Corn

OK, so I've been busy on checking out what corn seeds to buy.

I found a fantastic article at the Koanga Institute which runs through all the types and those available in NZ. Seems I may need to become a member though to purchase some of the varieties (although it looks like not all varieties are available every year anyway), but the Kaanga Ma Flour Corn appears to be a good all-rounder and one I'll keep my eye out for. I have ordered some Rainbow variety through another supplier which seems to do well ground into meal.

Just gotta find me a corn grinder now. The two importers that I've found who have basic corn grinders are out of stock and not getting any in till October (which is fine really since I won't have any corn to grind prior to that anyway!).

And I found this Kiwi Organic Corn supplier. Some really nice looking polenta recipes I can see myself trying out which will add to my Eating Homegrown challenge. Just a shame they don't sell seeds!

So, that's the corn research and I feel I can now tick it off my list for now until I sort out sourcing my popping corn.

Research list

This post is really just a note to myself to keep track of my ever-wandering-ever-sidetracking mind. Anyone else set off on a path and totally end up elsewhere? I have a bunch of partly researched projects stored in my head that I need to write down so I can begin to finish off what I started...

~ Grain grinders (not needing a wheat grinder)
~ Good corn to grow for drying/grinding
~ How to dry/grind/store corn and other grains/seeds (including preparation of hominy which is the process of making other nutrients within the corn readily available)
~ Growing herbs
~ Harvesting, drying and storing herbs
~ Planning out my rotation/successional planting for this years crops and for future years
~ Various methods of growing potatoes
~ Whether I can make potato flour
~ Find some plans for making my own solar oven
~ Beans to grow for drying purposes (Sandra?)
~ Foraging wild foods

And I think I need to reorganise my favourites, my word documents and related folders and even getting around to printing out the info that I want to have on hand.

On with garden stuff...

We had a beautiful day today - seems like it might have been the lull between storms since there is another arriving tomorrow apparently.

While Simon was out with the kids riding bikes down at a local pine forest and collecting pine cones. I made a cup of tea, sat in the sun on the kids swing admiring my garden and planning my spring garden.

~ I planted about 60 onion seedlings. I'd picked up a pack from the supermarket which promised me at least 30 plants - wasn't expecting *that* many, but would be great if they all do well and can be stored. My onions were a sad disappointment last year.

~ I dug over another 2x2m patch and added in a bunch of straw/chicken poop from the coop when we moved it.

~ We moved the chickens in preparation for "putting them to work" as spring approaches. The last time I actively had them working was during last winter/spring and then had their tractor to the side just being moved around biding time over summer and autumn. But now, I want to get my potato patches all primed for planting HEAPS! I am thinking 6 plots of 2x2m. Last year I did 3 plots that didn't last long at all. Potato experts - do I need to use soil to mound up the plants or can I use mulch/straw or something else? I'm wondering if we were to put planks around the sides of the plots and just fill them up with whatever is going will do the trick? What are people's thoughts on using tyres and possible contamination?

~ I sowed a bunch more seeds into my propagator - cauli, tomatoes and cucumbers(giving them a go now to see if I grow them in my bedroom which is like a glasshouse lol) and onions.

~ Nathan and I popped some sunflower seeds and peas into the ground around the front of the house.

~ I checked the silverbeet and spinach which looked like it might be preparing to go to seed. Not yet, but when they do, I will be nipping the seeds out to prolong the production stage.

Food Independence update

We've had so much rain lately that not much has been done at all aside from planting my seedlings on the one fine day (and fortunately have not been smashed to bits with the heavy rains we've been having!).

But, I have been doing a lot of reading.

First up, there is Johanna over at Star-cooked, and I've been enjoying her posts on solar cooking, hayboxes and foraging. I actually got a library book out last week on NZ Native Edible Plants by Andrew Crowe which looks like it might be a good one to purchase. I was pleased to note I have quite a few of the listed plants in my own garden, and living next to the sea, I have access to many of the others. I now intend on trying to make my own cooker so we can get together for a picnic one day! I'm almost kicking myself for not getting in on a co-op with a few online friends who went for a commercially made model.

I have also been investigated making my own Rewena Paraoa (Maori Potato Bread). In my quest to cook using the least number of processed ingredients and as traditionally as possible, a friend emailed me a recipe for starting my own bread bug instead of relying on store bought yeast. I trialled it today - but substituting in the gluten free flours made my attempt at a starter incredibly dry, so I turned it into scones for lunch. I will need to dabble around a bit to get it into the paste they talk of so it is able to begin fermentation. This still doesn't solve my problem with needing to use imported gluten free flours, so that will be my next project.

Homegrown meal #5

Well, I'm feeling pretty good that I'm easily coming up with meals made from ingredients readily available in New Zealand. And interestingly, these are all favourites - so I guess I've been making my way towards eating locally even though I wasn't all that conscious of it. Sure we eat lentils, rice, split peas and polenta which are all imported - but they certainly don't feature as regular meals anymore.

Tonight's meal was Fish Pie.

We don't eat fish often, but when we do, this is what I turn it into.

300-400gm fresh fish
2 boiled eggs
6 boiled potatoes
1 cup corn kernels (I use my own frozen ones from my autumn harvest - but have now run out)
1 spring onion
1/4 cup parsley
3 T flour
3 T butter
1.5 cups milk
2-3 T cheese

Boil up the potatoes and eggs together. Remove the eggs and mash the potatoes (if I have pumpkin I'll do a 50/50 with pumpkin and potato).
In a pan, melt the butter, add the flour and let bubble for a few seconds. Add the milk and stir till a smooth white sauce. Add in the fish, corn, parsley, spring onion and the chopped up boiled eggs.
Once all cooked through, put into a casserole dish, top with mashed potato and sprinkle the cheese on top and bake for 20mins.

So, out of my 5 meals listed here to date, 2 are vegetarian - I haven't listed out all the soups that we also eat which are vegetarian (and most often vegan)...borscht, potato and leek, spinach and potato, cabbage and potato (note the potato theme lol) not to mention the many other vegetable combo's I haven't tried out yet.

Homegrown meal #3 & #4

Another favourite here tonight. It's a bit unfortunate that for us to eat completely local and gluten free, a lot of the meals include meat. But I do have plenty of vegetarian options up my sleeve.

Rather than rewrite it out, here is the recipe for my kumara lasagne that I've posted about before.

#4 also started off as a predominantly kumara recipe that I got from my friend Rose. We had this a few nights back.

This just consists of layers of vegetables in a casserole dish - a little or a lot, up to you and can change depending on what you have available as well as the time of year (kumara, potatoes, pumpkin, chopped onion, garlic, broccoli, cauli, silverbeet, courgette, corn kernels, carrot etc). Layer grated cheese, tinned/frozen tomatoes locally grown for out of season and any seasonings or herbs/spices amongst it and bake for an hour or till cooked. I like to keep this local (except for the tinned tomatoes at this stage) and vegetarian - but variations could include adding fish, chicken or chickpeas.

I don't know if I've ever had this dish turn out identical ever despite eating it once a week for the past year or two.

Annnnnnd......push!

Friends went to a fund-raising garage sale a few weeks ago and saw a few push-mowers for sale, and after a few texts between us, I confirmed that yes I would like one. So for a bargain of only $5, we are now the proud owners of an old push-mower! It is weighty and solid, but superior to the new lite-weight versions.

Simon and Nathan were outside tidying up the lawn this afternoon - he declared it a very good work-out lol.

How can it be?

After awful rainy weather off and on for weeks, today was just gorgeous. In fact, my usual cold self wore a t-shirt all day since it was so warm - and mid-winter too! LOL.

It was a relief to finally get on top of my washing. I have it all pretty much in a tight routine where I do a load every 2 days. A full load in my 7.5kg machine fits on my drying rack (the largest I could buy) and is usually all dry before the next load is due in 2 days time. However, due to the rainy weather where there have been entire days of rain it has meant that my washing has not been drying in time. I even resorted to drying the clothes in front of the fire which I've been resisting as much as possible to reduce the interior dampness of the house. But, I needed to fire-dry the clothes to make room for the next lot. We don't have a clothes dryer, so this was the only option.

So, I was mighty pleased today to get the rack back outside in the warm sun with just a gentle breeze.

I also got down to the garden and planted out my first lot of seedlings. I was even inspired to make a spiral out of the leek seedlings - look forward to seeing those as they grow bigger. Just gotta keep the chickens out of that area now since they will scratch them up given half a chance.

I cleaned out the chicken's nesting box (they tend to sleep in it instead of the perches - if only they laid eggs in it too!), cleaned out excess scraps they hadn't eaten and spread the old straw with droppings around the rest of the area (and covered up the mud from all the rain). Need to plan on where to put the extra nesting box when we get another couple of chicks.

Sadly, the rain is due back tomorrow for a few days.

Simply Beautiful

It's a mid-winter's evening...

The fire is going and the house warm and cosy...

A hot leek and potato soup (made from local ingredients) has been cooked for dinner...

A couple of locally made beeswax candles are lit on the dining table and all lights have been turned off...

We sit down to enjoy our soup and have a fun family meal - connecting, chatting, laughing, making shadows on the walls...

May this enjoyable simple mealtime remain the same in tougher times!

Putting the word out there

I've been thinking this over for the past week or so...that I really need to take a bit more action in helping those around me understand more about Peak Oil and what that might mean for them.

Until now I've just basically gone about my life, making my own changes and openly talking about what I'm doing, but not necessarily *why*. I'm not covering it up, but I'm not really putting out there what I talk about on here. I guess I still feel like the freak amongst most people.

But I'm changing!

A friend recently sent an email to her friends about Peak Oil urging them to learn more and prepare for a future where we would need to exist without cheap oil - and not just for fuel in their cars. She laid out how *everything* around them does/or has relied on oil at some point.

I then decided to become more active in the circles I run in. I have been having an uncomfortable feeling that I am aware of information that it seems most around me are either not aware of, or don't place enough importance on or not having a wider understanding of it where they can then begin to take action. So, without trying to alienate those around me, I have been gently bringing up conversations that talk of my involvement in the Transition Towns movement whose intent is to bring communities together. How by building community we can come together and share knowledge and resources and come up with ways of solving issues around transport, growing food (whether that is setting up community gardens or allotments, helping those with their own land to grow their own food, education, or planting out public areas with food bearing trees), managing water and sewage, community monetary systems etc.

But somehow I felt that I was still missing the mark. How could this be? Am I at fault here in the way I am presenting the message - or are people still not seeing further than the obvious price rises in fuel? Why is the focus stuck on the most energy efficient cars, or using less fuel, or carpooling and reduced driving - yes, all fantastic things, but there's more to it. Or is it that people don't *know* how what else to do (totally know that feeling)? Afterall, Peak Oil's still not out *there* in an obvious way and I believe it makes us all vulnerable.

However, this morning as I was travelling to visit a friend I hadn't seen in months who is also informed about Peak Oil I realised that perhaps where I was going wrong was that I wasn't being direct enough in my message (or helping others think about it) - I really need to open the conversation further by asking people the same as my friend's email did "take a look around you and ask yourself what items and goods rely on oil". Whether it's through the manufacturing process or the transporation of those items - TV's, fridges, food, bed linen, clothing, shoes, electric kettles, deoderants, toys, bikes, books, even those "green living" items, medicines and machinery/equipment to run the factories or replace parts in our homes...the list is endless. And how would their lives look without access to these things? Would their jobs still be secure in that sort of environment (ok, so that's a trickier part of the topic to approach and not something I've delved into)?

I believe it is simple enough to bring this conversation about without being alienating or off putting. With the rise in prices actually happening, it makes for an easy conversation starter. Whether or not people believe this is to be a long term thing or not is another matter - the way I see it, it doesn't really matter if this did end up being a short term phenomenon - but even living in a depressed economy for a few years could have devastating results.

Rosemary Tea

I hadn't thought of trying Rosemary in a tea as it didn't seem too appealing, but Emmani asked in my comments whether I'd tried it out yet.

So, after consulting a few of my books I read that rosemary is a good tea to start the day as it's a physical and mental stimulant, it's good for poor circulation and improving digestion.

I added a few small sprigs to a mug (I only have a VERY small plant at this stage, so couldn't take a long sprig as the recipes suggest), added boiling water and allowed to steep for 5mins.

Overall, it was ok and refreshing - not my favourite, but not awful either. I added a half teaspoon of honey to see the difference in flavour and that was ok as well. I will try this again, but think I'll let the plant grow bigger first.

Home grown meal #2

Shepherd's Pie (or Cottage pie if using beef)

Instead of serving vegetables on the side, I include them into the meal.

500gm lamb (either diced or minced)
1 onion
1 clove garlic
3/4 cup meat gravy or stock
2 T tomato sauce (or if using whole foods I'd add a couple of tomatoes, sugar and salt)
2 carrots sliced
3-4 x silverbeet/spinach leaves (or other greens such as brocolli, cauliflower or green beans etc)
5-6 potatoes for mashing

Cook up potatoes and mash.
Cook up onions and garlic till soft, add the meat and completely brown, add in the rest of the ingredients and simmer till cooked through.
Put meat mixture into a casserole dish, top with the mashed potato and bake for 20mins.

A vegetarian version can be made by replacing the meat with any dried beans (my usual recipe calls for red kidney beans which is really tasty, but in the name of eating home grown, you could replace that with any dried beans or peas that you grow and store).

(Simon has visions of in the future needing to jump on his bike with trailer on back to go to the farm where we get our sheep from and riding home again - probably a whole day's riding lol).

Vegetable stock

I've been making my own chicken stocks for a while whenever we get a whole chicken (very rare these days since we only eat free range chickens and they are a bit too pricey for regular eating). But until now, I hadn't attempted a vegetable stock.

However, yesterday as I was looking at the few limp and unwanted vegetables in my vege bin in the fridge I thought that I had nothing to lose by cooking them up to save them from ending up in the compost bin (our fresh vege box arrives tomorrow).

So out came the crock-pot and in went the veges (1 large parsnip, 3 leek tops, 2 carrots and 2 cloves of garlic) along with a bay leaf, some parsley and about 3 litres of water.

Upon tasting it this evening there was perhaps a bit too much leek, but future stocks can be modified to find the perfect combo I'm sure!

Home grown meal #1

(Home grown as in New Zealand - not my house lol).

OK, so this is the first dinner on the menu for eating food that is (or can be!) grown entirely in New Zealand. I didn't plan it this way, but while deciding at 4pm what to make for dinner I was pondering this out loud when Nathan jumped to attention and ran and consulted his menu plan he'd put together for us over the weekend (gotta love a list-boy who comes up with good ideas!).

The next item on the list was "Baked potatoes with coleslaw".

This has been a favourite for years, even before we consciously began eating more vegerarian meals. It really came about through my need for a lazy-meal.

Tonight though, I decided to modify the combination.

First up, I popped some potatoes in the oven to bake for an hour.

Then, instead of having a raw coleslaw I decided to saute up the coleslaw with ginger and garlic which is something I often do as a side dish to use up the masses of cabbage that appear in our vege box. So, I sliced up half a red cabbage, grated a carrot, chopped up half an onion that was left over from lunch today and sauteed it all together with a clove of garlic and a spoonful of minced ginger (the garlic and ginger weren't grown in NZ, but definitely can be which is what matters most to me at the moment).

I then had a small portion of tomato pasta sauce left over from some I'd made for lunch (once again, the tomatoes weren't sourced in NZ, but I plan on upping the number of plants I grow this year to ensure a longer lasting supply).

I boiled up some eggs and grated some cheese.

I then just layered it all up - cut open the potatoes, dollop on some tomato pasta sauce, spread the cabbage combination over the top, added a handful of grated cheese, and chopped a boiled egg on top.

Dinner!

(I would have included a photo, but it really wasn't an attractive looking meal, but sure is tasty and well balanced).

Food Challenge update

Okey dokey...

~ Weeded out my herb garden yesterday in the gorgeous warm sunshine. It was a very meditative session and I was amazed at how fast the one hour out there went by so quickly and I had something to show for it at the end as well.

~ Continually getting the shopping bill down - I'm surprised that despite grocery prices rising, that I am still managing to reduce the amount of food I'm buying with not too much effort. We are not feeling too deprived (I guess the year long slow changes have made this easier on the mindset rather than just making chops all at once) - it just makes me realise that there is still more room to make adjustments too.

~ I still have a focus on eating as locally (that just means food made in New Zealand at this stage) as possible. A tricky one since even a lot of NZ made products source their ingredients from overseas. I feel trapped when I think about cereals and breads though...

~ As a gluten free family I find it challenging to think about how we would get grains/flours if they become too expensive or inaccessible. A lot of our gf breads/pastas/cereals are made from rice or corn and various other flours that are imported. Corn is really the only one that is able to be grown here as far as I'm aware (oh, and potato flour if I can learn how to make that) - so I'm thinking I might need to find some organic corn seeds (Ecoseeds don't stock them, but I have been told that Koanga Seeds do some varities) and then get a grain mill to process my own cornmeal and cornflour.

~ Seems we need to return to a lot more traditional food to take away this problem. I think I will create a challenge for myself to come up with a menu plan that is based on all whole foods, all available in NZ and no processed cereals/breads or anything using imported grains - I've been dragging the chain on making this sort of move forwards. So, please share with me any ideas - all I can think of are meat and 3-veg dishes 3 times a day with the odd soup thrown in (using herbs, but not spices)! Depending on ease or resistence from the family, I will then try to have a "NZ grown" meal day and build it up from there - as with all things, it takes time to make these types of changes if I want them to become long term and permanent (hence my slow going with cutting back on tea).

~ I'm in the process of planning out how I will increase the size of my garden this year. Last year, I had just over 50 sq metres of garden plots on the go. On the whole, that really only provided food over the summer period and didn't leave a lot to store for use throughout the year. I have another 30 sq metres that I can easily add into the mix this year which has a good nutrient rich soil (perhaps I could do potatoes there to condition the soil). If I want to increase my garden size further I would need to move onto the higher up sandy area which needs a lot of compost added to get it to a good state.

~ As already blogged - I'm in the process of replacing imported black tea with homegrown herbal varities.

~ Had friends for dinner last night and we yakked and yakked about Peak Oil, Climate Change, community, growing food and all that stuff. Was so good to talk face to face with others on the same path and not feel too weird (and hopefully not freaking them out with our weirdness lol).

Lemon Balm Tea

I'm running out of herbs in my garden to trial for replacement teas as I cut back on my black tea addiction. But today I moved on to lemon balm leaves and made up a brew. It was a very pleasant, refreshing drink and something I will drink again.

It wasn't too overpowering, just a nice lemon fragrance. Lemon balm is a part of the mint family (and looks very similar, only much larger leaves). It is claimed to have antibacterial and antiviral properties as well as being a calmative and mild sedative.

As for my black tea drinking habits - definitely down to no more than 3 cups a day now and feeling good!

We decided to have a little 5 day mid-winter holiday. So packed up the car and met up with my parents about 5hrs north of where we all live. The weather was gorgeous (the previous day there had been weather warnings suggesting no one travel unless necessary, and many inland roads were closed due to snow fall or heavy rain).

We went caving, hung out at the beach and played in the snow. A very simple, down to earth holiday and was great fun for all!

Where we were staying was isolated - no mobile phone service, no service stations or much of anything else except nature - quite blissful really. I felt quite disconnected after emerging though and noting that petrol prices had hiked by another 6 cents a litre.

I feel blessed that we could still afford this trip away and experience new things while prices are where they are at. What will the family holiday look like in a year?

Mint Tea

Yesterday afternoon I decided to have a go at making some mint tea using fresh leaves from my garden. So I braved the rain and ran out to the front garden and snipped a few sprigs.

I was a bit disappointed that after brewing for more than 5mins that there was barely a taste to the water. So, not the best choice and I couldn't even call it refreshing to drink.

So, as Sandra observed in my comments, I had a similar experience to her and will next dry some leaves and try it that way (first I think I need to repot my mint and get it producing properly - I suspect the soil is really depleted and hasn't had a feed of anything for years!).

Lime scented geranium tea

This was the first one I decided to have a go at. I had never heard of scented geraniums before I found this at the garden centre a few months back and wow, what amazing fragrances they have.

The citrus varieties are good for making teas, adding to vinegar or adding to a variety of cosmetic recipes.

So, I brewed up a pot this afternoon (about 1 tablespoon of chopped up leaves steeped in boiling water for a few minutes) when I felt the need for a hot drink. It wasn't too bad, certainly refreshing and one I will drink again.

On my way to forming new habits...

Well, it's day 2 of my cutting-down-on-the-black-tea. I have easily managed my 3 cups a day without much of a thought. I've been having my first cup with breakfast, the 2nd cup after lunch somewhere between 1-2pm and the last cup after the kids are in bed around 8-8.30pm.

I have noticed an increased thirst as I get to around 5pm though - obviously the reduced tea drinking and no increase in other fluids has left me a bit dehydrated.

I am going to start some blog posts on herbal teas that I am able to make from my own garden. Otherwise, aside from cutting back on caffeine, I'm not really fulfilling the whole "quit for peak oil" if I'm just buying a $6 post of herbal tea from the supermarket instead!

Taking up the challenge

Chile has been running a Quit Now challenge. Last month I signed up to reduce my tea drinking habits back to 4 cups of black tea a day (with the long term goal being to get down to one cup). I'm taking it slowly, and am renewing the challenge to not go beyond 3 cups a day this month. It is hard though - it's tied into rituals, it's enjoyable and it tastes good. While pregnant and breastfeeding I didn't drink beyond 3 cups a day, so this should be a breeze really.

This time around, I'm wanting to replace my black tea with a homegrown herbal alternative. I don't have a lot of choice in my garden just yet, but am on the hunt for tasty combinations.

Attacking the weeds

We had a gorgeously sunny day today even if the daytime temp was still icy cold. This afternoon we went down to the garden to let the chickens out and the kids got into digging in their hole (formerly a garden bed) and trying to escape the mud-monster - think very gooshy, very slippery and slidy and the hole is now up to mid-thigh on Nathan - it's been work in progress over the last 6wks or so. So I decided to do a bit of weeding around my winter veges. It was all looking very overgrown, but as per a favourite motto taken from my permaculture course "don't use up precious energy weeding a garden that has no veges in it!". Works well for me even if my vegetable garden looks a shambles. So after weeding I gathered up autumn leaves to add as mulch around the now naked vegetables to give them a bit of frost protection (had a goody this morning and feel there will be another tonight). I was pleased to note that of the garden beds I weeded that there was hardly any creeping buttercup anymore despite it running rampant through the rest of the garden still.

I do love my chickweed though and have masses and masses. A good edible weed apparently, but even better, my chickens love it! So I throw huges amounts into their coop every day to supplement the other scraps and pellets I feed them if they are not able to be out freeranging.