There's a mouse in the spinach!

Yes indeed, and it's cooked spinach to boot! This morning we were trying to practice some daylight saving and put the chicken pie together early (all ingredients were ready and waiting) when the King of Avalon opened the pressure cooker just to find a tiny brown field mouse (the size of a dwarf hamster) staring at him! I'm afraid no photo was taken as we were all equally bewildered. I had lightly cooked the spinach (chard) yesterday and had left it on the stove overnight with the pressure cooker's lid on but not locked, as it was cold and wouldn't spoil. Sadly, our mouse friend and the spinach are no longer.

But here's that recipe, it's really nice:

The Blue Plumbago CHICKEN PIE

Filling:

1 Bunch (200g) cooked spinach (chard)

1 Deboned cooked chicken (we smoke ours)

1 Bunch spring onion

1 Punnet (250g) mushrooms sliced and cooked

100g Feta

Thin white sauce (Belchemel) seasoned with salt, freshly ground black pepper and thyme to wet everything through and bind it together:

250ml milk

40ml butter

40ml flour

Mix together and press into a pyrex dish

Pre-heat Oven to 200 degrees Celcius

Pastry:

Sift together dry ingredients:

½ cup (125ml) flour

4 teaspoons (20ml) baking powder

Pinch of salt

Combine wet ingredients:

4 tablespoons (50ml) oil

1 cup (250ml) milk

2 eggs

Combine dry with wet. If it’s lumpy liquidize it quickly with a hand-held “Shzjoosh”. Don’t over do it or the baking powder will lose it’s effectiveness.

SECRET: filling must be piping hot when pastry is poured over (put pyrex dish in the mic) and then it must immediately be placed in hot oven.

Cook for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. 


Sadly I can't take a pic as I've just made the filling. We'll be making a fresh pastry when we defrost it to use.

Our homemade laundry soap experiment

Three weeks ago I put my foot down and refused to pay R169 for yet another 5kg bucket of commercial laundry detergent that lasts me a month. The buckets are great (we have 3 years worth) but I suppose our soil and ground water also have stored 3 years worth of chemicals so the switch was made. I used the following recipe but doubled it:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

What you need:
1 large bar (250g) pure soap (grated)
½ cup (100g) borax (they are sold in 100g containers and stocked with the bicarb etc)
½ cup washing soda (I found a 500g container among the detergents)
26 cups of water
A large bucket with a lid (this will be your storage container)


Method:
Put the grated soap into a large pot. Add 6 cups of water and heat gently until the soap has melted. Add the borax and washing soda and stir until it is all dissolved. Remove from the heat.
In your bucket add 20 cups of hot water to your soap mixture and stir it until mixed (I used my handheld blender fondly called the Shzjoosh). Let the soap stand for 24 hrs when it will become gel like.
You can add ½ cup to each full load of laundry in a small machine and 1 cup in a large machine.

The following day we had beautiful "ice cream" according to Boniswa, my domestic helper (who has taken the recipe home). It cost R69 and lasted 3 weeks (we do six full loads per week in our Whirlpool Toploader). Our second batch produced more - at least a months worth so we might have made a mistake when mixing the first lot. The clothes wash and smell clean, there is no soapy residue (it totally dissolves). We still use very diluted fabric softner though. The first batch worked out to R3.83 per wash, the second  will be R2.88 per wash excluding softner. A definite improvement on the R7.04 a wash we have been paying!

On my wish list is "Biowashballs", they replace both detergent and softner making the washing machine's water recyle-able (my spell checker doesn't like this word no matter how I spell it!). Bottom line is the water could go to the orchard. The King of Avalon says the wording on this website makes no scientific sense but I know of people that swear it works (real life people too not just these online testimonials) and it has won a few awards! Apparently they last approximately 1000 washes (nearly 3 years in our case). I would need two balls (2 x R450) as I have a big machine which works out to a mere 90c per wash! So why is everybody not switching to Biowashballs I wonder?!

Banana Chutney

I discovered that the bananas at the local general dealer were selling for under R5 per kilo, so bought two kilos and made banana chutney. It's delicious with curries!!! I'm puzzled though as when I did an internet search I couldn't find that bananas are in season? These were mostly small and some were not firm which made me think that they must be "local"? I did find this blog though that was some food for thought... It concerns sustainability and fairtrade regarding bananas - thought it to be educational.

Anyway, here is the Banana Chutney Recipe (courtesy of my friend Dawn):
1kg Peeled bananas, sliced
2 Green peppers, finely chopped (if you have an aversion, leave them out but just so that you know - you can't even taste them in the final concoction)
2 Onions, finely chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped
250g Sultanas
10ml (2t) Salt
1ml Pepper
10 ml Medium curry powder
5ml (1t) Turmeric
1 ml Thyme
1ml Ground cloves
750ml Vinegar (I use white)
500g Sugar

Combine all ingredients in a pot and simmer for 1 hour.

I doubled the recipe and added 2cm of freshly grated ginger this time. I also cooked my mix for longer than an hour to try and reduce the fluid. It didn't really work as quick as I wanted it to, so as I was making curry in a separate pot I ladled 3 soup spoons full of the fluid into the curry to help get the chutney to a thicker consistency. This did the trick, we filled 6 bottles ;-) Enjoy!

We're stranded!

We're sort of stranded today as all the rivers have come down in flood destroying the roads.

Even my seedlings are drowning!

The King of Avalon used my car (an old 4x4) to get out using the "back road" as there's no way his cheeky little bakkie would do it. We were just discussing trading in my Old Faithful as she's so heavy on fuel. We worked out that if he bought a new diesel panel van (of questionable Indian descent) and I kept his little bakkie as a run-around we could save 2 grand per month. We were so excited, but it seems we can't do without Old Faithful (unless we're reasonably self-sufficient!?)!

Being stranded makes one realise how reliant one is on the shops. I really need to add "stock piling" to my list of goals for self-sufficiency! At least I could bake bread :-) This is a no-fail recipe that I know off by heart and is good for folk that are dairy and egg intolerant. Remember baking is a science, whereas cooking is an art so be as accurate as possible and tweek very carefully :-)

SEED LOAF


For one dumpy loaf you need:
2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons cooking oil (sunflower or olive)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons brown sugar
500 grams brown bread flour
1 tablespoon of linseed
1 tablespoon of sunflower seed
1 tablespoon of poppy seed
1 tablespoon of sesame seed
1 tablespoon of pumpkin seed (I love these and add a little extra)
or whatever seed takes your fancy!
2 teaspoons instant yeast powder (half a 10 gram sachet)

If making in a bread machine add ingredients in the above order. Select the "Basic" setting, 1kg loaf and dark crust.

This is a moist dough that doesn't need kneading and is thus easy to make by hand too. You simply need a large mixing bowl and wooden spoon for all the dry ingredients and a jug for the wet (water & oil). Combine the dry ingredients and then make a hollow in the middle and pour in the wet. Mix well. Make sure that the water is warm (as in a baby-bath-warm) and not hot (as in will-burn-your-fingers-if-inserted-hot) or cold as this will determine whether your bread will rise or not.
Spoon the batter into a greased dumpy loaf tin (it should be about half full) and place into a plastic shopping bag that you tie to create a warm environment for the bread to rise quickly (yes, there are still uses for plastic shopping bags!). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Rising should take about an hour in warm weather (don't let it rise & spill over the edges or stick to the bag). Once risen place in the hot oven (take care not to knock the loaf tin or bang the oven door as this will make the bread lose air & fall flat). Bake for 1 hour. Let the loaf slightly cool before removing from the tin and placing on a wire rack to continue cooling before cutting.

Enjoy!

World Environment Day

So on World Environment Day (Saturday) we restored some order to the the old veggie patch and drove into town to buy a few seedlings and packets of seeds. It's the start of winter on this side of the hemisphere so mindful of that I had to choose seed carefully. It wasn't too hard as our local hardware store hardly had any seed, I only managed to get some spring onion, "bright lights" chard/spinach and red cabbage (I chose the interesting stuff as we generally get the ordinary stuff as seedlings). At the little seedling place I had quite a bit of joy: all the brassicas I could hope for (except cauliflower). By the way, "brassicas" is a new word I've added to my vocab recently - it even has me waking up with it swirling round and round my head in the mornings! It's all the leafy veg like cabbage, broccoli & spinach. Also got some onions, lettuce (the boring kind) & beetroot. The most exciting find was a little tray of leggy eggplants (brinjals)! I figure that if they have sprouted now they should grow with some care! I love brinjals, they form the base of many of my vegetarian dishes (especially Veggie Lasagne & Curry).

My gardener dug up the old strawberry patch as the plants were old. I carefully selected young healthy plants and put them into pots for the time being. I'm hoping to eventually get some into hanging baskets on our north facing verandah so that I can keep an eye on the birds!

Last year my thyme (planted in the veggie patch) died back in the winter so I've put a new plant that I bought at the foot of the potted perennial basil where it's a little sheltered and also added some of the oregano that is a happy ground cover in the veggie patch. I love thyme, I think it complements egg & chicken dishes very well and there is no substitute for fresh herbs.

I cut back the two huge perennial basil bushes that had made the bees very happy with all their flowers in Autumn when not much else was flowering. Yes, basil is our favourite herb though the annual is nicer as the leaves aren't hairy like the perennial. I manually shredded a bucket full of the soft cuttings and made a "basil tea" by adding boiling water until it was well covered and left it to steep. Two days later I strained it. It forms the base of at least two organic pesticides that I know of.

Here are the recipes:

BASIC BASIL SPRAY MIXTURE (for aphids, black fly, scale & ants):

1 Bucket basil tea

Half a cup Sunlight soap powder or grated Sunlight soap bar

Mix well and pour into a spritz bottle. Only use when necessary (not as a preventative) and preferably in the early evening once the bees and ladybirds have flown home.

BASIL FUNGICIDE (effective against fungus, mildew, scale and ants):

2 Litres basil tea

Half a cup of vinegar

One quarter cup of cooking oil (omit for pouring down ant holes)

Mix well and pour into a spritz bottle.

I also cut back the capsicum bushes. I have 3 that have born a prolific amount of fruit for the second season irrespective of gross neglect. They are similar in appearance and taste to "peppadews" though possibly a little hotter. I harvested a fair amount to once again preserve.