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.

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.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine.

When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. 

When diet is right, medicine is of no need.

- Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb.

The older I get, the more I realise how important it is to choose the right food to fuel my body. As the years go by, it gets harder to drop weight, easier to succumb to injury, harder to recover afterwards. It takes longer to build fitness, less time to lose tone, and greater are the effects of gravity.

Also, adding insult to injury, it seems that many of the foods I have always taken for granted as being part of a normal, everyday diet now cause unwanted and uncomfortable reactions. My pregnancy with Brannen, particularly, left me more sensitive than ever to lactose, for example.

You all know how much I love food. I love to cook, I love playing with new ingredients, creating dishes and flavours and memories. However, over the past few months, I have cooked less. I have felt uninspired. The kids' lunchboxes have not been filled with wholesome home cooking like they used to be. The evening meals have often been a throw-together affair nearly void of passion for good ingredients.

Part of the problem for me has been marrying the food ethics I have been carefully shaping for myself (and continue to do so, as I read more and more and talk with different people) with other priorities, such as the desire to lose some weight, or my love of sweet baked goods, or my hankering for iced coffee. 

When I think of losing weight, I think of the 'nutritional experts' advice' that has been drummed into me - low fat, higher carb than protein, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. I have lost weight this way before - by counting points and eating low fat (but often higher in sugar and 'numbers') foods. However, my food journey has brought me to the point where I no longer feel comfortable eating low fat foods. I am a whole foods girl, and I am not okay with how low fat foods become low fat, or what is added back in place of the fat. 

When I think of warm baked goods straight from the oven, I think about all the varying forms of sweeteners, and how more and more research is suggesting that fructose is not only seriously overused, but could be responsible for obesity and a bunch of other nasties. I think about my own experiments with forgoing sweeteners, and how much better I feel, physically and mentally, when they are not a part of my diet. I think about the availability of sweeteners in our local environment, and how much processing and transport is required to get them to our table (honey aside). I think about wheat, and how it makes me feel bloated and heavy, and sluggish and vague. How much of our diet relies on that crop of wheat!! 

When I think about how my body reacts well to meat, that leads me to think about how reducing our meat intake can be one of the biggest ways we as individuals can reduce our environmental impact. I think about all the issues surrounding a carnivorous/omnivorous diet, and my own value of only eating local, grassfed, preferably organic meat (which is an expensive way to eat meat!)

So, what, then, do I eat? This question has been niggling away at me for a couple of months. I read, I read some more..... one blog clicks into another... one person's research is debunked by another's.... it becomes an impossible quest to find a settling place, where my soul meets my stomach perfectly. Add into all of this that food is a social medium, and entertaining in a healthy, ethical way is more challenging again, and it all begins to feel too hard.

I revisit my heroes. My food gurus, whose advice and philosophy I know to be sound. Jude Blereau, the queen of wholefood cooking. Sally Fallon, whose commonsense approach and skepticism of modern day nutrition/dietetics I find refreshing. Lesh Karan (The Mindful Foodie), who reassures me that I can eat in a way that nourishes my body as well as respecting the Earth. Jo Whitton (Quirky Jo), a fellow Thermomix owner, who wades through the territory of multiple food intolerances to provide good, wholesome meals for her large family. I learn from the principles of Weston Price and, following on from there, from blogs such as The Nourishing Gourmet.

I listen to my body. I learn more and more everyday about what my body is trying to tell me. I go a few days without eating a particular ingredient, then when I eat it again, I take notice of what happens. I don't assume that it is normal to feel uncomfortable, or headache-y, or tired. I also listen to my body when it is feeling good. I learn that protein in the morning keeps me going, makes me feel clearer and more energetic throughout the day. I learn that eating no sugar or gluten reduces my bloating and clears my skin.

I am no expert. I am not even an expert on my own body. I am learning to listen, and that is more than I have ever given myself. I beat myself up, and feel depressed when I eat the wrong things. But I try to remind myself that this is a journey, and every mistake teaches me something new, if I take the time to listen. Being on holidays is a time of indulgence, and I have to be careful not to get too caught up in feeling guilty about what is going into my body. I look forward to returning to my kitchen with a fresh mind and some post-holiday inspiration, and cooking good food. I try to remind myself that the number on the scales is not a reflection of who I am as a person, just a gentle reminder to make sure that I am fueling my body in good, wholesome ways. I get excited about learning more ways to cook delicious, dairy-free, gluten-free, naturally sweetened food, and I look forward to feeling the benefits of such a way of eating.