With most of the family home from the annual river holiday the kitchen and garden have gotten busy and some interesting and yummy meals have been prepared...

First and foremost though I feel I should brag a little about the food whilst on holiday... :-) We spit Roast a lamb every new years (well every one for the last 18 years or so!) dad once again did it to perfection! It's quite a process, you see... The coal maker gets taken out and dusted off by the boys (it's a 44 gallon drum that da put a door in the bottom and a grate inside to allow the coals to fall though and transferred to the spit pit with a spade - he's very clever...) next the lamb is tied to a frame (which dearest daddy made too!) and placed 1m above the coals. The cooking process starts early in the afternoon so we're talking SLOOOOOOW roasted lamb here. Dad and uncle Brian are in charge of the carving when the lamb's ready. Whilst it's cooking we make a variety of yummy salads and pot bread in the fire... desert is mom's christmas cake with custard (for those who have a separate pudding stomach - I'm not blessed with one of these!)

The next day is a generally lazy affair... There's an anything that floats race down river at mid day but we didn't compete this year. Instead, we started making dinner! There was plenty of left over lamb (part of the plan) which mom and Susan skillfully and thriftily removed from the bone. The outdoor kitchen turned into a whirlwind of activity and all the veggies in the fridge were sliced and diced for a giant stir fry... It's a tradition in our house but very different every year! We ate lamb stir fry for the next two days and no one got tired of it!!

 

Fabulous Family Outing

 Once a year we rally the troops and head out to Klondike  farm outside Ceres in the Western Cape to pick fresh cherries... We were introduced to this fabulous outing a few years ago by one of dad's friends who has celebrated his dad's birthday every year with cherries. As you can see the farm is beautiful and well worth the drive! We picked about 15kg as we always share the juicy red love with friends ans faily who are unable to join us on the day...


As far as a reasonable day out goes it's pretty good value: R15 entry fee per person and then we paid about R600 for cherries and juices for the drive home... 


We've dished out the gift cherries and still have a giant coolerbox-full to make preserves for deserts for the year to come... Someone suggested freezing them to eat on hot days as mini icies so i'm going to chuck 2kg into then freezer for that! 


But enough of the blogging - I've got cherries waiting to be tasted :-)

Happiness Is...

Heading into the garden with my cup of tea yesterday morning I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world! How can you feel anything else when you share your morning cuppa with the chickens, bunnies and such pretty flowers and exciting new seedlings? 

After the upheaval of moving the garden from one suburb to another, the veggie boxes are finally installed in their 'forever homes' and filled with straw and chicken litter and potting soil (the idea is that the chicken litter breaks down and the veggies on top grow like they're on steroids!)

The beans are 4 days old and looking strong

The bath full of carrots is looking so promising!

Lettuces just showing their faces in the first veggie box

Lettuces and Beans in the first veggie box

Creative Pasta

So, after the longest of creative droughts I am finally writing about something yummy AND meaningful once again :-)

The pictures were taken on my new toy: a Nikon D90 which has made me ecstatically happy and takes the most amazing pictures. Unfortunately the pics were taken my an over-zealous fourteen year old who is only starting to learn about composition and the like (you understand when you see them)

Fresh pasta is something that happens often in our house. I've got it to such a fine art that I can make, roll and boil it in under 45 minutes! I haven't had a wedding so I can put a KitchenAid KSM150PSWH Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, White on the registry list so the dough still has to be mixed and kneaded by hand (the fourteen year old is really good at this part so we share the duty when he's feeling cooperative) I bought the pasta roller when I did a pasta making course a few years back but it's only started being used regularly since we got the chickens ;-)


The recipe is very simple: 


100g flour per egg - use 1 egg per person (I always make extra as there are ALWAYS unexpected guests and if it doesn't get finished on the day it makes for the best lunch or freezer meal) Mix the two together and knead into a dough. If it's too hard, add another egg or water and if it's too sticky then add a little more flour. I divide the dough into manageable balls to knead and roll out or else it's a real challenge...

This time around I decided on Raviolli with butternut and Ricotta and another with spinach and feta.

So it's been a while, a very long while since I've managed to post anything, let alone something valuable or interesting... It's not that there's nothing happening in the kitchen or urban farming project, it's actually that there's been too much on the go!

I dealt with an infestation of lice in the chicken cage - I was away for the weekend and got a pannicked phonecall  from my little boet saying I had to come home immediately... I told him to relax and I'd deal with it after my mini break :-) The solution to lice isn't a fun one and neither is it particularly environmentally friendly... I cleaned out the cage completely and then dusted the ENTIRE thing with some chemical concoction called Karbadust (which nurseries no longer stock as it's a nasty insectacide - I found it at the farming co-op agrimark in phillipi). My internet research said that I'd need to dust the chickens too - the instructions suggested putting the chickens in a plastic packet with their heads sticking out and shaking a little to get them covered in the dust... I laughed out LOUD when I read it. I then called my mom and read it to her and we laughed hystirically together... you see, there is absolutely no way to get a chicken into a bag without injuring it and yourself, not to mention that it'd have to be one flipping sturdy bag not to get shredded by the chicken's kicking claws!!! I worked out a much more efficient method: I simply sprinkled powder onto the chicken's back which resulted in a flustered chicken who kindly ruffled their feathers, thus distributing the dust all over their bodies... I also got covered in the process (and I seem to have read that it's toxic to humans on the instructions) but I had a ball and was absolutely certain there could be no lice on me by the time I was done :-)

We're busy building a compost heap system - three divisions as there's quite a lot of composting material coming out of the garden and chicken cage... I'll post photos and designs once I'm done :-)

There's so much more to share but I haven't put the photos onto my computer yet and somehow photos tell a much better story than my less than colourful words :-)

Sustainability ideas

Sustainability Ideas. From the idealist

For some time already I have been intrigued by the concept of self sufficiency. It only takes one meal in a nice restaurant for me to head down this path even more enthusiastically… Went to one of Cape Town’s finest for my birthday (his treat) and I realized there’s something very wrong with the way we live: Starters were from R85-110 and the line fish I decided on was R158! Let me not get onto the bottle of wine… Had a cheap bottle in another reputable joint for mom’s birthday - I really liked it so went out the next day to buy a couple of bottles for the house. We paid R105 (remember I said cheapie!) on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I picked up a bottle whilst doing grocery shopping for R42… I understand that restaurants have margins to make, etc. but I feel like we’re being taken for a bit of a ride!

The cost of living makes me cringe. We’re probably not great examples but I’ve looked around at the people I associate with and we’re all in the same boat. We shop at woolies often, eat out a couple of times a week, are guilty of picking up ready made meals for work lunches which come with a mountain of extra packaging, each drive our own cars without hesitation, have wardrobes big enough to clothe an underprivileged school, etc.

Let me not get onto the topic of Eskom or any other para-statal  on which we find ourselves dependent. As for grocery store chains, we’ve  become completely dependent on the convenience of having what we want, when we want it and where we want it (I never have to drive more than 5 minutes to get to either a convenience store or mega grocery store). This comes at quite a price. We think we’re getting a good deal when we grab a ‘special’ but explore a little further and you’ll see we’ve got something horribly wrong! If I grab salad ingredients for two from woolies it’ll set me back at least R100. That same R100 can buy an entire boot-full of fresh produce at the Epping Market.

Some of the ideas I’ve been thrashing out in my head are:

• Solar geysers. This is twofold: firstly, Eskom has increased my electricity bill much more than the 24% they advertised (apparently I’m a high consumption domestic user). Second, I think it important to reduce my carbon footprint. For now, Eskom’s electricity is ‘dirty’ belching out tons of carbon every time I switch on a light. Until we’ve got cleaner sources, I’d like to boycott their service.
• We’ve installed a closed-combustion fireplace and burn wood which is carbon neutral and the ash is very useful in the garden – some of it is used to deter snails and the rest goes into the compost heap. Ash is nutrient rich and a waste product which makes it free.
• Rain water storage tanks. This is something I haven’t convinced the sponsor to install yet (he says my building project has run out of funds…) I checked out the calculations for how much water you can collect and was stunned: for every 100m² of roof, you get 1000l of water per 1mm of rain that falls. Given a house of about 500m² of roof that’s 5000l in a flash! Our area gets about 2000mm of rain a year there’s more than enough water available to be stored. We just need to store it!
• Growing our own veggies. Given the abundance of water, favorable soil, sunshine, etc. in Cape Town there really is no excuse not to try your hand at growing some! I’ve been messing around in the garden for a couple of years now and cannot honestly say that I’ve grown enough to feed a family but as I get better at it, I’ve got more produce and much more variety! The things that have worked really well are beans (lazy housewife), carrots, beetroot, onions, lettuce and tomatoes. The gem squash and marrows were not quite as successful but we did get to eat some :-) The potatoes and sweet potatoes were sublime but I’ve realized I have to plant many more this year.
• For the veggies I can’t grow, it is my intention to buy in season and preserve or freeze until needed. This works in a number of ways: the carbon footprint is reduced as I’m not buying imported produce, local is lekker, and my money goes 50% further.
• Growing fruit. This requires much more patience than the veggies (a couple of weeks to harvest) as the trees have to mature. We planted 24 trees last year and had to take the fruit off last summer to give the trees a chance to establish themselves. Some of them are big enough to produce fruit this year but some of them need to still use all of their energy to grow sturdy branches. You may be thinking that you don’t have the space for an orchard so this doesn’t apply to you… Not so! If you have space for a pot you can plant a citrus tree. It’ll stay compact but if you look after it it’ll spoil you back with plenty of juicy fruit.
• Apart from Bananas which form much of the sponsor’s staple diet and have to be available at all times, I try to buy fruit from the Epping Market. It’s dirt cheap. 8kg of 1^st grade guavas cost me R30 the other day. Boxes of apples or pears are the same. The beauty here is that you’re buying fresh produce. Most fruit can be preserved in some way: freezing, jam, canning, etc. not forgetting how delicious fresh fruit salad is!
• Chickens, ducks and geese. I mention all three as they all perform very different functions in the urban farmyard. Chickens are the most common and most people know something about them. They’re our primary source of white meat and available everywhere in the world. Their eggs are farmed either free-range or in chicken batteries and are a fantastic source of protein. Try to bake anything and you’ll be reaching for the eggs first! Chickens are scavengers and will eat anything. Including your seedlings, veggies, fruit, etc. in short, they’re a pain in the vegetable garden. They need to be suitably housed. In return for food they’ll provide you with much entertainment, eggs, meat and rich compost. They’re useful for clearing a veggie patch for the next planting (they really know how to clear!). Ducks are snail catching machines! They don’t scratch like chickens do and also won’t kill your plants. They graze on grass and eat every snail they can find. A lesser known use of the duck and my main reason fro including them in my urban farming plan is their superior fly catching skills.  The fly problem is more than a problem – it’s more like a plague! We hang those ugly sticky strips in the kitchen (because we absolutely have to!) and make sure that nothing edible is left out for one minute. I’ve banned the fly swatter as it makes me physically ill… Muscovy duck’s fly catching skills are legendary. You’ll know a house with ducks when you visit one – you won’t wee the fly strips or a single fly anywhere! Geese are great for weeding. They’re vegetarians and with their long necks get into the garden to eat the weeds. I don’t know exactly how they identify the weeds but they do. Their eggs are big enough to make scrambled eggs for a whole family and you can eat them too.
• A dream of mine is to have a pond for the ducks and geese, big enough to stock it with trout. I’ve done a little research and think it would be quite possible to farm fish on small scale. I decided to look into this after buying some smoked rainbow trout from woolies last Sunday (it’s one of the sponsor’s favorites) and seeing the price per kilo – R395!!! I was aghast. They’re farmed locally now which means we’re not paying for the transport from Norway (although the Norwegian Salmon is exactly the same price… huh?). It was one of those instant ill to the stomach before going on a crusade moments… Much persuading to do to get the pond though so this one will take a while!
• I really want a pig. They’re an integral part of a homestead/urban farm. They have a few functions (and if you have the muscovies already there can be no fly problem!): they are the garbage disposal units for your home. They devour all uneaten food from the kitchen as well as processing the compost bucket quicker than any other animal. They efficiently convert inputs into rich compost. They even further process chicken poop - some farmers feed their pigs exclusively on chicken by products (I don’t agree with this as I think you end up with a disease problem but on a small scale and not actually harvesting the poop you shouldn’t have an issue). Pigs are natural ploughs: they clear plots including all roots whilst adding nutrients out of their back ends as they go. Pigs eat sand – this keeps them healthy and at the same time adds biologicals to the soil increasing fertility.
• A Dexter Cow. Now this goes even beyond wanting. I need a cow. Dexters are small cows – about half the size of common dairy cows. Cows are useful too: they produce milk which is used in almost everything… think tea and coffee, yogurt for breakfast, cheese sandwiches, baking, sauces, butter, cream, etc. I’ve recently realized that most dairy in South Africa is produced on feedlot. What is this you ask? Don’t cows eat grass? That’s what I thought. Not so unfortunately. Many cows are fed on grain (which I have to add is definitely not what cows were designed to eat!!!) as it fattens them up quicker and makes them produce more milk than they would naturally… if you turn a blind eye on changing the cow’s natural diet this seems ok until you take it a step further and realize that the cows are being fed genetically modified maize which we are yet to determine the fallout from. The scientists say we’re ok but I’m not convinced yet.
• Once I have the cow my dream is to make my own butter, cheese, yogurt, etc. I can’t think of anything more delicious or wholesome…

This is my ever evolving list which is growing as we speak through trial and error it’s a way of life, not a solution!

Not so happy bouncing bunny.........

So not everything in the farmyard can run smoothly at all times... I have a sick bunny. A very sick bunny... Out comes the medic in me and after scouring the net for solutions we're on a treatment plan: rehydrate (the intravenous type), mashed carrots (cooked them...), hot water bottle and some tlc. I shan't bore you with the stinky details save to mention that the details are rather stinky... The little guy is weak and skinny and won't eat anything other htan carrot tops but he's still fighting me (especially when I try to get him to drink rehydrate - he hates being force fed...)


Will have to post an update when I see any change in his condition... in the meantime though we'll be sad for the sick bunny :-(