Bananas, Cofffe and Camping

It has been a bit since I posted but I actually haven’t had anything to say and didn’t want to be like face book and saying things like “I’m bored”, “I am going out now”, “I am having a cuppa tea” or “What do you think about ‘insert the name of any TV show’”.  As you can see I am not a fan of face book and think it is mindless drivel, my partner in crime and life disagrees though he gets annoyed with the stupidity of some people who just make themselves look foolish and then can’t take it back.  That is my whinge for the day :)

We have cut our first bunch of bananas and it is hanging on the veranda waiting to ripen.  We won’t cut the second bunch until we have eaten the first as once they start to ripen they all ripen all at once.  Though I am sure that I read somewhere that we could cut just half a bunch at a time so we don’t’ have to eat 50 bananas today, need to see if I can find that information again.

Our trees in pots on the veranda are going very well, especially now there aren’t so many grasshoppers around eating them.  The coffee bushes are very shiny and my partner in crime and life is looking forward to have home grown coffee, he is also worried that the world as we know it may end and he won’t have coffee.  I am just looking for the right coffee grinder, as I don’t care about coffee it is a bit a dilemma, I want a manual one not electric and there is a few choices out there, I think I just need to shut my eyes and point and buy whichever one I am pointing at.

We are going camping this weekend and we are all SO looking forward to it.  We are going out to a station about three hours drive and will be camping by a river so we can fish.  Actually, my partner in crime and life and our number one and only son will be fishing and I will be reading and keeping the fire going and generally not doing a whole lot.

Of course, even though it is only a three day trip, there has been lots of planning and we have had to purchase a few things as it has been a while.  Our camp chairs were broken so we needed new ones, and we needed a new wok for the kitchen so we got one and will use it camping before it takes up permanent residence in the kitchen.

My partner in crime and life had a laugh at my first aid kit which is a box.  Not sure what he was thinking we should take, maybe a couple of band aids and some paracetamol, however I like to be more prepared than that.  I won’t be stitching anyone up but I am prepared for sprained ankles, burns, cuts and gashes, headaches, diarrhea, strong pain, broken arms and insect bites, all those basic injuries that can happen when you are in the middle of no-where, and will happen if you aren’t prepared.

I have also thrown in to the top of the box “Where there is No Doctor” and a recent acquisition “The Doom and Bloom Survival Medical Handbook” which I have only flipped through so far, both these books are on my reading list for the weekend.

We have our billy and kettle, the wok and a camp oven.   We plan on making damper and stir frying fish and yabbies, drinking lots of tea and toasting marshmallows and apples.  We have a new lantern, actually two, one with a rechargeable battery in it, it can take batteries too and lasts about 60 hours and the other one is a wind up lantern which doesn’t last so long but is still a light.  We also have our solar shower and our number one and only son has a spear so he can go snorkelling in the river and get crays (they say there are only fresh water crocodiles in the river and they should stay away).

Good thing about camping gear is that while it is good for the fun stuff and for learning bushcraft (like lighting a fire with those stupid flint things that I can't seem to make work but we will be trying again this weekend though we of course have lighters for back up), it is also useful for when the lights go out.  If we have a cyclone or just a blackout, we can still cook and have light, our tools and appliances are manual not electric.

So we a have pile of stuff ready to be put in the back of the truck and I really hope that it will all fit, we used to camp rough but now we like to camp in comfort.  Could do it very basically if we had to, but if it will fit in why leave it behind.

Halloumi Recipe

You know how some weeks are longer than others, well this week have been one of those, I think it was a carry-over from last week.  So here I am and I just feel like I need to run away for a weekend, but I won’t, however I do have a camping weekend to look forward to in a couple of weeks.  My partner in crime and life is organising to go camping and fishing on a station about three hours away, so that can be my run away weekend, I just have to be patient :)

The weather cooled down, then warmed back up and this morning is cool again, so I think it is coming.  We did buy some wood in case we suddenly needed it, but this weekend we are hopefully going out to friend’s and helping them with wood collecting on their place and getting some for ourselves too.

In preparation for the cold I have bought more scarves, was going to make them but found some on sale for a couple of dollars and I can’t make them for that, so we are all scarved up.  I have my purple beanie I made last year plus a big one that has ties on it (daggy but warm), we are also carpeted this year which I think will make a big difference.  I would like to finish insulating the walls and putting up wall sheeting but we will see how we go, I am happy to sit on top of the wood fire, with its red kettle that whistles, to keep warm.  I do have two more hot water bottle covers to finish and we are good to go, I will not be cold.

Here is the Halloumi recipe (did I even spell that correctly last time) and we must be nearly due to make more.

HALLOUMI

4 Litres whole unhomogenized milk

1 tablet of rennet diluted in ¼ cup cooled, boiled water

Salt

Bring the milk to a temperature of 45 degrees C. 

While stirring add diluted rennet.

Stir thoroughly and allow to set for 45 minutes inside incubator or until a clean break is achieved (when cutting curd)

After 45 minutes the curd should be set firm, if not, leave for another 5 to 10 minutes

Cut the curd into 1cm cubes then gently stir for a further 10 minutes until curds are smaller

Scoop curds into a muslin lined strainer

Press the curd in the muslin with a heavy bowl on top till curd is firm

Cut the curd into desired blocks

Bring some eater to the boil in a large pot.

Place Halloumi into the hot water, after 5 to 10 minutes the curd will rise to the surface and then place on a drying rack.

Sprinkle salt all over the cheese and leave to cool

Wrap and store in the fridge, eat within two weeks.

To eat,  grill or fry till soft.

I really need to refresh my gardens and get moving on them.  The snake beans really need replacing, I have been given coriander seeds and I need to get bok choy, pak choy and rocket going plus I have chokos to plant down the creek garden where they will be protected.

I also need to clean out the fridge and mow the garden area (the grass seeds in my pants are driving me crazy).

I have some work in front of me but I think I will have a cup of tea first and work up to it, though even before that, I will hang out the washing.

Cheese And A Kindle

I wrote this the other day and never got back to post it up so here it is.

I really didn’t want to get out of my PJ’s this morning. They were warm and comfy and soft, however I decided that if I stayed in them when drove our number one and only son the three minutes to the bus stop, without a doubt I would have to get out of the car for some reason and a forty three year old woman in pink elephant PJ’s would look a bit weird.

This week we have made more cheese, we made a big batch of feta cheese which I have been having in my salad at lunch, very yum and we have also made haloumi. We had never even eaten haloumi before but someone my partner in crime and life works with has it all the time and loves it so we thought we would make it, very easy to make too.

It is actually very yum but not sure about the health aspects, you fry it or grill it. We haven’t grilled it yet which would be the healthier option (if there is one) but frying it just seems to be the way to go, though we had best try the grilling.

So we fry it in a little oil and then put some more salt (as we didn’t put enough on in the making process) and some pepper and just eat it all hot and melted on the inside. You can put it through salad but we can’t see the point when we can just indulge and eat it straight out of the pan. I have decided not to look into the health aspects (or lack of) and just enjoy it in blissful ignorance.

We are also now the proud owners of a Kindle. Never thought we would have one but I used the money I got for driving to the court house for jury duty to pay for it. Now being an actual book girl I didn’t think I would take to it much but I love it, will still buy real books but I love the Kindle.

There are a lot of free books to download, which I have, also have bought a lot for $1 or $1.50, don’t’ you just love that. There are some books that only e-books so it is great, and when I go into town I take it with me to read when waiting about for appointments and I have a whole range to choose from.

Mind you I should not buy (or even download for free) any books, real or virtual, for a very long time as I am actually overloaded at the moment. I have, I don’t know how many on the Kindle, I have quite a lot of real books I have purchased when the freight has been free and so managed to get some off my wish list, and I have some that have been loaned to me by a friend (and I lend her mine as well). Thing is I didn’t buy any (really) for a long while I think I may have overdone it a little, well at least my wish list is getting smaller.

The End Of The Wet Season

Doesn’t time fly when you take no notice? School holidays are over and my partner in crime and life has gone back to work and I am trying to find my balance again.

We are coming to the end of the wet season, I think officially it finishes at the end of this month and as long as our water tanks are full then I will be happy. We will then be going back to all our serious water saving habits and with our new front loader washing machine we should have no problem getting through to the next wet season.

We will also be getting the old bore water tested so we can put a pump on it and pump into the tanks when they start getting low. No, we still haven’t done that yet but it is on the list and I imagine it will come to the top as a priority fairly soon.

The chooks have settled down now and are laying a lot of eggs, all is peaceful in the flock and the only time they make a tonne of noise is when they are laying or want to lay, not sure which, but it is announced to the world. So if you hear loud chooks at your place, that is undoubtly ours you are hearing. Whoever thinks that chooks are quiet are SO wrong.

It won’t be long until we have bananas to eat and we also have a lot of paw paws which we are still waiting to ripen, they seem to be taking a long time, however, I bet they all ripen at once.

I left the old okra stalks with seed pods on the ground in the garden to dry so I could seed save and with the rain we have had a lot have broken open and started growing. I am not sure if I can plant any of them or if I have any left to save, so need to do that.

A winged bean a good size to eat.

A winged bean to big for eating and so I will let it dry for seed saving.

Now the wet is almost over and the heat and humidity is easing I can now really get the garden back up and running. Though, we have snake beans coming out our ears and the winded beans are also out of control. There are gigantic cucumbers coming along and there is still some old bok choy we are still using and of course wild cherry tomatoes, so we are still eating a fair bit from the garden.

I have Rosella coming up now so must plant them out when they are a little bigger and the other seeds didn’t germinate so now I will start some greens off, bok choy, pak choy, and must put in more rocket.

ON OTHER MATTERS

While I read a lot of blogs and other sites on a variety of things, I don’t always find something I want to mention here. However, there are two I have come across this week, both while I have been on the Simple Savings forum.

The first one is a series of photos of people from around the world with their weekly groceries, it is called Hungry Planet. It is fascinating look at the differences between cultures, first and third world countries and everything in-between and also the excess and lack of between families.

The second on is a blog from here in Australia called Not Quite Nigella, and the post is about the amount of food wastage we have here, mostly talking about the wastage on the farms because the stupidmarkets won’t take fruit and vege unless they are a certain size or colour or shape or whatever. Now I knew this was happening but did not realise the extent it. Read the post, I read with my jaw on the floor while making sounds of utter outrage at the stupidity of it, some good does come out of it, just read it and find out.

The Roosters

It is interesting to note that we are still enchanted by our new washing machine; it has to be the window through which we can watch our washing go round.

We are now down to thirteen chooks. One of our hens died last weekend, we don’t know why. My partner in crime and life went to lock them in the pen in the evening and we always count them, we were one short. When I went up and did a re-count, I found it was Peg who was missing; she is never missing as she is never far from the flock, never going off on her own. A short search found her under the pigeon peas, not a mark on her that we could find, it was quite sad.

Peg is the hen a the back, next to her is Gaga, Dirty and Orange

We have been working on the second pen so we could separate out the six young chooks, three roosters and three hens. The young roosters have been chasing the hens around, a lot of running and screaming and screaming and running, and the hens have been fairly stressed and we haven’t been getting many eggs.

So we pushed through (well, my partner in crime and life did with some help from me) and finished the pen enough that it was completely enclosed, had a door and a roof over the house section. We have temporarily put up some tarps for walls till we can locate some more corrugated iron.

We got the three roosters in one day, not easy to separate just a few from the flock, and then the next day we got the three young hens in. The original flock and the three big chicks (who are now fat hens) have now settled back down now that all the running and screaming has stopped. The new problem that emerged from this is that the two dominate roosters started to fight each other, this is also not a good look.

We knew we had to get rid of two of the young roosters and had already picked which one we would keep to lead our second (rather small) flock. So then begins the lead up to getting rid of them. We know people who are verging on vegetarians and they get rid of roosters by taking them bush and letting nature take its course, but we don’t agree with this, being devoured by a bush python in a strange place doesn’t sound like a nice way to go. However it means they don’t have to do any chopping off of heads themselves.

I can understand this, it is something that I can’t do either but I think we are showing more respect for this animal by giving it a good and happy life, roaming free around the property and ending it very quickly and humanly. So that is what my partner in crime and life and our number one and only son have done, with me somewhere else.

So we have now eaten one of the roosters and the other is in the freezer. My partner in crime and life skinned them rather than plucking which apparently is much easier, and to tell you the truth I didn’t’ really want to know any more details so can’t tell you more.

We put them into the fridge to sit for 24hours or so and cut one up for cooking, freezing the carcass for soup later on, and the other one was put whole in to the freezer. The one we cooked was very tender, cooking it in the pressure cooker and the meat turned out quite red, I think that is because they were so well fed and they free ranged. The taste was quite different from farmed chicken, very nice and I didn’t’ have any problems eating them, thought I might but I didn’t.

It goes to show though how far removed we are from our food source, that we mindlessly buy meat on a Styrofoam tray without a thought where it has come from and whether the animal treated properly. I believe we are meant’ to eat meat, though not in the quantities a lot of people do, nor every day, and I believe we should be mindful of what we are eating and not to waste anything, which is very disrespectful to the animal who has given up its life.

So we have now done it, not something I could do regularly but it all worked out. I know a lot of people would be mortified, but everyone I know eats meat and at least I can say these birds had good free lives and were respected (they had to go one way or another) and I know where the meat for our dinner came from last night, which is more than most people can say.