Winter Kitchen Witchery

Shanti settles into a wooden seedling box when I turn my back ..
She likes to be near to our gardening activities,
even though cats are supposedly loners!  "A Cat- Alone-Near"

Help has arrived
Since my last post, our Catalonia Helpexchange friends breezed into our home and within 4 days had made HUGE inroads into the green carpet of weeds blanketing our bare ground.  They managed to fill one compost bin and there is a pile about a metre squared, of weeds sitting in a heap in front of the bin, awaiting bin space!!  What a pleasant way to garden - open up your home, make friends, extend a warm hand of hospitality and Voila!  The work gets done!  Truly the answer to Backyard Tension!  I also learned a little more of the world - Catalonia is an area in Spain, where they have their own national identity, language and culture.  

Early Spring has sprung in our garden - 2 months early!
Daffies provide a welcome sight on a cold dismal day.

Super Saurkraut

I have been struck by the dreaded 'lergy, no voice (the tool of my trade as a kindy teacher), so have had to take a couple more days off to rest up and restore the voicebox.  It has afforded me the time to make some sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) last night.  Easy-as to make - finely chop up fresh cabbage and then layer it in a ceramic jar, with liberal sprinkles of natural sea salt in between.  I have a little cedar wooden stick that I use to pound each layer with.  When complete, I wash my 3 beautiful round stones from a childhood beach in Africa, which I use as weights to weigh down the shredded cabbage.  By morning, I was rewarded with the welling up of the natural cabbage liquid.  Over the next 5 weeks I will be skimming the foamy scum that develops on top of the liquid until it develops a sourish smell.  Hallelujah, this then signifies the end result - a batch of beautiful naturally fermented pickles which can be bottled and stored for later use.  Delicious, and naturally good for health!  Natural lactic acid ferments support proper digestion, aid in nutrient absorption, contribute to healthy metabolic function, and inhibit harmful microbes in the intestinal system. But wait, there's more.......... this pickled cabbage supports the growth of essential intestinal flora, normalizes acid levels in the stomach, helps the body to assimilate proteins and iron, and stimulates cell metabolism!  Much nicer than the acidic vinegar pickles we have become acquainted with in supermarkets!

Finely chop cabbage

Add salt between layers and pound with wooden stick

Trail Mix or Munchin'

On the weekend I made a big batch of home-made trail mix.  Again, I like Simple.  My motto is KISS - Keep It Simple Sweetheart!  If it's complicated, it has no place in my life. 

 My trail mix consists of (Ceres organic products, where possible) :

• a cup of brazil nuts, chopped
• a cup of almonds, chopped
• cup of sunflower seeds
• half cup of pumpkin seeds
• quarter cup chocolate pieces
• cup sultanas
• half cup raw peanuts
• half cup dates, chopped
• quarter cup chopped dried apricots
• quarter cup course curley coconut pieces

Of course, all the above are only a guide of sorts - add or take away any ingredients - any nuts and dried fruits will do.  A much healthier and tastier snack than store-bought and you can cater to your individual taste!  I threw in some dried cranberries too, for a little sweet- sourish hint.  I have to hide it from the teens - they can eat a cupful in one sitting and then some!

My Munchin' (or Scroggin' as it's referred to)

Herb Salt
So these wintery days of ours are not so much spent toiling away in the backyard, but much time is spent in the kitchen, much to the delight of the family!  I have a great little quick trick to make herb salt, super fast and super cheap and super healthy!!  Take one cup of true sea salt (either Himalayan Rock Crystal salt or Celtic - I use Ceres Sea Salt, which has the trademark greyish look of unwashed, fully nutrient-potent salt) and blend it in the blender with 2 cups of dried herbs from the garden (I use basil, thyme, rosemary, parsely and a touch of sage).  Pour into salt cellars and label.  Costs next to nothing while a small pottle of Organic Rapunzel Herb Salt would normally have cost me up to $6!  Go figure!

Mike (Sustainable Husband) makes about 6 pottles of organic hoummous every two weeks, perhaps I will share his Secret Recipe one day (everything becomes his very own Secret Recipe, even if I taught him!!).  It saves us heaps as we LOOOOVE hoummous.  Or Hummus as some people spell it.

I will end this post with a pic of our pickles and preserves - we make all our own, and NEVER purchase a jar of jam, chutney or gherkins.  The joys of Self Sufficiency.  It enables us to save up for a mid-winter tropical getaway holiday.  Roll on Rarotonga.................

Some of our home preserves.....

Winter Solstice

Ahh, yes, the life of a cat!  Shanti Shakti Shiva spends much of her day and night in such supine positions.  I try hard to follow her example (not that her pursuits change much during the other seasons of the year) during Winter but alas!  Everywhere I look, there is work to be done.  Inside and outside!  Why oh why does dust never rest or even weeds, for that matter??

The last blog I wrote about sustainable-down-under was obviously not to everyone's comfort - however, I would like to add that after having tested the Lunar Pads, I can truly say that they work, don't leak, are comfortable, are not too gruesome to clean and now I will be making more, since they have passed the test with flying colours!  Wish I had stumbled on this idea much much earlier, would have saved a small fortune and not left a huge pile of waste in the landfill on my behalf.  Anyway, thought I better add an after-note on that matter.  Today is the Winter Solstice - the Shortest Day.  Hooray - things can only go from dark to light from now on in!  Bring it on!

Moving right along, there has been not too much happening in our little garden, other than harvesting the usuals - mandarins, the last of the persimmons and cherry guavas (sob!!), potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, the ever-productive chillies, chard and kale leaves and not much else.  The new banana bunches have been bagged in preference of age; we have 6 new bunches, and I have made 3 clear plastic bags to wrap them up in, to increase the heat levels - kinda like a mini hothouse for 3 of the oldest bunches. 

Gee, it is amazing how the universe provides exactly what we need!  I had taken the day off of kindy, on account of not having a voice (instrument of instruction).  So I was sitting here in the lovely sunshine, blogging away, thinking of the next moves in the garden, and how wonderful it would be to have a little help.  The phone rings and it is 2 young Spanish travellers looking for helpexchange - bed and food in exchange for help!!  They will arrive in less than an hour!  One just never knows what each day will bring!  At last, some help with the weeds.  And maybe the dust too!

One thing I like to keep brewing in the kitchen at this time is Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV).  To make it is soooo easy!  Take a big jar (ceramic one would be preferable) - I use a glass one.  Fill it 3/4 full of filtered water and then start to add the apple cores that you would normally discard after eating.

Apple cider vinegar brewing

As the apples grow a little mushy after 3-5 days, you want to remove them, while still adding fresh ones.  Spoon-remove the froth and scum that appears on the surface each day.  Slowly, over 5-7 weeks, the water infuses the apples and fructose and changes to a beautiful golden colour.  The smell is a good indicator of what we are trying to achieve as you can smell the acidic fumes of vinegar!  I am always amazed by the growth of skin - a jelly-like layer which connects all the apple cores together which forms after some weeks.  Remove this and eat, don't throw it away - it tastes like coconut gel, with a strong vinegar taste (great for health).  I always think of it as the apples trying to replicate themselves and growing this incredible apple cider layer!

The ACV "skin"

Apple cider vinegar has incredible health giving properties and is a powerful cleansing and healing elixir.  It can be drunk before a meal, to help with digestion (1/2 teaspoon in a half glass warm water).  It is an antiseptic healing agent for sore throats, disinfecting wounds, helps arthritis, improves skin condition, helps cleanse the colon etc. etc.  The list is so long I would hate for anyone to get skeptical...... just drink it and see and feel the difference!  And better still, if you brew your own, it costs nothing but time!

Ka kite ano!

Backyard Eco- inventions

Josephine, backyard garden sprite in need of new wardrobe

Josephine has had several incarnations.  And several model upgrades in order to make her "work".  Well, really, her work is guarding the garden from evil forces.  So she really does nothing with the birds.  They forage at her feet, without fear.  I see  her from my kitchen window and she always brings a little glamour and colour to even the most dismal of days.  Her dress was a vivid bright red hue last year but alas, all these days of rain and shine have taken their toll.  Her hair has all but been blown away in the heavy storms we have recently experienced.  She is definitely due for a make-over in Spring!  Watch this space.......

A fruit picker, for those hard to reach top branches.

This was inspired by an article in an old gardening magazine.  It is made from an old tin can, with a little "V" cut into the side with a metal secateur.  Then it is duct-taped onto an old broom stick handle and a little padding placed in the bottom of the can to prevent damage to the fruit.  Works a charm.  This is actually the upgraded, painted model which I made for a friend.  My first prototype still boasts it's olive paper surround and is great for picking tree-top mandarins and figs.

Now for another "backyard invention" - for females.  Us ladies contribute to hundreds of tonnes of cotton sanitary waste bound for landfill sites every day.  So being the Greenie that I aspire to be, I decided to do a little online research and wow!  There are a lot of women out there sharing their expertise on making "moon pads" or re-usable sanitary pads. Just google "how to make lunar sanitary pad" and there are a host of "how to" videos for guidance.  So I gave it a go and the photos below document the journey into menstrual sustainability.  Ever wondered why the masculine derivative of something so intensely feminine?  Menstruation; menopause.............. why not womenstruation?  Or women-o-pause?  Odd.  Wonder if the words were invented by a male?

 I must confess that I have not yet given the moon pads a go yet, so I cannot vouch for their efficacy, however, I have tried them out and they seem to fit neatly and easily into cotton briefs.  For those of you who don't own a sewing machine or can't thread a needle, then you can buy moon pads online at  http://www.etsy.com/shop/epicerma

Firstly, cut around a disposable pad to get the right shape.
Then cut out a "liner inse" shape - I cut 7 layers altogether -
1 of terrycloth (old towel), 5 of an old winter sheet, and 1 of
a nylon fabric (leftover from making wind sock kites)

The seven layers which are then zig-zagged together.

An old pair of pyjama pants make the perfect outer layer material.
Cut out the pad outline, I extended the wings a bit so they can
meet in the middle of the crotch of a pair of undies.

Place the zig-zagged insert into the inside of the pad shape and attach
Sew the pad together, right sides together, leaving an opening at one
side so you can turn it inside out.

Fold the open end inside and sew a line of stitching all around
and one or two lines of stitching around the insert.  Add popper
press-studs or similar closing option

The finished Moon Pads.  Awaiting trial.................  I made 6
over the course of a wet day.  If they work, I shall make another 6.

So backyard sustainability inventions are definitely alive and well in my life.  Talking of backyards, I have discovered a really exciting website called OOOOBY (Out Of Our Own Back Yard).  Check it out on  http://ooooby.ning.com/   It connects like-minded people together, with mini locality groups, discussion forums and ideas and resource sharing.

Creating Sustainability and Diversity

Since beginning my studies about Organic Horticulture, I am learning about the two biggies:  Sustainability and Diversity.  This forces me to think of my own organic practices and how they fit in with these ideas......  Here's the first little gem:

Trusty little Masport Mulcher

I have been pruning by the Lunar Calender over the last couple of weekends.  Boy, what a mess a pair of secateurs,  big loppers and a little handy-dandy pruning saw can make!  Piles and piles of mess.  Everywhere I look behind me, huge pyramids of  tree fallout!  So this little guy above is the little tireless muncher who helps us create that protective mulched mantle over our bare soil.  It is quite meditative (but fairly noisy) as you feed branch after pruned branch into it's ever hungry jaws.  It is a repetitive but highly rewarding job as streams of mulched vegetation drops out of it's bottom end.  This then ends up being spread across bare soil areas to suppress weed growth.  It also gradually breaks down and enriches the soil fertility.  Mega Awesome stuff!  Truly sustainable living practices, rather than throwing all the prunings away as many do.

Piles of feijoa prunings awaiting their destiny....

Pruning chaos soon turns into recycled order

Now getting to the diversity aspect, this refers to the amount of "different" species of insects, plants and soil life.    I saw this idea below in a magazine and immediately set about in my little garden shed, planning, hammering, sawing, glueing and figuring out this little insect abode, or more aptly named, Bug Motel.  It offers a variety of different spaces for different insects to move into the "apartment" of their choice.  As I have only hung my Bug Motel 3 weeks ago, no insect has yet taken me up on the offer of free accommodation.  But I wait with bated breathe....................

The Bug Motel, with standard single to luxurious deluxe double rooms.

We have just had the pleasure of a 3 day long weekend - why oh why, can we not have this every weekend?  Seems a much more balanced lifestyle to maintain.  I put the extra day to good use - sewing and working in the garden and kitchen, socializing and watching 2 good movies.  I harvested a big basket full of  Autumn/Winter cusp goodies - persimmons, bananas, potatoes, artichokes, limes, zuchini and of course, the ever prolific bell-like chillies! 

Weekend harvest

 I also made a batch of golden kiwifruit jam and then Mike and I swapped ear candling sessions to finish off the long weekend.  Such domestic bliss!  The ear candling sessions fall under the category: sustainability, I think!  Keeps us able to sustain the pace of living sustainability.  Actually, most every weekend, we try to swap some kind of treatment from massage, to reflexology, to Sound therapy, to Reiki, to hot stone massage.  A diversity of options, to sustain us.  Highly recommend it!

Roots, fruits and gifts galore

We have had the most incredibly warm May weather - certainly Spring-like, with gorgeous sun-shiney days and chilly mornings and evenings that send us rushing to light our fire.  That neatly stacked woodpile is diminishing at an alarming rate!  
I never really enjoyed Autumn or Winter before but this late in life, I find a blossoming appreciation for the joys of seasonal fruits and the more laid back lifestyle these seasons bring to the back yard.  Evenings see me inside much earlier, creating wonderful dishes at leisure.  Usually I am frenetically working in the garden till about 6-7pm summertime, so evening meals are a rather hurried affair, eaten much later than the stomach would prefer!  Now we eat much earlier, relax a little and tackle studies or other tasks.  

Other tasks

Last weekend saw me making the most of the sunny weather and pruning our feijoas and peach trees, like a little guerilla gardening commando.  Eeek!  I am not sure that they will recover enough to fruit next autumn!  I think I went just a tad overboard!  However, the prunings were put to good use, mulched down by my hungry little Masport mulcher.  This is used to anchor the cardboard layer in the central garden bed.  The cardboard serves to suppress the weeds and is eventually broken down by all those gobbling micro-organisms in our soil.


Roots:
I have been harvesting potatoes, jerusalem artichokes and some bird-sown turnips.  Combined with pumpkins, Italian zuchini rampicantes, the last of the capsicums, a few green chard or kale leaves and of course, the ever-available chillies, these few humble ingredients can be rustled up into some exceptionally tasty soups, stews and bakes.  We have a huge supply of home-grown fresh garlic and plenty of dried basil for seasoning.  And of course, plenty preserves as a side serve.  Simple.  Delicious.  
Simply delicious!


Fruits:
We are harvesting mandarins, persimmons and yellow guavas at the moment.  What amazing sumptuous fruits!  Wow!  Biting into home-grown fruit is such a wickedly decadent treat!  Our little yellow guavas are super sweet and the persimmons are juicy and sweet- nature's lollies!  There are many limes on our little tree - I have even made up a lime juice cordial, to be drunk hot or cold, diluted with water.  It's a simple recipe I use when my lemons are in abundance - 1 cup squeezed juice, mixed with 1 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup hot water.  Keeps in the fridge up to 4 weeks.  Simply dilute with water to taste, hot or cold.


Gifts Galore:
The garden gives us so many gifts and brings so much pleasure.  It is where I like to spend time.  Down time, up time, any time.  I wish I shared the same love of housekeeping.  Alas, my poor house survives on minimal attention!  So saying, I did clean 2 lots of windows this week, only so I can better keep an eye on what's happening outside in my garden!

And talking of gifts, our Indian neighbours who work in the kiwifruit industry, brought us a huge bag of golden kiwifruit this week!  Yum!  We don't really do the green kiwifruit - too tart and acidic but the yellows............mmm!  Makes wonderful jam, and I have never yet figured out, in a country that is renowned for it's kiwifruit production, why you cannot buy kiwifruit jam in the supermarket?!  Boy, there sure is a gap in the market here! 
 I do however, make sure I wash the kiwifruit well, in soapy water, to remove the chemical residues left over from conventional growing.  Deadly stuff!

Shayni, my daughter, just completed a 12 hour shift on her second day ever, working in the kiwifruit pack-house!  I now have two children in the workforce!  Amazing!

Painting by Shayni - our fireplace

  

Reduce, Recycle, Re-invent and Re-use

Recycling is now a way of life for us.  We compost all our kitchen food scraps, along with all the garden prunings and waste.  Cardboard boxes are stripped of their tape (which goes into the recycling bin) and is then used to either feed our hungry winter fire, or to lay over bare earth in the garden before being mulched with leaf and branch chippings.  This is broken down by the many micro-organisms in our soil and recycled into nutrients for our fruit trees.
Toilet rolls?  Well, they get squashed and popped one into the other, like a small child's stacking toy, until it becomes a compact roll of tight inner pieces - a drop of meths or other accelerant and it becomes a great little fire-starter!  Have you ever given a thought to how many toilet rolls are discarded in the Western world??  I mean, since they banned their use in kindergartens (too much bacteria?!) for all those wonderful binoculars and rocket ship constructions - what exactly are they good for?  We started to tear them up and place them in the compost bin (for that carbon element) and worm farm but this fire-lighting cracker gives me much more of a thrill!  I have tried so many little experiments - once E even went as far as to collecting sawdust, which I mixed with a small amount of wallpaper paste, and then stuffed into those little  roll.   Once dried (takes about 2 weeks), I did the accelerant drips and hey, presto!  Fire ball!  But I have this curious nature, once it is satisfied, it goes onto other ideas.  Can't see myself filling toilet rolls with gummed up sawdust every summer to feed our voracious fire-lighting habit. No, siree!  The stuffed toilet roll habit is far less time-consuming and fun - you can do it while on the loo!  A great little time filler while you wait!

Oh, and then there are the cost saving recycling exercises, like paint.  We have only bought two cans of paint for this house - one a deep crimson red for our Indian-inspired Bollywood bedroom, and more recently, a bright Mediterranean yellow for our passageway.  The rest (and our house is definitely colourful) was all gleaned from a commercial painter who was getting rid of some of his old stock (every time they paint someone's house or office, they are left with little bits of paint).  I loaded up my boot with various tins of paints and when I got home, my daughter and I pretended to be paint scientists - what fun!  If they were the same type of paint (i.e inside acrylic or outside acrylic), they were mixed together to create a genuinely unique colour (unfortunately, 5 years down the track, we cannot buy touch up test pots - the colours don't exist in paint shop swatches!)  I still highly recommend the exercise!  Beats all those commercial paint residues ending up in the landfills.

From coffee pouches.......... usually designated to the bin..

Onto gifts, I get a thrill out of taking something old and giving it a new lease on life.  Gift giving is just such an excuse to get creative.  Recently a friend was given a recycled or upcycled coffee pouch bag, lined with the leg of an old pair of denim jeans for her birthday!  She may never use it but it was definitely a one-off personalized gift made specially for her.

To this trendy little shopping bag.

 This week I was thrilled when my teenage daughter set about making a "denim jeans" bag for her friend's birthday - a successful, unique little hip bag!  Thinking outside the ka-ching shop-shop square, life can really be quite a whole lot of fun, fun, fun!  We are always looking at ways to re-use or re-invent things useful out of things we would normally throw away.  It is evident in our home and lives and I am proud to be a little Earth Fairy, even if it is supposed to end this weekend!
(People been talking about Mayan calender prophecy)

My daughter's cool recycled jeans handbag.

PS: 13/08/14  Obviously those people were mislead, here we still are!!

Autumn Abundance

So here we are, with all the leaves falling down and lying in untidy piles in the garden - autumn gardens are not in their best dress!  But we do enjoy the less frenetic pace of autumn, as opposed to the hectic pace of spring and summer gardening.  Instead of going into the garden for an everyday harvest, we now only wander around every second or third day - collecting a large box of feijoas (yes, they still fall!), potatoes, carrots and the amazing old-fashioned jerusalem artichokes!  Yumm!!  I love to be able to give some away to others who have not been aquainted yet, to this old vegetable!  Most tend to have a favourable reaction.

Autumn harvest includes figs, courgettes, capsicums, limes, feijoas and chillies!

On the weekend I made spicey sweet Thai Chilli sauce - 2 batches (10 bottles)!  Mike had brought me a little bell-shaped looking pepper, which I bit into the end of and thought - "how lovely and sweet - wouldn't they just taste divine, stuffed with feta cheese and baked in the oven?' - so I set about saving the seed and then proceeded to sow them.  They came up - every one of them, and so I went a little overboard and set about planting them all over the garden, wherever I could find a space.  Well, they grew!  And grew!  And they produced these angel-winged bell-like fruits.  I was ever so excited as I patiently waited for them to turn red.  Then realising that I would be harvesting 100's of them, I decided to give some to my work colleagues who marvelled at how lovely and sweet they were, until they went home with them and ate the whole "pepper", only to discover that my lovely winged peppers were indeed, actually chillis!

Eek, apart from possibly frightening the hell out of their taste buds, I wondered just what I would do with so many chillies!  We have given bags of them to any innocent visitors, including all our lovely Indian friends, who are most likely the ones to be able to use these hot little wonders, easily!  Then I had an epiphany - sweet Thai Chilli sauce and hey presto, Google did the rest for me!

For any of you out there who would like to use up your homegrown chillies - here it is:

Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce:

500g fresh red chillies

3 cloves garlic peeled 

750ml apple cider vinegar (3 cups)

3 cups caster sugar

Halve the chillies and place in a bowl of a food processor, along with garlic.  De-seed the rest of the chillies and place in food processor.  Add 250ml vinegar and process.

Place chilli mixture, remaining vinegar and caster sugar in large saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring for 5 mins until sugar dissolves.

Increase heat to high and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occassionally for 35-40 mins until sauce thickens.  Pour into sterilised, airtight bottles and seal.

Not sure how hot this is yet...........  The seeds pack a power punch of heat, so de-seed all the chillies if you prefer less heat.

Feijoas looking for a good home.....

Oh, and to fill in some time, I have enrolled in an organic horticulture correspondence course over a year, hoping to get a good deal of it done over the winter months.  Learning about what I know quite a bit about through practice, but now I shall gain the theory behind why I do what I do, sometimes out of intuition, sometimes from what I have read and sometimes from advice from others who are successful at what they do!

Our ripening hand of bananas, with many more to follow.

I best go and put in some hard graft with the course..................... perhaps I will learn what else one can sustainably do with chillies.........