I'm "sort-of" on holiday so I planned a brief adventure trip with one of my girlfriends for a long overdue catch up and killed a couple of birds with one stone.
Now you don't have to go far and you don't have to be long, just plan a cluster of activities.
Cindy and I travelled only 20 mins to Exeter in the picturesque Tamar Valley chatting all the way about gluten and grains all the way taking in the beautiful Tasmanian scenery.
Our first stop
Inspiration Seeds
This place is like seed porn for me. David is so exciting to talk to and he and Steve Solomon have invested years of knowledge into seed saving and selecting for a cool climate like Tasmania.
Their bean selection alone is huge and exciting. On our last stop here I purchased some Cherokee "Trail Of Tears", a beautiful pink mauve bean in "green" pod stage and I am longing for summer to plant it out.
Clockwise from top left;
Le Monde piamonte (French bush bean)
Yin Yang (black and white) and Pea Bean (red and white)
Haricot Crevette
All these heirloom beans and more are available at Inspiration Seeds and also via their mail order.
A small place, clean and quiet, with an all day breakfast menu and I'm told the hot pork sandwiches and rolls are especially good but I'm always too early and have to be content with smelling it cooking. Link to their facebook page.
After a coffee and a restorative bite
Calico Crossroads
Before crossing the threshold, I warned Cindy that I would only consider her a true friend if she ensured that I did not walk out with any fabric purchases, the only exception was vintage print cowboy but unfortunately there was none. Poor Cindy did not escape scott free and I'm very keen to see how her new Block Of The Month works out heh heh (sorry Cindy)
Pauline has a beautiful range and lots of inspirational ideas and patterns and has a talent for colour and depth co-ordination. We easily spent the best part of an hour perusing.
Summer preserving is a mad time but I would have to say that autumn is the same, if not, it at least comes a close second. In the autumn my preserving comes from some cultivated crops like chillies, lemongrass and various herbs both culinary and medicinal but it also comes from foraged plants too like rosehips and hawberries and plantain and late red clover.
When I moved into my house nearly 30 years ago, there was a hook in the corner of the ceiling in the dinning room. I suspect it was from a macramé hanging of the 1980's and rather than deal with a hole I left the hook and painted it inconspicuous white. I'm so glad I did and I can't tell you how often I use it. Once I got past the "my home should look like the pages of Home Beautiful" stage and actually started to live in my home, I started drying my herbs here because the heating tends to get a bit trapped towards the ceiling here and it makes it perfect for drying. At the moment I am drying large bundles of wormwood in flower. If you can get hold of one of these old fashioned onion, shallot, garlic keeping hangers of collapsible hanging baskets do so; currently my beans are finishing off here for dried beans but I use it often for curing my soaps too.
Here I am stripping and storing previously hung wormwood. This will be made into nesting box potpourri for the chickens and also insect repelling sachets for the linens and storage cupboards.
The jar behind contains the rose hips that I foraged the other day. Having them dried and stored means I can use them for salve making or tincturing or cordial another day when they are needed. I might even use them hot glued on a Christmas wreath!
I'm collecting seeds and podding dried beans and making dried teas. Above is the head of a Giant Russian sunflower and the purple king beans dried and ready, also a bunch of dried lemongrass that has been air drying. The lemongrass has been chopped in the Thermomix and is now ready for herbal tea blends and adding to tub teas.
The dehydrator is great for small herbs and holds the colour beautifully. I'm drying oregano, calendula, mint and parsley. These ingredients will be used when needed for meals, salve and soap making and herbal blends for bath, body and chickens! There is still so much to be gleaned and harvested.
I LOVE pumpkin season. I love pumpkin soup but I really love pumpkin seeds even more I think.
When I tell people they always ask me "how do you eat them?"
"Straight from the pulp as I'm cutting it up mostly" I would have to reply.
But I have got a technique for dried seeds too.
The seeds from Turk's Turbans are my all time favourite, so buttery and soft.
I also like the seeds from the large pumpkins in the first photo too. I'm not sure what they are called but their outer shell is less fibrous than a QLD Blue or a Jarradale for instance.
Pumpkin seeds make a great snack for in between meals and a whole host of other health benefits. For instance, they are high in protein, a rich source of zinc, magnesium, vitamin B group and Vit E.
They contain L-tryptophan which is great for a good night sleep and helps depression.
They are effective for ridding thread worm and have an anti-inflammatory action on the body. Studies are linking their positive effects to prostate health and their ability to lower LDL in the body.
In short
WHY ARE YOU THROWING THE SEEDS AWAY!!!
I am a big believer in foods in season and for a reason.
I believe we are supposed to eat certain foods when they are in season for optimum health seasonally.
I also believe in true cravings and joy for foods.
I have trouble absorbing magnesium and zinc and have abnormal LDL despite a good diet. I don't think it is any co-incidence that I take such delight in pumpkin seed season.
Next time you are cutting a pumpkin, remove the seeds from the pulp. Soak in a solution of one and a half tablespoons of salt to 500ml of water overnight or for about 8 hours then spread to dry or place in your dehydrator. Mine never last long and I really appreciate them when I'm still at work at 7pm and haven't eaten since midday, they tide me over nicely till I can get home for dinner.
Last Thursday we had another exciting, informative and abundant meet up of the "Living Better With Less" group. Here is what you missed....
One of our group is from Zimbabwe and comes from a family who loved to cook. Her father taught her how to make biltong, also known in other areas as beef jerky and is a way of preserving meat using dehydration and salt. Traditionally it is dried in a biltong box but you can also do this in an electric dehydrator.
Not only did we get a taste test and a recipe sheet but everyone also went home with a generous scoop of the spice mix and a take home piece of biltong. Thanks Cindy for your generous sharing and family secret recipe.
Spice Mix
150g Coriander seeds
100g ground coriander
50g milled black pepper
1 tabs black pepper powder
1/4 teas ground cloves
25g ground nutmeg
2 oxo/bullion stock cubes
This amount of spice mix is enough to do about 10kg meat which when dry will yield about 5kg of biltong.
10kg of silverside/rump (or any cheap cut of meat trimmed)
1 cup salt
1-1 1/2 cups of malt vinegar
Method
Trim all excess fat off the meat
Slice the meat thickly across the grain (so the slivers have short fibres)
Slice these into long strips
Place the strips into a non-metallic dish or bowl in layers sprinkling the spice mix, salt and vinegar between each layer.
Mix together until well combined and all the meat is covered in the mixture
Leave for at least 12-24 hours in the fridge turning every so often
Place in the dehydrator or drying box. It will take 12-48hrs in the dehydrator and 3-4 days in a biltong cupboard.
Traditionally biltong is made from the African game meats like springbok, wildebeest, antelope etc by the Boers during the Boer War. Here in Tasmania venison and wallaby are readily available and this method would be especially good for these meats too.
Cindy also brought in the above book for us to peruse too. It is called "Odd Bits" by Jennifer McLagan and has information and recipes for using other parts of the animals besides the traditional muscle cuts. It is a beautiful book and quite comprehensive, if I had a criticism it would only be that I would have loved more photos but it is a sizeable book as is. Beautifully produced and recommended.
We also extended our talks on bread and sour doughs with some quick cheater/simple starters. Thsi book is called "The Universal Loaf" by Tamara Milstein
This book "World Breads" by Paul Gayler totally stole my heart though with it's simple format that methodically covered all the different types of bread from many cultures.
Here is a snap of the contents page which belies the breadth and depth of range the book covers and the photography is superb and beguiling.
Recently this order arrived at my house and this book had everyone just a little excited. It is a simple sharing of ideas and I say this with absolute respect, a backyarder of a book with naive drawings and short anecdotes.
For instance, how to make simple seed packets....
Strawberry growing for common gardens (not an imitation of commercial mono-cropping farms)
Keeping alive the art of home made fertilisers and soil conditions rather than chemical band-aids.
The text is conversational and full of common sense and old fashioned labour saving devices. The author, Herrick Kimball, has a blog called "The Deliberate Agrarian" and you can get to know him better here.
He has coined the phrase "Whizbang" for his many inventions and this segues nicely to the next book that got everyone excited....also by Herrick....
And if this book doesn't make your toes tingle then you have obviously never plucked a quantity of chickens before. The last bird processing Craig and I did was seven between us and we were well and truly over it simply because the plucking is such a time taker. Brad who also attends our group admitted that he more often than not just skins his fowls simply because of the time it takes. Here is a video of the machine in action and you have got to see this...
So after pouring over books and learning about meat drying we talked about artichoke recipes and seasonal plantings. We were lucky to have David with us again from Inspiration Seeds
He had a packet of free seeds for everyone and Asian Greens were certainly flavour of the month.
Next month we will have as our guest Lee from Killiecrankie Farm Nursery and Christmas Tree Farm and ahead of her visit she sent along a taster of the lesser known seedlings that you won't find in the chain store nurseries. We had punnets of senposai, kai lan, khol rabi and a type of perpetual spinach.
Martin also had seedlings to give away that he had started. He had the lovely "Santa" tomatoes that David had brought along for us to taste test at the end of last summer. They are a perfectly round tomato the size of about a large walnut and they have that old fashioned tomatoey-tomato flavour.
Brad and Elisha brought in excess lemons which also added to the take home piles.
Katherine had done some bread recipes out for us also so with our spice mix, biltong, seedlings, seeds and lemons......
It was a very exciting, informative and abundant meeting indeed.
It's free and we do it on the last Thursday of every month except December from 7-9 upstairs at the Launceston Workers Club and everyone is welcome.
On the 28th of November as I said we will welcome the knowledge of Lee from Killiecrankie Farm as she takes us on the next step of herbs beyond the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....
January is not booked yet but in February we have a naturopath Inge Kaiser coming along to talk about alternative therapies and home remedies.
Are you still with me? It was a long post and I wish you could have been with us but I hope this was the next best thing for you.
Cindy brought in a bottle of her Worcester Sauce for a taste test.
I was extremely impressed with the taste and the simplicity of the recipe.
Cindy believes the secret of this sauce lies in the apple and she used foraged apples from the side of the road which are typically less sweet than the commercially grown ones.
Here is the recipe....
It was from a CWA book and credit goes to Maty Coleman Rosebud Branch VIC.
Worcester Sauce
1kg of apples
1/4 clove garlic
1 cup salt
4 1/2 Lt of vinegar
100g ground allspice
100g peppercorns
100g whole ginger
2 fresh red chillies
1 1/2 cups treacle
Cut up the apples and garlic coarsely. Cover with water and boil to a pulp, then strain through a colander into a large pan.
Gradually add the vinegar to the strained liquid. Add all the other ingredients except the treacle and boil for 2 1/2 hours.
Add the treacle and boil for another 30 minutes.
Strain and bottle. Store in a cool dark place. Keeps well.
Makes about 2 cups.
Cindy also shared her newspaper seedling pot technique.
I should have taken more photos of course.
It was a very simple technique and when one knows the knack you could easily make dozens for your seedlings. Very timely for this time of year although there was much lamenting around the table at the sheer amount of rain that has turned everyone's yards into swamps and bogs. It will be some time yet before the planting can really get going.
Nothing like a taste test and a hands on activity to inspire a group. If you are local and have been thinking of joining our group, just pop along. It's free and we discover lots of diverse things. Even more in the next post!
Even in the "hungry gap" you can make nutritious meals for less than $2 by growing your own.
In the past I have been a bit anti home growing carrots; they're fiddly and slow and finnicky and lets face it, cheap to buy anyway right.
Craig persevered.
We have tended to take the advice of our Italian friend Lisa who simply sows them in lines and harvests them in lines as she needs them.
Her words,
"you take them as they come, as they grow, some are straight, some are small and sometimes they are big, wassamatta? They are all carrots"
freed us from the commercial expectations we had been placing on our crop.
We had been conditioned to think carrots were straight, one colour and one size and we were failures if we didn't produce like that.
You do need to ensure that the seed is kept moist till germination and that the weeds are not too vigorous among them. A good tilth to the soil is helpful but if you are using your compost like you should for all your vegetables your soil will be great anyway. A steady supply of water during their growing is also important, like any vegetable you don't want them to go for days on end without water, it will tell in the taste and texture.
Think about that carrot...
it is essentially a root taking up from the soil and creating it's goodness.
I know farmers who will not eat bought mono-cropped sprayed carrots for that very reason.
Another incentive to grow your own.
One of the best reasons of all I have discovered is it's slowness as it turns out. The late sowing in summer has been steadily feeding us for months and what's more I haven't had to preserve them or store them, they have done just fine in the cool ground. I literally pick them as I need them. Within minutes of them being in the ground we are eating them.
Fresh, chemical free, cheap and versatile.
This week for dinner I slow cooked a whole chicken, one of the roosters we culled a couple of months ago. I based it around the Chicken Soup recipe in Anneke Manning's seasonal cook book.
I used a huge bunch of parsley. I mean a huge bunch like a vegetable quantity rather than a herb flavour quantity as it is about to go to seed and I am using as much as I can of it's lushness. I added a bottle of last seasons' tomatoes from the cupboard and juice from a lemon from the front yard. Next some dried beans (4 different types) from last years harvest that I had soaked for 24 hrs and of course lovely carrot straight from the patch and some garlic still feeding us from last years crop.
The next night I took those leftovers from the slow cook and strained the liquid from the meat and veg. I added some mashed potato to the solids and baked the mix in a pie for dinner the next night.
Craig took leftover pie for lunch the next day and I took the leftover "soup" for my lunch.
The chick cost us $5 and the cost of feeding it till dispatch is more than covered by the eggs from the pullets.
All the veg was produced from our own saved seed.
I won't get into a breakdown of energy costs to produce the meals suffice to say the initial cost of the slow cook....around $5 plus electricity
The pie say $1.60 for the butter and flour in the pastry and the potatoes (we've run out)
For a total of $6.60 plus whatever for electricity for cooking I made three meals for us.
It's the end of winter (spring doesn't really start here properly for another month yet) and we are in the "hungry gap" of the garden. We still have perpetual spinach and lettuce, carrots and parsley growing. Lemons are in glut and the chooks are laying. We are on our second last pumpkin and though the Turks Turbans are shocking hard to cut my word they store well!
We are still using garlic and there is also Tas pepperberry leaves, bay leaves and hardy herbs still for the picking. We are down to our last dozen of bottled tomatoes and haven't run out of paste, sauce or condiments. The dried beans are something else. They are a meal in themselves and a little handful goes a long way. We have just finished the frozen peas and broad beans and green beans.
Though I am starting to crave fresh fruit (we still have bottled cherries, pears, apple and plums) there is no way we would ever go hungry.
All from a suburban backyard.
I cannot urge you enough, just grow two things.
Next year grow four
Next year you'll never look back again.
In the southern hemisphere sow a couple of rows of carrots and keep sowing a row every month till autumn and you'll be feeding yourselves the whole year through. It is surprising how much you will harvest from a short row so gauge it by your family size.
These seeds are developed in Tasmania particularly for home gardeners in cool districts. Years and years of trials have gone into sourcing and securing vegetable seed that perform well in our short growing season.
David says a lot of people will blame fail rates on bad weather years and fickle climate over summer but he maintains that most of the time it is simply growers not choosing the appropriate variety for their growing season.
We talked about cross pollination and stable and unstable genes, that is how conforming the produce is to subsequent seed saving and sowing. We talked about hidden genes (the genes responsible for the intangible traits like mildew resistance) and visible genes (the obvious visible characteristics like colour and size) and touched on the politics of seed and big companies and seed ownership. David also spoke about the fashions and fads of home growers. Twenty years ago his seedsmen put a lot of trial and research into cereal crops only to abandon and loose much of the work when it proved unpopular with the home gardener. How things have changed, there is a marked increase in interest now for cereal and grain crops amongst home gardeners such as quinoa.
David also brought along a couple of tomato varieties to taste and the smell was divine. This was my favourite called "Santa" a bright red and very round 4cm fruit that really has that tomato flavour and smell from the good old days. It's great to be able to taste and see and plan for next summer.
Something else that I have never tried is the Black Spanish Radish. David got us all excited by this variety. It grows to the size of a swede and is available to harvest in that hungry time of winter. David recommends peeling it and grating it for salads or adding it to slow cooks.
So what do we plant now?
David advises brassicas and silverbeet as well as onions, lettuce, asian style greens, beetroot and carrots.
Here is the best bit...
David brought along seeds to buy and they normally retail for $3.50 but we were able to purchase on the night for $2.50/pkt. I am very sorry for those who missed out and couldn't come on the night but boy did I enjoy myself.
You can purchase Inspiration's Seeds on lineand you will be especially impressed with their range of bean varieties. I am going to have some fun with those next summer for sure.
So if you are in cool districts, now is the second biggest planting time of the year so get cracking.
As we close the door on 2012, I'd like to thank you all for sharing it with me and contributing your wisdom, comments and support. You were all particularly adorable and loving when my husband went away to work for the first six months of the year. It was your thoughtfulness and steadfastness that made it so much easier to bear.
I would have to say thatwas the most significant thing for me this year. It was so good to be able to SKYPE and see his face every day. He is home now and getting plenty of work here now thank goodness.
The most viewed post for 2012 remains the waffle blanket tutorial which still averages 300 page views per day! Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing there are millions of people in the world getting their crochet on. Declining craft? I think NOT!
Living Better With Less continues to be a popular topic and I am so very happy that after the class groups finished in April this year we went on to form an interest group that meets on the last Thursday night of each month (and on special occasions in my kitchen!) to share and learn from each other. I'm even happier that readers in other states also decided to form their own groups and continue supporting each other too.
2012 seemed to be the year of the cordial round here;
Our most topical life post this year was "What Would You Do" and we talked very candidly and frankly about depression and suicide in the post "The Secret Of Happiness" and it was also the post that attracted a lot of comments second only to "Breaking All the Rules-Pavlova" which proves my point that you guys are with me through thick and thin!
We learned how to knit socks, make Christmas cakes, rescue echidnas and how to use pintrest.
We learned all about cutlery, clove oil and Tasmania.
We debated the environment, ditched plastic wrap, seed raising, animal husbandry and the value we place on food.
We talked our heads off about Christmas gift ideas again this year.
If you want to revisit any of these stories I suggest typing into the search box that I have over on the right in the side bar there somewhere.
Creating my cookbook was another big achievement this year and it has been a huge success this Christmas with the family and friends. If you contemplate doing one for your family I suggest you start now. It takes many, many months to get it to print stage so don't leave it to November!
There is still so much I want to do but one of my resolutions for next year is to say "no" more I'm afraid. I
have let some volunteer work go that wasn't quite fitting with my life style anymore and I am now setting my eyes towards more local community groups like National Trust and the CWA.
So you may have noticed I have been quiet of late.
I have been very, very, ill with a virus that turned into pneumonia. I am very much recovered now and in awe of modern medicine. Sadly while I was ill a friend's husband passed away and a little girl lost her Daddy. Puts it in perspective hey!
Though still in the honeymoon period of Thermomix ownership I did want to tell you how this machine really came into it's own while I was sick. The smile says it all but I will elaborate. Craig has been working some really big hard days shearing rams and big fat whethers, coming home absolutely exhausted and needing serious sustenance. I was unable to walk from the kitchen to the lounge room without becoming very breathless and weak. Many meals I have made over the past fortnight that I was able to do minimal prep work and walk away and let it do it's thing, providing Craig with a good hearty meal.
Of note especially was the Aussie Meat Pie recipe. It is THE best and most successful pie I have made. The filling was the exact consistency and the flavour was great. I also made risotto and other curries and casseroles. The really helpful feature is that I don't need to stand over a stove stirring. It removes a lot of the hands on cooking. While I was so ill it was a God-send.
So far, absolutely no regrets and very much in love with my Thermomix.
I have a friend who is a chef and uses the Thermomix in his kitchen. He says it replaces an apprentice for him.
So a very much recovered me wants to remind you that it is seed freedom fortnight and I hope you have found a friend to swap some seeds with and made some envelopes up for next year. If you are buying your seeds for this spring/summer, please consider heirloom seed companies and save the viable seed.
Some of you may not know this but there has been an insidious move by a few companies over the last few decades to make whole country's agricultural business their business!
They have produced chemicals and fertilisers that only lead to more chemical and fertiliser dependency and to wrap the whole up in a nice oligopoly package they have also patented seed.
They OWN the seed.
The farmer must buy the seed, he can not save the seed and he risks financial ruin should his seed become accidentally cross pollinated with their seed thus making it the company's seed.
You may have heard of Monsanto in America. What you may not realise is that some of the dirtiest work by these oligopolies is occurring in struggling third world countries.
We are losing seed varieties every year but it is most important that you start saving seed now. Seed adapts and evolves for the area it grows in. If we lose that, we lose the ability to feed ourselves. We become instead reliant on a system that holds all the cards and reduces diversity.
We lose our freedom from hunger and independence.
Please, each one of you, in your area, save your seed and buy only local heirloom/open pollinating/GMO free seed.
In this fortnight get together and swap seed.
That's what we did to wrap up our Living Better group last month.
After we finished the cakes we had a sit down and shared seed.
I gained beetroot, lupins and peas and NZ yams.
I swapped multi-headed sunflowers.
This Saturday I will also take to market some Turks Turban pumpkin seed.
Hope you watch the video; Dr Vandana Shiva has been fighting for seed freedom for decades and Costa is own special Australian gardening legend.
(Nine Seeds)
This is too important not to view. It's not just for growers or greenies or hippies, in fact it is more pertinent for the category of "those who eat". It does take about 25mins but it is great to watch while you are sitting having a break with a cup of tea or doing a bit of knitting. It is gentle and thought provoking and I would hope that it inspires some debate around your dining room table tonight.
