Spring is Sprung

The spring equinox happened this past week. I didn't even know the date until last Sunday when we got invited to a Spring Equinox party. But I have certainly noticed the rapid move from Winter to Spring. The last few weeks it's been noticeably warmer and the days are longer. The grass has turned from a dull shade of bleak to a vibrant green. And yes, we have had rain, but we had rain all through winter and it stayed bleak and miserable. I might also add that this weekend has been an exception to Spring. Winter came back for a few days and may be around for a few more yet. Its nice to be in a place where we can experience all four seasons.

In Central Queensland, we have 2 summer seasons - a dry summer and a wet summer. We do have a few cold days in the middle there, but after being down here what we called winter is not really winter! 

My garden has been a bit disappointing - I was just too late getting planted before winter and so everything just kind of grew in slow motion (except the garlic, it's done alright). The broccoli, brussel sprouts, some of the kale and some of the cabbages went to seed as soon as it warmed up. I've been eating them, but just didn't get as much as I would've liked. The brussel sprouts were a total fail and I'm still waiting to see if some of the cabbages will heart up.

This was a recent harvest, which I turned some of it into a spring garden kimchi with a friends purple cabbage. I used the recipe from The Basics and it's still fermenting - should be ready in the next few days.

broccoli, dandelion, carrots, leek, green garlic, turnips. All but the broccoli went into the kimchi with the red cabbage behind.

I've prepared two new beds in the garden. I didn't want to plant anything too soon because we can still get a frost - apparently late October you can still get frosts! I will plant carrots, beetroot and potatoes in the next root planting window.  I did plant out some silver beet about a week ago. It'll be okay as it can handle frost. I'll wait until November before I plant any tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant etc. I'll have to find out what else I can plant now, but it won't be much.

This is what's in the garden at the moment.

Garlic, kale, cabbage, carrots, onions, lettuce

Snow peas and broad beans

Broad beans - they've been flowering for ages, but no beans yet.

Some of the broccoli that's still shooting, red curly kale, garlic, and in the middle are my new little silverbeet.

I have another bed with some leeks, cabbage, broccoli sprouting, and strawberries. Also all the trees are flowering, so it's very exciting to anticipate what stone fruit or nuts or apples or pears I'm going to have. 

I do look forward to gardening back in Queensland and it's funny to think that if I was at home now, it's our main growing season and yet down here, it's over summer that we grow the main crops. Everything does seem to grow faster here - especially the herbs! They are doing really well. Let me know what you are growing at the moment. 

Norma's Salad Dressing

A plate of fresh crayfish, a loaf of good bread, a light salad and delicious dressing. What better meal will you find anywhere? It's certainly Kim's favourite meal and all he wanted for his 40th birthday was to sit down to a feed of crayfish and a beer. We were living in Mackay at the time and our very good friends in Western Australia, who also happened to be crayfisherpeople, organised a special delivery. Frozen and boxed with dry ice, the crayfish survived the flight from Perth to Mackay really well and were still frozen on arrival. 

I can still see him sitting at the kitchen table with crayfish, bread and butter and a beer. Bliss!

I'm not sure how many Christmas's we spent in WA, but quite a few. Kim's mother, sister, best/oldest friend and extend family live in WA. His brother moved to Qld and Kim followed soon after. 

Christmas is peak crayfish season and as we had friends fishing, and so did Norma (Kim's mother) we always manage to have a feed or three of crayfish when there.

Norma is a fantastic cook and is probably my greatest source of inspiration in my food journey. One recipe of hers that stands out above all is her French dressing. She was taught this and many more by her french brother-in-law who I think taught her a lot about cooking too. Australia in those days (Norma is 94) was very much a meat and 3 veg type cuisine, and that was often salt meat as there wasn't too much refrigeration.

A crayfish lunch usually started off with Kim at the kitchen sink cleaning the crays; me making a salad and Norma making the dressing. This was a process I watched many times but never really recorded, which I'm really regretting now. On a recent visit, she actually showed me the recipe but it doesn't represent how she made it. 

I think I've successfully recreated the recipe as I remember it. The picture below is my recent attempt to serve with prawns and fresh sourdough bread. I made this one in a mortar and pestle and I think it worked really well. The photos that accompany the recipe where taken a little while ago and I used a knife and board as I really wanted to do it as Norma used to do it. You can use just about any vinegar, but a white wine vinegar is probably best. I used my apple scrap vinegar and frozen lime juice the other day. I also used half home made and half dijon mustard, so please feel free to try with what you have on hand. In the photos further below it looks like I used red wine vinegar, so really anything works. The main thing is that it's a thick almost mayonaisey type dressing.

Normas Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

4 Large cloves garlic

Pinch of salt

4 teaspoons french (dijon, seedy, homemade) mustard

2/3 cup good olive oil

1/3 cup vinegar (white wine, apple cider, apple scrap, kombucha, jun)

1-2 teaspoons lemon or lime juice (taste as you go)

Method:

Crush the garlic with the salt - either by hand using the blade of a knife or a mortar and pestle

Scrape this into a jar. I'm sure Norma used to add a little oil before adding the mustard, just a teaspoon full. Then add the mustard and mix really well, so that it is kind of creamy.

Add the oil, a teaspoon full at a time, mixing continuously. Remember that you're emulsifying it.

Then mix the vinegar and finally the lemon/lime juice. 

It does make a big batch so reduce amounts if wanting to make a smaller amount. It does keep fairly well so during salad season, a big batch isn't such a bad idea. You don't need to eat it with crayfish - it's perfect on any sort of salad!

Please let me know if you give it a go and it works. And of course if you think it's as delicious as I do.

The Basics - my basic recipe book

I've had a goal to write a recipe book for many years. One Christmas I did one for all my siblings called "Enjoy". It had a few of the recipes that I liked at that time and was printed on my home printer. I can remember the cover - it was a black card with the word Enjoy written in gold card on top. I think some of my family members used it for a while. Sadly I didn't do a copy for myself and have long since changed computers......

Many ideas for books have come and gone over that time. One idea I got when my daughter moved into her own home and started cooking was to write a book dedicated to beginning cooks - with a title like "help mum, how do I cook this....". Another idea was to write a seasonal book - working through a year and cooking based on what was growing in my garden (I still like this one....)

Then late last year, I decided that I wanted to write one with some of the recipes I do all the time. This would be a record for me, but also to hand out to my kids as they are all starting to get into the cooking from scratch principle. I had decided on an ebook, so that it could be on a mobile device and able to be used anywhere. It's taken me a while to sort through what I wanted to put in and what wasn't really necessary or useful, but I've finally done it!

I've called it "The Basics" as it is a compilation of my basic staples. Things I cook often or if not often, seasonally.  This is a list of the contents:

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bone Broth

Seasoned Salt

Feta (and Quark) Cheese

Grain Free Toasted Muesli

Fritters

Vegetable Slice

Sourdough

Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Wraps/tortillas

Sourdough Seedy Crackers

Pizza Base/Flat Bread

Tortillas or Roti

Seedy Crackers

Mayonnaise

Mustard

Salad Dressings

Basic Salad Dressing

Yoghurt Salad Dressing

Pickling, Fermenting, Preserving

Pickled Beetroot

Whole Beetroot Ferment

Sauerkraut

Kimchi

Tomatoes

Tomato Sauce (ketchup)

Chocolate

Cacao Bites

About the Author, Lucy House

Reference Materials and Links:

I used a program called Blurb to design an actual ebook, but have not been happy with it, so have decided to settle for a PDF format for distribution. You should be able to save this on your phone/tablet (iBooks for Apple users, but not sure for Android). You can click on one of the links below to download using google drive or drop box.

I have used my own photos. I haven't included nutritional information. I occasionally included the  number of serves.  I have recipe tested but as I often change things around, I encourage you to do the same. Change and adapt however you want. It's not a professional, glossy publication. It's raw. It's Basic.

I decided not to actually charge anything for this book. I did contemplate it, as I thought I could then put the money towards my next book - maybe I'd engage a photographer for that one!

I really want people to use the book. Have a go at making more things from scratch. Be prepared to spend a little more time in the kitchen. Plan how you can incorporate the recipes into your everyday life.

However, if you find that the recipes are useful and you feel that there is some value for you, please consider to "Pay as you Feel".  The bank details to do this are at the end of the recipe book, so if you get to the end and you are so inclined, you can direct deposit a small contribution. This will be greatly appreciated!

Links for Google Drive or Dropbox:

Google Drive - The Basics

For an iPhone/iPad: After opening in the app, click on the 3 dots up the top left hand corner, scroll down to "open in" and select iBooks.

Drop Box - The Basics

For and iPhone/iPad: After opening in the app, click on the 3 dots and select "Export" and then "Copy to iBooks.

For Android, you'll have to work it out yourself, sorry.

And after all this, I hope you can access it and if not let me know and I'll have another crack at it! But most of all,

Enjoy......

Travel allowed again!

Yay, travel is allowed again! Well not to Queensland yet, but NSW and Victoria have loosened up. We traveled to Victoria last weekend to spend time with our 2nd Son. It was a wonderful weekend, although very cold!

no, not snow, just frost! Yandoit about 8am.

It was quite a foody weekend with foraging, preserving and of course eating! 

The weekend started with milking a cow. Edmund and his partner Katie, are in a milking co-op, which means there's a few of them that share the care and the milking of a lovely jersey cow. A bit of a challenge for me as the cow is not contained and when she has had enough she will just walk away! I was on one side and Katie was on the other side milking so she was fairly patient considering! We got enough milk to make some feta cheese.

Then Saturday morning started with a walk over the mountain to pick olives from a nearby olive grove. I'm hoping these will be better than the ones I did last year. I've got a bucketful of them so they better be. I'm also going to try a different method. 

Katie is a baker and Saturday she went off to bake bread and came home that night with mushrooms! Someone had given her a huge basket of safron milk caps. I hadn't tried these before so that was something new. I suggested drying some to preserve them, but Edmund wanted to pickle some, so we did both.

They look like little fish!

Drying the mushrooms above the wood stove. Hearty veggie soup in the big pot and carrot tops cooking in the frypan - Edmund cooks these so well and where a nice crispy topping for the soup.

Mushrooms, brought to the boil in vinegar, drained and then packed into jars with herbs and olive oil.

Sunday morning we went into Daylesford markets - bought a cabbage which I krauted this morning. I haven't seen any cabbages around our markets yet and I'm not sure mine in the garden are going to amount to much! I need to make more but could only do a small batch as my big crock got broken travelling down here. Anyone know of a good place to get another one - maybe a locally made crock??

Monday found us foraging the tale end of hawthorn berries and rose hips. I'll dry them both for tea, but will also have a go at this spiced brandy - purely for medicinal purposes! I have a few persimmons left from a few weeks ago which I can use up in this as well. We also made some hawthorn and fejoa jam from some fejoas that had been gifted. Hawthorn have a lot of pectin so we thought that they would work well with the more pectin challenged fejoas. You can read more about the goodness of hawthorns here and rosehips here.

Fejoa and hawthorn jam

Hawthorns on the tree - the leaves have all gone but still plenty of fruit.

Rose hips - same deal, the leaves are all but gone.

I took some goodies and brought back so many! But the best part was spending time with such beautiful people! It's just a shame that it's an 8 hour drive.

My thoughts on Covid-19

Before I start this blog post, I have to apologise to all the people that comment......I can't work out why, but I can't reply. I thought it was just that I was trying to reply on my phone, but I can't seem to reply on the laptop either.......so if anyone knows what I'm doing wrong let me know....I use blogger.

For a while now, I've been interested with the idea of "the village community". I've always "done" better when I've been part of a community - be it the school community when the kids were young, our farming community or the market community when I was doing them. I think it's a natural human emotion to want to belong to a community.

One thing they've found in two of the Blue Zones that I know anything about, is that community played a large part in people surviving into their 100's. Both Okinawa and Sardina list traditional diet and lifestyle and the community surrounding them as factors to longevity. Community in this sense means family, friends and the village community. Often several generations live under one roof. We currently have 2 generations under one roof - will that mean that we'll live a longer life!

So, if community is such a big factor in health and wellness, what is happening now that we are self isolating. Grand parents are being encouraged not to see grandchildren and vice versa.  Fortunately, thanks to technology, contact can be maintained, even if it doesn't include a hug! There is a growing sense of community amongst various facebook groups and this is also good for most of us, but the extreme extroverts are probably struggling! I find that the sort of groups I'm in or the pages I follow are trying to keep up more regular contact and a conversation happening, even if it is only online.

One solution I thought of for a slow coming out of isolation, is to try and stick to small community areas. For example, we live near Bungendore and most of the essential items we need are available there. We could set up "working hubs" so that office workers could work together but on their own work externally still. At least they would be working "with" people. If there happened to be a covid outbreak it could be monitored and traced back to where it started. If many people got it, then it could still be contained within that community.

The benefit of that would be that local shops and local producers are supported and people can start moving about within their community instead of being isolated. We're pretty lucky that there are five of us in this house and we go out each saturday to the local farmers market. Some people could be in a household of 1 or 2! That would be very lonely!

What will the other side of Covid-19 look like? People are learning or re-learning skills. Gardens are being planted. Chickens being bought. Bread being made. Parents are home-schooling. People are shopping at farmers markets or direct from farmers. No one is going out for coffee! People aren't travelling, planes aren't flying and cars not driving! So many things that Climate Change Activists have been campaigning for for a long time. We've been trying to get people to take a look at their lifestyles and make some of these changes. I'm not sure if there is any noticeable difference in carbon in the atmosphere - some say there is and some say not. But surely if we could keep it up, there would be changes!

We're aiming for self sufficiency with eggs. Having a grandchild around is also going to increase our resilience!

Supporting local producers - good for community resilience.

I also acknowledge that there has been a lot of economic damage done, but maybe we just need to change aspects of our industry and business world. One thing that has been highlighted is our reliance on imports (and exports). We don't make things in Australia any more, so we may have to re-skill some of our baristas to become factory workers. We have all the raw materials that we need to make most things, so maybe we need to start making our own things. Like toilet paper and packaging, basic things that we rely on buying from overseas.

We only need one of these stickers!

We certainly need to look at being a little more self sufficient - both at a Country level and a local level. Being more self sufficient and less reliant on imported products, will make us more resilient. I think we need to be careful that our self isolation does not destroy our sense of community and that we can continue to be involved in community while also maintaining sensible distancing efforts. We are also lucky in Australia that we seem to be keeping things under control with very few new cases, but I also think we need to be careful to move away from isolation slowly to prevent uncontrolled outbreaks.

So take care out there - keep a physical distance, but not an emotional distance.

In the country - Wamboin NSW

We have finally moved out of Canberra. We've been about 2 weeks here and finally unpacked and fairly settled in. It was a bit of a rush in the end, as we wanted to get out of town before any lock down's occurred. We are so much happier out here and don't know how things would be if we'd stayed in Canberra. This house is large and has plenty of space for all of us.

My main focus after moving, was to get a veggie garden started. What I didn't realise was how hard it would be to get veg seedlings. I really wanted seedlings as the weather will cool down very quickly and we may not have time to get seeds up. I did eventually track some seedlings down - akin to finding things on the black market. Chickens still allude us! They are impossible to get. Who would've thought that it would take a pandemic to get people to start thinking about food security. Climate change needs to organise a new marketing campaign.

The seedlings are now planted and we've had a little rain, so hopefully they'll explode with growth - although I don't know how, it's so bloody cold already! We have a large orchard and garden area that has been neglected for a few years, so we just had to dig out some grass and plant and mulch. I even bought some cow manure! Never thought I'd have to buy that!

Not sure what all the trees are, but I'm sure we'll find out in time.

Lots of brassicas, some leeks, turnips and strawberries.

Snow peas and broad beans

I had made some wicking beds and planted up one with herbs and the other with silver beet and celery.  they are doing much better now that they can get more sunlight. Sunlight was a bit limited in the house in town. Luckily there were a few pots of herbs here and a lovely big rosemary plant so we've got a good supply of most herbs.

Foam box wicking beds

We've also inherited a pumpkin which has a few on it so that should keep us in pumpkins for a while. Trouble is I don't know how long I'll have before the vine is finished (from frost and cold) and there's still quite small ones on. The pumpkin vine area also had quite a few tomato bushes so each day Astrid and I go out to pick "marties" She doesn't like them but does like to pick and carry them home.

There is a pumpkin vine under there somewhere. I think the netting is to protect it from the rabbits or maybe the kangaroos.

The owners obviously love roses, as theres rose bushes everywhere.

It's autumn in Canberra and we're just starting to see the leaves changing. It's getting cooler, with this weekend being very windy and cold. We have 3 fire places in the house, so they've been getting lit most days. We may even get snow in winter......

Foodie Updates

I've been enjoying going to a regular weekly farmers market since we've been in Canberra. We started  going to the EPIC Farmers Market, but it's not really a true farmers market. It has a few local stall holders, but mostly resellers. We've been going to the Bungendore Farmers Market, which is a lovely little market. Only a few stalls and one is a community stall, so has bits and pieces from other suppliers. Right now is quite a prime time for vegetables by the look of it, and the produce has been really good. It's also lovely to be able to talk to the person who grows my food!

The last two weeks we've been going to a pick your own apple orchard, which also sells other local veg and the yummiest apple ice-cream! I preserved a few jars of diced apple, which will go nicely with porridge once it gets cold enough, as well as making some apple scrap vinegar. Well I haven't made the vinegar, that's quite a lengthy process, but I currently have the peels and cores of the apples sitting in some sweetened water. It's 1-4 weeks for this first process and then I strain the liquid and keep fermenting the liquid for another few weeks or months until it becomes vinegar. I'm following this method from Milkwood. I also bought some rhubarb which I stewed with some apples - yum!

I'd bought a previous batch of rhubarb, which I added to some plums and apples to make some jam. We had bought some jam at the markets which was too sweet for us so at least this way I can reduce the amount of sugar and have jam more suitable to our liking.

With the purpose of meeting people, I've been trying to get involved with the Canberra City Farm. We originally went along to a workshop about what to plant now for winter growing, which then led to going along to a working bee. We are now paid up members and will probably go along to a few more things. It's a lovely example of urban farming, and includes allotments for individual gardeners, as well as some communal areas and some completely separate enterprises.

Working bee attendance has the side benefit of getting some lovely organic veg as a thank you. This included potatoes, tomatoes, parsley and zucchini this week. I made a batch of zucchini pickle using my mums green tomato pickle recipe which tastes pretty good. And way nicer than the pickles I bought from the markets the other day.

One of the worst parts about making these preserves etc, is that I've had to buy jars! I've got boxes of jars at home, but that's not much good to me. Fortunately the local Vinnies had a few so I've been able to recycle and reuse - much better than buying new jars, which also cost more.

Apart from preserves, I've been making sourdough bread very regularly, and wow, have I got it going good! Ever since I had the opportunity for a lesson from Katie from Twofold Bakehouse in Daylesford last year, I've been making really good bread, also the starter from Jonai Farms has been a help I think. Read more about Katie and the Twofold Bakehouse here.  We miss out on so much in regional Queensland. Fancy having a CSA bakery to subscribe to! There's a vegetable CSA here, but I really like going to the markets so we haven't signed up for it yet.

Sourdough crackers is another thing I've been playing around with. I made some really nice cheesy ones the other day, and then more recently, some sesame seed ones. Although I think I prefer my regular seedy crackers. But it is a good way to use up starter when you have too much, which tends to happen when I feed my starter and leave it too long for bread making and have to re-feed it. That's the other thing I always do now, and that's the float test for starter. I think some of my failures in the past have been from using a starter that has gone too far. It's far better to feed it again and use a more active starter then to make bread with it.

This is a 70% hydration loaf shown half way through the  folding/proving process.  It's a very sticky dough and as such difficult to handle, but makes good bread! 

Cheesy starter discard crackers. I adapted this recipe by adding grated cheese to it. 

All in all, the last month has meant I've enjoyed myself by having access to local food and by having the time to cook with it. I'm certainly spending plenty of time in the kitchen and as that's my "happy place", then I'm happy :) 

Canberra

Well, we've moved. Although at the moment we are living in house in a Canberra and not yet on a farm. Hopefully that will change very soon, but for the time being, it is what it is and we are just enjoying spending time with our gorgeous little grand daughter.

We're also enjoying being in town for a short while. Movies last night was a treat and then last weekend we went to the zoo. I used to have mixed feelings about zoos and enclosing animals, but this zoo is quite well done and basically some species have been lost in the wild and zoos do keep them alive. And it is good to see such beautiful animals!

When we left Anabank less than two weeks ago, a wet season had just started. We'd had just over 100mm then, but now it's close to 300mm. Amazing!! It's been incredible how fast things have changed and we aren't there to see it! Chloe has been sending lots of photos so we know what we're missing out on. The place has gone from one extreme to another, but then that's Australia, the land of flooding rains and droughts!

Kim and I have just started doing an online Permaculture Design Course, which we thought might give us something to do......although I'm struggling to find time to do some of the other things I want to do, like this blog and also finish of my recipe book, so I don't need to find more jobs! I'm nearly finished doing a recipe book that will just be a small ebook with some of my basic recipes. It's always been a dream of mine to write a recipe book and this is not my dream book, but just a starter to practice. I keep changing what my dream book will be like, so if you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to drop me a message.......that's something I'll be working on over the next twelve months I hope.

I know I've said it before, but I really want to post more often so hopefully I will.

Blog Birthday

I knew that I'd started this blog in January so I thought I'd go back and check how long ago it was. On the 3rd of January 2011, I wrote my first short blog.

The purpose of this blog is to share my food philosophy and to hopefully help people to understand better ways of farming, gardening, cooking and eating. I am confident that the leading cause of disease today is our food. We need to eat healthy nutritous food to lead healthy lives. One way to ensure that we are eating healthy food is to eat food that is produced without or with minimal chemicals. You either need to buy it or produce it yourself. I do produce a lot of our own food but I know that not everyone can. What I would like you to do though is to think about where the food you buy has come from. How was it produced? How far did it have to travel to your local shop? These are the two main questions you need to consider, however when you consider how it was produced, you need to think about so many things: organic, biodynamic, pasture fed, chemical free, hormone free, free range, and the list goes on. Hopefully through this blog you will get a better understanding of these two questions and can then make your own decisions. The food we grow on our farm at the moment includes: beef, chicken, duck, pork, vegetables, milk and eggs. We aren't self sufficient, and it would be difficult to be so as I enjoy cooking too much and need ingredients that I can't grow. I am passionate about food - from growing it, to cooking it, to eating it. I will share my adventures in these endeavours - from sharing recipes to just sharing my experiences.

Not much has changed, although the next couple of posts talked about the fact that we were flood bound, so that has certainly changed. We are currently facing the worst dry period that we've ever had in the almost 30 years that we've owned this property.

This is one of my favourite photos and was taken during that flood. 

This makes me happy and sad! I haven't got anything like that in the garden at the moment!

Anyway, I'm still committed to blogging and also updating my Lucy's Kitchen Facebook page. I am still passionate about food and farming and still want to share what we do in the hope that it may inspire someone somewhere to make changes in their own lives and look for food that is grown nutritiously and by farmers who farm regeneratively. That may mean growing your own or buying it in, but either way you will benefit. I haven't grown to much lately in my garden, we've been away to much to keep anything alive in this heat. The first thing I'll do when we move south is get a veggie garden planted. 

Yes, we're moving, and hopefully by the end of January/early February.

At this stage we aren't actually sure where we're moving to, but it will be on a small acreage outside Canberra. Kim and I will continue to own Anabank, however we will be leasing it out for the next little while as we see how things go with our change. So I'll keep you all posted where we end up.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and may it be a wetter year than last year.