Help or House Guest

The kitchen is in full swing at our house, late February and March being the busiest time, and any house guests are welcome to pull up a chair, don an apron and select their knife of choice.

We prepped jalapenos and pickled.

Made a simple spinach and cheese filling seasoned with freshly grated nutmeg - oh divine! Rolled pasta sheets and made fettuccine too. 

We have had a pasta maker for years but last weekend at the market we spotted a deluxe pack version of our Atlas machine which included the ravioli roller.

$10 for the lot and used probably once!

With fresh ripe Roma tomatoes avalanching  on the benches, aromatic green basil in abundance and Craig's homemade Parmesan cheese...

Mama Mia!

Be our guest....

Hot, Hot Savings

.... in the vicinity of $700 in chilli products alone!

As you know from previous posts, we grow and preserve most of our food for year round eating right here on our ordinary suburban block. In addition to all the varieties this year, the Shearer planted 50 chilli bushes of more than 10 varieties. This might sound excessive, and indeed I thought it was, but when you preserve the harvest and do the sums, it's a very wise and fruitful thing for our household.

Louisiana Style Hot Sauce

recipe here

So far he has fermented more than 4kg of chillies into a Tabasco style sauce. This makes approx 9lt of sauce, some of which will be given as gifts but much will be gradually consumed over the next 12 months. 

Given that the commercial sauce sells for $6.60/100ml, that means ordinarily if we purchased 9lt it would cost us $594.00.

The total cost of the ingredients was about $12.

A saving for the year of $582.00

Pickled Chillies

try this recipe here

In addition to the sauce he also pickled 7 pint jars/ approx 500g each of jalapeno peppers with more to come. We use these on our pizzas every Friday night. The commercially canned ones sell for a unit price of $1.89/100g which works out so far to about $66.00. The cost to make these jars was a mere couple of dollars at most for ingredients and probably the same for rubber rings. So the savings have us way out in front. 

A saving so far for the year of $62.00

Fresh Chilli

Even if you were calculating savings for just harvesting and eating fresh chillies the savings are enormous given that they sell on average for $20-$25/kg. We have even been harvesting the jalapenoes at the mid stage and chopping them into chunks and eating them steamed alongside our other vegetables. They have a slight bite but still a fresh capsicum flavour.

A saving of let's say $25

And I have also made several jars of chilli paste too but I think you get the idea...

While chillies may not be everyone's cup of tea, if you were to add up all the chilli condiments you might purchase over a year you might be surprised.

At a conservative estimate we have saved ourselves $669.00 just in chillies alone. Perhaps the Shearer is not as mad as I thought him to be. By learning to preserve your harvest and value add to create product, you save hundreds with every crop variety that you grow.

The Pee-Wee Pot

Just Look!

I found a half size Fowlers pot to match my big Bertha one.

I ummed and aahhed about buying it, wondering if I was just bringing more "stuff" into the house but it has turned out to be a wonderful buy.

It is perfect for doing small batches at the start of the season, for instance if I only have enough for bottling six #27 of tomatoes instead of the 12-13 that I can fit into the big one.

It is also PERFECT for processing my #10 bottles which I use for tomato paste, chilli sauce and pickled nasturtium seeds.

And for the height of the season like this morning...

I have both of them going at once!

Making Chilli Sauce

Craig harvested the entire chilli crop a few weeks ago and went in search of a tobasco sauce recipe.

He found 

"Louisiana-style Hot Sauce"

at The Joy of Cooking site.

It's basically chopped chillies with 2% of weight salt into a big jar and covered with a sweet Riesling. The mixture was left to ferment (very actively!) and regularly stirred. After several weeks it was ready to process through the food mill leaving behind the seeds and skins.

This resulting liquor is mixed at a suggested rate of 50/50 with a vinegar of your choice and bottled.

We mixed and tasted apple cider vinegar, malt vinegar, plain white vinegar and white wine vinegar.

My favourite was the white wine vinegar. The malt vinegar gave it a caramelly sort of flavour and Craig quite liked that. In hind sight going through the cupboard a little more thoroughly I was sorry we didn't try mixing the raspberry vinegar with the chilli.

In the end we made up batches with malt, white wine and apple cider vinegar. I think this could be a winner for Christmas gifts with a little more development and smarter labelling. We yielded almost 4lt of sauce and pretty happy with the result. The Riesling gives quite a unique flavour. 

Foraging For Wine, Cordial and Sauces

This is what the hedgerows look like around our area here in the north of Tasmania. They are thick with hawthorn berries and sloes that look delicious and inviting but are in fact inedible from the bush and very tart. These thorny hedges were introduced to Tasmania (probably brought from England) as a way of fencing stock.

In the above photo you see hawthorn berries (red) and sloe berries (blue and dusky very much in looks like a blueberry) and are best picked after the first few frosts which improves their flavour and ensures they are ripe.

At our last Living Better meeting we were lucky to have one of our group take us through the process of making sloe wine. Imbuing gin with sloes is commonly done but making the wine less so. She also had a bottle for us to try and the flavour was really interesting. The longer it cellars the better it gets and is described to be more like a port as it ages. When she sends us the instructions I shall share them here too but it was quite a simple process of fermenting the mass in a brewing bucket with an air lock. Picking the sloes is probably the most consuming but a family effort is the thing.

Another in our group spoke about his experiences last year with making "Haw-Sin Sauce" using the River Cottage recipe here. You can see the hawthorn berries in the bottom of the basket there in the picture above, just a small bunch nestled beneath the rosehips and sloes. He felt the recipe was a bit too sweet for his taste and would experiment with less sugar next time. 

Another recipe I found that sounds good especially as we have loads of ripened chillies at the moment is one for a "Chilli Hawthorn Dipping Sauce" and I happen to know where I can get some Bramley apples too though I should think Grannies would also do.

Of course my winter favourite is the rose hip cordial full of vitamin C and childhood memories. The recipe is here or if you have the cookbook it is on page 35. I love to have small bottles of this on stand by also for sick friends and enjoy it added to hot water before bedtime.

Our Living Better group meets again on the 30th May (always the last Thursday in the month). We have one in the group presenting "Cleaning Without Chemicals" and another demonstrating the art of "water divining". 

In June on the 27th we will be sharing recipes and advice for common winter ailments, from the common cold to chapped lips and dry eyes.

Chilies, Health and Pregnancy Cravings

Craig harvested all his chilies yesterday and spent the day with my mother making chili paste and "juice".

The jar next to them is from a from a friend's batch of Crab Apple Jelly with chili, very enticing and moreish. 

I recently read a post over at A Joyful Chaos titled "Cravings" where the writer is experiencing pregnancy cravings.

The comments were very enlightening and there were definitely some common cravings.

Many could be grouped into dairy; milk, cottage cheese, yogurt etc.

Tinned tuna I was surprised to find was common too.

Right up there though in first position was the chili group; tobasco, salsa, chili sauce, Mexican chili dishes and so on.

It's pretty easy to understand the dairy and various protein cravings but what about the chili?

Commonly known is the "high" and rush of endorphin from eating chili and that they are very high in Vitamin C. There is also lots of research being done suggesting that chilies are beneficial for boosting circulation, preventing blood clotting and reducing heart disease.

It has shown to reduce the amount of insulin required by diabetics and reduce carbohydrate cravings they experience and assist with weight loss due to lower insulin levels.

It raises the bodies metabolic rate and also provides pain relieving properties for many conditions.

There is even a study that suggests chilies reduce cholesterol levels.

So they seem to be rather more than just a bit of a flavour hit and in fact a really healthy vital part of our diets. For many reasons it's no surprise that chili tops the pregnancy cravings list.

I remember eating tins and tins of tomatoes smothered in tobasco or cayenne pepper while I was pregnant. Tomatoes and chilies are high in the natural mineral lithium so I must have been a very chilled out expectant mother with great circulation and well controlled blood sugars!

Was chili one of your cravings?