Cucumbers

It is raining here in NSW and I couldn't be happier. It has rained for the last 4 days off and on. My garden is getting a much needed soaking. The kids have been playing happily inside with their Christmas presents. The weather is refreshing with a cool breeze each evening - a very welcome respite from the summer heat and humidity.

The vegetables in the raised garden are really taking off. Nothing beats a good down pour to get them growing.
I am picking loads of cucumbers at the moment.
We eat them with salads but I am always after new ways of using them.

So thought I would share some of my favourite things to make with cucumbers
.

Cucumber and cream cheese Mousse

1 large or 2 small cucumbers

275g cream cheese

2 tbs mint leaves

2 tsp white wine vinegar

2 1/2 tsp gelatine

150 ml vegetable stock

Ground pepper

Blend cucumbers, cream cheese, vinegar and mint in a blender until smooth.

Dissolve gelatine in a little of the stock over a low heat until dissolved.

Once cool stir in the remaining stock. Add this to the cream cheese mixture.

Season and blend.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hurs until set.

Serve with cucumber and crackers.

Tzazziki Dip

500g yoghurt cheese

1 large or 2 small cucumbers

2 cloves garlic

tsp salt

Make yoghurt cheese by placing the yoghurt in muslin and let it drain overnight or for a few hours. The whey will be drained off leaving a thicker yoghurt.

Blend cucumbers and squeeze out excess liquid.

Blend garlic and cucumbers with the yoghurt. Season with salt and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Anyone else got some delicious dips or ways of cooking with cucumbers?

BUGS

The heat has been getting me out in the garden earlier in the morning. While the kids sleep I go out and water and do a quick tidy up.

The insects are still out. They haven't gone for shelter from the harsh sun. It amazes me , the amount of bugs out there. I am always running into spider webs and squealing at the thought of a spider crawling over me. I love them in the garden but not too close and definately not crawling on me. I f I come across spiders in the house they get killed but the ones in the garden I leave.

Noticed something has been eating my bean leaves.

And after a bit of searching found him. Needless to say he ended up squished.

And this bug was in the pool. I fished him out and he is drying in my hand. I am not sure what sort he is but the green is so bright. Superboy has been finding a few of these every now and then and always around the water.

Our week

It has gone by so quickly! Thought a quick update would be good just to show I haven't dissapeared completely.

GARDEN:

I have been enjoying the garden more than working in it. Plenty of flowers in bloom including lots of sunflowers. I should have plenty of sunflower seeds in a few weeks for my cooking. Thats if I can get to them before the birds do. At the moment we are getting frequent visits from the parrots. They are enjoying eating the seeds from the butterfly flowers.

This photo is a part of the front garden. It is a little overgrown at the moment and like a mini field of flowers. Amongst those flowers I have some herbs growing, silverbeet and squash plants. There is a young mango tree too.

READING:

I have just started reading The China Study. From what I have read so far (which isn't very much) it is proving to be a very interesting book and confirming in my mind what I already believe about what we eat affects our health.

I am also reading Cindi O Meara's book Changing Habits, Changing Lives. I am a huge fan of Cindi O'Meara. She advocates eating real food, food that our great, great grandparents would recognize. Real foods that are cooked from real ingredients.

This book is about making changes one at a time. You read the chapter and inplement that change and once you have got that change down pat move onto the next chapter and work on changing that one. Changes include such things as starting the day with breakfast. I have done that one.

Now my day begins with a cup of water with lemon juice, fruit and a boiled egg or a homemade protien shake (complete with fruit, egg, oats etc).

BAKING:

I have been cooking heaps. It is so quicker and cleaner and easier with the thermomix. After an hour and a half yesterday I had made bread, crackers, chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies for lunch boxes, hommus dip and custard.

All made from real ingredients and no additives.

Today I am making pastry for a quiche, sorbet and more bread.

Saving Time

With this little baby.

It is a Thermomix and it is all mine. I am in love. I have wanted one of these after hearing Cindi O Meara talking about how they have made her life so easier.

Cindi O Meara is a nutritionalist with a few bestselling books and she speaks such common sense. She promotes eating food that is natural and chemical and preservative free.

http://www.changinghabits.com.au/


I almost choked when I heard just how much they were. Lets just say that they aren't cheap. The price turned me off for months and months. That is until I went to a cooking demostration and saw one in action. And I was blown away. In a little over an hour it made sorbets, dips, bread dough, coleslaw, lentil hot pot, smoothies, butter ... all in the one bowl with next to no mess to clean up afterwards.
It is a one stop kitchen appliance.
It can grind wheat grains into flour, raw sugar into icing sugar.
It can knead bread and dough.
It cooks and stirs at the same time - no need to stand over the oven while cooking anymore.
It cuts and mixes.
It can even wash itself.
So far I have made bread using wheat grains (remember the Thermomix will grind the wheat into flour.
I have made tomato sauce - it cuts the onion, tomatoes, herbs, then heats and stirs and cooks them.
Sorbet in a couple of minutes - ice, egg white, sugar, mango and banana.
Mushroom soup.
Chocolate spread (similar to nutella) but with hazelnuts. The Thermomix grinds the nuts smooth, melts the chocolate and mixes.

So enough raving! If you have a chance go and see one in action. You can only buy direct from a demonstrator which is another thing that turned me off initially. But I found there was no hard sell. The demostrator I saw using it just cooked and answered question and then let the machine speak for itself.
People who want to cook from scratch like myself, those who grow their own fruit and veges, and those like myself who just run out of time each day will love this. It is so fast and easy.

Hmmm.... did I say I love it yet?

Bulk Buying

It has been a while since I have posted. But now the holidays are over its back to day to day life.
Since being back I am more determined than ever to get back onto track with our food - both buying and eating. Before I was getting rather overwhelmed with trying to make too many big changes all at once -
- buying local foods.
- eating organic foods.
- growing our own vegetables and fruits.
- supporting local shops.
- eating foods with low or no additives.
- preparing foods from scratch, unprocessed.
- bulk buying.
- preserving our own foods.
Finding the time to do all the above was proving difficult.

Well I could go on with the list of changes I want to make.

Instead I am focusing on one thing at a time and getting that system into place and making it a habit before going onto another change.

So the first thing I am concentrating on is bulk buying. I am lucky to be in touch with a great group of people living locally who are also interested in eating and cooking more healthily. We have formed a bulk buying group and have got our fruit and veges, grains and red meats covered. We haven't found a good supplier of organic chicken or turkey yet though.

I have been part of a fruit and vegetable goup now for over 5 years. At the moment there are six of us in the group. Each fortnight we put in $30.00 and two of us each fortnight go to the farmers market and buy for the group, come home and sort it into 6. This all takes about 2 1/2 hours. Our turn comes around every 6 weeks which makes it very easy. We are going this Friday so I will take a photo of the amount we buy for our $30.00 and post it - huge amount!

We buy our grains wholesale from here
http://www.goodness.com.au/
The wholesale prices are good, its organic and products are great. We divide each up into 1 kg or more lots and share them around.

Meats (lamb and beef) are brought direct from the farm here http://www.moppitymeats.com.au/index.html. Their meats taste so much nicer than that from the supermarket!

Our eggs come from the fruit and vege market and so does our honey.
Milk I still buy from the supermarket. I wish I knew someone with a cow.

And we are very lucky to live close to this shop
http://www.bibina.com.au/content.php3?p=aboutus
They stock a huge range of Australian and imported foods and bulk amounts, hard to find ingredients etc. It is a cooks dream just to wander up and down the aisle.

CARBON MILES

We've gone through a few!

We have been here...

and here...and here...

and are finally home.

Vege Garden Dreams

Last September Mr Gadget built me a dedicated vegetable patch. A raised garden bed in a sunny corner of the garden. Prior to this my vege plantings were rather haphazard. I brought and planted punnets of seedlings in any vacant spot I could find in the garden with not much success. The seedlings were competing with other plants, in poor soil, or getting too much sun or not enough.

With the new vegetable patch I developed an interest in growing my own vegetables from seeds and also in saving seeds for use in the future.

Last summer I had great success with basil, cucumbers, eggplants and cherry tomatoes.

This winter I have a great supply of carrots, parsley, radishes, lettuce and chinese cabbage.

I have dreamt of the day I can go off to my vegetable patch and pick all the vegetables I need for the families dinner. Well yesterday I did. We had fish with lemon juice from the tree out the back and rice with home grown carrots, parsley, radishes and tomatoes. Such a small thing but to me it represented a great success and I am feeling rather chuffed at being able to provide my family with home grown fruit and vegetables.

But now I am in need of more room for vegetable growing so I have a vege patch in the front yard. I have large pots growing more carrots, Styrofoam boxes from the fruit and vegetable markets growing chillies, capsicums and more vegetables.

I have a potting area near the water tank for growing cuttings and more seeds and another seed raising area on top of the bunnys cage outside the kitchen window.

My vege garden dreams are coming true and I am happy.