Fruity muffins on winter mornings

It's cold here. Winter has hit and come with a chill and we still don't have our heater installed.

Delay after delay from the place we've bought it from means that despite being promised that it would be installed in early May, we still have it sitting in boxes on the verandah. We've been told it will be installed first thing Monday morning. Fingers crossed. 

In the meantime, while we continue to snuggle inside in our winter woollies and dream of crackling logs, bread baked by their heat and a constantly hot kettle on our wood stove, I've been enjoying playing with our sourdough. 

For about 9 months, our starter lived in the fridge and was pulled our once a week, fed, used to make tortillas and then put back in the fridge.  But I've had a few successes with bread so I'm using it as my go to loaf a few times a week and also making these delicious sourdough English muffins with dried fruit each week. I make a double batch and freeze the leftovers - they are so lovely toasted with honey, butter or jam for breaky on a cool morning. 

Sourdough fruity English muffins

This is the double batch, feel free to halve and make only 8. 

The night before you want them, put a few handfuls of dried fruit into a bowl. Add two tablespoons of delicious local honey and a cup of hot water from the kettle. Mix and allow to sit a little while. 

Then add 2/3 cup more water (you can use milk or whey if you like) and 4 cups of flour and a cup of active sourdough starter. Mix well and put in a 'not too freezing'/warm place overnight. 

Next morning. Turn an electric frypan onto medium low her. Put on the lid and let if warm. 

To your dough, add 1 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tsp bicarb. Mix and knead well adding extra flour as needed. Cut the dough into 16 even pieces and roll into balls. 

Flatten and shape each ball into a rough muffin shape (roundish, about 8cm diameter and about 1-2cm thick). Place muffins into your pan and replace the lid. I fit 8 in at a time. 

Cook for 5-10min until golden on the bottom. Turn and replace the lid and cook for a further 5-10min. Remove to a cooling rack. 

Cook remaining muffins. 

To eat, split muffins with a knife, toast and spread lavishly with your topping of choice. Yum!

Zucchini crumble recipe

This recipe is for all of my friends who are currently drowning in zucchini from their garden - especially those of you who accidentally grow GIANT marrow size zucchini! :-) its not my recipe, but I can't credit the original recipe as I've long since lost the source, but I do love it. 

Zucchini crumble/pie filling (a dessert)

Take a giant zucchini (or several small), peel, remove seeds (if necessary) and cut into 1cm cubes. You need about 4 cups. 

Put your diced zucchini into a saucepan and cover with water. Boil until tender. 

Drain and cover with cold water for 5minutes. Drain again (I like to leave mine in the colander for 10min to really drain and cool).

Stir in the following:

1 cup of sugar 

1 dessert spoon cream of tartar

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

There - crumble/pie filling done!

The mixture tastes a lot like pie apple and makes a great dessert. Feed it to your guests - they'll think its apple (promise!). It will thicken on sitting. 

Use this to make your favourite crumble or pie and enjoy, knowing that a few more veg are ending up in your bellies, rather than in the chook bucket! ;-)

Enjoy!!

Whole wheat chocolate cake recipe.

It's one of those go-slow Friday mornings for me. I've struggled with a cold (and the horrendous cold sores that came with it!) for the last week, but haven't really stopped doing. My brain is working a at a thousand clicks a minute at the moment as I work on learning with my goat, getting the veggie garden ready for summer crops, working on belly dance projects, making Christmas presents, doing the spring cleaning and sprucing up around here, enjoying school hols and all the other regular stuff too. There is so much happening in my head that I go to sleep late and wake up at 5am each morning - wide awake, raring to go. Last night I had a fabulous dance session with one of my favourite people - we chatted over a cuppa, then cranked the music and finished creating a really beautiful, slinky, slow and clever (if I do say so myself) dance.  I can feel the effects of the dance in my body and catch myself doing the moves all the time (I think Jorgie was impressed 😊). But this morning I'm tired, so I'm taking some time out with a pot of tea before my world starts racing again, and feeling grateful that I wrote the draft of the following post earlier in the week.  Have a lovely weekend.....

~~~~~

 One of my main reasons for buying a thermomix was to be able to grind wheat to make my baked goods more nutritious.  I don't grind wheat (at least not always) for my sourdough breads, but I've been trying to for other breads, pancakes, pastry, pasta, muffins, biscuits etc.

Today I adapted a chocolate cake recipe using my home ground wheat.   The cake was slightly gritty in texture because I didn't grind the wheat fine enough, but it was moist and very tasty nonetheless and with all that bonus fibre and fresh ground wheat goodness in it, I can almost ignore all the sugar and butter and think it healthy! ;)
 

The un-iced cake cooling.  It is quite a flat cake, but feels lovely and springy.

.............

I'll write the instructions for both thermomix users and non-thermomix users. 

• 250g wheat, ground to flour
• 4tbsp cacao or cocoa (more or less depending on how chocolatey you like things)
• 2dsp baking powder
• 100g raw sugar
• 100g brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 250ml milk
• 200g softened butter

1. In the thermomix, I started by grinding my wheat - about 90sec/speed 9. Use a grinder if you don't have a thermomix, or you could use purchased whole wheat flour, then transfer to a food processor or bowl of a mixer. 
2. Add other dry ingredients. Turbo a few times to mix if using a thermomix, or pulse in a food processor or stir if using a mixer. 
3. Add all of your wet ingredients. Thermomix users, 30sec/speed 5, scrape down and repeat. All others, beat well for a few minutes. 
4. Pour into a greased and lined cake tin and bake at 180 for 45min (or until cooked). 
5. Turn cake out to cool on a rack. Ice (I made a very basic melted butter and water chocolate icing, but use whatever you like) and enjoy!

The Great Wright Family Bakeoff!

Last week we watched the finale of The Great Australian Bakeoff. We got right into watching the show, which is quite unlike us - we usually don't go for reality TV. I'm not sure what it was about this show that hooked us - it could've been the delicious things they baked through the series, or maybe the corny jokes the host Shane Jocobson liked to crack, maybe it was the cruel judging reminiscent of country shows, or perhaps it was the gorgeous vintage décor (seriously, bunting made from vintage Australiana tea towels - too cute). Whatever it was, this reality TV meets the CWA show had us hooked enough to record it for the kids each week and watch it all together.

We loved it so much that we decided to have our own bake off - a muffin bake off. 

Last week, all for of us submitted a muffin flavour so that I could shop for any special ingredients. Then, yesterday morning (after brief Father's Day celebrations), we set up our kitchen for the baking. 

I supplied a basic muffin recipe, and each of us followed that recipe with our own flavours and variations. 

Stu and Jamie went first. They chopped, measured and mixed until they put their trays of muffins in the oven. Then it was mine and Lachie's turn to start baking.
 

Two hours later, 46 muffins had been baked and cooled and we'd each selected our best three to present for judging. 

Jamie presented some beautiful Jaffa muffins - flavoured with fresh orange juice and zest and dotted with chocolate chips. 

Lachie created a family favourite - chocolate, choc chip muffins. He added a few special caramel choc chips to the top of each and presented them beautifully on his choc chip leaf plate. 

Stu's muffins stole the show for looks - raspberry white choc muffins presented in a snow storm of grated white chocolate. 

And I tempted us all with the scent of warm cinnamon sugar with my jam donut flavoured muffins - a spoonful of strawberry jam in a lightly spiced muffin topped with melted butter and lots of cinnamon sugar. 

Tasting and judging was rather fun - I think the fact that we all got to eat our creations made us all winners!  But the judging was close (and sometimes harsh!), but there was a clear winner - Jamie's Jaffa flavoured muffins. 

Gotta say, I was very impressed with everyone's efforts. Every batch was moist and delicious. 

Lots of fun, with the bonus of a freezer full of muffin deliciousness for the week ahead's lunch boxes. It was such good family fun that we're already planning our next bakeoff......

~~~

 

Our Basic Muffin Recipe

• 1 1/2 cups SR flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tbsp. oil
• + flavourings of your choice

(try cocoa and choc chips, replacing some of the milk with orange juice and adding choc chips, spices and jam or white chocolate and berries)

1. Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix wet ingredients in a measuring jug.
3. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just combined (don't over mix or you'll make tough muffins!).
4. Spoon mixture into muffin cups until about 1/2-2/3 full (we made 10-12 muffins with each batch).
5. Bake at 200C for 15-20min until lightly browned and springy.
6. Cool, decorate and serve.

The evolution of our bread

I'm very pleased to say that I've been baking nearly all of the bread we eat for about 18 months now. And I've come a long way from those first (barely edible) loaves.

I initially started baking our own bread, not for the health of taste benefits, but for the waste reduction. It was back in the beginning of our 12 months of greening, and I was determined to reduce the amount of rubbish in our bin each week. Plastic bread bags and tags became a pet hate and so I set about replacing them with recyclable, paper flour sacks. 

Over the first few months, I perfected my baking, and eventually had a recipe of my own that consistently churned out delicious bread and rolls for my family. Everyone was happy.... And then I realised how often I was buying yeast and began to read about how much healthier sourdough is..... 

I figured it was worth a try. For me, the idea of growing my own yeast at home just made sense, and the idea of a bread(which we eat a lot of!) that was better for us seemed a worthy goal. So a couple of months ago, I made myself a sourdough starter. 

Ten days after mixing that first batch if flour and water, I baked our first loaf. I wish I could say that it was fabulous, but it was reminiscent of those first loaves of bread (ie. barely edible). So I tried again. The boys offered support - they too remember that I had a bad start with regular bread- but I knew they were longing for a loaf of my old bread. 

After the third loaf, things were improving, but I wanted a change, so I tried these sourdough tortillas.  They were easily the best tortillas we have ever eaten - hooray!  The sourdough culture was now smiled upon by all. 

Our latest triple batch of sourdough tortillas.

I kept trying with the bread, different recipes, techniques and tweaks, and eventually, I found my own recipe, an adaptation of this one. It's not quite as easy as the bread recipe I was using before, but it uses ingredients I'm comfortable with, fits my routine and makes delicious bread for the whole family. Like my old recipe, one batch makes a loaf and a dozen rolls for lunches of a couple of large loaves, so it saves on time, power and effort. 

It's not too sour (even though I don't use the baking soda as the recipe suggests), which is a good thing for a family loaf, and so long as I get a good rise in the first proving, it is lovely and soft.  The kids are happy to have the bread bin full of deliciousness again, and I love that I no longer have to buy yeast and that the bread is just a little better for us again (a far cry from nutritionless stuff I used to buy from the supermarket!). 

A soft and delicious sourdough sandwich loaf.

And to make a good thing better, we've discovered some of the other wonderful things I can make with sourdough starter!  English muffins, crackers, donuts and a choc orange cake have been tried and the tortillas are a weekly event. For Stu's  birthday, I experimented and created a sourdough hummingbird cake which was amazing!  I'll share the recipe soon. I'm looking forward to trying pancakes and croissants one day discovering more sourdoughy goodness. 

I'd love to lay out a timeline of our breads evolution - from supermarket bread to now. And I'm looking forward to the next chapter that I hope to attempt in the next year - home ground flour for my bread....

My friend Herman

Last week, one of my lovely neighbours knocked on the door and presented me with a new friend - Herman, the German friendship cake. Not actually a cake, but a portion of sourdough cake starter.

I was so excited!  I'd heard murmurs of Herman's travels in the blogosphere, and I was thrilled that he was travelling through our little town and stopped at our place. 

For ten days, Herman sat on my kitchen bench beside my (still nameless) sourdough culture and my jar of fermenting carrots. I fed him a couple of times and watched him grow. He was a lovely visitor. 

Today was Herman's last day with us. He was divided into four portions and taken in the car to three of my friends' homes. He has lots more travelling to do still. He was welcomed with more excitement into their homes and has found comfortable lodging on their kitchen benches. (And I have three friends who were very pleased that I thought of them!). 

The fourth portion stayed with me to reach its destiny as cake. I opted to make my Herman spicy, adding to the basic recipe a good few spoonfuls of ginger, a spoonful each of cinnamon, cloves and mixed spice, a couple of tablespoons of golden syrup and a cup of sultanas.  (I failed to add bicarb soda though, so my cake turned out short, but still rose due to the natural yeasts, enough to make it light)

Herman was baked and is now being eaten. Such a delicious friend to have!

I opted to not keep a portion of Herman for future cakes - he's a travelling kind of guy and I didn't think it would work to have him boarding here full time. Instead we enjoyed him thoroughly for the time we had him and wish him well on his travels. If he stops past your place, please say hi from us!

For more info on Herman, visit his website www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com. The site has recipes and info and even tells you how to make a starter from scratch, but I reckon it's more fun to wait for him to come knocking on your door. 

Living in the season {and cake too}

I have a bit of a pet hate - heating to summer temps in winter and cooling to winter temps in summer. There is a (large) collection of people who turn thermostats on heaters to 30c through the winter just so they can get about in a tshirt. The same people, undoubtedly, switch on the aircon if the temperature goes over 25c in summer. Grrrrr.... Makes my blood boil!

There's none of that in our house. We probably swing to the opposite extreme. Our centralised system is broken, so we only have room heating and no air con. 

Right now, it's the middle of winter here and it's pretty cold. It never gets cold enough to snow here, but we get a mean frost. We had one this morning that froze everything in sight. This morning, we turned on the heater, but its the first time we've used it in the morning all week. Most mornings, we climb (begrudgingly) out of our toasty warm (thanks to flannelette sheets and good blankets) beds, toss on dressing gowns and slippers and make a warm drink straight away.  Stu and the boys go off to their tropically heated work and school, and I stay here - dressed for the weather. During the day, I wear layers, a singlet and warm socks, a beanie, scarf and fingerless gloves. I wear them inside and out. When I venture out for my morning and evening jobs, I add a coat and boots. The boys follow this dress code on the weekend. 

Do I heat the house in the day?  Depends. If I am running around doing housework, baking with the oven going or in and out all day, then no, I don't. If I'm sitting in one spot sewing or working at the computer, or if I have guests, then I heat the space I'm in. We also heat the kitchen for our evening meal and the lounge room after tea. 

When watching tv or crafting or playing games at night, we use the heater on low. We also use blankets on the couch, and often reach for an extra layer or beanie. 

Hot water bottles are used for warming beds, or on chilly nights to curl up with on the couch. Hot drinks are used frequently, by all of us, to warm from the inside. 

We live like its winter. 

We eat like its winter too. We don't eat fresh tomatoes, zucchini, corn or stone fruits despite the fact that we love them. We'll love them even more when summer comes back. We eat seasonal veggies and fruit and preserved versions (tomato chutney gives that red, tomato-y kick to a sandwich!). 

Porridge is a breakfast favourite, and on days like today, I'm inclined to whip up a bowl of this nutritious, delicious cheap and super warming goodness for lunch too. 

We are eating a lot more soups and curries too. Warming and made from seasonal and preserved foods. They go beautifully with fresh bread (which incidentally warms the house while it cooks). 

My chooks are on their winter holidays, so eggs are off the menu. We still buy the odd dozen free range eggs (preferably local), but I only use them for baking, and choose egg-lite recipes. 

From the garden we're harvesting lettuce, beets, carrots, delicious celery, brocollini and herbs, with wombok, pak choi and kale not far away. These are the basis of most of our meals. We're also harvesting lemons, lots of juicy lemons. 

Tonight, I made a delicious, season friendly, eggless lemon-yoghurt syrup cake.  It was very very easy - kid friendly in fact.  We served it warm with a drizzle of cream and it made a fabulous dessert for us and my brother - very moist and with that fabulous tang that only lemons can give. Yum!

Eggless Lemon-Yoghurt syrup cake. 

(adapted from this recipe)

• 220g plain flour
• 200g sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Juice and zest of 2 medium (juicy) lemons
• 250 ml natural yoghurt (homemade preferably - my 'recipe' is in this post)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil of your choice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Juice of a third lemon (for syrup)
• 3 tablespoons of sugar (for the syrup)

 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree C and grease and flour a pan (I used a 20cm round tin)
2. In a medium-size bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt. 
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the yoghurt and sugar well, till sugar dissolves completely. Then add the zest and juice of lemons, whisk till mixed well. This forms the wet ingredients.
4. Mix your two bowlful a together until we'll combined. 
5. Finally, fold in the oil till it is completely incorporated.
6. Bake at 180 (or 160 if your oven is too hot like mine). degrees for 50 minutes or do until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Meanwhile, make a syrup using the juice of another lemon and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Mix together in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. 
8. When the cake comes out of the oven, leave it in the pan and stab it numerous times with a skewer. Then slowly pour over the syrup, allowing it to soak into the cake. 
9. Let the cake sit for at least ten minutes to soak up the syrup and then serve. 

I wish I could tell you what it tastes like cold, but it was all scoffled up warm for dessert... I guess I'll have to make another while the family isn't home. 

The greener, homemade laundry

Don't you think the laundry just the best room?  Don't you just love filling the machine, taking wet clothes to a line, pegging, sorting, folding and ironing?  No?  Huh, me either!  But short of buying new clothes each week, wearing dirty ones or having someone in regularly to do the chore for you (of which the second option is the most appealing to me), we have no choice. We have to wash our clothes and linens. But how we go about it is a choice, and over the last twelve months, my choices have become increasingly more green and homemade. I can't see any more options for greening up our laundry (short of hand washing everything), so I thought I'd share what I do and the recipes I use.

Washing day makes me so happy!  errr.... no, not really{image}

Firstly, all washing uses power and water, so reducing how much washing I do makes sense. We use mostly cloth things here (rags, napkins, hankies, wee wipes, girly hygiene things etc) so there is always plenty of those things, but we try to make sure we put our clothes in the wash only when they need it. A wind cheater can be worn several times, so can pyjamas, but socks, undies and workout clothes go in after one wear. I run the washing machine 3-4 times a week and only ever with a full load. 

Because I do my washing through the week, I tend to do it as soon as the washing basket is full (conveniently, one load). I don't sort colours from whites (gasp!) or anything else for that matter. I only sort if there is a new pair of jeans/red socks that will ruin the rest of the wash. I just throw everything in together and because I only wash in cold water, we have no problems. This means clothes don't have to wait for colour buddies to get washed and my laundry isn't full to overflowing with dirty washing. 

Some things occasionally need a good soak to get out stains and grub. Stu's shirts and the boys school uniforms get a soak about every two months. I soak in hot water with some laundry powder and lemon juice. The lemon juice gives a bleaching effect (without bleach) and the action of soaking in hot water gets the gear clean again. Sometimes, they need a little hand rub and scrub to help, but only when I'm feeling particularly housewifely. 

For regular, everyday stains (shirt collars, food grubs etc), I use my homemade stain remover. I found the recipe here, and love how it works (better than the shop bought one I had). Simply mix the following together (in a well ventilated room as it smells!), pour into a jar and then some into a spray bottle (recycled if you can) and spray onto the stained clothes as you put them in the washing machine.

Pre-wash stain remover

2/3 cup regular dish detergent

2/3 cup Ammonia

6 tablespoons baking soda

2 cups warm water

Stain remover

Our washing machine is a front loader, so uses less water and power than a top loader and is gentler on the clothes. I know this because I can throw my bras in it without a blink and they last ages, but pop one in a top loader without a lingerie bag and the wires come out after one wash!  

We only ever wash with cold water and mostly use our daily 30minute wash (note that 30minutes greatly depends on water pressure, we used to live in a house with terrible pressure and this cycle took well over an hour!). Into the machine I put a dessert spoon full of my homemade laundry powder (recipe from here), which I mix together about once every four months.

 

Laundry powder

4 cups of grated soap (2 bars laundry soap)

2 cups washing soda

1 cup borax

Making laundry powder

 

If I'm washing clothes that I like to have a soft feel, like towels, I add a dash of white vinegar to the rinse section. This is especially important in summer when the heat makes them crunchy and also helps with absorbency (good for towels or cloth nappies). 

If I'm washing something smelly or that needs disinfecting, I add a capful or two of eucalyptus oil to the rinse section. 

The winter Hill's hoist - bare like a deciduous tree :)

After washing, I hang my clothes on a line. We gave away our clothes drier last year and as we don't have a roaring wood fire to dry in front of, drying on an outside line is pretty much our only option. In summer, we use the hills hoist in the sunny backyard. In winter, I use the line strung along the north facing verandah and a clothes horse/rack beneath it. In summer, clothes are dry in a few hours, in winter it might take two days, but they still all get dry. The only times I miss the drier is when we have a need/want it dry NOW moment, but we deal with it, wear something else and remember that we're green for a reason! Very occasionally, something isn't getting dry outside, so I air it in the lounge room and it is dry eventually. 

Cloth hankies on the verandah line

All of the clothes are hung with pegs, even those on the clothes horse. By hanging with pegs, I avoid folding clothes over the line and doubling up the fabric, so things dry quicker. Our pegs used to be kept on the line when not in use, but the UV and general weathering wears them out faster, so now, I keep my collection of old plastic, wooden and recycled plastic pegs in an old bucket. The bucket has holes drilled in the bottom so it can't fill with water and has a hook to be hung on in the laundry when not in use. 

Our dry washing is sorted and put away by its owner (I rarely put away anyone else's, but I do all of my own and all of the linens and again, when feeling housewifely, the rest). Ironing is done on an as needs basis. I can't bring myself to iron any stretch clothes and choose mostly easy wear stuff for me and the kids. I iron going out clothes when I'm going out. The only thing we iron regularly are Stu's business clothes which he often irons while watching football. 

And that's it!  A few simple ingredients, some patience and not tooooo much work and our washing is done in a green and homemade fashion without any nasty chemicals in our septic or on our clothes, and no money or excess power wasted in the process. 

I know lots of the people who read here are also green laundry folk, have you got any other hints or tips?  And if you don't do your washing like this, maybe I've inspired you to give it a try - let me know!  You know I love your comments. 

Weeds for tea

{or My ducks ate the veggies}

Since my two gorgeous ducks moved in, I haven't had any of my vegetables eaten by snails or slugs. The ducks relish any tiny gastropods they find!  I was beginning to feel like a successful permaculturalist, having taken very literally that statement I read months ago - "your problem isn't too many snails, it's not enough ducks".  And then my lettuce disappeared into the ducks' bellies.

So I re-thought things. If ducks like lettuce, I'll grow lettuce in pots in the courtyard!  Problem solved. Then they ate my pea plants. Hmmmm....

I protected the area the peas were in. They ate the sugar snap peas..... Not happy!  Then they ate the silverbeet and the leaves of the brocoletti that were overhanging the somewhat raised beds. Gah!  They eat more than the snails ever did!  

But I love them, and I love the no snails and no snail pellets garden, so we have to make it work. 

I watched them waddling around the garden. I watched them not being able to get into their pond (a children's paddle pool that is about 20cm high) without using the step I put there for them. I noticed that they can't really get up onto anything more than the height of their chests without a big flapping effort and that generally they didn't bother. They prefer to move around like one of those weird robot vacuum cleaners, bumping off of walls and obstacles that they meet. 

So, later this week, I'll be building low barriers around my vegetables. I plan to leave some things unprotected (I can share!) and will intentially grow greens for them, but others will need to be barricaded from busy Muscovy beaks!

Hopefully that will solve the problem. In the meantime, my vegetable stocks are somewhat depleted. And being stubborn about these things, I still want to cook from our garden, so I'm exploring the weedy option (at this point I'm seriously wondering at how it came to be that the people who live here eat weeds while the animals eat beautifully cultivated veg, but I'm trying not to dwell on it).  

Last night, I cooked schnitzels for tea, and strangely (but surprisingly deliciously)  coupled them with a curried rice dish and wild greens.

The rice was cooked in a light stock with the addition of garam masala, turmeric, ginger, a little salt and some dried mung beans. I brought it to the boil, the let it sit in the covered saucepan to absorb, before stirring in some chopped parsley. The result was a bit like mash or porridge, ugly, but very tasty. 

I sautéed some sliced carrots (the ducks nibbled the tops, but left the roots) in olive oil, added a chopped clove of garlic and a big bowlful of mixed greens and cooked until it was all wilted. The greens I had foraged from the garden (weeds and plants I have planted but that now grow like weeds) and included dandelions, mallow, borage, nasturtium leaves and beetroot tops. 

I served the rice in a pile beside the schnitzel, and put the sautéed veg on top of the rice. I then finished it all off with some fresh coriander and a few flowers. from the borage and nasturtiums. 

The results?  Stu said it looked like I'd served him a garden and then dug in and devoured the lot (like a duck in a lettuce patch). The kids ate theirs without a second glance and I thoroughly enjoyed mine!  So we will happily serve weeds in this house again, but I'll also be barricading those garden beds and planting veggies in duck (chook and goat) free areas of the garden too -just in case!

Apple hot cross buns

Whatever Easter means to you, I think we all like to indulge in some chocolate and or hot cross bun goodness.

I love hot cross buns at Easter (and I'm rather fond of cross-less buns through the rest of the year!). We used to buy our hot cross buns from a certain supermarket that makes delicious hot cross buns, but it has been brought to our attention (and most other Aussies through the joy of Facebook) that they contain palm oil - not good. So to enjoy your buns guilt free, either buy them from a palm oil free bakery, or make your own!

In the Southern Hemisphere, Easter falls at prime apple season, so to me, it makes sense to combine the two. I decided to do this for the kitchen garden program I ran at school a few weeks ago and found this recipe at gourmet traveller. Great recipe, but it includes quite a few ingredients that are obscure (expensive) and two provings - not great for kids and school time constraints. So I adapted the recipe and the results were delicious!! (Though my piping bag broke while I made this batch, so they're not the prettiest hot cross buns ever - but they are homemade and very yummy)

By all means add in a second proving to this recipe, but it works well without if you don't have time (or patience).

Enjoy and have a lovely Easter!

Apple Hot Cross Buns

Ingredients for apples

200g of sugar
300ml water
2 apples, unpeeled, cored and cut into small dices
½ tsp of cinnamon

Ingredients for buns

Apples (from above)
700g of plain flour
200g of sultanas
2 tsp cinnamon
2 sachets of yeast
300ml of milk
100g butter, coarsely chopped
1 egg
Extra flour for kneading

Ingredients for crosses

70ml of water
Enough plain flour to make a paste

Method Part 1

1.    To prepare the apples, place the sugar, water, chopped apples and cinnamon into a saucepan.  Heat on the stove over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.
2.    Bring up to a simmer, then reduce temperature to low and simmer until the apples are transparent (about 5-10 minutes)
3.    Drain, reserving syrup AND apples.

Method Part 2

4.    While apples cool, measure and mix together the dry ingredients for the buns.
5.    Measure the milk into a glass measuring jug and add the butter.  Heat in microwave for 3 minutes (until butter is melting.
6.    Add milk mix, apples and egg to the dry ingredients
7.    Mix the mixture well, first using a spoon and then using your hands.
8.    Knead the dough for 5-10minutes
9.    Divide the dough into 24 pieces.
10. Roll each piece of dough into a ball and place the balls of dough on trays with 1cm gap between them.  Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for at least 30 minutes.

Method Part 3

11. Meanwhile, prepare the paste for the crosses. Preheat the oven to 220⁰C
12. After rising, using a piping bag (or a spoon) to drizzle the cross paste onto the buns in the shape of a cross.
13. Place buns into the oven to cook for 8-10 minutes until risen and golden.
14. Remove from the oven and brush with reserved apple syrup.  Cool; on wire racks.

Old-fashioned nut loaf

I went op-shopping yesterday. I found a few good things - a top to wear to my friends deb ball on Friday, a brand new shirt for Stu, a funny book for the kids and more dinner knives for the kitchen. I was pleased will all the finds, then I found these....

A pair of vintage nut loaf tins! Are you excited? I was. They're in great condition - used, but clean, complete and with no rust of dents and only $6 for the pair (I looked them up on ebay to confirm, and that is a bargain)! They bring back memories of my Nanna's nut loaves, served as thick slices, slathered with butter. Yum.

Today, I found a recipe and baked. They're delicious! Afternoon tea anyone?

Date and nut loaves

(Recipe adapted from this one)

1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g walnuts roughly chopped
150g dates roughly chopped
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
100g butter
1 egg

• Preheat oven to 180c and grease 2 nut loaf tins (you could also use a single loaf pan or several unlined tin cans)
• Mix dry ingredients and nuts in a mixing bowl
• Mix sugar, dates, water and butter in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and butter melted, cool slightly
• Add wet mix to dry ingredients and add egg. Mix well
• Spoon into prepared tins (put on the lids if using the nut loaf tins)
• Bake for 40-45min
• Remove from pans by running a knife around the edge and inverting. Cool on a cake rack
• Serve sliced with a little butter and a cup of tea :)

Cooked in the tins

Just after turning out.

A spread for your bread

Two main environmental concerns have led to nearly all of the changes we've made over the last year or so.

1. The amount of power used in our household (and its source)
2. The amount of rubbish produced by our house.

The second one has led to some of the most obscure changes. Each time I put something in the bin, I wonder - could we change our habits so we don't produce this waste or produce less waste when using this thing. Is there a way I can reuse/recycle of reduce the overall impact of this bit of waste. And frequently, can I make the processed product myself so that it has less impact in terms of materials used in the production and packaging, and is made using more simple ingredients.

One of the things we've changed is our consumption of margarine. I grew up using margarine and not thinking anything of it. We used it for spreading on bread, baking etc and the only time butter ever really came to our house was at Christmas when mum would use butter for the baking. I used to find it frustrating when we would go to a butter using household and I couldn't spread the hard stuff on my bread! Stu also grew up using margarine, so when we started shopping for ourselves, we didn't think twice about becoming another margarine household. Over the years, we started watching our weight and changed to reduced fat margarine, and I used it for everything.

Then last year, I noticed the margarine containers in the recycle bin. And, I started reading labels. That's not a good thing for the case of margarine. It occurred to me that a spread that was made in a lab wasn't the right thing to be putting on our now fully homemade and simple bread. So we switched to butter.

Switching to butter isn't easy. It's great for baking, there is less waste, but you have the tough choice of either popping it in the fridge to prolong its life and ending up with a brick that is useless for spreading, or keeping it at room temp (perhaps in a butter keeper) which shortens its shelf life, but is otherwise great until the temp rises and you end up with a yellow puddle.

Image

So I did some research and experimenting and over the next few months came up with a solution. A homemade spreadable butter. This isn't new of course. You can buy spreadable butter (though it is pricey and comes in plastic tubs) and lots of others have made it too - that's where I was researching. But this is what I do...

In the bowl of a food processor or mixer, put in about 250g of chopped room temperature butter (I use salted and then don't add salt). Add to that about 125ml of warm (not hot) water. Beat. The water being warm helps the water and butter combine. Once your butter and water are really well mixed (it'll take a few minutes, feel free to wander off and multitask), slowly drizzle in about 125ml of olive oil. Keep beating. When the mix is homogenous (that means "all the same", but using big science-ey words brings out the ex-scientist in me and makes me feel like I'm back in a lab!), you're done! Put it into a container and refrigerate.

This spread is a bit firmer that margarine, but after a few minutes at room temp is spreadable. It has no nasty chemicals like margarine and has less fat, and healthy oils too.  It also tastes good!  Enjoy!

So much Pizza dough! (and the recipe)

What could be better than sitting in your garden on a balmy Saturday evening with a big relaxed group of your friends and a cold drink in your hand?  All of that with pizza from the pizza oven of course :)

Having now mastered the skill of churning out yummy pizzas from our oven, we decided to invite friends around to share.  With a mixed bunch of friends around - workmates, belly dance students and local friends - we all got down to the business of making, cooking and eating pizzas, all while downing a few cold ones and enjoying the wonderful company.  The kids were up in the trees and the cubby house, chatting the the chooks and dogs and on the trampoline.  The occasional adult joined in the fun (back flips on the trampoline from one very energetic grown up!) and were delighted with the excellent behaviour of all the children. 

Before our guests arrived, our kids handed out important jobs to each of us.  I was on food preparation, Stu was on fire and cooking duties and they were the entertainment crew!  We all excelled at our jobs, if I do say so myself!  I prepared about three times as much dough as we needed, a stack of snacks and my share of pizza toppings, then, together with our guests who all brought along a contribution of pizza toppings, prepared amazing looking and tasting pizzas.  We handed these to Stu who, bright red and covered in sweat from the heat of his amazingly well prepared pizza oven, cooked them in a few minutes.  The first ones in the oven cooked so quickly that they burnt on one side before he could turn them!  But they all tasted good (and the chooks and dogs appreciated the odd crust that was a bit too charred).  The kids did a great job of entertaining the crowd - sharing and playing with all of the kids and occasionally chatting to the grown ups and giving shoulder massages later in the evening.

Of course, no one had time to take any photos of all of this fun, so I can't share any, but hopefully you get an idea of what a great night it was.

Sunday, we declared a day of rest and recuperation after a busy day and night preparing for and enjoying the party.  But my garden had other ideas.  With the fruit and veg ripening at a cracking rate now, I am having to pick, cook and preserve each day.  I peeled, chopped, minced, dried and bottled for most of the day.  It was hard, hot work, but Stu turned the split system air conditioner back on at the switch for the first time since October.  Air conditioning felt like such an indulgence, but with our solar panels producing more than three times the amount of power we usually use, and with us not yet being paid for any fed into the grid, we figured we deserved the indulgence.

Then, faced with huge quantities of leftover dough and pizza toppings (perhaps I did my job too well), we decided to get the oven going again.  This time, we made a huge quantity of mini pizzas that cooked beautifully!  They are perfect lunchbox size too, so after enjoying a couple for tea, I cooled the rest and put them in the freezer for easy lunches for all of us for the next week (and remembered to take a photo!).  Then, oven still hot, I cooked our first successful loaf of bread in the pizza oven (my secret being - cook it in the cast iron casserole pot to give even, moist heat), closely followed by my second successful loaf!  A dozen muffins and a huge nectarine crumble followed the bread. 

Mini pizzas!

With the store cupboard gaining another 14 jars of preserved food, the freezer full, lunches and desserts sorted for the week, I called it a day and took an early night ready for another day of heat and preserving.

I had a lot of requests for my pizza dough recipe on the weekend, so thought I would share it here.  It's from one of my favourite cook books - both for the recipes and the gorgeous presentation - The Thrifty Kitchen.

Pizza dough (serves 2)

(for our family, I make double which makes enough small pizzas for tea and leftovers)

2 1/4 cups plain flour
7g dry yeast (that's one sachet)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Mix all of the ingredients together until a dough forms. 
Knead for about 5 minutes. 
Cover and put in a warm place for an hour. 
( If I'm doing pizza for tea, I make this at lunchtime and put it in a big airtight container in the fridge for the afternoon.  It still rises beautifully.)
Take a handful or two of dough, knead slightly in your hands and then roll out to use for pizza.
(We roll ours out on wooden boards with a good handful of semolina below the dough.  The semolina stops the dough from sticking, allowing it to be transferred to the oven floor or a pizza stone)
Add a small number of toppings and cook on a pizza stone which has been heated in a very hot oven or BBQ for about 10 minutes.
(or on the floor of your stinking hot pizza oven for a few minutes!)
Enjoy!

Sun dried nectarines

Stu and I picked half a box full of nectarines on the weekend. The tree is still laden - we just picked the ripest ones.

Beautiful, plump, sweet smelling white nectarines.

Monday morning, he asked what I was going to do with the picked fruit. I told him we would eat that lot fresh, I planned to bottle the next box as there weren't quite enough to warrant a bottling day in this lot. He looked from me to the box with raised eyebrows and then took some to work to share with his workmates.

I was beginning to think that maybe he was right - we wouldn't eat all of those nectarines before they started to mould, and there was to be another lot picked in only a few days. But I was right too - there weren't enough to bottle in that box,  what to do?

Then Lachie, who was chomping down a bowl of our homemade muesli for breakfast said "gee I love dried fruit mum, it's the best thing ever". Lightbulb moment! I would dry some nectarines for using in our breakfast muesli! Only one snag, I don't own a dehydrator. I considered popping a post on Facebook asking to borrow one from one of the friends I know who have them (perhaps I should even buy one of my own?). And then I remembered this post on drying tomatoes and realised that I do own a dehydrator - a big one affectionately known as Roary by our family - our car.

With the car parked out of the carport in the sun, even on a relatively mild summers day, it gets hot in there. So I chopped up my nectarines into 8 wedges each, dunked the wedges into a little citric acid in water to prevent them going too brown (lemon juice would have worked too, but my tree has no ripe lemons at the moment and the only lemons available to buy in summer are imported from the USA), arranged the wedges on trays and put them onto the cars dashboard.

Fully dried nectarines - free from the sun :)

I turned them every couple of hours* and by the end of the day they were well on their way, but still quite moist inside.  I've tried drying before and know that if you want things to last, they need to be really dry.  So I left them for another half day in the sunshine, after which they were deliciously leathery and well dried. 

Preparing for bottling

I used about 20 nectarines which filled three baking trays (the pieces spread out so they weren't touching).  This made about 2 cups worth of dried nectarines.  I've put some more in the car now, and will probably do another batch or more before the tree is empty as we go through a good amount of dried fruit in our house.  We'll still give some fruit to family and friends, eat plenty fresh, and today, I've used my "new" Vacola that I bought on Ebay to bottle a batch for out of season fruit snacks and desserts.  The birds will get some, but the beautiful bounty from that tree (that we grew from a tiny seedling in just 7 years) will not go to waste.

Our nectarine tree in the foreground.  It was planted as a 15cm seedling in late 2005.

*the first batch I put with their cut side down on the trays, so turning was essential, as the fruit stuck to the trays as it cooked in the sun.  I've since put in another batch, this time skin side down on the trays.  They don't need to be turned and may dry quicker as more of the flesh is exposed for dehydration.

Rocket chai!

It's been raining here. It is so lovely to watch the droopy shrubs perk up and the veggie patch looking vital again. And our tanks are full! The loss of our bore water connection this summer had me worried and I was beginning to think we might end up needing to buy water during those long, hot and dry weeks when I was having to pour our rain water on the garden to keep our veggies alive. But with full tanks at the start of February, I feel confident that we'll be OK. That's important to me. I feel that even if we can't be self sufficient for everything, it is important to be able to look after the basics - simple cooking, growing a few edibles, home maintenance and gathering enough water and managing its use so it is enough. Clearly we want to be much more self sufficient than that, but that is my base line.

While thinking about that, and hearing stories of people being without power and phone, and cut off from the rest of the world by floods and fires, I've started thinking more about our emergency plans. Hopefully, we never have a big emergency, but evem if we don't, we do often have to cope without power for a few hours, and I want those occasions to be easy to deal with. We are so reliant on power for the operations in our homes. Here, we have no natural gas and, in our home, absolutely everything is electric. When we have no power, it isn't only heating, cooling and the kettle that we lose, but our oven and stove are out of action and we can't even get water from the taps as they rely on an electric pump. If I know the power will be out, I put water in the sink to wash hands, fill water bottles and a thermos for hot water etc, but when it is unexpected, we're stuck.

So this is one of my goals for February. To organise a water supply that is not reliant on the power, or a non-powered way to access our tank water. And I'm also playing with ideas for how to cook and otherwise cope so that we don't feel that we have to go somewhere else or resort to takeaway dinners just because I don't have an oven.

Yesterday, we played with one of those ideas. We built a rocket stove in our garden using the simple plans from a Grassroots magazine. It was a very quick and easy build using things we scrounged from the garden - about 15 bricks, a tin can and the metal pot holder borrowed from the BBQ. We built it on the concrete behind the pizza oven, and the first version was on the ground. But it did really need to be raised so that it could be cooked on and fed sticks easily. We scanned the garden looking for something and spotted the no longer needed old toilet and a slab of concrete.  A quick rebuild and our rocket stove was complete. We were highly amused by our use of the old loo - Stu's parents who were visiting think we've lost the plot ;)

So the idea of the rocket stove is that it burns sticks to cook things in the pot at the top. It works, but not fabulously. For us, it was at least a two person job. Someone had to be sitting feeding in sticks constantly and tending the fire, while someone else found the sticks, broke them to the right length and saw to the food on top. It was fun though, and the boys got involved with the fire feeding as well.

Our stove wasn't exactly great and may need some adjustments, but we'll keep working on it (the pizza oven was terrible the first time we used it too, but we've learnt how to use it now). We did manage to cook something though. A large pot of homemade chai. It was definitely slow living (the chai took almost two hours!) but it was so much fun and boy did that chai taste good sitting together as a family sharing our 'rocket chai' in the garden. The slowest rocket in history!

If I can't get the stove to work better than that, it won't be a terribly popular cooking method. But if we were without power, I could at least boil water for tea and make a simple hot meal using only a pile of sticks and leaves from the garden as fuel.

And now, would you like to make some chai too? Here is my from scratch recipe - feel free to use a conventional stove to get somewhat faster results ;)

Chai blend

Crush the following in a mortar and pestle: 3 cinnamon sticks, 12 peppercorns, 12 cloves 4 whole crushed allspice and 6 cardamom pods.  Mix in 1 tsp crushed cumin, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/2 cup of black tea.  You can use the crushed or uncrushed equivalents if needed, just make sure they are still fragrant and fresh.  Store in an airtight container until needed.

To brew chai

Add about a heaped teaspoon of the above mix to about 2 cups of water.  Bring to the boil.  Boil for 3-4 minutes.  Add about a cup of milk (soy is nice, but cows/goats works just fine) and boil for a further minute.  Strain tea into mugs and add honey (or sugar or vanilla sugar etc) to taste. Enjoy!