Another road trip bought me by this beauty of a breakfast – perfect for those of you who want something hearty that isn’t laden with gluten or egg.

We escaped down the great ocean road a few weeks ago, and stopped in Port Fairy. I must say I could live in Port Fairy indefinitely. The problem is, every other person has the same idea, and the prices are sky high for real estate. So, I will just have to settle with a breakfast then.

I love trying new foods, they are a source of inspiration for a whole host of things, so it’s a pleasure to actually see something different on the menu, and an even greater thrill when it’s really really nice. Tom on the other hand is going to be trying Eggs Benedict (aka Pope Benedict) at all breakfast venues across the planet Earth. It’s his thing.

So, I went for the Wild Rice Porridge at Rebecca’s cafe in Port Fairy. I had to come home and try to recreate it, so here’s my recreation…

PS. I must mention that I consulted my good old trusty Edmonds cookbook again for guidance on all things rice. Thanks Edmonds!

Ingredients

• 1 cup wild & brown rice blend (about 1 tablespoon of wild rice in all)
• 280ml tin of coconut milk (you can use a cup of milk if you prefer dairy)
• 3 cups of water
• 1/2 of a vanilla bean, sliced and beans removed
• dash nutmeg
• dash cinnamon
• 2-3 tbsp pure maple syrup, or to taste

What you will need

• Medium-sized saucepan

What to do

1. Over high heat, bring the rice and wild rice to the boil. Reduce the heat and cook until the water reduces, stirring occassionally (30 mins)
2. Combine cooked wild rice, coconut milk, vanilla bean and spices.
3. Bring to the boil, and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes.
4. Season to taste with the maple syrup.

Can be garnished with yoghurt, berries, almonds, whatever takes your fancy.

Serves 2.

It’s been  a while since I have last blogged. It’s been a mad house here. Literally.

In the last few months Tom and I have undertaken the mammoth task of completely renovating a house and turning it around for the rental market. This sounds impressive, but to be honest, we didn’t do most of the work – our builder and his crew did. That with said, we still spent every waking hour working, either on our normal chores or getting quotes, picking materials, running around town, building screens, making the garden etc. Our local hardware store has seen more of us in the last few months than the supermarket has.

After we completely reno’d this house, we then had the mad-cap idea of using the opportunity to move into it while we fixed our floors and kitchen. It was the spur of the moment decision (in consultation with the bank of course) and the next day, during a dinner party the builders started to rip the carpet up around us. I usually like to keep my house fairly tidy – especially if I am having guests, but I found myself unable to control the events that happened in that time. It really pushed my buttons. I experienced more chaos in the last few months than I think I can handle.

To make matters worse, we had relatives turn up from Holland for 3 weeks, and instead of lazing around in the back yard in the sun, they were shoveling gravel or scrubbing bathrooms. Poor things. They did say they wanted to help…but I am not sure if that’s what they had in mind.

Anyway, I am relieved to be able to say it’s 99.9 per cent over. The bit that isn’t finished is painting, and quite frankly, I can’t even fathom that at the moment. This year we have renovated three houses, have looked after three children, and I have worked full time. Amber is now 15 months, and still waking during the night (which is hard to remedy with relatives in the house or when you feel shattered yourself). So, for the last few weeks, and maybe the next few, I am going to indulge in a little me time, maybe even try and untangle the garden.

But for all my complaining, the best bit is, I have a supportive husband, a house rented out, and the bestest kitchen ever! A bench so big I can’t wait to give it a huge work-out. In the next few weeks, maybe after a bit of a rest the creative juices will start flowing again.

Till then – I hope you have a nice rest over the Christmas period. Enjoy your family and friends and stay safe!

We had healthy food day at work the other day, so I decided to take a salad. I have been blogging for a year now, but have forgotten to add this beauty to the blog. I only made this salad for the first time last year, and it’s so good that you could eat it every week. I always feel fantastic after I have eaten this – not too heavy, not too light. Anyway, it’s here by demand. I keep being reminded to add it to my blog. So here it is.

I have also made this salad without the chicken (as a side), and most people have complimented and devoured it. So trust me on this one – it’s good.

Ingredients

• 400g of chicken breasts
• 1 stem of lemon grass – the white part chopped finely, the green end bit cut in half
• 200 g Chinese Wom Buk cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup of fresh coriander leaves and stems chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh mint (I use vietnamese mint) chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped peanuts
• 1 tablespoon crisp fried shallots (from the Asian section of the supermarket)
• 2 Kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped (optional – I grow Kaffir lime, and it’s devine so I need excuses to use it!)

Sauce

• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
• 1 lime, juiced

What you will need

• Small saucepan
• Salad bowl

What to do

• Place the chicken and lemongrass twigs (stem ends) in a small saucepan of slightly salted water
• Bring to the boil, and then reduce and heat for 8-10 mins
• Drain and keep warm
• Put the Wom Buk, carrot, onion, coriander and mint in the salad bowl
• Finely slice the chicken and place on top
• Drizzle over the fish sauce, sweet chilli sauce and lime juice
• Add the Peanuts and dried shallot
• Toss and serve

Check out the ingeniousness of my blister-in-law Rose. She whipped up 5 strawberries for Amber’s first birthday, and popped them in a strawberry punnet.

Some people are so clever – don’t you think? I don’t posses the talent of crocheting, and normally I couldn’t care less until I see something like this.

What I love is the thought and time that goes into home-made gifts. They are so simple, and Amber (12 months old) spends all day putting them in the punnet and then taking them out. Perfect for busy little people!

A year ago to this week I gave birth to the beautiful Amber, and for the next few months did all the normal mum stuff you do when in the hormone/sleep deprived daze that is with a new baby. I did however do this with a difference this time. Knowing from past babies that I can feel a little lost, unmotivated and alone (most likely also assisted by hormones), I had set myself a challenge to do some things I hadn’t done before – activities that could all be done from home while you wait for someone to sleep.

For me, this worked a treat! I hit the notepad and wrote down all the things I love to eat, and then researched whether or not I could grow them. Then I found an online Organic plant supplier Green harvest and purchased a whole array of wonderful things such as tumeric, galangal, ginger, water chestnut, lemongrass, comfrey, horseraddish and asparagus. I will be honest and admit to killing some of these poor plants, and also forgetting where I actually planted some of them and then pulling them out later thinking they were weeds (I now have a system in place to stop this from happening in the future). I did have success however with the tumeric, ginger, water chestnuts, lemongrass, comfrey and horseraddish. Growing something you love is so much better than planting random vegetables in the ground, because you take so much more interest in their welfare and progress.

Tom had been baking sourdough bread and other such things, and at the time I would I sort of leave him to it. But, sitting at home waiting for the next feed enabled me to get the gumption to sit at home and watch dough rise. I was so nervous about trying sourdough and thought I would never get it right. It was easy, and what’s more, my buns rose higher than Tom’s. I also felt extremely proud of myself for extending my comfort zone, having a go, and making my own things.

Before I new it, I was cooking something different everyday, and I embarked on a different salad a day, or making my own pasta, yoghurt or muesli.

Then, after some crazy conversation with Tom and good friend Vincent, who suggested I should put some of my thoughts online, I found myself writing a blog – not something I even fully comprehended as to the purpose.

Well…I have just passed the 100 blog mark, and although I don’t write with the same fervor as I did at the beginning, I am still as passionate today about trying to be more sustainable – day by day, and pushing myself to make small changes – step by step.  Writing a blog seems like such a good motivator to keep going. It’s easy to sit back and relax unless you are thinking of your next project.

I have also made lots of new friends through my blog, or connected with others in a different way. I have discovered a real passion, and it gives me such joy to share it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Oh I know, you have been waiting on the edge of your seats with baited breath wondering how the compost heap has been going? Well, I have to say that it hasn’t got as hot, hot, hot as I was hoping. So much so that I didn’t even stick the thermometer in it, as it was completely cool. I turned the heap over yesterday, and their is a little decomposition happening, but it’s not as much as I would have hoped.

I then ran up and down the lane with a shovel and rake and picked up all the dried leaves etc and added them to my heap. Hopefully that will get some microbial action happening. Watch this space for more rotten action!

I have long been an advocate of butter – as opposed to margarine. I don’t see what the lure is behind a man made concoction when compared to something natural. I personally believe that even though butter contains fat, that our bodies are better designed to absorb, burn and then excrete natural foods rather than laboratory ones.

I used to think the margarine adds on television were a bit of a laugh too – some mum serving up veges with a knob of Meadow Lea on top, smiling lovingly at her family – with the slogan – You ought to be congratulated. What a load of crock! Also, on the packaging they really push that fact that Margarine is “Polyunsaturated”. Sure, your average mum majored in inorganic Chemistry and totally get’s what that means. For some reason if it sounds high tech and complicated, we love it. Oh…that must be better. Right? Allowing such propaganda in food advertising makes the whole industry look like it is a joke.

Instead, real food, the food that Grandma used to make, just doesn’t have the same sexy edge retail edge. You can’t make that sound complex or sophisticated, but that is the standard I crave, the goal I seek. I want to eat real food like Nan did when she was a girl. Stuff that hasn’t been sprayed or tampered with, had the fibre removed and then wonder-soft fibre added back in or genetically modified to be bigger and more tasteless than ever before.

I listened to a very interesting webcast a few months ago – by chance more than anything because Amber was sick (take them to creche and they just get one thing after another). Working women online did a series of webcasts every Thursday at 10am (not a time I am normally near a PC with sound) with a different guest speaker every week.

The week I got to listen in the speaker was Cyndi O’Meara – a nutritionist who advocates essentially food that is as close to it’s natural source. Of course, we have all heard this time and time again, and it makes perfect sense that our bodies will better absorb food from a more natural source than a laboratory concoction. However, Cyndi goes one step further by having done her research and understanding what our bodies really need, and what some of the ‘laboratory foods’ really do. It helps people like myself to make changes if I can understand the ‘why’ – and this needs to be from a trusted source.

So, after listening to Cyndi talk, I purchased her book Changing Habits, Changing Lives. Cyndi is an advocator for eating real butter, real food, sugar, using real ingredients, and not being sucked in by the marketing on food products. She spends much of her time teaching you about additives, and understanding how to read and understand food labels. Much of what she says goes against what you hear in the news these days about what you should be eating, and yet, it makes much more sense. If you go to Cyndi’s website, it has a ‘weight loss’ focus, which I guess is an issue for many people. I am not really interested in a 21 day weight loss diet. But I am interested in what she has to say about food, and cooking utensils, additives and preservatives and food supplements. I would highly recommend her book.

I recall when I was a school girl, I went to a Catholic girls school with approximately 1000 girls. When I started school I clearly recall a few overweight school girls because in those days (back in the early 80′s) an overweight kid was the minority. And we had ‘Milk bars’ that lured us in on the way home, hot chips were a treat I frequented often. Mum would always make us three rounds of sandwiches, a baked biscuit, a piece of fruit, some dried apricots. When we got home, dinner was mostly cooked at home, and most of the ingredients were grown by Dad in his community garden plot alongside the Tullamarine freeway. When it comes to desserts, Mum would pull out all of the stops, and desserts can range from a Lemon Meringue Pie to Cheesecake – oh the list goes on and on and on.

I recall when I was in year 12, sitting with my friends Sally and Louise, devouring my three rounds of sandwiches. I had a girl come up to me, touch my upper arm, and said: “Those are the arms of an anorexic”. Clearly she was blind, or trying to help me confess that yes, the three rounds of sandwiches were just a front, and secretly I was purging them down the big white telephone. In reality, I was eating like a horse, had a metabolism that was on fire, and couldn’t wait to get my next feed.

Clearly our food has changed since those days, and so many children and adolescents appear to have weight issues. I have mostly maintained the sort of diet I had as a child, and where I have veered from it and gone for convenience, I have noticed my weight creep.

Reading Cyndi’s book it has helped me understand why, and understanding why makes it so much easier to then change your practices. Where possible for us it is now home grown, organic, or made from scratch. When I buy something, I am looking at the labels and choosing differently. And I now really value something that I know rather than giving that away to someone else for conveniences sake.

So….back to butter. I know that butter isn’t hard to make, but I have never done it. I went home for dinner the other day and was excited about making butter, and Mum’s response was oh, we used to do that all the time…and onto the next topic. It’s such an non-event for her generation. I was so excited and proud of the fact that I had turned cream I had carefully siphoned off the top of the milk into butter I could hardly contain myself. Looks like my generation really missed out on the basics.

So how do you do it? A really good web-video by Professor Robert Kramph helps explain the whole process.

Ingredients

• Cream (mine is from a real cow, but if yours isn’t – just make sure it has no additives of any sort)
• Pinch of salt (optional)

What you will need

• A well sealed jar
• Cream allowed to sour for a few hours

What to do

• If you need to, siphon the cream off from the milk (I used a turkey baster after experimenting unsuccessfully with other things)
• Place the cream in a jar and leave on the bench for 12 or so hours until the cream starts to sour (or better still, don’t throw out your sour cream)
• Shake the jar for 3.5 minutes – the butter will eventually separate from the buttermilk
• When the butter is formed, pour off the butter milk off and set it aside (it’s great for smoothies, cooking, bread baking)
• Press the buttermilk out of the butter, to do this you can wash the butter in cold water. This prevents it from going rancid
• You can eat the butter straight, or lightly salt it and pat it into shape and refrigerate it for up to one week.

It’s day 6, and after a busy week of work and getting home at dusk, I haven’t ventured out to view my decomposing experiment (see The fine art of composting). It’s winter, and we have had some of the best rain this week that Melbourne has seen for a while, country Victoria has seen the best rain it has had for 14 years. The compost is therefore moist!

The heap has settled, and is noticeably lower than last Sunday.

I can notice some decomposing action, but it’s not hot hot hot. It’s definitely not steaming (and I won’t be throwing in the cow in yet). Temperature wise, we are just tipping over 20 degrees. Looks like I will need to get the pitchfork out tomorrow to work and stir things up a bit.

Till next time – for some more riveting composting action…. Wow – you know your life is really, really exciting when you start to follow the decomposition of scraps in your back lane. Surely it can’t get any more action packed than this!

Yesterday (Sunday), my local permaculture group gathered for our monthly meeting. This month’s topic was on Composting. I put my hand up this time to host the event, because I don’t grow many fruit trees etc, or have chickens or an amazing vege patch (like some I have seen), but one thing I can do is decompose things. Well…I can sort of decompose them, which is why I am interested in knowing how to do it even better.

Ross and Wendy Mather from St Andrews were our presenters, and they have had many years experience growing their own food and making their own compost,  and for the dry clayey soils in St Andrews, this is an essential skill. Ross and Wendy also present to local councils and the like about the art and science of composting.

So, firstly, one of the big tips I got out of today was the following – one very good reason to compost is that if you put any scraps in your rubbish, and then they get buried under piles of trash and plastic and old washing machines etc, and bulldozed over with soil at the tip, it creates anaerobic conditions (basically meaning there is no oxygen) and this creates methane, which is about 5 times worse than Carbon dioxide (which causes the greenhouse effects). So, not composting and turning a blind eye creates an even bigger problem.

And a second great reason to compost is that your soil loves it, and all the worms and microbes in the soil will rejoice, and your plants will grow, and you will live happily ever after (you get the drift).

So, what can you compost. Well, in the past I was leaving citrus peels and onions out of the compost, and certainly not adding meat or cheese (my compost was vegan), but apparently you can compost anything that has been living in your lifetime (as long as you don’t try to compost a whole cow in your tumble bin you should be right). So that’s good news. I hate throwing organic matter in the bin.

Also, another rule is that if you compost anything – break it up into smaller pieces and this will speed up the process (for instance a whole cow will take some time to decompose, whereas in pieces it will take way less time).

I have also been pretty random with my composting, not really paying much attention to the ratios of what I add, but I have discovered today that I need to pay more attention to the science. And here are the rules – which are simple (and my brain likes simple).

Ingredients

1. Start with one bucket of food scraps, or freshly cut grass or weeds.
2. To this, add a similar amount of nitrogen filled substance (manure, guinea pig poo, hair, toe nail clippings, comfrey leaves). As it is hard to tell what nitrogen filled substances look like – think of it this way. If it’s fresh and green (fresh manure) then it’s high in Nitrogen. If it’s been around for a long time, it’s most likely lost it’s nitrogen.
3. To this put two parts of carbon filled substance on top of this (ie two small buckets of straw, dried grass, paper, dried leaves, sawdust, sugarcane or mulch).
4. And when you build your compost, think lasagna – one layer of green, one layer of dry, and so on.

So that’s it. It’s not rocket surgery, but it will take me to be a bit more methodical in building my compost. In the past I threw in the scraps, I threw in some guinea pig manure, but my compost usually looks like swelch.

So next time I waltz outside with my scraps and put them in the compost bin, I also need to add some guinea pig poop, and double the amount I have just added with some dry ‘carbon filled’ materials. Also add a bit of water (maybe half of a container of water to keep it moist). Then let the microbes do their thing.

Turn and don’t turn

So, what next? Do you wait for 6 months, do you turn your compost on a daily basis? Well, here’s some of the information I gleamed yesterday.

Ross and Wendy discussed different techniques – whether you rotate the compost or just leave it, and what I learnt from this is you can do either of these things, rotating the compost may increase the process. Personally, I am happy to wait, glass of Sav blanc in hand and watch my rotating compost bin swinging in the breeze than expend too much energy.

Our composting demo

As part of yesterday’s training, Ross and Wendy built a compost sample in the back lane. Butting up against a local building (ACER), there is a makeshift garden established by ACER staff. We found some cardboard boxes to give the compost structure, and Ross and Wendy put some sticks in the bottom of the boxes to aerate the compost heap.

Then they put layer and layer of weeds, manure and straw/paper/sawdust on top.

I am going to take photo’s over the next few weeks and add them to this blog to review the progress, until the temperature is down and we have some nice soil. So here goes:

Day 1 – Sunday 8th August

Nothing much to report except the existance of a compost heap. I had to put a note on it for the ACER guys…or else they would really be wondering.

Day 2 – Monday 9th August

Spoken to the ACER guy and he loves the fact that a compost heap has sprung in his lane way. I took the temperature today, and at 16 degrees C, there isn’t any microbe action yet.

Stay turned for more stinking action!

Jump to Day 6.

Last Friday, as I picked Amber up from creche the girls told me that the following Monday they were going to have an International day at creche, and to dress my baby up in something.

Seeing that I have excelled at doing very little for my children at creche over the last few years (this is sadly true – I am terrible at remembering such things and usually have the only kid in the room not dressed in theme) I decided to try extra specially harder this year.

So, I had to dig out a few pictures of the Dutch hats I have seen Tom’s family wear and see what I could scramble together with my ‘good at curtains but not much else’ sewing skills.

When Tom and I first took Jasmine to Holland, I experienced a surprise ‘Congratulations on your baby girl’ party Holland style. This consisted of a brass band parading down the street, followed by a bus that everyone got on, and then a big piss up and bbq in a barn. No jokes.

Great fun! Certainly the only party I have been to with it’s own brass band. I was lucky my little sister was over from the UK to be there (see above), because certainly she would hardly believe the spectacle had I relayed it to her. We both rang my brother and woke him in Australia to the ‘Oompa Oompa’ music blaring in the background. I am sure to this day he probably just thinks he had some weird dream.

Later at our wedding, the dutch lady’s caps surfaced again. Our wedding was very much focused on the ‘fun’ and far less about ‘formality’, as is evident from the photo below. We were originally planning a serious wedding, but after friends begged for a dress up party – went for a theme of ‘come as you dare’. Check out the in-laws!

I rushed off to the Salvation Army store on Saturday, scoured through every white item in the shop and finally found the perfect material in the shape of a white shirt. Pity really, it was a nice shirt and a good brand (Monsoon), but it was destined for the scissors.

So here is the fruit of my labour. My first mini-reproduction Dutch girls cap. I am pretty happy with the end result considering I used a cooking bowl with a baby’s hat stretched over it as my model. And my real life model is looking pretty cute in it – me thinks!