pickles, ferments and kitchen laments

[i] pickled beetroot (in my home-made spiced berry cider vinegar)

[ii] kimchi

[iii] sauerkraut

[iv] fermenting kombucha tea

You could say I've been busy in the kitchen lately, but honestly, when is anyone not busy in the kitchen!? Sometimes I think it would be easier if I set my bed up in there. At least then I could keep a close eye on the almonds drying in the oven overnight, or strain the milk kefir at first light! And if sleep eluded me, I could watch the water-kefir grains dancing in their effervescent infusion!!

There's always so much work to do and sometimes I wonder what on earth I was thinking to take it all on. Lucky for me though, I love fermented foods and beverages - lucky my family does too, cause nobody in their right mind would keep up this routine for ONE!!!! Of course the health benefits make it worthwhile too. And I have to admit, my kitchen often feels like a science lab and that is pretty cool!

Now before you think I'm some kind of fermenting super woman, take heart that I have not included photos of the war-zone where all this action takes place. Right this second there is a mountain of washing-up drying on the sink, a jug of apple cider (Strongbow to be exact) that's airing on the bench ready for vinegar making tomorrow, my oven is in desperate need of a good scrub and my pantry shelves haven't been wiped in, um, I have no idea how long! And I won't mention that our kitchen windows are so filthy with salt spray that we almost can't see out or that there's a pile of dirty tea towels by the back door waiting to visit the laundry. Oops. Did I just make the scene that is our kitchen even more horrific? 

Ah, such is life. Ben and I remind ourselves Every Single Day....eating well is MESSY, TIME CONSUMING AND LABOUR INTENSIVE!

But gee, it's certainly worth it!!!!

PS. My Mad Millie fermenting crock has barely had a day off since I brought it home from New Zealand! Best ever purchase...if you like kimchi (and we do, A LOT)

vinegar mother anyone?

Crazy amazing things, but beautiful too! Have you ever touched one of these living organisms? Probably not. Well....it feels slimy and gummy...and jelly-like...but firm...and?....look, it's just BIZARRE! Come on over and pat one anytime you like!

My collection of vinegar "mothers" is getting a little out of hand. I have so much ACV in my pantry right now that I've put these babies into cheap white vinegar for a holiday. I buy the dodgy inferior stuff (the kind I pour into my washing machine, NOT my stomach) to keep them in a dormant but blissed-out state, a hibernation period I suppose, until they are called for again.

I love my AVC and use it in numerous ways, but mostly I drink a small amount in water every day. The father of medicine himself, Hippocrates, thought vinegar was pretty amazing stuff. He believed it to be a powerful elixir that could fight common germs. I reckon he knew a thing or two!

If you need a 'mother' of vinegar, give me a bell and I'll hook you up. I'd even think about posting one (that's how I got mine in the first place!!!).

PS I'm dabbling in milk kefir these days too. Currently experimenting with goats milk! I'll keep you posted.

gingerbread houses

My friend Heather is pretty skilled-up in the culinary department! I can totally vouch for her fish curry, home-made ice-cream and extravagant birthday cakes. I asked Heather to show us how to make a gingerbread house from scratch and she said YES! I don't think I'll be allowed to attend the Heather B School of Fine Cookery ever again though. She gave me very explicit instructions for how to make the dough, and I managed to leave out not one, but TWO key ingredients. Uh huh. It's that time of the year folks, when my brain goes a wee bit mushy. Amazingly however, the gingerbread turned out OK. Not earth shattering, best-ever tasting gingerbread, but good enough to eat. And best of all, it was structurally sound! Who cares how it tastes anyway...'cause it's all about the engineering and exterior design! Harry and Till loved every minute and both mastered the piping bag. They each took a different approach to their design. Harry wanted to achieve a more classic look, while Till was inspired by Hansel and Gretel. I love them both!

NB. You can't tell in these photos so much, but Master Harry has Chickenpox (for the second time! Or did I imagine he had a doozy dose of this disease when he was three?). So I guess he can eat his all on his own.

lazy nutrition

If you read my interview with The Wholefood Mama, you'd know I'm quite devoted to healthy eating. In the days that followed after Nikki published the interview, I reflected on how my family was portrayed and realised I never made it clear that I don't actually *enjoy cooking. Nor did I point out that my adorable loving **husband does ninety percent of meal preparation around here!! Yeah, I tell him what's good and what isn't and he nods and says "As You Wish". Hee ha ha...actually it's not like that I swear...Ben has his finger on the pulse and his ear to the ground on good nutrition as much as I do - if not more so. 

But anyway...where was I?....Oh yeah, so about me not enjoying time in the kitchen! Maybe you clued in when I was harping on about not over thinking healthy food or perhaps alarm bells went off around the bit where I pretty much said it's OK to give your kids the same boring lunch everyday for a year (so long as it's healthy!). I still stand by what I said because yes, I AM seriously passionate about good nutrition, but the truth is, I'm sometimes hopelessly lazy about meal prep too! Ben had footy tonight so I took charge of dinner for the munchkins. To prove how lazy I am, here's what I threw together for my kids dinner tonight.

It took all of, hmmmm, maybe ten minutes to dish up this meal. Honestly, I AM NOT exaggerating!

So what's my point exactly? Well, I want to inspire you! I desperately want folks to know it's easy to feed kids well and that creativity is (at times) truly overrated! I want to shout from the rooftops that a simple healthy meal can be quick, effortless and totally lazy...a complete no-brainer!

I know everyone has off days, frantic days and just plain 'I-can't-be-bothered-days' (that was me this afternoon)...but truly, driving up the street to buy take-out would have taken longer than it did for me to chop, slice, open a jar and arrange a plate of simple foods - that my kids wolfed down without so much as blinking!!!!

Are you interested in a little plate breakdown?

OK, so on the menu tonight we had cucumber and carrot sticks, whole olives, a few slices of cheese, a wedge or two of tomato, a glop of hummus, a dollop of sauerkraut, a sprinkling of lettuce and some sliced cold left-over roast beast! 

I used what was on offer...and took into account what I know my darlings will eat (Harry loves olives...Matilda does not). Some other ideas are: a few boiled eggs, tinned tuna or salmon, and any other seasonal veg. See, it's EASY!

So, does anyone else have super lazy but seriously nutritious dinner suggestions to share?

* once in a blue moon, the cooking-up a storm mood strikes

** Ok, so HE cooks...but I do hang out in the kitchen too - a lot. Think of me as the behind-the-scenes gal...you know, the person who keeps the kefir fed, the vinegar fermenting and the nuts soaking!!!

we give thanks

Today on Norfolk Island we celebrated Thanksgiving. And to be sure, we have much to be thankful for! The church altar was embellished in a bountiful collection of freshly harvested produce, cakes, pies and breads; all of which were auctioned off in the church hall after the service. I haven't seen or tasted pumpkin for quite some time...so I paid a hefty price for that specimen. I'd like to say it was worth it, but we haven't sampled it yet. I'd already planned to make a traditional sweet potato pie to compliment our roast dinner (which incidentally, was scrumptious). I think pumpkin soup might be on the menu soon though!

[thanksgiving blessings to all]

the wholefood mama

I'm still here. And I'm working myself up for a blog post - honest. 

In the meantime, follow this link to an interview I did recently with Nikki Fisher from The Wholefood Mama. Stay a while to explore Nikki's blog, you are certain to come away inspired and informed!

pea notions

I Eat My Peas with Honey

I eat my peas with honey;

I've done it all my life.

It makes the peas taste funny,

But it keeps them on the knife.

Anonymous

Well not really. But I rather like the poem. When my friend gifted me some fresh peas from her garden I was tickled pink! I grew up eating peas from a packet and to this day we buy them from the supermarket freezer. In every movie I've ever watched involving a family reunion, the loved-ones gather around a big old worn table shelling peas and sharing stories. So consequently I've had all these romantic notions of how lovely that must be...

...well now I've shelled my own! I'm not sure it was everything I imagined. My kids weren't that keen to help and Ben was otherwise occupied with preparing the other components of our dinner. I settled myself down on the back step and set about shelling them in a nostalgic solitary kind of way...when the phone rang (for me). When I finally came back to my peas they were nowhere to be found!!!

Ben said..."oh they are already in the pot!"
And I said, "WHAT???? But I didn't get a photo of them all shelled and pretty!!!!!!!" boo, hiss
*insert husband eye roll*

Oh bliss, nostalgia and romance. Perhaps not the scene from a movie ha ha.
I guess they did taste better...they were shelled with man love after all!

Nothing quite beats the convenience of having them in the freezer though, especially when you are not in a nostalgic mood, right!?

hot chocolate

Oh the antics! 

Give 'em hot chocolate and let the good times roll...

 

Steph from this brown wren shared her hot cacao recipe with me a few months ago. It has become a family favourite - especially when served with freshly popped popcorn! How could I not pass this deliciousness on?

Steph's Hot Chocolate

[i]

in a saucepan mix a heaped teaspoon of raw cacao powder with a little water

[ii]

pop the saucepan on the heat, add a generous spoonful of honey and stir

[iii]

add 500mls of milk and heat it all up to the desired temp!

[iv]

pour into your favourite mugs and strike up a conversation!!

PS The munchkins drink cows milk, but I make this for myself with rice milk and it's tastes just as luscious.

The grains prosper - Part 1

Many people are au fait with milk kefir, but I find most have never heard of the water-based version. So, what is it? Tibicos.org explains it best:

Kefir is a hand-crafted, effervescent, cultured and enzyme-rich probiotic beverage filled with friendly microbes to help balance your inner-ecosystem.  This beverage can only be made with live Kefir Grains.  The term Kefir Grains describes the look of the culture only and can be a misnomer as they do not contain any grain such as wheat or rye.   Water Kefir Grains are cultured in a solution of sugar and water.  Water Kefir Grains can also culture in natural fruit juices containing sugar or young coconut water.  

Our family became hooked on water kefir around eighteen months ago. My sister smuggled a jar of grains into her suitcase when she flew over for a visit (nothing above the law I promise...just trying to sound dramatic). Some three or so months ago, my grains started showing signs of stress - they'd shrunk down in size considerably and appeared mushy...but worse still, the grains weren't performing as normal, our kefir wasn't culturing as well as it had previously. I knew that with proper care, water kefir grains should last indefinitely. Miffed, I wondered where had I gone wrong?

I was considering throwing our kefir grains to the chooks, but couldn't bring myself to do it; who knew how long it would be before I could source some more grains?  Instead I gave up making kefir and focused solely on saving my grains. And amazingly it worked!

With considerable intensive care my kefir grains have been nursed back to good health. They are now going gang busters!!! They are growing so rapidly I'm giving a bowl full to the chooks (who LOVE them) every few days. These revived grains are huge, happy and best of all, productive. So once again, we are enjoying delicious water kefir and benefiting from it's AMAZING health properties. If I may be so bold as to insist you follow that last link (Crunchy Betty does such a great job convincing her readers they are really missing out if they aren't experiencing water-kefir).

And just today I read this on the Cultures for Health website...

We strongly recommend against allowing the kefir grains to culture for longer than 48 hours as over time it will damage the grains by potentially starving them (particularly in warm weather when the culturing process is sped up due to the heat).   

Ah ha! Maybe over Summer I'd been unknowingly starving my grains! There were certainly times when I  ignored my culture for more than two days (yes, well...we were at the beach a lot).

learning to cook

The Wholefood Mama writes about eating real food and living well. Nikki is passionate about the relationship between food and well-being and I like what she has to say. When it comes to teaching children about healthy eating, Nikki's sensible approach resonates with me. In this blog-post a few weeks back, Nikki explained how and why she gets her young boys to help with food preparation. Nikki feels that some parents involve their children in the kitchen when the task at hand involves baking (think cakes, slice and biscuits etc) but often forget to include them when it comes to cooking meals (chopping salads, vegetables etc). Thanks to Nikki, I realised I wasn't involving Harry and Till anywhere near enough in meal preparation. I showed Nikki's blog post to Harry and Till. They were suitably impressed that Sol (age 3) and River (age 6) cooked chicken fried rice for dinner! And of course they were as keen as mustard to get cooking themselves. 

So tonight's dinner was cooked by Miss Till. On the menu: beef tortillas. She chose the recipe, wrote out a shopping list and prepared everything needed. I was there to guide her along the way but she was definitely in charge. Watching her use a sharp knife to chop onions and tomatoes was stressful (OK, I was freaking out) but she listened to my suggestions and thankfully still has all ten fingers. Watching a seven year old do things can be painfully slow and many a time I had to remind myself not to take over. Aside from preparing dinner together, the conversation between us was pure gold. I was focused on Till. I actually listened attentively for a change (instead of thinking of all the other things I could be doing) and oh...the funny things she said!...it was priceless. And Till was at every moment so delightfully proud of herself....I know because she said so, hmmmm, about a hundred times!!!!! You should have seen the look on her little face when the dish was served-up onto our plates - a moment recalled that will bring a smile to my face for days!

Every Saturday night forever (so she says)...Till is in charge of cooking dinner. Hopefully Harry picks a night too. He's eager and not to be outdone by his younger sibling, was mulling over a few ideas at the dinner table tonight. He wants to cook something involving fish! A boy after my own heart.

Let's face it, the long-term benefits of children knowing how to cook are profuse...there would hardly be a child around who refuses to eat something they themselves lovingly made! I also believe kids who cook have a better appreciation for healthy foods and will make better food choices long term. Hopefully Harry and Till will be able to plan and cook a family meal unaided in the not-so distant future, relieving mum and dad (alright, mostly dad - he does 90% of the cooking 'round here) of a task that can get a bit mundane from time to time!

Thanks for the inspiration Nikki!!

What goes around...comes around

Ben caught a very nice yellowfin tuna and some enormous sweetlip emperors last Friday - so much fresh fishy goodness, we were able to share with our neighbours. That fresh produce above is just snap shot of what we were given in return! And it happens all the time, whether we have fish to gift or not. Always enough food to go around - excess never goes to waste! I love living with peeps who share and best of all, I love that our bellies are consistently filled with food harvested right here in "our backyard".

I steamed up some chokos and served them with a sprinkling of salt and lashings of butter - they were delicious. But I'm up for some more serving suggestions if anyone has any!!