down to earth

We are changing the way we eat. This is a big decision for us because we're going to eat meat again. I suppose it's less of a change for Hanno because he occasionally eats meat during winter, but I haven't eaten any meat for close to ten years. I started off being meat, chicken and fish-free because I was trying to help Hanno reduce his cholesterol level - he was having problems getting to a decent level, even though he'd given up eating a lot of the cheeses and other foods he loved. I thought that by him giving up meat it would take a burden from his diet that his body couldn't cope with. A couple of years into it, I went back to eating fish because I could never get a decent meal when I went travelling in my job. So we settled into this meat-less diet and I have to say that I always thought we were doing the right thing. Until now.

Then I read Nourishing Traditions, the revolutionary book by Sally Fallon. It changed the way I view food and has convinced me to eat meat again. Two days ago I ate meat for the first time in many years. I must admit I felt a bit sick at first and wondered if it was right for me but I soon settled down and felt fine. We had a beef casserole, made with shin beef, including the marrow bone. This meal was chosen to provide us with natural gelatin, minerals and enzymes.

I first came across Nourishing Traditions on the Lentils and Rice blog and was intrigued that the book had convinced Robyn to change what she ate and how she fed her family. Over the next month or two, I read more about the book and the influence it was having so when, quite by chance, I saw it for sale in my local organic co-op, I grabbed it. Hanno and I have both been reading it since and we're convinced by what the author writes. It's an easy book to read. It has a subject index as well as a recipe index and although I started reading from the beginning, now I'm looking up subjects that interest me, and spot reading.

I'm sure that people would get different messages from this book but this is what I have understood so far. There is no blanket advice that any doctor or government can give because we are all different, our bodies need differing elements and it's difficult to cover all people in one food pyramid or accepted body of knowledge. We are mammals - so we are programmed to drink milk. This starts off being human milk but expands into other types of milk and milk products - mammals commonly drink the milk of other mammals. Tampering with food to remove certain elements from it - like fat or salt - devalues it. Fat is needed to allow the take up of many of the beneficial elements in food. Raw food, in its many forms, is the best food. When I say raw I mean unprocessed - so raw milk, honey, cheese etc. Eat only pasture fed meat, not grain fed, or lot fed.

But most of all, as the title of the book states, it's about going back to the diet our great grandmas cooked. They used to eat soups and stocks made with bones; they ate the entire carcass of whatever animal they had available and didn't waste anything. They drank raw full cream milk, and made cheese from that same milk, they pre-soaked a lot of their grains and cereals - making the nutrients easily digestible when eaten. They pickled and preserved using whey.

This book made a lot of sense to me. I rarely read anything that changes how I view what I'm doing, but this book did it. I always think a lot about what I'm doing and generally, when I decide to change, it's for a reason that I've thought about and makes good sense to me. I know that many people won't get the same understanding from this book as I did. But if you get the chance to read it, do so. It might convince you to make a change.

Please note: You will most likely get this book at your local library. If you wish to buy a copy, I've added the Amazon link for the USA and UK to my side bar.

I'm very happy to tell you I'm feeling better today. I went back to the doctor yesterday and my medication was changed. It's made a difference. :- ) I can now sit here at the computer for more than 30 seconds and write what I want to write. It's been so frustrating not being able to do that.

I finished off the Ascot scarf I started the other day and have now started on a pair of these fingerless mittens that Heather wrote about on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op. The last two days have also seen these wonderful posts from Eilleen about Learning How to Sew and Oh Darn! Mending Socks or Gloves, written by Sadge.

The only other constructive work I've done in the past week is to pickle some beetroot (beets). We had a small crop of about 20 beetroot that I picked last week and left in the fridge. I finally got to them a few days ago and turned them into the most delicious bright red salad ingredient.

When you pick your beetroot, don't cut the tops off - twist the tops off and tidy the top with a knife but don't cut into the flesh of the vegetable as it will bleed into the water while it's being cooked. Wash the vegies thoroughly but don't peel them or cut into the flesh at all. Place in a pot of salted water and boil until cooked.

Then it's just a matter of making up a pickling liquid that suits your taste. I make mine like this:
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
some new fresh bay leaves
salt and pepper

I would normally have added some mustard seeds too but didn't have any.

When the beets are cooked, let them cool for a short while and when you can handle them, slip the skins off with your fingers.

Then just chop the beets into the shapes you want - either quarters or slices, place in a jar and pour over your pickling liquid. Store in the fridge. They will last for at least three months without any form of canning or preserving.

Before I go today I'd like to say a sincere thank you to a wonderful group of women who have been helping behind the scenes here. You all know that Sharon organises the swaps. She often makes more than she originally intended to because sometimes swappers drop out, and rather than allow our ladies to be disappointed, Sharon steps in. There were a number of swappers who didn't receive their promised swap this time and I'm so pleased to say that Ann R, Christine K and Stephanie all stepped in and helped. They made extras and sent them. I believe that generosity and kindness are a big part of simple lives and it tells me a lot about these women that they stepped up and helped out. Thank you ladies. I appreciate it and I'm sure the women to whom you sent your extras did too. It makes me feel stronger to see the strength of others and I want to thank Sharon, Ann, Christine and Stephanie for being a great example to us all.

Knitting has been my saving grace these past couple of days and nights. At first I couldn't concentrate on my knitting, or read a book, but with the pain easing slightly, I've taken up the needles again. I'm also reading a very interesting book, but more about that in another post. I started another Ascot scarf, for which I'm using a soft Australian 100% merino wool. The needles I'm using on this project are a pair of vintage pale aqua needles made of a very pliable soft plastic, with amber tops. They are warm in the hand and easily slide under thick wool.

I find that knitting is very similar to simple living. It's a mindful process that slows you down. It allows you to make productive that time you use to rest, and even though rest on it's own is a wonderful thing, there are many times I want to rest but still have something material come from that time. As I sit here, slowly making one stitch after another - like one small step - I know that each of those stitches is added to the overall fabric of what I'm making, just like each small step builds into a simple life.

I knitted the Ascot scarf above to wear this past winter. It's made of Lion brand organic cotton and is really soft and cuddly next to my neck. I made it wide so it's doubled over when worn to provide extra warmth. I secure it with my mum's vintage black and silver brooch/pin.

This is the rest of my recent knitting. I have a stack of cotton washcloths there that I'm adding to all the time and the red item is the beginning of a red cotton bag.

If you haven't tried knitting yet, I urge you to give it a go. You will be able to create some lovely unique things for yourself and your family and also to give as gifts for your friends. It's a truly useful skill to have and will fit into your simple life in a variety of ways. When I knit a gift I always keep the label of the yarn I use and attach that to the gift. That way the person who receives the gift knows exactly what it is made with and how to care for it.

Take care everyone.

I can't tell you how good it feels to me to be home again doing "normal" things. I thought that going away for a couple of nights would be sort of semi-exciting, how wrong I was. When I was out, I was in the middle of a large and extremely busy city; when I was "home" I was in a hotel, cut off from nature with air-conditioning, thick walls and a little glass door that lead out to a very un-natural pebble courtyard. I couldn't hear anything when I was in the room, it was just me and the TV. I took a book to read but I went to sleep when I tried to read it. In the end I watched the "live" cricket beaming in from India. What a strange world we live in.

When I got home we had to deal with the problem of Seth's incessant crowing at 3 o'clock in the morning. The neighbours do not like it, neither does Hanno. Eep! I knew we'd have a problem giving him away, so many roosters are given away and end up in the soup pot, and I didn't want that for him. So I put a free advert on the farm stock online site for a pair of Sussex chooks and low and behold, we had people ringing up and emailing hoping to be given them. In the end, he and one of his silver Sussex ladies - Polly , went to a farm about ten minutes away. He would have been miserable without her and I hope they live a happy life there. The woman who took them wants to breed light Sussex. She came over with her husband who is a bee keeper. A lovely couple and I'm sure they'll look after Seth and Polly.

Seth - caught in the act.

I was hoping to have time yesterday to cook up these beetroot pulled from the garden a couple of days ago, but they're still uncooked. Hanno and I spent yesterday afternoon at the Centre where I hosted a Sunday lunch for the volunteers, committee and a couple of people from the local relocalisation group, who we auspice. It was a lovely lunch, we all brought food to share, and we sat - about 25 of us - under the shade of some very old conifer trees at the Centre. When we came home again, the people arrived to pick up Seth and Polly, so not much else was done. I had a long sleep last night, almost 11 hours, but I'm still a bit weary this morning. I'm going to work but I think I'll be a bit slow today.

I miss being at home, doing those things that usually make up my day. It might seem boring to some but I was bored in the middle of the city and wishing I was home again baking bread and eating real food. There was a time in my life when nothing could have kept me out of the city and all the excitement of it. Now it just exhausts me, now I have found a better place and I am fulfilled by pottering around my home. I think I'll settle back in fully by writing about knitting tomorrow. Thinking about that today will settle my mind and distance me from where I've been.

On the left is a flowering cactus that is growing on our front verandah and in the bush house. I'm not sure of the name of it, I grew it from cuttings I got from my DIL, but it flowers like this every Spring and hangs down from its container in long strands of pink. It's a real beauty.

I hope you're all well and happy and working steadily on your small steps to a simpler life. Oh, and I have to tell you, I really missed this blog and all of you while I was away.

While I was at work yesterday, Hanno planted up a lot of seedlings for our summer garden. When we first came to live here 12 years ago, we only ever planted in autumn and winter because the bugs and heat of summer made gardening too much of a chore. Things have changed now; we changed the way we thought about our garden, we changed how we shopped and our garden changed with us. We eat from the garden every day - sometimes our entire meal comes from our back yard. Last night, for instance, we had silverbeet (swiss chard) omelettes - freshly picked steamed chard was added to our backyard eggs, salt and pepper and a sprinkling of fresh chives. I would usually add a salad but was too tired to make one so I served the omelettes with a dollop of tomato chutney that I made about three months ago. Delicious!

The garden is important to us and allows us to eat healthy, organic food at a fraction of what it costs to buy it in a shop.

We eat a lot of tomatoes. These are beefsteaks and the first of them should be ready in about two weeks. Nothing beats the taste of heirloom tomatoes. If you've never tasted them, you're missing out on a real treat. They are real tomatoes, that taste like tomatoes should taste. Tomatoes at the store are gassed to produce a rich red colour and although they look good, they're often hard and tasteless. You never have that problem with the heirlooms - particularly the salad varieties like beefsteak, oxheart, Brandywine and German Johnson.

More tomatoes have been planted along the new lattice. These are oxhearts and Topic, which we're trying for the first time. They are supposed to be a good hot weather tomato.

And, you guessed it - more tomatoes. These little babies will be producing well into January, as long as the sun doesn't frazzle them. We do have sunshades for the garden. We didn't need them last year because we had a mild summer, but they're on standby.

Further over near the chook house we have corn at the top of the photo, more chard, and seedlings of capsicum (peppers) and beans. We grow a lot of chard and green leafy vegetables because we always share it with the chooks. They love green leaves and it makes the yolks of their eggs a rich golden yellow.

Between us and the chickens we plow through this stuff. Silverbeet, and most leafy greens, are rich in iron so being non meat eaters, it helps us keep our iron levels healthy.

And finally, just to show you that we are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, our failed nectarine tree. Remember when we wrapped it up? It didn't work. After the first storm, gaps appears and the fruit fly got in. Every nectarine is riddled with fruit fly grubs. The chooks will happily eat every one of these fruit. We, on the other hand, will have none. Hanno thinks the trees are too much trouble and want to cut them down. I'm still undecided. We have some peaches protected from the fruit fry by exclusion bags. I think that one bite of a good peach will convince me not to get rid of the trees. We might just have to beat the fruit fly at their own game next year. I'll keep you posted.

I'm going to be away for a few days. Tomorrow I have to go to a conference related to my voluntary work. I'll be back on the weekend. I hope you all have a good week. Thank you for visiting and for your support with the co-op. I'll see you again next week, my friends.

If you're not already baking your own bread, I want you to think about doing it. Not only is it preservatives-free, it's cheaper, tastes better and it a great skill to have. Bread is one of our staple foods and in days gone past everyone, and I mean everyone, knew how to make it. Bread baking is just one of the skills we've traded for the sake of convenience - we give them our money and our independence, they give us back a loaf of bread (usually inferior to what we'd make) and the convenience of not having the bake the bread ourselves.

I know that many of you don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen baking bread. If you are one of those people, I encourage you to buy, barter, or swap your way to a breadmaker. It doesn't have to be new or fancy, it just has to knead the dough for you. Then you shape the loaf and bake it in the regular oven. Making bread this way will take you about 10 minutes in the various stages of putting the ingredients in the machine, shaping the loaf and taking it from the oven. Baking bread using a breadmaker does NOT make you an inferior cook. If using a breadmaker allows you to make your own bread, then go for it. Don't think you HAVE to make the dough by hand, it doesn't matter! The object of the exercise is to produce bread and if using a bread maker is how you do it, so be it.

I did a tutorial for hand making bread so you can try that if you want to. I added gluten flour to that recipe because it is a beginner's loaf and the gluten flour helps with the rise. You can leave it out if you can't find gluten or if you feel you'll knead the dough well enough without it.

In the posts here and here I'm talking about the cost of bread. If you can find a supplier of good high protein flour - or bakers flour - you will be able to produce loaf after loaf at a fraction of the price of store bought bread. BTW, the protein in bread flour is gluten so if you can't find high protein flour or bakers flours, use your plain all purpose flour and add gluten to it - ratio is one cup of flour to one teaspoon of gluten.

There are two more posts about bread making here and here.

There are thousands of recipes for bread and this is the one I used to make my flower pot loaves last weekend.

SOY AND LINSEED BREAD - MADE IN A BREADMAKER

First take two teaspoons of dry yeast and a tablespoon of sugar or honey, add to a cup of warm water and stir. Let that sit on the bench to prove (bubble up) while you prepare your other ingredients.

In this order, or the order described in your breadmaker manual, place in your breadmaker:

3 cups bread flour/bakers flour/high protein flour or plain flour with 3 teaspoons of gluten flour added to it. I used soy and linseed flour, you can use white, wholemeal, wholegrain or whatever flour you have.
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of milk powder -- if you have no milk powder leave it out

If you have no milk powder, add some milk as part of your liquid component. You've already got a cup of water that the yeast is proving in, when the yeast has bubbled up (therefore you know it's alive and will activate the bread properly) pour the cup of yeast water in the breadmaker on top of the flour. If you didn't add milk powder, add half a cup of milk. If you did add milk powder, add another half cup of water.

Now, here is where you have to use your common sense. Turn on your machine on the "dough" setting and let it mix all the ingredients for a few minutes. Stay at the machine and watch it. You probably need to add more liquid. I can't tell you how much to add because all flour is different and even the humidity in your home will effect the amount of water you'll need to add at this point. If the dough is too dry, start adding water from a cup in very small amounts. Let the machine mix it in well before you judge whether you need more. One of the skills of breadmaking is judging the right amount of water and I always poke my finger in to check it. You're hoping for a moist dough that has mixed in all the ingredients - you don't want dry dough and you don't want sloppy dough. When you're happy that you've got it right, let the machine do it's work. I'll just say that the amount of liquid you'll add will be between 1½ cups and 2 cups. How much of that extra ½ cup you add you'll have to decide.

When the machine is finished, take the dough out, sprinkle a small amount (one tablespoon) of flour on your bench and knead the dough into a smooth ball. You'll notice at this stage, the dough is elastic - if you pull a piece out, it's springy. Shape the loaf, put it in a greased or lined bread tin and let it sit in a warm place until the bread has risen. This will take about 30 minutes in a warm kitchen but up to an hour in a cool one. You could also put your tin on top of a hot water system, or in the sun with a moist tea towel on the top to help it rise. I used three flower pots and divided the dough equally into three portions and added them to the pots.

When the dough is doubled in size and has risen just above the top of the bread tin, place it in a hot oven. Preheat your oven to its highest temperature, then when you put the bread in, lower the temp to 200C (395F). Bake until you smell the delicious smell of bread and the top is golden. It will take between 20 - 30 minutes.

And that's it. Even though there are a lot of instructions above, they have been written for those of us who have little experience. Anyone who has baked before will just need the recipe and will go on with it. As I said, it will only take about 10 minutes in various stages.

The little flower pot loaves were baked in real plant pots, but they need to be seasoned. DON"T BUY CHINESE POTS and don't use old pots that have had plants in them. I think mine were 5 inch pots. Clean them thoroughly with soap and warm water, rinse well and allow to dry for at least 12 hours. Rub cooking oil into the pots and make sure you cover ever part of every pot. The oil will soak into the terracotta. Make sure you apply a good amount of oil. Put the pots into a COLD oven and turn the heat up to 180C (350F). Let the pots cook in the oven for 20 minutes, then turn the heat off. Leave them in the oven, with the door closed, overnight to cool completely. Next day, repeat that process again. When they come out of the oven the second time, they're ready to be used for baking.

You can bake anything in these pots. I have used them in the past for baking little Christmas cakes that I gave as Christmas gifts - still in the pot - and tied with a red ribbon. They were a real hit. But on the weekend I baked bread in them. I lined them with parchment paper, both on the bottom and sides, to make sure the bread didn't stick.

If you're not a baker, or if you're young and new to home cooking, I hope you'll try making bread. It will save you money and it's better for you because there is no preservative in home baked bread. But best of all, it tastes like bread should taste and you'll be gaining back your independence because you'll be able to provide for yourself.

I wonder how many of you are having problems with bread making. Are there many? Read through my tutorial and try the recipe above and see how you go with it. If there are a few still having problems making a decent loaf, I'll do a troubleshooting post in the next week or so and well see if we can work out the problems together.

Happy baking!