Serving good food from your own kitchen isn't just one thing, it's many. And it doesn't happen once, it's part of your ordinary days for most of your life. There is food budgeting and shopping, correct storage, meal planning, cooking, baking, preserving, maintenance of your stove, oven, fridge, dishwasher, crockery, cutlery, pantry and stockpile. All of us need to think about food security and some of us think about food production and go on to work in our own backyard gardens. No matter how you go about it, how much money you have for it, how much time you spend on it, food is important and it needs to be organised and managed.

Many readers tell me they're a bit haphazard with their food. They don't plan, budget or work to minimise waste. And that's fine, none of us are born with that knowledge, it's one of the many things we learn to make life easier. As we grow older, we need to make sure we learn what we need to know about food - and that's a lot more than just recipes - and to adjust and refine our food knowledge as we progress through life.

If you're not sure about how to start organising yourself, start with a list of the meals and food you already make regularly. Just making that list will probably start clarifying things for you and then you can go on to develop the skills you need. Slowly, you'll start seeing your patterns emerging and it will all start making sense. I included my list of meals in yesterday's post so if you need a little help, check that out. Don't try to do everything at once. Concentrate on one skill or idea at a time, work on that, and when you feel competent, start on the next one.

Don't think you have to do everything the way I do it, I am just one small example. If you're new to all this, remember it's something that will help you every day for as long as you're responsible for your family food. Take it slow, make sure all your systems work the way you need them to and I promise you it will make the work you do in the kitchen easier and more pleasant. 

When you produce your list, work out if you have enough main meals to serve for about a month. If you do, you'll have variety as well as nutrition. Then start building up the various categories of food you need - look for snack foods, lunches for work and school, morning or afternoon tea foods, drinks, preserves, a vegetarian selection, celebration foods or foods for any dietary requirements in your family. If you need to add to your list, do some research, test your new finds and add them to the list if they're suitable. That will take a long time, so don't rush it.

It's a good idea to use fruit and vegetables that are in season. They'll be at their best and cheaper because there'll be a lot of them available. When you grow your own, it's a simple matter of preserving or freezing excess vegetables as pickles, relish or chutney or your sweeter fruits as jam or cordial. But you can also do that when you don't grow your own. Just look around for a roadside stall or small green grocer because they may have cartons of oranges, lemons, tomatoes, peaches, or cheap pineapples, mangoes and passionfruit at the height of the season. You usually have to ask for a price on a carton because the shop won't have them on display. It's handy to have a freezer because if you have a big harvest when you don't have the time to preserve, you can freeze the fruit and use it later. That's what I've done with our elderberries, I've been freezing them as they ripen on the tree. When I have enough berries, I make either elderberry cordial or flu tonic. I also have a few plastic bottles of pure lemon juice ready to be made into cordial in summer. It takes a bit of organising, and you do need a freezer to help you store your produce but it's a simple exercise that will help you manage your food stores effectively.

Simple rissole (meatball) recipe
Meatloaf may be made using this recipe. Just form it into a loaf and bake it in the oven.

• 250 grams pork mince
• 250 grams beef mince
• 3 slices stale bread
• ½ cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, grated
• 1 stick celery, finely diced
• salt and pepper
• ½ cup parsley, finely chopped

One hour before you want to cook, add stale bread to milk and allow it to stand for 30 minutes.

Add meat to a bowl, break up the milk-soaked bread with your hands and add it to the meat.

Add all other ingredients and mix with your clean hands. When thoroughly mixed, form into balls of the size and shape you require. If you're making rissoles, the shape is like a large ball that you squash down slightly before cooking. If you're making meatballs for pasta, they're much smaller, a little smaller than a golf ball. For meatloaf, simply form into a loaf, either in a loaf tin or baking tray.

Put the rissoles on a plate and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes. That will allow them to firm up a bit and make cooking easier.

Cook the rissoles/meat balls in a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil added, turn every five minutes and brown on all sides.  When they're brown, put the lid on, turn the heat down and let them cook for an extra five minutes.  You can use the pan juices to make gravy. Click here to go to my gravy mix post. You can pre-make your own gravy mix so you don't have to buy one with preservatives in it.

Salmon fish cakes/patties

Make these up at least an hour before you want to cook them. They will firm up in the fridge and be much easier to cook and flip over.

• large can of red salmon
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 1 large egg
• chilli, finely diced (optional)
• coriander or parsley, finely chopped
• salt and pepper
• breadcrumbs for coating

Drain all the water from the can of salmon, remove the skin and place salmon in a bowl. Leave the bones in. They're soft and you can easily mash them to incorporate into the flesh. The bones contain an extra boost of calcium.

Add all the ingredients to the fish, mix well and form into patties. Coat with dry breadcrumbs, if desired. Fry in hot oil till both sides are golden brown - about 15 minutes.

Tuna loaf

This can be eaten hot or cold. It's good served warm with mashed potato, green beans and tomato and it's also good served cold with potato salad and fresh garden salad.

Drain all the water from the tuna before starting.

Prepare a loaf tin by spraying it with olive oil and place a piece of baking paper, about 6 inches wide, over the middle of the loaf tin to help remove the loaf when it's cooked. The paper should come up the sides of the tin to be used as handles.

• Large can tuna in water
• 1 cup breadcrumbs made from stale bread
• 1 large onion
• ½ capsicum, diced
• ½ cup corn
• 1 stick celery finely diced
• ½ cup parsley or chives, finely chopped
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 level tablespoon curry powder, chilli powder or paprika (optional)
• salt and pepper
• halved cherry tomatoes or tomato slices may be added to the top for decoration

Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix thoroughly. This is best done with clean hands. Pack the mixture into a loaf tin, firm it down and allow it to sit in the fridge for an hour to firm before baking. 

Bake in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Additional reading

After a while, cooking, food preparation and planning become second nature but we all have to start somewhere. I hope these posts will assist you either by adding to your recipe collection or by helping you manage your food and build your skills. Remember it's a long process so don't rush, and what you do doesn't have to be what everyone else does, it has to serve you and your family.

When I was growing up we rarely went out to eat. I remember dad taking a saucepan to the local newly opened Chinese restaurant once. The saucepan was filled with Chinese food to be brought home to eat. That would have been in the mid-50s; there were no take away containers in those days. I also remember one exciting day in the 1950s when mum took Tricia and I "to town" (the city of Sydney) to look at the department store Christmas windows and, for the first time, we had lunch at a restaurant. There weren't many restaurants around then but this one was called Cahills Family Restaurant and I think it was in the Strand Arcade. I forget what Tricia and mum had but I ordered spaghetti Bolognese, which I thought was extremely sophisticated. That was the first time I had pasta. Australia was still living in the meat and three veg era then. Back then you could eat at bistros, cafes and milk bars. Most country pubs had food, many city ones didn't but if you wanted really good food everyone knew where to go, you ate at home.

We grew up in a time when meat and left overs played a big part in contemporary cooking. Fish was often served on Friday and we were able to tell what day it was by what was on the dinner plate. Cook books were unusual then. Many cooks wrote down their own recipes, had a scrapbook of recipes cut from magazines and pasted into a book or they may have had one cook book which would have been a CWA or church recipe book. Most people cooked meals they'd grown up eating and had been taught to cook as a child. That was the experience in our family so when I was learning to cook, I modified my mother or father's cooking and added things like spaghetti bolognese along the way.

I had an email from a reader recently asking for help with old fashioned recipes. This lady is about my age, has collected over 1000 cook books but feels overloaded and has trouble sorting the information. She and her husband like old style meals and don't like 'new' ingredients. I think she came to the right place because although I do cook the occasional new style meal and experiment with new ingredients, the older I get the more I rely on the foods I grew up with. I like the familiarity of them; they're my comfort foods.

The following list is made up of the meals I make over and over again. Occasionally there will be a stir fry or a new recipe to try and more frequently lately, there are vegetarian meals. Even when we do eat meat, it's far less than we used to eat. We've probably reduced our meat intake by about 50 percent to what it was 10 years ago. What I do focus on in my cooking is to serve real food as fresh as possible. The ingredients are nutritious and thrifty, are often home grown and sit well in our low income lifestyle. You'll often notice ingredients such as potatoes/sweet potatoes in my cooking. I make no apologies for that. We are a family with German, Irish, Swedish, English heritage and potatoes feature in all those cuisines. I hope when you select your list of frequently cooks meals it will reflect your family heritage too. Food traditions link us to our culture and reinforce a feeling of being connected and loved. It's one of the many complex roles food plays in our lives.

• Shepherd's pie from left over lamb roast
• Lamb curry from left over lamb roast or lamb neck chops
• Cottage pie with minced beef and mashed potato topping (sweet potato or pumpkin topping)
• Corned beef and colcannon
• Corned beef hash
• Salmon with potato salad
• Swedish meatballs, potato salad and fresh pickled cucumbers
• Pea/lentil soup
• Chicken noodle soup
• Beef, barley and bone marrow soup
• Beef casserole and herb dumplings
• Lasagne
• Quiche
• Spinach pie with filo pastry
• Sausage rolls
• Boiled egg salad
• Canned salmon salad
• Tuna loaf
• Fish cakes
• Cabbage rolls
• Potato pancakes (Kartoffel Puffer)
• Pork sausages with onion gravy and vegetables
• Roast lamb, chicken or pork
• Rissoles, red cabbage and potatoes
• Pork chops, cabbage and potatoes
• Meatloaf

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Classic Corned Beef Hash

Before I start today's post I want to thank so many of you for your kind and generous comments.  It really does make blogging a great joy to have feedback - without it it's a one-way conversation.  So thank you for taking the time to comment, it motivates me to continue blogging.


Although we've cut down on the amount of food we produce in the backyard, it's still an important part of life for us.  Not only for the fresh food it gives but also for the work required to get a seed or seedling to harvest. That work is still interesting and rewarding and it forms part of the framework we live within.

We have a huge garden but only a small portion of it is taken up with food production. The natural soil here is heavy clay but we've been working the garden soil for almost 20 years now and it's as close to perfect as I imagine it could be. The original clay was broken up when we first arrived here and compost, lime and organic matter added, not just once but continuously. When a crop was harvested and the roots removed, Hanno added more nutrients and compost. Over the years that built up to be dark, rich, fertile soil that has given us many kilos of fresh food. We've always had a compost heap, at times we've kept worm farms and we always grow comfrey with which to make a good natural free fertiliser that is as good as any you can buy.

One of the major parts of our garden are our rainwater tanks. Hanno constructed an excellent water collection system from our house roof and the shed roof. That gives us 15,000 litres of rainwater to use on the garden. If we didn't have those tanks I doubt we'd grow food in the back yard because tap water is so expensive. Luckily we live in an area where the rainfall is between 1500 to 1800mm (60 - 70 inches) a year, that rain falls in heavy showers throughout the year and is followed by mild to hot sunny weather. We never have frosts and our winter temperatures are between 3 - 23C. Most winter days warm up to about 20C, even after a cold night. We used to garden all year but since we cut back, we plant in March and stop planting in November. That gives us and the garden a break of 3 - 4 months over summer when it's hot, humid and there are a lot of insects around.

Another valuable part of our backyard eco-system are the chickens. They provide eggs for the kitchen but also nitrogen-rich manure for the compost. The addition of fresh manure helps the compost decompose and after a couple of months we have the best soil additive we could hope for. And it all comes together simply by adding chook poo to compost - the microorganisms in the compost do all the work for us and help turn kitchen and garden waste into rich, sweet smelling compost.

Hanno planted out more seedlings yesterday. We're currently growing chard, beetroot, spinach, kohl rabi, curly kale, bush beans, climbing beans, Welsh onions, lettuce, daikon radish, bok choi, turnips, parsley, basil, rosemary, oregano, bay leaves, sage, lemon grass, mint, raspberries, blueberries, youngberries, elderberries, Brazilian cherries, lemons, oranges, bananas, loquats and passionfruit. In the bush house I've planted trays of various chillies and heirloom tomato seeds that have just germinated. There are flowers in the vegetable garden too and they help attract the pollinators.

What started out almost 20 years ago to be the chore of modifying hard clay and then planting seed to bring to harvest, has turned into a gentle and pleasurable way to spend time together outside. That garden of ours isn't just a food garden, it provides us with a space to sit and enjoy the fresh air and all the wildlife that visit on foot and fly through.

I wonder what's in your garden this season.

I took my time last week. I had a list of chores as long as my arm but I stood back, took a deep breath, and then worked out what my priorities are. I won't bore you with the list, it will probably be played out on the blog in days and weeks to come, but I've started it and intend to work slowly.  I have no deadlines to meet and I want to experience every day in its true sense. Having housework to do - work that will make our lives better - always makes me want to put on my apron and get started. I'm motivated when I see others working in their homes and even reading about housework makes me want to get my own house in order. I wonder if it does for you too.


I've broken my work activities into three separate areas - general house work, craft work and gardening.  I try to do a bit in all three categories every day now because then I feel I'm doing all I need to do. And with the work there is always relaxation. Cups of tea with Hanno in the garden, a sleep in my chair after lunch, a stroll around the garden. But the truth is that just living here on this piece of land makes me relax. I feel safe and nurtured here and peace comes along with that. I walk outside to winter smoke from local chimneys, white cockatoos flying high, chickens clucking, the fragrance of alyssum and roses, the distant dull drone of traffic. Here within these fences, life is being played out to a slower rhythm but that doesn't mean it's any less significant, creative, intellectually stimulating or exhilarating. Running a home, cooking, shopping on a budget, mending, gardening and the rest of my particular mix makes a calm and rich life and I feel grateful to experience it all.

I was going through my photos during the week and found this photo of our garden in 2007. We don't grow so much food now and have removed two of these beds. I see we have a large potato crop there, we don't grow potatoes now, or celery or leeks, which are also seen in this photo. 

Thank you for your visits this week. It seems there many new names on the comments now and I welcome all those new readers. I'm not sure if my long-term readers are still here but if you are, hello! I'm trying to get myself back into the blogging routine but early morning posts just aren't happening anymore. Never mind, I'll establish a new routine soon. I just have to be patient and let it happen. I hope you enjoy the weekend. :- )

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It's been a busy year, one of the busiest I can remember, but that's all come to an end now - today and all my tomorrows, will be slow and calmly productive at home. At the beginning of the year I had just finished writing The Simple Home and then helped with the editing of it. The book was sent off to be printed and I was having a supposed rest to prepare for a book tour. But in reality the work kept coming, I had media commitments, I had to organise our tour accommodation and we had Jamie here on and off when his parents were working.

The book tour was exhausting. Not only the travel but also meeting so many people and speaking at events along the route. Don't get me wrong, I loved all of it, especially meeting all those wonderful people, but the logistics of getting from one place to another, the unseasonal heat, the unfamiliar beds, and the 6000 km we drove took its toll. We were pleased to get home to slow down and take it easy.

That didn't last long though. We had visitors, more media engagements, more talks, one of our sons stayed with us for a couple of months while he set himself up in a new job and relocated his family, there was a bathroom renovation, we welcomed new chickens and planted up the new season vegetable garden. I kept thinking ... I'll do that when I have a bit more time. That time didn't seem to present itself and things I used to consider daily tasks fell by the wayside. However, I knew it was not a permanent state of affairs, that this time would pass and I'd find my old life again. Finally we were looking forward to a visit from my sister Tricia, her son and children.  We all had a grand time. I loved that Jamie and my sons spent time with their cousins. It's important that families stay connected, even when distance often prevents that from happening.

And then all that planning, work and busyness came to an end.

Danny and his children left last Friday and yesterday afternoon I put Tricia on the train to Sydney. When I drove back home I knew that I had no more talks or media commitments, no more writing ... my time was my own again. This was the beginning of my retirement, or as close to it as we're likely to get. I was smiling and planning for the future all the way home. When I got home Hanno was levelling and re-paving the path from the garden to the chicken coop. A good sign.



By the time you read this it will be Tuesday and I will already be on the pathway to our simple life, version 2. Chickens will have been let out to range free, the bed made, vegetables and herbs picked, lunch planned and some prep done, there might even be bread dough or biscuits ready to go in the oven. Waiting patiently for me in the freezer are bags of rosellas that we picked a couple of months ago and which need to be made into rosella jam, cordial and tea. We also have a few bags of elderberries in there that I want to make into a tonic. I need some straight away myself to help clear up this cold I've had for the past week. It seems to be dragging on. We have a few buckets of lemons picked from our two trees that have to be juiced and stored for summer cordial. Work in the garden continues but to be honest, much of the time is spent sitting in the garden under the shade of an umbrella, talking and drinking tea.  I make no apologies for that, I feel no guilt, I think that relaxation and happiness is as a good a crop as any other from the garden. I have a bush house that needs cleaning out and re-organising before the heat of summer starts again. Plants need re-potting, seeds need sowing, cuttings need to be taken. We have to prune and fertilise the front garden soon too and clean and reorganise the verandahs so they're ready to help us get through the summer months.


Inside there are two knitting projects to work on and two small patchwork projects - one is nearly finished, one is yet to be started. Spring cleaning is waiting for me just around the corner. I feel confident that the house and yard maintenance that we've carried out over the past years will see us through the next few years. Our main job now is to enjoy daily life as we live it. And there is so much to do here - all of it contributes to the way we live outside the mainstream of modern life and more in tune with the seasons and our sustainable values.


So on this "first day" of the rest of my life, I'm really pleased to be working alongside you as you work in your home or at a job that pays the bills. There are so many people out in the wide world now who are doing what we're doing all in their own individual way. Never doubt this work and how we all live, never think that what we do isn't important. I believe that this is the only way we will reach a future worth living.

I met Pip in Melbourne when we were on the book tour. Just like her blog, Meet me at Mike's, she is a true original and an absolute delight. Here are Pip's instructions for making a harlequin blanket.

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My sister Tricia is travelling up from the Blue Mountains to visit us. She arrives tomorrow. She is the one person I've known all my life, the personification of my past, the one who lived the same experiences I did, came from the same parents, were taught by the same nuns, ate the same foods, learned the same lessons, lived the same values and became a totally different woman, despite all that sharing.

We still share the excitement of every new day and look forward to whatever is coming up but our relationship is sustained by the shared experience of our past, the comforting memories of our childhood and parents and being a part of what made us. We are each other in a different form.

Tricia is visiting with her son Daniel and grand children Johnathan and Alana and during her visit we'll see my children and grandchildren. This, no doubt, will trigger conversations about our past as we continue to piece together what that is and make sense of what helped make us what we became. We both remember different parts of our childhood so when our recollections come up it helps us both because we have a different view of the same events. Just yesterday we were talking about the doctors our mother took us to when we very young children. We attended a family practice of two GPs and I don't recall us ever talking about these doctors before. Tricia had strong memories of one doctor, I had strong memories of the other. With both our memories, we have a better understanding of that part of our past.

I don't know why we remember what we remember. I only know it is important to do it and to think about it.  I guess it helps us understand ourselves as we prepare for a future that includes death. I don't shy away from that, I'm not scared of it and I know that with each passing day that future becomes more of a reality. It does for all of us but when you're old, you accept it and don't hide from it by believing it's far off in the future.

So while Tricia, Danny and the children are here, we'll sit around the table and enjoy being together. Our grandkids can spend time with their cousins, parents and grandparents and start to work out who we are and where they fit in to this family. We'll have lunch down at the coast where my son is working as head chef, we'll visit plant nurseries and talk about plants, we'll garden, knit, cook and talk and all that time will become become new memories.


Families are important and I think we need to spend time with them. You have to take time out to do it but it's a good investment in your wellbeing and mental health to be on good terms with your family. BTW, family can be your traditional family or the people you choose to love and associate with. Tricia is the only person I have left from the family I was born into so she's not only my sister, she's part of my identity. I'm looking forward to the visit.  :- )

Me and my sister - 1.