I'm here, yes I am!

Hmmm, what have I been up to?

Not a lot really and I guess that contributed to the lack of posting and then the less I posted the less motivated I was to do things. But after reading over at Johanna's about the Independence Days Challenge and how I had completely dropped off from doing that I felt it was time I refocused!

So with the Independence Days Challenge in mind, here are the categories.

* Plant Something
* Harvest Something
* Preserve Something
* Store Something
* Manage Reserves
* Cook Something New
* Prep Something
* Reduce Waste
* Learn a New Skill
* Work on Community Food Security
* Regenerate What Is Lost

Based on the above, here is where I am at...

I currently have two vege beds planted out in seedlings. I put some seeds in for onions but it seems that not many germinated. It's been pretty dry around here, so that didn't help!

Well, we finally had plenty of rain all day today. And it was really warm with it, so hopefully that will give the plants a good late autumn burst of growth.

The only veges that we're currently eating from our garden is a range of silverbeet, spinach and ruby chard, fresh herbs and my stored pumpkins.

I have random (and unplanned!) things growing in the patch of soil at the front of the house - I had swept run away dried peas and beans from my harvest into there when I was sweeping down the front porch and they've all grown lol. So in amongst the pansies there is a bunch of bean seedlings and in a couple of cracks in the concrete in unfortunate places I have peas growing!

We had a harvest of feijoas off our trees but they must be a skinny variety so not a lot of flesh and are pretty much all done now - I didn't preserve or store any.

The chickens are off the lay - they've been moulting for the past month or so, but fortunately haven't gone bald. Just thinned out, lost their tales and have naked feet. They have been disappearing on me though (I suspect they've been spooked by the neighbours cats a few tims as I've heard them being all staunch and squarking like mad) and I've had to hunt for them in the hendges, bamboo grove and overgrown weeds when it's been time to put them back in the coop. But they seem to be happy enough.

I have been working on my emergency supplies. A few weeks back I reassessed the get away bags which currently live in my car and restocked them on clothes that had been taken out for other reasons. I then moved on to the food stores and have replaced expired food. Hmmm, seems with this swine flu already making it's way around NZ (well, yet to be proven, but looking likely), it could prove useful in case of lock down at home!

We finally got around to getting the clothesline installed outside. For the past 6yrs I've been using clothing racks out on my deck that can be brought inside as needed. While this has worked well for me, I really did like the idea of having an easy access clothesline. So, we opted for putting it on our front lawn area where it will get a good dose of sun and wind as well as out of the way of other things (and can be folded down or just half up). Just need to build up my supply clothes pegs now.

We've only had a few really chilly nights, so only had 3-4 fires in the evening - going to see if I can get our 4m3 of wood to last the whole winter again like last year.

I'm looking into doing a course on Herbal Medicine so am busy trying to find the right course for me. My herb garden has been a bit neglected as well, but is looking reasonably established now (although a bit scraggly and unkempt).

Cooking new meals - well, I've been about that this year! We are still doing the GAPS diet, but over the past few weeks have reintroduced potatoes and the occasional gluten-free pizza. So for the most part we are still starch and sugar free as Nathan continues on with the steroids (another 2mths of them and then another 3mths until his immune system is fully functioning according to the paediatrician). So for now I am keeping the starches and sugars to a minimum to try and avoid his immune system being further assaulted as well as not allowing the starches to feed any fungi/bad bacteria in his gut that the steroids are prone to causing.

The kids had a joint birthday party last weekend and it was a really lovely day. It was a bit of a whole family occasion rather than just same aged kids and catering for 20 people had me slightly worried trying to keep to the GAPS diet yet provide food that looked interesting. I think we did well and the food all got eaten (and not a word that I heard of children not wanting to eat what was on offer). I had slowly weaned the kids back onto potatoes, GF pizza and chocolate for their party. But it was still mostly wholesome homemade food (aside from the bar of chocolate I broke up into pieces). My mum made both kids their own GAPS birthday cake using almond flour, pumpkin, carrot, eggs, butter and honey. I made icing for the cakes from cream cheese, honey and vanilla essense. It was really nice and went down well!

We went to a local sustainable fair a few weeks back that was great to get along to. It was neat to bump into so many friends and acquaintances who I usually only see at these sorts of events and had that lovely local community feel to it.

Well, there's the update for the past month or two!

More homemade

Well, I cooked up another batch of tomatoes this afternoon and came out with 5 servings for the freezer. Have had to move on to the upright freezer since I've got the underfridge one bursting at the seams. My tomatoes are definitely out-performing last years both in yield as well as size. I think we'll get them to last quite well especially since I don't seem to cook with tomatoes so much while on the GAPS diet (probably since I can't serve up pasta sauce on pasta at the moment which was a good staple meal a few times a week before).

I put another batch of yoghurt on as I used up the last 500ml for making some ice cream GAPS style.

2 cups of homemade yoghurt
1 ripe banana
2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp pure vanilla essence

It went down well, we'll see how it goes down when I serve it up for the kids birthday party in April lol*.

Today I also received some almonds I'd ordered through our organic co-op and decided to try out some almond milk. So I set a cup of almonds to soak in water for 8hrs.

I then drained them, added 3 cups water and blended till smooth. I drained it through a fine sieve and added a little vanilla essence (and popped the pulp into the freezer for using in baking). It tasted nice but slightly bland but I'm sure Nathan at least will like it. I am investigating growing my own almond trees (apparently you need two or there are some dwarf self-fertilizing ones available). To buy organically from the shop the nuts are $40/kg and through the co-op around $20/kg which is a significant difference but still pricey in the big scheme of things.

*I am also looking at how I can throw the kids a small joint bithday party as sustainably as possible (their birthday's are 6wks apart). I will be catering the food GAPS style and have quite a few yummy options so far but a few recipes that still need testing. I am looking at getting or making some little bright coloured paper lanterns instead of balloons that can be kept and reused another time, making a bunting for decoration, making some new funky table napkins instead of disposable and a few party games that don't include a bunch of junk for kids to take home.

Yesterday Nathan wanted to make his own scrambled eggs. He's been increasingly wanting to cook his own food (banana pancakes are becoming a bit of a standard recipe around here and then he figured scrambled eggs weren't so different). I did do a bit of extra stirring for him, but the rest was his work.



We also did a batch of fresh juice yesterday with the arrival of our new vege box. We used beetroot, apple, orange and pear. I was busy washing out the gear and turned around and saw this sweet little face playing with her image in the stainless steel of the juicer.


I picked these long forgotten and neglected carrots the other day. This lot survived the carrot fly but didn't get thinned hence the stumpy appearance. They were tasty though and the kids enjoyed munching through.


And wow, tomorrow is the last official day of summer.

A big ole batch of tomatoes

Today I realised I'd accumulated quite a few tomatoes that gave me enough to cook down to freeze. It was hosing down outside, so was good to have a few inside domestic duties to get into which broke me from the hum-drum of washing, tidying and cleaning.

Last year I made them into a tomato fondue which I used for pizza sauce, pasta sauce in spaghetti bolognese etc - but since I've found myself all "cooked out" recently, decided to just cook them down plain and freeze into portion sizes that I can flavour up later.

I got about 4 cans worth from this batch.

And the kids enjoying some freshly cooked tomatoes...

And while I was in the mood I set another batch of beans to soak overnight to make up tomorrow. Yay, looking forward to easy lunches around here again for minimal cooking. Even though I have no store bought option at the moment due to the extra ingredients, if I were buying organic baked beans by the tin this works out at about the same cost while I am able to use my own home grown tomatoes.

We tasted our new batch of yoghurt today and I found it had a lovely tart taste which when done with a shorter culture time seems to not have so much. So, so far a success.

A bit of homemade...

So, I'm totally in the groove of making my own chicken and beef broths now.

I've been making my own yoghurt in the yoghurt maker for a few years, but today put on a batch to sit for 24hrs and ready to try out on the kids in a few days (have had to buy some calcium powder since the kids are getting way under the daily required amount at the moment).

I have plans for making my own baked beans now since the store bought ones contain sugar and maize flour which are both not allowed at the moment. The haricot beans (the only "legal" beans on the diet) are currently soaking and will be ready to cook up tomorrow. If successful I think I'll make a big batch and freeze into lunch portion sizes as an easy meal.

GAPS Day 8...

Breakfast: leftover patties and fish from last nights dinner, fried egg, a small chunk of cheese (first part of the dairy challenge).

Snack: dried banana, pear and peanut butter

Lunch: Fritatta - eggs, pumpkin, onion, kale, garlic, leek, salmon

Snack: almond milk, cashews, brazil nut

Dinner: Soup - chicken broth, 1/2 cabbage, 4 x onions, rosemary, thyme, salt, pinch stevia, balsamic vinegar

The dinner was a surprise. It really looks unappealing to me when on paper, but it is SO tasty and the kids scoffed it down.

More cooking-without-electricity supplies

(Still requires seasoning)

The other night when I was out, I picked up a camp oven that I've had my eye on for a while. I'm not too sure how I will get to use it since it seems to be best used over an open fire which doesn't really feature in my life lol. But I figure it will be useful no matter what I do with it whether it's on top of the cooktop of my woodburner or in my electric oven as a casserole dish and make up a part of my emergency supplies too!

Not having had ANY idea what to do with it when I bought it, I mentioned to my mum I had bought one and she asked if I knew what to do. Ummm, no...

Anyway, when she and my step-dad travelled around the Australian outback 7-8yrs ago for a couple of years, they used one quite extensively while camping in sites set up for open fires. So she explained how to build up the fire to one side in a pit, then transfer some embers over beside it, put the pot on and pile up embers on the lid. When those embers had died down (and meanwhile keeping the original fire burning) you transfer more embers into another patch and build up the previous embers again to keep things going.

Then googling tonight turned up this document with some New Zealand recipes using very basic ingredients and a "how to use your cooker".

Not even sure we're allowed to have open-fires outside here without a permit, so need to find out some info so we can trial this thing!

Failing all of that, I will see how it fares if I ever get around to making a solar oven... Looking forward to hooking up with Em and Johanna for a cook up!

(Runs off to retrieve cooker from car to take a photo and finds it REALLY warm from being in the car all day so reckons it might do well!)

Electricity

In the post today I received a letter from my electricity supplier informing me that they'd taken a look at our electricity usage over the past year (we've been with them a year) to check that we are on the best plan. Well, it seems we are. We switched to a "green" company last year which not only meant that the company generates all it's electricity using renewable resources but are also a carbon neutral generator and retailer.

So anyway, they said over the last year our usage was 5174 kWh units. I was kind of surprised really. Last year when I blogged about changing retailers and deciding to go with the "low user plan" we were using just over 7000 kWh and I thought we were doing well. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that our usage was quite a bit lower yet there have not been any major changes to the way we do things. Which really only leaves...

~ The new "larger" hot water cylinder we had installed when the last one died (around the same time as we switched electricity company).
~ The hot water cyclinder in our kitchen died about 9mths ago (both cylinders would be near on 60yrs old, so pretty good run really!) and we haven't bothered to replace it so we're saving on not wasting hot water to rinse fingers and dishes. The only inconvenience being that we need to bucket water from the laundry about 3 metres away once a week to handwash large items that haven't fitted into the dishwasher.
~ Large upright freezer has been continually turned on (but not the most economically since it is half empty).
~ I have been more diligent in turning off my computer every night (but we could still turn off other electronics instead of leaving on standby).

I did notice that we only got the small fan heater out maybe 3-4 times over winter which I usually use for a 10min stint on really cold mornings to heat Danielle's room for the kids to get dressed in, whereas last year we had it running a lot more than that. This year though, I reckon there were a lot less frosty mornings. Equally too, over summer we rarely needed to use the fan whereas the year before it felt hotter during the days??

Our power usage does not include any other home heating since we rely on our wood burner (which we got away with only buying 4m3 this year and supplementing on a bit of foraged wood). We run the dishwasher every day and the washing machine probably 4 times a week on a cold wash only (have dropped 2 loads a week now that Danielle is no longer in washable nappies during the day). And we don't own a clothes drier. Simon and I have a shower every day and the kids a bath about 3 times a week.

The slack blogger

Well, it really has become a bit of a weekly update around here hasn't it?

I find I'm really only thinking and doing "garden" stuff and my mind hasn't been wandering in other directions. So along with keeping ourselves busy, continuing with being mindful of fuel usage, trying to keep my thoughts away from buying-buying-buying (albeit only auction-site things), catching up with friends and just living-life, we're just cruising along quite nicely. It's become such a seamless, mostly relaxed journey, that it all feels so...normal.

A year ago I felt anything but normal, but the more I find groups of people who I can be *me* with, have meaningful connecting conversations and relationships with, the more normal it all seems (even if I perhaps appear to others like the loopy chick who belongs to those fringe groups)! It no longer seems to matter.

I feel content and on the right path. I'm loving the various groups I'm involved in that really do enhance and make life enjoyable (namely family, playcentre, transition towns and our unschooling friends).

So! Back to what I've been up to...

~ Have dug up all the potato bits that I put in the trenches that became waterlogged and planted new seed potatoes.

~ One entire bed of potatoes have now sprouted and another has a few shoots above the surface. No sign of my Maori potatoes yet.

~ Spent a lot of time fluffing around and watching my chickens. They have all settled really well. The little ones start running around all silly when they see me coming now. They still tend to freak out occasionally when out free ranging and end up flying across the yard for odd reasons, but no longer have the desire to fly over the fences to the neighbours!

~ Had a few days of rain during the week which is just what the garden needed to get a good thorough soaking.

~ Decluttered my car - what a tip!

~ Went along to a transition towns working-bee today to spend a few enjoyable hours in someone elses garden.

~ Moved the chicken tractor to clear another vege patch (was amazing how quickly the previous one turned to bare mud with a few days of rain). Sussed out with Simon where they will be located over summer while the garden is full of veges growing.

~ Went for a walk down to a local river mouth with the kids and my parents yesterday and I couldn't help but look at all the weeds lol. My step dad was really helpful in identifying a few things (but then got exasperated when I asked just one too many "what do you think this one is?" and got a "geez, what do you think I am?" lol. And he recommended I bring his mother down to do the id'ing! I come from a step-family of wild foragers and I didn't really even know it! I spotted masses of unidentified wild brassica's, kawa kawa (step dad pointed that one out to me), beach spinach, ice plant, puha and plenty of other things that *looked* like they should have been something edible. I didn't bring any home since I had no plans for using it.

Plans for the week ahead...

~ Reassessing our emergency food supplies again. A few months back we had run out of rice in the pantry. So decided that the rice in the emergency bin needed rotating. After cooking it up, the smell of laundry powder through it was awful, so the entire batch (including dinner) was dumped. Despite things being double bagged, we'll need to come up with a more reliable system.

~ Finish the frog pond - cover with netting, sort out some pond weed/plants, put a few upturned pots around for hiding in and decide what plants to plant around it (I'm leaning towards peas again).

~ Going along to a transition towns movie night to watch "What a Way to Go". I'm sure I've seen this one before, but wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Where we're at

Random downloading of brain ahead...

Not a huge amount of action in the garden this weekend although I did get one bed of onions and carrots sowed today though.

I also got stuck into the frog pond this afternoon and tidied up the hole and lined it with polythene. Haven't yet progressed any further though.

Simon dug the kids a sandpit in the middle section of grass above the vegetable garden area where the swing and trampoline are. So they now have a nice big sandpit, and their playhouse has also been relocated off my deck which will make room for some potted vegetables if I need to.

This evening I've been working on my garden plan and have mapped out almost 100m2 of garden beds! Last years' garden was about 60m2 with the most work being the intial digging of the plots (very compacted and weed ridden soil), so I figure what's another 30m2 of digging this year! Once it's all set up and the planting is done successionally, it's very easy to maintain and harvest. And with our new push mower - it keeps the paths between beds nice and trim.

I have decided to plant tomato plants around the frog pond to provide shade and foliage for the frogs and also takes care of where was I going to put some of my tomatoes as I'd run out of room by that stage.

Need to figure out some sort of system for watering the garden. Last year I found it a bit of a drag carrying buckets of water from the water trough (which is fed by an irrigation hose that runs from our water tank under the house that is filled from roof runoff and controlled with a ballcock valve) to the garden beds. What would be ideal is if we can modify the plug hole of the bath tub/water tough and put a garden hose connection on the end so it can be gravity fed.

This week I plan on digging up the remaining 3 potato plots and get the sprouted bits into the ground.

I'm on a roll...

Another gorgeous day and we were out in the garden at 9.30am. The kids happily played in their mud hole while I dug over 2 garden beds in preparation for potatoes.

I went out to run a bunch of errands just before lunch and grabbed a couple of bags of seed potatoes from the garden shop. I'm still in a learning-phase of what to do with most things, but after a bit of googling it was clear to me that there are MANY ways or methods for: digging holes, spacing, when and how much to cover, how to chit, whether to cut the potatoes to get more sprouts per seed etc etc.

So, here is what I am doing...

~ In my newly dug over beds, I have dug trenches about 60cm apart (so I get 4 rows for my 2 metres).
~ Then when I plant the seed potatoes I'll place them down about 15cm and about 30cm apart. I will get about 28 plants per patch.
~ I intend on digging up a total of 4 patches for now and one patch will have some earlies planted.
~ When the plants grow I will mound up the soil but keep the top of the plants showing.
~ I intend to mix straw in with my soil as I cover
~ I have cut up my seed potatoes with an eye in each section.
~ The potatoes have mostly sprouted, but I have popped them on a seed tray to allow the cuts to dry for a few days and let the sprouts grow a little longer. They have been placed in my laundry - with natural light, but not direct sunlight
~ In the garden beds I will sprinkle on some potash (woodburner ash), mix in some compost with the soil and place the seed potatoes in.
~ I will protect them from any surprise frosts by covering over with straw

Today we also bought a semi-dwarf apple tree to replace our old one that fell down last year.

Simon dug up the weeds from a 5yr old compost heap exposing some lovely rich compost underneath. I will relocate this to make room for a new potato bed.

And looking at the ugly mud-hole that the kids have been working on over the past few months, I'm thinking that they've jumped and stomped the life (literally!) out of it (although having SO much fun in the process). It would take a lot of turning and recomposting to get it back into a healthy state - so Simon suggested we turn it into a small pond and get a couple of frogs. What a fab idea! We had floated the idea of a pond last year when we first set up the garden, but parked the idea to just focus on growing food. But I think now with the kids being a bit older and would understand to not jump on the netting that we'd place over the top that it could be a goer and would really add to the life and feel of the garden.

Annnnnnnd...push! V.2

Boy, these old-fashioned manual tools and appliances really do get you moving and exercising! LOL.

We acquired this vacuum cleaner last week. It's great! I despise getting out the vacuum cleaner, plugging it in, blah blah. But this little thing gives the carpet a quick spruce up in no time at all. Of course, it doesn't do the whole suck thing, but is great at flicking up random fluff and crap off the floor.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

Adding another skill to the list

So, maybe not a life-saving skill, but it's something I've wanted to try out and it was a fun thing to do with the kids today. We finished reading Heidi last week, and since then, Nathan had planned out a little lunch as Heidi would have eaten and was described many times over in the book. So we made bread, bought some goat's milk and we decided to make our own butter as well. It was amazing to see it suddenly change and the buttermilk literally pouring out from the solids.

Food Independence Challenge

I'm not usually one for challenges. I have in the past done casual forms of the challenges out there, and found them a great motivator when I was first learning about living sustabinably, simplifying, decluttering, growing food, food storage etc - individually those types of challenges are a great learning tool and a way to create focus and habit.

However, I've been of this mindset now for a good 18mths, and have been learning along the way and a lot of these things now just slot into my day to day life. But, what I like about this challenge is that it gives me a weekly boost to keep up the pace. It's not specific, but creates just enough challenge and stepping out of the comfort zone to make a little bit more of a difference.

So I'm going to take this one up, I probably won't report daily, but will look at this as a weekly challenge - yet try to complete one of the things on the list per day. It may be trickier to keep up with since we are moving into winter, but I will try and get creative lol.

1. Plant something.
2. Harvest something.
3. Preserve something.
4. Prep something.
5. Cook something new.
6. Manage your reserves.
7. Work on local food systems.

Check out Casaubon's Book site for ideas on how to achieve each category.

Our recylced benchseat

This morning I was telling Simon how I've been loving sitting out on the porch now that the sun is lower in the sky and it sweeps in around there all day and is a gorgeous sun trap. He had been down in the garage and came up to float the idea of using a couple of large tree trunk rounds as part of a benchseat for the porch - an idea I liked very much. We then pondered what we could use as the bench part as we didn't want to go out and buy wood - would kind of defeat the purpose of what we were wanting to do. A few weeks back we had dismantled our square foot garden and the macrocarpa sleepers were still lying in the front garden, so although they were huge and an overkill for what was required, it felt right that we use them here. The bench seat can always be remodelled into something else if the need arises. We also now have a large bag of sawdust which I will be able to use as mulch on the garden paths in Spring.