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Archive for the ‘Frugal Living’ Category

Weekend Baking

Posted in Frugal Living, Recipes, tagged , , on September 10, 2012| 84 Comments »

Something unusual happened last week.

Pete was getting some meat out of the freezer, and he mentioned that there were just two sourdough rosetta rolls left in there.  That’s probably the lowest our bread supplies have been in years – no doubt a product of my recent photo-snapping hypomania. It was time for some serious weekend baking.

I baked eight wonky sourdough ciabatta loaves and a batch of supernatural brownies on Friday. Only four of the loaves made it to the freezer – the rest were eaten or given away.

These were followed by a batch of Dan Lepard’s potato stotties, which were gone before they had a chance to cool…

Inspired by lovely Joanna’s recent post, I baked another batch of semolina bbq buns. I’d forgotten how much I adore these!  And it was fun to bake a couple of quick yeast breads for weekend eating – it made a nice change from sourdough.

As usual, I over-scored these, so some of them broke apart into teeny tiny mini buns.  We had visitors on Sunday, and their small children were absolutely delighted…

I uncovered an old tub of ricotta in the fridge nearing its expiry date, so I drained it and tipped it into a small pie dish.  The top was drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil and topped with a scattering of citrus salt, rosemary and thyme, then baked in a hot oven until firm and golden. It made a great accompaniment to the buns and stotties…

And finally, I baked four large (1.3kg) white sourdough loaves in my Römertopf clay loaf pans.  These have become a house standard – the boys enjoy having “toast” bread, and I love not having to preheat the oven.  I now cut the loaves in half before freezing them, as the wolves have been known to defrost and eat a whole one at a single sitting!

I baked two regular loaves, and two with the Billington’s Molasses Sugar that I bought last week.  The small change resulted in a deeper coloured crumb and crust…

I slashed the tops with two sweeping arcs that crossed at either end, which produced a nice, even oven spring. Pete made a comment about loaves and fishes…

So…the bread drawer in the freezer is fully restocked. But given that school holidays are imminent, I’ll probably be baking again next weekend!

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Spring Garden Update

Posted in Frugal Living on September 6, 2012| 85 Comments »

Is this possibly the best time of year in our garden?

I think it might be – it’s the start of Spring, and we’re getting sunny days with cool nights.  Everything is growing lush and green, but it’s not yet warm enough for the bugs to be a problem.

The sweetheart cabbages and early season greens are all thriving…

As I mentioned previously, we’ve figured out how to cook with rainbow chard, which is a good thing, as the garden is full of it, in red, pink, yellow and white…

Remember that “purple sprouting kale” I was so excited about a couple of months ago?  Well, turns out it’s just kohlrabi.  And whilst I’m a little disappointed, Julie at Eveleigh who sold me the pot is devastated – she bought expensive “purple sprouting kale” seed from the wholesalers!  Still, we like kohlrabi, so it’s hardly a disaster…

Our red beetroots are forming bulbs – last year it was so wet that they just rotted away…

I paid $6 for a celeriac at the fruit shop yesterday, and now that I know how long each of them take to grow, I don’t begrudge the dollars at all.  Ours are finally starting to form bulbous bases…

Pete thought we should try growing broccoli rabé – not sure if anyone will eat it yet, as it’s quite bitter.  I’ll have to try out Chicago John’s recipe…

Potatoes are going gangbusters this year…

Our potted Tasty Bite chilli, which is not hot at all, is forming new fruit.  They look like small candies…

Julie was so upset that the sprouting kale turned out to be kohlrabi that she gave me this lovely basket of French marigolds as a replacement.  They’re quite magnificent, and apparently a very good companion plant…

Our pond is in bloom.  We never seen a frog, but something must be in the there, because we have an unchlorinated body of water in the garden, yet no mosquitoes.  We think the dragonflies probably lay their larvae in there…

The pond flowers are petite, pink and just so pretty.  I had to lie on my stomach to take this photo..

So tell me, how’s your garden going this month?

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Gumboot Garden

Posted in Frugal Living on September 3, 2012| 34 Comments »

The nicest thing about the internet is that it lets folks with common interests connect with one another.

That’s the case with fellow Aussie blogger Jason at Zucchini Island – like us, he and his partner Melanie are following Linda Woodrow’s Permaculture Home Garden plan, complete with chook dome, round beds and intensive planting schedule.

Jason and Melanie are following the script far closer than we are – we’ve had to modify it somewhat to suit our time constraints – but it is such a joy to have someone who understands the thrills and occasional hiccups in the course of this gardening journey.

Recently, Jason set up a small business selling gardening supplies.  His primary product is a seasonal seed subscription, but in addition to this, he also has cards (like the gorgeous one above), and has just introduced these very clever Season Stickers.

Here’s how Jason described them to me in a recent email:

I found that when I wanted to sow some seedlings, I first needed to get out my gardening guide to workout which seeds to plant – that, in itself, was time consuming. Then I would search through my seedling containers looking for the plant name. Sometimes I would have to flick through the whole collection only to discover that I didn’t have that particular seed, and then have to start all over again looking for next one in the list. I also have some varieties that are not listed in my guides, so I would end up doing a packet by packet check anyway. All this took time and reduced the time I could have spent sowing.
 
My solution was to develop Season Stickers – sheets of little round stickers with the seasons on them. When you purchase a new packet of seeds, based on the packet information or some planting guide, you stick one of these onto the front of the packet. Then when it’s time to sow, you simply grab all seed packets with the appropriate sticker on them, and off you go.

I think they’re a great idea! We have a large cherry box stuffed full with seed packets, and I know it will often take Pete and I an hour just to go through them looking for what to plant in each bed…

Jason is selling the stickers on Gumboot Gardens website.  There are three sheets (108 Season Stickers in total) and a temperate planting guide in each set…

I was sent a set to play with (cheers Jason!) and a couple more to give away.  If you’re a gardener with lots of packets of seeds to manage, you’ll probably find them really useful…

Please visit Jason’s blog Zucchini Island, and his Gumboot Garden website!  And if you’re interested in winning a packet of Season Stickers, please just leave a comment below and we’ll pull a couple of names out of a hat in a few days’ time.  Everyone is welcome to enter!

Winners: I asked Jason to pick a couple of winners, and he chose Rose and AfricanAussie.  I’ll be emailing you both soon!

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Sugar Cane Mulch

Posted in Frugal Living, tagged , on August 22, 2012| 52 Comments »

Now that it’s well established, our garden is very low maintenance – on average, we would spend less than two hours a week on it.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, the chickens do most of the hard work. They rotovate the soil, eat the weeds and grubs, and fertilise the beds for us. Worms help a lot too, both in the ground and in the worm farm, where they produce liquid fertiliser and castings that further enrich the soil.

The final essential element in our low maintenance approach is mulch.

We had originally hoped to make our own mulch as per Linda’s plan – but it didn’t work out.  We just couldn’t source the necessary organic material to create sufficient groundcover.

In our second year, we started buying mulch, and it has made the world of difference. Apart from conserving water and keeping the weeds in check, the mulch makes the  beds look pretty, which in turn makes the whole gardening experience far more enjoyable.

We mulch heavily when we plant out a bed, and don’t add to that cover until the next rotation (unless we’re hilling up potatoes).  The weeds that do manage to grow through are easily seen and pulled out.  By the time the mulch has started to break down and the weeds are beginning to spread, the bed is just about ready for the chickens to do their thing.

It’s taken a little trial and error to figure out which mulch best suits our garden.

We started with lucerne hay, but found it hard to use, as the hay is baled very tightly and difficult to tease out.  Then we tried pea straw, which is great for the soil, but has two major drawbacks – firstly, it’s often full of peas which shoot all over the beds, and secondly, the birds seem to love it and will often scratch out seedlings planted in the beds.

At the moment, we’re using organic sugar cane mulch.  It costs $15/bag, which will cover nearly two beds to a thickness of 5cm (2″).  It seems to be doing the trick – the birds have learnt to leave it alone, as it’s free of any seed or other edible material.

Mulch shades the ground on hot summer days and helps to hold moisture in the soil. I honestly don’t know how we ever managed to garden without it!

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Feasting from the Garden

Posted in Frugal Living on August 16, 2012| 78 Comments »

Our peas are cropping heavily, and the broccoli heads are perfectly formed and bug-free. Such are the joys of a mild Sydney winter!

For those who are interested in plant varieties, this is our second year growing Willow/Sommerwood peas, and they’ve been brilliant – mildew-resistant and producing long fat pods with up to ten peas in each.  The broccoli this year is called Green Dragon, and it’s the best heading variety we’ve ever grown.

I shelled all the peas, eating a few along the way (as one does)…

…and we made pasta primavera, with perennial leeks, broccoli and peas cooked with pancetta and Pepe Saya butter, then finished with chopped sorrel and mint leaves.  Bliss!

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