down to earth

Although I was busy on the weekend with this, that and the other, I wanted to make tomato relish to go with the corned beef I'd just cooked for our week's cold cuts. I thought about it for a while and decided that if I took a couple of shortcuts, I could make a decent relish in about 30 minutes, or close to it, of actual work. I checked my stockpile cupboard to see if I had the makings, and yes, I did. Octonauts to the kitchen pod immediately!

It's difficult to streamline preserving recipes because they need the time for the jars to sterilise and on the stovetop simmering while developing flavours. I'm not a fan of microwaved jams and relishes, this is as close as I get to a fast preserving recipe. My stockpile ingredient that made it all possible were four large (440 gram) cans of diced Australian tomatoes. When I knew I had them on hand, I knew I could cook and bottle the relish in the time I had allowed myself. There would be no washing and peeling of tomatoes, no cutting, just take the lid off and pour. I prefer to make relish with fresh tomatoes but I'd rather have this home made relish than no relish, so I just got on with it. Often, close enough is good enough.

Above: the vegetable, spice and vinegar mix, cooking.

Below: and then four large cans of diced tomatoes were added.

I got my Maslin pan on the stove, cut up five smallish onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, one hot chilli, finely diced with half the seeds, the green head of a new bunch of celery, finely chopped, one finely chopped red capsicum, salt, pepper and two teaspoons of good quality curry powder. If you have no curry powder, use a teaspoon of cumin and a teaspoon of turmeric. Add a dash of cooking oil and sauté the vegetables and spice for about five minutes, stirring frequently. You want everything toasted, not dark brown. Instead of using the vegetables I used, use what you have in the garden or fridge. Zucchini, eggplant, more peppers, whatever is on hand will do in a relish, but I do think relish must have onions. Overall though, this is a good recipe for using excess vegetables.

Add the four tins of tomatoes, stir thoroughly, add ¾cup of balsamic vinegar (or any good quality vinegar) and ¾ cup of sugar (brown or white). Stir everything together, bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about an hour. Stir the relish during the hour to make sure it's not burning.

The beauty of the maslin pan is that it allows ingredients to cook without burning, due to the thick base, and the wide top allows steam to easily escape. This assists in giving you a thick relish because much of the water in the tomatoes will evaporate off. If you don't have a maslin pan, use a large saucepan with the widest top you have.

Twenty minutes before the relish will be ready, place washed, wide-mouthed jars in the oven to sterilise. The lids need to be boiled for ten minutes. The jars should be sitting open side up. Set the oven to 150C/300F and allow to heat for 15-20 minutes. Remove the jars from the oven, being careful not to touch the inside.

So the payoff for 30minutes work and about $10 worth of ingredients: nine jars of homemade tomato relish that will serve us well in the months to come.

With the relish hot in the pan and the jars hot from the oven, use a canning funnel or jug to fill the jars. When the jars are full to the brim, use a tea towel to put on the lids and tighten. Turn all the jars upside down and leave them on the kitchen bench to cool overnight. If you sterilised the jars and lids properly and filled them with just boiled relish, the sugar and vinegar will help preserve them in the cupboard for about six months. I think the taste deteriorates after that. If you're not sure of your method, store the jars in the fridge. They'll keep very nicely for a few months.

I just checked the online Woolworths to see how much commercial relish goes for these days. It's anywhere between $3.71 and $7.51 for the Jamie Oliver jar. Pffffffft! So if I were to buy these nine jars it would have cost me somewhere between $33.39 and $67.51. Mine took 30 minutes to make and cost about $10 for all nine jars. And I can tell you this with no doubt, my friends, mine tastes much better than anything mass produced, and I don't care what name they put on it. :- )

Tomato relish is a tasty addition to sandwiches, especially those with meat or cheese. It's excellent as a sauce for BBQed meats, chicken and fish. It's delicious with scrambled eggs or an omelette. If you have no tomato sauce, use the relish as the base layer on your homemade pizzas. It's certainly worthwhile giving 30 minutes to this very versatile relish. Of course it can be eaten the next day but if you leave it to mature for a couple of weeks, the relish will benefit from your patience.

What are your relish, chutney and sauce shortcuts?

Last week our elder tree (sambucus nigra) was heavy with berries. It's the first year there have been enough berries to do anything with. All the previous five years we've had plenty of flowers for elderflower cordial, but the berries dropped off before they were ripe. So we were really pleased to be able to pick a basket of berries and have the luxury of deciding what we'd do with them.

When Hanno was a little boy, his mum used to make elderberry soup, and he still has fond memories of that. We may make elderberry soup in the future but for now we decided on a summer drink that gave us a healthy boost. I made elderberry cordial.

For those of you who are looking to grow fruit trees, I think elderberry would be a great first tree. It can be a bit of a nuisance if it sends out suckers but it needs moist conditions for suckers to develop, so that doesn't happen often here. When it does sucker, it's very easy to put out the suckers. Unlike many fruit trees, you can be picking flowers in the first or second year and here in our climate, we have berries in our fifth year. There are flushes of flowers all through the year but I'll have to see what happens from now on with the berries developing. Elder grows very well from cuttings so if you know someone with a tree, ask for a cutting. You can use the fruit for jam, wine, champagne, cordial, soup and immune boosters in winter.

The workers, Hanno and Jamie, went out picking in the backyard a couple of days ago. Hanno picked half the berries off the stalks. Traditionally you do that using a fork, I found it easier to do it by hand. You need to remove the berries without stalks as the leaves and stalks have a slight toxic quality and you don't want any in your elderberry delights.

Making elderberry cordial is very easy once you have your berries off the stems. Wash them to remove any dust or bugs and place them in a saucepan. With a potato masher, squash the berries to remove the juice. Add a cup of water, bring to the boil and gently simmer for 20 minutes.

If you have a food press, pour the juice into the press and process the fruit to squeeze out all the juice. You'll end up with the pulp and seeds in the press and the juice in the jug. If you don't have a food press, mash the berries to remove as much juice as you can, then strain them through a fine sieve or a sieve with a muslin cloth over it. Press out as much juice as possible and discard the seeds and pulp. Our chooks had the leftovers and loved them.

When you have the pure juice, add the juice of one lemon, pour it back into the saucepan and for every cup of juice, add half a cup of sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring to prevent it from burning. When the sugar is completely dissolved, allow to cool and pour into a clean bottle. If you want to keep the cordial for a long time, sterilise the bottle.

Elderberries are full of antioxidants, vitamins A and C, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and calcium. To make elderberry syrup for colds and flu you'll need:

2 cups elderberries, de-stemed and washed
2 cups water
½ cup raw honey
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated

Add the berries to a medium saucepan and, with a potato masher, mash the berries to release as much juice as possible. Add the ginger and water and bring to the boil. Gently simmer for 20 minutes. Process as above with the food press or a sieve, return to the saucepan and add honey. Stir until it's completely dissolved.

Cool slightly and pour into a clean bottle. If you want to store it for a while, sterilise the bottle.

I keep elderberry cordial in the fridge and dilute it with cold water or cold mineral water. It makes a very refreshing drink and the cordial costs a small fraction of what you'd buy it for in the shops. If you don't have enough berries to make up some cordial, freeze the berries as you pick them and make it when you collect enough. The berries and the flowers are still very useable after they've been frozen.

Do you grow elder or have access to it? What are your favourite elderberry recipes?

Well, after giving myself a week to do it, I finally got to the pantry cleaning yesterday. I usually leave things like that to the last minute because I perform better when I'm under pressure. Hanno and Jamie were at the market at Caloundra so I took the opportunity to empty both the middle shelves, the ones most of the things are on. Luckily the kitchen bench is right next to it so it didn't take long to do one shelf, then the next.

Before and after. This is the shelf I'd like to add a back step to.

I went through everything, made sure there were no lurking pantry moths or weevils, wiped the outside of all the containers and started loading the shelves up again. I'm really pleased I didn't throw away too much food. I hate doing that. I had to bin a small amount of grain flour because it had a slight smell of rancid flour about it. A few items had small amounts in two containers so I combined them and washed the spare containers.

Before and after.

This is the entire cupboard, before and after. Hanno does top and bottom shelves for me.

When I put everything back again I wished I had one of those shelf steps that you can use to elevate food at the back. I'm not very tall so it's a problem sometimes to see what's there and reach it. The next time I'm out I'll look for something useful that will fit neatly into the cupboard.

But now I'm happy I have a neat and tidy pantry again. I guess we all have different reasons for wanting our pantries to be clean and functional. For me, it gives me a feeling that I'm doing my job well, my job as a homemaker. It also helps me get through my cooking easily because it's all there, laid out, ready to use. I hope you had the chance to clean your pantry or stockpile too. It gives me such a feeling of satisfaction that I have to keep looking at it whenever I'm in the kitchen.

If you have before and after photos, leave a link below so we can all go to your blog to see your work. This should provide some motivation for others who haven't done their pantry yet, who want to, but can't quite get there. Let's see them try to resist when we all show our photos. :- )

It often pays to look at different ways to supply healthy food for your family. I don't like buying cold cuts from the supermarket or the deli because I prefer to do the cutting myself. I'm sick of buying expensive meat only to have it turn slimy or smelly in a day or two and have to throw it out. Recently Hanno bought a small food slicer. He likes his rye bread cut fairly thin and a meat slicer does the job very well indeed. Our slicer has a wide range of cut widths, from wafer thin to extra thick. So when we had that slicer sitting there I started thinking about what else I could slice with it. Naturally, cold cuts jumped out at me.

Even though it's a meat slicer, it also cuts bread perfectly. That's my homemade bread in the slicer above. Homemade bread is often difficult to cut but it slices through my bread like butter on the slicer.

We don't eat nearly as much meat as we used to. I was vegetarian for eight years and even though I felt better when I started eating meat again, I didn't go overboard. But I do like good cold cuts with salad during summer and I like the occasional sandwich with either cold meatloaf, corned beef or roast beef, with a touch of homemade relish or chutney. The slicer does the best job at slicing the meat and our homemade bread so it not only tastes good, it looks good on the plate.

Cooking meat at home for your cold cuts is much more economical than buying it pre-sliced at the deli. So let's look at the meat to see what savings may be had. Here in my local Woolworths and Coles the prices are much higher for the sliced cold cuts you buy at the deli section. For instance, sliced and cooked corned beef at Coles is $31.90 per kilo/2.2lbs but at the same shop you can buy uncooked corned beef for $7 per kilo. It just needs to be boiled and you'll have a fine piece of meat that will sit in the fridge for a week and serve you well for lunch boxes. If you have a bit too much corned meat, then serve it up for a quick dinner one night with either salad or vegetables.

It's a similar story for roast beef. Sliced from the deli, it's $23.98 per kilo, if you buy a piece of raw Heart Smart topside beef suitable for roasting and do that in your own kitchen, you'll pay $13.99 per kilo, or $11 for a lesser grade meat. Roast pork as cold cuts is $23.99 per kilo, buy it raw and slow roast it yourself at home - $8 per kilo. You can also make up meatloaf, chicken loaf and tuna loaf, all ideal as sandwich meats and they'll be cheaper and contain no preservatives or additives if you make them at home rather than buy them precooked at the deli.

Cooking at home allows you to add your favourite herbs and spices, reduce the salt content, cut off the fat and cook it how you like it - rare or well done. Meat that you've cooked and stored in the fridge at home will last longer than cold cuts from the deli and I can slice just as much as I need. And the bonus here is that I can clean the blade every day, or between cutting jobs. I don't know how often they clean the slicing blade at the supermarket, or what they clean it with, but here I use Ecostore detergent, in clean water, with a cotton dishcloth and then it is rinsed in clean water and allowed to dry. Even though I've stood for a long time waiting at the deli counter over the years, I've never seen anyone clean the slicer blade. It's probably something that's only done after hours. I'd prefer it was done between slicing jobs.

Our slicer is a Sunbeam, and btw, I'm not sponsored in any way for this post. Hanno bought it last year and so far it's been excellent. I think it was around the $120 mark but if I keep on cooking and slicing my own cold cuts, it will pay for itself in a few more months. Do you have a slicer at home? Are you cooking your own cold cut meat?

I did a lot of baking over the holidays and now my pantry looks neglected and untidy. I looked in there yesterday morning when I was starting to prepare cinnamon rolls and I could see small amounts of flour, dried fruits, lentils and other pantry food in large containers. I need to reorganise it, check all my jars, wash some of them and freshen up the contents so I'm ready for the year ahead. Even though I'm very busy, I know if I take the time to do this, I'll reap the benefits later on because the pantry will be easier to use.

I could be wrong but I doubt I'm the only one with a pantry that needs some attention after the holiday season. I wonder if yours does too. I challenge you to thoroughly clean out your pantry cupboard, check all your containers and organise the jars and containers so you can easily see what you have there. I reckon it will take me a week to do mine. Not that the work will take a week but I'm sure I'll be able to get to it, do the hour or two of work it needs and have a photo ready to show you next Monday.

Our stockpile is in good order. We cleaned it out and reorganised everything just before Christmas. Now its just the pantry that needs some attention and I'm ready for it. If your pantry is fine but you need to work on your stockpile, do that instead of the pantry.

Who is up for this challenge with me? I need you to take a photo of your pantry now. No tidying up before you photograph it. We're all in the same boat and we're doing something about it. There is no shame in that, my friends. Just to recap, let me know in a comment if you're in the challenge, then take a before photo of your pantry. Sometime over the next week you'll have to clean out the pantry and get it in ship-shape order. Take another photo when you're satisfied with your work.

Next Monday I'll put up my before and after pantry photos and write my follow-up post here. When I do that, you can either write a post on your own blog with your photos, or load your pantry photos on the forum in a thread I'll start there (next Monday). Either way, all those photos of pantries should inspire us to take on a few other organising projects before the year gets into full swing. I hope you'll join me. ♥︎

Hello for the first time in 2015! I hope you've all had a good break, enjoyed your holidays and chilled out with your feet up for as long as you could string it out. I've been trying to stretch my break out a bit longer but many, many emails have arrived asking if I'm okay, if I'm coming back soon and if I'm coming back at all. So to all those who knocked on my email door the answers are: yes, I'm fine, I'm here now and yes, I'll be blogging during the year. I'm happy to be back here with you again. It's beginning to look like a habit too strong to break. There will be slightly fewer blog posts this year, particularly in the first half. I'm writing again, and to a very tight deadline, but I'll tell you all about that some other time.

Jamie and Johnathan playing together and learning the value of family ties.

So to keep you in the loop, we had a very busy end of year with Peter, our German brother-in-law, here from the end of October till early December. We had most of the family here on Christmas day and just a few days later, my nephew Danny and his partner Laura were here with their three children ages 6 to 6 months. Sadly, just after they returned home after a beautiful week here with us, Laura had a heart attack, was listed in a critical condition, but then, thankfully, recovered. Life takes such shocking turns when you least expect it.

We had Jamie here with us on and off over the holidays. He's such a little character now, it is a joy having him wandering around the house, making us laugh. Sometimes, when I sit close to him and steal quick glances while he's not looking, I realise again that he's three years old and I'm nearing 70 and that every day, every minute, counts. Those minutes are all we've got.

The boys out in the fresh air cleaning the car.

And that realisation has seen me outside enjoying the late summer afternoons, with hose in hand, nibbling on cherry tomatoes and blueberries and staring at the fading evening sky. I'm there in the mornings too, just after I let the chickens out for the day at first light. I sit in the garden, watching the birds make their early morning flights and listen to the sound of the creek as it rushes by. We've had a real wet season this year with rain overnight and showers during the day so the creek has been purged and the waterways look healthy again. The gardens surrounding us are green and lush and they remind me every day just why I became a gardener all those years ago. I think we'll have a very good autumn garden this year because the rain is seeping down deep into the soil, bringing new life to dry roots.

Starting off some pea soup with the Christmas ham bone.

And now we're looking towards a new year with all the slowly unfolding promise that holds. I wanted to do a few different things on the blog this year and thought of some crazy/wonderful ideas, told myself I should write them down, didn't, then promptly forgot every one of them. So stand by for that news, I'm hoping that if I just forget about it, those ideas will come flooding back to me soon. In the meantime, if you have any ideas you want to float, write them in a comment and I'll consider your suggestions.

Now, let's get this show on the road for another year. If you're new here, please say hello. No one will bite. We're a friendly bunch. Say hello if you're not new too. I love to connect with everyone who passes this way. If you have the time for it, give me your good news and tell me what you have planned this year. I have just read the news about the shootings in Paris, a stark reminder of what happened in Sydney recently. The world seems to grow more frightening and unknowable every year. I haven't been beyond our front gate since mid-December. I understand the wildlife in our backyard, I enjoy watching the wind blowing through the tree tops in the forest surrounding our home; this place feels safe. So I hope you keep me company here and that this blog provides a refuge for you too if ever you should need it. ♥︎

Here is Jamie with his little red Hamburg overnight bag. He wanted to know why Santa left those presents at our place.

We have a surprise visitor staying with us. Last night Jamie had his first sleepover with grandma and opa, while Sunny and her mum overnighted on the Gold Coast. Sunja goes home to Korea tomorrow so it was nice for the two of them to have that time together. As I knew he was coming over, I took the opportunity during the day to wrap presents and set up our very small Christmas tree. Lights went up, the reindeer is out and it's looking a lot like Christmas. I knew he'd be excited when he saw the tree but on the way home from kindy, he fell asleep and instead of running in, Hanno carried him in. But the excitement was there when he woke up and he wanted to know why Santa left presents for Alex and him at our place. I sometimes forget how innocent and sweet young children are.

Before I have a break for Christmas, I want to encourage those of you who haven't yet tried any green cleaning to make up this very easy creamy cleanser and see how well it works. When I first made my move to a more simple life, I worked hard to remove as many chemicals as I could from my home. I had a real bee in my bonnet about dish washing powder, I thought about how caustic is was and that you couldn't touch it with wet hands and in the end it wasn't good enough to come up with a replacement, I got rid of the dishwasher instead. That was many years ago, and I've washed up a lot of dishes since then, but I'd never go back to machine-washing my dishes. I viewed all commercial cleaners the same. I knew they made my hands red and itchy and the thought of the invisible harm those chemicals did helped move me towards green cleaning.

That was before the days of eco cleaners and ethical companies such as my wonderful sponsor eco store. I use their dish liquid and hand wash everyday. But I still make my own laundry liquid, soap and creamy cleanser - and I use white vinegar in a spray bottle for wiping down the kitchen bench and other small cleaning jobs. If, like me, you're well and truly into the habit of making your own cleaners, if there comes a time when you can't do it, I recommend ecostore to you. They sell their products online - see my sidebar link - and in most major supermarkets. Woolworths has a 25% off special at the moment. Thanks Sue.

This cleaner will replace your Jif or Gumption or whatever you use to clean the bath or kitchen sink. It's a simple mix of bicarb soda (baking soda) and a soapy liquid. I have used my homemade laundry liquid in the past (recipe here), I also use Dr Bronner's Citrus Castile Liquid Soap. To make it up, place about half a cup of bicarb soda (baking soda) in a small bowl that has a lid. Mix enough of your liquid - either the laundry liquid or liquid soap - to make a paste. Mix it up well. It will look like frosting, so make sure it's kept away from the children. Make only enough to use for about a month. If you want to make a larger amount, you have to add a couple of teaspoons of glycerin to it to keep it from drying out. Store the paste with the lid on.

This is my kitchen sink after I cleaned it with this paste.

You might also add essential oil such as eucalyptus or tee tree oil. They're both powerful antiseptics. That will help kill some of the germs in the bathroom and around the kitchen taps and sink. But the paste will work well with just the two main ingredients.

So what are the advantages of using this cleaning paste and other green cleaning pastes and liquids? You know what's in them, they're much cheaper than buying a commercial product, and you'll be reducing the number of chemicals you live with in your home. Please let me know if you try this. I'd love to know what you think of it.

Cleaning mould from walls and fabrics

With all this rain around we've developed a mould problem in our home. Usually we have the front and back doors open and that good ventilation stops most moulds from establishing. However, with the house locked up for the past week, the high humidity and the rain, mould is now growing on the wooden walls near our front door and on the lower parts of cupboards in the kitchen. Most of us will find mould growing in our homes at some point. Either in the bathroom or, in humid climates, on the walls, like we have now. You'll need a safe and effective remedy at some point, so I hope one of these methods works well for you. Mould is not only ugly to look at, it can cause health problems so if you see mould growing, do something about it straight away. The longer you leave the problem, the harder it will be to get rid of it effectively. If you have asthma or any allergies, you should do this type of cleaning with a face mask on so you don't breathe in any spores. Many peopl...

My books were all published by Pengiun, and are available at Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Au

Search here

Total Pageviews

Translate

MY FAVOURITE PLACES

Give More

Popular posts last year

Making ginger beer from scratch

NOT the last post

How to make cold process soap

Preserving food in a traditional way - pickling beetroot

Cleaning mould from walls and fabrics

Five minute bread

This is my last post.

What is the role of the homemaker in later years?

Every morning at home

You’ll save money by going back to basics