Gardening Time

I had a great afternoon yesterday in the garden! I bought some seedlings the day before and because I have had so much trouble with my chickens and turkeys, I decided that I wasn't going to plant anything out until I could poultry proof the beds. My lovely son Edmund had the day off work and had promised to help me, so with him and our pommy backpacker helper Charlie, we got a lot done! The boys made the frame work by screwing pvc pipe (the remnants of my chook dome) and then we've weighted the netting down with bricks. They also dug another potato bed. The last one wasn't big enough so we had to dig another one.

I've planted sugar loaf cabbage, wombok cabbage, silverbeet, two types of kale, about 3 lots of lettuce, rocket, snow peas, two lots of tomatoes and some coriander. I planted the snow peas at the base of my existing eggplant. I'm not sure if they are companion plants or not, but I thought it would save me having to put up a trellis - the snowpeas should climb over the eggplant! I've also got some lettuce, warrigal greens, italian parsley and coriander coming up wild in the garden - well where the poultry haven't seen it!

I'm really excited about this covering as it will also protect everything if we do get a frost. It's been known to happen, although the weather would have to get a lot colder for us to get a frost.

The potatoes will be interesting - I planted half of them at the right moon phase, but this second lot are being planted in a leafy planting time. So we'll see what the difference might be. Although the turkeys kept digging up the potatoes in the first lot.

What else do I have in my garden at the moment? I've got pawpaw that aren't doing very well. We will give them a seaweed spray and see if that improves things. The tree is loaded, but just starting to go yellow and we are losing fruit now. I've been picking some of the green ones to use as a vegie - they taste great in a stirfry!

We are just starting to pick oranges - they are very seedy, but make beautiful juice. The tree is quite old - it was a full grown tree in a photo that we have of the house, which was taken in the 60's I think. I've got a small mandarin tree - the fruit is just starting to turn yellow. Both trees would benefit from some colder weather. Our bananas have been fruiting, but the bunches are small and not doing very well. I think I'll have to give them all a good feed of compost! The mango tree is flowering - a bit early yet I would think. I've got pumpkins- ripe ones and some still flowering (did I mention that it's still warm?). I've got some herbs, although not enough and some spring onions. Eggplants will be ready for picking shortly and we are still getting capsicum. The eggplants have been great and hopefully they are virtually perennial - I've had quite a few pickings of them. My garlic is going okay, but should do well now that I've got the poultry away from them! I also have turmeric, which I'll pull soon and process. I've had to buy turmeric lately - first time in about 3 years, so I want to dry a heap of it. I've also got some sweet potato growing and a Ceylon spinach plant that I've managed to save from the chooks!

I'm feeling extremely blessed to have Edmund help me in the garden and to finally have a garden that will be poultry proof! I can't wait until the plants are all growing well. If you haven't already down loaded and listened to it, I was interviewed by Gavin from The greening of Gavin last week and you can listen to it from my DVFR Blog - there's a little gadget thing on the right hand side down a bit. I talk a little bit about my farming and food philosophy and Kim says it's interesting, so please have a listen and tell me what you think.

Beginning of March!

A couple of months ago I stated on this blog that I was going to write a bit more often, that I'd be blogging about preparing healthy food whilst maintaining a busy lifestyle. Well the amount of blogs I've written in my head while milking the cow, gardening,cooking dinner, walking around the pig paddocks or driving in the car is amazing! However none of them made it into the never never world of the internet. Lots of reasons for this, mostly based on time and internet speed!

Tuesdays are busy days for me. We draft pigs for market on a Tuesday and then deliver them to the abattoir on Wednesdays. I need to think about dinner reasonably early, and then it needs to be prepared and put into the oven to cook or something easy that I can cook in a hurry. This is because we load pigs last thing in the afternoon, as we don't get back inside until on dark.

This week I wasn't quite so organised, but I still managed to be inside by 7 and have dinner on the table by 7.30. I had taken pork steaks out of the freezer and then had a little time before loading to think about what to cook with them.  I went for a wander in the garden and found not a lot, but some eggplant, capsicum, chilli, beans and herbs, ohh and some limes. It's been so hot - too hot to grow anything much (and believe me I've been trying - the lady that sells seedlings at the markets makes a killing out of me, because I keep buying them!!!!) It should cool down soon, and then I'm planting....winter is our main growing time here! (more about that in another post!)

This encouraged me to do one of my favourite veggie dishes - BBQ veggies with herb dressing,we've got a BBQ that has three sections. The veggie dish, with added zucchini, squash onion and garlic got cooked in a deep baking dish. Slices of white and sweet potato were fried on the plate (I call these BBQ chips) and the steaks cooked on the grill.

Recipe for my veggie dressing:

Fresh herbs - about a handful, and I usually use parsley, basil and oregano, but because I didn't have oregano and I was going to add lime juice, I substituted mint.

Two cloves garlic - crushed

Splash of Apple cider vinegar or balsamic - I used sweet apple vinegar, which is one that I bought at the Kawana markets while on holidays (it's made at stanthorpe, qld) Either a good lug of olive oil or a big spoon of butter. 

You mix this into the veggies after they have been bbq'd.

N.B. You can use whatever veggies you like, but especially like to do this with Mediterranean veggies.

I didn't take a photo of the cooked product because there were too many insects and we ate in the half dark.

While I was prepping the veggies I also prepared a couple of home grown chickens for brining. I find that if I can brine the chicken before cooking it's a lot tenderer and doesn't dry out too much.  Our chickens are Aussie Game and so are quite gamey and the legs and thighs can be a little tough. I mix quite a bit of salt into some warm water, add cold water and aromatics and then place the chicken in.  I chopped up two limes and added to the brine, but had forgotten them when I took this photo.

Chickens/Roosters

Brine ingredients - add one or two limes or lemons.

Chickens submerged in the brine

After dinner I got my travel food ready!

Planning is essential if you want to prepare your own food. I normally menu plan and this helps a lot. I've fallen off the wagon a bit lately and need to get back into it. Tomorrow I have to make bread, so that means that I need to feed my sourdough starter tonight. I also need to make yogurt. Because I use my own milk I have to pasteurise it and then give it time to cool down and then it takes about six hours in my dehydrator. I do about four to five litres at a time these days, so this is all fiddley and I need to be around the house......hence the need for planning!

Holiday Food

We are nearing the end of a two week holiday on the Sunshine Coast......the end of a great, peaceful, refreshing, quiet time of doing a lot of nothing.

We are lucky enough to have friends that have a great house and pool and who just happened to be holidaying elsewhere, so we have had the opportunity to house sit. For us, that is so much better an option than a "holiday rental" mainly due to the fact that there's a thermomix here!! Ha Ha, seriously though, it's just so much more peaceful and I also thought that it meant that we could eat in or out whenever we felt like it. We've done a bit of both, but more in than out, mainly because I would prefer to spend my money buying really good produce and then having the pleasure of cooking it myself.

We have eaten out a few times and twice we've gone to some pretty swish places, which have had excellent food! Most of the time though, we've just bought top quality ingredients and had fun with that.

We've been eating quite a bit of seafood - the Mooloolaba Fish Market has some of the loveliest seafood and we've discovered Swordfish! It really is a lovely piece of fish - they call them steaks, and they do look a little like tuna. However the flesh is just soft and divine! The only farmed seafood we bought where the oysters, the rest of the seafood was local and wild caught!

We've been to Sunshine Coast Organic Meats at Forest Glen (they stock our pork) and bought a leg of organic lamb - we'll be buying some beef for dinner tomorrow night as we are almost sick of seafood! . Kunara Food store is our favourite place to buy vegetables, dairy and dry goods! There's a fabulous IGA up the road from where we are staying that is tiny but sells lots of gourmet goodies, including Walters Bread. This is fabulous bread that is made locally - sourdough as well as yeasted bread, but the sourdough is proper long fermented bread and is just lovely. Saturday we went to the Kawana Farmers market to get some fresh vegies and to see what else was there.......balsamic vinegar and other vinegars and verjuice made on the Granite Belt, Maleny cheese, a French stall selling baguettes, rabbit rillette and saucison (salami), which became our lunch that day. And turkey from Toowoomba - we bought some turkey sausages to try. There were other meat sellers too, but our favourite one is Kidaman Beef and they weren't there that day. They are our favourite because they sell their own beef (fresh and not frozen) and they have a really great product. They also sell our pork! Home made pickles, pasta, marinated olives.....so much great stuff!!!

One day when we went out for lunch and ate WAY to much!!! I did a simple thermomix tomato soup, which was a great light end to a foodie day! Most lunches we have are comprised of antipasto type stuff with fresh bread and a beer to wash it all down. We bought some lovely salami's made in Brisbane and cheese from further a field from a shop in Maleny! Wow, the choices there are amazing.

It's been a great opportunity for us to take some time out and to see what's happening on the food scene in the big smoke. Not enough grass fed / free range options, but hopefully that will change. I think that there is a change in the air and as a producer, it's exciting to be part of that.

Travel food

One of the biggest challenges in eating real food is when you travel! I cannot eat junk food any more - if I do I just feel sick afterwards. I can occasionally eat a pie but not too often. We usually pack food and snacks like nuts and fruit which is okay for one day, but things take a little more organising if away longer. Our preference is to stay in accommodation that has cooking facilities and we now have a car fridge to keep food cool while travelling. Eating real food takes careful planning anytime, but especially when travelling.

Every week Kim and I go to Biggenden to deliver pigs to the abattoir. This is a 12-13 hour round trip and in this heat we leave at 3am. So the night before I have to organise food for breakfast and lunch and snacks! I usually take Muesli, fruit salad and yoghurt for breakfast and then lunch (which is usually more a brunch) can be anything from leftovers, meat and salad, or eggs and bacon. This morning it was steak, potato, onion and eggs.

Having a camp stove like this makes life a lot easier!

If I'm not prepared, I'm always tempted by quick junk food, and always angry afterwards! The best option for when I'm not prepared is to go to a supermarket and get something. This is a way better idea than eating out of the hot box.

What do you do when travelling? Do you take your own or succumb?

Bush to Beach and back again

We've just had a lovely couple of days at the beach for a friends 40th. It was lovely to get away and just relax and do nothing. We only had the one ocean swim - crazy but we were just too tired to make the effort!

There was a bit of seaweed on the beach so I collected that up and tomorrow I'll make a liquid manure with it, but I'll add some cow manure, comfrey, egg shells and whatever else I can think of. Maybe some aloe vera and a few weeds. I'll leave it for a few weeks and then dilute and water the garden with it. The plants will think its delicious! I also picked up a few cuttlefish for the chooks. I should've collected some sea water to put into the liquid manure as it's full of lovely sea minerals.

What was delicious was our dinner tonight! We thought we'd treat the backpackers and so we brought some prawns, oysters and calamari.  The calamari I cut into rings and marinated in garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, pepper and some chilli and lime salt that is made by a lovely lady from Agnes Waters.   I then tossed it in seasoned flour and deep fried.  I served this with a vegetable rice dish - a cross between a paella and a risotto. And we just had the prawns and oysters alongside.

I picked an eggplant, a yellow zucchini, some capsicum and some chillies from the garden, but also used some veggies from the fridge. I added in some chunky bacon and some cooked it in some homemade fish stock from the freezer.

Change of focus

I started this blog several years ago because I wanted to "educate" people about ecological farming. While this is still going to be a thread throughout my posts, I really want to focus more on a homegrown, sustainable lifestyle. My main passion is food - the growing, preparing and eating it. It has to be healthy and if I can grow it even better.

Every where I look, I see fat people! I don't really mean this in an insulting way, but we as a society have become so used to being over weight that it's normal to be fat! People, it's not normal, the human body is an amazing machine and we can be fat and sick and still function quite okay. My vision is to make people realise that it's not that hard to produce some of your own food, or prepare food from raw product to a healthy balanced meal. If we ate less rubbish and just ate real food, we would become slimmer, we would be healthier and we would live a lot longer. I'm not skinny, but I'm not overweight - I eat real food, real fat and (unfortunately) I don't exercise much. We need exercise for good health, but not necessarily for weight loss. Weight loss starts when you start eating real food, made from scratch. Give up on the packaged carbs and only eat grains if you prepare them yourself. Plan your diet around meat and vegies! Think traditional food, food that our ancestors ate!

I am an extremely busy person. We run a pig farm and cattle property, market our own free range pork (retail and wholesale selling), I feed anywhere from 5 to 8 people three proper meals a day, 7 days a week! If I can find time to grow some vegies, serve up a cooked breakfast, meat and salads and home made bread for lunch and a "restaurant" quality meal every night, anyone can. Okay so you live in an apartment - well you can have a jar of sprouts on the bench (and find a community garden) Most people though have access to some ground - plant some veg alongside the shrubs, or some herbs, fruit trees, a couple of chooks!

 

If you don't know how to cook, hopefully I'll give you some inspiration to have a go. It's not really rocket science. I do cook some "fancier" type food, but I usually cook basic, tasty meals and as time is often limited, they are quick! I often don't come inside until 6 or later now that it's summer, and we can still be eating by 7-7.30.  This also requires planning - be prepared, and use the oven or slow cooker to make things easier.

I find time to make kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, bread (sourdough and normal yeast bread), I milk cows, make my own cheese (mostly feta) separate to make cream, make icecream, we kill our own meat and I have some fresh greens and herbs in the garden.

I will try and post at least weekly, focusing on what I'm growing or cooking or eating and if I can inspire people to have a go, that's great. Please comment and let me know what you want to learn/know about. If you want a particular recipe for something, please comment and I'll post it.

Fermented Food

I've written s few times about how I love my fermented foods - I love the process of making them as well as eating them! My garden was quite good over winter and I managed to grow a few cabbages. The only thing better than eating my own home grown cabbages (which I've had no success with in the past), is to make sauerkraut with them!

I use a few sources for my recipes for ferments, but I often mix it up. My inspiration comes from:

• Sandor Katz and his Art of Fermentation
• Sally Fallon and her Nourishing Traditions
• Cultures for Health
• Cultured Food Life
• Nourished Kitchen

From Left to Right: Lemon and Ginger Water Kefir, Kombucha, Kimchi, Saurkraut.

Sauerkraut: I use either white cabbage or red cabbage, depending on what is available at the time. I only use salt when I do a plain cabbage one. I will sometimes add some whey if I'm mixing other vegetables in and if I need a bit more liquid.

Kimchi: I use Sally Fallons recipe for Korean Kimchi, but use whatever vegetables I can find. Usually wombok cabbage, carrot, capsicum, chilli, garlic, ginger and turmeric. I substitute some of the whey with fish sauce - 2 tablespoons whey, and two tablespoons fish sauce.

When I do sauerkraut and kimchi I cut the cabbage and vegies and leave to sit with the salt on for an hour or so. This makes it much easier to then squeeze the liquid out.

I also keep an outside cabbage leaf to place in the jar on top of my kraut and then put a (cleaned) rock on top to weigh it down.

I've been making kombucha for a couple of years now and love it. It's just a lovely midday summer drink (or any season really). I have always done a second ferment, as I really like to get some bubbles into it and like the extra flavour. My favourite flavour would be passionfruit, closely followed by pineapple. I also do apple, ginger or frozen berries. Kombucha brews for about 1 week in summer and 2 weeks in winter. After the initial brewing in the large jar, I strain it into smaller bottles and add the fruit - about 2 tablespoons of fruit or 1of ginger.

Recently I was given some kefir grains - both milk and water kefir. It took me a while to get into it, because I really didn't like the milk kefir - I make yoghurt all the time, so what do I do with this??? And the water kefir was just plain boring! The internet to the rescue.....I now second ferment both. Water kefir is so simple, especially compared to kombucha. I do about a litre at a time as I'm still growing my grains.

For the water kefir: 1/4 cup of sugar (raw is best) to a litre of water and 2 tablespoons of kefir grains. You need to warm up the water first to dissolve the sugar, but then wait for it to cool before adding the grains. Leave for 48 hours and then strain and add the juice of one lemon and about a tablespoon of chopped ginger. You then leave this for another 48 hours. Put this in the fridge and enjoy chilled! This is the only flavour I've tried so far and it's great! A yummy cross between ginger beer and lemon squash. It gets quite bubbly too.

For the milk kefir: I don't particularly like to drink this, but have discovered that if I do a second ferment with frozen mixed berries it makes a nice icecream. I strain off the kefir grains, add some berries and leave for about a day. I then blend 2 cups of this with 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup of cream and then churn in the icecream machine. I also strain the kefir after straining off the grains) through my nut milk bag and use it as kefir cheese. Keep the whey for other fermenting or add it to baking or smoothies. Kefir cheese, mixed with herbs makes a lovely dip, but you could use it in place of any cream cheese.

These ferments I do all the time - I always have these on hand to eat or drink. I also do yoghurt and fetta every week. Other foods I've fermented are:

• Tomato sauce - I make a passata sauce and then ferment this (I think I got this from Nourished Kitchen)
• Beetroot - baked in the oven first and then fermented in a brine (Sally Fallon)
• Cucumbers in brine
• Baby corn in brine

What do you guys ferment? Any questions or tips? Just leave a comment, as I'd love to know what other people do.