Posting at the Co-Op today...

I have another post up at the Co-Op today. I'm posting about using lemons to clean your home!

Click on the banner to visit us... See you there :-)

Eat your greens...

Pan fried.

Preferably with free-range bacon.

Definitely lashings of home grown garlic.

A pinch of sea salt and grind of pepper.

Yeah, baby.

GM Foods.

It would come as no surprise to my regular readers that I am totally opposed to genetically-modified (GM) foods, and I am horrified that the Australian government let the ban on growing GM crops lapse last year.

I discovered yesterday that the fantastic US documentary The Future of Food, which discusses GM foods (and why the company Monsanto is so bad) has been uploaded in 10 parts to YouTube. Each part is around 10 minutes long and I highly recommend watching it.


Part one is here, you can access the remaining parts via clicking on the link under each video. Be quick - the last time it was uploaded it was taken down again pretty quickly.


Once you've watched the video, go to www.truefood.org.au/ourrighttoknow and sign the petition to ensure GM foods are tightly controlled and all products containing GM foods are labelled in Australia.

Crockpot & Solar Cooker: Silverbeet and Potato Curry

You can of course, substitute any other leafy green for the spinach in this recipe. I often use silverbeet (swiss chard) or kale for this recipe when I don't have any spinach available, and the curry in the photo was made with red mustard leaves.

It is a mild curry with a little tang which my kids enjoy, so ramp up the spices for a more adult heat hit.

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4-5 medium potatoes, chopped
Large bunch spinach leaves, stalks removed and leaves roughly chopped
1 400g tin diced tomatoes, or equivalent fresh
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
freshly ground black pepper
dash of chilli or cayenne powder, optional
1 tbs olive oil or ghee

Method A: Crockpot

1. Heat oil or ghee in crockpot on high, add onion, garlic and spices and stir until fragrant.

2. Add potatoes and tomatoes, and cook on low for approx. 5 hours.

3. Add spinach or silverbeet/ chard and cook for another hour on low, until potatoes are tender.

Method B: Solar Cooker

1. Heat oil in small frypand anf fry onion, garlic and spices in oil until fragrant. Remove to a lidded solar cooker pan, and add potatoes and tomatoes. Cook for 3-4 hours.

2. Add spinach or silverbeet, stir and cook for another hour, until potatoes are tender.

Serve with rice and naan bread.

And the winners are...

The winners of my Book Giveaway, as decided by Random.org's random integer generator, are:

Comments #47 and #18:

#47 BunnoGal - In Praise of Slow

#18 MamaMogantosh - The Good Life

Congratulations guys! Email me at towards-sustainability(at)hotmail(dot)com with your postal addresses and I'll get your books out to you as soon as possible.


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A note for Novocastrians:

If you have access to the Newcastle Herald, I will be featured in Gina Cranson's Backyard column in the H2 supplement this Saturday, May 30th.

Giveaway Reminder

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Don't forget that my book giveaway closes tonight (Wednesday), so pop back to this post and leave a comment :-)

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"Bad" things happen in threes.

Ever felt like the Universe is trying to tell you something?

First, the automatic garage door-opener broke. It was installed when we built the house and my excuse for not disconnecting it when we decided to live more simply and save as much electricity as possible (apart from the fact I don't enjoy getting wet when it rains), is that you can't lock the door in the closed position when it is turned off. It is making a rather awful noise instead of opening and a large piece of metal has been bent awkwardly so it looks expensive to fix. Seems hubby is going to have to fiddle with the normal lock this weekend to get it working again so I can use and lock the door sans electric opener.


The Gods of Green Living: 1, Julie: 0.

Next, I bought a bottle of "environmentally-friendly", "chlorine-free mould killer" for my shower. I know! I haven't used anything but an Enjo glove and occasionally some bicarb soda and a toothbrush in the shower since I fell pregnant with daughter #1 eight years ago. It is crazy busy around here at the moment and with the onset of winter weather, steamy showers and a closed-up bathroom meant the mould was getting away from me. So I succumbed. I bought chemicals. And they didn't work. In fact, it made the mould worse! How is that possible? It was like I sprayed around invisible liquid mould which grew insidiously overnight to end up twice as bad as when I started! I might as well have torn up the five dollars I spent on it and thrown it in the shower for all the good it did me. I can only assume the chemicals in it are so harsh that they etched the surface of the grout and formed a better bed for the mould to grow in than it had before. Lesson learned: Stick to the Enjo glove and bicarb/vinegar paste**.


The Universe: 2, Julie 0.


Then finally, this morning hubby turned the TV on when he got up; there was a snap, crackle and POP! A shower of sparks, the acrid smell of burnt electricals and the TV is no more. I've been talking for weeks about turning off the telly permanently, but I still like to watch the local news, Gardening Australia and Catalyst, and I am was very much enjoying Around the World in 80 Gardens. At this point I'm embarrassed to admit that we have a second telly in the kids' playroom, and until six weeks ago we had a third languishing in the bottom of a wardrobe for 3½ years. I tried to give it away on Freecycle twice, but apparently no one wants a 52cm CRT non-flat screen TV in perfect working order, sigh. We finally gave it to my in-laws when theirs blew up. Anyway, it seems that the Green Gods are trying to tell me that my living room shall hence forth be used for pursuits of the non-television-watching variety - surely a Good Thing yes?


The Environment: 3, Julie 0.


Or should that really be Environment: 3 and Julie: 3?

** Edited to add: Sprinkle bicarb on the area you want to clean, or mix it into a paste with a little water, spray with white vinegar and scrub while it fizzes. Rinse with hot water. Follow up with a spray made from ½ teaspoon oil of cloves in 1 litre/quart of water. Oil of cloves is available from pharmacies and is a mould-inhibitor.

Speaking of mushrooms...

Item: One used commercial mushroom compost tray.


Investment: $2

Yield: 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds)

Savings: $23

Enjoyment: Priceless.

I hates meeces to pieces...

Lately, some of my mushrooms seemed a little deformed on top.

I thought perhaps my kids were poking them...

...until I saw this one:


A bite!

Looks like we have a mouse dining on my mushies.

Naughty Mr. Mouse. I might have to find an old sheet and net them I think.

Book Giveaway

********** Comments Now Closed **********

Kez was the recipient of a 'Pay it Forward' book giveaway, and was kind enough to pass on The Good Life book to me to read when she finished it.

So in the spirit of passing it on, I am having a Giveaway of two books: The Good Life, by Scott and Helen Nearing, and In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore.





The Good Life is written by a couple who lived as self-sufficiently as possible for many years, and details their lives on two different properties. Although I found the writing style a bit dry at times (and sometimes a little pompous), the content is still very interesting.

In Praise of Slow takes a look at the international Slow Movement, and how to slow down not only with the food we eat, but in other areas of our lives as well. Worth the read. I should add however, that this books has been well-loved - the spine and all pages are intact but it is heavily creased and well-thumbed! I bought it like that so not all the damage is mine LOL.

If you are interested in receiving either of these books, leave me a comment stating which one you'd like (or that you don't mind either book) and I'll put you in the draw. International readers are welcome too :-)

Comments will close on Wednesday p.m. and I'll announce the recipients on Thursday.

Breadmaker: French Bread

To make a crusty French bread loaf I make the dough in the breadmaker but finish cooking the loaf in the oven, so that I can make bread sticks or a more rustic-looking loaf than would be produced in the breadmaker.



Ingredients

375 ml water
3 tsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
600g/ 4 cups bread flour
1.5 tsp yeast

Method:

1. Place into breadmaker pan in the order recommended by your breadmaker.

2. Place pan into your breadmaker, select the DOUGH cycle and start the machine.

3. When the machine is finished, remove the dough and punch down. Knead gently and shape into a rough loaf shape, or two long bread sticks. Place onto a greased tray and score the top with a sharp knife about 1/2" deep. Rest, and allow to rise for around 50-60 minutes, until it has doubled in size.

4. Glaze the top with milk, and bake in a preheated 200'C (180'C fan-forced) oven for 20-25 minutes, or until cooked and golden brown.

Back to Basics / Independence Days

Some time ago I signed up for Belinda's Back to Basics Challenge, which in turn, Belinda based upon Peak Oil writer, Sharon Astyk's Independence Days Challenge.

I've been slack, slack, slack in updating, for which I apologise Belinda (grovel, grovel), but now that Sharon has restarted her Challenge for this year, I have decided I'd really better get my act together and start posting about it again regularly, with a sort of hybrid format LOL, and I will do instead of my usual Simple Days posts (as I don't really have the time for them at the moment). Sharon's participants post weekly, but I don't know if I'll have time for that either, but I'll try for fortnightly.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Independence Days Challenge, Sharon firmly believes that growing and preserving as much of our own food as possible is the best thing we can do for the planet, ourselves and our wallets! Of the challenge, she says:

"I think a lot of us have in our heads the idea that putting up [preserving] food, or getting into the garden has to wait until we have time. But of course, that time rarely arrives. Thus, I’ve found it tremendously helpful to simply do a little bit each day. It is also enormously useful to my morale to know that I got a little ahead in my goals that day - even when it is hard to believe it."

and:

"It is easy to forget how important this “little stuff” is - easy to think that your little garden doesn’t matter very much, or that your preparations won’t be enough... [but] the corollary of the fact that every calorie of food takes 10 of fossil fuels is that every stir fry or salad you eat from your garden saves 10 times the oil as the calories contained within it. The fact that almost every packaged ingredient uses 7 times as much energy to create that packaging means that your choice to buy bulk oatmeal just saved 7 times as much energy as the package contains."

You can read more about the challenge, and the various categories on Sharon's blog, here.

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Planted - kale (two types), fennel, cauliflowers, dill, chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, spinach (two types), endive, chicory, mizuna, tatsoi, corn salad (mache), miners lettuce.


Harvested - lettuce, mustard greens, a few potatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, beans, raspberries, starfruit.


Maintained - Dug over two garden beds with compost and manure; erected a trellis and finally tied up the youngberry and raspberries.


Observed - The luffa vine has set at least two fruits at last; Snails, snails and more snails are defoliating various vegies and even fruit trees.


Preserved - Another batch of red onion jam for pizza bases.

Red Onion Jam

Reduced Waste - I made a couple of bread bags by repurposing old linen tea towels, eliminating a little more plastic from our kitchen;


Preparation and Storage -

* In the light of the recent swine 'flu media attention, I revised and updated my food and other items stockpile list and will add to the stockpile as items come on sale - I will also go through my first aid kit to check for expired items as I haven't done that for a while now;
* I got DH to lay black plastic on the grass in the area (out the front) which is to become the Green Tea camellia hedge and medicinal herb bed;
* I realised that somehow, I still have a huge stack of lemon juice frozen in the freezer from last season's Meyer lemon haul (how I missed it during peak summer lemon cordial season, I don't know), so have made note of it to use up in cooking before this season's lemons really start coming in.

Dwarf Meyer Lemon

Building Community - I was interviewed about my blog and garden for an upcoming local newspaper column (as was Tricia).


Eat the Food - A big pot of chicken-and-everything soup to use up all the vegies in the fridge in danger of becoming inedible; cooked the first of the Red Giant mustard leaves, a new-to-me leafy green (first in soup, then in a stir-fry - both nice); used up a heap of old floury potatoes as gnocchi.

Red Giant Mustard

Learnt a new Skill - Made gnocchi for the first time (although it could use some work ;-)

Gnocchi.

What do you do when you find heavily discounted organic potatoes, close to their use-by date?

You make gnocchi! The best gnocchi is made from older, floury potatoes I am told, so these should be perfect.

The first time I ever had gnocchi (it was pumpkin gnocchi actually) many years ago, it was hideous. Really vile, water-logged dumplings with no texture (the fact that the staff hadn't bothered ironing their heavily-creased tablecloths should have alerted me to their level of care and expertise when we first walked into the reception centre LOL). It put me off gnocchi for years. I finally tried potato gnocchi at a reputable restaurant and loved it.

However. Now knowing the vast chasm between gnocchi cooked properly and gnocchi done badly, I have been reluctant to have a go at it myself for fear of presenting rubbery, tasteless goo! I finally figured: Meh, what the heck, and had a go last night. Being a visual learner, I watched a couple of YouTube videos about making gnocchi first and then (literally) jumped in with both hands.

I made a few mistakes along the way (such as accidentally adding the potatoes to boiling water which causes the skin to split and make the potato a bit soggy - you are supposed to add them to cold water and then bring them to the boil); I don't have a food mill or potato ricer so I just scraped the potatoes with a fork to mash them (possibly making them too mushy), and by the time I'd made approximately 437 dumplings, I just couldn't be bothered running them all over the back of a fork to make that nice gnocchi shape, so they stayed as little pillows LOL...

...then I served them with a mildly spicy tomato & olive sauce.



The verdict? DH loved it; I thought it was OK but could use some work; the usually very fussy Miss Five ate a huge plate, but Miss Seven and Miss Three - who both usually eat anything and everything - declared it tasted like Play Dough and wouldn't eat it. Hmmm. Room for some work I think!

I think I know where I can improve things, but all suggestions from gnocchi-makers extraordinaire will be graciously received ;-)

Bread bag.

First Amanda (SouleMama) made some last month, then Rhonda mentioned receiving one. When Melissa showed off her linen ones this week, I knew I had to get off my butt and make one too! A drawstring bread bag that is.


I have been storing my bread in reused plastic bags from bought loaves, but they are deteriorating and the colour is rubbing off on my fingers, which makes me feel a little icky about using them on our fresh food. Fabric bread bags (especially bamboo, said to have antimicrobial qualities) are supposed to allow the bread to breathe a little - and thereby retain a crispy crust - but also keep in enough moisture to extend the life of the bread, more so than paper bags.



When I first moved out of home, I went through a phase of buying linen tea towels from various environment and human rights organisation stores (Greenpeace, Wilderness Society, WWF, Amnesty International etc) and being linen they've seen long and dutiful service. In the past few years they've been buried at the bottom of the tea towel pile, underneath of heap of gifted second hand tea towels, but I rediscovered them this morning when I was sifting through the pile.


SouleMama used vintage tea towels with the sides trimmed off to use as draw strings but my tea towels must be smaller as one of my normal loaves won't fit inside lengthways. It does fit nicely crossways though so I just hemmed the sides, folded over the top and sewed around it for a casing and used some white cotton tape I found in my stash as a drawstring. The beauty of using a tea towel meant no finishing of the seams was necessary, so it literally took me about five minutes all up!




Not as cute as a hand-embroidered linen bread bag to be sure, but definitely quick and functional.

Fast food.

Heather's brown rice patties.

Simple, quick, delish!

Now on regular rotation.

Seed to Seed Growing Challenge - Update #2

It's been a while since I did an update for Melinda's Growing Challenge. The truth is that I haven't really got anything to report!

(For those new to the Challenge, Melinda challenged participants to grow something new [to us] from seed and then collect the seed for sowing the next season.)

Since my last update, I've collected seeds from Purple Oak Leaf lettuce and Freckles Cos lettuce, basil, Black Beauty zucchini, Waltham Butternut pumpkin, Amaranth and White Icicle radish.

Amaranth seed head.

Out of the plants I currently have growing, those growing from from seed I collected last season are Lazy Housewife beans, Purple Oak Leaf lettuce, Dill, and leeks.

Plants I have which are coming into seed at the moment (which were grown from seed and are varieties or plants new to me), are Stevia plant, Easter Egg radishes, Buttercrunch lettuce,and Cherokee Wax butter beans. In future I will also save seeds from the Amish Paste and Pink Brandywine tomatoes which are just starting to ripen.

Stevia (sweet leaf plant) flowers.

As I said, not much, but it all adds to my experience LOL.

At the Co-Op...

I'm posting again today, on simple, green methods for removing stains from clothing.

See you there!

Breadmaker: Naan Bread

I have carpal tunnel and have difficulty kneading dough, so I use a breadmaker. These are not as good as the ones cooked in a traditional tandoor oven, but are still delish.

Use a pizza stone instead of the baking tray if you have one.



Ingredients

2 cups bread flour or plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried yeast
4 tbs milk
1 tbs vegetable oil
2 tbs natural yoghurt
1 egg

Method

1. Add ingredients to breadmaker in the order recommended by your breadmaker manual (mine stipulates all the wet ingredients first, then the dry, then the dried yeast last).

2. Set machine to the "Dough" cycle and press start.

3. Preheat the oven and a baking tray to 220'C/ 425'F.

4. When the machine is finished, remove the dough and cut into three pieces*. Roll each out into a tear drop shape about 1/2" thick, and place onto the hot baking tray.

*I cut mine into six small pieces as there are five of us and the kids can't eat a whole naan by themselves.

5. Bake until puffed up and golden on the top, about 10-15 minutes. Remove and brush with melted butter or a mixture of melted butter and crushed garlic or herbs, if desired.

Amish Paste

My first Amish Paste tomato, grown from seed.

The first garden tomato since wilt killed them off in January.

No idea if (or for how long) they will last in this cold weather, though I overwintered a cherry tom last year, up against the same rock retaining wall.

Fingers crossed.

Wine barrels

Newly oiled, but needing drainage holes.

Where to put them though? They look good everywhere.

Oh, the dilemma ;-)

A Homemade Life: Molly Wizenberg

Devoured in one sitting.


Part memoir, part cookbook, each chapter features a short story about one period in her life, followed by a waist-expanding recipe or two relating to that time in her life at the end of the chapter.


Love Molly's blog. Loved, loved, loved the book. Two thumbs up.

Raspberry cordial.

One sick seven year old.

Sadly, not enough home-grown raspberries to make raspberry juice = dash to the store for 35% real fruit raspberry cordial.

Read more about the antiviral properties of raspberry cordial and gastro, here and here.

Happy Mother's Day

A houseplant and a good book.

Half wine barrels from a local vineyard (to be planted with fruit trees).

Sheepskin slippers from a local family-operated company.

Sauteed mushrooms in butter sauce on toasted homemade bread for breakfast.

I hope your Mother's Day is as good as mine ;-)

Baby sunflowers...

The yacon is flowering. Soon it will be time for harvesting crunchy, juicy tubers.

Savoury Red Onion Jam

This savoury jam is fabulous for pizzas, yum! It also makes a lovely addition to quiches and in shortbread tartlets, topped with feta cheese.

Red Onion Jam


Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
4 large red onions, finely sliced
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup red wine vinegar (or brown malt vinegar)
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary


Method

1. Heat the butter in a heavy bottomed frypan, and saute the onions gently over medium heat until softened and very slightly browned, about 30 minutes.

2. Add the brown sugar, stir to dissolve and continue to cook uncovered over low heat, stirring occasionally, until onions are thick and caramelised.

3. Add the vinegar and simmer uncovered for a further 5 minutes or so, until mixture is slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in rosemary.

4. Bottle into a sterilised jar and seal while hot. Store in refrigerator after opening, and consume within 2 weeks.


Makes 1 medium sized jar.

Missing... one blogging mojo

Last seen trembling behind the couch while I attacked cob-webby cornices with a vacuum cleaner attachment.

Don't ask me why, but I'm in the middle of a house-cleaning spree, the likes and thoroughness of which I haven't experienced since I was 'nesting' in the latter stages of my three pregnancies. And no, I'm not preggars again.

Washing walls and skirting boards, scrubbing windows sills, dusting blinds, laundering valances and pillows. Like spring-cleaning, only in autumn.

Odd.

Perhaps it's the crispness in the air that smells of the oncoming winter, focusing my attention inside again after a long summer spent mostly in the garden?

Nah, there's more to it than that. Like there's a change coming (a rebirth instead of actual birth?) and I'm preparing to hunker down with a pile of unread books and a clean, uncluttered kitchen to see it out. Like when a new baby is coming; you know its going to be heaps of hard work to begin with, but ultimately, oh so rewarding. Don't ask me what the actual change is either - I don't know. I do know it's a bit like how it must feel when a mountain climber reaches base camp; lots of learning and training has gone into getting to that point but now s/he has to do the actual hard yards to get to the top. Kinda like I've been practising, soaking up book-learning and other bloggers experiences to get to this point but now I'm sitting at base camp, plotting a route to get to the top.

Hmmm, all sound a bit theatrical. Really it just means more time with dirt under my fingernails and flour in my hair.

I've no idea what that means for my blogging mojo however. It might come back with a vengeance and a flurry of new ideas and thoughts. Or it might stay hiding behind the couch for a while, just quietly and thoughtfully absorbing the change before it comes out to play again.

Bear with me people ;-)

In the mean time, let me distract you with photos of a present I made for my mother-in-law's birthday last week: a card holder.



I based it on One Red Robin's notebook holder, but made pockets for blank cards on one side, and an address book and Parker pen on the other side (and no it's not the photo, the pocket on the left side has an angled top to make it a bit less boring-looking).


Lots of mileage from one simple pattern.
Cheers for now.

Posting at the Co-Op today...

I've posted today about simple sewing machine projects for beginners.

See you there!

Microwave Lemon Marmalade

A yummy, quick marmalade for when those lemons start to get a bit out of hand or you need a little handmade gift :-)



Ingredients

3 large or 4 small lemons
1½ metric cups water
3 metric cups white sugar

Method

1. Quarter lemons, discard seeds. Chop lemons finely by hand, or use a food processor for a more jam-like end product.

2. Place into deep dish with water, cook in microwave on HIGH 10 minutes or until lemon rind is tender.

3. Stir in sugar, cook on HIGH 18 minutes or until jam sets when tested on cold saucer; stir occasionally during cooking.

4. Stand 5 minutes before pouring into hot sterilised jars, seal when cold.

Makes about 3 cups.



Adapted from here.