No Knead Bread

This weekend I ran out of time to make my usual bread recipe, and I decided to try a "no knead" bread.  This is a more wet mixture which you just mix and put in the bread pan, and rise in the oven before baking.  It was definitely a lot quicker, because you don't have to do any of the kneading or waiting for it to rise before moving on to the next stage.  The bread is very tasty - it has a sort of Vogel's texture, and is quite good for toast.  You definitely need to make sure you have big enough bread pans, or use three - mine came very close to spilling over, and were only saved by the baking paper that went up higher than the sides!!

Annabel Langbein's Busy People's Bread (from The Free Range Cook)

Makes two loaves

2 cups boiling water 

4 tsp honey 

2 cups cold water 

7 tsp dry yeast granules 

2¾ cups high-grade white flour 

2¾ cups wholemeal flour 

3 tsp salt 

2 cups sunflower seeds 

4 tbsp pumpkin seeds

   

Preheat oven to just 80ºC and grease and line two 25 x 10cm loaf tins with baking paper. 

In a large bowl, mix the boiling water with the honey to dissolve. Add the cold water and yeast and put to one side for 10 minutes. 

Whisk the yeast mixture then add white and wholemeal flour, salt and sunflower seeds and mix with a large spoon until evenly combined. (The mixture will be a very loose, wet batter.) 

Divide mixture between prepared loaf tins, spread evenly and flatten the top. Sprinkle 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds over the top of each loaf and, run a sharp knife through the top of each loaf in at least 3 or 4 places so it rises evenly without splitting. 

Bake for 20 minutes at 80ºC and then turn up the oven to 210˚C and bake for a further 30-40 minutes. When cooked, the loaves will sound hollow when tapped. Turn out of the tins while still hot and leave to cool. This bread stays fresh for several days and toasts well.

The Lonely Supermarket

One of my hopes for this month was that finding alternative sources of food would help me to get more in touch with where my food comes from, and become closer to the point of production.  The image that this conjures up in my mind was of myself outdoors with a wicker basket on my arm, meandering around picking blackberries and collecting eggs.  I'm not quite sure where I got this picture from, as I don't have a wicker basket, I don't know anyone nearby who has chickens, and most blackberries around here are enthusiastically sprayed with chemicals.

Stall at the Otago Farmer's Market

In some ways I have been able to get closer to the source of production of my food, by buying fruit and veges directly from farmers at the Farmer's Market.  I like being able to ask people who were involved in growing the food about their product, and how best to use it.  Even buying food from the organics shop seems closer to the production source, as the shop assistants can usually tell me where food has come from, and when it is from local producers they will often know them personally and know the names of the farmers.  There are two things that I like about this:  firstly, it makes it easier to find out how food is grown/made, and what chemicals and processes have been used.  Secondly, it re-introduces the element of social connectedness to our daily rituals involving food.

Food is fundamentally social, and it forms an important part of community life.  We all need to eat regularly to survive, and equally we all need social connection and community in order to thrive.  Sharing meals provides an opportunity to share live with our loved ones on a day-to-day basis, strengthen bonds between new friends, ease awkwardness among strangers, celebrate happy occasions, support one another in sad occasions, and to share generosity.

Yet it many ways we have allowed the community function of food to dwindle away.  Our busy lifestyle has led to the increase of fast food, single serve freezer meals, and packaged food to eat on the go.  Eating is less about sharing time with others, and more about providing physical fuel for the body.  The social element of production and purchase of food is dwindling as well.  When I buy apples from the supermarket, I cannot talk to the farmer who grew them, and the shop assistant cannot even tell me their name.  In fact, there is no need to talk to anyone at all, since I can pick up my apples and go through the self-checkout aisle with no need for social contact at all.  Yes, it's convenient.  Yes, it's often cheaper.  Yes, it's faster.  But isn't it all a bit lonely?

Taking out the trash

Not from NZ, but hilarious!!!

One thing that often annoys me at the supermarket is the excessive amount of packaging  on products.  My all-time favourite example of this is the individually plastic-wrapped bananas that appeared a few years ago.  Did they not realise that bananas come in their own natural packaging?!  The fruit and vege section of the supermarket seems to be full of this obsession with plastic - I always have a cynical laugh to myself when I see zucchini and broccoli pre-chopped and ready to use, placed in a polystyrene tray and plastic wrapped.  Are people really that busy/lazy that they can't manage the 1 minute that it takes to chop up a zucchini?  The most ridiculous thing about this is that the trays can't even be recycled, so they end up in landfill.   

  

Other awesome examples of packaging-mania include prunes which are individually wrapped in plastic then sold in another plastic container, plastic bags of pre-cut apple slices, snack bags of chippies each containing about six chips...the list goes on......  I would love to hear of other ridiculous packaging examples from other people! 

(NB: This website currently has a competition going for the best and worst NZ examples of packaging - you can win a winter weekend for two in Wanaka by entering the best nomination.)

     

With all this in mind, one of the things we wondered when we decided to stop supermarket shopping was whether we would reduce the amount of rubbish we were putting into landfill each week.  We try to reuse and recycle as much as we can, but were still putting out one 40L rubbish bag each week.

   

Last Sunday I went to put the rubbish out as usual, and found that the rubbish bag was less than half full.  A week later, the bag still isn't full, and I don't think it will be full by this Sunday.  I am intrigued by this, because we haven't really been making a conscious effort to reduce rubbish (at least, no more than we usually do), yet it appears that we have created less than half the rubbish we usually create.  There has also been less in the recycling bin, which is partly because we are saving bottles and jars to use for our own homemade things.

Green Island landfill (Dunedin)

The thing is, I can't quite figure out what has made the difference.  I can't think of any single change we have made that has brought about a dramatic reduction of waste, so it must just be the cumulative effect of lots of small changes.  We've bought a lot of dry goods in bulk, we are growing our own veges and buying other veges and fruit from the farmer's market where we bring our own bags.  We buy eggs from the farmer's market where we return our used cartons each week to be reused.  I'm making jam and reusing jars, and making a lot of our usual staples.  What I find interesting is that the reduction of waste has largely been a by-product of choosing to shop in a different way, rather than something we are intentionally working really hard at.  I'll continue to keep an eye on our progress, and will let you know how we go!

Things that suck about being supermarket-free

We're now more than halfway through February, and I'm starting to feel a little jaded with the supermarket-free challenge....  I'm relieved that I chose the shortest month of the year for this experiment!  It has been interesting and fun in lots of ways, and I am definitely learning some new skills - but there are a few things that are becoming quite frustrating...I think it's about time for a bit of a whinge if everybody's ok with that!

   

The biggest issue is the amount of time and energy I need to put into making things.  I'm enjoying trying out new recipes for things that I haven't made before, but it's becoming a bit extreme trying to make everything from scratch.  It is frustrating when we run out of bread, and instead of a quick trip down the road to buy another loaf it takes a couple of hours to prepare dough and bake it.  Of course, this wouldn't be quite such an issue if I wasn't already making cereal, jam and baking, and doing the gardening...  I'm finding that my evenings and weekends involve a lot more time spent in the kitchen these days.  Last weekend I made muesli, plum jam, bread, muesli slice and chocolate hazelnut spread, as well as cooking dinner one night!  And as well as all that time spent in the kitchen I visited a few different shops and the Farmer's Market to get supplies. It was fun, but very busy, and by Sunday night I was so tired of being in the kitchen that we got Pizza Hut for dinner, which seemed a little counter-productive. 

   

The marvel/burden of convenience

Although I'm still not a fan of the supermarket, I do now have a greater appreciation of the convenience of buying everything pre-prepared in the one shop, and I can see how it has become so popular and dominant.  I think it's a shame that our way of life has developed in such a way that most of us feel we need to get everything in the quickest, easiest way possible, and don't have time to spend making our own foods.  Obviously this suits lots of people, but it does make us very out of touch with what we are eating.  I really want to continue making my staple foods myself, but I find it hard to see how I could sustain it long-term while working full-time and doing all the other things that make life fun like spending time with friends.

  

The other major thing that has been annoying this month is not being able to find some things - especially when I am used to having everything I want or "need" just down the road at the supermarket!  This has meant a bit of time spent searching around different shops, or occasionally going without.  Like the shampoo and conditioner I ran out of about two days ago (there's a limit to how many times you can rinse out the bottle before there really isn't any left). 

So that is my whinge.  I'll try and be more upbeat tomorrow.  And if anyone has any great ideas for shampoo and conditioner, let me know.....

Lunch

In the first week of February, there was great fascination around the office about the contents of my lunchbox.  I'm not sure what people were thinking - that I would be eating a kilo of foraged blackberries for lunch instead of sandwiches?  Interest soon faded as it became clear that my lunch was pretty much the same as it always is - cheese and tomato toasties with some tasty snacks for morning and afternoon tea.  The major difference has been that increasingly the ingredients of my lunch have been homemade rather than storebought (not sure what's going to happen when we run out of cheese, a plain tomato toastie just wouldn't be the same.....)

 

One change to my lunchbox this year (and a popular lunch conversation topic at work) has been the addition of a reusable lunch wrap instead of plastic wrap.  My sister-in-law made these and gave them to us for Christmas, and they are awesome!

I've been trying to make lunches a bit healthier (inspired by my friend/workmate Claire, who has been eating wholesome and very tasty looking salads for lunch every day!).  I've been baking a cake most weeks this year to eat for snacks (Ed did his bit this week and made an excellent banana cake), but I started thinking that eating cake three times a day might not be the best option for my life...  So I needed to think of some better snacks to have.  I'm loving stone fruit season, and have been buying plenty of fruit from the farmer's market which is a good start.

One staple lunch snack in our house is muesli bars.  Easy, tasty, and appear healthy regardless of the actual ingredients.  I had vague memories of homemade muesli slice that my mum made, and decided to give it a go.  I got this recipe from my brother, who got it from some friends who live a pretty inspirational lifestyle in the way they tread lightly on the planet and do 'living simply' well.  It is very easy, and very tasty!

Ingrid's Honey Oat Slice

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup coconut

3/4 cup plain flour

pinch salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

140g butter

1T honey

Mix dry ingredients together.  Melt butter and honey, and mix into dry ingredients.

Press firmly into a slice tin (10"-12"), and bake at 180C for 15 minutes.

Cut into fingers while hot.

This slice is tasty just on its own, but you can also add other ingredients to your taste - I added some pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, cashews and dried apricots.

Cool in tin.

Foraged Plums

Ed came home a few days ago with an ice cream container full of plums he had foraged from a tree at our church.  They sat on the bench for a few days while I tried to decide what to do with them.  I decided that I'd like to try making some plum sauce.  My Grandad has a plum tree at his house that produces heaps of juicy plums every year, and he used to make an amazing plum sauce.  

Unfortunately, it turned out that making plum sauce was going to be pretty much impossible without going to the supermarket!  I needed a few extra ingredients, and so set off around Dunedin to find them.  After visiting three different asian grocers, I finally managed to find some whole allspice.  However white-wine vinegar was nowhere to be found.  The shop owner at the Indian Food Market told me that he can't stock products like vinegar because the supermarkets buy goods at such a cheap bulk price that he simply can't compete.  He is actually considering stocking some products like vinegar and making no profit, so that he can make his customers happy.  Another asian grocer had an extraordinary range of cooking liquids including "tuna extract" and "brown cooking sauce", but no white-wine vinegar.  The organics shop might have had it, but it was now after closing time on Sunday.  So it seemed that my plum sauce was not going to happen.

This is where the "supermarket-free" month becomes a bit ridiculous - as fun as it is to try making things myself, it becomes awfully complicated when I can't actually get the ingredients to make them!!

I decided to settle on making jam instead.  We've traded a few jars of my apricot jam (thanks Rory for the oranges and neighbours for the apples!) and given some away, so I needed to restock our supply.  The plums were yellow-fleshed, and I wasn't sure if they would turn out a nice red colour like plum jam usually does, but it seems that the red colouring in the skin is enough to do that.  The jam is very tasty, and quite tart which I like.

I stoned the fruit before I cooked it, as I didn't want to risk leaving stones in the jam by mistake.

Plum Jam

1.5 kg plums, washed

400ml water

1.5 kg sugar

Remove any stalks and place the plums and water in a deep saucepan. Stew slowly until the fruit has broken down – about 20 minutes. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved, then return the jam to the boil. As the stones rise to the surface, remove them to a sieve suspended over the saucepan. This will allow any liquid to drip back into the jam. Cook for about 10 minutes to reach the setting point, then skim and pour the jam into warm, dry jars. Cover.

Makes 2.5 litres.

Chocolate Hazelnut goodness

At the end of two weeks without visiting the supermarket, cupboard staples are starting to run out, and while most of them can be sourced elsewhere, there are a few things that are hard to source, and that I am missing.  Like my new favourite chips.

 

I felt a bit disconcerted last week when I scraped the last bit of Nutella out of the jar, realising that it would be some time until I could pick up another jar off the supermarket shelf.  Somehow chocolate hazelnut spread has become a staple in my life, and while my apricot jam is excellent, it's still not an acceptable substitute.  I was a late bloomer when it came to Nutella - we never had it at home when I was a child, and so it wasn't until I left home and went to University that I discovered the amazing phenomenon of chocolate spread on toast.  So excessive, but so tasty...

  

I decided that surely I must be able to find a way of making chocolate hazelnut spread.  I was at the Thieves Alley market day in Dunedin on Saturday, and conveniently stumbled across a stall selling hazelnuts.  Ivan and Dot Burney of Nutlands in Makarewa, Southland, are the proud owners of the southern-most hazelnut farm in the world.  For those of you who find this idea inspiring, you too could be the proud owners of such an enterprise, as the farm is currently for sale and being sold by auction on 30th March.

 

Hazelnut butter

So I bought myself a bag of hazelnuts, and went home to try my hand at Nutella-making.  Which turned out to be exceptionally easy!  This one definitely requires a food processor.  I don't have one, but my flatmate Kathryn does.  It pays to watch the food processor carefully - I noticed the machine smoking at one point from working too hard, possibly I should have given it more rest breaks (sorry Kathryn!)  The process is pretty cool, I enjoyed watching the nuts gradually turn into a liquid as the oils are extracted.

The final result was very tasty, although definitely different to Nutella, and not as smooth.  If I make it again I will buy raw hazelnuts and toast them myself to get a more intense flavour - I bought roasted nuts by mistake.  One thing I like about making this myself is that hazelnuts are the main ingredient - the Pam's brand spread we have been using is only 13% hazelnuts!!

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

Makes about 1 1/2 cups

2 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
up to 1/4 cup vegetable or nut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.

To get rid of the bitter skins, wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. Rub until most of the skins come off, but don’t worry if some remain.

Jo's Chocolate Hazelnut Spread!

Process nuts in a food processor, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. First, you will get coarsely chopped nuts, then a fine meal. After a little while, the nuts will form a ball around the blade, and it will seem like you only have a solid mass. Keep processing. The heat and friction will extract the natural oils, and you will get hazelnut butter!

When the nuts have liquified, add the sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Slowly drizzle in enough oil to make a spreadable consistency. Since the mixture is warm, it will be more fluid now than at room temperature.

Transfer the spread to an airtight container, and store in the refrigerator for 1-2 months. For best results, stir the chocolate-hazelnut spread before using.