From Our Kitchen.

A basket of backyard goodness.

I am in the midst of exam preparation, my first exam is on Monday. I have three all up, and will be so relieved to have earned my holidays when they are over. Uni has gone well, I am sitting on a distinction or high distinction in all of my units, but exams may change that! Nath is on uni holidays now (no exams for his course) and he has maintained a high distinction average for his Masters degree, which has him on track to complete it by doing his thesis.

Amid all this study, though, life has a habit of continuing to tick along, regardless of how much we feel we have in the day to get things done. I have been feeling quite overwhelmed with the need to remain 'on top' of everything, and my days have felt not as slow as I would like them to be. My goal for next academic year is to achieve a bit more balance, and this will quite possibly involve actually saying 'no' to a few more things! I've missed having the time to do some of the things I love to do, like cooking and sewing. To be honest, it's probably not so much a lack of time as a lack of prioritising these things which nourish me (Mezz over at Mezz Makes Stuff wrote a post recently on the difference between indulging and nourishing ourselves - worth a read).

Anyway, the past couple of days, despite the mountains of washing, despite the uni notes to be made and the cleaning to be done, I have snuck in a few moments of kitchen time, and thought I'd share some pics with you.

Salad with greens from our backyard, eggs from our chooks and dressing made from homemade yoghurt and homemade chilli sauce.

Potatoes which, having been blanched in vinegar and sprinkled with salt, are ready for dehydrating to make salt and vinegar crisps.

Finished potato chips. Very tasty!

Homemade yoghurt being strained to make labneh which will be marinated in olive oil with a blend of spices.

Two jars of loquat and lemon jam. I was so excited to find loquats at the markets!

Preserved lemons, which will be ready for winter cooking.

For me, it is the times when we are eating and drinking largely from our own produce, spending evenings preserving, fermenting, making, that I feel most connected to the Earth, each other and our family values.

The New Kids On Our Block

We have some new family members. After we brought Elsie home, we had no idea how pregnant she was or when she would kid, and it seemed like she was pining the company of other goats. She was very timid with us, too, so clearly we were inadequate company! I stumbled upon a young Saanen x British Alpine doe kid who had been hand reared and bottle fed. She was only five weeks old when we bought her and it really was the best thing we could have done. Elsie perked up immediately and relished being the 'herd queen', and it wasn't long before she was much more comfortable with us handling her, even coming up to demand cuddles and scratches first as is her right as the herd leader! The young doe kid, Bella, will be an excellent milker when she is older, as well.

This is Bella. She is awfully hard to photograph, as she keeps trying to eat the camera!

Then, on Tuesday night, after Miya's 6th birthday party, I noticed that Elsie was showing some early signs of labour. I kept an eye on her during the dinner/bath/bed routine and as soon as the (human) kids were in bed it was evident that this baby goat was arriving - and soon! I called a couple of friends of mine who have goats and have had experience with goats birthing and we settled in with a torch and waited. This was Elsie's first birth and she wasn't sure what was going on, and it was obvious that the kid was a large one. We let her push for half an hour or so then once the front hooves and nose were out, my friend held then and on the next contraction gave a gentle pull and helped the kid out. Elsie's instincts took over completely and she set about cleaning the kid's face, then her body, and it wasn't long before the kid was trying to stand and looking for her first drink. We woke the girls up to come and meet the baby and moved mama and baby into the shed, stopping to check the kid's gender (a girl!) and watched to make sure the kid would suckle. We had nothing to worry about, Elsie is a wonderful first time mother, doing everything completely right. Miya named the kid Rosie.

Rosie is a three quarter Boer goat, and already shows signs of being a lovely stocky goat. Nath is salivating already, as it is likely that Rosie will end up in our pot! We can't keep three goats, and as Elsie is a proven mother, we will use her to breed, hopefully with a milking breed buck. Bella will also be a milker. The (human) kids aren't too happy about eating Rosie, but we are breeding goats for our own dairy and meat requirements, to avoid the awful meat and dairy industry and guarantee that the animals we eat have led a healthy and humane life. It's a hard lesson, but a necessary one, I feel.

For now, Rosie will remain suckling on Elsie for a few weeks, then we will separate them at night so that we can milk Elsie in the morning. We have been needing to milk Elsie in the afternoons a bit anyway, as she is producing ore milk than Rosie can drink and was looking like she may have been developing mastitis. Her milk is incredibly creamy, and raw, cold, fresh goats milk is beautiful!

We are all absolutely loving being goat owners! It has long been a dream of mine and I can't begin to explain how lovely it is to watch my three children playing with the goats, learning about animal husbandry and developing an understanding of what it means to be a mindful consumer of meat in this age where animals are merely commodities, bred for the greed of humans without much concern for their welfare.

My Wellness Journey

I've posted before about food and my personal journey with finding foods that nourish my body, and I feel like our family is in a good place with this. I am now completely refined sugar free - in fact, the only sugars I eat are a piece of fruit a day, and the occasional splash of Rice Malt Syrup in something as a treat. I am also gluten free, and eat very few grains. Our family eats free of additives and processed foods, and we include lots of nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, ethical meats, good quality animal fats and dairy, backyard eggs and legumes into our diets. The children are not completely sugar free - they have small amounts of local unprocessed honey in their diets.

What I haven't written about before are the ways I try to live a well life, in all areas, not just in regards to food. My pregnancy with Brannen left me nearly 30 kilos overweight, and suffering with acute lower back pain, due largely to weakened muscles in my core and pelvic areas. For the first few months of Brannen's life, I didn't have a single day completely pain free, and on my worst days I could hardly move. The extra weight, and poor posture from the back pain, led to ongoing flare-ups in my knees, also. Exercising seemed nearly impossible, and my motivation and confidence were rock-bottom.

During this time, two friends of mine had embarked on a fitness journey and for a while I struggled with feelings of being 'left behind' and inadequate. I felt lazy, slobby and my weight was becoming an issue in other areas. I was struggling to sleep properly, as I prefer to lay on my side, and the excess fat was blocking my airflow, so I couldn't breathe. I was also beginning to fall quite a bit, because of my weakened core, but being so overweight meant that when I fell, I fell very heavily, which was both embarrassing and painful. Watching my beautiful friends achieve such wonderful things in their journey finally gave me the 'kick' I needed to get started, when Brannen was about ten months old.

I started, like many people by walking, and after a bit of time I joined a local exercise group. I huffed and puffed and apologised my way through those early sessions, but, gradually, as my fitness increased, so did my confidence. I downloaded an app called "Couch to 5K" which took me from running not at all, to running 5km at a time in a period of a couple of months. From there, I increased my running distance to about 7km. I loved running, but developed painful shin splints that put an end to my running days (for now). In the meantime, I had begun karate and had developed a pretty good weekly exercise routine consisting of karate training, boxing/circuit training, weights/core training and I have recently added in cycling to this mix.

I paid extra attention to my injuries, and learned how to exercise while looking after them. (Physiotherapy helped with this). I strapped, stretched, massaged and iced where necessary. To this day, I still don't do conventional abdominal exercises, as my core still needs strengthening before it will be ready for that. My knees are now much stronger and generally pain free, and my core is getting stronger all the time. I have very few days of back pain. The support given to me by my friends, especially the ones who are on a similar journey, and the knowledge and advice they share with me, has been an enormous motivator for me. I am very grateful.

Since I started, about five months ago, I have lost 14.3 kilograms, two dress sizes and many centimetres. I'm not where I need to be, but I am over halfway there. I am also fitter, faster, stronger, more flexible and more agile. I love training, and I love the health benefits, both mental and physical, that it reaps. I love being a great role model to my children, and teaching them how to love themselves. The difference, I believe, between my previous weightloss journey and where I am at at the moment, is found here. I no longer hate myself. I love my body, I love watching it get stronger and leaner, but I am okay with it now, too. It has produced three beautiful children, and it will never look the same as it did before, but it works! I feel blessed that I am able to move and be active.

2013 has started well for me. We eat wonderful food, I am able to get out and train six days a week, and I am following a bit of a dream in getting The Play Patch up and running. It's not all roses, all of the time, but things are pretty good.

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day, fellow Aussies. This is a day on our calendar that I particularly love. When I was younger, I would go to the Perth Skyshow (fireworks) with friends and an esky full of beer and celebrate with the thousands of others doing the same thing, down on the South Perth foreshore. There was always a game of cricket going, some people took paddle pools and it was always a very rowdy, happy day that I look back on with fondness.

I haven't done that for a very long time, and Australia Day is celebrated in a much more civilised and, ahem, mature kind of way these days. Often it will be a barbecue with friends, or, as our wedding anniversary is the day following, it may be a weekend away.

Big batch of baked beans for the week's breakfasts.

Today, though, I plan to put up a few bottles of passata using some tomatoes that I peeled ahead of time. I will put a new batch of yoghurt on, maybe two, and generally potter around the kitchen with the radio on. I am generally a local AM radio station kind of girl, but today I will turn on JJJ and find out what all the younger ones have been listening to all year! Nath will be putting a brew on (beer) for enjoying in a few weeks' time, and I'll do a bit of sewing, getting some stock together for a market stall in February.

Peeled tomatoes, ready for passata making.

At 4:30 this afternoon, the TV will go on for the Twenty20 match, and we'll barbecue some lamb and snaggers, make some salads and maybe even a pav for dinner.

Basil given to us by a friend, for drying and pesto making!

It's a beautiful warm day (36 degrees), the windows are open, the cicadas are singing and I couldn't feel more blessed to be right where I am.

Pesto and nut butters for sandwich spreads.

I hope you are enjoying your Australia Day, however you decide to celebrate it!

Food.

Way back in August, when I was immersed in holiday life, I posted about food. I talked about how my body reacts negatively to certain foods, and how hard it is to wade through what to eat, and why, and how. Food is a very personal topic, and everyone has their own set of values relating to it. You only need to take a glimpse into people's shopping trolleys to see the diversity in what people eat. Sometimes people's food choices are influenced by cost, sometimes by convenience, sometimes by taste. For some people it's more important to eat organically, while some choose to avoid additives. Some choose low fat foods, some choose foods that are unprocessed. Some people have food intolerances, and some are committed to eating ethically and humanely; others choose to eat local foods wherever possible. Usually, it's a balancing act between one or more of these factors.

It can be very difficult to prioritise your values around food, deciding, for example, whether it is more important to keep the weekly grocery cost low or to buy organically, which can cost more. These priorities will change often, depending on what is going on in your life. When I was pregnant, and horribly morning-sick, we bought more convenience foods than we were comfortable with, because I was unable to face cooking and the bulk of it was left to Nath (who is a wonderful cook, by the way, but rushed off his feet during those months!) I used to be a big believer in buying low fat foods, and now I only buy full fat foods, including cream, butter and good animal fats. The points-counting me of years gone by would be horrified.

Our loose priorities at the moment are as follows: unprocessed and additive free, low in sugar, local, ethical, organic, affordable, gluten-free (for me), protein-rich. We assess our shopping list based on these values, and it is far from a rigid set of rules. Some items may not be organic, but are local, for example.We do the best we can within our constraints.

Learning to listen to my body has also been very significant in determining what we buy and how we cook. I am becoming sugar free, after realising the negative health impacts of sugar. I say becoming, because this is proving to be a hard nut to crack!! Similarly, I have learned that it is gluten that makes me feel bloated, sore and lethargic, so I am staying away from gluten at the moment. I find it hard to resist my own cooking (I know, it sounds so conceited, but when you have put love into baking something, its very hard not to take that first, straight-from-the-oven bite!) but I have noticed that when I eat things that my body doesn't 'like', I hurt. I get cramps. I bloat, noticeably. My weight can rise by up to three kilos in a day. I get very, very tired, often just lying on the couch in the afternoon. I play less. I yell more. I have headaches and restless legs. I don't sleep well. My motivation disappears. I get cranky, and flat. I fart more (sorry!) and my skin looks awful. 

When I eat well (for my body), I have so much energy. I feel fantastic. I move easier, my stomach is flatter, I have motivation to get moving and do things. I don't get the 3pm slump, I sleep better at night and my mood is improved (just ask my kids).  I still falter (often, actually) but at least now I can examine how I am feeling and know that it is not normal, and it is because of what I put in my mouth.

My heroes are still my heroes. Sally Fallon, and her 'bible' Nourishing Traditions - what a resource this is. Jude Blereau, the wholefoods queen. Quirky Jo, a fellow Thermomix user who eats gluten free and largely sugar free - her blog is a go-to often for me.

There is always someone who will tell you, don't eat that, this way is better. Your food journey is yours and yours alone. Try things out. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Decide what your priorities are, and hold on to them. Nourish yourself. Food is more than a fuel, it is an expression. It is a gift from you to your body.

Preserving Seasonal Produce

One of the things I love most about summer is its seasonal produce. Fresh, sunny-day fruits, cool cucumbers and an overload of shiny red (and yellow, and black, and striped!) tomatoes... peach juice dribbling down your chin, onto your hands and leaving sticky, sweet-smelling trails down your arms.... berries included in all manner of meals and snacks, and discovering exactly what mix of berries you need to make light pink, dark pink and purple... scoring a criss-cross pattern into fat, juicy mango cheeks and sneakily scoffing them down before the children see and you have to share.....

Every summer, we spend a few weekend days preserving some of this fresh produce, to use later in the year when it is out of season. We freeze mangoes and bananas, blanch and freeze beans and peas, dry and braid our garlic crops, make liqueurs out of stone fruits, turn apricots, plums, figs and berries into jam, make sauces, paste and passata out of trays of tomatoes, and dry trays of fruits and tomatoes in the oven. We preserve in salt, oil, vinegar and sugar syrup.

One of my favourite ways of preserving is using my aunty's old Fowlers Vacola electric preserver. I was given this unit and boxes and boxes of Vacola jars, lids and clips, all wrapped in newspaper from the 1970s, and I haven't looked back. The internet is a great resource in starting out with bottling (or canning, as they call it in the US).

Last weekend, we were given a tray of kumato tomatoes, a lovely, shiny, little brown variety. We peeled them by scoring them then immersing them first in a pan of boiling water, then in a bowl of cold water. The peels then slide off easily. We then pack the sterilised Vacola jars full, add a bit of citric acid (about a quarter teaspoon to 500g of tomato) and fill with water. The seals, lids and clips are put on, and the jars are processed in the electric unit for 60 minutes.

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.

Six more jars of whole, peeled tomatoes for the pantry. No preservatives, no BPA.

We also laid out a rack of tomato halves and dried them slowly in a very low oven. When they were dry, we dipped them in apple cider vinegar and placed them in a jar, topping the jar up with olive oil and herbs. Home-dried tomatoes are so full of flavour, and it is so satisfying to eat foods that we have prepared ourselves, for a fraction of the price of the supermarket version.

Do you preserve seasonal foods?
Any favourite preserving recipes/tips/tricks?

Easy Peasy Healthy Chocolate Bliss Balls

Easy Peasy Recipe Swap (via Mezz Makes Stuff)

Healthy (yes, healthy!) Chocolate Bliss Balls.

Sugar-free, dairy free (not that I mind a bit of dairy) and grain free.

For all you Thermomix owners, I have adapted this from Quirky Cooking's Cacao and Walnut Bliss Balls, to make the recipe suit our family's style and what we generally have on hand in the pantry! For all non-TM owners, don't stress, you can do this in a food processor.

Also, I am quite a non-precise cook, so all my measurements may be in the very technical units of 'about', a 'splash' or a 'touch'. You'll work it out.

Process about 80g cacao powder (or nibs, or hey you could get really radical and just use cocoa powder!) together with quite a few (fresh, not dried) dates (say, about 300gm, maybe a bit more) until mixture is crumbly. Add a couple of handfuls of cashews, or pistachios, or any kind of nut really, a nice big dollop of coconut oil, some shredded coconut, a pinch of good quality sea salt, a smidge of vanilla bean paste (or extract, or essence), some sweetener if you choose (I use a splash of honey or rice malt syrup) and process until sticky (add or subtract wet or dry ingredients until it looks right). Roll into balls and stick in the fridge. Or just eat them.

Easy peasy. And darn impressive. And full of beautiful good fats and the super-ness of cacao. The kids WILL NOT know they are healthy, so when they ask for another one, you can scrunch your face up, and pretend to think REAL hard, and then when you say yes, you earn yourself extra cool mum cred.

Muffins, Meringues, Mess and Magical Moments

 Sometimes, you have just got to let it all go.

Let the washing pile up.

Let the beds remain unmade.

Let the baby cart the recycling rubbish all through the house.

Let the kitchen mess build up.

 

Let faces remain unwiped.

 

Let the kids drag their stools up to the bench...

 

...and pick all the blueberries off the bush....

...and create.

Sometimes....

....things don't turn out how we expect them to.

And that's okay.

Sometimes, nothing says "I love you" more than....

...."Come and cook with me."

Rediscovering Home

I'm sitting at my sewing table to type this, looking out onto our deck, and beyond that our (somewhat dishevelled) front garden, and beyond that, the green rolling hills that mark the beginning of the Avon Valley. It is a warm and sunny day today, but I am wondering if the weather is fooling us again, and one last cold snap is around the corner. Pretty soon the hills will change from rolling green to sunburnt brown, the blossoms will fade from the fruit trees and summer fruits will take their place.

This time of the year brings with it its own set of tasks and rhythms. We have been busy clearing old piles of mulch, wood and scrap tin left by the previous owners, preparing for snake season. The old Hills Hoist we got from Gumtree has been cemented in, ready for the warm weather to hit so my washing can finally be dried in the sun. Garden beds have been dug out, and are waiting for the last of our spring planting to be laid out. Corn and beans are in, as well as potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, radishes, spinach.... and our ever expanding line up of young fruit trees are waiting to be transplanted into the ground out of their pots. Compost beds have been built, as the compost and mulch will get our gardens through a long, hot summer without using too much water. The water tank is connected and will be used purely for the gardens (we are hoping for another couple of days of rain, though, to fill it!)

We have our first brood of quail chicks, now. Nath is looking forward to raising them up for their eggs and their meat, but for now they are just cute little balls of feathers running around the bottom of a cage. When they are a bit older, they will live in a large run, but a cage is fine for now. We also have some new unsexed young chickens. The girls will join our layers and the boys will end up in the pot.

I have been busy preparing for Miya's fifth birthday party next weekend. She is having a garden tea party, and there is much to do to get our garden in order. I have sewn fifteen metres of bunting to string up, and have cleared the local opshops of their teacups and saucers. Next week, I will be busily baking little cakes, biscuits and quiches for the day. Miya has invited ten or twelve little friends over, some new and some old, and is very excited.

 

All this work around the home helps remind me of what is truly important in life. I feel like I lost my way for a bit there, being on holidays, then moving house immediately upon our return. Money has been thoughtlessly spent, food is not being planned and enjoyed the way it should be. This seasonal change of rhythm reminds me to take an inward breath in my daily life, and focus back in on home and the family. To slow down (again - isn't it funny how easy it is to hasten pace with the rest of the world, and how difficult it can be to slow our lives down when they get too frantic?) and enjoy just.... being.

I have made a few decisions, the last couple of days. I miss my buying ban, and the freedom it gave me from being weighted down by stuff. I am revisiting my buying hierarchy:

• Make do
• Make
• Freecycle/Pay It Forward
• Secondhand
• New, but locally handmade
• New, but Australian made and/or Fairtrade
• New, made overseas, but Fairtrade and supporting communities.

I am also returning to my food philosophy of eating only unprocessed food. This has been tricky. I have definitely grown used to not-good-food-choices in recent weeks.

And, I am staying home more. Rediscovering home, the place of my soul's content. Rediscovering rest, and the joy of completing the little tasks that keep this home ticking over. Finding time to create, and play, and read.

Kind of like spring cleaning for the soul.