Kitchen Kapers

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Posted on April 22, 2012

I have spent the best part of today in the kitchen. The first thing was to juice the 60 limes I picked from the tree. Some is in ice-cube trays in the freezer and the remainder in a jug in the refrigerator. I will freeze this in trays as well once the others are completely frozen and can be removed from the trays and placed in a bag.

Next were 5 pumpkins from the garden. Unfortunately, I cannot leave them on the vine until the stalks dry out completely because some of the wildlife starts to eat them once they are mature. Because I have to pick them before the stalk has withered, this means that they will not store. So my plan was to cut and peel them (a mammoth job), roast in the oven and then mash the pumpkin. I have frozen it in batches so that it can be made into soup as required. By just freezing the mashed pumpkin I save space in the freezer as compared to making and freezing the soup.

I also sorted through the freezer and pulled out this bag of chopped onion tops.

These are from the onions I grew last winter but our winter is not long enough for the tops to die down before I have to harvest the onions. Otherwise our wet weather starts and they would just rot in the ground. I diced all of the onions and froze them in 150g packs and I could not bear to waste the fresh green tops so chopped them and pt the bag of them in the freezer while I considered what to do with them.

I decided to thaw them out and then put them on the trays in the food dehydrator. My plan is to dry them completely and then grind them in the spice grinder to make my own onion powder for seasoning. I will post about the success or otherwise of this venture in a day or so.

The other thing I retrieved from the freezer was a bag of cherry tomatoes. These were picked from the neighbour’s garden a couple of months ago when they were away and I didn’t have time to do anything with them apart from wash, hull and freeze them.

I found a tomato sauce recipe on the internet and made a couple of adjustments to suit the ingredients I had. I cooked up the sauce and 1.9 kg of cherry tomatoes made up into 1.75 litres of sauce.

Here it is – bottled and ready to add to the stock cupboard.

I made 3 batches of muffins – lime and coconut, fig and almond as well as banana ones. This is some of them packed and ready to freeze.

While the oven was on I made another zucchini quiche. We have an abundance of eggs and since this uses 5 eggs it is a good way to use some up.

I had planned to make so more fresh pasta – using eggs again – but the day was almost over. I will save that job for Wednesday which is a public holiday here (Anzac Day).

Most of my cooking and preparation was a direct result of produce from our garden, either fresh or frozen. Since we are blessed to be able to grow this food I feel it is important to make sure that we use it to the best of our ability.

Baking Powder – An Update

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Posted on March 29, 2012

Sometimes an innocent post takes on a life of its own. I received this comment to yesterday’s post.

“Do you make your own baking powder? If not, to do so, mix 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda with 2 teaspoons cream of tartar. If you wish to store it, add 1 teaspoon corn starch to absorb any moisture from the air. Most commercially made baking powders contain aluminium.”

Thanks to Val for the comment. I set off to the world of Google and discovered that the presence of aluminium in commercially prepared baking powder seems to be common knowledge. Which rock have I been hiding under?

This then begs the question – Does self-raising flour contain aluminium? Once again, thanks to Google, the answer is most definitely yes.

So, what started out as a way to simplify and streamline my pantry ingredients to a single type of flour has turned into a campaign to eliminate aluminium from our diet. Whilst nothing has been conclusively proven, there is potentially a link between levels of aluminium in the brain and Alzheimer’s Disease. Of course, flour and baking powder are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ingestion of aluminium. Many processed foods will also contain it. It yet another example of the importance of eating food in as natural a state as possible to avoid these hidden ingredients.

I will be discarding the baking powder and buying cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda to create my own baking powder. The proportions are 2 parts of cream of tartar and 1 part of bicarbonate of soda.

There are numerous sites that discuss making your own baking powder but this blog post explains it very clearly. I will be making a bulk quantity with the addition of cornflour and then using 2 teaspoons of the mixture to 1 cup of plain flour to make my own aluminium-free self-raising flour.

What do you think?

Simply Baking

9 Comments

Posted on March 28, 2012

Decluttering is not just about throwing out the piles of junk gathering dust in the basement. Nor is minimalism about having a sparsely furnished apartment with almost no sign of human habitation. They are words which are open to interpretation but the over-arching concept is to simplify our homes and lives so that we can make time and space for living.

It is important to keep baking and cooking simple. Creating meals from scratch can easily lead you to acquire all manner of ingredients. All too often these are used once and then end up relegated to the back of the cupboard. I have a well-stocked pantry that has the basic ingredients that I use to create the meals we eat.

I also regularly make substitutions to new recipes so that they fit my ingredients. It is easy to be conned into having many varieties of one ingredient, such as sugar. There is caster, white, soft brown, raw, Demerara and numerous others. I use raw sugar for most general use. I also keep soft brown sugar and caster sugar. If a recipe demands a specialty sugar that I feel cannot be satisfactorily substituted I discard the recipe.

Flour is another example of many options available – white, wholemeal, organic, stoneground, plain, self-raising. I prefer to keep both white and wholemeal. I use white flour for pastry, pasta and making roux for sauces but other than that I tend to use wholemeal or half and half if I want a lighter texture. I only buy plain flour and add baking powder to make self-raising flour as required.

I buy my flour in 5kg bags from Simply Good. I also buy my baking powder in bulk from the same store.

The baking powder is sold from bulk bins so I fill a recycled paper bag with it and then decant into the large glass jar. which is in my stock cupboard. I refill the small container in the pantry as required. Please do not not confuse bicarbonate of soda (bicarb) with baking powder. Baking powder is a combination of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.

With basic ingredients to hand it is easy to bake for your family where you know exactly what is in the food. I made these muffins this morning with the last of some bottled cherries I had bought a couple of years ago – not sure why? The recipe was the basic muffin recipe from the book, “Down to Earth” by Rhonda Hetzel. You can find out more on her blog.

I made a zucchini quiche for dinner at the same time. I always try to cook more than one dish when I have the oven turned on so that the power is used efficiently.

Have you tried to simplify the ingredients in your pantry?

Surprise From the Freezer

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Posted on March 7, 2012

This morning I took a lidded Pyrex dish from the freezer which contained 2 serves of lasagne. I left it on the kitchen bench to thaw.

When we were on our way home this evening The Duke asked what was for dinner so I assured him we were having lasagne. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was one of my creations which was actually pasta (2 different types), re-fried beans and a little shredded chicken topped with grated cheese. Considering the pasta and cheese it is not entirely surprising that I mistook it for lasagne.

I use a random selection of containers for freezing meals, leftovers and produce and have never come up with a really effective method of labelling items for the freezer so I simply don’t do it. This does lead to the occasional blunder but generally nothing that cannot be solved reasonably easily.

My funniest experience was the day I took a small container of frozen pumpkin soup to work for my lunch. I also had a slice of home-made bread which I was going to toast and have with my soup. The soup was still partly frozen at lunch-time so I loosened the lid and popped it in the microwave. After a period of time I decided to check if it was warm enough. I dipped my finger in to check and it was only warm. Upon licking my finger I discovered that the pumpkin soup was mango puree!! The toast was already cooked and I did not want to waste the ‘soup’ so lunch that day was warm mango puree and a slice of toast!

How do you keep track of what is in the freezer?

Frugal Food

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Posted on March 1, 2012

I know that food prices are constantly rising and there is a lot of angst about the price of fruit and vegetables. We recently discovered a fruit barn not too far from us and we are very happy with the prices and quality.

I went and bought some fruit and vegetables this afternoon. Here is what I selected.

1kg carrots
7 nectarines
6 potatoes
5 bananas
1 head of broccoli
1 knob of Australian garlic
6 apples
1 lebanese cucumber

This cost me $11.40. I would like to know if anyone could honestly construe that as expensive.

On the way home I stopped to fill the car with fuel. While I was waiting in the queue to pay I noticed the sign above the ice-cream freezer cabinet. “Magnum Temptation $4.00” My bag of fruit and vegetables was cheaper than 3 of these fancy ice-creams! I know which I would rather have.

How do you manage your food budget?

Friday Favourites – Trifle & Lemon Delicious

Filling The Freezer

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Posted on February 20, 2012

I spent yesterday afternoon in the kitchen and here are some of the results.

A batch of pastry used to make 12 mini meat pies

and 3 meal-sized pies (pastry tops only)

Trifle – using leftover sponge from when I made a Dorothy the Dinosaur cake 6 months ago.

Zucchini and carrot quiche – to use up some of the eggs we have in abundance.

Banana cake – more eggs

Lemon Delicious – eggs and lemons

It makes good economic sense do do a batch of baking while the oven is turned on.

I also made refried beans in the slow-cooker, lasagne sheets (more eggs), spreadable butter, chopped up chillies to dehydrate them and picked 2 kg of cherry tomatoes from the neighbour’s garden. They are now frozen waiting for me to have time to make tomato sauce.

The freezers are full and we have plenty of food for the days when I don’t have the time or energy to cook a meal from scratch. Do you do a big cook-up in one go?

Pantry Overhaul

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Posted on February 12, 2012

Even though my pantry was reasonably organised, I decided to give it an overhaul today. I had noticed that there were a few things stashed in containers at the front of the shelf that needed to be used or relocated.

This is what it looked like before I started.

The photo does not show the top shelf which has 2 tubs of glass jars – ones with pop-top lids in one tub and those without in the other. I sorted all of the jars, made sure they all had lids, labels had been removed and were ready to be used when I need them.

I took a lot of the stuff out and re-arranged the jar storage system so inevitably things looked a lot worse before they got better. Here is a view of the kitchen earlier this afternoon.

And more….

To add some interest to my day, The Duke announced at lunchtime that there were 3 branches that needed trimming of the lime tree but they were laden with fruit. He was prepared to leave them for the time being but since the tree is never completely dormant I decided now was as good a time as any. I picked a 10 litre bucket full of limes and cut the offending branches off. So, in the midst of the pantry project I juiced the limes and have frozen them – some in ice-cube trays and some in 400ml blocks.

I moved a couple of things from the pantry to the sideboard so we cast a critical eye over the contents of the sideboard. The Duke and I agreed that a few things could go. A true minimalist would probably get rid of almost the entire contents but that is not my style. However, it is good to refresh your memory of what is actually stored and I have resolved to use some of my ‘good’ things more regularly.

My op shop bag is now full and ready to go when I am next going to town. I also have a bag of a few items for Belle. I always offer anything which I think may be useful to my daughters before I consider sending it to the op shop or Freecycle. However, they understand that there is no compulsion for them to accept it and I will not be mortally wounded if they say no.

I have finally finished revamping the pantry and this is the result.

Bottom shelves

I threw out a couple of bits of foodstuff – a few crumbs of powdered mustard in a tin that must be at least 10 years old, some jam that had gone mouldy and a handful of glace cherries that were over 12 months old and were all dried and shrivelled. I had about 3 bottles with a tiny bit of oil in each so that was all decanted into the current bottle.

I now know that everything in the pantry is useful, in working order or fit to be eaten. I also know exactly what is there and can work on using up some of the odd items which are not part of my regular basic stores.

Friday Favourites – Date & Ginger Loaf

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Posted on February 10, 2012

This is my variation on a gingerbread recipe I have had for years. It is a soft, cake-like gingerbread, not hard, biscuit-style gingerbread. The recipe came from my mother but I do not know any more about the origin of it.

GINGERBREAD

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup treacle
1 cup hot water
2 and 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped dates

Cream the butter and sugar, add egg and beat well. Combine water and treacle. Combine all of the remaining ingredients except the dates. Add the treacle mixture alternately with the dry ingredients. Finally, mix in the dates. Pour into a greased, lined tin. Bake at 170 degrees for 45 – 55 minutes.

The original recipe did not have the dates in it. This is a versatile cake as it can be served as a dessert with custard, sweet white sauce or caramel sauce. It is also makes a nice cake for morning tea. I usually slice it and add to our packed lunches.

Squirrel It Away

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Posted on February 5, 2012

I have had a very productive weekend. Following on from yesterday’s post about the Tabasco sauce I wanted to show you my other achievements in the kitchen.

The bell chillies were dried and the 4 trays of sliced chillies ended up reducing to this.

I then ground them in the spice grinder attachment for my food processor.

This is what I ended up with. 45g of powdered chilli – grown about 20 metres from the back door with no chemical sprays. The smaller jar is the residue after I had sieved it mixed with some avocado oil. I will use the chilli oil to add a little bit of flavour when cooking.

Today we went to the Caboolture Markets. I bought the fruit and vegetables that I needed as well as 9kg of tomatoes. These were being sold for 99c/kg so I filled my Ecosilk bag.

I decided to make tomato pasta sauce that I will be able to use in a variety of ways. The ingredients are tomatoes, onions, basil, tomato paste and red wine. The onions were from our crop last winter which were diced and frozen, the basil from the garden, tomato paste and red wine from the cupboard.

I forgot to take any photos as I was working flat out to get this done this afternoon but here is the end result.

The sauce in the plastic containers will be frozen and the jars of sauce were processed in a hot water bath so they will be stored in the cupboard. This was my first attempt at processing anything in a hot water bath. I am confident that it has worked well as the pop-tops have all been vacuum sealed.

I am definitely going to do some more research and learn more about this method. It means that I can preserve food without using the freezer and being reliant on a consistent supply of electricity. There is also a small matter of available space in the freezer, too.

Any tips or recommendations of resources on preserving would be appreciated.