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?

Easy Creamy Yoghurt for a Sixth of the Cost!

Here is the easiest way I know to make good creamy yoghurt without all the sugar and thickeners of store bought.

I learned this when I went to a class at

A Method Of Cookery with Penni Lamprey.

The perfect time is just after baking the night meal so that you are taking advantage of an already heated oven but you can preheat to 150C.

Heat 1lt of milk to which you have added 50g of powdered milk, quickly to 85C then cool to 40C (another thing you can use your preserving thermometer for).

Stir in 90ml of natural yoghurt and pour into a casserole dish with a lid.

Pop it in the oven which should be roughly 150C and switch off the heat. Leave overnight and in the morning you'll have creamy set natural yoghurt.

Refrigerate and enjoy. I use it as dressing for so many things and it replaces cream and sour cream in many ways.

So for roughly $2.20 you make 1lt of natural yoghurt, saving yourself about $10 if you were to buy the equivalent natural Greek style yoghurt from the shop. So little effort for a big saving.

************************

PS For the locals

don't forget the Living Better With Less group meets

tomorrow night 7-9pm

at

3 Charles St south, Launceston

(parking Howick St)

We'll be doing salve making

*************************

Tomato Paste for 70 Cents a Jar and Other Savings

My daughter's final weeks of a difficult pregnancy were right in the middle of tomato season so I bottled what I could and made some relish and got the sauce done but the paste had to wait. I turned about 25kg into pulp and then froze it in containers in the freezer till I could devote a day to paste making.

We got a call to say that a sheep was ready and heading for our freezer within the week so it was time to clear it out and defrost ready for the arrival and so the pulp had to be dealt with.

You can read how I make tomato paste here or in the recipe book.

It is a process that takes quite a few hours in the oven so it's good to make economical use of it and bake along.

I had cut a pumpkin a couple of days before and that needed cooking off so I cut the rest up and it went in on trays with the tiniest sprinkle of some of my home grown caraway seed to roast. For lunch we mixed some of the pumpkin with lacto-fermented beetroot (recipe link here) and a dollop of home made yoghurt. The sweetness of the roasted pumpkin goes so well with the salty tanginess of the beets.

After lunch I roasted a chicken which also made space in the freezer. This is one of the young cocks that we raised for meat. We don't raise a lot of chickens but every year Craig gets about 20 day old chicks to raise and usually there is half and half of each sex. We cull the boys at about 14-16 weeks. The meat is amazing and takes me right back to childhood to how birds used to taste. This became dinner and the roasted pumpkin was added to the other vegetables accompanying it.

Some of the pumpkin went into ravioli and the rest went into soup the next days.

THEN,

when I finally turned off the oven I popped in a casserole dish of heated and cooled milk with a couple of tabs of yoghurt to make another batch of fresh yoghurt which was left overnight for a slow ferment and in the morning ready to eat. Yum!

So although I had the oven on for several hours I managed to make economical use of it. It was one of the things drummed into us at school during Home Economics class.

So working on the oven cost of about 35 cents/hour I spent say about $2 for the day but created several meals and ended up with 9 bottles of tomato paste.

I spent a further .30 on water bathing the paste in the bottles and $4 for sealing rings

 so that means I made each 280g bottle of paste for $0.70.

lunch cost about $0.20 for the home made yoghurt

roast dinner cost entirely free except for a tabs of flour and say $0.50 for onions (we didn't grow)

dinner the next night of pumpkin ravioli for 2 was probably no more than $2

Soup cost next to nothing but a few cents for heating

1 lt yoghurt total cost about $2

ALL that food for less than $5.00

and a batch of tomato paste for the pantry that should last us the year through for $6.30

I haven't taken costings to the nth degree like water for the tomato plants and I certainly haven't added a labour cost but you can certainly see how much you save by doing it and growing it yourself. It is without a doubt a team effort with Craig putting in more hours in the garden than I do and while we love making our own pasta I don't know that I could "whip up a family batch of ravioli" if I had a gaggle of young children. You might think it seems like a lot of work but it all unfolded nicely and I had a beautiful productive Sunday. There is nothing nicer than pottering at home, nurturing family, filling the pantry and getting things done. 

Hydrating, Saturating and De-hydrating

Actually it is more than just re-hydration of the beans. I'm following the theory and method from the Nourishing Traditions book. I'm soaking the beans which contain phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors in order to deactivate these properties and avoid digestive stress and allow protein assimilation and absorption. The beans are so inexpensive and nutritionally packed but they do need to be processed properly. I know some books don't even suggest soaking the beans and certainly the cooking time is usual given as "till tender". According to the Nourishing Traditions book it is suggested the beans are soaked for 12-24 hours and some in acidulated water (lemon juice or whey) and then simmered for 4-8 hours.

Here is a high definition photo of the beans soaking showing them covered in tiny air bubbles. (Looks similar to the pencil drawing of Richard Klekociuk) I've tried eating dried beans without soaking and simmered till tender and although they are certainly edible, the stomach "discomfort" and "wind" is not pleasant. I tend to soak the beans and then cook them for several hours in a slow cooker as part of a meat casserole. In summer after a good long simmer, I rinse and refrigerate and use in salads.

I'm also dehydrating. Can you guess what they are?

Blackcurrants.

These currants are so tart not even the birds touch them (well almost never) but they are full of pectin which makes them great to mix with other berries and fruit that may be low in pectin required for jam and jelly setting (more about pectin here). They are rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants and also make delicious cordial but instead of making cordial this year with them I have decided to dehydrate them.

While they are fresh and plump and round, just one can make your lips purse tight and your cheeks contract hard over the teeth but when dehydrated they seem to concentrate their flavour and though still "tangy" they are quite delicious and incredibly tasty in a pumpkin and cous cous or quinoa salad with some mint and maybe a honey/chilli dressing. These could also be used in place of the dried currants in the Beetroot and Carrot Salad with Pomegranate Dressing 

All very good reasons to include easy growing black currant bushes in your garden.

Can you guess what these are? They are not marshmallows...

Daikon

The long white radish.

I'm pickling these in a natural fermentation method same as we did for the beetroot (in this post) and cucumbers (this post here).

In the one on the right I have also added a modest amount of my home grown caraway seeds. Lee from Killiecrankie Farm Nursery has warned me that growing and using your own caraway is much more potent than the shop bought seeds so I am being conservative with the amounts.

After a couple of weeks saturating in the brine fermentation should be complete and my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

So we are still keeping busy waiting for summer to arrive in Tasmania and filling in the days before the tomato glut processing. 

What are you preserving at the moment?

Living Better Sept '13 - Part II - Sour Dough

After our pepperleaf explorations Jo gave us a little talk on her sour dough making experiences and also got a little bit into the science of grain nutrition.

One of her main inspirations has been this book...

"Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon 

We love a good book review at the group and Jo told us that the book is based on many ancient cultures and their nutrition and food treatments. It seems digesting grains is certainly one thing we don't do well now and in the book we discover that pre-industrialised people did not use whole grains as our cook books present. They did not have quick rising breads or granolas. By soaking in water we neutralise the enzyme inhibitors present in all seeds.

"Scientists have learned that the proteins in grains, particularly high gluten grains like wheat, puts an enormous strain on the whole digestive mechanism.....the results take the form of allergies, celiac disease, mental illness (this includes depression), chronic indigestion and candida albicans overgrowth...."

Both Jo and I highly recommend this book.

Happily it has taken Jo on sour dough adventures while she ensures her family is getting the best nutritional needs met and you can best read about her talk 

here in her blog post 

Sour Dough 101

and 

here

in her consecutive post

Jo's Bread!

Next month she is bringing some starter, Yay!

I love this group!

Feeding Through The Hungry Gap

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.

Venison Goes With....

Slow cooking

Red wine,

tomato paste

orange juice

orange zest

onions and garlic

juniper berries

star anise

mashed potato

Anatomy Of A Tragic Soap Batch

It was apparent two days after pour that things were not going well.

We had a sudden cold snap in the middle of our summer...

right when I was making soap.

I wrapped it just fine in towels and blankets but in my heart of hearts, I knew I should have put it in a cosier spot. In the back of my mind a little voice was saying "it might loose heat too quickly".

I still haven't found a soap calculator that I am happy with since the demise of Snowdrift Farm but I can't totally blame the calc. I think the problem was really because of the failure to maintain the heat in the soap.

The seepage on the top did not bode well.....

I decided to cut it up and chop it fine in the processor and re-batch it in the slow cooker.

The further I cut into the block, the uglier the truth and layers of separated ingredients are revealed. Gloves are a must at this stage as I am dealing with raw lye solution seeping out of the brown looking layer there. 

After chopping finely I also included all the liquid seepage too.

I'm in two minds about the success of the re-batch.

I'll let them dry out and cure some more.

I was so looking forward to working with creamy soft lard but it has left me feeling a bit flat so far.

After conferring with another soap making buddy of mine, she and I have concurred on a number of points.

Please, please share your thoughts;

on soap making with lard as opposed to other fats,

any suggestion you have for a great on line soap calculator,

on re-batching....

Using The Whole Animal

A little while ago we purchased a whole pig from a farmer we know in a town not far from here. They were not heritage breed pigs, just plain old Landrace but well bred and ethically raised in a paddock with somewhere to wander and snuffle. 

There are many cuts from the meat and they are all frozen into portions in the freezer.

As I did last year, I made Fromage de Tete (see above) from the head and trotters and you can read about that here. It keeps for up to a month in the fridge and is delicious for cut lunches and carries a robust chutney or pickle very well.

The left over liquor from the simmer makes a wonderful pork jelly with creamy rendered fat on the top.

This is the leftovers to give you an idea how it looks stored in the fridge.

Pork jelly is the solidified rich stock that naturally occurs from using the trotters. This is very nutritious and a real treat heated up as a broth or even a couple of tablespoons into a mug with boiling water to fill and stirred to dissolve makes a nourishing drink and is very good for when you are feeling poorly. 

The fat is easily scraped off the top and is spreadable on bread if you are so inclined or may be used in place of cooking/frying oil.

( Read an interview here with Sally Fallon author of "Nourishing Traditions" about animal fat. Even better, by the book)

I wish I was a big fan of offal but I'm working towards it but the dogs like a lot of the stuff I don't. I do favour the cheap cuts too though and you can read how to enjoy ham hocks here.

The extra fat is cut and rendered for soap and we have talked about that here before.

The advantages of getting to know producers in your area and being able to buy a whole beast and honouring that beast by using the whole product. I am supporting local producers who raise ethically AND living frugally. It is a fallacy to say that eating organic is always the most expensive route. If you live in a city you may have to look to a small town for a producer or approach a butcher for a better deal for a whole beast, fat and all! 

Beans - A Winter Harvest

Someone said to me the other day,

"I suppose you are not getting anything from the garden now"

Incredibly though that is absolutely false.

Still, in winter, there is produce to be had in the garden.

We are still harvesting Granny Smith apples, silverbeet, coloured chard, rocket, leafy greens, stinging nettle, carrots and protein packed beans of many kinds.

Beans are something that Australians don't seem to embrace very well.

We tend to grow beans for harvesting in summer when the pods are tender but rarely for dried beans in the winter.

Some varieties like Blue Lake and Scarlet Runner are well suited for blanching and freezing while others like bush Butter Beans are better used fresh in glut. They tend to be very flaccid after freezing.

Once I have had enough of beans and they are starting to over-mature on the vines, I let them go and leave them to fully develop and dry. A handful are saved for sowing next year and the rest are harvested for dry beans for casseroles and bean salads.

The variety is huge and they take up very little space and are easily stored.

The only preparation required is soaking for about 24 hours prior to a gentle simmer till they are tender. 

They are a good source of fibre and protein and other minerals and give nuttiness and meatiness to lovely tomato based casseroles or curries. 

A small stash may not look very much but they go such a long way and provide more meals than they look.

There is nothing more satisfying than sitting in the sun and breaking open a few dried pods for hearty winter meals. They really are the ultimate in low maintenance, low cost, high yield, high nutrition and a must for every child's backyard. Grow them simply up some bamboo sticks like these and create a living hideout or cubby house.

I'm a big fan of beans.

Traditional Family Cooking

The temperature has dropped and unusually we have snow on the mountains in May. 

Things seem a bit incongruous with the temperature so wintry but the leaves on the Mt Fuji cherry still holding on.

I love my friends who are always willing to come to dinner despite dark cold nights and it means I can cook meals normally reserved for family groups like roasts and corned meat pieces.

Tonight, old fashioned boil in the pot corned silverside. I soak the piece for an hour or two before cooking to remove some of the brine and then in the fresh water a put vinegar, brown sugar, clove, bay leaf, juniper berries, pepper and a cinnamon stick. The saltiness of the cured meat is lovely with subtle woody spicings and you can experiment to make this dish your own signature. You'll really notice the flavours the next day when eating the cold meat on sandwiches.

I follow my grandmother's lead with the vegetables and serve steamed cabbage but with a pinch of caraway seeds sprinkled over, carrots pulled fresh from the garden also steamed and potatoes and onion boiled in the corned meat water. The potatoes are not peeled and left whole so that they do not fall apart in the cooking. The onions are lightly peeled of papery skin but left intact with the root end trimmed but still on so that these also do not fall apart in the water.

Before I serve I make a huge jug of white sauce with a couple of tablespoons of the meat water added to the milk to give subtle flavour. Just like my grandmother (well maybe she boiled the cabbage!)

Dessert was the quince pie I made earlier in the day. The quinces were poached for eight hours in a Leatherwood honey flavoured syrup of their own juices and were a beautiful contrast to the salty meal.

The table was simply dressed with autumn leaves and some late chillies. I commented to my guests that I thought the doily placemats looked like spider webs caught in autumn mists....but they thought that was a bit of a stretch!!! Well the bright cheery leaves can stay all week and keep me company at table anyway.

What dishes did your grandmother teach you that you still carry the baton for?

 Remember to teach your children and their children because a recipe is only a guide, it is the little tips and know-hows passed that make them family traditions and joys. This knowledge is only accumulated over time and with side by side instruction unless someone has been thoughtful enough to include lots of anecdotal reference in the recipe margins.

We remember to let children help with biscuits and  cake making when they are little because it is a good activity to keep them amused but I think as they grow older we are less inclined to have them at our shoulder absorbing the subtleties of cooking. This has become evident to my daughter who has lived with various housemates.

Perhaps once a week at least, we need to get them off the computer/TV/homework for an hour and schedule some family cooking time. It is absolutely natural that they should be expected to assist with meal preparation at any age and it is part of our job to take a deep breath, ditch the stress of the outside world and share the moment of family nourishment and nurturing. 

Do you set aside at least one night a week for family all together at the table?

Do you have a traditional roast on Sunday still?

I'd love to know what you still cook from your grandmothers repertoire.

( Dedicated with thanks to my mother and her sister, Aunty Leigh whom I used to regularly ring and check details with when I was first flatting on my own and trying to remember all I was taught xxx)

Slow Cooked Turkey

We killed three free ranging turkeys at the weekend. Relax, this one isn't dead yet! I wanted to show you the beautiful wings spanned out and the lacy under rear.  One doesn't see them like this very often.  We saved some of the feature feathers for a friends crafting work.

I won't get gory on you as I know many cannot kill their meat. I will tell you though that to pluck and draw it, they hung it from my beautiful garden arch that Craig made me for Christmas one year! This method worked very well as it was a good height and they had a large box underneath to capture the feathers.

These lovely free rangers had full crops when they were killed. One had a crop full of whole cherries and basil and another had a crop full of whole acorns!

One of the females we left whole for a roast and we had some of the kids around. I'm not just being a boast here, but, this was THE best roasted turkey I have ever had. It was moist all over and the meat was a beautiful texture. I think the proof is right there for a free ranged, humanely slaughtered bird.

What else can you do with turkey???

I discovered a French recipe of turkey breast cooked in white wine with grapes and artichoke hearts....but that's not in keeping with our home produce ideals at all (ie: I don't have any of those growing here or locally).

I found a recipe slow cooking it in milk...that gave me a better idea.

 

This - Slow Cooked Turkey in Milk with Leeks and Broccoli

I cut some breast and thigh into strips and covered it in milk in the slow cooker. I added salt and pepper and sliced leeks and broccoli stalks, then cooked on low for four hours. I added the broccoli flowerets and made a slake of plain flour and water and stirred this in to create a thicker white sauce. I turned it up to high for about half an hour. Meanwhile I cooked some rice to go with it.

I'll be honest here and tell you that Craig thought it was weird but he liked it (He had two helpings of weird!)

I liked the way the leeks infused the dish and I think they are a great partner for turkey.