Holiday

We are having a few days off - this time house sitting on the Gold Coast! We do have some fabulous friends!

The view from our back/side deck.

It's not all holiday unfortunately, we are trying to do some budgets and planning as well, we just don't seem to get that sort of thing done at home. There is just too many distractions and interruptions. So we work half the day and then relax the other half. I thought I'd catch up on some blogging, because I got very far behind what I wanted to do, but haven't really got around to it until now. Our internet was so slow at home for the last two weeks, it was just too frustrating to try and blog.

Afternoon tea on our first afternoon.

My own Farmhouse Cheddar and our salami, with some olives and olive paste that I picked up in downtown Currumbin. The olives do come from Greece - I justified my purchase by saying that I'm supporting the Greek Economy.

We went for a drive over the hill into NSW yesterday and unfortunately just missed a farmers market, but did pick up a few vegies on the way back - an organic vegie stall on the side of the road.

Dinner last night was Duck Confit with Vegetable stew. I have had the duck confit in my fridge for god knows how long! I cooked it up ages ago and cryvacced it in it's own fat. It was so perfectly alright, I was amazed. (I was a little concerned about giving myself food poisoning, but fortunately that didn't happen).

Tonight I'm going to bake a whole whiting and some fish wings, and we'll have an entree of fresh prawns and oysters. I decided to do the fish wings (because they are yummy) mainly to use bits that don't always get eaten. We as consumers need to consider the whole animal when we eat - hence a whole fish  and the wings to bake. I'll bake these in ginger, garlic and lemon. I don't have a lot of condiments here, so I'll let the produce speak for itself!

Life is too short for bad food!!

French Farewell

Our two lovely french girls are leaving tomorrow, so tonight is a little sad! We get very attached to our backpacker helpers and it's always hard when they leave. Marie and Louise-Marie have been with us for 3 months. Most of our backpackers stay the three months and the majority enjoy the time and the experience. It's a win/win, as we get to enjoy the company of some great young people, and they get to learn about the Aussie way of life and also a little about living a sustainable lifestyle.

These two girls both received parcels from home while they were with us and these included some things that we had tonight as part of a farewell dinner. Foie Gras, rillette, champagne and some red wine. I was very unsure about the Foie Gras, as I really don't like the way it is produced. I was so prepared not to like it! But....I did....it was creamy and soft (and firm at the same time) and just the faintest of liver taste. Marie made ginger bread and Florine (another French backpacker) made some onion jam, which is one way to eat it. We had three types of rillette - sardine, prawn and tuna. All were quite good (although I think I do prefer pork rillette). I made a loaf of garlic herb bread, which I cooked in the camp oven. I had promised a camp oven meal, but it never happened! The bread was great with the rillette.

I cooked a good old Aussie stew for main course (goat, which isn't typical, but nicer than lamb!).

The girls did desert, but couldn't decide what to do, so Laura (English backpacker) made a cheese cake and Marie made chocolate brownie. I'm saving the brownie for tomorrow, because one desert is enough for me!!(everyone else had a bit of both AND icecream!) The cheesecake was delicious, especially with some local Yeppoon strawberries.

Our "family" will be less two tomorrow, but we still have four helpers, so all's good! Edmund took this photo, so he's not in it, but we have Maitland at home as well, so it's a full house!

I haven't been posting very often, as we have used all our download (a week ago) and we still have a week to go before it resets. It's taken me nearly an hour to do this post! Sometimes it's frustrating living in the bush and only being able to get a maximum of 25 gig!

Tied to the kitchen

The last few days we have had extra people so life has been revolving around the kitchen and preparing meals! We had 4 backpackers and then two more came Sunday (an accidental overlap!) and also on Sunday a Vet Student turned up to do a weeks work experience here, as well as a mate of Maitland's from the Sunny Coast. So.....12 people at present.

I have great help with food prep, but it does take some organising to make sure it all happens. How do you keep 12 working people well fed?

Breakfast is usually a cooked one - eggs and leftovers or eggs and salami, or scrambled eggs, or eggs! Fortunately the chooks are laying very well at the moment.

Morning teas are usually toast or if someone has baked biscuits or cake, we have that.

Lunches - I like to alternate soup and salad lunches. My soup is usually made up of some of my bone broth and whatever vegetables that are in the fridge and need using up. I also throw in whatever cooked vegetables are left over. One soup this week, was three different soup leftovers that were combined to make one soup. Delicious! Nana would be so proud of me! Salad lunch - we have cold meat, either corn beef, pickled pork, salami, ham or left over roast. A salad made up of fresh lettuce from the garden, tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum - just the usual suspects. We've been picking up some lovely cheap avocados from a roadside stall and of course my feta cheese. I've been making lots of it over the last week and as usual it is proving very popular amongst the backpackers.
Soup of the Day today is ham and vegetable soup.

Dinner......This week we've had BBQ, Slow Roasted pork (was supposed to be pulled pork tortillas, but we got a bit busy and just had it with vegetables), Edmund's spaghetti bolognaise and goat curry. Tonight's dinner is going to be slow roasted shoulder of goat - roasted with lime, rosemary and garlic. Served with roast vegies.

We do eat a lot of bread here, and the bread machine goes every day. I try to stick to my sour dough bread, but the backpackers all love bread and especially the home made stuff. I've made three batches of feta this week and 3 litres of yoghurt. We cooked up a batch of tomato sauce with tomatoes from the markets and also some star fruit jam. I picked up the star fruit from the roadside stall and while I'm not over fussed on the fruit itself, it makes lovely jam. One of my lovely customers from 1770 made some for me and so I've made a few batches now as it's quick and easy to do in the thermomix with a small amount of fruit. I put a vanilla bean and the zest and juice of a lime to give it a little extra oomph!!! Yum! Happy to post the recipe if anyone wants it.

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.........