Bircher Muesli

I thought I would share my absolute favourite Bircher muesli recipe. I originally got this recipe from the Fresh TV cooking show, and it's been a Sunday morning regular for several years now :-)


Bircher Muesli
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup seeded prunes, roughly chopped
1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
1/2 cup sultanas or raisins
300ml orange juice
1 cup apricot-flavoured yoghurt
2 tbs honey
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup wheatgerm
1/4 cup flaked almonds
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
2 tbs sesame seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1. Combine oats, dried fruits, juice, milk, yoghurt, honey, coconut and wheatgerm in a large bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, or for up to 3 days.

2. Stir through nuts and seeds before serving. Serve with plain yoghurt and fresh fruit. Makes 10-12 generous servings.

Bloggus interruptus

Gardening after a prolonged period of hot weather, followed by lots of wet weather, got the better of me yesterday! DH had to go over the (fortunately small) lawn with hedge clippers before he mowed it because it was so long that the push mower had no hope of cutting it, and weeds in the garden... oh, the weeds!

Anyway, I now have a neater garden and I've sown some seeds, but in the process I've strained a muscle under my right shoulder blade (ouch!) which makes typing painful and manipulating a mouse even more painful!

So please excuse me while I rest up with the latest issue of Warm Earth magazine, and I'll be back later in the week ;-)

Lyn Bagnall Giveaway

Lyn Bagnall, the author of Easy Organic Gardening and Moon Planting is having a giveaway on her blog! Lyn's book is by far the best Australian organic gardening book I have read and I am jealously guarding my copy, but you can win your own copy, or one of ten discount vouchers for the book, by participating in her competition.




Visit her blog here. Entries close at midnight AEST, Saturday, 7th March 2009.

Posting at The Co-Op

I'm posting at the Simple-Green-Frugal Co-Op again today. See you there!

Solar cooker/Crockpot Recipe: Wild Rice & Mushrooms

Most slow cooker (crockpot) recipes are very suitable for use in a solar oven. Although it has been raining here for the past week, my solar cooker was certainly getting a workout in the seriously hot temperatures prior to the wet weather.

This is yummy on it's own as a vegetarian meal or as a great side dish with grilled meat or bacon.




Ingredients

1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain rice
1/2 cup uncooked wild rice
1 packet of dried French Onion Soup mix, or equivalent homemade
4 cups liquid (stock, water, wine or a mixture)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
250g mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp fresh herbs, chopped, or 1 tsp dried

Method:

* Combine all ingredients in a lightly greased slow cooker (crockpot) or one or two covered black solar cooker tins.

* Slow Cooker: Cover and cook on high for 3 hours. Fluff with a fork and serve.

* Solar Oven: Cover, place in the solar oven and cook for 3-5 hours. When all the liquid is absorbed, fluff with a fork and serve hot.

I love freebies.

Doing:... Scoring a free UNUSED worm farm on Freecycle. Yeah, baby! I'm hoping to get it set up and running and then donate it to my daughter's preschool, although I am still talking them into it as they are worried it might attract vermin and therefore affect their accreditation. I think I'm winning the argument though ;-)

... Picking up an almost free kitchen sink! I won it for 99c on eBay although I gave the lady $5 to cover her listing costs and time. I've been looking for an old, small single bowl metal sink for ages so I'm stoked to have found one finally. Every other one I've looked at won't fit in the spot I have for it - it will be mounted on the wall above our main backyard tap (next to our rainwater tank) and I'll use it to rinse my vegies off before bringing them inside. The water will drain into a bucket underneath which will be thrown straight back on the garden.


Making:... More Bliss Balls. Rolling the balls and coating them with coconut is Miss Three's favourite activity at the moment, this our third batch in a week LOL :-) Luckily, each batch has been quite different as we used up different dried fruit, seeds and nuts.


Baking: ... My first 100% wholemeal (whole wheat) Artisan Bread loaf. We had been enjoying the standard boule recipe before school started, although I was having trouble getting mine to look blog-worthy LOL. They all tasted nice, but looked a bit ordinary as for some reason they tended to creep sideways instead of rising up nicely whilst resting, hence no photos. We went back to our standard sandwich loaf once school started however so I haven't made any dough up for a few weeks. Inspired by Kel's delicious-looking boule yesterday however, I mixed up the 100% wholemeal dough last night and baked my first this morning in a small loaf pan.

The word "brick" came to mind on my first look at it.


However, it does taste pretty good! Really nice, although too sweet for my liking for sandwich bread, so I will try a wholemeal/white mix next. Again, like my standard boule, it didn't rise as much as I expected so I've done some Googling to try and troubleshoot - I suspect perhaps my dough is too wet, plus I obviously didn't use enough dough in the pan with this loaf. I'm going to try it again tomorrow using the rest of the dough mix (and some extra flour) and see if that works. Any other suggestions?


By the way, for anyone who has the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book, if you haven't already found it, the authors have a website and an errata page, which is definitely worth reading.

In the Garden: ... Noting that my poor (new) banana tree looks dreadful. It blew over on the hottest day we had recently (43'C) onto our black pavers, which literally cooked most of the leaves. When I found it (we'd been out), most of the leaves were black and limp! I left it out in the rain this week in the hopes of reviving it, but what leaves it had left have now sagged!

Ah well, on the other hand, the potted mango I thought has succumbed to a fungal disease is throwing out pretty new growth. You win some, you lose some I guess.


Dinner: ... Pumpkin soup and fresh crusty bread.

Reading: ... The Artisan Bread in Five blog.

Contemplating:... The pig sty in the kids' playroom... and opting for a cup of tea instead ;-)

Homemade French Onion Soup Mix

Packets of dried French Onion Soup mix seem to feature prominantly in my favourite crockpot recipes, but of course the commercial product contains lots of artificial additivies I'd rather not have my family consuming - colours, flavour enhancers, preservatives and so forth. So I experimented with some substitute recipes, and here is my favorite.

French Onion Soup Mix

8 tsp dried onion flakes
4 tsp beef stock powder (I use a vegetarian "beef-style" stock with no additives)
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp celery salt
pinch sugar
pinch white pepper

* Mix ingredients together thoroughly and store in an airtight container or foil package. Keeps for up to 6 months. It is the equivalent of 1 packet of soup mix.

Handmade Help - aprons & recipes request

Another quickie - Hand Made Help is asking for handmade aprons and for your contribution to a Handmade Help Recipe Book which will be distributed to families who have lost their homes, and will be available to buy as a PDF (proceeds donated of course). Read more about the recipe book here, and then check out some of the gorgeous items being sold worldwide to raise funds, or organise a sewing bee yourself.

I am a pretty basic sewer and have been contemplating several simple softie toys, but kids' aprons I can do! And a lot of them - what a great stash-buster. Check the blog for drop-off points or mailing addresses.

Now I'm off for some basic but yummy recipes to contribute!

It never rains, it pours...

Doing: ...Checking my rain gauge again. After complaining that we hadn't had any decent rain for months and that my tanks were empty, we've been wet, wet, wet for days now and more is forecast! In the last four days we've had 246mm, or almost 10 inches in old-speak. The tanks have been overflowing for three days. Wouldn't be nice if we could somehow arrange to have the rain delivered in nice one-inch increments each week? If I could package some up and send it down south I certainly would.


Making: ... Another pencil and notebook holder for my niece's birthday.




Baking: ... Cee's zucchini and sultana muffins. Mmmmm. A big hit.

In The Garden: ... All the rain has been lovely for the garden at least! There's new growth everywhere, and my seeds sown before the rain are mostly up and powering away. Here's my radish seedlings:


And my turmeric is flowering. Pretty, yes?

Dinner: ... Something in the crockpot. Gavin's potato and chickpea curry post at the Co-Op reminded me of a similar slow cooker recipe I have. I also have a large eggplant to use up, so I think his Brinjal pickles might also be on the menu!

Reading: ... Flicking through my book collection to prompt my memory so that I can write reviews for my LibraryThing catalogue.

Contemplating: ... Tearing out my zucchini and squash plants to make room for autumn plantings.

LibraryThing.

I've been adding my simple/green living book collection to Library Thing over the past couple of days. I often get emails asking for book recommendations on various subjects so you can now browse through my virtual collection to your heart's content!

It's is going to take me some time, but I hope to add reviews and ratings for each of them. Note that I don't own all of these books; many have been borrowed and I am going from memory when reviewing them! You will also be able to search by tags/subjects when I finish. Phew! I do like making work for myself, don't I? I love my books though (mmmmm, booooks), so going through my collection and sorting the wheat from the chaff is always a good thing, and now I have an even bigger bedside collection to re-read and savour. Luckily, it's wet outside today ("Mummy, what's that wet stuff falling from the sky?!"); perfect reading weather.

Now, where's my cuppa gone?

Bliss Balls

This is one of those recipes that pop up regularly in forums everywhere around the world, so I have no idea of it's origin. I do know that they are easy to make and are very tasty! They freeze well too, which is convenient.

The ingredients are not set in stone; mix and match nuts or fruit to your liking. They are ideal for kids' snacks, and as they contain lots of healthy nuts, they are a great way to add some to your kids' diet.

Bliss Balls



Ingredients

1 cup puffed millet or rice
½ cup dessicated coconut
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup rice malt syrup or honey
½ cup tahini
1 cup almond meal or ground LSA mix (linseeds, flax and almonds)
1 cup chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, hazelnuts etc)
1 cup chopped dried apricots

Method

1. Place all the dry ingredients in a processor and mix together. Gradually add the tahini and the rice malt until well combined.

2. Roll into small balls and coat with sesame seeds or coconut. Store in the refrigerator. Makes a large plate full ;-)

3. To freeze, layer between sheets of baking paper/wax paper/Kraft paper to prevent them from sticking together. Thaw in the refrigerator.

Leave a message for the fire fighters.

I'm sure all Aussies are doing something in their own way for the Victorians affected by the bushfires, but I just came across this site set up to leave messages of support for the tireless Firefighters - Thank You Firies.

What a great idea. We regularly donate to our local Rural Fire Service volunteers, but I am going to make an extra donation this month (on top of the money we've already donated to the Red Cross). Who knows when we might need their help, yeah?

New widget.

A number of readers have emailed me about this topic, so this is just a quickie to let you know I've added a new widget to my site which will allow you to print out a post.

If you would like to print out a particular post, first click on the post header. Once the post comes up, scroll down to the bottom of the post and you will now see a "Print This Page" button. Clicking on this button should print out the post, including the comments, but (hopefully) without the sidebar and other irrelevant information.

I have been fiddling with the settings for a while and it's not perfect (there are occasional glitches where some sidebar information is included for some reason), but it will do the job if you prefer a hard copy to file away. Please note that it will print out the post in landscape format, so don't worry that it's something your printer has done differently.

Cheers!

A bit funky...

I was trying to compose a giveaway post to celebrate 100,000 visits to my blog, but I'm in a bit of a funk today - media overload from the bushfire coverage I think. Even now I feel guilty that I can turn off the radio and count my blessings when so many others are homeless, or - worse - have lost family members.

Instead I'll show you a picture of my dragon fruit which flowered again last night. I hand pollinated this flower after the last one dropped off, but I can't show you the process as ...drum roll please... it was raining! Yep, there was 19mm in the rain gauge this morning, all lovely steady soaking stuff during the night. Lots of thunder rolling past today but nothing much more than the occaisonal drizzle, but it means that the rain that has already fallen will be soaking in instead of evaporating away in the heat. I can almost hear my garden sighing :-)


Anyway, the flower was starting to close already when I got out with the camera this morning, so it doesn't seem as big as the last one, but it was definitely very pretty.


Here's to finding beauty in small things.

Handmade Help - Victorian Bushfire Appeal

I don't think there is any Australian not affected - either personally or emotionally - by the Victorian bushfires, and I know many of my readers are the crafty type.

If you would like to help out by donating a hand made item to auction on eBay or sell on Etsy, with all profits donated to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal, click on the logo above or visit Handmade Helps Out.

More information about helping out can also be found here at Meet Me At Mikes.

A sunburnt country...

Like most Aussies, I watched the news reports of the bushfires in the southern states tonight with disbelief and heartbreak. My heart absolutely goes out to those who have lost loved ones and friends, and my best wishes go to those who have lost their homes and properties.

I'm thinking of those of you still on alert tonight or who have family fighting the fires. We passed by the fire at Peat's Ridge in the distance yesterday on our way back from Sydney, and were glad then that it was nowhere near our homes or loved ones.

Not to forget those in the north suffering through floods and torrential rains! My uncle and his family live in Cairns and I just can't fathom the amount of rain they've had recently, it's staggering.

Phew, what day. Let's hope the new morning brings good news, not more bads news...

Useful edible plants for urban spaces.

Daharja asked me some time ago, what plants I would consider to be the most useful in my garden, and I've been pondering the question on and off ever since. Of course, any list would have to be particular to the area and environment that the list-maker lives in, so mine would reflect my coastal, borderline sub-tropical climate and my relatively small, suburban backyard.

Whilst I have gardened for many years, it is only recently that I have begun growing food, so I don't have much experience in that area yet. Nevertheless I would my list - so far - would include:

* Herbs, of almost any description. There is a herb to suit any growing condition you might have, from sun to shade, from wet soils, to bone dry. Many are excellent for use in cooking - and you really can't beat fresh herbs to lift the flavour of your meals from "nice" to "delicious". Many others are excellent medicinal herbs, such as sage. Others such as comfrey are excellent for boosting your compost. Most are low-maintenance and will self-seed readily, are amenable to being grown in pots, and nearly all will attract beneficial insects to your garden. All 'round, excellent plants really.

* Fast-growing vegetables, which have a high turnover to volume. This includes salad greens and Asian greens like mizuna, plus other vegies such as radishes and beets.

* Vegetables we eat a lot of. Self explanatory really. It's sometimes easy to get caught up in the thrill of purchasing vegetable seeds with exotic-sounding names, but in a small garden, planting what you know you and your family eat a lot of, is much more sensible. Once I have satisfied my family's appetite for lettuce and tomatoes, I begin to experiment with less commonly eaten-by-us vegies.

* Vegetables which need little care, and can survive happily with minimum attention in the more out-of-the-way corners of the backyard (or front yard in my case). I have a garden bed in my front yard which is out of the way and not easily reached by a hose. I had been growing succulents, but last year I tore them out and replaced them yacon, a few types of sweet potatoes and Queensland arrowroot. I have to water them more often than I did the succulents, but otherwise they look after themselves until harvest time and that leaves more space in my vegie garden for more intensively-grown vegies.

* Plants which will grow vertically, such as beans, peas, cucumbers etc, which will grow on a trellis, and therefore take up less room in a small garden.

* Small plants with a medicinal use, such as aloe vera, the gel of which can be used to treat burns. As I mentioned above, many herbs also fall into this category, including sage and rosemary.


* Productive, small or dwarf fruit trees. There are two types of dwarf fruit trees: those which naturally grow as a small tree ("genetically" dwarf), and those which are normal-sized trees grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, which will restrict the tree's growth. Be aware that while some trees grafted onto dwarfing rootstock will result in trees much smaller than their normal counterparts, they could still end up being 5 or 6 metres high! You can also dwarf regular trees by growing them in pots and treating them as very large bonsai with regular pruning and occasional root trimming. Genetically dwarf trees have a reputation for not being as productive or tasty as their full-sized cousins, so check reviews of the tree with your local nursery people or online first.

I have a combination of both genetically-dwarf trees, grafted dwarf trees, and I am bonsai-ing standard trees. Most are grown in large pots. I have six apples (four grafted and 2 genetically dwarf), two pears, a mango, a black sapote, two avocadoes, a fig and an olive all being bonsai-ed pots. Then there are three dwarf peaches (which will only reach 1 metre in height), a grafted dwarf black mulberry, seven dwarf coffee trees (shrubs) and a full-sized starfruit in the ground (the starfruit will be pruned and kept to 2 - 3 metres in height). I also have five blueberries and two cherry guavas in pots, but these are only shrub-sized anyway, and I have leaf tea Camellias which will be pruned into a 1 metre high hedge.


* Small-growing varieties of non-invasive bamboo. I don't have any bamboo growing as yet, but I have a spot earmarked for it. It will be used for a number of things around the house and garden, particularly for building bean and pea trellis's and staking tomatoes, and possibly constructing baskets in future, plus you can eat the new shoots. They produce continually and can be harvested regularly - being a small backyard however, I have to ensure that any variety I buy is a clumping bamboo, not a running bamboo, and the latter will end up in my neighbour's backyards (which they won't thank me for!). I also don't have the room to grow anything too tall; something 3 metres or thereabouts would be OK, and would also make for a good screen for our nosey neighbours.

The best small clumping varieties I have come across online seem to be Schizostachyum sp.'Murray Island', a 3m high Australian native species; Bambusa Heterostachya Variegated, an ornamental 3m high clumping bamboo; and Gigantochloa Luteostriata, a pretty 5m high variegated bamboo, preferring part shade.

* Plants that will attract beneficial insects and predators or repel pests, which are especially useful in an organic garden. Plants such as parsley, dill, fennel, daisies, coriander and caraway are useful 'lures' to attract beneficial insects, and plants such as marigolds, lavender, nasturtiums, marjoram and oregano, garlic, basil, sage and rosemary all repel pests or mask the smell of susceptible vegetable plants.

* Plants that will survive on a small amount of water. Plants which hail from Mediterranean areas generally survive on little water, and these include olives and herbs such as rosemary, thyme and sage, although will need regular watering while they are getting established. Other water-wise edibles include lemongrass, winter savory, quince, natal plum, pomegranate, lilly pillies, carob trees and Midyim berries. Most of these plants will also do well in pots which helps when you have limited space.

* Plants which have duel uses, such as edible hedges. If you are looking for an informal hedge (i.e. not formally clipped) shrubs such as feijoa, strawberry guavas, jaboticaba, many citrus trees and small species of lilly pillies make terrific hedges, as do coffee bushes. Tea Camellias and bay trees make for great clipped formal hedges. Other plants with duel uses include many grasses such as flax - they are pretty and water-wise, but can be harvested for basket weaving - and vines such as hops - used in beer brewing and herbal medicine.

* Plants which will grow in shaded areas or boggy wet areas. Most backyards have a variety of conditions to deal with, and not all are ideal for growing standard fruit and vegetables. Edibles which will cope with part-shade conditions include strawberries, lettuce, cape gooseberries and ground cherries, tomatilloes, vanilla, berries such as raspberries, blackberries and red currants. Edible plants which grow well in boggy areas include nearly all mints, blackcurrants, arrowroot (Canna edulis), turmeric, taro, sweet flag (Acoris calamus), land cress and many rushes, some of which are edible and may be used for basket weaving. Edible plants which will grow in pods (frog pods etc, or containers) include Chinese water chestnuts, duck potatoes (Arrowhead, Sagittaria sagittifolia) and watercress (which requires fresh running water).

I know I haven't come close to mentioning every edible plant appropriate for these conditions, just ones which will grow well in *my* area, so you'll probably have to do some research for yourself if you want to compile your own list, but hopefully I've given you some "food" for thought ;-)

Happy gardening!

Simple - Green - Frugal Co-Op

Sorry to post and run, but we're off to Sydney to visit my sister's family today (and here's hoping my garden survives the forecasted 40'C today and tomorrow!).

I have posted at the Co-Op however, on alternatives to plastic wrap and other disposable kitchen products, so check it out!

Wishing everyone a happy weekend :-)

Sultana & Carrot Cake

This makes a lovely loaf, or rather delish muffins. I've cut down on the sugar from the original recipe, but feel free to use even less, as it is quite sweet.



Ingredients

2 eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup sultanas
2 medium carrots, grated (2 cups)
1 cup wholemeal plain (allpurpose) flour
1 tsp bicarb (baking) soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180'C/ 355'F.

2. Combine eggs, sugar, honey, oil and vanilla in a bowl and beat for 1 minute.

3. Stir in the sultanas and carrot, then fold through the flour, bicarb, nuts and cinnamon. This will be a very wet mix.

4. Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin or a 12-hole muffin tin. Bake cakes for 45-60 minutes, or until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean. Bake muffins for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until it passes the skewer test.

5. Cool briefly in the plan, and then turn out onto a rack to cool. If you are feeling decadent, ice with caramel sour cream icing.

Doing: ... Noticing my visitor counter has gone over 100,000 visitors! Woah! It's nice to know that someone is reading my writing :-) I suppose that means it's time for a giveaway... which I might organise when I have more time (ahem)...

... Blanching, chopping and freezing Tuscan kale after the recent heat pretty much killed it off.

... Listening to the blup...blup...bluurp of the beer brewing kit on the kitchen bench. I was worried it would be too hot for it anywhere else in the house, so the fermenter is sitting next to the sink at the moment. It's bubbling away nicely, although the look and sound of the carbon dioxide bubbling through the air lock on top is little "mad scientist" if you know what I mean.

Making: ... Dishwasher powder.

Baking: ... Carrot sultana muffins.


My sister is the baker in the family; I am still coming to terms with my fan-forced oven (which won't operate without the fan on), and everything with honey in it turns out rather dark around the edges. Sigh. Still tastes good though.

... Oven-dried tomatoes in the solar oven. If they are done in the solar cooker though, are they then sun-dried tomatoes? ;-) I had a volunteer Roma tomato come up in some compost, but it hasn't received much sun (or attention) where it is growing and the tomatoes are small, so I picked as many as I could yesterday and pulled out the sickly plant. They went from this:


To this:

I feel some bruschetta coming on. Or maybe pizza? Or perhaps a summery pasta? Ah decisions, decisions...

In The Garden: ...Fencing off the radish and beetroot seeds I sowed on Sunday as the dogs have been through and dug up half of them. Not. Happy. Jan.

... Noticing that the Tommy Toe cherry tomato is reshooting from the base, yay! The only cherry toms we have at the moment are all split from drying out during the hot days and then being watered in the evening, so they're no good for salads. In fact, I'm tomato-less! Eeek. I did notice one of the Amish Paste tom seedlings with flowers on it this morning, so hopefully this deficit is only temporary.

... Taking advantage of a hazy day and applying foliar fertiliser to the coffee hedge, kiwifruit and passionfruit vines and the potted fruit trees.

Reading: ...Organic Gardener magazine, March/April 2009.

Contemplating: Another batch of 30-minute mozzarella to complement the oven-dried tomatoes. Oh and crusty bread too, of course ;-)

Back To Basics Challenge Update

Sowing Seed or Planting:

Sowing: ... Lettuce (a random mix of purple oak leaf, cos verdi, cos freckles, green oak leaf and Flame), beetroot Chiogga and Burpees' Golden, radish White Icicle and Easter Egg, Amaranth and Nasturtiums.

Planting: ... A black passionfruit vine (DH attached some trellis to the kiwifruit gazebo for me), four Sweet capsicum seedlings, five Lebanese cucumbers and three Pink Brandywine tomato seedlings, a sage plant and vietnamese mint.

Harvesting: Grapes, one rockmelon, cucumbers, button squash, kale, silverbeet, cherry tomatoes, beans, and herbs.

Planning for the Future:

* Beginning an intense investigation of local food producers in my area, something I really need to work on in "localising" our diet.

* Continuing to meal plan and try to incorporate new-to-me ingredients.

* Organising where to plant out my new banana tree and tea Camellia's.

* Researching the best small varieties of bamboo to grow in our garden, to harvest for use around the house and garden in future (e.g. for pea and bean trellises) .

Working for the Future:

* In the process of moving and organising my computer workstation and crafting areas (and trying to incorporate them into the one cupboard - yikes!).

* Made and froze more chicken stock.

* Collected cucumber and tomato seeds.

* Chitting potatoes for a late experimental planting.



Building community:

* Talking to my daughter's preschool director about setting up a worm farm.

* Another box of goods donated to my local charity store.

* Freecycling a few items we no longer need, and gratefully receiving a new worm farm for use at the preschool.

* Agreeing to babysit for a girlfriend going back to work as a relief teacher on the Tuesdays when she is working (changing nappies again, sigh).

Learn a new skill:

* Learning to bake free-form loaves with the Artisan Bread book.

* Experimenting with different ways of popping Amaranth grains (I don't recommend an air popper: half flies everywhere and the other half burns).

* Brewing beer at home: I set up my first trial run with the second-hand kit I bought last year.

Caveat: I used an out-of-date tin of "Mexican cerveza" beer which the owner had thrown in with the kit, brewing sugar instead of the sugar recommended on the tin (because I couldn't find it at the shops) and I realised at the last minute that the package of yeast had been removed from inside the lid of the tin, so I used my own dry yeast! Who knows if it will work, but surely it will be good enough to make pizza dough, if nothing else?

Riot for Austerity update

It's the first of the month already! Phew, January went by quickly. Time to read my meters again.


Food: This month is the first time I've made a concerted effort to track how our food consumption fits with the Riot guidelines. It was a pretty slack month for me: we bought heaps of items I would normally make including crackers, ice cream, dips and so forth, and this really showed in our figures. Essentially we should be aiming for a diet consisting of 70% homegrown or local and organic foods: 25% bulk dry items: and 5% processed or conventionally produced (or non-local organic) items. Our figures however, looked more like 35%: 11%: 54%. Oops.

At least I can see where we can improve, and the exercise shows quite markedly what happens when I stop cooking basic items from scratch (less bulk dry goods, more processed goods). I am also beginning to compile a list of local food producers (as much as I can with limited time and resources anyway), to look into the possibility of occasional bulk buys from them directly. Or at the very least, so that I will be able to recognise the names of local producers at markets and so forth (as not all the producers at my nearest Farmer's Market are what I would term 'local').


Consumer Spending: This is also the first month we have been conscientiously tracking our consumer spending, and we've already spent a third of our yearly target, although to be fair I was expecting this. With school going back (and girls needing new school shoes), plus big-budget expenditure like the ceiling fans and washing machine, it was always going a big month. This next month should be more "normal".


Water: Our goal use is 120 L/day. Our actual use was 871 L/day. Eeek! This month was really hot and dry, plus our rainwater tank was empty, so we had to water our fruit trees and vegies not only (almost) every day, but using mains water too :-( We had been averaging about 380L/day up until this month and I was hoping to do better with the new front-loading washing machine. Ah well, this will serve to make me try harder to conserve water elsewhere, that's for sure.


Electricity: Our goal use is 5.7 kWh/day. Our actual use was 23 kWh/day! Double eek! We averaged about 10 kWh per day last year, so you can clearly see the difference using an air conditioner made this month with it's high temperatures. We tried to limit it's use unless we really needed it, but I'm sure the air con also worked harder than usual when it was on because the outside temps were so high (around 40'C/ 104'F), and when it wasn't on we had the fans going on high in several rooms. Meh. I can only hope we can make up the numbers during the rest of the year.


Natural Gas: Goal use: 19 MJ/day. Actual: 29.1 MJ/day. As usual, I think it will be difficult for us to get down to our goal until we have solar hot water heating installed. Since we have a gas hot water service (not electricity), we don't qualify for any of the government rebates for SHW systems and we just can't afford to have one installed otherwise, particularly since gas-boosted SHW systems (which is what we would have to install) are the most expensive on the market. I understand that the government are focusing on replacing the inefficient electricity HW systems, but some sort of a rebate for the rest of us would be nice... At least all the hot weather is perfect for solar cooking.


Fuel: Despite having next to no public transport where we live and almost nothing within walking distance (except the girls' school), our goal is to only use 94 L of petrol for the month. However we blew that out of the water with having to drive DH to work because he is recovering from pneumonia (although he did manage cadge lifts with a co-worker who kindly drove out of her way), and lots of school holiday travel. We used 181.5 L (travelling a whopping 1648 km).

However, this is also the first month we have kept a log book in the car of where and when we travelled, so fortunately I can see that 86.47L of our petrol use was for work and work-related travel, which means that had DH been riding his bicycle to work as per usual, we would have only used 95.03L for the month! Phew.

It was really interesting to see where the extra travel was going, plus of course, I can now work out how much the average trip to Bunnings or the grocery store costs in fuel! Added incentive to really ensure that I am combining trips and planning travel, that's for sure.


Garbage: Our goal is to discard less than 2.3 kg of rubbish per week, and 0.75 kg of recycling. We actually discarded 2.0 kg of rubbish (up on last month unfortunately; that's all the food I bought instead of made) and 2.65 kg of recycling per week. Our recycling weight was up because we had a couple of BBQ's with friends (and there were lots of empty beer bottles left over)! This has given me the necessary kick in the butt to get out the beer brewing kit I bought on eBay last year, and I'll be brewing my first batch today.


So, on the whole I'm sorta-kinda happy with our progress this year, but it goes to show what happens when you get a bit complacent, and that will certainly be reflected in our next lot of bills. Meh. No point in dwelling on it though; onwards and upwards and all that ;-) Hopefully next month I can report better results!

Updated: This post outlines the figures I used to calculate our goals. Riot rules state that where figures are for a "household", you should apply them to your household regardless of the number of people you have living in it, so by rejigging my figures for a household of five, I am not strictly adhering to the Riot. Meh. I recalculate them because a) the average Aussie figures are lower than the US figures they work off anyway, and b) we'd be too discouraged otherwise!