My conversion to gardening

Our back section - December 2009

When I was a child, our family had a complex pocket money system which involved doing a range of jobs during the week, which were each worth specified amounts of money.  Small weekday jobs (eg. doing dishes) were usually worth ten cents a day, and more onerous tasks were reserved for the weekend, and were worth up to fifty cents.  If you didn't do your job, you didn't get the money - and thus began our introduction to modern industrial society.

The worst job of all time was gardening, which was a fifty cent job.  I would do anything to avoid gardening.  I hated it.  It was boring, dirty and repetitive.  Furthermore, the vegetable garden was responsible for producing deeply unpleasant vegetables like zucchini, silverbeet and beans.  Clearly, there was no redeeming features to be found in the garden whatsoever.  

September 2010

My commitment to garden avoidance remained strong until about two years ago, when I started wondering whether it would actually be kind of fun to grow my own vegetables.  Ed was keen to give it a go, so last summer we put in our first vege garden.  By which I mean that Ed spent a day digging out the plot and wheelbarrowing soil up the steps.  And then when the hard work was done I did the fun job of planting seeds and seedlings.  Our friend Colin has been gardening in Dunedin for several decades, and he came and helped Ed with the digging, and advised us on what to plant and where.  Colin is now our trusted gardening guru, as he knows the answer to pretty much any gardening question!   I was impressed at how well the garden grew - especially as we had no idea what we were doing.  

This year we decided to expand the garden, and Ed got to work doubling the size of our vege patch.  We tried some new things, with varied success.  This year we've had potatoes, zucchinis, beans, peas, carrots, spinach, rocket, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions, bok choi, broccoli, a pumpkin and lots of herbs.  Most things have grown well, except my strawberry plants which were a complete disaster, and the verdict is still out on whether the pumpkin plant will grow any pumpkins.  Growing our own veges means that we haven't had to buy as much from the supermarket, which of course has been useful this month!  I'm not sure if we're saving money or not - we spent a bit buying soil and seedlings etc. so we probably haven't this year, but I think we would in the future.

1 December 2010

January 2011

Personal Hygiene 101: Deodorant

A popular line of enquiry this month has centred around the issue of personal hygiene.  I think some friends may be concerned that going without the supermarket will also mean going without soap, deodorant and toothpaste for a month.  Thankfully, I can confirm that my commitment to personal hygiene remains fully intact!

 

One thing that I have found interesting is that I am paying more attention to what is in the products that I buy. Personal hygiene products in particular seem to have an incredible list of ingredients, none of which I have ever heard of, except perhaps "water".

   

Deodorant is one of these products that contains lots of different chemical ingredients.  I have discovered recently that some people think that antiperspirant deodorants are bad for you, because of their high aluminium content.  Antiperspirants  work by clogging pores with aluminium chlorohydrate, stopping the pores from releasing sweat.  These aluminium particles are small enough to enter the bloodstream, and heavy use can apparently increase the level of aluminium present in your body.  This worries some people, because very high levels of aluminium in the brain have been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.  However there seems to be a lot of debate around this issue, and there doesn't seem to be much scientific evidence to confirm a link between antiperspirant use and Alzheimer's (you'll note the lack of any references - look at the Wikipedia page for my dodgy sources of information).  Science has never been my strong point, so I'm sitting on the fence on this one!

   

Although I'm not really sure what I think about the aluminium issue, my research into deodorant alternatives did spark my interest in trying some different options.  A few friends had recommended using crystal deoderants which are a block of natural mineral salts that you use like roll-on deodorant.  They work by stopping the growth of bacteria, which is what causes smelliness.  I was pretty sceptical of the whole idea - but fortunately Ed was keen to give it a go.  Ed bought a stick of Grant's Aloe Vera Crystal Deodorant a couple of weeks ago, and I have been really surprised at how well it works!  It actually seems to work better than normal deodorants, and seems to be a more natural option.  I got myself a 'Lafes' brand one, which has worked pretty well too.  

  

I haven't had any issues with it so far, but I've heard through the grapevine that one of my friends discovered that after a few months of use her deodorant stick got quite smelly, which was a terrible shock to her flatmate who (I cannot imagine why) decided to give it a sniff one morning.  The ensuing public humiliation meant that she went back to mainstream deodorant for good.....  Apparently the solution to that particular problem is to clean the top layer off the crystal with a bit of pumice.

 

Breaking the Fast

One of the things that has been a bit annoying so far this month has been finding something good to eat for breakfast.  We usually have cereal, but making my own Sultana Bran would be far too much effort for me to give it a go!  I don't really want to have toast for breakfast, because then we use twice as much bread and I don't really have time to make a loaf a day...

My mum always made muesli growing up, but I've never tried it myself.  I've been put off muesli in the last few years after going on a few tramps where breakfast was unappetising bland muesli with milk powder, which seemed to stick in the throat even more when I was faced with the prospect of walking uphill for a day.  However I decided to face my fears and give homemade muesli a go - it seemed too easy to pass up the opportunity, and it's full of lots of energy to start the day with.

This recipe was given to me by my brother, who got it from my sister, who (if the story hasn't been lost in translation) got it from her partner, who got it from his grandma.  You can correct me if I'm wrong!

The recipe turned out roughly ok, with a few hiccups that I will have to correct next time.....  Firstly, I couldn't find any wheat germ at the organics shop - they have run out, apparently wheat germ only has a shelf life of 2 months, which raises some interesting questions about what they do to the stuff they sell in supermarkets.  So no wheat germ.  Secondly, I ran out of brown sugar - this wasn't a problem, I used a mixture of molasses sugar and white sugar.  Thirdly (this is where it gets bad) I was adding sultanas, dried apricots and cashews, except that it didn't quite occur to me to add them AFTER I cooked the muesli.  Hence the fruit in my muesli has an interesting "caramelised" flavour.  Ed has been very polite about this so far - we'll see how this goes after a week of eating it.

       

Jenny's Muesli Recipe

8 cups rolled oats

2 cups wheat germ

1 cup coconut

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup neutral oil (eg. canola, rice bran)

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp mixed spice

1 cup milk

(optional - 1 cup oat bran, sunflower seeds, pumpking seeds, almonds, dried fruit)

Mix dry ingredients then add wet ingredients.  Bake at 150C for 1 hour, stirring 3 or 4 times.

Add fruit, nuts etc. AFTER removing from the oven.

Dinner for Seven

We're nearing the end of our first supermarket-free week, and the cupboards are slowly getting emptier.  It hasn't been too hard feeding the two of us for the week - let's be honest, if things get really desperate there's always eggs on toast...  However on Saturday we faced our first major challenge - feeding seven people for dinner.  

My Mum and Dad have been visiting for the weekend,

and we invited them for dinner along with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew.  The family have been following our February challenge, so there was a bit of pressure on to cook something decent and authentically supermarket-free.  I decided to make pizzas with mostly homegrown veges (yet another creative use for the zucchinis) as well as some from the Farmer's Market, with roasted potatoes and carrots from our garden on the side.

  

             Rainbow Carrots            

One of the things I have found fascinating about growing our own food is discovering the extraordinary diversity of vegetables. In the produce section of the supermarket, the carrots are orange and uniform, the tomatoes are red and perfectly round, and zucchini are green and all the same size.  Supermarkets sure know how to make vegetables boring!   This year we decided to grow three different colours of carrots - orange, purple and yellow (fascinatingly, carrots were not originally orange, but were a hybrid created in the Netherlands in the 17th century.  But when did you last see a purple carrot on sale at New World?!)  So we had rainbow carrots on our plates for dinner.

 

With the mains sorted, now I needed something for dessert.  As I was leaving the house on Saturday afternoon, I saw an unfamiliar plastic bag sitting in the mailbox.  Hoping that it would be something exciting, I had a look - the neighbour had dropped off some apples from their tree - stoked!  They weren't quite ripe, but I figured with enough sugar added they would make an excellent apple crumble.  Of course, apple crumble isn't quite the same without ice cream.  This was a problem....  Fortunately, I found a really easy recipe that took hardly any time to make.

Easy Ice Cream Recipe

(from a random website I found on Google)

Use 3 bowls

lst bowl 4 egg whites - Beat till stiff, add ¼ cup any sugar, beat again
2nd bowl 4 egg Yolks - Beat till frothy with another ¼ cup any sugar
3rd bowl Beat 300 ml Cream until fairly stiff

             Super easy ice cream            

Put contents of bowl 1 and bowl 3 into bowl 2.

Fold in gently with spoon.
Pour into 2 litre ice cream box and freeze approx 6 hours.
 

You can add any other ingredients you like to make it tasty - chocolate bits, berries, flavourings etc.  I crumbled up a chocolate Flake and added it to mine when I mixed the three bowls together.  Easy as!

It all turned out pretty well - I got a bit worried when I realised we had run out of brown sugar for the apple crumble (not sure where I'm going to restock that...) but white sugar seemed to work fine.

Getting to know the neighbours

For a few weeks now, Ed and I have been eyeing up the slowly ripening apples on a tree on our neighbour’s property just next to our house.  They don’t look like amazing eating apples, but I suspect they would be pretty tasty in an apple pie or crumble.

Peasgood Nonsuch - ridiculous name, good-looking apple.

Like most people who rent in good old suburbia, we don’t really know our neighbours.  Last year some of our very good friends lived in the house behind us, and we had a shortcut through the hedge so we could pop next door and visit.  It was awesome having friendly neighbours, and being able to go next door to borrow/lend things and hang out.  They moved out in December, and while we are still enjoying the benefits of their vege garden, we miss them. 

We are on good terms with a guy who lives downstairs from us – this was necessary because we share a letter-box and hot water cylinder, and because we regularly block his car in our drive so he has to knock on our door to ask us to move the offending car (sorry about that).   Aside from this, we don’t know anyone on our street.  We live on a seriously steep street, so people don’t really hang out on the footpath, or even park their cars on the street (for fear of handbrake failure and its dramatic consequences!)

On Wednesday I decided to pluck up the courage to go next door and introduce myself, and to broach the topic of apple stealing if it seemed ok to do so.  Armed with a jar of my apricot jam, I went next door and knocked.  I ended up having a lovely chat with the neighbours, who are very friendly.  It turns out that the apple tree is a heritage variety called Peasgood Nonsuch, which is good for cooking (apple pie!).  It's also good for dehydrating apparently, and I sampled a tasty piece of dried apple the neighbours had made.  They do use a lot of the apples, but they are happy to share some with us.  Success! 

In my research this month, I discovered that on Google there is a map where people can mark the location of public fruit trees and other tasty plants  from which free food can be collected.  There is also a facebook group for the Dunedin Underground Food Economy, where Dunedin residents can share tips of where to collect free food.  I don't intend to ruin my new friendship with the neighbours by adding their apple tree to the list, but I think the idea is awesome!  As far as I can tell there is only one Dunedin location that has been added to the map.  I'm sure there are heaps of places that aren't currently listed - if you know of some, please add them to the map so we can go foraging.

Baking Bread

One of the big things I was worried about leading up to February was a good source of bread.  We go through a couple of loaves a week and our breadmaker is broken

Alison and Simon Holst

 (makes  squat, pale, doughy loaves).  I wanted to find an easy recipe that was good for sandwiches and toast.  As always, I turned to Alison Holst, trusted icon and role model for the Ryan Family for over 30 years.  Alison, if you're reading this I hope you don't mind me sharing the recipe - I figure that since our family owns virtually every book you've ever published, you won't mind too much just this once. 

I’ve been making two loaves on Sunday night, and this gets us through the week.  This book also has versions of this recipe for white bread, wholemeal bread and heavy grain bread.

Mixed Grain Bread

(Alison and Simon Holst, The New Zealand Bread Book – thanks Mum for the Christmas present!)

Makes 1 large loaf (8 cup pan)

A good knife is essential - thanks Felicity and Damo!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (85g) mixed kibbled grains (mix of kibbled wheat, kibbled rye and red and/or purple wheat – I found these at the local organics shop)

3 tsp Surebake yeast (the stuff with bread improver in it)

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp lecithin granules (optional)

1 cup (140g) wholemeal flour

2 1/2 (350g) cups high grade flour

Prepare the kibble mix by placing in a small pot with 2-3 cups cold water.  Bring to the boil, then simmer for 1-2 minutes.  Drain well in a sieve.

In a large bowl mix the prepared kibbled grains with 1 1/4 cup warm water.  Add all the remaining ingredients except the high-grade flour.  Mix thoroughly, cover and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place.

Stir in the high-grade flour, adding a little extra water or flour if necessary, to make a dough just firm enough to knead.  Knead with the dough hook of an electric mixer or by hand on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes, adding extra flour if necessary, until the dough forms a soft ball that springs back when gently pressed (I always seem to need about half a cup of extra flour to get it to the right consistency).

Turn dough in 2-3 teaspoons of oil in the cleaned dry bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm draught-free place for 30 minutes.

Lightly knead the oiled dough in the bowl for 1 minute.  Pat the dough into a square shape a little longer than the baking pan, then roll into a cylinder.  Put into the sprayed or buttered bread pan, pressing it into the corners and levelling the top.

Leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for about 1 hour or until double its original size.  If desired, brush with milk or egg glaze and sprinkle with extra kibbled grains, then bake at 200C for about 30 minutes until the sides and bottom are browned and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath.

Breadmaker version:
You can also make this recipe in the breadmaker - put all ingredients into a 750g capacity bread machine in the order specified by the manufacturer.  Set to the Normal/White bread cycle, Medium crust and Start.  This is a good timer bread.

Day Two - so far, so good.

I've fielded a lot of questions in the last few days about 'the rules' of the challenge.  For instance, is it acceptable to ask friends to go into the supermarket for me while I wait outside for my delivery of chips and coke?  What defines a 'supermarket'?  Will we be buying everything from the dairy and paying five times the price?

The Rules

1. A supermarket shall be defined as any shop where you can buy pretty much anything you need within four walls, with the exception of organics stores.  Dairies are allowed, but Four Square and anything bigger are not.
2. Getting other people to shop at the supermarket on my behalf is definitely cheating.
3. I guess we could buy everything at the petrol station or dairy if we really wanted to, but that's not really the point of the exercise.  So before we buy anything this month, we will try to think "do we really need this?"  "Can we make/grow it ourselves?"  When we do need to buy, we'll shop as much as possible from the Farmer's Market, then for other things we will buy from local producers/small retailers (eg. neighbourhood fruit and vege shop, butcher) and from Taste Nature, the local organics shop.
4. We've tried not to stock up on supermarket food, but we did buy a few things last week.  We'll be making all of our bread, pasta and baking, so we bought 5kg each of plain, high grade and wholemeal flour so we didn't go totally broke.  Organic flour is expensive!
5. Buying fish and chips for dinner every night for a month is not in the spirit of the challenge, and is therefore not permitted.

Zucchini for trade!

One of our secret weapons this month will be trading.  I made my first ever batch of jam a week ago, and so now have 13 jars of apricot jam, available to discerning traders who have their own homemade goods to trade.  Alternatively, we also have a plentiful supply of zucchinis/marrows available for trading...  

I really enjoyed making jam - it's easy and quite a magical process.  It's a great time of year to make jam, as there's heaps of seasonal stone fruit and berries around at the Farmer's Market.  The recipe I used is from Stephanie Alexander's book The Cook's Companion and is very tasty.

Apricot Jam

1.5kg apricots, firm-ripe rather than soft (there are lots of cheap jam apricots at the Farmer's Market at the moment)

1 cup water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1.5kg sugar

I doubled this recipe and made 13 average sized jars.  Don't do more than double or apparently it won't work as well.

Sterilize jars and lids - I found jars and lids at an op shop and sterilised them by washing in soapy water, rinsing, then putting in the oven on 160C while I was making the jam. Boil metal lids in a saucepan of water.  Fill the jars while they are fresh out of the oven so that they seal properly.

Preheat oven to 160C.

Wash apricots, then halve or quarter and remove stones.

Put fruit, water and lemon juice into a non-reactive saucepan and bring slowly to a boil.  Simmer until fruit is tender, about 20 minutes, or longer if you prefer your jam not too chunky.  Meanwhile, put sugar into a clean cast-iron casserole or baking dish and warm it to hand-hot in the oven.  Add warmed sugar to pan, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then boil rapidly for about 15 minutes or until setting stage is reached (put a tablespoonful on a cold saucer and chill for a couple of minutes.  Run your finger through the middle of the mixture - if it seperates into two distinct halves, setting stage has been reached).  Ladle into hot, sterilised jars and seal.