365 Days of Food

Migratory Chickens

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment
The chickens migrated to the vegetable garden today.

The chickens migrated to the vegetable garden today.

My chickens are migratory; they have a summer home and a winter home. In summer they have a dedicated paddock—an otherwise useless little corner of the yard under some birch trees. Their winter home is the vegetable garden. I fence off a quarter of the space for my winter crops, and let the chooks take care of the rest.

I used to struggle with waist-high weeds in the garden each spring, injuring my back or my arms almost every year just trying to prepare the garden for planting. But since I started employing the chickens in the garden over winter, spring planting has become a breeze.

Well, OK, not a breeze. It’s still a ton of work, but I can do it without injury.

The chickens eat weeds and pests alike, keeping both under control all winter. There are weeds they won’t eat, of course, but as long as I swing through the garden once or twice over the winter to root out the biggest ones, I arrive at spring with minimal weeds or pests to get rid of.

And the icing on the cake is that the chooks love the garden. Egg production often slows down in the autumn, but it shoots right up again when the birds are let loose among the leftover vegetables. Everybody wins!

Catching dinner when we can

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Tomorrow is Anzac Day, and the stores will be closed.

This caused us some confusion today, because we all get Monday off, as Anzac Day has been “Mondayised”, so we assumed that stores would be closed only on Monday. We had planned to pick up the remaining materials for our big shed project tomorrow morning, so we could work on it over the long weekend.

Thankfully, Ian picked up the rental trailer this afternoon, so when, at 5.15 pm he realised he couldn’t pick up building materials in the morning, he was able to make the trek to town with the trailer before the store closed.

Meanwhile, I was doing my usual Friday afternoon routine, running our daughter to clarinet lessons, then two different band rehearsals.

All of us missed dinner. My daughter and I ate cheese sandwiches and carrots in the back of the car, and Ian and our son grabbed some crackers, and made egg sandwiches when they got home just before 8 pm. They were still eating when my daughter and I got home.

I know for some families, that’s a normal day, but we do our best to eat a proper dinner, together as a family every day. It’s unusual to have such a crazy un-meal, and it always makes the day seem incomplete, not to have that time all together as a family.

It’s good to have these days, though. They remind me of how blessed we are to be able to sit down together almost every day to share a meal and each other’s company.

Autumn

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

DSC_0009 copyAutumn

Is a yearning

Wreathed in smoke,

Struck through

With the amber rays

Of a westering sun.

 

Autumn

Is a farewell,

The caress

Of soft wind,

A sigh

Of leaves.

 

Autumn

Is anticipation:

Wood shed full

Of logs

Awaiting the fire,

Windows

Waiting to be closed,

Tomatoes

Awaiting their first

And final

Trimming of frost.

Surprises

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

DSC_0003 copyWe have been eating jalapeños from the garden for months now. I’ve pickled tons of them, we’ve had them on burgers, in pasta sauce, in burritos…so the other day, as I was slicing one for on pizza, I popped a generous slice in my mouth, expecting the mild heat of all the others we’ve eaten.

Boy, was I in for a surprise! I may as well have eaten a Thai hot pepper! For some reason, this jalapeño was screaming hot. My eyes began to water, I started to hiccup from the heat, all the while laughing at myself. It was half an hour before my mouth settled down to a mild tingle from the fiery pain of that pepper.

The remainder of the pepper went straight into the compost—I didn’t want any spice at all on my pizza that night! I have treated the jalapeños with more respect since then.

It’s not the first time I’ve been surprised by spice. In Peace Corps, we regularly had training events at a nearby Girl Scout camp. The camp cook always set a huge jar of homemade hot sauce on the table. The size of the jar was deceptive—served in that quantity, it couldn’t be very spicy, right? The first time, I took a large spoonful and stirred it into my beans. I wondered if I’d ever recover! A tiny bit of that hot sauce was enough to bring tears to my eyes—it was nothing but ground up habañeros. I have to wonder if the cook didn’t do it on purpose in order to laugh at all of us with smoke coming out of our ears! It was a good joke, but not a surprise I want frequently.

Luddite’s kitchen weight-loss programme

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

DSC_0016 copyI occasionally wonder if the obesity epidemic isn’t exacerbated by kitchen appliances. This thought generally accompanies either pastry making or the beating of egg whites. As I’ve mentioned before, I use an old-fashioned pastry knife to cut butter into my pastry dough, instead of a food processor. I use one of my other favourite kitchen tools, my egg beater, to whip egg whites or cream. Both activities usually involve a break to take off my sweater or roll up my sleeves. They’re a surefire way to warm up on a cool day.

All our labour-saving devices are great, but I wonder if we weren’t better off having to put more effort into our treats. Back in the day, when you had to grow the wheat, harvest it, grind it; milk the cow, make the butter; and mix everything together by hand, I expect the caloric output involved in making a cake was about equal to the intake of eating it.

Now, we can just drive our cars to the grocery store and buy as many treats as we’d like. I would easily fall into this trap, as I have a terrible sweet tooth. But many years ago, I decided that I would bring no treats into the house, unless I made them myself. And I make sure I have to work for those treats by using my hand-powered tools instead of electric appliances.

Does it help? Who knows. It can’t hurt, though, and it makes every cookie, cake, and bar special, because I had to work for it.

Nuts to you!

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DSC_0011 copyWe regularly discuss the fact that we don’t eat enough nuts. We love nuts, and they’re good for us, but we just don’t always think to use them as often as we could.

When we were given a large quantity of walnuts in their shells, I wondered if we would manage to eat them all—our damp winters can cause walnuts in the shell to mould. I spread them out on a drying screen for a few days, to make sure they were fully dry before bagging them.

But when I went to bag them, I found there were far fewer there. Because they were sitting out, we were all snacking on them throughout the day. The kids enjoyed cracking them, enjoyed the challenge of trying to extract a nut meat whole.

So instead of putting them all in the cupboard, I left a small bowl of them sitting on the table with a nut cracker. I’m finding I have to refill the bowl every couple of days.

Who would have thought it would be so easy to get us to eat more nuts? I didn’t have to work out a new nut burger recipe, or remember to throw a handful of cashews into my stir fries. All I had to do was make it easy and fun to snack on them.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

/ Robinne Weiss / 5 Comments

DSC_0006 copyPumpkins are on my mind, because they are all over the windowsills in the kitchen. How can you not eat them, when you look at them all day! We enjoyed pumpkin cranberry muffins this morning for breakfast. The recipe I use is a variation on a pumpkin spice muffin recipe from Ken Haedrich’s Home for the Holidays cookbook. His recipes, while tasty, tend to use every measuring cup and spoon in the kitchen. This is no exception, and I don’t make these muffins often enough to have simplified the recipe yet.

So pull out all your measuring cups…here’s my version of the recipe.

1 ½ c. cooked, mashed pumpkin

1 large egg

3/8 c. packed brown sugar

1/3 c. orange juice

¼ c. butter, melted

1 Tbsp molasses

1 c. all-purpose flour

¾ c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. cornmeal

2 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ c. milk

½ c. dried cranberries

Combine pumpkin, egg, sugar, orange juice, melted butter, and molasses in a bowl and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix the flours, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and stir briefly. Add the milk and continue to stir until the batter is uniform. Fold in cranberries.

Spoon into greased muffin tins (I usually get about 16 muffins, but if you like big ones, you could make 12). Bake at 210°C (400°F) for about 20 minutes. Watch carefully near the end of baking; they burn easily.

Saffron

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DSC_0005 cropSaffron is the dried stigma of the saffron crocus, a beautiful little autumn-flowering crocus. Harvested since 500 BCE, saffron has always been a luxury spice. No surprise, when it takes about 150,000 flowers to produce a kilo of saffron! We can get New Zealand grown saffron for $12.50/g (that’s about $350/oz), but we rarely buy it.

DSC_0010 copyA few years ago, we were given half a dozen saffron crocus bulbs, and these provide most of the saffron we use—enough for a couple of meals each year. The flowers bloom in April, and last only a day or two, so it’s easy to miss. The threads need to dry before storage, and then we’ll begin to plan the sunny yellow meals we will make with it.

 

Pumpkin Galette

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

squash galetteOne of our favourite ways to eat pumpkin. We enjoyed the first pumpkin galette of the year today.

Make enough pie dough for a double crust pie. Refrigerate until you’re ready to assemble the galette.

1 large or 2 medium winter squashes or pumpkins

2 med shallots

3 cloves of garlic

8 large sage leaves

2 sprigs fresh thyme

1 c. grated cheese (cheddar, edam, or whatever you like)

sunflower or pumpkin seeds for on top.

salt and pepper to taste

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place cut side down on an oiled baking sheet (a jelly roll pan works well–avoid cookie sheets, as liquid from the squash may spill off). Tuck the garlic (in its peel) into one of the squash cavities. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 30-45 minutes, until the squash is quite soft. While the squash is baking, sauté the shallots until translucent in a generous amount of olive oil. Add the herbs and sauté a little longer. Set aside until the squash is done. When the squash is soft, scoop the flesh out of the skins, and mix it with the shallots in a large bowl. Peel the garlic cloves and put them into the bowl. Stir everything together, mashing any large chunks of squash, until you have a stiff puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Roll out the pie dough into a large round (38 cm/15 inches diameter). Place rolled out dough flat on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle most of the grated cheese on the dough, then mound the squash mixture on top, leaving about 8 cm (3 in) around the edge. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and a small handful of sunflower or pumpkin seeds on top. Gently fold up the edges of the dough to partly cover the squash. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for about 30 minutes, until the crust is lightly browned.

Helpful kids

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still life with nails sm*Sigh*

Dropped a wall on my hand today, so this will be short…typing skills aren’t really up to snuff at the moment.

It’s been a busy week of DIY at our house. Everyone in the family has been involved in one way or another. The days have been long and exhausting, but it’s been great to watch the kids help out, confidently and competently, in so many ways. Not just hammering nails and measuring things. In spite of the demands of the project (in fact, because of it, most days) we still need to eat. Fortunately, the kids are old enough now, they can take care of food, letting the adults spend every possible minute building.

At lunch time, kids get out the bread, cheese, pickles and other lunch items, and call us when it’s ready.

They can also cook dinner, if we’re at a stage where we can’t stop to cook. All those frustrating times teaching them how to chop, sauté, and bake (when having them “help” meant it took twice as long to make dinner), have begun to pay off!

(Especially handy when you’ve dropped a wall on your hand.)