Feeding Our Families: From Scratch

I am loving blog-hopping around the contributors to Renee's Feeding Our Families series.  So, I am being very presumptuous and joining in!
 
Often times I find myself wondering if I am making the best food choices for my family.  What are the words from Desiderata? "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself". And, then I remember how far we have come in a few short years and have to give myself a little grace to make some mistakes.  I came from a non-cook home, and I only started cooking (as opposed to baking) at all when I left home.  Although I think my interpretation of 'cooked from scratch' was very different then than now - if it hadn't come premade out of bottle or packet I considered it cooked from scratch LOL.  There is so much more I actually make from scratch than I did when Ginger was born 3.5 years ago.

Bearing in mind it is Summer here, the following photos were all taken since mid-December....

From left: homemade yoghurt, granola, cakes (for church morning tea) and homegrown tomatoes

Shelling broadbeans from the markets

Rhubarb and apple pie

Ol' Vegemite Face

Fresh bread and my daughter's current 'pose for the camera' face

Apple Slices

Can't leave out the dolls

Stoning wild plums - a rather thankless task

Just back from the Orchard and ready to preserve - we live near the stonefruit growing area

Making ketchup

Weekend tradition - pancakes

Stewed nectarines - we found these growing wild on the side of the road.

I have to say that these days food preparation seems to consume a fair portion of my day, and yet I don't soak grains or beans like many whole food Mamas out there. 

So, what do I see as working in our kitchen?





YOGHURT


After many mis-adventures I have finally got a method for yoghurt that gives regular good results - I use the crockpot method - heat on low for 2 hours, cool for 3 hours, stir in half of a cup yoghurt then wrap in a towel and leave overnight.  So much less fiddly and more reliable than my old stove top method!  And, apart from buying yoghurt to use as the culture we haven't bought yoghurt in 2 years.

ROAST CHICKEN AND STOCK

Growing up roast chicken in our household meant someone had been to the chicken and chip shop and picked one up!  When I was 12 we went to the UK and stayed with a retired policeman and his wife for a couple of days.  She made the most amazing spread one afternoon including a home roasted chicken - her secret was coating the chicken in butter.  I was resolved that I would roast my own chickens once I left home.  And, this is now a fairly consistent meal on our menu plan because it yields.....

Chicken stock - I am not very good at making this immediately after our meal.  Usually I strip the meat off the carcass for another meal and then put the carcass in the freezer  Then on the day I have an identified need for chicken stock I pop it into the pot with fresh water, an onion, couple of chopped carrots and some celery.  Boil for an hour or so, then strain through a colander.

HEALTHY GRANOLA

Home made granola now forms part of our summer breakfasts.  The first homemade Granola I made,  I realise in retrospect was still laden with sugar.  We eat a much healthier version now.  I got this off a forum somewhere in the depths of the internet but have tweaked a bit over time.  I double the batch now we have a huge oven, so I need only make this every couple of weeks.

6 cups rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup wheat germ or LSA
3/4 cup nuts
1/2 cup raw sunflowers or pepitas
1/2 cup sesame seeds

Combine in a large bowl.

1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together and pour over oat mixture.  Stir well. Spread in a thin layer on baking sheets.  Bake at 160 deg C for 10 minutes.  Stir and bake another 5 minutes.  Stir again and bake 3-5 minutes.

BREAD
 
I always seem to be making bread.  I am working on remembering to actually start this before 8:30 in the morning or I don't have bread ready at lunch.  In those circumstances, we generally have 'cheesy pizza' - our usual bread mix rolled out and topped with tomato and mozzarella (saves the time of the second rise) or Gozleme; the children eat the latter sans spinach.  Ginger calls Gozleme "God's Lemon"!

Gozleme Recipe

The dough
1 1/4 cup bread flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp dried yeast
2 tbs olive oil.
 
I use the bread maker and just threw in the ingredients and let it do the work.  It need only rise for 20 minutes once combined.  Once ready, divide into 4 and roll out.  Place some silverbeet or spinach (fresh or steamed) over half the dough and then scatter with fetta and fold over.  Cook on a greased cast iron frying pan over low-medium heat, about 2 minutes each side.  Serve with lemon wedges.


SOUP

Soup uses up the abundance of the garden or market.  At the moment I have 8 meals worth of zucchini soup stashed in the freezers because our plants are giving us so much.  Last night's meal was a defrosted zucchini soup with fresh bread.


POPCORN

Air-popped popcorn - does this need a description?  The kids eat it by the bowl full.

BAKING

Our sweet treats these days are generally made from scratch.  My brother-in-law gave us a microwave recipe for custard.  Boy is that good!  While a homemade cake is better than a cafe offering, these days I am thinking we need to make some healthier sweets.  I have borrowed Wholefood Baking by Jude Blereau from the library and want to try out some of her recipes.

The last couple of months....

 We have enjoyed abundant and delicious local food....

 We have worked in and enjoyed our garden

 And we have played....

Well, I was looking through my archives today at naptime with Ginger - that would be Tom Kitten's naptime; Ginger sadly has given up her daytime sleep in the last month.  She loves looking at pictures of herself when she was younger and I think it is such a pity that I have not been good about record keeping the last 12 months.  So, there really is no time like the present to do some catching up!

The last 7 months have just been so busy for us.  Since Mr Provincial left the Army it feels like we have been working flat out.  Evenings our now occupied with gardening or bottling produce.  He also now has a 3 hour daily commute so I am holding the fort a lot more.  Occasionally there is time to add a few stitches to the cross-stitch I started a couple of weeks after getting here - progress on that feels grindingly slow.

The weeks seem to be full as well.  For the first time in my adult life it is the week between weekends that seems to disappear; not just the weekends!  While the renovations were intensive up until Christmas and I thought I would just about lose my sanity if I saw another builder or contractor, we are slowly settling down into our rhythm.  Bread is being made daily, yoghurt weekly and I made my first batch of homemade laundry powder (since we got here) this morning.  The house is actually both clean and tidy!  The gardens...well they are enormous and we have so much work ahead of us but we are harvesting tomatoes and zucchini in abundance thanks to Mr Provincial's hard work.

We have been blessed in our neighbours - our neighbours over the back fence are lovely and we often while away a good hour in the evening chatting.  Ginger and Tom Kitten have been spoiled with the arrival of a play kitchen and doll's house from said neighbours - turns out our male neighbour enjoys a good garage sale!  Our neighbours across the road have offered to baby sit and even arranged for us to take up a egg arrangement they have had in place for 20 years but no longer needed because they have purchased their own chickens.  I love how we now always have an abundance of eggs in the fridge and opening the carton and finding a variety of egg sizes within.

Ginger is now at a local preschool one day a week.  She was so happy (if exhausted) when I picked her up last week - it was the right decision to send her.  We have kindygym, swimming, and music group during the week.  Ginger has ballet on the weekends.  Church for all on Sunday.  Just last week I was invited to join a bible study, we are going to try to attend but I do like to be home some of the time LOL!  At home I am at peace and the more we are home the more comfortable being at home we are.

I am finding everything requires more planning now we live out here in the country.  I also have to constantly be reminded by Mr Provincial that although Canberra is just over an hour away and offer so many opportunities we chose to live out here and need to engage in our local community; even when that means giving our children different opportunities than we might have given them had we chosen to live in Canberra.  Mr Provincial is now being given errands to run after work because it saves us $15 in petrol if I don't go in to do them - not to mention quite a number of hours.

But, most importantly we are content in this little brick house.  Our children are happy and we are settling in.  I couldn't ask for more than that.

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY
Outside my window...we have an overcast summer day.  The birds are cheeping and I can see some tiny robins dancing round the back yard.
I am thinking...that in a few days time I will be 30 and that 2014 is a year I want to make some wholesale changes about how we live our day-to-day life - more wholefood, more family connectedness, more crafting, more reading, more time with God, new community connections...
I am thankful...for my husband having a week off work.  I am also thankful for my children adapting so well to the removal of the television to the garage.  We had one post-TV tantrum too many and I banished the television from the house.  I hadn't intended to do it in quite so dramatic fashion but have to say after the first day of a few whimpers we have had no further requests for viewing.
In the kitchen...I am doing a simple pasta dinner.  We have had visitors two times already this week for dinner, and I feel we could all do with a less elaborate meal tonight.
I am wearing...a fawn coloured knee length skirt and a t-shirt in a Laura Ashley reproduction floral.
I am creating...a quilt for my husband's Grandmother's 90th.  I made curtains for the second bathroom earlier in the week but now seem to have lost my momentum.  Back to the cutting board tonight.
I am going...to be bottling wild plums.   We have an abundance of wild plum trees in our town and some are frankly delicious.  Mr Provincial has just gone out picking and we will preserve those this afternoon.
I am wondering...how our homeschool 4 days / formal preschool 1 day ratio will work out for Ginger this year.  I am so nervous for her starting at the only preschool we could get her a place at....I have heard mixed reports.  Is this the right decision?  Moreover, what is the right schooling decision going forward.  As we have connected with more homeschooling families in this community I am gradually envying their certainty that homeschooling is absolutely the right choice for the family - I am knee deep in the "I just don't know what to do" mire.
I am reading...a Miss Read - Storm in the Village, a collection of C.S. Lewis letters - Yours Jack, Matthew for Everyone from the New Testament for Everyone series by Tom Wright and Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer.
I am hoping...to finish alphabetising the children's bookcase.  I got stymied at J because I ran out of laminating sheets.....
I am looking forward to...seeing my Mum tomorrow night and going to Sydney on Saturday with my husband to see America: Painting a Nation at the NSW Art Gallery - my birthday treat.
I am learning....that a pinecone does indeed close itself up when submerged in water!  The knowledge a good preschool curriculum can impart:)
Around the house...I need to clean the bathrooms again, catch up on a bit of washing and decide whether to put my Mum in the new verandah room (no easy bathroom access) or clean out the toy room so she can sleep there.
I am pondering...whether we should include a candle in our night-time bed ritual for Ginger and Tom Kitten who currently share a room.  Will it help the currently dragged out bedtime routine, or just add to it?
A favorite quote for today...
"As parents, we do not know what will be the result of our choices and decisions about lifestyle, schooling and spiritual direction for our children.  All we can do is continue to educate ourselves in our decision-making, and do the hard work these decisions demand.  It is not for may years that we will be able to see what indelible impressions we have made.  We just do our best day by day, year after year, in faith that our abiding love for our children will act as our guide, that love will show us the needs of each unique child of ours".  Sharifa Oppenheimer
One of my favorite things...is that in our new home I hear life around me all the time - whether it be birds cheeping, a rooster crowing, or the footfall of a horse on the road.  I feel so much more alive
A few plans for the rest of the week:  We will re-read Ginger's assigned books tomorrow, do some more phonics work, and work on her poem memorisation (we are doing the Summer Preschool Curriculum from Wee Folk Art).  I also need to do some grocery shopping tomorrow - we NEED milk!
A peek into my day...

{PHFR}

Joining these lovely ladies for {Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty}

Well, you don't blog for two months and massive changes take place in your life which leave you wondering where to start off again.

So let's start with the big stuff.

We bought a house.  It finally settled yesterday so I can talk about it freely.

A 1920s double brick cottage in country New South Wales.

This was necessitated by the fact that Mr Provincial got a new job, outside the Army (though he will continue in Reserves). 

Our house is nice and pretty on the outside, but inside it needs a tonne of work.  That is what the last two months have been spent doing.  Working out what we can afford to do right now to make it liveable.  Getting quotes, making choices, booking in contractors.  Getting rid of possessions because 'tis small!  

Contractors that don't always come through....like the electrician who was supposed to start today rewiring the house, but apparently has got 'booked up' and won't be able to come in until next week (we know that because we rang him today to tell him the fans we had ordered were mistakenly shipped here to Darwin not to NSW...not because he rang us!) and that causes issues for the painter who is supposed to go in next week, and the floorer the week after.  You run businesses people - I think a phonecall to the affected homeowner is a pretty basic necessity!  But I digress.

A very pretty house.  Our first family home owned by us which we can do with what we will.  Very exciting.  God has been most gracious in his provision.

{Happy}

One of the features which really attracted us to this property was that it is on a huge corner block so we can have our own vegetable patch, have a chicken run and fruit tree orchard.  In fact, the vegetable patch is already established - albeit empty.  And we know for certain there is a pear tree on the property because all of this year's crop was dumped on said vegetable patch.

As a side issue, it looks like we have interesting neighbour's to the rear.  Our conjecture is they are running a scrap yard from their property!  Things you don't notice before you put an offer on a house:)  We are thinking some nice new fencing or vines would improve our rear outlook no end!

One more cute rear view of the cottage before we move on...

{Funny}

Well they say you can never start them too early on household chores.

Tom Kitten is obsessed with the vacuum cleaner!  Not just climbing on it, but actually using it.  Properly.  As in it is actually running in these photos.

{Real}

Ginger loves these wellingtons!

It is the middle of winter in Capital Country and coming from the tropics as we presently do, our children don't really possess winter clothing.  Temperatures in Capital parts are around the zero mark or below (minimum) and our house has minimal heating - read one wood stove.  So we have had a mad scramble to outfit the children.  One of our friend's came through in a big way dropping off an enormous bag of clothing for Ginger that her girls' had outgrown.  Ginger of course had to try them all on.  This despite the fact the ambient temperature her in Darwin is in the high 20s/ early 30s (80-90F!).  She was dressed like this for the rest of the afternoon.

Tom Kitten Turns 1

Well, with his birthday month almost out I had better post about Tom Kitten at 1 year old.  His birthday coincided with our trip down south and so recording the day got away from me.
 

Way back at the start of May Tom Kitten turned one.  As his actual birthday fell on a weekday, we celebrated the weekend before with a small gathering of our closest friends - whose younger daughter just happens to be Tabitha's best friend!

So, Tom Kitten, for the record here is a snapshot of you at 1.

You are still knee walking.  You take the occasional step here and there but knee walking or crawling is still your preferred method of getting around.  The child health nurse said she hasn't seen anything like it.  It is certainly a very individual 'walking' style.  Your other option is yelling out for perambulation by Mummy!

You have a number of words.  "hewo" - hello.  'Ta' - thank you.  'Mama' - Mummy.  'Dada' - Daddy.  "Nana" - banana.  "T" - sister.  "Da" - dog or cat; or actually any object you are particularly excited about.

You are our mountaineer.  You think nothing of climbing right to the top of the sofa and standing there while Mummy works out whether the best course of action is to sprint to you, or to walk very, very slowly so as not to give you a fright.

You love Noah Puss.  You crawl all over him, and lay your head on his tummy.

You are a great eater.  The oddest food you really like are pickled gherkins.  Five is the most you have eaten at one sitting.  You also really like bananas, jack fruit and cheese.

You have the most wonderful smile.  When you think something is really funny, or you are just being cheeky you screw you face right up, shut your eyes and let out the biggest grin.

You put everything in your mouth.  I mean everything.  Just this morning you ate a crayon.

You love your sister.  You want to do whatever she does.  Sometimes this is to her great frustration.  Other times I delight in watching you play together.

You love water.  The shower is a favourite hang out.  You often have upward of four showers a day.  You will crash in on anyone who takes one; and then there are the necessary ones because you enjoy your food so much.  You like to pretend your cooking in the shower - you take the tippy, fill it with water and stir away with one of the 'toot toot' whistles.  You also think it is funny to inhale water from your sippy cup and spit out all over you.  I am always mopping up puddles, and changing your clothes - it really is an advantage to be in the tropics.

You love lift the flap books.  They are about the only book you will sit still for.  You are a ball of energy, always on the go.

You are almost always very happy.  When you are not happy, you are very, very angry.  There is no middle ground.  When you get angry you let out a high pitched scream, turn bright puce and throw yourself on the floor and wail.  This usually happens when (a) your sister takes something away from you or (b) you don't get something you want fast enough.   If you have this kind of dynamite temper at 1, I don't know what to expect from you at 2!

You don't sleep through the night anymore.  You haven't for six months.  Just a hint, bub, Mummy and Daddy are getting a little worn out.  Your normal bedtime is 6:30pm, you have a feed around 2-4am, and then you are up for the day at about 5:30 am.  You still take a nap in the afternoon.  You sleep with two comforters.  They must both be there.  You hold one in the hand you are sucking, and rub your face with the other.  Comforter ejection from the cot always produces shrieks of protest.  You will root around the cot to find them if they go missing.

You are still feeding three times a day, and once more a night.

Ah, baby boy, you are my loveable bundle of trouble!