Monday, September 23, 2013

The Orchard

Recently we have had a gorgeous Swedish backpacker helping out during mustering. Before coming here she was working in a small country pub in the Great Southern grain growing region of WA, regularly chatting to farmers.  Working together in the kitchen one day, this self confessed 'city girl'  made the comment that she, "Would never complain about the price of food again after seeing the effort that goes in to producing it." She went on to say that she thinks all city people should spend some time on farms to learn a bit about where food comes from.

I was thrilled that her time here, feeding chooks and pigs, watering plants and helping mark the lambs has had such an impact on her thinking. If only we could better educate the entire population about farming and food production- what a difference it would make to today's farmers to feel valued by society, as they once were.  Unfortunately I think that until Australia is importing a vast quantity of its food and/or facing food shortages this is not to be, and I don't think I'll see that in my lifetime.

On a lighter note, it is such a fabulous time of year for a gardener! Practically everything that flowers is blooming and new growth is prolific. The scent of citrus flowers in the orchard is almost overpowering (in a good way) on a balmy evening and, in a very dry year in the bush,  the flowers are providing otherwise scarce nectar for the native bees. If you look closely you can see a bee on the flower in the photo.

The peaches are growing at a phenomenal rate. They flower in August and will be ready for picking in about late November so I guess they have to grow pretty fast. The tree is pretty loaded so I will have to grit my teeth and thin it out a bit to get good quality fruit....or we could just have lots of small ones! 

Upon visiting the orchard my father in law came up to me and whispered in my ear, "I think your husband spoils you," to which I must agree because look what, with a bit of help from the 'kids,' he built to protect the stone fruit trees from birds. This structure is made with 9 metre lengths of 50mm poly, curved over and pushed over star pickets securely hammered into the ground. It is braced with wire crosses between the pipe and has three lengths of wire running across the top, to which shade cloth is attached. The shade cloth runs the length of the tunnel and will protect the trees from the full impact of

high summer sun.

                                     With the trees growing so fast it is important to keep feeding them and I am putting the manure from the chook yard to good use. A good way to share it around is to make liquid manure using a shade cloth 'teabag' filled with manure  and suspended in a drum of water. (left) This might not be such a great idea if you live in suburbia...it gets pretty stinky!

Happily for me my Dad likes growing things
as much as I do and we often
exchange plants and seeds. Below
is a photo of some horse radish that Dad grew in a pot and I have planted in the orchard. I'm not sure how it will go in the heat here but I will cover it with some shade cloth and hope for the best. It is certainly pretty happy at the moment.











                                                                                 
                                                                                                                           

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Makin' Bacon

Firstly I must say that I am no expert at making home-cured bacon, I just follow the recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's  book, The River Cottage MEAT Book which is my 'bible' when it comes to most things meat related.

As described by Hugh, this recipe/method results in "...a pancetta-style streaky bacon-strong and concentrated in flavour, a little on the salty side..."

This is Hugh's recipe for the Dry Cure Mixture and is enough for 1 whole pork belly cut into 3 pieces, skin scored. I used the loin as well.

About 1kg coarse salt
2 teaspoons saltpetre (potasium nitrate) optional - the main function of it is to make the bacon pink. I don't use it.
A few bay leaves, finely chopped
About 20 juniper berries, lightly crushed
200g soft brown sugar
25g coarsley ground black pepper



In a non metallic container (oops, I used a stainless steel bowl) thoroughly mix all the ingredients for the cure with your hands. (see above) Place one piece of belly at a time on a clean work surface and start rubbing it all over with your fingers into all the surfaces of the meat. Place in a non metallic tray/container (right). Repeat with the other pieces.
 Stack the finished pieces on top of each other and leave, covered in a cool place (the fridge if you live in a warm climate) Keep the leftover cure mix. After a day you will see that meat juice has collected in the bottom of the tray (left). Take the bellies out of the tray and pour this liquid away. Rub meat again with fresh cure mix. Re-stack the pieces, moving the bottom one to the top.

Day 5
Repeat this process daily. The bacon will be ready in about 5 days (longer if you use the loin like I did) however it will keep better if you salt it longer, up to 10 days.

The finished product (cut), day 10.
When ready, rinse the bacon and pat dry with paper towel. Wrap in clean muslin, or a linen tea towel and keep in the fridge. If the bacon is a bit too salty you can soak pieces in fresh water for a few hours before eating to leach out some of the salt. If you need the bacon to last a long time you can freeze pieces.

Ideally you would use a piece with a bit more fat on it than the one I used.

The first thing I made with my new bacon was pasta carbonara, with lovely chunky bits.  I think I will have to hide the rest for fear that it will be all gone after Sunday morning's breakfast!









Friday, September 13, 2013

Honey Bread - "The Best Hot Cake in the World"

Or so say my sons!

As I said previously, we are mustering at the moment and this recipe is an all time favourite for morning smoko during mustering, or indeed any other time! This morning I was sent home from the paddock early just so I could have some ready by the time the rest of the crew returned.

I first tasted this simple yet scrumptious loaf cake about 25 years ago when Rossco and I were travelling around Australia and staying with my aunt and uncle at Ebor, in the high country of north eastern NSW. So thanks Aunty Lib, I hope you don't mind me sharing!

As it is inexpensive to make, this recipe is ideal for feeding hard working farm/station workers or a sporting team (post game!)....although you would have to quadruple the recipe to feed a team. And it is so easy it is a good recipe for kids (and cooking challenged adults) to follow.

If you are short on cooking time, as I was this morning, you can either make pikelets, by dropping spoonfuls of the batter into a hot buttered frying pan and cooking until brown on one side before flipping over and cooking the other side, or you can pop some patty pans into a muffin tin, fill them to three quarters with the batter and bake in a 160 deg C preheated oven for about 20 minutes. These ones look a little pale but they are actually cooked through. My boys like to gouge the middle out and fill with butter...should I admit that??
 If you are planning to make it you must promise me that you will serve it with butter -definitely not margarine - because without butter it just wouldn't be the same.

I have no idea if this is actually Belgian, but that's what it's called on my 25 year old handwritten  recipe and I'm not about to argue!



Belgian Honey Bread

1 cup milk
125g brown sugar - you can use light or dark brown sugar, the light brown will make a paler cake. I use about 80g of sugar because I always use less than the recipe states in baked goods.
255g Self raising flour or plain flour with 1 and 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder added
2 tablespoons honey

Heat half of the milk and beat together with the sugar and honey. Add the sifted flour and remaining cold milk alternately, stirring as you go. This is quite a runny batter compared to most cakes. Bake in a loaf tin* at 180 deg C for about 40 minutes, or use one of the methods described above.  Serve hot with butter.

*My loaf tin is 23cm x 13cm and this mixture fits nicely.

Bacon post next, I promise!





Saturday, September 07, 2013

Getting Creative with Carrots

Our couple of our pigs. They've got nothing to do with this entry but  I didn't want to put a photo of the live pigs in the same post as the one of the slaughtered pigs and  I thought you might like to see them. I was going to do bacon in this post but have decided to wait until it is ready to eat and can show the whole process at once. 
So, on to the post......

When the shops are 200km away and you are in the middle of a recipe before you realise you've run out of a 'vital' ingredient it is time to think outside the square and get a bit creative. Sometimes it even works!

Yesterday I wanted to try and recreate a fabulous meal that I had in a little cafe on a recent shopping trip in Geraldton, our 'local' town. On the bottom of the plate was an incredibly smooth, creamy puddle of hummus. This was topped with a chickpea, tomato, red onion and parsley salad, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of the  hummus. Slices of beautifully medium rare beef tenderloin sat on the salad and this was topped with a deliciously fresh and  lemony salsa verde. I planned to make a slow roasted shoulder of lamb version.

After some research on the net I learned the secret to creating a really creamy  hummus on this blog

The trick is to blend the tahini and lemon juice first. This makes the tahini really smooth before you add the chickpeas. Next add the garlic and salt. I didn't want the garlic to be too overpowering so I popped it in some boiling water for a few minutes to mellow the flavour first.  The next trick is to skin the chickpeas....a bit tedious but made a bit quicker if you  tip the peas onto a wooden chopping board and roll them gently around with the palms of your hands, picking the skinned ones out as you go. Add about a quarter of the chickpeas at a time to the tahini mixture, blending well between each addition. Finally, check the seasoning (I added some cumin also)  and add olive oil and water. I wanted a fairly loose consistency in order to create the 'puddle' on the bottom of the plate so added a bit more water than I would have if using as a dip.  I'm not going to put up a recipe for hummus because there are plenty to be found elsewhere.

Anyway, back to the point of the story. Having already embarked on the recipe I was soon to discover that I didn't actually have any of the vital ingredient tahini! Arrgghhh! What to do??? A thorough search of the fridge revealed half a jar of walnut and cashew paste....'But that doesn't taste like sesame seeds,' I hear you say. Well no, but the texture was pretty close and a good glug of sesame oil soon lent it a semblance of the right flavour. Phew, disaster averted....until......WHAT??? no anchovies for the salsa! Mmmmm, something salty to substitute? Olives did the trick there.

I was pretty happy with the end result of the dish, unfortunately I didn't take a photo to share with you. However I did take a photo of the bread I made to serve with it. It is definitely the easiest Turkish style bread recipe I have found and am very grateful to Dan Lepard for the recipe.


You can find the recipe here
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/28/dan-lepard-flatbread-recipe 

I am always looking for interesting things to do with ordinary vegetables. This week I was struck with the inspiration to make carrot 'spaghetti' as a side dish. Carrots are a staple in this house due to their good keeping quality, colour and versatility and we probably eat them four times a week, so its great to find new ways of cooking them. A while a go my friend Jo gave me this groovy little gadget (right) and I have found it very useful when preparing vegetables for Asian style salads, such as Thai Beef or Vietnamese Chicken. If you are really keen and haven't got one of these julienne peelers you could of course use a knife.


Anyhow, having spagetified a whole lot of carrots I stir fried them quickly with some Panko breadcrumbs in olive oil, garlic and parsley and I was very pleased with the results. The breadcrumbs added a satisfying crunch. You could easily change the flavour profile of this dish by adding ground cumin and substituting the parsley with coriander. Ginger also works well with carrot. If you are avoiding gluten you could even serve it with bolognaise sauce instead of real spaghetti.


I found that holding the top of the carrot with a fork made it much easier to work with. There were leftover bits that I couldn't quite julienne so I just ate them! I kept the strips in a bowl of cold water until I was ready to cook, just before serving.

We are mustering our sheep at the moment and I have about 7 or 8 people to cook for, hence the quantity of carrot I have cooked here in my huge wok, designed to fit a Weber Kettle BBQ.

Have you got any interesting carrot side dish recipes to share?


Sunday, September 01, 2013

Puppies, Poultry, Pigs and Prizes

Well, it's been a pretty big week here on the station. It started with the arrival of two gorgeous little black and tan kelpie puppies. Meet Meg (in the front of the picture) and Larry, so named because when we decided we needed a couple more dogs we rang our 'go to' man Larry, and in a matter of hours he and his daughter Megan had found us some puppies. Larry and Meg will be outside dogs but they are still babies and need a bit of smooching, so here they are having a cuddle in the lounge room. Already in just a week they have 'grown legs' and are much more adventurous, confident and independent. No doubt they will soon start digging and wont be quite so cute!




The next big event was the discovery of the first eggs from our new chooks in the laying box. This was a huge surprise because we bought these girls at 12 weeks old (or so we were told) which means they are now only 16 weeks and to be laying so early is very unusual in my experience. I've never had chooks lay before 19 or 20 weeks before....maybe, like humans, chooks are maturing earlier these days?

The asparagus is really taking off now which is great timing because asparagus and egg are a classic combination, whether it be freshly steamed spears dipped in soft boiled egg or a more sophisticated dish of steamed or grilled asparagus dressed with a combination of finely chopped hardboiled egg, chopped parsley, finely grated lemon rind and crispy fried breadcrumbs (right).

Our pigs are getting bigger everyday, enjoying the weeds in my garden, and this week the time had come to thank and say goodbye to two of them.  This week I am planning to make bacon....not the kind of bacon you find in packets at the supermarket, it will be salt cured and made without nitrates and therefore wont be pale pink but a pinky brown colour and it will be delicious! I haven't yet decided if it will be smoked in our homemade, 44 gallon drum smoker or left as is. This will be the subject of my next post. 

The week ended in a frenzy of baking in preparation for the local Agricultural Show. Apart from the fact that I enjoy baking, my main motivation is that without contributions from locals there wouldn't be much to look at in the main pavillion.  Sadly the number of exhibits was a bit low this year but on the up side this meant it was fairly easy to bag a few prizes :) The highlight of my day was that my scones seemed to really impress the judge. At the risk of giving away my secret, the recipe I use comes from one of my food heroes, Stephanie Alexander in her 'Cook's Companion.'

Stephanie Alexander's Prize Winning Scones

Ingredients

500 g self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
100 g butter
300 ml milk soured with a squeeze of lemon

Method

Preheat oven to 220 deg C and grease a baking tray. Mix flour, baking powder and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add milk and pulse until just combined. Turn out on floured bench or pastry mat and bring mixture together, quickly and gently kneading with your hands. Pat dough out to about 3cm thick. Cut into rounds and put close together on the tray. Brush tops with milk or dust with flour. Bake for about 15 mins, then cool on a wire rack.