Date and Pecan Sourdough

Posted on July 13, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I like knowing what the date is. Life with three small people seems to be a whirl wind of calendars, times and places to be. All those things would be a bit of a mess without knowing what the date was.

I also like my dates to be surrounded by a square, a calendar with big squares for me to scribble things on. There is not much point in me putting things in my phone as I invariably check it only after the activity or appointment is that I’ve just missed, (and I still don’t like to be that enslaved to technology anyway.) If there is enslavement to be had, I much prefer it to be with my kitchen calendar, with the big quares.

Put it on the calendar; I have been known to shriek out.

Why wasn’t it on the calendar? I demand.

Checking those little squares for where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing is part of my obligatory morning routine. Never in a studious, calm fashion where I neatly check off things as they go by. No, it’s done as I close the fridge with my foot. Toss the second school lunch box to the bench, reach for the cup of tepid tea on my left and yell out; have you cleaned your teeth yet!? That’s when I do my laser scanning eye over the appropriate square and silently hope I haven’t forgotten to add something on this particular date.

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How about you? How do you keep track of the date and all the things going on your life?

Date and Pecan Sourdough

400g refreshed starter (100%)

300g wholemeal spelt flour

450g flour

550mls water

200g chopped medjool dates

100g pecan halves

1/2 tsp dark malt flour

2 tsp salt

Mix all your ingredients together except your salt. Mixing for about 6 minutes. Now leave it. Go find something else to do for about 40 minutes.

Add your salt and mix again for about another 6 minutes or if by hand until you get a smooth dough.

Put it back in the bowl and leave it for about an hour.

Dough out on to the bench, and do a three way fold. Back in the bowl for another hour or so. Divide the dough in two and then do a three way fold with the two portions. Leave them on the bench for twenty minutes or so.

Shape it. Laying it on lined trays, banetton baskets or tins, cover it and prove for 1-3 hours. Bake at 220C with steam.

Winter’s Song

Posted on July 9, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

If winter had a song it would be deep and slow.

A song that gets carried around in coat pockets,

slowly warming cold fingers.

A lone violin, a methodical drum.

Music that gives pause and time for reflection.

A song with the sounds of muffled whispers, crunching footsteps

and grainy long grey shadows.

A solo tune that echoes into the dark night

music that is slowly swayed to in colourful knitted socked feet,

and listened to on plump fluffed up blankets.

wintry tree || cityhippyfarmgirl

custard tart vs chocolate pudding

Posted on July 6, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

I recently made a chocolate self saucing pudding.

It was fairly forgettable really.

Prompted from a chat on instagram, I wanted to revisit my early teen winning staple. And I really mean staple. I made those chocolate puddings on a weekly basis at one stage. Fueled by my love of anything dessert orientated and driven by a new found kitchen freedom that one seems to acquire after a certain period of time that has passed of proving yourself. Yep, I could bake them alright, and along with it feed my hungry mouthed siblings all through the long winter months. (Which weren’t particularly long, but it does sound more dramatic.)

The question was, would I be doing the same for my own children? Would the humble self saucing chocolate pudding become a family favourite as it once was mine?

Errr, no. No it won’t be.

I made it. It was pleasant, and that was about it. It seems my chocolate pudding days go no further. After 20 plus years of not making it, it seems my palate has completely changed. No longer sated by a simple concoction of self-raising flour, sugar, and cocoa. It really just didn’t do anything for me.

Now I could adapt a recipe, make it my own. Throw some more ingredients in there that are more attune to what our young family enjoys, however I probably won’t… as instead I revisited the humble custard tart.

And that dear people, was well worth the revisit.

Given that I have a long held history with custard anything, it would have been a shame if this one didn’t cut it. At times in my younger life I may have been held up by custard. It’s not the first time I’ve mentioned the love for custard on the blog, (nor probably the last.) But what I will mention is the tart disappeared far quicker than the chocolate pudding, which unfortunately seemed to quietly whither within the fridge over a period of days.

This recipe isn’t very complicated. There is no resting of pastry, no straining of custard, and if you feel like that second slice…I say go right ahead.

Custard Tart

Pastry

180g cold cubed butter

50g icing sugar

1 egg

250g plain flour

In a blender pulse, butter, flour and sugar together until it forms bread crumbs. Drop an egg in and a give it a quick whizz. Pop the mixture out on to a lightly floured bench top and gently knead until the dough comes together. Between two baking sheets, roll it out to about .5cm thickness. Plop the dough into your greased pie or tart dish, keeping one side of the baking paper on there. With the baking paper side up, add pie weights or something to weigh the pastry casing down- bake blind for about 20-15 minutes or until golden at 180C.

Custard

600mls milk

2 tsps vanilla

4 egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup cornflour

50g melted butter

nutmeg

Add all ingredients except milk and nutmeg together to form a paste like consistency. In a pot over medium heat, add all of the paste and slowly add the milk, stirring continually. Keep stirring until the custard just comes together and then take it off the heat. (If by chance you get side tracked, and your custard gets a little lumpy- wizz it with a hand held mixer- voila! smooth custard.)

Pour custard into the tart shell and grate a little fresh nutmeg over the top.

Eat with enthusiasm and noisy laughter.

Food and how we waste it- The Green Noticeboard

Posted on July 3, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Grab a cup of tea, some biscuits to dunk in it and plonk yourself in the comfy chair for 15 minutes.

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I quite often come across links that I find interesting, full of things I should know about and sometimes just down right fascinating. Have a look at this one from Tristram Stuart. Feel free to link any of your own green links in the comments.

Let’s build this community green noticeboard board.

the green noticeboard || cityhippyfarmgirl

Favourite

Posted on June 30, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

cityhippyfarmgirl.com

(For this post I am lucky enough to be playing with a different little camera that has been loaned to me from Olympus.)

I never had a favourite toy when I was growing up. I liked some over others sure, but a favourite? Not really. I had books instead, and they were all my favourites- Every. Single. One. Of those pages.

One of my kids so far is taking after me in that regard. Reading all of those delicious pages. At each turn, a new story, a different tale, another adventure…a new favourite. I love the fact that this unlocks so much of his imagination.

While books are also firm favourites for my other boy child. I can see that he’s drawn in a different way. An energy, a call, a different direction. This is the boy who loves running, and drawing and jumping, (with more running.)

Then there is this one. The smallest of the pack. The feisty, wild cub, where everything is a favourite. A favourite with an intensity that only a two year old can show.

On instagram recently there was talk of favourite cameras and favourite lens. Alas, as a blogger and keen taker of pictures- this really is one of my favourite topics. (Along with the topics of real food, homebirth, sourdough baking and why I really would like to have some Scandinavian heritage.)

I still feel like I’m on the outer edge of the photography pool, I keep splashing on the edge but it’s the deep end I’m really after. Slinging metaphors aside, and it was back to the instagram conversation of lenses. From another blogger or instagrammers perspective this is fascinating stuff as this is how so many of us are telling our day to day digital stories and sharing it with the world. A camera of some sort is a necessary tool.

For me the dslr world opened nearly two years ago and I’ve loved every second within it. Then there is instagram and within that it feels like another whole world of picture-taking…. so many apps, so little time. (And then in walked the Olympus, and ooh aah indeed. This little camera seems to marry photography and social media platforms ridiculously easily with built in wifi…it still bends my mind a little.)

One of my favourite photography things to look at it is when people, give the photo specs of what they did in a particular shot. f stop, ISO, and whether they pressed the button with their nose or not. I love knowing it all, every little bit of it. ( And *ahem* yes, occasionally the nose is needed.)

14mm- 42mm ISO 400 f3.5 1/250

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THE GEEKY BITS

I have been loaned the Olympus OM-D E-M10 for a couple of months. It’s a rather nifty little camera that I’m just a little bit excited to be playing with. Below I’m going to add some of those nifty things that it does- As there is going to be at least one person out there reading who wants to invest in a camera, doesn’t know what to buy, and is slowly going cross eyed with reading online reviews.* While this is by no means a review, for this post and a further two more I’ll mention a few of the features.

Wifi- No adaptors, no cords, no dropbox, no emailing yourself a picture. It’s there to your phone. In a magical Wifi-the-Fairy type kinda way.

It’s little- Cute, petite, tiny and tres chic. Call it what you will, it’s not going to be breaking your back or neck like some hefty DSLR’s do.

Little means discreet- Street photography is something I’m slowly developing a bigger interest in. It scares the hell out of me, but I’m ok with that- It’s kind of good to do something that pushes me. Using a smaller camera but not compromising on the quality of the shots makes getting shots like these ones, a whole lot easier for me, (and a huge thank you to the kind young men for happily saying, yes.)

* And you should research these kind of things. That way you know what exactly you are getting and what you can do with it before you hand over your hard earned coins.

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Now indulge me in the comments… What lenses, apps or photography tricks do you use? What are your favourites? Go on, lets geek talk.

Carrot Top Pesto -ELC #5

Posted on June 25, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

The day I found out I could eat the tops of carrots was a bit of an exciting one.

“You can eat them!” I cried.

“Excellent.” He said, in a less than thinking it really was excellent, voice.

I pushed that lack of enthusiasm to the side as I was carrying more than enough excitability for this one to carry us both. Carrot tops eh? Who knew, actually it turns out lots of people knew, and I was just a bit slow on the uptake. So that’s why they quite often sell bunches of carrots with the tops still on… I just thought they were trying to keep the carrots looking au natural.

What would I make with them? How would they taste? And would I get it by the rest of the family?

Carrot Top Pesto

Bunch of carrot tops, washed and finally chopped.

A couple of cloves of garlic

Juice of a lemon

Enough olive oil to get a good pesto like consistency.

Pop it all into a hand held mixer, and pulse.

With Carrot Top Pesto made, what was I going to eat with it? I had some potatoes that were whispering to be popped into the oven with some rosemary, and that looked like it could be it. Too simple? Surprisingly no. Mr Chocolate drizzled his with some Pukara balsamic vinegar, (which gave it an extra zing) and not a murmur of objection was to be heard about the ‘different’ pesto.

The following day I had more of the potatoes and pesto together, leaving out the snow pea shoots, (which just quietly I feel are a bit of a chore to eat.) Delicious, seriously delicious. I kept taking another bite just to makes sure. Armed with an empty bowl and green speckled lips, I decided that yes, carrot top pesto was indeed a winner.

A local, frugal, seasonal winner.

How about you? Have you made any food discoveries lately? Ever made carrot top pesto? Do you think snow pea shoots are a bit of chore to eat as well?

Where did my food come from?

Carrots- Rita’s Farm, Kemps Creek 50km

Sebago Potato- Naturally Grown, Naturally Better, Crookwell 240km

Snow Pea Shoots- Lin’s Organics, Londonderry 60km

Rosemary- My courtyard

Lemon- My parents in law’s backyard

Interested in taking the challenge?

Just how local is local? Well this depends entirely on you. Only you know how you and your family eat. Raise the bar just a little from what you already do. If making sure the majority of your meal includes solely food produced in your country, than make that your challenge. If you want to make it a little trickier, go for produced in the same state…trickier still within 160km.

My aim is to really know where my food is coming from for at least one meal a month, (where I will be posting here in the last week of the month).

Eat Local Challenge #4

Eat Local Challenge #3

Eat Local Challenge #2

Eat Local Challenge #1

loving….

Posted on June 22, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Loving….

sneaking a little bread creativity into those otherwise long days looking after sick, unwell little people.

Loving…

Late afternoon light. It’s always changing and makes you look at things just that little bit differently.

Loving….

Seeing my work in print in the current edition of the lovely Earth Garden. That’s pretty exciting, I’m not sure that will ever get old for me.

Loving…

Awesome food baked by someone else. Mind blowingly awesome tastyness (yes, all the wonderful descriptive words are there.) If you are in Newcastle, Baked Uprising is where you might want to go. Oh yes you might. (Cardamom tart, lemon crumble, lemon and white chocolate tart, and sourdough danish.)

What have you been loving lately?

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[“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE]

Cauliflower Curry- Frugal Friday

Posted on June 20, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

The good thing about having a blog is that you can see how you have changed over time. Looking back on your words, thoughts, photos and certainly for me, my recipes. Sometimes I feel those recipes need a little shake up.

Now come winter time, this dish (or a variation of it) often turns up on our dinner table. It’s easy, it’s seasonal, it’s super frugal and it deserved a better picture than this one from three years ago.

easy cauliflower curry recipe || cityhippyfarmgirl

Cauliflower Curry

1/2 a large head of cauliflower

3 potatoes

3 sticks of celery

6 cloves of garlic

1 finely chopped onion

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp curry powder ( a bit old school, but I like it)

400mls coconut milk

Dry fry the spices, onion, garlic (fresh chilli if you are feeling bold) and celery in a little vegetable oil. When they smell delicious, add the coconut milk. Let it simmer for a bit and then add your potatoes and cauliflower. Pop the lid of the pot on and cook it until they are as soft as you like.

city puddles

Posted on June 18, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

The lure of the city puddle.

Completely pointless in keeping her out of them.

the blur

Posted on June 15, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out. For other people, I can be a whole lot quicker but when it comes to me, yes, things can be a little snail paced round here.

Three weeks it took to finally come to the realisation, I kind of just had to stop. Stop trying so hard, say no and just go with the flow. Three weeks. It can feel like a really long time when you are grumpy, frustrated, run down and your eyes are blurry.

Things have been all a blur, as over the last few weeks I’ve had a little eye trouble. Nothing major but affecting my every day, yes indeed. And annoyingly so. For the past three weeks, my world has looked on and off like this.

Now today, finally it’s almost back to this. It seems kind of fitting that along with clarity of vision comes clarity of thought.

I’d been trying to hard to continue on with ‘normal’ days (whatever they are) and getting more and frustrated when I really wasn’t up for normal days. My motto in life is generally just go with the flow and it seems I wasn’t going with the flow at all. I was still clinging on to the things I wanted to be doing rather than really listening to myself and actually just stopping- doing what needed to be done instead.

Seriously what a revelation that was. I felt like a bit of a silly bugger on one hand and on the other hand I was quietly high fiving myself for finally realising what I needed to do.

How about you? How are you seeing things lately both figuratively and literally?

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Now not seeing properly is incredibly hard after seeing perfectly well for the past number of years. My problem while annoying isn’t catastrophic though, and is slowly getting better.

Living with the blur over the past few weeks, made me think though about so many people that don’t get to have the same outcome that I do. Glaucoma (which I will just briefly clarify, I do not have) is a relatively easy procedure to have fixed, and yet so many people will struggle with it in their day to life due to lack of ability to get proper care.

Four out of five people who are blind in the developing world don’t need to be. A donation of the really quite small amount of $25 can restore sight, as the blindness is often treatable or preventable.

That’s pretty damn amazing really.

Fred Hollows Foundation

last swim

Posted on June 12, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Six months ago, I had promised myself I would swim on the first weekend of winter.

This year, I wanted to know when my last swim would be. Not for the season to have simply just stopped and trickled away. I also wanted a challenge. I wanted it to be dark and cold. As that’s what swimming in winter should be like, shouldn’t it?

The clouds were dark, the water was coolish, and every stroke of that first weekend in winter swim was divine. But now that I had made it to the first weekend of winter, maybe I should push it a little further? Second month of winter?

Or, should I just keep going though out the year? No more chickening out because the water is a bit cool for my delicate constitution. (Perhaps I could be one day brave enough for this?)

While the water was certainly cooler than last time I had been in, it wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be. 21C isn’t exactly arctic waters.

The outside air temperature was also cooler than the sea temp, but only recently so. This month just gone by was abnormally warm, not just here in Sydney but across a fair chunk of Australia.

Is what we have to look forward to in our future?

While some people rejoice in that they get to wear their summer clothing almost all year long, this kind of weather scares the hell out of me.

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Climate Council- Abnormal Autumn

Plants confused by extra warm autumn

Sticky Ginger Ninja Cake

Posted on June 9, 2014 by cityhippyfarmgirl

Why I was experimenting with my recipes just a few hours before I was to present a dessert type dish to a bunch of unknown (and known) people, I’m really not sure.

Why not stick with a well worn recipe that I knew inside and out? (Well where’s the fun in that I say?)

This recipe came out of the title really. I’d already named it before I had even made it. I knew I had pears to be used. I knew ginger is a winner with it, as I regularly make something similar. But sticky. I wanted it sticky. A little more flavoursome, and maybe just a little ninja-esque. (Well ninja rhyming with ginger, seemed close enough.)

I did also have lofty ideas of making a ninja’s face out of dusted icing sugar on each tiny square of cake, but sometimes even I have limits in complicating things just before we are due to go out.

Sticky Ginger Ninja Cake

150g sourdough starter

150g softened butter

150g brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp powdered ginger

2 beaten eggs

3 tbls molasses

250mls of pureed peeled and cored soft pears

150g self raising flour

75g wholemeal spelt flour

extra brown sugar to sprinkle on top

uncrystallised ginger pieces

Cream butter and sugar together. Then add vanilla, ginger, beaten eggs and molasses. Fold through pear puree, sourdough starter, wholemeal spelt and finally the self raising flour. Sprinkle the cake with extra brown sugar and press uncrystallised ginger pieces within the uncooked batter. Bake at 180C until golden and smells like a sticky ginger ninja kitchen.