A new purchase!

We got a very expensive but very exciting mixing machine the other day. We also got most of the attachments to go with it - a pasta maker, sieve (for my jams and sauces), mincer/sausage maker and ice cream maker. My husband pointed out that it was a 'passion purchase' rather than a financial decision, and although with our home made food we'll probably never get our money back, we've certainly had entertainment value and lovely food from it so far.
I made amazing meringes and managed to do the washing up at the same time (becuase the mixer does it all for me!) I never made them before becuase standing there with the hand-held mixer was so BORING. I also made the most fabulous, authentic French bread (and now I know, having just returned from a French bread making course in Paris!) and today we made minced meat to make a rabbit terrine. I've made lots of ice cream using it as a mixer and next door's machine to freeze it, as our ice cream attachment hasn't arrived yet. The vanilla ice cream is soooo good.
 
Our chickens, after going broody while we were away, are finally all laying agian and our garden's going really well. We're harvesting red onions, spring onions, spinach and silverbeet, lots of herbs and cauliflowers.
On the way are about a zillion potatoes, broad beans and peas. Newly planted are tomatoes, corn, zucchini, borlotti beans (which you can dry), melons, and capsicums. This is our first year planting melons and capsicums, so I'm interested to see how they go.
Our fruit trees, brambles and vines are also looking good for the first time. We planted them all 2-3 years ago and look like we'll get a few apricots, lots of blueberries, heaps of apples, bunches of grapes and some raspberries. Our local fruit farm has also announced that strawberries and tayberries are ready and we're ready to go and pick them as soon as it stops raining!!!
As for France, blame that for my lack of posts lately. I ate a lot and fortunately walked a lot too so I didn't come back obsese as I thought I would. I did a great bread and croissant making course, ate the best bread (that I made) that I have EVER had, lots of fabulous french food, and have been cooking a lot more French stuff since coming home. It's so fatty though, so it will need to be a fad, not a new lifestyle. To counteract this, I'm going to go through my dessert recipes and throw out all the really fatty ones, as I have some great healthier ones these days and want to stick to those.
The 'baby' is growing up fast, he loves watering the path (not the plants), and brings his trucks out and loads them up with dirt and weeds while I work in the garden. He has no interest in cooking (sigh) but happily licks the bowls and eats leftovers or ingredients as I go, or just goes into a corner and plays with cars and leaves me to it. He's very independent these days, which allows me more time to do my own thing. He loves the chickens and is often found standing at the chicken coop saying 'hello chickens, how are you today?' or 'hello chickens, what are you doing?' very cute.
That's all from me, off to bed, it's a hard life being a housewife :)
If anyone wants those healthy dessert recipes, let me know
x

Newbie Chicken, dolls houses and mini vegies

Well, it's happened. Our Newbie chicken, the add-on who was always a bit of an outcast, got very sick and we asked our next door neighbour, who was more experienced than us, to help us to 'dispatch' her.  The dispatchment didn't go according to plan, but I watched the whole thing and to me she didn't seem distressed or in pain and I know overall it was the best thing to do. My husband ended up doing the deed and although he was nervous, he said afterwards that he could do it again. We feel like true farmers now; we can do even the harshest of jobs!

We have had a few people talk about keeping ducks and telling us how great they are - they're good for eggs and meat, etc but personally, I couldn't kill a duck. Don't ask me why, maybe becuase I've seen them in the whild more often, and fed them as a child, etc. Chickens seem more domestic to me, and - I hate to say it - not as cute as ducks. So I'll stick to my chickens, thanks!

We won't replace Newbie. I'm happy with my three, and they have laid twice as many eggs since Newbie has gone!

I've been having fun making craft stuff - this is very out of character for me, I am not creative or crafty at all and see it as a very daggy passtime. But it's good for kids, and the pre-school programs have some crafts that my son has enjoyed (well, I make them, he enjoys playing with them). He enjoyed playing with a dolls house the other day, so I decided to make one for him. It was very quick and easy, took about 1/2 an hour, cost me nothing, and has been hours of entertainment for him. Luckily, when kids are 2 they have no expectations about neatness or authenticity - if I give him a small tupperware container and call it a bath, and he immediately puts the little people in it and gives them a wash. He spent at least an hour opening and closing the windows and making all the people and furniture go out the window, then back in the window. I used a nappy box to make the house and furniture, a container for the 'bath' and an old cloth nappy for the carpet. I'll add a picture in a minute so you can have a laugh at my creation.

There's the bath in the back left corner, a bed with a blanket in the front left, a dining table and chairs on the right, and the people are little duplo people that I had when I was little. I'll add more chairs, some pictures and other decorations later - he seems happy with it for now.

We've also been harvesting lots of vegies from our garden. We have eaten our way through about 30 leeks, some beautiful cauliflowers, some early red onions (they taste fine half-grown and I haven't found a recipe that uses a whole red onion yet so the small ones are perfect) some carrots, silverbeet, and herbs. We've just planted some potatoes, hoping they don't get frostbitten, and broad beans. We're going away in September so I'm trying to get some things planted now, and will have to wait until we get back to do the rest. Getting someone to look after vegie seedlings isn't as rewarding as looking after the chickens - who will reward them with eggs!

I've got a big pot of tomato sauce boiling away on the stove and I can just smell it now. We had left-over tomatoes at the end of summer, which we froze. Now we've run out of sauce, I'm making a new batch that we can eat with our home-grown, home-made potato chips in a few months. Yum!

I've also got a photo of some baby vegetables - sometimes our broccoli and cauliflower come out pretty small. The broccoli will grow heaps of side-shoots that will produce far more than the original head, but the cauliflower is just plain tiny! At least the ckickens enjoyed eating all the outer leaves. I'll show a photo here - don't they say baby vegies are packed full of vitamins!? That's what I'll tell myself as I eat my mini ones!

That's all for now, I'm off to inhale more of that tomato sauce. You have to strain it to get the right consistency and I'll add all the left-over chunky bits to some mince and make hamburgers tomorrow. Last time I did that with left-over stock vegetables they were the best burgers we'd ever had :)
x

Making my own food

It's back to work now and I'm finding it harder to get things done somehow - winter makes getting out of bed so much harder! But staying home part-time in winter is so much nicer, I get to be outside during the day and at least see the sky, if not the sun. Having to go to and from work in the dark is in the past these days and I love it :)
I've got some lovely warm clothes and a good raincoat, and so does my son, so we just go outside in the wind, cold or rain, and enjoy it. When you have the right gear and you're not frozen when you're outside, it's actually quite nice!
I've been making lots of my own food these days. I made a committment to a 1 million Women website that I would cut down on packaged foods. It was somehting I was doing anyway, but I'm really noticing the difference when I go to the supermarket and my trolley doesn't have much in it any more. I'm also noticing that I spend more time in the kitchen, but as long as I'm playing music or have someone to talk to, I enjoy it. I'm really proud of the things I make myself and I'm much more likely to eat it, share it and make the most of it when I know how much effort went into it! I'm also learning lots of new skills, saving money, being environmentally friendly, and learning to be patient.

The things I make or grow that I used to buy include:
Breakfast cereal
Bread (normal, flavoured and fruit loaves)
Pizza bases
Naan bread
Pitta bread
Jam
Pesto
Relish
Soft Cheeses
Yoghurt
Sour cream
Vegetables
Herbs
Salad leaves
Fruit (berries mainly, but we've planted apples and apricots)
Herbal tea
Pasta sauce
Tomato sauce
Barbeque sauce
Bean shoots
Deoderant
Cleanser
Soap
Washing liquid
Sponges

I'm also buying things like sugar and flour in bulk, using dried beans and lentils instead of canned ones, and using leaf tea instead of teabags (it's better quality and cheaper!)

I want what I'm doing to be sustainable, so I'm not taking on more than I can manage - I've said no to extra work becuase to work an extra day a week would mean that I couldn't keep up with my home-made lifestyle. I prefer being home anyway. If something is too boring, too messy or takes too much time, I don't do it again. I'm also not making anything that's worse quality than the shop alternative. Most of it is waaaay better, which is why I'm happy to put in the extra effort. I'm finding that the few times I've bought a packet of supermarket pasta, or a can of baked beans (which I used to love!) they taste really fake now. I'm used to having such lovely food, I don't like the high-preservative, lower-quality food any more. Like my husband, I'm getting to the point where I can't go back and will just have to keep cooking!

I've also started digging up the nature strip in front of our house to plant more vegies (our neighbours' idea, we're doing it together) which will mean even more home-grown food! I've also convinced three people to make thier own yoghurt after they tasted mine - not bad huh! I need shares in Ezi-Yo now (although I'm not using their sachets any more, my neighbour taught me a yummier way!)

PS Newbie, the new chicken, is not happy. I think she's depressed. I'll never get a lone chicken again, poor girl! The others have finally started laying, we get about 1 egg a day. Still cold and dark for them.

Happy cooking, gardening, sewing/knitting, or just reading this and relaxing, thinking I'm mad for doing it
x

Holidays!!!

After a record long first term, the holidays are finally here. While parents around Tasmania are tearing their hair out, school staff such as myself are rejoicing - free time! Holidays! Yes, my child is at home with me, but being with him is fun and he still has a day sleep :)
So... I finally got around to taking some photos of my latest works:

These are trousers for Anders - made from my mum's old skirt. I was so sure I'd fail, I didn't want to waste money on new material. He's worn them once and EVERYONE commented on how great they were - having no idea that I made them (of course I proudly told them all, whether they cared or not!) I was surprised at how easy they were to make, and how persistant I can be - I stuffed up the waistband, had to unpick the whole thing (and I'd stupidly used 1mm stitches thinking it'd be really strong - almost impossible to unpick). I nearly gave up then, and there are some holes in the material where I unpicked the trousers not the stitching, but they were ultimately fixed and finished. I'm definitely not buying trousers for him for a while when they're so easy to make!

This is my giant cushion - I just loved them in the shops and wanted one, but two other upsides are that it helps relatives of mine who can't easily get up from our very deep, soft couch and it's sooooo comfortable to lie on and watch telly when I'm too tired to do anything else :) 

I have a lot of pregnant friends and decided to try to make bibs - I never had enough, even though I had at least 20. I only had to buy terry toweling for the back-sides (so they absorb spew and dribble) and the front sides were from bits of material I had lying around from previous abandonned projects. I've made 15 and have another 1 or 2 to go, and again I was surprised at how easy they were. Maybe they'll fall apart in the first wash or actively repeal spew, who knows, hopefully the recipients will be too polite to tell me if they do!

More bibs, and a little bunny I knitted with leftover wool from Anders' jumper. I'm going to try to make a bunny for each baby too as they're little and cute, easy to make, and safe for babies.

The patterns and instructions for everything I've done I've found on the internet - usually on people's blogs. I'm not good at research and I don't spend much time on the computer, yet I've found all these simple, reliable, free projects with very little effort on my part. Yay for the internet!

Botched Jobs:

I've stuffed up pretty much everything I've made so far.

- My soap has rusty marks from where I dried it on metal racks - next time I'll use plastic ones.

- Anders' knitted jumper was too short - I should have measured it but I didn't. It took me two nights and a lot of guts to pull the bottoms apart and knit some additional rows.

- The trousers were too long, Again, I measured them against other trousers of his but should have put them on him. I'll have to take the hems up before he wears them again.

- My cusion was over-stuffed and felt like a brick. I had to unpick the inside pillow section, take some stuffing out and sew it again. 

- the toy astronaught I made Anders was really cute but I forgot to pull out the arms when I turned it inside out (photos next time) so the arms don't have any stuffing in them. The eyes are also a bit wonky, but I figure he's an alien - they can be however we imagine them to be.

I have started so many new things and done each one of them once. Of course the first attempt at most things isn't going to be perfect, and it's been really frustrating at times, but I keep telling myself that I'll know how to do it better next time (and I will) and I've really surprised myself at how patient I've been and how willing I am to problem-solve and fix something when - if it was something I'd bought that didn't work - I would have just thrown it away.

I've also been busy in the garden but I'll save that for next time! :)
Happy holdiays everyone who has them :) x

Photos of a housewife's work



Yes, he is holding a dust-buster, helping with the housework already!



Hmm, I haven't managed to work out how to get the photos and writing in any sort of order so... Here's my son's debut as a knitwear model. I think he's done quiet well, although there are plenty of other photos of him scoffing the biscuit that he's got in his hand here that weren't so photogenic. I painskakingly knitted this jumper, had to re-do the front 3 times becuase I kept chatting or getting engrossed in something else and made mistakes, and yet at the end of it, after saying 'never again' during the whole process, I decided I wanted to make another! I'll do it next winter.

The jumper is a bit short on him, so I'm going to try to stretch it somehow. Anyone got any ideas?

This is the quince paste I made - a huge batch that will hopefully last until the next quinces come into season in 12 months time. I haven't go the hang of making it properly - some of it was not cooked enough, this batch was proabably over-cooked, but the only difference is the colour. It tastes amazing, is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying it ($5 worth of quinces and some sugar is a year's worth of qunice paste) and it gives me an excuse to buy cheese...

My son again, this time modelling the home-made playdough tomliboos (from a TV show similar to Tellie Tubbies, don't ask) I made this beautiful playdough with orange escence accidentally, thinking it was yellow food colouring. So now it smells great too! He doesn't look very impressed with my Tomliboo-making skills, but I had to make them for 90 minutes, while he squashed every one of them and then asked for another. This was a rare moment when I had three un-squashed ones together :)

I'm now tyring to sew. I have my Gran's beautiful 70's brown sewing machine with immaculate case lined with bright yellow daisy wallpaper. It's very simple, which is good as I just randomly pick a setting and hope it works. I've made a huge cushion (I always wanted one and they're over $150 in the shops, I can just imagine my husband saying 'you spent WHAT!? on a CUSION!!!???') this one cost me $10 at the Salvos, buying old cusions to use for the stuffing. I'll take a photo of it for next time. I'm also making bibs as 7 of my friends are pregnant, 6 of them with second children. I discovered you can never have too many bibs, and they're too gross to re-use after one child has spewed on them consistently. So I'll see how I go. I have made 3 so far and they're not perfect but hey, I'm learning, and they're only going to get spewed and dribbled on, I think they'll do the job just fine!

The chickens are going well, still not laying but they're happy and it's nice looking out the window and seeing them there. They're also helping us to plough through the hundreds of self-sewn silverbeet plants (phew!)

Off to bed now, what an exciting life!

x

and then there were 4...

Newbie, our fourth chicken, has finally been accepted by the brood. I suspect she won a few fights to get there, but I'm so happy that they're all getting along. She was completely ostracised for about a month and I even had to put her on the perch to roost at night as the other girls wouldn't let her on. But somehow, one day, she went from outcast to best buddy, just like that!

One of the chickens is lame now though, hobbling around. It's happened before and I reckon she'll get better, but she may be chicken stew if she doesn't recover. None of the chickens are laying now becuase the days are too short, but at least they're also not eating much. The food scraps from our next door neighbour and ourselves seem to be enough as I haven't topped up their pellet food for ages, and they used to go through it in about a week.

I'm also knitting my son a jumper - he's nearly 2 and will still wear whatever I tell him to (except shoes, he's very particular about those and prefers mine). Like most new things, I got it a bit wrong, spent 7 hours untangling the massive ball of wool I'd bought and decided I didn't need to untangle before starting, and I've knitted the front of the jumper 3 times (thank god he's small, an adult jumper I would have thrown away in a tantrum by now) I'm now doing the hood and it's nearly done! There will be photos, and he WILL wear it every day during winter to make it worth my while :)

My husband and I have also made a toy kitchen out of a very large cardboard box, with other boxes inside and bells and whistles which make an oven, cupboard, sink and tap. I have some old CD's which will be the stove's hotplates and I think it looks really good! We've used nearly evey cardboard box in the house (and I'd saved dozens) and lots of egg cartons to pad the inside and make it strong. I'll put a photo of it on here too when it's done. I wanted a toy kitchen for my son and a nice one costs $400, this one is made of only what we have in the house so it's free!

Have to go to they gym now, will definitely post pictures next time
x mum to 5 now (4 chicks, one boy)
PS happy easter and enjoy the wedding if you're into that

chicken troubles

By popular demand (!) I'm writing another blog update. I forget this is here, mainly because I don't have my own computer. Anyways, the chickens have FLEAS! I noticed little critters on an egg recently, then on their water bowl, then when we looked closely, on the chickens too. My husband had agreed to do all the 'vetinary' jobs with our girls, so he cleaned out their house (which we'd planned to do at easter anyway), sprayed everything with anti-flea mixture (from pet shop) and powdered the ckickens with anti-flea stuff too. So far, so good, although we may need to do the chickens again as the fleas may have laid eggs on them. Despite feeling itchy every time I think about it, the fleas didn't spread to us (thank god) and apprently they don't bother the chickens too much either.

One of our hens has also stopped laying. We got our next door neighbour to check her out, as they've had chickens before and know a lot more than we do. She commented that the pale comb (the red bit on top of their head) indicates that the chicken isn't laying, but doesn't mean they're sick. We had been worried, so that was good to know. I've aslo noticed broken eggshell where the chickens lay their eggs, so I'm hoping they haven't started tasting their own wares!

All in all, although this stuff is annoying, we're still enjoying our lovely eggs, albeit less of them, and we're thinking of getting another chicken as we have the room and we just have so many requests for eggs!

Our vegies are also going really well - I've never grown leeks before but I have about 30 in the garden, an impulse buy, and they're ready and yummy. We're processing the last of our tomatoes and just freezing them to use in soups, casseroles, whatever over winter. We have soooo much preserved food from our efforts over summer which is great - I open the fridge and have so many choices for what to put in a sandwich, what sauce to use on my dinner, which fruit to put on my pancakes, it's great! The down-side is that with more choice often comes 'well, I'll just have one of each' and two people have asked me if I'm pregnant lately!!!! I'll have to get used to this new surplus - the food isn't going anywhere so I can always have it tomorrow.

I'm not cooking for the op-shop or CWA any more as I've started working 2 days a week. I was also getting a bit bored with making biscuits, although new recipes always kept me going. I think it may have contributed to the preggie look so there are no more left-over biscuits in this house, and no tempting bowls to lick! 

I've also started knitting again. I'd made lots of fruit and vegies for my son, who thinks they're balls or frisbees and throws them around, but now winter's coming up I've realised he doesn't have many clothes, I don't like the ones in the shops, and I've probably honed my skills enough knitting food that I can try a jumper. There are so many great patterns on the net (a lot nicer than in the booklets you buy in knitting shops) so I've downloaded two patterns and I'm having a go.

Next time I'll try to upload some photos of the knitting  - if it goes well!
Happy easter everyone x

Preserving

Here's a photo of my first attempt with the Fowlers Vacola, preserving a mix of berries, cherries and some apple. We've been eating it on pancakes with yoghurt and it's great!

We've only been getting one or two eggs a day - our next door neighbour says that when the weather changes (it's rained a lot lately) they will stop laying. I actually had to buy some eggs today! :(
I want to include more photos, but it's too slow on this computer, and I don't have much patience.

My latest projects include: knitting food for my baby. I don't want to buy plastic toy food for him, but I'd like him to play with cooking and serving food, so I've knitted some celery, lettuce, tomato and eggs so far. I'm going to try to knit everything in our vegie garden and maybe a sandwich that he can put together. I'm just using scraps of wool from people I know and op shops so it's really cheap. I'm not a good knitter (he won't know or care if it's not perfect, real vegies are all imperfect anyway!) and I'm having trouble understanding the knitting patterns I'm getting for free off the internet, becuase it's in 'knitting language' that I barely know, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm hoping that if I can increase my skills, maybe I'll knit some clothes one day.

My vinegar attempts have been pretty pathetic, I've grown some amazing pink mould that looks kind of rubbery. I've thrown 3 lots away and am trying white wine vinegar now with some leftovers. I haven't looked at it lately but I think it's OK so far. At least none of these had any set-up costs and the only time comittment was pouring liquid in the jar and throwing it out a few weeks later.

I've also made more jam, relish and tomato sauce. So far it's wonderful - my husband loves it more than I do, but I don't think we'll be buying tomato sauce again for a while, ours is much better! I was really skeptical about that, I have my favourite brand of tomato sauce and thought I'd hate the home-made stuff, but I was wrong - just as well, we have nearly a litre of it!

We've also started swapping things with our neighbours - it was actually their idea. They also grow vegies and we've been giving them eggs and garden stakes (from trees we've cut back) and we've received potatoes and rhubarb in return. I've been asked to bake a cake, which I love, as there aren't enough cake-lovers in my family to eat all that I make, and we've been promised zucchinis. It's nice that we all get a bit more variety without having to go and buy it - just pass it over the fence instead! We also get lemons and mandarins from the other next-door neighbour and have given home-made biscuits and eggs in return. We've been giving away garlic as we grew way too much, and my dad gives us his excess potatoes and pumpkins.

One of my friends has started vegie gardening too, after buying her first home. It's exciting to see someone else embarking on this for the first time. She has some leeks from me, and lots of other things to start out with. She also has a young child so there's another new-generation vegie gardener in the making!

I'm hoping for less rain and more eggs tomorrow...