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Cheerful Chickens

March 14, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Debra of Bagni di Lucca and Beyond asked me recently how our chickens were travelling…

All six of our lovely ladies are very well – they’ve had two bed rotations since the previous post and are really enjoying their new position, which offers more shade than the previous spots.   Since the heatwave a month or so ago, they’ve been laying an average of five eggs a day, although today they delighted us with a full complement of six before lunchtime!  I rewarded them with leftover roast pork (free range of course, nothing but the best for our hardworking girls).

As a point of interest – the large egg at the front left was laid by Queenie, and the little dark speckled one to the right of it by Francesca.  Queenie continues to dominate the others, and always has first dibs at the higher protein food that goes into the enclosure, be it meat scraps or a wandering lizard.   Frannie on the other hand is the baby of the flock, and her delicate eggs reflect both her size and darker colouring.

I took the following video while we were making pickles – some of Di’s cucumbers were very large, so I removed the seeds prior to processing.  The chooks adore them, and I adore not having to throw them out!

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , , | 46 Comments »

Maize and Wheat Loaf

March 13, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

This is one of those recipes.

When I was kneading the dough, the texture was so silky and bouncy that I just knew it was going to be most fine.  I was so confident about this that I made another batch while the first was rising!

The recipe comes from Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf –  I amended it slightly to use yoghurt and water instead of the specified whey, and the resultant loaves were tangy and delicious as a result.

The dough is made with an interesting mix of flours – Italian 00, maize flour and bakers (bread) flour. The crumb is quite tight and chewy – a young friend pointed out that this would be the perfect bread to have with a cheese fondue, and I think she might be right!

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 30 Comments »

Gin Rummy and Brownies

March 11, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Small Man’s latest passion is Gin Rummy.

I’ve had great fun playing with him – we try to sneak in a game whenever we can find a spare moment.  It reminds me of university, when we used to play a hand of cards in the five minutes between lectures.

Today, he was keen to play before school, but I needed to bake a large batch of brownies and time was short.  As I often do when I’m in a rush, I made Nick Malgieri’s supernatural brownies.  These use two mixing bowls, a whisk and a spatula – there’s no need to drag out the Kenwood or KitchenAid.

Out of curiosity, I set the timer to see how long the whole process would take.  There was no cheating – I included the time it took to get the ingredients out of the fridge and pantry, line the baking tray and preheat the oven.  Of course, I had everything on hand – I didn’t have to run down to the shops for butter, or harass the chickens (when I make chocolate mousse and want super-fresh eggs, I’ve been known to stand by their coop and implore them to lay).

All up, from start to putting the baking pan in the oven, the process took a leisurely 13 minutes and 25 seconds, excluding washing up.  It then needed another 35 minutes of baking time (but only got 30) and time to cool on the bench before slicing.  Mine were a little undercooked today, as I had to pull them out early as we were leaving for school.  They’re slightly less set than I would have liked, although they did firm up as they cooled (top photo). Pete’s just told me he prefers them this way!

I’m sure I have faster brownie recipes – some of the saucepan brownies are particularly speedy – but this recipe makes a large quantity, which was specifically what I was after today.  Best of all, everyone loves them, and Small Man and I managed two hands of gin rummy before school!

Click here for the recipe for Supernatural Brownies

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes | Tagged , , | 18 Comments »

Pickle Bread

March 9, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Waste not, want not…

I had quite a bit of  pickling liquid left over from our last batch of cucumber pickles, and  I was loathe to just throw it out (after all, it was good white wine vinegar and brown sugar).

Thankfully, Dan Lepard dislikes wasting things as much as I do.  In The Handmade Loaf, he offers a selection of recipes for reusing leftovers in various loaves.  Dan has breads which use the whey from cheese making, excess cooked rice, the glass of wine left in the bottle, and best of all on this occasion, leftover pickling liquid.

Dan’s original recipe isn’t really for a sweet pickling solution like the one we used, but I decided to try the loaf anyway.  Here’s the formula I used:

  • 200g dark organic rye flour
  • 300g white bakers/bread flour
  • 350g pickling liquid (strained)
  • ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 10g dried yeast

The resultant bread is a sweet, tangy, very dense rye loaf, reminiscent in flavour of the pumpernickel rounds my mum used to serve hors d’œuvres on when I was a child.   It was delicious with butter and, not surprisingly, our cucumber pickles.  Pete also thought it would be excellent with cream cheese.

I had it toasted for breakfast with Linda’s recipe for button squash egg-in-the-nest. The pickle bread made very tasty but unusual dipping soldiers!

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 28 Comments »

Budget Breadmaking

March 7, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I don’t bake and cook things at home to save money.

It’s not that I don’t like to save money, but rather that it’s never been my primary goal.  What motivates me is a desire to feed my family well, to cut down on all the hidden unknowns in packaged foods, and to minimise waste.

But as I’ve mentioned before, the huge bonus from our push to make as much from scratch as possible is that we’ve cut our living expenses dramatically.  And sometimes it’s nice to crunch the numbers, just to see how much of a saving this lifestyle really affords us.

Last weekend I baked rolls for the boys.  Here’s the breakdown:

A bag of leg ham offcuts from Paesanella…$1.86

Kalamata olives… $3.84

Sundried tomatoes (30g)…$0.80

Picasso sheeps cheese…$4

Sourdough bread dough (2kg)…$2

Oven electricity…$0.50

. . . . . . . . . .

Total cost for 24 rolls = $13

Lunch per starving wolf-child per day = $1.08

. . . . . . . . . .

I really can’t ask for more than that!  The bread stores well in the freezer, and our sons take two low GI sourdough rolls each day – Small Man’s are stuffed with olive and sheeps’ cheese; Big Boy’s with off the bone leg ham, cheese, homemade quince paste and sundried tomatoes.

Apart from the nitrites in the ham (which I grit my teeth and accept) and the salt in the olives, there aren’t any other preservatives in the meal – no hidden chemicals or food additives with strange numbers.  The ingredients are all topnotch and I’ve reduced the salt in my standard dough, resulting in bread which is 30% less salty than commercial loaves.  I know it’s not a big deal in a roll stuffed with ham and olives, but every little bit helps.

Sometimes it’s hard to find the time to make things at home, but in this case, a Saturday morning’s work saved me a week of packing sandwiches at 7am, and $50 in bought lunches!

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , , | 49 Comments »

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