May 13, 2013
by Clare
17 Comments

Pumpkin Soup

Winter is definitely in the air down here in (near) Melbourne town.

It’s time for snuggling up with cups of tea, soups and stews. I love this time of year, I love rain, I love dressing in layers, and I especially love winter sun.

I love soups, creamy, thick, watery, spicy, they’re the best!

Before J and I had meet, he’d never cooked a soup, can you believe this. I was quick to rectify this. And now he experiments with the best of us!

Pumpkin Soup

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

50 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

500 gm pumpkin
2 carrots
½ onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp turmeric
3 cups of vegetable stock
1 tin of coconut milk

Instructions

Dice onion and mince garlic, add to pre-heated pan with oil, cook until softened.
Add spices, fry for 1 minute.
Put chopped and peel carrot and pumpkin, stir until coated with spices.
Add stock and cook until vegetables are softened.
Once vegetables are soft, blend, and add coconut milk.
Serve with crusty bread.

May 7, 2013
by Clare
18 Comments

Proud to say “I made this”

On Sunday I served breakfast to my guest and J.

I was so proud to put it in front of those two.

It was buttermilk pancakes, nothing too fancy, in fact I used this recipe.

They were absolutely delicious.

The reason that I was so proud was how much work I had put into this final product.

We had made the butter, the butter milk, and the eggs had come from our chickens (from no effort on my part).

We served them with yoghurt I had made, quinces I had poached and lime curd I had preserved late last year.

It wasn’t the fanciest dish, but I was proud to say that I had made it.

What’s a dish that you are proud to put in front of your guests?

May 6, 2013
by Clare
8 Comments

Some Highlights Around The Web

These biscuits are Ah-mazing! Claire thankyou so much. We used this recipe to make the chocolate chips.

I love Mexican food, so this post was a winner!

Do you have friends that live in your computer?

Celia’s baking is always mouth watering, but these take the cake, I think.

If you’ve ever had an food allergy, you’ll know how tricky it is to bake for yourself. Have a look at Suzanne’s amazing cookbook. (You can buy it on my sidebar)

What are some fabulous things you’ve found on the internet?

May 3, 2013
by Clare
14 Comments

I’m no good a surprises. Actually I’m not good at surprises if I know there’s a surprise coming. ”Clare, I’ve got you the best birthday present”, “we’re going out tomorrow”, or “I’ve got a surprise for you”, do not excite me. They, in fact terrify me. It may sound silly, but as a planner, I like to know how I’m expected to react, I’d hate to disappoint someone if I didn’t show enough enthusiasm.

So now that J has figured it out, he knows he can either choose not to tell me (this way I don’t have to prepare a reaction), or he can say, “I’ve got a surprise for you, it’s ______”.

For our anniversary he found the perfect gift for me, something I’d been looking into but hadn’t found the perfect option. A beekeeping course. His approach was, “I’ve found you the best gift for our anniversary, I haven’t booked it yet, do you want me to tell you what it is?”

Absolutely I did!

And was I ever so excited to find out that it was a beekeeping course. It was something that I’d talked about having in our backyard. Just another step towards being more self-sufficient.

The course was held in the neighbourhood center in Geelong West, and for only $70, a bargain! Over 4 sessions we learnt about extracting honey, collecting hives, the make up of a swarm, building bee boxes and frames and so much more.

Each day was a wonderful learning experience. Did you know that the first thing that bees do when they hatch is clean out their hexagonal cell? If they find something in their hive that shouldn’t belong, they flick it out the front door of the bee boxes? And a hive is kept at a constant temperature of 38 degrees Celsius? Rather than talking about an individual bee, people often refer to the hive as the organism, as one bee could not survive without the rest of the colony. They are the perfect example of a cohesive community, something that we humans could learn a bit about.

Throughout the course I experienced two stings, they happened in the last session, within minutes of each other, and initially I showed no reaction. One sting was on my upper leg and the other on my forehead. The next day my forehead swelled, then my eyes, and now, three days later, my cheeks are showing only a slight swelling. I visited the doctor and was told that although it was a fairly sever reaction, this may have been to do with the fact that I had two stings at the same time, I am still safe to keep bees. Although I definitely need to be more careful. I’m now looking into all the protective gear I need to keep myself sting free in the future.

Have you ever kept bees? Ever seen a hive in action?

May 1, 2013
by Clare
30 Comments

In My Kitchen… May 2013

In my kitchen…

… there are two super cute biscuits from Awkward Cafe. We stopped in there for cake and a pot of Love Chai this morning, and walked out with these lovely biscuits. In my kitchen…

… well right outside the kitchen door and in the hallway there is our first bee super. It’s half built, in the white bag are the rest of the frame pieces to put together. I think we’ll end up building about 4 of these, and 8 frames per box before we are ready for bees. In my kitchen…

… there’s a brown paper bag of chilli’s given to me from a lovely twitter friend who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time over the last weekend. We talked garden, living more simply and about her amazing pizza oven. Upon leaving her house I was given this bag full of a variety of chillies.
In my kitchen…

… on the bench, sits these two containers of olives. They’ve been sitting here for 10 days now, and tomorrow we will bottle them in a brine solution and let them sit for 6 weeks. When we get home from Nepal they will be perfect. In my kitchen…

… is my first ever rolling pin. I bought it this morning from the opp shop. I’ve never owned one before, usually we use a wine bottle, it’s a good excuse to have one on hand. The sieve would have been fantastic for draining the olives each day, but again only found it this morning in our local oppy. I can’t wait to put it to good use. In my kitchen…

…we have (had) 73 vanilla beans. I ordered these off eBay and they were here the next day. I’ve had the pleasure of using them in so many different things, poached quinces, yoghurt and most to make my first ever bottle of vanilla extract. In my kitchen..

… this is actually in the laundry cupboard, is our first ever bottle of home-made vanilla extract. It’s only been on the go for a few days and already is a stunning colour and expels a wonderful scent. I can’t wait to use it in our baking.

What wonderful things do you have in your kitchen this month?

I’m linking up with Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

April 30, 2013
by Clare
12 Comments

Replanting

This season we’ve already got in the ground more than we ever have had before, a wonderful range to get us through winter. I can’t wait to taste all the fresh produce growing right outside our backdoor.

On Sunday we replanted our seedlings that we had planted into polystyrene boxes, as I mentioned here, there were a lot of them. It was time consuming and fiddly, all our seedlings now look tired and sad.

J and I talked and thought that next year we might just plant the seeds straight into the ground. We can’t see much difference between growing things in a box on our verandah or only mere meters further away in the garden beds.

My question to you is: do you always follow the instructions on the seed packets? Have you planted straight into the garden instead? Do you think rules are meant to be broken?

April 25, 2013
by Clare
10 Comments

Chia Chai Trifle

Kale, goji berries, raw foods, have been all the craze recently. There’s always a new diet, something we should be eating, something we shouldn’t. I’m quite happy to stick to the basics. I eat what makes me feel good and what makes me feel happy.

Luckily this breakfast (inspired by my sister), makes me feel good, feel happy AND is a superfood!

Hannah had been going out to a local café and getting Chai Chia Trifle. She said that she couldn’t believe that she’d go out and buy something so similar to muesli (which she eats nearly daily), so decided to give making this trifle a go.
After her attempt she advised me of what would be her preferred ratios, and so I gave it a go.

I boiled up a pot of stove top chai, milky and honey sweet.

Soaked the seeds in the tea overnight and simply served it up with mixed berries and some homemade yoghurt.

Do you ever try to replicate restaurant meals?

Chia Chai Trifle

Serves: 2

Ingredients

½ cup chia seeds
1½ cups of chai tea
Mixed berries
Yoghurt

Instructions

Soak the chia seeds in the chai tea over night.
Serve with mixed berries and yoghurt

April 23, 2013
by Clare
16 Comments

Our Backyard.

I’ve recently been asked for a backyard tour from some readers. It’s tricky to know about the best way to share. So the above picture is a panorama, it’s slightly distorted. On the far left we have our arches. In the garden bed they are attached to, there are tiny seeds just breaking through the earth. Straight up the middle is the chook pen, you can in fact see Gertrude (the white dot). Just to the left of center, up the back, you can see Doogle.

Soon there will be peas and beans climbing over those arches. This garden bed will be full of winter vegetables. There is parsnip, carrots, broccoli, coriander, leek and garlic. We’ve tried companion planting for the first time ever, and I’m excited to see how our garden bed will grow.

We were recommended by a friend to plant only in the first two weeks of the moon cycle. I honestly don’t know if it’s made any difference, but it does force us to get things in the ground. From Thursday, we will be planting out our tiny seedlings, and some more garlic.We realised that this bed gets fantastic sun, so we’ve covered it in manure, dug it in and watered it really well. Next we will cover in soaked newspaper (it’s in the wheelbarrow), and then pea straw. I have found that this keeps the moisture in and the weeds out.
These seeds have been growing almost two weeks now, there is over 300 onions, 150 lettuce and Bak Choy, and a slightly smaller amount of Brussel Sprouts. J, was so enthusiastic that he didn’t check the amount of seeds in the packets and planted them all, and with an average of 95% germination rate, we’re going to have a lot of these few things.

Have you ever had an abundance of one particular thing? Any locals up for some seedling swapping?

April 21, 2013
by Clare
18 Comments

Lately…

- Each day we discover a new area in which we could plant in. Veggie garden plots are taking over the backyard.

- We picked a bucket full of olives and have them soaking, only 8 more days until we can jar them in brine solution.

- I was quoted in the Australian Financial Review. Contacted by one of their staff after he stumbled across my post about Loam, he used my post as a base for talking about the growing disappointment in desserts.

- We’ve been eating so much yummy food out at cafes, the Elkhorn Roadhouse had an irresistible breakfast menu, and Awkward will keep me coming back for their cakes!

- I had my first experience in poaching quinces. One try with cinnamon and ginger, the other with cinnamon and Vanilla beans.

- Speaking of vanilla beans, I recently bought 250g of vanilla beans of eBay. I can’t wait to make my own vanilla extract.

- We built some shelves out of my Granddad’s old wooden ladder. We’ve placed it in our front window, which gets lots of sun, the perfect spot for herbs to grow throughout winter.

- Seedlings are popping up all over our garden, it’s so satisfying to see plants coming up in our garden.

What’s been happening in your life lately?

April 17, 2013
by Clare
28 Comments

When does passion become preachy…

As you guys know, our life here on The Farm (our urban rental) has made positive changes towards how we would like our life to look. I love these changes, I love our new life and I love the work and effort we have to put in. I will talk about it every chance I get, every opportunity.

Not too long ago my best friend brought her new boyfriend down to meet us, and to have dinner. We had homemade Mexican. We made the tortillas, the refried beans, the taco seasoning, grew the tomatoes and the spinach, and spent the evening talking about making bread, growing our own vegetables and brewing our own beer.

The next day I asked J if we’d gone overboard. I wondered out loud, at what point, did talking about our passion become annoying and preachy?

I could talk underwater and at any opening I get, I’m quite happy to go off in a self-sufficiency rant. I’ll explain to anyone who asks, how to make yoghurt, I’ll talk about what we’ve planted, and what recent dinner’s we’ve cooked with our home grown produce.

Do you have something that you are passionate about? Something that you’d happily talk about all day?

I explained my fear to my friend, and smiled with her response, “You’re just Clare”, and in fact said that her boyfriend was very interested in what we were doing. He has a small veggie garden at home and was keen on doing more. She’s very gracious but I don’t imagine all are.

How do you get around being preachy when you’re so excited about something that is a huge part of your life? Do I just need to pick and choose my audience?