The Doll Maker and Artist

A wee while ago I posted about my Matthew Simms doll 

here

He is a regular at Evandale Market on Sundays and I took another couple of photos of his work.

As well as his doll making with willow wood (all dressed by him too) he writes and illustrates books, paints small works and I see now he has added sewing shepherd smocks to his repertoire.

I also found this facebook page if you wanted to see more images

here

It hasn't been updated for some time but his work is fascinating.

All Free...But We Couldn't Give It Away!

Last week I was very excited to be a part of the Colony 47 Spring Share Market.

Colony 47 works for the community and their mission is

"to create a fairer community, eliminate disadvantage and improve the lives of Tasmanians" 

A share market was organised to coincide with fair food week and timed for encouraging spring planting.

All the seedlings above

Free.

A picnic blanket to sit and read gardening magazines and maybe take one

Free

The seed box with hundreds of seeds

Free

A speaker about compost making

Free.

Just look at that great teaching tool created from half a bin and some Perspex. Learning about nitrogen and carbon layers and the additions like comfrey (bottom right).

The Tasmanian community food garden group were there with activities for kids

Free

A demonstration showing fun with food and how to be creative with it.

Free

I drove from Launceston and did a talk about beans, how to grow, how to harvest and how to use dried beans.

Free

I talked about nutrition and feeding through the "hungry gap" and had made baked beans from scarlet runner beans, a bean salad in seconds and a white bean dip even faster! Note the Good and Cheap book- I was so excited, it turned up just the day before. It's a not for profit book that aims to teach people how to eat well on $4 a day. I love it!

Trestles under blossom trees and little marquis 

And the Colony 47 garden putting on a good show and even mushrooms coming up from the compost!

Being a typical spring day it was a bit breezy and cool and clouds were scudding across the sky. It was beautifully organised. About 60 people had rsvp-ed to this all free event...

But we were lucky to have a dozen people show up I reckon.

I'm starting to wonder,

if you make something free, is it then perceived as valueless?

Is something only worthy if it has a dollar value attached?

Spring Rice Paper Wraps - Breaking the Basil Bias

I once again came home with a basket full of greens from the market, many of them herbs.

Every year at this time people will come to the market and peruse the array of fresh seasonal vegetables of spring and ask...

"Do you have any basil?"

I aim to educate and explain, basil is a summer herb, it's not in season yet but there are all these herbs, fresh and ready now...

Today at market I had parsley, sage, thyme, mint, lovage, Vietnamese mint and salad burnet.

But you know what?

People just don't know what to do with them, let alone rejoice in them!

So here is what you could have made with those amazing fresh flavours...

Rice Paper Wraps

So fresh and easy, these really are "spring rolls". Some left over cold chicken shredded and carrot mixed with some of those greens above in the top picture all wrapped up in a rice paper round.

Tender spinach and beetroot tops were finely sliced and the leaves pulled from the Asian greens. Salad burnet adds a cucumber flavour and a welcome addition when cucumbers aren't in season. The lovage leaf brings the flavour of celery but in its soft leafy form it is ideal for including in the wrap. The flowers from the Asian greens taste of a mild nutty brassica-ish-ness.

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy, mirin and lemon juice.

No we don't have basil until summer comes but there is a lot of herbs to rejoice in in the spring season. Perhaps we need some of these chefs-superstars on commercial TV to put down the basil and start sharing some more ideas with home cooks about other herb delights.

When Life Gives You Leftovers...

This is what the other side of the market looks like.

We resumed our growers' market yesterday with a soft opening.

I returned home with a few bunches of spinach and a bunch of beetroot.

For those of you who looked at our seasonal offerings of greens, beets, herbs and eggs and scratched your heads, here's what you could have made....

Simply substitute a couple of eggs from your pasta recipe for some puree.

Simply steam your beet and puree or blanch the greens and drain and pat dry before pureeing. 

If you have a Thermomix, place the beets whole in the thermo steamer with 1500g of water and cook for 25mins, varoma temp speed 3. Then place the washed and chopped greens into the top tray and varoma for a further 8 mins speed 3.

I pureed the veg in the thermomix and added 3 eggs, a splash of olive oil and 500-600g of flour. Process at 2min on interval knead. It should look a bit breadcrumby. 

It's not an exact science when working with puree, be prepared to add a little flour to get your dough right. Let it sit. Then a couple of minutes later as the gluten works it wants to come together into a ball so gather it together and place in the fridge covered for anywhere up to an hour. I find this gives a lovely elastic and silky dough.

Next make lots of lovely shapes and styles. You can leave to thoroughly dry and it will store in an air tight jar for ages. 

My favourite is "bow ties" 

Cook in boiling water till soft but still firm then drain and toss in butter and herbs, maybe add some chorizo, broad beans, mushrooms...

OR

make a sensational spring nettle pesto...

but that's another story....

Market Discoveries - Damsons

Growers Markets are a great source of seasonal fruit seldom seen in the big supermarkets and even in little fruit and veg shops. Just last week at the ut si cafe growers market shoppers were spoilt for choice with four different apple varieties, nashi, quince and plums. 

The blood plums on the left are a delicious juicy eating plum and though they were also put to good use in a pumpkin and plum chutney, they really shone in the upside down plum cake post here.

Let's not overlook the Damson Plums though!

These are seldom offered in supermarkets and I wonder if that's because it is more of a cooking plum and people are less inclined to process their own food now. 

They are the size of a small egg and very ovoid in shape with a distinctive dusky deep blue skin that can be astringent. The flesh inside reminds me of greengage plums in colour but the flesh is much drier.

Most people make Damson Jam as they contain good pectin for setting and when cooked the flavours sensational.

My friend Lee tells me that she loves to make Damson Gin with hers. She covers whole Damsons in gin and leaves them to sit in a cupboard for about four weeks and decants. She assures me the flavour is even more luscious than sloe gin.

As for me, you know of my love affair with my dehydrator, especially when I am busy hands on with tomatoes at this time of year, I'm making prunes.

I simply wash and halve, remove the stone and pop them into the dehydrator till they are dried but still slightly moist and gooey then I store them in a jar in the fridge.

Chewy, jamy, almost figgy, with a tiny bit of sharpness but not too sweet.

These make great snacks for afternoons and pre-dinner hunger pains. Very welcome additions to warming porridge on autumn mornings. What about adding them to a gorgeous robust loaf or treacle cake.

Sourcing seasonal specialities at local markets ensures you are getting not only nutritional variety but provides flavoursome textural additions too. Sweet, bitter, salty, sour, are all part of the digestive stimulation and if we keep breeding our food to be only sweet it will be to our peril. Crunchy, soft, chewy, sticky, crumbly, all textures help stimulate our appetite as we start the mastication process and exercise jaw muscles and send signals to our stomach for digestive enzymes.

Last Saturday was the final market day for us for this current season and we will resume when daylight savings begins again. Do chat with the sellers at market because they know so much about the food they produce and can give you lots of ideas for use so you get so much more from your purchases.

Ripe Near Me - A Free Food Network

"Ripe Near Me"

is a free site that allows you map food in your area; for sale or free or foraging.

It is a way for communities to network and make use of local produce and though this is an Australian initiative, it's available globally, so you too in your country can map your produce for locals.

Not just for backyarders either, local food producers can also list for local sales. Producers can really take it to the people, skip the big companies, reduce food miles and get paid a fair price.

Being able to tap into local produce means finding fresher food and real taste and flavour.

Even now when in the depths of winter and you think nothing is growing there is still plenty of food available. I have listed several things.

You have a much greater opportunity to try one of the thousands of diverse edibles including heirloom varieties not normally available in supermarkets.

Mostly the food will be organic, especially from back yard growers because there is no need for poisons or sprays in a poly-cropping environment.

You can support local growers and connect with community.

More importantly you'll connect with nature and buy seasonally reducing packaging and food miles drastically. Instead of being disappointed with tasteless tomatoes in winter, get excited about root vegetables and flowering edibles.

Here

are some great reasons to get involved.

Where ever you live in the world, go to the site and map your food and spread the word. Lets work together and eat 100

Find them also on facebook here

P.S. The winner of the draw for the Meat Cookery Book was Africanaussie and she has very kindly entered saying that if she won she would like the book to go to Renae and she would love the Microplane as a consolation. So Renae and Africanaussie please email me with your mailing address details and I'll pop them in the post.

  

Cleaning, Foraging, Divining

Our Living Better group met last week and we celebrated our first anniversary.

We had a speaker from the group talk about cleaning without chemicals. There are a number of ways to achieve this and each style suits different people, their lifestyles and methods.

There is the Enjo method which is reliant on just water and the micro-fibre of the cloths. There is also the home based methods of pantry items like bi-carb soda, vinegar and lavender oil for the very industrious. The third alternative that Elisha presented to us was by Nature Direct. It relies on the micro-fibre cloths AND different blends of essential oils and extracts, like pine, cypress, eucalyptus, clove and rosemary. It is an Australian company and nearly all the products are made in Australia which is important to us. Chemical cleaning manufacturers are not required by law in Australia to list their ingredients but they are required to list warnings....and there are plenty of those. The products from Nature Direct list all their ingredients and while you wouldn't want to ingest them, they are certainly not going to cause great harm. Check out their "Did you know...?" page here.

Our next guest speaker was Bridgette from Urban Farming Tasmania.

She runs a "market" on a Monday at the Tasmanian College of Arts and the idea is that people bring produce from their gardens or foraged along with any other trade items like music, artwork and design. Her group essentially wanted a community style market where no money changed hands and people supported each other by trading their surplus. They are passionate about seasonal living and not letting food go to waste, in fact they are wanting council to plant more food instead of ornamentals. They have produced a free food map of the area plotting figs, walnuts, apples, sloes, quinces and more about the greater Launceston area. We all received a gift from Bridgette (pictured above) of quince paste made from local foraged fruit. We were very excited by her project and many more tree sites were suggested 

BUT....

stay tuned for there is more to this story.

In the few days since we met Bridgette, Council has been made aware of the group through a newspaper article and they are coming down hard but I want to discuss this more fully in a day or so when we see their final stipulations. You can see this all unfolding on their facebook site. There is a can of worms here.

A very controversial point still in debate at the moment is the legality of foraging fruit from public land. They seem to have an issue with the food map. People on both sides are scrambling to find legalities. 

Does this mean fishing is not legal? To me that is foraged food from public land?

Anyway, we will have this debate in a day or two. In the meantime please show this group your love and support with kind messages.

Our last speaker introduced us to water divining. The image above from WikiHow is very similar to the rods we tried (as usual I got caught up in the moment and no pictures!)

Martin told us his story and demonstrated as he walked about the room how the rods moved and swayed. Each of us had a turn and were amazed at how the rods swerved and we were not able to control it. It is very hard to understand and though there is plenty of documented anecdotal evidence, I don't think there is any scientific specific evidence. 

It was a really interesting and fun way to top off our night. This is a new venue for us too and I am pleased to say that it was wonderful having a large quiet room all to ourselves. We would not have been able to have the cleaning demo or the water divining demonstration as well in the pub. The lighting is good and it is heated and we have our own toilet amenities too.  

Our next meeting is 27th June 7-9 at the Workers Club in Launceston

We'll be discussing winter remedies and bee keeping and possibly fruit tree pruning.

Old Fashioned Grapes - With Seeds!

Everyone is saying what a good year it has been for the grapes. Along with apples and pears, grapes are being harvested now throughout Tasmania. Tasmania has lots of vineyards and many varieties do well in our climate and soil. At the last Grower's Market for the season, we were selling grapes...

and boy did we have to do a sell!

You may recognise these but shoppers sure don't.

These are typical dense clusters of small grapes that we were once used to see at the grocers but if you look at supermarkets now they generally have white or black grapes and they look like they have been through a McDonalds Drive Thru and been supersized. 

These grapes have seeds because that is how nature designed fruit and once upon a time we ate them like this and simply swallowed the seed and didn't fear it going through our digestion. In fact it is now thought to be beneficial. So how screwed is this; we genetically modify food to not have the seed and then we take the seed which we should be swallowing naturally, process it into a bottle as an extract and then pay an exorbitant amount for it. 

Those poor old super-sized seedless options at the supermarket don't really have a flavour I find. If you were to line up 10 people and asked them to describe the flavour I'll bet they would use the word "sweet" and boy are they. That is about all I can say about those grapes. They are so sweet that they don't really have that thirst quench anymore.

Those dark grapes above were described as being like pears poached in honey.

The pink ones were described as being like Turkish Delight with a delicate rosewater flavour.

Both varieties are sweet table grapes but both had definite flavours.

Do visit your grocers or farmers market (not your supermarkets, they won't have them) and ask them about the grapes they are buying in. Ask them what varieties are coming in and have a conversation with them. They should be able to describe the flavour and the skin type and may be able to supply a taste. Eat the grape, the whole grape and enjoy a nutrition and taste sensation you've been missing out on for too many years.

Heirloom Varieties and the Supermarket Hat

This is a Turks Turban pumpkin and it is an heirloom variety of pumpkin from the 1800s. It's not commonly seen on the supermarket shelves and I want to share with you a discussion we had recently at our Living Better Group.

Once upon a time....

there were many varieties of vegetables but the scope has been narrowed considerably and that has been partly due to consumer demand but mostly due to supermarket requirements.

So why do varieties fall from favour?

Someone growing the Turks Turbans might say they would never grow them again because they were full of seed and not as much flesh as a Jarradale or a Jap, but we have to look at the whole fruit.

The Turks Turban does have a lot of seeds but they are delicious. In fact I grow this pumpkin precisely for the seeds. I eat them raw and straight from the pumpkin. The seeds are high in iron, magnesium, protein, zinc and Vit K. They also contain a substance that paralyses and expels intestinal worms. The skin is very hard making this a long keeping pumpkin. 

The supermarket buyers aren't interested in keeping qualities and just want to present an easy to cut fleshy pumpkin and that is what a lot of buyers want too but growers can be far more discerning. 

You might grow some fleshy golden nuggets for their golden soft flesh. They cut so easily and are always round and symmetrical. These would be the first to eat through autumn. Great for cut wedges to bake in the oven with roasts.

As autumn progresses to early winter you might start cutting into these golden giants that you grew. The skin is a medium thickness and they are not terribly fleshy but these giants contain melt-away pumpkin ideal for soups. Their giant proportions are suited for big batches of warming soup.

Then towards the end of winter, you would start cutting your Turks Turban or the Queensland Blue. Their incredibly tough skin makes them keep for months and months, providing nourishment in the hungry time when not much is growing. 

Some people are disappointed with heirloom seeds but I think you have to ask yourself, are you looking at ALL the characteristics of the plant and the produce? Am I judging the plant on it's full merit or just what the supermarket man wants me to see?

It's about perception and convenience.

Take for instance tomatoes. How often we hear people complaining that supermarket tomatoes don't taste like tomatoes did. 

Be honest.

When you go to the supermarket, do you buy the green stripy ones, the black/red ones or do you expect your tomatoes to be rich, post-office box telephone booth red?

Did you realise that after much market research, there is actually an "acceptable" and "desirable" size of tomato? It is the right roundness and right size for sandwich slices. That is the public perception requirements. Then there are the supermarkets requirements. They need a fruit that can be transported and shelved for a period of time. It needs to be robust enough to pass through several hands. They don't want the thin skinned varieties that might mark on the vine and worse, show wear and tear from harvest. They want thick skins that will pass from hand to hand and survive the shelving. They will sacrifice perfect roundness for flavour and they will sacrifice flesh/seed ratios over colour. 

You will not find the Amish Brandywine tomatoes in the supermarket because their skin is too soft and their shape too pendulous and in fact they tend towards a lurid pink rather than a red-red. But my word they are a flesh hearty tomato for bottling and they are easily cut and cored.

So when you are considering the merits of the vegetables you are growing, take off that supermarket hat and those mass buyers goggles. Consider the growing habit and the storage merits. Judge the flesh and the seed and choose a variety of produce to suit your needs, not what the wider perception is. 

Could You Give A Fig?

I may seem a little quiet but it's not from lack of interest I assure you and though I may not be leaving a lot of comments, I am certainly reading loads of interesting blog posts.

I have a lot of things pencilled on the calendar and they require a bit of homework to pull them off.

I will certainly be around and here is where you will find me over the coming week....

Tonight at the Living Better Group 

upstairs at the Cock and Bull Launceston Tas from 7-9

All welcome

This Saturday 2nd Feb ut si growers market 8-12

This Sunday 3rd Feb Killiecrankie Nursery open day 10.30-2.30

Talking and demonstrating the value of harvesting herbs. I'll be making healing herbal salve, herbal hair rinse, insect repelling sachets for cupboards and herbal "tub teas" for the bath.

Monday 4th Feb at the West Tamar Discussion Group 7.30-9.30

All welcome to this informal meet-up over a cuppa.

We'll be talking about "Harvest and Produce"

Vicky Cowan of VIX KITCH and Graeme of THIRLSTAN GARDENS will also be there.

Maybe you couldn't give a fig...

I could.

I can give you two in fact.

My fig tree is producing wonderful large almost palm sized fruit but not enough to spare for the market.

Perhaps you have a glut of figs at the moment and if you live locally, why not bring them down to our growers market and spend a lovely morning with us.

Beetroot Glut

Perfect weather at the market yesterday and there is a subtle change in the produce available.

Chard, spinach, radishes are giving way to beetroot, figs and berries.

Coriander, celery leaf and sage are giving way to parsley, basil and mint.

We are enjoying a glut of beetroot at the moment and my hands are commonly pink at some point daily.

We are boiling them and slicing them for sandwiches or enjoying them hot as a side vegetable at dinner.

We are adding cooked chunks to salads or using it raw grated with carrot and dressing it with a pomegranate molasses, olive oil and cider vinegar dressing with walnuts and feta.

I am also naturally fermenting some for lacto-fermented pickles.

Tangy crunchy beetroot slices for anti-pasto platters.

It is on my bench and being turned daily. 

I took inspiration from this recipe here for my pickling solution flavours.

Salads Have Seasons

I know many of you are food growers and many more of you are more than competent cooks but there are some people who still feel very constrained about a green salad. I meet at least a couple of them every market day. One lady stood in front of two of my huge full baskets of mixed lettuce leaf and asked me if I had any lettuce. I knew she had meant to say she was looking for an iceberg lettuce so I directed her to the shop across the street because you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

There are others though whom I meet at the market who are embracing some new foods like rat tail radishes and garlic scape and using flower heads like chives, calendula and borage.

Sadly even my own mother said to me just last month "I can't have a salad without tomato"

Well yes you can, especially if they are not in season.

One of my favourite ways with a salad at this time of year is mixed leaf of young spinach, beet leaves and the last of the Asian green leaf with very lightly steamed potato dumped hot onto the leaves with a dollop of natural yoghurt and a spoon of mustard and left to cool and ever so slightly wilt the leaves.

Or like the salad above foraged from the garden; a couple of baby beets, some baby blue sapphire potatoes, a carrot, a few asparagus spears, all lightly steamed and then added to leaves with chopped garlic scape, raw young peas and wilted beet leaves.

It's still a salad.

How about a bowl of loose lettuce leaf (butter, curly, lollo and red coral) with Asian green flower heads, delicious chive petals, wilted beet stems, chopped rat tail radishes and two sliced eggs ready for a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.

This is a salad too.

No iceberg, no tomatoes and no cucumbers ready yet either.

There is so much more excitement to be had from your food. It is important for your body to get many nutrients and it is also important to have bitters and raw greens in our diet that stimulate digestive action from the moment your tongue tastes it.

There is no need for heavy seasoning when you are sprinkling chopped garlic scape or chive flowers and there is a whole other world out there when you start adding some fresh herbs too. When the scape is gone and the chive heads are finished, it will be the season of basil. 

So when you come across a growers stall, open your mind and adjust your thinking from the classic supermarket shop and embrace the seasons as they ebb and flow offering new and exciting taste combinations. Be guided by your growers and what's in the garden now.