The central tenet of the Slow philosophy is taking the time to do things properly, and thereby enjoying them more... [It] delivers the things that make us really happy: good health, a thriving environment, strong communities and relationships, freedom from perpetual hurry.
In praise of Slow, Carl Honore.
Doing: Ordering a solar cooker from The Rainbow Power Company. I was going to request one for Mother's Day in May but when we talked about it last night is seemed a bit of a waste of the remaining months of summer to not be using it now. Very excited about it arriving next week!
Image from The Rainbow Power Company.
Picking: Cucumbers, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, Black Russion tomatoes, mignonette lettuce.
Dinner: Homemade pizza. It has just occured to me that I haven't mentioned that I changed my pizza dough recipe several months ago! It was previously making it in the breadmaker, but some time ago now I found a quicker version on somebody's blog - I forget who I'm sorry, if it's you let me know so I can credit it! This method (obviously) doesn't use any electricity to make and is much quicker - 30 minutes versus 1.5 hours for the breadmaker dough. It's more expensive though even using cheap beer, if you are buying the beer, but using homebrew (which we don't - yet) makes it pretty comparable.
Quick Pizza Dough
4 cups SR flour (I use 2 cups white + 2 cups wholemeal)
1 tsp salt
1 can/ bottle beer
Mix ingredients together to form a dough, adding more flour if neccessary, then knead on the bench briefly until smooth. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for around half an hour, then roll out. Makes one really thick base or two normal sized bases.
Reading: The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan.
Utility Averages for 2008: Gas 31.1 MJ/day; water 246 L/day (note: I haven't done much washing this week); electricity 11.4 kWh/day.
Contemplating: Making Lilly Pilly jam with the berries off our street trees. I am presuming they are ripe when they fall off the tree into your hand when you brush them?? Does anyone know? They taste a little odd when raw but I can imagine they would make a nice, tart jam?

4 comments:
Congratulations on getting a solar cooker, we have made ours (we found heaps of books at our library)) I am yet to use it as we have had very unseasonal cloudy weather.
Brillant though aren't they.
Lilly pilly's are lovely fruits. Try using them instead of blueberries or making them into a syrup. Also thanks for a great blog!
I'm getting a solar cooker too. We just made the decision on the weekend and I'm hoping to order it today. Wooohooo.
Hi Em, Well done on making a solar cooker, you are cleverer than me! I have seen some relatively simple-looking instructions on the 'net but it was all a bit too much stuffing around for somebody with no handy-person skills, LOL. I haven't tried lilly pillies before, I love the idea of making them into a syrup, yum.
Yay for you Polly! We can compare recipes successes, LOL.
Cheers, Julie
Yay on the solar cooker - looking forward to hearing all about it!
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