Everything including the kitchen sink.

Phew, I'm pleasantly tired! Nothing like a spot of gardening to get some good, productive exercise. This weekend I have been sowing up a storm, rifling through my seed packets and dreaming of winter greens and root vegies. The detailed list of my plantings is in my garden diary, but suffice it to say that this weekend's sowings included spinach, mizuna, endive, corn salad and chicory, cauliflowers, onions, bok choy and cabbage, kohlrabi, peas, leeks, lettuce and silverbeet. I think I have "leafy greens" covered LOL, although I had my dates stuffed up and missed the optimal moon planting window for them. C'est la vie.

Another exciting event is that I've passed the 50 kilo/110 pound mark for our garden harvest so far this year! I'm so glad I joined the Freedom Gardens challenge and started weighing all our food - I would never have estimated that we could produce that much food from such a small space! I'm rather proud of myself :-) We'll see how we go in winter though LOL.

In other garden news, I found my first starfruit fallen from the tree this morning. I hadn't realised there were any ripe ones yet, so that was a pleasant find. No, I didn't share it ;-)

I also picked the remainders of the pumpkins (all Butternuts) and composted the vines. They were quite prolific but all the fruits were very small this year? I put it down to not enough fertiliser and water as it was very hot and dry this summer, and I don't remember digging very much manure into their planting beds when they were planted out (as I was desperate to just get them into the ground before they keeled over LOL). The one at the front has weird patterns on it - I think it's snail damage? I suspect it is just superficial skin damage and the pumpkin underneath is OK though: pumpkin risotto is on the menu this week.


The most exciting event in the garden this weekend though, was the arrival of this little lovely!


I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had bought a second hand kitchen sink for use in the garden, rinsing vegies: it's been at my father-in-law's place being fitted to a frame and some legs, and DH picked it up for me yesterday. Cool huh?

We were going to attach it to the brick wall with brackets but this way I can move it if it is too awkward where it is now (I suspect I am going to head butt it when I go to turn on the garden tap which is underneath). Now it just needs a plug and a bucket underneath the catch the dirty water for reuse in the garden. I am also going to look for a tub which will fit neatly inside the sink bowl, so that it can double as a potting bench (I'll use the tub for holding potting or seedling mix). Neat-o!

Happy gardening to all the gardeners out there :-)

Earth Hour 2009

Tomorrow night - Saturday March 28 - at 8.30pm is Earth Hour 2009, where people are urged to switch off their lights for one hour to show their support for action against global warming.

We will be participating as a family, as we have for the previous two years, but I have to admit that I am rather ambivalent about the whole project. On the one hand I love that it is a project which everyone in the wider community can participate in and that it draws widespread attention to global warming.

On the other, I have heard way too many media interviews in the last few days, where people are talking about how they will be participating and how 'green' they are because they always recycle and they've changed their light bulbs to CFL's. Forgive the cynic in me, but the Climate Change situation warrants far, far more attention than just turning lights off for one hour. Last year DH took the dogs for a walk out of curiosity, to see if any of our neighbours were participating in Earth Hour. Of the very few who had turned their lights off (and were actually at home), nearly all were sitting and watching their large screen plasma TVs in the darkness.

I know, I know, "something is better than nothing" and all that. It just makes me sad that - in general - people are willing to take the easy path and switch off their light for one hour, once a year, but won't take pen to paper and write their local member of government, and/or the Federal Environment, or Climate Change ministers. Real change won't happen unless we exert real pressure, consistently, on our elected representatives.

Perhaps instead of promoting Earth Hour via live blog posts or Twitter feeds, the Earth Hour organisers could suggest using that computer time to email your local representatives or ministers, join a local community action group, convert to 100% GreenPower or buy a second hand bicycle on eBay. Better still, they could promote turning off your computer and TV as well as the lights! What a shocking concept ;-)

As for us, the kids should be tucked in bed by then, so we'll spend the hour with everything switched off, probably enjoying a nip of homemade limoncello and watching the skies to see if we can see any more stars than usual (although it's forecast to be raining). Anyone doing something interesting for Earth Hour?

Cheats Spanakopita (Spinach and Ricotta) Pie

This is by no means the traditional Spanakopita; it swaps puff pastry for filo pastry for a start (which lowers the fat content), but it's really quick and really yummy. I substitute silverbeet or kale for the spinach depending on what I have to hand, and sometimes I exchange a sliced leek for the onion. Using low-fat ricotta and reduced-fat puff pastry will cut the calories even further.

Spinach and Ricotta Pie



Ingredients

200g baby spinach leaves
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium brown onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
2 tbs chopped fresh mint
1.5 cups (300g) ricotta cheese
2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry

Method

1. Preheat oven to very hot.

2. Steam or microwave spinach until wilted. Cool and squeeze out excess liquid. If you are using silverbeet or kale, chop it coarsely.

3. Heat oil and saucepan and gently fry off the onion and garlic until onion is softened.

4. Combine spinach, ricotta cheese, onion mix, rind and herbs in a bowl and mix to combine.

5. Oil two oven trays and heat in the oven for 5 minutes. If you have them, using pizza trays with the holes in the base will ensure a nice, crisp crust on the bottom.

6. Place one sheet of pastry on each tray and place half of the cheese mixture in the middle of each, leaving a 2" border. Fold the edges of the pastry over the mixture.

7. Bake in very hot oven for 20 minutes, or until pastry browns. Serves 4.

Adapted from: AWW Meals in Minutes Vegetarian, pg 94.

A more ethical Easter

Gosh, how did it get to be almost Easter time again? Wasn't Christmas like, last week? Apparently the year has gotten away from me again!

Anyway, I'm not buying my girls chocolate Easter eggs this year. Shocking, isn't it? Well, not from my point of view. When I first started blogging about our simple living journey 2 1/2 years ago, one of the first blogs I came across was Eilleen's, at Consumption Rebellion. In some of her posts she talked about "blood chocolate", or the common use of child slave labour in the production of cocoa beans in many African nations and posted a couple of videos (here, here and here) which utterly horrified me and changed my view of chocolate forever.

These days, I can't in all good conscience give my children chocolate Easter eggs, knowing that someone else's children were cruelly exploited to produce them.

Although modern Easter is a mish-mash of Christian and pagan ideology, it's primarily supposed to be a holiday (holy-day) to ponder Jesus' act of dying on the cross to save Christians from their sins, and to celebrate his rise from the dead.

Does anyone else see the horrible irony of big multi-national chocolate companies promoting the sales of their products at Easter with advertising showing happy, healthy (and predominately white) children devouring the chocolate they make from cocoa beans using child slave labour on the other side of the world?

If you like your chocolate, there is good news however - there are several brands of chocolate (and Easter eggs) which are child-labour free; those with a FAIRTRADE symbol. You can find a list of Fairtrade chocolates at the World Vision Don't Trade Lives website (the PDF file is here).


Last week, the Fairtrade Association of Australia issued a press release saying that this year, two Australian companies are offering Fairtrade chocolate Easter Eggs: Chocolatier and Heritage Fine Chocolates. Yay! Not only are they child-labour free Easter eggs, they are Australian companies as well (so you'd be supporting local businesses). From the media release:

Where to buy Fairtrade Certified Easter Eggs and chocolate:

Chocolatier Fairtrade Easter Eggs are available from David Jones stores nationally, selected Woolworths and Safeway stores, a range of specialty stores, Chocolatier’s two Melbourne stores (North Ivanhoe and Hampton) and online at http://www.chocolatiershop.elocal.com.au/

Heritage Fine Chocolates have Fairtrade Certified Milk and Dark Chocolate Easter Eggs available in Melbourne from their store at the Prahran Market, 163 Commercial Rd, South Yarra QLD 3141.

Oxfam Shops are selling Easter hampers as well as their own and other brands of Fairtrade chocolate, in store and online at www.oxfamshop.org.au

The Trading Circle has fair trade Easter Eggs and pre-wrapped Easter chocolate packs available from their Melbourne shop at 261 Victoria Street, Abbotsford or contact Brigid Corcoran on (03) 9421 6874 or brigid.corcoran@goodshep.com.au

Plus look for the FAIRTRADE Label on chocolate at speciality stores, health food shops and major retailers nationwide including Coles, Target and IGA.

You can read more about chocolate and child labour here.
______________________________________


So, what ARE we doing for Easter this year?

As I said, I won't be buying my girls chocolate eggs, I'll leave that up to their doting grandparents. I have felt in previous years that they ended up with WAY too much chocolate anyway; I'd end up trying to hide most of it away and dole it out in small amounts for weeks on end (yep, I am that cruel ;-). I also hate the waste involved in all that individual wrapping which gets thrown away.

Last year I decided that both the girls and I love the Easter egg hunt too much to do away with it - it's the thrill of the chase and the delight in finding treasures isn't it? - so I started looking for alternatives to chocolate eggs . I love the American tradition of painting real (blown and emptied) chicken eggs, and it may be something we do in future, but for now I suspect many, many eggs would be broken and there would be tears aplenty! (Although my girls might be more mature about breakages than me ;-) Plus, I thought it would be nicer to be able to keep the eggs at the end for future use.

I know nothing about felting, so although I loved these felted eggs I kept looking around on the 'net. Then I found this pattern, and I made a few stuffed, patchwork eggs using material scraps. They turned out OK, although I am not a very good sewer (or stuffer!) so they were a bit wonky LOL, but my girls loved them. I LOVE this pattern for a fabric egg with a secret pocket just big enough to tuck in a little something for my girls, and I am hoping to get the time to make some this year.

Otherwise, we will just be using the wooden eggs* I asked my talented father-in-law to make for us, as I mentioned last year. He turned them on his lathe from scrap pieces of timber he had in his workshop. As usual, I love to leave things until the last minute, LOL, so am only just getting around to painting the eggs this week! I personally, quite like the raw timber look:

My girls, however, are more into "pretty", so I was busy yesterday applying an undercoat of paint to them all:


After I finish here, I hope to start doing some details, although they won't be anything spectacular! Unlike my crafty mother, I am not the least bit artistic, so my details will consist of spots and stripes LOL. When they are dry I will finish them with a couple of clear Bio wood varnish to seal them. If they look half decent I might post more pics when I am done :-)

* If you don't have a word-working friend or relative like me, you can buy wooden 'eggs' at craft suppliers or wood-working shops. You can also buy plastic and foam 'eggs' from craft suppliers (and plastic dummy eggs are available at poultry supplies stores) which are cheaper but personally, I'm not keen on these from an environmental point of view.

And, speaking of being blessed with talented relatives, my parents are downsizing homes in the next year or so, and my (multi-talented) Mum is rehoming many of her dolls and bears she has made over the years. Just in time for Easter, she passed on three little bunny dolls (one for each of my girls).

(Oops, her nose needs a clean!)

Aren't they adorable? Chocolate, or no chocolate, my girls aren't going to feel 'deprived' this year, that's for sure!

My autumn garden.

It's a lovely time of the year, autumn, especially around here. The weather has been beautiful and balmy, and there's so much potential in the air for winter vegie crops. I've been busy sowing seeds as I've gotten the chance, although I'm unsure as to go with "sub-tropical" plantings or "temperate". That's the problem with being right on the border between the two climate divisions - if it's a 'cold' winter like last year, I can plant temperate crops of cabbages and cauliflowers, but if it's a warm year (the usual), I can get away with a second crop of tomatoes etc.

I've decided to hedge my bets, and have been sowing temperate seeds, whilst cultivating sub-tropical crops of tomatoes, potatoes and capsicums.

Here's some kale I sowed earlier in the week, up already and leaning towards the sun:


And here's some of my onions, cabbages, Chinese cabbage, bok choy, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings:


Whilst in the vegie garden, two of the capsicums (peppers) which sulked all summer long and refused to grow, have started flowering (although they are still only about 4 inches high):


The Listada di Gandia eggplants are still producing well:


And the larger of the two Amish Paste tomatoes is setting fruit, despite showing signs of wilt and browning off? I have applied potash liberally to the tomatoes, but I am now wondering if there might have been pockets of uncomposted manure in the mixture I dug in before I planted them, and the 'wilt' might be a combination of sappy growth (too much nitrogen from the manure) and the browning off might be occurring when the roots hit a patch of too-fresh manure which burns them off?


I also discovered the presence of root-knot nematodes on the roots of a couple of cucumbers I dug out recently, which isn't good. You can just see the bubbly knobs on the roots in the photo; they were more pronounced when I first dug them up and had wilted a bit in the sun by the time I got the camera. Luckily brassicas are unaffected by nematodes apparently, and this is the bed I intend to plant my onions, cabbages, caulis and broccoli into this autumn. Hopefully, that will help to break the cycle, but I will have to be careful what I plant into that bed next summer as they are very persistent I gather!


Unfortunately, the White Icicle radish are bolting to seed without forming a proper-sized root? Still too hot for it I assume (the Easter Egg radishes are doing well). It has lovely, delicate mauve flowers though - very pretty. I will try to save seed from it; my seed-saving bible tells me to save the seed from the last plants to bolt (makes sense; I don't want to promote early bolting!).


The Amaranth are also flowering with their long, burgundy spikes:


The carrots that germinated are doing well. The dogs walked all over the bed after I sowed them so my germination was poor where they had turned it over! Note to self: fence it off next time. The mustard Red Giant in the background is also coming along nicely, I can start picking leaves now.


The Lazy Housewife green beans and the Cherokee Wax butter beans are shooting upwards too, it won't be long before they are flowering I think.


Elsewhere, the pears are starting to lose their leaves for the winter:


But the Heritage raspberries are flowering and fruiting a little - they needed more water in the recent hot weather I think, so I'll only get a few berries off them. I'll be buying a couple more canes this winter too, yummo.


The first ripe lemon of the season was poking through the foliage this morning, yay! Lemons again :-)


And the Carambola (Starfruit) is flowering away again,


and when I checked under the foliage I discovered that it's dripping with green fruits too! They will ripen by around May - June.


My biggest surprise of the week though, was the discovery of beans on a couple of my coffee bushes! I knew a few had flowered but I hadn't noticed beans before. I'll be lucky to get a teaspoon's worth of coffee from all the beans this year, but it bodes well for next year's potential crop.



A couple of my blueberries are also flowering and fruiting, which is odd, but hey, we love blueberries so I'm not complaining:


Lastly, my cherry guavas are fruiting. Only a few fruits this year sadly - they are in pots and suffered from heat/water stress during our really hot spells. There's a few to nibble on, though next year I hope to have enough for jam.


The black mulberry is fruiting again; just enough to wet our appetite as they ripen, not enough to do anything with.


And I found a lone, teeny tiny new apple on one of the Pinkabelle apple trees! Odd.


Although in contrast, the Red Papaya has more than a dozen fruits on it, all fattening up nicely. I can't wait for the first one to ripen for eating, but they seem to have a way to go yet. It's a bisexual tree, so I only need the one for pollination.


Now I'm off to dig some compost, dolomite lime and manure into a freshly cleared vegie bed, ready for planting out my onions and brassica seedlings.

Happy gardening!

Posting at the Co-Op today :-)

Today's post is on making ginger beer at home, a topic I posted about here last year and which is a very popular post!

See you there :-)

Spicy Rice Balls (Mock Meat Balls)

These rice balls are quite filling and versatile; use them as is or as a substitute for meat balls in your regular recipes such as crockpot meat balls and spaghetti. They freeze well - thaw in the refrigerator overnight and reheat gently in the oven or mixed into a spaghetti sauce.

Spicy Rice Balls (Mock Meatballs)




Ingredients

2 cups cooked long grain rice
1/2 cup instant oats
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup dried bread crumbs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves
cayenne pepper and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup wheat germ to coat
2 tbsp. olive oil

Method

1. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except wheat germ and vegetable oil. Cover and chill mixture well, at least 1 hour, in the refrigerator. Shape mixture into meatballs and roll each in wheat germ to coat.

2. Heat oil in a nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Cook the meatballs in the oil for 8-10 minutes, turning carefully, until light golden brown.

3. Drain rice balls on a clean towel and serve immediately with steamed or baked vegetables.

4. To freeze, layer between freezer paper or brown paper.

Alternatively, gently mix rice balls with one large jar of spaghetti sauce and place in heavy duty ziplock freezer bags. To serve these rice balls and sauce, thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat in a saucepan over medium low heat, stirring frequently, until rice balls are hot all the way through, OR place in a crockpot and allow to reheat for several hours. Served over cooked spaghetti, serves 6.

Note: The first time I made these I used brown rice, but no matter what I did, I could NOT get the mixture to hang together in balls! The second time I used medium-grain white rice which was far more sticky and they turned out really well.

Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com.

Doing: ... Digesting yesterday's looong lunch. It was DH's 40th birthday, so he took the day off work and my family all took him out to lunch at a particularly nice pub on the shores of Lake Macquarie. Great food, great company, great weather... Ate just a bit too much ;-)

... Still finding homes for things (Stuff), but at least you can see where I've been now.

Making: ... Starting on another girl's birthday present apron (for a birthday party on Saturday).

Baking: ... Bread. Still can't get my Artisan Bread basic boules to stop looking like frisbees.


In the Garden: ... Sowing seeds. Kale, leeks, celtuce, Florence fennel, dill, rocket, broad leaf celery, corn salad, tatsoi, Miner's lettuce.

... Harvesting: Kale, silverbeet, mustard leaves, cucumbers, lettuce leaves, eggplants and my first radishes:


Dinner: ... Leftover lentil and spinach lasagne, garlic bread (i.e. slabs of the above loaf smeared with garlic butter and toasted) and garden salad.

Reading: ... Finally catching up with my favourite blogs after over a week away. Geez you guys can write!

Contemplating: ... Whether the nights are cool enough to get out my knitting needles again, I can feel the need for a hand knit cardigan coming on as the air starts to crisp a little.

Thank you :-)

From Christie: Lemons to Lemonade for great attitude or gratitude...


And from Veggie Gnome:

Thank you guys so much! I can't possibly pass on awards to just a few of my favourites, so if you're on my blog roll, consider yourself awarded :-)

Homemade Shaving Gel

I received many comments (both positive and negative) regarding the shaving 'gel' recipe I posted a couple of years ago and a result, I have tweaked the recipe a little.

My husband used to suffer from shaving rash quite badly, but has not had any troubles since using this gel - for over two years now - and a result is a big fan.

Please note however, that this recipe does not make a thick gel like commercial shaving gels - the mix will be only marginally thicker in texture than the liquid castile soap - however a little goes a long way and the aim is to only coat the skin enough to lubricate the razor.

Homemade Shaving Gel
1/2 cup liquid organic castile soap
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp salt (this acts as a preservative)
2 tbs vegetable glycerine
2 tbs aloe vera gel
8 drops tea tree essential oil*

Dissolve the salt in the hot water, and then blend all remaining ingredients together.

I store the gel for my husband in a clean, used pump bottle which formerly held moisturiser.




* Tea tree oil is a natural anti-septic which can help prevent infected in-grown hairs, however feel free to experiment with other essential oils such as peppermint.

I've been a busy little Vegemite.

Have you ever felt like hiring a bobcat to clear out the contents of your house, so you can start all over again with just the bare essentials? In fact, some years ago there was a TV program called something like Your Life on the Lawn, where people dobbed in a dedicated hoarder; presenters turned up while hoarder was out and dumped the entire contents of the house on the front lawn - and then made the hoarder go through their Stuff to sort what they really needed and what was junk.

I have been diligently and consistently ridding ourselves of Stuff for several years now, but recently we decided, for sanity's sake, to separate our youngest two girls and give Miss Three her own room (Miss Three needs a solid 10 hours sleep or she's wretched but Miss Five is a night owl who happily gets by with about 6 hours a night!).

Which meant getting rid of our study/spare room.

Which meant redistributing the entire contents of the room throughout the rest of the house.

In other words - we suddenly had a storage crisis of major proportions. Which we all know, really means, we had a sudden Stuff crisis.

I've spent well over a week moving things around (both furniture and Stuff), and in the process trying to purge as best we can, cleaning the things we want to keep, and then trying desperately to find new homes for it all. I'm exhausted and we still have Stuff sitting everywhere; all over the dining table, on the floor in our bedroom, sitting on dressers and the top of the fridge... Sigh.

I reached breaking point about mid week last week where I was just too depressed to look at it any more - I mean, I'd been getting rid of so much Stuff, so why did we still seem to have so much?

The answer was of course, that for every bag of items I gave away to St. Vinnies, I brought something else into our home to "help" me live more simply!

I gave away a box of electrical appliances... and was given a vacola bottling unit. I gave away a dinner set... and bought a food dehydrator.

I stopped filling my pantry with processed foods... and used the space to store pickles and jams. I gave away unused casserole dishes... and used to space for storing bulk flour and grains.

I gave away unused linen... and used the storage space to stockpile groceries. I gave away bags of clothes... and had to find somewhere to store empty glass preserving jars.

We cleared out a section of the garage... and I bought a second hand home-brew beer kit with six dozen bottles. I gave away boxes and boxes of books... but had to find somewhere to store my new craft, knitting and sewing materials.

And so it goes on! I pondered briefly how it was that my grandparent's generation had much smaller houses but still had preserves etc, but the answer is obvious; they had no computers, TV's and kids toys and games, far fewer clothes and shoes, no electrical kitchen appliances save for perhaps a Mixmaster and toaster. Certainly no enormous filing cabinet, no wine rack, and definitely not two dining tables!

And as I've been moving things around, there's been a cascade of cleaning involved - dusty wine glasses, marks on the walls behind furniture, a new bedroom needing repainting and the carpet cleaning (which showed up the cobwebs on the cornices, the dirty skirting boards and the dusty blinds).

I'm so tired, but it's been a marvellous exercise from the point of view of showing in exquisite detail, just how much our lives are ruled by the Stuff we own; not only the storage of it but the cleaning and maintenance of it as well. I now truly understand why some people just hire a skip bin and fill it to the brim when they move houses! Thank goodness for Freecycle, although we still have items listed several times which nobody wants.

Anyway, wish me luck while I try and deal with the remainders (I swear double adapters must breed when you aren't looking); hopefully I'll be back blogging regularly again soon LOL.

Rich and Ally in 'Notebook' magazine.

One of my favourite blogs is Richard and Ally's Adventures in Urban Sustainability - I am always inspired by their journey converting their average urban block in Wollongong into a thriving food forest.

Well, thanks to a heads up by Bronwyn (thanks!) I have just discovered that they are featured in an article in the current issue of Notebook magazine (April 2009). I don't buy women's mags but I made an exception this time LOL.

**Update: you can read the PDF of their article HERE.**

So if you happen to know someone with the magazine, or your budget stretches to a purchase (sadly for those of who would just like to have a peep in the newsagent's, it's enclosed in a plastic sleeve this month), it's well worth the read (and not just because they were kind enough to mention my blog in their article! LOL).

Well done Ally and Rich, it's a wonderful article - very inspiring. I hope many more people will be similarly motivated to start travelling down the same path in suburbia thanks to you guys :-)

Zucchini Slice

An oldie but a goldie, this one is a big favourite at my place, and it's so quick and easy. I always cook a double batch and freeze one for later.

Zucchini Slice



Ingredients

375g (3/4 pound) zucchini, grated
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 rashers bacon, chopped
1 red capsicum (sweet pepper), finely chopped
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup sifted self-raising flour
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
salt and pepper

Method

1. Mix all ingredients together well, and place in a greased baking dish.

2. Cook in a moderate oven (180'C/ 355'F) for 30-40 minutes, until cooked through and golden on top.

Serve hot with salad or rice, or freeze for up to three months.

Variation: Omit the bacon for a vegetarian version; add olives if desired.

Low Fat Lentil and Spinach Lasagne

This is really yummy and a bit sweet - very more-ish. You can of course, substitute silverbeet or other greens for the spinach.

Low Fat Spinach and Lentil Lasagne


Ingredients

500g fresh spinach, roughly chopped
375g low fat ricotta cheese
375g low fat cottage cheese
1 cup low fat cheddar cheese, grated
500g jar pasta sauce
2.5 cups water
300g instant wholemeal lasagne sheets
400g can lentils, drained
2 tbs fresh oregano OR 2 tsp dried
1 clove garlic, crushed

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180'C. Drain spinach well and squeeze out any excess moisture.

2. Mix spinach with ricotta, cottage cheese, lentils, oregano and garlic in a large bowl.

3. Mix pasta sauce with the water in a separate bowl.

4. In a large lasagne dish, alternate layers of sauce, lasagne sheets and cheese mix, ending with sauce. Top with the grated cheese.

5. Cover with foil and bake for 60 minutes. Remove foil and bake a further 15 minutes until cheese is golden. Allow to stand for 3-5 minutes before serving.

It rained mud!

Yep, it rained MUD here yesterday afternoon! Typically, it was at school pick-up time too ;-)



Apparently it was extremely windy in inland NSW yesterday morning, which sent a large load of fine, red dust into the upper atmosphere. When it reached the coast, the clouds had built up enough to start raining gently - and when it did it brought the red dust down with it!



I was walking to school with my umbrella up and I noticed after a while that my arms were dirty which was weird, then as I got to the gate a friend hopped out of her white car and asked if she was going mad because it looked like it was raining mud - sure enough her car was filthy.

DH had taken ours to work but they didn't escape the mud there either as you can see from the state of our car. (Did you get it out at your place Kez?)

Not surprisingly, there was much discussion about it on the radio this morning. It's not terribly unusual (I've seen it once before in Melbourne), but it looks like this sort of thing will be more common with our changing climate patterns. One more thing to look forward to I guess.

Speaking of which, did you read Crunchy's post on Sunday with the link to the graphic of the earth will be like in 2099. Sobering stuff. We might have to migrate to Perth to live with The Crone and her pals I think :-0

Fermenting and Using Kefir

A couple of people have asked me about kefir, so I thought I'd throw together some quick links to get you started :-)

When I mentioned I was interested in using kefir last year, I was lucky enough to have a very generous fellow blogger offer to send me some kefir grains to get me started (hi Veg!). Since then, we've been enjoying kefir in various ways and in our cooking, and it's delish!


What is it?

The kefir "bible" website is (Aussie) Dom's Kefir In-site; pretty much anything you could possibly want to know about Kefir is on this site and I highly recommend having a good read through some of his (many) interesting pages. Dom explains what kefir is much better than I could, suffice to say that kefir grains are made up of a mixture of bacteria and yeasts. Adding them to milk (or water, or occasionally other liquids), will result in the fermentation of the milk at room temperature over around 24 hours, to produce kefir. The kefir grains are strained from the liquid, and added to fresh milk to continue the cycle. The kefir can then be stored in the refrigerator.

What are the benefits?

Kefir is a probiotic, in the same way that live-cultured yoghurt is (although some believe it is even better for you than yoghurt). It contains beneficial bacteria like yoghurt does, and several vitamins.

How do you make it?

It's really, really simple! Add around 2 heaped spoon fulls of kefir grains to 2 cups of fresh milk in a clean jar and leave at room temperature for about 24 hours. Gently shaking the jar occasionally as you go past will help even fermentation. Don't use UHT milk or powdered milk but any other fresh dairy milk is fine (you can use other milk substitutes and water; check Dom's website here for his excellent kefir-making instructions, here for more info on using soy milk and here for using water).

You can either put a lid on the jar, or you can cover it with muslin to keep out the critters. I personally find that milk kept in a lidded container is too sour for our liking, although I occasionally have issues with vinegar flies, so I place the lid on top but don't tighten it.

When the kefir grains have finished fermenting the milk, you will see pockets of clear whey in the milk, such as in the photo below. The longer you leave it, the more sour it will taste (some people like it more sour than others).


Then you simply strain the kefir grains out of the milk, using a non-metallic strainer (opinion is divided on whether metal utensils should come into contact with the grains, but as you can see I sometimes use a metal bowl).


The grains look a bit like tiny heads of cauliflower. Simple add them back to another jar of milk and start the process over again. Over time the grains will multiply; you can halve them and use the leftover to start a new batch, give them away or discard them (you can eat them but I find them a bit too slimy for my taste LOL).


The kefir can be drunk straight away, although Dom recommends refrigerating it at least overnight to improve the flavour. I have a jug I keep in the fridge which I top up each day.


What can I do with it?

DH and I drink it straight from the fridge, but the kids find it too sour to their taste, but will happily drink it in smoothies (used instead of yoghurt). I use it in cooking wherever plain yoghurt or buttermilk is required (baking, pancakes etc) and make cream 'cheese', often flavoured with fresh herbs, as a dip or as a sandwich spread. When the kefir is strained briefly to thicken it, I use it as a substitute for sour cream.

These uses are just for starters though, it can be used for making sourdough breads and other types of cheese, salad dressings, a sensational lemon ice cream and more. Some more recipes are here and here to get you started :-)

Where do I get some grains?

The best source for live grains is a friend or acquaintance, otherwise you could try this international list of people willing to share grains (may or may not require payment), or this directory of Kiwis and Australians (also may or may not require payment, depending on the individual). You can also purchase live or dried grains at many health food stores or at some online stores via mail; you'll need to Google to find one near you.

I hope this helps :-)