Food In The Belly, Food For The Soul

I write about food a lot. Food is something I devote much of my time to, as well as a significant part of our income. Food excites me, challenges me and inspires me (and sometimes defeats me). Much of our weekends are taken up with the growth, preparation, cooking and celebration of food (and by that I mean eating).

Every society has a food culture of some sort. Countries are known for their cuisine; the particular ingredients and cooking methods they employ, the rhythms and routines around meal preparation, the colour and bustle of marketplaces around the world. Early trade was centred around foods, and what was commonplace for some cultures was exotic and sought after to others. Nomadic communities based their movement around the availability of particular seasonal foods.

I believe that, by and large, Western society has lost its food culture. And we miss it, by god, do we miss it. We spend millions annually on the business of food; fine dining restaurants, specialty food stores, cooking schools, food festivals. I believe that, as we have evolved, this disconnection from food and its production that we have created has left our society feeling somewhat... hollow. We make up for it by spending more millions traveling to other cultures to experience their food culture... and when we try to recreate it with our Western tastes, we adulterate and compromise the essence of the food. Food culture is, and should be, entrenched in the soils it was raised up from.

Anyway, I was determined to write a lighter post than the last two, so I wanted to share with you some of ways we try to recreate a connection with the earth and its edible gifts in our space. These are photos from this weekend, a lovely, productive two days of pottering around the house and garden, feeding our bellies and feeding our souls.

Breakfast: fruit and honey damper with the last of my apricot sauce

Our harvest on Saturday

More bottled tomatoes - a pantry staple

Our little garden gnome, Eden

The bed we planted this weekend - tomatoes and rhubarb

Orange and date chutney simmering away - a sweet, spicy smell

Finished product - three more jars for the pantry

The beginnings of beer bottling

A clean, mucked out chook pen - and our reward!

How To Make Yoghurt

Sounds a little like a Paul Kelly song, doesn't it?

Well, unlike the gravy the talented Mr Kelly sings of, anyone can make homemade yoghurt... providing you have a thermos or other temperature controlled capsule to keep it in while the cultures do their thing. I first started making yoghurt myself after reading Julie's post on it at Towards Sustainability - and I do love it when other people have done all the research for me! I played around with her methods, and have perfected my own method to come up with a consistent yoghurt of just the right texture and flavour for us.

I use an Easiyo thermos. I used to use the Easiyo sachets, but wanted a recipe that was more sustainable and contained less additives. Here is how I do it.

Ingredients (for first batch)

1 litre UHT milk

4 tablespoons powdered full cream milk (this thickens the yoghurt - I like mine thick and pot-set)

2 - 4 tablespoons biodynamic plain yoghurt (make sure it does not contain gelatine; most biodynamic yoghurts don't. I used Jalna - with the yellow lid)

Method:

Mix the yoghurt and the powdered milk together with a bit of the UHT milk until smooth. Add the rest of the UHT to the mixture in an Easiyo container and mix well. Pour boiling water into the Easiyo thermos to the recommended point and insert the container. Seal and let it sit for 14 hours (overnight). If set in the morning, refrigerate.

For continuing batches of yoghurt, keep two to four tablespoons of the previous batch to 'seed' a new one.

Scientifically speaking (and this is not a strong point of mine) using an Easiyo themos and UHT milk negates the need to meticulously pre-heat the milk to a particular temperature in order to kill off the 'bad' bacteria. UHT is already heat treated, and the thermos keeps the temperature steady for long enough for the yoghurt to form.

My Shopping Trolley.

I love shopping day. I get so swept up in the colour and flavour of fresh fruits and vegetables, which make up the bulk of what I buy these days, and love the challenge of shopping more consciously every fortnight. I get asked a lot about the cost of buying organically, and whether my food bill has sky-rocketed.

Well, here's the deal. My food bill is 75% of what it was before I started on my journey of local/organic/close to the source eating. It is true that often, organic products cost more than non-organic. This is not always the case, though. Also, when you eat natural foods that have not been processed and over-packaged, you are not paying for the processing and packaging. My food bill has gone down largely because my trolley does not contain pre-prepared, convenient foods. You pay for convenience. This includes jams, sauces, snacks, breads, yoghurts - things you can make at home, but that people often don't. As a society, we are time poor, this is true. We are also nutrient poor.

Here is a photo of what I would put into my trolley for a standard-ish fortnight. There are some things here, such as vinegars and bread mix, that would bump up my bill, but that would last me a good month to six weeks. The contents of this photo cost me $300. A more 'standard' fortnight, without these bigger items, would probably cost about $250 for the fortnight. We used to spend $400. Much of the fruit and vegetables is organic. It is ALL Western Australian grown. Most of it comes from within 200-odd kilometres. The flour is local, biodynamically grown. The meat is local, organic and free ranged. (Actually, the meat was bloody expensive. That bumped my bill up somewhat. I can't wait to be up North and shooting my own meat again.)

There are a lot of arguments against buying organic foods. The cost is the most common I come across - I shop for a family of four on a single social worker's income... this argument doesn't wash with me. Another is the science behind organics - this is a whole other post, but to my mind, it comes down to what we are prepared to put into our bodies. I would rather my children eat fruit that has not been sprayed with pesticides, or meat that has not been pumped with preservatives. I would rather know exactly what is going into their bodies - real, wholesome food, not a bundle of numbers on an ingredient list that reads like an algebra exam.

This is why I shop the way I shop.

Spicy Plum Sauce

This sauce is a gorgeous, flavoursome alternative to tomato sauce and a great way of using up excess plums. This is another recipe from Thane Prince's Jams and Chutneys: Preserving the Harvest. The pages of my copy of this book are becoming quite dog-eared and have spatters all over them.

Spicy Plum Ketchup

 (I doubled this recipe)

2kg plums

175g chopped dates

115g raisins

1 large onion, chopped

4 plump garlic cloves, chopped

5cm piece of fresh ginger (about 60g) grated

1 T freshly ground coriander seeds

1t freshly ground allspice berries

good pinch of cayenne pepper

1 litre malt or wine vinegar

1T ground turmeric

1/2 nutmeg, grated

300g light muscovado (brown) sugar

60g salt, or to taste

Halve and stone the plums, and chop if large. Put in a large preserving pan with the dates, raisins, onion, garlic and ginger. Add the coriander, allspice, cayenne and 500ml of vinegar.

Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes until fruit is very soft.

Allow the mixture to cool, then rub through a mouli or a sieve.

Return the puree to the cleaned pan. Add the remaining vinegar, turmeric, nutmeg, sugar and salt. Bring the mixture to the boil. Simmer for 30-45 minutes until reduced to a thick, pouring consistency, stirring frequently.

Pour into hot, sterilised jars, cover with vinegar-proof seals, store in a dark, cool place for at least a month before use.

With doubling the recipe, it made me about two litres. This is going to be a welcome addition to our winter larder.

From My Kitchen.

I made this pavlova for an Australia Day barbecue we went to. The recipe called for six egg whites. Eggs are a bit scarce in our kitchen at the moment - we believe we have a snake or something similar stealing the eggs from our chicken coop. Even the eggs that our clucky silkie bantam was sitting on have disappeared.


With this in mind, I wasn't keen to use the whites of six eggs and dispose of the yolks. So I decided to try my hand at mayonnaise. I haven't made it before, and it was a project I had been intending on attempting for months, but have felt slightly daunted by (possibly because there is a bit of a Masterchef connection to homemade mayonnaise in my mind!)

I used Julie Goodwin's recipe, which I will post below. My mayonnaise is very yellow, but my backyard hens lay eggs with the most beautiful rich yellow yolks, so this was to be expected. The recipe called for extra light olive oil (this efers to the colour of the oil, not its fat content) but I only had regular extra virgin olive oil. I believe the taste of the mayonnaise would be improved with extra light oil, but, having said that, I quite enjoy the batch I have made!

Julie Goodwin's Mayonnaise

 (I doubled this recipe)

3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 cup extra light olive oil

salt and ground white pepper, to taste

up to 2 tablespoons lemon juice

I added some fresh crushed garlic

Place the egg yolks and vinegar into a food processor and switch it on.

Add the olive oil a few drops at a time. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the oil in a steady flow until it is all incorporated.

Season with salt and pepper, and add lemon juice (and garlic) to your taste. 

Keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Breakfast From Scratch.

 

This was my breakfast this morning. Homemade muesli, yoghurt and caramelised apricot halves. I just love putting a meal together from foods that we have been able to make ourselves, without any harmful additives. For the record, it was delicious!

Under The Christmas Tree

I went to a Learning Ladder party a couple of weeks back at a friend's house. Learning Ladder is a 'home demo' business that sells children's books and educational games. On the table there I saw something I have been thinking about buying for the girls for some time - a tub of cotton reels and string for threading them onto. As a teacher, I know that threading is fantastic for developing fine motor skills and those early pre-writing skills. However, I could not justify spending the $20 this tub of plastic reels cost.

It occurred to me that I might be able to make my own beads (See? The whole not-buying-anything-new thing is already starting to kick in!) Nath and I experimented with cooking some beads shaped out of pink playdough that my mum had made with the girls, but only a few turned out usable. I then remembered that I had a cupboard full of old jewellery that I no longer wear (having little babies with grabbing hands cured me of that obsession!) So I spent the girls' nap time today cutting up my motley collection of necklaces and bracelets and saving the beads for Miya.

I found an old basket that would be great to hold them in, but the gaps in the wicker were too big for some of the beads. At the local markets the other day, I picked up a bag of material scraps for $2, and in it was a lovely pink scrap just big enough for me to make a lining for the basket. Onto the sewing machine I hopped, and half an hour later I had a lovely ribbon-edged lining for Miya's bead basket. I'm pretty proud of myself!

She will love this little homemade/upcycled gift, and hopefully, with some beading wire and string from my old short lived beading hobby, it will provide her with hours of entertainment.

Fresh Baked Bread

Nothing beats the taste of fresh, hot, wholemeal grain bread straight out of the oven, smothered in homemade apricot jam. We usually bake our bread in the breadmaker, but this week I received three antique bread tins that I had bought off ebay, and I swear the bread tasted better when cooked in one of these!

Don't forget if you want to win a set of Onya Weigh Reusable Fruit and Veg Bags from Divine Harvest, you need to leave a comment on the previous post before 6pm tonight.

Spitikos Domatopoltos (Homemade Tomato Paste - Greek Style)

I borrowed this recipe from here but will write it out in full anyway.


Ingredients:
2 kilos end-of season, overripe tomatoes (peeled)
1 sweet red pepper (I used a dried chilli instead)
1 - 2 tablespoons of sea salt

Peel tomatoes by cutting the tops off, immersing in boiling water for a few minutes, then plunging in cold water. The skins should then peel off easily.
Place tomatoes and pepper into food processor and blend until well pulped.
Transfer to a pot and bring to the boil. Boil for 2 or 3 minutes.
Place mixture in a muslin lined metal sieve and suspend over a large bowl in the fridge for 12 hours, to drain all excess liquid away.
Transfer mixture to a glass or ceramic bowl and stir in salt. Leave standing until mixture is at room temperature place into oven to dry for 15-20 minutes at 95-100 degrees celsius.
Spoon into warm sterilised glass jars, avoiding air pockets, and cover with 1 cm of extra virgin olive oil. Let cool then store unlidded in fridge. Will keep like this for a year.

As the tomato paste is used, add more oil to the top as needed.
Jars can also be loosely covered with foil (does not replace oil - always use the oil), if desired.

A note on sterilising jars:
My method of sterilising is to wash the jars and lids thoroughly in hot soapy water, and dry well. I then place them into a cold oven and heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius, and leave jars in there for 10 minutes after temperature has been reached. Make sure the jars are not touching each other in the oven, and be sure to keep them hot until your preserved product is spooned in, as hot foods being put into cold jars will cause the jars to crack.
If using screw top lids, I boil these in a saucepan of water until needed, and use tongs to lift them out and place onto jar. Seal immediately, because as the food cools, it will cause the lids to 'pop' inwards, creating a full seal.
To remove labels from jars easily, I soak all jars in a tub of hot water with some eucalyptus oil, then use a soft scourer to scrape labels off. Make sure jars are then thoroughly cleaned, dried and sterilised as eucalyptus oil is toxic.

Well, my large box of tomatoes is nearly gone, just a few stragglers remain in the bottom. I am thinking I might oven dry these and use them in the pasta sauce that will be accompanying Nath's freshly caught squid tonight!

Home Made Tomato Sauce

This sauce is just so delicious... I will never buy tomato sauce from the shop again.
I adapted Sally Wise's recipe from her book "Out Of The Bottle". My adaptations are in green.

Ingredients

6 kg fresh, ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 kg onions, peeled and chopped (I used red onions, as I like their flavour)

750g sugar (I used raw sugar)

2 cups white wine or cider vinegar (I used organic brown rice vinegar, because that is what I had in the cupboard!)

120g cooking salt

1 1/2 tablespoons whole cloves (I ground these in the mortar and pestle, along with a whole star anise)

1 1/2 allspice berries (I just used ground allspice) 

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used a very ready dried chilli instead)

1 tablespoon tamarind paste

Combine all ingredients in a large pan and bring to the boil, then simmer, stirring regularly, for four hours. Strain mixture through a sieve (I disregarded this, being the 'whole foods' girl that I am, and just stuck a hand blender into the pan instead) into a clean saucepan. Bring to the boil over medium heat and then simmer for five minutes. Pour into warm sterilised bottles and seal immediately. Invert bottles briefly.

Store in a cool, dry and dark place for up to two years.

Makes approximately 7 litres (more like six in my opinion)

Loquat and Lemon Jam

Loquat and Lemon Jam

1kg loquats (stones removed)

2/3 cup water

1kg white sugar

juice and rind of two lemons

Add loquats and water to large pan and simmer until soft.

Mash or blend until desired consistency is reached.

Add lemon juice and rind and sugar, dissolve sugar into loquats.

Bring to full rolling boil and boil and set is reached on a cold saucer.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

When Life Gifts You Apricots....

Today a good friend of mine gave me a bag of apricots from her mum's tree.
I took the opportunity to try my hand at apricot jam. I've only ever made tried making jam once before, with mulberries. As jam, it was a disaster.... as mulberry toffee, it was delicious!

Since then I have purchased a preserving pan, one of my best op shop finds! It is a very very old cast iron and enamel one and I just love it.

I used a recipe from Thane Prince's "Jams and Chutneys: Preserving the Harvest".

Ingredients:
1 kg just ripe apricots
freshly squeezed juice of three lemons
1kg of white granulated sugar
125g liquid pectin (optional)

1. Cut apricots into quarters and remove the stones. Put the fruit, 400ml of water and lemon juice in a preserving pan and bring mixture to the boil. Simmer over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes until the fruit is very soft.
2. Add the sugar, allowing it to dissolve into the fruit. Try not to stir the mixture too much, as this will break up the apricots - you want to retain some large chunks to give the jam texture.
3. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil for 4-5 minutes, then stir in the pectin and boil for a further 2 minutes. If making the jam without pectin, it will need to be cooked at a full rolling boil for 15 minutes: this will produce a softish jam.
4. Remove from heat and test for a set.
5. When the jam has reached setting point, pot it into hot sterilized jars, seal and label.

It will keep us going for a while, and it is lovely and 'zing-y'.

A Different Kind Of Therapy

Cheese and Pineapple Pizza Rolls

This actually beats shopping! Homemade grainy pizza rolls with cheese and pineapple topping. A friend messaged me today to ask how I would make these, because who doesn't love dropping into the bakery for one of these? I had never thought to make my own, but loved the idea, so I gave it a go tonight.
Thanks, Amy, hope yours turn out too!

Ingredients:
3 cups multigrain bread mix
330ml water
1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
1 cup cheese
2 tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
fresh pineapple, cut into pieces

• Add bread mix, yeast and water to breadmaker in the order suggested by your machine's manual
• Set to dough setting
• When complete, break into eight portions and shape into round flat rolls
• Blend tomatoes and worcestershire sauce into a paste
• Spread onto tops of rolls
• Sprinkle with fresh pineapple pieces and cheese
• Bake in oven at 180-200 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.