Fishing

We had a lovely day yesterday - my brother in law took us fishing. It was bit tough getting up for a 6am start, but well worth it. We headed off from Roslyn Bay, out past the Keppels and pulled up near Man & Wife (twin Islands). We started fishing and immediately caught some!

Man and Wife

This is my first one - a Hussar

Then  I got seasick!!! I was so excited to be going out on the ocean and then so disappointed that I all I wanted to do was die -well maybe just be violently ill! Then the whales came! There were 2 or maybe 3 groups playing. They were amazing.

At one stage, one of them started coming straight for us. We started to get a little scared, I could just see us being tipped into the ocean....

It did come closer, but by that stage I was just fascinated and not interested in taking photos....okay I was trying to work out what to do if it tipped the boat over, but no it was just showing off to us! I really do think they were putting on a show for us. There was a Conversation Hour (Qld, with Richard Fidler) a while ago about the whales at Hervey Bay and the Scientists doing the research had the names of whales that kept coming back each year and they had personalties, so I do think they knew that we were watching and enjoying them and so they were showing off. Animals do have conscious thought! I've been around pigs, dogs, cats, cows and even chooks long enough to know that!

Anyway, I eventually got over my sea sickness - it helped being put onto land for a little while. We stopped on a lovely beach on Great Keppel Island and then on Humpy Island where we ate our lunch.

Our view while we ate lunch. Looking out towards Keppel Island.

So after a great success on the fishing front, we headed home to our Beach Shack where we cleaned and filleted and divided the fish. 

An esky full of fish!

6 coral trout - pretty as well as tasty!

Filleting the fish

Spanish Mackerel - a fish that is a great fish to catch, as well as one that has a good bone out percentage. I'm keeping some of this as large fillets to preserve in oil (aka tuna in oil). I'll do this next week!

Dinner last night was Baked Coral Trout. No lemon or limes here, so I picked some herbs (parsley, coriander and mint) from our Host's garden, added some chopped garlic and spring onion and then added a splash of soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil.

Then wrap in baking paper and baking in the oven.

It was delicious!

I'm looking forward to getting sick of eating fish!!! Although, I'm going to cryovac most of it and freeze and take home - after preserving some of the mackerel. Follow Lucy's Kitchen if you want to see that.

Holiday time at the Beach

Kim and I have just started a two week break away from the Farm. We didn’t go too far – only to Emu Park. We’ve got a great little Airbnb beach shack about 50m from the beach, so it’s perfect for beach walks throughout the day – too cold to go swimming though.

When we take a holiday we prefer to be somewhere that we can cook our own food and preferably do as little as possible. So far that’s what it’s been like. The first thing was to go to the Yeppoon markets to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables and of course we brought our own meat, milk, some feta, eggs and a few vegies from the farm. We will eat out occasionally, but honestly we never enjoy it! We enjoy the going out bit and the not having to clean up bit, but usually the food is so below the standard that we are used to that it literally leaves a bad taste in our mouths. And I do hate to spend money on inferior food, when I can spend the money on the raw ingredients and have the pleasure of cooking it too! (and Kim is quite happy to clean up for me!!)

Our Airbnb Host brought a gift of fresh lettuce, cucumber and zucchini yesterday, so that inspired my lunch. Salad with a zucchini frittata. She's also told me I can use the herbs and silverbeet out of her garden as I want it......that's pretty cool for someone like me! I've already started putting the vegetables scraps in her compost bin.

For me, it’s going to be a time to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do for a while, which will include catching up on some blog posting and some food posting with Lucy's Kitchen facebook page, so if you haven’t already liked the page, do so now if you enjoy seeing photos of food! It’s also going to be some time spent on me! For a while now I’ve had various health problems that pop up every now and again and basically we eat very well, don’t drink too much and get plenty of fresh air and not exactly exercise, but physical activity. My main problem is stress and that is a killer so I’ve been searching for a way to stress less and to find more peace and calm in my life.

I’ve just read a book that my son gave me to read and while it was very interesting, I was wondering what he got out of it, as for a start I wandered what I got out of it. I just worked out that what I got out of it is that finding peace and fulfilment has to start with me. I don’t need to search for some cure or method, its’ already within me. I just have to accept it and practice it! Sounds a bit dumb, and I have read many self-help, positive thinking, you know the type of book….and finally the light bulb went off. I’m sure my son got something different out of it and I think I will get more on reflection. (I haven't really explained that very well, but I know what I mean!)

Anyway, it’s very easy to feel this way on holidays and when you are many miles away from what’s causing the stress! The next two weeks will be spent doing things for me and hopefully this will include writing more posts.

Food and Ethics

I have recently had a few people ask me about my food philosophy. One person asked if most farmers grow their own food and eat like we do. Actually I don't really know for sure, but I don't think too many of the farmers around our area do.

So what exactly is my philosophy?

I have very strong views on the farming of animals for a start! I believe that animals should only be farmed free range - ethical farming I call it. It is wrong and I believe unnecessary to lock animals in small, crowded cages/pens, where they don't have access to display their natural behaviours. We don't need feedlots (CAFO's) to feed the world. If we returned the farmland that is currently used to grow grain for cattle feedlots, to pasture, if we managed our pasture lands using regenerative farming techniques, if we de-centralised our food systems, we can feed the world.

Re-hydrating our land is one of the regenerative farming techniques we are doing.

(People starving in the world is not due to animal or land management, it's due to politics and I'm not going into that now!)

We grow our own meat, so I very rarely buy meat. If I eat out and there isn't a free range option on the menu, I will often have vegetarian. I actually don't go out very often, so it's not a huge issue for me. I've had to buy eggs lately, and I just cannot buy anything but true free range. If I can't get them, we go without!

Turkeys for food.

Vegetables and fruit I try and buy local where I can and when I can't grow them myself. I often go to the markets so will buy there mostly. Even though most of the time the local stuff is not organic, I choose local over organic and not local. Unfortunately potatoes, onions and carrots are essential vegetables for me and aren't grown locally terribly often. I usually buy spuds and carrots from my organic delivery person and when I do that, I'll often buy a few other veg that I don't normally get, just for  a change. Onions are often really expensive organically so I tend to buy commercial onions (and we eat a lot of onions). Spuds and carrots are only worth buying organically because they have so much more flavour.

Most of my dry goods I get from our local whole foods supplier. These are also organic. My preference with all food choices would be organic, but as I said before, local comes first for me. One of my concerns with non-organic farming (think wheat and other grains) is the amount of chemicals used. Glysophate is such a commonly used herbicide and I know for a fact that the withholding period is not long enough and crops are harvested too soon. I don't buy non-organic grains.

So in a nutshell:
Free range and/or organic where possible.
Local food comes first in vegetables and fruit (over organic).
Meat - I wouldn't buy intensively farmed meat even if it was local.
I try not to support Coles or Woolworths, because they DO NOT support farmers. If I can't buy dry goods from a local business, I will buy online (e.g. Who gives a crap toilet paper)
I support local food systems and small business.
I would prefer to buy things without single use plastic, but realise that this is not always possible for small producers going to the markets (it certainly isn't possible for our business)

And to be completely honest, I would stick to this at least 90% of the time. Sometimes, especially if I'm travelling, it's hard, but I'll support a local business if I can't get local food. One final comment I'd like to make, is I know it's expensive to buy organic, but I choose to go without other things so that I can afford to. I don't believe that we can afford to muck about with out health buying choosing less nutrient dense food. I also prioritise my time to grow and prepare food. It's all about choice!

End of January already!!!!

It has been really hot for the last month (okay, for the last couple of months) and even though we've had some rain, we could do with a lot more - we've had just enough to get the grass growing and then the hot dry days come and the grass turns blue! I'm sure the wet will come in soon and we'll be waiting for it to dry out, but at the moment, we are just putting up with the oppressive heat!! I'm hoping to post soon about some farming things, but I thought I might just put up some photos of some of our food experiences while over in the West for our Christmas break.....

Whenever we travel, we like to look for local food and tend to stay in places where we can cook for ourselves. I like the concept of eating out, but it is so hard to find places where the food reaches my expectations! I have certain dietary requirements that aren't easily met. For example, I like food that is freshly prepared, in season and local. Preferably as organic as possible. I don't have dairy, grain or other intolerances, I just have intolerance to inferior quality. So I find it more satisfying to spend my money on good quality produce and then prepare it myself. A lot of the time, this costs as much as what I might spend in a restaurant, but I get to have the pleasure of cooking with quality ingredients and eating within my dietary requirements. And by buying local produce, we are supporting farmers like ourselves - people that care about providing quality food to the local market!

Rosemary grows so well in Western Australia, this plant is huge, and was one of the only things growing happily in my daughters yard - I did make her some rosemary salt as I couldn't help myself after seeing it!

I did a lot of shopping at local farmers markets, however WA is very good at supporting local food and most produce us labelled as grown in WA if it is.

Tomato bruschetta for lunch.

We have friends in the Margaret River area with a farm - they do market their own beef - Leeuwin Grass-fed Beef, however this was some of their lamb. Wiltsure Lamb - eaten on their farm.

Grass fed and finished beef from the Claremont markets. These were huge and very delicious!

Locally made chorizo in a salad for lunch.

Local Fish with veg.

Great seafood in WA, but the crayfish are the best seafood anywhere!!!

One of the main reasons we went to WA was to catch up with Kim's family, and especially his mother who turned 90 this year. We held a party for her, and Kim's cousin in-law finished the evening by cooking paella - it was great to watch the whole process.

I think I need one of these pans!

Time and lack of it

My life just seems to turn into one big whirl of busy-ness sometimes! It's nearly Christmas and I'm really not ready for it, although I am ready for the 2 weeks away that we will be having over that time! Kim and I will be having some time off in Western Australia - can't wait to catch up with Kim's family from over there, but especially our daughter.....she wants me to spend some time with her in the kitchen as she wants to get her mojo back.

Has anyone been inspired by my Lucy's Kitchen Facebook page. I've been enjoying posting about our food, and if even one person gets some inspiration to cook something, whether it be something I've done, or just been motivated to cook something from scratch or plant something in a garden, then I've achieved what I set out to do. As I've said before, it's not hard to cook good food, it's all about prioritising time and buying good ingredients.

This afternoon I decided that I'd better make some time to spend in the garden and tidy it up or else I won't have a garden! The green panic grass was starting to take over and shade too much. A little bit of shade in this heat is good, but not the amount I've been getting!

We've been eating kale and other greens, the odd tomato and lots of herbs. My eggplant is not so good - it's always too bitter, even after salting it. My lettuce are really struggling in this heat, so yesterday I bought the first lettuce that I've bought in months! I'm just waiting for my Brazilian spinach, Ceylon spinach and a newly planted Egyptian spinach to get big enough to start eating. The Ceylon spinach got me through last summer as our go to lettuce for salads.

I've pulled all my garlic - I didn't weigh it, but I did get two lovely big plaits. I've planted and waiting to harvest - snake beans, zucchini, tomatoes, capsicums, rosellas. The rosellas I mainly want to make some tea, although if I get enough off my two plants to make a small batch of jam I'll be happy with that too!

This was the first one I did and about the second one was twice as big as this. This one is gone and I'm working my way through the next one.

Below are some shots of my tidier garden, however I've lost quite a few plants from last weeks heat!

This last photo shows my two surviving (out of 5) rosellas and my asparagus that I never managed to eat in time. I didn't have enough netting to go over the top, so I've just put it around some of the plants to try and stop the chooks.

Garden

Last weekend I spent a day doing a kitchen garden workshop with Kookaburra Organics. It was very well run and a small group so very personal and easy to ask questions etc. It has made me very enthusiastic to get my own garden organised. I've got lots in my garden, but I have to keep it covered to keep the chooks, turkeys and poddy goats out! It's not ideal on a few fronts - it looks terrible, the bees can't get to my plants, and I've only got some stuff covered. Asparagus, banana trees, chilli bushes etc are all uncovered and have been really suffering.

I planted up most of my veg back in June, although I planted the garlic way before that. In my garden at the moment - I'm picking - eggplant, silver beet, perpetual spinach, lettuce, shallots, , basil, parsley, chilli, capsicum (not many), the odd tomato, kale (curly and calvero nero), warrigal greens, celery (very small but I keep picking it), garlic tops at the moment, the bottoms are going to be a little while, kang kong (water spinach), a little bit of coriander, but it's mostly gone to seed now, turmeric - mostly dug, but still a few bits to dig when I want fresh stuff.

Kangkong, chilli and turmeric from the garden

Stir fried kangkong for dinner

What's not growing very well, is my asparagus and bananas thanks to the animals! I've got mulberries and mandarines in the chook yard. Limes are still coming on, but slowing down now. The lime tree is in flower and got baby limes on - it's a fantastic tree!

So this is my garden at the moment.

I wouldn't have anything in the garden if I didn't have the netting, but it's not pretty!

This kale is from last year. There's also basil, lettuce and the silver beet and spinach that the goats ate.

Eggplant in the back, some marigolds and tomatoes struggling.

A close up of my tomato (I don't have many on). I have some yellow cherries in another bed as well.

Lots of kale  and a wombok cabbage that has gone to seed. I grew some nice ones last year, but haven't had any luck this year.

My garlic section with some turmeric and another cabbage not quite gone to seed yet.

My fantastic lime tree.

A Goaty Tale

We love to eat goat meat and whenever we visited Kim's brother we would always came back with an esky full of goat meat. He lives at Aramac and had a nice little herd of goats. Once we started the free range pork business we decided to offer goat meat as well, so that meant we became goat breeders with our own little goat herd. 

We've gradually built up numbers by keeping our own females and occasionally bringing in some live nannies from Aramac. In the meantime we ate the odd goat from our neighbour. No we aren't into goat stealing, Kim would help him kill one or two and we'd get some of the meat. This meat was much nicer than our own goat meat (my apologies to any customers reading this). For some reason that I am unaware of (although I am positive that's what he told us), we had thought his goats were Anglo Nubian, which is a duel purpose breed - meaning good for milk and meat. For the last twelve months or more we've been trying to get an Anglo Nubian billy. We drove all the way to Kingaroy once to pick up one but when we got there we discovered that they were another totally different breed, British Alpine, and when I googled them (at the farm) it stated that they were not suitable for the tropics.  We decided not to take them, but because we'd travelled so far he gave us a whether of very dubious age. We ended up eating him and he too was very tasty. 

So back on the trail of getting our hands on a billy. The next time we rang about one, the breeder bred Anglo Nubian and Kalahari Reds. She had one of the latter available and seeing as we desperately needed a bully we took him instead. All this while we kept asking our neighbour for one oh his billies. Finally just after we got onto another Anglo Nubian billy, our neighbour sold us a nanny with a billy kid. The Anglo Nubian we bought was a totally different looking animal to the neighbours. When I mentioned this to the neighbour he was quite emphatic that his breed were definitely Saanen! We have been looking for the wrong breed the whole time!

And now we have lost the little billy kid to some sort of predator. I don't think we are meant to have a Saanen.  The funny thing was that when we went to buy the goat that turned out to be a British alpine, it was the colour of it that made me double check the breed - Anglo Nubians happen to look more like a British alpines, and nothing like saanen!

Further to the story about our Saanen nanny that is kidless.....She's not terribly quiet and I would see her with her bulging udder and feel sorry for her, but I could never catch her to do anything about it. The other day I went out to the goat paddock and she had her head stuck in the fence. I grabbed a dish and milked her out. Everyday she gets her head stuck so I've been milking her out every day. Then I decided to give the milk to one of our poddies who hasn't been drinking the calf powdered milk and is a little bit sick looking. The little goat drank the goats milk straight away. Makes sense really. 

We have 8 poddy goats at the moment and I had thought about trying to see if the nanny will take one of the kids so maybe I should see if my sick little one will bond with her and her with it.

They are cute when they are like the above photo, but not so cute like the below one. I have also had to banish them from the house yard as they have stripped every plant they could reach and managed to get under my bird netting in the garden!