New things

12:11 PM 2013, cooking, damper, garden, sorrel No Comments

Damper

We were doing some burning off the other day and Toni was inspired by our friend Steve, the "Damper Guru", to try her first.  So off she went, and made a savory Damper using her home made cheese and some garlic.

Damper

It went down a treat with her home made sweet corn soup, done on the top of the wood heater

Home made Sweet Corn Soup (cinnamon scrolls and bread proving at the same time)

Sorrel

Always learning. For the longest time we didn't really know what this was

Sorrel in the garden

It's always been there in the garden, turns out it was Sorrel, who knew ? Not us.. until now !

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time for an update

7:56 PM 2013, cheese making, cooking No Comments

Bloosoms

the winter so far has been fairly warm and the fist of the buds are out for the Peaches

Peach blossoms

Nectarines and Apples

Apple Blossoms

The Apples have never been particularly successful, I am told our "monsoon" weather pattern is the main reason, that is, wet summers and drier winters.  We'll see how they go this year as we've had a wetter than normal, albeit mild winter.

Weeds

For those interested in edible and useful "weeds" we came across this a few months ago

We've found a couple of the weeds mentioned and plan to use some in various salads etc

Dock, found growing in the Orchard

You can get a copy here if you're interested.  Interesting book.  We just wish we could find something on Fungi, as we have so many varieties on our property with no real idea as to which ones are edible.  Anyone know of a foragers guide to Fungi in Australia ?

Cheese...

is going great,

Freshly made Feta

Feta and Ricotta only at the moment. Neufchâtel is the next cheese to try.  You can read more about the great cheese factory here.  It sells well when Toni takes it to the Farmers Market and overall the feedback has been positive.  After watching her idol Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on River Cottage the other night, now she wants her own Cow... mmmm

Baking

Cinnamon Scrolls

Just before going in the oven

 were recently added to the home baked menu, love 'em !

Breads and Scrolls proving near the fire

Stored in the freezer, they are easily reheated over the fire in a small metal pan.  No Gas or electricity (even though we're 100% renewable) needed !

In fact, I am off to heat one now !  Ooo 'roo !

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and again with the cooking

4:38 PM cheescake, cooking, lemons, sweet potato No Comments

When life hands you lemons, make lemon cheesecake.  There are a couple bush lemon trees on some public land just down the road that are currently full of lemons

Using the recipe below it's quite easy

Easy Lemon Cheescake

Ingredients

397 grams sweetened condensed milk
80 grams butter
300 grams cream cheese
285 ml of thickened cream that's been 1/2 whipped cream
4 large lemons
biscuits (crushed for the base)

Procedure

• Take a loose bottomed cake tin, melt butter slowly on stove and add the crush biscuits. Once the butter has been absorbed, turn into the tin and pat down gently and refrigerate.
• For the cheesecake mixture, place the soft cheese into a mixing bowl and start to soften with an electric mixer add the sweetened condensed milk slowly, this will ensure no lumps from the cheese remain
• Then add the cream
• Squeeze the lemons
• Add the lemon juice to the bowl a bit at a time & you'll find the mixture starts to thicken
• Once all of the lemon juice has been added then transfer this to the biscuit base and refrigerate for an hour. 

We added some grated lemon rind to get a but more tang !

Easy lemon cheesecake

Long time blog followers ha ha ha ! May remember we had a visit from our local superhero, Superfixerupperman the other week, lucky we did as we used the repaired pan for the cheesecake above.!

Lemon Delicious

on the topic of desserts, we were at a friends house a week ago and they made a "traditional" Lemon Delicious or Baked Lemon Pudding.

Lemon Delicious borrowed recipe

They had no lemons and made it on limes, equally "delicious".  We have plenty of lemons, so off Toni went again

Lemon Delecious

Served six it said... mmmm :)

and Sweet Potato Soup

You may remember a couple blog posts ago about the sweet potatoes, well after boiling away on the stove,

Stove is heating the cottage, heating water for the dishes (rainy day, no solar)
and cooking the soup

this is the end result, after it goes through the blender for 20 seconds (renewable solar energy used for the blender !)

Home made bread with sweet potato soup, parsley from the garden
and some grated Granna Pedarno cheese

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cuisine and cookin'

8:56 PM cheese making, cooking, jam, marmalade No Comments

Well, Toni has been cooking up a storm.

Cheese

She recently (for her birthday) was gifted a beginners cheese-making set to which she has taken too with enthusiasm, making her own Feta and Ricotta, very tasty to I must say.

Making the Feta

Decanting to a cheesecloth

Draining for a few hours, to separate the Whey

The Whey is then used to make Whey based Ricotta

Finished Feta

Finished Ricotta

Jams, Marmalade and Cordial

The citrus trees are heavy with fruit, and the marmalade had recently run out, so time to make some more !  Once again the Sally Wise book "Year in a Bottle" is used:

Passion fruit Cordial

and away we go, adding some of the frozen passion fruit collected earlier.

Passionfruit Cordial

Marmalade on the wood heater at night, no gas used !

Marmalade simmering away

and we had some left over blackberries in the refrigerator, so why not some more Blackberry Jam !  Why not indeed

Blackberry Jam

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after the rain

1:15 PM 2013, cooking, garden, tamarillo 1 Comment

After the rain

some minor repairs were needed and a few things didn't survive, most noticeably the recently planted new Tamarillo

Tamarillo seedling went toes up

but our wonderful neighbour Chantel provided us with another, we planted this one up on a large mound in the sweet potato patch to help keep it's roots a little drier. The orchard area can get a little damp with lots of water, which we had ! Thank you so much to our wonderful neighbour

Tamarillio redux. !

Some of the plants of course LOVED the wet, the Orange Jasmine went mad with flowers and it's wonderful perfume wafts through the house

Orange Jasmine

when life give you limes, you make lime cordial

The lime tree has gone into overdrive, producing a huge quantity of fruit, we have sold some and made Lime cordial, with the recipe sourced from Sally Wise's book Life in a Bottle with others but we have way too many.  It's a little sweet for us but previous attempts to make it less sweet (sorry for messing with the recipe Sally !) by using less sugar, ended in the disaster of fermenting cordial !  So we just squeeze more fresh lime juice in, to tone the sweetness down.

We also use them often just cut in 1/2 and squeezed into some cold glass of water.  This  was a favourite drink of ours whilst in Cambodia last year.

Sally Wise's book "Life in a Bottle" + excess Limes = Lime cordial !

Garden

the garden is on the go

Corn coming along

and the chickens are on the grow

Male = meat,  female = eggs

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Garden of earthly delights

2:25 PM 2012, cooking, garden, Menucha nechona No Comments

We are completely misusing Hieronymus Bosch's trypitch painting "Garden of Earthly Delights" but none the less, that's the title that springs to mind when walking in the early  Summer garden.  Well started by Steve and Toni's continuing good works sees it overflowing with bounty

We see this

One mornings tomato harvest !

become this

Tomato puree

for use in pastas later in the year

The herb garden

Main herb garden

with associated frog pond

Frog Pond

The pond is an excellent indication of the gardens general health in relation to chemicals (canary in the coal mine !), with the bonus being the frogs eat some of the pests !

The basil is doing well and makes a great pesto when combined with a few other ingredients

Basil

Some of the plants are being let go to seed, to deliberately collect the seed for future use

Lettuce going to seed

The capsicum

Capsicum (bell peppers)

and chillis are coming along

Chillis

As are the thornless blackberries !

Ripening Blackberries

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wild, wild, life...

10:59 PM 2012, climate change, cooking, fauna, garden, snake No Comments

wild, wild, life...

No, not an ode to  the seminal Talking Heads tune but living in rural Australia, in the bush, one of the joys is the wildlife.  While I am somewhat Ophidiophobic Toni is enamoured, so let's continue with the story. 

I was awoken at 2 AM the other night by the raucous cackling of our chickens and wandered down to check what was happening  with my spotlight.  I had visions of either a Fox (though we had never seen any here) or a native Quoll, (we had lost a chicken before to a Quoll) but while looking around the yard, I spied a large Carpet Python in the Mulberry tree causing the disturbance, it had it's beady eye on a target, one of the roosting chickens.  Some of the chickens refuse to roost in their salubrious accommodation i.e. the chook house and prefer the vagaries of the weather.  So there (s)he was harassing the girls, looking for a meal.  I swallowed my masculine pride and raced back to the house squealing like a little girl to wake Toni...

we then proceeded to grab the rake ho's and she dragged it out of the tree, while balancing on the step ladder, bagged it and we then relocated it after daylight.  Only a little cursing for having been woken at that hour, what a sweetie.

and here (s)he is after being released, what a fine fellow

Carpet Python

working in the garden

After all the fabulous work Steve has done in the garden, Toni is continuing by prepping a couple beds for seedlings and planting seeds in other beds

Herb garden is looking great

and the Pepino's are coming along at just the right time, as most of the other fruit has finished

Pepino bush

Pepino ripe for the pickin'

and we have them as a side order with breakfast most morning

Eating the garden

Nom, nom, nom !

Just about everything on the breakfast plate is homemade or home grown, the only thing not is the cheese, pepper and Thai Egg flavouring sauce (that we got attached to while in SE Asia).  The fruit plate is white mulberries, pepino, strawberries, raspberries and brazillian cherries

Climate Change

I saw these words on a tech. forum I visit (/. for those in the know) and thought them poignant

Our economic system is clearly unsustainable in ways environmental and mathematical. That means our current way of life won't last forever. Since we don't seem to be doing much to fundamentally change, we are leaving the coming transition entirely in the hands of nature.

Over Population and Climate Change (inexorably linked, too many people using too much, one or the other needs reduction for a balance to occur) are two top of mind topics for us, often leaving us a little flummoxed as they no serious work done on them to ameliorate their effects.  Mostly just talk.. and more talk... and defense of those talks with more talks and the moving of blame for someone else (Government) to do "something" with no real objective look at the action needed.  Everyone skirts what seems palpably obvious and that is to actually do anything everyone in the western world is going to have to wear a hairshirt, something most have no interest in facing up to.

We're here trying to work our way through it by engaging practically in seeing what works in the reduction side of the equation.

From "The Conversation" the other day

Human role in climate change now virtually certain: leaked IPCC report

“It is virtually certain that this is caused by human activities, primarily by the increase in CO2 concentrations. There is very high confidence that natural forcing contributes only a small fraction to this imbalance.”

“If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs like WattsUp, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence. This should open people’s eyes as to the credibility of the alternative ‘views’ they are serving up.”

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A days delectable delights

5:59 PM 2012, cooking, garden No Comments

A Days Delectable Delights

One of the great things about the property is feeding yourself from the produce... better than the words is the story evoked via imagery

Breakfast

Breakfast a salad of veggies and herbs from the garden, with a drizzle of an oil/vinegar mix and a little cracked pepper.  Followed with fruit from the orchard, a berry good mix of berries: Strawberries, Brazillian cherries, raspberries with some Peppino Melon

Breakfast

Lunch

Was left overs served with a beautiful lightshow in the sky

The Rainbow Connection - never mind the washing !

and a visit from a a fine feathered friend.

Male King Parrot

Dinner

Go into the garden, past the macro-pods; Rufous Necked Wallabies and Eastern Grey Kangaroos abound (no pun intended)

Carrots and a bucket of veg.

The carrots are for a carrot cake tomorrow, as well as, combined with the other veg and herbs from the garden for dinner, after a little scrubbing turns into this

Cucumber, corn, purple asparagus, spring onion, carrot, zucchini, squash & tomato

that with a little more effort, some home chicken stock from a recently killed rooster, a couple bay leaves from the orchard and herbs from the herb garden is turned into this

Veggie Soup !

which in short time becomes this

Nom, nom, nom !

by adding a little home made wholegrain bread, smeared with a little homenade garlic butter and a little grated cheddar cheese !

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