert Limes, courtesy of Maarten Ryder. We are planning to plant a Bush Tucker Orchard on the north of our house.

The rogue mint plants that took over my garden bed and had to be removed.

The tamed mint now safely in a wine barrel with makeshift dividers to stop the competition. The (Laksa) Vietnamese mint at back is the least invasive, the peppermint to the right is also pretty tame, but the mint in the front is a shocker, roots everywhere, thick, and very invasive, choking the other two mints. Hopefully now they will live happily together, right at my back door, in a nice shady spot.

My beautiful trees released from their sun and wind screens - blood orange, avocado in middle, and navel orange. This spot is on the East of the house, nice and shady on a summer afternoon, but the wind funnels through there, so I had the new trees carefully screened with shadecloth for the last two years. It is so nice to see them free. The Loquats popped up in my lemon tree mulch, so I transplanted them into these raised beds, and they are doing wonderfully well. I am planning to use them as root stock for a couple of different varieties of Loquat - which I plan to pick up next year at the Rare Fruit Society's grafting day.

Green Harvest Order Arrives

I just discovered on-line shopping for plants, Green Harvest Organic Gardening Supplies

Roots, seeds, and grafting knife all arrived in a recycled shoe box - I Love on line shopping!

I bought Perenials (they come back every year, or produce all year) - Horseradish, Asparagus, and Rhubarb. And a whole heap of seeds, as well as a grafting kit. I am excited about the possibilities of grafting after the inspiring talk given by Harry Harrison of the Rare Fruit Society. I have some root stock plums that I want to try grafting first. We have a gazillion plums planted on our farm, so I chose a yellow variety, and a plumcot (cross between a plum & apricot)

The Asparagus corms go in

Horseradish roots get tucked in

Rhubarb cutting goes in

House Of Organics - The Central Market Stall 34-35

I was in town on a Tuesday so I decided to finally go ask the Angelakis Brothers if I can get SA anchovies in SA? The short answer is no - most of them are used as feed for fish farms. So I bought some other local fish instead. I then went to look at the Organic veg stall 35. Here is a pic of their great system for labelling their produce. I love this stall because I don't have to ask about every item, they are so well labelled that I know exactly where they are from, right down to the grower's address! The staff are really great too - the owner was very keen on the Local Diet.

delicious displays

a lot seems to be minimum spray

Lemons - the one thing I can get locally, they can't!

Sweet corn from Queensland

Min-Chem potatoes

Angelakis Brothers ling fish on Salsa.

Busy with Pumpkins and Quince

2010-08-03T02:16:00.000-07:00

It is Day 210,
I have been so busy doing, that I have had very little time for Blogging about it.
I have been trying to make quince paste, trying to use pink pepper, trying to use up all of the foreign food in our pantry, finding new recipies for pumpkin, including roasting pumpkin seeds, baking pumpkin scones, and pumpkin pie, attending a series of inspiring Permaculture workshops with Stephen Poole here at the EcoVillage, attending the Rare fruit Society grafting day, Sorting out the finishing touches on our new kitchen, planting out trees, seedlings, and seeds. Hosting parties, doing lots of yoga, re-writing a Thai Massage manual, training and gearing up for a hike in Cradle Mountain National park, and chauffering my 15 year old around to various events. The whole time jaunting about in my mother-in-law's car while she was away. We normally share the family car - what a luxury it has been to be able to take off anywhere I choose, at a moment's notice, without having to ask anyone, or make prior arrangements - not very eco I know, but I liked it. However, tomorrow it will all change as my mother-in-law is back (I spent the morning cleaning it, checking the oil, petrol etc. - those new carwash places are pretty cool - I like the high pressure hose I think even the teenager might be convinced to use one of those!)

Back to the business of food,

Rotting Pumpkins

Quite a few of our pumpkins have started to go mouldy, so I have been trying to find inspiring things to do with them. My American friend Lynda mentioned that back home in the US they used to roast and eat the pumpkin seeds. So I tried to roast some, with limited success. I had trouble with the seeds sticking to the paper as they dried after I had rinsed them. So then I switched to drying them on T-Towels instead, which was much easier, but they still tended to discolour and go mouldy if I had not washed the dregs of pumpkin off well enough.

Next I tried drying the seeds immediately, skipping the washing drying process, and this seems the best method by far. However, I left them in too long in the oven and they started to pop like popcorn and split open, spraying all over my oven.

This is a split pumpkin seed, inside is the familiar green pepino seed which is nutty and pleasant to eat although small. The seed seemed to be in 2 or 3 parts and wafer thin, this is laborious and Lynda assured me that her family ate the whole seed, so I perservered. The shell was chewy and tough, fibrous in fact, and reminded me of physillium husks, so they would probably do wonders for the bowels, and be a great source of fibre, but a little unappetising. I tried crushing a few in the mortar and pestle to see if this helped with the consistency and flavour, but unfortunately, it did not help much. It would probably be okay as a thickener for soup, or an addition for stuffings or to add to crumbs.

I found a recipie for pumpkin pie that did not have condensed milk, but did have a layer of jam spread on the pastry before filling the pie with the egg, pumpkin mix. I have run out of cinnamon and nutmeg, so the jam was a good addition to give the pie some oomph.

Pumpkin scones, made with pureed pumpkin this time. The last batch I was too lazy to bother with the pureeing, so I just chucked in the cubed pumpkin and I had a few complaints from the boys, so thought I'd better puree this time. Gives the scones a lovely colour. The recipie has various spices, but they tasted fine without any.

Tea

I have done some investigating about growing my own tea bush. According to various internet sources, you can grow Camelia Sinensis in a pot, in a shady spot, likes acid soil, plenty of water & feed well. Camelias R Us is about the only place that I could source one. They are out of stock right now, but will have some in summer, and for $16.50 + Postage (approx $30 all up) they will post one to my door! This is the tree that Black tea, & Green tea is produced from, the only difference is in the fermentation and drying processes, which, by the way sound very challenging; sigh...

Here is the pepper that I have been drying

It loaded into the pepper grinder OK and the first few grinds were fine, but after a while, no pepper came out! I think that the grinder is clogged with the still slightly sticky pink coating on the corns. The pepper seems to be completely dry, but the pink is still sticky. I have not tried drying it in the dehydrator, but my guess is that this will have to be done to allow the grinder to work effectively.

At present this is too boring, so I have just filled this jar to be sorted later. In the mean time, I will use the mortar and pestle, and have trendy pepper in a small bowl.

Yummy Nuts - McLarenVale

I asked what they had in stock that was local - I bought this bag of flour.

( I was hoping that they would have some Kamut, as our supply from Four Leaf ran out and the Food co-op in Willunga ran out too. There have been no loaves of Kamut bread at Flower Power stall at the Farmer's Market for a while either. I assume the local supply is finished for the season, but will call Four leaf mill to check.)

There two bottles of juice from Patriti in Seacombe - south of Adelaide. The grapes and apples/pears are grown in McLarenVale.

This honey also from Mclaren Flat - I found the flavour disappointing. We are used to the Nangkita Honey Lady honey from the Farmer's market, and this tasted very sweet, almost like sugar. I wondered to myself if this is the result of bees being fed over winter with sugar water???

Barley Porridge

I decided to try the crockpot method, as the last time I tried it the grains were too tough for my liking. By cooking the barley slowly overnight, it gave us beautifully soft porridge for breakfast. It actually tasted a bit nutty, and smelled a bit wheaty, like hot wheetbix.

I love my crockpot, I bought it at a charity shop for about $10 I think, and it is a larger size, works perfectly, and the pot fits in the dishwasher. I also found out that if you have number 20 fowlers vacola jars, you can use the crockpot to make preserves! I am on the hunt for some no. 20 jars.

Chopped almonds add to the nutty flavour, I add them after to retain the crunch, but you could put them in at the start, and they would soften if you prefer that. I also added grated apple and honey.

Cheese Fondue

The recipie called for Emmemental or Gorgonzola, neither of which are made locally to my knowledge, so I substituted Tilsit BD cheese grated, Alexandrina Fetta, crumbled, and Finnis River Romano, grated. The Fetta was a mistake, as it remained lumpy, and the Romano with the Fetta was just too salty. Aarod and I bravely persevered, but could not finish it, so I secreted it into a lasagne the following night, no-one knew, and it worked a treat. I love it when that happens.

A curry with the few remaining spices we have in the pantry, coriander seeds (from our garden), and horseradish from Langhorne Creek. It was actually very good.

Quince Paste

Mark and Lisa from the Miss Merbein stall at WFM had Quinces for the first time I have ever seen them.

I have never cooked quince before, and here the crockpot comes to the fore, as this fruit is inedible unless cooked slowly for up to 10 hours!

Cooked overnight in a small amount of water they changed colour from pale yellow to a golden orange.

I put the chopped quince into the blender - it had a hard time blending them, so I had to add a cup of water. I am not sure if this is because I blunted my blades on the carob pods, or if this fruit is extremely dense.

I added the not so delicious honey from Mclaren Flat in stead of sugar.

The Spanish leave their quince paste in the sun to dry, so I tried that for a day, and then resorted to drying in the oven on the "keep warm" setting.

I finished up with one batch that worked well, I wrapped in grease proof paper and froze it (don't trust the mould free properties of honey) ready to defrost for the next cheese platter.

The other disaster batches were scraped out and put in a jar in the fridge to be used as"jam" I noticed an unappealing brown staining on the paste which probably came from the tins, and is probably why the recipie specifies the use of ceramic trays. (I ignored that instruction)

Roast -Willunga Butcher - Free Range Chicken & Farmer's Market veg.

Michael found this red wine vinegar from Coriole Winery, I use it as a substitute for Balsalmic vinegar. Jamie Oliver pours it over roast vegies, it gives a delicious sweet flavour, and turns the base of the veg dark brown and sticky.

More pumkin, cooked under Phaedra's Lamb, to imbibe it with juices, and lots of rosemary, and garlic.

Missing the good things

2010-07-08T02:03:00.000-07:00

It is now Day 188,

Aarod, my 15 year old is very over it, my husband Michael is travelling a lot, and I am struggling to stay on board the 100 mile diet ship as it sails mostly solo the rough seas of the coldest wettest winter I can remember!

Life Without Tea, Coffee, & Chocolate
I am challenged daily as I yearn for hot chocolate on these icy winter nights, crave a hot cuppa tea on these chilly frosty mornings. As for coffee, well it hardly seems worth going to a cafe' these days. Michael and I stayed overnight in the city the other night when Aarod had a sleepover. We went out for dinner at the Kings hotel and had a lovely meal, but something is definitely missing when you are sitting in a cosy pub, in front of a flickering open fire, and you don't have a hot drink in your hand! We finished off the meal with a local port, but wouldn't it be great if pubs served hot mead?

The following morning we ventured out in the cold for a hot breakfast, which we found at a little cafe' on Goodwood road. Somehow a hot breakfast is just not right without a hot cup of tea. Why is there no-one growing tea locally? It has to be the one thing I miss the most, even more than chocolate - and anchovies as it turns out! A good friend of mine takes pity on me every now and then and comes over with her own tea bags, so that we can share a cuppa together - she even went as far as bringing me a whole box of leaf tea, which I must admit, I have been slow to give back to her as she left it here. Partly I feel very guilty drinking it, I compromise the integrity of the diet, and I get all determined to get used to life without tea, and embrace lemon verbena and peppermint tea from my garden.

Then at other times, I give in to the luxury, telling myself that tea has been imported from India for so long that it should be allowed, along with sugar, and spices.
I found a 250g bag of organic fair trade decaf coffee beans in Michael's office the other day. I was told that it was a gift. I am not sure if there was a staff solidarity cover up going on, or if it really was a gift, either way, I thought it best to confiscate it and have been quaffing it at home. When I am deprived of something, I just want to devour it at once, the wise thing to do would be to savour it, treasure it, make it last. Not me, I think I has about 3 cups of coffee that first day. Tonight I am planning a liquer coffee as a night cap. I am wondering how long it will take to break my addiction, that is, after another 6 months, will I be able to live happily without tea & coffee?

Omlette for breakfast, with home dried tomatoes, local fetta and spring onions, garden rocket. We ran out of bread, and we haven't had cereal or oats for months. Breakfast mainly consists of eggs these days.

We eat a lot of pumpkins, so I have started to save the seeds to try eating them too. Apparently in the USA they roast them as is, and eat, so I am up for trying that, I am relieved that I don't have to shell them all.

Pepper corns from our village tree - I was about to put them in the grinder as we are nearly out of pepper, but after many weeks the pink shell is still slightly wet and sticky. I have now put them in the direct sun to see if this helps them to dry. Otherwise I will need to resort to the dehydrator. Our house is often strewn with food of various sorts, undergoing a variety of processing proceedures.

One morning I resorted to trying rolled barley as a substitute for rolled oats. I cooked them in the same manner as porridge, adding some milk and almonds, and honey. It took much longer to cook, and in the end was still pretty chewy, but very good. It would be better to soak the rolled barley overnight first.

Michael has taken a fancy to the local scallops at the Willunga farmer's market. Delicious cooked with lemon juice, garlic, pepper and salt.

Back in Aldinga

2010-06-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

Day 161

I have been catching up with a backlog of tasks after being away for 3 weeks.

Processing the last of the olive harvest

The dried olives were only supposed to take 15 days, but mine took about double that time. I was not exactly sure how they were supposed to look, feel, and smell, but they tasted good, so I jarred them up in rock salt and rosemary from the garden.

Dried Olives

This is the easiest method yet, no waste water or salt, a cheap, easy & environmentally friendly method.

Looks great in the jar too

The end result - salt dried olive.

Olives in Brine

These olives are from the Ecovillage orchard, we decided to try the washing (de- bittering) process without using salt water this time. We still washed the olives daily, but only used water. This proved to be very easy as I could fill the bucket with the hose, and strain the water directly onto the garden without concerns about the effect on my plants. The only problem with this method was that it took a lot longer than the brine method. At the end the olives still tasted slightly bitter, but soft.

First I put the iloves into clean jars.

Then I made up the brine at a ratio of 1 part salt to 10 parts rainwater. The instructions on the internet said to heat the water to facillitate dissolving the salt, but I found that it was not neccessary. The salt dissolved well in cold water.

Adding the brine to the jar - I was supposed to let the water cool, but I did not.

I added extra virgin organic olive oil from the farmer's market to keep the air out and prevent spoiling.

In two jars I added crushed organic garlic from the farmer's market,

and Monk's pepper from the food co-op.

I will keep you posted about the results when we open our first jar!

Shopping at the Singing Cricket Food Co-op. The mandarins are from a backyard grower.

Green Tomato Chutney

I found heaps of green tomatoes in the garden when I feturned from Byron and I assumed that they would not ripen. So I found a recipie for green tomato chutney in my trusty Reader's Digest Farmhouse Cookery cookbook! If you ever come accross this book in a book sale/ Charity shop - BUY IT - it's excellent!

"THE TOMATO, a native of tropical America, made its European debut in the middle of the 16th century when, like many novel foods, it was erroneously hailed as an aphrodisiac - hence it's early name of 'love apple' or 'pomme d' amour'.

By the time this notion was abandoned, the tomato was widely grown in Europe and Britain. Our summers are not always sunny enough to permit the fruit to ripen, and this chutney is the best way of utilising green tomatoes. It goes well with cold meats and cheeses, and can be served with or added to curries."

Reader's Digest Farmhouse Cookery 1980

Preparation Time: about 30 mins.

Cooking Time: about 2 hours. (mine took longer)

Ingredients to yield about 2.7-3.2 kg.

1.8kg green tomatoes, washed & chopped.

700g shallots/onions, peeled & chopped.

450g cooking apples, peeled cored, & chopped.

600ml vinegar.

8 red chillies.

25g dried root ginger. (ginger cordial)

225g seedless raisins or dates, chopped. (jujubes)

2 teaspoons salt.

450g sugar. (honey)

Method

Put the chopped tomatoes, shallots or onions and the apples in a large, heavy based saucepan with half the vinegar. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for about 30 mins. until tender.

Tie the chillies and root ginger in a muslin bag, bruise with a hammer, and add to the pan with the raisins or chopped dates. Cook, stirring from time to time until the mixture thickens, after about an hour.

Add the sugar, salt, and the rest of the vinegar, stirring well until the sugar dissolves. Continue cooking, pressing the bag of spices occaisionally (or jiggling the tea ball) with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is thick. Remove the muslin bag before potting and sealing. Leave to mature for 6 weeks.

(Michael has already started eating ours, and says it is delicious).

Chillies from the garden

The last of the cinnamon from the pantry (sob)

The recipie called for chopped dates, so I substituted chopped Jujubes.

The recipie also directed me to add the spices and chillies in a muslin bag.

I improvised with my trusty tea ball

It worked well, I will keep that trick up my sleeve for future recipies.

This cordial is still lingering on from last year (obviously not a favourite). I used a glug of this as a substitute for ginger.

The chutney ready for the pantry.

A welcome home local breakfast

Our own free range eggs, Michael's toast, Farmer's market mushrooms, garden parsley and basil (yes there is some still growing ), Finniss River Romano cheese and Paris Creek BD. butter. Yum. It is so very good to be home!

"Here is the place of much Warmth and Comfort, for long the Heart of the Home; where Plain but Wholesome dishes of Homegrown produce and Dairy Foods are Cooked with Diligence by the Housewife; where Nourishing meals make a splendid Welcome for her Husband and his Helpers at the end of a long day's Labouring"

Post Byron Musings

2010-06-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share my thoughts about food in Byron Bay.

What struck me first as I entered the IGA store was how weird it is that I can buy practically everything here that I buy at home. Even the Paris Creek Biodynamic butter, yoghurt, & cheeses. It was a bit sobering to think that I could travel all around Australia, and probably eat exactly the same foods that I eat at home. I was keen to try foods that I could only get in Byron Bay, and it involved a bit of hunting and gathering, and much label reading (without my glasses, sigh). So I ask myself, is this a consumer driven state of affairs? Do most people like eating the same familiar foods no matter where they are? I find this a bit hard to believe. I ventured in to the Woolworths supermarket in the main street and they had all of the usual foods that they have here, with additional dairy products from Queensland. What they did have though was their own brand of organic chicken, beef, and lamb, in steaks fillets and sausages, and .... they were local. There was a stall there giving out cooked samples, and the woman on the stall assured me that the meat was farmed locally - the lamb and rosemary sausages were lovely - not too fatty either.

Byron Bay boasts at least two eateries that claim to source their food locally, one greengrocer, and the farmer's markets -which (the man at the Davidson's Plum and Macadamia stall told me), are all from within 160km of Byron - (except for the visitor stalls- one selling apples - they were not well sign posted so it would be easy to assume that they were local).

The Why Not Cafe'
My beloved flew over to spend the evening with me, and the cafe' of choice for our dinner was the Why Not Cafe' in Johnson Street. We chose the venue because the local paper advertised a farmer's market special 3 course menu for $40. This is what we ate:

(My apologies for the quality of the pics. They were taken with Michael's Phone).

Above is the Apertiff of house made olive tapanade with local water cress & local olive oil

Entree' of beetroot salad with more cress & macadamias

Mains of Local fish (I forget what it was) on wilted baby spinach with parsnip mash and salsa.

Somewhere between the apertiff and the salad, we realised that it was going to be super-model sized portions, so we ordered a side of wedges to beef it up a bit. They were disappointing, under cooked and not crispy or flavoursome.

Ahh.....the local beer....it's been a while, and althought the hops and yeast are likely to have been shipped in from Tasmania or Victoria, we drank it anyway....research you know.....someone has to do it...!

A very nice drop, similar to a heineken in it's mildness, smooth and slightly creamy - yum. We only had one bottle between us.

Panacotta with macadamias and strawberries, very good, except that the strawberries were chopped so small, it was possibly only 2 in all, spread about to look like more.....hmm.

All in all the meal did actually fill us up, even though the serves were tiny works of art. The overall quality was excellent, very fresh, superb fish, great dessert, but nothing made me go WOW!

3 Weeks in Byron Bay

2010-06-05T03:06:00.000-07:00

Byron Bay Food

My first night in Byron, I needed to get supplies for meals for the next week. I had no idea what was local or whether there was a local farmer's market. I had done some research before my arrival, and found a shop called the Green Garage that claimed to have 200 local suppliers and to have a preference for local produce. However, it was 4.30pm, and I did not have transport, so I went off to the local IGA store in Sunrise. There I found the following:

This I later found out was taboo because no wheat is grown locally!

This was very good but of course, the spices with which it is packed, are all imported, I overlooked this in my excitement to buy something local, and felt guilty later.

This was local, delicious and had many health benefits, Yay!

This was interesting, sweet, local....

These were made locally, with probably some imported ingredients, but I did not have the resources to check.

Later I found out about the local farmer's market that happens on a Thursday morning (I am sure there is a very good reason for this....)

Byron Bay Farmer's Market

So in order to get my weekly local food before my course started at 8 am. I rode my bike to the market at 7am. (My delightful host Cathy at the house where I was renting a room, did drive me there the first week).

Check out the citrus! I did not expect to find citrus growing up there. I also found a lovely bitter sweet cumquat that had edible skin!

This is my first introduction to a Custard Apple!

It looks so unappealing, but the taste is fabulous! Sweet, good texture, almost like a honey taste.... Bliss.

A very healthy selection of meats

Fresh squeezed sugar cane juice.

Mushrooms grown in a shipping container - really.

Davidson's Plum jam - local bush tucker

Bitter sweet, tart flavour similar to regular plum jam but a bit less sweet.

Pineapples - a bit big for one person, and I was not sure of the location of the farm. I totally forgot to bring a 160 km radius map, which would have been very handy, as my geography of the area is pretty sketchy.

So sweet, delicious and fresh.

Bananas still on the bunch, such a beautiful sight. I ate a lot.

Most of the stalls were very local, although, like our farmer's market in Willunga, there were a few "guest" stalls from further afield, including one selling apples.

I bought this organic Paw Paw, not realising how unripe it was.

After a few days, it looked and smelled riper, but it tasted disappointing. My host suggested wrapping it in newspaper to help it ripen more.

She offered me a taste of hers, a different variety of Paw Paw. It looked a much more appealing colour -redder. But alas, to my palate, it was bland and unexciting. Which is unfortunate as Paw Paw grows like a weed in Byron.

I also discovered after speaking with the locals, a store called SANTOS - Organic and natural foods.

I went for a visit and asked what was local. The staff member - to his credit, knew exactly what was local - alas only the rice, honey, and macadamias.

On the second weekend my beloved came up for a visit and we stayed the night in a local B&B. I would not recommend the place - Aaron's luxury Apartments - (squeaky bed & hard mattress with springs palpable through the minimal padding) But I did pick up some sort of local treats - Madura tea - my favourite! and Byron Bay cookies - delish chocolate truffle flavour - made in the industrial estate in Sunrise, but the ingredients were not local.

Day 144 – National Wine Centre Degustation Menu

2010-05-21T23:24:00.001-07:00

Hello all –Michael here. In Bridget's absence I thought I would fill in the silence somewhat – but only a little.

On the 3^rd May I attended a dinner hosted by Vestas Wind Technology, at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide. The theme for the night was local (i.e. South Australian) food and wine.

We were greeted with a tasting plate of three dishes accompanied by three different wines – at high tables with standing room only. Then the wine maker from Yangarra took us through the different wines for each dish – it was brilliant, and they were generous tastings too – easily half of a normal glass. Little did I know that these were just the first of seven wines / dishes – a real degustation event!

It was brilliant! See the menu below.

Tasting Plate
Olive Bread, Woodside Goats Curd, Sticky Onion & Quince Marmalade
Yangarra 2007 Rose

Blue Swimmer Crab Cold Rolls
Yangarra 2009 Viognier

Seared Coffin Bay Scallop Pea Purée, Crisp Serrano Ham, Beetroot Glaze & Lemon Oil
Yangarra Old Vine 2007 Grenache

Entree
Braised Oxtail Tortellini Consommé of Root Vegetables and Candied Fennel
Pirie South Pinot Noir - 2008
∞
Confit Rabbit Galantine with Liver Parfait, Witlof, Radish Salad and Quince Jelly
Paracombe Pinot Gris - 2009

Main Course

Rare Roasted Venison Loin with Poached Baby Turnips, Celeriac Custard, Broad Beans and Sauce Poivrade
Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon - 2006
∞
Fillet of Black Angus Beef, Porcini & Gorgonzola Gnocchi with Roasted Shallots & Red Wine Butter
Pikes Eastside Shiraz - 2006

Both main courses served with
Penfolds Bin707 - 2007

Dessert
Coconut Cream Panna Cotta with Pistachio Short Bread and Melon Salad
∞
Warm Vanilla Bean Sponge with Saffron Poached Pear, Almond Crumble and Anglaise
Both desserts served with
Hollick The Nectar Botrytis Riesling - 2008

Last minute Harvest before Byron

2010-05-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

I decided to collect pepper from the local pepper tree in case they all fall on the ground before I get back in 3 weeks. They are a beautiful pink colour.

According to"The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs" by Leslie Taylor, all parts of this tree, seeds, fruit, leaves, and bark are useful medicinally, and have been used for many years in other countries. Ailments such as hypertension, menstrual disorders, fungal infections, and too many others to mention. This tree is a virtual pharmacy, with applications for practically any ailment, but it is also on the major weed list.
It has also been included in the 'Jumping the Garden Fence' report which examines the impact of invasive garden plants on Australian agricultural land and natural ecosystems. Michael and I suffer from some of the ailments that this amazing tree is supposed to heal, but actually, I just wanted to eat the pepper corns. I figure it should be very good for us as well - added bonus!

I removed these corns from the stems to dry, but Aarod (my genious in the making) suggested I hang the branches up to dry as the pepper corns may be easier to remove once they're dry - good plan I say, and an excellent excuse not to do it till I get back!

I am still not 100% well, and I found these beauties in the garden, they remind me of Mum's apple & rhubarb crumble, so I decided to make some for tonight's tea.

After cutting up the rhubarb and Mclaren Flat apples, I realised that I had no butter -not even in the freezer!

But found this in the fridge, so I thought it was worth a try substituting goat's curd from the Farmer's market for the butter. It might be a taste sensation!

The crumble looked a bit bereft, as I often add oats, sugar, coconut, seeds of some sort, to give it some oomph. Alas I had none of these, so I ground up some Willunga almonds, some cloves, and 1/2 a cinnamon stick (from pantry). I also added some honey to the fruit.

Finished product ready for the oven - yum.

Served with some BD yoghurt, it is very nice, not too sweet. You get a bit of an aftertaste from the goats curd but it is not overpowering, and the genious went back for seconds, so it can't be that bad.

Off To Byron Bay

2010-05-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Day 127

Off to Byron Bay

I am off to Byron Bay for 3 weeks to do a Massage Course, so I will be sourcing my food from within 160km of Byron. That means I can drink coffee Woo Hoo! http://www.zentvelds.com.au/index.html
http://www.hillsofbyron.com.au/hob_about.html http://www.buncoffee.com.au/coffees.htm
And I have been researching where I will be able to shop and eat out already, and I found a great place to shop called The Green garage who say they have about 200 local suppliers and they pride themselves in being as local as possible. They are a Fruit and Veg market and a cafe'. I am not sure how much time I will have to Blog, but I am taking a borrowed laptop, so the intention is there!
Check this out:- http://greengarage.com.au/

Now I am off to pack my bags....................

Bush Tucker

2010-05-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

Day 126
Bush Tucker Field Trip
I jumped at the opportunity to tag along with a post "Wild flavours of Australia" conference field trip with the SANFA (South Australian Native Food Association) last Tuesday. We travelled to the Mount Pleasant area, to the property of Greg and Michelle Noel, who are growers of Muntries (Kunzea pomifera).
Landline - Muntries

Muntries (Kunzea pomifera).

Although they are naturally prostrate, they are grown in rows on trellis to facillitate harvesting

The trellis system also seems to increase production, and allows the fruit to be netted against birds.

They are irrigated in a similar fashion to grapes

Muntries (Kunzea pomifera).

The fruit is ripe in January, green or burgundy colour, tastes similar to apple.

This muntrie jam is actually 50% apple.

These straps are actually produced right here in Aldinga! with 15% Muntries 85% apple, no additives.

Hand cream has many other ingredients, with muntries added.

We then continued on to an old Gold and Copper mining site of Kitticoola, near Palmer where we visited a demonstration Native food site owned by John Del Fabbro.

This place was of particular interest to me as it has a rainfall of 350mm which is where we are heading here in Aldinga.

Santalum spicatum - Sandalwood

South Australia's Sandalwood Industry

Sandalwood trees with their hosts

Santalum spicatum - Sandalwood
The Sandalwood was of particular interest to me as it was not being irrigated, (it is an arid land plant that grows on hard baked earth, gravel and sandy soil, rainfall 250-450mm) it produced a large nut which reminded me of a macadaemia in both flavour, texture, and oil content. I had never heard of Sandalwood being used as an edible crop.This is very exciting in terms of a multi use food crop, as the wood is used for incense and essential oils also. Sandlewood could be a very good survival crop as the nuts are very high in kilojules, fat and carbohydrates. Another thing I did not know, is that they need a host tree - they are a "hemi-parasite" they extract their water and nutrients from the host. The best hosts being Casuarinas, & Acacias.

Solanum centrale - Bush Tomato or Desert Raisin

Bush Tomatoes

The Bush tomato was a bit disappointing for me because it is used as a flavouring rather than a fruit, and it needs irrigation. I tried one and it had an intense bitter sweet flavour.

Used as a flavouring for soups stews and casseroles, and in Dukkah.

Santalum acuminatum Native Peach Quandongs

The Quandong like the Sandalwood needs a host tree, this one has killed it's host which is unusual.

Uses - used as stewed fruit, in pies, jams, and chutneys.

A row of Sandalwood interspersed with host casuarinas and acacias

Wattle Seed - Acacia Victoriae

Wattleseed

Uses - roasted and ground it makes a coffee substitute without the caffiene

the roasted seeds have the flavour extracted to make a syrup which can be used in place of vanilla essence.

Australian Native Bush Foods produce a Wattle seed extract which can be used to flavour beer, ice cream, and whipped cream. They also produce a Wattleseed Balsalmic vinegar.

The seeds that are left after the flavour is extracted are used to make facial exfoliants.

It is a spiney plant and is harvested similar to olives, by laying down sheets and knocking or shaking the trees with a pole.

Acacia victoriae - Wattle Seed

Native Lime Native limes

Native Fig

Native Fig - fruit does not get bigger than this

The trip has really helped to familiarise myself with these plants, and will certainly help me with my bush tucker orchard project here at the EcoVillage.

Stuffed

2010-05-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

Free range chicken from Willunga butcher

I decided to stuff it as it makes me think of my mum's cooking when I make a stuffing. When I am sick I often want to eat comfort foods from my childhood like canned tomato soup, apple & rhubarb crumble, tuna mornay, and mashed potatoes. Michael is not that keen on stuffing, but I guess I was brought up with it so I like it. I assume that it originated as a way to extend the chicken in a large family, so you were served a portion of chicken and a portion of stuffing?
I looked around the kitchen for inspiration, and found the following -

Leftover Lemon Lime Chicken Stuffing
3 leftover egg whites,
Leftover cous cous (yes we still have some lurking in the pantry),
The dregs of preserved lime from 'Once a year' of Kanmantoo (Stirling Market),
Harding's fine foods almond paste - Willunga,
from the pantry -
Thistle Be Good - Dukkah Egyptian (a gift from Jacqui)
Home made bread crumbs
Lemon zest (from Kat's friend's tree)
Garlic (farmer's market)
Basil &Thyme from the garden

Mix it all together and stuff into chicken cavity, (add salt & pepper to taste)

I poured some rainwater over the chicken and rubbed some rock salt on the skin.

Into the oven in a tray to slow cook on 150C ( fan forced electric)

I think it was the best tasting stuffing I have ever made - Delicious

Water Mellon Seed Saving

Watermellon Seeds from my prize watermellon, they dried nicely on this plate, no mould problems

To combat my illness, I have been self medicating with green juice of spinach, cellery, and pear. It is surprisingly very tasty, and very GREEN!

And finally after about 2 1/2 weeks, we have SEA SALT!

And dust and a bug too!

Rusty Sea Salt

It was a mistake to put the sea water on my oven trays. The salt would have been high in iron, but not very palatable I think. I ditched this.

It tastes OK but is perhaps a little un-hygenic. Next time I will try it in the dehydrator. So it does work to create your own sea salt from sea water, it just takes a lot of patience, and dust and insect proofing. Also pay attention to the equipment used - metal that will rust, and aluminium is not a good idea, as the coating will contaminate the salt - thanks for the information from my friend Ray.

Seed Saving & Meals on Foot

2010-05-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Day 122

Dinner For Billy Joe, local pasta with cheese & mushroom sauce.

This was an easy mix of local eggs, milk, cheese and flour, mushrooms & garlic form the Farmer's market, & spring onion and basil from the garden.

I have decided that for this year, this is my last community meal delivery, as I am already pushed to provide food for my own family. So sadly, I will bow out of the food roster for a while.

( I will make an exception for Amy when her baby is born though.)

Self - seeded coriander well and truly gone to seed.

I just love it when plants self seed in my garden. They just come up wherever they feel comfortable and happy, and I just leave them there and enjoy their bounty. This was small but delicious, and it's seed has dried on the plant, so I pick off the few seeds to plant. I think these self seeded plants are the ones to collect seeds from as they obviously like it here in my garden, so should do well when I plant them again (hopefully).

Seed Saving

Now I see seeds and pips differently. Instead of something slightly annoying to discard, they are now a valuable resource.

Coriander

These coriander bushes were picked last summer and left to dry in a paper bag. I am a bit poorly, so it is a good time to do those time consuming sedentary jobs that never seem to get done!

this coriander is so full of seeds, last summer I was not so excited, but now I am, as I imagine the culinary uses of this seed. I think about pseudo curries made with ground coriander, monk's pepper, lemon grass, garlic, salt, and horseradish.

the task of getting the seeds off the stalks is pretty time consuming, and hard on the fingers, and the seeds tend to fly around the place. A good job to do in the garden, as the seeds that fall about might grow.

The tricky bit is getting the stalks out of the seeds. I try a few finer sieves, with some success, but some form of winnowing is probably more likely to be effective. I tried shaking the sieve about and moving it up and down in the breeze as if flipping pancakes, but the losses of seed was probably not worth it. I decided that the seed to be planted did not need to be too clean.

As for the culinary coriander seeds, I wanted to get as much stem out as possible, and could not find an effective method, so I thought I would try soaking the seeds to see if the detritus would either sink or float, leaving the seeds able to be scooped out. Well, the whole lot floated, and then I was worried about it sprouting. So I scooped it all out and spread it on an oven tray to dry in a warm oven (turned off after cooking dinner). One benefit of the soaking, the seeds were cleaner - there was quite a brown tinge to the water.

The seeds dried well in the cooling oven overnight

Into an air tight jar for storage in the pantry

Rocket

Now I am on a seedsaving mission, so here is the rocket that I also dried last summer

These seeds are much smaller and harder to see, with lots of husks. I thought I had finally found a good use for the chip fryer I found in the skip last year, however, the seeds, and lots of husks fell straight through.

On to finer and finer sieves

Rocket seeds ready for planting out.

Rockmellon seeds

I left them on the kitchen bench for a few days on a plate. They dried a bit but started to go mouldy, so I put them in a sieve and washed under the tap to remove mould and pulp. This is also a good job to do outside, as it uses quite a lot of water.

It took a while to get the pulp off the seeds, quite fidly. Once the pulp was gone,

I put the seeds on paper towels to dry in the sun. This only took a few hours, however, it was difficult getting some of the seeds off the paper. I ended up leaving some seeds on torn bits of paper, which I guess will not be a problem for their germination.

The dried seeds can go into a labelled envelope and are ready to plant next season.

BD. Lemon Myrtle Yoghurt and strawberries - Yummm

My last watermellon, nice and ripe, thanks to my followers for the tips on how to know when they are ripe. I also kept the harvested mellon on the kitchen bench for a few weeks before cutting to allow it to ripen more. 1/2 was shared with Billy Joe as desert for her meal on foot.

More sedentary persuits - Sewing

My New Bee Keeper's suit!

I found a pair of painter's overalls in an opportunity shop, sewed in a zip down front, elasticated the ankle and wrist cuffs, put elastic styrups on the cuffs to keep the legs from riding up, and sewed up the pockets, sleeve, and side gaps. I found the white cricket hat in an op shop too, and the net in an army disposal store. I feel pretty professional now! Apparently bees are not attracted to white, (even though their houses are usually painted white?) but they are to attracted to bright colours. The extra thick fabric of the overalls gives me good peace of mind, as the last time I went out to check the hive, I had a fairly flimsy shirt on, and one bee was trying to sting me through it. Luckily it was baggy.

Day116

2010-04-26T04:22:00.000-07:00

Apron Days

Yesterday after preserving olives and making Granola, I baked scones, and today I made pumpkin soup with our first pumpkin of the season. I gave 1/2 of the soup made with home grown basil as well as a home grown rockmellon to a friend on the latest food roster. The meal was completed with 1/2 a loaf of home made bread still warm from the oven. I noticed that I feel more attached to my home grown produce, a little less generous. We are not at the abundant stage yet with our garden, and every offering from our patch is precious, even more so this year as we rely on it even more. Still, it is such a beautiful thing to be a part of a community that provides this service to those in need, it is actually a nice feeling to know that someone out there is sharing our meal, and I know how hard it can be when I am stretched to the max physically or emotionally, to get a meal on the table at the end of the day. I have never received meals from a food roster, but I imagine it would be such a blessing. I would like it to be a tradition that continues and expands in our village. Spending so much time in my kitchen makes me think of my mum, and I feel all nurturing and womanly and old fashioned (especially in my apron, with a t-towel on my shoulder). I kind of like it, somehow it feeds something inside of me that yearns to nurture others. I have often thought that food is a love replacement; a way that women often show their love/caring for others. I would love to be in a position where my garden is so abundant, my kitchen so overflowing with food; that I just give food away all the time, and there is always food in the oven, cooking smells wafting out the door, and ample preserves in the fridge and pantry. First I need a cellar!

Day 114

2010-04-26T03:56:00.000-07:00

Olives Olives Olives

Olives are ripe in the village orchard, and there is a harvest scheduled for tomorrow. It would be fun to pick together, but Kensington Yoga class wins out. I want to try a couple of alternative olive processing methods, one off the internet, using a salt drying technique (refer last Blog entry), Colin Endean's method, and a batch using sea water. This is all a bit untimely, as I am about to leave for a Thai Massage course in Byron Bay for 3 weeks. The most labour intensive methods should be complete before I go, hopefully, otherwise Michael and Aarod will be left with the finishing tasks for all four batches....oops! ( Men not happy).

The Colin Endean method:
Place olives in clean plastic milk bottles with brine 10/1, each day let gas out of the bottle by loosening the lid. (bottle swells out so you can see when it needs releasing). Keep doing this daily until the bottle no longer swells. Then decant olives into preserving jar adding desired mix of brine or brine/vinegar mix and garlic/chillies/herbs. Done. (I like this method, no wasted salt, no salt water washings in garden, less water loss, less work it seems) I have tried this with 2 batches

first wash olives

These Village olives are soooo big and fleshy, some of them are hard to fit into the bottle!

after the olives pour in the brine

I am keeping them on the kitchen bench so that I don't forget to release the gas daily.

Salt Drying Method:
Put the equivalent mix of 10kg olives with 1kg salt in a cotton bag, hang outside out of the rain. Tip bag and hang from the other end daily for 15 days. That's it, (I very much like the sound of this one). I put the olives into an old pillow case and knotted both ends so it will hang securely both ways.

Looking very attractive on the pergola, with large bowl underneath to catch the drips.

Sea Watert method:
I will try the Colin Endean method using sea water and see how it goes, I just think that sea water must be the original method used in ancient times, and it is less wasteful of both water and salt, and could be returned to the sea after? Not sure about that bit. It was actually a bit tricky filling two 2 litre flagons at the Port Willunga beach. I walked to Gulls Rock end of the beach as I thought it would be easier to perch on the reef and fill the bottles without battling waves/getting drenched or getting too much sand. It was pretty slippery on the reef, carrying 2, 2 litre flagons and trying not to have a nasty accident. Then there was the carrying back to the carpark part. I imagined myself being one of those women walking with hand weights, except mine were 2kg each., and unweildy. I made it with no mishaps, but I wouldn't want to be doing it too frequently. I used the extra sea water to put into trays on the deck, to allow it to evaporate, and I am hoping that there will be some lovely sea salt left for me in a few days.

In the mean-time, we ran out of our Lake Frome salt, and I needed salt to do all of this olive preserving, so I went to Goodies and Grains in the Central Market. They had bulk salt both ground and rock salt, and I asked the staff where it was from. Apparently it comes from the Great Australian Bight, which is out of our radius, but at this point in time, it is the best I can do.

Granola:
This has been a big hit with the men in my household, especially since we have been without breakfast cereals for a few months. It makes a great snack for any time of the day, can be used as extra oomph in apple crumble, and is great ontop of porridge. I follow a recipie but replace the sugar with honey, the seeds with almonds, the rolled oats with rolled barley, and add dried jujubes, apples and pears. I do add vanilla essence while we still have some, lastly I add salt.

Willunga roasted Almonds in processor

McLarenVale sultanas painstakingly plucked from the stalks

Home dried McLarenVale jujubes, apples, and pears

the lot is mixed together and spread on oven trays to bake for 10-15 mins till golden. Don't be fooled like I was, it comes out of the oven still mushy, you will be tempted to cook it longer, resist the temptation. It is easy to over cook, and it becomes crispy as it dries. It tastes much better under cooked.

From my favourite recipie book The TAO of cooking Sally Pasley 1982

Granola

Makes 12 cups

11/2 cups sesame seeds (crushed Roasted Almonds)

11/2 cups sunflower seeds

1/2 cup oil (olive oil)

1 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar (honey)

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

8 cups rolled oats (Rolled Barley)

1-2 cups of Dried fruit

bake sesame and sunflower seedsin oven for 10-15 mins, until light brown

Heat oil, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla together, stirring until honey is thin, add salt.

Mix oats and toasted seeds together and combine with honey mixture until well coated. Spread on oven trays and bake until golden brown 10-15 mins in moderate oven. Stir once or twice during baking to brown evenly

Let cereal cool on trays and store in airtight container.

Day 112

2010-04-22T02:09:00.000-07:00

Olive Picking In Willunga

We had a great opportunity to pick Kalamata olives from Mark Webb's property in Willunga. He had too much on this year, no time to harvest and preserve himself, so he offered these olives to Ecovillagers.

A tree laden with ripe Kalamata olives

It was hot work but a lot of fun, very satisfying picking those fat juicy purple/black olives by hand. I perfected a two handed technique. We filled two buckets to the brim in about an hour, maybe less. We stripped about 4-5 trees in that time, so it was not bad, but made me ponder how many trees I would need to access to keep my family in olives (not to mention olive oil) for the year?

Our little helper, Mark's beautiful chirpy son Luca was happy to help us collect the olives, chatting away to us as we worked, so cute, we promised him a jar of olives for his labor.

Beautiful black fleshy olives. We combined the two bucket loads when we returned home in a clean plastic rubbish bin with a lid. we covered the olives with rainwater, and placed a heavy plate ontop to weigh them down, and prevent floaters, ensuring all of the olives remain in the water. Change water daily for 10 days, then put olives into saline solution, in jars with a top up of olive oil to the brim, and airtight lids. I am keen to try preserving with sea water, but Michael is less keen on the idea. I also want to try salt preserving ie. no washing. I will try a few different batches. For a variety of different methods see below.

http://www.hunterolives.asn.au/simplerecipes.htm#kalamata

http://www.cookeryonline.com/olives/Olive%20Pickling.html

Day 110

2010-04-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes and Olives

I love the look of this abundant car boot ex -Willunga

I spend All Day in the kitchen

I bought a 10kg box of tomatoes from the the Willunga Farmers market and sliced them up in approx. 5mm sections as per dehydrator instructions. The book says 11 -12 hours, I say some took more like 24hrs! I am taking no chances with mould this time! So I am not bottling until they are crisp, no spongeyness.

I put the dried tomato in a jar and layered with garlic. I wanted to add herbs but was not sure if they needed to be dried too? I took no chances and found some dried herbs in pantry, not sure what they were - no label.

As I started to pour in the extra virgin olive oil. I started to think about the cost of the oil, and decided to put them in a smaller jar - less oil. I don't think squashing them in should be a problem?

These babies are reluctant to dry out, the last of the bunch, they are the ends of the tomatoes (thickest slices) so are taking much longer than the rest.

I am determined to try one jar with no oil, just to see if it works, they are very crisp, and I am making sure they are completely cooled down before I seal the jar! The last lot are still drying as I write.

Dehydrator Musings

I am not too impressed with the speed of this machine. I am starting to wonder about the economics here. The dehydrator is 1000 Watts, so it is similar to a toaster, and I am leaving it on all night/all day. I freak out about the thought of leaving the toaster on all night but Michael says it would cost about $2. (It goes up to $5 during the day - using the solar power we would otherwise export). Then I think about the cost of the olive oil, the tomatoes, garlic etc, and I guesstimate it costs about $10 for this jar (then there is my labour ontop) - it sounds a lot at first, but then I am not sure how much sun dried tomatoes cost for that sized jar? It does make me think that dehydrating is possibly not as sustainable or cost effective as bottling with the Fowlers Vacola kits.

Fowlers Vacola Kit

They can use water only (no salt or sugar needed) and the cooking process takes one hour, as opposed to 12/24. I found some second hand jars at the local second hand shop for $1 each, and I have found a source for new lids and rubbers, so all I need now is a preserving kit. There are the stove top types (the old metal ones) which I prefer, but they need watching as they don't have a thermostat or thermometer, and they need to be kept at the correct temperature to be effective. The new plastic ones sound more idiot proof as they come with inbuilt thermometer, and timer, and they plug in, so they can be set off in the shed or laundry, freeing up kitchen space. Personally, if I can possibly avoid plastic, I like to, but the other extra features are swaying me. Also the food does not come into contact with the water or the plastic, and I presume that you can re-use the water.

More Preserving

2.7kg of tomatoes chopped and cooked to make tomato sauce

When tomatoes are pulpy, press through sieve to catch the soupy liquid (I can't bear to give the pulp to the chooks, so I reserve it and add it to the pasta sauce).

I used a muslin bag with almost the last of the pantry's foreign spices - cinamon, all spice, cloves, paprica, with vinegar, honey, and red wine, to spice up the tomato sauce.

I also made a pasta sauce of zucchini, capsicum, olives, onion, garlic, basil, bay, oregano, rosemary, and the tomato pulp.

The results of my labour: tomato sauce & pasta sauce. The tomato sauce is quite runny, I think maybe because I substituted honey for sugar? I am hoping it may thicken up with time. The preserving expert from the Save the Children Op Shop in Willunga said that these jars would be OK for preserving as long as they have rubber under the rim of the lids, the jars and the sauces are hot, and they are filled to the very top. Fingers crossed!

My garden beauties!

Day 105

2010-04-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Willunga Food Finds
I went to the food co-op in Willunga to pick up some local almonds, local sultanas, and Alexandrina Dairy products. I also found some local pepper seeds. We are not finished our current pepper corns yet, but I presume that these will not be available all year, so I bought some to try them out, and to use later. I had been thinking of collecting pepper corns from our EcoVillage pepper tree, and the research about if are edible, that I came up with, was inconclusive. It seems however, that the leaves are very high in essential oils, which have many therapeutic uses. I will report more on this when I harvest some.

I also popped into the Save The Children Opportunity shop to look for a Fowler's Vacola preserving kit. The one that you put on a stove top and heat the jars of fruit/veg in boiling water. They did not have one, but they had the jars, lids, and clips for sale. Margaret Offe, who served me was a wealth of knowledge on preserving. She told me that the replacement rubber rings are available in the Willunga hardware store, and she proceeded to give me a mini seminar on how it is done, including some very handy tips on trouble shooting. I am very grateful, I bought 3 jars, (one of each type) to test them out, and I went to the hardware store to get new rings.

They were selling yabby nets, so of course I had to buy one, and I have put it strategically on Aarod's bed. (A great way to prise him away from the computer - I think) What a perfect school holiday activity, and it fits in beautifully with our quest for local food. The Guy serving me was also very helpful, giving me tips on catching yabbies, and showing me their whole range of preserving equipment. Happy travels in Willunga!

I came away feeling very chuffed with my purchases, and thinking about the invaluable information that had been shared by both experts in the shops. I think about the different experience I might have had purchasing the same items in a large department store. There is such a difference in shopping locally, with a local, knowledgeable person serving you. I feel very blessed to live in this area.

Evil Weevils Strike Again!

The Weevils are smarter than they look!

Weevil Destruction

I might have to resort to deadly sprays or my trees may well die. I am thinking Pyrethrum is the next weapon of choice. Watch this space.

Day 104

2010-04-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Beer, Pumpkins, Mould, Gomashio, & Weevils

Last week's harvest of self seeded pumpkins drying in the sun before I bring them inside, last year I had about 1/2 of my crop go mouldy, so I am making sure that the skins are completely dry and toughened this time before I bring them inside for storage.

Dehydrated curry

Sadly the leftover dehydrated curry from our camping trip went mouldy. Again I am unsure if this is due to insufficient time in the dehydrator, or my impatience with packing it into bags (moisture due to condensation) - next time I will allow it to cool fully before bagging up.

Weevil Fix

Devastated olive tree

The dedicated Michael has been out hunting every 2 nights and gathering up at least 20 each time! Consequently, the poor tree is nearly dead as they seem intent on eating every last leaf even though there are 3 other trees to chomp on with many more leaves. I begin to wonder if the dying tree sends out messages to the weevils like "I am suffering please put me out of my misery" or "I am dying, eat me while you still can".

Preparations for weevil barriers

I am really determined to stop these evil weevils from their path of destruction. Cuffs were suggested by the nursery man, (with no directions whatsoever) so here I go with my makeshift cuff barriers.

Lets see how they deal with this strategy

I figure the evil ones will be really pissed off about having to climb up, across, down, then up and across again. Hopefully the smooth surface will impede them, and the multiple changes in direction will confuse them.

I left the insulation cuffs (so annoyingly ineffective) on to hold up the plastic containers. Unfortunately I have to cuff the stakes as well.

So aesthetically pleasing!

Lake Frome "Gomashio"

Gomashio is traditionally used in a Macrobiotic diet, and made with sesame seeds and sea salt, it is a delicious way to reduce sodium while adding a little calcium, magnesium, & iron. I used salt collected at Lake Frome, with sunflower & pumpkin seeds because that is what I have left in the pantry. I figured it would make an interesting nutty flavoured salt as well as making it easier to shake out as the pure salt is slightly moist and tends to clump. (I usually use natural sea salt and sesame seeds).

Lake Frome Salt

Roasted sunflower & pumpkin seeds

crushed in mortar and pestle, it is easier to crush them separately, then combine them, but I was doing a fairly small batch, so I did them together.

The end result is a tasty seasoning for the table. It still is fairly moist, just needs some tapping to encourage it to pour out.

Local Brewery

http://www.goodiesonbrewery.com.au/

Sand Rd McLarenVale

Hi There Jeff and Mary,

Your brewery sounds great! My family are on a 100 mile (160km) diet for 2010.
We are keen to source some local beer, but it seems that most hops are
imported from Tasmania or NewZealand.
Do you have any beers that have all ingredients sourced locally?
I realise that sugar is from QLD yeast is from interstate too, but I
guess there is a chance that the main ingredients could be local?
Also do you know of any beers brewed without hops/sugar/yeast?
I am keeping a Blog for this year, "lifewithoutanchovies" about our
experiences and would like to publish your replies on my Blog if you are OK with that?
Thanks for your help,
Bridget

Hello Bridget.

Thank you for your interest. Please feel free to come out and visit our
little estabishment for a look when ever you are passing by. Yes our beer
is brewed locally, (we would be comfortably within the 100 miles) but
none of our ingredients unfortunately are from within that radius.
We are an all malt brewery so no sugar is used. Yes, no commercially
viable hops are grown in South Australia let alone McLaren Vale. The
closest hop growing region to here is Bright in Victoria.
Beer by definition under the food standards code must have hops and be
fermented by yeast, beer is after all a food and a very health food at
that when drunk in moderation.

We wish you well in your endeavours for the year and hope that when you
have achieved your goal you can come over for a locally brewed beer.

Regards,
Jeff

Arkaroola Trip

2010-04-12T01:01:00.000-07:00

Arkaroola
http://www.arkaroola.com.au/

We went for the Easter long weekend to Arkaroola with Aarod's cousin Connor, and our EcoVillage friends, Tom, Hilde, Nathan, and Levi, & Leo the dog. In preparation I have been dehydrating meals and fruit, baking and shopping and having a break down when everything went pear shaped the day before we left home.

Dehydrated Spaghetti bolognaise that can be rehydrated by adding hot water, easy, no chopping, no huge ingredient list, delicious result. Served with Pasta

Dehydrated curry to be eaten with cous cous (leftover in pantry)

Eggs gone wrong - I thought it would be good to boil up a heap of hard boiled eggs for the journey. Two cracked immediately on entering the boiling water, and they were not cooked sufficiently, so they were soft boiled!

I found this disaster of mouldy figs when I was looking for snacks to take on the trip. I obviously did not dehydrate them for long enough.

The dehydrated pear suffered the same fate, I am not sure if this is because they were not dried enough or they were still warm when I packed them away. Such a waste, luckily we have worms!

This was the last straw, and I was in a flood of tears just before our trip. It was actually a lot of work preparing the food for the camp. I realised that I could not rely on acessing local food on our journey, so would have to take all of our own. Usually I would buy packaged convenience foods and canned foods for the trip to make life easier, and we would look forward to picking up snacks at bakeries etc. along the way. This trip for the first time, I took fresh veg from the garden, including lettuce, tomato, cucumber, capsicum, basil and rocket. Usually I don't bother too much with fresh foods because I don't think they will last. We took Michael's Mum's car fridge which took up a lot of room on the back seat, and did not work particularly well. We ended up using it like an esky and filling it with ice. We also took our esky which I filled with frozen milk, frozen yoghurt and frozen butter. I was amazed at how well the fresh food lasted. We still had fresh milk untill the 4th day, and the (BD lemon myrtle) yoghurt was a lovely after dinner treat on the 3rd day, and the lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and capsicum lasted until day 5. If I hadn't accidentally left them in the fridge of the cabin in Wilpena Pound, we would have had salad sandwiches for lunch on the way home! I was very impressed with the freshness of the veg. I am not sure if they lasted so well because I picked them the day before we left home? They were all packed unwashed in snap lock bags, or airtight plastic containers. I did pick up the following at our local fruit and veg shop in Aldinga, and took the lot with us. The strawberries from Mt Compass were disappointing, most of them were thrown out on day 2 as they deteriorated very quickly in our makeshift fridge.

The honey is from Kangaroo island, so I assume it is Ligurian honey, and it seemed to be the same price as we pay for our local honey lady honey, so I wanted to try it. Haven't opened it yet.

Parachilna

http://www.prairiehotel.com.au/

Our first night we spent in the overflow cabins (Atco huts) at The Prairie hotel in the Flinders. The boys had a room with two bunks and the adults had separate rooms, it was very basic but comfortable. We could not resist eating dinner in the hotel, Michael and I shared the Feral Grill - kangaroo, camel, and emu, thinking it would be pretty local (it wasn't, only the Kangaroo was) but we did enjoy sharing a bottle of local wine though (as local as we could get) Bundaleer Shiraz from Jamestown. Michael and Tom also tried a "local" beer Knappsteins from the Clare Valley - very nice, but very expensive - at $10 per 375ml bottle!

It was difficult to really get a sense of the different tastes of the game as the sauce they came with was so rich. It all tasted great though.

Bush Camp Arkaroola Nature Sanctuary

http://www.arkaroola.com.au/

Camp fire potatoes, and beetroot, MclarenVale wine from home, liver jerky, pasta, farmer's market mushrooms & garlic, with Paris Creek Nuage Blanc, followed by marshmallows roasted on the fire.

(who brought those?)

Lake Frome

We decided to visit Lake Frome to check out the bird life, and see the lake with water in it as we were told that the recent rains had introduced water to the lake which is an infrequent occurence. This is what we found.

No water, no birds, just salt and very cute lizards that the boys were impressively adept at catching. So we spent our time productively. Painstakingly and carefully gathering salt for our table for the next few months. We used state of the art precision tools to scrape the surface salt off the lake.

The salt is very tasty if a little difficult to shake onto food.

Bush Tucker

on the way to lake Frome (along a sandy dirt track) we spotted a tree laden with fruit, is it a bush orange?

on the same track we found "bush bananas", the green fruit, that grows on a vine like a cucumber, and looks like a small cucumber.

Four Leaf Organic Mill

http://www.fourleafmilling.com.au/

On the way home we stopped off at Four Leaf to do some Blog research and buy some items for our pantry.

Rosemary Dunn, the owner of Four Leaf Milling. She patiently told us about her products, and where they are grown, and it turns out that, like most mills, the grains are mixed in order to keep enough product available to meet demand. Some of their growers are Biodynamic and some are Organic, but because the grains are mixed, they can only label them organic. Many small growers are based within our radius, but their larger producers are located interstate, mostly in Victoria, and again the grains are mixed. The following grains are grown locally and are not mixed with grains from interstate.

pearl barley is grown locally is used to thicken soup, and is a good substitute for rice. Makes a good risotto apparently.

Egyptian Gold wheat was found in an Egyptian tomb, and grown successfully by a neighbour. It is also known as Kamut, and is an ancient grain, it will last many years in the pantry if stored properly, but they say conservatively, it lasts one year. It makes a high protein flour and has a sweet, nutty flavour (this nutty flavour is stronger in the Egyptian Gold than the spelt), and is excellent for pasta and bread. It has similar properties to Spelt flour and can be tolerated by many people with wheat sensitivities.

Michael made a loaf with this flour and it did not rise much at all but it tasted fine and had a lovely texture, and brown colour, it has less gluten, which makes it rise less.

Barley flakes are a good substitute for oats, and can be used to make porridge and museli.

Barley flour is a good alternative to corn flour as a thickening agent.

So these are the products we can use this year if we want to eat organic.

Happily, most of these products are available through the Food Co-op in Willunga, but Rosemary offered to deliver any other products that we cannot get in Willunga directly from the mill.

Us with Rosemary

Day 102

2010-04-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Contact with McLaren Vale Beer Company
http://www.mvbeer.com/

Me - "Hey guys - I am on a hundred mile diet, and live in Aldinga - any chance you guys source your ingredients from around here?"

McLaren Vale Beer Company - "The menu at the Salopian is full of local produce, ask Billy the chef - prides himself on it.... Willunga markets every week!"
"And sadly all of Australia's hops come from Tasmania which we believe is at least 101 miles from Aldinga. Sorry Bridget !"

A friend put me onto this local brewery too - Goodieson Brewery in Mclaren Flat, they do a Pilsener and a Pale Ale, apparently very nice. http://www.goodiesonbrewery.com.au/

JuJubes

$12 per kilo from Perry's Fruit & Nut Nursery in McLaren Flat.

We tried some jujubes from Yummy Nuts in McLarenVale (for reserach purposes - they were from China). They were so delicious, so I decided to try dehydrating my own. Jujubes are nutritious fruits requiring very little water, and tolerating our soils and climate well. They would be a great addition to our orchards here in the EcoVillage. Perry's sell the fruit but not the trees as they are notorious for sending out invasive succers and they refuse to sell the trees until they have developed a tree that does not succer. Apparently this may be a reality next year, so I have put my name on their waiting list for a tree.

The jujubes have a smallish seed that clings to the flesh of the fruit and is hard to remove, the skin is tough and the fruit is somewhat like an apple in texture and taste. The common name is Chinese date.

the jujubes took overnight to dehydrate, and they did not become sweeter in the process and the skin is still tough. Apparently they can be left on the tree to dry naturally. I think that this would definitely produce a sweeter result.

Michael's fabulous fruit bread made with McLarenVale sultanas from the food co-op, home dried MclarenVale jujubes, and McCarthy's apples, very tasty.

It's War Against The evil weevils

The fight is on to save the olive trees from total destruction. Tree number one looks like it might not make it, and we are now getting up to 20 weevils every 2 nights - it is not looking good! So I am trying vaseline on the trunks to stop the critters climbing.

Michael is worried the vaseline will hurt the trees.

It has made absolutely no difference to the numbers of weevils we are still catching 20 or so every couple of days. Help!