Bone Broth

Bone Broth is the new super food, and when you read up about it, it really is an incredible product. I've been reading Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Broth", which she co-wrote with Kaayla T. Daniel. When it's made with a mix of bones, it fits all the criteria, for health benefits. These bones  should include, cartilagious bones, which are those that are from the feet or knuckles (pig trotters, chicken feet, shanks) and marrow bones which will come from the back or shank/shin bone. I use a mixture of species when I make my bone broth, however if you are a purist, you may like to stick to one species. I just think that you get a better chance of getting all the good bits if you use different bits from different animals. To get lovely gelatinous stock, chicken feet or pigs trotters are almost essential! It really doesn't alter the flavour too much, in fact, it probably makes a tastier stock.

So is it called stock or broth? Bone broth is the trendy word, and suits me and I think it covers what I do. However, according to Sally Fallon, broth is a thicker, soupier texture and stock is the thin watery liquid. So technically what I make is stock, but I've chosen to call it bone broth.

Some of the examples given for healing using broth are:

• osteoarthritis
• rheumatoid  arthritis
• scleroderma
• psoriasis
• wound healing
• infectious disease
• digestive disorders
• cancer
• mental health
• sports and fitness
• anti-aging

That's an exhaustive list, and while there are lots of antidotal examples of healing, there hasn't really been a lot of scientific research done. But, it tastes good, I'm sure it's helped me with curing colds and I'm not really sure what other benefits I've received, but I figure that it can't hurt! I make a very simple broth. 

Bone Broth

Selection of bones - I typically use a pigs trotter or chicken feet, chicken carcass, pork back bones and beef marrow bones. If I've cooked a roast chicken the night I'm making stock, I add those picked over bones to the broth as well. I cover the bones with water, add a bay leaf or two, some peppercorns, a teaspoon of salt and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Simmer gently. A crock pot is great for small amounts of stock.

The vinegar (and any type will do) is to leach all the goodness out of the bones. I prefer not to put a lot of vegetables in as I don't think it needs it and I get a lovely clear stock out of it this way. And it sets beautifully.

I cook mine for 24 hours, allow it to cool a little and then strain and store in plastic containers in the freezer or glass containers if keeping it in the fridge to use.

I use it in soup - we have soup for lunch about every second day in cooler weather. I cook rice, mashed potatoes, congee, add it to stir fries and stews. And if I'm feeling ill, I heat it up with a clove of garlic, some ginger and half a teaspoon of turmeric and fish sauce per cup. I drink this as often as I can.

Not Lasagne

I do promise to write about Peter Andrews, and I have started.....but I don't have photos because I took them on my camera and I can't find a usb cable....so, I will get it done eventually. So tonight is about our dinner again!

My family love Lasagne, however, Maitland should be gluten free and I didn't have any lasagne sheets anyway (nor did I have the inclination to make fresh pasta)! So using the same princples I made a mince and vegie bake. I originally thought I could call it paleosange, but I eat dairy and true paleo doesn't, so that wasn't going to work.

But think Lasagne and replace the sheets with vegies. I used dry roasted pumpkin slices (cut less than 1cm thick), fried eggplant, fried green paw paw (if you don't have a pawpaw tree, sub zucchini), and some comfrey (sub spinach or silverbeet). This was layered with a bolognaise mince and cheese sauce, and finished with grated cheese on top. It was pretty tasty, but a bit fiddly with all the bits, but once it's in the oven, you can do what I did, grab a beer and sit outside around the fire for a while.

Dinner Tonight.....Chicken Tonight!

Dinner tonight was supposed to be a bit of a fancy affair, as one of our French Backpackers had French Champagne and Foie Gras and the other had French red wine and some rillette to sample. Their mums sent a care package and we were to benefit, but alas, one of the girls (Marie) has caught the dreaded lurgy from me and is not well enough. I had already planned dinner so we had that anyway, and it was pretty tasty!

Ducken - you may have heard of Turducken, which is Turkey, Duck, Chicken all boned out and rolled. Well, I didn't include the turkey......I boned out a duck and a chicken and did a lovely job (even if I do say so myself) of it and both were perfectly boned out. I chose to do the duck on the outside so we could get all the yummy fat that is just under the skin. I took the chicken meat off the skin and separated the breasts from the rest of the meat. With this meat, I minced it in Thermie, mixed in an onion and 4 cloves of garlic, 1 egg and salt, pepper and rosemary.

So we have the duck boned out and lying flat, then the chicken mince mixture and then I laid the breasts in the middle. I then collect the edge bits and "sewed" them together with kebab sticks - this is where a very large needle and baking twine would work really well. I then tied the entire roll with the twine. It cooked perfectly in about 2 hours and made the best tasting gravy I've had in a long time!

This is a terrible photo, but I forgot!!! I am not a very good food blogger - I'm more interested in eating than taking good photos.

You really can't see the layers very well in this photo, but the middle bits of the roll were perfect and fantastic! 

We need to get busy and process some more poultry, as this is a our last duck and I think we only have one more chicken in the freezer. Tomorrow night will be collecting night - we have to go out just on dark and see where all the roosters are roosting and then start collecting them.

More on Peter Andrews

We have just had another day with Peter and it's been so good. I've read his books and I've listen to him talk, but it really isn't until you are standing in the paddock and seeing what he's seeing and listen to what he's saying that you really get the full appreciation for his knowledge - his knowledge is formidable. He's very good in the actual doing stuff and we built another weir this afternoon. We now have 4 that still need a little work on and we hope to just continue building. I will write more about the weirs later. Today I was going to explain a little bit about what we did in half an hour this morning.

We have a contour bank that runs between two sections of pig paddocks. This forms a lane way and we also use it to slow up any nutrient run off that may happen off the pig paddocks. Our aim is to not have run off, but with the sort of down pours we get in summer, we do get some. Peters suggestion was to put some mini ponds into the contour. The contour bank is more of a level drain than a contour. This will work like a series of ponds to filter any runoff. This could also work on any existing contour bank to just slow up the water and hold it on the paddock for longer.

First load of dirt at the base of the existing contour bank.

Taking the dirt from the grassed part of the flat outside edge of the ditch. We took about 3-4 bucket loads and tried to  place the grassy side up.

This is the finished product. Looking back towards the contour bank. We tried to smooth it all over and we'll get grass growing along the bank to hold it firm. Peter has suggested Kikuyu, so we'll have to find where we can get some runners.

There's a little rain around at the moment, so it would be perfect if we could get about an inch of rain tonight!

Stay tuned for more.........

Peter Andrews

We have a special guest staying with us tonight (and the next two nights!). Peter Andrews is doing some work with us and the Baralaba Landcare Group. We started today by having a look at a creek that goes through our place and have started three leaky weirs. We'll work on them more yet, so I won't post too many photos until they are done.

We are having a field day here on Thursday to show what we've done and why and then Peter will build more while the participants can watch and help. There's a bit of manual work involved, so it'll be good to have more hands.

I will write more about Peter and Natural Sequence Farming later on. In the meantime, you can read more here.

Calories and Nutrients

I wrote a few days ago about supplements and something I've been reading in "The Third Plate" has given me pause for contemplation.

Back in the 1930's a gentleman called  Albrecht worked out that "cows grazing from well-mineralized soils ate balanced diets. But when kept in a barn and fed a predetermined grain ration, they never stopped eating, overindulging in a vain attempt to make up with sheer volume for what they weren't getting in their food." He also thought that humans would do the same thing. "starved of micronutrients, he said, we will keep eating in the hope of attaining them."

Basically that all means that if we eat food that has no nutritional value, even though we may be eating the correct amount of calories, we will be starving ourselves and our health will suffer. I've never been a fan of calorie counting, but I know a lot of people still do it. Hopefully they just do it for fun and not to influence what they eat!

Doesn't this make you mad that they worked it out in the 1930's but we still moved on to doing exactly what they did with those cows and we now have obesity as a leading cause of death and disease in the western world.

Weston A Price was also around in that time and he was ignored too! Well until now that is. As an aside, I've actually considered starting a chapter in Central Qld. So if you are interested, please let me know.

Another interesting snippet - Joan Gussow who was a former chairwoman of nutrition education at Columbia University, believes that soil minerals are the building blocks of human nutrition. A sentiment that I couldn't agree with more! We don't really know how much of each nutrient we all need because we are all different, so we need different things at different times. I personally think that we need to listen to our bodies and eat a balanced diet that our bodies agree with and we should be healthy and well. When I say balanced, I mean lots of whole foods (opposed to packaged) of different persuasions - be they grains, dairy, meats, vegetables, fats.  We just need to know that the soil used to grow those foods also have a good balanced nutrition!

Poddy Goat

One of the backpackers came up the other day and said that there's been a baby goat crying a lot and it is often on it's own. Well I went to investigate and found this little one.

She was trying very hard to find her mother and would suck any nanny that would let her. She's managed to stay alive for about a week now, so she must have been getting something. I couldn't quite work out which one was her mother but the one I thought it was was not friendly enough to catch easily and she showed absolutely no interest in this gorgeous little thing. It would have taken a fair bit of work to get the mother to take her back on, and I had four backpackers that thought it would be wonderful to hand feed a baby goat. Just for those that don't know, a poddy animal is a baby animal that has lost it's mother for some reason and you hand raise. Not exactly sure where the term came from.

Colette the Kid has taken to the bottle really well and considers any human as her mum. Whenever one of us walks outside she is quick to run over and try to get a feed. It's cute now, but I keep warning that it's going to become annoying! She will live in the house yard until she discovers my garden or that she can climb stairs!

It often happens if a goat has triplets, one gets left behind - we did have that trouble earlier and we tried to save one, but she died on us. I don't think she'd ever had a first suck of the colostrum milk. This milk contains all the antibodies that the babies need to get them through the first part of life. This nanny however had only had the two - if it's the one I think it is.

Anyway, Colette will make a very cute pet for a little while and because she's a girl, will grow up to be a nanny herself one day! Even Kim has a soft spot for a baby animal! This is our couch outside by the fire last night. She was very comfortable in the warmth!

Farming means living away from the City

We live in the bush! That's our choice and we love it, in fact we wouldn't have it any other way!

Our nearest little town (Baralaba) is only 10 minutes away and it has a grocery store, newsagent, cafe, pub and rural store. We are lucky to have a great hospital, an ambulance and police on call, so we have all the services we need. When I went to school in Baralaba, 40 years ago there was about 200 kids in the school. I'm not really sure how many now but probably not more than about 50. That's an indication how the town has shrunk.

Farms sold out to other farmers and this was an economic necessity as you just can't make a living off a small farm like ours using the traditional farming practices of beef or grain. This is why we started our free range pig farm. This is one of the reasons that I like our kind of farming - it's a way of building communities again. That is, if more people did it, it would build resilience and support those small communities. Farmers support their communities through their buying choices so it's a win win for all people. The likes of Monanto, big food corporations and Colesworth would ultimately like to get rid of small farmers like us - they want monocultures that they can control. Some farmers actually believe that it's "get bigger or get out", or that we can't financially survive without GM.

Rockhampton is our nearest regional centre and it's two hours drive away. This is where we go to conduct our banking and other "business stuff". Also where I go once a month to the markets. In fact when I go to the markets I have to drive to Monto first - that's 3 hours in the opposite direction! So we do have our fair share of challenges.

I was supposed to be at a trade exhibit at a paleo workshop today, but at 7 am, when I would've had to drive away, I still had a dreadful headache. So, I'm missing it, which is a bummer because it's a great way to network with some of my customer base. Sometimes living in the bush is a pain and you can't just duck down the corner or across town to something. You need to plan ahead!

To give you some perspective, our farm is the little blue dot near the town of Baralaba on the left hand side, Rockhampton is at the top and Monto at the bottom.

Meatballs

Beef meatballs for dinner in tomato, onion and mushroom gravy, with oven chips and mixed veggies.

Forgot to take a photo so I will have tell you how nice they were. Very!

I was feeling better this afternoon so went out to the garden to admire it.....it's really starting to look good. We've been picking lettuce all week and the rest of the plants look very healthy. Laura mounded up my potatoes a bit more yesterday - the first bed of spuds has really taken off. I really need to get on and do some weeding and then plant out some more seeds. Anyway back to dinner.

I collected some fresh herbs and a Birdseye chilli and went inside to make my meatballs. I had about a handful of our own dried wild mushrooms left so I blitzed them in thermie with the herbs, chilli, garlic and an onion, then mixed in egg and salt and pepper. Last year we had a massive harvest of wild mushrooms which we either froze fresh or dried. I think I've used them all now. I like to crumble  the dried mushrooms into lots of dishes.....of course I can't think of too many examples right now.....scrambled eggs, pumpkin soup, rice cooked in bone broth.......

After browning the meatballs I threw in some sliced onion, mushrooms and a bottle of tomato purée. Oh and some soy, fish and Worcester sauces. Then simmered gently until all cooked through. It was a very nice meal. And easy!

Moroccan Roast Goat

Ok, so I'm still sick! I can't believe how much it's laid me out! But thank the stars, that I have the beautiful Marie who is a great cook. I did start the roast off - I was feeling better this afternoon, but Marie finished it all off.

I make my own Moroccan seasoning, which I rubbed on the goat and then poured a bit of tomato purée over it to then slow roast so it stayed nice and juicy.

Roast vegetables, couscous and Harissa paste. The harissa paste was made by my friend Shell and has been in the freezer for a while. Capsicums are in season again so I better find out how she did it so I can make some more.

Still feeling poorly!

I don't get sick very often but I've been pretty miserable all day. Didn't get out of bed until 8am. This is unheard of for me! It rained all last night and this morning and we received a lovely 29mm. I've been on and off the bed all day but I still think I got more office work done than I usually do. Kim wasn't home to get me to go outside and help.

My parents called in on their around Australia trip and so after siesta time I kind of had to stay out of bed.

So I made two batches of icecream which wasn't frozen enough for desert so had to have chocolate brownie and cream. Backpackers love to do baking. I limit them to one thing a week because it goes in a day.

I cooked a pretty good beef stroganoff and now the aches have started again, I'm back to bed. Let's hope I'm over it by tomorrow!

Cold and Flu Season

I very rarely get sick! However, I've been fighting a head cold for a week now and today I have succumbed!

I've been doing the bone broth, herbal teas, lemon drinks and today I've just gradually got worse and worse, so have stepped it up a notch - and gone to bed! I'm just having a cup of tea and then I'm going to take my aching body back to bed. My remedies so far:

• herbal tea - I have a cold and flu blend which I had this morning and now I've added some lemon grass to it.
• bone broth - with ginger, garlic and turmeric added.
• hot lemon drink (with salt in it, because I saw something on facebook about salt and lemon juice for headaches. I warmed it up and added honey to make it more drinkable - still tasted pretty awful.)

What do you do when you are feeling poorly?

The Third Plate

I'm currently reading "The third plate" by Dan Barber. Dan Barber is an American chef and runs a restaurant that is part of his farm. He was a top New York chef who went from the farm to table concept of buying product direct from farmers to actually having his own farm and on farm restaurant. It's an interesting read about the change that is happening around the awareness of the consumer wanting to know where there food  comes from and advancing to the environmental effects that their consuming choices might have. I'm only half way through and the book is not exactly riveting, but it has some really good snippets of information and clarity! So far he's talked about the land, soil and the sea.

The soil of course is the key to any healthy land based animals and he travels the world - so far Spain is coming up a bit, to look at farmers who are really working with the environment and the way the animals, birds and fish are all connected. He's working out it's all about relationships from the soil through to the air, and everything in between.

The third plate concept is a flow on effect: the first plate is the classic meal centred on meat and three veg, the second is the farm to table and the third is "an integrated system of vegetable, cereal and livestock production that is fully supported - in fact - dictated - by what we choose to cook for dinner. .....where good farming and good food intersect."

I think that is what I'm striving towards - having a healthy environment, with a highly effective ecosystem that supports the production of healthy, nutritious food. I think we have four types of consumers:
1. the average Australian diet - typical western junk food diet, with some kind of normal meals thrown in.
2. the next level up is those that think they are being healthy - working out, eating "healthy food" that is low fat and lean meat. This form is heavily supported by Governments and mainstream medical.
3. then you get the conscious eater that wants animal fats, meats, loads of vegies, or skip the meat and just be vegetarian, low carb, maybe grain free, dairy free etc etc
4. The ethical conscious eater, who looks for free range, organic, local, no processed food, traditional foods, lots of vegies etc.

I think we need to work towards the fourth as that will lead to vibrant rural communities that can support the ever growing urban landscape.  I will be writing more about this book as I get more into it. What do you think of my summary of 4 consumers? Where do you sit?

Asian style meatballs

Kim and I thought we'd have a weekend away from the farm - in fact, Edmund ordered us to! Um....was I getting a bit cranky maybe???

Anyway we managed to finally get away yesterday afternoon and travelled the short distance (2hours) to Rockhampton. As we were going to stay in my mum and dad's house (they're away) I brought in food stuffs and the makings for dinner. As we left home about 6pm, we discussed just buying some takeaway food instead of the bother of cooking, because we were both so tired. I decided that we would regret it so cooked My brother Peter's Asian style meatballs.

This is really yummy and so quick. The stock was still frozen and I think it took me about half an hour. I used beef stock as that's all I had in the freezer, but I normally use my regular stock/bone broth.  I make bone broth often and it's usually a mix of chicken carcass, including feet, pork trotters, pork back bones and beef marrow bones. I find this makes an all round tasty and nutritious stock. I'll talk more about that another day.

So, you can use any stock and any mince. I've done it with beef mince before, or I would think chicken mince would be good too. Apart from anything, it was a really good meal after the day we had yesterday. And the leftovers for lunch today were delicious!

I'm now going to spend the afternoon with my sister, where we'll probably talk food.....and we've got fresh pasta to make for dinner tonight.

Final Goodbye

Today has been a pretty reflective day. I said goodbye to an old school friend. We were good mates all through primary school and even though I haven't seen much of her since then I know that she grew into a beautiful person and was much loved by everyone that knew her. She was just one of those people that you just had to love!

She found out she had cancer 18 months ago. Less than a year ago she was told she had 3 weeks. Her family have been lucky to have her for longer than that, but the loss now will be enormous and I can hardly even imagine what life will be like for them in the next little while. Her husband and kids must be the most courageous people I know right now - 3 kids - 23, 22 and 10.

Why are so many people getting cancer? So much money is raised for cancer research and yet there are still so many families losing precious loved ones. Are they looking for a cure or for the cause? It's a really hard topic to discuss and everyone has a view as to what causes it cancer and what you could do it prevent it.  I'm not going to go into that now, I just think we need to live the best life we can NOW. To love our nearest and dearest as much as possible and  to stay positive about all that is thrown in our way. We need to be the best person we can be and to try and remain as healthy as we can. We must eat well and live well.

Rest in Peace Lindyl.

Preserving

Short post tonight.......
Busy day as usual, but managed to get a few things done in the kitchen (apart from the normal meals for 6/7 people). Which I must say I'm helped fairly often by our backpacker helpers!

Marie made some zucchini pickles and I made some star fruit jam.

The zucchini I bought from the markets last weekend and the star fruit I bought from a roadside stall - I don't particularly like them, but they do make a nice jam!  I would post some photos but I can't work out how to get my iPad to talk to itself and find the photos!!! Both recipes are delicious so if you have an abundance of them both I will post the recipes!

We also tried two of my cheeses tonight -  Caerphilly and farmhouse cheddar. Both very respectable cheeses, so I'm inspired to make more.

Supplements

Do you take supplements? I was listening to a podcast  of an interview with Terry Wahls (listen to it here ) about supplements. She had some major health issues and was trying to correct it with vitamin supplements, but it wasn't until she started to find the foods that had the vitamins and minerals that she needed, that her health started to improve. I think this is interesting and I've always preferred the idea of getting our nutritional requirements from our food rather than topping up with the vitamin/mineral etc in a tablet form. I do take two supplements and I'll discuss that in a bit.

One of the problems is that our mainstream food is not healthy. This blog is all about healthy food and the connection with healthy farms - the practices on the farms growing our food must be right. If the nutrients and minerals are in the soil, the roots will be able to take them into the plant with the assistance of the soil biology. If the nutrients and minerals aren't in the soil the roots can access them. One of the problems with conventional farming methods, is that there is too much reliance on herbicides and pesticides and these kill the soil biology.

The nutrients are in the soil and it's the biology that sucks it all up and converts them into a usable form for the roots to access. There are many other people better equipped to discuss this than me, I just understand the basic principles. If you want to read more, have a look at.Elaine Ingham,  Christine Jones and Maarten Stapper.

The Soil Food Web - a term used to explain the life under the ground.

If we had healthy soils and they haven't been destroyed by the herbicides or pesticides and you've got herbivores eating the healthy grass or our food grown in that soil, then there will be an enormous amount of life in the soil and this will create a food bank for the plants. These plants will be highly nutritious with all the minerals and vitamins that the plant should have. How do you tell that the food that you buy is healthy? Well, it helps if you can talk to the farmer, which is the true value in buying from a farmers market, you can ask the person that grew the food what he/she does. It doesn't necessarily need to be labelled "organic" but at least if it is, you know that it hasn't had chemicals on it. A word of caution, just because something is organic, doesn't mean it's good for you! But it is a good indication it will be better for you than conventional grown food. You've probably seen this story about a family eating organic food and they saw improvements in their health after only two weeks.If you are growing plants even in a broad acre sense, you still need to consider it like a vegetable garden and put back into it. It's called regenerative farming. It's not good to just grow, grow, grow as every time you take that plant away, you take away nutrients. Putting back, can be as simple as grazing cattle over a paddock to allow their manure to fertilise the soil.

I try to eat organic when I can, I try to grow some of my own food and I try to avoid processed food. This way I should be eating food that has as much nutrition as possible. In saying all that, there are two vital minerals that Australian soils are lacking - selenium and iodine. I take a couple of drops of both of these most nights. The rest of my nutrition I hope I get out of the food I eat.

French Cuisine

I went to Biggenden today to deliver pigs to the abattoir, which is a 12 hour round trip. Loum our French backpacker came with me so that Kim could stay here and get more work done. Marie our other French Backpacker cooked dinner. How good is that?!?

And it was delicious! So that was a bonus!

I'll get the recipe, and then put it on the Recipe Page......I would serve it with some greens - broccoli, beans or zucchini would be really nice with it.

Compost

I've never had such a great supply of compost in my life, as we do now. One of the problems with having livestock, is that you end up with dead stock (a saying of my fathers). Our main problem we have is with piglets - mostly being rolled on by the mother. This is one of the reasons that the sheds use sow stalls - they prevent the sow from lying down, let alone rolling on the piglets. On our farm, we don't use any sort of farrowing set up, the sows make a grassy nest and have the babies in this. The babies can then climb under the grass mound for sun and preditor protection and warmth. So when they get rolled on, which would average out as one per litter or maybe less.

Other things we put in the compost are: afterbirth, dead chooks (ones that die of old age), feathers etc from our poultry processing. We layer these with wheel barrow loads of cow manure.

A lovely fresh cow pat - it's best to be really fresh when covering dead animals or feathers etc.

We use pallets as the framework for our bin and once it's full, we put a cover over it and leave it for twelve months. By this time the pile is about half the size and turned into a lovely compost.

Feathers don't really break down completely and you do sometimes find some bones, but that's all good!

Of course, this would be a bit tricky for most people to do. I've never been terribly successful before this in making good quality compost and found that the best way for me to do it was to use worms. I used a compost bin and would through the scraps each day in and some manure and weeds every now and again. The worms would do the work for me and I would just collect it from the bottom of the bin. ANYONE could do this - even in the city (well maybe with out the manure!) Worms will eat just about anything that was once living and there's lots of good stuff you can find on the internet to help you if you need it.

I'd love to hear what other people do to make compost. It's a great way to get rid of scraps if you don't have chooks to eat them, although if you had chooks, the chooks make the compost for you - the ground in their pen is lovely for the garden.

A day in my life

Up at 7am this morning - a little sleep in after my busy weekend.....Breakfast with our little backpacker family - we are down to 4 now, so life is hopefully a little less hectic!

Milk 3 cows - while I'm milking I like to plan out my day, this is a calm (usually) time that I work out what I'm going to feed everyone that day and what office work I need to get done and of course it's all very organised in my mind, that I even think about what garden work I might get done. Ha Ha
Something usually happens to interrupt all my plans!

Two of my milkers

Today I'd just finished milking when Laura came over to say that a pig had farrowed, so I thought I'd better check on her, as she is a sow that we bought out of a shed and I was worried that she may not have known what to do etc! She hadn't made a nest, just had them on the ground under a tree. I removed the afterbirth, and counted 10 healthy happy piglets.

Contented mum - so happy to be out of a shed!

Back to the coldroom to collect the bucket of milk - got Maree to put it away for me so that I could get some bread on. Two loaves of sourdough and one batch of normal bread dough for breadrolls for lunch today.

Out to the garden, to quickly put some compost on my potatoes that I'm growing in spud bags and thought I'd plant some carrot seeds while I was there! The garden is looking lovely, but in need of a drink so sprinkler on - and now I can have smoko!

Office work until lunch time, with a short break to form my dough into rolls and to rise them.

Nap time after lunch - this is a regular break we have. Our helpers are only expected to do a max of 6 hours per day, so we usually have a siesta - although we would have a nap even if we didn't have backpacker helpers! After my nap, I thought that I would get another hour of office work in, but Kim decided that we had to wean some more piglets.......so back outside to do that and numerous other jobs.

Back inside on dark - get dinner ready with the lovely Maree's help. Steak and vegies tonight - it's been a long day. Put the sourdough bread on to cook.

Top is the finished bread, left bottom is my starter and the right bottom is the first rising - nice and bubbly!

Then after dinner I bottled some kombucha. I keep a continuous brew with kombucha, which is so much easier. I always do a second ferment and really love passionfruit, however my passionfruit isn't ready yet, and the passionfruit man wasn't at the markets, so I did ginger tonight (my ginger growers were at the markets this week!). Ginger is probably my second favourite flavour. I also had some kefir to bottle and I always do this with ginger and lime, which is just like a mild ginger beer crossed with lemon squash.

I've got the new tea on the stove top and will put it in in the morning when it's cool. Who wants a scoby, I have heaps! Just comment (if you are in the local area only) and I will bring some to the next markets.

Crab!

Edmund went away this weekend fishing. He didn't catch many fish, but did get a few crabs so it was fresh crab for dinner. Served with fresh salad from my market purchases this weekend and some yummy fresh bread. Edmund made the salad, but I made the dressing - Norma's (Kim's mother) famous French Dressing (lots of garlic, french mustard and lemon juice - delicious with fresh seafood!!!) Didn't think to take a picture until now, so I've only got this one!

We are lucky to have some lovely fresh produce on our doorstep - okay, crabs are a good two hours drive away.....but we are certainly lucky to get them more often than a lot of people do!

Desert was some coconut/pineapple icecream I made the other day and told everyone that it was to be left until I got back after the weekend! We had a pineapple that got frozen and was soft and squishy, so I cooked it and then (after it cooled) mixed it into some coconut milk icecream. I make a raw egg icecream, which is usually, 600ml cream, 2 eggs, vanilla ess, 1/2 cup sugar, mixed and then put into the ice cream churner. This one was a can of coconut milk, 200ml cream etc and after churning, I threw it all into thermie (or a food processor would work) to blitz it with the cooked pineapple. It was very good, so I'll have to do it again!

Then, just because I haven't had a big enough day (markets this weekend in Rocky and Yeppoon, so only got home about 3.30 this afternoon), I decided to cook sausages ready for breakfast tomorrow. My main reason for this is because I want to have a sleep in tomorrow morning. (at least until 7!!!)

By the way, I'm going to try and post every day.....we'll see how I go. If the internet is as slow as it is tonight, I'll probably end up smashing my computer!!!